Last night Scott Wolter and Alan Butler gave an interview to Paradigm Unhinged radio, a UFO and paranormal program, speculating about various artifacts and sites for a more than ninety minutes. The interview followed up on the premiere episode of this season of American Unearthed, and Wolter began by telling listeners that “I highly doubt” that Ark of the Covenant has been destroyed, which of course implies his belief that the object described in Exodus existed. While destruction, he said, is a possibility, “until you have evidence to go down that road, we don’t have any reason to go down that road.” Wolter insisted that the rock art viewed in America Unearthed S02E01 was “out of place” and therefore must be the Ark. He claims that the zigzag pattern within the petroglyph “represents stairways to heaven,” indicating the Anasazi’s knowledge that the Ark communicated “a deity,” apparently. Alan Butler found this “very telling.” Butler blows the minds of the shows’ hosts, both of whom are former law enforcement officers and current UFO hunters, by discussing the speculation that the Hebrews borrowed from the Egyptians the idea that God(s) physically live in the box.
Wolter and Butler both agree that the Knights Templar brought the Ark of the Covenant to America. “That’s where I’d put my money,” Wolter said. “I’d be amazed if anyone else had done it,” Butler said, arguing that the Templars had the “means” to transport the Ark. What means would that be? Their nonexistent fleet of ships? Butler and Wolter both agree that the Templars sought to create a “New Jerusalem” in America in fulfillment of God’s plan. Weird, though, that they somehow are also heretical worshippers of the “sacred feminine” and pre-Christian Venus figures, in the estimation of both men. Bulter says it is “almost 100% likely” that the Templars transported the Ark to their secret American colony. Remember, Butler thinks that the moon was built by time travelers. Wolter offers a concurring opinion that “when you study [Templars] to the level I have” there are no better candidates, but he corrects Butler’s claim of unique Templar excursions by claiming that many previous European and Canaanite groups came to America earlier and could theoretically have also been candidates for Ark bearers. The two men rapturously discuss their mutual love of the Templars and how wonderful the Templars were in ferreting out Jewish secrets in Jerusalem and how their home base in France was the crossroads of esoteric knowledge from east and west. This, of course, leads to Freemasonry on the assumption that the Masons evolved from the Templars, and Wolter asserts his belief that the 33 degrees of Scottish Rite Freemasonry are designed to “vet out” candidates in a process masterminded by “higher orders or side orders” that follow esoteric Templar teachings not known to run of the mill Masons, who therefore are doing the conspiracy’s bidding when they deny the conspiracy’s existence. According to Wolter “the fun starts” after degree 32 or 33, when select candidates are let into the global conspiracy to suppress the truth and control history. “I am 100% firmly convinced” that “side order” Templar-Freemason-Rosicrucian “or whatever you want to call them” are “looking after certain things.” What are these certain things? Wolter asserts that a company of Knights Templar guard Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland and meet every eight years to perform unspecified “rituals.” He also claims that he “would not be surprised” if a side order of cole slaw—wait, Freemasons—“know where the Ark is.” “I would say that is almost a certainty.” I guess that gives away the outcome of Season Two of America Unearthed: Wolter doesn’t find the Ark but thinks the Freemasons are hiding it from him. Alan Butler chimes in to inform us that he and Scott Wolter’s wife Janet have concluded that the Ark of the Covenant is buried beneath President’s Park South (the Ellipse) in front of the White House in Washington, D.C. The park was planned in 1791 but left incomplete until after the Civil War. Butler believes Freemasons hid the Ark beneath the park during construction work in 1867. “That makes a lot of sense,” Wolter states, and this not the first time he, his wife, and Butler discussed the issue, thus confirming that the season premiere of America Unearthed was all for show since he never seriously thought that the Ark was in Virginia, Ohio, or the Grand Canyon. So, not only is America Unearthed not based on fact, it isn’t even based on Wolter’s genuine (false) beliefs! Bulter believes all of Washington was designed around the “Megalithic Yard,” an imaginary unit of measurement that I discussed seven years ago in a review of one of his books that Butler threatened suit against me in a failed effort to suppress it. Butler says the Ellipse has “very special measurements” that date back to ancient sacred geometry. This would be surprising since prior to its landscaping in 1879 and the construction of the Ellipse road in 1880, the site was a baseball diamond for the Washington Senators. Bulter claims that “Brig. Gen. Casey,” by which he means Lt. Col. Thomas Lincoln Casey, reported that “city authorities” had dug a huge hole in the middle of the park—in front of the White House—apparently with no one noticing or making a record of it. In fact, Bulter states that he can find no record of why the hole was “built.” (How does one build a hole?) Bulter is wrong here; in 1878 Casey told Congress that District of Columbia commissioners were conducting sewerage work installing part of the city’s sewerage system beneath the Ellipse, so he was unable to complete the grading of the park. That work was completed in 1879, after the sewerage work was finished. In 1871, Congress had created a “territorial” government for Washington and the surrounding suburbs, and one of their first orders of business was, in fact, the creation and installation of a modern sewerage system, which was constructed over the next decade. Treasury Department records for the year 1878 state that Treasury paid for the completion of the sewerage system covering the city of Washington that year. So, we have a report to Congress that sewerage work was occurring, an Act of Congress creating the “district commissioners” doing the work, and a Treasury Department expenditure report for the sewerage work being done. And that is just what I found in two minutes of checking. And Butler says there are no records at all. Butler should know this; he and Christopher Knight reported some of the above information (though not the records) along with their Ark-under-Ellipse conspiracy theory in their 2011 book Before the Pyramids, so these claims are not, as he suggests in this interview, “new” in any way. Like every alternative and fringe author, he repackages the same claims under new covers every few years like clockwork. Apparently, for him the entire D.C. sewer system is a conspiracy to hide the Ark. Butler also asserted in 2011 that a line drawn from the Ark under the Ellipse through Mt. Vernon Square leads directly to Ground Zero in New York and that another “megalithic” line goes directly to the Pentagon, indicating that 9/11 was part of an Islamic conspiracy designed to take out 32 and 33 degree Freemason symbols, symbols centered in Washington by the time travelers who built the moon and founded Masonry. I wish I was making this up. Is there anything a History/H2 guest can say that is so outrageous it would finally disqualify him from appearing again on those networks? Wolter chimes in that the global conspiracy plotted the earth in ancient times with meridians of longitude (“Templar meridians”) spaced 8 degrees apart, and special sites and mysterious artifacts are found along these lines of longitude. Well, more specifically, within 1 degree on either side. So, he gives himself two out of every eight degrees of longitude—one fourth of the earth!—and is amazed that “a significant percentage” (at least 25%!) of anything can be found within those confines. The hosts suggest that a conspiracy is trying to suppress the truth by destroying artifacts related to Templar history, including the Narragansett Rune Stone. Wolter states that he is not able to discuss the whole story behind that stone’s disappearance and reappearance for reasons he would not specify, but he said it was not part of the conspiracy that is really suppressing the truth. Wolter next corrects that hosts that the Sinclair family did not need constant reinforcements from Europe to maintain pre-Columbian control over America because they received “assistance” by “aligning” themselves with the Native Americans and intermarrying with them. Wolter asserts that the Sinclair-Templars assimilated with the Native Americans and eventually disappeared into their bloodlines after they had “gone native.” This is supposed to be a feel-good appeal to racial harmony, but it sounds like he is saying that the Europeans lost their identity, purpose, and strength after marrying non-European people. After this Wolter and Butler discuss the “emotional” subject of the Kensington Rune Stone, which repeats Wolter’s standard arguments that paradigm-defending “academics” can’t overcome their emotional attachment to 1960s textbooks. Wolter asserts that “academics” “don’t understand the scientific method” and that there is no evidence of a hoax, at least not once you dismiss all of the academic arguments as “emotion.” Wolter says that the Rune Stone is “so ingrained in everyday life here in Minnesota” that Minnesotans are confused why academics refuse to recognize it as a Norse-Templar-Holy Bloodline-warning-secret code-land claim. Wolter asserts that “academics” are terrified that once one of Wolter’s artifacts or sites is accepted as European “the paradigm is shattered and the dominoes start to fall.” Because that’s what happened at L’Anse-aux-Meadows: Scholars burned it, buried it, and salted the earth. No, they rewrote the textbooks to reflect the findings. Anyway, Wolter claims that the paradigm must be defended because “they,” meaning the conspiracy, know what the public will learn should the truth come out. The truth? “One trail of dominoes will end up in Jerusalem, and they don’t want it to go there.” So, as with ancient astronauts, it’s all about the supernatural and God. Of course it is. This leads to a repeat discussion of the “Jesus Family Tomb,” the Talpiot Tomb, to which Wolter adds nothing he has not previously discussed. He then discusses his Oreo Cookie Conspiracy (at the 70:00 minute mark), and you really have to hear him talking about the zodiac, initiations, and the twelve “crosses” on the Double Stuf Oreo “guarding the [Talpiot] tomb and the Bloodline Families”—it’s so much worse when he says it out loud than when you simply read about it in print. “This is a lot to read into a cookie, but how the hell did they know about the chevron-circle Talpiot Tomb architecture when it wouldn’t be found for six more years?” One of the hosts calls this a “damn good question,” but the other people on the show don’t touch this with a ten foot pole, and for good reason. This is one of his stupidest claims, as I pointed out in my review of his book, linked above. Just for fun, I have a request for comment in with Mondelēz International, the current owner of Oreos, but as of press time they have not responded. If and when they reply, I’ll let you know. Callers then join in to question Wolter, beginning with one who claims to be a Knight Templar and to be part of a Templar lodge. Wolter sidesteps the man’s claims and offers some wishy-washy bromides. In response to further discussion, he claims to not have an opinion on extraterrestrials or ancient aliens “right now,” but he says if ancient aliens were real the government may be hiding the truth to prevent global panic—and he and Alan Butler suggest that this may be for the good, so long as it keeps people safe. Wolter says that he loves Freemasons and thinks they’re great, and their conspiracy is apparently designed to make the world better by ending oppression through global control. I didn’t really follow this because it just doesn’t make any sense. The conspiracy is global and secretive and controlling the world to suppress the truth about Jesus and God and leave humanity in the darkness of ignorance, but also fighting global oppression and “maneuvered” (as Butler said) America into World War II to defeat Nazis and then, in the Cold War, the Soviets in pursuit of a global liberation agenda. I can’t hold two opposing ideas in my head at once, but apparently I am not as subtle a thinker as Alan Butler, who believes Freemasons originated with the time travelers who built the moon as a giant Masonic beacon. Sometimes it feels like I am just typing Freemason and Templar and aliens into a Mad Libs. It would make about as much sense.
47 Comments
Jacko
12/5/2013 07:14:28 am
This sort of material once existed within the pages of pulp magazines like "Amazing Stories"
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Dan
12/5/2013 07:30:20 am
"Unhinged" is a good name for this program. The more I read about Wolter, the more I believe that he has a delusional disorder, a form of psychosis.
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Scott Hamilton
12/5/2013 07:32:19 am
Does Wolter ever say what he thinks the Ark of the Covenant IS? Because despite his claiming to not be sure about ancient aliens, he seems to be describing it like it's a radio, with triangular antennae instead of angels and the ability to talk to God. (Was it Von Daniken who first made that claim? I'm not sure.)
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Leary
12/5/2013 07:39:22 am
Yes, there were things in the Ark that gave priests the ability to talk to God. Turn on, tune in, drop out
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Barack Obama
12/5/2013 10:11:49 am
Dr. Wolter is a genious. Right up there with Tim gethner and Ben bernanke. I'm ptting him in charge of the NSF and NASA.
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One hitter quiter
12/5/2013 10:19:25 am
The knockout game is a secret templar initiation. The Templars are practicing diversity and admitting more minorities.
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Clint Knapp
12/6/2013 01:34:08 am
Serious posts or not, it's worth pointing out this is the second time since the season premier someone's called Scott Wolter a Doctor. He is not. He has a Bachelor's in Geology. His "honorary master's degree" is an anecdotal tale of a cup of coffee with his professors. Search this blog, you'll find a post or two detailing it.
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Jason D.
1/13/2014 01:58:25 pm
Maybe someone bought him an honorary doctorate at Starbucks.
Sacqueboutier
12/5/2013 10:46:55 am
Talpiot Tomb can be found at Coral Castlein Florida.
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Drew
12/5/2013 11:45:38 am
So when are you going to make the podcast rounds, Jason? Would love to hear you on Mysterious Universe or at least Blame It On Outer Space.
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12/5/2013 11:52:19 am
I've been on a couple: I did Chris White's Ancient Aliens Debunked podcast, and I also recorded one with William Henry of Ancient Aliens, but he chose not to use it when he discovered I don't exempt his telephone booth = wormhole theory from criticism.
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Dave Lewis
12/5/2013 12:25:57 pm
Jason said
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Only Me
12/5/2013 12:43:33 pm
That might actually draw more viewers! Remember the movie, Crazy People, where the consumers reacted positively to the "truth in advertising" gimmick? "Volvos...they're boxy, but good."
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charlie
12/5/2013 12:36:38 pm
The old arc of the covenant again. OK, tomorrow night H2 is doing the "ancient aliens" and the episode, according to Sudden Link, will be about the arc.
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Varika
12/6/2013 04:48:55 am
Arc of the covenant--that's the rounded part at the top of the stone tablets, right?
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Dave Lewis
12/6/2013 11:34:51 am
ha ha, good one!
charlie
12/6/2013 12:20:38 pm
Varika,
Gary
12/6/2013 11:40:22 pm
You are probably not the only one, Charlie. An ellipse can be said to have an "arc" in it. Butler may be confused by the spelling.
Shane Sullivan
12/5/2013 02:54:26 pm
"Wolter says that he loves Freemasons and thinks they’re great, and their conspiracy is apparently designed to make the world better by ending oppression through global control."
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Cathleen Anderson
12/6/2013 05:09:05 am
In my opinion, Wolter doesn't know any actual facts about Freemasons. The big thing is people learning to think and act for themselves. Would be pretty difficult to get that many free thinkers to act in a conspiracy like that.
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Shane Sullivan
12/6/2013 05:45:19 am
That's his finest quality: He never lets facts stand in the way of truth. 12/6/2013 05:54:37 am
As Chico Marx said, while impersonating Groucho in Duck Soup: "Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?"
The problem, of course, is that no single human government can ever be trusted. Ideas seem fine, until corrupted by humans. Take communism, for example. Seems like a good idea until humans get involved with wanting special treatment or favors. The higher level "Party" people would end up winning...again...and their families. Eventually, anarchy would be needed to break the single government up.
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Varika
12/6/2013 11:20:45 am
Actually, even Carl Marx admitted that communism--or rather, the original form, Marxism--would never work on a large scale. It's not about "special treatment or favors," though, it's about laziness: why should I work twenty hours to produce for the nation, only to get the precise same amount of goods and services as my neighbor who only works one hour a day? And doesn't even produce something more complicated or necessary to the nation than I do? It's not really that I want special treatment, it's that I want a reward commensurate with my efforts. Basically, it was never a particularly good idea because it failed to take the human psyche into account.
Graham
12/5/2013 03:34:57 pm
I'd only heard of Butlers moon related claims before, but what your revealing now is scary.
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Brent
12/5/2013 03:46:22 pm
I just don't get how Wolter can keep making these claims about "academics." What academic WOULDNT want to be "The person who found The Ark" or even that found pre-columbian Templar colonies, etc! THATS HOW ACADEMICS WORK! They find amazing new discoveries so they get funding to find more amazing discoveries
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The Other J.
12/5/2013 05:24:23 pm
"Apparently, for him the entire D.C. sewer system is a conspiracy to hide the Ark."
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Paul Cargile
12/6/2013 02:07:05 am
If Wolter had kept his mouth shut and his ideas to himself, he could have joined the Freemasons and worked to the top of the order in search of these conspiratorial truths. Or have a friend do it.
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Gary
12/6/2013 04:41:16 am
I discovered that the man who drew the Oreo design that they use today also designed the Nutter Butter. They are golden like the Ark and have ley lines all over them. "Butter" comes from mothers milk which of course refers to the sacred feminine. And "Nutter" is self explanatory.
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RLewis
12/6/2013 01:14:06 pm
I was struck by the comment made by SW : "When I first read the script I wasn't that interested". Are we to infer that he does not have any/much input as to the subjects "explored" by this series?
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12/6/2013 01:17:28 pm
He's just the face. The producers are in charge. Thus when I say "Wolter" in an AU review, the whole production is meant.
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Scott
12/7/2013 06:13:42 pm
If that's true then you make no sense whatsoever saying "Wolter" 12/7/2013 10:56:35 pm
When you talk about a great line you heard on a sitcom, do you attribute it to the entire writing staff of the show, by name?
Scott
12/9/2013 04:22:47 pm
Seriously? Your going to validate your reason by comparing sitcom lines to the topic of archeology? 12/9/2013 10:53:29 pm
When I am describing the action that occurs on screen, I describe the people who speak the words on screen. When I discuss the production behind the scenes, I refer to the producers (the Aweses) and Committee Films. To use your example, it's like describing the lines Daniel Radcliffe recites in the movie; do you credit J. K. Rowling, her Scholastic editors, the movie's screen writers, the director, the producers, and the studio every time you reference what is happening on screen? It would make it impossible to describe anything.
RLewis
12/12/2013 11:40:59 am
Note that is is Scott Wolter who is making appearances on various media outlets touting/supporting/presenting these claims - if not as his own - at least as ideas he believes.
Charles
12/7/2013 08:12:03 pm
Jason, am I understanding you that you don't believe the ark of the covenant ever existed? That's kind of a big piece of the Old Testament to discount.
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12/7/2013 10:53:16 pm
There's a difference between saying that there was a chest covered in gold that the Israelites held sacred and saying that there was a super-powered box that was filled with divine magic. Sure, there were probably sacred boxes that went under the name of the Ark (much like the boxes used in other Near East cultures), but I have seen no evidence that there was ever one that emitted supernatural power.
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Charles
12/8/2013 05:26:04 am
But if academics or historians are going to use the bible as any kind of source for investigations or research, how can they choose to what is valid or not? You quoted the bible in your review of America Unearthed. I guess I'm saying that isn't that kind of like "selective hearing" in a sense? Choosing to rely on only certain parts of the bible for research and discounting other parts? 12/8/2013 05:46:08 am
I'm not sure I understand your point. Since I don't claim the Bible is literally true, I don't need to accept everything (or anything) in it without outside evidence that it's true. When I quote events from the Bible it's to show how those who claim to base their ideas on it have chosen selectively from its pages without justifying the selection process.
Charles
12/8/2013 06:10:30 am
Hmmm...ok...
Jack
12/8/2013 07:24:25 am
H2 knows a piece on a Washington D.C. sewage system won't make the kind of money this show is making. I personally think it will soon tie together - the Ark of the Covenant was taken to the New World on a spaceship, and is now hidden in a masonic temple built for the Knights beneath present day DEN. The encrypted stones in the Arizona desert mountains I'm sure point to this. Stop trying to stop our fantasies!
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Matt Mc
12/10/2013 01:22:42 am
I think using the DC sewer system as a possible repository of "secret items" is great. It give Committee films and Wolter a almost guaranteed alleged cover up. The DC sewer system is really really hard to get access to due to security reason and the areas that are open to access from the film crews are on the edges of the city and nowhere near downtown, the only show that filmed in the sewers was the old Cities of the Underworld show and they were heavily escorted.
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Carl
12/8/2013 10:41:37 am
This interview brought me back to my first exposure to Art Bell and his Coast To Coast AM program - which I thought was being played as a running satire of how far out to lunch UFO and conspiracy nuts were... with it being the mid 90's at the time, both UFO crazies and unabashed social satire being popular in the mainstream, I thought for sure Bell was some sort of culture jamming comedian. WRONG. Fast forward to 2013 and those quacks are getting their own shows with big budgets and millions of viewers...
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12/11/2013 01:48:16 am
Real or not, I know that you can get a great view of the Kensington Stone at this link.
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1/14/2021 12:58:53 pm
Hey the address for this file has changed. Here is the new address.
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B. Marks
1/12/2014 04:53:19 am
The architecture of Washington DC is not about Christianity in any way and you need to be aware of that, whether or not Scott Wolter or Alan Butler get you thinking that way. Do your own investigating and DD, and do not listen to Colovito or these other clueless naysayers.
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AuthorI am an author and researcher focusing on pop culture, science, and history. Bylines: New Republic, Esquire, Slate, etc. There's more about me in the About Jason tab. Newsletters
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