What do you think about this?
In July of 1587, Sir Walter Raleigh’s expedition dropped 115 English colonists, men, women, and children, on Roanoke Island off the coast of present day North Carolina. Their leader, John White, left them there a few weeks later and sailed back to England for supplies.
The Anglo Spanish War broke out. The Crown commandeered every available ship. By the time White finally got back to Roanoke, three years had passed.
The colony was gone. Not destroyed. Gone.
No bodies. No graves. No signs of battle. Houses dismantled, not burned. Personal belongings left behind in some accounts, taken in others. The only clue was a single word carved into a wooden post at the edge of the settlement, “CROATOAN,” and the letters “CRO” cut into a tree.
Croatoan was the name of an island fifty miles south, and the name of the Native nation that lived there. White had agreed with the colonists, before he left, that if they were forced to relocate they would carve their destination. They were also to carve a cross if they had left under duress. There was no cross.
A storm forced White back to England before he could sail to Croatoan. He never saw his family again. The mystery has run for over four hundred years.
In 2020, archaeologists working the Hatteras Island site, ancient Croatoan territory, found 16th century English artifacts mixed in with Native ones. Belt buckles. A signet ring. Pieces of slate with English writing.
Could it be the colonists were never lost at all, and the answer was carved into the post the whole time?
What do you think about this? In 1715 a hurricane sank eleven Spanish treasure ships off Florida. In 2015 divers pulled up $4.5 million in gold coins from just 15 feet of water. The Queen’s jewels have never been found. Gone forever, or waiting for the right storm?
What do you think about this? Today is the equinox, and at Chichén Itzá a serpent of light will crawl down a pyramid built with 365 steps. Clap at its base and the echo chirps like the sacred quetzal bird. Brilliant engineering, or knowledge from somewhere older?
What do you think about this? Scans of Gunung Padang in Indonesia show hidden chambers deep inside the hill, and one team dated its oldest layers to 25,000 years ago. The study was retracted in 2024. The chambers have never been opened. Natural hill, or the oldest pyramid on Earth?
What do you think about this? Edgar Cayce gave over 14,000 trance readings, all written down and still on file. He said proof of Atlantis would rise near Bimini in 1968. That year divers found a half mile road of giant stone blocks there. True seer, or lucky guess?
What do you think about this? Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Kentucky built a 500 foot tunnel just to move its dead out of sight of the living. It closed in 1961. Visitors still report a boy rolling a ball across empty floors. Restless spirits, or a dark building playing tricks on the mind?
What do you think about this? In 1891, a poor French priest named Bérenger Saunière began tearing up his church floor, then spent the next two decades funding lavish buildings on a stipend that should not have covered it. Real treasure, or a secret about how he ran his church?
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