What do you think about this?
In 1898, a Swedish farmer named Olof Ohman was clearing trees on his land in Solem Township, Minnesota, when he pulled up a slab of stone tangled in the roots of an aspen. The roots had grown around it. Carved into its face was a message written in runes, the old Norse alphabet, and when it was finally translated it told a chilling story.
Eight Goths and twenty two Norwegians, on a journey of exploration west from Vinland. They made camp by two skerries. They went fishing for a day. When they came home, ten of their men were found red with blood, and dead. At the bottom of the stone, a year. 1362. That date would place Scandinavian explorers in the middle of North America a full one hundred and thirty years before Columbus ever set sail.
Most scholars have called it a hoax since the first examination in 1910. Yet the believers point to things that are hard to wave away. The way the tree roots had grown around a stone a farmer supposedly carved himself. The weathering in the grooves. The obscure medieval runes that a Minnesota homesteader would have had no way of knowing.
What if the textbooks have the timeline of who reached this continent, and when, completely wrong?
Real or forgery, what do you think that stone really is?
What do you think about this? Over five months from late 1989, more than 13,000 people in Belgium reported a silent black triangle with three corner lights. In March 1990 two F sixteen jets locked radar on it, and it made moves no pilot could survive. Secret aircraft, or a genuine visitor?
What do you think about this? The Abenaki spoke of something in Lake Champlain long before Europeans arrived, and Port Henry still keeps a sign counting sightings. In 1977 Sandra Mansi photographed a long neck and a dark hump, and no hoax was ever found in it. Log, or a real animal?
What do you think about this? In 1579 Francis Drake beached the Golden Hind somewhere on the northern California coast and claimed the land for England. Nobody can say which beach. A brass plate found in 1936 was celebrated for decades, then proved a hoax. Point Reyes, or somewhere else?
What do you think about this? Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, one is engraved on copper instead of parchment, and it is a treasure map. It lists 64 hiding places holding tons of gold and silver. Not one has ever been found. Real temple gold, or an ancient legend set in metal?
What do you think about this? On August 15, 1977, an Ohio telescope caught a 72 second burst from Sagittarius, 30 times stronger than background, right on the hydrogen frequency. The astronomer circled it and wrote Wow. It never came back. Fluke, or one word of a conversation?
What do you think about this? The Shroud of Turin carries a full length image of a man that behaves like a photographic negative, which nobody noticed until it was first photographed in 1898. Carbon dating said medieval. Nobody can explain how the image formed. Artwork, or something else?
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