On a ridge above Ohio Brush Creek in Adams County, Ohio, a snake made of earth uncoils for more than a quarter mile. Its body curves in seven great bends. Its tail ends in a triple spiral. Its mouth is open wide around an oval shape that some call an egg, some call the sun, and some call an eye.
Serpent Mound is 1,348 feet long and about three feet high. It is the largest serpent effigy in the world, and nobody can agree on who built it or when.
Carbon dating of charcoal from the mound has given two answers almost a thousand years apart. One set points to around 300 BC and the Adena culture. Another points to around 1070 AD and the Fort Ancient people. That later date is interesting, because in 1066 Halley’s Comet blazed across the sky, and in 1054 a supernova lit the daytime for weeks, the one that left behind the Crab Nebula.
The alignments are not in dispute. The serpent’s head points to the sunset on the summer solstice. The curves of its body have been matched to the sunrise on the winter solstice and the equinoxes. And the whole thing sits on the rim of a crater left by a meteor that struck the Earth about 300 million years ago.
A snake, aligned to the sun, built on the scar of something that fell from the sky. I do not believe that is an accident.
Could it be that the people who built this were recording something they saw overhead.
Sacred art, or a message written in dirt for the sky to read?
What do you think about this? The Dropa Stones, 716 grooved stone discs said to be found in Chinese caves in 1938 beside small bodied skeletons, telling of a crash 12,000 years ago. The 1978 book that spread the story was admitted to be a hoax. Pure fiction, or a truth wrapped in lies?
What do you think about this? The Paiute of Nevada told of red haired giants they trapped in a cave and burned, written down in 1883. In 1911 miners near Lovelock opened a cave and found red haired mummies and a layer of ash. Legend that matched a cave, or memory of real enemies?
What do you think about this? In 1987 a Wisconsin family bought a used bunk bed. Within weeks their kids were sick, a radio changed stations by itself, and a chair rocked with no one in it. They fled in the night in 1988 and burned the bed. Old house, or something that came with it?
What do you think about this? In 1904 an American dredged the Sacred Cenote at Chichén Itzá and pulled up gold disks, jade, wooden idols and the bones of more than 200 people, many of them children. The Maya called such wells doorways to the underworld. Prayers for rain, or an open door?
What do you think about this? Norse settlers lived in Greenland for nearly 500 years, with farms, a cathedral and a bishop. The last record is a wedding at Hvalsey church on Sept 16, 1408. Then nothing. The church still stands, roofless and empty. Starved out, or walked away?
What do you think about this? In 1615 a Spanish pearl ship is said to have sailed into an inland sea that then dried up. In 1870 a Los Angeles paper reported its hull found in the desert near the Salton Sea. Every searcher since has lost it to the sand. Mirage, or a galleon in the dunes?
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