Foreword by Scott
F. Wolter
Imagine for a minute, that you
played an integral part of investigating, and eventually solving, one of the
most controversial historical mysteries the world has ever known. Then imagine, after fifty years finally
figuring out that you had been intentionally kept in the dark about the truth
of what you had been intimately involved in.
Now imagine, that person who kept you in the dark was a childhood friend
you knew your entire life. Then, nearly
a decade after the death of that close friend, they finally reveal the entirety
of the mystery you had helped them solve.
To this day, Donald Ruh will tell you he still doesn’t understand
everything involved with this story and there could be more pieces yet to be
revealed. Even the lifelong friend who
brought Don along on this incredible journey is shrouded in mystery as I found
out first-hand upon being pulled into this story in 2006.
Donald Ruh points to the carving of a goose carved into a large block of sandstone on Hunter Mountain.
I first became involved after
being asked to perform laboratory work on an inscribed stone discovered in the
Catskill Mountains. Early on in my own
research, it was clear Dr. William Jackson was the key person involved in the
story. Don warned me not to dig into his
deceased friend’s past and not long after an Internet search, I received and
ominous note telling me to stop the searches that warned could harm Dr.
Jackson’s still living family members.
Despite this warning, my search found nothing about Dr. Jackson. Regardless, I still wanted to know more about
this man and the details about how he came to possess these explosive documents,
so I reached out to Don. Don was very
protective of his friend and eventually, after earning his trust, all my
questions about this shadowy figure in Don’s past would be answered and shared
in a highly personal and moving way, in this book.
At the time of the writing of
this book, several aspects of the Cremona Document had not yet been
investigated. However, the veracity of
the contents of the two-centuries-old copy of a twelfth century document had
been established decades earlier by Dr. Jackson, with the assistance of Don and
other colleagues. The Cremona Document
tells the story of the Templar knights who entered the extensive cave system
under the walled city of Jerusalem shortly after they had captured the Holy
Land. The story tells what the six
Templars found beneath the ancient city and the subsequent mission decades
later to a temple in “Onteora.” The
stories are told first-person by the Templar knights who made the discoveries,
and in the deposition of a historically known Templar knight, Sir Ralph De
Sudeley, who led a flotilla decades later to recover ancient first century
scrolls hidden in what is now the Catskills of New York.
Ironically, it was Don Ruh’s
discovery of a brass device on the shores of the Hudson River, while fishing
with Dr. Jackson and other friends in 1968 that started this amazing
adventure. Hidden inside a garden
ornament that originated on Bannerman Island, the devise contained inserts and
artifacts, inscribed with Theban script that eventually led Dr. Jackson to purchase
the Cremona Document in Italy, before it could be donated to the Vatican and
disappear forever. Dr. Jackson invited
Don to join him on a diving expedition off the coast of Newfoundland that led
to the discovery of an ancient shipwreck. Unbeknownst to Don, it was from the twelfth
century. Convinced the stories in the
document were true, Dr. Jackson asked Don and other colleagues to help search
the Catskill Mountains for stone structures mentioned the document. They were
all on one mountain where ancient artifacts were hidden. Don recounts these numerous expeditions on
Hunter Mountain, and elsewhere, which are as memorable as they are historic.
The brass seal etched with Theban symbols onto the surface, was discovered hidden inside a decorative lawn ornament on the shores of Bannerman Island, on the Hudson River, by Donald Ruh, in 1968. This artifact, and the artifacts found inside it, started the incredible journal that has lasted half a century.
Dr. Jackson died in 2000 and
before his death he planned to pass on his research, his artifacts, and the remaining
documents to his lifelong friend who never questioned his intentions or
motives. Don had always been a loyal
friend and was the only one who took a genuine interest in his archaeological
hobby and the only one who was deserving of receiving this knowledge. In 1994, fate would play a curious hand when
Dr. Jackson sold the Cremona Document to an agent directly connected to the
Vatican. However, this was far from the
end of the story. In fact, it was simply
the end of an important chapter in a very long book.
This photograph of the Cremona Document is the List of Subjects page written in Theban text that includes two Hooked X's on line seven.
It took twenty-three years before
Don assembled the many pieces of the story left by his friend that can only be
told by the person who lived it. The
final and most important pieces didn’t arrive until 2017. It arrived in a
package from Europe, only days before I arrived at Don’s home to review the
material he had received. We examined
the pages that Dr. Jackson had retained that were key to understanding the rest
of the document - likely now in Vatican hands.
If so, Dr. Jackson pulled the ultimate prank on the institution he so
despised by leaving his trusted friend Don with the “Keys to the Cadillac,” in
the form of numerous potential Templar treasure sites.
Arguably, one of the greatest
adventures I have ever experienced all happened in one day during our climb up
Hunter Mountain on July 1, 2009. In the
hotel room the night before, I was amazed by Don’s photographic memory as he
recalled details of the discoveries he, Dr. Jackson, and others made in the
1970s and 1980s during numerous expeditions into the Catskills which ultimately
led to Hunter Mountain. Our hike up the
mountain the next day, and to another site a few miles away, led to the
incredible discovery of not one, but two inscribed stones directly connected to
this amazing story. These stones led to
other adventures that resulted in many important revelations, as well as many
unanswered questions. Rarely do answers
like these ever come but incredibly in 2017, another envelope from Europe
arrived unexpectedly at Don’s door that held the answers to our nearly decade
old questions.
There have been many times as I
have spent time with Don, the artifacts, and the documents, that I sat back and
marveled in amazement at what has been revealed to me that relates to my
previous research and discoveries. So
much of it provides powerful evidence supporting my thesis of multiple
pre-Columbian expeditions by the medieval Knights Templar order to North
America, both before and after the putdown by Pope Clement V and the King of
France in 1307. Not only does the
Cremona Document support that research, but it also introduces twelve new
examples of the Hooked X™ symbol that connects directly to the Knights Templar
and later traditions that embraced Templar ideology and philosophy.
Don Ruh and I during a visit in October of 2018.
It has been almost a decade for
me, but for Don a half a century passed before all the pieces to this immensely
complicated jigsaw puzzle finally fit together.
You will be amazed by the stories told both by Donald Ruh and his
lifelong friend whose life was shrouded in mystery both in life, and in
death. I am proud to call Don my friend,
and honored to write the forward for this history-changing book that will leave
an important and proud legacy for both of these men.
For those interested in purchasing Don's fascinating book that corroborates many aspects of Diana Muir's book about the Earl Henry Sinclair's first journal, and those to come, please follow the attached link: https://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?keyWords=The+Scrolls+of+Onteora&type=