America Unearthed, Season 4, Episode 10, Exodus of the Templar's

Here we are at the final episode of the season and I have to say I think it is the best!  It's jam packed with great content and introduces three amazing new inscriptions to the world.  The evidence we document points to only one group having created all three; the medieval Knights Templar and how they made their way to North America.  Allan Dawe contacted me four years ago as our run on History Channel ended and I wasn't able to see the inscription with my own eyes.  This 4th season of America Unearthed was the perfect opportunity to see this inscription in Newfoundland, but also the identical symbol carved inside Wemyss Caves in Scotland.  European scholars say medieval "Christian monks" lived inside the caves that could have been fugitive Templar's who escaped persecution in Europe after 1307 waiting for the opportunity to escape to North America.  This is the most plausible way to describe the identical carvings on two separate continents.

I have long know of the map on the wall inside the sacristy at Rosslyn Chapel having written about it in my book, "The Hooked X: Key to the Secret History of North America."  I first learned about the secret, and sacred, method of calculating latitude with a staff, crosier, or even a stick, reading Brother Ashley Cowie's 2006 book, "The Rosslyn Matrix."  This brilliant exercise opened the door to other sacred esoteric knowledge the resonated with me as a scientist because, well, it was scientific.  Ashley's calculations of the latitudes of the four lozenges was accurate for the both the allegorical, and literal journey from the Holy Land in "Old Jerusalem" to the sanctuary of the "New Jerusalem" in North America.  

This episode looks into the beginning of the Templar's journey to establish a new home where people of ALL faiths could pursue life, liberty and happiness.  It seems our country has forgotten many of the principles and tenants our Founding Fathers established after the Revolutionary War.  That war  was fought against the tyranny of the monarchs of Europe (King of England in this case), persecution of the Roman Catholic Church, and the corrupt way the two institutions legitimized each other.  To find the motive behind the "Exodus of the Templar's" you need to look no further than our Constitution and the men who inherited the obligation from their medieval Templar brethren.  Stay tuned, as the best is yet to come!        

The morning sun breaks through the clouds as I get ready to shoot at the Wemyss Caves on the north side of the Firth of Forth in Scotland.  

The Committee Films crew prepares to shoot a scene inside the large beehive shaped caves where archaeologists say medieval "Christian monks" (fugitive Templar's?) lived at Wemyss caves, Scotland.

Author, Tony McMahon, and I pose for a pic before shooting inside the legendary medieval church in Scotland; Rosslyn Chapel. 

The amazing carving in the crypt at Rosslyn Chapel has two curved horns depicting the path of Venus as both a morning star in the east (right) and evening star in the west (left).  The four vertically stacked lozenges in in the center represent, bottom to top, the latitudes of Jerusalem, Rosslyn Chapel, Orkney Islands, and Shetland Islands.  The five-pointed star to the west represents the latitude of the Newport Tower in what the ancients called (A)Merica.   

Field Producer and writer, Will Yates, enjoys a quiet moment with the sleeping cat that guards Rosslyn Chapel. 

The "In Hoc Signo Vinces" Stone in Latin means, "In This Sign, Thou Shall Conquer". 

Archaeologist, Brad Lidge, scientist, Jerry Lutgen, and me pose for a pic inside the Newport Tower during a break in filming on a perfect April day in Newport, Rhode Island.

Despite the really good scenes I shot with my friend, Donald Ruh, being cut from the final edit due to a wealth of content in this episode, we had a great time filming together in Newport, Rhode Island. 

This panoramic view of the beautiful harbor on Long Island, in Newfoundland, Canada, was taken from the tiny secluded beach along the cliffs where the Haystack inscription can only be viewed a few hours a day at low tide.  Cameraman Brendan Harris shoot the inscription draped in seaweed on the far right. 

I was very dialed in studying the Haystack inscription for the short time we had when low tide allowed us to view it.  The line of seaweed above my head indicates the high tide line. 

The Haystack (left) inscription in Newfoundland, and the identical carving found at Wemyss Caves (right) in Scotland, are likely late medieval era symbolic representations of the Tree of Life indicating the carver's knowledge of the esoteric teachings of the Hebrew Kabbalah.   The late medieval Templar's are one group who would have understood, and venerated, these Gnostic teachings.

Production assistant, Jay Chase-Jacobus, stands on the rocky shores of the easternmost point of North America.  A large iceberg and be seen in the distance.

Field Producer, Janey Klebe, stands atop the beautiful shoreline at the easternmost point of North America, near St. John's,  Newfoundland. 

Tipster, Allan Dawe, and I pose in the beautiful secluded harbor of Quidi Vidi, in St. John's, Newfoundland, where we shoot the final scene of the episode.

The Forrester "Fish" at Rosslyn Chapel

Inside the small church at Corstorphine in Edinburgh, Scotland, lie the marble effigies of an important medieval married couple.  Sir John Forrester (1380-1448), 2nd of Corstorphine, lies next to his second wife Jean Sinclair, the daughter of Earl Henry Sinclair.  What makes these effigies so important is not just the individuals that prove the two clans obviously knew each other, but were literally aligned by blood.  Consolidation of money and power through strategic marriages wasn't anything new then, or now, but this particular marriage was important for researchers trying to better understand the activities of these families and their connections to the Templar's after their put-down in 1307. 

This very special blog post is a collaborative effort of myself, and my friend Steve St. Clair, in the week leading up to the final episode of season 4 of America Unearthed.  The final episode is arguably the best in a season of 10 really good shows for it reveals exciting new evidence about the fugitive Templar's activities in North America circa 1400.  During filming of the episode, I visited Rosslyn Chapel for the third time and really paid attention to the subtle carvings of mason's marks tucked among the labyrinth of incredible carvings throughout the building.  On an east-west aligned beam in the east end of the church, I noticed a familiar, skillfully carved symbol between two ornately carved floral designs.  It was the same hanging horn symbol found in the Forrester coat of arms so prominently featured in Corstorphine Church only a few miles north of Rosslyn, in Edinburgh.

The "fish" is an esoteric symbol of sacred geometry when two intersecting circles create three equidistant quadrants at the center.  The middle quadrant is a vertical almond shape called the "Vesica Pisces".  Roman Christians are familiar with the symbol when aligned horizontally as the Christian "fish" representing the ministry of the biblical Jesus.  To Gnostic Christians initiated with certain esoteric knowledge, the symbol represents something else entirely in relation to Jesus and his First Century followers.  The "fish" is one of the best examples of a symbol whose meaning is drastically different to people with opposing ideology allowing plausible deniability when challenged by both sides.

A bit of context is needed here to understand why this carving is so significant.  Sir John Forrester, founded the extant church in 1429.  His marriage to Jean Sinclair in the early part of the 15th Century establishes a few important facts.  First, it is all but certain William Sinclair of Roslin (1410-1484) would have known Sir John Forrester as his aunt, Jean, was married to him.  This also meant he would have been well aware of the Forrester coat of arms symbolism by the time ground was broken for the construction of Rosslyn Chapel, in 1446.  At 36 years of age, William would have been well versed in his families' clan affiliations and politics of the time.  Aside from the clan alliance through marriage, there would have been other affiliations such as through Freemasonry and the Scottish clan's rumored support of the Templars.

The chapel would have been at the foundation stage when Sir John Forrester died in 1448, and the beam with the Forrester "fish" was likely still at least a decade away from being installed.  William must have had the Forrester hunting horn "fish" carving made as an ode to the clan his family was clearly aligned with.  The fact the fish carving is positioned on its side, as Steve pointed out in our conversations, with the head "swimming" to the east, could be a symbolic reference to Jerusalem and knowledge of the Templars activities there in the previous two centuries.  Whatever the meaning, the Forrester fish seems to be clear evidence of the strong alliance between these two powerful Scottish families in the late 14th and 15th Centuries at the very least.
    
Only a year before my discovery of the hanging horn symbol in Rosslyn, Steve found the effigies at Corstorphine during a trip to Scotland to conduct genealogical research.  The Forrester Clan connection to the Sinclair Clan was important enough, but it was the "fish" symbol in the string of the hanging horn on the Forrester coat of arms that interested me.  In my new book, "Cryptic Code of the Templars in America: Origins of the Hooked X Symbol",  I wrote about the 2000 year-long history of the fish symbol that runs from Jerusalem, to Scotland, and eventually to the United States hidden in plain sight for those with the eyes to see.  I refer the reader to my blog of July 2nd of this year, and the picture of the letter written by General George Washington and the vertically aligned fish symbol above the "g" (God?) in his last name.  Examples of Washington's signature show he began using the curious fish symbol after he was raised as a Freemason at the age of 21.

It's time for Steve to chime in with his thoughts about the recent discovery of the Forrester fish at Rosslyn... 

DNA SNPs and Medieval Records Prove a Medieval Affinity Family

In 2018, I got a private tour of Corstorphine and found exactly what I expected to find, the armorial bearings of the Forrester family quartered with that of the Sinclair family of Caithness. 

Forrester Arms:  Argent, three bugle horns Sable, garnished Vert and stringed Gules.

Motto:  Blaw, hunter, Blaw Thy Horn.

Sinclair Arms:  Azune, a galley Or, the sail thereof Argent

Motto:  Commit thy work to God.

No mention of a fish in any records and I’ve never heard of anyone thinking this is a fish. You can tell the carvings are recently painted and not exposed to the weather. Personally, I’m not convinced the “bugle horns” are a vertical fish symbol, but I’m also no expert on esoteric symbology. My area of focus is DNA and medieval land transfer records.

My trip to Corstorphine was driven by a DNA match that showed up quite by surprise in our advanced SNP matches.  About 4 years ago, a Forrester gentleman showed up matching our Saint-Clairs of Herdmanston Ancestral lineage. This wasn’t just any match - it was proved by Family Tree DNA’s Big Y test. These tests pinpoint tens of thousands of parts of the human chromosome, so they’re irrefutable matches. Better still, they’re backed up by Y-full dating of the SNPs. And the dating is within a time frame that makes it terribly interesting.

Here’s that last paragraph in plain English:

In the definitive guide on our family, researched and written by Rondo BB Me and Gerald Sinclair, we know Henry II Sinclair of Rosslyn, 1st Earl of Orkney had a daughter, Jean Sinclair, who married Sir John Forrester of Corstorphine (Enigmatic Sinclairs, p.65). In yet another connection, William “The Waster” second Earl of Caithness, sold land called Cardain Sinclair, and the Forrester's bought it. (Land tended to stay “in the family.”  If you know Rondo, you know her research is irrefutable. That creates an interesting situation because the DNA SNP match proves that the Herdmanston line of Sinclair, and Forrester's living today, share male blood.  That much is also irrefutable.  Another way to say that is it’s a confluence of independently proven variables.

An important point to remember about Corstorphine.  When Cromwell invaded Scotland, he ran into a skirmish with, among others, the Forrester family.  Later, he took his revenge by destroying much of Corstorphine Church, including the effigies.  These were re-built in 1429, but some effigies were moved and re-carved.  The thickness of the lines holding the horns in that armorial bearing might have been carved to be thicker at that point.  Another important point to remember, Adam Forrester (d. 1405) was a wealthy merchant in Edinburgh, not a knight. He acquired Corstorphine from King Robert III and was appointed Keeper of the Great Seal in 1390 as a reward for his services.

A word about armorial bearings

In the early medieval era, the use of coats of arms had little structure. The first documented use of a coat of arms was on the Bayeux Tapestry in the 11th century, and you can see they were nowhere near as elaborate as they would become by the 14th century.  Coats of arms were granted to families by a ruling monarch.  Use by country varied, but in Scotland and England, they could only be used by aristocracy.  By the 13th century, only the person granted the coat of arms by a king could use it as it was granted.  Successive generations had to change it slightly to distinguish it from previous generations. The main way this was accomplished was by "quartering."  This practice is a great help to genealogists today because successive families would add the symbol of families marrying into one another.  Thus, the Forrester shield in Corstorphine has the Sinclair armorial quartered into it.

Scott’s discovery of what looks to be the Forrester armorial hunting horn inside Rosslyn Chapel is potentially an extremely interesting additional evidence of what we now know to be an incredibly important affinity connection.

Sources - Ancestral Findings, "The Real Truth Behind Coats of Arms and Family Crests" https://ancestralfindings.com/real-truth-behind-coats-arms-family-crests/ Accessed 2 July, 2019.

“The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland,” edited by Patrick Hanks, Richard Coates, Peter McClure https://bit.ly/2xj7yoJ Accessed 2 July, 2019.

Lewis, Samuel, "A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland: Comprising the Several ..., Volume 1"

McAndrew, Bruce A. "Scotland's Historic Heraldry", Boydell Press (March 20, 2014) ISBN-13: 978-1843832614. 

The church in Corstorphine was originally founded on these grounds in 1128.  Sir Adam Forrester added a burial chapel in 1404 and his son, Sir John Forrester 1st, founded the existing church in 1429.

In the burial chapel lie the effigies of Sir John Forrester and second wife, Jean Sinclair, the granddaughter of Earl Henry Sinclair.  Five Coat of Arms carvings adorn the lower wall with  the black engrailed cross of the Sinclair Clan (second from left, lower right quadrant).

The Coat of Arms of the Forrester Clan includes three hunting horns with wide strings in the shape of a vertically aligned fish symbol.

The Visica Pisces is the vertically aligned almond shape created when two intersecting circles are spaced creating three equidistant lengths at the center.  When this shape is aligned horizontally it becomes the symbol familiar to Roman Christians related to the biblical Jesus.  

The south side of Rosslyn Chapel is beautifully illuminated by the early morning sun on a clear January morning in 2019.

The Forrester "Fish" carving in Rosslyn is located on the south side of east-west running beam in the east end of the chapel.

Carved onto the south facing, east-west trending stone beam in the east end of the chapel is what appears to be mason's mark of the Forrester Clan hunting horn between two floral designs circled in red.

A close-up view reveals a skillfully carved hunting horn symbol of the Forrester Clan except it is aligned horizontally as opposed to vertical.  To the right is what appears to be a Templar Cross in the middle of the design. 

This north-south trending beam in the south aisle at Rosslyn Chapel have what have interpreted to aloe leaves.  This plant was indigenous to North America and unknown in Europe in the 15th Century when Rosslyn was constructed.  How did it get there?

America Unearthed, Season 4, Episode 9, Who Was the Haymarket Bomber?

The Haymarket Affair was a story I have to confess to never having heard about prior to the start of filming the episode.  It didn't take long to get up to speed after reading numerous articles about the the history of the late 19th Century labor movement, the protests, and the events leading up to that fateful night in Chicago on May 4, 1886, when a bomb was thrown into a crowd of law enforcement officers and protesters by someone who has remained nameless; until now.  Going into the investigation, the production company researchers at Committee Films, Will Yates and Kyle Schultz, settled on a suspect prior to filming that seemed perfectly plausible.  There was new evidence in the form of newly discovered letters written by a family descendant that seemed to support that our  mysterious Haymarket bomber suspect was George Meng.

However, things changed dramatically as we began filming with various experts, historians, and members of law enforcement.  There was one person in particular, Richard Linderg, who had the most impressive argument and facts about the bombing that pointed to the most likely person was who threw the bomb that night.  His evidence and reasoning was so persuasive that I believed we had to rethink our original suspect.  By the time the interview with Mr. Lindberg was over my mind had changed.  He had convinced me the person who threw the bomb that night was a German immigrant named Rudolf Schnaubelt.  The final nail that I believe proved the new suspect was indeed the person who threw the bomb at Haymarket Square was the suspect sketch drawn by officer Detector Luis Santoyo.  The face he drew based on the witness testimony from the trial over 130 years earlier was a spot-on match to Schnaubelt.  

What I was most proud of in this episode if that we used proper scientific method, and based on the evidence and facts, it led to a different conclusion than originally anticipated.  That is the way it is scientific investigation is supposed to work.          

The Committee Films crew poses with Bleue Benton, at the Martyr's Monument in the Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois.

This bronze statue erected in honor of the law enforcement officers that died during the Haymarket riot was originally placed at the Haymarket site.  Vandalism by supporters of the labor party prompted the statue to be moved to a different location in Chicago.  Looks like the artist who made the statue was a member of a certain order.  Do you know why I say that? 

Field producer, Will Yates, photo-bombed (pardon the pun) this selfie taken with Pinkerton agents, Erika Koutrakis and Tim Williams.

Haymarket historian, Richard Lindberg, poses for a photo after his sharing his historical evidence that compelled me to change the original suspect I focused on to Rudolf Schnaubelt.  This is how proper scientific method works; new evidence often takes an investigation in a new direction. 

Cook Country Sheriff's Office sketch artist, Detector Luis Santoyo, draws the face of the Haymarket bomber based on witness testimony descriptions at the time of the trial.

The picture of Rudolf Schnabelt and the artist's sketch of the Haymarket bomber made from first-hand witnesses testimony from trial transcripts from the late 1880s.

Local law enforcement and federal demolitions experts posed with me and the Committee Films Crew during filming of the test explosions at Camp Ripley in Central Minnesota.

Panoramic photo of the setup of mannequins for the test explosion of the Haymarket bomb at a demolition site on the grounds at Camp Ripley in Central Minnesota. 

This female mannequin sustained a fatal shrapnel wound through the heart during our test explosion of a replica I made of the Haymarket bomb.   

The world's foremost expert on explosives, Dr. Kirk Yeager, and I pose for a pic during the filming of the lab scene where he explained the details of our test explosion of  a replica of the Haymarket bomb.

American Unearthed, Season 4, Episode 8, Sir Francis Drake

The Sir Francis Drake episode was especially interesting in part because I knew almost nothing about the British explorer prior to filming it.  Well I know a lot about him now and many of the details of his incredibly successful circumnavigation of the world.  It seems the world is fascinated with treasure and he certainly collected more than his share by plundering Spanish ships and villages along the west coast of  South and Central America during his famous voyage.  With his loaded ship leaking as it approached what is now San Francisco Bay, he landed somewhere on the west coast for repairs.  The big question and persistent legend is whether he buried some of the booty he plundered, to be collected later, after his return to England.  For me, this seems highly unlikely.  Why leave valuable treasure so far from your home base?  It seems it would be that last place to hide it if you truly intended to recover it later.  I'd leave it a closer to home if I had bothered at all.  I think the more important treasure is the one artifact we know he left on the west coast of North America; the brass plaque date June 17, 1579.

When we visited the Bancroft Library on the campus of Berkeley University, we had already secured permission to test the plaque using an X-Ray Florescence gun to determine the exact chemical composition of the brass, and of the secondary patina that had developed on the surface.  Presumably, the plaque was originally discovered in 1933, and then again in 1936, when it was brought to the attention of authorities who at first proclaimed it genuine.  Later, in the 1970's it was tested and became the scourge of competing institutions who believed it was a hoax perpetrated by a high society club of pranksters.  This reeks of the same rumor mill behavior that dogged the Kensington Rune Stone for a century before proper scientific inquiry definitively proved it was genuine.  We were hoping to possibly do the same type of scientific testing during our visit.  However, the permission we had been given prior to our visit was rescinded.  You can imagine how I felt about that.  Curious to hear your thoughts about the episode?     

Through the slats on the bow of Sir Francis Drake's ship, the Golden Hinde, is where the crew would take care of their 'daily duties' while on the open ocean.

Robert Stupack stands next to a 3-inch diameter hole in a boulder along the shore of San Francisco Bay where he believes Sir Francis Drake landed and tied up his ship.

The Committee Films Crew shoots the plate some believe was left by Sir Francis Drake as a land claim for England in 1579.

The front side of the brass plate date June 17, 1579, that many believe is authentic.  We may have been able to date it had we been allowed to perform that testing the library had originally given us permission to do.

Robert Stupack and I had a playful sword fight using stakes we had just disagreed on about their age and use while filming.  In the end, we agreed to disagree and all was good.

Field director, Sergio Rapu, poses next to some circular concretions weathering out of the fine sandstone at Whale Cove along the southwestern coast of Oregon. 

Archaeologist, Melissa Darby, and I pose between takes at Whale Cove where many believe Sir Francis Drake landed on the west coast before heading west back to England in 1579.

Branden Boulay shoots me examining the monument to explorers Lewis and Clark at the point where they reached the Pacific Ocean in November of 1805. 

America Unearthed, Season 4, Episode 7, Honey Island Swamp Monster

This was my second look into the enigmatic creature known as Bigfoot.  Only this time it was a different location than usual; the Louisiana swamps and the beast known as the Honey Island Swamp Monster.  I had no idea what I was getting into, but I have to say the week we spend in the swamp was a lot more fun and intriguing than I thought it would be.  In fact, the swamp started to grow me you as the days went by.  The week we were filming there was near record flooding conditions and rarely were we not standing in water at least a foot deep on what was supposed to be dry land.

Dana Holyfield was kind enough to share her grandfather's film he shot back the mid 1960's of what was clearly an ape-like creature reminiscent of the famous Patterson-Grimlin film from roughly the same time period.  Viewing that film outdoors at night, in the swamp was more that a little creepy, but it provided valuable insight.  I also had the opportunity to personally interview several first-hand witnesses, all of whom were credible and believe 100% what they saw was a giant age-like creature.  In the end, I think we were successful in answering at one question related to the numerous sightings using scientific method.  However, we did not answer all the questions surrounding the creature that is still lurking out there in the swamp somewhere.  How do you think we did?

First-hand eyewitness M.K. Davis and I pose with a poster of the Bigfoot creature in the famous Patterson-Gimlin film.

Dana Holyfield holds her grandfather's 8 mm film of the honey Island Swamp Monster from the 1960's as cameraman Brendan Harris is set to shoot the scene of us watching the film. 

Cryptozologist, ken Gerhard and I make our way to base-camp upstream on the severely flooded Pearl River.

Eoin McGuigan, Brendan Harris, Brandon Boulay and Ken Gerhard prepare shoot a scene in flooded "ground" deep in the Louisiana swamp.

On a night like this, it was easy to see how people fall in love with the bayous and swamp on the Southern Mississippi River area. 

Field producer Janey Klebe, and I pause for photo before leaving me in the hunting blind for the evening.

Dana Holyfield and I take a break from our delicious Swamp Gas Chili during filming of the final scene in the episode.