Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of My Heart Radio Hello, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call
Speaker 1: me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
Speaker 1: producer Paul Mission Control decond. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 1: You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know. As we've explored in previous episodes,
Speaker 1: our species knows roughly when and how human beings first
Speaker 1: reached the continent we know of as North America, but
Speaker 1: we still continue to search for more concrete. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be such a horrible pun later and sirs about who
Speaker 1: these people were. And, as most of our fellow conspiracy
Speaker 1: realists know, many of the things children are taught about
Speaker 1: in North American history later turned out to be either
Speaker 1: misleading or holy false. The best example of this is
Speaker 1: probably the tale of Christopher Columbus or Christo Bauld Cologne.
Speaker 1: Uh without dating ourselves, guys, do you remember being taught
Speaker 1: about Christopher Columbus in grade school? Elementary MIDDLETTERA didn't he
Speaker 1: sale ocean blue in Foh yeah, into our psyches. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: that that That's what I remember. But yeah, then the Nina,
Speaker 1: the Pinta, the Santa Maria, all that stuff, And I
Speaker 1: remember how exciting it was to say that quickly outside
Speaker 1: of that, you know, as far as the actual explorations
Speaker 1: and you know who was behind them, I vaguely remember
Speaker 1: the details. But but yeah, Yeah. It's strange because a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of kids, especially in the West,
Speaker 1: in the US and Canada, were taught a somewhat simplified
Speaker 1: version of history, right of European transatlantic exploration towards this
Speaker 1: continent and towards South America as well. But obviously, current
Speaker 1: historical research indicates Columbus was far from the first European
Speaker 1: to reach what we call North America. Right, But if
Speaker 1: this explorer was not the first, then who was? According
Speaker 1: to uh one group of researchers, the answer may be
Speaker 1: found in a slab of rock located, of all places,
Speaker 1: in modern day Douglas County, wait for it, Minnesota, that's
Speaker 1: called the Kenzie did Ruined Stone. Uh. You know, you
Speaker 1: pointed out this reminded you a bit of the Georgia
Speaker 1: Guide stones and I definitely see the similarities. But first off, Minnesota,
Speaker 1: it's inland. It's far far away from where a ship
Speaker 1: would be at that time, right, well it is, but
Speaker 1: but it does offer us a really good opportunity because
Speaker 1: it's in Minnesota and it involves Nordic or Scandinavian runes.
Speaker 1: I think we get to do both a Minnesota and
Speaker 1: a Scandinavian accent. It is. It is pretty much between
Speaker 1: Minneapolis and Fargo. I mean it's like almost in between there.
Speaker 1: So here are the facts. What are we talking about?
Speaker 1: I know some of us listening, Uh maybe our heads
Speaker 1: exploded when they said, all right, well, finally they're gonna
Speaker 1: give us the truth about the Rune stone, which is
Speaker 1: a cool, very high sword and sorcery fantasy sounding word. Uh.
Speaker 1: It dates back to There's a Swedish immigrant, his name
Speaker 1: is Ulof Alman, and he like late in that year.
Speaker 1: He he said that he had stumbled across a mysterious
Speaker 1: stone while he was clearing trees and stumps from some
Speaker 1: farmlands he had just acquired. Olaf himself came to the
Speaker 1: US in eighteen seventy nine, so he had been here
Speaker 1: for a while. Uh, this wasn't like he didn't just
Speaker 1: get off of a ship and then go find a
Speaker 1: tree with a stone in it. So he was he
Speaker 1: was just like an enterprising farmer. And we know the
Speaker 1: story of how he found the stone. Oh yes, the
Speaker 1: tail goes that Olaf found this stone near the crest
Speaker 1: of a small knoll, not that knoll, but an actual
Speaker 1: k n O L L. And it was when he
Speaker 1: found it he was laying face down, so you don't
Speaker 1: even really understand what it is, right at least when
Speaker 1: you first look at oh, there's a stone there. It
Speaker 1: was tangled up in the roots system of this tree
Speaker 1: that was there on the nola, a poplar tree. And
Speaker 1: this is the way this tale goes. You'd think, okay,
Speaker 1: it was just one day, but X where it's now
Speaker 1: can't really agree on what day it was actually found.
Speaker 1: When it was truly discovered, They put it somewhere between
Speaker 1: August and the eighth of November of that year, so
Speaker 1: that's a pretty big chunk of time at at some
Speaker 1: point at which it was discovered. And you know, and
Speaker 1: it's really one of those things if you're hanging out
Speaker 1: somewhere near a tree, maybe by your house, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter where you live. If you're if you've got a
Speaker 1: root system going on in some trees, you dig a
Speaker 1: little bit, just a tiny bit, or even not dig,
Speaker 1: just brush away some leaves and and stuff that's just
Speaker 1: been lying on the ground, you might find some fairly
Speaker 1: big stones. Yeah, yeah, it's not abnormal, it's not unusual.
Speaker 1: Will define stones somewhere by a tree, right, Yeah, there
Speaker 1: we go, we'll we'll workshop it, will workshop it. But
Speaker 1: but yeah, you're right. Uh, according to the story, there's
Speaker 1: a reason that this stone didn't just get you know,
Speaker 1: tossed aside or used to build some rough structure on
Speaker 1: the farm. It's because Oldoff's son Edward, who was ten
Speaker 1: years old at the time, noticed something weird. He could
Speaker 1: just make out. Of course this is covered in dirt, right,
Speaker 1: if this story is true, he could just make out
Speaker 1: what appeared to be markings. Uh not not just the
Speaker 1: patterns of time or erosion, but what seemed to be
Speaker 1: purposeful markings on one side of the stone. So they
Speaker 1: clean it off. That's the sound effect for cleaning stuff off.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows that one. So they're they're on the stone
Speaker 1: and uh, they find these markings are an inscription and
Speaker 1: it appears to be made by human beings. And it
Speaker 1: appears that they have written in some some sort of
Speaker 1: message for posterity uh in some kind of language. But
Speaker 1: the farmers don't recognize the alphabet, which will also be
Speaker 1: important later. And their farm is in a rural area
Speaker 1: like The closest settlement is Kensington, Minnesota. Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: word spread uh pretty quickly through Douglas County. On New
Speaker 1: Year's Day at eighteen ninety nine, the mayor of Kensington, Minnesota,
Speaker 1: a Swedish born gentleman by the name of John P. Hedberg. Uh.
Speaker 1: Maybe a distant relative of Mitch. I don't know, it's possible. Well,
Speaker 1: John P. Wrote a letter recounting this story to Sevenska
Speaker 1: Americanska post in, which is a fancy way of saying uh.
Speaker 1: Swedish American newspaper essentially, and that was the name of
Speaker 1: this Swedish American newspaper in Minneapolis. And Hedberg in his
Speaker 1: correspondence and closed a penciled sheet showing reproductions of the
Speaker 1: two nineteen characters from the inscription that we're talking about
Speaker 1: in his letter. In the body of the letter to Hedburg,
Speaker 1: Um he guess that the inscription might be an ancient Greek,
Speaker 1: which was a language that he couldn't read. He was yeah, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: but um, he wasn't trying to put one over on
Speaker 1: this guy. Um, he was genuinely interested. From what you
Speaker 1: can tell from his letter to the papers editor and
Speaker 1: publishers Hedberg was really just trying to get a little
Speaker 1: help solving this mystery. He thought maybe there would be
Speaker 1: some experts there that could, um, you know, point him
Speaker 1: in the right direction. At the very least, he wanted
Speaker 1: to know on the surface what was going on on
Speaker 1: the surface of this strange stone that they found on
Speaker 1: the surface, scraped into it with some sort of pointy object. Right,
Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna get into it later. But you're
Speaker 1: right to any paper, doesn't matter how you know, well,
Speaker 1: they are known throughout the land. You're right to a
Speaker 1: publication and you say, look at this thing I found.
Speaker 1: It's really strange. What do you think it is? I mean,
Speaker 1: you're letting you're letting that publication know that it exists,
Speaker 1: and it could be it is a mystery, right no
Speaker 1: matter what. Yeah, planting that seed. Well. Also, it's the
Speaker 1: mayor of a of a rural area, so this is
Speaker 1: one of the strangest things to happen, probably during this
Speaker 1: mirror's tenure. But also let's let's assume that the editors
Speaker 1: and publishers get a lot of letters in the post.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe there's a two headed cow report, maybe
Speaker 1: the crops are failing or overly abundant. The reason the
Speaker 1: publisher reads this letter is because he is a friend
Speaker 1: of the mayor, the guy who publishes the paper. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or you know that time that that one big fella
Speaker 1: through that little fella in the wood chip. Remember when
Speaker 1: that happened. That was a big story at the time,
Speaker 1: especially Yeah, but what it happened in the eight hundreds.
Speaker 1: Remember they didn't have electrically powered wood chippers, so the
Speaker 1: wood chipper wasn't uh so, yeah, so they spread this.
Speaker 1: And I appreciate your point about possible motivations there, Matt,
Speaker 1: because of course, the art of the con teaches us
Speaker 1: that if you want to pull a good con, if
Speaker 1: this guy's motivations were anything less than sincere, uh, then
Speaker 1: you can't show all your cards at once. Right. The
Speaker 1: mayor is talking to a personal friend of his, so
Speaker 1: he uh he, in the most objective way possible, just says, okay,
Speaker 1: here we go, what do you think? I think it
Speaker 1: might be ancient Greek, but I don't speak it because
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to real people in, you
Speaker 1: let them feel like they're making the decisions you control
Speaker 1: them making. Anyway, the stone is at least real. It's
Speaker 1: not a the stone itself. Its existence is not a hoax, uh.
Speaker 1: The same way that you know, we went through spate
Speaker 1: of uh people claiming a few years ago to have
Speaker 1: found Bigfoot's corpse, and those yeah, they had something, they
Speaker 1: had something. One case it was like a guerrilla suit
Speaker 1: in a cooler. But there is a real stone here,
Speaker 1: and we have very great descriptions of it. It's made
Speaker 1: of a hard gray type of sandstone called uh gray
Speaker 1: whack w A c k e uh. It's it's about
Speaker 1: the size of like your typical tombstone, I mean your gravestone,
Speaker 1: not the pizza uh, which isn't bad uh. And it's
Speaker 1: it's this irregular rectangle shape, regular rectangular shape. Uh. It
Speaker 1: weighs about two hundred two pounds. It's thirty inches high,
Speaker 1: thirty thirty one inches high, sixteen inches wide, about five
Speaker 1: and a half to six inches thick. So it's a
Speaker 1: it's hefty it's not something you casually carry around, and
Speaker 1: it seems like it would be a difficult thing to
Speaker 1: lose in the first place. Uh, but again, our species
Speaker 1: loses cities, civilizations, entire eras of history. Who were the
Speaker 1: sea people's anyway? Asking that question for the rest of
Speaker 1: the show that it exists as long as we can
Speaker 1: just keep saying see people. So I don't know why.
Speaker 1: That just strikes me as delightful. The sea people. I
Speaker 1: just think of a picture, you know, underwater dwelling types
Speaker 1: with gills and webbed feet. I picture sea monkeys. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna be honest. It was hard for me not
Speaker 1: to say that during the broad Sage collapse thing that
Speaker 1: was pulling up images of old school sea monkeys, which
Speaker 1: I think really some kind of shript. It's all sea
Speaker 1: persons for me, you know persons, I guess, yeah, murperson,
Speaker 1: bird person, all the hits, all the good ones. Uh.
Speaker 1: So it does the everybody agrees this stone exists. It
Speaker 1: has something carved upon it, right, has something carved into
Speaker 1: the face of the stone. And the if you look
Speaker 1: at pictures of this which are widely available online, you'll
Speaker 1: see that the front face looks partially damaged, so as possible,
Speaker 1: there was more to this original message. And now now
Speaker 1: we get to the very strange part. We know what
Speaker 1: the message says, sort of. We have a bunch of
Speaker 1: linguists who have been looking at this since at least
Speaker 1: and they agree kind of on this message. But Olaf
Speaker 1: first he didn't. According to him, he initially thought that
Speaker 1: this was some kind of Indian almanac. By whence you
Speaker 1: meant Native American almanac? But later people said, wait, those
Speaker 1: look like rooms. Was that a quotation sound or an
Speaker 1: engraving sound? That was a mund The engraving sound is
Speaker 1: more like a oh you made a sound earlier in
Speaker 1: the episode. Was that a scrubbing sound, you man, that's
Speaker 1: a cleaning, That's a I just I was. I was
Speaker 1: clarifying our our sonic terms here. Yeah, it was ruins
Speaker 1: runs you, Um, I don't know. On this show, we've
Speaker 1: encountered runs many a time. I think, most commonly when
Speaker 1: dealing with research on the Nazi Party. I think, at
Speaker 1: least for me, that's when a type of runs we've
Speaker 1: been encountering quite frequently. Well, the notion that they have power, right,
Speaker 1: isn't that part of it? Right? The words have power?
Speaker 1: In quite a literal way. Uh. Yeah, RUMs are used
Speaker 1: in various magical systems or traditional beliefs. They have also
Speaker 1: been uh kind of what's the word appropriated by political
Speaker 1: movements or by metal bands and uh maybe they would
Speaker 1: say that's not appropriation, but in the case of the
Speaker 1: Nazi Party, it's definitely appropriation. Well, but just just from
Speaker 1: a form factor. From like if you're thinking about fonts
Speaker 1: or something, the runs such as these do there is
Speaker 1: something about them that is striking um almost, I don't know, almost,
Speaker 1: in the way the hieroglyphics have the same kind of
Speaker 1: feel where it feels like there's more inside whatever is
Speaker 1: written or inscribed than just letters. It feels that way.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of the same with a lot of
Speaker 1: um Asian characters, you know, where there there feels like
Speaker 1: there's an imbued meaning um within the system. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's much more. There's more to it than just a
Speaker 1: straightforward a shape or a letter. You know, it feels
Speaker 1: like it's got you could in the way that like
Speaker 1: certain Japanese characters can tell a story, you know, with
Speaker 1: with some brushstrokes, you know, or there's a lot more
Speaker 1: contained within that one character than with just a letter
Speaker 1: that would then be used to spell out a word. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: RUMs are crazy. I I watched I've been rewatch. I've
Speaker 1: been watching like two Halloween movies. Wanted two Halloween movies
Speaker 1: a day, you know, to over and I stumbled upon
Speaker 1: a film that I had never heard of, called Spell,
Speaker 1: which is about a guy with O C D whose
Speaker 1: spouse passes away. None of this is a spoiler, and
Speaker 1: so he just sort of impulsively goes to Iceland and
Speaker 1: he gets really wrapped up in Icelandic folklore and rooms.
Speaker 1: And I fell into Uh, I fell into the rabbit
Speaker 1: hole of Icelandic traditional beliefs, and I spent I swear,
Speaker 1: I spent like two hours this past weekend wondering how
Speaker 1: we can make it a stuff they don't want you
Speaker 1: to know episode, until I said, I'm just gonna have
Speaker 1: to I'm just gonna have to be content to name
Speaker 1: drop that thing because there's not a conspiracy. First place
Speaker 1: I I ever remember hearing about runes was in the uh,
Speaker 1: the Hobbit movie where where then they're one of the gnomes.
Speaker 1: Is like those are rude stones, you know as a friend,
Speaker 1: and like, you know, because they do have power. They
Speaker 1: are also in a lot of obviously like RPG type
Speaker 1: game there in Legend of Zelda, their a way you
Speaker 1: can power up a sword by adding a rune stone
Speaker 1: to it that gives it a special property or whatever,
Speaker 1: outside the scope of today's discussion, but still the point
Speaker 1: is that language can be imbued with meaning and power
Speaker 1: in the right hands, at least in theory. I really
Speaker 1: hope some of you also teleported on Ruins and Ultimate
Speaker 1: online the way I did, because that was one of
Speaker 1: my favorite things. So let's just let's just talk about
Speaker 1: these ruins for a little bit. Runs in general, it's
Speaker 1: an agent North European writing system, right. It's probably first
Speaker 1: developed in the second century CE, and most likely under
Speaker 1: Roman influence. They were also taught in several places throughout
Speaker 1: the world, specifically in Scandinavian um schools school children in
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. We're learning what ruins were UM, at
Speaker 1: least in a general sense, in early education. In that way,
Speaker 1: UM more as a history lesson, I think, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's my understanding. It would be more of a
Speaker 1: let's learn about our our history, our past. Now it's
Speaker 1: a skull Amans thing they're teaching those kids spells, teaching
Speaker 1: occult power over the elements, how to find fortune and
Speaker 1: love and uh lay enemies waste. No, you're right, though.
Speaker 1: Ruins are a real thing. Uh. They're very very popular
Speaker 1: in fiction. But they are very much a real thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they were taught in various parts of Scandinavia to
Speaker 1: school children in the eighteen hundreds. At least we know
Speaker 1: that for sure. Uh. So here is the translation. This
Speaker 1: is again, this is a generally accepted translation. They're going
Speaker 1: to be people who go back and forth about the
Speaker 1: specifics here, but it's it's like a it's a confession.
Speaker 1: We don't need a we don't need a prologue. Here.
Speaker 1: Here it is. We are eight Goths and twenty two
Speaker 1: Norwegians on an exploration valley from Vinland through the west.
Speaker 1: We had camp by a lake with two scarys, that
Speaker 1: small rocky eye. On one day's journey north from this stone,
Speaker 1: we were out and fished. One day after we came home,
Speaker 1: we found ten of our men, red with blood and dead,
Speaker 1: a v M. Standing probably for a Virgo Maria or
Speaker 1: Hail Virgin Mary, save us from evil. We have ten
Speaker 1: of our party by the sea to look after our
Speaker 1: ships fourteen days journey from this island, year thirteen sixty two.
Speaker 1: Whoa thirteen sixty two. These runes are describing a couple
Speaker 1: of different journeys that were taking, but one specific exploration journey.
Speaker 1: I like how they put that from Vinland through the west.
Speaker 1: Is that the same as Finland. We're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 1: spend some time discussing what that may or may not mean.
Speaker 1: I'm sure where is Vinland? You say? But yeah, really
Speaker 1: interesting stuff like giving almost in uh sunken tread or
Speaker 1: in a hidden treasure map kind of vibe like we're this,
Speaker 1: we're this distance away from this stone from where we were,
Speaker 1: also this other distance in this other direction away from
Speaker 1: this stone for this other thing. Fascinating that this thing,
Speaker 1: this message would end up etched in stone in this place. Hmm,
Speaker 1: Well why is it there? How did it get there?
Speaker 1: What does it mean? We'll tell you, well, at least
Speaker 1: as much as we know afterward from our sponsor, and
Speaker 1: we're back um talking about potentially magical artifacts found in Minnesota. Uh,
Speaker 1: not too too too terribly far from Minneapolis, where we
Speaker 1: know a magical creature once Dwelves Uh Prince the Purple one, um,
Speaker 1: but unrelated to any Goths or Norwegians that I know of.
Speaker 1: But the Minneapolis Journal actually scooped the Swedish paper that
Speaker 1: we discussed, the Swedish language paper that we discussed earlier.
Speaker 1: UM on that translation referencing said Goths and Norwegians eight
Speaker 1: and twenty two in number. Um. And it was kind
Speaker 1: of a thing. Um. The stone itself was put on
Speaker 1: display in a bank, although this account we found on
Speaker 1: the internet incorrectly refers to the bank as a drug store. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's super important to note that olaf Olman never
Speaker 1: actually was looking to get paid for his discovery. The
Speaker 1: Minnesota Historical Society actually has a bill of sales showing
Speaker 1: that Almans sold the stone to them for ten American
Speaker 1: dollars in nineteen and eleven, which would be around three
Speaker 1: bucks closer to two sixty dollars. So what's the deal?
Speaker 1: Where do the facts and the fiction meet, and and
Speaker 1: of which is there more? This is the question I
Speaker 1: think we have for today. The first thing I would
Speaker 1: put forward is, who's to say it wasn't a combination
Speaker 1: bank and drug store. I mean, ever, everybody's seen those,
Speaker 1: you know, you certainly will see banks in grocery stores
Speaker 1: and drugs and pharmacies and grocery stores, though I cannot
Speaker 1: say I have ever met seen a bank in a
Speaker 1: freestanding drug store. But or maybe we just need to
Speaker 1: pop up uh, you know, banking institutions are stressful for
Speaker 1: a lot of people. Maybe we need to pop up
Speaker 1: pharmacy right after you sign thirty years of your life
Speaker 1: away and alone. I think I think there's probably a
Speaker 1: law against that for good reason, But it's not a
Speaker 1: bad idea. There's a lot of money to be made.
Speaker 1: And then you can go next door to the combination
Speaker 1: Pizza Hut Taco Bell and get a little snack. Seriously, yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: But also, you guys are familiar with the concept of
Speaker 1: minute n X right where the drug store essentially will
Speaker 1: have a physicians assistant care type situation. But but in
Speaker 1: a drug store, why aren't there minute clinics with psychiatrists
Speaker 1: in them having a crisis that has a psychiatrist installed
Speaker 1: just waiting for you come come to me prescribe the
Speaker 1: Probably because I would say probably because it's tougher to
Speaker 1: help heal a wounded mind than it is to help
Speaker 1: bandage up a broken arm. I don't I don't mean
Speaker 1: I don't mean to actually do good for any patients.
Speaker 1: I just meant to to push more pills. I got it. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let the let the oxycotton tycoons know right, there's the
Speaker 1: revenue stream, just like oil companies figured out plastic. I
Speaker 1: hope those words don't come back to haunt us. There's
Speaker 1: a point though, that I don't want to lose. We'll
Speaker 1: get too far from the translation, and that is that
Speaker 1: the Goths are Swedes. Goth is a word for Swede.
Speaker 1: They're not the uh, They're not the Motley crew from
Speaker 1: Letter Kenny or South Park, the Cure fans, you know,
Speaker 1: with emo haircuts and potential like chain mail belts or
Speaker 1: something like that black fingernail polish. They may have had
Speaker 1: chain mail. Um yeah, likely on more than their belts,
Speaker 1: though I would, I would, I would imagine so unless
Speaker 1: it was something of religious or spiritual cultural significance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is an excellent question about fact versus fiction, because
Speaker 1: if the Kensington room Stone is what uh It's believers
Speaker 1: say it is, and if the message on it is
Speaker 1: true and is from thirteen sixty two, then it's hugely
Speaker 1: important for our understanding of North American history, forget that
Speaker 1: of world history. This would be a big deal because
Speaker 1: how would how how would this group of Swedish people
Speaker 1: and Norwegian people vikings working together? How would they how
Speaker 1: would they reach the Midwest from Vinland? Right? Even though
Speaker 1: they say they did at a great personal cost, they
Speaker 1: paid in blood for this trip. Um, it's still it's
Speaker 1: it's still a long journey. Maybe we maybe we should
Speaker 1: pause for just a second to talk about Vinland. We've
Speaker 1: been throwing this around. You've you've probably heard of Greenland,
Speaker 1: You've probably heard of Iceland, and maybe the nifty little
Speaker 1: story behind their names. Uh, Vinland is kind of in
Speaker 1: that same headspace. It's an area of North America that
Speaker 1: was explored by Norse vikings. Leif Ericson landed there around
Speaker 1: one thousand CE. So you know, you don't have to
Speaker 1: be a math doctor to know that's way before Columbus.
Speaker 1: It's incredible to have that inscribed, you know, allegedly in
Speaker 1: the hundreds. So I guess what I'm trying to wrap
Speaker 1: my head around was reading this story from the is
Speaker 1: it what is in the Minnesota post um and they're
Speaker 1: discussing Vinland and the route through the West from Vinland
Speaker 1: and what where that would be from where where it
Speaker 1: would actually be located. And I'm genuinely a little bit
Speaker 1: confused because it seems as though it's a bit unknown
Speaker 1: where Vinland is ben do we have maybe I just
Speaker 1: don't have it in my research, like actually where it
Speaker 1: is located? So in current US yes, so right now, um,
Speaker 1: right now. The popular consensus is that what we what
Speaker 1: was described as Vinlands by Leif Ericson and co. Is
Speaker 1: probably an area that includes Newfoundland and the Gulf of St.
Speaker 1: Lawrence and maybe goes as far as New Brunswick. So
Speaker 1: really it's it's Canadian, okay, but but but it is.
Speaker 1: It is a wide range, and it is accepted as
Speaker 1: fact that that these people arrived there in one thousand CE.
Speaker 1: We just don't know what happened in the thirteen hundreds. Well,
Speaker 1: and if you definitely want to learn historically accurate account
Speaker 1: of what Vinland was, there is an anime manga series
Speaker 1: called Vinland Saga. Uh so that would be the place
Speaker 1: to go. I'm kidding, but it is interesting when uh
Speaker 1: a country like Japan, uh, you know, portrays a culture
Speaker 1: like the Viking type situation. It's very I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm intrigued by this because it does appear to
Speaker 1: be like Viking ships and swords and that kind of
Speaker 1: high jinks. Looks pretty interesting. But um, so what would
Speaker 1: what land mass would we attribute it to? Like if
Speaker 1: does it still exist or find anything about? Oh, it's
Speaker 1: just North America, just part of it, Okay, interesting, it
Speaker 1: would be like the east upper upper eastern coast of
Speaker 1: the North American continent. Uh. But from what we know
Speaker 1: in the earliest accounts of land it was described as Uh.
Speaker 1: It was first written about in ten seventy five, and
Speaker 1: it was described as these remote islands. So imagine you
Speaker 1: get close, you find some islands, and you think we've
Speaker 1: gone really far, we should turn around. They didn't really,
Speaker 1: from what we understand, they did not know the enormity
Speaker 1: of the land mass that they were very very close to.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. So Vinland at this point is um
Speaker 1: we should also say it's the idea of these early
Speaker 1: Viking explorers in one thousand CEU. It's a very popular idea.
Speaker 1: It's in a lot of conversations in the zeitgeist in
Speaker 1: the nineties in Europe and in the US. So someone
Speaker 1: would probably no, uh, somewhe in Minnesota would have heard
Speaker 1: this story, especially given the massive Swedish population, they would
Speaker 1: have been familiar with this, and that's why it got
Speaker 1: so much interest from the media. There was a flurry
Speaker 1: of investigations. We're talking scholars and linguists. They dive into
Speaker 1: this description and they're fighting back and forth like what
Speaker 1: kind of runic system is this? How old is it?
Speaker 1: That's the big question, right? And then historians and scientists
Speaker 1: are doing the same kind of thing that we we
Speaker 1: were just doing, where they're they're essentially pulling up a
Speaker 1: map and they're going, Okay, fictional boat, how does it
Speaker 1: get to Minnesota? You know what I mean? Well, dude,
Speaker 1: there's it's it's fascinating. If you just read that translation,
Speaker 1: doesn't it call the place where the tablet ends up
Speaker 1: an island and not just a hill? Right? So that, right,
Speaker 1: that alone makes the mind start wondering, well, wait, what
Speaker 1: was this flooded? And unless you know the historical record
Speaker 1: of the area you have extremely accurate information on that,
Speaker 1: your mind may think, well, perhaps it was a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of this was flooded at some point,
Speaker 1: even if it was only on a temporary basis. Um
Speaker 1: to where this this whole area could be traversed by
Speaker 1: ship or by boat rather than on on foot on land. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good point. I mean, we know that geography
Speaker 1: can change, right, especially over over time. That's the thing.
Speaker 1: If you're if you're hearing about this, and you're not
Speaker 1: a scholar of ancient languages that are somewhat obscure, and
Speaker 1: if you're not a forensic expert or a professional historian,
Speaker 1: then this sounds like it's at the very least, it
Speaker 1: sounds like it's an interesting thing, and it sounds very possible.
Speaker 1: The stone itself ended up getting sent to some professionals,
Speaker 1: especially one professor George O. Kerm, who was a philologist
Speaker 1: at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. And so so he
Speaker 1: looks at it, he looks at this draft people are
Speaker 1: figuring out about based on what we know about the inscription.
Speaker 1: And when he looks at this first draft, he is
Speaker 1: he's got a little spark of hope, right, are we
Speaker 1: about to learn more about hidden history? But then he
Speaker 1: inspected the language on the stone itself, you know when
Speaker 1: he did it, when he did a firsthand investigation, Yeah,
Speaker 1: really really puzzled, and it led him and many others
Speaker 1: to ask what the heck is going on? What is
Speaker 1: the provenance of this stone? Will answer the question definitively afterwards,
Speaker 1: maur Sponsor, Here's where it gets crazy. Okay, I gotta
Speaker 1: say it. It's fake. What just just like that, it
Speaker 1: gets crazy. It's fake. It's well, it gets a little
Speaker 1: crazier than that. But the stone itself is nine eight
Speaker 1: percent point nine hoax. Uh. It might be an historical
Speaker 1: hoax like the Shroud of Turin or something spoilers, but
Speaker 1: but this has proven pretty definitively. There are big problems
Speaker 1: with the stories. There's not just problems with the the
Speaker 1: story of the farmer finding it. There's a problem with
Speaker 1: the story that's on the stone. Math problems right, like
Speaker 1: problems and the farmer selling it for ten bucks even
Speaker 1: if it was two sixty bucks. Come on, this is
Speaker 1: things incredible tent bucks. Yeah. Look for the Vikings ships
Speaker 1: to have made a fourteen day journey from alexandria Um
Speaker 1: to where they ended up. The only possible route they
Speaker 1: could have taken was from Hudson Bay, which is eight
Speaker 1: hundred miles. As the crow flies longer. Uh, if you
Speaker 1: take a more winding path like a river and having
Speaker 1: to pick up the boat and put it back down,
Speaker 1: which is a word I learned today called portage, and
Speaker 1: um a particularly difficult distance to manage in fourteen days
Speaker 1: in the way that it was described here in in
Speaker 1: this on the stone, the route through the west from
Speaker 1: vin Land, that whole situation, whose location in thirteen sixty
Speaker 1: two would have been unknown. That's the thing we've we've
Speaker 1: all kind of struggled with us. We were trying to
Speaker 1: pick this thing apart. And no other record of this
Speaker 1: expedition has been found literally anywhere. Um So why would explorers,
Speaker 1: it just suffers such a massacre, stopped to carve in
Speaker 1: these beautifully ornate, uh and organized characters the stone inscription?
Speaker 1: I would you know, just to counter a little bit
Speaker 1: to that last part there, I mean, if maybe the
Speaker 1: belief is that all is lost, you want to warn
Speaker 1: anyone else who's going to be coming this way about something.
Speaker 1: Maybe you don't have enough information. So as one of
Speaker 1: the men is dying, he's carving furiously trying to get
Speaker 1: a message into this stone before he leaves, or before
Speaker 1: his party leaves, or and he perishes. Just point it
Speaker 1: out there, that feels very video game like to me
Speaker 1: or movie like, but just as a possible reason to
Speaker 1: make them look like that maybe a testament to the
Speaker 1: lives lost there, maybe some way to make a mark
Speaker 1: before they themselves disappeared. Would say that we do need
Speaker 1: to point out the word no bi he's found in
Speaker 1: the vicinity of the stone that we know of. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's also it's it's a good question. We don't
Speaker 1: know why this would happen in a vacuum, why there
Speaker 1: would be no other no other secondary source. If it's
Speaker 1: a true story, then perhaps the grizzly fact of the
Speaker 1: matter is that uh, the author, along with the their
Speaker 1: cohort all died. Maybe no one made it back to
Speaker 1: tell the tale of their you know, they're they're woefully
Speaker 1: unfortunate trip. But okay, so that's a that's a huge
Speaker 1: problem the math there. These folks were mavericks. If they
Speaker 1: were able to if if they were able to uh
Speaker 1: sail to this very specific place in a way that
Speaker 1: would have required them to at some point pick up
Speaker 1: their boats, physically carry them across the ground, put them
Speaker 1: in another water. So we're continue on their marry. Wait
Speaker 1: that's a lot, uh, but there's another problem with the
Speaker 1: story and I hate to say it, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a problem with the farmer. It's very very strange. I'm
Speaker 1: not calling him a liar, just say it's very strange
Speaker 1: that Olaf would not have recognized something familiar about rooms,
Speaker 1: because remember, he grew up in Sweden, is during a
Speaker 1: time when Scandinavian children were often taught about rooms. Uh,
Speaker 1: he was not a I guess we wouldn't call him
Speaker 1: a highly educated man, but that doesn't make unintelligent. He
Speaker 1: was literate. He had a small library at his house
Speaker 1: and some of those books had you guessed it, ruins
Speaker 1: in them. Okay, So then we have to wonder if
Speaker 1: the inscription itself the message, if it was genuine. M hmm, right, Well,
Speaker 1: if someone were to inscribe something in what do we
Speaker 1: call it that that's a fun word that we just
Speaker 1: gray gray whack. If someone were to, you know, inscribe
Speaker 1: this thing in gray whack, they would have to at
Speaker 1: least have an understanding of what these ruins meant, how
Speaker 1: to put them together to form, you know, sentences with meaning.
Speaker 1: And you know, if the farmer does have these books,
Speaker 1: he did grow up in a place where he learned
Speaker 1: at least parts of this language. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you have the nerve or the wherewithal to pull up
Speaker 1: a prank or even a quick way to make ten
Speaker 1: bucks the worst way to make ten dollars. Ever, that's
Speaker 1: a lot of work to put in. Like how long
Speaker 1: does it take? The look, I've never uh, I imagine
Speaker 1: it would take a long time to carve something into stone, right,
Speaker 1: So if you average out this is this is maybe
Speaker 1: us being cheap skates. But it's if you average out
Speaker 1: the uh that ten dollars across however many hours it
Speaker 1: would have taken to make this, it's not a great gig,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's like if you were
Speaker 1: being commissioned to build a piece of art in stone
Speaker 1: for two hundred sixty dollars. That feels that feels cheap
Speaker 1: to me for an ornate piece of stone. But I
Speaker 1: don't know. Hey, it's also kind of an odd prank, right,
Speaker 1: Like I mean, obviously we're talking about it. Obviously had
Speaker 1: got some attention. You know, it was put up in
Speaker 1: the drug store slash uh bank whatever whatever whichever when
Speaker 1: it was combination drug store bank. But what do you
Speaker 1: think the end game was just to make a fuss
Speaker 1: just to get people excited. They're riled up. That's a
Speaker 1: good question. There have been some people who guessed that
Speaker 1: this conspiracy, and it is a conspiracy if it's a hoax. Uh.
Speaker 1: There have been some people to guess that it had
Speaker 1: more than one uh involved more than one person. That
Speaker 1: one of Alman's friends pastor former pastor named Zvin vogel
Speaker 1: Blob focal Blood, may have helped him out because Svenn
Speaker 1: had a knowledge of Runes and according to a couple
Speaker 1: of sources, again this is touchy. This is like, this
Speaker 1: is like the Syrian sources writing about the assassins. You know, um,
Speaker 1: there are sources who say that both of these guys,
Speaker 1: Spinn and Olaf didn't like academics. Then like the Ivory Tower,
Speaker 1: they resented him for some reason. So maybe this is
Speaker 1: like a little a little philip toward them, or you know,
Speaker 1: a bite of the thumb, just a quick philip. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the word. Fa. We never heard anyone in like
Speaker 1: twenty in the whatever this era is referred to flipping
Speaker 1: someone a quick philip. I love it, I love it.
Speaker 1: It's funny. We we mentioned at the top of the
Speaker 1: show how this sort of reminded me of the Georgia guidestones. UM.
Speaker 1: I think one uh misconception about the Georgia guidestones they're
Speaker 1: a hoax, is that they're meant to be interpreted as
Speaker 1: some sort of ancient artifact, like some sort of Stonehenge
Speaker 1: type situation. But you know, it's certainly something that the
Speaker 1: mind might jump to and just seeing it cold because
Speaker 1: they do appear to be these ancient kind of carved
Speaker 1: you know, granite slabs that that very much resemble a stonehenge.
Speaker 1: But obviously we know, at the very least the mystery
Speaker 1: behind that is what the identity actually was of the
Speaker 1: man who paid to have them erected and designed. But
Speaker 1: we know that a man did have them erected design
Speaker 1: with full cooperation of the city and the you know,
Speaker 1: you know, bought the plot of land and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So that's different, um, but still very interesting in that
Speaker 1: they are both. You know, the guidestones are sort of
Speaker 1: meant to resemble something that could be taken as ancient,
Speaker 1: but it serves a much more modern purpose. UM. I
Speaker 1: understand the meaning and the point behind the guide stones.
Speaker 1: I don't understand the meaning and the point behind this.
Speaker 1: If it were a hoax, right right, right, Yeah, So
Speaker 1: that's that. I mean, that's a key question because, uh,
Speaker 1: we don't have definitive proof that all off omen made
Speaker 1: these things as a jolly prank. In fact, he never
Speaker 1: admitted a hoax, even unto his deathbed. Again, as we said,
Speaker 1: he wasn't. He clearly was not out to become wealthy
Speaker 1: from this, and he was adamant. He stuck to his story.
Speaker 1: It was steadfast about his version of events until his death,
Speaker 1: and he stuck by the story even when the academics
Speaker 1: that he reputedly resented came back with problems with the
Speaker 1: inscription itself. They first analyze it in right same year
Speaker 1: it gets reported, and a lot of these experts dismissed
Speaker 1: as fake. Back then, they say there are too many
Speaker 1: discrepancies in the form and the vocabulary. Because they're like
Speaker 1: the Indiana Jones top men. They get together and they say, okay, look,
Speaker 1: we are experts in a very specific field, the known
Speaker 1: languages of fourteenth century Scandinavia, and we checked with each other,
Speaker 1: and none of us think this is legit. They were
Speaker 1: saying that back in early nine hundreds. Most experts since
Speaker 1: then have agreed, Uh, but even if you say, even
Speaker 1: if you say, well, maybe this person was just writing
Speaker 1: in a weird way because around half of their friends
Speaker 1: were dead. It was a very trying time. They were
Speaker 1: very stressed out. Even if we accept that, we have
Speaker 1: to ask ourselves about the age of these things, the
Speaker 1: condition of the raw. Yeah, so they're you know, they're
Speaker 1: picked up in eight nine, right, And if you if
Speaker 1: you're talking about what is that five hundred years that
Speaker 1: they would have been laying there, or yeah, more than
Speaker 1: five years that they had been laying there, you'd think
Speaker 1: that the stone inscriptions would have just been worn to nothingness,
Speaker 1: or at least worn heavily after all that time of
Speaker 1: just the elements and laying there being you know, scraped.
Speaker 1: I know it doesn't sound like much, but being scraped
Speaker 1: by roots and by dirt and as water runs underneath
Speaker 1: it every time it rains, and all these other things.
Speaker 1: But the weird thing is, though, to me, is if
Speaker 1: it's laying on its face and it isn't directly being
Speaker 1: hit by rain and debris all that time, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I feel like it would degrade less so than if
Speaker 1: it was facing up. But but maybe that's just my
Speaker 1: ignorance as to how things actually get weathered, um and
Speaker 1: what years can do to something. But you know, I
Speaker 1: know that's certainly in question here. Why why were the
Speaker 1: ruins still so intact and seemingly pristine? I see you're
Speaker 1: saying if it was like mounted like a tombstone upright,
Speaker 1: then it would be spared more like. And then then
Speaker 1: if it were like uh, you know, mounted on the
Speaker 1: ground facing up, then probably that amount of time the
Speaker 1: ruins would have been completely wiped away. You know, well,
Speaker 1: I guess what I'm saying is because of how it
Speaker 1: was found. I correct me if I'm wrong, then, but
Speaker 1: I think it was found face down like the runs.
Speaker 1: You don't see the runes. You see just the rest
Speaker 1: of the gray whack stone. You pick it up, and
Speaker 1: then you see the runes that certainly would have preserved it.
Speaker 1: I would imagine, that's my thought, But I know that
Speaker 1: experts at the time we're just saying. I hear you know,
Speaker 1: I hear what you're saying, Matt. This is what the
Speaker 1: experts would have said. Hear what you're saying that. But
Speaker 1: we're talking about five years. We'll also over yeah, over
Speaker 1: five hundred years. Would root systems of other trees not
Speaker 1: have broken. Yeah, engulfed it broken more of the stone
Speaker 1: into bits or you know, eroded at time, wears on
Speaker 1: things on all the works of man. Uh, so maybe
Speaker 1: we can say, what about the most popular poplar tree
Speaker 1: in town? How old was the tree? Uh? They did
Speaker 1: an interesting thing, not super scientific. Uh, the tree that
Speaker 1: held the stone was destroyed by But people went back
Speaker 1: to the site. They looked around the area, They saw
Speaker 1: other other poplar trees, like nearby copes of poplar trees,
Speaker 1: and they they had local saying, Okay, these poplars are
Speaker 1: around the same size, they're around the same age. And
Speaker 1: then uh, the experts knocked down some of those trees
Speaker 1: and through the magic of dindoc analogy, they figured out
Speaker 1: that those trees were probably between thirty to forty years old. So, uh,
Speaker 1: the age of that If that gives us information about
Speaker 1: the age of the tree where the stone was supposedly found,
Speaker 1: then we know that uh, that roots system had engulfed
Speaker 1: it within thirty to forty years. Again, if if this
Speaker 1: is true, because another person who was at the excavation
Speaker 1: site later who visited it, UH County School superintendent named
Speaker 1: Cleve Van Dyke said hold on those those trees are
Speaker 1: only ten or twelve years old. But you know we
Speaker 1: said that in the Minnesota accent. I meagine, and we
Speaker 1: attempted ey attempted a nor a Nordic accent yet or
Speaker 1: a Scandinavian Ben you promised us a B. What we
Speaker 1: were talking, we were talking sor there we go. But
Speaker 1: just I I hear you about the trees like that.
Speaker 1: That makes a whole lot of sense as to why
Speaker 1: it would have end up ended up where it was
Speaker 1: if those trees were only that old, right the just
Speaker 1: to jump back quickly to the inscription and the age
Speaker 1: possibly of that there was there's an analysis in two
Speaker 1: thousand three done on the actual inscriptions the ruins that
Speaker 1: are you know, inscribed into into the rock. And there's
Speaker 1: a person, Scott F. Walter who conducted this analysis, and
Speaker 1: you know, according to him in his study, they were
Speaker 1: around two hundred years old, So that would put them
Speaker 1: in the eighteen hundreds we're talking about when they're you know,
Speaker 1: first discovered and studied. Um, it's an interesting thing because
Speaker 1: to me, I know that two hundred years isn't come on,
Speaker 1: that's not an exact act number of years that these
Speaker 1: inscriptions have been on there. But that gives you a
Speaker 1: pretty at least a good idea of how old they were,
Speaker 1: rather than seven hundred years, six hundred years, five hundred years.
Speaker 1: But it is interesting to think that at least in
Speaker 1: one analysis it put the range of old only around
Speaker 1: two hundred years rather than you know, the five hundred
Speaker 1: six hundred year range. Right, And even that, even that
Speaker 1: measure is controversial, Right, You'll find a lot of people
Speaker 1: who reject that. I just have to stay with this
Speaker 1: casting characters, Who's who's the guy made Spinal Tap beston show?
Speaker 1: Christopher Guest Christopher Guests feels like Kensington Runestones would be
Speaker 1: a great Christopher Guest film. Oh, that's a really good
Speaker 1: idea would be. There's a there's a really great, very
Speaker 1: small part in um Waiting for Guffman where David Cross
Speaker 1: plays like a historian or something and he's talking about
Speaker 1: you know, he's like a UFO, uh, the enthusiasts, and
Speaker 1: he said, in this circle and it's always two degrees
Speaker 1: colder with a five percent chance of rain, like he's
Speaker 1: out in the field. That's the only time you hear
Speaker 1: from David Cross in that movie. But I love that part,
Speaker 1: such a shot, shot, a bunch of other stuff, and
Speaker 1: then it just ended up getting cut on the on
Speaker 1: the cutting room floor because they play, they have a
Speaker 1: good time with those movies. It's all, you know, mostly
Speaker 1: improv I think, with like a skeletal outline. So I
Speaker 1: wouldn't doubt that that there's probably some good outtake somewhere
Speaker 1: out there in the world. Well, Chris, if you, if
Speaker 1: you are listening to the show, let us know when
Speaker 1: we can expect your feature film on the Kensington Ruined
Speaker 1: Stone and whether or not it is a hoax. Uh.
Speaker 1: This there's one thing that I held back on that
Speaker 1: I think I think is substantive and should be mentioned.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of people in the area today
Speaker 1: especially who say they believe in the veracity of the runestone.
Speaker 1: Now is that measure of sincere belief or is that
Speaker 1: sort of like a regional pride thing? Right? Like how
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, like how Atlanta still supports the Falcons,
Speaker 1: But I don't think like like blame Missouri and their stools.
Speaker 1: You know, that was another Christopher Guest reference. I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: let's give it, let's give up both in But there
Speaker 1: was one great comparison. I read from linguistics expert about this.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna read this line to you guys, just
Speaker 1: the one line. Remember when Neil Armstrong landed on the
Speaker 1: moon in nineteen sixty nine and said, l m a
Speaker 1: O this is tight. That's uh. That language is off
Speaker 1: by about fifty years, says linguist Jackson Crawford, and his
Speaker 1: argument is that the language of the Kensington runestone is
Speaker 1: off by about six hundred years. He's an he's an
Speaker 1: old Norse specialist with a PhD. So, in his professional opinion, uh,
Speaker 1: this was written far after it claimed to be written.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, it may have been written
Speaker 1: around the late eight hundred mm hmm. Strange and suspect.
Speaker 1: It really just brings you back to the question why
Speaker 1: why would someone do this? And if it was the
Speaker 1: farmer will Off, then why would he? I mean, why
Speaker 1: didn't he sell it for more money? Why didn't it
Speaker 1: become a tourist attraction of some sort. We've seen on
Speaker 1: this show several times throughout the years where in places
Speaker 1: across the United States, a hoax of some kind will
Speaker 1: begin and it takes on a life of its own.
Speaker 1: And even if it has proven to be a hoax,
Speaker 1: it becomes a museum or a place where you can
Speaker 1: go and see it, and you know, the person who
Speaker 1: founded or the family can prosper from it, even if
Speaker 1: it is considered a hoax by everybody. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a it's something that can happen, and it didn't seem
Speaker 1: to happen that way for all Off. It It's just
Speaker 1: it's very weird and you didn't come forward to say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: this was a hoax later on in life. Um, nobody
Speaker 1: else did either. So maybe ol Off did discover something
Speaker 1: that someone else hoaxed. Um, which is a possibility that
Speaker 1: we can't completely throw away. But it's just I don't know,
Speaker 1: none of it feels right, or maybe maybe it just
Speaker 1: doesn't amount too much. I guess that's why there's such
Speaker 1: a problem with it when I'm thinking about it. However,
Speaker 1: you can go and see it right now. It's still
Speaker 1: like this, and it's in a museum in the museum
Speaker 1: right oh, yes, the Ruined Stone museum that you can
Speaker 1: visit now, though maybe you don't want to go in person.
Speaker 1: Maybe you can do it virtually, but if you were
Speaker 1: going to go in person, it's at two oh six Broadway, Alexandria,
Speaker 1: Minnesota A five six three oh eight. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a phone number you can call and you can
Speaker 1: see all this stuff and learn more about the runestone itself,
Speaker 1: at least according to the museum at rune Stone Museum
Speaker 1: dot Org. Yep. And while you're there, why not make
Speaker 1: a day of it. Uh. The Runestone Museum is just
Speaker 1: across the way. It's walking distance from the Legacy of
Speaker 1: the Lakes Museum. And uh g, I could you not
Speaker 1: a gigantic Viking statue? Nice? So well, then in the
Speaker 1: runestone by the way at the museum is displayed beautifully.
Speaker 1: It looks incredible. On that website you can you can
Speaker 1: see lots of pictures of it. There's some videos in there.
Speaker 1: There's I think a few ships, like Scandinavian ships, and
Speaker 1: there's a whole Scandinavian heritage exhibit there. That's I mean,
Speaker 1: I would say it's probably gonna be worth your time.
Speaker 1: I'd love to go. Yeah, I agreed. I would also
Speaker 1: love to check this out. You can see the story
Speaker 1: of this, you can get a map of the county there. Uh.
Speaker 1: You can also visit the Kensington room Stone Park, which
Speaker 1: is a short drive from the museum and you can
Speaker 1: learn more at the Kensington Heritage Society. We want to
Speaker 1: say again, there are people like there are people who
Speaker 1: believe that this is an honest the goshness Viking relic,
Speaker 1: and then there are other people, to be candid, the
Speaker 1: majority of academics who believe that it is in some
Speaker 1: way and historical hoax. But don't let that ruin a
Speaker 1: good trip to the museum. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: I I that's one of the only things I miss
Speaker 1: is I miss museums. Miss handshakes. Those are always those
Speaker 1: have always been weird. Hugs hugs are weird, but museums
Speaker 1: are great. Yeah, museums were nice and in zoos yeah,
Speaker 1: well yeah, the Atlanta Zoo is back up and running.
Speaker 1: It's it's got COVID safe precautions in place with they
Speaker 1: only let a certain number of people in and I
Speaker 1: went and it wasn't too bad, And that's a good zoo.
Speaker 1: I think Atlanta's there's a good zoo because it's a
Speaker 1: lot of the animals that are in there wouldn't survive
Speaker 1: in the wild, which maybe some people take issue with
Speaker 1: that version of events. I understand that, but it does
Speaker 1: it's it's okay with me. And just because the Kensington
Speaker 1: room stone is likely a hoax, it doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: Viking relics other Viking relics aren't real. It doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that there are not more strange tales of Free Columbus
Speaker 1: era exploration from Europeans. You'll you'll see all kinds of arguments.
Speaker 1: There's there's one that's pretty interesting about Greek contact in
Speaker 1: the fourth century b C. Because a guy named J.
Speaker 1: Richard Stephie looked at the construction of a Greek ship
Speaker 1: from the fourth century and found they used a mixture
Speaker 1: of a gov leaves and pitch. Where does ave grow? Interesting? Right,
Speaker 1: it's not proof, but it's it's not fire, but it's smoke.
Speaker 1: You can also learn more about theories about the priory
Speaker 1: of psion and things like that which are um of
Speaker 1: varying lausibility and UH and the legend of St. Brendan,
Speaker 1: the Irish monk UH. The list goes on. But I
Speaker 1: think if we are doing due diligence and admitting when
Speaker 1: something seems like a hoax, even though the story about
Speaker 1: it would be cool, I think what we're doing our
Speaker 1: due diligence. There we have to be careful to remember
Speaker 1: that this does not in the sess. This does not
Speaker 1: automatically mean every other controversial historical relic is somehow a hoax.
Speaker 1: And I think it's important that we keep that kind
Speaker 1: of thing in the backs of our minds whenever we're
Speaker 1: exploring something like this, Like even if even if everybody
Speaker 1: says it's a let's at least think about it in
Speaker 1: on the base context of what everybody else is working
Speaker 1: with before passing judgment. I think that's important. And to
Speaker 1: that end, we very much want to know what you
Speaker 1: think about the Kensington run Stone. Uh, and you know
Speaker 1: any other thing that we just mentioned a few moments ago,
Speaker 1: but the Kensington run Stone in particular, have you been,
Speaker 1: have you seen it? Have you heard any tales about it? Um?
Speaker 1: I'd love to know your experience at the museum again,
Speaker 1: just so I can live through through your experience as
Speaker 1: I miss museums along with Ben and Noll and Paul.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you know what other kind of stuff about
Speaker 1: you know, pre contact, pre Columbus contact from Europeans here
Speaker 1: in the America's what do you think about all of
Speaker 1: that stuff? You can contact us. We're all over social
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Speaker 1: Just a name and name, any name will do. An
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Speaker 1: or Doc Holiday and you're in. Or just make Ben laugh. Yes, yes, uh,
Speaker 1: someone had a great, a great pun and I was
Speaker 1: laughing so hard that I just I just approved you.
Speaker 1: And I'm sorry I should have saved it for the air. Uh.
Speaker 1: But yes, yes, let us know. We try to be
Speaker 1: easy to find if you don't sip the social needs. UH.
Speaker 1: If going online is not your bag of badgers, that
Speaker 1: we have a different rune stone for you to hit
Speaker 1: up to contact us. Check out the series of uh
Speaker 1: Nu miracle hieroglyphics on your phone your telephonic device, and
Speaker 1: UH cast a spell you know cast one eight three
Speaker 1: three see it with us st d W. White e
Speaker 1: K and you will speak directly into a void that
Speaker 1: may speak back. That's right. Rel poor one eight three
Speaker 1: three std w y T k Rell poor everyone, Uh whatever,
Speaker 1: my head. Maybe that's all good. There's there's three people
Speaker 1: listening that got that, and I hope you appreciate it
Speaker 1: as much as I do. Yeah, because I think we're
Speaker 1: I think we're lost. Man, were trending. Yes, that's all good. Guys,
Speaker 1: just gather as much blood moss and man man Drake rude.
Speaker 1: I think if you just gather a bunch of that,
Speaker 1: you need those re agents was that one from the
Speaker 1: sky Rim then the dragon yell? Those were rude based,
Speaker 1: weren't they? Yeah, exactly. Hey, And if you don't want
Speaker 1: to do any of that, you can send us a
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