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00:00.
00:52The history that we were all taught growing up is wrong.
00:56My name is Scott Wolter, and I'm a forensic geologist.
01:00There's a hidden history in this country that nobody knows about.
01:03There are pyramids here, chambers, tombs, inscriptions, they're all over this country.
01:11We're going to investigate these artifacts and sites, and we're going to get to the truth.
01:15Sometimes history isn't what we've been told.
01:37As a forensic geologist, I rely on the study of rocks to learn more about our own history.
01:43And throughout my career, there have been several artifacts that I constantly return to.
01:49One of them is called the Bat Creek Stone.
01:51Though small in size, it's considered one of archaeology's biggest mysteries.
01:57I first learned about it during an unrelated investigation back in 2008.
02:11I was examining some cave inscriptions with a woman named Leslie Kalin.
02:15When she told me about the stone and how it's inscribed with strange writing, I was immediately intrigued and had
02:22to know more.
02:23The Bat Creek Stone was discovered back in 1889 in a Native American burial mound in Loudoun County, Tennessee, along
02:31with jewelry and nine human skeletons.
02:35The writing on the stone was first thought to be a form of Cherokee script.
02:40Later, it was determined to be an ancient form of Hebrew.
02:45Why would a stone with Hebrew writing be buried in a Native American mound?
02:51After years of research, a possible connection began to emerge.
02:55Could the stone be an ancient Hebrew land claim?
02:58Possibly from the Lost Tribes of Israel?
03:02The Lost Tribes of Israel are ten tribes that disappeared from the Holy Land in 722 BC after the Assyrians
03:09waged a bloody battle against them.
03:13To this day, no one knows if they died, escaped, or assimilated into the population.
03:19Some believe they traveled to America to build a new Jerusalem.
03:25The Smithsonian officially owns the Bat Creek Stone.
03:29But it's housed at the McClung Museum in Knoxville, Tennessee.
03:33Leslie's father, a Cherokee elder, helped me get permission to study the stone which I examined in 2010.
03:40Now, I'm returning to Tennessee to examine it using state-of-the-art technology.
03:45I hope looking at it with a 3D microscope will help determine if the stone is an ancient relic of
03:51the Lost Tribes of Israel or something else.
04:15Before my re-examination, I'm meeting with Leslie Kalin again to see what she knows about this mysterious artifact,
04:22and any connections between the Lost Tribes of Israel and the Native American site where the stone was found.
04:29So aside from the inscription, is there any evidence of an early Hebrew connection with people or places in Tennessee?
04:38I think that some of my people believe that we might be descendants from the Lost Tribe.
04:44My grandfather told me that he felt that we had a Jewish connection,
04:50maybe even possibly be part of the Lost Tribe of Israel.
04:53There is a group called the Central Band of Cherokees.
04:57They believe that they are direct descendants of the Lost Tribe of Israel.
05:25On my way to the McClung Museum, I can't stop thinking about what Leslie said.
05:32As a scientist, I focus on facts, but in this case, I can't ignore the oral tradition.
05:38If some Cherokee people believe they're connected to the Lost Tribes of Israel,
05:42maybe there's something to it.
05:49Here it is.
05:51All right.
05:51It's got it fresh off the exhibit for you.
05:55I'm really excited to look at the Bad Creek Stone.
05:58With the new technology, this Keyens 3D microscope,
06:01that's going to hopefully help answer the question, is it authentic or not?
06:06And that's part of why you're studying it.
06:08There is some controversy about the stone.
06:10Can you give me just a brief synopsis as you understand the history of the Bad Creek Stone?
06:14Yeah, I mean, it has a very interesting history.
06:15It was part of the Smithsonian's Bureau Ethnology's mound survey that Cyrus Thomas was leading
06:21to try to understand what they call at the time the mystery of the mound builders
06:25of who actually built these things.
06:26And one of those excavations was done in Loudoun County, Tennessee,
06:30at the intersection of Bad Creek with the Little Tennessee River.
06:33Right.
06:34And they excavated a couple of mounds there,
06:35and one of them was a burial mound where they actually found the Bad Creek Stone.
06:40A scientist named Cyrus Thomas was in charge of the mound survey.
06:45Initially, he thought the mounds were the work of some advanced race which no longer existed.
06:50Eventually, he went on record with his belief that the Cherokee people were somehow connected
06:55to the prehistoric mound builders.
06:59Some critics believe John Emmer, the field archaeologist working on the project who found the Bad Creek Stone,
07:05may have planted the artifact to get in good with his boss.
07:10He was actually, at one point, fired from the Smithsonian and was rehired.
07:16And this was one of his first projects after being rehired.
07:19Did that actually influence him in what he did or didn't do?
07:24And that, we'll never know.
07:25Beyond the Bad Creek Stone, there are other stone tablets and other things that clearly were hoaxes.
07:31You have found fakes.
07:32Oh, yeah.
07:33There are things out there.
07:34I have found fakes, but I have also found things like the Kensington Runestone is absolutely genuine.
07:42The Bad Creek Stone is one of the classic examples of bad science run amok.
07:50Everybody's got an opinion, and you know what they're worth in many cases.
07:54The rocks don't have bad days.
07:57They don't care.
07:58They just are.
07:59So, we go back to the science.
08:01And I always say, I let the rocks talk.
08:09And I always say, I'm wrong.
08:15That's not true.
08:16I'm wrong.
08:16I'm wrong.
08:18I'm wrong.
08:23I can't say.
08:23Who's wrong?
08:25I can't say I can't say anything.
08:34I can't say I can't say anything.
08:35The Bat Creek Stone was found in a Native American burial mound in the 1880s.
08:40Some people think it's a hoax.
08:43They suspect the guy who found the stone faked its inscription to get in good with his boss at the
08:48Smithsonian.
08:50I'm not buying that.
08:52I think the stone may prove Jewish people made it to America before Columbus.
08:58This artifact could even be connected to the lost tribes of Israel.
09:03They're famous for vanishing without a trace in 722 B.C.
09:09Some Cherokee people in Tennessee think they have a connection to the lost tribes.
09:14I've studied the Bat Creek Stone once, but now I'm back in Tennessee to examine it with the latest technology.
09:21If I can figure out how old the carvings are on the stone, using 3D analysis,
09:27it would go a long way toward solving the lost tribe's mystery.
09:32I want to show you something here that I think is pretty important.
09:36This is the very first picture taken of the Bat Creek Stone, 1894.
09:40If you look in this area right here, there are no scratches.
09:46But in this 1971 photograph, you can see there are two scratches.
09:51Clearly.
09:52Clearly they were added after the stone was found.
09:54Right.
09:55Do you have any thoughts on why that might have happened or how that may have happened?
09:58Well, I mean, there's two things that could happen.
10:00It could have been accidentally scratched in some form or fashion,
10:03or it could be somebody trying to do some sort of early testing before 3D imaging
10:08to see what it's made of and how easy it is to scratch and things like that.
10:12We will do some test scratches like that sometimes.
10:15What's important about this is these serve as excellent control samples for me
10:20to compare with the original inscription to see if they're the same.
10:24Hopefully this machine can tell us some more today.
10:36We start by examining the modern scratch.
10:39I'm not sure if this mark was made accidentally or on purpose.
10:44It doesn't matter.
10:45What does matter is that this scratch may be able to help prove the authenticity of the Bat Creek Stone.
10:51When they scratch the stone, it will generate secondary material that's left behind.
10:58And we see that here in the freshly scratched surface.
11:02Whenever you scratch a stone, you leave stuff behind, deposits from making the mark.
11:07The fact that we see residue in this microscopic view speaks to the fact that this is a recent carving.
11:14Because we're looking at a recent scratch, it would make sense some of that material is still there.
11:20No polish marks.
11:21It's clearly rough.
11:22I mean, it's something that was intentional, but not to be beautiful.
11:27Yes.
11:29So let's take a look at the original inscription.
11:32If it was fresh like the scratch, we would see secondary material in there, and we don't see that.
11:41Well, as you can see here, we don't have any of those deposits that we saw on the fresh scratch.
11:46They're completely gone.
11:48It's clean as a whistle.
11:49It's completely weathered away.
11:51The weathering is key because to get that weathering profile took time.
11:57We've got nice rounded edges, and the polished surface looks nothing like the fresh scratch.
12:03Right.
12:03In Emmert's notes, the first time he mentions a stone, he said it was a polished stone.
12:09You can see the scratches going into the grooves after it was carved.
12:14So clearly that indicates the inscription was carved first, then it was polished.
12:19The inscription on the bat creek stone was clearly polished, unlike those new scratches, which weren't polished at all.
12:27By polishing it, that tells you that they're treating this with care, that it has meaning to them, and maybe
12:35even sacred.
12:36If Emmert faked the inscription, it would look newer, more like the modern scratches, but the inscription looks really old.
12:45So here's the question for you.
12:46Can that be fake?
12:48You can make a charge that somebody did something anytime you want, but making it stick is the key thing.
12:56We've talked a lot about the inscription, but we haven't really talked about what it says.
13:02One of the top Semitic scholars in the world at that time has translated the inscription as, for the Judeans.
13:09The Judeans were a Jewish people who occupied a mountainous region called Judea, which today is Israel's west bank and
13:17the northern Negev desert.
13:19The region was named after the biblical tribe of Judah, one of the lost tribes of Israel.
13:26If the bat creek stone really does bear the inscription, for the Judeans, it could be a significant clue that
13:33suggests the lost tribes came to America.
13:37There's been some other interpretation as well, nothing too drastically different.
13:41How old do you think that is?
13:43How much older do you think that is than those modern scratches?
13:45The type of work that I do is what I call relative age dating.
13:49It's older than this, it's younger than that.
13:51We know this is this old, we know this is this old.
13:54It's in between, so it has to fall somewhere in the middle.
13:57By looking at the weathering of the original inscription, comparing it with the modern scratches, to me, that says it
14:06wasn't made during modern times.
14:09Emmer said he pulled it from the mound.
14:11I've seen no evidence to question that.
14:13The other thing I think that's very important is this double-barred cross of Lorraine,
14:19which was used by early Jewish groups and is a symbol of the crucifixion.
14:23That would not be consistent with the lost tribes of Israel if it represented the crucifixion.
14:29I mean, we're talking about a group that disappeared around 700 B.C.
14:33And the crucifixion, obviously, is 800 years later in this particular case.
14:39Yeah, obviously.
14:40Wrong time.
14:42After taking a closer look at the cross of Lorraine, I still don't have enough information to definitively connect the
14:49lost tribes of Israel with the Bat Creek Stone.
14:52Still, this is a mysterious artifact with Hebrew on it.
14:56I've looked at others, too.
14:58They make me wonder, who created them, when, and why?
15:03I'm very comfortable that the Bat Creek Stone, all evidence here, to me indicates that it looks to be a
15:09genuine artifact.
15:10But there are other artifacts that have been found in North America, pre-Columbian artifacts, with Hebrew inscriptions on them.
15:17I've investigated Ohio's Decalogue Stone.
15:20It has a shortened version of the Ten Commandments on it, written in Paleo-Hebrew.
15:26Same story in Las Lunas, New Mexico, where there's a similar artifact, also called the Decalogue Stone, with the Ten
15:33Commandments on it.
15:35And in Arizona, more Hebrew, on the Tucson-led artifacts, a collection of authentic ritual objects pulled from the desert
15:43in 1924.
15:45I have to wonder if all these things are markers on a trail left by Hebrew people long ago.
15:52There's a person that I'm going to go visit and talk to a little bit more about the Bat Creek
15:56Stone and about some other artifacts.
15:59Part of the science of all this is actually having a dialogue and talking to different scholars, different perspectives and
16:05expertise.
16:06We've had a good exchange today, but now I want to ask you, Tim, are you convinced by what you've
16:11seen here today that the Bat Creek Stone is a genuine pre-Columbian Hebrew artifact?
16:37Well, let's see.
16:40It's only� sexoos.
16:48Well, Tim, you are the curator here at the McClung Museum
16:52that houses the Bat Creek Stone artifact.
16:54We've just spent a good part of the day looking at brand new data.
16:58So based on everything you've seen,
17:01do you think that the Bat Creek Stone is a genuine pre-Columbian Hebrew artifact?
17:06I'm not completely convinced yet, but you did show me some things today
17:10I didn't expect.
17:12There's some potential other things that need to be done
17:15before I can say, yes, you have an authentic stone.
17:18But your mind is open.
17:19Oh, as a scientist, your mind is always open.
17:22I have to say that I'm convinced this is a genuine artifact,
17:25but I'm all about collecting more data.
17:27I'm going to go see if I can find some more evidence
17:30of some early Hebrew culture coming to North America prior to Columbus,
17:35long before Columbus, possibly the Lost Tribes of Israel.
17:58I'm on my way to see an artifact expert named Hugh McCullough.
18:02He studied the Bat Creek Stone
18:04and other artifacts found inside the burial mound.
18:08A while back, Hugh showed me another allegedly Hebrew artifact
18:12called the Decalogue Stone in Coshocton, Ohio.
18:17Today we're meeting in another part of Ohio
18:19at a national park known for its mounds.
18:24Well, Hugh, it's good to see you again.
18:25Good to see you, Scott, and welcome to Ohio.
18:27Tell me what you found in Tennessee.
18:29You looked at the Bat Creek Stone down there?
18:32I had a chance to look at the artifact with my new technology,
18:36the 3D digital microscope.
18:37I was able to confirm that the weathering of the inscription is indeed old.
18:44There's no question that the Bat Creek Stone is not a hoax.
18:47It's a genuine artifact.
18:49And the fact that it's Paleo-Hebrew says to me
18:52that it has to be an early Jewish group
18:54that created it, possibly the Lost Tribes.
18:57Well, I agree it's a Jewish artifact.
18:59So I think it's very exciting.
19:02Tell me a little bit about the testing that you did back in the 1980s.
19:05There were some wooden ear spools found with the stone.
19:08Wooden ear spools.
19:09Tell me a little bit.
19:10What are those?
19:11The Hopewell and many other cultures use these ear spools.
19:14They're just decorative ear spools.
19:15They stretch the ears.
19:16We were able to get a carbon date on those
19:18that was somewhere between 32 and 769 A.D.
19:22So, Hugh, based on the data,
19:24it doesn't look like this is the Lost Tribes,
19:26who were probably around 722 B.C.
19:29This is something more in the first century, right?
19:32If you look at the inscription here...
19:39Here's your photo of the Bat Creek Stone.
19:42And the style of the letters
19:44most closely matches that of the Jewish war coins
19:46of the 65 to 70 A.D.
19:50The letter style matches almost perfectly.
19:52There would have been an incentive at that time
19:53for Jewish people to emigrate
19:55because if they stayed behind,
19:58they would have been nailed to a cross
20:00or fed to the lions or enslaved.
20:03Around 70 A.D.,
20:05Jews and their Roman rulers
20:06were fighting over unfair taxation,
20:09disrespect for the Jewish faith,
20:11and accusations of theft.
20:13The rebellion, known as the Great Revolt,
20:15was eventually crushed by the Romans.
20:18Four years later, Jerusalem was captured
20:21and 100,000 Jews were killed or sold into slavery.
20:27The big question,
20:29did other Jews escape
20:31and find their way to America?
20:33There's another piece of evidence here, too,
20:35that jumps out at me
20:36is this double-barred cross.
20:38That's probably one of the earliest,
20:39if not the earliest, versions
20:40of the Cross of Lorraine.
20:42The Cross of Lorraine
20:43is symbolic of the crucifixion,
20:45which would have been sometime
20:46in the middle, late 1st century,
20:47consistent with an early Jewish group
20:50in the 1st or 2nd century.
20:53All the testing that you had done,
20:55the testing of the ear spools
20:56and the script,
20:58all do overlap about what time?
21:01Around the 1st century A.D.
21:02So you've got consistency
21:04from different points.
21:05Now we have the geology work
21:07that I've done
21:08as far as the weathering
21:09indicating that it's very old,
21:11that it's not a modern hoax.
21:13Based on all of this,
21:14we have apparently
21:15a 1st or 2nd century Jewish artifact
21:18found in the Native American Indian mound,
21:21and its historical importance
21:22cannot be overstated.
21:24I'd agree with you, Scott,
21:25but there's one more piece of evidence
21:27I want to show you
21:28which is even bigger in a sense.
21:30I'm interested.
21:30Let's go.
21:34It's becoming clear to me
21:36the Bat Creek stone
21:37and the ear spools
21:38found in the same burial mound
21:40don't go back far enough
21:41to be connected
21:42to the lost tribes of Israel.
21:44I keep wondering,
21:45who left these things
21:47and what does it all mean?
21:52So this is a photocopy
21:54of a map
21:55that was made
21:56by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
21:581823,
21:59of some earthworks
22:00here in Ohio.
22:02Earthworks,
22:02also known as mounds,
22:04are intentional changes
22:05in land level.
22:07These sculpted piles
22:08of rocks and soil
22:09are often ancient,
22:11mysterious,
22:12and massive.
22:13What does this portion
22:14up here look like here?
22:17Well, that looks like
22:18a menorah.
22:19Right.
22:20Is that what that is?
22:21Well, it's what it looks like.
22:23The menorah,
22:24also called a Hanukkiah,
22:26is the symbol of Hanukkah.
22:28The eight-day Jewish holiday
22:30celebrates the rededication
22:31of their temple
22:32after years of fighting.
22:35The Hanukkah story tells
22:36how soldiers
22:37who recaptured the temple
22:39had only enough oil
22:40for one night,
22:41but miraculously,
22:43it lasted for eight.
22:46So let me get this straight.
22:48Somebody in the distant past
22:49built this earthwork
22:51that's traditionally
22:52Native American
22:53in the shape of a menorah?
22:55Well, if we didn't have
22:56the Bat Creek Stone
22:56and the Decalogue Stone,
22:57I'd be totally bewildered.
23:00A Jewish idea like this
23:01is not so strange
23:02after all, maybe.
23:03Experts believe
23:04the Hopewell people
23:05built both the Hanukkah
23:06earthworks
23:07on the Army Corps map
23:08as well as all the mounds
23:10surrounding us here
23:11at Hopewell Culture
23:12National Park.
23:14I mean, that looks like
23:16a lamp, an oil lamp.
23:17Right, right.
23:17It looks like the oil lamp
23:18that was supposed
23:19to have burned.
23:20What else can it be?
23:21What else can it be?
23:22Yeah.
23:23Well, let me ask you this.
23:24This is a beautiful place,
23:25but why didn't you
23:26take me here?
23:26This map was made in 1823,
23:28but by 1848,
23:30it was pretty much plowed over
23:31and not visible
23:32from the ground anymore.
23:33So it's been
23:34basically destroyed.
23:35Right.
23:35So it was a huge structure.
23:37This is only 13 acres here,
23:38and this is 100 acres.
23:39Wow, almost 10 times bigger.
23:41We know that Thomas Jefferson
23:43was actually very interested
23:44in this particular earthwork.
23:45It goes back to 1803,
23:47even when he was president.
23:48He asked a general
23:50to draw these
23:51very same earthworks.
23:53The reason for Jefferson's interest?
23:55The Louisiana Purchase.
23:57The U.S. bought Louisiana
23:59from the French.
24:00They had taken it
24:02from the Spanish.
24:04Jefferson wanted to prove
24:06others were here
24:07in America earlier,
24:08so Spain couldn't say
24:09Louisiana or any other land
24:11belonged to them.
24:14I recently investigated
24:15the notion that Lewis and Clark
24:17were assigned to look for
24:19evidence of Welsh contact.
24:21I looked at the Brandenburg Stone
24:22as one possibility
24:23that that may have been
24:24carved by the Welsh.
24:26He was also interested
24:27in the possibility
24:28of the lost tribes of Israel,
24:29so he even asked Lewis and Clark
24:31to look for them.
24:32So he was covering
24:33all the bases.
24:34Roman or Greek or Phoenician,
24:36he would have been
24:36just as happy
24:38to prove it wasn't the Spanish.
24:40I think there was
24:40a diplomatic interest there.
24:42I'll bet you in his back pocket
24:43he had this right here.
24:45You know, an earthwork like this,
24:48I mean, to me,
24:48this just screams
24:49an early Jewish culture,
24:52but there's something more
24:53that's significant here.
24:54This is a massive mound.
24:55This isn't something done
24:56by one or two
24:57or a few people.
24:58This involved a lot of people, right?
25:00This earthworks
25:03would have required
25:04a whole community
25:05years to build.
25:07The whole community
25:08was dedicated to building
25:11this particular symbol,
25:12and therefore,
25:13it's a much deeper involvement
25:14with the indigenous culture
25:16than the other artifacts.
25:18I would agree with you.
25:19I think collectively, though,
25:20they're all important.
25:22It seems clear to me
25:23that these artifacts
25:24don't have anything to do
25:26with the lost tribes.
25:27Others may be,
25:28but not these.
25:29So it begs the question,
25:31if the lost tribes
25:32didn't create these artifacts,
25:34who did?
25:47By studying the Bat Creek Stone,
25:49a mysterious artifact
25:50found in a Tennessee burial mound
25:52more than 100 years ago,
25:54I confirmed that its inscription
25:55is much older
25:57than its discovery date.
25:59It's carved with a message
26:01for the Judeans.
26:03Judea is a region in Israel,
26:05and the writing style
26:07is consistent with Jews
26:08after the turn
26:09of the first century.
26:11Could a group of them
26:12have been here
26:12in America at that time?
26:15That would rule out
26:16my initial theory,
26:18the lost tribes of Israel,
26:19who went missing
26:20from history much earlier.
26:21But I think there's a chance
26:23the lost tribes' descendants
26:25might be responsible.
26:27I'm going to meet
26:28a local rabbi.
26:29If I can learn more
26:30about the history
26:31of Jewish people
26:32coming to America,
26:33it could help me solve
26:35the mystery
26:35of the Bat Creek Stone
26:36and the menorah-shaped mounds
26:38I just learned about.
26:58Rabbi, how are you doing?
27:00I'm investigating
27:01ancient Hebrews
27:02here in the United States,
27:04and I want to try
27:05to figure out
27:05who's responsible.
27:06But I want to know
27:07a little bit more
27:08about early Jews
27:09coming to America.
27:10What do you know about that?
27:11So what we do know
27:12is that Columbus
27:13came in 1492,
27:15and with him,
27:16he brought Jews.
27:18And the first question
27:19that begs is,
27:20well, why on earth
27:21would he do that?
27:22And he believed
27:23at the time
27:23that there were potentially
27:24in the new world
27:25these lost tribes.
27:27You would want people
27:28who he thought
27:30could communicate with them.
27:32Well, that's interesting
27:33that Jews traveled
27:35with Columbus.
27:36Aren't there some rumors
27:37that people thought
27:38that maybe he was Jewish himself?
27:39There's a big controversy,
27:41and I'll leave this
27:41to historians
27:42to resolve that,
27:43but even if he wasn't Jewish,
27:45he certainly had Jewish companions,
27:48understood the Jewish community,
27:49and was keen on discovering
27:51the lost tribes.
27:52There was a lot
27:53of persecution going on,
27:54wasn't there?
27:55Up until 1492,
27:56we talk about historically
27:58as the golden age of Spain
27:59for the Jews,
27:59and things had been going there
28:01pretty well.
28:02Jews were relatively
28:03left alone
28:04to thrive in business
28:06and religious tradition
28:07and what have you,
28:07and then we get this edict
28:10in 1492,
28:11and people were left
28:13with just a horrible choice,
28:15either die by the sword
28:16or convert.
28:19Though 1492 is best known
28:21as the year Columbus
28:22sailed the ocean blue,
28:24it was also an infamous year
28:26for the persecution
28:27of Jewish people.
28:29There was the burning
28:30at the stake
28:31of 24 Jews in Germany
28:33and the expulsion
28:34of 100,000 in Sicily.
28:36The worst persecution?
28:38The edict of expulsion
28:40in Spain,
28:41which gave Jews
28:42four months
28:42to leave Spain,
28:44convert to Catholicism,
28:45or face death.
28:47The rabbis,
28:48some said,
28:49better to survive,
28:51even if you have to convert
28:52to Catholicism,
28:53your life is more important,
28:54and others said,
28:55no, it's better
28:55to be a martyr
28:56and to die
28:57than to ever worship
28:58in ways that are inauthentic
29:00and you don't believe.
29:00Tens of thousands
29:02of them died,
29:03but we also know
29:04that thousands of them
29:06converted to Catholicism
29:08and still maintained
29:09their religious Jewish
29:11traditions at home.
29:12We call those people
29:14who were forced
29:15to convert conversos.
29:16So they were secretly Jewish,
29:18but they were outwardly Catholic.
29:20These conversos,
29:21or what are sometimes
29:22also called crypto-Jews,
29:24were practicing Catholicism,
29:26but practicing their Judaism
29:27in the closet.
29:28Everything from
29:29lighting candles
29:31in private
29:31on Friday nights
29:32to refraining
29:33from eating pork
29:34and following the kosher laws.
29:36So these conversos
29:37really tried to maintain
29:38some sense
29:40of their Jewish identity,
29:42and they carried that
29:43to the new world
29:44with them.
29:44We know that
29:45many of the conversos,
29:47the crypto-Jews,
29:48made their way
29:49to the northern frontier
29:50of Mexico
29:51in what is now
29:52New Mexico
29:53and the American Southwest.
29:55It makes perfect sense.
29:56I mean,
29:57this is something
29:58that many people have done,
29:59many religions have done,
30:01is come to the Americas
30:02to practice
30:03freedom of religion.
30:05Even today,
30:06there continue to be
30:07many Latino families
30:09who are outwardly practicing
30:11Catholicism
30:12or Christianity,
30:13but who privately
30:14continue to observe
30:15some of these Jewish rituals
30:17that have been passed
30:18down to them over time.
30:20Well, in this case,
30:21you're talking about
30:21modern-day people
30:22that are practicing rituals
30:24that date back possibly
30:25as far as the 15th century.
30:27I've been looking at artifacts
30:28that go back much further.
30:30One example is
30:31the Bat Creekstone,
30:32and the language
30:33is early Semitic script
30:35that some scholars say
30:37dates back to the 1st century.
30:39So I'm really interested
30:40in trying to get
30:41to the bottom of this
30:41and find anything I can
30:43that might be related.
30:44Is there anything
30:45that you know of
30:46that could possibly be related
30:47to what could be
30:50ancient Jewish writing?
30:53I can't claim
30:54to the veracity of this,
30:55but there is a woman
30:57in New Mexico
30:57who claimed to have found this
30:58on her father's property,
30:59and there are some historians
31:02who believe
31:02that this evidence
31:03is early, potentially,
31:06Semitic or Hebrew writing.
31:08Perhaps there's something there.
31:10What the rabbi is showing me
31:11isn't the only carving
31:12with a Hebrew connection
31:14in New Mexico.
31:15There's another one
31:16called the Las Lunas
31:17Decalogue Stone,
31:18and the Ten Commandments
31:20are carved on it
31:21in Paleo-Hebrew.
31:24Maybe there's a connection
31:25between that boulder
31:26and the petroglyph pictures
31:27which the rabbi
31:28is showing me.
31:31The thing that's really
31:32jumping out
31:33is it looks weathered.
31:34If this is down
31:35in New Mexico,
31:36and there's any possibility
31:37that this could be
31:38old Hebrew
31:38or old Jewish writing,
31:40I'm going to have
31:40to check this out.
32:00In my investigation,
32:02there's one thing
32:02I know for certain.
32:04Much of what we think
32:05we know about our history
32:06is wrong.
32:08We know Jewish people
32:09came to America
32:10with Columbus,
32:12and the Bat Creekstone
32:13proves they came here
32:14in the first century, too.
32:16But there may be others,
32:17perhaps the Lost Tribes,
32:19who came here
32:20even earlier.
32:21And the people
32:22I'm about to meet
32:23may have found proof.
32:28Are you Stacy?
32:29I am.
32:30This is my friend Ron.
32:31Hi, Ron.
32:32It's been my pleasure.
32:34I'm investigating
32:35the likelihood
32:36that there were
32:37ancient Hebrew tribes,
32:39people that came here
32:40from across the Atlantic
32:42going back at least
32:43hundreds of years,
32:44perhaps thousands.
32:45I recently talked
32:46to a rabbi friend of mine
32:48back in Minneapolis
32:49who said there were
32:50Hebrew carvings down here.
32:51Tell me about them.
32:52We have found several
32:54on my dad's land
32:55up here.
32:56And Ron found many
32:58of these all around
32:59New Mexico.
33:00All of these drawings
33:01that we're anxious
33:03for you to look at.
33:04Well, I've got these pictures
33:05from a friend of mine,
33:06Jimmy's ranch.
33:07So what are these?
33:08They're ligatures
33:09that's written
33:10in a script form
33:11that makes it easier
33:12for people that know
33:13the language
33:13and people that don't
33:14to understand
33:15in a picture.
33:16I mean,
33:17the earliest communication
33:18that humans had
33:19was through pictures.
33:21Maybe that's what
33:21we have going on here.
33:22These look fascinating.
33:24Maybe we should go
33:25take a look at them.
33:25What do you say?
33:26Yeah.
33:26Let's go.
33:27You have a four-wheel drive.
33:28It's pretty rough
33:28and remote out there.
33:29I got it covered.
33:31Let's go.
33:32Okay.
33:41Let's go.
34:14I'm in New Mexico
34:15looking for ligatures.
34:17They're symbols
34:17that take on new meaning
34:19when they're combined.
34:20They could be evidence
34:22that Jews came to America
34:23long before Columbus.
34:26Maybe they were clues
34:27left by members
34:28of the legendary
34:29lost tribes of Israel,
34:30Jewish tribes
34:31that went missing
34:32in 722 B.C.
34:35I'm heading
34:36to the discovery site
34:37to see for myself.
34:52So, Ron,
34:53you have to tell me,
34:53how did you find these things?
34:55I was building
34:55these roads through here
34:56and got out of the bulldozer
34:58and ran across
34:59and just saw this
35:00over here
35:00on the side of the rocks.
35:02This is not the first time
35:03I've seen evidence here
35:05in North America
35:06of early Hebrews
35:07coming here.
35:08I mean,
35:09I've looked at
35:09the Decalogue stone,
35:11the Bad Creek stone,
35:12the Tucson-led artifacts,
35:14and the Hanukkah earthworks
35:16absolutely suggest
35:17that there were
35:18early Jews here in America
35:20long before Columbus.
35:22and we certainly
35:23weren't taught that
35:23in school,
35:24were we?
35:24No, no.
35:31Here we are.
35:36Wow,
35:37what do you think of that?
35:38Well, Ron,
35:39not only is it rugged
35:40out here,
35:41but it's remote.
35:42I mean,
35:43why would somebody
35:44come out here
35:44to carve a hoax
35:46or graffiti?
35:47I mean,
35:47nobody would see it.
35:49This whole panel
35:50is full of carvings
35:53and up there, too.
35:56It would be easy
35:57to assume
35:58these are Native American
35:59petroglyphs,
36:00but I don't think they are.
36:02I've never seen anything
36:03quite like this before.
36:05You see this dark
36:06surface on this rock?
36:08This developed over
36:09at least hundreds of years,
36:11probably thousands of years.
36:12You can actually see
36:13where some of the edges
36:15have spalled.
36:15You see how it's almost white,
36:17sort of a tan color?
36:18Well,
36:18that's what these
36:19would have looked like
36:20when they were first made.
36:21But they're dark.
36:23They're almost black,
36:24like the background rock
36:26that they're carved into.
36:27This is definitely
36:28not modern.
36:35This is my handheld
36:36portable microscope.
36:39And you can see
36:40how dark that is.
36:44You know,
36:44another thing
36:45that jumps out
36:45at me right away
36:46that I'm sure
36:48that I'm sure you guys
36:48have noticed
36:49that they didn't take
36:50a hammer and chisel.
36:51This was carved
36:53with rocks.
36:53And they used
36:54a pecking technique.
36:56Can you see that?
36:57It's like it's pitted.
36:59I saw something
37:00on the way in
37:01that could help us
37:01put a date
37:02on these carvings.
37:04It's the sort of thing
37:05many people frown upon.
37:06But as a geologist,
37:08I can find some value in it.
37:10It's graffiti.
37:11Let's go take a look
37:12at this other site.
37:28Huh.
37:33That's what I wanted
37:34to show you.
37:35You can see that
37:37this is fresh looking.
37:39It's carved
37:40into the same
37:41dark surface.
37:42This one's dated 1892.
37:44It looks like
37:45it was carved yesterday.
37:46Some other carvings here,
37:481925, 1924, 1919.
37:51And they all look fresh.
37:53I mean,
37:54this is just a quick
37:55and dirty comparison,
37:56but you can see
37:57this looks a lot different
37:58than what we have back there.
37:59It's pretty dramatic,
38:01isn't it?
38:13It's definitely older
38:15than 120 years,
38:17easily hundreds of years old.
38:19Who knows how far back?
38:20So at this point,
38:22it becomes important
38:22to talk to the experts
38:24in this script.
38:25And my question is,
38:26do we know
38:27what this script is?
38:28Right.
38:28Well, we did reach out
38:30to a few experts
38:31and they dated it
38:32to the 15th century B.C.
38:3615th century B.C.?
38:37B.C.
38:38That's 3,500 years ago.
38:41It's a script
38:42that predates
38:44the Hebrew alphabet.
38:46Okay.
38:46What's it called?
38:47It's called Old Negev.
38:50Old Negev
38:51is an ancient script.
38:53Experts believe
38:54it was developed
38:55by ancestors
38:56of the biblical Abraham,
38:57who worked
38:58in the Egyptian mines
38:59in West Central Sinai.
39:01The laborers needed
39:03a way to express
39:04their language
39:04in writing.
39:06Some consider
39:07Old Negev
39:08to be a precursor
39:10to Phoenician,
39:11Paleo-Hebrew,
39:12and early Arabic scripts.
39:15The name Negev
39:16came up
39:17when I examined
39:18the Back Creek Stone
39:19in Tennessee.
39:20Its inscription reads
39:21For the Judeans.
39:23The Judeans lived
39:24in what's now
39:25the northern Negev Desert.
39:28The people we reached out
39:29to gave us
39:30some rough translations
39:31of this.
39:32So it's read
39:33right to left?
39:34It's, yeah,
39:34from right to left.
39:36So we're talking
39:36in this area here,
39:37woe and sorrow,
39:39on this inscription
39:40in here.
39:41Okay.
39:42And then we move
39:43over here to this,
39:44and this would be
39:44to cover or veil.
39:49This one right down here
39:51would be sunburnt or black,
39:54and it's talking about
39:55brothers and relatives,
39:57fellow man and friend
39:58to cry out
39:58or call for help.
39:59Talking about woe
40:01and sorrow
40:01and sunburnt,
40:03there is a rock shelter here.
40:05It would provide
40:05protection from the sun.
40:07So maybe this is
40:08where they took refuge
40:09during a long journey
40:10and took the time
40:12to carve this.
40:13And we're talking
40:14old Negev script.
40:16That's 3,500 years ago.
40:18The weathering
40:19of this inscription
40:20could certainly
40:21be that old.
40:23My gosh,
40:23that's 700 years
40:25before the Lost Tribes.
40:26Well, we don't know
40:27if this is that old,
40:28but if it is that old,
40:30I mean,
40:30that would be amazing,
40:31wouldn't it?
40:32Yeah.
40:33That is so interesting
40:34that you say
40:34the Lost Tribes
40:35because there is
40:37one figure on here
40:39that a friend of mine
40:40who lived in Israel
40:41for several years
40:42said is associated
40:43with the tribe of Judah.
40:45This isn't the first time
40:47in this investigation
40:48that the name Judah
40:49has come up.
40:51The Bat Creek Stone
40:52inscription reads
40:53for the Judeans
40:55in Paleo-Hebrew.
40:57Judea is a region
40:59named after
40:59the tribe of Judah.
41:01The tribe of Judah,
41:02that's Jesus' tribe.
41:03Right.
41:04And if this is indeed
41:063,500 years old,
41:07that would be 1,500 years
41:09before Jesus.
41:10So this would have been
41:12his distant ancestors
41:13that could have used
41:14this script.
41:15But the other possibility
41:17is that this could have been
41:18a group that came later.
41:20We don't know.
41:21Sometimes people will use
41:22outdated languages
41:23far into the future.
41:25I mean,
41:26the Catholics still use
41:27Latin during Mass,
41:28and in our culture today,
41:30Latin is essentially
41:30a dead language.
41:31Yeah.
41:32So the Lost Tribes
41:34being responsible for this,
41:35I guess,
41:35is still on the table.
41:38Whoever this group is
41:40traveled far and wide,
41:42it sounds like.
41:42There's going to be
41:43archaeologists
41:44that are going to watch this
41:45and they're going to scoff
41:46when what they should be doing
41:48is respecting the work
41:49that we're trying to do here.
41:51The argument that the oceans
41:53were these vast,
41:54impenetrable barriers,
41:56to me,
41:56is ridiculous.
41:58Here, yet another group
41:59probably did come over here
42:01in the distant past.
42:09The Bat Creek Stone
42:11is physically small
42:12compared to a lot of things
42:13I investigate.
42:14But there's a big mystery
42:16attached to it.
42:17After studying the Bat Creek Stone
42:19with my 3D microscope
42:21and meeting with someone else
42:22who studied it,
42:23I'm convinced
42:24it's not a hoax.
42:27I think it was left
42:28in America
42:28by a first-century
42:30Jewish group,
42:31but I can't say for sure
42:32who they were
42:33or why they left it.
42:36I no longer think
42:37the Lost Tribes
42:38were involved.
42:39The timing's just not right.
42:42But the Bat Creek Stone
42:44does connect early Jews
42:45with pre-Columbian America.
42:49Decalogue stones
42:50with the Ten Commandments,
42:52earthworks shaped
42:53like a menorah,
42:54and strange petroglyphs
42:56in the Southwest
42:56also point to unexpected
42:59Jewish visitors
43:00to the New World.
43:05Whatever happened
43:06to the Lost Tribes of Israel
43:07when they disappeared
43:08in 722 B.C.
43:10is still a mystery.
43:12But it's one I hope
43:13to solve someday.
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