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00:28This is a production of the U.S. Department of Education.
00:30I don't know.
01:01I don't know.
01:30I don't know.
01:32I don't know.
02:02There's a hidden history in this country that nobody knows about.
02:06There are pyramids here, chambers, tombs, inscriptions.
02:10They're all over this country.
02:13We're going to investigate these artifacts and sites, and we're going to get to the truth.
02:17Sometimes history isn't what we've been told.
02:30Rockwall, Texas.
02:31Population, 38,000.
02:34Claim to fame, the mysterious wall said to snake for miles beneath the city.
02:40Three farmers stumbled across the massive stone wall in 1852.
02:46It's rumored to be 20 miles long and seven stories deep.
02:50And people in these parts believe it was the work of an ancient civilization.
02:55Rumor has that the wall used to be above ground.
02:59But the wall and the truth about its origin have been buried over time.
03:04I don't know what to think.
03:06All I know is I want to see this thing for myself.
03:29You must be Adam.
03:30You must be Scott.
03:31How you doing?
03:32Good.
03:32Good to meet you.
03:33Thanks for coming out.
03:33Hey, happy to be here.
03:35I'm really glad you called about this rock wall.
03:38I must have gotten 50 emails or telephone calls about this mysterious wall, so I had to come
03:43down and check it out.
03:44Yeah, I bet you did.
03:45It's pretty popular.
03:46Obviously, the town was named after the wall, so a lot of people know about it.
03:50I brought you here because there's actually a small piece of the wall that's been reassembled
03:53here on site at the courthouse.
03:54Okay.
03:55If you have a minute, I'd like to take you over and have a look at it.
03:57Absolutely.
03:57I didn't see anything here, but I figured you had us meet here for a reason.
04:01The wall's right over here.
04:02Let's have a look.
04:02You lead the way.
04:05So tell me a little bit about this rock wall.
04:08Well, back in the 1850s, 1860s, when rock wall was founded, they kept finding this wall,
04:13and they would use pieces of it for the wells, the well houses, and some of the buildings.
04:16Matter of fact, if you have a look, right here we have a restaurant that was built in 1890.
04:23Some of the rocks used on the side of it were actual rocks from the wall itself.
04:27Oh, so this whole wall here, this is some of the actual rock that came from the rock wall.
04:32That's it.
04:33Well, I take it that's not what you wanted to show me, though.
04:35That's not exactly what I wanted to show you.
04:47Now, this is an actual piece of the wall that was removed and then reassembled here by the rock wall
04:52historical foundation.
04:54So you can see the rocks as they were, as best they could be recreated.
05:16What do you think?
05:17Well, I think it's very interesting.
05:20I mean, these are, like you said, rocks that came from the site, but obviously this is man-made mortar.
05:26This has been recently reassembled.
05:28I mean, I heard stories about this thing being seven stories deep into the ground,
05:33and as a geologist, as far as figuring out if it's man-made or natural, I really have to see
05:39it.
05:39Sure, I understand.
05:40Well, I brought some pictures along for you to have a look at.
05:42Okay.
05:43So if you look at them, tell me what you think of these.
05:44Sure.
05:52Well, look at that.
05:54That looks like a man-made wall.
05:56Doesn't it?
05:57Yeah.
05:58It looks just like the man-made wall we have down here that was taken with the real stones.
06:01It really does.
06:02That looks exactly like mortar there.
06:05You know, as I look at these edges here, it almost looks like they've been worked or tooled.
06:10You'll find that with a lot of the stones at the wall.
06:12You'll find symmetry on all four sides.
06:14You'll find parallel lines.
06:16They don't look like natural geological formations to most people.
06:20Well, those look like they could very well have been dressed.
06:23And there's a big slab right there.
06:28So you don't find a complete randomness to the structure of the wall itself.
06:32You find a lot of uniformity in certain places.
06:34Like it's been man-made.
06:35That's what it suggests to me.
06:37I'm looking at these pictures and, I mean, I had all these people contact me about this.
06:43But before that, I never knew anything about this.
06:45Why is that?
06:46I think that there may have been a little bit of a cover-up over the years, Scott.
06:49A cover-up?
06:49And I think there may have been a little bit of a conspiracy to kind of hide the nature of
06:53the wall.
06:53What evidence do you have that there might have been one?
06:56Well, there have been some excavations that have ended fairly abruptly.
06:59There have even been some experts that came out and checked out the wall, gave some opinions.
07:03And then when they found out some of the other evidence about the wall,
07:06they changed their minds and decided they didn't want to publish any of their findings.
07:10Why do you think somebody would want to hide this?
07:12I mean, if it was man-made, you'd think they want people to know.
07:15Some of these people on this land don't want to have an archaeological site on their land
07:19because then it can't be developed.
07:20So you think people are worried about the government coming in and taking their land
07:26if this is an archaeological site and they won't let them develop it?
07:29Well, I tell you what, I need to see this wall.
07:32The one problem we have is the wall's underground right now.
07:36Okay.
07:37Aren't there any open excavations?
07:39No open excavations.
07:41Over the years, people have dug up the wall and then they always backfill it.
07:45I guess they don't want trespassers on their property.
07:47Okay.
07:49You know what?
07:49I remember in one of the emails I got, wasn't there a guy who spent $80,000 on an excavation?
07:56Yeah.
07:56Yeah, he's a friend of mine.
07:57His name's Kevin Richardson.
07:58He did some excavations on the wall a while back.
08:00I think maybe you guys need to meet.
08:06Why would a guy spend tens of thousands of dollars digging up a buried wall?
08:11Maybe there's something valuable hidden beneath the wall.
08:14Maybe he's looking for fame.
08:16Maybe he just really wants the truth about whether an ancient civilization,
08:21someone other than Native Americans, could have built this.
08:25If this huge wall beneath rock wall is man-made, it would rewrite history in the Lone Star State.
08:31And if it was built by man, who could be responsible?
08:35One possibility is the Caddo tribe, who lived here since around 800 A.D.
08:40It could be the Chinese.
08:42They started building a great wall of their own in the 7th century B.C.
08:46and are rumored to have made it to America before Columbus.
08:50Or it could be people from the very distant past, the ancestors of America's native population.
09:11You must be Kevin.
09:13Ah, Scott.
09:14How you doing?
09:14Pleasure to meet you, sir.
09:15All right.
09:16Good seat.
09:17Well, it's great to meet you.
09:18I just talked to Adam, and he mentioned that you're the guy to talk to about the wall.
09:24Yeah, I know a little bit about it.
09:27Did you really spend 80 grand digging up this wall?
09:3080 grand.
09:31I wish it was that small of an amount.
09:33It was a whole lot more than that.
09:35Well, obviously, you're passionate about this wall.
09:38I mean, why did you spend that much money?
09:40The question needed to be answered.
09:41Everybody around here has been talking about this for 150 years.
09:45Sooner or later, somebody's got to step up and get it done.
09:47Let's find out how old it is and what it is.
09:49Well, that is the big question.
09:51I mean, is this man-made or is it natural?
09:54And I think we hopefully will be able to figure that out.
09:58But tell me a little bit about the dig.
10:00What happened when you did your dig?
10:02Well, I brought some photos over to show you.
10:05That's a hell of a deep hole.
10:08How far down did you go?
10:10We wound up going down 42 feet at the very bottom.
10:12Wow.
10:14We've got another photo here.
10:15This is an 11-foot span.
10:17That's a beautiful, perfectly straight wall.
10:19So what did you hit at the bottom?
10:21What made you stop?
10:22I actually hadn't hit the bottom yet, but it began to rain, and it rained for three days.
10:27And it became a lake rock wall.
10:30So that was pretty much it at that point?
10:32It all fell into the bottom of the ditch.
10:34Oh, it did.
10:34It fell into the bottom of the ditch.
10:36We pumped it out and filled it back in with dirt, but the entire wall is laying in the bottom
10:40of the hole.
10:41Okay, so this whole thing is filled back in?
10:43Yes.
10:44There was a local architect that lived here that produced a map, and in that map he connected all the
10:50dots for the outcroppings of the wall.
10:52I don't know if it's accurate or not.
10:54I'm a fat kind of guy.
10:55Where does this wall go?
10:56How far does it go?
10:58They think it's about 3.5 miles wide by 5.6 miles in kind of a rectangular shape.
11:03If this wall is as old, as long, and as tall as people are saying, it could have taken decades
11:10to build without the help of modern technology.
11:13Maybe even more than a century.
11:16For comparison, the Great Wall of China, which stretches 13,000 miles, took many centuries to build.
11:23If workers died, their bodies were dumped inside the wall, earning the Great Wall the nickname, the longest cemetery in
11:30the world.
11:31Maybe we'll find the same thing here.
11:34If the Texas Rock Wall is really as big as I've been told, it would cover roughly 19 square miles
11:40and be seven stories tall.
11:42You could fit Cowboy Stadium inside it 169 times.
11:47This is a massive undertaking, you realize that?
11:49Huge.
11:50If it's man-made.
11:52For y'all to decide.
11:55Well, you know, all this is great stuff.
11:57I love the photos, the map, but I need to see the wall.
12:00Is there any place where it's exposed where I can take a look at it?
12:04Well, currently, there's no place exposed anywhere in Rock Wall.
12:07It's all below the grade.
12:08But you happen to be in luck.
12:10I own an excavation company, and we can go dig that wall up for you.
12:13Well, I love that idea, but you can't just go dig holes anywhere.
12:17I mean, don't you need a permit to do this?
12:19Scott, you're in Texas.
12:20You don't need a permit here.
12:21You want to dig a hole, you go dig a hole.
12:47So, Kevin, you really want to dig this rock wall up again?
12:51Sure, what the hell?
12:52Why not?
12:52If you're serious about coming out and helping, we'll get that hole dug.
12:56If I get a look at this wall, I promise you that I will draw a conclusion.
13:00I'm going to tell you if I think it's man-made or not.
13:03Well, that's been the problem for years and years around here.
13:06Nobody will make a definitive answer if it's man-made or natural.
13:09So, you're now on the hook to make that decision.
13:11No problem.
13:12But before we can do that, I need to see this wall.
13:15We need a place to dig.
13:16I got a place we can go dig the wall up again.
13:18Same place I dug before.
13:20Okay.
13:21How soon can we get started?
13:22We can start tomorrow if you're ready to go.
13:23So, I'm ready to go.
13:35Before the town of Rockwall cropped up in the 1850s, this land was home to the Caddo Indian tribe.
13:42They formed an alliance here and called it Tejas.
13:46That's where Texas got its name.
13:48It's a mystery who lived here before that.
13:52I want to get to the truth of who built this ancient rock wall, if indeed anyone built it at
13:58all.
13:59I'm on my way to the dig site to see what I'm in for.
14:02Until I see it for myself, there's no way to know for sure.
14:06Hey, Kev. How you doing?
14:08Good. You made it.
14:09All right. So, what's the plan here?
14:11Well, this field right back over here, we're going to excavate about over where that tree line is up the
14:17hill here.
14:17Okay.
14:18We're going to dig us a nice big old hole.
14:19How do you know we're going to hit the wall here?
14:21Well, about 12 years ago, I dug over in this area, so I've got a general idea of where the
14:25wall's at.
14:26You think you can find it?
14:27I think we can find it.
14:28Okay.
14:29You ready to go to work?
14:30So, is this what we're digging with?
14:32This is one of them. We've got two more machines coming.
14:34Two more?
14:35Two more. Got yours coming right now.
14:41Holy...
14:46You're going to teach me how to use it, right?
14:48Absolutely.
14:52Can we get one a little bigger?
14:57Our first step, deciding where to dig tomorrow.
15:02We're using a map from Kevin's last excavation to figure out where to break ground.
15:07It's probably trending right through here.
15:11So, it's kind of coming off this way.
15:13Yeah, it goes over this mountain.
15:15Roughly this direction.
15:17So, that makes a lot of sense. You should hit it.
15:20Tomorrow, we'll start digging up the wall.
15:22Some people think it was built by an early civilization, and buried over time.
15:28A wall that's seven stories deep, and 20 miles long, shouldn't be hard to find.
15:34So far, the photos I've seen make a compelling case that ancient people could be involved.
15:41My gut tells me it's not the work of the Caddo tribe.
15:44They weren't known for building walls.
15:47Even if we rule them out, that still leaves their ancestors, the earliest people to live in North America,
15:53or possibly the Chinese, who were believed to have made it to America before Columbus.
16:01Right now, I'm headed to the local history museum to find out more.
16:09Sherry, I'm anxious to hear about the history of the rock wall.
16:13And my first question is, when was it first discovered?
16:17Well, the rock wall was actually discovered in 1852.
16:21And a local farmer and two of his neighbors were digging a water well,
16:24and they dug down and hit a hard type of surface.
16:28And when they looked, they said, that looks like a rock wall.
16:31And that was the original discovery.
16:34So do we know when the first thought was that this could be a man-made wall?
16:38Well, really, the original discovery, some of the local townspeople saw it and said,
16:44we believe this was made by ancient man.
16:46So that question has been burning in people's brains in rock wall for a long time.
16:51Is it man-made or is it natural?
16:52It's the huge mystery of the rock wall.
16:55Absolutely.
16:57This was in 1925.
16:59And a gentleman named Count Byron Kuhn de Prorock,
17:03he did participate in some digs at Carthage in the 1920s.
17:07But he actually wasn't a count, nor was he an archaeologist.
17:10But he did have a theory about the rock wall.
17:13And he was considered the original tomb raider.
17:16He came in, and his conclusion was that this was made by some prehistoric man.
17:22Oh, really?
17:23So this was a man-made conclusion.
17:25So long before we had Lara Croft, we had Count...
17:29What's his name here?
17:31Absolutely.
17:33Okay.
17:34Well, this is all great stuff.
17:36Is there anything else I should know about the wall?
17:39Well, actually, some people believe that giants may have built it.
18:02Rockwall, Texas is named after an enormous wall,
18:06said to wind for miles beneath the city.
18:08Ever since its discovery, the debate has raged.
18:11Is the wall natural or man-made?
18:14I'm finding out all I can about the wall,
18:17and I was just hit with an unbelievable theory.
18:20Is there anything else I should know about the wall?
18:23Well, actually, some people believe that giants may have built it.
18:28Giants?
18:29Giants, like 1,000-pound people with large skulls.
18:34Where would a story like this come from?
18:36Is there any evidence?
18:37Well, it originated, the story did, in late May of 1886.
18:43Our local paper was called The Rockwall Success at that time,
18:47and this particular edition had an article that said
18:52that the mystery of the rock wall had been solved,
18:55that a local farmer had been digging and found a giant skull,
19:00huge skull, like a half-bushel-sized skull.
19:03Is there a skull?
19:04A giant skull?
19:05Not that I know of anywhere.
19:07Well, I have to tell you that, as silly as this story sounds,
19:10I have encountered giants before.
19:13There are too many stories of giants going back
19:17in Native American cultures to dismiss them.
19:19In fact, in Minnesota, I did a little investigation
19:22into some giants that were believed to be
19:24in some Native American mountains.
19:27Now, 1,000-pounders, I don't know,
19:29but I think the idea of big people in the past
19:33is a real possibility.
19:35And I don't disagree with that assessment in any way,
19:38but I think if we're relying on these stories
19:40to be our proof of that,
19:43I don't think that's the right pathway.
19:44But if you see the excavations and look at the rocks,
19:48they're just so symmetrical,
19:49appear to have mortar between them,
19:51so they appear to the layman's eye
19:54as something that would have been constructed.
19:56Okay, well, as a geologist, I've got to see the wall.
19:59And I think I'm going to get an opportunity
20:01to do that with Kevin.
20:02He's talking about teaching me
20:04how to use some heavy equipment,
20:05actually pulling back some of the earth
20:07and looking at this wall.
20:09Well, we have a portion of the rock wall
20:11on my family's property.
20:12You do?
20:13We do, and I'd love for you to come see it
20:14if you'd like to.
20:16Let's go.
20:24I'm eager to see the wall in Sherry's backyard.
20:27I'm hoping to get to the bottom of this mystery
20:29that's more than a century and a half old.
20:33In 1852, three Texas farmers were digging a well
20:37and instead found a massive wall.
20:40I can only imagine the thoughts
20:42that went through their heads.
20:47The way I see it, there are only two possibilities.
20:50The wall is natural or man-made.
20:53And if it's man-made,
20:55the next question is, who's responsible?
20:58The size and scope of the wall
21:00would make it one of the greatest man-made structures
21:02on American soil.
21:04As for giants, I'm still skeptical about that.
21:16What are you going to show me here?
21:17Well, the rock wall actually runs underground
21:19of this property.
21:21But we have several rocks
21:22from a 1976 excavation of the rock wall.
21:26In any investigation that involves rocks,
21:29the most important thing,
21:31or one of the most important things you need to know
21:33is what kind of rock is it?
21:35Sandstone and limestone have been used
21:37to build things throughout history.
21:39They were relatively easy to cut and shape.
21:42If the wall is made of either stone,
21:45it might support the case that it's man-made.
21:48There's a couple things I want to do here.
21:50One is a simple scratch test
21:52just to get some idea of how hard the rock is.
21:57A knife has a, or steel has a hardness of five.
22:01And so if it's softer than that,
22:05if it scratches it, that means it has to be softer.
22:07If it slides across,
22:09then the rock is harder than the knife.
22:12So let's just do that.
22:16Well, it scratches the rock,
22:17so it's softer than a hardness of five.
22:21So it's probably in the neighborhood of three to four.
22:23It's relatively soft.
22:26And I want to determine what its chemistry is.
22:30One way I can start to do that
22:32is by taking a little dilute hydrochloric acid,
22:38and I'm going to drop it on here.
22:40And if it fizzes, then it's calcium carbonate.
22:42If it doesn't, then it's something else.
22:48It's fizzing.
22:49Do you see how it's bubbling?
22:50Uh-huh, I do.
22:51That tells me that this is more than likely
22:54limestone of some kind.
22:55You can see how people might think it was man-made.
22:58You can imagine these rocks
22:59stacked on top of each other with mortar in between.
23:02And I have some photos I'd like to show you.
23:03Yeah, let's take a look.
23:05In Kevin's excavations,
23:06he's also found a few things that he thinks look man-made.
23:09This is one of them, like a window or a porthole.
23:13Well, this is certainly round
23:14with small stones in a circular pattern.
23:17Could be man-made.
23:18And this is another, like steps going upward.
23:22I take it these holes here is what he's calling the steps.
23:25These are spaced 24, 30 inches apart.
23:30I guess if you're going to entertain the idea of giants,
23:34this would make some sense.
23:36Well, I'm not sure about giants,
23:37but I do think Kevin thinks this is all evidence for man-made.
23:41Well, I can see why he thinks that.
23:43And tomorrow when we start the dig,
23:45we'll get some more answers.
24:07Heading to the dig site, I'm pretty pumped.
24:11So far, I've seen a few things
24:13that make me think this wall could be man-made.
24:16Photos show rocks piled atop each other
24:19that look just like modern masonry.
24:21They're connected by what appears to be mortar.
24:24And scientific tests of the rocks pulled from the site
24:28prove they're limestone.
24:29Rocks that are easy to cut, shape, and assemble.
24:34All this makes me think the wall could be man-made.
24:38But first, we need to find the wall.
24:43How you doing, Kev?
24:44Good, Scott. What's going on?
24:46What's the plan here today?
24:47Well, the plan is we're going to go over here,
24:49and we're going to dig from about that fence line up that hill,
24:52and we're going to dig a nice big hole,
24:53and we've got to go find the wall.
25:01I can't wait to see the massive wall
25:03that's supposedly hidden underneath this field.
25:13Kevin's going to dig in the spot we decided on yesterday.
25:39If the wall is really seven stories tall
25:41and long enough to enclose 19 square miles,
25:45the chance we'll hit it is pretty good.
26:07We've got a wall, baby!
26:13We've got a wall, baby!
26:41We've got a wall, baby!
26:48We've got a wall, baby!
26:49You've got a wall, all right.
26:51There's the wall!
26:53Well, now we know where it's at.
26:55So let me ask you this.
26:56What orientation are these?
26:58Were they vertical, or were they laying this way in the hill?
27:01Vertical, running down the length of the wall.
27:04Okay, so like this, right?
27:06Yep.
27:07Okay.
27:07Well, here's my next question.
27:09What is the orientation?
27:11Is the wall running roughly this way?
27:13It runs basically east-west.
27:15Okay.
27:16During the salsa, it falls straight in line with the west sun.
27:20Get out of here.
27:21East-west, it does.
27:22I like that.
27:23When I was digging up it before, that's what it was.
27:26East-west orientation.
27:27Do you think maybe there's a connection there somehow?
27:28Ah, that's where you can decide.
27:30It's about my pay grade.
27:33If this wall were aligned with the sun's path on the longest day of the year, that would
27:37be important.
27:38I've seen solstice alignments before.
27:41I've seen them at Stonehenge in England, at the Newport Tower in Rhode Island, and at the
27:49Mayan ruins in Mexico.
27:51It's called archaeoastronomy.
27:53Many ancient people constructed their surroundings with the sun and planets in mind.
27:58They didn't have clocks and calendars the way we do.
28:01They needed the sun.
28:02And not surprisingly, in many cases, they worshipped the sun, too.
28:06Okay.
28:06Well, if this is aligned with the solstice, that could be a huge clue.
28:11This is man-made.
28:13Hey, let's dig.
28:14Let's go get him, man.
28:18All right, let's drive this sucker.
28:21All right.
28:22So here's my gas.
28:23Here's my brake.
28:24Forward, reverse.
28:26This tilts the bucket.
28:27All right.
28:28All you have to do is put it in forward, and you'll move.
28:30All right.
28:31You ready, Kev?
28:31I'm ready, brother.
28:35Turn to the right a little bit, and there you go.
28:37Spin it around.
28:38And then start straightening the machine up.
28:40Go in and give her gas.
28:41Okay.
28:42And roll the bucket now.
28:44Roll, roll.
28:45Perfect.
28:47Come on.
28:50Make your quick turn, real quick.
28:52Get where you want to dump, and then straighten it out to last.
28:54All right.
28:55Straighten her out.
28:56Straighten her out.
28:56Up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up.
28:58And dump.
29:02Perfect.
29:03っと там.
29:14Take the 겁니다.
29:21We'll move.
29:25We'll move.
29:27There we go.
29:28Okay.
29:34This is quite a hole here.
29:35Yeah.
29:37We're getting it, Doug.
29:41You know what I'd like to do is just kind of bang on the rocks here a little bit,
29:45get a sense of what's happening here,
29:47and make sure I understand what you've got here.
29:51Is this part of the wall here?
29:53That's the wall.
29:55Of the joint.
29:56And that's part of it, too?
29:58It's pretty hard.
30:01I'm getting a sense of where the wall is here relative to the other rock,
30:06but I think I've seen enough here just to give me a general sense of what's going on at this
30:12level.
30:12I want to know what's going on down there.
30:15We're fixing to find out.
30:16We're going to get you a big, deep hole.
30:18What I'm not getting is a sense of whether or not this wall is man-made.
30:23I need to see more.
30:25I reached out to a professor, John Geisman, at the University of Texas about possibly doing some paleomagnetic testing.
30:33Tomorrow, what I'd like to do is bring John here and see if we can get some more data to
30:37try to answer this question.
30:39Is this thing a natural formation, or is it man-made by some ancient race, who knows, thousands of years
30:45ago?
30:45I visited with Sherry Fowler, and she mentioned giants could be involved.
30:50What do you know about that?
30:51There was a big rumor about the giants from 150 years ago,
30:54but when I excavated up the hill,
30:57uncovered a section of the wall that was about 11 feet tall
30:59and had three step holes in it, about 33 inches apart.
31:02There were clearly a left foot, right foot, and left foot.
31:05So it had to be a big guy to climb out of there?
31:07One would think.
31:08Do you think the giants built this wall?
31:10That's for you guys to figure out.
31:11I'm just digging a hole.
31:13Okay.
31:23I'm on my way back to the dig site.
31:26Kevin thinks an early civilization may have built the wall
31:29that lies buried beneath the town of Rockwall.
31:33There's a chance the wall may be an example of archaeoastronomy,
31:37how ancient people oriented their surroundings with the sun, moon, and planets.
31:43Before we can tackle the archaeoastronomy question,
31:46we need to figure out if this wall is man-made or natural.
31:50And the testing I'm about to do with my friend John should give us a definitive answer.
31:59Well, you got a heck of a pile of dirt there.
32:02Yeah, wait till you see the hole we got down here.
32:04Damn, Kevin.
32:06Look at this.
32:07You made a lot of progress.
32:08Yeah, we worked a few hours to get that excavation site that deep.
32:13We're down a total of about 20-some feet,
32:15but the next dig was about 8 or 10 foot, most of it.
32:25It sure looks man-made when you stand right here, doesn't it?
32:28Yeah, it does.
32:29I don't see the footholds for the giants yet, but maybe one day.
32:33Do you see where the joints are?
32:36Right.
32:36And, I mean, that looks like modern masonry right there.
32:39You know, they tool the joints, and I mean, it really does.
32:43I'm sure glad you went ahead and stepped up and pronounced the walls man-made.
32:46That's not what I said.
32:48That's true.
32:48That's not what I said.
32:49Try again if you want.
32:50I have not rendered an opinion yet.
32:52We got more work to do here.
32:54Hey, John.
32:56Hi, buddy.
32:56How you doing?
32:57Good to see you.
32:57Good.
32:58Hey, this is my friend Kevin.
32:59This is John.
33:00Pleasure to meet you.
33:01All right.
33:02Well, hey, listen.
33:03I invited John to come out here and help us out.
33:06Basically, what we're going to do is measure the magnetism of these materials.
33:10You can think of it as an arrow, a memory in the rock.
33:13Okay.
33:14It's kind of like measuring the DNA of a material, kind of.
33:18And if this memory is really ancient, say at the time this material formed, then we should
33:24be able to very, very easily test whether or not this is an intact feature, undisturbed,
33:32versus something that was put together as a bunch of random rocks to make a wall.
33:42That's what we're going to do.
33:47That's what we're going to do.
33:59Basically, what I'm going to do is I'm going to drill cores in the rocks, a number of different
34:03cores.
34:04I'm going to orient the cores so we know exactly how they sat out here at Rockwell.
34:10Then we're going to take them back to the lab.
34:12We're going to slice them into specimens.
34:14And then we're going to measure the magnetization in the specimens.
34:16Then what will come out of all this?
34:18Well, we should be able to discern whether or not that memory in these materials, right,
34:25is consistent through the wall or random.
34:27If it's random, one interpretation is that this was put together.
34:34This was built.
34:35By somebody.
34:36I'll be glad when you all make that definitive answer and everybody knows.
34:40Right now, that's our plan, but we've got some work to do, so should we head down?
34:44Let's go.
35:05Let's go.
35:31John and I took samples from different parts of the wall and noted their exact positions.
35:41When we get to the lab, we'll be able to determine the direction of each sample's magnetization.
35:58Well, guys, I thought that went pretty well.
36:00John, are you happy with the samples we got?
36:02Samples are excellent.
36:03Okay.
36:04They're going to work.
36:05They're going to work.
36:06Well, Kev, here's the way I see it.
36:09In 1852, when those three farmers found the rock wall digging the well,
36:14what they found was one of three possibilities.
36:16One is, is that this is an amazing natural geologic feature.
36:22Two, it could be a man-made wall by some unknown culture in the distant past,
36:28perhaps thousands of years ago.
36:30Or a third possibility is it could be a combination of the two.
36:34Some culture built a man-made wall on top of a pre-existing geologic feature.
36:45I spent the last couple of days in Texas digging up a massive underground wall.
36:51It's the reason for the town's name, rock wall.
36:54Ever since the wall was discovered back in 1852,
36:57people have disagreed about whether it's natural or man-made.
37:02Many people believe it was once above ground
37:05and was the work of some early civilization, maybe even giants.
37:10If the wall was made by people, not nature,
37:13it could be an example of archaeoastronomy.
37:16Kevin thinks it lines up with the summer solstice.
37:19That's the sort of thing ancient people regularly did to mark the changing seasons.
37:24When I get to John Geisman's lab at the University of Texas at Dallas,
37:28we'll use a high-tech process called paleomagnetic analysis
37:32to settle the natural or man-made question once and for all.
37:51So, John, I don't use paleomagnetic analysis in my everyday work,
37:55so can you tell me a little bit about it?
37:57Sure, Scott.
37:59Paleomagnetism is a study of the fossil magnetism in geologic materials.
38:03Basically, by virtue of the way rocks form,
38:06they have the capability of acquiring a net magnetization
38:11that's aligned in the direction of the Earth's magnetic field.
38:14You can think of this net magnetization as an arrow, simply.
38:18If the arrows, the magnetization, point the same way,
38:23that proves the wall is natural.
38:26If you were using rocks to make a wall,
38:28you would almost certainly set them down randomly.
38:31So, if the arrows point in a bunch of different directions,
38:34that would mean Rockwall's rock wall is indeed man-made.
38:38It should be a very definitive test.
38:40Sounds good to me. Should we do it?
38:42Certainly.
39:15all right John the money's on the table is this thing a natural geologic
39:20deposit or is it man-made what John told me is something Kevin needs to hear I'm
39:28headed back to the dig site to deliver the news I've also invited Adam the guy
39:33who tipped me off about this amazing wall well guys hey first of all I want to I
39:45want to start off by thanking you for sending me an email and getting me tuned
39:49into this amazing rock wall so thank you for doing that oh my pleasure I've had a
39:54chance to look at the test results and it's clear and conclusive
40:02it's a natural geologic feature it's not man-made what we found was that the
40:10arrows for the stone are consistent they're definitely all pointing pretty
40:17much in the same direction at least we know the truth now you know we didn't
40:21know for sure before now we know so yeah when did the formation when was it
40:27created I was talking to John about that and we think that this was about 85
40:3286 87 million years old so it's very old and based on the information that we
40:39know now it predates humans being on the planet sure you know that's another
40:43reason why it really can't be man-made well you're the expert and if we were the
40:49experts we wouldn't have called you so we appreciate you coming out
40:59everything that you guys have said and thought about this wall being so amazing
41:03is still valid sometimes nature plays tricks and pulls a fast one on us and
41:10this is one of those times good well it's still still a part of the local
41:13heritage and obviously the town was named for it so it's it's good to know that it
41:16is a unique formation something we can still be proud of yep absolutely I mean
41:20it looks like a man-made wall it absolutely does this is the most
41:24unusual geologic phenomena I have probably ever seen it turns out this
41:29geological formation is a massive sand dike there are several hundred feet of
41:34clay beneath the surface here millions of years ago that clay hardened and cracked
41:39overlying pressure of the hardened clay forced a juicy mix of clay sand and water up
41:45through the fracture eventually it hard broke up naturally in the blocks and
41:49became the rock wall it's totally unique it's it's really an amazing thing so
41:55nothing to be disappointed about it's still an incredible unique feature for
42:00rock wall and they should still be proud of it I didn't know what to expect when I
42:06headed to Texas a lot of people had written to tell me the same thing check out
42:12the rock wall underneath the town of rock wall and reveal the truth about its
42:17origins
42:20the three farmers who first unearthed the rock wall back in 1852 may not have
42:25found a man-made wall but they discovered one of the most unique natural
42:29geologic wonders I've ever seen they say people do things big in a Lone Star State
42:35and the huge hole Kevin Richeson excavated for me certainly lives up to that expression
42:43once the wall was unearthed I was able to figure out it's been there for millions of years long before
42:49humans ever walked the earth
42:53the wall wasn't built by an early civilization it wasn't built by giants either but it's still
43:00something rock wall residents can be proud of and now they know the truth
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