Oh, psuedo-history.

Scott Wolter is the purveyor of the "History" Channel's America Unearthed, a compendium of pseudo-history (and psuedo-science, like a show on Bigfoot). All of this show's claims, and this book's claims, are ably demolished by scholar Jason Colavito at his website (jasoncolavito.com), so I needn't go into too much detail. (Caveat, I don't agree 100 percent with Colavito, he seems to think everything in the pseudo-history and pseudo-science world is the result of the nefarious ineptitude of conservative racists. No. A lot of kooks are progressive liberals. And a lot of people like Wolter truly think that what they are doing helps and is for a good cause, not for anything evil.)

Now, to put it succinctly: (1) Wolter thinks that because of his "forensic geology" and some rare (but not unknown) letter forms on the Kennsington Runestone, that it is a genuine artifact from 1362; (2) the "Hooked X" on the runestone Wolter then decides to find nearly everywhere, including Rosslyn Chapel; (3) the words and letters on the stone must have links to the Cistercians; (4) the Cistercian monks are really just the Templars; (5) the Templars buried the runestone as a land claim; (6) the Newport Tower leads to the Kennsington Runestone; (7) the Templars were trying to settle a new land where their ideals of god/goddess duality religion/worship could be practiced in peace and harmony (and whatever else hippieish you want to throw in).

That's the arc of the book. Basically The Da Vinci Code, The Templar Revelation, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and Columbus Was Last with some runes and geology.

But, of course, this is all supposition, and poor ones at that. The book is poorly-sourced and, when sourced, bad books (i.e. other psuedo-history) are cited. The book offers no real proof except wild suppositions and heaps of non-sequitur logic.

I'll just offer some hilarity for hilarity's sake, and for the sake of example.

p. 20: Alexander von Humboldt was not a "Swedish scientist." Ask the Germans.

p. 44: apparently like four random holes drilled in rocks point to the spot where the Kennsington Runestone was buried, but there are like eight other holes apparently pointing to nothing

p. 65: M represents wisdom because owls represent wisdom and their face looks like an M in an old Egyptian drawing, despite the fact that the Egyptians never had the letter M because they didn't use the Roman alphabet...

pp. 105-106: the "Hooked X" on Columbus's sigla (signature) is proof he was in on the conspiracy (and somehow, he was related to Henry Sinclair in some way that reminds me of a scene from Spaceballs ["I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate."]), but Wolter doesn't notice the perplexing Hooked Y in his sigla! Hooked Y! What does that mean?!?!?! Perhaps I should write a book about the Hooked Y and get a "History" Channel show! Or, maybe, just maybe, people had funny handwriting styles back in the day of parchment and quill... [I read in another comment here on Amazon that Wolter says the "Hooked 'Y' means the same thing." How on earth?]

p. 151: A mason's mark (as in stonemason, not Freemason) on a pillar in Rosslyn Chapel that is not a Hooked X is apparently a Hooked X because this book is called The Hooked X...

p. 196: Okay, so the Newport Tower (which is really just the remains of a colonial era mill from the 1600s, look it up) must be from the 1300s or 1400s because it's octagonal and apparently only the Templars built things with eight sides. (They weren't the only ones.) But then the archaeology should show some artifacts from the 1400s. Right? But the earliest artifacts ever found there were from... the 1600s... the colonial era. So, to make this go away somebody claims: "Well, if this is a religious site, in all likelihood it'll be sterile archaeologically." Thus, according to Wolter, the fact there are no artifacts from the 1400s proves it was there in the 1400s, because it's a religious site. I guess it was too hard to look up in a book or something that every other religious site in the world has archaeological remains. What poppycock.

p. 197: apparently a "keystone" that should have light falling on it was under a floor, but no problem, the floor was put in later

p. 212: A 2:1 ratio represents the sacred feminine? Says who? Some stray Templars in the middle of nowhere America took the time to break a stone at a 2:1 ratio?

p. 219: Cistercians and Native Americans got along because their religion and culture was so much the same? Huh?

p. 220: Samuel Sewall, arch-Puritan, must have been a Freemason because he used the phrase "New Jerusalem"? You know, even though there were no Masonic lodges in America, and Puritan ideology meshes so well with goddess worship. And, because apparently Wolter has never opened the Bible to read about the "New Jerusalem" in Revelation, etc. There's even a Wikipedia article called "New Jerusalem." Come on.

p. 227: How would following Venus from the Kennsington Runestone to the Newport Tower or from the Newport Tower to the Kennsington Runestone be a viable way to do anything? Venus moves in the sky each night. It starts in a different position every night. Sometimes it's in the west, sometimes in the east, sometimes it's not even up. Following it would lead you nowhere. Building a tower on the coast that you can only use two days of the year to point to a buried runestone in the middle of nowhere a kajillion miles away is the dumbest navigational system ever devised. Especially if the Templar/Cistercians/Götalanders/Vikings/Masons/Scots could determine longitude (pp. 206, 258), which, you know, couldn't really reliably be done until the 1700s. You'd think that these goddess/god worshiping Templar/Cistercians/Götalanders/Vikings/Masons/Scots who can do anything would draw a map with latitude and longitude and just follow that to their middle of nowhere land claim buried stone. But no, Venus, a tower, and a buried stone with some insignificant holes in the ground. That's the ticket.

p. 231: apparently the Kennsington Runestone "could metaphorically be compared to the Declaration of Independence" - whatever that means - so, compare "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" to, and here is the text of the Kennsington Runestone:

"Eight Geats and twenty-two Norwegians on an exploration journey from Vinland to the west. We had camp by two skerries one day's journey north from this stone. We were [out] to fish one day. After we came home [we] found ten men red of blood and dead. AVM [Ave Virgen Maria] save [us] from evil."
"[We] have ten men by the sea to look after our ships, fourteen days' travel from this island. [In the] year 1362."

Wolter translates it a bit differently, but that's your metaphorical Declaration of Independence...

p. 231: "That ideology to the Cistercians/Templars in the fourteenth century was apparently symbolized by the Hooked X." I'll let that great sentence speak for itself. Also, this letter Q represents the Articles of Confederation. Because.

That's just a sampling. But Wolter's idea, his thesis, is that a runestone in the middle of nowhere (which may be a late 1800s hoax), this runestone that reads like a voyage of discovery and cemetery marker, is a land claim. Who claims land like that? Or with a system (pp. 129-132) that is used nowhere? Read the text of the runestone. That's not a land deed. Europeans did not claim land like that. Start with Ceremonies of Possession by Patricia Seed.

Did some random someone before Columbus stumble on the American continents? Maybe. Maybe even ""Eight Geats and twenty-two Norwegians on an exploration journey from Vinland." But some conspiracy with god-like Templar/Cistercians/Götalanders/Vikings/Masons/Scots who worship dual god/goddess hippie ideals and throw Hooked X's all over the globe. No.

PS - Now Wolter claims on his website that the Kennsington Runestone is the record of a secret Freemasonic ritual done in the middle of nowhere America in 1362 to claim land. He also has joined the Masons since the publication of this book.

PPS - And as an aside: Wolter's wife Janet Wolter has co-authored a book stating that the baseball diamond is Masonic because, you know, the diamond is a square. Square and Compass. Masonic. Sign of the goddess. How dare you claim baseball is a symbol of the goddess conspiracy... because squares.

PPPS - I am a Ph.D.'ed historian, so I must be in on the conspiracy to suppress the real history of the Templar/Cistercians/Götalanders/Vikings/Masons/Scots. A hint to writers like Wolter, real scholars would love to publish real evidence and proof of transatlantic contact pre-Columbus. Or proof of something that overturns the conventional history. It would make them famous and a ton of bucks. And every historian secretly wants to be read in the history books forever after. It's even lead scholars astray. See the Dare Stones. See Drake's Plate of Brass.

PPPPS - Mr. Wolter, please don't write me and tell me I have a nefarious agenda. I just disagree with you.

PPPPPS - How can someone write a book like this and not mention Barry Fell's America B.C.? Or Bailey's The God-Kings and the Titans? I loved those books when I was a young'n. (Don't buy all of what they're selling,but they got me thinking.)

Poppycock is the word. ( )