Friday 7th November
The day began at midday sharp to be part of a field trip, as part of a 3 day conference organised by NEARA (New England Archaic Research Association). These guys kept popping up on the internet & in books as I was trying to find out locations of these sites. So I stumbled across this event on the net & Larry & I decided to reorganise our trip to fit it in.



The first stop was the Dighton Headstone (above) held at a museum with runic inscriptions scattered across it. Another  rock, although much bigger, with petroglyhs had been discovered on Dighton beach that was still in the water, but had recently been lifted up and placed in its current position.



A Puritan clergyman called John Danforth in 1680 noticed strange writing on a rock that was partly engulfed by the sea. It was in the Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society in 1712. Numerous claims about the meaning and origination of the Dighton Rock range from Spanish, Portugese, Knights templar and even Scottish ideas. However, I knew the conference was going to throw up some other, more ancient ideas, so more comments on this soon. After a coffee break, we headed to another museum that showed some interesting native american artifacts, notably the 'grey alien' looking stone head!



The talks kicked off and thats where I met Jason, who has got some incredible ideas and a passion for understanding the ancients. Hes well into Michael Tsarions work, who promotes the idea that North Americans are descended from the Irish, with many other seafaring connections thrown into the mix. The first presentation discussed a megalithic alignment that connected 'perched rocks' at mile wide spacings . Donna Thompson then outlined details of the Wyndham chamber and how to get there. Nova Scotia was also covered by Terry Deveu, who described and mapped out numerous cairns on all of the islands and even an underwater structure in MacDonald Lake in Ontario. Doug, a Conneticut researcher believes he has worked out how to get Longitude by using the 'Lunar Distance Method', which he quickly explained, so couldnt follow his train of thought effectively. However, he found lunar links between these sites with petroglyphs and markings. Peter Annik, also of Connetticut discovered a 300ft line of boulders which ended with a large 'split' stone on Gibbs Mountain in the State Forest. There were also two stones with 'bowls' carved into them, which Jason suggested could have had mercury in it to be used as a basic compass! Could the combination of mercury with magnetite do this! Its worth investigating. Steve Volukas talked about the Dighton Rock and how a legend of the area talked white men in the distant past: "The white men arrived on the river in a bird and took the indians into the bird as hostages and during an affray the bird issued thunder and lightning". This is virtually the same as the Virococha legend in Peru, where they turned up in a golden bird and could summon Lightning and thunder and with this power move and transport megalithic stones (see my 'Peru Megalithic Travel Blog').

After dinner with Larry, Jason and his lovely lady, Adrienne, we watched Dan Boudillion present his first-hand research on "the hill that roared", also called Nashoba Hill, near Boston. Deep rumblings have emanated from the hill for centuries and some amazing stories are attached to it, including a great dome of light that covered a lake nearby during a sonic moment. I got a copy of the powerpoint from Dan after his talk and arranged a visit there next week. More on Nashoba Hill after our tour there.

Saturday 8th November
A full day of talks today, so lets rock! Number one: New York Lost Mounds - Norman Brockenshire kicked off the day at 9.15am! In the hundreds of mounds that have been discovered in western NY state, early archaeologists found a certain site with a 5ft circular ditch, then had a fence put up on inner bank which echoes exactly what the Mormons said in their prophetic writings (who John Smith was the visionary founder). 28 pound sledgehammers were also discovered - suggesting they were made and used by giants. 9 pounds is the size an average man can handle. Large swords were also found. Mormons say Semitic 'stock' arrived in America 600BC and the Book or Mormon talks of a genocide near NY. Forts with 4000 skeletons found in the area of the mounds have also been discovered. Some were damaged as though massive warfare was being raged here, but between whom and when?. The graves and burial mounds literally had bones poking out the sides of them, some very large people at 8ft tall! and many caucasion. Did a race of white giants live in America before the the Native Americans? Other evidence backs this up with numerous 'giant' skeletons being given to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, only never to turn up again. New York state seems to hold an archaic key to these lands, that is totally overlooked by the current paradigm, and even the Native Americans sometimes keep these kind of finds to themselves, so they can maintain their role as the first inhabitants of America.

After a talk about the Chachapoyas, who were an unknown Culture in the Ceja de Selva of Peru was a fascinating presentation called Navigating with Nephi by William Smith. He explained that using the moon to determine longitude was how it was done in antiquity. He described how a dolmen in New Jersey recorded lat & long with 'line carvings' on it. He was also convinced that the first mound people in the area had copper, the later tribes did not. Following on from 'America BC' by Barry Fell, he suggests that Nephi came over from Europe and Jason ponted out that it sounded a lot like the 'Nephilin', of the Sumerian persuasion, who were said to be of a giant stature. We missed two other talks because Larry & Jason convinced me to have a local lunchtime cultural experience...a lobster. Yum yum.

I avoided the 'meat feast' evening banquet and decided to turn off my brain by watching part of a Dirty Harry movie, followed by an awful hotel style salmon dinner. Oh well, but I was looking forward to the keynote evening lecture that followed on from Graham Hancocks a week earlier, looking at marine archaeology and recent discoveries that had been made off various coasts around the world. However, Jean-Daniel Stanley was a bit too slow-paced to hold the audiences attention and chatting began and everyone pretty much drifted off! He did make some good points though. For example, when on June 1st at Laguna Beach, California a rainstorm weakened the sediment and several houses were 'lowered' & partially destroyed. He pointed out how this low-key affair could have often happened in the past to ancient sites, not get recorded and create confusion to later researchers. He had explored the ruins off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt too, just like Hancock, but did not deliver any true revelations. However, it was a fitting end to an inspiring conference that totally opened up the mysteries of New England at a very deep level. Tomorrow was a full day tour to cairns, chambers and some 'perched' rocks.

Sunday 9th November
The day started with a trip hosted by the excellent Jim Egan, to the Narragansett Stone, in North Kingston, that has a runic inscription of unknown origin on a large rock in Narragansett Bay; only visible at low tide. The schedule warned "wading may be required". It certainly was, however I was less than convinced by its authenticity. We then drove in convoy to Queen's Fort, in North Kingston, that is a hilltop fortress of female native American leader Quiapen. The site has many legends and stories associated with it and was said to be a major tribal meeting lace of regional groups. It was also said to have had tipi's all over the encampment, but the rough and irregula terrain doesn't support this. Turkey Meadow Brook cairn field was next on the list, this time in Coventry, on a hillside with over 100 small rock piles; also several dolmens and a tall cairn and long walls.




The problem with these sites is that its had to tell if the rocks were moved by the ancient builders or colonial farmers. We drifted into the neighbours land and within minutes an angry man in a silly orange sweater was shouting and bawling at us. Ha ha...there was over 30 of us! We finished by driving through a nudist camp to reach the final site on the tour, a megalithic chamber in Foster, an L-shaped stone chamber built into a hillside that was impressive, with a large quartz boulder built into the wall where the light would probably shine through at a certain time of year.




After the tour I got a lift back to Dedham and met with Cameron who immediately drove me back to Vermont! Easy peasy.

Wednesday 12th November
After a few days of chilling out in Shelburne (literally, it was freezing!), we went to visit Rob Roy, a stone circle builder and green architecture expert in West Chazy, northern New York state. He is the author of several books on eco-houses and a superb book simply called 'Stone Circles'.


He showed us his very own stone circle, a 20 ton monolith and the beginnings of a dolmen along with numerous other megaliths on his land. But the highlight of his beautiful 'Earthwood Building School' was the Stonhenge-like trilithon, that was erected last May at one of their weekend workshops. His house is a masterstroke, it is circular with a central chimney that warms the whole house, by super-heating the stones it is made of, that helps maintain constant heat. However, it was so cold the day we visited, that he had to turn it on twice. In the basement is the beginnings of an English pub, with beer mats covering the walls and even an authentic pool table. Rob Roy has developed a technique to lift and balance huge rocks by using instruments that the ancients would have used, without any modern equipment whatsoever (except the trucks that deliver the stone!). His dedication to understanding how these megalithic structures were made is amazing and after a few beers we wished him farewell, with an open invite to any Megalithomania he can make it to. Rob is rather dry and a natural engineer, without much in the way of 'feeling', which he admitted to us openly, but I firmly believe he has helped unlock the secrets of he megalith builders, or at least the practical side f the ancient technology.

Saturday 15th November
After a few more days of chilling in Vermont, Glenn and I met up with Dan Boudillion, a Freemason and one of the lecturers at the NEARA conference. He had agreed to show us around the Nashoba Hill complex - "the hill that roars". It was a wet and cloudy day, but as avid megalithomaniacs, nothing was going to stop us. The Nashoba area is west of Boston near Littleton and native american tribes survived there for a very long time. We drove a few miles and walked along a meadow, woods and a lake to look at a megalithic chamber that was L-shaped and had the remans of a square building next to it.

It was an impressive chamber, but I did not pick up any magnetic or electrical anomalies, although an energy current ran right into the entrance and telluric lines zigzagged between the stones inside the chamber. The next site we visited was a winter solstice alignment site. A large boulder that had cracked , when viewed from a flat stone within an ancient wall was a platform to view the phenomenon. This is also a site that balls of light were witnessed traveling along the landscape here. Sarah Doublet hill was the next destination where the tribes appeared to grow crops on hundreds of small mounds and legends of a cave that she lived in. Dan had walked this landscape since his childhood, but never came across the cave, until he stumbled onto a pile of large rocks with a small gap in. When he moved some rocks away he found a small cave. The legend revealed. We then went on a very long walk to see some faint earthwork circular ditches, that Dan believes is a ceremonial complex of the indians. Nearby is Lake Nagog, that has legends of sea-monsters and Dan himself saw a 200ft wide dome of light above it that lasted for over twenty minutes. Nashoba Hill is a massive natural hill that is now incorporated into a ski complex. Unfortunately we did not hear the famous 'roar', but found a massive quartz boulder in the ground at the top of the hill. After a few days near Boston & a boring trip around Harvard University I was on a plane to Phoenix & boy, what a large city this is. I got a car, got used to driving on the wrong side of the road and booked into the hostel which was very nice, although the owner is quite mad.