[DL] Fwd: The Very Weird West

[Xotzil@aol.com]

While majordomo is still entirely ignoring me when I try to unsub, resub, 
contact or ask for help on the doomtown list, I have been able to read what 
little is going on there through www.deadlandsarchives.com (thank you, Elric).

This little bit caught my eye. Might be of interest to some of you...might 
not be.

--Jacques (Chris' friend)

* * * * *

I got a big, fat laugh out of this, which originally appeared on the 
Historical 
Archaeology listserver. 

List Members: 

Here is something I would like to share with the list that might spark 
discussion 
of similar encounters. Enjoy.... 

Being employed with a research/museum institution under university 
affiliation, I 
am occasionally asked meet with general members of the public seeking 
assistance or 
advise. One visitor had some artifacts to show me yesterday that would 
"rewrite" 
the history of the American Revolution. He informed me that he was the CEO of 
a 
consulting firm for the location of heavy metal resources, particularly 
abandoned 
treasures. He further stated that he had recently filed a claim of abandoned 
property in the Las Vegas Valley, Nevada, where he had found evidence of a 
bivouac 
area and underground storage bunkers associated with the Continental Army of 
George 
Washington. He told me that the English Army had plans to invade the western 
half 
of America (then belonging to Spain) by sailing up the Colorado River and 
landing 
troops in the vicinity of Hoover Dam, a chapter that had been "intentionally" 
left 
out of the history books. 

Listening with interest I asked to see his evidence upon which he produced 
three 
locally available limestone rocks recovered from the property. The first, he 
said 
was a cameo in the likeness of George carved by one of the troops (there was 
some 
natural resemblance). The second was a broken fragment of a Greek discus (yes 
the 
Greeks also sailed up the Colorado River). The last stone was "compressed 
opium" 
and when tilted to a certain angle would reveal a hidden map of the Indus 
Valley 
which has similar characteristics to the Las Vegas Valley. Pointing to a hole 
in 
the rock, he said that he knew of corresponding cave in the nearby mountains 
where 
he was positive that the real Declaration of Independence had been stored by 
B. 
Franklin. 

Neither agreeing or disagreeing with his proposition, I assured him that the 
artifacts he was showing me were not consistent with Revolution-era material 
objects but were simply limestone rocks. He questioned my credentials and I 
had to 
admit that I did not have experience with such artifacts since they were not 
found 
outside of the eastern states. I then asked how I could be of 
further help? He stated that he needed investors and a university-based 
archaeological group to take on the excavation of the bunkers. I informed him 
that 
we were a contractor, firms hired us to do archaeological work and that we 
could 
not be of assistance to him unless he paid us. He then stormed out of the 
museum 
yelling that nobody believed him. Ouch, a touch of reality 
there.........