Hi - a newbie here. I followed Robot's trail from another Oak Island website. What you posted there stirred such interest that I tracked you to this thread. Thanks Robot!
Firstly, kudos! I find your theories engaging, entertaining and held together with the mortor of plausability. It's your "thinking outside the box" that drives and sustains my interest. I'm not trying to blow sunshine up your butt but I believe in giving credit where credit is due. I also find many of the other contributors' (of this thread) ideas and info to be enlightening.
It's taken me about a month but I have read most of the (currently) 174 pages of this thread. I say most because at one point the "tone" of the thread changed to what became tantamount to bullying and harassment by certain individuals. Once their pattern of behavior became established I stopped bothering to read their comments and scrolled through many pages saving me much time. It"s too bad because occasionally they would make valid points but that was lost in their incessant negativity and repetitive droning. Beating a proverbial dead horse. That's all the attention I intend to give them - enough said.
As I understand from your comments Robot, you intended this thread to be a place to exchange ideas in a light-hearted approach to the subject. To qualify my following comments: I'm not a historian, researcher or anything of that ilk. I'm an armchair adventurer looking to keep my gerbil-like brain engaged in some form of stimulus. There seemed to be holes and curiosities in the story of OI and I wanted better answers which is what drove me here.
I think it was Loki who pointed out what the difference between proof and evidence was (Thanks Loki). Sometimes evidence is all you have to work with. Sometimes not even that. I enjoy contemplating theories without evidence as long as it sounds reasonable and is in the realm of plausibility. It is the level of plausability that seems to be a sticking point. Sometimes the evidence comes along later ... as has happened with the show. If you only allow hard proof to steer your thoughts then you limit the scope of your ideas and research ... you're stuck in a box. Some don"t get that.
BTW - I thought your ideas about the poisoned blue clay to be deliciously devious. That was a great piece of research and possible tie-in to the 1704 stone. Again - thinking outside the box (and backed by historical fact). Well done.
Templar or not? Zena Halpern's maps indicate the exploration of Nova Scotia prior to Colombus. Even if you argue fakes etc., I doubt Mrs. Halpern (a seasoned researcher) wouldn't have authenticated the maps prior to sharing them. Secondly, sculptures featuring corn in Rosslyn Chapel strattles the line between proof and evidence. Clearly, someone had been to North America before/during the chapel's construction. In my mind this connects the Templars with North America. The only question would be if they deposited anything here. The maps would suggest they at least created works of some type.
Personally, I don't think the "Ark" is at OI although other religious artifacts may be. My reason is from an interview conducted by Graham Hancock in Ethiopia many years back. For those who don't know the story; he was a BBC correspondent at the time and Africa was his beat. He was able to secure an interview with the "Keeper of the Ark" who was responsible for guarding it day and night. He was told the Ark was taken to Ethiopia millenia ago for protection. Hancock noticed the Keeper had tumors and cataracts and the Keeper claimed the Ark was an object of "fire". Hancock interpreted this to mean it "radiated". The following year he obtained another interview. To his surprise it was a different Keeper. He found out the previous Keeper had died and the longest a Keeper stays alive is three years but typically one year or less is all they survive. I don't think this to be faked and I can"t see Holy Men fabricating it to that length (tumors etc.).
Shifting gears (but it's related), according to one documentary I saw, the Egyptians had more than one Ark. I was floored by this statement ... Oh, btw the dimensions of the "sarcophagus" in the Great Pyramid matches the dimensions of the Ark perfectly i.e the Ark would fit perfectly inside. I mention this because if the Templars unearthed an Ark (not necessarily The Ark or the same Ark) and it possesses the same properties as the Ark in Ethiopia, it could wreak havoc on the crew transporting it across the ocean.
It's been determined (Dr. Spooner) that the swamp was created some 800 years ago. Some speculate the swamp hides a ship. To me, a radiating, contaminated vessel is the only reason I would bury a ship rather than sinking in the depths of the ocean. Again, I'm not a proponent of this theory but why bury a ship instead of sinking it. They may have thought it would kill the seas.
As a quick aside regarding a trans-Atlantic voyage circa 1100's - another one of history's mysteries is where did all the iron that created the Iron Age come from? Experts claim there wasn't enough iron deposits in Europe to supply the demand. They have discovered possible ancient open pit ore mines in the Great Lakes area that is thought to be the possible source i.e the ancient world knew of North America millenia before the official discovery took place. Could Gary Drayton's discovery of a roman pike head indicate this? The likelihood of it being a weapon as part of a 1100's or 1700's expedition is just as unlikely. If it's true, a voyage in the 1100's doesn't seem so far fetched. There's also evidence of an Irish monk making the voyage in the 800's. It also seems that when Cabot was preparing for his voyage across the Atlantic the locals in Bristol told him of a far away land called Hy-Brazil. In my mind a Templar voyage in the 1100's is plausible.
I realize the Ark info is highly controversial - I thought I'd start out with a bang. I don't mind ribbing and friendly ball busting if it's all in good fun but I will NOT answer to the kind of badgering I have read previously. That kind of CRAP will be gleefully ignored. I have many questions. I have a loose theory that changes with the evidence. BTW I think it was Portuguese Templars that made first contact with the Micmacs (what they were called when I was a kid). The evidence is the petroglyph carving on the large rock featuring a Templar shield and the shaking hands with maze and tobacco in the background (it was thought by the expert to be a Portuguesse Templar Cross). The Spanish style shoes buried at Smith's Cove and the coconut fiber support this. Hardly proof but that's three separate pieces of evidence. Thanks for reading.