Thanks. That makes me feel better. I was about to get upset. HAHAHA But that would have been easily disproved as Phil R took the pic and Greg D was standing there watching. If you want a .PEF (RAW) version of the pic, just send me your email, and I will shoot you a copy. The reason I know for a fact that I didn't do anything other than stated, is that if I make ANY adjustments other than those I stated (Size, Brightness, Contrast, and rotation), I make notes in the EXIF Files. What you are looking at may be a trick of light. I had both hands firmly on it, and it was tucked tight against my chest. I actually pictured (in my mind) me accidentally dropping The H/P Stone in front of Greg, and watching it shatter on the ground in between us. HAHAHA Like I said before, if I had used any other PS Tools on that pic, I would not have a problem admitting it. It doesn't alter ANYTHING having to do with the authenticity of the stone maps. THAT is one of the things I learned very early on in researching all the monuments and symbols I have found or been shown. If you take a photograph of a (man made) monument in the mountains, and the markings that prove it was man made are not very visible. If you PS it, and alter the pic from its original form, that is (to me) a form of fraud. THAT is why I am touchy about the subject.
......addition:
Regarding the Stone Maps on display not being the authentic ones as Franks thinks. You say you know Greg Davis. Why don't you do like I did, and ask him. He has been with the Museum since Christ was a child. I did that when Frank first made mention of the idea. Here is my email to and from Greg on the subject:
Now,
And you're right - I haven't been around as long as you. That's why I'm so shocked that you haven't been able to get the things I have - or make the connections to people that I have. The theories that frank and I came up with for video 6 are all based on information from Greg Davis' library. Stuff like hand written letters... You know, good stuff.
THAT is both very arrogant and insulting. How do you know what you say is true? I have been to Greg's Home and consider him a friend. I might know a heckuva lot more people than you think. When Greg first got the Bernice Magee Letters, he let me and a good friend of mine take them and make copies. Do you want Bob Corbin's home phone number? I got all my information about the FBI Story and all my never before seen info on Celeste Marie Jones from speaking to Bob Corbin. If you had been around when Ron Feldman's LDM Forum was going strong, you might know a bunch more people than you currently do. Some of them have since passed away. Two major ones were Ernie Provence (that I was not able to meet before he died), and Tracy Hawkins. Tracy was a Brit that was involved in both The Bob Brady Cave of Gold Bars and The Harry France Cave of Gold Bars. Not the same story as they take place in different parts of the Supers. Tracy held one of the gold bars from the Harry France Story. Joe (Cactusjumper) can attest to that. I still correspond with J. Scott Wood who was the Chief Archaeologist for the Tonto Natl Forest for about 40 years (until he recently retired). See, maybe you don't know as much or as many people as you thought you did. I can go on and on.
You say you respected my research, but you blow it off. Okay, no worries. It doesn't jibe with your theory. EVERYBODY has their own. You ask ten Dutch Hunters to give their opinion on the mine, and you will get nine or ten different answers. Same with the Stone Maps.
To state what you state in your previous response to my post says that you haven't read anything I have ever written about the Stone Maps. I honestly DO NOT CARE whether or not they are authentic. I have my personal beliefs about who made them, and why they might have been found where they supposedly were, but my beliefs are shaped around a LOT of research over a period of several years. I have also stated numerous times that because there is no period written record mentioning The Stone Maps, I have to admit the possibility of them being hoaxed. I know I am not infallible, and when I make a mistake, I like to think that I am man enough, and intellectually honest enough to come right out and admit it. Since I first got copies of all the Dick Peck Letters, I have thought the H/P Stone may be modern. Here is my reasoning:
1. No period pictures exist of the H/P Stone with the other three. The bumper pic doesn't include it.
2. Peck's Investigator asked Travis T's friend in Hood River, Oregon if Travis had ever shown him a stone with a horse on it. The man said NO.
Neither of those are proof that it is a fake. Travis' own story explains why the H/P Stone isn't in the bumper pic. He found that stone a year before he found the others. He may not have had the H/P Stone handy when he took that pic. Travis may not have shown his friend in Oregon the H/P Stone because he may have thought there was something important on it that he wanted to keep secret from everybody.
OR
It may have been made a later date. We may never know!
re; Bob Tumlinson:
In your line of work, you should be intimately familiar with the difference between someone trying to get an investor for a project and trying to sell that project to someone else. You said it yourself, that Bob Tumlinson tried to get Gene Davis to INVEST in his work on the Stone Maps. He never tried to SELL Davis the Stone Maps. They NEVER belonged to him to sell. They always belonged to his nephew Travis. Trying to get an investor says to any right minded person that Bob T believed in his Stone Map Interpretations, but couldn't afford to act on them. He needed someone to pay his way. THAT, is not as indicative of a hoax as someone trying to sell the Stone Maps and be rid of them. But again, you fail to answer my biggest problem with your theory; the Stone Maps were known to have existed in 1949. Bob T. didn't get them until about 1956 or 1957. Do you even know if Bob Tumlinson knew Dr Davis in 1949? If my theory was that Travis T made the Stone Maps so that his Uncle Bob could sell them to his landlord, the very first thing I would do is see if there was a 1949 connection between Bob T and Dr Davis.
All of you have been commiserating over that elusive 5th Stone Map. Some have said that the Heart Insert is the 5th Stone. Some say that The Latin Heart is the 5th Stone. The 5th Stone was described in one of the Peck Letters:
"Bob Bair then revealed that Travis Tumlinson had found another stone with the head of an Indian carved on it and that the Indian had two lines carved across the lips as though to seal them....."
There is your 5th Stone. Nobody to my knowledge has ever seen that stone. Melford Brower believed that stone was with Janie Tumlinson in Texas.
As many times as I have been in the Supers, I have never actively hunted for the Stone Map Trail or The LDM. Like I previously stated; too many stories told, and too many monuments altered and torn down to try and find either based on clues. My searches are for other, less well known stories, that people haven't beaten to death. I have always said that nobody looking for the LDM will probably ever find it. It will likely be some granola eating tree hugger out hiking, who will accidentally fall through the covering, and donate his/her share of the find to PETA.
more to come....
