CLASSIC: The Mystery of the Kensington Runestone

Fellow conspiracy realist, we want to talk about runes with you today. Not the Elder Scroll runes, not the Elden Ring runes, but the Kensington runes. This is cool stuff. I'm remembering this episode as I take a look at some of the information here. And this is one of those things. find an artifact that doesn't it appears to be out of place right it there shouldn't be this type of writing in this place from this time strange but for the for today's episode we're going to Minnesota oh yeah yeah classic Viking territory right this is the idea that what modern historians called the Vikings, made it way past Newfoundland into the interior of what we call the United States. And they did it way back in the 1300s, and they left absolutely no trace except for a mysterious slab of stone. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpwright became the victim of a random crime. The perpetrator was sentenced to 99 years until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. In 2018, the FBI took down a ring of spies working for China's Ministry of State Security, one of the most mysterious intelligence agencies in the world. The Sixth Bureau podcast is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby, we unpack the story of an unimaginable tragedy that gripped the UK in 2023. But what if we didn't get the whole story? Everything has been made to fit. The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapsed. What if the truth was disguised by a story we chose to believe? Oh my God, I think she might be innocent. Listen to Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, a.k.a. neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeartRadio. Hello. Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. My name is Noel. They call me Ben. We are joined, as always, with our super producer, Paul Mission Control Deccant. Most importantly, you are you, you are here, and that makes this Stuff They Don't Want You To Know. As we've explored in previous episodes, our species knows roughly when and how human beings first reached the continent we know of as North America, but we still continue to search for more concrete, this is going to be such a horrible pun later, answers about who these people were. And as most of our fellow conspiracy realists know, many of the things children are taught about in North American history later turned out to be either misleading or wholly false. The best example of this is probably the tale of Christopher Columbus or Cristobal Colon. Without dating ourselves, guys, do you remember being taught about Christopher Columbus in grade school, elementary, middle, et cetera. Didn't he sail the ocean blue in 1492? Oh, forever. Yeah, that's the one I remember. Into our psyches. Yeah, that's what I remember. But yeah, the Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria, all that stuff. And I remember how exciting it was to say that quickly. Outside of that, you know, as far as the actual explorations and, you know, who was behind them. I vaguely remember the details, but yeah. Yeah, it's strange because a lot of kids, especially in the West, in the U.S. and Canada, were taught a somewhat simplified version of history, right, of European transatlantic exploration toward this continent and toward South America as well. But obviously, current historical research indicates Columbus was far from the first European to reach what we call North America, right? But if this explorer was not the first, then who was? According to one group of researchers, the answer may be found in a slab of rock located, of all places, in modern-day Douglas County, wait for it, Minnesota, that's called the Kensington Runestone. I know you pointed out this reminded you a bit of the Georgia Guidestones and I definitely see the similarities. But first off, Minnesota, it's inland. It's far, far away from where a ship would be at that time. Right. Well, it is. But but it does offer us a really great opportunity because it's in Minnesota and it involves Nordic or Scandinavian runes. I think we get to do both a Minnesota and a Scandinavian accent. It is pretty much between Minneapolis and Fargo. I mean, it's like almost in between there, a little closer to Fargo. So here are the facts. What are we talking about? I know some of us listening, maybe our heads exploded when they said, all right, well, finally, they're going to give us the truth about the rune stone, which is a cool, very high sword and sorcery fantasy sounding word. It dates back to 1898. There's a Swedish immigrant, his name is Olof Olman, and he, like late in that year, he said that he had stumbled across a mysterious stone while he was clearing trees and stumps from some farmland he had just acquired. Olof himself came to the U.S. in 1879, so he had been here for a while. This wasn't like he didn't just get off of a ship and then go find a tree with a stone in it. So he was just like an enterprising farmer. And we know the story of how he found the stone. Oh, yes. The tale goes that Olaf found this stone near the crest of a small knoll. Not that knoll, but an actual K-N-O-L-L. And when he found it, it was laying face down. So you don't even really understand what it is, right? At least when you first look at it, oh, there's a stone there. It was tangled up in the root system of this tree that was there on the knoll, a poplar tree. And the way this tale goes, you'd think, okay, it was just one day. But experts now can't really agree on what day it was actually found when it was truly discovered. They put it somewhere between August of 1898 and the 8th of November of that year. So that's a pretty big chunk of time at some point at which it was discovered. And, you know, and it's really one of those things. If you're hanging out somewhere near a tree, maybe by your house, doesn't matter where you live. If you're if you've got a root system going on in some trees, you dig a little bit, just a tiny bit or even not dig. just brush away some leaves and stuff that's just been lying on the ground, you might find some fairly big stones. Yeah, yeah. It's not abnormal. It's not unusual to find stones in someone's roots. By a tree. Yeah, there we go. We'll workshop it. We'll workshop it. But yeah, you're right. According to the story, there's a reason that this stone didn't just get tossed aside or used to build some rough structure on the farm, it's because Olaf's son, Edward, who was 10 years old at the time, noticed something weird. He could just make out, of course, this is covered in dirt, right, if this story is true. He could just make out what appeared to be markings, not just the patterns of time or erosion, but what seem to be purposeful markings on one side of the stone. So they clean it off. That's the sound effect for cleaning stuff off. Everybody knows that one. So they're on the stone and they find these markings are an inscription and it appears to be made by human beings. And it appears that they have written in some sort of message for posterity in some kind of language, but the farmers don't recognize the alphabet, which will also be important later. And their farm is in a rural area, like the closest settlement is Kensington, Minnesota. Yeah, and this word spread pretty quickly through Douglas County on New Year's Day of 1899, the mayor of Kensington, Minnesota, a Swedish-born gentleman by the name of John P. Hedberg, maybe a distant relative of Mitch I don't know it's possible well John P wrote a letter recounting this story to Svenska Amerikanska Posten which is a fancy way of saying Swedish American newspaper essentially and that was the name of this Swedish American newspaper in Minneapolis and Hedberg in his correspondence enclosed a penciled sheet showing reproductions of the 219 characters from the inscription that we're talking about. In his letter, in the body of the letter to Hedberg, he guessed that the inscription might be in ancient Greek, which was a language that he couldn't read. Right. Yeah, right, yeah. But he wasn't trying to put one over on this guy. He was genuinely interested. From what you can tell from his letter to the paper's editor and publishers, Hedberg was really just trying to get a little help solving this mystery. He thought maybe there would be some experts there that could point him in the right direction at the very least. He wanted to know, on the surface, what was going on? Ah, on the surface of this strange stone that they found. You're absolutely right. On the surface, scraped into it with some sort of pointy object, right? You know, we're going to get into it later, but you write to any paper, doesn't matter how well they are known throughout the land. You write to a publication and you say, look at this thing I found. It's really strange. What do you think it is? I mean, you're letting that publication know that it exists and it could be – it is a mystery, right? No matter what. Just planting that seed as we go. Also, it's the mayor of a rural area. So this is one of the strangest things to happen, probably, during this mayor's tenure. But also, let's assume that the editors and publishers get a lot of letters in the post. Maybe there's a two-headed cow report. Maybe the crops are failing or overly abundant. the reason the publisher reads this letter is because he is a friend of the mayor the guy who publishes the paper yeah or you know that time that uh that one big fella through that little fella and the wood chipper remember when that happened that was a big story at the time was that especially as a fargo ref well yeah but when it happened in the 1800s remember they didn't have uh electrically powered wood chippers so the wood chipper was a guy that was a hand crank So, yeah, so they spread this. And I appreciate your point about possible motivations there, Matt, because, of course, the art of the con teaches us that if you want to pull a good con, if this guy's motivations were anything less than sincere, then you can't show all your cards at once. right the mayor is talking to a personal friend of his so he uh he in the most objective way possible just says okay here we go what do you think i think it might be ancient greek but i don't speak it because you know if you want to reel people in you let them feel like they are making the decisions you control them making anyway the stone is at least real it's not a uh the stone itself, its existence is not a hoax. The same way that, you know, we went through a spate of people claiming a few years ago to have found Bigfoot's corpse. And they had something. Yeah, they had something. They had something. In one case, it was like a gorilla suit in a cooler. But there is a real stone here. And we have very great descriptions of it. It's made of a hard gray type of sandstone called gray whack, W-A-C-K-E. It's about the size of like your typical tombstone. I mean, a gravestone, not the pizza, which isn't bad. And it's this irregular rectangle shape, regular rectangular shape. It weighs about 202 pounds. It's 30 inches high, 30, 31 inches high, 16 inches wide and about 5.5 to 6 inches thick. So it's hefty. It's not something you casually carry around, and it seems like it would be a difficult thing to lose in the first place, right? But again, our species loses cities, civilizations, entire eras of history. Who were the Sea Peoples? Anyway. We continue asking that question for the rest of this show. That it exists. As long as we can just keep saying sea peoples. I don't know why that just strikes me as delightful, the sea people. I just think of, I picture, you know, underwater dwelling types with gills and webbed feet. I picture sea monkeys. I'm just going to be honest. It was hard for me not to say that during the Bronze Age collapse thing. I was pulling up images of old school sea monkeys, which I think are really some kind of shrimp. It's all sea persons for me. You know, mer persons, I guess. Yeah, merperson, bird person, all the hits, all the good ones. So it does, everybody agrees this stone exists. It has something carved upon it, right? It has something carved into the face of the stone. And if you look at pictures of this, which are widely available online, you'll see that the front face looks partially damaged. So it's possible there was more to this original message. And now we get to the very strange part. we know what the message says, sort of. We have a bunch of linguists who have been looking at this since 1899, at least, and they agree, kind of, on this message. But Olaf, first, he didn't, according to him, he initially thought that this was some kind of Indian almanac, by which he meant Native American almanac. but later people said uh wait those look like runes was that a quotation sound or an engraving sound that was a quotation okay cool engraving sound is more like a oh yeah but you made a sound earlier in the episode was that a scrubbing sound you made that's a cleaning that's a okay i'm just clarifying our our sonic terms here Yeah, it was runes. Runes. I don't know. On this show, we've encountered runes many a time, I think most commonly when dealing with research on the Nazi party. I think, at least for me, that's when a type of runes we've been encountering quite frequently. Well, the notion that they have power, right? Isn't that part of it? Right. The words have power in quite a literal way. Yeah, runes are used in various magical systems or traditional beliefs. They have also been kind of, what's the word, appropriated by political movements or by metal bands. Yeah. And maybe they would say that's not appropriation, but in the case of the Nazi party, it's definitely appropriation. Well just from a form factor if you thinking about fonts or something the runes such as these there is something about them that is striking Almost I don know almost in the way that hieroglyphics have the same kind of feel where it feels like there more inside whatever written or inscribed than just letters It feels that way. It reminds me of the same with a lot of Asian characters, you know, where there feels like there's an imbued meaning within the system. I mean, it's much more, there's more to it than just a straightforward A shape or a letter. You know, it feels like it's got, in the way that like certain Japanese characters can tell a story, you know, with some brushstrokes, you know, or there's a lot more contained within that one character than with just a letter that would then be used to spell out a word, right? Yeah, runes are crazy. I watched, I've been rewatched, I've been watching like two Halloween movies, one to two Halloween movies a day in October. And I stumbled upon a film that I'd never heard of called Spell, which is about a guy with OCD whose spouse passes away. None of this is a spoiler. And so he just sort of impulsively goes to Iceland and he gets really wrapped up in Icelandic folklore and runes. And I fell into the rabbit hole of Icelandic traditional beliefs. And I spent, I swear, I spent like two hours this past weekend wondering how we could make it a stuff they don't want you to know episode until I said, I'm just going to have to, I'm just going to have to be content to name drop that thing because there's not a conspiracy. First place I ever remember hearing about runes was in the Hobbit movie where one of the gnomes is like, those are rune stones, you know, that was the first. And like, you know, because they do have power. They're also in a lot of obviously like RPG type games or in Legend of Zelda. There are a way you can power up a sword by adding a rune stone to it that gives it a special property or whatever outside the scope of today's discussion. But still, the point is that language can be imbued with meaning and power in the right hands, at least in theory. I really hope some of you also teleported on runes in Ultima Online the way I did, because that was one of my favorite things. So let's just talk about these runes for a little bit. Runes in general, it's an ancient North European writing system, right? It's probably first developed in the 2nd century CE, and most likely under Roman influence. they were also taught in several places throughout the world specifically in Scandinavian schools, school children in the 19th century were learning what runes were at least in a general sense in early education in that way more as a history lesson I think, I mean that's my understanding, it would be more of a let's learn about our history, our past No, it's a Skolomance thing they're teaching those kids spells Oh I mean I hope occult power over the elements, how to find fortune and love and lay enemies to waste. No, you're right, though. Runes are a real thing. They're very, very popular in fiction, but they are very much a real thing, and they were taught in various parts of Scandinavia to school children in the 1800s, at least. We know that for sure. So here is the translation. This is, again, this is a generally accepted translation. There are going to be people who go back and forth about the specifics here. But it's like a confession. We don't need a prologue. Here it is. We are eight Goths and 22 Norwegians on an exploration valley from Vinland through the west. We had camp by a lake with two scaries at small rocky islands one day's journey north from this stone. We were out and fished one day after we came home. We found 10 of our men, red with blood and dead. AVM, standing probably for Ave, Virgo, Maria, or Hail Virgin Mary, save us from evil. We have 10 of our party by the sea to look after our ships. 14 days journey from this island, year 1362. Whoa, 1362. These runes are describing a couple of different journeys that were taken, but one specific exploration journey. I like how they put that from Vinland through the West. Hmm. We're going to spend some time. Is that the same as Finland? We're going to, we're going to spend some time discussing what that may or may not mean. I'm sure. Where is Vinland you say? But yeah, really interesting stuff like giving almost in a sunken treasure or in a hidden treasure map kind of vibe. Like we're this, we're this distance away from this stone from where we were. We're also this other distance in this other direction away from this stone for this other thing. Fascinating that this thing, this message would end up etched in stone in this place. Hmm. Well, why is it there? How did it get there? What does it mean? We'll tell you. Well, at least as much as we know afterward from our sponsor. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpwright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun, tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Jermaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Jermaine was sentenced to 99 years. I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth. For 22 years, only two people knew the truth. Until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him. But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary. Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's a unicorn. No one had ever seen anything like that. It was unbelievable. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history. Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict, a villain, a nurse named Lucy Leppie. Lucy Leppie has been found guilty. But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox and in the new podcast Doubt the case of Lucy Letby we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Letby was No voicing of any skepticism or doubt It'll cause so much harm at every single level if the British establishment of this is wrong Listen to Doubt the case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Hi, this is Jo Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver. The Irish traveler said when I was 16, you're going to have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller, and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives. and I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius like are misunderstood. A sun and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses, in different places, but just an embracing of the is-ness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart-side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, This episode is a must listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And we're back talking about potentially magical artifacts found in Minnesota. Not too, too, too terribly far from Minneapolis where we know a magical creature once dwelled. prints, the purple one, but unrelated to any Goths or Norwegians that I know of. But the Minneapolis Journal actually scooped the Swedish paper that we discussed, the Swedish language paper that we discussed earlier on that translation, referencing said Goths and Norwegians, 8 and 22 in number. And it was kind of a thing. The stone itself was put on display in a bank, although this account that we found on the Internet incorrectly refers to the bank as a drugstore. And it's super important to note that Olaf Omen never actually was looking to get paid for his discovery. the minnesota historical society uh actually has a bill of sales showing that allman sold the stone to them for 10 american dollars in 19 and 11 which would be around 300 bucks in 2020 closer to 260 wow so what's the deal where do the facts and the fiction meet and and of which is there more This is the question I think we have for today. The first thing I would put forward is who's to say it wasn't a combination bank and drugstore? I mean, everybody's seen those. Money is a drug. You certainly will see banks in grocery stores and drugs and pharmacies in grocery stores, though I cannot say I have ever, Matt, seen a bank in a freestanding drugstore. but or maybe we just need a pop-up uh you know banking institutions are stressful for a lot of people maybe we need a pop-up pharmacy uh right after you sign 30 years of your life away and alone i think i think there's probably a law against that for good reason but uh it's not a bad idea there's a lot of money to be made and then you can go next door to the combination Pizza Hut Taco Bell and get a little snack. Seriously. Yes, absolutely. But also, you guys are familiar with the concept of minute clinics, right? Where a drugstore essentially will have a physician's assistant. Urgent care type situation. But in a drugstore, why aren't there minute clinics with psychiatrists in them? Like having a crisis or that has a psychiatrist installed just waiting for you. Come, come to me. And I will prescribe the... Probably because... I would say probably because it's tougher to help heal a wounded mind than it is to help bandage up a broken arm. I don't mean to actually do good for any patient that comes in. I just meant to push more pills. I got it. Oh, okay, yeah. Let the Oxycontin tycoons know, right? There's no revenue stream, just like oil companies figured out plastic. I hope those words don't come back to haunt us. There is a point, though, that I don't want to lose before we get too far from the translation. And that is that the Goths are Swedes. Goth is a word for Swede. They're not the motley crew from Letterkenny or South Park. They're not demure cure fans, you know, with emo haircuts and potential, like, chainmail belts or something like that. Black fingernail polish. They may have had chain mail. Oh, that's true. Yeah. Likely on more than their belts, though, I would imagine. I would imagine so, unless it was something of religious or spiritual cultural significance. Yeah. This is an excellent question about fact versus fiction, because if the Kensington runestone is what its believers say it is, and if the message on it is true and is from 1362, then it's hugely important for our understanding of North American history. Forget that of world history. This would be a big deal because how would this group of Swedish people and Norwegian people, Vikings working together, how would they reach the Midwest from Vinland, right? Even though they say they did at a great personal cost. They paid him blood for this trip. It's still a long journey. Maybe we should pause for just a second to talk about Vinland. We've been throwing this around. You've probably heard of Greenland. You've probably heard of Iceland. And maybe the nifty little story behind their names. uh vinland is is kind of in that same head space it's an area of north america that was explored by norse vikings uh leaf ericsson landed there around 1000 ce so you know you don't have to be a math doctor to know that's way before columbus i mean that's it's incredible to have that inscribed you know allegedly in the 1300s it so i guess what i'm trying to wrap my head around i was reading this story from the is what is it the minnesota post um and they're discussing vinland and the route through the west from vinland and what where that would be from where where it would actually be located and i'm genuinely a little bit confused because it seems as though it's a bit unknown where Vinland is? Ben, do we have, maybe I just don't have it in my research, like actually where it is located in the current U.S.? Yeah, so right now the popular consensus is that what was described as Vinland by Leif Erikson and co is probably an area that includes Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence and maybe goes as far as New Brunswick. So really, it's Canadian. Okay, okay. But it is a wide range, and it is accepted as fact that these people arrived there in 1000 CE. We just don't know what happened in the 1300s. Well, if you definitely want to learn an historically accurate account of what Vinland was, there is an anime manga series called Vinland Saga. So that would be the place to go. I'm kidding. But it is interesting when a country like Japan portrays a culture like the Viking type situation. I don't know. I'm intrigued by this because it does appear to be like Viking ships and swords and that kind of hijinks. So it looks pretty interesting. So what landmass would we attribute it to? Does it still exist? or I'm having a hard time finding anything about, oh, it's just North America, just part of it. Okay, interesting. It would be like the upper eastern coast of the North American continent. But from what we know in the earliest accounts of inland, it was described as, it was first written about in 1075 and it was described as these remote islands. So imagine you get close, you find some islands, and you think, we've gone really far. We should turn around. They didn't really, from what we understand, they did not know the enormity of the landmass that they were very, very close to. If that makes sense. So Vinland, at this point, is, we should also say, it's the idea of these early Viking explorers in 1000 CE, it's a very popular idea. It's in a lot of conversations. It's in the zeitgeist in the 1890s, in Europe and in the U.S. So someone would probably know, someone in Minnesota would have heard this story, especially given the massive Swedish population. They would have been familiar with this. And that's why it got so much interest from the media. There was a flurry of investigations. We're talking scholars and linguists. They dive into this description and they're fighting back and forth. Like, what kind of runic system is this? How old is it? That's the big question, right? And then historians and scientists are doing the same kind of thing that we were just doing where they essentially pulling up a map and they going okay fictional boat How does it get to Minnesota? You know what I mean? Well, dude, it's fascinating if you just read that translation. Doesn't it call the place where the tablet ends up an island and not just a hill, right? So that alone makes the mind start wondering, well, wait, was this flooded? And unless you know the historical record of the area or you have extremely accurate information on that, your mind may think, well, perhaps it was. A lot of this was flooded at some point, even if it was only on a temporary basis to where this whole area could be traversed by ship or by boat rather than on foot. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, we know that geography can change, right? Especially over time. That's the thing. If you're hearing about this and you're not a scholar of ancient languages that are somewhat obscure, and if you're not a forensic expert or a professional historian, then this sounds like it's – at the very least, it sounds like it's an interesting thing. thing, and it sounds very possible. The stone itself ended up getting sent to some professionals, especially one Professor George O. Kerm, who was a philologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He looks at this draft people are figuring out based on what we know about the inscription. and when he looks at this first draft, he's got a little spark of hope, right? Are we about to learn more about hidden history? But then he inspected the language on the stone itself. You know, when he did a firsthand investigation, he got really, really puzzled and it led him and many others to ask, what the heck is going on? what is the provenance of this stone? We'll answer the question definitively after a word from our sponsor. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun, tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Jermaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Jermaine was sentenced to 99 years. I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth. For 22 years, only two people knew the truth. until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him. But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary. Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's a unicorn. No one had ever seen anything like that. It was unbelievable. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history. Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict, a villain, a nurse named Lucy Letby. Lucy Letby has been found guilty. But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Letby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single level if the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Jo Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter Podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver. The Irish traveler said when I was 16, you're going to have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller, and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives. And I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius are misunderstood. A sun and Venus and Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses, in different places, but just an embracing of the is-ness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart-side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, this episode is a must-listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Here's where it gets crazy. Okay, we gotta say it. It's fake. What? No! Just like that. Just like that. It gets crazy, it's fake? well it gets a little crazier than that but the stone itself is 98 98.99 percent uh a hoax uh at least it might be an historical hoax like the shroud of turin or something spoilers but uh but this is proven pretty definitively there are big problems with the stories there's not just problems with the uh the story of the farmer finding it there's a problem with the story that's on the stone map problems right like route problems and the farmer selling it for 10 bucks even if it was 260 bucks come on this thing's incredible 10 bucks yeah look for the vikings ships to have uh made a 14 day journey from alexandria um to where they ended up. The only possible route they could have taken was from Hudson Bay, which is 800 miles as the crow flies longer. If you take a more winding path, like a river and having to pick up the boat and put it back down, which is a word I learned today called portage and a particularly difficult distance to manage in 14 days in the way that it was described here in this, on the stone, the route through the west from vinland that whole situation uh whose location in 1362 would have been unknown uh that's a thing we've all kind of struggled with as we were trying to pick this apart and no other record of this expedition has been found literally anywhere um so why would explorers who had just suffered such a massacre stopped to carve in these beautifully ornate uh and organized characters, the stone inscription. I would, you know, just to counter a little bit to that last part there. I mean, if maybe the belief is that all is lost, you want to warn anyone else who's going to be coming this way about something. Maybe you don't have enough information. So as one of the men is dying, he's carving furiously, trying to get a message into this stone before he leaves or before his party leaves and he perishes. I'm just putting it out there. It feels very video game-like to me or movie-like, but just as a possible reason to make them look like that. Maybe a testament to the lives lost. There you go. Maybe some way to make a mark before they themselves disappeared. I would say that we do need to point out there were no bodies found in the vicinity of the stone that we know of. And it's also, it's a good question. We don't know why this would happen in a vacuum, why there would be no other secondary source. If it's a true story, then perhaps the grisly fact of the matter is that the author, along with their cohort, all died. Maybe no one made it back to tell the tale of their, you know, their woefully unfortunate trip. But, okay, that's a huge problem, the math. These folks were mavericks if they were able to sail to this very specific place in a way that would have required them to, at some point, pick up their boats, physically carry them across the ground, put them in another water source, and then continue on their merry way. That's a lot. But there's another problem with this story, and I hate to say it. It's a problem with the farmer. It's very, very strange. I'm not calling him a liar. Just say it's very strange that Olaf would not have recognized something familiar about runes. Because remember, he grew up in Sweden. It was during a time when Scandinavian children were often taught about runes. He was not a, I guess we wouldn't call him a highly educated man. but that doesn't make him unintelligent. He was literate. He had a small library at his house and some of those books had, you guessed it, runes in them. Okay. So then we have to wonder if the inscription itself, the message, if it was genuine. Hmm. Right. Well, if someone were to inscribe something in, what do we call it? That's a fun word that we just, gray crack if someone were to inscribe this thing in gray whack they would have to at least have an understanding of what these runes meant how to put them together to form sentences with meaning and you know if the farmer does have these books he did grow up in a place where he learned at least parts of this language I don't know if he had the nerve or the wherewithal to pull up a prank or even a quick way to make $10. The worst way to make $10 ever. That's a lot of work to put in. Like how long does it take? Look, I've never, oh, hmm. I imagine it would take a long time to carve something into stone, right? So if you average out, this is maybe us being cheapskates, but it's important. If you average out that $10 across however many hours it would have taken to make this, it's not a great gig. You know what I mean? Even if it's $260, like if you were being commissioned to build a piece of art in stone for $260, that feels cheap to me for an ornate piece of stone, but I don't know. It's also kind of an odd prank, right? Like, I mean, obviously we're talking about it. Obviously it got some attention. You know, it was put up in the drugstore slash bank, whatever, whichever one it was, combination drugstore bank. But what do you think the end game was just to make a fuss, just to get people excited or riled up? That's a good question. There have been some people who guessed that this conspiracy, and it is a conspiracy if it's a hoax. There have been some people who guessed that it had more than one, involved more than one person, that one of Ullman's friends, a pastor, a former pastor named Sven Vogelblad, may have helped him out because Sven had a knowledge of runes. and according to a couple sources, again, this is touchy, this is like the Syrian sources writing about the assassins. There are sources who say that both of these guys, Sven and Olaf, didn't like academics. They didn't like the ivory tower, they resented him for some reason, so maybe this is like a little Philip toward them, or a bite of the thumb. Just a quick Philip. Yeah, that's the word for it. I know, I know. I love it. I just, I love it. I've never heard anyone in like 20, in the whatever this era is, refer to flipping someone a quick Philip. I love it. I love it. It's funny. We mentioned at the top of the show how this sort of reminded me of the Georgia Guidestones. I think one misconception about the Georgia Guidestones is that they're a hoax, is that they're meant to be interpreted as some sort of ancient artifact, like some sort of Stonehenge-type situation. But it's certainly something that the mind might jump to when just seeing it cold, because they do appear to be these ancient kind of carved granite slabs that very much resemble Stonehenge. But obviously we know, at the very least, the mystery behind that is what the identity actually was of the man who paid to have them erected and designed. But we know that a man did have them erected design with full cooperation of the city and, you know, bought the plot of land and all that stuff. So that's different, but still very interesting in that they are both, you know, the Guidestones are sort of meant to resemble something that could be taken as ancient, but it serves a much more modern purpose. I understand the meaning and the point behind the Guidestones. I don't understand the meaning and the point behind this. If it were a hoax, right? Right, right. Yeah, so that's, I mean, that's a key question because we don't have definitive proof that Olaf Oman made these things as a jolly prank. In fact, he never admitted a hoax, even unto his deathbed. Again, as we said, he clearly was not out to become wealthy from this. And he was adamant. He stuck to his story. He was steadfast about his version of events until his death. And he stuck by the story even when the academics that he reputedly resented came back with problems with the inscription itself. They first analyze it in 1899, right? Same year it gets reported. And a lot of these experts dismiss it as fake back then. They say there are too many discrepancies in the form and the vocabulary because they're like the Indiana Jones top men. They get together and they say, OK, look, we are experts in a very specific field, the known languages of 14th century Scandinavia. And we check with each other and none of us think this is legit. They were saying that back in 1899, early 1900s. Most experts since then have agreed. But even if you say, even if you say, well, maybe this person was just writing in a weird way because around half of their friends were dead. It was a very trying time. They were very stressed out. Even if we accept that, we have to ask ourselves about the age of these things, the condition of the rock. So there, you know, they're picked up in 1889, right? And if you're talking about, what is that, 500 years that they would have been laying there? Or, yeah, more than 500 years that they had been laying there. You'd think that the stone inscriptions would have just been worn to nothingness, or at least worn heavily after all that time of just the elements and laying there. being, you know, scraped. I know it doesn't sound like much, but being scraped by roots and by dirt and as water runs underneath it every time it rains and all these other things. The weird thing is, though, to me, is if it's laying on its face and it isn't directly being hit by rain and debris all that time, I don't know, I feel like it would degrade less so than if it was facing up, But maybe that just my ignorance as to how things actually get weathered and what 500 years can do to something But you know I know that certainly in question here Why were the runes still so intact and seemingly pristine? I see. You're saying if it was, like, mounted like a tombstone upright, then it would be spared more? Like, then if it were, like, you know, mounted on the ground facing up, then probably that amount of time the runes would have been completely wiped away you know I guess what I'm saying is because of how it was found correct me if I'm wrong Ben but I think it was found face down you don't see the runes you see just the rest of the greywack stone you pick it up and then you see the runes that certainly would have preserved it I would imagine that's my thought but I know that experts at the time were just saying I hear what you're saying Matt this is what the experts would have said I hear what you're saying Matt but we're talking about 500 years well also over yeah over 500 years would root systems of other trees not have broken engulfed it yeah engulfed it broken more of the stone into bits or you know eroded it time wears on things on all the works of man so maybe we can say what about the most popular poplar tree in town in 1898. How old was the tree? They did an interesting thing, not super scientific. The tree that held the stone was destroyed by 1910, but people went back to the site. They looked around the area. They saw other poplar trees, like a nearby copes of poplar trees, and they had locals saying, okay, these poplars are around the same size. They're around the same age. And then the experts knocked down some of those trees. And through the magic of dendocrinology, they figured out that those trees were probably between 30 to 40 years old. So the age of that, if that gives us information about the age of the tree where the stone was supposedly found, then we know that that root system had engulfed it within 30 to 40 years. again if if this is true because another person uh who was at the excavation site later who visited it a county school superintendent named cleave van dyke said hold on those those trees are only 10 or 12 years old but you know he said that in a minnesota accent i imagine have we attempted a nordic accent yet or a scandinavian accent ben you promised us a bjerk off mic we were talking off we were talking sorry i don't mean to throw you under the bjerk there we go worth it well but just i i hear you about the trees like that that makes a whole lot of sense as to why it would have ended up where it was if those trees were only that old, right? Just to jump back quickly to the inscription and the age possibly of that, there was an analysis in 2003 done on the actual inscriptions, the runes that are inscribed into the rock. And there was a person, Scott F. Walter, who conducted this analysis. And according to him and his study, they were around 200 years old. so that would put them in the 1800s we're talking about 1898, 1899 when they're first discovered and studied it's an interesting thing because to me, I know that 200 years isn't come on, that's not an exact number of years that these inscriptions have been on there but that gives you a pretty, at least a good idea of how old they were rather than 700 years, 600 years, 500 years. But it is interesting to think that, at least in one analysis, it put the range of only around 200 years rather than the 500, 600-year range. Right, and even that measure is controversial, right? You'll find a lot of people who reject that. I just have to say, with this cast of characters, who's the guy who made Spinal Tap best in show? Christopher Guest Christopher Guest feels like Kensington Runestones would be a great Christopher Guest film it would be there's a really great very small part in Waiting for Guffman where David Cross plays like a historian or something and he's talking about he's like a UFO enthusiast and he said in this circle it's always two degrees colder with a 5% chance of rain like he's out in the field that's the only time you hear from David Cross in that movie but I love that part such a good movie shot a bunch of other stuff and then it just ended up getting cut on the cutting room floor oh because they play they have a good time with those movies it's all you know mostly improv I think with like a skeletal outline so I wouldn't doubt that there's probably some good outtakes somewhere out there in the world. Well, Chris, if you are listening to the show, let us know when we can expect your feature film on the Kensington Rune Stone and whether or not it is a hoax. There's one thing that I held back on that I think is substantive and should be mentioned. there are a lot of people in the area today especially who say they believe in the veracity of the runestone. Now is that a measure of sincere belief or is that sort of like a regional pride thing right? Like how I was going to say like how Atlanta still supports the Falcons but I don't think we need. Yeah like Blaine Missouri and their stools. You know that was another Christopher Guest reference. I'm just saying. Oh, let's keep it. Let's keep them both in. But there was one great comparison I read from a linguistics expert about this. I'm just going to read this line to you guys, just the one line. Remember when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in 1969 and said, LMAO, this is tight. That language is off by about 50 years, says linguist Jackson Crawford. And his argument is that the language of the Kensington runestone is off by about 600 years. He's an old Norse specialist with a PhD. So in his professional opinion, this was written far after it claimed to be written. As a matter of fact, it may have been written around the late 1800s. Strange and suspect. it really just brings you back to the question why would someone do this? and if it was the farmer why didn't he sell it for more money? why didn't it become a tourist attraction of some sort? we've seen on this show several times throughout the years where in places across the United States a hoax of some kind will begin and it takes on a life of its own and even if it is proven to be a hoax it becomes a museum or a place where you can go and see it. And, you know, the person who found it or the family can prosper from it, even if it is considered a hoax by everybody. I mean, it's something that can happen. And it didn't seem to happen that way for Olaf. It's just, it's very weird. And he didn't come forward to say, oh, yeah, this was a hoax later on in life. Nobody else did either. So maybe Olaf did discover something that someone else hoaxed, which is a possibility that we can't completely throw away. But it just, I don't know, none of it feels right. Or maybe it just doesn't amount to much, I guess. That's why there's such a problem with it when I'm thinking about it. However, you can go and see it right now. It still exists, and it's in a museum. In the Rune Stone Museum, right? Oh, yes. The Rune Stone Museum that you can visit now, though maybe you don't want to go in person. Maybe you can do it virtually. But if you were going to go in person, it's at 206 Broadway, Alexandria, Minnesota, 56308. And, you know, there's a phone number you can call and you can see all this stuff and learn more about the Rune Stone itself, at least according to the museum at runestonemuseum.org. Yep. And while you're there, why not make a day of it? The Runestone Museum is just across the way. It's walking distance from the Legacy of the Lakes Museum. And I kid you not, a gigantic Viking statue. Nice. Well, the runestone, by the way, at the museum is displayed beautifully. It looks incredible. On that website, you can see lots of pictures of it. There's some videos in there. There's, I think, a few ships, like Scandinavian ships. And there's a whole Scandinavian heritage exhibit there. I mean, I would say it's probably going to be worth your time. I'd love to go. Yeah, I agree. I would also love to check this out. You can see the story of this. You can get a map of the county there. You can also visit the Kensington Runestone Park, which is a short drive from the museum. And you can learn more at the Kensington Heritage Society. I want to say again, there are people who believe that this is an honest, the goshness Viking relic. And then there are other people, to be candid, the majority of academics who believe that it is in some way an historical hoax. But don't let that ruin a good trip to the museum. You know what I mean? That's one of the only things I miss, is I miss museums. I don't miss handshakes those have always been weird hugs are weird but museums are great yeah museums were nice and zoos some zoos some zoos the Atlanta Zoo is back up and running it's got COVID safe precautions in place they only let a certain number of people in and I went and it wasn't too bad and that's a good zoo I think the Atlanta Zoo is a good zoo because it's a lot of the animals that are in there wouldn't survive in the wild which maybe some people take issue with that version of events. I understand that, but it does, it sits okay with me. Yeah, and just because the Kensington runestone is likely a hoax, it doesn't mean that Viking relics, other Viking relics aren't real. It doesn't mean that there are not more strange tales of pre-Columbus era exploration from Europeans. You'll see all kinds of arguments. There's one that's pretty interesting about Greek contact in the 4th century BCE, because a guy named J. Richard Steffi looked at the construction of a Greek ship from the 4th century and found they used a mixture of agave leaves and pitch. Where does agave grow? Interesting, right? It's not proof, but it's not fire, but it's smoke. You can also learn more about theories about the Priory of Scion and things like that, which are of varying plausibility. And the legend of St. Brendan, the Irish monk, the list goes on. But I think if we are doing due diligence and admitting when something seems like a hoax, even though the story about it would be cool, I think when we're doing our due diligence there, we have to be careful to remember that this does not automatically mean every other controversial historical relic is somehow a hoax. Oh, 100%. And I think it's important that we keep that kind of thing in the backs of our minds whenever we're exploring something like this. Even if everybody says it's a hoax, let's at least think about it on the base context of what everybody else is working with before passing judgment. I think that's important. And to that end, we very much want to know what you think about the Kensington Runestone and any other thing that we just mentioned a few moments ago. But the Kensington Runestone in particular, have you been, have you seen it? Have you heard any tales about it? I'd love to know your experience at the museum. Again, just so I can live through your experience as I miss museums along with Ben and Noel and Paul. But yeah, you know, what other kind of stuff about, you know, pre-contact, pre-Columbus contact from Europeans here in the Americas? What do you think about all of that stuff? You can contact us. We're all over social media. On Twitter and Facebook, we are Conspiracy Stuff. On Instagram, we are Conspiracy Stuff Show. That's right. If you want to get a hold of us in a different way, you can join our Facebook group, which is called Here's Where It Gets Crazy. Easy as pie to get in. Just name a name. Any name will do. An interesting name. A name from conspiracy history. But preferably a name of myself or Matt or Ben or Mission Control or Doc Holliday. And you're in. or just make Ben laugh. Yes, yes. Someone had a great pun, and I was laughing so hard that I just approved you, and I'm sorry I should have saved it for the air. But yes, yes, let us know. We try to be easy to find. If you don't sip the social meds, if going online is not your bag of badgers, then we have a different rune stone for you to hit up to contact us. Check out the series of numerical hieroglyphs on your phone, your telephonic device, and cast a spell. Cast 1-833-STD-WYTK, and you will speak directly into a void that may speak back. That's right. RelPoor on 1-833-STD-WYTK. RelPoor, everyone. went right over my head, baby. That's all good. That's all the online. There's three people listening that got that, and I hope you appreciate it as much as I do. Yeah, because I think we're lost, man. We're trying to yes and do. That's all good, guys. Just gather as much blood moss and mandrake root, I think. If you just gather a bunch of that, you need those reagents. What was that one from the Skyrim, Ben? The dragon yell. Those were rune-based, weren't they? Yeah, Fustora, indeed That's the one, Fustora! Exactly Hey, and if you don't want to do any of that You can send us a good old Fustora We are Conspiracy at iHeartRadio.com Stuff They Don't Want You To Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpright became the victim of a random crime. The perpetrator was sentenced to 99 years until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. In 2018, the FBI took down a ring of spies working for China's Ministry of State Security, one of the most mysterious intelligence agencies in the world. The Sixth Bureau podcast is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we unpack the story of an unimaginable tragedy that gripped the UK in 2023. But what if we didn't get the whole story? I've just been made to fit. The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapsed. What if the truth was disguised by a story we chose to believe? Oh my God, I think she might be innocent. Listen to Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, a.k.a. neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.