The World's Fair

[Joe]

The one obvious remaining question the C's alluded to: Who built the buildings that were already there (and when) and what was their intended function prior to being incorporated into a World's Fair??

I don't think there's much of a mystery here. I seriously doubt there were any significant buildings on the sites before construction. Consider also the time when the fairs we are are talking about took place. They were platforms for state-of-the-art science and technology from around the world. The world expositions of 1851 London, 1853 New York, 1862 London, 1876 Philadelphia, Paris 1878, 1888 Barcelona, 1889 Paris, 1891 Prague, 1893 Chicago, 1897 Brussels, 1900 Paris, 1904 St. Louis, 1915 San Francisco, and 1933–34 Chicago were notable in this respect. These were all products of the industrial revolution, when the 'Western world', and in particular America, were rising stars seeking and achieving global domination and eager to show case their prowess. As for the wood construction, it was also a time when a massive amount of logging was being done (thanks to modern industrial revolution tech).

I wouldn't get too hung up on what was said in the last session.

 

[MJF]

Also located at that time are anomalous stone structures that may or may not be related to the mound culture. Either way, the structures are rarely intact and their overall purpose is not known. They are not in use by the native North Americans the settlers encounter.

Beyond early fur trading records, the first written reports from all these new settlements are local newspapers. Reports written by locals. Hundreds of these reports exist that tell the same story. Mounds, earthworks, well-crafted artefacts and unusual stone structures (not necessarily buildings or remnants of). Occasionally there are giant skeletons found. For the people settling west of the Appalachians (following the Revolutionary War) this same pattern is repeated over and over again. For those settlers they are amazed at what they find and can't reconcile it with the state of the scattered tribal native people still living in the area. Unknown to them at the time is that through disease/war/extreme climate, the native population had been in their own kind of entropic Dark Age for hundreds of years.

By the middle of the 19th century "mound builder" lost civilizations theories arise. Phoenicians, Egyptians, Welsh, Lost Tribes of Israel. Nothing really sticks as the artifacts don't fit close enough. But the mounds are so prevalent that the Smithsonian Explorations into Earthen Mounds organization is formed.

I appreciate what you are saying here and I agree that there has clearly been a deliberate cover-up of out of place artefacts and giant skeletons etc., particularly by the Smithsonian Institute. When it comes to mounds, especially burial mounds, there is one group of Europeans who were especially well known for mound building and that is the Celts. I am aware of many Neolithic mounds or barrows here in Britain where I live but perhaps the best known and largest example is the circular mound at Newgrange in Ireland:​

​

A grand passage tomb, Newgrange is believed to have been built during the Neolithic Period, around 3200 BC. See: Newgrange - Wikipedia

Your mention of Sasquatch and "little people" with futuristic weapons reportedly emerging from these American mounds reminds me that Newgrange is also linked with similar tales of strange beings. In Irish mythology, Newgrange is often called Síd in Broga (modern Sídhe an Brugha or Sí an Bhrú). Like other passage tombs, it is described as a portal to the Otherworld and a dwelling place of the divine Tuatha Dé Danann. These god-like like entities were normally described as tall (giants?), blond or red-haired, beautiful, pale-skinned, shining beings. And, of course, Ireland is very much a Celtic land to this day.

Is it possible that Celts from Ireland and the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) sailed over to America, traded and eventually established settlements in North America in antiquity and built stone structures there (circles, dolmens, mounds etc.)? Well, one man who thought so was Professor Barry Fell who wrote a book called America BC to support his contention. Fell was in fact a marine biologist and zoologist by profession but he was also a self taught epigraphist, which concerns the study of ancient inscriptions or epigraphs, as writing. One should note here that epigraphy is a primary tool of archaeology. After translating inscriptions (including Celtic ogham script) found on rock surfaces and artifacts in numerous locations in North America, which had been brought to his attention, he concluded that many centuries (N.B. up to twenty or more) before Columbus reached America, Celts, Basques, Phoenicians, Egyptians, and others had been visiting North America. However, his epigraphic work was not well received by academia. Critics of Fell's work routinely dismissed him as an amateur, pointing out his lack of formal training in ancient scripts and languages.

But inscriptions found on ancient rocks is still evidence of ancient rock inscriptions and needs to be explained away. This led one credentialled archaeologist, David H. Kelley, at the University of Calgary who is credited with a major breakthrough in the decipherment of Mayan glyphs, to complain about Fell in a 1990 essay: "Fell's work [contains] major academic sins, the three worst being distortion of data, inadequate acknowledgment of predecessors, and lack of presentation of alternative views." In the same essay, however, Kelley went on to state that "I have no personal doubts that some of the inscriptions which have been reported are genuine Celtic ogham." Kelley concluded: "Despite my occasional harsh criticism of Fell's treatment of individual inscriptions, it should be recognized that without Fell's work there would be no [North American] ogham problem to perplex us. We need to ask not only what Fell has done wrong in his epigraphy, but also where we have gone wrong as archaeologists in not recognizing such an extensive European presence in the New World."

Despite those prescient comments, academia is still desperately maintaining the line that there was no pre-Columban presence of Europeans in North America apart from the Norse site of L'Anse aux Meadows in northern Newfoundland. A scholarly response to Fell's work was prepared by Ives Goddard and William W. Fitzhugh of the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution. They stated, in 1978, that "the arguments of America B.C. are unconvincing". However, this is the same Smithsonian Institution that has been hiding away evidence of giant skeletons in America for more than 150 years. As you said in your post: "All those hundreds of detailed reports by local professionals and accepted by the Smithsonian at the time - were mis-measured. All of them. There were no giant skeletons."

We also know that the ancient Celts were great miners and skilled metalworkers. It may therefore have been more than bi-lateral trade with the Native American tribes that brought the Celts to North America. Perhaps they were after metals such as copper, a key metal in the Bronze Age. There is certainly evidence of ancient mine workings in the Great Lakes area, including the State of Wisconsin in particular. Indeed, Laura commented on this fact in her book Secret History of the World.

I appreciate that my response to your comments is a bit off topic and I am not proposing that the people behind the 19th century science fairs and expositions in North America built on top of these ancient mounds and other structures or incorporated them into their own constructions. What I am suggesting here is that if there is something nefarious going on it is the dogged determination of archaeologists and historians, as well as major institutions, to hide, obfuscate and deliberately ignore evidence showing that there was ancient, ongoing contact between the Native American peoples of North America and those of Western Europe long before Columbus and the Age of Discovery. Indeed, there is a whole chapter of missing history involved here. The question is, why are they doing this and maintaining what is evidently a fallacy? Is it just academic pride and the wish to maintain an academically sanctioned, archaeological timeline or is it something more sinister perhaps?​

 

[Jtucker]

As for the wood construction, it was also a time when a massive amount of logging was being done (thanks to modern industrial revolution tech).

These were all products of the industrial revolution, when the 'Western world', and in particular America, were rising stars seeking and achieving global domination and eager to show case their prowess.

Reading back over this thread and the related ones, what Joe wrote above is probably the key. It's not the disconnect between the ancient world and the 19th century. It's the disconnect between the 21st century and the 19th century. If you're to take the majority of the text in these posts, it doesn't relate to artifacts or suspicious texts. It's the awe and disbelief that that the late 19th century appears more spectacular and advanced than we can imagine from the 21st century perspective. Maybe that's not because there's a lost, ancient world hiding. Maybe it's because all that Victorian promise was turned into an entropic, ugly morass 150 years later.

I probably should have posted this info before my gloss on North American pre-history. But this may make a lot more sense, as it's my own backyard and I can vouch for the buildings and their history.

The city I live in (Winnipeg) is somewhat of a time capsule. It was lauded as the "Chicago of the North" in the 1880's and saw rapid industrial, commercial and population growth until WW I. After that, the growth kept going but at a much slower pace. There was also a lot of capital flight west which left our old downtown pretty much as it was. A somewhat Victorian time capsule in places. We are isolated - with Toronto 2700km's away, Calgary 1300km's away and Minneapolis 750km away.

I drive by this building every day going to work. This is the Peck Building. Built in 1893. My great Grandmother worked at a stationary company in this building for most of her adult life after moving from the family farm to the city in 1905. As you can see things change very slowly here.



Before I "found the mound" world, I was very interested in mid to late-19th century architecture. Chicago in this period of 1870-1914 is the most spectacular city in North America IMO. I was always fascinated by its architecture. It is on a grand scale that to me is even beyond New York City in its grandeur at that time.

But even Winnipeg, which is on a fractional footprint of "progress" compared to Chicago, has its weird, old buildings that are captivating. By the time I was in my 20's I started to pay attention to the old buildings downtown. To me they were magical and so different from the rest of the modernist buildings. I always thought there was a mysterious story behind them. Why? Because of how they looked. No other reason. I had relatives that worked in them - normal places, normal jobs. Just a very different architecture and economy that existed then.

Once I started researching the old buildings, I found that by far the most interesting ones, had already been torn down long ago. How could this happen? Winnipeg was a few wooden buildings on a muddy flood plain in the middle of nowhere in 1870. How was there time to build a Victorian city and have it almost completely disappear in less than a hundred years?

But it did happen.

The first mysterious building I found in the provincial archives that shocked me was this fantastic home known as "Pile of Bones Villa" built around 1882-83.



If you look closely on the entrance on the lower right side of the house, you can see someone sitting on the steps. She is dwarfed by the scale of the building. It's a massive structure.

I wanted to know how a house could be built like this at the time. A rail line that connected St Paul MN (500 miles away) had only opened five years before and there was still no rail connection with the rest of Canada. Obviously there was no electricity, no sewer and no natural gas. Pretty amazing structure for no modern amenities. The external details were unimaginable to me (the quiones, the arches - especially that ominous tower/light well).

The old photo named the street, so I had to find out who lived there and when it was torn down. I looked through the old Henderson Directories at the public library and found its address and owner - William Harvey. Who was this guy to afford a house like that in 1883? Where did this wild architectural style come from? And it turns out the structure was torn down before 1910!

Harvey had owned the biggest livery in our fledgling city and sold the business as the land it was on was the prime location downtown for the new Grain Exchange. With his 6000.00 he built the Pile of Bones Villa.

So why does a guy who runs a stable - design a house a like this? Why so bombastic?

He hired the top architects in Winnipeg. Where were they educated? Murky story, but somewhere in western NY. It turns out that the architects (Barber & Barber) designed over 100 buildings in Winnipeg between 1880-1895 - seventy-five which were built in fifteen years. And they had a really wild style. Many photos of their buildings exist, but only two or three downtown still stand (One of them still has the stable building behind it - pretty cool to see something like that still standing from 1882 downtown).

This was our first University that they built - Manitoba College:



Try and go through 19th century architectural books and figure out what style that is. It's a bunch and none. Moorish, Italianate mixed with 2nd Empire French. In other words - big imagination and big budget for Barber & Barber. Winnipeg needs to stand out. We're not a bunch of Bison hunters and farmers on a frozen mud plain in the middle of nowhere. Make a statement.

Manitoba College was torn down in 1960. My dad remembers driving by the demolition.

Barber & Barber's crowning achievement - Winnipeg City Hall:



Torn down in the late 60's and replaced with this:



Beauty, eh? Horrific building inside and out. How do you go from one to the other if you don't hate civilization?

This is just a sliver of what was lost in "Victorian World" in a relatively obscure, isolated Canadian city. Almost all of what's left has been stripped of its ornamentation, gutted and left to rot until it can be pulled down and re-developed. There are a few exceptions.

I would add that I was pretty militant in challenging local politicians about their plans to remove what was left of this era when it came up for debate 10 or 15 years ago. They did make a few good points:

These buildings were never built to accommodate electricity and re-wiring them safely is almost impossible.
The building materials were all organic - plaster, wood, cellulose etc. They rot. Especially in our climate of extreme cold and low
humidity in the winter (as well as frost and ice) and high heat and high humidity in the summer.
The Red River valley is made up of 200ft of poorly drained clay that makes all foundations unstable. All our houses are crooked.

Regardless of the structural realities of these buildings having to be pulled down, the main question is why did everything get so much more ugly and unimaginative? I think it's a long process of cheapening materials, undervaluing craftsman and most of all pushing some dead-minded pseudo-technocratic agenda. The beginning required brilliance and competition - that was degraded down to formulaic modernism and utilitarianism by the 1940's.

If anyone's interested, this book is my favourite on lost Chicago architecture (there are none on Winnipeg in case you were wondering):

Lost Chicago

Lost Chicago looks at the cherished places in the city that time, progress and fashion have swept aside.

blackwells.co.uk

Interior of a Chicago building known as the Rookery in 1888:



Chicago's Cabrini Green in the 2000's - built in the 1960's (looks like Winnipeg City Hall).
Seems like there's a plan to this - and not one that improves human living experience.

View attachment Cabrini Green.webp

 

[Charlie]

Just for fun, I've continued digging a bit more on this. As I browsed semi-randomly the various fairs on this page that I posted earlier, I got the impression that one of the more strange exhibitions was the one in St. Louis in 1904. This fair is interesting also because there's some authentic(?) video footage available that shows just how enormous these buildings were, and how many. One of the most interesting videos was this one:

Just look at the size of those buildings! If those were all made out of staff you'd need to build a wooden construction to support them, right? You'd think that maybe those were just facades of buildings, like movie props? But when you watch the buildings in the video you see that they are whole buildings with roof and all. I have no idea how long building something like that using wood and staff would take.

From this page we learn that:

and

So, that means that all of those enormous buildings were done in ca 2 years and 5 months. Is this possible?

Interestingly, on the same page it is described how...

Wonder if that snow storm and moisture had an impact on the buildings made out of staff?

The fair was open some 180 days, and after that everything was apparently demolished.



Okay, so let's say those were built with this staff material. Staff is described as (Wikipedia):

I have no idea how durable or strong this staff material is. Would it soften in rain, for example?

‘Staff’ sounds like ‘EIFS’ or stucco from today. You can mold it to whatever shape you want, trowel over it, put dye into it to make whatever color you want, and it looks like fake stone.

 

[stellar]

Do the vague credentials and list of achievements sound credible to anyone? I have found myself questioning the veracity of most architects listed in connection with the exhibitions and other structures throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.
Adding to those doubts is the colonialist base of all these exhibition creations. The same mob running the world to present.

Was the Domesday book from 1066 perhaps written much later, after the Black Death had waned and it was urgent to take stock of what was up for grabs and occupation? An interesting name for the book. Were there some in the know that saw the catastrophes coming, perhaps astronomically or older hidden records? With 1/2 or even 2/3 of population perishing, it sounds like a great opportunity to monopolise the claims and the rhetoric and even insert a whole lot of places, events and titles as fact. Who would know?

The 'underground' possibility is also an interesting concept to consider with repopulation. FWIW, the following bits and pieces from Wiki tell the story of what we are supposed to marvel at and believe but because so many records have been lost, I guess we can just take them at their word. At the end of the day some may think there is nothing to see here and that's ok by me.

.....
The Royal Exhibition Building is a World Heritage-listed building in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, built in 1879–1880 as part of the international exhibition movement, which presented over 50 exhibitions between 1851 and 1915 around the globe.

It is the world's most complete surviving site from the International Exhibition movement 1851–1914.

The Royal Exhibition Building was designed by the architect Joseph Reed of Reed and Barnes architecture, who also designed the Melbourne Town Hall, the State Library of Victoria, and the Baroque style gardens. The Royal Exhibition Building was the largest design completed by Reed and Barnes.[2] According to Reed, the eclectic design was inspired by many sources. Composed of brick, timber, steel, and slate, the Exhibition Building is representative of the Byzantine, Romanesque, Lombardic and Italian Renaissance styles.

Joseph Reed (c. 1823–1890), a Cornishman by birth, was a prolific and influential Victorian era architect in Melbourne, Australia.[1] He established his practice in 1853, which through various partnerships and name changes, continues today as Bates Smart, one of the oldest firms continually operating in Australia.

Born in 1823 in Cornwall, England, Joseph Reed's early career may have included some local training, and he is known to have worked in the offices of some noted architects in London.[2] He decided to start a new career at the age of 30in Australia, arriving in Melbourne in 1853, and very soon made a name for himself. The next year he won the design competition for the State Library of Victoria, the Geelong City Hall in 1855, and designed the Bank of New South Wales in Collins Street in 1856.[

List of works[edit]
State Library of Victoria (designed 1854, built in many stages)

Collins Street Baptist Church (1854)

Geelong City Hall (1855)

Bank of New South Wales, Collins St (1856) (facade relocated to Melbourne University 1935)

Wesley Church (1857)

182-186 George Street, East Melbourne (1857)

Royal Society Buildings (1858)

157 Hotham Street, East Melbourne (1861) (attributed)

Commercial Banking Company of Sydney (1862), demolished 1956

Beleura House (designed for James Butchart in 1863) - Mornington

Independent Church (1866)

The Menzies Hotel (1867), demolished 1970

Rippon Lea Estate (1868)

Melbourne Town Hall (1869)

Carlton Methodist Mission, now Church of All Nations, Palmerston St, Carlton (1870)

Melbourne Trades Hall (1873)

Scots' Church (1873)

Bank of Australasia (later ANZ), Collins Street (1876)

Faraday Street School, Carlton (1876)

Academy of Music, Bourke St East (1876). Renamed Bijou Theatre 1880. Burnt down 1889.

Eildon Mansion, St Kilda (1877)

Eastern Market (1877) (Reed & Barnes) (demolished c1960)

Wilson Hall, Melbourne University (destroyed by fire in 1952)

Royal Exhibition Building (1879)

Ormond College, Melbourne University (1881)

Holy Trinity Church, East St Kilda (1882–1889)

Old Pathology Building, Melbourne University (1885)

Sacred Heart Church, St Kilda (1884)

Appointed supervising architect to St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne (1884-1890)

Lombard Building (15-17 Queen Street) (1887)

Baldwin Spencer Building, Melbourne University (1887)

Old Physics Conference Room and Gallery, Melbourne University (1888)

Chapter House, St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne (1889)

Redcourt Estate (Armadale) (1888)


The Head Office building of The Bank of New South Wales was designed by prolific Melbourne architect Joseph Reed and constructed at 368-374 Collins St, Melbourne, in 1856-7.

Internal structural problems were discovered as early as 1861, just four years after initial construction was completed.

Structural shortcomings and the desire for expansion led to the building's demolition in 1932. Reed's original National Trust[1] heritage-listed façade was preserved and gifted to the University of Melbourne,where it can still be seen on the western face of the Melbourne School of Design, opposite Union Lawn.

When Reed was questioned about the structural integrity of the building he responded, “At the time there was no iron to be had in the colony. Some stone arches and columns were removed by order of the management, and timber substituted; dry rot got into it, and the thing failed".

Reed's original classical façade was preserved before demolition and gifted by the Bank of New South Wales to the University of Melbourne, and erected on university grounds in 1938.[2] The structure can be seen today as the west facing façade of the school for Architecture, Building and Planning.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Melbourne_State_Library_from_abovhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Architectural_Fragment_Swanston_Street.jpge_Swanston_St.jpg

File:Melbourne Town Hall.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

File:Scots Church Collins Street Melbourne.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

File:Melbourne University grand building.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

File:Parkville - University of Melbourne-Ormond College.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

File:Melbourne Lombard building basement from outside.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

File:Baldwin Spencer Building.JPG - Wikimedia Commons

File:St Paul's Cathedral repair work, 2005.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

 

[BHelmet]

Doubling down on “the official narrative” while ignoring or brushing aside the anomalies with a wave of the hand, is a premature conclusion, IMO, at this point. Even if investigating the Fairs does amount to “nothing to see here, move along now”, i still think it’s a worthwhile endeavor that needs completion.

A great point was beautifully expressed about the stark difference between the 21st and 19th centuries being a driving motivation for puzzlement and questioning and I totally agree. I think that’s the starting point.

Im trying to leave out the peripheral lightening rods like mud flooded buildings, “Tartarie” being plastered on ancient maps, orphan trains, opulent insane asylums, etc. while only focusing on the Fairs and historical narratives. That is the opening that the original question to the C’s created.

One thing about the stucco on wood approach: no doubt it was used but it has its limits. I don’t think you can make it look like marble. And even that method takes time to execute if you are banging out 100’s of thousands of square feet. And even if the construction of the buildings themselves is a non issue, there are plenty of other whacky aspects to this case, some of which have already been pointed out.

EG, why do you need so many, one after another, all over the world, decade after decade for over a century, including many repeat performances in the same city?

 

[MJF]

‘Staff’ sounds like ‘EIFS’ or stucco from today. You can mold it to whatever shape you want, trowel over it, put dye into it to make whatever color you want, and it looks like fake stone.

The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the St. Louis World's Fair, formed a backdrop to one of my favourite movies, Meet Me in St. Louis, starring the irrepressible Judy Garland - see: Meet Me in St. Louis - Wikipedia.

However, this mention of Hollywood reminds me that the Hollywood movie studios were masters at constructing massive, very realistic looking sets for their epics in short order. The construction of large scale replicas of ancient cities etc. as movie sets goes all the way back to the silent movie era. A good example would be the 1923 epic The Ten Commandments produced and directed by the legendary Cecil B. DeMille. The massive sets here included four 35-foot-tall (11 m) Pharaoh statues, 21 sphinxes, and gates reaching a height of 110 feet, which were built by a small army of 1,600 workers. This is less than 20 years after the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Interestingly, DeMille remade his own epic in 1956 and had set pieces constructed for the later film that were near-duplicates of what he had used in 1923.

The Wikipedia entry for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition states that:

"Historians generally emphasize the prominence of the themes of race and imperialism, and the fair's long-lasting impact on intellectuals in the fields of history, art history, architecture and anthropology. From the point of view of the memory of the average person who attended the fair, it primarily promoted entertainment, consumer goods and popular culture. The monumental Greco-Roman architecture of this and other fairs of the era did much to influence permanent new buildings and master plans of major cities.
​

Over 19 million (19,694,855, to be precise) individuals were in attendance at the fair.

Aspects that attracted visitors included the buildings and architecture, new foods, popular music, and exotic people on display. American culture was showcased at the fair especially regarding innovations in communication, medicine, and transportation.​

Legacy

Since many people were curious about this up-and-coming city, many reporters and photographers attended the World's Fair to document and understand the city. What they found was nothing like anyone else could have imagined. The streets were buzzing with activity, with many of its citizens constantly on the "go" and the streets "crowded with activity". One observer remarked that, at this time, St. Louis had more energy in its streets than any other northern city did.

Buildings​

As with the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, all but one of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition's grand, neo-Classical exhibition palaces were temporary structures, designed to last but a year or two. They were built with a material called "staff," a mixture of plaster of Paris and hemp fibers, on a wood frame. As at the Chicago World's Fair, buildings and statues deteriorated during the months of the Fair and had to be patched.

 

[Jtucker]

A grand passage tomb, Newgrange is believed to have been built during the Neolithic Period, around 3200 BC. See: Newgrange - Wikipedia

That is a spectacular site and I have no doubt of the estimated age. Great Neolithic work.

Your mention of Sasquatch and "little people" with futuristic weapons reportedly emerging from these American mounds reminds me that Newgrange is also linked with similar tales of strange beings. In Irish mythology, Newgrange is often called Síd in Broga (modern Sídhe an Brugha or Sí an Bhrú). Like other passage tombs, it is described as a portal to the Otherworld and a dwelling place of the divine Tuatha Dé Danann. These god-like like entities were normally described as tall (giants?), blond or red-haired, beautiful, pale-skinned, shining beings. And, of course, Ireland is very much a Celtic land to this day.

My guess would be that the mound builders of North America were descendants of the same culture/civilization that built dolmens and Neolithic structures in Europe. They were carrying some remnant tech to each area. North America with a much larger "break" after the Younger Dryas and less hospitable. Europe with more advantages and less nasty weather and geography.

Giants seem to play a role as "civilizers" or tech givers at the beginning and becoming degraded cannibals afterwards. I think the portal/mound tech is all over the planet at different times. I don't think anyone had to transport it from Europe or Asia to the America's. It was here right after the Younger Dryas as it was in the Old World. An attempt of the remnant Atlanteans to continue the project. IMO.

Is it possible that Celts from Ireland and the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) sailed over to America, traded and eventually established settlements in North America in antiquity and built stone structures there (circles, dolmens, mounds etc.)? Well, one man who thought so was Professor Barry Fell who wrote a book called America BC to support his contention.

I would think Celts from Ireland/Scotia/Orkneys as well as Icelanders were in North America from the Dark Ages until the beginning of the Little Ice Age. Manitoba has largest Icelandic (ex-pat) population outside of Iceland in the world and our University has its own Icelandic section. Two Sagas that I know of have detailed geographic descriptions of Lake Winnipeg from texts that a re reputed to be written before 1300. These aren't accepted as "fact" beyond the Icelandic community, but I think they're accurate. They very well could have built stone structures on river and lake ways. The Kensington Stone from Minnesota and swords discovered in Ontario are compelling evidence.

Basque/Portuguese fisherman had outposts in Newfoundland and Labrador before 1500. I don't think anything I've seen could be considered a "settlement". There are outposts and I think remnants of them still exist. But Civilization as Europeans would describe it? I can't find it. The Celts/Icelanders were looking for something, gathering a resource or just out and out adventurers.

Despite those prescient comments, academia is still desperately maintaining the line that there was no pre-Columban presence of Europeans in North America apart from the Norse site of L'Anse aux Meadows in northern Newfoundland. A scholarly response to Fell's work was prepared by Ives Goddard and William W. Fitzhugh of the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution. They stated, in 1978, that "the arguments of America B.C. are unconvincing". However, this is the same Smithsonian Institution that has been hiding away evidence of giant skeletons in America for more than 150 years. As you said in your post: "All those hundreds of detailed reports by local professionals and accepted by the Smithsonian at the time - were mis-measured. All of them. There were no giant skeletons."

That would be the whole problem with the Smithsonian! Maybe don't publish five decades of Giant skeleton findings, then deny they ever existed! I would guess that North America has been visited and had outposts from Europe, Africa and Asia for thousands of years. Most local antiquarians have weird artifacts that don't fit the Smithsonian's narrative. I've visited major museums in Chicago and New York - it's all political and indoctrination for kids. They're not serious about uncovering evidence and putting it in any objective context.

We also know that the ancient Celts were great miners and skilled metalworkers. It may therefore have been more than bi-lateral trade with the Native American tribes that brought the Celts to North America. Perhaps they were after metals such as copper, a key metal in the Bronze Age. There is certainly evidence of ancient mine workings in the Great Lakes area, including the State of Wisconsin in particular. Indeed, Laura commented on this fact in her book Secret History of the World.

The missing copper from Lake Superior and the U.P. in Michigan is a great mystery. Thousands of tons of it were mined centuries ago. Where did it go? It sure doesn't show up in those quantities in the mounds of North America (very rare). My guess would be it was used in what the C's said about Bronze Age EM weapons. Different tech. Different EM "atmosphere". So someone from Europe/Central Asia was running ships up the St Lawrence to the great lakes to pull a lot of copper out of there before 1200 BC. Unless it was transported through the mounds? 4D seems to be more conductive to bronze.

I am not proposing that the people behind the 19th century science fairs and expositions in North America built on top of these ancient mounds and other structures or incorporated them into their own constructions. What I am suggesting here is that if there is something nefarious going on it is the dogged determination of archaeologists and historians, as well as major institutions, to hide, obfuscate and deliberately ignore evidence showing that there was ancient, ongoing contact between the Native American peoples of North America and those of Western Europe long before Columbus and the Age of Discovery. Indeed, there is a whole chapter of missing history involved here. The question is, why are they doing this and maintaining what is evidently a fallacy? Is it just academic pride and the wish to maintain an academically sanctioned, archaeological timeline or is it something more sinister perhaps?

You pretty much summed up the essence of the problems with North American Pre-History, MJF. In my opinion, it's a top-down movement. They construct their meanings at the highest level and use their media, money and influence to download their narrative constructions on us. We're in rarefied air on this forum, we get the best of the best, and after being here for years, we wonder why anyone else doesn't see what we see. But that's because we're looking.

Most people aren't. They want really good things for the most part. We want a warm house, good food and a loving family - a better life for our children. What the whole story outside our homes is doesn't matter. The antenna doesn't connect.

I'll give you a little anecdote that might shed some light. My wife and I have been looking at getting some very modest place out of the city for years. Due to my mound research, we did find this beautiful lake 250km from the city in an area that is not remote by any stretch but it is very sparsely populated. The mounds I write about and photograph are in this area. The original mound researcher from the 40's is from a nearby town. My neighbours ride their ATV's right past the mounds every summer. The same family that has homesteaded on the lands since the 1880's still owns the land.

After a few weekends there we get to know everyone. My wife asks me to "please don't bring up the mounds - we barely know anyone". I said I wouldn't, and then someone at the fire brought up Sasquatch. That lead to the mounds. No one in that community knew they were there. None of the reports from the 40's had ever got to them. It was all part of their past, but had already been lost - meaning just the guy who wrote papers on them - never mind who built them. And they're right in plain view on a gravel road 10 km's away from the fire.

So I think when you have a mass media and a controlling government, accepted science et. al. Removing anything that isn't congruent with those overlays, is pretty easy. Self-sufficient, rural people with strong family and historical ties to their ancestors can have their knowledge and awareness proscribed very easily.

 

[BHelmet]

100 years from now, what do you think the wiki narrative on the mRNA Covid Vax or 9/11 is going to be? Oh, hang on… we don’t have to wait 100 years! It’s already there!

IOW, I don’t think Wikipedia is a valid source to prove anything. It IS the narrative.

 

[stellar]

EG, why do you need so many, one after another, all over the world, decade after decade for over a century, including many repeat performances in the same city?

Perhaps if you repeat the same lie long enough, people will start to believe?

 

[stellar]

Im trying to leave out the peripheral lightening rods like mud flooded buildings, “Tartarie” being plastered on ancient maps, orphan trains, opulent insane asylums, etc. while only focusing on the Fairs and historical narratives.

What would be the point of focusing on a bruised finger when the whole arm is broken.

 

[Joe]

One thing about the stucco on wood approach: no doubt it was used but it has its limits. I don’t think you can make it look like marble. And even that method takes time to execute if you are banging out 100’s of thousands of square feet. And even if the construction of the buildings themselves is a non issue, there are plenty of other whacky aspects to this case, some of which have already been pointed out.

Who said it "looked like marble"?

EG, why do you need so many, one after another, all over the world, decade after decade for over a century, including many repeat performances in the same city?

The same question could be asked of global sporting events,

 

[MJF]

100 years from now, what do you think the wiki narrative on the mRNA Covid Vax or 9/11 is going to be? Oh, hang on… we don’t have to wait 100 years! It’s already there!

IOW, I don’t think Wikipedia is a valid source to prove anything. It IS the narrative.

Yes, you are for most purposes correct. One definitely has to be careful when quoting from Wikipedia. However, in Professor Barry Fell's case, I deliberately quoted it for its negativity in order to demonstrate how the PTB preserve the narrative. All credit to David Kelley for pointing out that you can criticise Fell's work but you cannot ignore the existence of the ogham script found on the stones. If you haven't read Fell's book America BC, I would recommend it. He may have got some things wrong but he unquestioningly got a lot of things right when it came to interpreting the data.​

 

[BHelmet]

What would be the point of focusing on a bruised finger when the whole arm is broken.

Because bandaids are easier than surgery!

 

[A Jay]

What we have as one of the facts on the ground is - "the narrative". The narrative says 27 million people visited over the course of 6 months and if that figure turns out to be highly questionable or even demonstrably false, then there very well may be something there.

When reporting attendees to an event of this nature it's most often referring to simple admissions. From the Encyclopedia Britannica:

There were some 21.5 million paid admissions to the exposition, and actual total attendance (including free admissions) was more than 25.8 million. However, because some visitors were counted twice, the total figure is sometimes reported as having been between 27 and 28 million.

Considering how massive the spectacle was and how large it was for the time, I think it's safe to assume that many people would go multiple times. Which, in addition to the numbers provided by EB, drops the number of total distinct individuals who would've attended to a more reasonable number that remains within the limits of plausibility when taking the wider socio-economic situation into account.

I think Joe nailed it as what I've read was leading me to the same conclusion as he. Though he said it far more succinctly than I could've.

I seriously doubt there were any significant buildings on the sites before construction.

The exact phrasing of the question and answer is important because both are general enough to include things that are obvious but people are missing because they're busy looking at the large buildings and nothing else. Here's the session quote again for ease of reference:

(L) Wow. Okay. Did some of these massive structures exist prior to the expositions?

A: Partly and expanded.

The Ferris wheel from the Chicago World's Fair was actually later transported to the St. Louis World's Fair. Meaning the Ferris wheel was a massive structure that existed prior to one of the events it was used at. That actually fits the qualifications of the question and answer. So, again, nothing really to see here.

What would be the point of focusing on a bruised finger when the whole arm is broken.

stellar, your tenacity is admirable but ultimately wasted on something that isn't true.