As theories of its origin abound, what does future hold for Narragansett Rune Stone?

June Goodhue says she’s known about the rock since she and her late husband moved to North Kingstown’s Pojac Point in 1952.

Sitting in shallow water, the 8-foot-long boulder sported unusual markings that were typically visible only at extreme low tide. Goodhue said she heard people say the markings might be ancient runic characters left by Viking or Nordic explorers.

Even so, Goodhue, who is now 89, says she didn’t give much thought to the significance of what people call the Narragansett Rune Stone or Quidnessett Rock. That is, until a week or so before Christmas 2011 when her neighbor Paul Roberti, a commissioner with the Public Utilities Commission, asked her to host a neighborhood meeting to talk about the boulder with Scott Wolter, a forensic geologist from Minnesota. Though Wolter has come under fire from critics who see his theories as over the edge, he is considered an expert by many on the subject of runestones, having produced documentaries for the History Channel and written two books. In “The Kensington Stone: Compelling New Evidence,” he writes about why he believes that a stone with runic lettering — found in 1899 by a farmer and his two sons on a hill in Minnesota — was not the hoax that critics claimed, but a real artifact made by visitors from Europe a century or two before Christopher Columbus set sail for the new world.

In his second book, “The Hooked X,” published in 2009, and in subsequent interviews, Wolter has gone further, suggesting that the presence of a mysterious “hooked X” character on the Kensington Stone in Minnesota as well as on the stone tower in Touro Park in Newport and the Narragansett Rune Stone off North Kingstown connects them all to the Military Order of the Knights Templar, a secretive medieval group that he says was suppressed by the Catholic Church because of its members’ unusual beliefs about the Holy Grail.

In the geologist’s view, the Narragansett Rune Stone was such an important piece of history — perhaps even more important than Plymouth Rock — that it was imperative that it be moved to a dry, safe place to protect it from erosion and vandals and to allow experts to examine it. Some participants at the meeting at Goodhue’s home in 2011 say that nearly everyone agreed — except for the neighbor whose property was closest to the stone, billionaire businessman Timothy Mellon.

Mellon, an heir to the Mellon family fortune, a founder of the Heritage Foundation and the CEO of Pan Am Systems, had, along with his wife, Patricia, bought two large parcels of land on the water’s edge in 2008 for $5.6 million. Mellon has been unavailable for comment.

Roberti, the public utilities commissioner, worked for 17 years in the attorney general’s office and has considerable expertise on federal and state jurisdiction over submerged lands. He says it’s easy to see why Mellon, who owns properties in other states, might have thought the rock belonged to him since in some states the property owner’s rights extend out into the water. In Rhode Island, however, the state owns the land below the median high tide, putting the rock under state jurisdiction.

In the spring of 2012, a pair of amateur archaeologists — Stephen DiMarzo Jr., of New Bedford, the Rhode Island chapter coordinator for the New England Antiquities Research Association, and his brother Peter DiMarzo of Newport — applied to the Coastal Resources Management Council for permission to move the rock to protect it and put it on public display.

Stephen DiMarzo, a former Teamster who delivered cupcakes for the Hostess Baking Co., said he first learned of the Narragansett Rune Stone in 2009 when he heard Wolter talking about it on the late-night talk radio show “Coast to Coast AM.” After talking with Wolter about the stone, the DiMarzos moved ahead with their application, though they found that getting state approval wasn’t easy. For one, Edward Sanderson, executive director of the Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission, wanted to know where the stone would be relocated.

The brothers worked out an agreement with the priests at the nearby Scalabrini Villa Health Care Center that the stone would be put on display there with the understanding that it would not be physically altered without state permission.

Janet Goodman, who inspected the stone early in 2012 in her role as coastal geologist for the CRMC, says the boulder had been on land when it was first photographed in 1939 but gradually became surrounded by water as storms and hurricanes ate away at the shore.

Stephen DiMarzo says he believed his application was moving toward approval when he got some unsettling news on July 2, 2012. A kayaker, James Doyle of Old Lyme, Conn., reported that he had viewed the stone in early June but discovered three weeks later, when he returned with his girlfriend, that it was gone.

The stone had been “stolen,” in DiMarzo’s view, and he was outraged. Roberti wrote to his former colleagues at the attorney general’s office, saying he thought the office had an obligation to investigate. Roberti also participated with Wolter in a History Channel documentary tied to the stone’s disappearance which aired in February of this year.

One question: Who could have had the capability to remove a 2½-ton rock without anybody noticing?

To find out, Detective Sheila Paquette, of the Department of Environmental Management, started knocking on doors last August. One neighbor said he had heard machine-like sounds one evening that June and wondered if that might have been the night the stone was taken.

Paquette says that when she went to interview Mellon, he shut the door and told her to see his lawyer. Mellon’s lawyer is former Attorney General James O’Neill, who has not returned calls from The Journal regarding the stone.

The location of the stone remained a mystery for more than eight months until a man, whom Attorney General Peter Kilmartin’s office refuses to identify, advised the state lawyers that he knew where the stone was and how to get it back. Amy Kempe, a spokeswoman for Kilmartin, says on April 16 the rock was returned on a flatbed truck to the grounds of the University of Rhode Island’s School of Oceanography in Narragansett where officials are keeping it under wraps in an undisclosed location, as archaeologists decide what to do with it.

Wolter, the Minnesota forensic geologist, said he was “extremely upset” when the stone was taken.

“I’m just glad that whoever took it came to his senses. It’s a cultural resource for everyone.”

And just what do the markings on the stone mean? Wolter maintains that the existence of a “hooked X” on one of the two lines of lettering shows that whoever carved it was associated with the Knights Templar, a secretive sect in Europe whose members saw themselves as the protectors of the Holy Grail. Legend has it that the grail is the sacred cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, but Wolter runs with another theory popularized by Dan Brown’s novel “The Da Vinci Code,” in which the grail is seen as a reference to the bloodline resulting from a marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

Wolter says there is little doubt that the Knights Templar, facing suppression by church authorities, would have wanted to escape — even if it meant traveling across an unchartered ocean.

“I’m not trying to offend anybody. I’m just trying to get to the truth of real life. I believe Jesus is a real historical person, a power person, who was teaching the ancient mysteries, and as such he was a threat to the Romans,” Wolter said in a recent interview.

Still, there are other stories surrounding the Narragansett Rune Stone that don’t involve bloodlines or grails. Suzanne Carlson, writing in the Journal of the New England Antiquities Research Association, found in the runic lettering symbols referring to gift, riding, pasture and homeland. She suggested it might have been a boundary or claim stone.

On the other hand, Valdimar Samuelsson, an engineer of Icelandic ancestry, says he was intrigued by Carlson’s comment that the characters also seemed to refer to a Skrauma, or screaming river. There is a river Skrauma in Iceland, he says, which many believe was the place where Viking explorers set out to sea.

Rod Mather, a professor of maritime history and underwater archeology who has recently investigated the rock at state request, thinks the chance that the Narragansett Rune Stone and the Kensington Runestone were crafted by the Vikings, or any other early explorers, is miniscule.

“We really have only one piece of authenticated physical evidence of Vikings being in this part of the world, and that was the village of L’Anse aux Meadows in the northern part of Newfoundland,” he says. “There is no verifiable evidence they were anywhere else.”

Mather said it’s more likely the stones were made in the late 19{+t}{+h} century by immigrant settlers from Scandinavia who felt moved to create runestones — with hooked X and all — to celebrate their Scandinavian heritage.

“In my professional opinion that’s what happened,” he said. “Of course with all of these things, you are not going to convince everyone … . But whether the stone was carved in 1890 or a thousand years ago, we need to treat it as a historical artifact. Just like the Shroud of Turin, it needs to be preserved.” Now that it’s back, the DEM investigators have permitted only a small group of individuals, including Mather, to see the stone.

Roberti, who originally asked that the stone’s disappearance be investigated, said he has found nothing in state law to support a criminal charge against someone who takes a rock from Rhode Island waters, especially a rock whose value has never been ascertained.

Paquette, the DEM detective, said that once archaeologists and other experts have examined the rock for indications of when it was engraved, she hopes it can be put on public display.

“It needs to be preserved and protected. We all know how it only takes one idiot to try to destroy it,” Wolter said in a phone. “I personally would love to see the stone brought to Touro Park in Newport on the same grounds as the Newport tower.”

DiMarzo, however, thinks the stone should be kept closer by, and insists that the Scalabrini Villa would be the best location. He said that while he had been angry that the stone was taken, he now thinks the person did everyone a favor.

“He did what we were all trying to do in the first place. He got it out of the water.”

I watch some of these shows for the scenery, big fish, boats & water, entertainment and some knowledge I was unaware of. The shows run from fairly scientific to all out drama and everything in between. When the drama gets too thick I quit watching.

I got a kick out of the coffee guy slashing his way through the jungle to find the lost coffee bean. When he leaves the lost village he leaves by car down the road.

Wow. This guy doesn't need stuff like evidence to form a "professional opinion" does he?

Rhode Island is 46th among the States in Scandinavian population. The vast majority of Scandinavian immigrants were poor farmers who sought land and a better life in the Midwest, not Rhode Island. But we're supposed to believe one of them wandered into Rhode Island and carved something in a lost language they likely did not know in 1890 to "celebrate their Scandinavian heritage"??? Which they had just crossed an ocean to escape.

I watched this Wolter guys series and he’s a joke. He makes GIANT leaps and states things as FACTS that are just his speculations. He can’t prove anything he says. In my opinion he is a fraud.

***
IOW, Wolter is a perfect choice for the History Channel and their agenda.

Narragansett Rune Stone Returned; Tests Coming
The stone was removed from the waters off Pojac Point last summer; it is now in state custody following a joint investigation by the state Attorney General and DEM.
Narragansett-South Kingstown, RI
By Elizabeth McNamara (Patch Staff) - May 7, 2013
http://patch.com/rhode-island/narragansett/narragansett-rune-stone-returned-tests-coming

Fabled rune stone returning to public view
Published: September 1, 2014
http://www.thewesterlysun.com/news/latestnews/5415769-129/fabled-rune-stone-returning-to-public-view.html

Scott Wolter Answers [Wolters discovered the stone had been heisted while shooting an episode of his show]
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Narragansett Rune Stone Dedication Ceremony
http://scottwolteranswers.blogspot.com/2015/11/narragansett-rune-stone-dedication.html

Runestones in America:

http://westfordknight.blogspot.com/2013/04/narragansett-rune-stone-recovered.html

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