Prime Time Replay:
Salvatore Trento
on the Mysterious Places of
North America
MsgId: *high_strangeness(7)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:06:53 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
Welcome to High Strangeness! My name is Patrick Huyghe and our guest tonight is Salvatore Trento. Our topic? The Mysterious Places of North America.Trento, who lives in Colorado, is the author of the new book "Field Guide to Mysterious Places of Eastern North America" (Owl Books, 1997) as well as "Field Guide to Mysterious Places of the West," and "The Search for Lost America." His new "Field Guide" series provides the historical background of each mystery site -- usually archeological or geological, but sometimes also UFOlogical -- tells you the best time to visit and what to bring, and even provides detailed maps and directions. A graduate of Oxford University, Trento has spent the last 20 years researching mysterious places across the US and in Majorca, Bermuda, the Caribbean, and Belize.
Okay, let's begin. First tell us what qualified as a "mysterious" site for your two field guides?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(10)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:10:47 EDT 1997
From: sal_trento At: 152.163.213.33
A place that has an unusual geomagnetic field.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(11)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:11:41 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
But it also seems you mean both "weird geology" and "strange ruins" by "mysterious," two very different things, it appears.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(13)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:13:17 EDT 1997
From: sal_trento At: 152.163.213.33
A place that has some type of antiquity associated with it
MsgId: *high_strangeness(14)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:14:15 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
With your second book on the East you seem to have added to your definition by including the UFO hotspot over Pine Bush NY. Why a UFO location?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(15)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:15:55 EDT 1997
From: sal_trento At: 152.163.213.33
Suspected UFO site.. The Pine Bush locale attracted me because diverse types of people are drawn to that locale, as they are at ancient sites. A curious connection.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(16)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:17:02 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
You also mention the idea of both "positive" places and "negative" places. Give us an example of a positive place you have visited and why.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(17)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:20:19 EDT 1997
From: sal_trento At: 152.163.213.33
Fern Cave in northeastern California is a place that seems to speak gentle thoughts to all who visit, while an underground stone chamber in Upton, Massachusetts is a spot where dozens of people get headaches when visiting it. My going hypothesis is that each of these sites sits atop differing degrees of geomagnetic flux, which in turn affect the neurotransmitter secretion level in people.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(18)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:21:45 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
And you feel that the underlying geomagnetism affects both the geology and those who decide to erect structures at those places?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(19)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:26:14 EDT 1997
From: sal_trento At: 152.163.213.33
The underlying geomagnetic fields affect people. My suspicion is that people were drawn to these geological sites where they in turn left evidence of their presence: petroglyphs, inscriptions, monoliths, cairns and so on. At many of the sites listed in my Field Guide series one can stll feel the effects today! In fact, some sites are notorious for causing a variety of physiological effects!
MsgId: *high_strangeness(20)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:27:25 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
But how does the geomagnetic flux produce a "positive" feeling one place and a "negative" feeling in another place?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(21)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:31:39 EDT 1997
From: sal_trento At: 152.163.213.33
Great question. The work of Baker in the mid-1980s whose opus, "The Body Electric," revealed that specific types of geomagnetic frequencies seem to affect the secretion level of particular neurotransmitters. For example, some lab-induced fields stimulated the pineal gland at the base of the brain to secrete dopamine. Others, serotonin, and so forth. High/low secretion rates, coupled with ratios of these can cause mood swings, depression, happiness, etc. I suspect similar things are going on naturally around the planet.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(22)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:32:26 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
You've got a book out on mysterious places in Western North American and one on Eastern North America. Which area do you find to be MORE mysterious, East or West? Do the East and West differ in their weirdness?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(23)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:36:19 EDT 1997
From: sal_trento At: 152.163.213.33
That's like asking which of your kids do you like best ... Each coast has it's weird share of mysterious places. The fact that the east still harbors strange sites, in the midst of a teeming population and mega-malls is cool. The stuff is out there waiting to be seen by all who live near cities. The west coast is wilder, grander in geology. The feel is different but the common thread are strange doings out beyond and around the cities, like those mysterious walls just north of Berkeley, California.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(24)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:38:39 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
What about those walls outside of Berkeley?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(25)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:41:47 EDT 1997
From: sal_trento At: 152.163.213.33
The first Spanish missionaries in the San Francisco area noted giant blocks of basalt walls stretching along the entire eastern ridge of the Bay. The walls hugged the crest-top. Non of the locale indigenous population knew who built them. The little work done in the past 100 years around the walls suggests the locals back then were correct -- no tribe is known to have done anything like that. So what are they? Probably some type of vision-quest site: for seeking knowledge, but for whom? No one knows.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(26)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:42:35 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
You've seen a lot of the mysterious inscriptions scattered throughout the continent that hint at the presence of pre-columbian contact with the new world. Are you convinced that there were visitors to the America before Columbus?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(27)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:47:24 EDT 1997
From: sal_trento At: 152.163.213.33
When you actually get out into the field and see these things, the many inscriptions out in America, it's difficult to attach all to forgeries and jokes. Unlike the late Dr. Barry Fell, my good friend and associate, who believed that America was overrun with ancient visitors from elsewhere, my work suggestst tiny bands of travelers wandered about preshistoric America leaving bits and pieces of their culture. That said, there are some intriguingly recent finds that suggest precolumbian contact is much older than anything any of us ever considered. So, I'd have to say, yes!
MsgId: *high_strangeness(28)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:48:15 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
You were up in Washington State recently looking into Bigfoot. Find anything interesting?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(29)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:53:03 EDT 1997
From: sal_trento At: 152.163.213.33
For anyone who has never visited northern California, southern Oregon, it is difficult to believe what is there or what can be there. If ever one wanted to get lost, never to be found again, scoot up to that region of the country. I spent weeks with many Indian elders who took me into the deep woods of northern California. I hiked far into the woods, sometimes alone, and amazingly, I saw big foot prints. Was I duped? A joke? Always a possibility, but I was always careful never to reveal my hiking plans. I never saw a large furry hominid. But I saw a good many indications that something big is living out among a very unique and specific northwestern ecosystem. Elusive, true, but frankly, it's only a matter of time...
MsgId: *high_strangeness(30)
Date: Tue Sep 23 22:56:27 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
I hope I'm not interrupting your train of thought, but what would you say is the MOST mysterious place in North America?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(31)
Date: Tue Sep 23 23:07:44 EDT 1997
From: sal_trento At: 152.163.213.33
Witch Rock in eastern Mass. Not sure if you all got my last message -- was rather long.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(32)
Date: Tue Sep 23 23:08:20 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
Well, our time is up for this evening. Thank you, Sal Trento, for being with us tonight. Now, get out there everybody and check out this mysterious land of ours -- with the Trento Field Guides in hand, of course. For High Strangeness, this is Patrick Huyghe. Goodnight!
MsgId: *high_strangeness(33)
Date: Tue Sep 23 23:10:10 EDT 1997
From: sal_trento At: 152.163.213.33
Thanks Patrick! Drop by if ever out here in Denver! Sal
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