Nolan’s Cross: There’s Geometry, Applied Geometry and then there’s Kook Geometry!

[gjb]

Centuries ago, geometry was taught only to a small section of society, that is, a highly educated elite that had a specific appreciation, or interpretation, of the subject unlike that widely held today.

In medieval times, and through the Renaissance and beyond, great buildings, particularly the religious or ‘sacred’ monuments (temples, cathedrals and the like), were designed according to one of two distinct geometrical styles based on the square and the equilateral triangle. These are referred to as ad quadratum and ad triangulum (refer to Google for more).

The underlying geometrical knowledge was not secret, just restricted, but its application by architects and builders was both practical and esoteric. The esoteric body of knowledge is what Kook Geometry builds upon, this being an early appreciation of the geometrical forms underpinning the design of religious or ‘sacred’ structures frequently referred to as ‘Sacred Geometry’.

Kook Geometry as applied to Oak Island goes well beyond the normal boundaries of Sacred Geometry and, unfortunately, tends to give it a bad name through blatant misapplication of the term.

Sacred Geometry simply embodies an interpretation of geometry adopted by people for centuries, if not millennia, in the past. As such, it would be fundamental to an understanding of certain aspects of history, particularly the significance, if not the emphasis, placed by educated elites on geometrical forms. That is, the educated of the past would almost certainly have been taught to be aware of the esoteric applications of geometry.

This would have applied to anyone sufficiently well educated to have conceived of the Oak Island operation as it is widely envisaged. So, when we see potential geometrical forms we might perhaps look at them in the way that people of the past would have, not as the ‘kook of the week’ decides to present them in modern times. This would obviously apply to a favourite Oak Island target of theirs, Nolan’s Cross.

There is nothing complex about the basics of ad quadratum and ad triangulum designs, as may be seen from the figure below.

The two diagrams at left in the figure illustrate the formats in their raw geometrical forms, with the two right-hand diagrams illustrating actual building sections based upon them. During the Renaissance, the circle itself became particularly prominent, and all these geometrical design features would also potentially have been incorporated into the floor plans and layouts of ornamental gardens at stately homes and even larger landscapes such as Oak Island.

Nolan’s Cross can be analysed in just this way. The most appropriate design would seem to be composite in form, essentially ad quadratum with ad triangulum elements. The construction is straightforward and the proportions and measurements are simple to determine.

At left in the figure is a basic ad triangulum design, the Star of David from which Nolan’s Cross emerges, showing the position of Cone A on the lower triangle's upper face. At centre is a complementary ad quadratum design showing the positioning of Cone E on the lower face of the outer square. At right, the placing of Cone D and the Head Stone are shown with Cones B and C following logically from the placing of point H (the Head Stone). Further details are provided below.

As can be appreciated from the figure above, in the diagram at left the inner square that essentially defines the Cross is sitting on and between the base lines of the equilateral triangles. It can also be seen as the square within the circle within the square within the circle.

In this construction, the Head Stone and Cone D lie at angles of 30 degrees from the corners of the outer square, as shown at centre in the figure. Note that, on the ground, the Cross itself is tilted at 30 degrees north of east. The proportions are as at right in the figure, the resulting measurements being those found by actual surveys on Oak Island.

It can be seen that the midpoint of the line HD (that is, midway between the Head Stone and Cone D) is the centre of all the figures drawn (the circles, squares and triangles ) and is thus the focal point of the Cross itself. I am unaware of anybody having yet investigated this spot.

Bear in mind that this is not a collection of random lines projected beyond the Cross itself to indicate the Garden Shaft or similar, it’s a formal provable geometrical construction that suggests looking further into the Cross itself. Should there be something at the indicated central point then maybe the Cross would demonstrably not be a collection of random stones.

It is a mathematical fact of this construction that the length of each Arm is equal to AH + HD/2 (that is, the length from Cone A to the midpoint between the Head Stone and Cone D). Thus, setting HD to 429 feet results in Arms of 359.5 feet (145 + 214.5) rounded to 360 feet, bearing in mind that AH would be closer to 144.5 feet rounded to 145 feet.

This would seem to be a more academic, historically supported and sensible suggestion for the form and dimensions of Nolan’s Cross than anything that the kooks have ‘kooked up’ on The Curse of Oak Island. It is also not contriving to point to a spot highly convenient for the Laginas to drop cans, the significance of the Cross as constructed seeming to be the mid-point between the Head Stone and Cone D.

 

[Cryptid1990]

Is there any evidence for the "cross" in the first place? From Steele and Fader (2018), p.134:

However, working with Gordon Fader on this second edition it is now recognized that the structure is a cross on paper only. The boulders are at different elevations and the cross “comes apart” when actual boulder placement is taken into consideration.

 

[gjb]

Is there any evidence for the "cross" in the first place? From Steele and Fader (2018), p.134:

There’s certainly photographic evidence, and independent reports, that the six boulders truly exist and we also have the testimony of at least two professional surveyors (Nolan and Crooker) that these form the shape of a cross. They also both observe that their size (and shape) sets them apart.

I would observe that having bought the first edition of Joy Steele's book I was disinclined to buy the second. However, in the first edition Steele is enthusiastic in her description of the Cross and the fact that she could attest to the existence of a number of the stones (pages 40-43). She even observes that, “the megalithic structure does assuredly exist.”

I did wonder what part the Cross might have played in Steele’s naval stores theory, but imagined that it could easily have been completely independent of this. Fader may simply have been dismissive because the Cross didn’t have a place in the narrative.

The differences in elevation cannot surely be large (across the swamp) and I don’t quite understand how the Cross thus “comes apart”. Had the differences in elevation been considerable across the arms then this would have suggested that the Cross was man-made since the cones would surely had to have been levelled in order to maintain regular spacing.

Thus, the Cross wouldn’t ‘come apart’ at all, it would actually ‘come together’ since any differences in elevation at the arms would be potential evidence of its existence as a man-made structure., I think we can be confident that both Nolan and Crooker would have levelled and that very likely the originator would have too.

 

[gjb]

Is there any evidence for the "cross" in the first place?

The negativity on these forums is outstanding! Whenever somebody comes up with an idea, a novel thought, the immediate reaction here is to reject or ignore it rather than give it any consideration at all.

Clearly, such ideas are either right or wrong, or maybe only partially right. There’s little or no problem with rejecting a wrong thought, but rejecting a correct thought could be disastrous. Surely, this is the last thing anybody should be doing or even risking, and yet it’s done here all the time.

The intent of this post was to try to prompt people to think about the consequences of the suggestion actually being correct. So, what might such imply, and just what might this suggest doing next? I’d also note that nobody has asked what might have prompted the thought that ad triangulum may perhaps be the key to Nolan’s Cross.

The answer lies in the potential clues left on the island suggesting that this could be the case, and please don’t immediately respond with the usual negativity - such as there are no clues, nobody would have left clues to let somebody know what was going on, thereby opening up the thinking underlying their actions. Surely, even we might be prepared to convey information to somebody we trust, particularly someone who alone would understand it.

Ad triangulum designs incorporate angles of 60 and 30 degrees, and certain finds on the island reflect this. Primarily, we have the two equilateral triangles at the east of the island, these having three internal angles of 60 degrees, and then we have the bearing of the cross itself at 30 degrees. Why make it bear at this specific angle and why leave the triangles?

Then we have the odd lengths of the portions of the stem of the Cross, and the strange presence of Cone D, perhaps suggesting that these lengths may be derived measures resulting from a geometrical construction. Given the clues, it occurred to me that there might just be an ad triangulum construction perhaps incorporating elements of ad quadratum, so I began to experiment and found one that produced the lengths as surveyed and as outlined above.

As to the possible consequences of this being correct, should it be that ad quadratum and ad triangulum designs are present at Nolan’s Cross, at the centre of the island, then perhaps these same design formats might also be present connecting the ground markers and features discovered at the east of the island.

This is the area defined by the Money Pit and the supposed water inlet at Smith’s Cove, the two stone triangles and the two drilled rocks if not also the Cave-In Pit. Perhaps these points might all be connected in the same way as those of Nolan’s Cross (that is, ad triangulum), and perhaps the layout thus revealed might even indicate a significant location other than the Money Pit. Might prompting this exercise actually have been the intention of leaving the ground markers and also setting up Nolan’s Cross to be found?

After all, such designs in buildings and ground layouts are what people demonstrably implemented in the past across the whole of Europe. So, why not also in the New World? One thing is certain, we won't discover unless we're prepared to look.

The objective of the post was to try to encourage some action, specifically some thinking, rather than the constant naysaying in the face of a lack of progress and declarations that there’s nothing that can be done and nothing new to discover.

Investigation would at least be attempting something different, something truly pertinent to the activities and thoughts of people in the past, rather than the lame and tired ‘same old, same old’ that we’ve been presented with through thirteen seasons of The Curse of Oak Island if not the last 230 years of operations.

So, might the constant negativity we see here actually be dismissing clues, breadcrumbs, that were left specifically for someone (though admittedly not us) to follow? It could just be that after 230 years of activity on and off the island we’ve now turned up information that was originally intended for someone to discover or locate - which we may be able now to make use of!

Maybe it simply remains for us to do something with these clues instead of declaring that they don’t exist, that nobody would have left such pointers, and because there’s nothing more to know or anything new to discover.

What if all this negativity is wrong, what if clues as to the intent of the operation were actually left and, therefore, that we can now try to read them - though only if we're prepared to accept them for what they are and act upon them. The Curse of Oak Island is going nowhere. It lost its way long ago. The forum does not have to follow.

 

[Cryptid1990]

There’s certainly photographic evidence, and independent reports, that the six boulders truly exist and we also have the testimony of at least two professional surveyors (Nolan and Crooker) that these form the shape of a cross. They also both observe that their size (and shape) sets them apart.

I would observe that having bought the first edition of Joy Steele's book I was disinclined to buy the second. However, in the first edition Steele is enthusiastic in her description of the Cross and the fact that she could attest to the existence of a number of the stones (pages 40-43). She even observes that, “the megalithic structure does assuredly exist.”

I did wonder what part the Cross might have played in Steele’s naval stores theory, but imagined that it could easily have been completely independent of this. Fader may simply have been dismissive because the Cross didn’t have a place in the narrative.

The differences in elevation cannot surely be large (across the swamp) and I don’t quite understand how the Cross thus “comes apart”. Had the differences in elevation been considerable across the arms then this would have suggested that the Cross was man-made since the cones would surely had to have been levelled in order to maintain regular spacing.

Thus, the Cross wouldn’t ‘come apart’ at all, it would actually ‘come together’ since any differences in elevation at the arms would be potential evidence of its existence as a man-made structure., I think we can be confident that both Nolan and Crooker would have levelled and that very likely the originator would have too.

There are many more boulders on Oak Island. It appears that Nolan arbitrarily picked out six (out of thousands) that made an imaginary cross (one in fact he moved since it was out of place as a cross; see below) but there are a multitude of different shapes and patterns you can mentally create. This is what Steele and Fader (2018) pointed out: "Like gazing at stars, it is easy to draw imaginary lines from boulder to boulder". Regardless, I cannot find one geologist who has said the cross is a man-made structure. All the evidence points to the opposite.

Note one boulder did not match an imaginary line for a cross, so Nolan moved it thirty feet from its original position:

 

[n2mini]

but they claim to have been measuring to the hole in the ground which is why they got a 2 foot difference in their measurements.. Also this comes from as the author describes a "brief synopsis on my theories" so he leads his info to what he believes just as we all do at times.. Yes there are 1000's of rocks on the island but as it says most are found along the coast line. "beach face" as it's written above. When the Lagina's did their survey of the rocks their weren't 1000's of other rocks around the area of Nolan's Cross. Sure Nolan could have moved them I guess, so his theory would stand out.. Just like the swamp area they are finding 1000's of rocks but not anywhere near as big as the ones used for Nolan's cross.. It comes across as misleading when they are talking about Nolan's cross and then say there are 1000's of other rocks around, but they don't say most all of the other big rocks are on the beach face and none are around the area of the cross..
In the tan area above it says that Nolan's cross "are very large and weigh multiple tons. To move and position these some distance would require immense effort on the scale of Stonehenge." If that if remotely true, do we really think that Fred Nolan moved all these boulders into place himself..

 

[gjb]

I cannot find one geologist who has said the cross is a man-made structure. All the evidence points to the opposite.

I have to ask, how many geologists have been invited to offer an opinion? Before teaming up with Fader, Joy Steele commented on the form of the Cross and, after describing the Head Stone, observes:

“Each of the other boulders, or ‘cones’, measures 8 feet (2.4m) in width at the base and stands approximately 9 feet tall (2.75m). The weight of each cone is estimated to be in the vicinity of 10 tonnes. When asked how many other boulders of similar size and shape he found on the island, Mr. Nolan reported that there were no others.”

There may well be 1000 boulders on the island, but it would seem that there are only five like these and they appear to be positioned in straight lines. Steele then makes the point that this was later confirmed.

“In 1992, ex-surveyor ... William Crooker went to Oak Island, at the behest of Mr. Nolan, to correlate the data and look over the facts first-hand... to have another professional back them up... He confirmed that the boulders were all of similar shape and size, and that there were no other boulders quite like these on the island.”

Given the size and placing of the stones, both surveyors concluded that it looked very much that they had been set in place. Why didn’t Fader mention that a surveyor who had surveyed the entire island in detail over two years, and even had a cottage on the island, had only ever found five such boulders out of 1000 or more stones scattered around?

 

[Cryptid1990]

but they claim to have been measuring to the hole in the ground which is why they got a 2 foot difference in their measurements.. Also this comes from as the author describes a "brief synopsis on my theories" so he leads his info to what he believes just as we all do at times.. Yes there are 1000's of rocks on the island but as it says most are found along the coast line. "beach face" as it's written above. When the Lagina's did their survey of the rocks their weren't 1000's of other rocks around the area of Nolan's Cross. Sure Nolan could have moved them I guess, so his theory would stand out.. Just like the swamp area they are finding 1000's of rocks but not anywhere near as big as the ones used for Nolan's cross.. It comes across as misleading when they are talking about Nolan's cross and then say there are 1000's of other rocks around, but they don't say most all of the other big rocks are on the beach face and none are around the area of the cross..
In the tan area above it says that Nolan's cross "are very large and weigh multiple tons. To move and position these some distance would require immense effort on the scale of Stonehenge." If that if remotely true, do we really think that Fred Nolan moved all these boulders into place himself..

From Crooker (1993):

The two lower cones of the [cross] stem were undisturbed but the top one was misplaced by about 20 feet. It held no significance to Nolan when it was discovered and disturbed but fortunately the depression in the ground where it had once rested was clearly visible making it possible to estimate the original position of the top of the cone. From the depression to the stone was a trail that had been made by tractor treads and the dragging of a large heavy object.

Nolan used a tractor to move one of the boulders 20 feet (or 30 feet [Amundsen, 2003]) from its original position.

As for boulders on the beach, one of the boulders ("Cone C") of the supposed cross is located on the beach at Joudrey's Cove. If you look at the photo in Crooker's Oak Island Gold (1993) you can see nearby rocks, including a fairly large rock behind "Cone C".

There is no actual cross - it is a figment of imagination. Why not draw imaginary lines to the other large rocks on the beach?

 

[n2mini]

I'm not saying anyone needs to believe Nolan's cross story. Just that there are stories like you showed that are misleading about there being 1000's of rocks around the cross and there are not. Atleast not the size of the ones in his cross other then along the "Beach Face".. Which is where most of the exposed rocks are.. Big and small of course. MOST, all the other rocks on the island are somewhere buried which is what makes his rocks stand out, placed by him or whoever...

 

[GravelTeeth]

Nolan used a tractor to move one of the boulders 20 feet (or 30 feet [Amundsen, 2003]) from its original position.

So is the Nolan Cross then based on its original position, or the position it ended up in after moving? If the former, I don't see the significance in its having been moved, other than to say Fred recognized its purported importance later.

Also, just from the materials y'all have presented in this thread, it seem like the commonality of the Cross stones is their size and conical shape, in which case my natural next question is, are there other giant conical stones on the island which were left out of the configuration?

--GT

 

[gjb]

There is no actual cross - it is a figment of imagination. Why not draw imaginary lines to the other large rocks on the beach?

You insist on doing this all the time. It's not a proven fact one way or the other, so you shouldn't be declaring that it is. It could be man-made, it could be randomly positioned. We don't know. You don't know. So maybe stop telling us all the time that you do.

I'm simply asking people to consider the consequences of its being man-made given the stated dimensions. You seem to have great difficulty with, "Assume, for the sake of argument, that it's man-made ... then what might this imply, what might be the consequences?" In one sense, this is potentially a form of reductio ad absurdum and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Absolutely nothing!

So, maybe we could all get along better, and waste less time, and experience less frustration, if you could just appreciate this.

 

[TruthbeTold]

The negativity on these forums is outstanding! Whenever somebody comes up with an idea, a novel thought, the immediate reaction here is to reject or ignore it rather than give it any consideration at all.

Clearly, such ideas are either right or wrong, or maybe only partially right. There’s little or no problem with rejecting a wrong thought, but rejecting a correct thought could be disastrous. Surely, this is the last thing anybody should be doing or even risking, and yet it’s done here all the time.

The intent of this post was to try to prompt people to think about the consequences of the suggestion actually being correct. So, what might such imply, and just what might this suggest doing next? I’d also note that nobody has asked what might have prompted the thought that ad triangulum may perhaps be the key to Nolan’s Cross.

The answer lies in the potential clues left on the island suggesting that this could be the case, and please don’t immediately respond with the usual negativity - such as there are no clues, nobody would have left clues to let somebody know what was going on, thereby opening up the thinking underlying their actions. Surely, even we might be prepared to convey information to somebody we trust, particularly someone who alone would understand it.

Ad triangulum designs incorporate angles of 60 and 30 degrees, and certain finds on the island reflect this. Primarily, we have the two equilateral triangles at the east of the island, these having three internal angles of 60 degrees, and then we have the bearing of the cross itself at 30 degrees. Why make it bear at this specific angle and why leave the triangles?

Then we have the odd lengths of the portions of the stem of the Cross, and the strange presence of Cone D, perhaps suggesting that these lengths may be derived measures resulting from a geometrical construction. Given the clues, it occurred to me that there might just be an ad triangulum construction perhaps incorporating elements of ad quadratum, so I began to experiment and found one that produced the lengths as surveyed and as outlined above.

As to the possible consequences of this being correct, should it be that ad quadratum and ad triangulum designs are present at Nolan’s Cross, at the centre of the island, then perhaps these same design formats might also be present connecting the ground markers and features discovered at the east of the island.

This is the area defined by the Money Pit and the supposed water inlet at Smith’s Cove, the two stone triangles and the two drilled rocks if not also the Cave-In Pit. Perhaps these points might all be connected in the same way as those of Nolan’s Cross (that is, ad triangulum), and perhaps the layout thus revealed might even indicate a significant location other than the Money Pit. Might prompting this exercise actually have been the intention of leaving the ground markers and also setting up Nolan’s Cross to be found?

After all, such designs in buildings and ground layouts are what people demonstrably implemented in the past across the whole of Europe. So, why not also in the New World? One thing is certain, we won't discover unless we're prepared to look.

The objective of the post was to try to encourage some action, specifically some thinking, rather than the constant naysaying in the face of a lack of progress and declarations that there’s nothing that can be done and nothing new to discover.

Investigation would at least be attempting something different, something truly pertinent to the activities and thoughts of people in the past, rather than the lame and tired ‘same old, same old’ that we’ve been presented with through thirteen seasons of The Curse of Oak Island if not the last 230 years of operations.

So, might the constant negativity we see here actually be dismissing clues, breadcrumbs, that were left specifically for someone (though admittedly not us) to follow? It could just be that after 230 years of activity on and off the island we’ve now turned up information that was originally intended for someone to discover or locate - which we may be able now to make use of!

Maybe it simply remains for us to do something with these clues instead of declaring that they don’t exist, that nobody would have left such pointers, and because there’s nothing more to know or anything new to discover.

What if all this negativity is wrong, what if clues as to the intent of the operation were actually left and, therefore, that we can now try to read them - though only if we're prepared to accept them for what they are and act upon them. The Curse of Oak Island is going nowhere. It lost its way long ago. The forum does not have to follow.

Frank Nolan’s attempt to compete with Dan Blankenship was the cross he admitted to building.

The cross was fully debunked a while back.

Your book Gjb is an effort no different than the laginas in an attempt to use “What if”, “Could it be”, etc. in word salads in an attempt to invent something (treasure) with zero historical evidence of ever existing.

 

[TruthbeTold]

The negativity on these forums is outstanding! Whenever somebody comes up with an idea, a novel thought, the immediate reaction here is to reject or ignore it rather than give it any consideration at all.

Clearly, such ideas are either right or wrong, or maybe only partially right. There’s little or no problem with rejecting a wrong thought, but rejecting a correct thought could be disastrous. Surely, this is the last thing anybody should be doing or even risking, and yet it’s done here all the time.

The intent of this post was to try to prompt people to think about the consequences of the suggestion actually being correct. So, what might such imply, and just what might this suggest doing next? I’d also note that nobody has asked what might have prompted the thought that ad triangulum may perhaps be the key to Nolan’s Cross.

The answer lies in the potential clues left on the island suggesting that this could be the case, and please don’t immediately respond with the usual negativity - such as there are no clues, nobody would have left clues to let somebody know what was going on, thereby opening up the thinking underlying their actions. Surely, even we might be prepared to convey information to somebody we trust, particularly someone who alone would understand it.

Ad triangulum designs incorporate angles of 60 and 30 degrees, and certain finds on the island reflect this. Primarily, we have the two equilateral triangles at the east of the island, these having three internal angles of 60 degrees, and then we have the bearing of the cross itself at 30 degrees. Why make it bear at this specific angle and why leave the triangles?

Then we have the odd lengths of the portions of the stem of the Cross, and the strange presence of Cone D, perhaps suggesting that these lengths may be derived measures resulting from a geometrical construction. Given the clues, it occurred to me that there might just be an ad triangulum construction perhaps incorporating elements of ad quadratum, so I began to experiment and found one that produced the lengths as surveyed and as outlined above.

As to the possible consequences of this being correct, should it be that ad quadratum and ad triangulum designs are present at Nolan’s Cross, at the centre of the island, then perhaps these same design formats might also be present connecting the ground markers and features discovered at the east of the island.

This is the area defined by the Money Pit and the supposed water inlet at Smith’s Cove, the two stone triangles and the two drilled rocks if not also the Cave-In Pit. Perhaps these points might all be connected in the same way as those of Nolan’s Cross (that is, ad triangulum), and perhaps the layout thus revealed might even indicate a significant location other than the Money Pit. Might prompting this exercise actually have been the intention of leaving the ground markers and also setting up Nolan’s Cross to be found?

After all, such designs in buildings and ground layouts are what people demonstrably implemented in the past across the whole of Europe. So, why not also in the New World? One thing is certain, we won't discover unless we're prepared to look.

The objective of the post was to try to encourage some action, specifically some thinking, rather than the constant naysaying in the face of a lack of progress and declarations that there’s nothing that can be done and nothing new to discover.

Investigation would at least be attempting something different, something truly pertinent to the activities and thoughts of people in the past, rather than the lame and tired ‘same old, same old’ that we’ve been presented with through thirteen seasons of The Curse of Oak Island if not the last 230 years of operations.

So, might the constant negativity we see here actually be dismissing clues, breadcrumbs, that were left specifically for someone (though admittedly not us) to follow? It could just be that after 230 years of activity on and off the island we’ve now turned up information that was originally intended for someone to discover or locate - which we may be able now to make use of!

Maybe it simply remains for us to do something with these clues instead of declaring that they don’t exist, that nobody would have left such pointers, and because there’s nothing more to know or anything new to discover.

What if all this negativity is wrong, what if clues as to the intent of the operation were actually left and, therefore, that we can now try to read them - though only if we're prepared to accept them for what they are and act upon them. The Curse of Oak Island is going nowhere. It lost its way long ago. The forum does not have to follow.

Yet more “What if’s” and word salads in an attempt to explain your fiction.

 

[Armchair detective]

There is some evidence that we will never get our hands on ... the nolan survey, which is now in the hands of the Laginas.

As the maker of such a survey with the unlikelyhood of any one else seeing it, would you mark the original position of the stone, or the place where it now exists?

 

[Cryptid1990]

I have to ask, how many geologists have been invited to offer an opinion? Before teaming up with Fader, Joy Steele commented on the form of the Cross and, after describing the Head Stone, observes:

“Each of the other boulders, or ‘cones’, measures 8 feet (2.4m) in width at the base and stands approximately 9 feet tall (2.75m). The weight of each cone is estimated to be in the vicinity of 10 tonnes. When asked how many other boulders of similar size and shape he found on the island, Mr. Nolan reported that there were no others.”

There may well be 1000 boulders on the island, but it would seem that there are only five like these and they appear to be positioned in straight lines. Steele then makes the point that this was later confirmed.

“In 1992, ex-surveyor ... William Crooker went to Oak Island, at the behest of Mr. Nolan, to correlate the data and look over the facts first-hand... to have another professional back them up... He confirmed that the boulders were all of similar shape and size, and that there were no other boulders quite like these on the island.”

Given the size and placing of the stones, both surveyors concluded that it looked very much that they had been set in place. Why didn’t Fader mention that a surveyor who had surveyed the entire island in detail over two years, and even had a cottage on the island, had only ever found five such boulders out of 1000 or more stones scattered around?

Aside from the boulder Nolan moved from its original position by 20-30 feet, he also moved the so-called 'Head Stone' (by his own admission: "It's not in the exact position where we found it" [Crooker, 1993]) and moved at least one other boulder by a bulldozer ("Cone B"), by tipping it over. The Head Stone he took a photograph of was never originally in an upright position. He altered that as well, since it was "laying on its side when he discovered it" [Crooker, 1993]). Based on this, is it not probable that he also made some of the cones (cone-shaped boulders) upright, having originally found them slanted or on their side (note according to Crooker only two were "undisturbed")?