LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" - Inspirational LDS Stories

Book of Mormon Discoveries near Nauvoo Illinois w/ John & Myron Brandley (Faith to Stay Part 4 of 5) - Latter-Day Lights

• Scott Brandley

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When you discover ancient artifacts and petroglyphs near Nauvoo Illinois that support the Book of Mormon, do you keep it to yourself or share it?

Episode 4 of our 5-part miniseries “Faith to Stay” unearths several ancient artifacts & petroglyphs—a vivid chapter in Latter-Day Lights host & founder Scott Brandley’s new book on standing firm through spiritual storms.

This week, the Brandley family—Scott, and his uncles, John & Myron—retrace their 2019 trip to Illinois by showcasing their historical collections of axe heads, arrowheads, and more. From a Hopewell artifact auction to incredible discoveries found at hidden hilltop forts, listen in on how this family road-trip unearthed physical and spiritual discoveries that strengthened their testimonies.

Between best friend banter and “aha” moments, they reveal how these physical signs of The Book of Mormon can anchor belief in solid ground, showing that faith can be as tangible as the relics themselves.

*** Please SHARE John & Myron's stories and help us spread hope and light to others. ***

To WATCH this episode, visit: https://youtu.be/ql2Uxg5aAOU

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To READ Scott’s book “Faith to Stay,” visit: https://www.faithtostay.com/

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Scott Brandley:

Hey everyone, I'm Scott Brandley and every member of the church has a story to share, one that can instill faith, invite growth and inspire others. On today's episode, we're going to talk about a special trip that some family and friends and I took to Illinois in 2019, where we made some incredible discoveries that tie back to Christ and the Book of Mormon. Welcome to Latter-day Lights. Hey everyone, welcome to Latter-day Lights. We're so glad you're here with us today and we have a special treat for you today. This is actually part four of a five-part mini series about the launch of my new book, faith to Stay, and as part of that launch, I talk about some incredible discoveries that we made back in 2019 on a trip to Illinois, and I'm here with two of my uncles, who are also my best friends John Branley and Myron Branley.

Scott Brandley:

Hello, Hi and they were on the trip with me, so there was actually quite a few of us. My dad was with us, didn't Jake, your son come with us? Jacob yep, and Wayne May. You guys may have heard of him. He's well-known in the Book of Mormon archaeology world. He runs a magazine called American Archaeology, american Archaeology. He runs a magazine. Yeah, american Archaeology. He runs a magazine that talks about different archaeological finds in North America, and he came with us and my dad was with us, and Mark, who was a professor from Southern Illinois University.

Scott Brandley:

So the reason why we went to Illinois is because my dad found out that there was a man who had been collecting artifacts his entire life and he passed away and he lived just northwest of Nauvoo, illinois, and he wanted to go to this auction and he was really excited about it, and so he recruited us to go with him on this trip. And we didn't really know what we were going to find when we got there. But it wasn't. It was a trip of a lifetime.

Myron Brandley:

So yeah, yeah.

Myron Brandley:

The trip, the trip we went on was you can see that book in the picture he will cook is where he found all of these axe heads and the guy that was there found them and thousands of artifacts and Indian arrowheads and jewelry and so they basically were auctioning off his whole wife's work. So they basically were auctioning off his whole wife's work. And Dave, our brother, dave that's Scott's dad was very interested in American Indians and how they connected to the story of the Book of Mormon and he had some personal experiences that really drew him to North America, um, experiences that really drew him to north america and um. So it was not just a, you know, an indiana jones trip, but it was a spiritual trip too, because we wanted to, you know go to these places and you know that you go to navoo or you go to palmyra and you're like what happened here?

Myron Brandley:

where are the arrowheads, where's the evidence? And then we go to an auction and they have tens of thousands of artifacts that this guy just collected walking along the river bank between uh navoo and uh little towns along there.

John Brandley:

And so now on, his farm, his paws would pull up new stuff every year yeah, there there were tables and tables and this is just one guy and they have these auctions all the time.

Myron Brandley:

And so I had a friend that his brother was a state president out by Palmyra, and same thing, they would go in as soon as the farmer plowed and there was rain, they'd send the kids out there and they'd find tons of artifacts. And so, in fact, when we went to these little towns, we would go in, oh yeah, to the, to the homes where they have their own little museums. We would try to buy their stuff, and so, which they sold to us most of the time they're like, yeah, they would collect it and sell it. So right there in navoo there was that house that we went to remember that, yeah well, he said his whole attic was full of artifacts.

Myron Brandley:

Yeah, his son's like. As soon as my dad dies, you can have all this stuff.

Myron Brandley:

So we're like we'll come back, but he had a pot Remember the pot he had that had a circle with an X in it, yeah, and we saw that symbol several places. We saw a lot of other symbols that we'll talk about, but just very interesting. And Dave passed away three years ago yesterday, and so this is kind of not a coincidence that we're doing this today. I'm sure Dave's going to help Myron through this. Myron's really shy, that's right. Myron was probably the closest to Dave, and Scott and I are really close, and so it was a fun trip because we are best friends. We're not just, you know, family, we are friends too, and so we want to do things together. So any excuse for us to go do something, and Dave came up with this hey, let's go to this auction.

John Brandley:

My wife's like what All across the country To go buy some arrowheads, that I could something and Dave came up with this.

Myron Brandley:

Hey, let's go to this auction. My wife's like what? And yeah, all across the country to go buy some arrowheads that I could buy online.

John Brandley:

But we're gonna, we're gonna fly there no it was it was amazing to go in that building. It was a huge steel building, I don't know how big, 100 feet at least. Yeah it was pretty big and there were tables, rows and rows and rows of tables. It was amazing to see all these artifacts.

John Brandley:

And it's from axe heads to arrowheads and they cover a couple of different eras. They talk about the Hopewell Indians and you can see some of these arrowheads like this is from the Hopewell era Right, which was. If you ask the archaeologists, they come from about 500 BC to about 400 AD. That range. Well, if you think about that in terms of the Book of Mormon, it aligns with something right.

Scott Brandley:

There's a pretty good alignment there.

John Brandley:

Aligned with the Nephite and Lamanites really well there, and then other of these, such as this type of arrowhead is from the Adena era, which lines up really closely with the Jaredites.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, so to be able to see that was really awesome. The Adena ones taper at the bottom and then the Hopewell ones have a hook.

John Brandley:

Yeah, so you can tell really quickly these ones are Hopewell.

Scott Brandley:

I don't know if you guys can see this. This is my dad's collection, but these arrowheads have this hook on the bottom. So these are Hopewell arrowheads and these ones are tapered at the bottom, and these are Adina, which we believe is Jaredite, because they're they're much, much older than the Hopewell.

Myron Brandley:

So you got some good knife points in there and some other things too.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, so, uh, my dad also got, so one of the things that he had at this auction was this, uh, copper bracelet, which is pretty cool, so we have that there and um, so this is, this is my dad's collection from that auction. This is myron's collection, which he got the best. He got the best deal at the whole auction. He got all of those for like $40.

Myron Brandley:

We went there and there was a lot of big collectors. There was this one guy who was buying everything. He was thousands and thousands of dollars and Myron leaned over to me and he's like I got like $45. So hopefully I'll get a couple broken arrows, something. Maybe that guy goes to the bathroom and I get something. He's like I have a feeling it's going to work out and I'm like it's totally going to work out for you. That guy went to get a tenderloin sandwich. They had these big pork tenderloin sandwiches and he was out. This one that is in the middle of the table is Myron's. It came up and we all looked around and Myron was like $35, $40. No one was bidding on it. We're like you are kidding me. Then he bought that.

John Brandley:

That was at the beginning of the auction. He's like I'm done.

Myron Brandley:

Scott and I spent like $1,000. We have like four that are not even you notice. We didn't bring any. I didn't even bring mine, because ours are garbage.

John Brandley:

Well, and we left after halfway through the auction or something, but Dave stayed and he spent.

Myron Brandley:

I have no idea how much, Dave spent another like $1,500 and then he said to Scott and I, and I quote hey, I got a bunch of stuff for us. We'll just split it three ways, right? And Scott and I are like oh, we just got hosed. So now we spend another $500 each on stuff that we didn't bring to show you because Dave's stuff is really good Well my stuff isn't in a nice case.

John Brandley:

I have it on a shelf. And Dave was very generous. I came home and I did not have an axe head. So the axe head over there, oh, you got to see that one.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, that's a pretty cool one, that's a nice one. Look at the edge on that.

John Brandley:

And he donated that to me because I didn't get an axe head.

Myron Brandley:

Yes, everything works out for Martin. He got all the best stuff.

Scott Brandley:

Here's another cool one.

John Brandley:

That is one of my cool ones.

Scott Brandley:

This is Johnny's. So the cool thing about these accents, which comes back to this book so when I was at the auction I saw this book and I knew that Keokuk was across the river from Nauvoo, but it was wrapped in the original like cellophane or whatever. So I couldn't open the book. But I could see, I knew where Keokuk was and I'm like this is fascinating. Who nobody knows that there was these ancient stone axes across the river from Nauvoo? It's just a few miles from Nauvoo and so I I bought that book at the auction, I bid on it and I won it, and then I I got some of these axe heads in the auction as well.

Scott Brandley:

But the cool thing about that book is this is just some random farmer that wrote this book and he found some access here on this book. He had found some access on his property and he started talking to some of the other farmers around and they had found axes too. So he started to document all of these ancient stone axe heads that had been found around the Nauvoo Keokuk area. And the coolest so that book has hundreds. I mean, look how thick this this is like. This is a serious book. This has hundreds of ax heads in it, like I'll just flip through it so you can see Hundreds of ax heads that have been found around Nauvoo. But the coolest part is at the beginning. He has a map. He has a map of all of the places. No, I won't build this photo. It's right here. All these little dots are where axe heads have been found all around the Nauvoo area. Nobody knows that this exists because this guy probably sold 20 of these books he spent years putting it together.

Scott Brandley:

He's like I made this amazing book about axe heads and everybody's like uh-huh.

Myron Brandley:

At the auction you could actually buy some of these axe heads, but they were selling for thousands of dollars.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, that one guy was like bidding up everything Because they're now documented. But there was one axe head.

Myron Brandley:

it was this big, it was huge.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah.

Myron Brandley:

And there were a couple of them that big and we we didn't. We were too cheap so we didn't buy any. But, um, it's amazing that the variety of the axe heads and the arrowheads and the knives and there's some jewelry, yeah, so there's some beads.

Scott Brandley:

Show, show that, myron, this is just one of the cameras yeah, that's a beaded necklace made out of some type of stone or something. Yeah, they had.

Myron Brandley:

In a lot of these mounds in North America they find a lot of jewelry, a lot of pearls. They made their own pearls.

John Brandley:

This is made out of shells, yeah this is shells. This also talks to the point that they traded and traveled. Yeah. They didn't just stay in one spot necessarily talks to the point that they traded and traveled, yeah.

Myron Brandley:

Yeah, stay in one. At Mordecai Hopewell's place, where all the hope the name comes from, from Dr Mordecai Hopewell, they they found uh over 12,000 artifacts. They found uh copper armor with with thousands of pearls sewn onto it. They found a guy that was seven feet tall in that main mound and he was clad in copper armor from head to toe, and this smithsonian did the, did that dig.

Myron Brandley:

so anything that they found from? They found a lot of those, um, effigy pipes that uh, are very, you know, noteworthy for the the hopewell it's. It's of those things. If you find an effigy pipe then you know it's probably Hopewell. And the same thing with pearls. They found sharp teeth, they found bear claws, they found obsidian arrowheads. I've got one in here that basically comes from Yellowstone.

Myron Brandley:

So there was a vast trade network. They were trading in the Gulf and on the Atlantic and all the way to the Rocky Mountains, and so these people had a lot of influence. And you know there's hundreds of thousands of settlements and, and even more, you know, millions of mounds that are in North America but organized, and so we were interested in. We'd been on a couple trips. Dave wanted to go to this auction. We said, okay, let's go. And he's like I'm going to get my buddy Wayne to come with us and he's going to show us some stuff in Illinois, and we'd never been there before. So we went to southern Illinois and Wayne brought his friend Mark, who was amazing, and his professor there at Southern Illinois University, and so he had walked these hills and these forts and he is an evangelical Christian. He's not LDS, but loves Wayne.

Scott Brandley:

Wayne relates to all these people Well well, it was cool that Wayne knew him, because because this guy had grown up down in southern Illinois and he had explored a lot of ancient like petroglyph sites and things that are down there, and so he took us to some of these locations. And what a lot of people don't know is in southern illinois there's a series of hilltop forts that run along the bottom of southern illinois all along the bottom, and then you've got the mississippi river coming on the one side and you got the missouri river coming along the other side and they meet at the bottom of illinois. So it creates this separate protected area in the bottom of the state. That's very difficult to access. And along these hilltop forts it's really cool because they're built geographically.

Scott Brandley:

I don't know why, but there's cliffs on the north, east and west sides of these hilltop areas and then on the back side it slopes down. But we went to some of these hilltop forts and we got in. A lot of them are private property, but some of them are parks now. But we were able to get in because of Mark yeah, Mark. Mark knew some of these people that owned some of these places and so we went to this private property and climbed on top of these forts, but the cool part is is on the backside. That wasn't protected by cliffs, there was what.

John Brandley:

There were rock walls, stone walls and things, and there's still remnants of those walls now, and so the front part is protected. Around the rest of it, I mean, there's cliffs and they're a long way down and uh, so they had only had to protect themselves in a certain area and a lot of those had protected pathways coming into them so that you could only come in single file. So if you were attacking them, they had a big advantage, so they could kill you one at a time as you came in.

Myron Brandley:

Basically it was like a place of entrance in the book of morning right, where you had a kill zone. You could come through and stand above them and you took them through this little maze. They also had a back door yeah, that was kind of fun.

Myron Brandley:

Um, yeah, I couldn't fit through the back door, but but the skinny layman I'd say, and scott and my kid Jake, we made it, you made it. Oh, I got stuck halfway. Oh, and Don Jensen came with us. He was a good friend of mine, he was 80 at the time and he's like shaking his head. He's like we're going to have to lifelight you out of here. You cannot make it. You just died. The Lamanites killed you.

John Brandley:

So anyway, but they did have that back door, but you could. You could stand in front of where that back door was and you could not tell it was there, because it's hidden in the rocks and you did have to come down and like part of it there was like a 90 degree turn and if you weren't skinny enough you wouldn't make the turn. It was tough and so it was not someplace they could be attacked. Even if they discovered it, they really couldn't attack.

Scott Brandley:

You couldn't attack up because it was yeah, there was a way to get out.

John Brandley:

It was narrow and lots of places for people to drop rocks on you or whatever.

Myron Brandley:

Yeah, it also had one of the features of these forts with. You know, the walls are there and a lot of the settlers would come and they'd take those rocks and then they would use them to build their houses or a cellar or whatever, and so they'd been taking them out and it would it'd be arduous to take them up. Yes, they were huge rocks. They're huge and they the um, the people that I remember. There was this old lady that had a house. Remember we went and knocked on her door and Mark was talking to her and she's talking about all the stuff they find, you know, in her yard and around there, these Indian artifacts. But, um, they also have springs at these places of refuge or these hilltop forts and, uh, so they have a water source there. They protected them. They're protected by the water on the one side, they're protected by the cliffs on the other and they're spread apart about. It was about a day's walk from each one.

John Brandley:

I don't know if it was a day's, but they all had a line of sight. They had a line of sight so they could use mirrors or mica or whatever, or smoke Flasks or smoke, and so there was a line of sight to the next.

Myron Brandley:

They weren't close together, though they were spread out.

John Brandley:

They were spread out, but there was a line of sight between them all.

Myron Brandley:

Yeah, yeah, they were all in a line and they're. You know, like Scott said, they're part of the park system now or they're on private property. And one of the other cool things that was there was the first book or magazine that Wayne ever put out had a picture of a hand with a hole in it.

Scott Brandley:

Ancient American magazine. Ancient American magazine.

Myron Brandley:

There you go, wayne, there's the book and it had this hand with a hole in it with a bunch of other birds and other animals on this wall and it was interesting. Wayne wayne's like that's the first cover of my magazine, right, and we're there and there's a lot of graffiti. It's down low and they have fire pits and and there's people, um, hanging out down there, where these, where it's easy to get to, at the bottom of this one park and, um, we took pictures of that, and with the hole in it, one park and we took pictures of that, and with the hole in it, we said to Wayne, have you ever seen anything else like this? And he's like, no, this is, but it's cool. But we're just there to go to this auction and to see these forts and we saw the hand and some of these petroglyphs and we had no idea that we would ever see anything else like that.

Scott Brandley:

right, right, but that's that's the cool part about this and I remember going to that first petroglyph site and we were just kind of like oh, this is kind of cool.

Scott Brandley:

So we're just kind of taking some pictures and didn't think much of it, and then later that afternoon, mark takes us to the second site, which is called the Whetstone Shelter Site. I did research for my book. That's how I know the name of where we went, but it is in the middle of nowhere. We had to go up a power trail, up these different hills, all in the power lines. Yeah, power line trail. And then, mark, he randomly sees this log on the side of the trail. He's like, oh, this is the spot.

John Brandley:

Let's go off.

Scott Brandley:

And I remember turning off there and it was like a cliff.

Myron Brandley:

It was a cliff, yeah we were going down a freaking cliff. You go down the cliff and at the bottom of the trees are growing out so you can hold on to them as you go down. I thought I thought don was gonna die don, at 80 did it and, yeah, you were sliding, basically holding on to trees, but at the end of this cliff it dropped 600 feet down to the Mississippi and so you're just like please stop right.

John Brandley:

Well, and Mark, when he started down there he said it's easier this way. He just got on his Slid down there, sat down and just slid. But the rest was road walk down. But we held on to the trees, yeah, came around the bend and stuff and there's brush and everything and all of a sudden there's an opening there. Oh yeah, with the panels there there's a place where you can stand and you call it a cave, I call it an opening.

Myron Brandley:

Yeah, it was definitely covered or semi-covered. There were several panels along there. And you could look out and see the river.

Scott Brandley:

Oh, it was gorgeous.

Myron Brandley:

It was gorgeous and he'd been coming there for 20 years. There's no signs or anything. People have not graffitied the site like the lower site, because they don't know where it is. It was different. Everything was carved and every wall was covered and nothing had been messed with. That had just been protected because nobody knows about it except for Mark and his buddies at the university, and they're the type of people that will preserve it. And so we're just looking at all these things and we see different symbols, right, and it was kind of mind-blowing and he wanted to show us the other thing that with a lot of these sites they align up with a solstice, either a winter or summer solstice or an equinox, something that is a celestial event that's happening, and they'll align the site so that you can see those things right, they aligned everything with the lunar calendar too, which is really interesting because that's what the Jews do, and so everything is lunar, and this site was no different.

Myron Brandley:

It aligned with the solstice.

Scott Brandley:

Right, yeah, the solstice. So I remember Mark telling us about the throne. He's like you've got to check out this throne. So we get down there and sure enough, there was this area inside this cave section. It was kind of scooped out and it looked like a chair. It had been carved in this rock. But then behind this throne there were three petroglyph panels with all different kinds of symbols.

Myron Brandley:

Yeah, and a row and then a line, all different kinds of symbols, and then a line, and then yeah, yeah, there were there was a line to delineate the three panels and you could tell that that those lines had been carved out.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, yes, it was, it was incredible, and yeah, and on the seat itself.

Myron Brandley:

It looked like there were carvings on the seat. And I said to him I'm like this doesn't make, so you sit on this. And he's like, yeah, here's what happens. You sit on the throne and then if you look over your right shoulder, there was a crack in the in the mountain. And he's like it's the craziest thing we've been here with the solstice. And when it comes through, it crosses across your body and it dies in that hole, it goes into this crevice. He's like, so it's really cool. So, yeah, it's. So we sit there and we let the white light go across our chest and it just kind of comes across slow and goes into this hole and and I'm like, huh, well, how come there's all these panels behind here? And he's like, oh, we don't really know, right? He's like, oh, we don't know. And I'm like, well, what if the light came across? So it could like hit the panel and each symbol, because it had multiple symbols and you're reading the symbols as it goes through there, right? He's like, oh, who are you guys?

Myron Brandley:

We're like we're just nobody. We're just nobody, we just thinkers, right? We're just critically thinking about all of these things. And and there was the circle with the cross on it and he's like, oh, that represents time, right time forward, time back, and some of them were just straight. And he's like we don't really know what it means. And so we're looking down this panel and, as it goes past, the guy's body that's sitting on the throne, into the crack there's hands with holes on it on both sides. So tell me about that.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, so we're looking at the wall, there were, in this particular location, there was a lot of hands yeah, yes, and with holes in them, and there were circle crosses yes, and with holes in them, and there were circle crosses. And, as we're looking at the one panel, all the hands were either single hands or they were double hands. But in this particular case, there was a set that had the thumbs on opposite sides, and not only that, but it was like engraved into the rock, so you could actually feel like where the bottom of the, the palm was, because it was actually etched into rock. Same with that, same with the fingers. And so I'm looking at it and john, like called john. I'm like john, come over here for a minute, make that sign of those that that hand, that those hands are making. And he put his hands up and they went like this and we were just like, oh my gosh it was in the circle.

Scott Brandley:

It was cut out was in the palm of the hand yeah, so we're, we just kind of just stood there, we're like and it was where the light came through.

Myron Brandley:

One was on each side of that, like this, and then the light from the solstice would come right between them. Yeah, we were so. We were like this is crazy.

Scott Brandley:

We like this really looks like. Christ like what we would picture.

Myron Brandley:

Christ holding his hands out, doing yeah, showing the purses, like this, where you know you see the back of the hand and they get on like this you didn't see the poem and then, right underneath, that was a circle cross.

Scott Brandley:

And then so we started to think, like, we started making connections. We're like hands with holes. Christ, christ putting his hands out, and they were like, okay, what could the circle cross represent? We're thinking, well, cross, death Circle is the sun life. What a perfect symbol for Christ right and for Christ's resurrection. And we were freaking out. And then Mark, again he's like who are you guys? Again. He's like where did you guys come from?

Myron Brandley:

He'd been coming there for 20 years. And then we went, there were all these carvings, there was a place where, like you, would put liquid and it would come down, and there were these other symbols that were that have to be significant, but we don't know what they are. Wayne kind of knew what some of them were. Um, but we're back to this, to this throne, this, um, king of the seat of the king, right when you sit there and watch the light go across, seat of the king, right when you sit there and watch the light go across. And I'm standing there and I go that had these jagged cuts in it in the seat and I'm like Mark why does it have those?

Myron Brandley:

It has stuff in the seat. And he's like, ah, he's like we just sit on it and I'm like you don't know, you're like the guy Right and Mark's awesome. And so he's like, uh, I don't know and I'm like I just had the impression that to put my hand in it or, you know, on it, and I said, can I touch this? Cause we didn't touch anything, we were respectful. And he's like, well, we sit on it. So he's like I think. So he's like it's fine, you can't hurt it. And so so I put my hand down and my hand fit. It was bigger than my hand, it was longer than my hand, but I put my hand in and it fit perfect. And you could feel that this part here had been all of it fit perfect.

Myron Brandley:

It didn't look like a handprint until you put your hand in it and I was like whoa, they're looking at us and I'm like my hand fits perfect in this, but their hand that they had carved was actually a little longer and it's sitting there and I'm looking at this thing and I have the best eyesight and my son, jacob, goes. Dad, put your hand right there. He's like I can see that, you know because I described to him. I could feel this right.

John Brandley:

He's like that's carved out right there, dad and I'm like what are you talking about?

Myron Brandley:

so and he's like that's carved out right there, dad, and I'm like what are you talking about? So then I he's like let's put your hand there. I put my hand there and the knob right here for my thumb was cut out. Every finger and all of this just a lot lighter, completely different. But I put looked up like this and I could see the panel. But I'm leaning over like this and I had the impression to kneel and I'm like, okay, I think I know what this is. So I knelt down and Mark goes whoa, who are you guys?

Myron Brandley:

And we're like I don't know, but we.

John Brandley:

That's why I said it was high for a seat, but it was just right for when you.

Myron Brandley:

So when I kneeled, my hands were here and it fit perfect and I looked up and you can see all three panels. Then I'm facing that light now, as it's red. My hands are here, the light comes here and it goes across through the crack with the hands, with holes on them and, um, we're like this is not, uh, a seat, this is an altar and it had been carved and had been carved the whole thing.

Myron Brandley:

And Don Don, who is really a spiritual giant, just good person, he's like whoa, and he's been, he's been around and he's he's 85 in a couple days and, um, still doing well, but, um, he's like where are? What is this place? Right? And so it was. It was different. We had never seen an altar that you put your hands on, so we each took turns, right, yeah.

Scott Brandley:

And it was definitely. They were inverted handprints because there was actually a divot for your thumb. It fit perfectly. There was carved for your palm and then each finger was actually cut out of the rock it was there was. It was crazy.

Myron Brandley:

You wouldn't even know. I mean, when you're looking at this part, it looked like just jagged but you could see that it was there.

John Brandley:

But the other one you couldn't even see. It harder to see with taking pictures you could see the little.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, you can see it super good in the picture, but uh the camera is your eyes and the shadows and stuff.

John Brandley:

You really couldn't see that left hand.

Myron Brandley:

And then there was this thing that was cut out like there was a place to put some kind of oil or blood or something, and it came down a trough and it would have went right across that panel and we didn't have anything to test that out, but we could see it. So this whole thing. And then, as you went around the corner where we came in, there was another one, there was another panel and another place that had been carved out all the way down to where your knees go in, and don actually found that one and was like you guys come over here. So it was a completely different. It was kind of like an l shape, where we come in this way and then come back and then out like this yeah and um, it was.

John Brandley:

It was one of the most amazing things.

Myron Brandley:

Like we felt like we were indiana jones, but in a spiritual way, because we were like when you, when you kneel down and your hands are here and you can see these symbols um, I don't think that it was a coincidence, no, no one had ever seen that. And I called mark a year or two later and said, hey, we want to go back there. And like you remember me? And he's like oh yeah, we're going back.

Myron Brandley:

He's like he's like, we'll get all this stuff and go back and um, because he had never had those types of experiences either and he's very, uh, a very good christian. So so, yeah, we love mark and he for him taking us there and and it was a sacred experience to um just contemplate these people, um knowing christ and I mean, obviously they.

Scott Brandley:

they knew the prayer was sacred, they knew that there was that site, obviously sacred. It was hard to get to. It was up on a cliff. Yeah, they spent countless hours carving all of that into the rock.

Myron Brandley:

I mean there's hundreds, just the actual throne itself and not the throne but the altar and the other altar and the panels. I had never seen anything like that and I've looked at, you know, all of the petroglyphs and the. We've gone to a lot of different places.

Myron Brandley:

Yeah, we've been to a lot of these things, where there's miles of them, but nothing like this. And so now we found two places with the hand in the hole, with the circle cross, and we're like we're never going to find it. Have you ever found anything like this mark? And he's like nope, but I'll go wherever you guys want to go. And we're like where we're going to go and he's like I'm going to take you to this place. That is another fort, but it's surrounded by water. You go down this railroad railroad went through there so you kind of walk the railroad and it's this beautiful area, right. It is as lily pads out in the water. And you come up this back and you can see the wall, so the unprotected area. You can see the rock wall that they built and it was, I think, a state park too, right it?

Scott Brandley:

was part of one. But yeah, he's like we had to walk quite a ways.

Myron Brandley:

He's like this is where I go to have a picnic with my kids right where and I said are we going to find? Said are we going to find any? You know?

Scott Brandley:

petroglyphs.

Myron Brandley:

Now, we were kind of on the lookout too, right Well and Scott and Jake were like eagle eyes right, they could see stuff, and so we were like looking around Everywhere we went. Now we're like we're waiting to see something and he's like there's nothing here. I've been coming here for 20 years. We have picnics. It's beautiful. I'm like can we go off this cliff? Maybe there's some hidden room down there. He's like no.

Scott Brandley:

He's like no, and so we're just walking around, right, yeah. And so I went to the back side of this hilltop fort area and I looked looking down at down the cliff, kind of checking it out, and I turn around and on the rock behind me no joke was another set of handprints with a hole in the palm. And then Jake comes up behind me and he's like there's a circle cross right there and we were all like we were freaking out at that point. We were in another spot. Yeah, like guys.

John Brandley:

Mark says well, we just sit on that rock all the time to have our picnic. He says I never saw those.

Scott Brandley:

So, yeah, there were two handprints with holes in the palms and a circle across, but the cool part is it was in a hilltop fort, so that connected the hilltop forts to these people, to these people that did the altar, the prayer altar. So now we know that these people prayed, the people that built these hilltop forts prayed, because they were the same people and it was an amazing connection, but you had to have eagle eyes.

Myron Brandley:

I mean, nobody had seen it. Mark's like I've never seen that. I don't know how you saw that. Who are you guys? And we're like I don't know. But we have right. But that's the third one. Right, that everyone had seen the one down by the fire pit, right, but nobody had seen those other ones. And well, mark had.

Myron Brandley:

But seen those other ones and um well marquette but he had never seen that one, the rock that it was sitting on, you know. We knelt down by it to see oh, maybe this is another, but it wasn't carved, you know, and and it was different, but but it was just like an affirmation, that, um, a confirmation that this, these were the same people. Yeah, and we weren't. We didn't go on this trip looking for that. No, none of this. It wasn't, you know, even on our radar. We were just going to look at the forts.

Myron Brandley:

We wanted to look at the forts and see how they built them and why are they dragging these huge rocks up these cliffs? You know it's crazy because people are like, well, they were just clearing their fields. There are no fields there. You don't clear your fields and take it up the hill.

Scott Brandley:

They build massive stone walls.

Myron Brandley:

They knew they were forts and they call them that, and it's like Fort Ancient right. It had these huge fortifications and these cliffs around it and now they're like well, this was a ceremonial site, what it? And? And now?

Scott Brandley:

they're like well, this was a ceremonial site. What like? If it's a ceremonial site, you don't need a fortifier.

Myron Brandley:

Yeah, I need a wall, why you building it on the edge of a cliff and then and then enclosing the rest of it and and so you know there's a you're always gonna fight that narrative. But there are definitely forts in North America and we've been to a lot of them. But it's amazing, they're still yeah, they're six feet tall, oh yeah and they, they go and you're like how does this exist?

Scott Brandley:

how does this exist? Nobody, nobody tells you about this stuff, but it's incredible. Yeah, it's like a feat of engineering to build, to have these walls, and we were just standing by them, walking by them. They there's a lot of them are still there. So I have a picture of that. I have a picture of all of this in my book, by the way, so that's why we won't.

Scott Brandley:

I wanted to talk to you guys about it, because I do talk about these sites that we find and some of these discoveries we made, but I don't talk about the auction. I don't talk about the axes. These are really cool things that people don't know exist around Nauvoo Right, and in the Doctrine and Covenants, joseph Smith said that Zarahemla was a cross from Nauvoo. He says to name that place Zarahemla. Well, if that's the case, this makes sense, right? Having hundreds of axe heads being found, having countless artifacts who in the church even has ever heard that artifacts exist at navoo? Like that's just not a thing, that, no, that anybody even knows, but we've seen it yeah, we've seen tables and tables and tables of artifacts, and it's incredible.

Scott Brandley:

I mean you can just see. It's incredible. I mean you can just see, like just to build one of those, like that's a ton of work to make an accent out of rock. And there's hundreds of them there. Yeah, it's crazy.

Myron Brandley:

You know the ones that the auction had boxes full of these that are broken. That they were they couldn't get rid of. You know cause they were damaged. We were okay with the broken ones, I think you know some of them.

Scott Brandley:

I should have brought some. I have some that are. I have some that are worn down.

Myron Brandley:

They they were used so much that the blade was worn down. And the big ones. It's interesting too, because they have ones like this. I'm telling you they're huge and the adena stuff is big, so their arrows are different, their stuff is big. These are big people, just to wield that, and um, so you have both of these cultures that are crossing all the time, and it's interesting too, because the jaredite culture died out, and then here come the bulakites and then, and the lamanites and the nephites. Right, and, by the way, these things that they built are massive and they are, uh, they circle the square, they have the same math that the people in egypt have, they use the same degrees and the things that they built, and they have roads that go for miles in a straight line and, uh, earth levels and and they're, they're using the waterways to get through there.

Myron Brandley:

And where Mordecai Hopewell's place is, which it's a very sacred place too, that we went on another trip, and so Myron and I went, and Myron and my wife and I are walking this ditch and you can see the berm and it's built up, and then there were palisades on top of it and towers that would protect it, and it was, you know, and then, as you came down there was a wall but the whole thing was walled and it had this three-tiered mound that was inside of another wall. So it was very sacred. That's where they found most of the artifacts, tens of thousands of artifacts that smithsonian found. But even in the, if you go to that park, hopewell, that hopewell park it's a state park now you can see the opening of the trees trees don't grow on it because it's so compacted.

Myron Brandley:

But you come down that entrance and at the bottom there's all the. There's 28 mounds there. These mounds, but they're these. The big mound they dug into, but the little mounds they dug into too. And in the 1800s a guy came and dug into this one mound and they found 8004 perfectly flinted weapons. And they're big, they're as big as my hand, like we put my hand next to the thing and they were, they were put down like this and then like this, and they were organized perfectly in rows and they buried weapons of war in this ceremonial mount 8004 of them.

Myron Brandley:

I don't know what that significance is, but that's what they had in there and they were perfectly flinted and then buried. And when they did these mounds Meyern's an engineer they used different materials and then they usually encrusted them with some kind of a cement which they're not supposed to have in North America, but they have it all over and sealed off the mound. And then for what? Right over and sealed off the mound? And then for what? Right? So this, this mordecai hopewell place, the place that these people are named after, the people that happened to just disappear the same time. The book mormon says they do and uh, and they move from that place to uh, they go, uh, east, right, and they end up at the hill tomorrow and then they don't exist anymore. But they buried.

Myron Brandley:

They had a ceremonial mound with weapons that were buried and I went there the first time and never saw that. We didn't even go over there. But I was like Scott, can you believe this? This is crazy. And they were literally the size of your hand. It wasn't like a little arrow that they had.

Myron Brandley:

No, they were big, it was like a spear point, and you know that it was business and it was perfectly flinted and I thought how could they overlook this? Like the evidences, joseph smith was promised the evidences would come out of it, out of the dirt right, you'll be able to see it.

Myron Brandley:

well, if you have eyes to see, there's a lot of evidence and you know, Joseph Smith said that he walked over the plains of the Nephites right, roaming over the mounds of that once beloved people, picking up their bones and telling their stories. Well, we've kind of done that. We've been to that place. Mordecai's place is special because it was preserved, because he was a doctor. He didn't plow it under, he went and had it done right, and that's why these people are named after him. This culture, because of the things they found there were so magnificent. And any time they found another mound, if it had an effigy pipe or if it had pearls, or if it had some of these arrowheads, they're like that's hopewell, and so there's a reason it was preserved. That's not a coincidence. That wall is still there. You can walk it today and I'll tell you this my brother had a sacred experience. He knew that the book mormon was in north america because he had a personal revelation.

Myron Brandley:

Myron and I and Scott, we're Holy Ghosters. We want to, first and foremost, follow the Spirit and we want to see the cool stuff out there. It's not going to change our testimony. These rocks aren't going to change our testimony, but they are fun and we have seen things that have strengthened our testimony in the Book of Mormon, that's right. So it hasn't been one of those things where, the first time I went on a trip back there, I said to my wife I don't know if this is where the Book of Mormon took place, but God does and he can tell me. So if I have a sincere desire to to know, then he can reveal those things to me. Or he can say no, you should be in Guatemala, right, yeah, which I'm cool with. Or I want to go to Machu Picchu, that's fine too.

Myron Brandley:

Did the Lamanites get down there? Probably. And so, as for me and my house, we know where that's happened. I've had spiritual experiences with both of you. Your dad did, and I'm not going to talk to him about them here, but things where I know in my bones where this took place. At least some of those things took place. This took place, at least some of those things took place. And Myron and I have had multiple trips. Experiences were like how did that happen, right? Right, we weren't. We had an open heart, but we were surprised, still, yeah. And I think we were surprised when we went to that cave and found an altar, right. How many people can say they've seen an altar in North America Carved in stone, right Carved out of the wall of an open cave, an alcove, right.

Scott Brandley:

That's why it was cool, right. Yeah, it was unreal. We had no expectations going in and then to find something like that, um, you know, it's just it was. It was an experience of a lifetime, so, but yeah, it's been, it's been great. I feel like, you know, god gave us those experiences so we can share them, and that's why I wanted to have you guys on those experiences so we can share them. And that's why I wanted to have you guys on the show, so we can share some of these really cool experiences that most members of the church will never have and don't know anything about.

John Brandley:

Most people in the United States don't know what's out there Right, and all these mounds and these cities and roadways and a lot of them are preserved. Probably 90% of them got plowed under, and so there's tens of thousands of these sites that would have been that they can see through LiDAR imaging and stuff that were there. Nobody's educated about it, it's not in our history books. You talk to somebody about it and they're like oh, you're crazy.

Scott Brandley:

There might be a little sign next to some of these locations, if anything.

John Brandley:

If you don't go there, you don't experience it Right, and so we've had some awesome experiences going to those places Bushwhacking through bush and brush Chiggers.

Myron Brandley:

Chiggers and termites those are awesome Ticks yeah.

John Brandley:

And those kind of things that a lot of most people will never experience. But the stuff is there if you look for it, right?

Myron Brandley:

the people who live there, in these little towns and places that you go, well, they know where all this stuff is, they know it and, um, you know, they're just but for them it's just kind of come to place.

John Brandley:

I was here, it's just life, but it's not written anywhere.

Myron Brandley:

It's not I mean it is, but not to the general public Book of Mormon right so I think that a lot of people who get caught up in is the Book of Mormon, here or there, or you know, and tumult of words and opinions, right, happen, and if you have the Holy Ghost and you're honest, then God will reveal it to you, and I think that's the difference. There were people that were on our trip and I'm like wow, look at this and they're like not interested at all, they're like no, that probably didn't happen there and I'm like really.

John Brandley:

Or that's cool. What's next?

Myron Brandley:

Let's go look at some more rocks. And I'm thinking well, there's got to be more to this. The civilization was very advanced. It had all of this technology and this map. They lined up everything with the lunar calendar. They knew the stars, they knew where they were on the map within a few feet. We can't do that today, we're not educated enough to figure that out without a GPS. But they could do it.

Myron Brandley:

And these weren't hunter gatherers. Everybody in the whole world culture knew they had barley, they had all of these um products that they were. They were agrarian and, uh, they also had flocks and they also had um domesticated animals. That's a fact. You can go into the museums and they'll tell you this. They also had fine twine, linen, right, right.

Myron Brandley:

Remember when we went in there and I said to the ranger I'm like you're showing me the Indians in loincloths or what's the other thing? Buckskins, right, buckskins, yeah, and it's like 100 degrees, we're in Ohio and I'm like nobody's wearing that. And she just laughed and she's like and I got her on tape right and she's like no, she's like what they really wore was they would take milkweed and they would weave clothes that was finer than silk. And I'm like what did you just say? Like fine, twine, linen? She's like, yeah, and they would dye it and they would paint it. And she's like we have little samples.

Myron Brandley:

And guess where the samples came from? They stuck to metal, to copper armor. Oh yeah, so it fused to the armor. So they'd wear the clothes and put the armor over it breastplates and headplates, and then they would have these fabrics that were preserved right, because it would be the first thing to go. But they were preserved because they fused to the metal. So they're like, oh yeah, we've got that stuff. And they didn't wear black skins, it. She's like, if they wore that, it was in the winter, right, so in the winter, where they had parakeets and they had, you know, there's parakeets in all these mounds, which is crazy, which tells you the temperature was different too. But there's all these evidences and um and the metallurgy and all of those things are right there in the museums. You know, that's the other thing that you would see, like you brought up dave's copper band there or jewelry. These weren't people that were hunter-gatherers.

Myron Brandley:

they had vast networks where they're getting these things from other mica from all places the obsidian, the shark's teeth that, whatever they, you know, even the stuff they flinted came from specific places, right where it was the best to get.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, yeah. Well, it was cool to see that when we would go to museums and they would show like, hey, look, look what, all these things that came from this mound and here's where it came from in the united states, and they have all these arrows pointing all across the country, yeah, where they verified where these materials came from in the United States. And they have all these arrows pointing all across the country where they verified where these materials came from from a mount, and you're like, wow, that's cool. I didn't know that. But now I know it because I went to this random museum in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, it was, it was fun.

Myron Brandley:

What one museum that we went to. So when we went up to the, to the place where the auction was, we're all in a van and Dave is the oldest brother, scott's dad and he was driving, and we're in the van and we've got Wayne, who's the archeologist, he's the expert, and Mark had stayed down in Southern Illinois. So we're driving all the way up. We're like, how far is this to our hotel? So we could. It was just outside of in Iowa, just across from Nauvoo, and do you remember the town? Can't think of the town. Anyway, it's just this tiny town where this was and where this auction house was. So we're driving for hours. We're like, how many miles did you say that was? I've got this, I got it on my gps, I got this on my gps and what would we?

John Brandley:

we were going down the craziest road. Kept getting more narrow, more narrow road.

Myron Brandley:

I look over at scott and I'm like I don't think we're on the right road. And uh, we, we were down the scout road and we'd look over and there was a highway and cars were going like this and we're going like this and I'm like I think we're supposed to be over there. No, I know where I'm going. I'm following the GPS and I look at Wayne and I'm like, hey, wayne, are we on the right road? And he'd do this yeah, we're on the right road. And he'd do this. Yeah, we're in all the cars there. We're supposed to be over there. For hours, we're in this drive and finally we get there.

John Brandley:

We got to some little town.

Myron Brandley:

Yeah, we got somewhere. And then Myron's sitting up there with Dave, so tell him what happened.

John Brandley:

Well, he stopped. I can't remember if he stopped for gas or just to get a drink. We were probably out of gas because we've been driving for hours. There's bicycles passing us on the road and stuff. It's not exaggerating. He grabs the phone from me and says I don't know what's wrong with this navigation thing and he starts messing with it. It said on bike mode.

Myron Brandley:

Yeah, we were on a bike route, we were on a bike route. We were on a bike route for hours. So the next day we were like Fun trip, side trips, yeah.

John Brandley:

It's also country About every every 30 minutes. Wait, where are we supposed to every 30 minutes?

Myron Brandley:

wait, where are we supposed to? Is this the road? It's over there. So the next day we were going to the temple, right To Nauvoo, and we're like we don't have three hours to go to the temple, and we were like it's only like 34 miles, you know, and you got to cross the river. So, we're like huh, I don't know, I don't know, maybe this is how it is out here in the country. We got there in like 20 minutes, we got ice cream, we went around the whole town.

Myron Brandley:

We were like Dave, you cannot. And then the funny part is he blamed Myron. You're in heaven, you know this is true. He blamed Myron for putting it on the bike ramp and Myron at the time had a flip phone. That's right, I had no idea what he's doing he's never barely got a smartphone go around the thing he's like why is this bike making these little wheels around this? It's so nice, but that was a fun part of the trip too.

John Brandley:

So we got all these trips you have you have uh it was a long ride.

Myron Brandley:

It was a long ride. At the end of it it was dark. We get to the hotel and we're like we got to get something to eat. Remember this, and don, remember don's 80 years old and we were taking turns, kind of treating each other to dinner. You know, like scott would pay her, I'd pay her, um, myron or dave, and so, and don hadn't paid yet. And we're driving in on this main road we can see our hotel and have this chinese buffet restaurant. The lights were like flickering and we're on. We're like we're so hungry but anywhere, but there we don't want to eat there, and uh, and so we get back to the hotel and we pass like a couple other restaurants and so where are we going to go? And don's like what did he say? Chinese buffet. He's like, hey, let's go to that Chinese buffet, my treat. So he probably had his hearing aids out because we already told him.

Myron Brandley:

We didn't want to go there, so we go there, and it was rough, but nobody got sick. Yeah, nobody got sick.

John Brandley:

But we went to the Chinese buffet and got our treat. I think it cost for six of us.

Myron Brandley:

It was like $23 or something. It was rough. It was pretty funny. But you have memories like that where you have especially if you go with Wade May you're going to eat, you're going to stay in a crappy hotel and you're going to eat crappy food. No offense, wayne, no offense, but that's what he likes. If it says quality in on the outside, we're probably staying there and you got to check for bed bugs. It's part of the adventure. People open the door to your room and you're like what are you doing? They're like this is my room, I have a key. And we're like so, do we? So how do we work this out.

Myron Brandley:

So open door policy. But, yeah, fun things like that that have happened on those trips too, where you're just like this is kind of crazy. Or driving a huge bus down through rochester in the wrong neighborhood to get to a golden corral because wayne wanted to go to a golden corral and we're like we're gonna die. We die, we're in the wrong neighborhood, but some fun memories that way, too, it's been fun.

Scott Brandley:

This was a good adventure going on this particular trip and I just wanted to have you guys on and share some of the cool things that we discovered. Thanks for having us.

Myron Brandley:

Yeah, it was fun.

John Brandley:

I told you you were going to talk more than me and you brought the microphone Because you made me sit here. The right choice.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, well, hopefully you guys have learned some cool stuff that you didn't know before, and the whole point of sharing all this with you is to help you gain a stronger testimony. If you're struggling with your faith, just to know that some of these things are out, there is you know, can help build your faith, and our hope is that you know it's built our faith and testimony.

Scott Brandley:

We are fortunate enough to go there and see these things, but hopefully us sharing this is going to help you as well. So thank you for joining us today. Thank you, guys for being on the show. We love you. And tune in next week for my fifth and final installment about my book faith to stay. And if you want a free digital copy and a free audio copy, go to faithtostaycom and you can get those there, and we will talk to you next week with another episode of Latter-day Lights. Until then, take care, bye-bye, bye Bye On today's episode, and a friend and a bunch of other people, some homeless people.

Scott Brandley:

I just got to get through this part and then we can actually have a real conversation so Wayne. May Mark the reason why we went to Illinois was because somebody died. I thought you showed the laughing matter. Yeah, okay.

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Scott Brandley

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