The Hooked X

This book is the culmination of a seven-year odyssey to understand the origin of a mysterious symbol that first appeared on a highly controversial century-old artifact called the Kensington Rune Stone. The discovery of the meaning of the Hooked X was stunning, as was the secret history behind it. Never-before published discoveries provide additional support for the authenticity of the Kensington Rune Stone. This new evidence serves as the foundation upon which the case for the medieval origin of the Spirit Pond and Narragansett Rune Stones, as well as the Newport Tower in Rhode Island rests. Anything that helps validate the Kensington Rune Stone also validates the Hooked X, which also appears on the other four North American rune stones and ties them all together. The Hooked X is also found in two other unexpected places: The Larsson Papers found in Sweden in 2004, and in Christopher Columbus s mysterious signature. The evidence and analysis presented here suggests the origin of the symbol lies within the coded alphabet of secret societies that have been in existence since at least the early part of the twelfth century right through today. The Hooked X path begins in Minnesota and makes its first stop along the Atlantic Coast, where it is found on the three Spirit Pond Rune Stones discovered at Popham Beach, Maine, in 1971. All three runic inscriptions, believed by many scholars to be fakes, are carved with the Hooked X symbol being used for the letter a. The Spirit Pond Map Stone has inscribed on it the words, Vinland 1402, takes two days with an arrow pointing south. If a ship sailed two days south of the area depicted on the Map Stone at Popham Beach, Maine, it would be in the vicinity of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. Curiously, another runic inscription was found carved on a large boulder in shallow water near the shore in Narragansett Bay. It also contains the Hooked X. This suggests that those who carved all five rune stones are somehow connected, considering that the Hooked X is not found on any of the thousands of known runic inscriptions that occur throughout Scandinavia. On the other side of Narragansett Bay, in Newport, Rhode Island, stands a mysterious two-story stone structure called the Newport Tower. Amazingly, the final stop on the Hooked X journey in North America was discovered from evidence constructed within the Newport Tower and brings the story full-circle back to Kensington, Minnesota.