The State of Deseret

The State of Deseret was a provisional state of the United States many years ago, it was proposed in 1849 by Latter-day Saints settlers led by Brigham Young in Salt Lake City. The provisional state existed for a little more than two years but never recognized by the U S government. The name derives from the word for “honeybee” found in the Book of Mormon (see Ester 2:3).  Most of the area had been a large part of the Mexican territory of Alta California until the Mexican Cession of 1848 which is the historical name in the United States for that region of present day southwestern United States that Mexico conceded to the U S in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848; it included the present day states of California, Nevada, Utah, about two thirds of Arizona, half of New Mexico, less than half of Colorado, and a part of southwest Wyoming.

Technically the territory was purchased by the United States just after the war, after months of negotiations with Mexico for 15 million U S Dollars; payment however was made by a fiscal credit against Mexico’s enormous debt to the U S at that time.

The state that would be Utah became the 48th U S addition on January 4, 1896 but it took seven petitions to Congress, and 48 years from the time from its 1848 arrival as a U S Territory; there was also a huge reduction of more than 160,000 square miles from its originally proposed size . . . You see, in 1849, Brigham Young, who would be appointed Territorial Governor of the  region the next year and the sitting President of the Latter Day Saints (Mormon) Church established a provisional state known as “The State of Deseret”. It covered an enormous 265,000 square miles, stretching from Colorado to California and from the US-Mexican Border to the northern edge of modern day Utah.

Following this endeavor, Young petitioned the US Congress to permit Deseret to join the Union as the 31^st state. The petition was denied because of the enormous size of the proposed state coupled with the fact that it only had 12,000 eligible voters, a far cry from the required minimum of 60,000.

When Utah was finally added to the Union, it included 84,900 square miles of land and ranked as the11th largest state; a circumstance that changed with the addition of Alaska; it’s currently 12^th. 

According to legend, the following is a brief account of the events that would finally lead Utah into the union of U S government: During that winter of 1824 & 25 a dispute arose concerning the Bear River’s course south of Cache Valley, Utah.   James (Jim) Bridger (one of the greatest frontiersmen of Utah and American history) was chosen to explore the river and return with the facts. His excursion would lead him to the Great Salt Lake located in the northern section of the modern day state; he was sure he had stumbled-up-on an inlet to the Pacific Ocean due to its saltiness.

The Great Salt Lake, you may know is about 75 miles long and 35 miles wide; it covers more than a million acres or if you prefer about 2,100 square miles. The average depth is 13 feet and deepest point is 34 feet; so it’s little wonder that this error in judgment was made by Bridger.            

History tells us that in 1844 Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, and his brother was arrested in Nauvoo, Illinois, a community that had been established a few years earlier by the church. While the two men were in jail, a mob broke in and killed them.

The Mormons as a group now felt that they could never be safe within the United States; after all, they’d already been forced out of New York, Ohio and Missouri. They chose Brigham Young as the new leader and in 1846 he led them into Iowa where they spent the winter living in huts and caves. When spring came, Young and a small wagon train started westward in search of their new home. Following a route just north of the Oregon Trail, once they were beyond the Rockies, they turned south, a route that would lead them to the valley of the Great Salt Lake in what is now Utah. Although this was inside Mexican territory, Young and the church leaders were convinced it would be safe there.

During late June of 1847 Jim Bridger had his first encounter with the early Mormon pioneers near the mouth of the Little Sandy River who were in route to their future home.   Among other topics of local interest, it’s thought that Bridger (in 1843 he had established a small trading post in the area) and Young discussed the merits associated with the group settling in the Salt Lake Valley.   It’s said that Bridger tried to discourage the plan and reportedly offered, with a good bit of skepticism, a thousand U S Dollars for the first bushel of corn grown in the Valley.

None the less, during this meeting Bridger was persuaded to draw a map on the sandy banks of the river for Young, depicting the region with great accuracy, all the while conveying to the Mormon leader his doubts regarding the agricultural efficiency of the Salt Lake area. Although this first meeting between the Mormons and Bridger was reportedly pleasant enough, this relationship would deteriorate in the not too distant future, especially for Bridger.

Initially the arrival of the Mormons simply increased the number of immigrants to Bridger’s trading post.  However, conditions soon changed because the Mormon settlements alienated a large portion of Bridger’s trade, including that with the local Indians; this caused economic hardships for his small business.  

In 1850 the territory of Utah was created and to add insult to injury, Brigham Young was appointed Territorial Governor; the newly created territory’s jurisdiction included that of the Fort Bridger area, which further upset the “balance of power”, at least in the view of Jim Bridger.

Naturally, in such a strained environment, hostility between Bridger and the Mormons began to fester; by the summer of 1853 the Mormon’s were convinced that Bridger was engaging in illegal trade with the Indians, particularly with liquor, guns and ammunition and it didn’t help that they were also sure he was charging too much for the supplies he offered for sale. When Bridger was accused of agitating the Native Americans to plot against the Mormons, local leadership who was also Mormon, successfully revoked Bridger’s license to trade and as if that weren’t bad enough, since Brigham Young was in charge of local Indian affairs, it wasn’t very difficult to have a warrant issued for Bridger’s arrest; perhaps it was good for the sake of all parties, that before the posse arrived to arrest Bridger, he had fled.

Most of us know the name “Utah” comes from the Native American “Ute” tribe but few of us realize it means in the language of the Ute “people of the mountains”. 

Especially since the recent (2012) election, when you mention Utah to folks in other states or countries, they automatically think the state is “all Mormons and mountains”. In reality, Utah and Salt Lake City consists of about 50% non-Mormon citizens and has desert-like areas that have an abundance of oil and minerals. In fact, some say the richest hole on earth, filled with copper and gold is located just south of Salt Lake City. One of the largest oil deposits in the country, has also been discovered 3 miles south of tiny Sigurd, Utah (population 430) located very near the center of the state in Sevier County. This huge oil base has placed Utah among the top ten (#8) states in the U S with proven oil reserves.

Sources:                                                     

 http://www.50states.com/facts/utah.htm#.UQHVYlK3unM                               http://voices.yahoo.com/salt-lake-city-utah-little-known-facts-tourist-3422112.html?cat=8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Cession                                                             http://www.helium.com/items/1578235-ten-little-known-fact-of-utah http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2012/04/03/most-oil-rich-states/                                                             http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Deseret                                                          http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/usabysiz.htm                                     http://www.deseretnews.com/article/615152979/Sigurds-wells-prove-Utah-is-oil-country.html?pg=all                                                                                          http://www.mrvanduyne.com/west/earlysettlement.htm                                            http://historytogo.utah.gov/people/jamesbridger.html http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/war/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deseret_%28Book_of_Mormon%29

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Impossible Fossils

Fossils, we all learned in the early days of grade school, are found imprinted on rocks or actually are ‘rocks’ that are petrified, in either circumstance science is sure they were formed thousands of years ago. None the less, from time to time we hear about fossils that just don’t make good geological or historical sense.  The fossil of a human hand-print displayed above, for example, was reportedly found near Weatherford, TX in 1995; it’s embedded in limestone estimated to be 110 million years old.

Many folks are quick to point out that the petrified fossil displayed here looks an awful lot like a human finger; it was found somewhere in the Canadian Arctic and also dates back 100 to 110 million years ago. And what some say is the the fossil of a human footprint, possibly wearing a sandal, was  reportedly found near Delta, Utah in a shale deposit estimated to be 300 million to 600 million years old.

Somewhere near Fisher Canyon in Pershing County, Nevada a very detailed shoe print fossil is said to have been discovered in a seam of coal.   The coal was estimated to be a whopping 15 million years old!  Just to insure that you won’t think this was the fossil of some kind of animal whose shape merely resembles a modern shoe; an up-close examination of the fossil was said to clearly reveal traces of a double line of sewn stitches around the perimeter of the fossil. It’s believed to be a size 13 or so, and the right side of the heel is apparently worn down more than the left.

Evidently the “shoe print fossil” was found by Albert E. Knapp, an employee of a Nevada Mining Company, on January 15, 1917 . . . Two of the earliest reports about the fossil were published on March 19, 1922 in the New York Times, and another more detailed report appeared in the October 8, 1922 article by W. H. Ballou in the American Weekly section of the New York Sunday American. The latter article was titled “Mystery of the Petrified Shoe Sole”.

A similar discovery was made in the Robledis Mountains of New Mexico by paleontologist Jerry MacDonald as recently as 1987. There were also various fossil footprints of birds and other mammals in the same general area, but MacDonald was at a loss to explain how a modern footprint could have been cast in the Permian strata, which dates back to the neighborhood of 250 to 300 million years ago; that by the way, is long before man (birds and dinosaurs for that matter) existed on earth; that is, according to the current line of scientific thought.

In July of 1992, a Smithsonian Magazine publication from Washington DC issued an article on this topic.  While it’s admirable that MacDonald and the Smithsonian clearly acknowledged the existence of multiple foot prints in a strata that challenges the current evolutionary theory, it is significant that the story only highlight the mammal and bird prints, and did not mention the human footprint found in the mix.

Interestingly, since these tracks were discovered, and the publication was released, evolutionists have not tried to argue their authenticity or made attempts to discredit them. Nor have they tried to argue that the footprint isn’t human, however they do claim that it’s a foot print that “looks like” a human’s.  In any event, like the prints of the birds & mammals, it shouldn’t have been there.

In another article that the Smithsonian Magazine ran in ’92 about the discovery, it noted that paleontologists call such anomalies: “problematica.”  Pointing out that such unusual irregularities are placed into the “white crow” category; meaning that all we need to prove that all crows are not black is to find a single white one.

Similarly: All we have to do to prove that the history of modern man (or possibly how we date strata) is different than is currently perceived is to find a fossil like that of a human hand or foot.  Having accomplished that difficult task, scientists instead continue to place such information on a shelf, label it as “problematica” and continue in their unyielding views; perhaps because the reality is far too troublesome.

Now how do you suppose a ‘human looking’ print became impressed in material that would be coal some15 million years later?   The correct answer may be: The imprint was made much more recently and the formation of coal does not really take millions of years (modern science does not support this) . . . One alternative is that there were people or something that would pass as people traipsing about in bare feet15 million years ago . . . Another possibility is simply that time travelers went back in time and inadvertently left behind a print, or it could just be an elaborate hoax.

You’re apt to see a human footprint on practically any beach or patch of mud these days but a footprint that’s obviously from the anatomy of a modern human being; fossilized in stone or coal that’s estimated to be 15 million years old or more is not a common find. 

Just what do you presume we are to make of these reported finds? Here’s just a few best guesses:

• Intelligent humans date a lot further back than we realize. 
• Other intelligent beings and civilizations that were likely humanoid existed on earth far beyond today’s historical record.  
• Our dating methods are far from being accurate, which would indicate that stone, coal and fossils form much quicker than we think.

If you think fossils are the only items that are routinely placed into the problematica category you’re wrong; that fallacy was ‘brought to light’ right here on a related topic “A Catastrophic Theory of History” a few months ago (October 14, 2012).  So, it’s not that unusual to find objects you might find in a typical workshop or machine shop scrap bin. They’re obviously manufactured but this assortment of metal eyelets, spirals, springs, and other metal objects have been found in layers of sediment dated as much as 100,000 years old! I’d guess it was really hard to locate a good metal foundry in those days.

Thousands of such objects / products; some measuring as small as 1/10,000^th  of an inch in diameter were discovered during gold mining operations in the Ural Mountains of Russia as recently as the 1990’s. They were recovered from a depth between 3 and 40 feet in layers of earth dating back to the upper Pleistocene era, these very unusual objects are therefore thought to be anywhere from 10,000 to 125,000 years old.

Somewhere in the Mazong Mountains of China, rock collector Zhilin Wang found a hard black rock that was embedded with a metal rod of unknown origin and purpose. The rod reportedly has screw-like threads, suggesting that it was a manufactured item of some sort. By adding the fact that it was buried in the ground long enough for rock to form around it suggests that it must be several million years old.

At least one theory suggests that the rock and rod’s origin is a meteorite that fell to Earth from space.  How else can we explain a stone that appears to have formed around a mysterious metal rod?

Would you believe this is not an isolated case of metal screws being found within solid rock; several reports suggest many others have been found, a few examples:

1. In the early 2000’s, a strange rock was found in the suburbs of Moscow, Russia. It was embedded with two screw-like objects.
2. Another rock found in Russia, when subjected to a routine X-ray analysis, was found to have eight screws deep inside it! 

The biggest problem evoked in the examples cited here is that humans were not supposed to have been around 65 million years ago (or more) when the dinosaurs roamed, much less, folks who could work metal.   But if that’s true, how on earth can science explain oval shaped metallic tubes dug out of 65-million-year-old Cretaceous chalk formations in France?   Before that seemingly unbelievable factoid escapes you, think about these additional reports: In 1885, a block of coal was split open which revealed a metal cube obviously worked by someone other than the dinosaurs; in 1912, an employee at an electric plant in Arkansas, broke apart a large chunk of coal which reveal an iron pot!   If such reports were few and far between, perhaps such events could be described as rare anomalies, but there are many, many more such, shall we say irregularities?

Do you believe such reported discoveries are strong enough evidence that proves a long-lost but advanced civilization that we’re unaware of?  If not, who would you guess was around to create such baffling objects, time travelers or someone ‘from a planet far, far away’?  The alternative to one or the other of those choices suggests an awful lot of elaborate hoaxes.  

Sources:                             

http://paranormal.about.com/od/ancientanomalies/ig/Most-Puzzling-Ancient-Artifact/Impossible-Fossils.htm                                                                                                    http://tgsfree4allinfo.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-catastrophic-theory-of-history.html http://paleo.cc/paluxy/hand.htm                                                                                                           http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=325862                                           http://www.bible.ca/tracks/new-mexico-problematica-close-up.jpg                                                       http://paleo.cc/paluxy/ironpot.htm                                                           https://www.forbiddenhistory.info/?q=node/92                                                         https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sugexp=les%3B&gs_rn=1&gs_ri=hp&gs_mss=human+handprint&tok=h_XZZvEWAYlPIn2eYmJnmw&pq=human+handprint+fossil&cp=23&gs_id=9qm&xhr=t&safe=active&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.41018144,d.b2I&biw=1138&bih=475&bs=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=Vwj2UMq6ItTurAHpuoDIAQ&q=human%20handprint%20fossil%20in%20public%20domain&tbo=d   

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