Behind the scenes, people talk about an ancient earthwork on Snake Hill, private property now. It was likely a mound, and one neither archaeologists nor residents want us to know about. If it’s a burial, it’s both monument and graveyard. It’s also a mystery. The mound-building tendency (if influence isn’t the word) wasn’t thought to get this far east and north of the Ohio Valley.
From the right vantage, Snake Hill looms against the starry sky. The lights of houses glisten like the eyes of unknown animals in a bush. Strange luminous spheres are reported moving about Snake Hill at night. A classic, unnatural, sky-high moving light—a UFO—has been spotted buzzing Snake Hill, and there are even witnesses who report a touchdown. We see once again the connection between ancient human power sites and the UFO cycle. This is clearly a power hill.
THE ANGEL’S MOUNTAIN
(Seneca Country)
We’ve all heard the story about the American farm boy who went on to found a major new religion. Born in Vermont in a region of strange stonework, Joseph Smith (1805–1844) moved with his family to Palmyra in upstate New York. In his teens, he poked around Cumorah Hill, may have dug into an ancient monument, and turned up tools, trinkets, and a pair of crystals he used to read a set of mysterious golden tablets no one has been able to find since. New York’s Burned-over District had one more founding tenant.
Joseph Smith would spin a strange tale of a hidden cave, dialogues with an angel, and the golden plates that make a virtual new Bible. This Book of Mormon tells of lost tribes from Israel, ancient American civilizations, climactic battles, and biblical allegories. In only a few years, Prophet Smith (like Jesus Christ) died an early death at the hands of a mob, and his inspired supporters formed a new religion. His devout followers suffered persecution, built their New Jerusalem in the western wilderness, and founded one of the world’s most successful young religions. This tale of fantastic achievement is rooted in a serious mystery. What did Smith find, and why was it on Hill Cumorah?
“This is a special place,” said Salvator Michael Trento, the Oxford-trained author who’s studied North America’s sacred places. Trento found “a major aberration” of Hill Cumorah’s “total magnetic field” and electro-magnetic curiosities like those reported at the world’s other major sacred monuments. Supernatural folklore tends to follow such sites, as with Smith’s Palmyra hill: UFO sightings, apparitions, and even witchcraft-inspired murders.
His followers think Smith talked to angels and spoke for God. Our Seneca contacts agree that he found something on Cumorah Hill, and that it may be no easy place. They say their ancestors knew something powerful was hidden in that hill, and that it was medicine no one wanted to mess with. It was like the bottle holding the genie: Open it right and at the right time, and it works with gratitude; open it wrong or too late, and you had best not have opened it at all. Surely this counts as one of North America’s hot spots. The Seneca, we hear, still mistrust that hill.
TAUGHANNOCK FALLS
(Cayuga Country)
Cayuga Lake drops south of Seneca Falls, home of the women’s rights movement. At the bottom of it is Ithaca, an eclectic city and home of Cornell University. Between Ithaca and Trumansburg on the southwestern shore is one of the state’s most unusual features.
As much as today’s tourists revere sublime views, the old Iroquois loved them more. They walked vast distances to commune at these special scenes. Taughannock Falls was known to be one of them. Taughannock is far from New York’s biggest waterfall, but its 215-foot drop makes it the highest. It’s the focus of a number of tales.
Taughannock Falls, a sacred spot for the Iroquois
Some believe that Taughannock may mean “great falls in the woods.” In some tales, it’s the name of an Algonquin hero who made forays into Cayuga country. In others, it’s the name of a Delaware invader killed and tossed over the falls. Still another version of the legend stars Taughannock as a righteous local defender against Iroquois oppression whose daughter married a defeated Cayuga chief at the falls.
There is also a Cayuga “lover’s leap” tale set here, fundamentally identical to a Mohawk legend of Snake Hill, an Onondaga story about Skaneateles Lake, and a Seneca romance about Canandaigua Lake. There could quite well be story-variants that we haven’t heard of. In recent Internet folklore are unsigned reports of mystery lights and a female demon somewhere in the park. Take those as you will.
Taughannock Falls has a curious doorlike space, about eight by ten feet, in the cliff wall to the right of the water. Of course, it’s created by a falloff of a layer of rock, but it jumps out, even on the Internet photos. It looks like the entrance to a secret space inside the rock-ribbed mountain.
The Six Nations folk presumed some magical force was at work in truly curious natural features. Either the spot attracted the supernaturals, or it was made by them. Queer clefts in rock faces were wizards’ hideaways. Doorlike spaces in cliff walls were the gates of the Little People. This spot at the top of Taughannock Falls could have been either, and we would know which if we could solve the spell and get the smooth barrier to open for us.
LOST NATION
(Seneca Country)
There’s some kind of mystery going on here, but we’re not sure what.
For much of its existence, the Confederacy was at war. As the Longhouse nations expanded their territory, they
