Mysteries Unearthed: The Evidence For A Northern Aztec Origin

The history that we were all taught growing up is wrong. My name is Scott Walter and I'm a forensic geologist. There's a hidden history that nobody knows about. There are pyramids, chambers, tombs, inscriptions, they're all over the world. We're going to investigate these artifacts and sites and we're going to get to the truth. Sometimes history isn't what we've been told. I recently received a message from a guy in Lake Mills, Wisconsin. He says there's strange stuff going on beneath the surface of one of the local lakes. Hey Scott, this is Jeff in Wisconsin. Hey, there's a mystery here that I think that you really need to check out. Some people are saying that there's pyramids under the water of Rock Lake. You know, they think that the Aztecs may have built them and I want to know what you think. This is something I've got to see for myself. I'm on my way to meet Jeff now. Jeff. Hey, Scott. How are you doing? You got me a beer already? Yeah, of course. All right, let's see what we got here. Stone teepee and it looks like, are those three pyramids? Yes, they are. Does this have anything to do with why you called me? This is exactly why I called you. We're meeting at a place called Tyranina Brewing Company. It's named after Tyranina, the old name for Rock Lake. This area is steeped in legend. Locals tell stories of a foreign tribe which long ago built stone structures and effigy mounds near the lake that are supposedly now underwater. All this where we're at now and the beer all ties into why I asked you to come here. It has to do with some underwater pyramids here in Lake Mills. How did this whole story start? It all started in 1900 when some duck hunters found the pyramids underwater. They were out paddling their boat and they stuck an oar down and hit some rocks. Maybe it's just a pile of rocks. It could be just a pile of rocks but that's, it's not the legend. Could somebody go down and take a look at it? A few years later some scuba divers went down to check it out. Okay, and they saw these pyramids? These pyramids in the water. Well, what do they look like? Well, here I got a diagram to show you. This is a local diver gave this to me. Well, look at that. They're supposedly supposed to be three of them. Those are pretty big if this diver and the scale's right. Kind of a long shaped pyramid, right? Yeah. How deep is this? That's roughly in about 20 feet of water. They used to protrude out of the water though until the water level rose. The, the rumor is around here that the Aztecs might have made them. The Aztecs? Up here in Wisconsin? Yeah, that's, that's the rumor. That's the rumor, okay. Yeah. Well, I know a little bit about the Aztecs. The Aztecs emerged in central Mexico in the early 1300s. They conquered their neighbors and became an empire known for huge markets and pyramids. They built their capital, Tenochtitlan, where Mexico City now stands. Early Spanish visitors reported that Tenochtitlan was five times the size of London. They eventually engineered and built this amazing city, this huge city, that had walls that apparently separated the different classes. The elite were on one side and the common people were on another. We're talking about a pretty advanced culture, but coming up here to Wisconsin, that's pretty incredible. Yeah. I'm looking at your beer here, Rocky's Revenge. Well, Rocky's Revenge is one of the many legends, and this is one of the legends here, the protector of the pyramids. Is that a dinosaur? Yeah, it's kind of like the Loch Ness. Okay. Wisconsin's version of Nessie? Yeah. But do people really believe there's something there? Actually, the local scuba divers do. They feel like someone's watching them when they dive underwater, and they have like a fear of, you know, just being under there. Really? And, you know, a lot of them get like a scared feeling when they're down there. Well, I'm not going to get creeped out by murky water or a rock lake monster. In fact, I want to get to the bottom of this mystery, and the only way to do that is to get to the bottom of the lake. Are you going to scuba dive down? Nope. Submarine. I'm in Wisconsin checking out a local legend. More than a hundred years ago, a couple duck hunters were rowing in Rock Lake. The story goes that they put down a paddle and hit something hard, maybe an underwater pyramid. That's bizarre, but what's even stranger is who the locals think are responsible. The Aztecs. They're the empire that dominated Mexico for 300 years, starting in 1300 AD. The idea that the Aztecs traveled to Wisconsin to build pyramids is pretty bizarre, but the story gets stranger still. According to legend, there's a mythical beast named Rocky in the lake. Divers report feeling uneasy when they're underwater, as though they're being watched. I'm not really buying the idea of Wisconsin's own Loch Ness monster. Still, I want to see what's down there, and I'm going to do it using a one-man submarine. Hey guys, I'm really excited to check out the Fugus Sub here. I've heard a lot about them, and I'm anxious to give it a try today. Looks like we've got good calm water out there, and from the dock it looks pretty clear. So you guys realize that there are people that believe that the Aztecs built pyramids that are in the bottom of the lake, and obviously the subs will help us see if that's true or not. But have you heard anything about that? Yes, actually, we're really quite excited about diving out here. We've wanted to go out here for several years. I'm not certain who built these things, but they're certainly worth taking a look at. Well, I appreciate you guys being willing to help out today, and I see these are yellow submarines. I've never been a big Beatles guy. I'm more of a Rolling Stones guy, but why the yellow color? It's a high visibility color, and one good reason for making them yellow is there's a lot of boats driving around, and you just don't want someone to come and mow you down. Okay. Also, for underwater filming, we found that the yellow is the best color in the spectrum to pick up on film. And Fugus Sub, why that name? Well, fugu is a Japanese word for pufferfish. The pufferfish moves adeptly underwater. That's why the guys named their subs after it. You drive one thruster forward and reverse the other, you'll turn on a dime. Yeah, we brought a video along so you could possibly take a look at it and see, you know, get an idea of what it can do. Sure, let's take a look. You can see us on the surface there, and you'll see some underwater shots in a minute. There you are at the surface. It kind of operates like a boat there. Yeah, we designed it that way, and these can go on basically any boat ramp that you can find. It's ideal for a lake like this to launch it and go on. Yeah. Okay. So how deep can you go in these? We can take these to 100 feet, and we've designed these so that they can only ascend and descend quite slowly. Okay. So you're not going to have to deal with any decompression issues. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm ready to go. What do you say we get these things in the water? First, we've got to do a bit of prep work on them. All right, guys. I'll be back in a little bit. While the fuga subs are being prepped, I'm going to talk to a guy named Roberto Rodriguez. He studied the Aztecs. Maybe he'll be able to tell me if there's any truth to the rumor that the Aztecs built settlements in Wisconsin. Hey, Roberto. Hey, how you doing? Nice to meet you. Great to meet you. Well, I understand you're an expert on the Aztecs, but why are we meeting here on a cornfield? Well, I was looking for where the Aztecs had come from. About halfway through my research, I began to interview many elders. Native American elders? Yes, yes. Okay. And most of them told me that if I was looking for that idea of origins, to follow the corn. Follow the corn. Follow the corn. Follow the maíz. See, corn, it's probably the only crop in the history of humanity that documents itself. It was created literally about 7,000 years ago in southern Mexico. Created? See, the thing about corn is that it has to be planted, cultivated, and harvested by human beings because it can't grow by itself. Scientists today believe that corn came to what is today the U.S. perhaps between 4,000 to 6,000 years ago. Okay. How does this tie in with the Aztecs? They're a corn-based society, so that was their life. Corn was the most sacred crop to the Aztecs. While they worshiped many gods, the two most important were the corn god and corn goddess. The Aztecs routinely sacrificed humans and animals to please them and to guarantee a good harvest. Sometimes they even ate parts of the victims' bodies. Does that mean that the Aztecs brought corn into what is now North America? Well, the Aztecs were a corn-based society, but they're not the ones that brought it here. The corn is many, many thousands of years prior to the Aztecs. Right, okay. Indigenous peoples brought it here. Native peoples, American Indians from the South. It's everywhere for thousands of years. So it starts in southern Mexico, and it went... And then it spread out after that. Everywhere. So Canada, Peru, you know, the Andes, everywhere, including here. By pursuing the story of the Aztecs, that's what led me to the cornfield, so to speak. I began tracking the migration of indigenous peoples from Mexico, and I stumbled onto a map that said that the Aztecs had come from somewhere in the north of what is today the U.S. So wait a second, Roberto. I always thought it was the Aztecs that started in Mexico and traveled north. So are you saying that the Aztecs came from what is now the United States? People are still talking about what a couple of duck hunters found in Lake Mills, Wisconsin, more than a hundred years ago. Their ore didn't slice smoothly through the water. It hit something, something hard. The guys took a closer look and saw what appeared to be a stone pyramid. It was the beginning of the legend of Rock Lake. What's more, scuba divers who've gone looking for the underwater pyramids say there's a sea monster in Rock Lake. Rocky, Wisconsin's own Loch Ness monster, is said to fill divers with a sense of dread. I'm about to look for myself. It seems bizarre, but I just found out something else that seems crazy too. Almost all my investigations involve people coming to the United States in ancient times, not the other way around. But I just learned that the Aztecs might have done the opposite, traveling from the U.S. down to Mexico, where they built their empire. While I'm waiting for the submarines to be ready for my pyramid search here in Wisconsin, I need to find out more about Roberto's remarkable theory. I always thought that the Aztecs originated in Mexico, but are you saying that the Aztecs originated in what is now the United States? Well, there is lots of evidence that show a definite connection between peoples from Mexico and what is today the U.S. I don't think there's a doubt that what people today call the Aztec, that they had connections through the Poshtecas. Those are the merchants. They would go throughout the continent trading, you know, copper bells, macaw feathers, all these different implements, artifacts that we find today. What specific evidence do you have that ties the Aztecs to what is now the United States? Another piece of evidence are ancient maps. I would like to actually show them to you, spread them out so you can actually see what I'm talking about. Okay, let's go. If Roberto has credible evidence that the Aztecs began in what's now the United States, then went to Mexico, I want to see it. I know there are legends in Wisconsin that the Aztecs were here. I know corn is in abundance here, which was a sacred plant in their society. I know the Aztec migration legend places their origin north of Mexico. Given those facts, the idea that Aztecs were here in Wisconsin is starting to sound more plausible. Maybe Roberto's maps have more clues. So I wanted to show you these maps. So here's the 1847 Disterno map. I originally thought that the Aztecs started in Mexico City and went north. And you're saying that she started somewhere in the north and then ended up in Mexico City. Is that correct? The basic story is that they came from somewhere in the north and a place called Aztlan. Aztlan, the name of the Aztecs' mythical homeland, has a couple of possible meanings. Place of herons or place of whiteness. According to legend, the Aztecs' ancestors lived in Aztlan until their god, Huitzilopochtli, told them to head south until they saw an eagle on top of a cactus devouring a snake. The eagle eating the snake or the serpent. I mean, I've seen that imagery before. Yeah, and the reason you have, and most people have also, is that in the Mexican flag you have that symbolism. There's the eagle, serpent, and the cactus. Now this particular map has that imagery also. It's the same thing. Yeah. Well, I've been a journalist most of my life. In about the mid-90s, somebody mailed me the entire map anonymously with a note saying, please put it to good use. The map is part of the Treaty of Hidalgo, the agreement signed in 1848, which ended the Mexican-American War. Mexico surrendered nine states, including California and Texas. The treaty map is one of the last times the Aztecs' American origins are ever mentioned in print. Here it is blown up. One of the first things that I find, and here on the confluence of the Colorado and the Green River, and that's in the Four Corners region of the U.S., is the Antigua Residencia de los Aztecas. Does that say the ancient home of the Aztecs? Absolutely. Combining a modern map of the United States with the 1847 treaty map suggests that the ancient home of the Aztecs could be the American Southwest. But could there be a connection to Wisconsin too? How come I've never heard of this before? Well, the more amazing story is that I found actually 200 maps older than this one, going from 1847 all the way to the 1500s, tracking the same story, except that the older ones show Salt Lake as the point of origin. Great Salt Lake is the largest inland body of salt water in the western hemisphere. It's located in the northern part of Utah. Because, see, the story about the Mexican Indians or the Aztecs coming from the north is that they came from a body of water in an island, and so all the older maps show Salt Lake. It's amazing. So this body of water was Great Salt Exactly. Well, I'm not telling you that it's correct, but I can guarantee you that there is a map tradition going 300 years, that is from 1500s to 1847. After the war, all this stuff magically disappears. Sure enough, when we compare the treaty map with one that was published 21 years later, there's no mention of the Antigua Residencia de los Aztecas, the ancient home of the Aztecs. Okay, do you think that there was a deliberate attempt to get rid of this information? This country, they're used to telling people to go back, you know, go back where you came from. And if they're used to doing that, implying go back to Mexico, well, this would throw the story off because to tell them to go back, they'd have to go back to the four quarters. That is incredible. Wow. Well, I have to say that this evidence on the map and the legend of the migration of the Aztec over a period of at least a couple hundred years is really compelling. But is it possible maybe they originated up here in Wisconsin? Is there any other evidence that you found that makes this connection? Probably the biggest evidence is the language. What we today call the Aztec spoke Nahuatl, and Nahuatl is part of a larger family, the Uto-Azteca language. And that language goes from Canada. Canada? All the way down to Central America. For instance, Michigan and Michoacan have the identical meaning. It's a place of fishes. The word for shoe in the Nahuatl language is mocatzin. Mocatzin, moccasin. It's almost identical. So these words that I've talked about, they actually mean the same thing on opposite ends of North America. I always say that the borders we have are in our minds, not in geography, because you have many hundreds of mounds, mound cultures in this area. So it's not unreasonable to think that these people are connected to the peoples down here. That's not out of the realm of possibility. Well, Roberto, you've really presented compelling evidence with your maps that the Aztecs didn't originate in Mexico City, that they came from the United States. It's all starting to make sense. The maps, the Aztecs' origin story, and the linguistics, they all suggest the same thing, that the Aztecs got their start in what's now the United States. I'm not certain if they were ever here in Wisconsin, where rumors of underwater pyramids and rocking Wisconsin's own Loch Ness Monster persist. But I'm about to find out. The subs are ready, and soon I'll start my underwater search of Rock Lake. Hey, Russell. Hey, Scott. Ready to go? Well, you bet I'm ready to go. If we find something, is there any way to get out and take a look? Well, this has been engineered specifically for that purpose. Okay. In fact, you just let the air out of the dome, you unlatch the hatches, put a mask on, so you can get out and look at it. When you're done with that, you can swim back in, lock it down, and once that air pocket is restored, off you go and you're on your way again. All right. Well, that's great. Should we get started? Yep. Scott, I'm a great believer in hands-on experience. All right. So here, let's take a look here. Why don't you step up on the edge and into the middle of the seat? All right. I'd like to get you familiar with how these things steer. Okay. And the center console, you pull it backwards and forwards, and you see your motors? Okay. That's down. Yep. And that's for the right thruster, and that's for your left thruster. Okay. So when you push them forward, that thruster will go forward. When you pull them back, it'll go backwards. So let me just let you get a feel for it. So hit your thrusters forward. Go all the way forward. Get some speed on it and get a feel for it. It does turn on a dive. I don't know about you, Russ. I did a couple practice dives near the shore, but we've still got some battery power left. Now we're going to boat out to where the underwater pyramids are supposedly located. I'm excited to go deeper with the Fugusawa, but I'm even more pumped to see what the Aztecs may have left behind. Well, Russ, if there's an Aztec pyramid down there for the Rock Lake Monster, we're about to find out. More than a hundred years ago, a couple guys in Wisconsin supposedly stumbled upon an underwater pyramid in Rock Lake. Locals think the Aztecs may have something to do with this Midwest mystery. There's strong evidence, maps, which support the idea that Aztecs got their start in the United States, not Mexico. I'm getting ready to dive down in search of the rumored Aztec pyramids, and that's not the only one. Well, Russ, if there's an Aztec pyramid down there for the Rock Lake Monster, we're about to find out. Now I'm in a submarine beneath the surface of Rock Lake. I'm looking for more than just the pyramids. People say Rocky, Wisconsin's version of the Loch Ness Monster, is down here too. He's what's known as a cryptid. Cryptids aren't recognized by mainstream scientists, but they're often the stuff of legends. Animals like kangaroos and platypuses were once considered cryptids. It will be amazing if I find evidence of the creature known as Rocky, but that's not why I'm down here. First and foremost, I'm hunting for Aztec pyramids, or what's left of them. It's really murky out there. Even if the pyramids are down here, it's going to be hard to spot them, and it's hard to maneuver with all these weeds. Hey Scott, what kind of visibility have you got down there? All right, I think I'm cruising along here pretty good. There's a lot of weeds here. I can see the bottom. I'm trying to stay off the bottom. Russ, I'm going nose down here. Oh, I'm stuck in the mud. Scott, I think I see your bubbles. Are you there? Just pick up, all right? Oh, I gotta get out of here. I finally got unstuck. I'd really like to park this thing, but it has to be on firm ground, not mud. Scott, can you pick up? I'm not hearing you. All right, Russ, I'm seeing some rocks. Maybe if I follow the rocks, I'll find the pyramids that are supposed to be down here. All right, Scott, it's probably time to come up now. The battery's been running quite a while. Yeah, yeah, I'll be up in just a sec. There's one more thing I want to check out here. I really wish it weren't so murky. This visibility is really bad. I see things that look promising, but when I get close, it's nothing, just more weeds, no pyramids. Come on, Scott, we need you to come up now. All right, I'll be up in just a minute here. There's a couple more things. I just want to check this out here. I think I got the hang of this thing. I'm going to keep going a little bit further. Scott, we need you to come up now. Come on. Dammit, I want to stay down here, but it sounds like Russell's going to kill me if I don't come up soon. I'm running out of time to spot the pyramids or Wisconsin's Loch Ness Monster. It's a shame we don't have more battery power and more daylight. I guess I'll have to head up to the surface, but I'm not happy. Well, guys, I didn't see anything I wanted to see, but that last dive was pretty good. Unfortunately, I didn't see any stone structures. That doesn't mean that there isn't something down here. It just means that we didn't find it today. It was a little creepy down there. I mean, it just had an eerie feeling to it. Kind of makes me wonder maybe there's something to these legends after all about whatever it was that's in this lake. Dark waters do that. You just don't always see what's going on, and we're used to seeing everything around us where we can get a better grasp on what's out there, but when it's dark like that, you're just spooked by it. Maybe come in the springtime when the water's a little clearer, the weeds haven't grown up yet. I mean, I'm not ready to give up on this site. I think there's still a good possibility there could be something here. We just didn't find it today. I'm disappointed I didn't see pyramids in Rock Lake, but I've got one more lead that could help me connect the Aztecs with Wisconsin. The Aztecs' mythical homeland was Aztlan. Tomorrow, I'm going to a spot with virtually the same name, Aztlan State Park. I want to find out whether the places are connected and why they share the same name. Maybe the rumors are true and the Aztecs did spend time in Wisconsin. You know, as we talked about on the phone, I'm looking into the possibility of the Aztecs being in Wisconsin, and I know you're familiar with the Rock Lake mystery. I just spent a whole day in a mini-sub down at the bottom of the lake looking for some of these underwater pyramids. I didn't see anything other than a few piles of rocks. I'm open to the possibility that there could be something there, but I haven't seen it. That pretty much matches our research, too. Well, then why is it that everybody thinks that there's pyramids at the bottom of the lake? The answer is, in fact, here at Aztlan State Park. Let me show you Aztlan. I came to Wisconsin to check out stories of underwater pyramids some people think the Aztecs built. When I took my investigation beneath the surface of Rock Lake, I didn't find pyramids. I didn't find Rocky, either, the underwater sea monster rumored to live there. But I'm not giving up. Right now, I'm at Aztlan State Park. It has virtually the same name as the Aztecs' mythical homeland, Aztlan. According to legend, the Aztecs came from a place in the north, and I still wonder if Wisconsin could be that place. I'm looking into the possibility of the Aztecs being in Wisconsin. Isn't Aztlan the ancient home of the Aztecs? This is Aztlan, right? Yeah. To get at that answer, I need to show you the site and to tell you more about it. Well, this is the northern outpost of a great civilization that arose after about 1000 A.D. here in the upper Midwest. 1000 A.D. was a big year in history, both here in America and elsewhere in the world. At the same time people were building this place, Viking explorer Leif Erikson was discovering North America, gunpowder was being invented in China, and Henry I was the reigning king in England. Populations around the world were growing, different groups were coming into power, and conflicts were on the rise. And that's exactly what was happening here. This is a town that, as you can see by this reconstruction, was heavily fortified. It is, in fact, one of the most heavily fortified archaeological sites we know of in eastern North America. They weren't kidding around, were they? The logs were plastered with clay a foot thick on both sides. Bob, these walls are massive. I mean, what were they afraid of? Well, these are clearly defensive. They had moved in with a group of local Indians, but other people in the area were obviously not pleased to see these new people, these intruders, competing for the resources on their lands. And so we believe that that stimulated a great deal of warfare. How do archaeologists know all this? Aztlan has undergone archaeological excavations for over 100 years. The most important place that has yielded information about this site is the town dump, where people for generations threw out all of their garbage, built up in layers so we could study the history of the site, and we can get detailed information on, for example, their diet. So what did they eat? Well, they were basically farmers. They grew corn, squash, but they also hunted deer. Can you tell me a little bit about the layout of this place? Yeah, there's a great spot from which we can see the town. Let's go over there. To me, it seems like the layout of this place could be very telling. If it's laid out like Aztec sites in Mexico, that's important. I can't help but notice the pyramid-shaped mound. It reminds me of the pyramids the Aztecs built in Mexico. Aztec cities like Tenochtitlan had things like plazas and separate areas for the most important members of society. I wonder if any of those things are found here. Running down the center of the town was a public plaza, very characteristic of towns in Mexico, where you have religious ceremonies, celebrations, festivals. At the highest portion of the site was a zone that appears to have been restricted for the elite, the most important people. So this is the highest point right here. This had to be an important person. This would be the chief's mound or the ruler's mound. The mound to the northwest was a mound of death. As people died, they put the newly dead alongside people who had died in that family previously. Wouldn't there be an odor permeating the plaza? Yeah, but in ancient world, they were used to many things that we are not today. And the smell of death is certainly one odor that they would not have found objectionable. That mound over there, what was its purpose? That was the base for the temple, where the sacred fire of the community was kept by special priests. It was not to be put out except for once a year when they began the agricultural new year. Native people conducted, and in fact still conduct, a ceremony called the Green Corn Ceremony, which celebrates the new agriculture year. The corn is coming in. That's the new year celebration for them. It's a new year celebration. The people here were obsessed with corn, just like the Aztecs were. When I met with Roberto in the cornfield just west of here, he told me that corn was the Aztecs' most sacred crop. And I learned they even had corn gods. It seems more and more likely to me that there could be a connection between the people who lived here and the Aztecs. Now, one of the most interesting aspects is the very last mound, the furthest away from the town, did have a human burial. And that was of a young woman. How old? Between 18 and 21 years old, young woman, who was buried with thousands of beautiful shell beads associated with very high status, very important people. Could she have been sacrificed? She, in fact, may have been a sacrifice or an offering during a drought. The question becomes what happens if the corn doesn't come? Exactly. The ultimate offering, one of their young princesses. So it sounds like the practices that you've described here are a lot like the Aztecs. The Aztecs were a corn-based culture. So were the people who lived here at Aztlan. Aztec cities had plazas and special areas for elite members of their society. So did the town of Aztlan. The Aztecs were legendary for their practice of sacrificing humans to the gods. The people who lived at Aztlan appear to have done the same thing. It seems like there has to be some kind of connection, some kind of influence between the two groups. The name Aztlan, I mean, isn't that associated with the Aztecs too? The name Aztlan actually comes from an early settler who came out here, discovered the ruins of the site, and thought that they were similar to Aztec ruins. He read about the Aztecs and found out that they came from a homeland north of Mexico City and reasoned, well, this is north of Mexico City, so this must be the homeland of the Aztecs, Aztlan. The pieces seem to fit in his mind, so why not? No, the Aztecs came much later. There's really no direct connection between that civilization and this place. Which begs the question, who were these people that built this site? The people from this site were from a totally different civilization. They may have been in contact with some Mexican people, but a different civilization that existed here in the Midwest called the Mississippians. A little over a thousand years ago, along the Mississippi River, this civilization created America's first city, the place we call Cahokia. Aztlan was the northern outpost, but that larger civilization stretched right down to the Gulf of Mexico. About 1200 AD, we see the abandonment of Aztlan, and throughout the north, the Mississippian civilization disappears, period. Bob doesn't think the Aztecs were ever here, but who's to say the Mississippians from up here in Wisconsin didn't become the Aztecs of America's southwest and later Mexico? The timing makes sense. Bob says the Mississippians abandoned Aztlan around 1200 AD. The Aztecs were in Mexico in Tenochtitlan in 1323. That means they would have had more than 100 years to leave Wisconsin and travel south. Spending time near Great Salt Lake and the Four Corners region along the way. I'm not saying it happened, but it is a possibility, even if Bob doesn't think so. So basically what you're saying is there are some similarities, but not necessarily a direct connection. It shouldn't surprise us that there are a great many similarities between the customs of North American people, like at Aztlan, and Middle American people, because they literally did have common origins. Well, Bob, what I think is important that you mentioned is that there is evidence of contact between people in Mexico and people in the central part of the United States going back in the distant past, and I think that's an important point. I knew exploring the Rock Lake Pyramids would be an underwater adventure, but I wish my descent into Rock Lake would have been more productive. I wasn't able to see the pyramids locals believe the Aztecs made, or the legendary Lake Monster. There may be piles of rocks in Rock Lake, but it's more likely that glaciers, not the Aztecs, put them there. I am convinced the Aztecs began in the U.S., then made their way to Mexico, not the other way around. We've got good map evidence that links the Aztecs to the American Southwest, and given the similarities between the Aztecs and the Mississippians, there might even be a connection there too. After seeing Aztlan and hearing about Cahokia, I'm more interested than ever in investigating mysteries in the Midwest. I think there's a lot left to learn.