The Ohio History Connection (OHC) is being called out from across the planet after it banned internationally best-selling author and journalist Graham Hancock from filming his docuseries Ancient Apocalypse at Serpent Mound in Peebles, Ohio.

 

Denying Hancock from one of the world’s most mysterious prehistoric effigy mounds occurred in the spring of 2021, but recently came to light after Hancock – author of the bestselling 2019 book “America Before: The Key to Earth’s Lost Civilization” – posted OHC’s email telling him and his film crew they did not have permission to access the high plateau where the 1,348-foot Serpent rests. 

Hancock’s theory that an advanced civilization some 12,000-plus years ago survived a dual cataclysm of a comet strike followed by a great flood and passed along its knowledge of agriculture and mathematics to survivors is controversial and scoffed at by mainstream archeologists who call it “pseudo archaeology” or “fringe history”.

But a large number of today’s civilization wants, at the very least, to listen, process and debate what the British author has to say. Hancock’s books have sold tens-of-millions of copies and the 8-part Ancient Apocalypse, released in November, is a worldwide hit, peaking into Netflix’s global top 10 and logging over 24-million hours watched in its first week.

“Many are amazed that such a restriction on freedom of expression in a series that would reach many millions of viewers could have happened in the United States,” wrote Hancock on Facebook. “Note in the last two lines that the denial had nothing to do with protecting the physical integrity or sacred nature of the site but was made solely on the grounds that my views about the remote past of Serpent Mound do not align with those of mainstream archaeology.”

The OHC promotes two mainstream theories on Serpent Mound. That it was built by the Adena sometime between 800 BC and 100 AD, or the mound is younger – built by the Fort Ancient culture between 1000 AD and 1650 AD. 

Hancock believes Serpent Mound is much, much older, and its current incarnation may not be the original. Instead, built millenniums ago, around 10,000 BC, by Native Americans. The evidence can be found in one of the Serpent’s several fascinating celestial alignments, he claims.

The head of the Serpent aligns with the Summer Solstice sunset as it sinks into the lush Ohio forest. But Hancock and others point out that in the 21st century this solar alignment on the longest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere is slightly off and not exact. Due to the fact the sun’s rising and setting points on the horizon do not remain fixed but slowly change over the ages because of the shifting tilt of the earth’s axis. Twelve millenniums ago, however, calculations show the Serpent’s head had a more perfect alignment with the Summer Solstice sun as it sank into darkness.

The OHC, which owns the Serpent Mound property, should be commended for warding off non-Native Americans who have tried to co-opt Serpent Mound for their own purposes. In 2012, for instance, a Scientology-like group known as “Unite the Collective” buried an unknown number of “orgonites” in the Serpent hoping to “reactivate it.” Orgonites, a combination of resin, metal shavings and a piece of quartz poured into a muffin tin and then hardened, are believed by New Agers to detect and measure “life energy” or “chi.”

The Shawnee and other Native American tribes claim “stewardship” of the Serpent. The OHC has argued time-and-time again that Serpent Mound was designed and built by Native Americans. And to be clear, so does Hancock.

“For the record, as anyone who reads my 2019 book ‘American Before: The Key to Earth’s Lost Civilization’ will quickly realise, I attribute the creation of Serpent Mound entirely to Native Americans,” Hancock recently wrote.

Surprisingly, considering their reaction to Hancock, the OHC allowed the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens to film there over a decade ago.

Jeffrey Wilson of Peebles (Ohio) is in many ways a grassroots activist and preservationist for Serpent Mound. He’s an admin for “Friends of the Serpent Mound” a Facebook page. He was also interviewed by Hancock for Ancient Apocalypse, but done so off the property and on Wilson’s family farm which is adjacent to Serpent Mound. 

“They [the OHC] were humiliated in their academic-museum community after their cooperation with Ancient Aliens,” says Wilson. “Afterwards, they dramatically changed their behavior by banning everyone and everything that they don’t have direct control and approval over. They have denied permits to not just Graham Hancock, but to NPR, two Cincinnati network affiliates, and even a Native American production company for a Canadian show called ‘Red Earth Uncovered.’ I was told by Red Earth Uncovered’s production team that they would not grant a permit because they had done a prior episode discussing Native American oral traditions about Sasquatch, and OHC considered that to be paranormal, which they won’t allow.”

Some mainstream archeologists have called Hancock’s theory of an advanced prehistoric civilization that saved humanity to be “racist” and “white supremacy”.

“Graham Hancock is married to Santha Faiia (Hancock, pictured above) who is an indigenous black woman from Malaysia,” said Wilson. “They have several mixed-race children. The idea that Graham is racist is a complete smear campaign and is ludicrous.”

Why go so far as to call Hancock a racist when he’s arguably thinking outside of the box just like Darwin once did?

“Historians, archaeologists and the like fritter away much of their time attacking each other, and after the backstabbing is over they turn on independent researchers. An academic mafia run by vainglorious A-types,” said independent researcher Freddy Silva who shares some of Hancock’s beliefs.

“Why? Jealousy.”