Theories then and today abound over the mysterious disappearance of the Roanoke pioneers, but none of them make sense. Had the Indians attacked and killed the Europeans? The idea lacked merit; there were no coded signs and no evidence of a great struggle. Some historians claim the stockade wall was proof there was trouble with the Indians. Wood salvaged from the buildings was used for constructing stockade walls. The need for beams would account for the torn down or falling apart houses that were found inside the colony.
But this idea does not make sense. Roanoke was not a defenseless town when White sailed for England in 1587. Defensive positions and walls had been built. Furthermore, ramparts were standard on all New World settlements. Is it not possible some of the town’s houses had fallen apart due to violent storm activity?
It was speculated the island was hit with a drought. The populace was forced to move inland. Once on the continent the English banded with an Algonquin tribe. Through the decades the colonists intermarried with Indians, their looks and culture was absorbed.
Then why didn’t English culture and technology blossom in the different tribes of the area? Generations later, Indians with English bloodlines should have met the next wave of settlers with muskets and metal arms. The science of musket weaponry is never lost; it is passed down from generation to generation and improved upon.
Another theory fancied by some pundit’s, claims that the Europeans were ambushed and destroyed when they ventured onto the mainland. One delirious survivor managed to make it back to Roanoke and carve “CRO” or “CROATAN” into the timbers of the settlement. The Englishman was then killed and dragged off before he could disclose the fate of the colony.
The theory is absurd; the brave pioneers were not stupid. The English would have left messages and arrows carved in wood or stone, pointing in what direction they went. Even if the pilgrims were annihilated on the mainland, there would have been many clues left at Roanoke, as to what was their plan of action.
One idea that was in vogue for years with the university brainiacs, had the settlers being defeated by nature and giving up. After three years of no contact with England, the immigrants rejected their thin life on the island and concluded they had been abandoned. From the wood of their houses, the colonists built two or three ships and sailed for England. In the Atlantic, a storm broke the ships apart; the Roanokens drowned.
This theory is unlikely, very few colonists ever returned to their homeland. The New World with all its perils was better than anything Europe had to offer. Again, one must beg the question, why were no messages left chronicling the colonist’s decision to sail back to England?
It was postulated the villagers were captured by Spaniards and shipped back to the West Indies. The prison ship was holed and sank with all hands in the Atlantic. Spanish records indicate there was no expedition sent to Roanoke. It is debatable if the Spaniards even knew the English had a colony off the North Carolina coast.
One wild theory attests the colonists were taken prisoner by men from outer space and whisked off the planet. Another mind bender has the islanders opening up a door to another dimension. Before the portal closed, the energy or beast from this new dimension consumed the settlers.
What is most intriguing about the Roanoke mystery is that the pioneers were snuffed out without leaving so much as an SOS.
“CRO” and “CROATAN”, what did it mean? If the colonists did manage to leave behind lost clues, a 1862 Civil War battle, which was fought on the island, destroyed them. Interestingly, Union and Confederate troops that bivouacked all over the island, never uncovered any data about what became of the missing settlers.
What’s your guess on what became of the lost settlers? Where is Rod Sterling when you need him? This mystery needs a Twilight Zone ending – a conclusion one can understand. (6)
NOW YOU SEE HIM, NOW YOU DON’T
(DIMENSIONAL DOORWAYS)
Can people disappear into thin air? One story that claimed to be both truth and lie is of farmer David Lang, who vanished in front of many witnesses.
On September 23, 1880, Lang was on his porch with his family in Gallatin, Tennessee. Lang left his wife and two children to welcome his brother in-law Judge August Peck, who had arrived in a horse-drawn carriage. As Lang crossed an open field and waived he slid downward from view. It was as if Lang had been a slice of bread, the ground being a toaster.
Witnesses of the disappearance could not believe what they had witnessed. The field was searched, Lang was not found. Volunteers came to the meadow; the ground where Lang vanished was dug into. It was speculated, the lost man had fallen into an underground pit that had quickly closed around him. The excavation found nothing.
The following year nothing grew in the area where the husband-father had disappeared, animals would not venture near the space. One day Lang’s family thought they heard the missing man’s distant voice yelling for assistance. Eventually the utterances tapered off.
Was this a hysterical delusion on the part of the missing man’s loved ones? The Langs and their neighbors searched the field again, nothing was found. Did Lang step into another dimension or another time? Or was this a whopper of a tale that was passed down through the centuries?
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Another similar incident was recorded in July 1854, outside of Selma, Alabama. Farmer, Orion Williamson, had just turned his back on his friend Armour Wren, James Wren, his thirteen-year-old son, and slave boy, called Sam.
The Wrens and their slave were in a buggy parked on the pike. Williamson started to cross a field close to his house. The carriage horse stumbled and Williamson was lost from sight.
Witnesses to this dismaying event were Williamson’s wife, who watched her husband melt into nothingness from the homestead’s porch. James Wren and slave Sam also saw the vanishing.
Armour Wren was facing another direction when Williamson blinked out, but he did notice that his draft horse stumbled around the moment Williamson faded away. A search was conducted; it yielded nothing.
Mrs. Williamson was too distraught to give a credible legal statement. Slave Sam’s account was not admissible in court, being that he was not a freeman. Only teenager James Wren could vouch for what transpired. Did these types of vanishings inspire “The Outer Limits” television series?
Weird Beards believe dimensional doors or portals to other planets open and close in this world all the time. These doors do not work on geometric lines. The portals can be on, in, or above the ground. Randomness governs their closing, opening, and location.
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In 1934 engine motors were heard above the clouds over New York City; this phenomenon went on for days. No radio contact was made with the plane or planes in the overcast; nothing was sighted.
What caused this phenomenon? Is it possible a plane was caught in one of these opening and closing portals where time is different? Like David Lang, was the craft trying to find its way back to Earth?
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From 1946-1950, a doorway or trapdoor to another dimension purportedly existed in the area around Glastenbury Mountain, in southwestern Vermont. The documented disappearance of several people around the three thousand, seven hundred foot mountain has never been solved.
Locals call the Glastenbury Mountain area, “The Bennington Triangle”. The name is derived from the county where the peak is located. Trails, roads, and streams cross this most peculiar geographic area.
Iroquois and Algonquin Indians, during colonial days, referred to the Glastenbury Mountain as a cursed land. They claimed the four winds met atop the wooded mountain. Fierce phantom beasts and hairy man-like creatures lurked in the hollows of the mountain’s slopes.
Outdoorsman