The Why Files: Operation Podcast
633: Knights Templar, the Green Jar and the Scroll That Changes Everything | Basement #006: Scott Wolter
09 Mar 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the background of Scott Wolter and his work?
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Okay, I'm excited about this one. We're going deep with Scott Walter, forensic geologist, TV host, and one of the most controversial researchers in America. Scott made his name by solving murders with rocks, using geological evidence to date concrete and crack cold cases. But then he applied those same scientific methods to the Kensington Runestone, and everything changed.
His research led him down a path that started with medieval runes, moved through Knights Templar treasures hidden in North America, and ended up somewhere nobody expected, in a little green jar. Scott's newest book just dropped, The Greatest Templar Tale Never Told. And the story he tells me today, about the green jar...
It's going to challenge everything you think you know about history, religion, and who we really are. This conversation gets heavy, and I mean really heavy. Some people are going to be offended, but that's not Scott's intention. I think we should hear him out. Let's go down to the basement. Scott, welcome to the basement.
Before we get to the fun stuff, can you tell us how your TV, because we all know you from TV, how your TV journey started right here in Las Vegas with a murder case? Yeah, yeah.
done your homework good for you well um yeah you know and and you know i do material forensics for a living i've run a materials forensic laboratory uh been doing the work since 1985 but i started my own lab in 1990 and uh in 2004 i was uh and and essentially what we do is For the most part, autopsy is on concrete and rock, and we try to solve problems, you know, mostly in the concrete industry.
Why did it crack? Why did it have low strength? You know, what happens if it's exposed to fire damage? What happens if a plane hits it? If a plane hits it, like at 9-11, that is true. We did that as well. Um, but, uh, one time I received a call from a guy by the name of Lieutenant, uh, Tom Monaghan. And he called from the Las Vegas homicide department. And he said, um,
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Chapter 2: How did Scott Wolter start his journey with the Kensington Runestone?
we we thought wow did you give them some leads on that yeah oh yeah we talked about all this i mean and it was strange because um as i was doing my examination um the corner was right there and and i'm asking him questions and you know he's asking me questions it was in monahan and wilson are looking at us you know and and i kind of got into the zone a little bit you know and
And it was weird because everything is in reverse, you know, I mean like, like a breast is positive, but in the mold it was negative. Everything's like a relief now. Yeah. So it's, it's, it's the opposite. Everything's opposite.
So it was a little confusing, but eventually I got, you know, sort of accustomed to what I was looking at and I could see where the trauma had been and it was pretty tough, you know? So anyway, and then in a, in like a paper grocery bag, were her bones because they had the bones, right? And they were all in a bag. They didn't know who this person was. It just seemed really weird. It's sad.
It was sad. Yeah, it was really sad. They never could ID her? Well, so I said, well, here's what I propose. We'll take a sample here. We'll take a sample there. And I'll go back to the lab. And so there were two things that I was thinking about. One is when you place concrete, it sets up and it gets hard, right? And what it is, is a heat generating chemical reaction. It's a lot like popcorn.
And so the cement grains will react and form glues that make the concrete get hard. And when it first sets up and the heat starts, it's poppity pop, you know, it's setting up and it's getting hard fast. But over time, what happens is just like microwave popcorn, it's poppity pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Right. Pop. Over years. Over years. And decades. Yes.
So it continues to cure or whatever that is? Well, yes, it does. But it's so slow, it's imperceptible unless you're looking at it under a microscope. and under polarized light, and you can see the percentage of unhydrated particles.
So it's very important when I do an analysis and I'm trying to determine what the water cement ratio was of that concrete, I'm looking at the unhydrated particles that are left. That's why I have to know when that concrete was placed to put it in context. Does that make sense? It does. That's a clock.
the other thing that happens is we have a chemical reaction called carbonation where carbon dioxide will react with lime and calcium hydroxide in the concrete to form calcium carbonate and what's kind of ironic about that is when we make portland cement you take limestone and silica and gypsum and some other stuff but mostly limestone and you fire it and you drive off the carbon dioxide and you end up with lime
and then you add water to it and it gets hard. But when it carbonates, it takes back the carbon dioxide and forms limestone, calcium carbonate. That reaction is called carbonation and it's progressive over time. And it's dependent upon the water cement ratio or the density of the concrete, the amount of CO2 gas or methane that it's exposed to and time.
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Chapter 3: What unusual murder case did Scott Wolter investigate?
Never done anything like this before. So went back, did the testing, and I wrote a report, and I said, I think she's been there between one and three years. And I remember I sent my report, I emailed it to Tom, and I thought, well, I'll never hear anything. And about four months later, I got a call, and it was Tom. And he said, Scott, he said, are you on your computer? I said, yes.
He said, go to missingkids.com. And within a minute, I was looking at her face. Oh, my God. I said, and I'm getting emotional just thinking about it again because my daughter was pretty close to her age. She was 17. And I said, how'd you do it? He said, well, he said, do you remember when we showed you the molds that we made of the different parts of the body? And I said, yes, I do.
And he said, you remember the mold of the face? And I said, yes, I do. He said, we had an artist do a reconstruction of her face. We got one call, a woman who lived in Vegas who said, I think I know who your Jane Doe is. She gave her the name. They pulled the dental records. They had the upper and lower jaw, and it was a match. Wow. Now, I need to back up. Before he called me back,
After he got my report, about two, three weeks after that, he called me and said, hey, Scott, Detective Rob Wilson and I are coming to Minneapolis. We would like, I'd like to come see your lab. And I'd already gotten to know him pretty well. And he was from the East and played in the men's hockey league. And so did I at the time. And I said, hey, man, you want to go to a wild game?
And he said, yeah, I do. So I got tickets. He came and toured the lab. And then we went to Allery's Bar in St. Paul before the hockey game. And we're having a couple of beers. And he was one of those guys that had just this intense look. He had a black mustache. And he just looked right through you. And we're sitting there having a beer, and I asked him why he was in town.
And he said, well, we thought we'd come and see your lab, but the real reason we're here is we were going to take dental impressions of a guy who's dying of cancer who we believe committed a murder. And I said... Dental impressions? Are you talking about bite marks on a victim? And he said, yes.
So he went in there to this guy who was dying of cancer and he said, you're going to give us these dental impressions or we're going to put you in jail and you're going to die in a cold cell. If you give us the impressions, we'll let you die at home. And they got him. And that's a whole nother story. That's a great story. But anyway, so we talked about that when we're sitting in the bar.
And then he looks at me with that look and he goes... what do you really think and i knew what he was asking me i had written one to three years of my report and i looked at him and i said well rob or tom i said I think she's been there between one and a half and two years, but I put one to three years because I thought that's what I could testify to and back up. Right. But I'm telling you.
And he said, looked at me, goes, me too. Finished our beers, went to the game, the wild one, he took off. And that's one I thought I would never hear from again. Then I got the call. And then he said... We got the one call and we pulled the dental records and it was a match. And he said, I thought you'd want to know she was reported missing a year and 10 months from when we found her. Wow.
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Chapter 4: What significant findings did Scott Wolter uncover about the Kensington Runestone?
Right. Right. So this is what I do when I'm investigating the runestone, whether I'm talking about the rock, the runes, the Templars, doesn't matter. It all has to fit. and it fits beautifully. And let me tell you something, I told you this and I'll tell you again, I do forensic investigations for a living and I'm pretty good at it. This was the easiest evidence trail I've ever followed.
Now, I had no idea where it was going to go but the evidence was consistent, cohesive and conclusive. Keep in mind, I'm a licensed professional geologist. I take my work very, I have a lot of fun. Life isn't worth living unless you have fun, right? But when it comes time to dial in and stop shitting around, I dial in.
Every single job that I do, I have to be prepared to testify in a court of law under oath to my findings. I think that's a higher bar than the academic peer review process. I agree. Where basically they sit around and talk about it until what? They agree. Until they agree. Until they agree, right?
Well, that process has some merit and I think a lot of good has come from it, but a lot of shit work has come from it too, including on the Kensington Runestone. Yeah, they don't like to be wrong. And they don't wanna trample on their predecessors. So I've seen a lot of that. And here's the irony of that. They accuse me of not understanding scientific method.
Let's say you wrote a thesis and got very famous on coffee's good for you. And then I come along and you're in your retirement. And I do some work and I find out that, guess what? Coffee's not good for you. I don't like you very much. You don't like me very much. But if you're a true scientist, you know what you're going to say? You know what, Scott?
You developed a whole new set of data that I was not privy to. I had no idea. Nice job. And you accept those results. And just because I...
proved you wrong doesn't mean you were stupid the fact that you accept the new data means you're smart i agree that's scientific method that's not what's happened here and so we've seen a failure of academia but there are larger forces at work here larger than academia uh suppressing the truth yes like the government the religious establishment all of the above okay
Because once you accept the Kensington Runestone, it triggers a series of dominoes to fall. And those dominoes go to some inconvenient places for these institutions that you just rattled off. One of those places is called the Telpiat Tomb. Tell me a tomb in Jerusalem discovered 1980. That's the ossuaries. Yes. Yes.
So these dominoes go back through the time of Christ, probably through ancient Egypt and probably even before then. Atlantis. To Atlantis. Yep. Is that where...
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Chapter 5: What significance does the alignment of the windmill have?
John was an engineer and he was fascinated with how the building was, the windows were in the cardinal points and aligned to the, you know, the astronomical. He caught all that. So to catch everybody up, that's the windmill, right? The Benedict Arnold windmill. You stop it. That's for some reason is round. And for some reason it aligns with the solstice.
I get like this when you say windmill, man. But you obviously know about the tower. It was built by the Templars. And it's mentioned in here. It's mentioned in here. I mean, anyway. So he comes back and he's convinced. The tower convinced him for some reason. So he comes back to his father and his father, they've been gone for like two months.
And he said, son, the political situation has changed. You need to go back and round up more men and you're going to go recover those treasures next year. So he does that. He rounds up 46 Freemasons, young men. And six slaves. Now I'm going to ask you a question. Do you know what the word manumission means? Yes. To liberate a slave? Damn. Nobody gets that right. I didn't know what that was.
I learned about it in the journals. So what did they do with this? So those six slaves that went up and helped recover their treasures were freed when they got back for their service. Wow. So... 46 men and six slaves go to Abington where there was a special meeting. It was like the rah-rah speech before they took off. Remember, they're going into British territory, right? Right.
And so- And this is about what, like 1770, 70? 1770. Okay. So it's dangerous. So that, yeah. So listen to this. This entry was written by John Weems Jr., May 6th, 1770. And it'll speak for itself. My father, having been raised to the status of Master Mason in the 46th British Regiment, I had to go to Canada to vet this.
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Chapter 6: How did the recovery of treasures involve Freemasons and slaves?
And that's another story in itself. I looked at all the Templar records going back to his times. He was a Templar. his father, 46th British Regiment, presided over the meeting which was attended by William Ball of Philadelphia and Benjamin Franklin, the former provincial grandmaster of Pennsylvania. And that is correct. That timing is correct.
Now, anybody could have found that, but everything fits, right? This is a big hoax if it's a hoax. This is a lot of information. Too much detail. Right. That fits. The brethren gathered in the schoolhouse and for three hours were impressed upon by the presiding brethren the importance of their mission.
We were each divided into groups of five and each group was named after the ship of Earl Henry's that brought the treasures, which is kind of cool. And told to embrace each other in the coming journey and learn to trust and depend upon each other as it would become vitally important in our task.
The presiding brethren also imparted their knowledge of current political events and told us that it was immensely important that the Templar treasure find its way back to the Grand Lodge to assist in the oncoming war. The Revolutionary War is funded by Templars, by Templar treasure. That's how I interpret it. That's what it sounds like. It was financed by somebody.
Well, one of my friends, John Freeberg, I think I told you about him, did a little research into the financing of the Revolutionary War. And there was one particular brother, who I can't remember his name, that put up a lot of the money. But John says he could only account for 60 of the 160 million that was spent on the war. Where did that other hundred million come from? I think we might know.
Because we looked into all this. We would soon lose control of the territory in Nova Scotia and the brethren feared it would be lost if not retrieved straight away. They also reiterated that secrecy was of the utmost importance and that we would always be surrounded by British troops and subjects who might report our every move.
Brother Franklin reminded us that no matter what our political or religious leanings, our loyalty to the brethren was most important. We must honor our commitment and remember our vows or the burgeoning nation of free men might never come to pass. I don't know about you, but I get chills every time.
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Chapter 7: What discoveries were made regarding the Templar treasure?
Absolutely. After a brief supper was served and prayers were said, we left to return to our bunks in Abington, knowing that the future of the nation lay in our hands. I prayed that I would be a capable leader and said as much to my father. He responded that leaders are not born. They are created. The Lord would guide me in my journey. I must only have faith in him as he does in me.
Father made the sign of a cross on my forehead with his thumb and gave me his blessing. I leave with a lighter heart. That's lovely. I was like in tears the first time I read that. I'm like... Franklin, brother, why didn't you tell us? I mean, but nobody knew about that. Nobody could know, right? Most of the founding fathers were Masons, weren't they? 53 of the 56 signers.
So do you think they knew about this? Hell yes. Are you kidding me? Of course they did. If Ben Franklin knew, George knew, Thomas Jefferson, George Mason was great. Listen. So you know where George Mason Island is? Yes. Theodore Roosevelt Island, right? So you and Tim must have talked about this. We didn't. You didn't? No. So please. Man, you're impressive. Look at you. July 14, 1770.
They're back. And actually, you know who captained the ship? It was a Weems. He was a Brit. But his loyalty to the brethren was most important. And it was his cousin, John's cousin. And they brought everything back and kept their mouth shut. It has taken the greater part of the day to transfer all the cargo up the Potomac River to Mason's Island.
That is now Theater Roosevelt Island, which sits right behind what monument? Is that behind Jefferson? Lincoln. Lincoln, okay. Right by the river there, right where that helicopter crashed. Remember that, the collision? Yeah. I think Mason's Monument is over there somewhere, though. Oh, it's behind Thomas Jefferson. Behind Jefferson. They call him the forgotten founder.
oh george mason yeah yep uh surprised at them oh do you want to you you got to tell them why he's the forgotten founder well he's he's called the forgotten founder because you don't hear about him uh but he was the one that wrote um the bill of rights and um i think it was the constitution you know the um part of the constitution that was actually for the state of Virginia. Right.
And Thomas Jefferson used that as a template. That's exactly right. Yeah. So, but anyway, he was also one that would not sign the bill of rights unless there was a provision put in there that basically said that everybody is born with certain inalienable rights. Did you know that?
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Chapter 8: What secrets does the green jar reveal?
I didn't know that. And that goes back to Parsifal. where it's first mentioned that every human being is born with certain inalienable rights. And he wouldn't sign it until they put a provision in that said that. The church doesn't like that either. Well, too bad. I was enlisted by Brother Hansen to inventory the cargo.
It was placed in the vault and was surprised at the amount of treasure we had recovered. The inventory was given to Brother Mason upon completion, so I do this from memory. Hold on. Are we going to... Well, maybe we should just stop. No! Hold on. Are you ready for this? Yeah. Buckle up, because here we go. So forget Oak Island. There's nothing there. Nope. It's gone. Okay.
In total, there are more than 40 chests of coins. 25 gold crucifixes of varying sizes, 12 menorah of varying sizes, numerous parchments and paintings kept in tubes of crushed lime and clay. Only a very few of them have been opened to the weather and all seem in good repair. There are also six arks, made of gold and silver of various sizes. We mean like Ark of the Covenant arcs? Spelled A-R-K.
Okay. That's how I interpret it. So you know what that means, right? I think most people listening are going to go, six arcs, what are you talking about, right? Well, the secret of the arc isn't where it is. It's how to make one. And you know who knows how to make one? Our boy, Tim Hogan. Tim knows how to make an ark? Yeah. I knew he was an alchemist. I didn't know he was an ark builder.
I'm sorry if I wasn't supposed to say anything, Tim. They're going to revoke your award. Three heavily decorated with filigree and winged creatures. Oh my goodness. So this is the cherubim on the ark. Yes. Four stone boxes that contain remnants of bone. Oh my goodness. A stone box of broken stone tablets. I mean, you can't make this. I mean, I guess you could. No, you could, but you can't, right?
An emerald tablet. Several bloodied swords and lances, two of which are broken. One stone box contains flasks of mysterious substances. Help me. Yeah. But I am reluctant to ask what magical solutions they contain. Several casks of jewels and numerous other gold and silver artifacts fill the empty space.
It was late evening before we closed the door to the vault, which was then sealed with mortar made of crushed lime and shells. The entrance was then covered with soil and made invisible to those who know not where it lay. A group of 10 and 14 masons encircled the tomb of And we bless the vault and ask Heavenly Father to bless and protect this place against time and ravages and greed of war.
Cousin James left under the... Anyway, that's getting into the details. Now, let me ask you a question. Why 10 and 14? I was going to ask you as a strange way to say that. Aren't those numbers on the Kensington Renaissance? Oh, that's right. Why didn't you just say 24? I don't know. Templars do this. There's a reason. And he called it a tomb. I did not catch that at first.
First time I read this, I was so flabbergasted. Four stone boxes with remnants of bone. Are those the bones that we're talking about? I honestly don't know. Of course they are. I mean, why else would they bring them over, right? I would love to test those bones against what's in Talpiot. We've already... Have you done that? No. Okay. Not yet.
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