2021 . . . Back to the Future

by Richard L. Thornton, Architect & City Planner

Beginning in January 2021, the focus of The Americas Revealed will shift from the analysis of my past experiences to the use of state of the art technology to unravel the complex history of the Americas.

On October 30, I had an unforgettable experience. We were filming a new series for the History Channel. The History Channel had contracted with a surveying firm in Colorado, which owned a $350,000 LIDAR drone. In a matter of about an hour, it scanned and archaeological zone in Northeast Georgia, where refugees from southern Mexico built their capital. I am not permitted to tell you the details until after the program is broadcast, but I can tell you that both the film crew and I were astonished at what the drone revealed.

In August 2020, a female architecture professor from Italy, who I befriended while she was visiting Helen, GA in June, gave me military-quality infrared binoculars for my birthday, which also contain a video camera. Almost immediately I discovered that a Bronze Age Iberian Sun God temple underlay an Itza Maya mound, virtually in eyesight of my property. The next step, hopefully in 2021 is the purchase of a small drone with an infrared video camera, which would be in the affordable range of this modest-living, mixed-heritage fellow. Finally, I will not constantly be blocked from examining remote tracts of land that are owned by family trusts. Because the owners are scattered all over the country, it is almost impossible to get permission to walk these tracts.

I also now own state-of-the-art architectural animation software, video creation software, a 3D compass, a magnetometer, a Geiger counter, a sound analyzing device, laser measuring devise and a electronic geological microscope, which plugs into my computer. Amazing discoveries are certain to come our way. With the electronic microscope, I have already been able to analyze terra preta (synthetic black earth) from an ancient agricultural platform near me and a mound in the Florida Keys.

Why the journeys back into the past?

Mesoamerica: Fifty years ago today, I was eagerly looking forward to a New Year’s Eve party tonight in the oldest part of Mexico City with Alicia Moreno’s extended family. Her mother, uncles and aunts had been born in France and barely escaped the Nazi’s. Those relatives, who were not able to flee all died in Nazi extermination camps. I would have two more passionate days with Alicia and then never see her again . . . except as she drove by a house, where I was staying on my honeymoon . . . with a new wife, who never loved me. Such was also the case with the 2500+ color slides I took in Mesoamerica and the journal I kept there.

Here I was in the 21st century and I had never read my journal or actually examined most of the slides. In 2020, by systematically reliving my experiences from long ago, I learned many lessons that were missed the first time . . . both in terms of architecture and personal values. Remember the Maya maid in Merida, who wanted me to take her 16 year old daughter as a lover and companion? Had I been immoral (and illegal in the USA) I would have saved Teresa’s life. I was just five years older than her . . . which at my current age might seem like nothing.

Yes, the world is a whole lot more complicated than rigid legal and moral standards. The lesson that I only partially learned was that one must consider the consequences of maintaining rigid personal standards. Sometimes, people can be seriously harmed, when on paper . . . you did the “right” thing.

When I got to southern Mexico in my series of articles, I realized that my observations in 1970 were based on very inaccurate assumptions made by the archaeological profession in the late 20th century. Had I recounted this section of my journal, the readers would have been given very inaccurate information.

So the remainder of the Olmec and Maya civilizations will be presented to you in 2021, with my old slides, but with recent infrared and LIDAR images, which provide a much more accurate understanding of what happened in that part of Mesoamerica prior to the arrival of the Spanish.

There is something else going on, however, in regard to southern Mexico. I now know that all of my indigenous American DNA is from either southern Mexico or Peru. I AM part Maya and Soque, but didn’t know it back then. Meanwhile, back in 2012, the publications and press releases of the three federally-recognized Cherokee tribes and Georgia archaeologists thoroughly slandered my professional qualifications to discuss Mesoamerican civilizations. A press release by the North Carolina Cherokees literally stated, “Mr. Thornton knows nothing about the Aztecs and Mayas. He has never even met a Maya Indian.”

Actually, in addition to living with and eating with several Maya families, I knew three Maya ladies in a Biblical way, but left that out of the series. When I visited with the FLN guerillas in Quintana Roo, eastern Campeche and in the Guatemalan Highlands, each commandante required me to take a female Maya guerilla as my 24/7 companion. (There are worse fates.) Also, when I visited with the Marxist guerillas in Michaocan State, I was required to have as my companion a former education student at the Universidad National Autonomo de Mexico. LOL

The Shenandoah Sagas: Yesterday, two state cops were at a neighbor’s house, where there is a permanent tap on my telephone and internet line . . . desperately trying to hack into my computer to find the real name and the current address of a French woman I loved three decades ago. What they don’t realize is that the technology I now use to protect myself from evil people like them is almost extraterrestrial in its sophistication.

Yesterday is a metaphor of how invasive, pervasive and destructive certain traitors (wearing badges) have been on my personal life and professional career. It is an insult to honest law enforcement officers to call these demonic monsters by their official label. Vivi sent me a letter in early November 2020 stating that until recently, she thought I was dead and wanting to know why I disappeared in April 1993. I returned her letter with a handwritten letter, so they would never find anything in my computer that they were looking for. They won’t find the intel in my house either. There is a reason why scored 95 on the CIA aptitude test. LOL

The note from Vivi opened up the very painful memories from the past that I had kept sealed for my own mental health. However, the events of that period explain why I shifted from a conventional architecture practice to researching the history of my ancestors in 2006. This series on recent history is also very relevant to current events. The very same people, who have repeatedly persecuted me. are currently trying to implement a plan to disrupt the run-off elections next Tuesday in predominately Democratic counties of Georgia. Whether or not they will succeed, I do not know.

My former wife’s psychologist had warned me to stay away from my estranged wife, since she was very dangerous. However, I had to go by the house to pick up fall clothing before heading back to Metro Atlanta. My ex-wife leaned against the kitchen counter then told me that she no longer drank tea or coffee. She had made “a special cup of tea for me.”

That tea caused abscesses in my stomach, ate several hundred holes through my small and large intestines, plus caused my liver to crystalize and my pancreas to hemorrhage. Of course, the contents of the intestines spilled into my abdomen, causing an extreme case of peritonitis . . . which is an unbelievably excruciating way to die. I did for several days pray for God to just let me die. However, God had other plans. We’ll tell you the full story in the final chapter of Epilogue. It will be published either tonight or on New Years Day.

As a told a Canadian friend, the reason for this last series was both to warn you what might happen in 2021 and to pop a long festering boil in my mind . . . so I could then take on bold new thinking in the future. Exciting times are ahead.