During our investigation, The Compendium has taken an in-depth look at the shadowy Bill Jackson and his alleged documents. We have provided a complete analysis of the vocabulary, the possible date the docs were made and their authenticity. In this final part of our series, we will present the background of some of the important players involved with these documents. We’ll also share our research about the French connection, the origins of Onteora, and our final conclusions.
THE CURSE OF OAK ISLAND - THE HISTORY CHANNEL
ZENA HALPERN
Zena (Gralnick) Halpern was born March 25, 1930, in New York City to Samuel and Miriam (Skolnick) Gralnick. Samuel was born in Brice, Romania in 1900. He immigrated to the United States in 1920. Miriam Skolnick was born in Kovo, Russia/Lithuania in 1904. Her family immigrated to the United States in 1906 settling in New York. Zena had one sister named Edith Gralnick. Zena married William Halpern in 1951 in Manhattan, New York. They had two sons, Marc and Davin. William passed away in 1971 at the age of 46.
After being widowed, Zena worked and furthered her education at New York University. Her sister Edith moved in with Zena and her sons and helped take care of them while Zena worked and went to school. After receiving her bachelor’s degree, she completed a master’s degree in history and education at NYU. She took post graduate courses taught by Cyrus Gordon, the famous researcher and theorist of Pre-Columbian visitation to North and South America. Gordon was a mentor and colleague to Zena and greatly shaped her interests and research path for the future.
Zena was an expert in the field of ancient seafaring and early Hebrew Language, specifically as it relates to the proposed transmission of cultures across the oceans. She was part of a research team studying a 5th century BCE ancient shipwreck found off the coast of Israel in 1985. Zena studied depictions of the Carthaginian/Phoenician goddess in various sites in North and Central America, and the Mediterranean region.
“An Ancient Semitic Goddess Leaves Her Mark In New York” (2014)
Zena Halpern was a member of the New England Antiquities Research Association (NEARA). It was through NEARA that she met Don Ruh. In the article, “An Ancient Semitic Goddess Leaves Her Mark In New York” (2014), Zena Halpern details one of her first encounters with Don Ruh. She states, “In 2000, a New Yorker from Mt. Vernon was hiking through his state’s northern Catskill Mountains when he spotted a peculiar carving on a heap of stones off a trail near the Neversink River. Four years later (2004), Don Ruh led me back to the scene of his discovery, where he found the engraved stone face-down on top of the small rock pile…The first impression suggested the crude representation of a menorah…”.
SCOTT WOLTER'S BLOG
“...Two other stones inscribed with ancient Hebrew script have been recovered in the vicinity. One was found resting at the base of a tree. It featured a two-inch cutout that another cut stone fit with exact precision, suggesting an infant emerging from the womb…, I conjecture that the stone Don Ruh found in the Catskill Mountains may be an ancient carving of the Menorah/Tree of Life, with a base in the form of a triangle, Asherah’s symbol… None of these menorahs have a triangle base except Don Ruh’s discovery.”
In Glenn Kreisberg’s “Spirits in Stone, The Secrets of Megalithic America”, he writes: “In her book Halpern describes how NEARA member Don Ruh found the first inscribed stone in 2001. The stone was lying half exposed, and Ruh noticed marks on it. He took the stone to a NEARA meeting in 2001 and to get help identifying the markings. No one could help him (Halpern 2017) …At the spring 2004 NEARA meeting in Maine, Professor Robert Stieglitz from Rutgers University and Professor Norman Totten from Bentley College saw Ruh’s stone, and both remarked on the symbol – an oval with a horizontal line through it…At a NEARA fall 2004 meeting…Ruh brought the stone again. By chance Halpern asked him to turn it over, and she recognized a “YOD”. Halpern took photos of the stone with her to Israel, where she had been invited by Linder to attend a conference. He showed photos of the stone to an expert in ancient script at Haifa University, who said the letters were Phoenician…”.
ZENA HALPERN'S BLOG
“Halpern shared with her NEARA friends…and they decided to go back to the Frost Valley area and look around (2004). The Group included Zena, along with Don Ruh, Harry Weymer, Betsy Brewster, and Polly Midgley. We were exploring the area near a brook, and we saw a small stone resting on a rock at the roots of a tree, which had a cut-out notch and a small, perfectly cut stone that fit within this notch. There was a space beneath the rock…Ruh decided to investigate and reached his hand beneath the rock, felt around, grabbed a hard object, and began to pull it out. As he pulled it out, the sun shone on it, and Weymer said he could see two letters as the stone emerged... There was disbelief when Halpern said they looked like Phoenician letters…”.
“….Halpern sent the stone to a geologist, Scott Wolter of American Petrographic Services in St. Paul, Minnesota, for analysis… and Wolter sent it for additional testing using a scanning electron microscope. Ruh and Halpern paid several hundred dollars for these tests… Halpern went back to Frost Valley with Ruh and Weymer every summer to look around. In July 2006, she found another stone close to the west branch of the Neversink River. She saw this stone resting under a tree, but it had a crack down the center. This stone was large, and it had several symbols on it and some script. Amazingly, one of the symbols was an oval with a horizontal line through it, matching the symbol on the stone from 2001. Halpern researched this symbol and found that it was very ancient. It appears in the books of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas…”
X(TWITTER)
In 2017, in Scott Wolter’s blog…“On page 218 of Zena Halpern's new book…The Templar Mission to Oak Island and Beyond…Beneath the photograph of what the author calls a "Paleo-Hebrew Carving" she wrote…"Geologist Scott Wolter tested the rock at a university laboratory and concluded, based on the weathering, that this carving was at least "many centuries old…the stone…was examined in my materials forensic laboratory…in 2006…I concluded the following, "It is quite clear that the inscription was carved into fresh rock below the weathered surface and those surfaces have since weathered. That weathering profile appears less developed than the original weathered surface indicating that the inscription is younger ….”. Wolter could not determine its age.
The preceding events detail that the research expertise that Zena Halpern possessed seemed to be a perfect match for these stones that were discovered in the Catskill Mountains. What incredible luck it was to find them all in the same area with Don Ruh being present when each of the stones was discovered. Also, the incredible luck of Bill Jackson having a book that would be about the cornerstone of Zena’s research. The fact that it had copies of La Formule and the Oak Island Map hidden inside of it. This suggesting Knights Templar involvement that would jump start Zena’s research regarding the Templars and Oak Island. Similarly, the research expertise that Scott Wolter possesses was perfect for the analysis of the stones found at Hunter Mountain, the Bill Jackson documents/artifacts and the Knights Templar connection to the story. How fortuitous indeed.
THE FRENCH CONNECTION
As we have seen throughout the different parts of this investigation there are many documents written in French which were supposedly in Bill Jackson’s possession until Don Ruh allegedly inherited them. The 13th Ralph de Sudeley journal and other manuscripts from the Cremona document, the 17th century Abraham Robert letter, the La Formule document and the Oak Island map are some of the French documents that Don Ruh has presented in his book The Scrolls of Onteora. All of these French documents have the same grammar problems. These include masculine and feminine article issues, the incorrect writing of the date, the wrong choice of prepositions. How would one man end up with a collection of documents from different eras that all have the same mistakes?
THE CURSE OF OAK ISLAND - THE HISTORY CHANNEL
It appears that the “La Formule” document and the ”Oak Island Map” were found together because they are supposed to be connected in some way. They are also both in French and seem to have been written by the same person which we’ve mentioned in the previous parts of our investigation. The person or group of people who wrote these documents seem to have a minimum knowledge of the French language; they were clearly not native French but knew some of the basic sentence constructions. Charlotte teaches French to British and American expats living in France. Some of her students have lived in France for many years but they still make the same mistakes, some of which resemble very much the ones seen in Don Ruh’s documents. In the Compendium’s opinion it appears that at least one of the people involved in writing these documents is a native English speaker who has at least some minimal usage of the French language.
DON RUH
In the first part of The Scrolls of Onteora, Don Ruh reveals part of his life story and mentions his family. He describes his alleged first meeting with Bill Jackson and how Jackson supposedly got involved with Dan Spartan and the Spartan Agency. To understand more about Don Ruh’s past we decided to do a full background search about him and his origins. He was born in December 1942 in New York state, to Albert Ruh and Beatrice Blandenier. Albert Ruh was born in the French speaking part of Switzerland. Beatrice Blandenier, Ruh’s mother, was born in New York, but her parents also came from Switzerland. In fact, in the 1930 United States Census, it clearly says that Don Ruh’s maternal grandparents spoke French.
SCOTT WOLTER'S BLOG
This piqued our interest because the person who wrote the French documents certainly made many grammatical mistakes but at the same time seemed to have a minimum knowledge of the French language. Numerous immigrants that moved to the United States at this time did not transmit their mother-tongue language to their children, they wanted to fit-in with the local population and prioritized the English language. Although in many cases children would have been influenced by their parents’ origins and it is highly possible that Don Ruh’s parents spoke French to each other at certain times.
ANCESTRY
We researched this further and found something of great importance. Not only did Albert Ruh and his family come from Switzerland, but most of his family also originated from a place called La Chaux-des-Fonds which is 20km from the city of Neuchâtel and only a few kilometers from the French border. The name of this town immediately rang a bell for the Compendium. In, The Scrolls of Onteora, there is a photo of a 1657 letter that Don Ruh received from one of the photographers of the Spartan Agency. The letter had allegedly been photographed at Bill Jackson's request, it wasn’t a normal letter, it was supposedly written with some sort of invisible ink that needed heat to appear. The letter was allegedly written by Abraham Robert who was state counsellor in 1657 and also the first ever mayor of La Chaux des Fonds, the same town Don Ruh’s paternal family came from and his maternal family only 20 kilometres away.
ANONYMOUS SOURCE
The letter itself is very suspicious, it contains mistakes, some of which are the same as on the Oak Island map and it is not written in the manner that it should have been by a 17th century notary. There is also a mention of a mountain in America, which Don Ruh suggests as being Hunter Mountain, a place where both Ruh and Bill Jackson allegedly made some amazing discoveries together. The fact that a 17th century Notary in Switzerland should receive information about a mountain range in America is puzzling.
What is the probability that Don Ruh should inherit a 17th century letter written in some sort of invisible ink, by a man who was the first mayor of the town that his family originated from? A letter that also happens to mention an American mountain that Don Ruh himself is connected to. It seems to be more than just an incredible coincidence. How fortuitous indeed.
ANCESTRY
Another interesting connection to the Scrolls of Onteora is taking info from Albert Ruh’s World War II Draft Card. He registered on February 14, 1942, 37 at the time and was married to Beatrice. He had three years of college education. It lists his employer as the Swiss Bank Corp in New York City. Right before the start of World War II, the Swiss Bank Corp received large amounts of foreign funds to protect. In 1939, Swiss Bank Corp opened an office in New York City. The office was intended to store assets in case of a German invasion. Decades after the war, it was shown that Swiss Bank Corp likely took an active role in trading stolen gold, securities and other assets during World War II while Albert Ruh was working there.
It’s interesting to note that the mysterious Bill Jackson’s story alludes to a banking scandal involving the Banco Ambrosiano (2nd largest bank in Italy), Roberto Calvi and his murder/suicide, the Propaganda Due organization and the Vatican in the early 1980’s. These real-life events seem to be areas that Don Ruh would take a great interest in due to his family’s background.
DIANA MUIR
Diana Muir is one of the few people mentioned in the acknowledgment page of The Scrolls of Onteora, citing her assistance to Don Ruh with his book. For those who have not heard of Muir, she’s an author who has published various genealogies and books about Henry Sinclair, the Earl of Orkney, whom she believes traveled across the Atlantic to North America in the 14th century, which is a popular theory claimed by other authors.
According to Muir, who claims to be a descendant of Henry Sinclair, she was given a saddle bag of documents in 2005 which laid in the “back of her closet for 9 years”. In 2014, she reportedly took a renewed interest in these documents and supposedly translated them from Latin, Olde and Middle English with the intention to publish them in the book, The Lost Templar Journals of Prince Henry Sinclair Book 1 - 1353-1395. Muir states that before publishing her finds she was worried about being accused of forgery and decided to throw away the original documents but made copies. Why would someone be worried about this if the documents were legitimate? This of course created a lot of controversy and questions of a hoax were widespread. Little did people know there was a specific reason for this concern by Muir.
Further research brings up some very interesting information about Muir from her blog in which she promotes Don Ruh’s book. She owns many different webpages from Academia to Amazon, to Facebook, where she mentions her work and her various degrees that she states she earned, which included History, Anthropology, Sociology, and a Ph.D. This explains why she uses the title “Dr.” on some of her pages. At first glance this seems very impressive. According to Muir, she is a professional Genealogist, with a specialty in the Church of Latter Day Saints and the Mormons.
ADDISON DIFRESCO BLOG
The more we researched Diana Muir’s story the more we identified problems with her background. In fact, the Compendium located a very interesting June 2023 genealogy blog article that uncovered some very alarming information about Muir. In a 1983 newspaper article published in the blog, it details how Diana Hanson (Muir’s married name at the time) was investigated by the FBI concerning a case of fraudulent Mormon documents that she intended to sell to Brigham Young University in Utah. She claimed she had a collection of letters from Brigham Young and Joseph Smith Jr. and diaries of Smith’s widow, photos of Smith, and other historical Mormon material. She was not prosecuted, as no money changed hands, and the head of collections of the university declined to press charges. Muir was given a misdemeanor for filing a false report and she admitted it was a hoax claiming, “I made up this list from my own imagination…I’m sorry this happened, I got caught up in a story which I was unable to stop.”
DIANA MUIR'S WEB PAGES
The blog’s creator, Addison Difresco, has some objections over Muir’s genealogical work and suggests that she laid connections between people without any proof. In checking her academic background, the blog’s creator spoke to the universities where Muir claims to have obtained her degrees. Both Brigham Young University and the University of Iowa confirmed that Muir did indeed take part in courses with them but did not obtain any degrees. Muir left a reply to the blog article in which she admits that the information is true and says that she has never “received degrees''. Yet on her Amazon page in January 2024, she still claims to have multiple Ph.D’s and has not changed the claim. The incident regarding the elimination of the alleged original documents of Henry Sinclair is most likely explained by Muir’s past involvement with the Mormon forgeries and the FBI.
Don Ruh's genealogy modified by Diana Muir - From Family Search
Diana Muir assisted Don Ruh with The Scrolls of Onteora and they continue to collaborate. The Compendium is unclear how long the two have been associated but we have located evidence that Muir was editing Ruh’s genealogy information in 2017. At the same time Muir made an unflattering review of Zena Halpern’s book, The Templar Mission to Oak Island and Beyond. Zena made a point-by-point rebuttal of Muir’s criticism on Zena’s blog, which seemed like a targeted attack. Knowing Muir’s past involvements with forged Mormon documents and other issues, the collaboration between Ruh and Muir raises some serious red flags.
THE ORIGINS OF ONTEORA
LUCILLE LUCAS GALLERY
The Cremona document is also known as the “Scrolls of Onteora” which is also the name of Don Ruh’s book. It has this name because part of the document mentions a pre-Columbian trip to the Catskill Mountains in New York where Onteora is located. Onteora is a place name that comes from the indigenous people meaning, “Hills in the sky”. While researching, we found a reference to Onteora being a 19th century name created for one of the first resorts in the Catskills. If this is the case it seems unlikely that the word would appear before that time.
Onteora Library, E. Davis Gaillard Archive photograph.
What particularly interested us about Onteora is its connection to a literary commune located at the site in the 19th century. In fact, many artists/authors took residence at Onteora Park including Mary Elizabeth Dodge and Mark Twain who was himself a member of the Onteora Club. The Bannerman family were known to be members of the Onteora Club, and The Scrolls of Onteora details Bannerman’s Castle on the Hudson River. Hunter Mountain is a very picturesque place that Don Ruh is intimately aware of since he lives over an hour away. The Onteora Club has a wonderful library that has many research materials regarding the area and its history.
In 2019, researcher Cort Lindahl in his blog, mentioned The Scrolls of Onteora and the Cremona Document. Lindahl states, “There are some aspects of the story being told about Hunter Mountain and Onteora that have overtones similar to the Mormon faith of today. Joseph Smith and his father were part of the treasure hunting craze of this era and are noted as such in many narratives that came from eyewitnesses… What is interesting in this examination is the association between J. (Joseph) Smith and what may be termed “Theban script.” So called Theban Script is included as part of the Cremona Document as well as the astrolabe-like device that was said to have been found at Bannerman’s Island as part of the story.”
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Lindahl continues, “When Joseph Smith was supposed to have found the Golden Tablets of the Book of Mormon he himself wrote down the characters that were used in their composition. He then took his notation to a linguist who identified the script as what is known of as Egyptian Hieratic script which is similar to the later Theban Script. “Theban Script” was not developed until the sixteenth century so that postdates the era of the Knights Templar that supposedly had de Sudeley coming to upstate New York in the thirteenth century. Interestingly Joseph Smith actually owned real Egyptian papyri from the Roman period that also included very similar script to what is seen on some of the documents included in what is termed the Cremona Document. This is quite a coincidence considering the entire story of the Cremona Document as it is known of takes place in a region of New York where Smith used to live…”.
Lindahl continues, “The entire inspiration for the part of the Cremona document story that includes a Hebrew Priesthood was likely inspired by a group known of as “The New Israelites” from Vermont. This group was started by a man named Justus Winchell and included Joseph Smith Sr. the father of Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith. These people believed that they were descendant of original Hebrews and considered themselves to have a legacy that included a search for the Ark of the Covenant and other treasures. Much of their time was spent in the search for treasure in the tradition we know Joseph Smith partook in.”
OLIVER COWDERY PAGES
Lindahl concludes, “It may be telling that the Cremona Document tells of an exiled Hebrew Priesthood atop Hunter Mountain that closely resemble the actual description of the beliefs of the New Israelites. They believed that they in fact were a Hebrew Priesthood as described… Undoubtedly this group does have some similarities to later Mormon ideas such as ancient Hebrews having come to New York just as is stated in the story of the Cremona Document… The Cremona Document is in fact so full of historical holes that it is a wonder anyone believes it at all.” The Compendium couldn’t help but think of Diana Muir’s experience and knowledge of the Smith family and Mormon faith while reading Lindahl’s analysis of the creation of The Scrolls of Onteora.
Conclusion
Compendium Investigations has analyzed the alleged Bill Jackson’s documents, and we can conclude that they have numerous problems that are very suspicious in nature and indicate fraud. We have seen many documents that were supposedly written in medieval French - or transcribed from medieval French - that contain words that were only invented in the 19th and even the 20th century. In certain cases, the documents were allegedly written by a native French speaker, but there are many grammatical errors that indicate they were made by a native English speaker.
We have checked the records for multiple people, not only those mentioned throughout the investigation but nearly all the people that Don Ruh mentions in connection to the documents, and in most cases, we have not managed to certify their existence. This includes Bill Jackson himself. We’ve seen this explained by the fact they were involved with secretive government operations but there are many people who have worked for intelligence offices and national security that have records like any usual person. If they existed, we should find their footprint somewhere.
Don Ruh has publicly admitted that he allegedly forged a “swagger stick” for Bill Jackson and that the famous “Zena Map” is a fake. But he had forgotten about the map being fake until Zena made her appearance on the The Curse of Oak Island, while in his book he explains how Bill Jackson supposedly sourced the map from the Rochefoucauld family. We can only conclude from his own statements that Don Ruh had experience in forged articles and that he made up this fictitious provenance. Who’s to say this isn’t the case with all of these documents, artifacts and details? Evidence uncovered in our investigation indicates they are all forgeries.
ZENA HALPERN'S BLOG
We have also seen that Don Ruh has family connections to a French speaking country and even to a precise area that is mentioned in a 17th Century document that he allegedly inherited from Bill Jackson which is connected to a mountain range where Don Ruh has made many archeological discoveries. How fortuitous indeed. We have seen how Diana Muir’s background indicates that she was involved with deception and forgery, and she works with Don Ruh. These facts create major red flags concerning the authenticity of anything related to The Scrolls of Onterora and the Bill Jackson documents and artifacts.
We've been expected to believe an amazing story that would rewrite history as we know it. Is it fact or fiction? To believe such a story requires proof, detailed analysis, and verifiable facts about provenance. Anyone can write a story and certify it's the honest truth, but these are such important matters that the presentation of these documents deserved in-depth investigation, which the Compendium has undertaken for our readers.
Throughout this series we haven’t pointed out just one anomaly with these documents, but many that have no reasonable explanation. We understand that many people wish these documents to be authentic. We’re not discounting the Knights Templar visiting North America, or any transatlantic crossing that might have happened before Columbus. We’re open-minded about such possibilities but require proper evidence to confirm the theory. What we must not do is ignore the facts and the incoherencies that have been uncovered in this investigation, which would be accepting fiction as truth. This is not helping to unravel the mystery of Oak Island, which is our paramount concern.
The Compendium hopes you enjoyed our series. Please watch for our investigation involving the 90 FT Stone coming soon.
Good day from the Compendium!