The Why Files: Operation Podcast - 47: Legend of the Moon Eyed People | Before Christopher Columbus?

Episode Date: June 26, 2022

LEGEND OF THE MOON-EYED PEOPLE   Across the Southern Appalachian mountains, from Georgia up through North Carolina, hundreds of unusual stone structures have been discovered.   Some date back hundreds of years. Some date back thousands.   Archaeologists aren't sure who created these monuments. But the Cherokee people claim they know exactly who built them.   The Cherokee say the structures were built by the Moon-Eyed people, a race of fair-skinned, light-haired, bearded humans.   Their large blue eyes were so sensitive to the sun that they lived in caves and only came out at night. Which is why they're called Moon-Eyed.   But, the story gets even stranger.   Let's find out why. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thewhyfiles/support

You searched for your informant, who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth. While curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. Hey, it's your buddy AJ from the Y-Files. And Hecklefish.

Right, and Hecklefish. We just wanted to tell you that if you want to start a podcast, Spotify makes it easy. It'd have to be easy for humans to understand it. Will you stop that? I'm just saying. Spotify for Podcasters lets you record and edit podcasts from your computer. I don't have a computer. Do you have a phone? Of course

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You don't want to support your kids? What are you, my wife's lawyer now? Never mind. And I don't know if you noticed, but all Y-Files episodes are video, too. And there's a ton of other features, but you... But we can't be here all day. Will you settle down? I need you to hurry up with this stupid commercial.

I got a packed calendar today. I'm sorry about him. Anyway, check out Spotify for Podcasters. It's free, no catch, and a packed calendar today. I'm sorry about him. Anyway, check out Spotify for podcasters. It's free, no catch, and you could start today. Are we done? We're done, but you need to check your attitude. Excuse me, but I don't have all day to sit here and talk about Spotify. Look, this would go a lot faster if you would just let me get through it. Across the southern Apalachee Mountains from Georgia up through North Carolina, hundreds of unusual stone structures have been discovered.

Some date back hundreds of years. Some date back thousands. Archaeologists aren't sure who created these monuments, but the Cherokee people claim they know exactly who built them. The Cherokees say the structures were built by the Moonite people, a race of fair-skinned, light-haired, bearded humans. Their large blue eyes were so sensitive to sun that they lived in caves and came out only at night, which is why they're called Moonite.

But the story gets even stranger. The Cherokees say that the Moonite people lived in the same area as the Cherokee Nation, but they were not Native American. So if that's true, who were they and how did they get there? Now Christopher Columbus is commonly connected to the discovery of the New World, but there's plenty of debate on who was really first. Norse explorer Leith Erickson is thought to have discovered and settled an area of Newfoundland, Canada around 1000 AD. And the remains of a Norse settlement were found in Newfoundland not too long ago. And the artifacts were carbon dated to prove that someone was there at precisely this time.

There's also the legend of Saint Brendan, an Irish monk who left Ireland in the 6th century in search of new lands. And after seven years, Saint Brendan returned to Ireland and claimed he discovered a land covered in lush vegetation. People believe he was describing the east coast of Canada. But whether Norse or Irish, none of these ancient settlements were permanent. Every legend ends with the explorers encountering dangerous natives who drive them off the land and back to the sea. But what if permanent settlements were established? Hundreds of years before Columbus.

Well, that brings us to the legend of explorer Prince Matic of Wales. Prince Matic was the illegitimate son of Welsh King Owen Gwennid, who ruled Wales in the 12th century. When the king died in 1169, his sons fought for the throne. And civil war broke out, and Madoc didn't want to be a part of it. So he took a few ships and sailed west. He landed in present-day Mobile Bay, Alabama. And he was so excited by what he saw, he returned to Wales for more ships and colonists. He then set back out toward Alabama in 1171. He was never heard from again.

But Prince Matic's story doesn't end there. 500 years later, in 1666, a Welsh minister named Morgan Jones set out into the American wilderness to preach the good word to the locals. The locals were not receptive. Jones and his group were captured and imprisoned by a people called the Doge in present-day South Carolina. About to be executed, Jones pleaded for his life. Then the Doge chief approached. He was a small, light-skinned man dressed in typical Native American attire. Jones dropped to his knees and said,

Have I escaped so many dangers that must I now be murdered like a dog? The dog chief stared at him with ice blue eyes and said, you shall not die today, and then set him free. Now Jones couldn't believe his ears. The chief of the dog tribe was speaking Welsh. You searched for your informant who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed.

You swept the city, driving closer to the truth. While curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. You sailed beyond the horizon in search of an island scrubbed from every map. You battled krakens

and navigated through storms. Your spade struck the lid of a long-lost treasure chest while you cooked a lasagna. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover best-selling adventure stories on Audible. You searched for your informant, who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth, while curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. Morgan Jones' story was not unique.

There was another sailor named Stedman, who was shipwrecked somewhere between Alabama and Florida in the 1660s, and he published an account of encountering a light-skinned native tribe that spoke Welsh. And these stories circulated throughout the Americas for years. In the 19th century, Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia financed a large and expensive expedition to find the Welsh Indians. When Lewis and Clark set off to map the Louisiana Purchase, they were specifically ordered by Thomas Jefferson to keep an eye out for Welsh tribes,

who were known to be pale-skinned, short-statured people with blonde hair, blue eyes, and war beards. Were the Munine people direct descendants of Maddox colonists? Were they the tribes who built the stone structures all along the Appalachian Mountains? The remains of a lot of these structures still exist, and more are being discovered all the time. Ford Mountain's stone wall in Georgia is over 1,000 feet long and varies in height from three to ten feet and there are structures like this all around the area there's a lot of debate on who built the ruins and what their purpose was some archaeologists say they

were used for social events seasonal meetings religious ceremonies and observing astronomy but supporters of the Matic legend disagree they point out that the teardrop-shaped foundations are similar to ruins found throughout Great Britain, specifically similar to Dalwhittling Castle in North Wales. But the ruins in Wales aren't religious structures, they're military fortifications. This matches the Cherokee legend. Almost a thousand years ago, the Moonite people were at war with Cherokee and other local nations. So the Moonite people built forts and walls to protect themselves using technology that was unknown to the local tribes. There's even historical evidence

of this. In a letter written in 1810 from John Sevier, who was the first governor of Tennessee, he says that in 1782, he was told by an Indian chief that the walls were not built by American Indians. They were built by white people called the Welsh, who lived in the area hundreds of years ago. In 1799, that same Governor Servier wrote a report where he mentioned the discovery of six skeletons on the Ohio River. They were wearing armor, bearing the Welsh coat of arms. Apparently, the Welsh were driven out of the land by the Cherokee and traveled to the Ohio Valley or down the Mississippi. There's actually evidence of a huge battle that took place in this area sometime around 1450. That's almost 50 years before Columbus, by the way. Now, local tribes say this was a great battle between the Red Indians and the White Indians.

Now, according to the legend, the White Indians lost the war and some of them began integrating and intermarrying with a tribe called the Mandans. The Mandan tribe was said to be very different than other tribes. In appearance, they were fair-skinned, with light hair and light eyes. They built their settlements laid out on a grid, like European cities. The Mandans didn't use canoes like most tribes did. They built round-bull boats, which were identical to the coracle boats used by the Welsh and the Irish. The Mandan language, to European ears, sounded like Welsh.

And there are a lot of words in the Mandan language that are very close to medieval Welsh. Are these the Munai people? Descendants from a Welsh expedition that arrived in America in the 1170s? According to the Cherokee legend, no, they can't be. Well, the Cherokee and most other native people arrived in America at the time of the last ice age over 10,000 years ago and possibly many years before that. But the Cherokees say that when they came to America many thousands of years ago, the Moonite people were already there. The Cherokee do not consider the Moonite people white Indians. They say the Moonite people were a separate race, and there was no evidence of their appearance until 2015 when the Cherokee County Historical Museum put on a display of a very unusual artifact.

A statue of two humanoid creatures about three feet tall and carved from a single block of soapstone hundreds or thousands of years ago was discovered in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're not going to say it? What? Hello? That's an alien.

Yeah, a few others have proposed that theory, but for the sake of this video, let's assume that the Moonite people are not from outer space. Obviously an alien. Okay, would you let me get back to this? You got it, Kibisabi. Small in stature, with light skin, light hair, and large round eyes, the Moonite people were said to have lived in Appalachia until they lost a long and bloody war with the Cherokee. The Moon-Eyed people were finally defeated when the Cherokee attacked them during a full

moon. Their blue eyes were so sensitive to light that they only came out at night. Even the full moon was too bright for them and the Cherokee took advantage of this. After the Moon-Eyed were expelled from Cherokee land, they went west and disappeared, but they left a serious imprint on the land they inhabited. The pre-Columbian city of Cahokia is said to have been built by the Moonite people. Cloaca? Cahokia.

What'd I say? At its height, Cahokia's population exceeded 40,000 people and covered about six square miles. Now, for comparison, at this time in history, London, one of the world's largest cities, had a population only of about 15,000 people, covering about three square miles, so half the size of Cahokia. In fact, it would take almost a thousand years for a city in North America to reach 40,000 people. Philadelphia did it about the turn of the 18th century. And no city in North America would reach six square miles until the 20th century. So Cahokia was a metropolis.

What happened to it? Nobody knows, but you can visit the ruins of the city at Cahokia Mound State Park in Illinois. The site is over 2,000 acres and contains 80 man-made mounds of varying sizes, and it's the largest and most complex archaeological site north of the Aztecs. So if the Moonite people are a local legend to the Cherokee,

then we shouldn't expect to see stories of white Indians or light-skinned, white-haired people anywhere else in the Americas, right? Wait, wait. Have they found Moonite people in other places? They sure have. Albinism is a genetic condition that occurs in all species of animals and plants. And if the TYR gene is altered or damaged, melanin can't be produced and the animal becomes an albino. This results in white hair, feathers, skin, and in humans, albinism occurs in one out of every 20,000 births or so. But the Kuna tribe of Panama has the highest rate of albinism of any community in the world. One out of every 145 Kuna born are albinos. That's over 130 times the typical rate. Now, in Kuna mythology, albinos were given a special significance.

Their light eyes and skin color makes them very sensitive to light. Like the Moonite people! Right. So they were given the duty of defending the moon against those who would try to destroy it. In fact, they became known as Children of the Moon. Now, albino children are born at very high rates in other Native American tribes. The Hopi, Zuni, Quemez, San Juan, and Laguna tribes all see albinism occurring at over 100 times the rate of the rest of the world. Are these Native American albinos

the descendants of the Moonite people, which is why their traits keep showing up in native populations? Well, we don't know. Cherokee said the Moonite people were driven west. This is interesting. The Puyut people were a tribe who lived in Utah and parts of California, and they talk about Sitika. And Sitika were a tribe of red-haired giants with white skin who lived in caves. They feared the sun and they only came out at night. Now, Puyut were at war with the red-haired giants for many years, and eventually they were able to trap the white-skinned giants in their caves. They then set a huge fire and killed them all. That story was passed down for hundreds of years

and was considered to be a fairy tale. But in 1911, the cave was discovered by local miners, and over the next 10 years, it was excavated, and inside, they found skeletons over 6 feet 6 inches tall who had red hair. The Moon-Eyed People! The legend of the Moon-Eyed People is still a mystery, and a lot of it is unsolved. But not all of it.

Let's go back to Prince Matic of Wales. We don't know for sure that he existed, but we do know that his father, King Owen of Gwynedd, did exist. And we know that Queen Elizabeth I was a big supporter of the Prince Matic of Gwynedd story. In the late 16th century, England, Spain, and Portugal were striving for supremacy of the New World. Dr. John Dee was an advisor to Queen Elizabeth and is famous for coining the phrase, the British Empire. He told the Queen that she should lay claim to North America. All of it. John Dee convinced the Queen that because her family, the House of Tudor,

was related to the Gwynedd royal family of Wales, she could claim title to the entire continent, as it was her ancestor, Prince Matic of Wales, who got there first. And remember Morgan Jones, the Welsh preacher whose life was spared by the Welsh Indians? Well, his story was said to have happened in 1666, but the story wasn't actually published until the 1740s, almost 100 years later when England was at war with Spain. And Morgan Jones' story appeared in several London journals and became a source of fascination with the English and pride amongst the Welsh.

Propaganda? Well, it was published under the title, The Crown of England's Title to America Prior to That of Spain. Eh, not exactly unbiased. No, it wasn't. As for the stone ruins and mounds found in Cahokia and all around that part of the country, when European settlers came across these structures, they just couldn't attribute them to local native tribes who they considered savages. A city twice the size of London was so shocking that they thought it must have been created

by a different race. White people. Right. Now, same with the Welsh language myth. Most of the American colonists were simple and uneducated. American Indian languages would have sounded like nothing more than gibberish to them. But the same could be said for Basque, Finnish, and even Welsh. These Europeans couldn't imagine that what they saw as an inferior people could develop a complex

language, so they attributed it to European, specifically Welsh, influence. In fact, in 1791, John Williams, a Welsh minister, wrote that Words in common use on different parts of the continent, which are very near or undeniably Welsh, in both sound and sense, could not happen by chance, and they could not be derived from any Europeans, but from the ancient Britons. And explorers quickly seized on native words that were similar in Welsh, like preso for welcome and bada for bread. But they ignored the many, many other words that aren't even close.

The media has been spitting out fake news and propaganda for a long time, huh? A long time. There was a lot of excitement when British explorers found a tribe in Virginia who had a word for penguin that sounded a lot like penguin, which in Welsh means white head. However, penguins' heads are black. How did Welsh Indians in Virginia even know what a penguin was? That's a good point. But when a probably fake story like the one about the Welsh preacher goes viral, people are going to be able to find all sorts of data to back up the theory, especially if it serves their agenda. To me,

these are pretty logical explanations for why, for centuries, people believed there were white Welsh Indians living in the Americas, when the truth is, there probably weren't any. What about the Moonide people? The statue discovered on Cherokee land? What about the mounds and metropolis at Cahokia? Well, nobody has really explained these yet. That's why it's a great story. Thanks for hanging out with us today. My name is AJ. That's Hecklefish. This has been the Y-Files.

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