Kensington Rune Story talk is Wednesday The Kensington Rune Stone and the Hooked X: Key to the Secret History of North America lecture and book signing by Scott Wolter, President of American Petrographic Services, will be Wednesday, Oct. 7, at 6 p.m. at the Ina Mae Rude Entrepreneur Center, 4200 James Ray Drive. It is hosted by Nordic Initiative, the Norse Federation and the Assocation of Norwegian Students Abroad (ANSA), and is free and open to the public. Wolter will talk about his exhaustive research and objective analysis on the Kensington rune stone. Controversy has raged since 1898 when Olof Ohman, a Swedish immigrant farmer clearing trees on his land in preparation for farming near what is now Alexandria, Minnesota, found a 202-pound mysteriously engraved stone slab tangled in the roots of an uprooted tree. Experts have debated whether this Norse runic writing was authentic. The stone, dated 1362, soon provided how difficult the search for the truth can be and raised eyebrows over the possibility that Norwegians and Swedes were in the center of the continent more than century before Columbus was on the East coast of North America. Over the decades, many historians, archaeologists and linguists over the decades have said "nonsense" to the idea that wandering Norsemen in 1362 got to Minnesota and left a carved stone in memory of slain members of their expedition. What is the truth after 111 years? In 2005, Scott Wolter co-authored the book "The Kensington Rune Stone: Compelling New Evidence," that presented a large body of research and facts that he believes prove the artifact is indeed a 14th-century document. This September, Wolter released a new book "The Hooked X: Key to the Secret History of North America." Published by North Star Press of St. Cloud, this book picks up where the Kensington Rune Stone story leaves off, taking the reader on a journey from Minnesota to the New England coast where four more medieval rune stones were found. The trail then leads to a mysterious round stone tower in Rhode Island that may have been constructed by the Knights Templar. The story that unfolds behind the Hooked X shatters many historical and religious paradigms, and ultimately starts to reveal the startling untold history of North America. His journey winds through mysterious worlds of the medieval Cistercians monks, the Knights Templar, and modern Freemasonry. This lecture follows the two-hour documentary, Holy Grail in America, which premiered on the History Channel on Sept. 20 and chronicles Wolter's nine-year pursuit of the origin and meaning of the Hooked X symbol, and his research into the unknown and mysterious world of European visitors to North America prior to Columbus. The documentary was produced by Committee Films of Minneapolis, and the film won the 2009 National Association of Television Production Executives (NAPTE) Best New Documentary Film. About the Author: Geologist Scott Wolter has authored eight books and has been president of American Petrographic Services in St. Paul, Minnesota, since 1990. He is responsible for the independent petrographic analysis testing laboratory where the Kensington Rune Stone was brought for investigation in 2000. He's been the principal petrographer in more than 5,000 investigations throughout the United States and around the world, including the evaluation of fire damaged concrete at the Pentagon following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Wolter and his family live in a suburb of Minneapolis. -- Bruce Gjovig, Center for Innovation and Nordic Initiative