The occupants of the Mayflower, the Pilgrims, the Adventurers, and the Strangers had managed to cross the Atlantic Ocean in 66 days. They started the voyage with 102 passengers, along with an uncertain number of crew. One passenger died during the trip and one was born.  Before they arrived at their final destination in Cape Cod, they wrote and signed a document that has become known as ‘The Mayflower Compact.’

“In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, etc.

Having undertaken, for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith and Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the First Colony in the Northern Parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one of another, Covenant and Combine ourselves together into a Civil Body Politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini 1620.”

Forty-one of the adult male passengers signed the Mayflower Compact, which was probably most of the adult males onboard. It was basically an agreement that the colonists would work together and follow the rules that the colony established to improve their odds of survival.

However, the Compact contains some rather confusing language that could suggest an ulterior motive behind their courageous journey. At the end of the first sentence, they call King James the ‘Defender of the Faith.’ For any other group of colonists from England this would make perfect sense, but the Pilgrims were not a normal group. They left England (Holland) for the stated purpose of escaping the rule of King James and his attempt to force them to worship as the Church of England dictated. If they truly went to America to get away from someone they were supposed to despise and hate, why would they not only proclaim their allegiance to him, but also call him the ‘Defender of the Faith?’ Although that was a traditional title for the King of England, he should not have been the ‘Defender of the Faith’ in the eyes of the Pilgrims. He was supposedly the enemy and the one they were trying to get away from.

Oddly enough, the compact says that they had undertaken “a Voyage to plant the First Colony in the Northern Parts of Virginia,” yet they knew full well that they were not anywhere near the Virginia colony. So, what were they really doing? The Pilgrims originally intended to make landfall at the Hudson River, near the northern edge of the Virginia colony, the company that the Adventurer’s were supposed to work for. History tells that they were off-course and landed at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, near Cape Cod. They were less than 300 miles from their intended destination and the invaluable aid that would have been available from the existing Virginia colony. With winter upon them, they made the inexplicable decision to remain in the hostile Cape Cod environment with virtually no shelter and limited supplies. Why would they make such a foolish decision? Why were they even off-course in the first place?

The Mayflower made landfall about 300 miles too far north. In order to be off-course by 300 miles in a North-South direction, the measured latitude would have been approximately four degrees in error. Determining the latitude of a ship during the 1600’s was a fairly routine task and almost any navigator worthy of their position should have been able to get closer than four degrees in determining the latitude of the vessel. If they were blown off-course as some accounts suggest, then why did they not simply sail south a few days to the Virginia colony after the storm had passed? The ship was not damaged, so what were they doing?

Is it possible that the Mayflower was not off-course and that they actually intended to settle in the Cape Cod area for some other reason? If so, what could have been their mission? Plymouth, MA is in a protected harbor and only a few hundred miles away from Nova Scotia, which has legendary connections to the Templars. It is largely believed that the Templar treasure is or was at some time buried on Oak Island in Nova Scotia. In 1795, a curious depression in the ground marked by a ship’s tackle hanging on a tree was discovered on Oak Island by Daniel McGinnis. Ever since, treasure hunters have been digging in what has now become the Oak Island Pit to find layer after layer of evidence and booby traps that clearly indicate someone was there long before 1795. The treasure could have been buried on Oak Island or nearby and relocated by the Pilgrims.

However, the Oak Island Pit has all the markings of a decoy. First it was far too easy to find and the dig never seems to reach the bottom, almost like it was designed to keep treasure hunters occupied for centuries, and it has. There is even evidence that connects the Freemasons to this pit. The following map shows the relationship of the Plymouth landing site to the intended destination at the Hudson River, the successful colony at Jamestown, and the legendary Templar site at Oak Island. Geographically, Plymouth is an ideal location to set up a base camp for a possible hidden agenda.

Figure 1 – Pilgrim Landing Site at Plymouth and Related Points

If the true mission of the Pilgrims and Adventurers was to protect the treasure of the Templars, then landing at Plymouth, instead of the Hudson River, could serve a logical purpose. During the first winter at Plymouth, it is said that half of the pilgrims died due to a sickness that spread very quickly. What if they did not die as recorded? Would that change the frame of reference? If they wanted to protect a treasure and not have anyone know what they were doing, then landing off course would be the first step. The second step would be to divide the party so that some could go find the treasure and secure it, while others remained behind to maintain the cover story of a typical settlement. To simply split the party without a good reason would likely have garnered the Pilgrim colony far more attention than they wanted.

Consider the possibility that the unfortunate sickness that struck the Pilgrims and the associated deaths was really a cover story to allow some of the explorers to venture off in search of treasure. If questioned on the whereabouts of the rest of the Pilgrim party, simply saying that they had died due to some mysterious illness would have ended any inquiry into what happened. Faking a death in the early 1600’s in an uncivilized wilderness would have been relatively easy. There were no identification cards carried by the Pilgrims. There was no computer system that cross-referenced deaths with the identities of the living. There was no fingerprint database to verify someone’s identity. A person’s name could be changed at will. To protect the treasure, it would have been fairly easy to fake the deaths of some of the colonists, change their appearance, and give them new identities so that a ready explanation could be given to anyone they happened to meet. Had the Pilgrims landed at the Hudson River as intended, they would probably have been met by the existing colonists in Virginia, making it far more difficult to split up the group. By landing almost 300 miles off course, they had time to divide themselves and fake the deaths of those who went in search of the treasure.

For now, let’s put this thought on hold and take a look at a most curious artifact left behind by the Pilgrims. In the year 1560, the Puritans translated the original Hebrew and Greek texts into a new English Bible, called the Geneva Bible, so named after the location where the Bible was translated, Geneva, Switzerland. The Pilgrims were Puritans and they used the Geneva Bible almost exclusively. In fact, nearly every Puritan household had a copy of the Geneva Bible, which was very unusual in those days.

There are 4 surviving Bibles that are maintained in the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Experts agree that at least two of these Bibles were brought over on the Mayflower in 1620. One belonged to Governor William Bradford and the other to John Alden. William Bradford was the Governor of the Plymouth colony, but little is known about John Alden and his mysterious appearance on the Mayflower. He was not a Puritan and appears to have been hired as a carpenter and cooper for the Mayflower at the last minute, but is that the truth? John Alden was very intelligent and held several leadership roles in the colony. He was the seventh signer of the Compact and some credit him with being the first to step off of the Mayflower in Plymouth.

The Mayflower and its crew were not hired by the Pilgrims, but rather by Thomas Weston, the leader of the Adventurers group. The Adventurers selected the Master of the Mayflower, Christopher Jones, who in turn is said to have recruited John Alden. The Adventurers could have had control over the inclusion of John Alden on the Mayflower crew and his last second appearance could have been planned to avoid suspicion.

As would be expected, 3 of the 4 Bibles in the Museum are copies of the Geneva Bible. However, the Bible that belonged to John Alden is a bit more mysterious. The title pages are missing from this Bible, but the colophon at the end indicates that the New Testament was printed in London by Robert Barker, “Printer to the Kings most excellent Majestie,” in 1620. This Bible is not the Geneva Bible, but is rather The King James Bible

John Alden also had a Geneva Bible that is now located at Dartmouth College. In 1620, Bibles were not nearly as common as they are today. In fact, most people did not even own one at all during their lives. The majority of people in the 1620’s only heard or saw a Bible when it was read in the church. Bibles were extremely expensive, often costing as much as the average worker could make in year. John Alden, who was only 21 years old at the time he boarded the Mayflower, was supposed to be a simple carpenter. It would be highly unusual for this type of individual to have owned one Bible, not to mention two.  The Mayflower left England in 1620, the same year that Alden’s King James Bible was printed. Why did a 21 year old carpenter just happen to have in his possession a brand new King James Bible that probably cost more than he could earn in a year? And what motivated this simple carpenter to leave everything he knew in England to permanently relocate to a distant land on a moments notice in support of a cause he did not believe in?

Literacy rates in England during the early 1600’s were directly proportional to the wealth of the family. The poorer families and laborers were unlikely to even know how to read. A young carpenter from a poor family would not have had many opportunities to learn to read and write, yet John Alden apparently could not only read and write, but he owned two very expensive Bibles at the young age of 21.

Why would a group of people who wanted to get away from the influence of King James and the Church of England take along a copy of The King James Bible? Even more curious is the apparent attempt to hide the true nature of this Bible by removing the title pages. Did Alden attempt to hide the fact that it was a King James Bible from the Pilgrims because they would not have approved? Or, did the Pilgrims help him hide it for some other reason? It is possible that the Bible had been damaged and rebound or some pages could have been accidentally torn out, but why only the title pages? Also, it was a new Bible at the time the journey began.

As this book unfolds to reveal the true location of the Holy Grail, John Alden’s King James Bible and the many inconsistencies in the story of the Pilgrims and how they came to be in America will take on a totally new dimension.  Most of the evidence is circumstantial, but does offer some intriguing possibilities.

If there was a hidden agenda behind the Pilgrim voyage to America, then what better place for some of the key players to hide than in the lowest positions? The Pilgrims may have simply been the cover story for a vastly more important mission. The treasure of the Knights Templar could have been hidden somewhere in North America long before the Europeans began colonizing the New World, possibly even by Christopher Columbus. It is entirely possible that the explorers and colonists of the day were getting uncomfortably close to the hiding place of this priceless treasure, a treasure whose value far exceeded that of any amount of gold, silver, or jewels.

If the Holy Grail was already in North America by the early 1600’s, then those who knew of its existence and location would have had to protect it at any cost. The Holy Grail would be more valuable than the very lives of its protectors. This would help explain the urgency of the Pilgrim voyage and the many inconsistent facts that surround them. It would explain why they undertook the perilous journey knowing they would arrive in the dead of winter with limited supplies and virtually no shelter. It would help explain why they took three wives on the journey who were pregnant and why John Alden, a young carpenter, had two Bibles in his possession.

It should be obvious that the Pilgrims had to leave for some reason far more compelling than simply wanting to worship God in a slightly different manner than the Church of England, which they were not subject to in Holland. They could not wait until the following year because they had to protect a treasure and they could not leave their wives behind because they were not coming back. It would explain why they pledged their allegiance to King James in The Mayflower Compact and called him the ‘Defender of the Faith.’ If King James had sent them to secure and protect the Holy Grail, he could have used their separatist views as a cover. Change the balance of understanding ever so slightly and the pieces begin to fall into place and history is transformed right before our eyes.

Assuming that any of this is possible, why would the Pilgrims have agreed to be a part of such a massive deception? Why would they have cooperated with King James? To answer this, it is necessary to understand that the Pilgrims were intensely religious. They believed that nothing was more important than God and worshipping God was their primary purpose in life. They would have only participated in this adventure if what they were protecting was in some way related to God and their faith and further promoted their reverence toward God. If the Templars protected a sacred treasure that was recovered from beneath Solomon’s Temple and these artifacts were stored in America, the Pilgrims would likely have agreed to help protect it because whatever was hidden beneath Solomon’s Temple would have been directly related to God and the Christian faith. One of the most legendary artifacts that the Templars are said to have protected is The Ark of the Covenant. If it was real and the Pilgrims knew it, they might have been willing to do just about anything to keep it safe.

The Ark of the Covenant, sometimes called The Ark of the Testimony or The Ark of God, was a chest that Moses constructed according to the instructions of God. It is said to contain the original stone tablets with the Ten Commandments written by the hand of God. Moses used the Ark to communicate with God and the Ark led the Israelites out of Egypt and guided the 40 year journey through the desert. The Ark of the Covenant is one of the singular most important Jewish and Christian artifacts known.

The last confirmed location of the Ark of the Covenant was inside the inner sanctuary of Solomon’s Temple called the Kodesh Hakodashim, in Hebrew, or the “Holy of Holies”. After the destruction of the Temple in 587 BCE, the Ark appeared to vanish into thin air. There are many rumors and theories about its possible location, but none of them have been proven accurate. The Ark may have been hidden deep under the temple and remained there until the Templar Knights recovered it. If the Templars carried the Ark to America, then the Pilgrims would have helped protect the Ark if presented with the opportunity, even if it meant supporting an arch enemy. Once convinced of its validity they would not have hesitated to assist King James and under these conditions they certainly would have viewed him as a true “Defender of The Faith.’