My friend and former co-host Walter returned recently to discuss Secret Missions: The Hidden Legacy Of Old California, the fifth book in his “Empire of the Wheel” series concerning strange happenings in Southern California and the American Southwest. He informed us that early European explorers may have arrived in the area in the 17th century to search for a powerful symbolic object that Walter thinks was hidden here by the Knights Templar or their agents. He contends that he object that they may have been seeking was a weapon made of metal from a meteorite, which was supposed to possess great power.

We started with a short history of Spanish conquest and the idea that conquistadors were often sent with explicit instructions to treat the native populations with respect. We also talked about which non-native civilizations may have first set foot in North America, and  accounts which cast doubt on the death of one of the most famous explorers of early California history and his burial location on one of the Channel Islands.

For the last part of the show we turned to the subject of debates with critics and how to get through them in a civil manner as well as Walter’s extensive fiction writing.