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The Future of the Atlantic Conference

Through our contacts in setting up this conference, we have seen extraordinary information that should, in our opinion, reach the mainstream. Yet it is consistently held back by an academic environment that has for a very long time enjoyed a monopoly on ideas regarding ancient contact.

While we're not academics and are not schooled in the rigors of the process such researchers go through to get their work out to the mainstream, we are conservative enough to believe that we can avoid the kook fringe, the sloppy research processes, and the lack of rigor of which ALL those outside the mainstream academic environment are often accused.

Our intention is to help further the work of legitimate researchers who follow scientific rigor and careful analysis.

To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. Scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.

We had seven speakers at the 2008 Atlantic Conference who clearly followed Scientific method in the papers they shared. And they had the good sense to guide the audience to possible interpretations of their data that might contradict their hypotheses. We interspersed presentations of Native history which has been shared orally over many thousands of years and is, we believe, just as credible in most areas as are carvings in stone.

We acknowledge that this line of enquiry attracts the kook fringe. Our emails are filling up with messages now that the Atlantic Conference is on the radar. We do not exist to support breathless speculation. But we will support researchers like Helge Ingstad, the Norwegian lawyer, writer and adventurer who followed a hunch and an ancient map to identify the place where Vikings landed in North America 500 years before Columbus. He was publicly embarrassed by an establishment which could not allow one from the outside to gain credit for changing history.

We believe that, somewhere between academia and the kook fringe, there is just enough room for the serious enquiry of heretofore unexplored evidence. We will help to further such research by -

• Making connections between researchers which may help both in their work

• Identifying possible sources of funding

• Publicizing the research of credible researchers who employ scientific rigor