Gloria Stewart Farley was born in Heavener, Oklahoma, a small town near the Arkansas state line. Her father, Matthew Stewart, had come there in 1902 as a physician, when Oklahoma was still Indian Territory. She has lived all her life except 13 years, on a beloved hill with a view of Poteau Mountain to the east. When she was 12 years old, she was taken to this mountain to see a certain stone, a tall slab standing upright in a ravine protected by a U-shaped cliff. Little did she realize that this day was the beginning of a lifetime of research on a controversial Pre-Columbian subject: that many Old World cultures had visited America centuries before Columbus and some even before Christ.
This beginning evidence was that the slab of stone was deeply pecked with 8 strange characters in a line. In 1937 she married J. Ray Farley and lived for 13 years in Missouri and Ohio. Never forgetting the strange characters, she sent a copy of them to the Smithsonian Institute in 1948, who replied that in 1923 they had identified them as Norse runes, a fact which she had suspected when she was 14 years old. In 1951, Gloria and Ray decided they wanted to raise their two small sons, Scott and Mark, in her hometown. So they moved to Heavener and built a new home next to the house where she was born. That year, they searched the mountain and rediscovered the so-called "Indian Rock" which she renamed "The Heavener Runestone".
It was so well protected that the sharp edges of the Runes had weathered to roundness. She wrote the date, "February 7, 1951" on the stone's flat gray lichen with a lead pencil, and it was still visible after 7 years of exposure to the elements. Her research to find out what the letters said, who made them, and when, was begun by interviewing the area old-timers, who described many more such carved stones on Poteau Mountain. Unfortunately, most of them had been destroyed in the 1930's and '40's with dynamite by treasure hunters.
All her leisure time for the next twenty years was spent searching for carved stones, but only four others were found. During her searching, stones carved with letters which were not runic were found, as well as related petroglyphs (pictures on stone). Fortunately, she recorded everything correctly and filed all until 1975, when a translator, Dr. Barry Fell, was found at Harvard University. During the 70's and 80's, when she searched and found carved stones all the way from Vermont to California, she recorded 20 different ancient scripts which were identified and translated. The words were autographs of real people, memorials, boundary markers and at times were instructions to others.
Gloria worked closely with Dr. Fell until his sudden death in 1994. She spent 11 years writing a book about all of her discoveries, and he had read a proof copy of it 9 days before he died. He had expressed to her his extreme approval of the book. It has been difficult for her to do the research and writing, due to lack of time. While raising her boys, teaching kindergarten, and doing church work she became the family's sole supporter when her husband became an invalid. She worked 17 years as a caseworker for the Oklahoma Welfare system, retiring in 1980 because of her own health problems.
Just out of the hospital, she grabbed a cane and went to Egypt to verify that an image of the Egyptian God Anubis, which she had recognized in an Oklahoma cave, was authentic. It was. She made 20 trips to this cave area and southeastern Colorado to record more evidence that Egyptians and Libyans from North Africa, and Iberians and Celts from Europe had been here, leaving their messages in stone. Among the petroglyphs are included 34 images of their ships, many effigies of the pagan gods they worshipped, and labeled horses, which they brought along in prehistoric centuries. Some artifacts have been found including 7 bronze coins from ancient Carthage in North Africa. One of these was found buried 5 feet deep.
All of these evidences are included in her book, "In Plain Sight: Old World Records in Ancient America". This hardback is 491 pages long including 338 pieces of evidence of visitations, and 540 illustrations: photographs and scale drawings. Each of the 18 chapters is followed by complete references, a total of 893. Although strictly a non-fiction work, the book also contains stories of adventure and humor, and even cartoons. It was not written as a text, but is currently used as a textbook in Heavener High School and Bentley College, Massachusetts.
The book may be ordered from I.S.A.C. Press, P.O. Box 1658, Columbus, GA, 31902, or directly from the author at P.O. Box 717, Heavener, OK 74937. Both addresses are in the U.S.A. The price per copy is $42.50 postpaid.
Since becoming a widow in 1983, Gloria has continued her research and is writing a second book, which she says is, "more of the same".
Written by Gloria Farley