My Michigan Relics Story – Part 2

Last updated on: October 2, 2026 at 2:32 pm by Alexander Koritz

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My Michigan Relics Story – Part 2 2026-10-02T14:32:50-06:00 Alexander Koritz

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Two Visits to Michigan

In 2015, I went to the Michigan History Museum with documentary filmmaker Ryan Fisher. The staff welcomed us and let us view and photograph the artifacts. The archaeologists I met were professional and generous with their time, even though they clearly didn’t buy the relics as authentic.

Their courtesy didn’t touch the deeper frustration underneath. For me, these objects held the possibility of forgotten connections across history. For the museum, they were leftovers from a famous hoax—interesting mainly for what they revealed about nineteenth-century gullibility.

Standing there, I felt the weight of everything behind me: my grandfather’s trust in the LDS Church, the terms of that transfer, the hope that honest study might one day vindicate him. I’d grown up believing the Church would deal fairly, that truth wins out if you approach it in good faith. Instead, it looked like convenience had won. The collection had been placed out of reach of anyone still willing to take its claims seriously.

Almost a decade later, I went back. This time I brought Scott Wolter, a forensic geologist well-known for his work on the History Channel’s American Unearthed, and Steven Pynakker, host of the Mormon Book Reviews podcast. Scott’s wife, Janet Wolter, an excellent researcher and writer in her own right, joined us as well. Scott runs a forensic geology firm and has worked major investigations, including material connected to the Pentagon after September 11. Trusted by governments and major corporations, the man doesn’t wander into a museum with a hunch—he shows up ready to examine evidence.

Wolter came away believing many of the original Michigan Relics were authentic. His reasoning has been laid out elsewhere, but in a social media post he stated, “Finally had a chance to examine the Michigan Tablets at the University of Michigan in Lansing, who refused to allow me to look at them when filming American Unearthed 13 years ago. The arguments against their authenticity by scholars are lame at best. I saw a lot of good things.”

Wolter’s conclusion added another voice to a debate that institutional archaeology has treated as settled for too long. For me, it was something like vindication—not final proof, but one more reason to think my grandfather’s judgment shouldn’t have been dismissed so easily.

A Mystery Worth Protecting

The Michigan Relics still sit at the crossroads of faith, history, and controversy. They might be genuine artifacts that upend what we think we know about ancient America. They might be clever fakes from an era hungry for archaeological wonders. The truth might be somewhere in between—real original pieces potentially mixed in with later fakes, replicas, and imitations.

My grandfather believed they deserved more than a dismissal, and I’ve come around to his way of thinking. His interest didn’t come from ignorance. It came from a lifetime studying history, religion, and the civilizations of the Americas. A Ph.D. from Berkeley probably helped, too. He understood something a lot of people forget: accepted history is never the whole story, and evidence that threatens the prevailing narrative usually gets resisted before anyone actually looks at it.

Scott Wolter’s assessment doesn’t settle the debate. But it proves these artifacts can still raise serious questions when someone’s willing to look at them head-on. The museum’s hostility doesn’t answer those questions. Neither does a label on a display case.

These relics deserve real testing, honest documentation, and a look from experts on more than one side of the argument. If they’re fake, rigorous investigation should be able to prove it. And if the originals are real—as Wolter, I, and a number of other researchers believe—the implications are enormous.

Sometimes the real story isn’t just about the objects. It’s about what institutions do when they run into a mystery that challenges a history they consider settled. My grandfather believed the Michigan Relics were a mystery worth protecting.

I still believe that too.

*Read part one of my Michigan Relics story here.

General Christian

Michigan Relics

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