All that can be seen in the very centre of Ellipse Park is the top of this small stone. Those who have occasionally looked for it have reported that it took a very long time to find below the turf. We have to ask ourselves these questions: Why was this particular spot chosen to be the very center of the District of Columbia and why was this area chosen to be an open park, without any structure placed upon it?
Even more to the point, why does this insignificant stone mark the most prominant node of all the Megalithic measures that exist in Washington DC? We might further ask: why did someone create the huge and elaborate arrow that points to this small stone block in the middle of a grassed ellipse?
For centuries people, including the always entertaining Dan Brown, have been looking for something 'special', in Washington DC - some repository or chamber? Why should there even be one? It's as if it is common knowledge that such a thing was once created, but nobody knows where it actually is. Even Dan Brown reached the conclusion that this sacred site turns out to actually exist in the hearts and minds of the Freemasons who created Washington DC and indeed the United States itself. In other words it was never created in stone. But is this a cop-out because neither Brown nor just about anyone else knows where this 'chamber' or 'repository' might actually be?
There is good reason to believe this is, in fact, the case.
The Hidden Chamber of Freemasonry
This woodcut, used by Scottish Rite Freemasonry, shows Masons uncovering a subterranean chamber, generally said to be one located beneath the ruins of the Temple in Jerusalem.
The concept of buried chambers of one sort or another lies at the very heart of Freemasonic teaching and practice. This is often said to relate to an incident in the 12th centrury, when the first men of that organisation known as the Knights Templar, dug below the Temple Mound in Jerusalem, and recovered 'something' that has been an issue to the mythology of the Templars and to large elements of Freemasonry for centuries. We might refer readers to the book Chris wrote with Robert Lomas 'The Hiram Key', which deals with this issue in detail.
Many Freemasonic lodges across the world do have recreations of such a chamber, which are used for specific rituals within the Craft. It is entirely likely, in fact virtually certain, that such a chamber was placed at the very centre of Washington DC, at the heart of what is now Ellipse Park. And if this sounds unlikely, there is very sound evidence that the notion is not at all far-fetched.
At the Centre of the Ellipse
Just after the American Civil War, during the Presidency of Andrew Johnson, who became President after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, army engineers were set to work sorting out some of Washington DC's central areas. The work was supervised by Lieutenant Colonal Thomas Lincoln Casey. Amongst the jobs he had to do was to grade and lay out Ellipse Park.
In his 1878 report Casey noted that grading the land for the Ellipse was well underway but he also reported that he had not addressed the centre of the Ellipse because that was under the authority of 'the District Commissioners'. Casey suggested that sewage work was being undertaken at the centre of the Ellipse, and that this did not fall within his personal remit.
We have to ask ourselves whether this 'sewage work' was anything of the sort? We don't know what was being done, or how long it took but we are aware that whatever was happening was taking place at the 'center' of the Ellipse and that it was happening during the Presidency of Andrew Johnson, who was a known 33 degree Scottish Rite Freemason.
Apart from the fact that this appears to be a strange place to do anything with sewers at that period, it seems far more likely to us that the work at the center of the Ellipse was the excavation and creation of a chamber. When the work was finished the structure was covered over and the land graded above it. The only reminder that it is even there is that small, almost insignificant stone - which incidentally should not be there either. The original Meridian stone was located further south and was known as the 'Jefferson Pier'.
However, the location is marked by a huge and elaborate arrow, for those who know what they are looking for.
If the date is to be believed, the Ellipse centre stone was put in place in 1890. But if it is truly a stone meant to mark the line of the once-proposed Washington DC Prime Meridian, why is it so inconspicuous? In any case, by 1890 the US Prime Meridian was an obsolete fancy from a bygone age. It was never adopted.
What Does the Secret Chamber Contain?
This amazing spot, right in the President's back garden, remains completely unknown, even to most people who live in Washington DC. Of course they know about Ellipse Park, because many celebrations take place there, but they have no idea about what might be right under their feet.
In our book 'Before the Pyramids' we have speculated about what the secret chamber might contain, possibly treasures from below the Temple Mound in Jerusalem that then spent some centuries in Scotland beneath the mysterious Rosslyn Chapel. But we made it plain in our book that we are guessing. We have little more idea than anyone else what amazing revelations may lay just a few feet below the ground in one of the busiest and most well known spots in the world.
Part of the reason for this website is to get the informed ideas of other people as to the chamber's existence and possible contents. But our own story does have one more truly outrageous sting in its tail that we deliberately did not mention in 'Before the Pyramids.'