This is the author note, which is published at the end of the book. It’s my chance to pull back the curtain a little and tell you what parts of the story are true, and where I’ve taken dramatic liberties. As a world traveller, I love bringing real places, cultures and history into my stories, and I feel it would be a mistake not to share the truth with you.

Be aware, there are spoilers here! I’d suggest you don’t read this until you’ve finished the book.

Order your copy of the book here.

Thank you for reading The Ark Files.

I hope you’ve enjoyed meeting Eden. I’ve loved writing her story. It’s been my privilege to entertain you for the last few hours. 

Now that we’ve reached the end of this part of the story, I have a confession to make to you. The story you’ve just read is based on true people and real events. 

Or at least, the person who came to me with the story, has some extremely compelling evidence to suggest that it is true. 

Let me digress for a moment. As a writer, stories come to me from all sorts of places and in all manner of ways. The story for my book Riga Rising came to me while I was reading about the history of Latvia, Istanbul Icarus came to me after a conversation with a man in a pub, and many others I uncovered while I was writing.  

But the story you’ve just finished came to me in a completely different form. One evening I was cycling home in the rain and my phone rang. I pulled over beneath a tree and answered. It was a friend I’ve known for several years, but who shall remain anonymous here. I was surprised by the call as we’ve spoken many times over that period, but never really in depth. 

“I’ve just had a thought. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before,” he started, in an unusually excited tone. “I’ve got a story that needs telling. You’ll love it.” 

Over the next hour, and several subsequent meetups, he told me an amazing story of hidden manuscripts, secret societies, and millennia-old conspiracies.

Whilst Eden and her RV in the woods is a product of my imagination, almost everything else in this story is real. I have changed some names for readability, but some of them even remain the same.

The story started for my friend at the age of thirteen when he was given a manuscript to read. Titled Seola andpublished in 1878, the manuscript was a diary of a woman from before and during The Great Flood. It’s since been rewritten and published under the title The Diary of Aloma – yes, it’s a real book. I have a copy on my shelf!

After reading the manuscript my friend was asked a simple question—is it fact or fiction? He answered assuredly that it was fiction. It had to be, right? 

In research for this book, I read The Diary of Aloma, and would have thought the same if I didn’t know the background. 

It was only years later, when researching another subject, that he realized he had come across the same information before. That led him to revisit Seola. That’s when things slowly started to make sense. Looking back at Seola, he realized that it wasn’t quite as fictional as he’d first thought. I’m not going to be too specific here, as that’s to come in Eden’s next adventure. 

He’s since spent decades checking the etymology and researching the historical details in Seola. Strangely, Seola makes several claims that weren’t historically known when it was written in the 1870s, and one particular detail which wasn’t discovered until the 1990s.

There is also a big question mark over the author as well. The book is credited as being written by Ann Eliza Brainerd using the pen name Mrs. J G Smith. My friend has a very different theory for who the author of Seola might be, which I will get to in a minute.

In 1924, Seola was revised by Charles Taze Russell and published as Angels & Women. Then in 2001 it was revised for a third time by theologian and historian, Alexander Winslow—that’s right, he’s a real person. Now titled Diary of Aloma, Winslow spent over two decades revising Seola in collaboration with other historians, theologians, and translators. Alexander Winslow published books and articles for many years and died in 2021.

In the 1977 book, Secrets of the Lost Races, Rene Noorbergen suggests there is strong evidence Seola was translated from ancient documents. Such documents were discussed in letters regarding a manuscript called Amoela’s Diary, which was the focus of an Oriental Archaeological Research Expedition in 1950.

Whether the diary did, or does exist, though, that’s up to you to decide. What is undeniable however, is the fascinating work of the archaeologists who discovered thousands of tablets throughout the Middle East in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

These men and women are no strangers to thriller writers. Even the queen of mysteries, Agatha Christie, based a few of her novels on the exploits of these men. That’s no surprise when you consider that as well as being some of the most successful archaeologists of all time, they were also spying for the Crown in the Ottoman Empire.

Four of the most prominent archeologists of the period were: George Smith, Hormuzd Rassam, Sir Austen Henry Layard (Assyriologist) and Sir Henry Rawlinson, the “Father of Assyriology.”

Now we come to Seola’s original author. In 1876 George Smith died in Syria. One of the few people in the world at that time with the ability to translate cuneiform, this was a dire blow to the archaeological community. However, two years later, an anonymous manuscript was sent from America to Mrs. J G Smith—the supposed author of the original Seola. Furthermore, the manuscript was delivered to the home address of Hormuzd Rassam in England.

Is it impossible to suggest that George Smith escaped death in Syria and fled to the States, where he set about translating this life-changing manuscript? We know he had contacts there, namely another George, George Goodspeed. 

George Smith and George Goodspeed’s resumes are so similar I decided to merge these characters into the fictional George Godspeed in this story. George Smith, alongside Hormuzd Rassam are most noted for discovering and translating the Epic of Gilgamesh. Hormuzd Rassam (you may recognize him, although I tweaked his first name to Horsam in this book) is actually buried in Brighton. He died in 1910, as one of the leading archaeologists of his time.

British Museum curator, Wallis Budge accused Rassam of not declaring all the tablets that they had discovered. Deeply hurt, Rassam sued Budge in 1893 for libel and won. But the resulting publicity left Rassam’s reputation in tatters. Whether there are any secrets buried in or around Rassam’s tomb in Brighton, I don’t know. 

I did make the choice to present this book in the present day, which means we didn’t get to meet these characters in person. It also means we don’t get to walk with Aloma in the pre-diluvian era, but to see that you can find a copy of Aloma’s diary for yourself. I loved learning about these, as Eden does, I hope you did too.

So why is the diary so important?

Its existence means that there was a living witness on the ground who covered all the fine details of what went on during and after The Great Flood. Proof of this would mean that many ancient sites in the fertile crescent and Egypt would fall in an earlier epoch, which is something many geologists have been telling Egyptologists they have got wrong for a long time. This would just be the start of re-writing history. 

You’ll have to follow Eden on her future adventures to learn more as she uncovers the truth. 

As for the person who provided me the story, he prefers his anonymity. He’s working on something in the background, but until he gets the physical evidence that is just another theory.

Thank you again for joining me on this adventure!

Luke

September 2022