Desert Ships

I watched a TV program last night titled America Unearthed, a program that features a forensic geologist named Scott Wolter. The series debuted in 2012, was canceled in 2015, rightfully so it seems, and now has been resurrected. 
     In the series Wolter investigates mysteries and artifacts he believes reveal an alternative history of the North American continent. Wolter (rightfully) believes that some of the history we’ve been taught is wrong and he is looking for hidden truths that some people have gone to great lengths to cover up. 
     If you believe in symbols and societies, hoaxes, cover ups, coincidences, fabrications and legends it’s a pretty good show. If you are not a believer, the program itself appears to be all of those things. 
     The program I saw was Vikings in the Desert. Wolter got a call about Viking artifacts found in the Arizona desert and rushed out there from his home in Minnesota. Some expert, a lady in England, identified the evidence, Scandinavian brooches and the like, as genuine. How they got there in the desert...well, it needed to be investigated so Wolter headed out there. 
     If I remember the story correctly, some guy heard of another guy who had a recording on an old reel-to-reel tape recorder that was made by a guy who had since died. The recording was top secret, but the guy (which “guy” I can’t remember...too many guys) had extreme special permission for Wolter to listen to it on a borrowed tape recorder. 
     The recording described the skeleton of a ship that was about 200 feet from a house in the desert that was once prehistoric Lake Cahuilla near the modern day Salton Sea. They didn’t play it, but Newsweek had an article in which the guy on the recording talked about a chest of treasure that was supposedly found in the ship. Also, in the past the History Channel did a ground penetrating radar survey of the same area before Wolter made his discovery. And another company had previously used LIDAR to look at the same area. No mention of that either. 
     Anyway, Wolter got some geophysics professional to come out with his equipment and they got all giddy when they discovered the remains of a ship. Ooops! Turns out it was piece of rebar a few inches under ground that was under some power lines. Apparently the rebar “attenuated” with the power lines. 
     From there he went to Mexico to examine a petroglyph that possibly depicted Viking travelers. I dozed off and am not sure of the outcome. 
     It wasn't surprising to find out there have been other rumors of Viking ships in the desert in the SW, but they are all, like Wolter’s, unconfirmed. It's all sort of like buried loot from robbers like Jesse James and Butch Cassidy or lost Nazi gold, etc.
     The problem with this type of “scientific investigation” is that it starts with a conclusion (the Vikings traveled to Arizona because of Scandinavian over population) then looks for data to confirm that conclusion. In the end nothing was proven. It’s disappointing that both the History channel and the Travel channel air such crap as science.