The text
The Catawba ledger was acquired in 1991 from a private collector in ███████, North Carolina. Its provenance is well-attested. The relevant entry, in the original Catawba syllabary, was translated by Dr. ██████████████ of the University of North Carolina and published (in part) in Ethnohistory in 1994.
The translation reads, in part:
“On the night of the █████, the sky opened above the river and a thing of polished metal descended, trailing a fire that did not burn. Four white men came in a boat from the north. They took the thing into their boat and spoke among themselves in a language the watchman did not know. They paid the watchman eleven dollars in silver, and a quantity of cloth, and instructed him to say nothing.”
Cross-references
The four men, per the entry, are not named. However, a separate entry six weeks later, in a different Catawba ledger held by the same collector, refers obliquely to “the white men of the tall house” and “the great bell that rings without sound.”
A grainy tintype, recovered from the same collection, shows four men in early-nineteenth-century dress standing on a riverboat at night. Three of the men are unidentified. The fourth is almost certainly Joseph Smith, based on dental records and a distinctive scar above the left eyebrow.
The committee has not, as of this writing, identified the object.