Q: Where is the device now?
A: We don't know. We have three working hypotheses, all consistent with the evidence.
The committee maintains three working hypotheses for the current location of the device (or devices). All three are consistent with the documentary record. None is provable.
Hypothesis A: The Salt Lake Valley sub-basement
The anonymous archivist’s account (see Personnel File 004) describes a sealed seventh room behind a steel door in the basement of a Church History Department building whose true footprint is not on public record. This hypothesis treats the seventh room as the current location.
Hypothesis B: Deep storage in the Wasatch
The 1857 Mountain Meadows incident (see Timeline Entry 006) is consistent with the device having been moved underground at some point in the late nineteenth century, into a mine or natural cavern in the Wasatch Range. The 1886 Saltair fire (see Timeline Entry 007) may have been an uncontrolled test of the device, conducted after it had been moved.
Hypothesis C: Removed from Church custody in the 20th century
The committee has documented two separate instances of material being removed from Church custody under cover of routine administrative transfers — once in 1947, once in 1968. We cannot rule out the possibility that the device was removed in one of these transfers and is now held by a third party entirely.
The committee does not currently endorse any of the three hypotheses over the others. We list them in the order in which they are consistent with the chronological weight of the documentary evidence.