Lt. Col. William Robert Royal (March 16, 1905 – May 8, 1997)[2] was an American scuba diver in the United States Air Force and amateur archeologist.
He moved to Manatee County, Florida, during the Great Depression and operated a passenger airplane service in the Bahamas and Cuba in the late 1930s.
[2] He served in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II, during which he rode and killed sharks underwater in the Pacific Ocean.
[2] Over the course of his career as an underwater diver, Royal dived in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans and the Caribbean, Mediterranean and Black Seas.
Royal and the other divers expanded their investigation to Warm Mineral Springs, where they found sedimentary layers of animal and human bones and plant matter, including a three-foot-long burned log embedded in clay.
[9][4][5] The unfortunate result was that the finds at Warm Mineral Springs were widely believed to be a hoax due to the unlikely coincidence of the brain being found during the television filming, especially by an untrained archaeologist.
[2] In 1970 Royal moved back to Florida and began diving at Warm Mineral Springs seven days a week, searching for material that would convince scientists to investigate the site.
Royal recovered after recompression treatment at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but suffered dysbaric osteonecrosis as a result of the accident, necessitating the placement of a platinum cap on the ball of his right femur.
[15] Despite controversy in the archaeology community, in 1974 Royal was honored by Dick Stone, the Secretary of State of Florida, for his contributions to scientific knowledge.
[17][12][18] In later years Royal also investigated underwater midden deposits in the Gulf of Mexico west of Venice, Florida, and fossils and artifacts in Salt Creek, a drainage from Warm Mineral Springs to the Myakka River.