1
00:00:03,760 --> 00:00:07,840
Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history

2
00:00:08,039 --> 00:00:11,520
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right

3
00:00:11,520 --> 00:00:16,640
Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome

4
00:00:17,760 --> 00:00:29,200
Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of curiosities. What a year this week

5
00:00:29,240 --> 00:00:32,680
Speaker 1: has been? Is a popular saying these days. The speed

6
00:00:32,720 --> 00:00:35,640
Speaker 1: at which news and information happens tends to skew our

7
00:00:35,720 --> 00:00:38,960
Speaker 1: perception of time. Yet, no matter how much occurs, the

8
00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:42,200
Speaker 1: passage of time doesn't really change. It doesn't move faster

9
00:00:42,400 --> 00:00:46,920
Speaker 1: simply because more is happening. But Harrobert Illig didn't agree.

10
00:00:47,400 --> 00:00:50,280
Speaker 1: He didn't think that time moved differently. He thought that

11
00:00:50,320 --> 00:00:53,720
Speaker 1: it had been changed on purpose. Illig was born in

12
00:00:53,760 --> 00:00:59,680
Speaker 1: Bavaria in and followed the teachings of Emmanuel Velakovski. Velakovski

13
00:00:59,760 --> 00:01:01,680
Speaker 1: believe of that the Earth had been shaped by short,

14
00:01:01,760 --> 00:01:07,160
Speaker 1: but violent worldwide phenomena in a philosophy known as catastrophism.

15
00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:11,640
Speaker 1: Ilig and Velokovsky didn't describe to gradualism, the idea that small,

16
00:01:11,720 --> 00:01:15,640
Speaker 1: incremental changes created the world's geography. As he became more

17
00:01:15,680 --> 00:01:19,840
Speaker 1: active in the revisionist historical community, Ilig began publishing his

18
00:01:19,880 --> 00:01:24,560
Speaker 1: own theories about time. First and foremost, he believed the

19
00:01:24,560 --> 00:01:28,600
Speaker 1: Middle Ages never happened, despite the existence of numerous texts

20
00:01:28,600 --> 00:01:31,920
Speaker 1: and other artifacts from the period. The years six fourteen

21
00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:35,679
Speaker 1: to nine eleven a d never occurred. But if they didn't,

22
00:01:35,760 --> 00:01:39,080
Speaker 1: then where did they go? The answer is what Illig

23
00:01:39,080 --> 00:01:43,080
Speaker 1: referred to as the phantom time hypothesis, and according to him,

24
00:01:43,120 --> 00:01:46,400
Speaker 1: it's all because three world leaders conspired to dupe the public.

25
00:01:46,800 --> 00:01:50,240
Speaker 1: Holy Roman Emperor Otto the Third didn't like the idea

26
00:01:50,320 --> 00:01:54,360
Speaker 1: of his reign beginning in or as all thought at

27
00:01:54,360 --> 00:01:58,040
Speaker 1: the time, the year seven oh three. Instead, he joined

28
00:01:58,040 --> 00:02:02,200
Speaker 1: forces with Pope Sylvester the Second and Byzantine Emperor Constantine

29
00:02:02,240 --> 00:02:05,200
Speaker 1: the seventh to reshape the calendar so it looked like

30
00:02:05,240 --> 00:02:08,080
Speaker 1: they all ruled during that nice round number of one

31
00:02:08,120 --> 00:02:11,400
Speaker 1: thousand a d. To accomplish their task, Ilid claimed that

32
00:02:11,400 --> 00:02:15,000
Speaker 1: these three monarchs changed specific documents and even forged a

33
00:02:15,040 --> 00:02:18,320
Speaker 1: few of their own, conjuring up fake historical events to

34
00:02:18,360 --> 00:02:22,840
Speaker 1: reinforce the lie. One such fabrication was the Emperor Charlemagne,

35
00:02:22,880 --> 00:02:25,720
Speaker 1: whose policies had been cited as the blueprints for much

36
00:02:25,720 --> 00:02:29,000
Speaker 1: of Europe. In their version, he wasn't a real person,

37
00:02:29,320 --> 00:02:32,880
Speaker 1: but a legendary figure, practically a myth like King Arthur.

38
00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:36,880
Speaker 1: As a result of their scheme, the historical record gained

39
00:02:36,919 --> 00:02:40,480
Speaker 1: an extra two nineties seven years, making the current year

40
00:02:40,639 --> 00:02:44,160
Speaker 1: roughly seventeen twenty two. He reasoned that a lack of

41
00:02:44,200 --> 00:02:47,160
Speaker 1: earth shattering events during that time meant those years could

42
00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:50,000
Speaker 1: easily have been fudged by anyone with enough power and

43
00:02:50,040 --> 00:02:52,679
Speaker 1: authority to do so. I mean, they're called the Dark

44
00:02:52,720 --> 00:02:55,480
Speaker 1: Ages for a reason, right, and Ilig believed that they

45
00:02:55,480 --> 00:02:59,160
Speaker 1: were so dark they didn't even happen. But he didn't

46
00:02:59,160 --> 00:03:03,000
Speaker 1: stop there. He also noted that Romanesque architecture, a style

47
00:03:03,040 --> 00:03:06,560
Speaker 1: that came into prominence in Medieval Europe, appeared in Western

48
00:03:06,600 --> 00:03:09,519
Speaker 1: Europe in the tenth century, long after it was believed

49
00:03:09,520 --> 00:03:13,359
Speaker 1: the style had fallen out of favor. Finally, and perhaps

50
00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:16,760
Speaker 1: most importantly, the calendar itself had been modified to cover

51
00:03:16,880 --> 00:03:20,160
Speaker 1: up the gap. Pope Gregory discovered in fifteen eighty two

52
00:03:20,160 --> 00:03:23,079
Speaker 1: that the Julian calendar, which had been the dominant calendar

53
00:03:23,160 --> 00:03:26,359
Speaker 1: since forty five b C, was roughly eleven minutes too

54
00:03:26,400 --> 00:03:30,200
Speaker 1: long each year. The discrepancy amounted to an additional thirteen

55
00:03:30,280 --> 00:03:34,920
Speaker 1: days between the Roman era and fifteen eighty two. To

56
00:03:34,960 --> 00:03:38,440
Speaker 1: close the gap, Pope Gregory unveiled the Gregorian calendar, which

57
00:03:38,480 --> 00:03:41,360
Speaker 1: we still used to this day, except he didn't shorten

58
00:03:41,400 --> 00:03:43,880
Speaker 1: the amount of time by thirteen days like he should have.

59
00:03:44,200 --> 00:03:46,920
Speaker 1: He only skipped ten days, which accounted for the time

60
00:03:46,960 --> 00:03:50,120
Speaker 1: from forty five b c Up until twelve eighty two,

61
00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:53,800
Speaker 1: not fifteen eighty two, a three hundred year period of

62
00:03:53,840 --> 00:03:58,280
Speaker 1: time that went missing. It hasn't helped that modern historians

63
00:03:58,280 --> 00:04:01,200
Speaker 1: have discovered documents that were urged by the Roman Catholic

64
00:04:01,280 --> 00:04:03,440
Speaker 1: Church to appear as though they were written hundreds of

65
00:04:03,520 --> 00:04:06,600
Speaker 1: years before they actually were. The faked records were such

66
00:04:06,600 --> 00:04:09,600
Speaker 1: a huge problem in the nineteen eighties a worldwide conference

67
00:04:09,680 --> 00:04:12,000
Speaker 1: was held to address them, and all of this has

68
00:04:12,040 --> 00:04:14,760
Speaker 1: helped fuel iligs fire since he first put forth his

69
00:04:14,840 --> 00:04:18,840
Speaker 1: phantom time hypothesis in nineteen eighties six. Since then, it's

70
00:04:18,960 --> 00:04:22,159
Speaker 1: gained a small but devoted following who also believe in

71
00:04:22,160 --> 00:04:26,440
Speaker 1: its validity, even given the evidence or lack thereof supporting it,

72
00:04:26,960 --> 00:04:30,720
Speaker 1: although most historians and archaeologists don't really pay illigs theory

73
00:04:30,839 --> 00:04:34,239
Speaker 1: much heed. After all, for every claim he makes, there's

74
00:04:34,320 --> 00:04:38,920
Speaker 1: a reasonable explanation to refute it. For example, if Charlemagne

75
00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:41,760
Speaker 1: were just a legend, then the monarchs who invented him

76
00:04:41,800 --> 00:04:45,080
Speaker 1: would also have had to invent the history of Anglo Saxon, England,

77
00:04:45,320 --> 00:04:49,039
Speaker 1: the Byzantine Empire, and the Islamic expansion throughout the former

78
00:04:49,160 --> 00:04:56,080
Speaker 1: Roman Empire, a daunting feat even for three world leaders. Unbelievable, sure,

79
00:04:56,720 --> 00:05:12,440
Speaker 1: but also more than a little curious. X marks the

80
00:05:12,440 --> 00:05:16,159
Speaker 1: spot for words that conjure images of pirates and dotted

81
00:05:16,240 --> 00:05:19,920
Speaker 1: lines painted on flimsy fabric. Just follow those lines until

82
00:05:19,960 --> 00:05:22,480
Speaker 1: you reach a point in the sand and start digging,

83
00:05:22,640 --> 00:05:25,760
Speaker 1: because somewhere out there is a treasure chest overflowing with

84
00:05:25,839 --> 00:05:30,040
Speaker 1: gold and jewels, just waiting to be discovered. But as

85
00:05:30,040 --> 00:05:33,000
Speaker 1: books and movies have taught us, X never really marks

86
00:05:33,040 --> 00:05:36,480
Speaker 1: the spot. There's always a conspiracy, a set of clues

87
00:05:36,560 --> 00:05:38,960
Speaker 1: one must follow in order to find the real treasure

88
00:05:39,040 --> 00:05:42,040
Speaker 1: that isn't so much buried as it is hidden thanks

89
00:05:42,040 --> 00:05:46,960
Speaker 1: to time and obscurity. Thomas Beale captivated the world with

90
00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:50,839
Speaker 1: a story of Buried Treasure in he had led thirty

91
00:05:50,880 --> 00:05:54,160
Speaker 1: explorers from Virginia on a trek to a Spanish province

92
00:05:54,240 --> 00:05:57,680
Speaker 1: just north of New Mexico. Today we know it is Colorado,

93
00:05:57,920 --> 00:05:59,920
Speaker 1: but back then it was a vast tract of land

94
00:06:00,120 --> 00:06:04,360
Speaker 1: with a hidden secret. While hunting for buffalo, the men

95
00:06:04,400 --> 00:06:07,920
Speaker 1: came across a mine teeming with precious metals. Their journey

96
00:06:07,920 --> 00:06:11,400
Speaker 1: of exploration quickly turned into an eighteen month mining operation.

97
00:06:11,560 --> 00:06:14,080
Speaker 1: By the time they'd finished, they'd hauled thousands of pounds

98
00:06:14,080 --> 00:06:16,840
Speaker 1: of gold and silver out of the mine. After that,

99
00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:19,359
Speaker 1: bal just needed to take it back to Virginia to

100
00:06:19,440 --> 00:06:22,719
Speaker 1: bury it in a safe place, and he did just that,

101
00:06:23,160 --> 00:06:26,120
Speaker 1: making several trips back and forth across the country until

102
00:06:26,160 --> 00:06:29,440
Speaker 1: all the gold and silver was secured, all forty three

103
00:06:29,480 --> 00:06:33,280
Speaker 1: million dollars worth of it by today's estimates. Beale kept

104
00:06:33,360 --> 00:06:36,680
Speaker 1: meticulous records of his party's hall. However, he needed to

105
00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:39,680
Speaker 1: make sure the information about the treasure couldn't fall into

106
00:06:39,680 --> 00:06:43,480
Speaker 1: the wrong hands. In eighteen twenty two, he wrote down

107
00:06:43,480 --> 00:06:46,839
Speaker 1: three separate pieces of information the location of the treasure,

108
00:06:47,040 --> 00:06:49,599
Speaker 1: a description of what he buried, and the names of

109
00:06:49,600 --> 00:06:51,680
Speaker 1: the people who had helped him find it, as well

110
00:06:51,720 --> 00:06:54,560
Speaker 1: as their next of kin. He placed the information in

111
00:06:54,560 --> 00:06:57,000
Speaker 1: a metal box and handed it off to an innkeeper

112
00:06:57,040 --> 00:07:00,520
Speaker 1: in Lynchburg, Virginia named Robert Morris, a man he trusted

113
00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:03,760
Speaker 1: to keep it safe in the event Beal or one

114
00:07:03,760 --> 00:07:05,520
Speaker 1: of his men failed to come back for the box.

115
00:07:05,560 --> 00:07:08,000
Speaker 1: Within the next ten years, Morris would be allowed to

116
00:07:08,040 --> 00:07:12,760
Speaker 1: open it and claim the treasure for himself. Well twenty

117
00:07:12,800 --> 00:07:15,400
Speaker 1: three years passed and no one from the original mining

118
00:07:15,440 --> 00:07:18,680
Speaker 1: crew Beale included ever showed up to collect the box.

119
00:07:19,240 --> 00:07:21,920
Speaker 1: Morris opened it up and found three sheets of paper

120
00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:25,120
Speaker 1: with the information about the treasure, except for one thing.

121
00:07:25,800 --> 00:07:30,080
Speaker 1: He couldn't read any of it. Beale had encrypted everything

122
00:07:30,120 --> 00:07:33,400
Speaker 1: in a cipher text, a method of concealing information using

123
00:07:33,440 --> 00:07:37,960
Speaker 1: an algorithm called a cipher. The location, description and list

124
00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:41,520
Speaker 1: of contacts had all been obscured using three different ciphers,

125
00:07:41,560 --> 00:07:45,480
Speaker 1: and Beale had not provided a key. He'd meant to,

126
00:07:45,640 --> 00:07:48,680
Speaker 1: of course, months after he deposited the box with Morris,

127
00:07:48,720 --> 00:07:50,760
Speaker 1: he sent him a letter from St. Louis with word

128
00:07:50,800 --> 00:07:53,280
Speaker 1: that a friend would be mailing the key soon, but

129
00:07:53,360 --> 00:07:56,880
Speaker 1: it never arrived. Morris wasn't a codebreaker, so he held

130
00:07:56,920 --> 00:07:59,360
Speaker 1: onto the box for a while before eventually giving it

131
00:07:59,400 --> 00:08:03,760
Speaker 1: to a friend. A friend fancied himself, a cryptographer of sorts,

132
00:08:04,120 --> 00:08:07,920
Speaker 1: managed to decode the second ciphertext, the description of the treasure,

133
00:08:08,240 --> 00:08:11,640
Speaker 1: using the Declaration of Independence as the key. The two

134
00:08:11,680 --> 00:08:15,160
Speaker 1: remaining texts proved more difficult to solve. Rather than ask

135
00:08:15,240 --> 00:08:18,080
Speaker 1: someone else for help, he decided to crowdsource the efforts.

136
00:08:18,400 --> 00:08:21,880
Speaker 1: He published the other ciphertext in a widely distributed pamphlet

137
00:08:21,960 --> 00:08:25,720
Speaker 1: called the Bell Papers. The Bell Papers have become a

138
00:08:25,760 --> 00:08:29,120
Speaker 1: code breaking right of passage, mainly because the two unsolved

139
00:08:29,120 --> 00:08:32,559
Speaker 1: text remain unbroken to this day. Some people have claimed

140
00:08:32,600 --> 00:08:35,440
Speaker 1: them to be hoaxes meant to keep people guessing. That

141
00:08:35,559 --> 00:08:38,920
Speaker 1: the second text was so easily decoded is seen as

142
00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:41,480
Speaker 1: incentive to keep working on the first and the third,

143
00:08:42,320 --> 00:08:46,240
Speaker 1: But no expert nor any supercomputer has been able to

144
00:08:46,320 --> 00:08:50,079
Speaker 1: decrypt either message. They've used all manner of possible keys,

145
00:08:50,080 --> 00:08:53,199
Speaker 1: such as the Bible and the Constitution, but nothing has

146
00:08:53,280 --> 00:08:56,680
Speaker 1: yielded such clear results as the Declaration of Independence did

147
00:08:56,720 --> 00:09:00,760
Speaker 1: with the second text. The Bill Papers have been the

148
00:09:00,800 --> 00:09:04,640
Speaker 1: subject of countless news stories, books and documentaries over the years,

149
00:09:04,840 --> 00:09:07,720
Speaker 1: with each one proposing new theories as to whether the

150
00:09:07,760 --> 00:09:10,960
Speaker 1: ciphers are real or all just one big prank meant

151
00:09:10,960 --> 00:09:14,120
Speaker 1: to fool the public. But even with enough evidence, the

152
00:09:14,160 --> 00:09:17,720
Speaker 1: possibility that it's fake cannot squash the one thing keeping

153
00:09:17,760 --> 00:09:21,480
Speaker 1: the legend alive. Hope. If there is a chance that

154
00:09:21,520 --> 00:09:24,079
Speaker 1: millions of dollars in treasure is sitting in a vault

155
00:09:24,160 --> 00:09:27,400
Speaker 1: somewhere waiting to be discovered. People are going to keep

156
00:09:27,440 --> 00:09:30,880
Speaker 1: looking until they find it. Of course, if the story

157
00:09:31,080 --> 00:09:33,720
Speaker 1: is fake, it wouldn't be the first time an empty

158
00:09:33,800 --> 00:09:41,280
Speaker 1: vault has made national news. Just ask Al Capone. I

159
00:09:41,320 --> 00:09:44,840
Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.

160
00:09:45,160 --> 00:09:48,280
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about

161
00:09:48,280 --> 00:09:52,839
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show

162
00:09:53,040 --> 00:09:56,360
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how

163
00:09:56,400 --> 00:09:59,920
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,

164
00:10:00,240 --> 00:10:03,840
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and

165
00:10:03,880 --> 00:10:06,120
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World

166
00:10:06,120 --> 00:10:10,520
Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.

167
00:10:11,320 --> 00:10:13,839
Speaker 1: Yeah h