Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of curiosities. What a year this week
Speaker 1: has been? Is a popular saying these days. The speed
Speaker 1: at which news and information happens tends to skew our
Speaker 1: perception of time. Yet, no matter how much occurs, the
Speaker 1: passage of time doesn't really change. It doesn't move faster
Speaker 1: simply because more is happening. But Harrobert Illig didn't agree.
Speaker 1: He didn't think that time moved differently. He thought that
Speaker 1: it had been changed on purpose. Illig was born in
Speaker 1: Bavaria in and followed the teachings of Emmanuel Velakovski. Velakovski
Speaker 1: believe of that the Earth had been shaped by short,
Speaker 1: but violent worldwide phenomena in a philosophy known as catastrophism.
Speaker 1: Ilig and Velokovsky didn't describe to gradualism, the idea that small,
Speaker 1: incremental changes created the world's geography. As he became more
Speaker 1: active in the revisionist historical community, Ilig began publishing his
Speaker 1: own theories about time. First and foremost, he believed the
Speaker 1: Middle Ages never happened, despite the existence of numerous texts
Speaker 1: and other artifacts from the period. The years six fourteen
Speaker 1: to nine eleven a d never occurred. But if they didn't,
Speaker 1: then where did they go? The answer is what Illig
Speaker 1: referred to as the phantom time hypothesis, and according to him,
Speaker 1: it's all because three world leaders conspired to dupe the public.
Speaker 1: Holy Roman Emperor Otto the Third didn't like the idea
Speaker 1: of his reign beginning in or as all thought at
Speaker 1: the time, the year seven oh three. Instead, he joined
Speaker 1: forces with Pope Sylvester the Second and Byzantine Emperor Constantine
Speaker 1: the seventh to reshape the calendar so it looked like
Speaker 1: they all ruled during that nice round number of one
Speaker 1: thousand a d. To accomplish their task, Ilid claimed that
Speaker 1: these three monarchs changed specific documents and even forged a
Speaker 1: few of their own, conjuring up fake historical events to
Speaker 1: reinforce the lie. One such fabrication was the Emperor Charlemagne,
Speaker 1: whose policies had been cited as the blueprints for much
Speaker 1: of Europe. In their version, he wasn't a real person,
Speaker 1: but a legendary figure, practically a myth like King Arthur.
Speaker 1: As a result of their scheme, the historical record gained
Speaker 1: an extra two nineties seven years, making the current year
Speaker 1: roughly seventeen twenty two. He reasoned that a lack of
Speaker 1: earth shattering events during that time meant those years could
Speaker 1: easily have been fudged by anyone with enough power and
Speaker 1: authority to do so. I mean, they're called the Dark
Speaker 1: Ages for a reason, right, and Ilig believed that they
Speaker 1: were so dark they didn't even happen. But he didn't
Speaker 1: stop there. He also noted that Romanesque architecture, a style
Speaker 1: that came into prominence in Medieval Europe, appeared in Western
Speaker 1: Europe in the tenth century, long after it was believed
Speaker 1: the style had fallen out of favor. Finally, and perhaps
Speaker 1: most importantly, the calendar itself had been modified to cover
Speaker 1: up the gap. Pope Gregory discovered in fifteen eighty two
Speaker 1: that the Julian calendar, which had been the dominant calendar
Speaker 1: since forty five b C, was roughly eleven minutes too
Speaker 1: long each year. The discrepancy amounted to an additional thirteen
Speaker 1: days between the Roman era and fifteen eighty two. To
Speaker 1: close the gap, Pope Gregory unveiled the Gregorian calendar, which
Speaker 1: we still used to this day, except he didn't shorten
Speaker 1: the amount of time by thirteen days like he should have.
Speaker 1: He only skipped ten days, which accounted for the time
Speaker 1: from forty five b c Up until twelve eighty two,
Speaker 1: not fifteen eighty two, a three hundred year period of
Speaker 1: time that went missing. It hasn't helped that modern historians
Speaker 1: have discovered documents that were urged by the Roman Catholic
Speaker 1: Church to appear as though they were written hundreds of
Speaker 1: years before they actually were. The faked records were such
Speaker 1: a huge problem in the nineteen eighties a worldwide conference
Speaker 1: was held to address them, and all of this has
Speaker 1: helped fuel iligs fire since he first put forth his
Speaker 1: phantom time hypothesis in nineteen eighties six. Since then, it's
Speaker 1: gained a small but devoted following who also believe in
Speaker 1: its validity, even given the evidence or lack thereof supporting it,
Speaker 1: although most historians and archaeologists don't really pay illigs theory
Speaker 1: much heed. After all, for every claim he makes, there's
Speaker 1: a reasonable explanation to refute it. For example, if Charlemagne
Speaker 1: were just a legend, then the monarchs who invented him
Speaker 1: would also have had to invent the history of Anglo Saxon, England,
Speaker 1: the Byzantine Empire, and the Islamic expansion throughout the former
Speaker 1: Roman Empire, a daunting feat even for three world leaders. Unbelievable, sure,
Speaker 1: but also more than a little curious. X marks the
Speaker 1: spot for words that conjure images of pirates and dotted
Speaker 1: lines painted on flimsy fabric. Just follow those lines until
Speaker 1: you reach a point in the sand and start digging,
Speaker 1: because somewhere out there is a treasure chest overflowing with
Speaker 1: gold and jewels, just waiting to be discovered. But as
Speaker 1: books and movies have taught us, X never really marks
Speaker 1: the spot. There's always a conspiracy, a set of clues
Speaker 1: one must follow in order to find the real treasure
Speaker 1: that isn't so much buried as it is hidden thanks
Speaker 1: to time and obscurity. Thomas Beale captivated the world with
Speaker 1: a story of Buried Treasure in he had led thirty
Speaker 1: explorers from Virginia on a trek to a Spanish province
Speaker 1: just north of New Mexico. Today we know it is Colorado,
Speaker 1: but back then it was a vast tract of land
Speaker 1: with a hidden secret. While hunting for buffalo, the men
Speaker 1: came across a mine teeming with precious metals. Their journey
Speaker 1: of exploration quickly turned into an eighteen month mining operation.
Speaker 1: By the time they'd finished, they'd hauled thousands of pounds
Speaker 1: of gold and silver out of the mine. After that,
Speaker 1: bal just needed to take it back to Virginia to
Speaker 1: bury it in a safe place, and he did just that,
Speaker 1: making several trips back and forth across the country until
Speaker 1: all the gold and silver was secured, all forty three
Speaker 1: million dollars worth of it by today's estimates. Beale kept
Speaker 1: meticulous records of his party's hall. However, he needed to
Speaker 1: make sure the information about the treasure couldn't fall into
Speaker 1: the wrong hands. In eighteen twenty two, he wrote down
Speaker 1: three separate pieces of information the location of the treasure,
Speaker 1: a description of what he buried, and the names of
Speaker 1: the people who had helped him find it, as well
Speaker 1: as their next of kin. He placed the information in
Speaker 1: a metal box and handed it off to an innkeeper
Speaker 1: in Lynchburg, Virginia named Robert Morris, a man he trusted
Speaker 1: to keep it safe in the event Beal or one
Speaker 1: of his men failed to come back for the box.
Speaker 1: Within the next ten years, Morris would be allowed to
Speaker 1: open it and claim the treasure for himself. Well twenty
Speaker 1: three years passed and no one from the original mining
Speaker 1: crew Beale included ever showed up to collect the box.
Speaker 1: Morris opened it up and found three sheets of paper
Speaker 1: with the information about the treasure, except for one thing.
Speaker 1: He couldn't read any of it. Beale had encrypted everything
Speaker 1: in a cipher text, a method of concealing information using
Speaker 1: an algorithm called a cipher. The location, description and list
Speaker 1: of contacts had all been obscured using three different ciphers,
Speaker 1: and Beale had not provided a key. He'd meant to,
Speaker 1: of course, months after he deposited the box with Morris,
Speaker 1: he sent him a letter from St. Louis with word
Speaker 1: that a friend would be mailing the key soon, but
Speaker 1: it never arrived. Morris wasn't a codebreaker, so he held
Speaker 1: onto the box for a while before eventually giving it
Speaker 1: to a friend. A friend fancied himself, a cryptographer of sorts,
Speaker 1: managed to decode the second ciphertext, the description of the treasure,
Speaker 1: using the Declaration of Independence as the key. The two
Speaker 1: remaining texts proved more difficult to solve. Rather than ask
Speaker 1: someone else for help, he decided to crowdsource the efforts.
Speaker 1: He published the other ciphertext in a widely distributed pamphlet
Speaker 1: called the Bell Papers. The Bell Papers have become a
Speaker 1: code breaking right of passage, mainly because the two unsolved
Speaker 1: text remain unbroken to this day. Some people have claimed
Speaker 1: them to be hoaxes meant to keep people guessing. That
Speaker 1: the second text was so easily decoded is seen as
Speaker 1: incentive to keep working on the first and the third,
Speaker 1: But no expert nor any supercomputer has been able to
Speaker 1: decrypt either message. They've used all manner of possible keys,
Speaker 1: such as the Bible and the Constitution, but nothing has
Speaker 1: yielded such clear results as the Declaration of Independence did
Speaker 1: with the second text. The Bill Papers have been the
Speaker 1: subject of countless news stories, books and documentaries over the years,
Speaker 1: with each one proposing new theories as to whether the
Speaker 1: ciphers are real or all just one big prank meant
Speaker 1: to fool the public. But even with enough evidence, the
Speaker 1: possibility that it's fake cannot squash the one thing keeping
Speaker 1: the legend alive. Hope. If there is a chance that
Speaker 1: millions of dollars in treasure is sitting in a vault
Speaker 1: somewhere waiting to be discovered. People are going to keep
Speaker 1: looking until they find it. Of course, if the story
Speaker 1: is fake, it wouldn't be the first time an empty
Speaker 1: vault has made national news. Just ask Al Capone. I
Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Speaker 1: Yeah h