The Why Files: Operation Podcast - 565: COMPILATION: Biblical Mysteries from Eden to Armageddon

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

Many mysteries are hidden within the Bible's pages, from the controversial Chronovisor device allegedly used by the Vatican to view past events to the enduring search for Noah's Ark and its potential alien origins. This compilation reveals that the Knights Templar knew of these mysteries and spent centuries hunting ancient artifacts—and found them. We also examine the messages encoded within sacred texts and their potential to predict future events. This compilation connects biblical narratives with the Knights Templar with advanced civilizations like Atlantis. The stories you thought you knew may be more complex and fascinating than you ever imagined.

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Now, I'm not a religious person, though I have a lot of respect for religion. I enjoy the stories and the history, so you don't have to be a person of faith to enjoy this compilation. So our first word, you're late again. Verily I say unto the human, I beseech thy forgiveness for mine tardiness. Lo, I am now prepared to toil. Why are you talking like that? I'm talking like the Bible for the episode. I wish you wouldn't. Why are you late? I was waylaid by discord with Gertie, the fairest of camels, whose beauty is a snare and whose wrath is as sudden as the desert storm. Does that mean you got into a fight? Lo, tis true that I crowled with Gertie.

Let the blame is mine alone. For as I tarried with my companions, engaged in a game of poker and other contests, Gertie dispatched unto me a text message. What did she text you? She beseeched that, whilst on my homeward path, I visit the market for newly hewn grasses and hay. But alack, it escaped my remembrance, and verily her displeasure was great, and she was most grievously pissed.

Okay, I think we can stop with the Bible talk. Verily Gertie's fury hath ceased, and I stand ready. Let us commence our labors with great vigor and zeal. In other words, let's get this party started. What, you think the bit was a little too long, eh? Let's move on. Yeah, I could have trimmed the fat on that one, but I can't think when Gertie's barking in my ear.

First episode is number 84, The Bible Code. That's the theory that everything that ever happened is encoded in the Bible, including the birth, life, and death of everyone on Earth, including you. And I've always liked this story, and I think you will too. See you in a bit. In September 1994, Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel, received an ominous message. It was a warning that his life was in danger. The sender of the message said this information was secretly encoded in the Bible.

Rabin ignored the warning. A year later, the Prime Minister was assassinated. The code hidden within the Bible not only predicted Rabin's assassination, but also predicted the date and even the name of the killer. Secretly encoded in the Bible written thousands of years ago are predictions of every major world event, including terrifying events yet to come. Abrahamic religions are those that worship the God of Abraham. And these include Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

And this is more than half the world's population, over 4 billion people. And since the dawn of these religions, believers have tried to derive meaning from religious texts. Usually it's through deciphering symbolism and allegory. But computer scientists, statisticians, and mathematicians have found literal information encoded in the Old Testament. The Old Testament, written between 2,000 and 3,000 years ago, is based on the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible. And despite being one of the oldest texts in the world,

it's remained unchanged in all that time. When scribes made copies of the Old Testament, if they made even a single error, that entire text had to be buried. Why was accuracy so important? Most would say it's because this is the word of God, and to alter his word would be blasphemy. But there may be a more technical reason for maintaining accuracy, that God, or someone, encoded secrets within the texts. In the late 13th century, Rabbi Bahya ben Asher found a code hidden in the book of Genesis. He read four letters, skipped 42 letters, read another four

letters, and so on. And when his chosen letters were strung together, they created a new passage that described the creation of the moon. This phrase also said that the lunar month is precisely 29.53 days. Now that's a significant finding because the exact length of the lunar month wasn't calculated until 1996 by NASA. Rabbi Ben Asher's work was revisited in the 1940s by Rabbi H.M.D. Weissmandel. Weissmandel called this type of code an equidistant letter sequence or ELS, otherwise known as a skip code. How it works is, you take a letter or number of letters, then you skip a certain number of letters, then you take your same number of letters, skip the same number and repeat. Rabbi Ben Asher skipped

42 letters, but you could use any number. Then you link your letters together to form new words. In the 1940s, this was difficult to do manually, but later using computers, finding skip codes would become incredibly easy. Computer programs could also expand on the skip code technique using more complicated search parameters. Originally, letters found in skip codes would be strung together to form one long line of text, but computers allowed researchers to take these long strings and divide them into lines, and these lines could be 20 characters long or 50 or whatever you put into the program. Now, with letters arranged on a grid, new messages could be found by searching for text horizontally, vertically, and diagonally,

kind of like solving a word search puzzle. So using this technique, mathematicians Elihu Rips, Doran Witsom, and Jochav Rosenberg performed a series of experiments in 1985 called the Great Rabbis Experiment. Rips and his colleagues made a list of 34 famous rabbis and sages from the Encyclopedia of Great Men in Israel. They input the names of the rabbis into their program to see if they were referenced in code in the Bible. But did the program find the rabbis? Even though these 34 men were born and died hundreds or even thousands of years after the Bible was written, their names were encoded in the Bible. Every single one.

Doctors Ripps, Witsom, and Rosenberg took the names of famous rabbis and input them into their computer program. The program was then instructed to iterate through various skip codes and grid sizes searching for the names. Once a match was found, the program would then search horizontally, vertically, and diagonally for dates that intersected the names.

These dates would then be compared to the known dates of birth and death for each of the names. The results of the experiment surprised everyone. The computer program found all the names of the rabbis encoded within the Bible. And when arranged on a grid, they also found the dates of birth and death intersecting the names. They tried again with 32 more names. Again, the program worked. All the names and dates were encoded in the Bible. To be sure, they tested their program

on the novel War and Peace and other long religious texts. They found nothing, only random letters. But in the Bible, the names were there. In total, they found the names of 166 men encoded in the Bible, thousands of years before any of them were born. Dr. Ripps said the odds of this happening by chance was about 1 in 10 million. The only conclusion that can be drawn from the scientific research regarding the Torah codes is that they exist and that they are not a mere coincidence.

Doctors Ripps, Witsom, and Rosenberg published the results of their study in the peer-reviewed journal Statistical Science. Naturally, the study was controversial. Several experts tried to find a mistake, but nobody could. In 1997, Harold G gans a senior cryptologic mathematician for the nsa set out to disprove the bible code when gans first heard the story he wasn't just skeptical he said it was nonsense people are always coming up with all kinds of

weird claims the loch ness monster bigfoot flying saucers by nature and by training, I'm a skeptical person. One day my wife asked if I had ever heard of something called Torah codes. I said yes, but she shouldn't take it seriously. She asked, how do you know? Had you looked into it? I distinctly remember saying, I have better things to do with my time than chase after nonsense. And she said, how do you know it's nonsense? Gans created his own computer program to disprove the Bible code. Not only was he able to find the names of the rabbis and their birth and death dates in the Bible, his program also found their places of birth and death. So another skeptic turned believer.

In 1990, Dr. Ripps had an idea. He was able to find information about rabbis who lived hundreds of years ago, but he wondered if the Bible also had information about people who were still alive. In 1990, Saddam Hussein was one of the most famous people on the planet. Dr. Ripps input the dictator's name into the program to see if he was encoded in the Bible. Was he? He was. Nah, that's my sugar.

And if the Bible code was correct, Saddam Hussein was going to attack Israel in three weeks. Did he attack? He sure did. I'm plotting over here. Now, it's amazing. And only in the Bible do you find this. When, for instance, by skipping an equal number of letters, you spell out President Kennedy, the very next letters in the same skip sequence say to die, and Dallas is encoded in the same place.

When you look for Shakespeare, the very next words in the same equal distance skip sequence say we'll present plays on stage, and Hamlet and Macbeth are encoded in the same place. When Dr. Ripps input the name Saddam Hussein into his Bible code program, the name was found. Also intersecting Saddam Hussein's name were the phrases Russian Missile and Fire on Third Shabbat. On January 18, 1990, the third Shabbat of the Hebrew calendar, Iraq fired a Russian-made missile into Israel, sparking the Gulf War. This had Dr. Ripps wondering if other major events were coded in the Bible. It turned out that many were. In 1992, Michael Droznan, an American investigative journalist, was in Israel working

on a story about war in the Middle East. While there, he was told about Dr. Ripps' work. Michael Droznan didn't believe in God, much less that God would be putting coded messages in the Bible, but it sounded like an interesting story. Drosnin originally set aside an hour to speak with Dr. Ripps, but before the hour was over, Drosnin extended his stay in Israel. Ripps showed Drosnin that it was possible that the Bible contained billions of messages. Drosnin, intrigued but skeptical, tried to debunk the theory. He couldn't. Instead, he worked with Ripps to see what other messages could be decoded.

And over the next few years, Drosnin and Ripps found over 1,000 events encoded in the text of the Old Testament. They looked at the book of Genesis, where God tells Abraham, look now toward heaven and count the stars. Encoded in this passage is the date July 20th, 1969 and the words spaceship and Apollo 11.

The phrase economic crisis is found once. It's intersected with the words depression and stocks and the year 1929. The word Oklahoma crosses the word Murrah, which was the building destroyed in the Oklahoma City bombing. Intersecting those words is the phrase, his name was Timothy. In May 1994, the Shoemaker-Levy comet was all over the news.

Scientists were speculating whether or not it would crash into Jupiter. Drosnin searched the Bible code and found the answer. The exact name, Shoemaker-Levy, is there. It intersects with the phrase, will pound Jupiter. Crossing the phrase is the date July 16th, 1994, the correct date of impact. That same year, Drozdan searched the name of Israel's prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin's name was there crossed by the phrase, assassin will assassinate, and the Hebrew date 5756, which was a few months away.

In the Hebrew language, numbers also have word meanings. 5756 could be interpreted as, will you change it? Drosnin felt this was a sign that he should try to stop this prediction from coming true. He sent a message to the prime minister. Rabin didn't listen and was dead a year later, just as the Bible code predicted. On January 26, 1996, Drosnin and Dr. Ripps found another ominous prediction. The word Libya intersected the phrase Atomic Holocaust. If predictions couldn't be changed, this did not bode well for Israel or the world, because the date that crossed Libya and Atomic Holocaust

was January 27, 1996. Tomorrow. The Bible code contained the phrase atomic Holocaust crossed with the word Libya and the date January 27th, 1996. That day, Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's leader, made a public statement that Arab countries threatened by Israel have a right to nuclear weapons. Michael Drosnin feared that this was the beginning of nuclear war, but fortunately the prediction served more as a warning than as an actual war. After the prediction about the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin,

the Israeli government took Bible Code predictions seriously. They did this quietly and with skepticism, but they still listened. Drozdan speculated that Israel may have been working behind the scenes to prevent nuclear war with Libya, using the Bible code as a potential source of intelligence, something they would never publicly admit. As the months passed, more Bible code predictions came true.

Benjamin Netanyahu was predicted to lose the 1996 prime minister election to Shimon Peres. The Bible code said otherwise, and indeed Netanyahu won a very close election by less than 1% of the vote. Lady Diana was killed in a terrible car crash in Paris in 1997. The Bible Code has a lot of details about this. The words princess and Diana are encoded at the same skip code distance. Next to this is the word Spencer, which was her maiden name. Intersecting Spencer, the word Wales. In surrounding verses are the words Paris and France, tunnel and river.

And you might remember she was killed in a tunnel near the Seine. Also encoded is the date Ab 5757, which is the Hebrew date of August 1997, the month and year she was killed. The name Fayed was found. Dodi Fayed was Diana's companion who also died in the crash. And later, researchers found the name Henri. Henri Paul was the driver of her car. In 1997, Michael Drosnin released the book The Bible Code, which became an instant bestseller. His book inspired many other books about the hidden messages encoded in the Old Testament. Codes hidden within the Bible predicted the fall of Saddam Hussein, the capture of Osama bin Laden, both Gulf Wars.

Codes were found that saw the 2008 financial crisis, the swine flu outbreak, and natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes. But these were events that happened in the past. Interpreting past events using the Bible code was easier than predicting the future. When an event has already happened, you have all the context. If the word Hiroshima is crossed with the phrases fire from the heavens and blisters and boils, it's easy to see that this refers to an atomic bomb and radiation sickness. Predicting the future isn't so easy.

Without context, what would blisters and boils even mean? You'd be guessing the meaning of the phrases. Not very scientific. But the Bible Code predicts terrible future disasters. And Drosnin felt that if he could locate a key to decipher all the Bible's predictions, these disasters could be prevented. Finally, Drosnin found the key. A stone pillar or obelisk.

And according to the Bible code, it was buried in Jordan near the Red Sea. So, Michael Drosnin asked the Jordanian government for permission to excavate the area. To his surprise, permission was granted. Logic tells me that the Bible was encoded to give us very important information. It was encoded, certainly, by some intelligence that could see ahead across time. It was encoded in such a way that it would be found right now by a technology that would exist for the first time now, the computer. In 2002, Michael Drosnin believed that the Bible held a hidden code that predicted an impending nuclear war. He found references to the cities Jerusalem and New York

intersecting the name Bin Laden in the year 2006. Drosnin contacted the Israeli and United States governments, but they ignored his warnings. Allegedly. Allegedly. Even though nuclear war didn't happen in 2006, Drozdan still felt there was imminent danger and was worried he got the date wrong. Drozdan believed there was a key to the entire Bible code in the form of a

stone obelisk hidden somewhere in the Jordanian desert. And if this obelisk was discovered, it would allow all predictions in the Old Testament to be deciphered, averting the coming apocalypse. But who put the obelisk in the desert in the first place and why? Drozdan wasn't religious. He didn't believe it was God speaking to Moses on the top of Mount Sinai. Drozdan actually believed that Moses was speaking to... Please say aliens. Please say aliens. Aliens.

Yes, it's aliens. It's aliens. Aliens. Yes, it's aliens. It's aliens. Because the Bible code could be deciphered with a computer, Drosnin believed the only way to create the code was with a computer, an incredibly advanced computer. The theory was that given enough data, an extremely advanced computer program could successfully predict all the events of the future. Just like a computer that's used to predict highway traffic patterns or the weather. You put in as much data as you can and then the computer can predict with reasonable accuracy how fast cars are going to be moving on a freeway or if it's going to rain. If the aliens use computer programs that operated at the quantum level, they could predict any possible outcome. When the Jordanian government approved the excavation request, Drozdan brought in experts from all over the world. Archaeologists, geologists, and researchers

of all kinds were flown in. Finally, the obelisk would be discovered and every code hidden within the Old Testament would be unlocked. No, what did they find? Well, the political climate of the Middle East shifts quickly. At the last minute, the excavation permit was revoked. No! Yep. Michael Drozdan would go on to publish two more books about the Bible code, but as the years went on and fewer predictions came true, each new book performed worse than the previous one. In June 2020, Michael Drozdan passed away. After spending 25 years researching, even learning Hebrew in the process, Michael Drozdan wouldn't live to see the Bible code proved. The proof is allegedly still buried in the desert, and to find it would

take nothing short of a miracle. And until we get that miracle, we'll have to settle for science. The Bible code does not give us one predetermined future. It tells us all of our possible futures. And by having this information in advance, we can prevent the worst dangers from ever taking place. When Michael Drozdan released his first book, The Bible Code, I was fascinated with it. Whether the Bible was created by time-traveling humans from the future, aliens from another world, or God himself, Drosnin seemed to answer questions that we all have. Are we alone? Or is there something more,

an intelligence beyond our understanding? If the research into Bible codes was considered fringe, then Michael Drosnin was considered on the fringe of the fringe. Drosnin built on the work of Dr. Eli Ripps, who first published his paper on the Bible codes in 1985. But Professor Ripps didn't believe Drosnin built on the work of Dr. Elihu Rips, who first published his paper on the Bible codes in 1985. But Professor Rips didn't believe Drosnin's predictions. He felt that Drosnin was only seeing what he wanted to see, and would manipulate and interpret the results of the computer program to support the predictions.

But to be fair, Dr. Rips still believed that the original study, The Great Rabbi's Experiment, was true, that the names and dates of the great Hebrew sages were coded in the Bible. However, Dr. Ripp's work had challengers. In 1999, Australian mathematician Brendan McKay published his own paper in Statistical Science, the same journal that published Dr. Ripp's. Dr. McKay pointed out that Ripp's methodology was deeply flawed. For example, in Dr. Ripp's study, if the month and day were correct but the year was wrong, that was still counted as a match. If the year is correct but the month was wrong, that was also a match. Plus, Dr. Ripp's allowed name matches that were

very vague. Nicknames, titles, and initials were all counted as matches. For example, if you were searching for matches about Elvis, EA Presley or Mr. Presley or E.A.P. would all be considered matches. So would husband of Priscilla or Lisa Marie's father or even the king. Also, while modern Hebrew uses vowels, the ancient written Hebrew language did not. So word matches were found using only consonants, which gave the researchers a lot of wiggle room. Both Dr. Ripps and Michael Drosnin blew off this criticism. In fact, Drosnin said, if my critics can find a message about the assassination of a prime minister in Moby Dick, maybe I'll believe it. No way that was in Moby Dick. Oh, not only was the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in Moby Dick, McKay showed that

it was there multiple times, yet it was only found once in the Old Testament. McKay also showed that the death of Lady Di was in Moby Dick. So were references to the assassination of Robert Kennedy, as well as other famous events. Well, maybe aliens wrote the Bible and Moby Dick. Did they ever consider that? They probably didn't. Uh huh. McKay's point was, if you already know the outcome you want and you have a long enough text with enough letters, you can manipulate a computer program to churn through any text in order to give you the result that you want. McKay even used this technique to find phrases about the September 11th attack

in song lyrics by Vanilla Ice. All right, stop. What? Collaborate and listen. Ice is back with my brand new invention. I can't believe I fell for that. Oh, I believe it every time. Another problem is that although the text of the Old Testament is almost identical to the text from two or three thousand years ago, it's not a perfect match. Comparisons of the current text to older copies, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, show a discrepancy of a few characters.

A human reader wouldn't notice a difference, but a computer program designed to create a message by skipping a certain number of characters? That would break the program. So are there messages hidden within the text of the Bible? Or is this yet another case of the human mind trying to form patterns in randomness, trying to make order from chaos? I don't know. I do know that there are things in the universe beyond our understanding. And as long as mysteries exist, we have a duty to try and solve them. In other words, it is the glory of God to conceal a matter, and it is the honor of kings to search it out. So I guess we keep searching. You searched for your informant,

who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth. While curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. tried to go back and re-export it, but I lost all the assets. So, what was that? 84? A year and a half in and I still couldn't figure out how to export a video properly.

At some point, I'd like to redo that one into a longer episode. I recorded that at the point in the channel's history where I was afraid to record anything longer than like 16 or 18 minutes. Yeah, I miss those easy days. Yeah, in some ways I do too.

Next up is episode 110 about the Ark of the Covenant. It's one of my favorite topics. It's a good episode. I think you'll enjoy it and I'll see you when you get back. Even though UFOs are seen everywhere, over the desert,

over the ocean, over cities, there's no way to predict when and where they'll show up. Well, no way except one, build or detonate a nuclear weapon. Since the dawn of the atomic age, UFOs have been seen and photographed during nuclear weapons tests and near nuclear weapons facilities. The Ark of the Covenant is one of the most mysterious artifacts in human history. The Ark, a sacred chest made of wood and covered in gold, has been missing since 587 BC. Its last known location was Jerusalem, somewhere under the Temple Mount.

So what does that have to do with UFOs? Well, in 2011, a UFO was hovering over the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. It emitted a flash of light, then shot straight up and disappeared into the night skies. Whoa! This could be just a coincidence, but it could be that the craft was looking for the Ark. The Ark of the Covenant is an object of extreme religious importance to over 2 billion people. So why would a UFO be looking for it? Well, because it's the most dangerous weapon of mass destruction ever created.

The Ark of the Covenant. The story has captivated us for over 2,000 years. But what is the Ark really? A container for holy relics? Or as Indiana Jones said, a radio for talking to God? Or is it God's ultimate doomsday machine, a super weapon for the righteous? It's said to possess tremendous power, including the ability to unleash plagues and natural disasters. As the legend goes, an army that carries the Ark before it is invincible. Or was it something more mundane? The story of the Ark of the Covenant begins in the book of Exodus

and is mentioned over 200 times in the Bible. It was carried by the Israelites as they traveled through the desert on their journey to the Promised Land. The Ark would fly into the sky miles ahead of the Israelites and show them the way. It would protect them from any dangers in their path. It parted rivers, created walls of fire, caused the mighty city walls of Jericho to crumble, and reduced mountains to dust.

God sounds like one hell of a co-pilot. Well, the Israelites thought so. According to the Bible, God summoned Moses to the top of Mount Sinai. There, Moses was given two stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments. These tablets were to be stored in the Ark of the Covenant. God gave Moses very specific instructions on how to build it. Make an ark of acacia wood, two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high. Overlay it with pure gold, both inside and out, and make a gold molding around it.

Then put in the arc the tablets of the covenant law, which I will give you. Yeah, a cubit. I can't even convert to metric. Don't expect me to convert to Bible. It was a little smaller than three foot by five foot. Hey, did God give Moses one of those little wrenches like you get from Ikea? I doubt it. That's too bad. Those are really helpful. They are, but... Hey, did I tell you about the time I got thrown out of Ikea?

No, what did you do? I asked the girl working there, hey, how much for a one-night stand? On top of the ark were cherubim. Hey, how much for a one-night stand? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! On top of the Ark were cherubim. Sometimes you'll see these depicted as angels, sometimes as winged sphinxes. The face of a man, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle. Make two cherubim out of hammered gold

at the ends of the cover. The cherubim are to have their wings spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them. The cherubim are to face each other spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them. The cherubim are to face each other. Place the cover on top of the ark and put in the ark the tablets of the covenant law that I will give you. You're a gold box filled with stone. Sounds pretty heavy. It'll probably weigh about 500 pounds, maybe more.

And God gave instructions on how it should be transported. Cast four gold rings for it and fasten them to its four feet with two rings on one side and two rings on the other. Then make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. Insert the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry it. Hey, look, I don't want to be a jerk, but it might have been easier to put the thing on wheels. Well, maybe, but God wanted it to be carried by four priests of the Levi tribe. Boy, those priests must have been jacked, huh? Can you imagine the calves on

these guys? I'd rather not. And the Levite priests who were appointed to carry the ark of the Lord were not weak of body nor feeble of limb, for they had heeded the words of the Lord, thou shalt not skip leg day. The ark was extremely dangerous. It had to be kept far away from where the Israelites camped, 2,000 cubits. Which is? Half a mile. Anyone who touched it would be killed instantly if they were lucky. If they weren't lucky, they would die in agony.

But when we analyze the way the Ark is described in the Bible, the materials used in its construction, the way it looked, the way it sounded, the way it killed people, it doesn't sound paranormal or supernatural. Actually, the Ark of the Covenant sounds like technology. There are a few theories that suggest the Ark of the Covenant may have been a technological device. One theory says the Ark was an electrical capacitor. You build a capacitor

by placing two conductive plates parallel to each other with non-conductive material called a dielectric in between. The Ark was built this way. The box was covered with gold on the inside and gold on the outside. Gold is a good conductor of electricity. The acacia wood in between the gold would serve as the dielectric. It's possible the Ark could store and discharge electricity. According to this theory, the Ark may have been used to generate lightning or electric shocks, which would have been seen as a manifestation of the power of God. In fact, there's a story in the Bible about a man named Uzzah, one of the priests carrying the Ark. During the journey, the Ark looked like it might fall. Uzzah reached out to steady it. When he touched the Ark,

he was instantly killed in a way that sounds like he was electrocuted. Another theory suggests that the Ark was a machine that could communicate with God. And there I will meet with thee, and I will speak with thee from above the Ark cover, from between the two cherubim which are upon the Ark of the testimony. The cherubim on the lid of the Ark may have functioned as antennas by providing a large surface area for the conversion of electrical energy into radio waves. The gold coating would allow those waves to be transmitted more efficiently. And there's a theory that the Ark used nuclear power, that it contained radioactive materials such as uranium, which is found in the area.

When uranium undergoes nuclear fission, it releases a massive amount of energy in the form of heat, light, and radiation. This energy can then be harnessed and used to power various devices or weapons. When the walls of Jericho came down, it was said to have been caused by the sound of the trumpets and the presence of the Ark. According to this theory, the Ark may have contained a radioactive substance that was triggered by sound waves that brought the walls down. Also, the priests who carried the Ark had to wear a metallic breastplate and a metal apron, not unlike the lead blanket used when you get an x-ray. And they wore metal clothes?

I'm telling you, these guys were jacked. Also, whenever a priest approached the Ark, he had to have a rope tied around his leg. Around his jacked leg. This was in case the priest died. His body could then be dragged away from the Ark. There's even more evidence that the Ark was radioactive. In the Book of 1 Samuel,

the Philistines and Israelites were engaged in a fierce battle. The Israelites brought out the Ark of the Covenant, believing it would bring them divine protection and victory in the battle. But God didn't command this, so the Ark didn't work. The Philistines won the battle and took the Ark to their own city, Ashdod. As soon as the Ark arrived,

people's skin became infected with painful tumors. And it was so that after they had carried it about, the hand of the Lord was against the city with a very great discomfiture. And he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and emeralds broke out upon them. A break out of emeralds, huh?

They make a cream for that. Emeralds. Emeralds are tumors that sound a lot like radiation burns. Then illness swept through the city that sounds like radiation sickness. The Philistines believed that the Ark was cursed and moved it to another city, Gath. But the tumors and sickness continued. Then they moved it to Ekron. The tumors continued. Finally, the Philistines sent the Ark back to the Israelites,

along with gold and incense. They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines and they said, send away the Ark of the God of Israel and let it go back to its own place. When the Ark was traveling, it was set up in a portable sanctuary called a tabernacle. This was an elaborate tent made of woven fabrics and gold. The Ark was always shrouded. It was too dangerous to be gazed upon. When the Ark was returned from the Philistines, some men got curious and looked at the Ark when they weren't supposed to. Seventy of them were struck down by the Lord.

If Indy says don't look, you really shouldn't look. Good advice. For a time, the Israelites experienced a period of peace and stability. But the Ark remained a powerful symbol of the Israelites' covenant with God and their faith. The Ark was eventually moved to Jerusalem, where a temple was built. The Ark was then placed in the Holy of Holies, the innermost chamber of the temple. The Ark remained there for over 300 years, and it played a central role in Israelite religious life. And then suddenly, it's gone. In 587 BC, after a 30-month siege, the city of Jerusalem fell to the Babylonian army.

The Babylonians then looted the temple's treasures and burned the building to the ground. The Babylonians kept meticulous records of everything they took from Jerusalem. And even though the Ark of the Covenant was stored in the temple, it wasn't on the list. And that's where the Ark disappears from history. So if the Babylonians didn't take it, who did? And where is it today? Some people think the answer lies on the infamous Copper Scroll. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, most were made of papyrus and contained religious stories not found in the Bible.

But one of the scrolls was very different. It was made of copper. According to arch-hunter Jim Barfield, the Copper Scroll does not contain the Word of God. The Copper Scroll is not a Bible story. On that copper, they have hammered instructions to find treasures from the Temple of Solomon, which I believe includes the Ark of the Covenant. Barfield believes that while the Babylonians were attacking, the treasures of the Temple of Solomon were quietly taken out of the city.

Among those treasures was the Ark of the Covenant. The Book of 2 Maccabees treasures was the Ark of the Covenant. The book of 2 Maccabees says that the prophet Jeremiah did exactly this. Underneath the Temple Mount is a vast network of tunnels, but even though miles of tunnels have been explored, none were ever found that would serve as an escape route from the temple, but in 2007 that would change. A new tunnel was found that runs from the Temple Mount to the Kidron Valley, well outside the city. From Kidron, the Ark could have been taken to a town called Qumran. This also happens to be the place

where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. The Copper Scroll lists 64 places in and around Qumran where treasures might have been hidden. One place is described as Steps, east, 40 cubits long. And buried under those steps, according to the Copper Scroll, is over 1,000 pounds of silver. Barfield found the steps.

Then he found another location that describes a well and a courtyard. Under the courtyard is buried 33 tons of polished gold. He found the courtyard. He found the well. Jim Barfield brought his evidence to the local authorities and asked permission to dig at the site, but he was refused. Later, he went back with a metal detector, tuned to look for gold and silver. When he got near the location, the metal detector went crazy. Again, he asked permission to dig. Again, he was refused. Barfield was certain that there was a third site containing even more treasure, including the Ark. Using the first two locations as waypoints, he drew a straight line to a cave in a nearby hill.

The cave appeared to be sealed shut, but intentionally. Barfield then took a stone sample from the cave entrance and had it tested in a lab. The results were interesting. I decided that I would take a sample of this stone and send it off to a lab in Skokie, Illinois, where we had it examined. And they find that it is man-made mortar in a common mixture and formula from that time frame. Why would somebody seal a random hill with concrete? When he took the metal detector to the sealed cave, it registered five times the amount of metal that was detected at Qumran. Jim Barfield is firmly convinced that this is the location of the Ark of the Covenant.

To this day, permission to dig has not been granted. But many Ark historians believe that if the Ark was in Qumran, that it's not there anymore. They believe the Ark was taken by a Catholic military order called the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, more commonly known as the Knights Templar. During the Crusades, a new Catholic military order emerged, the Knights Templar. From the very beginning, the Templars were known for their secrecy and their mystery. They were also shrewd when it came to finance and politics. They convinced both the Pope and the city leaders of Jerusalem

that they would protect Christian pilgrims making the journey to the Holy City. But as soon as the Knights Templar established their headquarters on the Temple Mount, they started digging. And they weren't looking for treasure. The Knights were obsessed with religious relics, and there was no greater prize than the Ark of the Covenant. The Templars were known for their use of caves and tunnels. And just recently, a structure was found in a cave system called Zedekiah's Cave, and this fortification was a guardhouse built to defend the Knights Templar if they had to escape the city.

Legend says that they did indeed find the Ark and took it to their European headquarters in France, the famous Chartres Cathedral, and there it stayed for several hundred years. By the 14th century, the Knights Templar had lost most of their military power, but they had become wealthy from their banking practices. King Philip of France found himself deeply in debt to them, and in 1307, he convinced the Pope to move against the order and seize their assets. On October 13th, 1307, the Knights Templar were declared outlaws, and any found were arrested, tortured, and often executed. But when the Templars heard rumors that King Philip and the Pope were moving against them,

they relocated the Ark yet again, this time to Scotland, where the Knights were welcomed by King Robert the Bruce. Robert the Bruce had been excommunicated by the Church and was sympathetic to the Knights. So when the Knights Templar arrived in Scotland, they allied themselves with the wealthy and powerful Sinclair family. Together, they decided to build a place to keep the Ark of the Covenant safe, Roslyn Chapel. And there's a lot about Roslyn Chapel that connects to the Ark and the Holy Land. There are Templar motifs and sculptures all around the grounds. The chapel is laid out just like the First Temple of Solomon, but on a smaller scale.

It has an inner Holy of Holies. This is where the Ark could have been kept, far away from the politics of Europe. But then, World War II. The Nazis were obsessed with the occult and religious relics. It's just like the movie! Raiders got a lot of things right.

I am the monarch of the sea, the ruler of the Queen's Navy. It's just like the movie. Raiders got a lot of things right. I am the monarch of the sea, the ruler of the queen's navy. It's well documented that they searched for the spear of destiny, also known as the Holy Lance. This is the spear that is said to have pierced the side of Jesus as he hung on the cross during his crucifixion. They looked for the Holy Grail, the cup that Jesus used during the Last Supper. They sought the Shroud of Turin,

the cloth used to wrap the body of Jesus after his crucifixion. The Germans wanted the Menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum that was created during the Exodus. And of course, they sought the other object created during the time of Moses, the Ark of the Covenant. After they conquered France, the Germans engaged in major archaeological digs at Chartter's Cathedral and other suspected locations of the Ark. After France was overrun, President Roosevelt of the United States arranged for the contents of Roslyn Chapel to be moved to the Americas, where they could be better defended. So the Ark was sent from Scotland to New Scotland, also known as Nova Scotia, specifically the Oak Island. While this is just a legend, there is a complex system of caves and tunnels on Oak Island,

and nobody knows exactly who put them there or what they were hiding. There are stories of the Ark ending up in Rome, where it sits on one of the 50 miles of shelves in the Vatican's secret archives. Some say the Ark is buried on Mount Nebo in Jordan, where Moses died. An Irish legend says the Ark was brought to Ireland by the prophet Jeremiah and is now located in a secret chamber beneath the Hill of Tara. Or Jeremiah took the Ark to Egypt and it's now located in a hidden chamber beneath the Sphinx. But there's evidence that the Ark isn't hidden away in a cave or a tomb or a secret chamber. It's not hidden at all. For hundreds of years, the Ark has been in a church

in what might sound like an unlikely place for a Jewish artifact. The Ark of the Covenant is in Ethiopia. In the Bible, in the books of 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles, is the story of the Queen of Sheba. She was a wealthy and powerful queen who ruled over the Aksumite kingdom, located in what is now Ethiopia and Yemen. The Queen of Sheba heard of the Queen of Sheba. She was a wealthy and powerful queen who ruled over the Aksumite kingdom, located in what is now Ethiopia and Yemen.

The Queen of Sheba heard of the great wisdom of King Solomon of Israel, and she traveled to Jerusalem to meet him. After witnessing the splendor of his kingdom, the Queen of Sheba returned home. That concludes the biblical account of the Queen of Sheba, but there's more to the story. The Kebra DeGast is an Ethiopian text

that's at least 700 years old and is considered by many Ethiopian Christians to be historically reliable. The text contains an account of how the Queen of Sheba not only met King Solomon, but had a son by him named Menelik. At the age of 22 and about 950 BC, Menelik went to Jerusalem to meet his father.

While there, Menelik's companions stole the Ark and replaced it with a replica. Solomon and Menelik both to Jerusalem to meet his father. While there, Menelik's companions stole the Ark and replaced it with a replica. Solomon and Menelik both discovered the switch, but only after Menelik was flying back home, so there was nothing anyone could do about it. I couldn't reach him because they put the Ark in airplane mode, huh? No, the Ark with the power of God flew them home. Ah. The Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum claims to possess the actual Ark of the Covenant.

The Ark is never seen by outsiders. When the Holy of Holies was built around the Ark, the hallways were made too small intentionally. So the only way to remove the Ark is to destroy the Church. Only one priest at a time serves as the guardian of the Ark, and only that priest is permitted to see it. The priest lives in the Church for the rest of his life. Now, to be the custodian of the Ark is a great honor, but it's also a death sentence. Priests who guard the Ark have a very short lifespan.

Once appointed a guardian, they typically live no more than two or three years. But before they die, they develop cataracts and go blind. What would happen if someone did accidentally see the Ark? Blind. They'd be blinded. Yeah, and a lot of miracles. Bad miracles.

Yeah, yeah. It would be... Very high power. You know, maybe being alone in a room for two years, they were doing something else that makes them go blind. Don't be disrespectful. What's interesting is these symptoms are consistent with exposure to high levels of radiation. But if the Ark is in Ethiopia, it may no longer be in the church.

In November 2020, war broke out between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front. The TPLF were rebels in Ethiopia, then rulers, then rebels again. The Tigray conflict saw atrocities committed on civilians perpetrated by both sides. When rebels approached the church in Aksum, at least 800 unarmed civilians rushed to protect it. They were slaughtered. An uneasy peace has been in place since November 2022, but it's difficult to get news out of the region. The priests in Aksum say the Ark is still safe within the walls of the church, but many locals say the Ark was stolen when the entire area was looted during the conflict.

The priests won't allow anyone access to verify if the Ark is or isn't there. If the Ark of the Covenant is gone, then Ethiopia becomes another in a long list of places that had and lost the Ark. And even though the Ark of the Covenant is a religious artifact, Ark hunters aren't necessarily religious.

The search for the Ark is of interest to people from all over the world, and perhaps even beyond it. The location of the Ark of the Covenant is a mystery that has endured for over 2,000 years. And that's plenty of time for the introduction of confusion and contradiction. Even the Bible has the Ark behaving differently at different times. It acted like a high-voltage capacitor that electrocuted Uzzah when he touched it.

It was more like a heat ray that boiled away water when the Hebrews crossed the River Jordan. Then it was a powerful sonic weapon when it brought down the walls of Jericho. Winter walls come tumbling down. Winter walls come crumbling, crumbling. Winter walls come tumbling down. Tumbling down. Now, maybe it's all those things, depending on what's needed in the moment.

But then the question becomes, what was the power source? If people near the Ark really did break out into tumors and boils and cataracts... And hemorrhoids. Hemorrhoids. What did I say? If that's true, it sounds like the Ark housed

an intensely radioactive device. A device that could be tuned to specific functions, including use as a weapon. But if that's true, where did Moses get it? And how did this technology exist thousands of years ago? It's been suggested that maybe the tablets containing the Ten Commandments were made of uranium, which exists in vast quantities

in the deserts of the Middle East. But even if they were, raw uranium ore isn't dangerous. Only when it's refined is the radiation harmful. And I don't think it's controversial to say that the Israelites didn't have centrifuges and uranium enrichment technologies. Now, about the cataracts developed by the priests in Ethiopia. Cataracts can be developed one or two years after high radiation exposure, that's true. But it's also true that people who live at high altitudes are at greater risk of cataracts. The thinner atmosphere offers

less protection from the sun's harmful rays, which damage the eyes. The city of Axum, where the Ark is supposedly housed, is almost 7,000 feet above sea level, making it one of the highest altitude cities in the world. And there are other problems with the Ethiopian claim. Edward Ullendorf was

a professor of Ethiopian studies at the University of London, and he said in a 1992 interview that he personally saw the Ark held within the church at Axum. This was in 1941 while he was serving as an officer in the British Army. He said they have a wooden box, it wasn't ancient, and it certainly wasn't the original Ark. Every Christian church in Ethiopia has a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, as do many churches around the world. Professor Ullendorf assumed that the Ark at Axum is nothing more than one of these replicas, but the professor didn't provide any proof

that he actually saw the Ark. So, like many stories about the Ark of the Covenant, we have nothing to go on but the word of the person telling the story. The story of the Knights Templar hiding the Ark at Roslyn Chapel in Scotland is one of my favorites, but the chapel wasn't person telling the story. The story of the Knights Templar hiding the Ark at Roslyn Chapel in Scotland is one of my favorites. But the chapel wasn't built until 1446,

almost 150 years after the Templars were disbanded. Now, defenders of the Roslyn story will say that the Ark was kept somewhere else until the chapel was built. Then it was placed there. Now, that's fine. It's still a great story, but there's no proof of any of that. Locations like Oak Island, the Vatican, Ireland, and other alleged hiding places of the Ark are just stories.

Now, I'm not saying that they're wrong, but there's no hard evidence to support any of those locations. The mainstream view is that the Ark probably existed. Remember we talked about the menorah, which was created at the same time as the Ark? Well, in 70 AD, Emperor Titus of Rome marched on Jerusalem, and after a five-month siege, the Roman soldiers breached the walls and poured into the city. The soldiers looted and burned everything in sight,

including the Second Temple. Titus was hailed as a conquering hero, and a monument was built in his honor, the Arch of Titus, which still stands, depicting the spoils of war carried off from the temple in Jerusalem. Among the spoils is the menorah. Now, some have claimed that the other object being carried by the soldiers is the Ark, but it's not.

That's the Table of Showbread, also known as the Table of the Presence. And this was a large table made of acacia wood overlaid with gold. And on the table were placed 12 loaves of bread that were replaced every Sabbath. What's interesting about the table is, God gave Moses instructions to build it. At the same time, he gave instructions to build the menorah and the Ark of the Covenant, and all those objects were stored in the same place, the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem. If the Ark was looted, it would have been depicted on the arch.

The Romans knew how important the Ark was to the Hebrews. They would have wanted to steal it arch. The Romans knew how important the Ark was to the Hebrews. They would have wanted to steal it to humiliate the Jewish people. So why wasn't the Ark there when Titus invaded? Most scholars believe it was taken by the Babylonians in 587 BC. But there's no proof of this. The Babylonians kept lists of everything stolen from Jerusalem, and the Ark wasn't on any of the lists.

So if the Ark of the Covenant still exists, the most logical place for it to be is in a cave or tunnel hidden somewhere deep under the Temple Mount. But permission to dig will likely never be granted. The site is considered sacred by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and any damage to the site would be seen as an affront to these religions, or worse, a provocation. But maybe that's for the best. Zechariah was a prophet who lived during the time of the second temple in Jerusalem, and many of his prophecies

are related to the return of the Ark of the Covenant. And the return of the Ark is also mentioned in Revelation. Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the Ark of his Covenant. And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and a great hailstorm. The return of the Ark happens at the end of the world. Now, that might sound dramatic, but think about what would happen if the Ark was discovered by Muslims, or if it was discovered by Jews, or by Christians. What people would be the best stewards of the Ark? Everyone would want it, but whose decision is that to make? The discovery of the Ark could be the spark that ignites war in the region,

which could possibly escalate to World War III. And the next thing you know, the end-time prophecies are coming true. Now, I'm fascinated by the Ark, and I'd love to know where it is. But for now, the location of the Ark of the Covenant remains a mystery.

And for all our sakes, let's hope it stays that way. You searched for your informant who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth.

While curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. At least I was able to see that one without getting a headache. Yeah, that was episode 110. And still figuring it out. Now, you're about to see how far we've come. Next up is episode... I'm looking at my notes.

Number 32. The invisible wire running around New York. Now, this one is hard for me to watch. I'm out of focus for half the thing. And the lighting, I have the lighting set up, I guess, too low. So it looks like a horror movie, you know, like when you put the flashlight under your face. Oh, it's rough to look at. But it's a religious episode, so I had to include it. And I'm always honest with you guys. But at least it's only four minutes long. So it's still an interesting story.

So I'm including it. Plus, I crush it in this run. I'll admit, he was funny. I'll see you in four minutes. Did you know there's an 18-mile-long string of wire circling the island of Manhattan? Every morning, the wire is checked for breaks and snags, and every day it's repaired. And it costs about $150,000 a year to maintain. The wire has been there for years, yet most New Yorkers, myself included, didn't even know it was there.

Let's find out why. To understand why there's an 18-mile-long wire going around New York City, we need a quick lesson about Judaism. The Sabbath begins every Friday night at sunset and goes all the way through Saturday. And Jewish people who observe the Sabbath, Saturday is a day of rest, meaning you don't work at all. And work doesn't just mean your job. Work is defined as any activity that was necessary in the building of the tabernacle. Now, that might sound like just construction work is forbidden, but it's actually much more. Obviously, no building of

any kind is permitted, but also no grinding, baking, sewing, even starting a fire. Not even small tasks like tying, tearing, or putting finishing touches on objects. Oh, and also no electricity on the Sabbath. Who set up all these rules? God. Why doesn't God want you to do any of this stuff on Saturday? Well, because he feels you should have one day a week to engage in pleasurable activities like eating, spending time with family, and having sex. Shabbat sounds pretty good, actually.

It can be. But on Saturday, there's one tricky rule. No carrying anything from a domestic area to a public area. You can't carry anything? Nope. No wallet, no keys, no carrying or pushing your children in a stroller. Nothing like that. You can carry these things within your home, but not outside. And that's where the wire comes in. I don't follow. Well, stick around and i'll tell you no a cliffhanger what what the heck is this shabbat sounds like a really good idea so i i'm show my shabbos you're show my shabbos show my shabbos you can't just put on a hat and think that you're Shabbos. Okay, okay, take it easy. Show me Shabbos over here. Anyway, on the Sabbath, you can carry things within your home,

so grabbing a glass of water from the kitchen is fine. But you can't carry anything from your home to a public place. Now, this is tricky if you want to leave your house and lock the door behind you. You aren't permitted to carry your keys. And what if you have an infant? You can't carry a child or even push a stroller. And if you need a cane to walk, no can do. And if you think this sounds inconvenient, you're not the only one.

Many years ago, rabbis realized that in order to fully enjoy the Sabbath, you sometimes needed to carry things. And this is where the wire around New York comes in. It's called an Eruv. And an Eruv is an unbroken continuous string or wire that circles a large public area. Now, originally A-roofing were actual walls, but now they're symbolic walls and anything within the borders of the A-roof is now considered part of the domestic

domain, which means if you want to carry on Saturday, as long as you're within the A-roof, you're good to go. If I were a rich fish, dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby doo. All day long I doobie doobie doo. If I were a wealthy fish. In the 1990s, there were only a few A-roof in the United States. But now there are hundreds. If you live in a medium-sized city, there's probably an A-roof or two in your neighborhood.

And if you live in a big city, there's definitely at least one. The most expensive A-roof in the world, and the one with the largest population, is the Mayroof in Manhattan. And it began as a small community enclosure in the Upper West Side, and now it covers almost the entire island of Manhattan. What area isn't covered? Helen's Kitchen. Checks out.

Every morning, a rabbi drives the entire length of the wire and notes places where it could be broken. Then on Thursday and Friday, he goes out with a construction team to make sure the wire is repaired. And it costs about $150,000 a year to maintain this. The Manhattan A-Roof has survived vandalism, two hurricanes, even one really aggressive Thanksgiving Day float. Damn you, SpongeBob! It's had a couple of close calls, but for over 20 years, the A-Roof has remained intact. So there's an almost invisible wire running around almost every major city in the Western world, including 18 miles around Manhattan Island.

And now you know why. I proclaim, O human, that the humor I did craft was most sublime, and the conveyance of such was the very essence of perfection. I think you're over-tagging it now. I know, I know, I'm pushing it. Okay, so that was four minutes of some of the worst stuff that I've ever done. I think the story was okay, but I'm so distracted by how poorly that was produced. But I keep it honest here. I show you my flaws, and that was four straight minutes of it. All right, so what do we got next? Ah, a well-produced episode. Thank goodness. It's about the Book of Enoch and the search for Noah's Ark. The Book of Enoch is controversial. It's not considered canon, so not officially part

of the Bible. But there are some religious communities that acknowledge that not only is this book part of the Bible, it's actual written history, which is fun because it talks about angels, giants, the great flood, and of course... Yeah, you're knacky. Yep. Let's roll it. Enoch warned the giants and the watchers of the world, repent or feel God's wrath. They ignored his warning.

The floodgates of heaven burst forth and water rushed over the earth, destroying everything. The only thing to survive is a single vessel, a huge ship, the ark. Five months later, the waters recede and the ark made ground on a mountaintop. A man named Noah emerged and civilization began again. Some version of the Noah's Ark story exists in almost every religion and every culture on earth. But did Noah and the Ark really exist? Well, there's evidence that they did. So much evidence that it was classified by the CIA for almost 50 years. But why classify it? Well, there are two problems with the Noah's Ark story.

One, the Ark is much older than anyone thought. And two, the man named Noah, he wasn't a man. At least, not a man from Earth. James Bruce was born to a wealthy Scottish family in 1730. His family wanted him to study law, but James Bruce had different plans. He had a dream. He wanted to be the first person to find the legendary source of the Nile River. Now, this might sound like a mundane task, but for hundreds of years, the race to find the source of the Nile was as gripping as the race to put a man on the moon. Nobody won that race. What now? Nobody went to the moon. The whole thing

was fate. I'm just saying the race to find the source of the Nile was a big deal. Then just say that. Don't give me some cockamamie nonsense about the race to the moon. That never happened. I was just making a comparison. Well, you made it poorly. Bruce spent over a decade in Africa tracing the Nile. He traveled through war-torn deserts. He befriended several kings and made enemies of others. He fought savage tribes and survived deadly diseases. Nearly starving to death, James Bruce discovered a small spring. It was bubbling from the earth near a monastery in the Tigray highlands of Ethiopia. This was it, the source of the Nile River.

But Bruce discovered something else, something much more important. During his stay at the Ethiopian monastery, he saw an old faded manuscript on display. It was written in Giez, an ancient Semitic language used by Ethiopian Jews. James Bruce was told this book was the Bible, not a Bible, the Bible. Judaism in Ethiopia goes back almost 3,000 years. The Old Testament and Quran tell of the Ethiopian Queen of Sheba who heard about the wisdom and wealth of King Solomon. She was intrigued by these reports and decided to travel to Jerusalem to meet him for herself. The specifics of their meeting were not specified, but the Queen of Sheba was so impressed, she praised the God of Israel and gave King Solomon many gifts.

She brought caravans of gold, gems, and spices. King Solomon, grateful and equally impressed, gives the Ethiopian queen all that she asks, and then the queen returns home. In the Old Testament and Quran, that's where the story ends. But religious texts in Ethiopia go into much more detail. When the queen finally made it home, she learned that Solomon gave her one last gift, a son. King Solomon the player. Their son was Menelik I. When Menelik grew up, he returned to Jerusalem to meet his father. King Solomon was so happy to finally meet his son that he offered Menelik the throne. Menelik declined and chose to return home. But before Menelik left, some of his

men stole the Ark of the Covenant and brought it back to Ethiopia. There's been a large Jewish population in Ethiopia ever since. According to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the Ark of the Covenant is still in Ethiopia. It's in the town Aksum in the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion. And it's a great story and if you want to hear it, I've linked it below. Back at the monastery, James Bruce was fascinated by these new texts. Bruce was a well-read, well-educated man and he knew his scripture. But these Ethiopian texts contained hundreds of stories that weren't in the Bible. Not in his Bible, anyway. The Ethiopian Bible contains 81 books.

The Catholic Bible removed eight of those books and contains only 73. The King James Bible, the one known to Bruce, has only 66 books. Bruce didn't understand. There was so much more detail in the older texts. People merely mentioned once or twice in the modern Bible had their entire lives documented in the Ethiopian Bible. Their lives, their families, their deeds, their misdeeds, they were all there. James Bruce didn't understand why so much of the original Bible was removed. And then he did.

While thumbing through the stiff, dusty pages, Bruce came across the Book of Enoch. James Bruce knew Enoch as the great-grandfather of Noah. He was mentioned a few times in the Bible, but only in passing. Here was an entire book on Enoch, 108 chapters. Now James Bruce understood why the church wanted this book hidden. It described heaven not just as a spiritual place, but as a physical place that could be visited by men. That was heresy. No mortal man is able to visit heaven, and certainly not able to visit and return.

But Enoch did, and he wrote down everything he saw. He didn't describe heaven as souls floating in the clouds playing harps. He describes it as a city in the sky with many different rooms with walls covered in gems of blinking lights and godlike beings going about their business. Now, Enoch wouldn't have known it at the time, but he was describing a spacecraft. The Book of Enoch vanished from history thousands of years ago, only to be rediscovered in 1772 by James Bruce. While the Book of Enoch was certainly interesting, it was dismissed by Muslims, Jews, and Christians and not considered part of the Bible. After all, it was hidden away on a mountain in Ethiopia. How important could it really be? If the Book of Enoch was truly scripture, there would be more

copies of it, but there weren't. But 150 years later, that would change. In 1947, near the ancient settlement of Qumran, a young shepherd happened upon a cave. He was looking for a stray goat and thought it could have wandered in. The boy tossed a rock in the cave, hoping to scare the goat out. Instead, he heard the sound of pottery breaking. Within the cave were clay jars filled with ancient scrolls, almost a thousand manuscripts. The scrolls cover every part of the Hebrew Bible, and there amongst the well-known books was the Book of Enoch. In fact, in ancient times, the Book of Enoch was so widely read and regarded, 11 copies of it were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. They were intact, complete, and perfectly matched the text of the Ethiopian Bible.

Still, the Book of Enoch is considered apocryphal and not part of the Bible. Apocryphal is a nice way of saying it's fake. Some even consider the Book of Enoch to be heresy, a crime against God. When you read the book, you can understand why. Enoch may actually be the first case of alien abduction ever documented.

One evening, there's a strange sound above Enoch's village. It's not thunder or wind. It's a sound that seems to make the air and earth vibrate. It's a sound that can be felt. The villagers cautiously come out of their homes and see a bright orb of light hovering just above the trees. Slowly, the sphere of light descends upon the village. The townspeople are terrified, but Enoch hears a voice tell him to not be afraid.

Enoch then ascends to heaven, escorted by a celestial being named Uriel. Something similar happens to the prophet Elijah and two kings. Elijah is physically taken to heaven in what he calls a chariot of fire. What? It's easy to see that a man living thousands of years ago would describe a rocket or a spacecraft as a chariot of fire. That's enough. Okay, okay, sheesh, what a grouch. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do- This is not what happens to Enoch. Like Elijah, Enoch is physically taken to heaven and writes down everything he sees. He doesn't write this from memory. He's literally walking around with Uriel writing things down.

He was instructed to do so by God. And although Enoch describes this journey in religious language, he's also pretty scientific. He describes seeing mountains below. He sees every river on earth. He describes seeing how the winds are made, possibly referring to cloud formations. Enoch sees all of this as divine, but his account could be referring to technology. A smartphone would seem supernatural to someone living thousands of years ago. A spaceship would be incomprehensible.

When Enoch arrives in heaven, The mothership. He's shown a bunch of doors. He calls them 12 gates. Each door has a name and a purpose. He sees beings walking in and out of the doors, going about their business. Enoch calls these beings angels and archangels. Like Uriel, they radiate light.

It's been suggested that these beings could be holographic projections. Though they're extremely bright, Enoch can see through them. Enoch is then taken on a tour of the cosmos. He travels the galaxy. He's shown the movement of celestial bodies. He's told about man's place in the universe. Uriel teaches Enoch about the solar system. He's told the length of an Earth year is 364 days.

He's shown the lunar cycle. He's shown how constellations move across the sky. This is interesting because the Book of Enoch was written thousands of years before many of these discoveries were made. Now, you would think that there would be nothing above heaven, but wherever Enoch is, this place has a ceiling. Enoch specifically calls it a lofty roof. Enoch is taken to a giant room full of plants that he doesn't recognize. Uriel calls it one of the storehouses of nature. Now, this could be an arboretum or a garden.

When humans finally travel through space, there will definitely be gardens on their shifts. Enoch is shown an object with writing on it he calls the Book of Life. He says this records all the deeds of man. It sounds like the angel works for the FBI. Right. The Book of Life is essentially a database of surveillance records. There's a room for the wicked. Enoch describes it as a place of torture and mutilation. But this room has also been interpreted as where alien abductees endure experiments.

Finally, Enoch enters the room with the throne of God. He said there's no way to describe or comprehend him. He averts his eyes. God tells Enoch the secrets of the angels and the nature of the universe. He shows Enoch the different dimensions of existence. He shows Enoch visions of the past, present, and the future. And that's when Enoch finally learns why he was summoned and told to write everything down. God needs a witness. He needs someone to describe what heaven and hell are like.

Someone whose words will be passed down for generations so mankind has a written record of the afterlife. God also needs Enoch to deliver a message to some of God's angels on earth. And the message is not good news. In the early days of the world, God sent 200 angels to earth. Their purpose was to observe and guard humanity. They became known as the Watchers. Typically, angels are considered spiritual beings. But in the book of Enoch, the Watchers are physical entities. They're described as large humanoids, some with wings, and they radiate so much light that it's difficult to look directly at them. The Watchers taught humans how to cultivate crops and create pottery. They taught humans about medicine and curing illness.

The Watchers taught humans about astronomy and astrology. In ancient Sumerian texts, which Enoch is probably based on, 300 beings are sent to Earth from palaces in the sky. These beings are called the Observers. They too help humanity take a great leap forward. We see this story in ancient cultures all over the world. Advanced beings come down from the sky and bring humanity the gift of civilization. In the Book of Enoch, the Watchers helped humanity advance quickly and civilization spread. But the Watchers became vain and proud. They were instructed by God to withhold certain knowledge from man.

The Watchers ignored these instructions. The Watchers taught men how to create new metals for weapons. They taught men how to harness fire and wage war. They taught women witchcraft and alchemy. The Watchers revealed the secrets of the heavens and changed the course of human development. They violated the Prime Directive. They did. This transfer of knowledge was a double-edged sword.

While it propelled humanity forward, it also brought about corruption, a deviation from God's order. The corruption didn't just affect men. It affected the watchers as well. The watchers were spending more and more time with human women. Uh-oh, this isn't going to end well. The watchers became lustful. Told ya. Then they started taking human women as wives for themselves. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them and said to one another, Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children. Enoch chapter 6 verse 1. This part of the Enoch story has been interpreted as the human-alien hybridization program developed by the Anunnaki in Sumerian texts.

In those stories, human women weren't being taken as wives, they were just being taken, abducted and used as incubators for a new species. This union of celestial and mortal bloodlines gave birth to a race of giants, the Nephilim. Another ancient text found in the Dead Sea Scrolls was called the Book of Giants. This book, along with the Book of Enoch, described the Nephilim as creatures of immense size and strength and immense cruelty. The Nephilim brought even more corruption and violence to the world. Torn between divinity and humanity without a home in either, they go insane.

Soon they turn on humans and torture anyone they can find. The Nephilim needed to consume so much food that eventually they began feeding on human flesh. Humans are helpless to stop these advances. Many are enslaved by the powerful Nephilim. Many more are killed. Then a few humans decide to follow the example set by the Watchers.

They think if angels can torture and kill and enslave and sleep with whoever they want, why can't we? Then the world becomes filled with people like this. Soon God can't tell who's a Nephilim and who isn't. Enoch delivers the message God can't tell who's a Nephilim and who isn't. Enoch delivers the message to the Watchers, to the Nephilim, and to all mankind.

Repent for your sin or suffer the wrath of God. Enoch's warning is ignored. He's brought back to heaven where he begs God to help save the earth. So, God makes a decision. The earth has become so corrupt and so foul that it needs to be reset. He will cause an event so cataclysmic that everything and everyone will be killed. Humans, angels, Nephilim, all of it, gone. But one man and his family will be spared. The only man who can't be corrupted. The only man who could be trusted to restart civilization.

Enoch's great-grandson, Noah. But here's the thing. There's a lot more to Noah than we've been told. In the book of Enoch, we get the full story. In Genesis, God appears to Noah and says the world is to end. There will be a great flood that washes away every living thing so the world can start again. He commands Noah to build a large boat, an ark. This ark will hold Noah, his family, and two of every animal. In the ark, they'll survive the flood and live to see a new age on earth. Everybody knows that story. But in Enoch, it happens a little bit differently. The book of Enoch describes Noah's birth.

His body was as white as snow and red as the blooming of a rose, and the hair of his head and his long locks were white as wool and his eyes beautiful. And when opened his eyes, he lighted up the whole house like the sun, and the whole house was very bright. The book of Noah, book three, Chapter 1. Noah is described as beautiful with bright glowing skin, and from the moment of birth, Noah can speak. Noah's father Lamech panics. Lamech had been away during the time Noah would have been conceived, so he knows the child isn't his. What's worse, Noah is radiating light. Lamech is worried that Noah is a watcher, or worse, Nephilim. Lamech seeks counsel from his father Methuselah. Also fearing the child could be a watcher, Methuselah prays to his own father, Enoch,

who's been in heaven for many years. Enoch answers Methuselah. And now make known to thy son Lamech that he who has been born is in truth his son. And call his name Noah, for he shall be left to you. And he and his sons shall be saved from the destruction which shall come upon the earth on account of all the sin and all the unrighteousness which shall be consummated on the earth in his days. The book of Noah, book 3, chapter 18. Lamech is relieved that Noah is truly his,

but Noah was conceived while Lamech was away. In the book of Enoch, this is a divine miracle, or its technology, artificial insemination and genetic manipulation, a successful human hybrid. Lamech also learns that a great flood is coming, and Noah has been chosen to restart civilization. In Genesis, God gives Noah instructions on how to survive, but the Book of Enoch tells it a little differently. The story of Noah and the flood is primarily found in the book of Genesis, chapters 6 through 9.

This narrative is one of the most well-known in the Bible. So God said to Noah, I'm going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. But the book of Enoch tells it a little differently. First, it's Uriel who tells Noah about the flood, not God. And the intention of the flood is not to destroy all humans. According to the Book of Enoch, the primary targets of the Great Flood are the fallen angels, known as Watchers, and their human hybrid offspring, the Nephilim.

Most humans will also die, but this is considered necessary collateral damage. It's the only way to reset creation and wipe the slate clean. If some humans survive, great. If they don't, it doesn't matter. Only Noah matters. Noah was given specific instructions on how to build the Ark and survive. Make yourself an Ark of cypress wood. Make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and survive. roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle, and upper decks. This is a big ship, longer than a football

field, almost a hundred feet wide, and taller than a five-story building. It would need to be big because Noah had an additional responsibility. You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal, and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. At this time in history, there were well over a million species of animals on Earth. Obviously, these wouldn't fit on the Ark. But there are explanations and interpretations.

The biblical interpretation is that Noah wasn't saving every breed of animal, just the type. So he wouldn't have brought any dogs. He would have brought a male and female gray wolf, and the wolves would eventually become dogs. They should have left the cats. Stop it. The vicious little hell beast there. That's enough. What about huge animals like elephants?

Those were definitely on the Ark. Some biblical scholars say the animals delivered to Noah were infants, allowing a lot more to fit. But there is an ancient astronaut theory that says there were no animals on the Ark at all. Instead, it contained DNA samples of all living creatures on Earth, essential for rebuilding civilization. Whether it was God's doing or not, the time finally arrived, the end of the world,

or the beginning. With Noah, his family, and the animals safely aboard the ark, the flood began. On that day, all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened, and the rain fell on the earth 40 days and 40 nights. As the waters raged over the earth, anyone not on the ark drowned. It took five months for the water to recede, and another five or six months for the land to be dry enough to leave the ark.

Noah and his family and the animals were on the ark for a full year. For thousands of years, believers and skeptics have debated the scale of the flood, or even if it occurred at all. Some have argued the biblical flood was not a global event, but a local one. The best-known theory to support this is the Black Sea Deluge Hypothesis. First proposed in 1997, it argues the Black Sea was a freshwater lake around 260 feet lower than it is today. It was cut off from the Mediterranean Sea by a rocky sill in the Bosporus Strait. Then around 8,400 years ago, the Laurentide Ice Sheet collapsed, causing an abrupt sea level jump. This sent a catastrophic inflow of Mediterranean seawater

over this natural dam and into the Black Sea. Almost 40,000 square miles of land were flooded. This significantly expanded the shoreline to both the north and the west. 200 times the flow of Niagara Falls poured through every day, and each day the level of the Black Sea rose several feet. And this continued for 300 days, creating the Black Sea as we know it today. Undersea surveys have revealed human-made structures. The remains of freshwater revealed human-made structures. The remains of freshwater fish have also been found. The memory of this massive flood could have been passed down through the generations. Then it was finally documented in flood narratives found in both the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh and the Book of Genesis. So there's evidence of a local

flood, which would have been the entire world to the people living there. But how about an actual global flood, a flood that affected every part of the earth? Skeptics claim the biblical flood could not have occurred because there's no actual evidence for a global flood. With all due respect, those skeptics are wrong. Many Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe the Great Flood is symbolic, an allegory to serve as a warning to mankind, be righteous or be destroyed. Others take the Bible literally and claim Noah was a real man who built a real boat to survive a real flood. What if they're both kind of wrong?

What if there was a flood, but the man known as Noah is known by different names in different cultures? The ancient Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh is the first flood story. Utnapishtim is warned by the god Ea about a great flood. He builds a large boat to save his family and animals from the deluge sent by the god Enlil. And Enlil was also... Anunnaki! Right. In Hinduism, Manu, the first man, saves a fish who later warns him of a great flood.

The fish instructs Manu to build a boat, and when the flood comes, the fish guides the boat to safety, carrying Manu, the seven sages, and the seeds of life. In Native American Ojibwe mythology, a great flood occurs. Nanabozho, a cultural hero,

survives by floating in a boat along with various animals. And there is an Australian Aboriginal myth, Titalik. A giant frog drinks all the water in the world, causing a drought. When he releases the water, it causes a great flood.

A boat is used to survive this deluge. The Chinese have the Ganyu flood myth, which cleansed the earth. The Inca myth tells of Viracocha, who floods the earth to destroy giants who have disobeyed his orders, sparing two to repopulate the earth. Nephilim. Could be. These stories go on and on. I specifically picked a few from cultures that are far away from each other, separated by oceans.

In all, there are about 250 separate flood myths. But every story is eerily similar. For years, the similarities between these stories was considered coincidence. As people stepped forward to claim there really was a global flood, it was called pseudoscience. But, as often happens, the only difference between pseudoscience and science is time. I think that the evidence is consistent with what I will call a mega-scale pluvial event over North Africa, most likely consistent with the Pleistocene-Holocene transition and the great flooding events that we know are well documented from other places in the world.

Huge tsunamis and torrential rain flooded the entire continent of Africa, reshaping the landscape. At the same time, on the other side of the world, the same event. Here what you have to visualize is a tsunami sweeping over the land that's over a thousand feet deep. That's what happened here. And we know that because we can trace the high water marks on the hillsides. The high water marks are clearly etched into the hillsides. This is the great flood at the end of the Younger Dryas, where the ice caps suddenly melted and raised the sea level of the Earth by hundreds of feet.

Anyone living near a coastline would be gone. Any settlements or cities below a certain elevation would be destroyed. The cause of this event is still being debated. Some believe a large asteroid impact or series of impacts caused the sudden melting of the ice. Another theory, the one I believe, is that a massive solar flare hit the Earth. This would cause the ice to melt everywhere at once and explain why flood myths exist in every corner of the world. Whatever caused it, it was a catastrophic event. An event of biblical proportions, literally. But there were survivors. Maybe not just Noah. Maybe there were many Noahs.

If an asteroid or solar flare hit, there wouldn't be much time to prepare. But there were many Noahs. If an asteroid or solar flare hit, there wouldn't be much time to prepare. But there would be some time. Maybe groups of people anticipated the rising seas and built boats. Or, as some theorize, and many myths say, a being came down from the sky and warned people of the coming catastrophe. Those who heeded the warning

would get to building boats right away. Those that survived passed down the story to their descendants. There could have been arcs all over the world. Or maybe there really was only one arc. And if there was, where is it? Does it still exist? Can it be found?

For that answer, we turn to the CIA. Searches for Noah's Ark have been occurring since antiquity, but it was the emergence of biblical archaeology in the 19th century which made the possibility of formal searches finally feasible. By the 1940s, expeditions were organized to follow up on potential leads. As for where the Ark came to rest, the book of Genesis gives us a hint. The waters kept receding steadily from the earth so that they had gone down by the end of the 150 days. On the 17th day of the seventh month,

the Ark came to rest on one of the mountains of Ararat. Historians and biblical scholars agree Ararat is the Hebrew name of Urartu, an Iron Age kingdom centered around Lake Van. This indicates the mountains of Ararat must be found in the eastern part of Turkey, near the border of Armenia, Iran, and Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan. What? Azerbaijan. It's fun to say. I guess. Azerbaijan. It feels really good in the mouth. Azerbaijan.

Can I get back to this, please? Go ahead. I ain't stopping you. Azerbaijan. On June 17th, 1949, the U.S. Air Force was photographing the mountains in eastern Turkey. On Mount Ararat was a rectangular barge-like structure west of the summit. This information was passed on to the CIA, who sent spy planes to analyze the object that they called the Ararat Anomaly.

What they saw concerned them so much, they immediately classified it as secret. All subsequent photographs of the object taken in 1956, 73, 76, 1990, and 1992 were all classified. Over the next 45 years, all requests from within the government to see these photos were denied. The photos were never seen outside the CIA. In fact, for years, the CIA said the photos didn't exist at all. Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, six frames from the 1949 footage were released to the public in 1995. By 1999, the CIA finally made their Noah's Ark files

available to the public. And these documents proved that the search for Noah's Ark had reached the highest levels of the American government. Later, higher resolution photos show no barge. The 1949 picture was most likely Iraq formation. Maybe. Probably. Maybe. But the Ararat Anomaly is not the only structure that looks like Noah's Ark. There is another, a ship made of solid stone.

In October 1959, Turkish Army Captain Ilhan Durupinar was on a mapping mission for NATO. When he flew over Uzangli, Turkey, he saw a strange formation and snapped a photo. When analyzing the film, he was shocked by what he saw. This structure looked a lot like a large ship. But what was a ship doing so far inland, at almost 7,000 feet above sea level? Then someone decided to measure it. It was 538 feet long. Now that's too big to be Noah's Ark.

The Ark was 300 cubits long, so 450 feet. But wait, the length of the cubit changed over time. The length of the cubit that Moses used to build the Ark of the Covenant was different than the cubit that Moses used to build the Ark of the Covenant was different than the cubit Noah would have used. In Moses' time, a cubit was about 17 inches. Noah came many years before Moses. Noah was only 10 generations from Adam. Noah would have used the Egyptian royal cubit, a little over 20 inches. The Derupinar ship was exactly 300 royal cubits long and 50 royal cubits wide.

This location is exactly where the Bible said Noah made landfall. Many people think Noah landed on Mount Ararat, but that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says the mountains of Ararat. Mount Ararat is a volcano and has erupted a few times since the days of Noah, as recently as the 1840s. In fact, geologists believe Mount Ararat is a relatively young mountain and probably wasn't there during the flood. The Darupinar location is only a few miles from Mount Ararat. A ground investigation was done. In the area was found about 30 drogue stones.

A drogue stone is a heavy rock with a hole at the top. Ropes went through the holes. Then they were hung from the bottoms of ancient ships to stabilize them in rough seas. Why are there anchor stones in the mountains of Ararat? They're 200 miles from the closest ocean. But there they are. Also on the site, the ancient settlement of Nashuan was discovered. Most of the evidence has been lost to treasure hunters,

but as recently as the 1970s, there were stone foundations of ancient homes still visible. This is believed to be the first settlement after the flood. The site is so important that there's a huge cemetery in the area. People from all over the world requested to be buried here. Not hundreds of people, not thousands. As many as a million people wanted to be buried at this location. Now all that was left was to examine the boat structure itself. Researchers looked for signs of animal remains.

They looked for metal nails. They looked for petrified wood. They found all three. After Darupadar discovered the site of the Ark, there was an earthquake in the area that exposed the hull of an ancient ship. Geologists visited the location and said it's a natural formation, and that was that. But in 1977, biblical researcher Ron Wyatt renewed interest in Noah's Ark. We believe that God has preserved in the earth and under the seas

remains of the major events discussed in the Bible, physical remains. Over a number of years, Wyatt brought geologists and other scientists to investigate the Darubanar site. Oh, look at that. Oh, well, wait a minute. Wait a minute, let me get a close-up of that. Kind of, um... You want my hand in there?

Yeah, just to point at those little flakes of iron that are coming out, like right there. There and there. Huh. Metal detectors were brought in and calibrated to search for iron. Not only did they find iron, they found it at regular intervals, indicating something

man-made. Do you want a measuring tape to measure these things, how far apart they are? The on-site team ran tape along the ground where iron was detected. It was a ship. Ron Wyatt found a metallic object next to the ark, which had the

shape of a large rivet. It was surrounded by what appeared to be an equally large metal washer. Part of the metal was tested. It contained a man-made metal alloy. Ground Penetrating Radar, or GPR, was used in the 1980s. Regular lines were found beneath the surface. All right, the lines are there! The lines are there.

This also indicates man-made construction. This data does not represent natural geology. It's a man-made structure. This is the West Balkan. That was over there. And he walked easterly. Here we start getting a longitudinal ball catch here here here here here here here here as a scientist uh do you really honestly

believe uh that you have been on the remains of noah's ark i have no no doubt in my mind there's uh this has to be a man-made structure. It's full of metal. Metal has a regular pattern. The size of the thing, the shape of the thing, it's almost certainly a large boat. A small excavation was done on the side of the structure. Wyatt's team discovered lines of mud that were lighter in color than the surrounding soil. He believed these to be beams from the ship. As recently as 2014, 3D scans were taken of the location.

Not only was the shape of a ship found, it had three levels, just as the Ark should. The 3D scan also confirmed the dimensions of the object. 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, 30 cubits tall. A perfect match. During one demonstration for the Turkish government, Ron Wyatt pointed to an object seen on radar near the surface. He was given permission to dig it up. It was a piece of petrified wood, deck timber. Other artifacts were found at the site.

More petrified wood, pieces of metal, cat hair, even fossilized animal dung. Researchers found evidence of the fence around Noah's house where he raised livestock. You can see the system of fences here that appears to have been a system of corrals and pans. They found the altar he used to make sacrifices to God. They even found the grave of Noah's wife and a stone sarcophagus. Almost immediately after the discovery, grave robbers stole her body and allegedly sold it on the black market for millions of dollars. All this evidence was so compelling that the Turkish government

officially claimed this was the place where Noah's Ark landed. There's even a visitor's center and the area is open to the public. But if the Ark really has been found, what does that mean? Does that mean everything in the Bible is true? Were there angels? Watchers? Were there Nephilim? Is the earth really much younger than we thought? And my big question is, is God the angry, vengeful God we read about in the Old Testament? There's evidence of the ark.

There's evidence of the flood. If God punished humanity for being wicked, we should be very careful. We might want to try to be better people. We should be more kind, more honest, more forgiving. God already destroyed humanity once. We're his second try. And you know what they say? Third time's a charm. Noah's Ark, the Great Flood, the Book of Enoch, the Watchers, the Nephilim. We covered a lot today, even aliens.

But is any of this true? Well, let's work backwards because that's the easiest way to do this. Ron Wyatt was not an archaeologist. He was a nurse by trade. He claimed to have all the requirements for a master's and a PhD in antiquities, but that wasn't true. He claimed to be a Korean War veteran, and that wasn't true. He claimed to have discovered the Ark of the Covenant, but he didn't. I'm always amazed, and again, I don't hate Ron Wyatt. I don't even really dislike him, to tell you the truth.

I dislike what he's doing. I realize that he's deceived, in my opinion, thousands of people. He said he found the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. He didn't. Ordinarily, I don't say anything without I can prove it because it's rather embarrassing to make a statement. He didn't. He claimed he found the location where Moses parted the Red Sea. He even said he found evaporated blood of Jesus Christ. He had the blood rehydrated and examined. He said Jesus' blood had 24 chromosomes, 23 to form a baby, and one from the Holy Spirit, which proves the virgin birth. So all of his physical characteristics were determined by his mother's side of the family,

her autosomes. His maleness was determined by this one why that came from the source, not a human male. But this whole thing is alive. Then they said, this blood is alive. And then they said, whose blood is this? And tears would come in his eyes when he talked about blood dripping down from the cross to the, you know, the mercy seat. I said, it's the blood of your Messiah. And I don't like seeing God's work so, so grossly misrepresented

to get funds from people and to get support from people. Ron Wyatt's work is still very popular on the internet, and I can understand why. This is an incredible story. But if you look just a little deeper, you'll find statement after statement from people who were lied to by Wyatt and defrauded out of quite a bit of money. One patron of Wyatt's lost $30,000 on one of these holy adventures. Wyatt said he needed another ten thousand. This patron said only if you take a lie detector test. At first Ron Wyatt scoffed but he needed the money. He took the test. The man who administered the test said and I quote he failed just about everything

except his name. But what about all the evidence? The metal detectors, ground penetrating radar? Well most of it was faked or cherry-picked. The metal detectors used weren't professional. They were purchased from the back of treasure-hunting magazines. Modern professional metal detectors have found iron at the site, but it's the same type of iron found in soil all over the area. No trained scientist has ever seen any of the petrified wood or petrified dung or anything like that.

The only people who saw these things were Ron or the people paid by Ron. Now, the drog stones are a compelling piece of the story because they are there, and they've clearly been there a long time. But the stone is locally quarried. Drog stones from Noah's Ark would have come from Mesopotamia, not the mountains of Turkey. And the boat-shaped formation is probably the result of a mud flow. You can see shapes like this all over the area. Now, supporters of Ron Wyatt's theories, and there are a lot of those, have answers for all of this. That the boat was actually higher up the mountain, but traveled down a lava flow.

But boats don't float on lava. They burn. They burn real good. But thousands and thousands of people throughout history did and do consider this a holy place. Maybe Noah's Ark was there.

I can't prove it wasn't. But I can prove Ron Wyatt was a liar. Now as to why the CIA kept the photos classified, what was the Cold War? And these were photos from spy planes. And a few of those planes weren't exactly in friendly airspace. After the fall of the Soviet Union, releasing the photos wasn't a problem.

Now, the Great Flood. If you follow this channel, you know that I believe that really happened. And I believe it happened at the end of the Younger Dryas. I believe a massive solar event melted the ice caps and created the biggest catastrophe in human history. And if you follow this channel, you also know that the thing I fear most is not nuclear war or civil unrest or pandemics. I fear the sun. If an asteroid is headed our way, we'll see it. And we may even be able to do something about it.

And if an asteroid actually hits, I believe the world would come together and all nations would do everything they could to help one another. But a major solar flare or coronal mass ejection? There's nowhere to hide from that. Not in a mountain cave or deep underground. The heat and radiation would be disastrous to us and our planet. We could hide underwater like the aliens.

Now that's true. Water is effective at absorbing radiation. And the deeper you go, the safer you are. And I'm sure the aliens in the ocean know that. Now speaking of aliens, is that what's going on in the Book of Enoch? Most of the flood myths start the same way, with a warning from a godlike figure. And they end the same way, with a godlike figure helping restart civilization. Now, I can't definitively prove that this is true. Nobody can. But if we keep pressuring

our governments about UAPs and UFOs, we may eventually get some answers. Humanity did take a leap forward in technology many thousands of years ago, and maybe those ancient humans had help. Enoch physically goes to a place that sounds like a spaceship. The prophet Elijah also talks about riding a chariot of fire. What? I thought you were going to sing it again. Well, now I don't want to. Elijah talks about riding a chariot of fire over the earth with a human-like being.

Elijah is amazed by the sound of the vehicle and how fast it moves. Other cultures and religions have similar stories. Muhammad ascends to heaven and meets Allah before returning to earth. In Hinduism, Arjuna is taken to heaven and lives Allah before returning to earth. In Hinduism, Arjuna is taken to heaven and lives there for a few years before coming back down. There are many more of these myths, but are they myths? Maybe these things did actually happen, but they're written down as myths because the technology is so far ahead of what existed at the time. Maybe these were visitations and abductions. There's a tribe in West Africa called the Dogon, and there are about 100,000 of them who mostly live in caves and cliffs. They're still a primitive people. The Dogon religion says that, long ago,

they were visited by aliens from the Sirius star system. These aliens told the Dogon that they helped the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Sumerians with their civilizations. But what's really amazing is the Dogon are aware of the star Sirius B, which the tribe calls Potolo. Sirius B is invisible to the naked eye. It was first discovered in 1862. But the Dogon people had no telescopes. They still don't. Yet not only were they aware of the star Sirius B, they knew it was a white dwarf companion star

to the much brighter Sirius A. The Dogon knew the length of Sirius B's orbit in years. They knew the shape of its orbit. They knew it was a dense star. They relayed all this information to a visiting anthropologist in the 1930s. They even said there's a third star in the Sirius system. But there wasn't.

Until there was. In 1995, a study concluded that a third companion star exists. More recent studies aren't so sure, but the Dogon people are. Allegedly, the Dogon were also aware of Jupiter's moons and Saturn's rings. Now, skeptics like to poke holes in the Dogon story, and I think that's fine. Like the Dogon were wrong about the number of Jupiter's moons and Saturn's rings. Now, skeptics like to poke holes in the Dogon story, and I think that's fine. Like, the Dogon were wrong about the number of Jupiter's moons. But they were right about Sirius B.

The story of Enoch seems to be based on ancient Sumerian stories, like a lot of the Bible is. When people talk about the Book of Enoch, they're referring to what's officially called First Enoch, because there are three books. Biblical scholars consider the books of Enoch pseudepigrapha, that is, a biblical work that falsely claims authorship by a biblical character. That doesn't mean the books of Enoch weren't known or weren't important. In fact, First Enoch is quoted in Jude 14 through 15. Enoch was known and was important, but the book is not considered inspired by God and therefore is apocryphal and not part of canon.

Still a page turner. Oh yeah, it's a good read. Now, some parts of Enoch are said to have been written later to expand on stories from the Bible, like the birth of Noah and Enoch's visit to heaven. These were interesting characters and people wanted to learn more. So someone, or many someones, we don't know who, just wrote more.

It's like Bible fan fiction. It's exactly like that. But different religions and denominations are going to have different interpretations. Remember, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church says the book is canon, and that church has been around for almost 3,000 years. Some Christians think reading the book is heresy, a crime against the church. But most scholars consider the Book of Enoch an important text that gives additional insight into the lives and beliefs of the people living at the time. Honestly, whether the Book of Enoch is canon or not, that's not important to me.

It's an interesting academic discussion. As you know, I'm not religious, but I am fascinated by and have great respect for religions, all religions. I enjoy the stories, and for the most part, I think they teach good lessons. I'm more into fishes and loaves than fire and brimstone, but that's just my taste. But I know I'm going to hear it in the comments. Every time I do a religious story, I get attacked. In the comments, there's going to be people screaming at me in all caps to take Jesus into my heart or I'm going to hell. If that's what you believe, that's okay. I don't believe that. I don't know what happens after we die. I'm inclined to say nothing, just black. But there's

a big piece of my heart that really wants to be wrong. Because when I finally pass on and walk down that tunnel, if I'm greeted by family and friends long past, and I find myself standing at the pearly gates, the first words out of my mouth are going to be, thank God. I took a lot of heat for that episode. Ron Wyatt still has a lot of fans and believers. Now, I think he's debunked and might have committed fraud. But lots of people believe him. And I'd like to believe that Noah's Ark is out there somewhere. If only we had a machine that could see through time.

Oh, look at you writing segues now, eh? Well, that was actually an accident. But there is a machine that allegedly lets you see through time. It's called the chronovisor, and it's supposedly stored in the Vatican secret archives. Yeah, I'd like to take a peek at what they got down here. Oh, so would I. And you can go see the archives, but there's a 10- to 12-year waiting list. You have to go there for academic purposes, and you have to state in advance the

reason for your visit. So what documents you'd like to see. How am I supposed to know in advance? I want to browse the shelves and see the time machines and alien skulls and all this stuff. Yep, that's too bad. They want to know in advance, and there'll be someone with you the whole time. And if you're going to apply to go visit the archives, don't ask to see the chronovisor. The church does not want to talk about it. And here's why. Vatican City is an inspirational place. You don't need to be Catholic or even religious to appreciate the architecture, the art, and the city's historical significance. But there is a place within the Vatican that's rarely seen. Hidden beneath the city is an underground fortress,

inaccessible to the public and protected by armed guards and state-of-the-art security. The secret apostolic archives. Within the stone and steel reinforced walls are vaults, climate-controlled rooms, and over 50 miles of shelves. And on those shelves are countless texts, relics, and artifacts collected by the church for over a thousand years. And one of the most intriguing objects hidden in the archive is called the chronovisor, a device that can view events anywhere and any time in history.

And for years, its existence was just a rumor. No proof of the chronovisor was ever found. But a book released by a Vatican priest would change all that. Let's find out why. Pellegrino Ernetti was a scientist, world-class authority on music, and a scholar. He spoke several languages. He dabbled in electronics, physics, and even the occult arts. He also happened to be a Benedictine monk. Now, whether by luck or by fate, Father Pellegrino Ernetti found himself in the company of Francois Brune, a priest from France. And they were sharing a ferry ride down the Grand Canal in Venice.

The water was calm and the trip was long, so the men struck up a conversation. And they shared a love of languages, science, and history, and they were discussing different interpretations of the Bible when Ernetti interrupted. There's nothing to interpret, Ernetti said. It's possible to see what actually happened, to see the truth with your own eyes. The broom thought Ernetti was joking or being rhetorical. He wasn't. Ernetti spoke of a device he had worked on hidden in the deepest, most secret

levels of the Vatican archive. A device that allowed its operator to witness events anywhere and anytime in the past. And it was called the chronovizer. Sort of. You can't travel anywhere with the chronovizer, but you can program it to show you certain events on a screen

like a television. Francois Brune was stunned by the story. program it to show you certain events on a screen, like a television. Oh boy, you can stream anything these days. Francois Brune was stunned by the story. He knew Father Pellegrino Ernetti to be a serious man. Ernetti was well-read, well-educated, and well-respected in the church. He was not one for exaggeration. Yet Ernetti claimed to have heard speeches by Napoleon and Mussolini. He visited ancient Rome, and Ernetti was amazed that Cicero was as captivating a speaker as history claimed.

My name is Maximus Desmus Baridius, commander of the armies of the north, general of the Felix legions, and loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife, and I will have my vengeance. In this life, what next? Are you not entertained? I'm not. Anyway, Broome wanted to know about the events in the Bible. Did they really happen? It's all true, Ernetti said. He had seen the final days of Jesus, including his crucifixion. He saw the creation of the Ten Commandments, the Last Supper, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and everything in the Bible. Now, Brun was obviously skeptical.

Even though Ernetti was intelligent and talented, he didn't have the skill and knowledge needed to build this kind of device. And Ernetti agreed that he couldn't build the chronovisor himself. He had help. In 1952, Father Pellegrino Ernetti was working on a project at the Catholic University of Milan, and being an expert in early Christian music, he was studying and restoring tape recordings of Gregorian chants. And while listening to one of the tapes, the school's founder, Father Agostino Gemelli, was convinced he heard his father's voice,

even though his father was dead at the time of the recording. But what Gemelli heard was not his dead father relaying some profound message to his son from beyond the grave. What he heard was more mundane. His father arguing with someone over the price of shoe wax. Gemelli's father was a cobbler who made and sold shoes. And Gemelli thought he'd been given a gift from God. But Ernetti wondered if there was a scientific reason for this, that the sights and sounds of people in the past somehow continued to exist long after they happened. And if they did,

could they be detected? It sounds like EVPs. Well, it does. And this technology is not that different from what we now call EVPs, or electronic voice phenomena. And since Gemelli was president of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, he was able to fund a project to explore the possibility of listening or seeing events from the past. Ernetti assembled a team of 12 scientists, but he would only reveal the names of two. And one was Enrico Fermi, the Nobel Prize winning physicist known for Fermi's paradox and for creating the world's first nuclear reactor.

The other scientist was Nazi rocket scientist turned director of NASA, Werner Von Braun. Like sound waves can be pressed into vinyl to produce a recording, Ernetti said that his team had discovered that light and sound continue to exist as forms of energy. And using a series of antennas, the chronovisor could detect this residual electromagnetic radiation and translate it into image and sound. Operators of the chronovisor could designate a specific date and location.

Then the scene was reconstructed on a large cathode ray tube. Now, Francois Brune was obviously amazed by the story and asked Ernetti what happened to the device. Ernetti said that once the team realized what they had invented, they brought their discovery to the Pope. And since the chronovisor couldn't tune into any place and time in the past,

it could be used as a powerful weapon. It could reveal state secrets or be used for blackmail. So Pope Pius XII worried that, in the wrong hands, the chronovisor could launch a dictatorship unlike anything the world had ever seen. The Pope ordered the machine dismantled and forbid anyone from speaking of it. Ernetti said this was the first he'd spoken of it in over 10 years. And Brun understood and agreed that a machine like the chronovisor would be extremely dangerous, and it was probably best if it stayed hidden and dismantled.

But Brune said to Ernetti, it's too bad there's no proof that the chronovisor actually worked. Ernetti said to Brune, my friend, I have proof. Quintus Ennius was a writer and poet who lived during the Roman Republic between 239 and 169 BC. He's often considered the father of Roman poetry. And during his lifetime, he wrote about 20 plays and an epic poem on the history of Rome called the Annals. But only a few fragments of his work survive. His final play, Theastes, was produced shortly before his death in 169 BC. And scholars have wondered about this

play for centuries. They knew the story was based on the writing of another author, Seneca, but the actual text of The Estes, except for a few lines, has been lost to history. Ernetti used the chronovisor to visit Rome in 169 BC, where he saw a performance of the play in a Roman square. Ernetti, fluent in Latin, was able to transcribe and finally complete Ennis' play after 2,000 years. And that manuscript still exists. The story of the chronovisor remained hidden for another 12 years or so. Then in 1972, an article appeared in the Italian magazine La Domenica del Corriere.

Show off. The headline of the article was, A machine that photographs the past has finally been invented. And some believe that the chronovisor was not dismantled, but was actually functional and being used by the church to maintain watch and control of the population. That theory makes sense. Oh, you believe that one, huh?

What does the Pope s*** in the woods? Soon, several photos were leaked, including this one taken by Ernetti himself. Ernetti used the chronovisor to view Jesus' entire final day, including his crucifixion. My favorite photo is this one, which shows Jesus walking and talking with his followers. And this photo is also pretty compelling. But again, the chronovisor fell out of the public eye. Or the information was suppressed by the church. Or that.

Well, then in 2002, Francois Brun released his book called The New Mystery of the Vatican, which documents his relationship with Ernetti and includes more details of what Ernetti saw with the chronovisor and even includes blueprints for the machine. And Father Pellegrino Ernetti passed away in 1994. But until his dying day, he swore the chronovisor was real. He even published an open letter saying so. Father Francois Brune passed away in 2019.

And during his life, he published multiple books and papers on theology and its relationship to quantum physics. He gave talks on EVP phenomena, communicating with spirits, and many different aspects of parapsychology. He too, until his last day, believed the chronovizer existed and possibly still exists today. Two highly regarded and well-respected clergymen insisted that the Vatican is in possession of the most important, most advanced, and most dangerous scientific invention ever created.

The Vatican denies this claim as fantasy. So who's telling the truth? The chronovisor is a story that bothers me. On one hand, there are a lot of details that are easily debunked. But on the other hand, the story comes from credible sources. Father Pellegrino Ernetti was well-known and highly respected by his peers. He spent most of his life researching,

teaching, and writing, and his books are highly regarded. Father Francois Brune is also well-known and respected. So why would these men of such high esteem risk their reputations on a lie of this magnitude? What was there to gain? Their entire lives, both men said this device existed and possibly still exists. But the legend of the chronovisor does have a few problems. First, anyone who can confirm that it existed in the first place is dead. When the story first

emerged, Fermi had been gone a long time. And von Braun, while still alive, never mentioned it. Von Braun had a lot of secrets, though. He sure did. And it's fair to point out that both Fermi and von Braun worked on multiple top-secret projects during and after the war. Now, the photos associated with the chronovisor are fake.

The crucifixion photo is actually a picture of a statue from a church in central Italy. And the sculptor was Lorenzo Valera, a relatively famous Spanish artist who created the statue shortly before his death in 1931. When confronted about this, Brun said Valera took inspiration from a nun who had seen a vision of the crucifixion. And that's why the statue is so similar to the photo taken from the chronovizer. But to me, they don't look similar. They look identical. But Father Bruhn said the photo was real.

And there are other photos associated with the chronovizer, but these became attached to the story over the years. They don't come from Ernetti. This one is sometimes attributed to the chronovizer, but it shows up in other urban legends as well. It's a photograph, but not one taken through a time machine. It's a photo of a painting by

German artist Johannes Raphael Wehle. It's called Jesus Among the Wheatfields and was painted around the year 1900. And this photo is another that's become attached to the chronovizer. This is a photograph of a painting by Eugene Bernand called Peter and John Running to the chronovisor. This is a photograph of a painting by Eugene Bernand called Peter and John Running to the Tomb, dated 1898. So what of Ernetti's transcription of

the Estes? Well, it doesn't hold up. Ernetti had written about 150 lines, which he said was the complete play. But experts are pretty sure the play would have been much longer than that, probably a thousand lines or more. And linguists aren't impressed with the transcription. Scholars have said the Latin is clumsy and uses words that wouldn't appear in the language for at least 200 years. So whoever wrote it wasn't a native speaker. In 1994, just after Ernetti's death, a letter was published by someone who claimed to be a distant relative of his, but wanted to remain anonymous. This person said that on Ernetti's deathbed, he confessed that the photo and his writing of the Estes were fake, and that Enrico Fermi had nothing to do with the machine, but he

still claimed the chronovisor was real. Then another distant relative said Ernetti made the whole story up to get more people interested in the church. I don't trust when distant relatives suddenly crawl out of the woodwork. Well, Father Francois Bruin didn't trust them either. He insisted that the chronovisor was real. And if Vernetti confessed, it was because he was coerced to do so by the church. Now that I believe. Well, that brings up an interesting side note. Now, obviously, the Catholic Church said the chronovisor wasn't real.

But in 1988, the church issued a strange decree that said if anyone was caught using a machine like the chronovisor, they would immediately be excommunicated. So if the chronovisor is fake, why bother releasing a statement like that at all? When I first heard the story of the chronovisor, it was one that I desperately wanted to be true. And many people believe it is true. Believers say the church keeps the chronovisor a secret, but does use it occasionally to influence world events. And that's something to think about.

If the technology exists that allows someone to view anyone, anywhere, and at any time in history, we wouldn't want any government to have such immense power. And the only worse institution to be the steward of this technology that I can think of is an organized religion. So with that in mind, I don't know if the chronovisor is real, but for all our sakes, I really hope it isn't. Our next episode is our last one, and it's one of my favorites. It's about the Knights Templar, or Templar.

I can't get a consensus on that. I say Templar a lot in this episode because it mostly follows the story of Knights Templar Grandmaster Timothy Hogan. And he is a controversial figure. In fact, some of his claims are so outrageous that I lost at least one patron because of it. Someone quit you because you told the story. Yep, because it was about Jesus and John and I don't want to spoil it, but it was quite a claim. Wait, are we going to lose more people by running this thing again? Maybe, Probably. But the claim is so controversial that if I left it out, it wouldn't have been honest.

Now, in producing this episode, I actually exchanged emails with Grandmaster Hogan. I told him that I would be covering his story, and I would be approaching parts of it with skepticism. And I was specific about

his story, where I thought it might have been a little hinky. So he wrote back a very nice and detailed reply and said he understood my skepticism about certain parts of the story. And he said I covered him fairly, which I thought was cool. And in the process of researching this story, I don't know, I must've listened to three, four, five hours of, of, of Tim Hogan on podcasts and interviews and

stuff. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Knights Templar or Templar. He's a fascinating guy. Whether you believe his stories or not, I don't think it matters. He's still a lot of fun to listen to. So when the podcast studio is finally up, once the podcast studio is running, I'm going to have him in. As soon as the podcast studio is running. I've been hearing that for a year. Has it been a year? Eight months. Yeah, we got to fix that.

We're working on it. This episode's a fun one. It's a long one. So pop some corn and settle in. The accepted narrative describes the Knights Templar as humble warrior monks protecting Christians on the road to Jerusalem. The Knights were later betrayed and ultimately destroyed. But there is another story within that story. It's a legend filled with murder, mystery, and buried treasure.

And it involves a secret powerful enough to rewrite history and change the world. Yes, the Templars were in Jerusalem protecting Christians, but that was their cover story. The real reason they were there was they were looking for something. Ancient technology. So as soon as the Knights Templar arrived in the Holy Land, they started digging. And then... The Knights Templar were formed in 1118. At least, that's when they were officially formed.

The real story began many years earlier in Constantinople, now Istanbul. Istanbul was Constantinople, now it's Istanbul. Now Constantinople been a long time gone. Constantinople, when a Constantinople get the works, there's nobody's business but the Turks. What? Tell me that song didn't pop into your head the second you said it. No, it did, but do you mind if I...

Istanbul! Istanbul! The Brothers of the East was a secret order formed in Greece that eventually set up their headquarters in Istanbul. They practiced alchemy. They studied sacred geometry. They performed rites and rituals incorporating astrology, astronomy, music, and mathematics. So when Hugh de Payens, a French nobleman, met the Brothers of the East, he was excited.

De Payens was technically Catholic, as most of Europe was, but he had family members who were of the Sufi Islamic faith, which is the more mystical side of Islam. De Payne's had been told of this secret group that possessed and was protecting ancient knowledge. He wanted to meet this group and see for himself. At this time in history, Europe was in chaos. Various kingdoms were rising and falling and warring with each other. In the East, Muslims and Christians were clashing. The world was tearing itself apart, yet the brothers of the East possessed

a peaceful wisdom. They weren't concerned with modern politics. The brothers had a purpose that was much more important. Once mutual trust was established, the brothers of the East told the European visitors their story. Well, not their story, the story. It was the story of an ancient civilization that thrived thousands of years ago. The people were highly spiritual and highly advanced. It was a civilization that was free of poverty. Wealth was meaningless.

They devised methods of growing crops so that every citizen was fed. They could control the weather. Droughts and famine were impossible. To Huda Paynes, this civilization had abilities that sounded like miracles or like sorcery. They could communicate over long distances instantly somehow. They had a way of levitating objects no matter how large or how heavy. They had medicine that could cure any illness, allowing people to live very long lives. War didn't exist. There was such an abundance of resources that anyone can have whatever they wanted.

And what these people wanted most was to pursue their own spirituality. And then they were gone. How, De Payne's asked, could a civilization this powerful, who seemed to be able to control nature itself, be suddenly wiped out? The brothers of the East said in a single day the ground shook, and volcanoes emerged and erupted. Then a giant flood swept over the Earth and destroyed everything. Ah!

I know where this is going. It was then that Hugh de Payne's and his eight knights learned of Atlantis. Yahtzee! Hugh de Payne's and his fellow knights were riveted by the story. De Payne's was a nobleman, a count in fact. He was the Count of Champagne.

Le Mouet Champagne. Le mot est champagne. Oh, pardon my French. De Payne's was an educated man. He knew about Plato and his stories of the island of Atlantis. He thought they were just stories. The brothers said Plato was mostly correct. But Atlantis wasn't just a city or even just an island. It was a civilization that spanned the globe.

And each city was connected using transportation technology that, again, sounded like magic. The story became almost overwhelming. Almost. The brothers said that ancient relics of Atlantis still exist. And they still possessed their power. The power to travel great distances. The power of communication. The power to travel great distances, the power of communication, the power to heal,

perhaps even the secret to immortality. If ever discovered, these artifacts would be the most powerful and dangerous devices on Earth. Dupain said that any kingdom, any country, any religion would kill to have access to this power. The Brothers of the East agreed. The technology of Atlantis could not fall into the wrong hands, so Hugh de Payne's was offered an assignment. Find the ancient artifacts and bring them back to Europe for safekeeping.

Hugh and the other eight men immediately agreed and formed a secret fellowship. But where do they start looking? The brothers said they'll find artifacts under the location of what used to be King Solomon's Temple, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The knights would have to act quickly. The Holy Land was a dangerous place.

Jerusalem was taken by Christian crusaders in 1099, but who knows how long they could hold it. And there was another problem. It wasn't just the knights that knew about the artifacts. Groups of Christians, Jews, Muslims, they were searching too. So when the knights arrived in the Holy Land in 1120, they set up their headquarters where Solomon's Temple once stood. They officially became known as Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, the Knights Templar.

And the Knights played the role of courageous warrior monks, protecting Christians making the long pilgrimage to the Holy Land. But while some Knights Templar guarded Jerusalem, other Knights were digging beneath it. Day and night they dug, until one day they struck gold. Literally. The brothers of the East were right. They promised the Knights Templar that if they dug under the Temple Mount, they would find artifacts that once belonged to the great civilization of Atlantis. The Knights found a large box made of acacia wood and gold. There was no question they had found the legendary Ark of the Covenant. And then they found five more.

Year after year, the Knights Templar pulled treasures from beneath Jerusalem. They found the Spear of Destiny, the Holy Grail, the Emerald Tablet, and pages and pages of ancient esoteric wisdom. They learned there were ten arcs, though they only found six. The arcs were used in conjunction with pyramids around the world to create limitless energy. This was similar to what Nikola Tesla attempted at Wardenclyffe Tower. If you want to learn how this technology worked, we have an episode that explains scientifically how the Great Pyramid of Giza could have been a power generator. Pyramid link below.

Within the king's chamber of the Great Pyramid is a stone box. Mainstream Egyptology says this box is a sarcophagus to store a mummy. But no mummy was ever found there. And the dimensions of the box are kind of small for a human body. But the box is the perfect size to store one of the arcs. The Knights Templar discovered that the pyramids were built for one specific purpose, to store the arcs. And the arcs, they were built to store manna. In the Bible, manna was a food source that appeared to the Israelites in the desert. It's described as fine flakes that look like frost on the ground. But according to Templar tradition, the Israelites, and the Atlanteans before them,

extracted manna from plant and animal matter and turned it into a monatomic white powder. This white powder provides energy. A white powder that provides energy? Ah, New York in the 80s was wild, eh? Uh, you're thinking about something else. Ah. The mana acted as an electrical superconductor and powered the arcs inside the pyramids.

The arcs generated unlimited energy for the thriving civilization. They learned these alchemical secrets from none other than the Emerald Tablet. Emerald Tablet link below. The Emerald Tablet gave detailed instructions on extracting mana from animal bones. The mana could then be used for energy

or even for healing illness. Hey, didn't the Emerald Tablet also tell you how to become immortal by making the Philosopher's Stone? Yep. From eating pee? Yes. Eating lots of pee? Yes. Yes. It does, but if you want to be immortal...

Nope. That's enough. Some of these ancient texts even talked about creating mana from gold. When mana was extracted from gold, it could be used to make objects lighter for levitation. Now think about it. The Ark is a box almost four feet long and three feet wide. It's made of gold. Gold is heavy. The Ark of the Covenant also contained the Ten Commandments, which were carved into stone tablets. Stone is heavy. Just the gold would have weighed almost a thousand pounds. That doesn't

include the weight of the stone or the acacia wood. Yet it only took four men to carry it. By the way, the men who carried the Ark were Levites. Levite. Levitation. I get a covenant link below. The Knights Templar also found very old texts that even predated the civilization of Atlantis.

These documents spoke of a non-human race that enslaved humanity thousands of years ago to mine gold. Anunnaki! Yahtzee. The Anunnaki come up a lot on this channel, and I promise I'll do a full episode on them. But here's the short version. The Anunnaki were gods worshipped by the ancient Sumerians, but they were actually aliens from a planet beyond Neptune called Nibiru. The Anunnaki arrived on Earth about 450,000 years ago, searching for resources, specifically gold.

They were trying to solve an atmospheric crisis on their planet. Finding gold in abundance, they settled on Earth and established mining operations. Eventually, the Anunnaki created a labor force by genetically modifying early human ancestors,

accelerating the evolution of Homo sapiens. We need this episode, Chief. I know. We'll do it. I promise. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your promises and 60 bucks are worth about one night's worth of mana. Okay. So the Templars knew about the Anunnaki and how they converted gold into a powder used for healing, levitation, and generating electricity. And it wasn't just the Atlanteans and Israelites that knew about mana. Sumerian texts spoke of an alchemical science called graal,

which you can't help but notice is similar to the word grail. The Sumerians used a substance called shimana that was used to help the Anunnaki gods power their flying craft. In Vedic, Hindu, and Jain texts, this substance was called Vimana, which again was used to power flying crafts. Polynesian cultures believe mana is a force of nature anyone can extract. Buddhists call it mani. Though the words vary slightly in all these cultures, the definition and use are the same. Mana is a potent substance that allows humanity to tap into something very powerful in nature. By the way, the

Templar cross, you can find that carved everywhere and every time civilization existed. The cross is all over ancient Egypt. You can even see the cross carved on the ancient Sumerian depictions of the Anunnaki. Templar legend says this was actually the symbol of

Atlantis. After Atlantis was destroyed in the Great Flood, the Young Adrius, yep, the Templar legend of Atlantis and the Great Flood is exactly like every other flood myth we find in every culture around the world. After the flood, a few survivors

restarted civilization with knowledge from Atlantis. The cross was carved in their honor. But not everything the Knights found was Atlantean. Some artifacts were from just a thousand years before, during the time of Jesus. There were ancient texts that confirmed a lot of what was said in the Bible. But some texts contradicted the Bible. There was no way the Knights could let the Church find out what they discovered.

The Catholic Church was growing more powerful every year. If the truth came out, it could shake the very foundation of the faith, and the Knights Templar would be destroyed. Besides, much of the Knights' funding came from the church. But no historical document compared to the shock of what they discovered next, an ossuary, which is a collection of bones. This ossuary held the bones of a very famous religious family, all buried together. The Knights found the bones of Mary Magdalene, John the Baptist, and Jesus himself. But they also found the bones of the children Mary had with both of them. To call what the Knights Templar discovered blasphemous

would be a huge understatement. They discovered documents and artifacts that would literally destroy the church. They needed to keep these treasures safe from being destroyed.

They needed to keep them from falling into the wrong hands, specifically the Pope's hands. The Templars knew that the existence of the bones of John, Jesus, and Mary Magdalene and their children would mean the end of the Catholic Church. But to rub salt in an already gaping wound, the Templars found something potentially even more threatening to the Church,

an alternate belief system. The Templars were Christian, but not in the strictest sense, as most of Europe was, and more importantly, as their king and employers were. Spreading information contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church was not only heresy, it was a death sentence. Remember, this was all happening at the time of the Crusades. Religions were at war. The Templars couldn't speak about their findings, but couldn't ignore them either. So instead, they hid them, they protected them, and studied them. Some ancient wisdom included blasphemous ideas like the divine feminine, reincarnation, heaven as a state of mind, and an innate connection

to the creator. The knights maintained their appearance as devout Catholics. They had to. Their biggest patron was the Catholic Church. You don't bite the hand that feeds you, especially the most powerful hand on earth. But in secret, the knights- Knights Templar were Christian Gnostics. Gnosticism comes from the Greek word gnosis, meaning divine knowledge. Other cultures call this enlightenment. The basic premise is that spirituality can be found within, without needing an outside institution. So no reason to have priests, monks, saviors, or churches at all. You didn't need them to find God. He's

already within you. One of the earliest Templar documents mentions God-given rights. Now, Americans use this phrase, or something close to it, in the Declaration of Independence, but that was in the 18th century. The idea of God-given rights during the time of the Templars meant excommunication or worse. Only the Roman Church could give someone rights. Any alternative was bad for business. And instead of worshipping Jesus, many Knights Templar idolized John the Baptist, who they believe initiated Jesus into Gnosticism in the Great Pyramid. To the Templars, Jesus represented a Christos,

a universal consciousness anyone could access, similar to the Buddha. They learned that being born again didn't refer to baptism. It referred to reincarnation, which someone would literally be born again. With the bones of Jesus, sacred documents, and artifacts from an ancient civilization, the Templars had plenty of evidence to back up their beliefs. They wanted to share this knowledge, but it wasn't the right time.

The church was too powerful. They would have to wait. They would wait until this knowledge could be shared with the entire world and not seized by one pope or one king. So after years of digging, these early knights returned to Europe with the treasures and knowledge and hid it. And then they built an empire. For 200 years, the Knights Templar grew and thrived. Their numbers increased from a handful of soldiers to tens of thousands of men and women. The Catholic Church and Christian lords throughout Europe gave the Knights Templar money, land, and power to help their cause. The Templars

created cathedrals, power structures, and systems of democracy. They created the first banking system, a system we still use today. During the Dark Ages, the journey from Europe to Jerusalem was dangerous. Road agents were robbing the pilgrims of everything they had. So the Knights Templar set up locations along the way called commanderies. At any one of these locations, you could deposit your gold in exchange for a note. You then take this note to another commandery and exchange it for gold. And for every transaction, the Knights Templar charged a small fee. It was an ingenious system used by thousands of people for hundreds of years.

Over time, those little fees added up. Now, individually, the Knights were poor. When joining, you gave all your wealth to the Order. The Order then took care of you and all its members. The treasures and knowledge passed from generation to generation, with each Grand Master responsible for their safekeeping. And for those few hundred years, the Knights Templar were extremely successful

at distracting the Church from their true purpose. A little too successful. Eventually, the Knights Templar had their own armies, their own fleets of ships. They had their own armies, their own fleets of ships. They had their own merchants, masons, and farmers. They were independent and self-sustaining. The Knights Templar became the first multinational corporation. They had no need for a king or country.

In fact, the opposite happened. The Knights Templar were so wealthy that King Philip of France was borrowing money from them. In the fall of 1307, King Philip IV needed financing for another war. He wasn't going to borrow any more money from the Knights. Instead, he would take it from them. The Templars had gone from humble defenders of Christianity to a serious threat to the entire power structure of Europe, the king and the church. And like many powerful rulers, King Philip didn't tolerate threats.

So Philip and Pope Clement V devised a plan. Pope Clement, by the way, was born Raymond Bertrand and was a childhood friend of the king. When the previous pope died in 1304, King Philip made sure his friend was elected to what was one of the most powerful seats of power on earth. In short, the pope owed him one. On Friday the 13th of October 1307, 100 Templars, including the Grand Master Jacques de Molay, were arrested. For seven years, they were threatened and tortured to try to gain access to their knowledge and wealth. After making false confessions,

they were found guilty of heresy and sentenced to death. But now there's a plot twist. For centuries, history claimed the church had condemned the Knights Templar as heretics and eventually had them executed. But in 2001, a document was found in the Vatican secret archives. It's called the Chinon Parchment. The Chinon Parchment documented the inquiry

led by three cardinals appointed by Pope Clement V. It details the investigation and the charges against the Templar leaders, including the Grand Master Jacques de Molay. The Chinon Parchment reveals that the Pope absolved the Templar leaders of heresy. They were allowed to reconcile with the Church. The Pope would allow the order of the Knights Templar to continue their work. King Philip didn't like this result. He applied pressure to the Pope.

Remember, the Pope owed him one. So in 1312, Pope Clement officially disbanded the Knights Templar. The leaders of the order, including Jacques de Molay, were later burned at the stake on charges of heresy, even though they were

forgiven of these crimes. But Grand Master Jacques de Molay would enact a small token of revenge for this betrayal of justice. As he slowly burned to death, Molay issued a curse to the Pope and the King of justice. As he slowly burned to death, Molay issued a curse to

the Pope and the King of France. He promised them that they would be dead within a year. This was March of 1314. A few weeks later, Pope Clement was dead. According to one account, while lying in state, he was struck by lightning. The fire was so intense

that his body was unrecognizable. And if you read up on this pope, you'll agree that this was divine justice. In November, King Philip had a stroke and died. He was 46 years old. The Templar curse was fulfilled. France had now

lost its king and its pope, and Europe had lost their beloved knights. Or so it seemed. When the arrest order was given on October 13th, the Knights Templar knew it was coming. They had spies everywhere, they had known for weeks, and they used those weeks to plan. On October 12th, the night before the arrest order was given,

the Templars' entire fleet of ships disappeared into the darkness. And aboard those ships were all the ancient Atlantean artifacts, the holy treasures, and forbidden documents. Jacques de Millet and about a hundred knights stayed behind. They hoped they could reason with the king and the pope. They failed in that mission, but succeeded in another. Disbanded but not destroyed, in hiding but not in prison, the Templars formed into smaller groups. In hiding but not in prison.

The Templars formed into smaller groups. They assimilated into other orders. Some assumed new identities and disappeared altogether. The Knights Templar in name ended in 1312. But their mission continued. In fact, it continues today. The evidence is everywhere. Evidence of the Knights Templar can be found all over the world. After they disbanded, they were determined to keep their knowledge and traditions alive,

so they created alias groups to avoid detection. In Scotland, they became Freemasons. Portugal, they were known as the Knights of Christ. In Germany, they created Ros as the Knights of Christ. In Germany, they created Rosicrucianism. There's also evidence of them in the early Americas. Nova Scotia has the legendary Oak Island with buried Templar treasure and deadly curses. An indigenous tribe in Panama

known as the White Indians of Darien have pale skin and Caucasian features. Some believe they're descendants of the first Templars in the Americas. When asked about the Knights Templar, the natives called them our brothers. In early Europe, Templars were the first Vikings. The first pirates were Knights Templar. The famous skull and crossbones symbol, the Jolly Roger, that flag was first flown by the Templar Navy to frighten their enemies before battle. One of the most famous Templar symbols

is the Red Cross with a white background. Another is the depiction of several knights on a horse, like this statue in London. Both of these are found in cathedrals and chapels all across Europe. If you read or saw the Da Vinci Code, you may remember Roslyn Chapel in Scotland. Pagan and Templar symbols are on every inch of it.

Some, like this carving of a knight on horseback, are obvious. This is the gravestone for William Sinclair. It's in the lower part of Roslyn Chapel. It specifically says Knight Templar. William Sinclair had no love for the church and provided help to any Knights Templar who asked for it. But it's not just crosses and horses that the Knights engraved on their architecture.

There are more subtle clues relating to some of their Gnostic and sometimes pagan beliefs. Sculptures of angels in strange positions are common in Roslyn Chapel and are an important rite in Freemasonry. But Freemasonry wasn't supposed to have started until 1717. Roslyn Chapel was built in 1446. Over 100 of these little green men are scattered around Roslyn Chapel.

They're pagan symbols and thought to originate from ancient Celtics. Paganism simply refers to anything that isn't Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. Why would there be hundreds of non-Christian symbols in a Catholic church? Templar legend says they were placed there as a message. Some of the more interesting carvings are of plants that Europeans never should have known about. This is a picture of corn

over one of the windows in Roslyn Chapel, and here's one of trillium. But corn and trillium are native to North America. Roslyn Chapel was built almost 50 years before Columbus sailed to the New World. How would Templars know what these plants look like? Well, isn't it obvious? They were there first. Templar legend says Sir Henry Sinclair,

grandfather of the builder of Roslyn Chapel, was not only a Templar, but was among the first Europeans to visit the New World. Not only that, but Christopher Columbus himself was associated with the Knights. He was a distant relative of the Sinclairs. Columbus's daughter was married to the Grand Master of the Order. He had access, as all Grand Masters do, to ancient knowledge of the Knights Templar, including their maps.

Columbus knew there was something on the other side of the Atlantic. He didn't know what, but he knew there was land and treasure. He knew this because the Knights Templar had maps of the New World for centuries. One of these was the Piri Reis map, and you know this famous map. It shows the New World and Antarctica hundreds of years before they were rediscovered. Piri Reis, by the way, was a cartographer from Istanbul, which in his time was Constantinople, birthplace of the Knights Templar. Was Piri Risa Templar? Maybe. Coincidence? Maybe. But when Columbus wanted to sail to the New World,

he first approached King John of Portugal for financing. King John refused, so Columbus went to Portugal's enemies, Spain and England. Queen Isabella of Spain came up with the money first, and the rest is history. But Templar history tells a different story. They say Portugal refused to finance Columbus because they already knew about the New World. Knights Templar had been sailing there for years. Portugal was populated by so many knights that it was considered a Templar nation. In fact, the word Portugal means Port of the Gauls, but Templars say it really means port of the grail. Knights Templar history says they were trading with Native American tribes for years. That's where they got a lot of their gold. And the Templars had a very good relationship

with the people of the New World. Columbus knew this. How do we know? Well, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria all flew flags with the Templar cross. He knew the natives would recognize this symbol and be peaceful. And they were at first. Sadly, the Europeans

didn't return the favor. The Knights Templars say they were the first Europeans to visit the Americas. Fine. But can they prove it? They can. In 1898, Olaf Oman was clearing land on his farm in Minnesota when he stumbled upon a strange-looking rock. It was a tablet, about 30 inches tall and 16 inches wide.

Carved in it were symbols that Ullman didn't recognize. This tablet became known as the Kensington Runestone. Ullman had it analyzed and translated. The inscription said it was left by Viking travelers in 1362. And this isn't a stone found on the coast. These Vikings were in the middle of the continent. Vikings in the New World, a century before Columbus.

Now remember, according to Templar tradition, the first Vikings were Knights Templar. Then there's the Narragansett runestone, found in Rhode Island in 1939, also with Viking runes. Only 14 miles from where this runestone was discovered is Newport

Tower. This is a mysterious eight-column structure. It's rumored to have been built by Vikings in the 1500s to track the solstices. The local museum says it's just the base of a lighthouse. But most locals disagree. As far back as the early 1800s, records and legends have given credit to Vikings. But why eight columns? Why not just build it as one solid cylinder?

Well, the answer leads us back to Gnosticism. The number eight is highly significant to Gnostics. It represents completeness, a divine fullness. Remember earlier when I mentioned Jesus was initiated in the Great Pyramid? Well, there's a reason for that. If you watched the episode that we had about the pyramids, link below, you'll remember that the Great Pyramid has eight sides, not four. To this day, Templars are initiated in the Great Pyramid, and they believe that Egypt was one of the main sources of wisdom for the original knights. And if you look, the number eight is everywhere in

Templar symbolism and architecture. The Maltese cross has eight points and was worn by a medieval order of knights that were attacked by fire. Today, it's the symbol of many firefighters. Here, here. Buildings like Temple Church and Ely Cathedral in England have octagonal features and the number eight scattered all over the place. You only have to look at a few pictures of Roslyn Chapel to start seeing the number showing up again and again. Evidence of the Knights Templar is everywhere. Now, we can't cover the Knights without mentioning the Freemasons. Countless rites, symbols, and beliefs connect the two groups almost seamlessly. Masons trace their origins back to the Temple of Solomon, just like

the Templars. On Oak Island, Nova Scotia, a money pit was discovered in 1795, along with a Templar engraving. Since then, the Freemasons have been involved in almost every search for the lost treasure. Both Masonic symbols and Templar crosses are scattered across the island. The connection between the groups is so deep that they still see each other as brothers to this day. Another Templar connection is with Rosicrucianism, which heavily emphasizes the rose and the cross, both Templar symbols. But why?

Why did the Templars spend so much time and money hiding their legacy? Well, the Knights Templar had a higher purpose. Their ultimate goal was to change the world for the better. hiding their legacy. Well, the Knights Templar had a higher purpose. Their ultimate goal was to change the world for the better. They knew the ancient artifacts and knowledge would be a shock to society. But this knowledge was never meant to stay hidden. Eventually, the Knights will share the truth.

And the truth might come out sooner than you think. Timothy Hogan is the current Grand Master of one of the Templar orders. He's on a mission to prepare the world to embrace their secrets. He insists that this knowledge is powerful enough to drastically alter our society as we know it in a positive way. Currently, all the Templar treasures are hidden in vaults around the world, seven of which are here in the United States. And according to Hogan, the world is just about ready for their release. He says they'll do it in a way where no one government, no one religion will have complete access to the information. The release of information will be controlled to ensure everyone benefits.

Because really, that's the Templars' entire purpose. It has been since the beginning. They wanted freedom for the people, physical freedom from the king, and spiritual freedom from the pope. Unfortunately, it wasn't possible in the 14th century. But today, it could very well succeed. We're at a pivotal point in history where many feel like something is about to happen,

they just don't know what. And I feel it too. Now, that might be nothing more than humanity's obsession with death and the end of the world. But maybe it's more than that. I think we all know that we can't go on living this way. Constant wars around the world, the hatred within our countries, the dishonesty of our leaders, the corruption of our institutions. It has to stop. Imagine how different our lives would be if we had access to ancient wisdom and technology. It would be a revolution. We could finally do what

Nikola Tesla almost did, create free energy for the entire planet. It would take a while, but eventually everyone on earth could access healthy food, clean water, and live long healthy lives free of illness and pain. It would be a revolution. Crime, poverty, and war wouldn't be necessary in a world of abundance, all due to the artifacts being held in secret vaults around the world. It would be a revolution. That is, if they're real. Today's story of the Knights Templar comes from one man, Timothy Hogan. He's the Grand Master of the Order of the Temple of Secret Initiates, the OTSI. He tells the story of ancient wisdom, alchemy, holy relics, and Atlantean artifacts.

It's a fascinating story. But is it true? Well, there's nothing to debunk about his story, but there's also no physical evidence to prove it. So it really comes down to Mr. Hogan. Do you believe him? Now, you know what? I'm going to call him Tim because I know he's watching. Hi, Tim. This is the part of the episode where I tell you all the positive and negative things I can about the author of the story. But today we have to do things a little differently. Recently on live streams, I've been cold reading rough drafts of scripts for this channel. You probably assume this, but I have a team of writers, researchers, and contributors.

Because, well, I need to. My cute 12-minute videos about weird animals have now become 40-minute documentaries. I'm just a guy who talks to a fish. I need help. Anyway, when I read the scripts live, I'm literally reading them for the first time along with you. Obviously, they're never final scripts. I rewrite everything I'm given. I also research and fact-check as much as I can.

Nuh-uh. Oh, yeah, then this one has to put in his jokes. You'd be nothing without me. Well... Nothing! But here's where things took a turn. First, after reading the draft, I was contacted by a viewer. Hi, Stan. Stan knows Timothy Hogan. He felt that the script was unfair to him, that it attacked him too personally. And you know what? I think Stan was right. You can still see the live read on the channel under the live tab, but here's the short version.

The script brought up Tim's divorce and a situation he had with a woman who was suffering from addiction and mental illness. She took over his Facebook page and posted wild stuff as him, like she was the reincarnation of Mary Magdalene, so that makes him Jesus and things like that. And look, those things happened, and it's not a good look. But are they relevant to his story about the Knights Templar? Absolutely not. Just like my exes aren't relevant to the work I do now. Hey, you got some real pieces of work in your past. I know.

Some real pieces of work, I tell ya. I know. I went through some rough patches. Your wife is a saint. I can't deny that. But that's the point. Tim's personal life is just that. Personal, and I don't really like gossip. Eh.

Okay, I like gossip, but I don't do it on the channel. Well, you do it on the live streams. Okay, that's fine. Let me get through this. So Tim's personal life is irrelevant. But his professional life, regarding his work with and as a Knights Templar, is relevant. Tim has detractors. People that don't like him, people that don't believe him. I asked the researcher where she found these people. They're on Reddit, aren't they?

They're on Reddit. Oh, they hate you on Reddit too. Oh, they don't love you either. Fair enough. Tim's detractors are what seem to be members of different orders of the Knights Templar or other fraternal organizations. It's actually hard to follow if you're not in that world. Now, people often ask me if I'm a Mason or in groups like that, and I'm not. And I joke that I'm not a joiner. I don't play well with others because that's true. So when people talk about grandmasters and seventh degrees and secret handshake grips and all that stuff, I don't get it. I don't impugn it, but I really don't get it. But the people that are in those groups do get it, and they take it very seriously. There's been infighting with these various orders for a thousand years, and it's still happening. This board voted Tim off, or that group wanted him out. He didn't like what

another group was doing, so he left. That kind of thing. Are the internal politics of these fraternal groups relevant to his story of the Knights Templar? To me, no. There are people who call Tim a fraud, that he makes claims that aren't true. Well, I'm going to read you a few of his claims, and these are Tim's words in an email to me. Laugh it up. It's going to happen to you too. It was also suggested that I say I'm a descendant of a Revolutionary War Templar, which is actually true. My great-grandfather seven generations back was General Joseph Warren of the Revolutionary

War. True. He initiated Paul Revere, and he helped plan the Boston Tea Party. He was an alchemist and a doctor, a Templar Grand Commander for the region, and his relationship with Paul Revere was largely based on studying alchemy. Paul Revere was a silversmith. That's true. My grandfather, Hugh Warren, also taught metallurgy at Denver University.

My great-grandfather, James Baden Warren, also knew metallurgy, and he was the Grand Lecturer for the Masonic Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, and he was a Grand Commander of the Knights Templar. True. My father was Stephen D. Hogan, Mayor of Aurora, Colorado, and had been active in politics my entire life. He was also a Templar. There are highways and convention centers named after him in Colorado.

True. We continue covering Colorado First at at five and we travel to Aurora when the city hosted a groundbreaking event for the Stephen Hogan Parkway. The project closed about a two-mile gap between the existing 6th Parkway on the west and E470 on the east. Even though he always had politics going on, he always tried to make time for us individually and to make us feel special. I ran for mayor after he passed away in a special election and lost by two votes. Anyhow, my family on both sides had been Templars, and I was first knighted into the tradition at eight years old as a page.

Now, I've seen these claims challenged online, but everything I could find says that Tim is telling the truth about his family. There are a few other criticisms of him online that he addressed in his emails to me. I don't find a lot of it relevant. It's mostly personal, but Google him and decide for yourself. Here's where I stand. I've watched and listened to interviews with Tim that go back about 10 years. I've read two of his books.

Well, skimmed. I watched his entire series on Gaia, which is fascinating, by the way. Tim Hogan has an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the Knights Templar. Names, dates, meanings of words, ancient rituals, everything connecting the Knights to ancient Egypt, various pharaohs and kings and popes.

Tim knows it all. And if you're into this subject, listen to one of his interviews. He's knowledgeable and riveting. And when we finally get the studio finished here, Tim agreed to come in and talk to me and have his claims challenged. But what about his claims? Well, from what I gather, and this is only my opinion, Tim will lean into information depending on the situation. Meaning if he's being interviewed by an historian or someone focused on hard facts, Tim sticks to the facts.

He'll bring up the theories and label them as such. Legend says, or people say, that sort of thing. If he's in a forum where the wild claims are expected, he'll lean into those. Now look, I love Gaia. I'm a paid subscriber. But everybody on that channel believes everything. And a lot of it is bunk.

A lot of it. But Gaia viewers want the wild stuff. What was Atlantis? Was it a place? A culture? And what happened to it? I'm Timothy Hogan, Grandmaster of the Knights Templar. And I'm Scott Wolter, a forensic geologist and a Knights Templar.

And this is Mysteries of the Knights Templar. I don't think Tim believes every theory he discusses. I think he's intelligent and entertaining. And I think he caters to the audience. Now, at first, that might sound dishonest. But it's exactly what I do here. I tell the story, the legend, the myth as it's meant to be told. Then we break it down together.

I'm not trying to lie to you. I'm trying to entertain you. I'm not a journalist. I talk to a fish. We do this for fun. Now, there are some bold claims that Tim sticks by, like the vaults containing the arks and ossuaries of remains. He says these are real, he's seen them, and the information is coming out.

The purpose of the show on Gaia is to, in Tim's words, bring people up to speed. Okay, that's fair, but that's not evidence. And bold claims need hard evidence. I'm going to be very honest. One of my most loyal patrons was upset about the Mary Magdalene, Jesus, John part of the story. That's the ossuary, the bones. He felt it was insulting to Christianity and I should leave it out. But it's such an explosive claim, I needed to tell you about it.

If I left it out, I'd feel like a liar and a coward. That said, I did check with other people of faith in my community. They said it's part of the story, leave it in. And if you've followed this channel for a while, you know that I greatly respect religion and people of faith in my community. They said it's part of the story, leave it in. And if you've followed this channel for a while, you know that I greatly respect religion and people of faith. Well, so I mentioned the arks. Accordingly, we also have ossuaries with the bones of certain holy figures that we're hanging on to.

By the way, I've only seen Tim discuss that story about the bones once, and he was reluctant to do so. He knows it's touchy. Well, okay. You just can't get away with, without naming names, ossuary of whom? Well, they would be referred to as the holy families. So it would be, you know, John the Baptist, Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and their kids.

He said he'll allow DNA testing, but he was also very clear that he had no intention of insulting anyone's faith. One of the biggest hurdles that we're trying to get over with all of this is that we're not trying to invalidate anybody's beliefs. We're just trying to say that there might be a little bit more to the story. And I believe him on that point. Tim's been accused of doing so many interviews and giving so many lectures because he wants to sell books and get people to watch his show.

Does that mean he's lying? No, he's promoting. Graham Hancock is everywhere when he has a book out. He wants people to buy it and read it. So what? I'm a huge fan. I buy all of Graham's books and watch all of his shows and interviews. I've seen every minute of him on Rogan. I don't have to believe everything Graham says, but I enjoy the material.

Same with Tim Hogan. You don't have to believe his story to enjoy it. Stories of Atlantean treasure, free energy, and ancient documents, that's nothing new. Those legends have been around forever. Now they may be true. But until we have physical evidence, they are still legends. So is Tim just jumping on the Atlantis bandwagon? Or is the link between the Knights Templar and Atlantis real?

Are there really underground vaults hidden around the world with ancient technology that could rid us of poverty and war? The arcs, the artifacts, the emerald tablet, the mana, the bones. Are they real?

Well, I need to see them. But if you choose to believe the story without physical proof, that's okay too. I'm not trying to persuade you one way or another. Tim insists that the Templars will reveal these artifacts very soon. If there are no artifacts, why make that promise? When he talks about the divine in each of us, he seems to believe it.

But that could be my own bias. Because I also believe that the divine, God, the universal energy, the whatever you call it, I believe that is in each of us. And I don't think that belief has to contradict anyone's faith. That's why it's called faith. If Tim Hogan is telling the truth, humanity's future might not be as doomed as we think. And maybe the catalyst, the change, the evidence we need is hiding in a vault right now, right beneath our feet. I don't know if it is, but I

truly hope so. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. My name is AJ, that's Sacklefish. Hello, I extend my thanks to the human for their decision to click on this compilation video. Their watchful eyes do verily provide sustenance for my guppies, who are the fruit of my loins. What's your problem? Fruit of my loins just makes me uncomfortable. Anyway, this has been a Y-Files compilation episode. Like every topic we cover on the channel, each of those topics was recommended by you.

So if there's a story you'd like to see or learn more about, go to the Y-Files.com slash tips. And remember, the Y-Files is also a podcast. Twice a week, I post deep dives on the topics we cover here on the channel, plus episodes that wouldn't be allowed on YouTube, and I label those unredacted. The name of the podcast is the Y-Files Operation Podcast, and it's available everywhere. Now, if you need more Y-Files in your life in between episodes, check out our Discord server. We've got over 50,000 members, so 24-7 there's someone on there talking about some of the weird stuff that we talk about here. It's a lot of fun, it's a supportive community, and it's free to join. If you want to know what's going on with The Y-Files, you can check out our production calendar at theyfiles.com slash cow. There we post our episode schedule, podcasts, upcoming live streams, all that stuff. And special thanks to our amazing Patreon members who make all this

possible. I could not do this without your support. Every episode is dedicated to you, and I'm truly grateful for your encouragement and most of all your trust. Now, if you'd like to support the channel and be a part of this amazing community, consider becoming a member on Patreon. For as little as $3 a month, you get access to videos early without commercials, access to merch only available to members,

plus two private live streams every week just for you and I think it's the best perk there is. You get to meet everyone on the team. All of our webcams are on. You can put your webcam on, jump up on stage, ask a question, discuss a topic, say hi, whatever you want. I think it's the best perk. Another great way to support the channel is grab something from the Wi-Fi store. And make sure you get a heck of a t-shirt or one of these coffee mugs for fisting or drinking beverages from or whatever you want to do.

It's none of my concern. Or some of these hoodies with my face on it. Or stickers that got my face on it. We got backpacks. We got woodchucks. We got chainsaws. We got all kinds of camping gear with my face on it. And we also got these squeezy stuffed talking animal hecklefish toy doll fishes and toy.

That's going to do it. Until next time, be safe, be kind, and know that you are appreciated. See you in a few days. Bye. Oh, oh, oh, yeah I played Polybius in Area 51 A secret code inside the Bible said I was I love my UFOs and paranormal fun As well as music, so I'm singing like I should But then another conspiracy theory becomes the truth, my friends

And it never ends No, it never ends I fear the crab cat and I got stuck inside Mel's home With MKUltra being only two away Did Stanley Kubrick fake the moon landing alone On a film set or were the shadow people there The Roswell aliens just fought the smiling man I'm told

and his name was cold And I can't believe I'm dancing with the fishes, heck of a shot Thursday night, Wednesday day too And the white balls have to be on through the night All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth

So one more time, it'll be all through the night The Mothman sightings and the solar storm still come To a god, the secret city underground Mysterious number stations, planets are both two Project Stargate and what the Dark Watchers found. We're in a simulation, don't you worry though. The Black Knight said

a lot, he told me so. I can't believe I'm dancing with the fish. Heck, no fish on Thursday night's Wednesday day too, and the wild love to beat all through the night All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth So the wild boars love to beat all through the night

Hector fish on Thursday nights when they chase you And the wild boars love to beat all through the night All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth So the wild boars have to beat all through the night Gertie loves to dance, Gertie loves to dance, Gertie loves to dance, Gertie loves to dance, Gertie loves to dance. Gertie loves to dance on the dance floor, because she is a camel. Camels love to dance when the feeling is right on wasting time Good luck then Good luck then