Original subtitles

[dramatic music]

- Tonight, mysterious codes

hiding in plain sight.

- At least as far back

as the first century BC,

people have been searching

for coded messages.

- From works of art-

- People start trying to find codes

in "The Last Supper" itself.

- Who knows how many more could be out there

waiting to be found?

- to sacred texts-

- The more the manuscript is studied,

the more mysteries it seems to raise.

- Dozens try to crack it,

even Alan Turing,

who famously helped break the Nazi Enigma code.

- to the desert sands.

- This has to have deep spiritual importance

to justify all the manpower that it took.

- What messages are they trying to convey?

- If we look closely, we begin to see a pattern.

- They suspect that these carvings

are perhaps symbols of warning.

- Now, the remarkable stories

behind history's most confounding hidden codes.

[dramatic music]

One of the world's greatest artists,

Leonardo da Vinci,

left behind more than just masterpieces,

secrets are embedded in all of his works.

Symbols and codes

whose meaning remains debated today.

[pensive music]

- Leonardo da Vinci is the painter

behind one of the most famous religious artworks ever made,

"The Last Supper."

Not to mention, he also painted

the most famous work in history,

"The Mona Lisa."

- A significant portion of da Vinci's work

is religious in nature,

"Saint Jerome," "Virgin and Child,"

"The Adoration of the Magi."

This is because he worked on commission,

and he was painting for the church

and for wealthy patrons in Italy and France.

- da Vinci's genius is not just in the art world.

As he's developing his reputation as a great painter,

he's also filled 13,000 pages of journal entries

with scientific ideas

that are way ahead of their times.

He comes up with designs for flying machines

and military equipment and scuba gear,

even robots.

- [Dennis] Within these pages,

da Vinci shows off another surprising skill.

- da Vinci invents a kind of code.

He writes backwards in a mirror-image script

combined with his own made-up shorthand and symbols.

We still don't know what inspired da Vinci to do this,

but it seems like he just came up with it on his own.

- Whatever the reason,

Leonardo da Vinci has become almost as famous for his codes

as he has for anything else he's done.

Pop culture has totally run wild

with this idea of da Vinci as a master cryptologist.

[inquisitive music]

- [Dennis] Perhaps none have received as much attention

as one of his most famous paintings,

"The Last Supper."

- Starting at about 1494, 1495,

da Vinci begins painting

his fresco depicting "The Last Supper,"

Jesus dining with his 12 apostles.

The painting is commissioned by Ludovico Sforza,

and it's to hang in the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie

in Milan.

- [Dennis] But over the next two decades,

the masterpiece begins to fade.

- We have to remember that this is a fresco.

This is on the wall of a convent exposed to everybody,

and within 20 years,

the paint begins to flake off.

By 1652, the painting is all but unrecognizable,

so much so that workmen think nothing

of cutting a doorway right in the center of it.

- It's not until 1726

that da Vinci's "Last Supper" is first restored,

and it's been touched up periodically

over the years since.

The most major restoration

takes place in the late 1970s and early 1980s,

and the area around the painting

is finally sealed and climate controlled.

- [Dennis] The restoration allows the public

to view this masterpiece in a whole new light.

- Given da Vinci's propensity for mathematics and numbers

and his love of codes,

starting in the 1980s,

people start studying and researching

and publishing papers

trying to find codes embedded

in the fresco "The Last Supper" itself.

[pensive music]

- One of the more famous alleged coded messages

is revealed by British computer scientist and archivist,

Peter J. Vis

on a personal blog in the 1990s.

- Vis's observation has to do with the arrangement

of the figures in the scene.

Yes, they are all sitting on one side of the table,

which they need to be in order for us to see them,

but Vis says there's more to it than that.

If we look closely, we begin to see a pattern.

- The composition of "The Last Supper" is very intentional.

It's groupings of three, three, one, Jesus,

three and three.

- Vis believes that this specific code

comes from the Book of Lamentations 331:33,

which states that, "For no one is cast off

from the Lord forever."

Multiple writers believe that this could refer

to Judas's betrayal

and that even he could be forgiven.

- After Vis writes about the connection to Lamentations,

other authors expand on his work

and suggest the Bible verse may hold an even deeper meaning

about da Vinci himself.

He'd been accused of homosexuality

as a young man in Florence.

In fact, one of the definitive biographies of da Vinci

by Walter Isaacson

strongly suggests da Vinci

was a homosexual his entire life.

- This Bible verse from Lamentations

could refer to da Vinci himself

seeking redemption for what was at the time

considered a sin and a scandal,

so that he himself won't be cast off forever.

- [Dennis] This may not be the only message

hidden in da Vinci's great painting.

- This same biblical event, "The Last Supper,"

had been depicted countless times before by other artists,

but they always showed halos above everyone's head.

da Vinci paints them without halos,

not even Jesus has one.

da Vinci may be relaying his belief

that Jesus and his disciples

are all ordinary men and not divine.

- In his day,

a suggestion like that is quite shocking.

It's a bold statement when you consider

that he's painting it larger than life

on the wall of a convent.

- [Dennis] There's another famous object

conspicuously missing in "The Last Supper."

- In the gospel of Matthew,

Jesus shares bread with his followers,

and he says, "Take, eat, this is my body."

He then holds up a cup of wine,

and says, "Drink all of it, for this is my blood.

Do this in remembrance of me."

Now, this cup,

which we all know is the famous Holy Grail,

isn't there among the glasses on the table.

- [Dennis] But according to Dan Brown,

author of the 2003 bestselling book,

"The Da Vinci Code,"

it is.

- According to "The Da Vinci Code,"

the missing cup from the table was done on purpose,

and it's part of the complicated coded message

that puts Leonardo da Vinci at the center

of one of the most incredible conspiracies in history.

- Brown writes that the Holy Grail is there after all,

and according to da Vinci's code,

it's not a cup, it's a person.

- While most scholars believe

that the person seated to the right of Jesus

in "The Last Supper"

is John the Apostle.

Dan Brown suggests something radically different,

that it is a woman

and is in fact Mary Magdalene

and that she represents the Holy Grail.

[dramatic music]

- The position of Jesus

and the figure in question

form an M shape.

Brown goes on to suggest that M

Implies that Jesus and Mary Magdalene are married.

- Between the two,

the empty space forms a V shape.

Brown's novel interprets that

as a symbol suggesting that Mary's womb

is the true Holy Grail

and she had a child with Jesus.

[pensive music]

- The plot of the novel

follows a secret society

entrusted with protecting the secret of Jesus's lineage.

This conspiracy involves the Knights Templar

and Leonardo da Vinci himself.

- It's an exciting story,

but unfortunately that's all it is for now,

a story.

There's no historical evidence

that Jesus had a child

or that Leonardo da Vinci

was one of a string of protectors of that bloodline,

and it's unlikely da Vinci would risk

anything as blasphemous

as putting Mary Magdalene next to Jesus

if he wanted to keep his career going.

- One thing Dan Brown's book accomplished

is that it got a whole new army of researchers

interested in digging into "The Last Supper"

and da Vinci's other work.

And from here, the theories really start to take off.

- In the aftermath of Dan Brown's 2003 bestseller,

many more researchers

start looking for hidden messages

in da Vinci's work.

His paintings, engineering drafts and drawings

are all carefully scrutinized

for what could be secret clues.

[inquisitive music]

- All kinds of fringe theories eventually come out.

Things like da Vinci's coded messages

reveal secret knowledge

that he learned from aliens or time travel.

They're a ton of fun to read,

but they don't carry a lot of scientific weight.

- [Dennis] Then, in 2010,

one new announcement gets a lot of attention

because it comes from an actual Vatican researcher.

- Sabrina Sforza Galizia

says that she's taken an all-new approach

to decoding "The Last Supper,"

and has discovered a hidden message

that's not about Jesus

or secret biblical history,

it's about the future.

[pensive music]

- While most researchers focus on the people

and the objects in the painting,

Galizia actually takes a look

at a part of the painting

that most of us would ignore,

which is the background.

[inquisitive music]

She believes that the windows and the doorways

actually depict mathematical

and astrological codes.

- These codes are based on the 12 signs of the Zodiac,

the 24 letters in the Latin alphabet

and the 24 hours in the day.

And when deciphered, according to Galizia,

they reveal that da Vinci foresaw

a universal flood that would destroy the world.

And this is supposed to happen on March 21st, 4006.

- Of course, it's impossible to verify her claims,

but in his notebooks,

da Vinci is known to write

what are called prophecies.

These are mostly just riddles,

but some speculate that he really did dabble

in predictions of the future in his artwork.

- By the time Galizia makes our announcement,

da Vinci code mania is in full effect.

And so rabid is the fascination with da Vinci

that some legitimate researchers and scientists

decide to get in on the fun.

- [Dennis] Experts next hone in

on da Vinci's most famous artwork,

"The Mona Lisa."

[suspenseful music]

- "The Mona Lisa" is generally believed

to be a painting of Lisa Gherardini,

also known as La Gioconda.

the wife of Florentine silk merchant,

Francesco del Giocondo.

After Leonardo's death,

"The Mona Lisa" is bought right away

by King Francis I of France,

and it even ends up in Napoleon's bedroom for a while.

Nowadays, it's housed at the Louvre.

- [Dennis] People travel from all over the world

to admire "The Mona Lisa."

But in 2010, Italian researchers take a closer look

and find something unexpected.

- Researchers at Italy's

National Committee for Cultural Heritage

see two tiny letters

hidden in one of the eyes of the painting,

the letters LV.

At the time, they speculate

that this is a relatively straightforward hidden message.

LV is Leonardo da Vinci's initials.

[inquisitive music]

- But there's more to this code

that we still don't understand.

In the background of the painting,

there is a bridge,

and in the arch of the bridge,

there is what appears to be the number 72.

[pensive music]

- [Dennis] A year later, in 2011,

Italian author Carla Glori

is able to make more sense out of these clues.

- Glori believes that this solves a longstanding mystery

about the painting.

The location of the countryside

we see in the background,

it's been speculated

to be everywhere from Lake Como to China.

- [Dennis] According to Glori,

da Vinci's hidden 72

reveals the answer.

[dynamic music]

- In 1472, a bridge in Italy

is famously damaged by severe flooding

and then rebuilt.

This bridge is in the town of Bobbio

in the Trebbia river valley.

It's a place Ernest Hemingway once described

as the most beautiful in the world.

Glori finds all the features

of the painting's background match Bobbio

in da Vinci's time.

- Bobbio is the territory of Ludovico Sforza,

who is the duke of Milan.

And Glori believes that this painting

depicts his daughter, Bianca.

So it might not be "The Mona Lisa" at all,

it might be "The Mona Bianca."

And a hidden code helped figure that out.

[serene music]

- Leonardo da Vinci isn't the only one

using artwork to hide messages,

a mysterious culture in Peru

draws their own strange codes

into the earth itself.

- In 1927, a Peruvian archeologist

named Manuel Toribio Mejia Xesspe

goes for a hike in the Nazca Desert.

And he climbs a large foothill

to get a better view of the plateau,

and he sees something astonishing below,

a massive geometric shape

that is somehow drawn into the landscape.

- Soon more are found.

There are dozens of these lines

crisscrossing the desert floor.

But it's not just patterns,

there's also figures.

We see animals, monkeys,

spiders, among others.

Mejia Xesspe soon shares his findings

with the scientific community,

who begin mapping these lines on the earth,

which are called geoglyphs.

They become known as the Nazca Lines.

[pensive music]

- It's not until a few years

after Mejia Xesspe's find in the 1930s,

as airplanes first take to the skies over Peru,

that the true scale of these geoglyphs is realized.

There are over 3,000 carvings

spanning over 200 square miles.

- They're massive.

The hummingbird is 295 feet long.

And there is the outline of a condor

with a wingspan of 450 feet.

- One trapezoid covers 62 square miles,

and some of the straight lines

run up to 30 miles long.

- [Dennis] But what could these ancient lines mean?

[dynamic music]

- There are no written records

of what civilization did this,

or how, or why,

but whoever made these lines

did it with a lot of planning and intention.

Creating these on such a large scale,

it would be dusty, backbreaking work

in the heat of a dry desert.

- So this has to mean something, right?

This has to have deep spiritual importance

to justify all the manpower that it took.

- So the Nazca Desert

is kind of a layer cake.

It's got a dark red volcanic soil

on top of a lighter soil.

So the way they create the lines

is by actually removing that dark soil from on top,

about 12 inches of it,

exposing that light line.

And they did this for miles.

- Even by today's standards,

the sheer scale of the Nazca Lines is incredible.

So it's not surprising that these have become

a source of fascination, a fixation for many,

trying to uncover just what these lines mean.

[dynamic music]

- Since their discovery in 1927,

a series of ancient lines

carved into the earth

has fascinated scientists and archeologists.

The lines are so large

that they can only fully be seen from above.

The question is, who made them?

And why?

- In 1929, archeologist Julio Cesar Tello

discovers an necropolis.

[ominous music]

A burial site of an ancient culture

that lived near the lines.

They're dubbed the Paracas

after a nearby peninsula.

- They've got textiles, pottery, skeletons,

and it's determined that they lived in this area

from 800 BC to about 200 AD.

Researchers find other nearby sites

filled with artifacts as well.

And these come from slightly later,

more like 100 BC to about 700 AD.

This culture, which slightly overlapped the Paracas,

is called the Nazca.

[pensive music]

- Starting in the 1920s,

archeologists begin to uncover the remains

of a 370-acre city

on the southern end of the Nazca Lines.

It's called Cahuachi,

and it's full of small ceremonial buildings

and other sites.

- It's a huge place,

but it has a very small permanent population.

This means it's a site of pilgrimage.

People come to the city in large numbers

who don't live there.

But why?

And could this finally explain

what these massive drawings are for?

[suspenseful music]

- [Dennis] In 2020, one high-tech team

claims they've found the answer.

- Archeologists from the Institute of Nazca

at Yamagata University in Japan

use high-resolution aerial photography and drones

to map some of the Nazca Lines

in the northern desert.

- They find fainter and older lines,

likely made by the Paracas culture,

who often put their drawings on hillsides.

The Japanese team finds that the lines

actually seem to run from one valley to another,

connecting cities to significant religious sites,

like Cahuachi.

- In their opinion,

this is basically a map for pilgrims.

The glyphs upon the hillside,

you can see them from

the ground level,

and they would be unmistakable

landmarks for travelers.

[pensive music]

- The map idea is pretty ingenious,

but there are a lot of drawings

that don't figure into it.

In other parts of the desert,

the Nazca also create long lines,

shapes and animals,

but their geoglyphs are made mostly on the flat plateaus.

That means people walking at ground level

can't possibly see the designs.

- The coded message here

can't be a map for pilgrims

because it could only be seen from way, way up in the sky.

- [Dennis] Anthropologist Johan Reinhard

believes there's a divine reason why.

- The Nazca live in a desert,

one of the driest places on Earth.

Reinhard says that their religion

is based on rainfall and agriculture.

For the Nazca, some of these creatures,

like the monkey and the spider,

are Gods of fertility and water.

So these giant figures could be prayers,

prayers to the gods who live above

and can bring the rain.

- These geoglyphs aren't just symbolic,

they're interactive.

A worshiper would walk or dance

inside the figures in ritual prayer.

[pensive music]

- In 1997, Dr. Markus Reindel

of the German Archeological Institute

takes some soil samples of the earth between the lines.

What he finds is the soil has been heavily compacted,

as if thousands of people

had been dancing their way along the lines.

- [Dennis] If these newer lines are a prayer for rain,

it seems to work.

- Between about 200 and 500 AD,

the Nazca civilization flourishes and booms.

And the human remains that we find from that time period

indicate that they were generally well-nourished

and healthy.

- Soil analysis has revealed

that this was not always a desert.

You know, back then, you had arable soil,

lush green valleys, horongo trees everywhere.

- [Dennis] That all starts changing around 400 AD.

- The Nazca begin cutting those trees down,

clearing room for crops and cotton

to feed and clothe their growing population.

- Then, around 500 AD,

a cataclysmic El Nino cycle hits.

[storm bellowing]

Bringing a once-in-a-thousand-year

level of rainfall.

Without tree roots to hold in the soil and the moisture,

there are flash floods.

Mudslides devour entire villages.

- [Dennis] But eventually the rainstorms subside.

- What follows are decades of extreme drought

and probably starvation.

To make matters worse, around that time,

there's evidence of catastrophic earthquakes as well.

- What can the Nazca do?

They send more desperate messages to their gods.

They make more of these geoglyphs

and they start filling them with valuable objects,

like pottery, perhaps as offerings to the gods.

- [Dennis] It's not enough to save the Nazca civilization

from total collapse.

- Starting around 600 AD,

the Nazca move over 100 miles away, to the Andes,

abandoning their geoglyphs.

And it's not for 1,300 years

until they're rediscovered.

- [Dennis] Despite our greater understanding today,

researchers are quick to point out

that the Nazca code still isn't fully deciphered.

- We have good evidence that part of it was for mapping

and that part of it was for communicating with the Gods,

but there remain dozens of drawings

that don't fit either hypothesis.

- Even though these Nazca Lines are over 2,000 years old,

they're discovering new ones all the time.

Over 100 have been found in the last five years alone.

- And with new technology,

drone, lidar, AI,

who knows how many more could be out there

waiting to be found?

You might say that we have barely scratched the surface

of this ancient geological marvel.

[dramatic music]

[pensive music]

- Deep beneath the quiet English town of Royston

lies a secret chamber

that's puzzled historians since its discovery

four centuries ago.

Why it was built and by whom

remains a mystery.

- In 1742, workmen in the town of Royston, England,

are building a new bench

in the town's butter market.

The workmen are digging in the ground

and they hit something hard,

and they eventually uncover a large circular stone.

- They lift it up,

and underneath, there's a deep, manmade shaft

carved into the chalk bedrock.

But it's too dark to see

how far down it goes.

- They recruit this small boy,

and they lash a rope around him

and lower him down into the depths of this tunnel.

[eerie music]

- A local minister named Reverend G. North

documents what the boy finds,

a round bottle-shaped chamber,

16 feet wide and 16 feet deep.

From top to bottom are dozens of carvings

of strange, expressionless, mostly human figures.

A few carvings depict forms of torture or execution.

- One of these carvings is a figure

that's holding a candle in one hand

and a skull in the other.

And they suspect that these carvings

are perhaps symbols of warning

or of defending something precious within,

a treasure of some sort.

- Eventually, they hit rock bottom

about 26 feet from the top.

And all they find is an old brown earthenware cup

with a few yellow dots,

a few scattered bones

and a human skull.

No treasure.

[dramatic music]

- [Dennis] News about the discovery

called the Royston Cave

soon starts to spread.

And right away, researchers are eager

to figure out what it's for.

- Later that same year, 1742,

an historian named William Stukeley

investigates the Royston Cave.

He's already famous for pioneering

the study of Stonehenge.

- Stukeley identifies some of the carvings

as religious figures.

There's the virgin Mary,

St. Catherine with the wheel she was tortured

and executed on,

and St. Lawrence with the griddle

on which he was roasted alive.

- There are depictions of the crucifixion of Jesus,

and a sword pointing to 13 figures,

possibly Jesus with the 12 disciples,

and an image that might be Jesus

lying in his shroud in the Holy Sepulchre.

[pensive music]

- There are secular political figures too,

King Richard I, Henry II,

all rulers in the 12th century.

- [Dennis] A century later

and no closer to answers,

local historian Joseph Beldam

takes a more thorough look at the strange symbols.

- Beldam notes there are military themes in the carvings.

[dramatic music]

Soldiers in armor with swords and shields

adorned with crosses.

- He guesses that the cave

was actually used as a meeting place

for soldiers who were returning

from the crusades in the holy land.

- In 1992, archeologist Sylvia Beamon

takes Beldam's theory one step further.

She argues that there's symbolism

in the cave that points

to the most famous group of crusaders,

the Knights Templar.

- Among the coded Templar symbols

on the walls of the cavern are hearts,

and what might be the image

of two soldiers on a single horse.

These were well-known Templar signs.

- One carving might represent Jacques de Molay,

the last leader of the Knights Templar,

who was burned at the stake in 1314.

[pensive music]

- Historical records note

that starting in the 1140s,

a group of Templars live in the town of Baldock,

just eight miles away.

They trade in the Royston market,

but have violent disputes

with local monks over market fees.

So Beamon believes that they needed a place in town

where they could secretly meet

and conduct their required daily prayers

completely under the radar.

- Others disagree with Beamon's interpretation.

Some see that some of the drawings

represent knights in full-plate armor,

which didn't exist until the 1400s,

almost 100 years after the Knights Templar

were officially disbanded by the church in 1307.

- So even if these are images of the Knights Templar,

it's unlikely that the Templars themselves carved them.

- [Dennis] In 2020, archeologist Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews

uncovers evidence that might shed light

on the mysterious cave.

- Fitzpatrick-Matthews cites town records

of a hermit living near this crossroads in Royston

around the year 1500.

And after the hermit of Royston dies

sometime around the year of 1550,

his hermitage is converted into a prison.

[pensive music]

- There are small holes in the walls of the Royston Cave

that could indicate where bars or posts

had been added to create jail cells.

- If Fitzpatrick-Matthews is right,

what's carved in that cave

might not be a secret code at all.

- It could be that these mysterious symbols

are the work of a religious-minded hermit,

later embellished further

by the doodles of bored prisoners.

But the idea of Royston Cave

as some kind of coded message has persisted.

- Many still believe in Beamon's analysis

that a Knights Templar code

is hidden in the drawings.

According to Royston Cave's website,

it remains the most popular answer.

- Whatever the meaning,

whoever created Royston Cave

wanted it to be shrouded in mystery,

and they did a really good job making it happen.

[dramatic music]

- Many believe the Bible contains the

literal word of God,

but could this sacred text

reveal a different kind of divine wisdom,

a hidden code predicting the future?

[pensive music]

- The first five books of the Old Testament

make up the Pentateuch.

Penta meaning five.

Those books also make up the Hebrew Bible, the Torah.

- And according to the Jewish interpretive tradition

known as the Mishna,

it's during the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness

that God sets these words down

and gives them to Moses.

So in a very real sense,

God is the author

and Moses is merely the scribe.

- This leads some to speculate

that the text could hold secrets

beyond our understanding.

- At least as far back as the first century BC,

people have been searching

through the Pentateuch for coded messages.

This so-called Bible code

has fascinated researchers for millennia.

[inquisitive music]

- The most popular technique

for finding codes in the Bible

is called equidistant letter sequences, or ELS.

It was pioneered at least as far back as the 13th century

when a Spanish rabbi named Bachya ben Asher

starts writing about it.

- Here's how ELS works.

You can use any number,

but let's say, for example, five.

So you start by counting five letters ahead,

you land on first character.

Then you count another five letters ahead,

that's your second.

And you do this so on and so forth

until it reveals a hidden message.

- The idea is, if you do this with the original Hebrew text,

you can find God's secret messages.

[inquisitive music]

- It becomes a popular pursuit

into the Renaissance and beyond.

Even Isaac Newton plays around with Bible codes

and believes that he locates

the date of the end of the universe,

which is in the year 2060.

- [Dennis] In the 20th century,

new technology kicks Bible code breaking

into high gear.

- Computers can find these codes

much faster than people can.

In the 1980s, mathematician and computer expert Eliyahu Rips

begins ELS research on the book of Genesis.

- He's at home in Israel

studying one day in January of 1991

when he finds a code that suggests

an attack is going to happen on a particular date

in the Hebrew calendar.

It says, "Missile, war, Saddam Hussein,

fire on third Shevat."

This date translates to January 18th of the same year.

- And sure enough, on this day,

Iraq fires missiles into Israel.

Rips describes a feeling of being horrified, of course,

but also a feeling of scientific joy

because he's convinced that the codes have actually worked.

- [Dennis] Three years later,

author Michael Drosnin takes Rips' work a step further

when he publishes

"The Bible Code."

- This bestselling book and two subsequent sequels

reveal even more shocking predictions

decoded from the Pentateuch.

- Drosnin claims to have found Bible codes

regarding the 1969 Moon Landing,

the Watergate scandal,

Bill Clinton's election,

the Oklahoma City bombing.

In another section, he finds,

quote, "Twin Towers, knocked down, twice, airplane,"

what seems to him to be a clear prediction

of the September 11th terrorist attacks.

- Now, if true, this would be incredible.

These are events thousands of years

after Genesis was written,

foretold by God,

hidden in the Torah's words.

- [Dennis] Drosnin also reveal a few things

that haven't yet happened.

- In 2003, Drosnin publishes a work

in which he claims to have found the phrases,

"Atomic Holocaust," and, "End of days,"

along with the date 2006,

just three years later.

- When 2006 doesn't turn out to be the end of the world,

Drosnin goes back to the original Hebrew text

to look for a new date,

thinking he miscalculated.

Drosnin was still working on the code

at the time of his death in 2020,

trying to figure out a new timeline.

- If there is anything to this idea

that there is future knowledge

hidden in the original text of the Bible,

the race is on.

Biblical scholars are gonna try

everything at their disposal,

any technology they can use

to try to figure out

what those hidden messages might be,

before it's too late.

[explosion booming]

[dramatic music]

- The shelves of Yale University's rare book

collection hold a manuscript known as MS 408.

It's a small, unassuming journal bound in goatskin,

but its pages hold a remarkable secret.

[pensive music]

- In 1912, a Polish rare books dealer

named Wilfrid Voynich

visits a Jesuit college in Italy.

He buys a number of texts,

including, almost as an afterthought,

a small nine-by-six-inch handwritten manuscript

about 240 pages in length.

- This book is in a language no one has ever seen.

Now, Voynich himself is familiar with dozens of languages,

but he can't make heads or tails of this manuscript.

- [Dennis] Adding to the confusion,

there are hundreds of strange drawings.

[dynamic music]

- Some pages show what seem to be astrological symbols

and mythological creatures.

Other pages depict plants and herbs.

Others show nude, possibly pregnant women

bathing in pools,

and buckets interconnected by strange tubes.

- If the pictures match the words,

then the books must be about some combination

of religion and myth

combined with science.

- Included in the book is a letter dated August 19th, 1665.

It's addressed to a Jesuit scholar named

Athanasius Kircher.

The letter begins, "Reverend and distinguished sir,

Father in Christ."

- The author of the letter

is the court physician of the Holy Roman Empire,

Johannes Marcus Marci.

He says Emperor Rudolph owned the book,

and believes it to be the work

of a famous monk named Roger Bacon.

- [Dennis] Bacon is a Franciscan friar

who lived in the 13th century.

He's known as one of the first scholars

to combine the Catholic faith

with scientific thinking.

- If this is an unknown work by Roger Bacon,

it would have incredible religious significance.

- In the text, there seem to be about 20 distinct characters

that vary and repeat in patterns consistent with words.

It looks very much like letters and sentences.

But the letters themselves

are not from any language on Earth.

[pensive music]

- Whoever wrote the manuscript

appears to be using some kind of substitution code or cipher

that no historian, linguist or cryptographer

has ever seen before.

- Dozens try to crack it,

even Alan Turing,

who famously helped break the Nazi Enigma code.

No one can figure out what these words say.

No one can confirm if it's Bacon's work either.

- [Dennis] Eventually, the mysterious book

becomes known as the Voynich Manuscript.

- Some consider whether Voynich

created a volume of pure gibberish

as a hoax or as a fake to score a big payday.

- He's even looked into by the US Bureau of Investigation,

which is the precursor to today's FBI.

They're worried that if he has this book

that is full of these weird secret codes,

that he might be a spy.

- Ultimately, the FBI determines Voynich

isn't involved in espionage,

but he never manages to sell the book.

After his death,

it winds up in the collections of Yale University in 1969.

- [Dennis] Once the Voynich Manuscript lands at Yale,

it becomes a sensation.

The biggest breakthrough in understanding it

occurs in 2009.

- Yale lets the University of Arizona

perform radiocarbon dating.

They find the book dates to between 1404 and 1438.

- This finally rules out a hoax by Voynich.

This is a genuine 600-year-old book.

But this also means it's not Bacon's work either.

He died 100 years before the book was made.

- [Dennis] Yale has recently scanned the entire manuscript

and posted it online.

- In March of 2024,

Macquarie University researchers

Keagan Brewer and Michelle Lewis

announce they found a new clue

by reviewing the scans.

- They may have figured out

where the book was written.

In the book, there is an actual drawing

of a castle silhouette

that has within it an architectural feature

they see called the Swallowtail Merlon,

and that detail is found throughout castles

in Southern Germany and Northern Italy.

[pensive music]

- They note the Voynich Manuscript's sketches

of human anatomy,

especially women,

and they compare those

with other books from Southern Germany and Northern Italy

around the same time,

and there are quite a lot of similarities.

- One author who was writing around the same place and time

is the 15th-century physician, Johannes Hartlieb.

He was concerned what women might do

if they were to get control over their bodies.

And so he advocated

that any medical text about the bodily functions of women

should be written in code.

- Because of all this evidence,

Brewer and Lewis conclude

the manuscript is a 15th-century medical guide

to the female reproductive system.

It's part of a tradition among

Christian male doctors of the era

who believed women's secrets should be encoded,

alongside other taboo subjects,

such as alchemy, or magic, or demons.

- [Dennis] It's a compelling idea,

but there won't be any conclusive answers

until we can finally decipher the text.

- Maybe, as Emperor Rudolph hoped,

the manuscript does contain holy secrets.

What we can say for certain

is that the more the Voynich Manuscript is studied,

the more mysteries it seems to raise.

[dramatic music]

- Some were created to warn us,

others to guide us,

but whatever their purpose,

the hidden messages embedded in everything

from sacred books to great paintings

will, with luck, be decoded one day.

I'm Dennis Quaid,

and thank you for watching "Holy Marvels."