All language subtitles for Expedition.Files.S01E05.1080p.WEB.h264-FREQUENCY_track3_[eng]

Coming up on "Expedition Files,"

a notorious serial killer goes
on a murder spree in the 1960s,

-[screaming]
-[gunshot blasts]

and taunts the police with
cryptic ciphers.

Over five decades later,
we may have finally deciphered

this madman's identity.

An adventurer creates
a modern-day treasure hunt.

Now, new clues might lead us to
where he buried

his precious riches.

And we open the world's most
mysterious book,

potentially cracking
impenetrable secrets

encoded within.

In the corridors of time...

...are mysteries that
defy explanation.

Now, I'm traveling through
history itself...

...on a search for the truth.

New evidence,

shocking answers.

I'm Josh Gates,

and these...

are my "Expedition Files."

Whether we realize it or not,
we are all expert

code breakers.

We spend our lives decoding
the world, solving the riddle

of what those around us are
saying, thinking, feeling.

But some codes can't
be cracked.

Some mysterious riddles remain
incomprehensible years,

even centuries, after
they were conceived.

Tonight, we'll examine three
files of the strangest and most

disturbing unsolved codes
in history.

One, a cryptic cipher that
reveals a brutal serial killer.

Two, a puzzling poem that
guarantees incredible riches.

Three, an ancient manuscript
that just might hold the answer

to the origin of life.

Three files,
one question --

how do we break
the code?

Our first story
starts at a good place to get

lost and a terrible place
to be found.

To the local teens in Vallejo,
California, this peaceful

overlook is known as
Lover's Lane.

And love is in the air,
because tonight,

December 20th, 1968,

17-year-old David Faraday
and his 16-year-old girlfriend,

Betty Lou Jensen, are on
their very first date.

Unfortunately, Betty
and David's night out is about

to turn into a nightmare
because this stranger heading

down the road has other plans
for the couple.

His destination?
Murder.

In moments, the infamous reign
of the Zodiac Killer

will begin.

-[woman laughing]
-[music playing over radio]

♪♪ Oh baby, I love you so,♪

♪♪yeah ♪

-♪♪and I'll never,
pretty baby♪
-[giggling]

♪♪ I'll never let you go ♪

♪♪ Oh yeah, baby ♪

-[screaming]
-[gunshots blast]

-[heavy breathing]
-[rustling]

Please, please stop,
please stop!

-Please stop!
-[gunshot blasts]

-[siren wailing]
-[indistinct radio chatter]

[Josh] When police arrive at
the scene,

the killer has
long fled.

Betty and David become known as
the notorious killer's

first victims.

The tight-knit community of
Vallejo and the surrounding

Bay Area is stunned by
the murders.

Fear quickly spreads that
there's a gun-crazed maniac

at large.
They are not wrong.

The killer will soon
strike again.

In the summer of 1969,

22-year-old Darlene Ferrin
and 19-year-old Michael Mageau

are parked at Blue Rock Spring
Park, an infamous spot for

rebellious teenagers less than
four miles from

the first attack.

[romantic music playing]

-[screaming]
-[gunshots blast]

But this twisted murderer is not
content to let his bloody

handiwork speak for itself.

He wants credit where
credit is due.

Later that night,
a police dispatcher picks up

a call from a pay phone
in Vallejo.

The caller's words are
impossible for the dispatcher

to ever forget.

[phone ringing]

[dispatcher speaking
indistinctly]

[man] I want to report
a double murder.

If you will go one mile east on
Columbus Parkway to the public

park, you will find
the kids in a brown car.

I shot them with a 9mm Luger.

I also killed those kids
last year.

Goodbye.

[sirens wailing]

[Josh] But the killer is wrong
about one thing.

It is not a double murder.

Although Darlene Ferrin
tragically dies, Michael Mageau

miraculously survives.

But his description of
the killer is vague at best,

saying only that he had
a large face.

[surf rock playing]

[Josh]
It seems the killer's call to
the police fails to give him

the notoriety he craves,
so he decides to take his cat

and mouse game to
the next level.

On August 1st,
1969, he contacts the press.

[man] Dear Editor,

this is the murderer of the two
teenagers last Christmas at

Lake Herman and the girl on
the 4th of July.

Wanting credit for
his horrific acts,

the shooter provides facts that

only he would know,
including the exact brand name

of the ammo used in
the shooting, Super X.

And here's where things get
truly diabolical.

Accompanying the letter is
a 408-character cryptogram,

which, if solved,
promises to reveal more of

his sinister plans.

He urges the police to publish
the cipher in the newspapers

for all to read, and then ends
with a chilling vow to kill

again, and signs off with
a symbol that eerily resembles

the crosshairs of a gun scope.

And when the police don't
respond, he sends a second,

more detailed letter with
another cipher, and in this

one, the killer gives himself
a name, the Zodiac.

The letter also contains more
details of the crimes,

convincing the police that
the author is their killer.

It seems all they need to do is
crack the code to

reveal his identity.

Desperate for help,
they appeal to the public

and publish the cipher in
the San Francisco Chronicle.

Their plan works.

Within a week, a high school
teacher and his wife

ingeniously decipher
the complex code,

disclosing a chilling message
that explains the Zodiac's

demented purpose.

[man]
When I die, I will be reborn in
paradise, and all I have killed

will become my slaves.

[Josh]
But the code offers no more
clues to identify the culprit,

and they can only hope
the killing stops.

Unfortunately, on September
27th, 1969, college students,

Cecelia Shepard and Bryan
Hartnell, are picnicking along

the shore of scenic
Lake Berryessa when

a stranger approaches.

[giggling]

I think someone's here.

Excuse me, can we help you?

[Josh]
The man tells the couple he's
a prison escapee, and he needs

money and their car to get
to Mexico.

Thinking that this is just
a robbery,

Cecelia and Bryan comply,

and he ties them up.

Then things take
a terrible turn.

-[screaming]
-No!

[Josh] Cecelia succumbs
to her injuries,

but Bryan survives,
yet frustratingly, is unable to

give a description
of the killer.

But the Zodiac has left
a message on the couple's car

door, the dates and locations
of his previous attacks.

And the very next month,
he strikes again.

Paul Stein is a 29-year-old
San Francisco cab driver.

On October 11, 1969,
he picks up this man,

who asks to be taken to
Presidio Heights, but this is

no ordinary passenger.

Several blocks later,
the Zodiac will kill Stein,

shooting him in the back
of the head.

[gunshot blasts]

[Josh]
Within days, the San Francisco
Chronicle receives a new letter

from the Zodiac, taking credit
for Paul Stein's murder.

And to prove it,
he includes a hideous souvenir

from the attack,

a piece of Stein's
bloodied shirt.

But there is one
positive development.

For the first time, there are
multiple witnesses to one

of the killings.

They describe the Zodiac as
a white male, approximately 25

to 30 years old, with a crew
cut and heavy rimmed glasses.

[sirens wailing]

[Josh] A nationwide APB
goes out on the killer.

As tips pour in,
the police and FBI interview

over 2,500 suspects in
connection with the murders.

One of the most promising
suspects is Arthur Leigh Allen,

a resident from Vallejo,
where those first murders

took place.

Allen's neighbor had seen him
pulling bloody knives from

the trunk of his car on the day
of the Lake Berryessa murder.

And, most shocking of all,
Allen even allegedly confesses

to a colleague that
he is the Zodiac.

But when confronted by
the police, Allen denies

everything and claims he was
joking about the confession.

And, as for the bloody knives,
he says that it was just

chicken's blood.

The investigators do note
an eerie coincidence, though.

brand of watch is a Zodiac,
its signature symbol exactly

matching the crosshairs used to
sign the killer's letters.

But after an intensive
investigation, with nothing

directly linking Allen to any
of the crimes,

the police move on.

While the police desperately
search for suspects,

the killer's evil letters
continue, threatening bombs,

murders, even the slaughter
of children.

And these letters also contain
three more codes to crack,

including one that the Zodiac
outrageously claims

contains his name.

And the letters continue for
six long years, but nobody is

able to crack the code
of their meaning.

Then comes 1974,
the letters stop.

And just like that,
the case turns ice cold,

but not closed.
Far from it.

In the decades since,
professional and amateur

investigators alike have spent
untold hours puzzling over

the Zodiac's three
unsolved ciphers.

If they could just be
unraveled, this cruel madman

could at last be identified.
And now, it's finally happened.

One of the codes has
been cracked.

[Josh] For almost 60 years,
the identity of the Zodiac

serial killer has
remained a mystery.

But now,
cutting-edge technology has

unraveled part of
his blood-soaked riddle.

Software designer
and cryptographer,

David Oranchak used the latest
code-breaking techniques to try

to solve the ciphers.

The Zodiac case was interesting
to me, not only because it was

one of the most famous unsolved
mysteries in the world,

but what really got me
interested in it was

the cryptography aspect of it.

He was sending these mysterious
codes to the newspapers

and taunting people with these
hidden messages.

And the fact that his first
cipher was solved led me to

think that it was possible to
solve the second message that

he had sent.

We leaned heavily on very
advanced computer programs that

would help us do a lot of
the grunt work.

[Josh] Thanks to advances in
technology, David and his team

tackle the Zodiac Killer's most
infamous unsolved puzzle,

the 340-character cipher.

The 340 he sent on one piece of
paper and one big block.

It's a mix of unusual symbols,
just like the 408 was,

but he threw in some
new symbols.

There are a lot of times when
you're trying to break the code

where you start to see
his message coming through,

and you think, "This has got to
be from the killer."

It says, "Killing."

It says, "Murder."
It says, "Death."

It's from a serial killer.

But then you hit a brick wall,
because you can't get

the whole message out.

So I got used to failing until
the breakthrough happened.

[Josh]
After 14 years of relentless
effort, David and his team

finally crack one of
the world's most elusive codes

and immediately send
their breakthrough to the FBI.

The FBI responded to me within
minutes when I sent the report

and they were excited because
they believed that it was

the correct answer.

[man]
I hope you are having lots of
fun in trying to catch me.

I am not afraid of the gas
chamber, because it will send

me to paradise all the sooner,
because I now have enough

slaves to work for me,
where everyone else

has nothing.

I am not afraid because I know
that my life will be an easy

one in paradise death.

[David] It really did feel like
a new message from Zodiac,

even though he had written it
way back in November of 1969.

One down, two unsolved Zodiac
ciphers to go.

And tantalizingly, Zodiac
cruelly boasts that one of

these two uncracked codes
literally contains his name.

So, building from Oranchak's
brilliant efforts,

we decided to roll up
our sleeves and join

the community in trying to
solve the remaining ciphers.

And after countless hours of
work by my team and I,

we discovered
something astounding.

If you reverse-engineer
the cipher for names of

the most infamous possible
suspects, substituting letters

for symbols, like, for example,
these eight symbols could

represent the letter L,
unscramble the letters,

and you discover that one
suspect's name fits just right.

A. Leigh Allen --
Arthur Leigh Allen.

The very same suspect who the
police spent the most time

investigating, the same suspect
who confessed to a coworker,

carried bloody knives,
and even wore a Zodiac watch.

And remarkably, there's more.

People who knew Arthur Leigh
Allen confirmed that he had

a fascination with ciphers from
his days in

the U.S. Navy.

Plus, investigators found
he had a typewriter,

like the one used to write some
of the Zodiac messages,

and he owned a pair of boots
with soles matching those worn

by the killer.

Of course, all of this evidence
is circumstantial,

and Arthur himself died in
1992, denying he was the killer

to the very end.

But when combined with this
possible code-crack and all of

the mounting evidence,
it leaves us to wonder,

could it be that America's
most infamous serial killer is

finally unmasked?

From the cryptic clues left
behind by a vicious murderer to

our next file, which reveals
another enigmatic puzzle,

one that takes us on
a dangerous hunt for

buried treasure.

The year is 2010,
and I'm somewhere in

the Rocky Mountains.

I can't tell you the exact
location because, well,

it's a secret.

And behind me is the keeper of
that secret, 80-year-old

Forrest Fenn.

He's about to bury a treasure
worth millions.

That chest he's carrying is
full of gold, diamonds,

rubies, and sapphires.

This millionaire art dealer is
going to set in motion

a modern-day treasure hunt.

What kind of man buries a chest
filled with treasure in

the middle of nowhere, and then
hopes someday

someone else will
dig it up?

To properly tell this puzzling
tale, we need to start

at the beginning.

1930 in Temple, Texas,
when Forrest Fenn is born.

From the start, Forrest seemed
destined for adventure.

On family trips to Yellowstone
National Park,

he became an avid fly
fisher and outdoorsman.

Later, he joined the Air Force,
where he became a fighter

pilot, flying 328
combat missions.

After his military service,
Forrest moves to Santa Fe

and opens an art gallery.

This proves to be a very
successful

and lucrative career.

He's on top of the world until
a routine doctor visit turns

that world upside down.

In 1988, at the age of 58,
Forrest Fenn is diagnosed with

terminal cancer.

After the shock wears off,

he decides to get his affairs
in order.

But Forrest isn't writing out
his last will and testament.

Instead, he's writing out clues
to a treasure hunt.

You know, as you do.

Before cancer gets
the best of him,

he decides to have one
last adventure.

He plans to fill a treasure
chest with gold,

jewels, and other valuables,
and then hide it in one of

his favorite outdoor places
before taking his own life.

But before he goes,
he'll publish a poem,

giving clues that lead to
his final resting place.

Whoever finds his grave will
also find the treasure chest.

It's a death just as
colorful as his life.

Like the man himself,
Fenn's plan is creative,

audacious, and just a little
off-center.

But then comes some fortune
he didn't plan for.

His terminal cancer
miraculously goes

into remission.

Cancer-free and with a new lease
on life, he goes back to

his routine in Santa Fe,
but his idea for the treasure

hunt never quite leaves him.

So 22 years later,
at the age of 80,

he sets the game
in motion.

In 2010, he heads back to
his favorite spot in nature

and hides his chest.

Then he publishes his memoir,
"The Thrill of the Chase."

In it, he writes a cryptic poem
that serves as a map containing

clues that will lead a clever
hunter directly to the prize.

Anyone that would go to these
lengths to create a treasure

hunt is a true original.

I found that out
first-hand in 2015.

-You must be Josh.
-I'm Josh, yeah.

[Josh]
When I had the pleasure of
meeting Forrest face to face.

OK, so first question,
Forrest, should be an easy one.

Where is the treasure hidden?

At least eight miles north of
Santa Fe and below

the Canadian border.
-OK.

Still got a lot of
ground there to cover.

Can you tell me why you chose
the place that you chose?

[Forrest] It's a place that
I've visited a few times.

I have fond memories of
that place.

[Josh] Do you know how much
the treasure's worth?

[Forrest] No, I don't.

There are 20.2 pounds of gold
in the treasure chest.

There are 200 and some
odd rubies.

There are two Ceylon sapphires.
There are eight emeralds.

-There are lots of diamonds.
-[Josh] What was your intention?

I had a number of
reasons for doing it.

The primary was to get people
out in the sunshine again,

to smell the pine needles
in the mountains.

If you want to be a serious
searcher, my advice is look at

clues in the poem.

The treasure hunt is
officially on.

And, like Forrest said,
everything you need to find

his chest is contained
in the poem.

It begins simply enough.

"As I have gone alone in there
and with my treasures bold,

"I can keep my secret where,
and hint of riches,

new and old."

But the clues in the poem
get cryptic.

[as Forrest]
Begin it where warm waters
halt, and take it to

the canyon down.
Not far, but too far to walk.

Put him below the home
of brown.

[Josh]
In all, the poem is 24 lines,
and gives nine clues to find

the buried treasure.

But Fenn gives one more clue
that isn't in

the poem --the treasure is
hidden somewhere in

the Rocky Mountains.

That narrows it down to roughly
300,000 square miles.

Not exactly a small playing
field to find

a 10-inch bronze box.

In 2013, a series of news
stories brings the hunt

into the mainstream,
and thousands, like these guys,

get bit by the Forrest Fenn
treasure bug.

At the height of the mania,
an estimated 350,000 people

are searching.

For most, the search ends
the same way, empty-handed.

But for a few,
the adventure turns deadly.

Between July of 2016 and March
of 2021, five hunters perish

searching for Fenn's gold.

The authorities ask Forrest to
call off the hunt,

but Fenn is torn.

He feels the good of the hunt
outweighs the danger,

and wants to keep going.

He lets people know that
the treasure is not a dangerous

location, and that anyone
who is mobile and relatively

fit can find it.

In nearly a decade,
though, since the game began,

no one has found the treasure.

Then, out of the blue, on
June 6, 2020, Fenn posts

a message online.
It's short and to the point.

"The treasure has been found."

It appears the mystery is over,
but in many ways,

it's actually just beginning.

In 2010, eccentric art dealer
Forrest Fenn announces he has

hidden a treasure trove of gold
and jewels somewhere in

the Rocky Mountains.

Now, 10 years later,
Fenn announces the treasure has

finally been found,
but the supposed discovery only

leads to more questions.

Peter Frick-Wright is
a journalist who has

investigated this
story extensively.

When Forrest announces that
the treasure has been found,

every searcher wanted to know
the same three things --

who found it?
Where was it?

What did all the clues mean?

And what you saw was
essentially the five stages

of grief.
People are angry.

People are sad.
People don't believe it.

There is a lot of just
resentment, animosity.

I mean, you could call it
jealousy, towards this person

who did the thing that tens of
thousands or hundreds of

thousands of people had been
trying to do for now 10 years.

[Josh]
To put some doubters' minds at
ease, Fenn reveals photos of

the chest and even announces
the state the treasure is

discovered in...

Wyoming.

Then, on September 7th,
2020, three months after

the search is declared over,

Forrest Fenn dies at
the age of 90.

He lived to see his treasure
hunt solved,

but with his passing,
the secret of who found it

seems to go with him
to the grave.

Shortly after Fenn dies,
an article appears online,

written by someone claiming to
be the one

who found the treasure.

[man]
I am the person who found
Forrest Fenn's treasure.

The moment it happened was not
the triumphant Hollywood ending

some surely envisioned.

It just felt like I had just
survived something,

something, and was fortunate to
come out the other end.

[Josh] Not long after the finder
speaks out,

the lawsuits
start flying.

Another treasure hunter accuses
the finder of

stealing his leads.

The finder knows his real name
will come out in court,

so he decides to
reveal his identity.

In December of 2020,
Outside Magazine publishes

an article titled,
"The Man Who Found Forrest

Fenn's Treasure," revealing that
the mysterious finder is a man

from Michigan named Jack Stuef.

[Peter] Stuef is a 32-year-old
medical student.

He had heard about Forrest
Fenn's treasure hunt in 2018,

and went down a rabbit hole,
listening to, looking at,

reading everything that Forrest
Fenn had ever said that

he could find.

He figured out where
the treasure was pretty

much immediately.

But it took him 25 days of
boots-on-the-ground searching

over the course of two years to
actually find it.

Thousands of frustrated hunters
now know who found the treasure

and how he solved the puzzle.

But there is one last question
that Jack stubbornly refuses to

answer -- exactly where
did he find it?"

[Peter] Fenn put this in the
place that he wanted to die.

So it was
a special place to him.

and Jack wanted to protect
that place.

So he said, "I am not going to
share where this was, kind of

no matter what."

[Josh] To the searchers
who've dedicated

years of their lives to
the hunt, the fact that Jack

won't reveal where he found
the treasure is frustrating to

say the least.

People are desperate to know
how close they may have been,

and everybody just
wants closure.

And then they get it,
ironically, in the form of

another lawsuit.

This lawsuit was from a man
who accused Forrest Fenn of

repeatedly moving the treasure,
making it impossible to find.

It looked like Jack Stuef was
going to be called to the stand

and forced to reveal the exact
location of where

he found the treasure.

But before this could happen,
an injunction to stop

his testimony came in from
a surprising source,

Yellowstone National Park.

[Peter]
And so what that told me
and what told the rest of

the hunting community was
Forrest Fenn hid the treasure

in Yellowstone National Park.

[Josh]
So it turns out the treasure
was in Yellowstone after all.

They just wanted to keep
thousands of tourists from

damaging this pristine spot.

Two years after finding
the treasure, Jack, who is in

debt with medical school loans,
sells the bronze chest and all

the gold and jewels inside to
a private buyer for

an undisclosed sum.

That buyer then puts it up for
public auction,

netting 1.3 million dollars.

And so Fenn's thrilling chase
has come to an end.

The mystery of the treasure's
location was in the end

revealed not through Fenn's
poem but through

a series of lawsuits.

That's not the way Forrest Fenn
would have wanted it.

But inspiring thousands of
folks to enjoy

the great outdoors?

Well, that's exactly what
Forrest intended.

Oh, and hiding a chest full of
gold nuggets or yellow stones,

if you will, in Yellowstone
National Park?

Well played, Forrest Fenn.
Well played.

Our next file introduces us to
arguably the world's most

mysterious book, a tome that's
been identified as everything

from a spy's secret code to
an occultist spellbook,

even a message left behind for
us by extraterrestrials.

It's 1912, and I'm in Italy,
on the outskirts of Rome,

where a Jesuit college is
selling off old manuscripts to

the highest bidder.

A Polish rare books dealer
named Wilfred Voynich is hoping

to score some ancient texts
that he can sell for a profit

in London, and today is
his lucky day.

While rummaging, Voynich finds
a strange book.

When he opens it,
it's like traveling into

another universe.

It contains cryptic diagrams
and strange illustrations.

The book is written in
an unknown language that is so

mysterious that, for over
a century, it has defied all

attempts to translate it,
and its author remains unknown.

Now, researchers have uncovered
new clues that will help reveal

whose hands wrote the world's
most enigmatic book and what

secrets it contains.

[Josh] Voynich is no amateur
when it comes to books.

He's dedicated his life to
buying and selling rare

and unusual texts,
but even with all this

expertise, he still can't make
sense of this mysterious tome.

The Voynich manuscript is
relatively small, measuring

nine by six inches

and two inches thick,
with exactly 240 pages.

Each page is made of calfskin
parchment and is densely

covered in cryptic looping
script alongside

bizarre illustrations.

Depictions of strange plants
that don't match any known

species, peculiar scenes of
nude women bathing in pools,

even a six-panel foldout that
looks like the coolest board

game you've ever seen.

Though the artwork is vivid
and strange, it's the cryptic,

indecipherable script that
captures the most attention,

eventually becoming known
as Voynichese.

I would love to have a secret
language named after me,

but Gatesese doesn't really
roll off the tongue.

As for Voynichese, I will say
that I have spent a fair amount

of time with this,
and well, I'm stumped.

It really is as puzzling a text
as anything I've come across.

Luckily, Voynich finds a clue.

Within the pages of the book,
he finds a letter, written in

Latin, that mentions the author
was possibly the 13th century

philosopher and alchemist
Roger Bacon.

Bacon is an interesting guy,
to put it lightly.

He's a Franciscan friar by day,
and dabbler in forbidden

knowledge by night.

Oh, and he's really into magic,
and using ciphers to

encode texts.

Voynich decides that if Bacon
is the author, then he has

his hands on a secret manual of
alchemy and magic, filled with

powerful and perhaps
forbidden formulas.

Voynich is also excited,
because that's something

he should be able to sell for
a significant sum.

With Europe being consumed by
World War I, Voynich realizes

that if he wants to make
a sale, he needs to travel

somewhere safer.

With book in hand, he heads to
the land of opportunity,

the United States.

Once in America,
he opens a bookstore in

New York City and tries to
attract wealthy collectors.

But he gets little interest in
this rare book,

because of course the text is
unreadable.

So, in 1915, Voynich departs on
a tour across America,

trying to woo top libraries
and museums, offering them

the book for a special,
but still expensive price.

While this nonstop promotion
makes the manuscript one of

the most famous books in
the world, Voynich realizes

that without cracking the code,
he will be unable to

sell the book.

He knows whatever this book is,
he's got something special

on his hands.

But all of his efforts to
publicize the book

unintentionally attract
a different audience.

After all, World War I is still
raging, and the authorities are

alerted to this
suspicious foreigner.

In 1917, Voynich gets a knock
on the door.

[banging]

In walk the Feds.

The Bureau of Investigation,
which would eventually become

the FBI, interrogate him,
concerned about why he has

an unreadable text and whether
he could have stolen American

codes or be distributing
German ones.

[dramatized investigator]
Hand over the manuscript!

[bang]

[Josh]
After turning his bookstore
inside out and going over

Voynich's story with
a fine-tooth comb,

the U.S. government concludes
Voynich isn't a current threat

and doesn't possess any
enemy intelligence.

Although cleared
by the government,

Voynich unfortunately dies in
1930, having failed to unravel

the text of the manuscript
or sell it.

But his constant promotion has
given the Voynich manuscript

fame and allure.

Over the next several decades,
the greatest code breakers in

the world use increasingly
cutting edge technology to

decipher the manuscript.
But it remains a mystery.

Many believe the Voynich
manuscript can't be cracked.

That is, until now.

Forrest Fenn's treasure hunt
had modern day adventurers

channeling their inner Indiana
Jones, but Fenn's chest,

as impressive as it was,
pales in comparison to one of

the biggest hidden treasures
ever found,

the Nuestra Senora de Atocha.

In 1985, after a 16-year search,
treasure hunter Mel Fisher

struck gold, literally,
off the coast of Florida.

The Atocha, a Spanish galleon
lost in 1622,

carried a real-life Pirates of
the Caribbean haul packed with

over $400 million in gold,
silver, and emeralds.

Fenn's hunt may have sparked
modern-day gold fever,

but the Atocha is the holy
grail of treasure finds,

one that transformed Fisher,
an Indiana-born chicken farmer,

into one of the world's
greatest and wealthiest

treasure hunters.

[Josh]
The mystery of the Voynich
manuscript has stumped scholars

for over a century.

Then, in 2009,
a new revelation.

Researchers at the University
of Arizona carbon-tested

the calfskin pages, dating them
to 1404 to 1438 AD.

This means Voynich's theory of
Roger Bacon and a manual of

magic is off the table.

Unless Bacon invented time
travel, too, there is no way

a 13th-century philosopher
could write on something from

the 15th century.

Now, a recent book published by
scholar Stephen Skinner could

reshape our understanding of
this enigmatic text.

For a long time,
people believed that whoever

wrote the book must have been
somebody of note.

But historian Sami Jarroush has
done an in-depth study of this

new theory.

Stephen Skinner, in his book,
posits a theory that the author

of this book is a Jewish
physician, a Jewish herbalist

living in Northern Italy
in the 1400s.

Here's why.

Skinner starts to take a closer
look at the visual aspects of

the book, all these drawings of
these bizarre plants,

and what might these drawings
have to do with the authorship

of this book.

[Josh]
When considering the images
in the book, some of the most

perplexing are the pictures of
the nude female bathers.

[Sami]
Skinner starts to put pieces
together, and he comes to

the conclusion that,
wait, these aren't just random

nude bathers that exist.

These baths are
what's called a "mikvah."

A mikvah is this
ritualistic bathing

that is done by Orthodox
Jewish women.

[Josh]
Skinner goes on to posit that
the only person who would

really know about this would be
somebody from

a Jewish background.
But there's more.

[Sami]
One of the other clues that
he sees is that in the book,

you have these sort of ramparts
that were very specific to

these castles.

These were only found in parts
of Italy around

the 15th century.

Now, in that region of Italy,
you have these towns in these

cities like Pisa, for example,
which had a very large

Jewish population.

On top of that, he's also
recognizing that

the indecipherable language in
the book, what's been labeled

as Voynichese,
and he's thinking to himself,

"It could be a book that is
filled with a lot of medicinal

and medical knowledge."

This is a physician that
understands

medicine, that understands
herbs, plants, so on

and so forth.

[Josh] This is fascinating.

We have a Jewish doctor from
the 1400s living in Italy,

writing a book about medicine.

But the last question is,
"Why the indecipherable code?"

So perhaps because the types of
plants that they're talking

about, or the types of herbs
or medicines that they're

talking about, might be
something that this particular

physician didn't want other
people to know or be familiar

with, perhaps this type of
writing is a sort of shorthand.

So in a sense, it's a way to
try to keep his secrets for

himself, so that potentially
this physician could stay ahead

of his competitors,
because they have this

potentially secret knowledge
that they've written down in

this book.

[Josh] Interestingly enough,
soon after his new theory is

published, a pair of Canadian
computer scientists at

the Artificial Intelligence Lab
at the University of Alberta

claim to have solved
the language part of

the Voynich code.

They fed the text into an AI
trained to recognize

380 languages.

The AI's analysis of letter
frequencies suggested the text

was coded in alphagrams,
where letters are shuffled

and vowels are omitted.

Based on this,
they concluded that the text

was most likely written in
Hebrew, further supporting

this new theory.

When Wilford Voynich picked up
a dusty manuscript over 100

years ago, he couldn't have
predicted just how much this

one book would
captivate the world.

The newest evidence suggests
the author of this

incomprehensible text was not
a magician, not a spy,

not an extraterrestrial,
or even Voynich himself,

but rather a doctor.

This may simply be a medical
text, albeit a very exotic one.

But what does it actually say?

Well, today,
the Voynich manuscript rests

safely in a library at Yale.

The entire volume is also
digitized and available to

the public online.

Just waiting for the next
curious mind to try

and decipher the most
mysterious book in the world.

Good luck.
I'm Josh Gates.

Until next time,
travel adventurously.