Extraordinary Finds from Season 3 Pt. 1 | Expedition Files

In fact, over 200 vessels across Europe have at one time or another been presented as the possible holy grail.
Most of them, well, let’s just say they don’t hold water.
[Music] But a couple seem real enough to cause even skeptical Grail seekers to take a second look.
Our story begins seven decades before the witch trials when Salem is founded in 1626 by Puritans from England.
Devout, disciplined, and dedicated to carving out a new life in an unforgiving wilderness.
Over the next century, their world is shaped by toil, fear, and absolute devotion.
add in tensions within the new community, not to mention conflict with Native Americans, lurking French rivals, starvation, disease, and a deep-seated fear of the devil. And you’ve got a powder keg just waiting to blow.
[Music] [Music] Soon, the mysterious affliction spreads as two other girls in the village, 12-year-old Anne Putnham Jr. and 17-year-old Elizabeth Huard, also fall ill.
Others in the community also start reporting seizure-like symptoms and claim to witness shadow figures and invisible attacks of stabbing and choking.
Meanwhile, the girls who were first afflicted named their tormentors. They claimed to be attacked by the specters of three women. Household slave Tituba as well as local outcast Sarah Osborne and a destitute beggar named Sarah Good.
All three are arrested. Under pressure, Tituba confesses, claiming the devil, quote, “came to me and bid me serve him.” And even more shocking, she implicates the two other women, claiming they and unnamed others in the town are also witches.
In short, madness has come to Salem, and death isn’t far behind.
On May 10th, one of the original accused, Sarah Osborne, dies in jail. A month after that, five women will be hanged at Gallows Hill in Salem, including another of the original three, Sarah Good.
[Music] [Applause] By the spring of 1692, the witch hunt has spread far beyond Salem. The breaking point finally comes when the governor of Massachusetts, William Fipps, intervenes, partly because his own wife has been accused. He orders the witch trial stop and bans any future use of supernatural claims as courtroom evidence.
Nearly a year and a half after the accusations began, the spell is finally broken.
Over the next few weeks, arrests are suspended and prisoners set free. But the damage has already been done. By the time the hysteria burns out, nearly 200 people have been accused of witchcraft.
Of those, 19 have been hanged. And one man, Giles Cory, is even pressed to death under heavy stones.
As for Tichiba, she’s imprisoned for well over a year, and records show that a land owner buys her by paying her jail fees, but her ultimate fate is lost to history.
>> The Salem witch trials remain a chilling cautionary tale where fear ran wild and innocent lives were lost after young girls claimed to be cursed by witchcraft. But if it wasn’t lies and it wasn’t the devil, then what was it? In the 1970s, another theory emerges. Maybe the girls weren’t cursed. Maybe they were poisoned.
>> The first two girls to experience the affliction are Betty Paris and Abigail Williams. In the 1970s, it was proposed by one researcher that maybe the affliction in Salem was caused by Urgot.
Urgot is a fungus that grows on rye or wheat. But when we really zoom in and look at the evidence of the Salem witch trials, Urgot actually doesn’t make sense. There are multiple people living in the house with Betty Paris and Abigail Williams. So why would just two people become sick? Why wouldn’t everyone in the house eating the same bread become ill?
And with several thousand people living in and around Salem at the time who were not afflicted, the moldy bread theory is well toast. But something set off their unsettling symptoms. So if it wasn’t a cursed carb, what was it? Recent revelations in mental health may finally offer an alternate explanation. Perhaps the girl’s affliction was real, but its roots weren’t physical. They were psychological due to something known as conversion disorder.
>> Conversion disorder is a real medical issue people experience and it can convert into physical symptoms.
twitching, jerking, outbursts, uncontrollable behavior like that.
>> Also called functional neurological symptom disorder. It is a mental affliction that can manifest physically as well in ways that are often completely bewildering to the patient.
The cause, extreme stress.
>> If we think about the conditions that Betty Paris and Abigail Williams were living in in 1692, this does make sense.
their children living in a very strict Puritan household, hearing these sermons constantly about the dangers of the devil and the invisible world. They’re hearing from their peers about the wars going on with the indigenous tribes of the area that they could be attacked at any moment. It’s a really stressful situation, particularly for kids that young.
So the theory is that because of the hard and isolated life of Puritan colonists, the young women of Salem had a very particular type of breakdown.
>> In cases like that of if some people are complaining of this illness, others soon think that they might be susceptible to it as well. You would call that mass psychoggenic illness. It’s interesting to observe that when the afflicted witnesses were separated from the other witnesses, they did recover. Betty Paris is separated from the rest of the family. Her illness resolves itself. She makes a full recovery.
>> Could it be that four young girls suffered a neurological condition that then snowballed throughout their community until tragedy ensued?
Remarkably, evidence that may support the theory emerged more than 300 years later. In 2012, 18 cheerleaders in Loy, upstate New York, all began exhibiting inexplicable ticks and twitches, terrifying their small town and drawing a media circus. Soon, community tensions boiled over in a desperate search for the truth, just as they did four centuries earlier. But unlike colonial Salem, cooler heads prevailed. And in time, the girl’s symptoms mysteriously vanished without hauling anyone to the gallows. It makes you think perhaps the only bewitching thing at work in Salem was the human mind.
From a missing man who helped shape a century to a missing object that shaped the last two millennia. It’s the year 33 AD, just outside the city walls of Jerusalem. This group of men here, they’re guests at history’s most famous dinner party. That one there is Peter.
And over in the shadows, brooding and restless, Judas. And then there’s our host, Jesus of Nazareth. According to Christian scripture, by this time tomorrow, Jesus will be executed on a Roman cross. And the simple cup he now lifts is about to become Christrysendom’s most sacred and most controversial relic, the Holy Grail.
Many will come to believe the Grail grants divine power or even eternal life, but soon it will vanish. Will it be lost forever, or will it end up hiding in plain sight?
[Music] The story of the Grail is one of mystery.
The Bible doesn’t even provide a physical description of it.
The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, written more than a half a century after Jesus’ death, refer simply to a cup. The cup is used ceremonially to represent Christ’s sacrifice.
The scripture also has nothing to say about where this cup went after the faithful supper, nor any of the subsequent claims of its magical qualities. For centuries, it seems to have simply vanished.
Then in the Middle Ages, tales emerge of the Grail as an artifact imbued with incredible power. Mostly set in the mystical realm of King Arthur. These are stories of heroic knights and sacred mysteries. Think of them as the Star Wars saga, only set a long time ago in a castle far, far away.
But here’s where things get really interesting. Because at the same time that we get these medieval myths about the chivalous knights of the round table, there’s also a real life group of God’s warriors, the Knights Templar, an order of military monks, equal parts holy and badass. They roam the Christian world with one foot in the church and the other on the battlefield.
After the first crusade, they’re charged with protecting wealthy Christian pilgrims on their travels to the Holy Land. The Templar’s home base is in the heart of Jerusalem, and it’s said to contain vast wealth and holy relics.
Rumors begin to spread.
Did they discover Jesus’ chalice and keep it for themselves? If so, where did they put it?
The Holy Grail could be anywhere across the vast Templar network stretching from England to Syria. But in 1312, the Templars are forcibly disbanded without ever revealing if they did indeed get the Grail. In the centuries that follow, the legend and lore of Christ’s cup only grows with many vessels emerging that people claim are the real deal.
There’s the silver Antioch chalice found in the ruins of a church in Turkey.
The onyx chalice of Dona Iraqa housed in a basilica in Spain.
And who could forget the Nantios cup, a humble wooden bowl from a monastery in Wales. At least that one looks like the cup of a carpenter.
In fact, over 200 vessels across Europe have at one time or another been presented as the possible holy grail.
Most of them, well, let’s just say they don’t hold water.
[Music] But a couple seem real enough to cause even skeptical Grail seekers to take a second look. Behold the Sakro Catino, aka the Genoa Chalice. Sure, it looks like a satellite dish from the Emerald City, but according to the medieval chronicle of the Italian city of Genoa, crusaders seized this mysterious green vessel during the capture of the biblical city of Cesaria in the year 1101. Now, according to the chronicle, the chalice is said to be crafted out of pure emerald and is associated with the Last Supper, fueling the belief that it could possess extraordinary powers. The cup even appears to glow from within, radiating what some have said is a divine light. But can the Genoa chalice be proven to be the true Holy Grail?
In the Middle Ages, the Emerald Genoa Chalice is considered by many to be the Holy Grail. In the 1800s, when Napoleon annexes Genoa, the French emperor personally demands that the prize chalice is shipped to the Paris Academy of Sciences to verify its authenticity.
[Music] But while in transit from Genoa to France, the cup fractures. Upon examination, Parisian scientists determined the dish is not an emerald at all, but Byzantine glass.
That’s a big problem because this particular style of glass was not in use until hundreds of years after Jesus’ death. And so it becomes another failed contender in the enduring quest for the Holy Grail.
[Applause] [Music] And as it turns out, Napoleon isn’t the only power- hungry authoritarian to seek the grail.
A century later, Adolf Hitler becomes fascinated with the Grail and its supposed powers. His most lethal enforcer, Hinrich Himmler, reportedly dispatches the Nazi SS on expeditions across Europe in search of the relic.
For more on this, please see Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade.
And Indy’s adventure is just one of many modern spins on the Grail legend.
If you look around, Grail mythology is everywhere in pop culture. From Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code to Monty Python to gaming’s Assassin’s Creed franchise.
To the faithful, the Holy Grail remains not a thing of fiction, but a divine relic that could still be found. Despite centuries of pursuit, though it has remained elusive. But now, professor of history and folklore Dr. Lynn McNeel claims there may be compelling new evidence for the Grail’s existence.
>> Within the context of Christianity, the Grail is one of the most sacred objects on this planet today. And we’re left wondering what happened. If we still have it, if it is findable, if it exists, if it is extant in the world, this would be magnificent.
Recent research is starting to show that the chalice of Valencia is the historic cup of Christ.
This may be more than just a local belief. This could actually be possible.
The Holy Chalice of Valencia, also known as the Sto Khales, has been protected in the Cathedral of Valencia, Spain, for the last 600 years. Although details are spotty, it is believed the chalice came from the Holy Land to Rome with St.
Peter in the first century AD. Later, in the 3rd century, St. Lawrence brought the cup to his native Spain, where it has been safeguarded for centuries.
Since arriving in Valencia, religious pilgrims have traveled from all around the world to glimpse what they believe to be the one true cup. But others are unconvinced. After all, it’s kind of hard to imagine Jesus would use something this ornate.
But in 1960, a Spanish archaeologist discovers this chalice is actually three separate pieces. He claims the stand of the cup comes from the medieval period, while the base dates to the 9th century.
But here’s the kicker. The cup itself was crafted between the 2n century BC and the 1st century AD. And the agot stone it’s made from is only found in the Holy Land. This cup really could date from the time and place of Jesus.
[Applause] The entire cup itself is not what Jesus would have drank out of. just that top part, that simple stone cup, that would be the grail. The rest of it would be casing placed around it. And this is a common practice of putting sacred objects in an intentionally ornate container to show their importance through the way we display them.
Another interesting element is the idea that this cup would have needed to meet certain ritual requirements. A lot of people forget that the last supper wasn’t just any meal. It was a seder. It was a Passover meal. Any cup used in the Passover meal needs to hold a minimum amount of liquid. And this particular cup is just the right size to hold the required two revits is the Talmudic measurement that’s needed to be held with wine and this holds 2.5.
So to know that this holy chalice that it’s dated to the right time period that it is ritually correct for a Passover dinner for believers these elements really just become the final proof that this is not just in our hearts but in history the holy grail [Music] 300 years after the hysteria of Salem, we’re about to experience a very different case of what some will say is collective madness. It’s just after midnight on December 26th, 1980. A blisteringly cold night in the Rendlessham forest near Suffach, England. Did you see that? Something is moving in these woods. Something strange. And what happens here over the next few hours will become one of the most baffling UFO encounters of all time because the key witnesses are serving members of the American Air Force. But is it really something out of this world? One thing’s for sure, I won’t be needing this anymore because the real light show is about to begin.
At Royal Air Force Base Woodbridge, US Air Force security are on routine patrol.
It’s the height of the Cold War and the US operates the base on English soil under a NATO agreement.
At 3:00 a.m., Airman First Class John Burrows spots an odd light in the forest beyond the east gate.
Staff Sergeant Jim Penniston, also on patrol, sees the light as well. Together with a third serviceman, Edward Cabanzac, they head deeper into Rendlessham Forest to investigate.
According to the men’s accounts, the lights grow brighter and stranger with every step.
Their radios crackle, then cut out entirely.
Finally, they see it.
The men will claim that a metallic triangular object appears to hover just above the forest floor. Its smooth black surface reflecting an eerie light. No sound, no wind, just an otherworldly energy that seems to vibrate through the air itself.
Penniston would later contend that he actually touches the mysterious craft.
He says the surface is perfectly smooth and warm, marked with strange symbols that he later records in a notebook.
Then in an instant, the metallic enigma blasts off with a blinding streak of light that disappears into the night sky.
If that were the end of the story, Rendlessham would go down as one of the most intriguing unexplained events in history. A close encounter of the second kind, if I’m remembering my Spielberg correctly. But this mystery, it’s just getting started.
In the early morning hours, investigators locate three strange imprints in the soil, spaced evenly apart in a nearly perfect triangle.
Their Geiger counter also spikes, showing higher than average radiation as they investigate the mysterious clearing.
2 days later, on the night of the 28th, more lights are reported darting through the forest, moving erratically, defying logic.
Deputy Base Commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt has had enough. He personally leads a team into the woods armed with radiation meters, night vision scopes, and a tape recorder. What follows is the actual audio from that night.
We got a small blast, what looks like a blasted or scrubbed up area here.
>> Even stranger, only the trees facing the clearing have fresh damage.
Each >> one of these trees that face into a blast what we assume is a landing site all have an abrasion facing in the same direction.
>> Then a sergeant spots something.
>> It’s coming this way. It is definitely coming this way.
Now we’re observing what appears to be a theme coming out of the ground.
This is unreal.
[Music] Back at the base, Halt documents the series of strange encounters in a memo titled Unexplained Lights. The British Ministry of Defense launches an official investigation. But things only get murkier. Despite the eyewitness reports, despite the radiation readings, and despite a highranking US officer filing an official memo, the Ministry of Defense quickly concludes there was no defense significance to the events.
Perhaps they just wanted the whole story to go away, but it doesn’t.
In 1983, the top secret encounter is finally revealed when a government memo is released under the US Freedom of Information Act. And just like that, Rendlessham becomes the biggest UFO bombshell since Roswell in 1947.
But while believers see proof of alien visitation, skeptics have a more downto-earth explanation. Just a few miles away from the base, the now defunct Orford Nest Lighthouse used to emit powerful beams of light. Some suggest that when it shined through the trees, it created the illusion of a hovering craft. Back in 2017, I traveled to the English air base for an exclusive interview with Lieutenant Colonel Halt himself, the man who witnessed the event and who wrote the infamous memo.
Do you think what you saw was extraterrestrial? I’m firmly convinced myself that yes, it was extraterrestrial. Colonel, what do the skeptics say? How do people explain this away? The biggest story is the lighthouse.
To test that theory, we tked to the lighthouse and got it operational for the first time in decades.
Ah, look at that.
Then we ventured into Rendlessham Forest and located the reported landing site to see firsthand how the lighthouse’s beam appears from the ground.
Boom.
1 2 3 4 5. Just like clockwork every 5 seconds.
And these guys worked at this base for years. This lighthouse would have been something that they saw pretty regularly. I think it’s really safe to say that’s not what they saw.
I left England convinced of two things.
One, whatever Lieutenant Colonel Halt saw that night in Rendlessham Forest, it wasn’t just the rhythmic flash of a lighthouse. And two, he is steadfast and unwavering that he witnessed something not of this world. I should say that in strict evidential terms, the prank story is just a classic friend of a friend story. It seems to have been invented by a euphologist who wanted to write himself into the narrative.
So, if it’s not a prank and not a lighthouse, was it aliens? The UK military conducted a detailed investigation into unidentified aerial phenomena, including the Rendlessham incident. Their report was eventually declassified and in 2024 its conclusions were brought to light and they offer a stunning possibility. The study suggests that what witnesses believed were UFOs may actually have been plasma. No, not the stuff coursing through your veins.
This is electromagnetic plasma. A glowing supercharged swirl of particles that’s visually elusive. Here on Earth, it’s often seen as lightning in auroras or from meteors entering the atmosphere.
And there were reports of meteors over England at that time.
Randles forest might be one of these cases where a strange atmospheric plasma phenomena might be involved.
If a meteor had come down and superheated, supercharged the atmosphere, particularly if there was a bit of mist and fog, this would cause a very spooky looking light display.
Electromagnetic plasma can sometimes appear as a type of so-called ball lightning that can dart around in wild, unpredictable ways, much like what witnesses saw at Rendleshum. And get this, plasma might even explain the mysterious spike in radiation recorded during the Rendlessham incident.
When plasma revs up, its charged particles, like speedy little electrons, start zipping around and releasing bursts of electromagnetic radiation. And to top it off, these plasmas may even be able to cause visual hallucinations.
There has been some scientific work to show how the stimulation of the temporal loes can produce hallucinations, strange sensations. So the theory is that these close encounters that the witnesses experienced at Rendlessham were actually close encounters, but not with extraterrestrials, but with these plasmas.
[Music] But how can plasma account for the structured craft Jim Penniston says he touched? You know, the one with the strange symbols. And let’s not forget the three curious indentations left in the ground.
Skeptics say that these indentations in the ground were maybe nothing more than borrowing animals, rabbits perhaps.
Well, my response to that is what?
radioactive rabbits.
I think it’s one of these rare multiaceted events.
Exotic atmospheric plasmas may have played a part in things, but there may genuinely be something truly unknown over and above all of that. There are mysteries out there still to be solved.
To this day, Halt, Penniston, and the others maintain what they saw wasn’t a prank, a lighthouse, or the effects of plasma, but something not of this earth.
Skeptics respond that some of their stories have changed or become embellished over time. Penniston, for instance, never mentioned touching a craft in his original report. But it is hard to dismiss the strange events of this case out of hand. At the heart of this mystery are multiple credible military personnel who certainly saw something in Rendlessham forest. As for the rest of us, all we can do is look up at the night sky and keep wondering what’s really out there.
Summerton Beach near Adelaide, South Australia.
The time is 6:30 a.m. But despite the beautiful coastal view, several beachgoers are gathered near the seaw wall looking down at something else. the motionless body of a man lying with his head propped up. He almost looks asleep almost.
>> Oh my god, he’s dead.
>> He’s oddly well-dressed for the beach, nice suit, and even dress shoes polished to a high shine. But he has no wallet.
Indeed, no identification of any kind.
Even more bizarre, there’s not a mark on him. But soon, curious clues will surface. a coded message, a torn scrap of poetry, and whispers of cold war secrets. Who is this, and how did he die? These questions will linger for more than seven decades. That is until a revolutionary DNA breakthrough will reveal the longlost identity of the stranger known only as the Summerton man.
Detectives Lionel Lean and Len Brown are baffled.
The few items in the dead man’s pockets seemingly offer no clues about who he was or how he died.
The police find a half empty packet of chewing gum, an aluminum comb, a bus and train ticket, matches, and a pack of cigarettes.
During an initial examination of the body, they find no evidence of violence.
They do however notice that the deceased has extremely well- definfined calves and wedge-shaped toes.
This leads some to theorize that perhaps the man was a ballet dancer.
Another detail that jumps out, every label on his clothing has been meticulously removed.
And his shoes are so spotless they don’t even show signs he’d been walking across the beach.
Something isn’t right and the detectives can sense it.
The autopsy reveals no wounds of any kind. The pathologist suspects poison, but no trace is ever found.
The cause of death is ruled unknown.
January 14th, 1949. Detectives have pounded the pavement for six weeks since the Summerton man was first found. And in that time, they’ve searched every hotel, bus, and train stop in the city.
Finally, at a local rail station, they get a hit. The discovery of an unclaimed suitcase in the coach check.
The case was placed there the day before the body was discovered on the beach, but no one remembers who put it there.
Inside, more clothes with tags removed.
But then they find one big clue.
The name T. Keen is stitched on a neck tie.
So, mystery solved, right? The body must be T. Keen.
Except there’s a problem. There isn’t a single person named Keen reported as missing. Not in Adelaide. Not in all of Australia.
Needing more time and desperate to preserve what remains of the mysterious man’s body, authorities make a plaster cast of his head and torso, capturing his features before they’re lost forever.
Then, just when the case is going cold, a discovery.
Months after his death, detectives examine his clothing one last time. And in a hidden pocket sewn within his pants, they find something fascinating.
A tiny scrap of paper with a mysterious message.
Tam should. Two words neatly printed. In Persian, it means it is finished.
The question is, was it left by the man himself or by his killer? And when thyself with shining foot shall pass among the guests stars scattered on the grass and in thy joyous errand reach the spot where I made one turn down an empty glass. Tam should it is finished.
[Music] It’s a farewell. The empty glass symbolizes the end of one’s life as in I’ve finished my drink. My time is up.
Detectives discover that the book provides even more potential clues.
Faint impressions pressed into the back of the book. Five lines of letters that appear to be some kind of secret code.
Could it be an encrypted message? Why not? After all, the Cold War is just beginning to heat up. With a uranium mine and a military research facility close to where the Summerton man was found, the detectives wonder, was this man a Soviet spy?
The Australian Navy’s cryptographic experts examine the text, hoping to break the code. But despite their efforts, they’re unable to crack it.
On the inside back cover of the book, detectives find something more easily deciphered, a phone number. It connects them to a woman named Jessica Thompson, living just a 5-minute walk from where the body was found.
>> Jessica Thompson?
>> Yes.
>> Adelaide Police Department. Can we have a word? Oh, okay. Yes. Come in.
>> Could she be the one to finally name the man behind the face?
At the station, police present Jessica with the man’s haunting death mask. When Jessica sees the bust, she looks shocked. In fact, she almost faints. But then, she regains her composure and insists that she doesn’t recognize the man.
>> No.
>> But she does claim to recognize something else. The Rubot. She tells detectives she once owned a copy of the same book.
During the war, while working as a nurse in a military hospital, Jessica gave the book as a gift to an Australian Army lieutenant named Alf Boxel, with whom she had a brief romance. After the war, she married and moved on. Then one day, a letter arrived from Boxel. She wrote back only once to tell him she was married now and they could never meet again.
Police are convinced they’ve found their man. It must be Alf Boxel. They theorize he took his own life drinking poison after being rejected by Jessica.
But a stunning twist is about to change everything police thought they uncovered about the dead man. It turns out that Alf Boxel is alive and well, living quietly in Sydney. And the kicker, his copy of the Rubiat is still in his possession.
>> I was looking at this plaster bus of the Summerton Man, and I noticed there were hairs stuck in the plaster. Immediately in my mind, the word DNA popped up.
>> You’ve heard of grasping at straws? This was grasping at hairs. Sealed for decades in the plaster cast, the hairs were badly deteriorated. Extracting viable DNA was going to be a long shot at best.
>> I got permission to extract hairs from the plaster bust and it was like a gold mine. The lab pulled out a sequence of 2 million pieces of DNA information.
We found distant cousins and they were all in Melbourne, Australia.
We found alive people today whose DNA triangulated to him. And it was at that point we knew that we had nailed it.
>> After 70 years of intrigue, the team appears to have found their man. The hair belonged to an individual named Carl Charles Webb. Born in 1905 in Victoria, Australia, Carl was an electrical engineer. In 1941, he married Dorothy Robinson, but the marriage quickly fell apart.
In divorce documents, Dorothy described Carl as abusive, depressed, and isolated, and even potentially suicidal after discovering him overdosed on ether.
Remarkably, Carl had a deep love for poetry, writing his own verses, many of which were focused on death, which his ex-wife claimed was quote his greatest desire. This seems to be a strong connection to the slip of poetry found in the dead man’s pants and the copy of the Rubot discarded in the car. But what about that strange sequence of letters inscribed inside? That was all very mysterious to people. Ooh, you know that’s that’s a sign of a spy. As it turned out, it really isn’t a serious code. It doesn’t have the structure of serious World War II code. But because it’s four lines and this is a book of poetry with verses that all have four lines in them, it could be he’s trying to pen a poem himself in a similar vein to the four-line poetry in the Rubiat.
>> Either way, it seems the real Summerton man was no international spy. And there are even more pieces of the puzzle. Carl had a nephew named John Keane. Remember that tie the detectives found with the name tag T Keen? Well, it turns out they read it wrong. The T was apparently a J.
So, when he died on that beach, Carl Webb was simply carrying his nephew’s clothes.
It’s a stunning conclusion, but not every puzzle piece has been found. What about the fact the discarded poetry book inexplicably contained the phone number of Jessica Thompson, the young nurse who reacted to the bust of the Summerton man, but then swore she didn’t know him.
Why on earth does he have her number? It makes you wonder whether they knew each other from before, but we have not been able to find any evidence to back that up.
So, it could be just a coincidence that he has her number for whatever reason.
Because you have to remember in those days people put classified ads in newspapers advertising to sell things and she did have a bunch of classified ads at the time.
>> There’s still so much we don’t know about Carl Webb or how and why he died.
Some experts point to a possible heart attack or a pharmaceutical overdose.
Some still suspect a rare poison, but without hard forensic evidence, we may never know for sure. But we do know that Professor Abbott and his team have done what for 70 years was believed impossible. Provide a definitive scientific identification for the Summerton man. Tam should it is finished indeed.
In the rugged terrain of what is now Turkey, archaeologist Hinrich Schlean believes he’s uncovered the lost city of Troy.
There’s no wooden horse in sight, but shimmering gold goblets, crowns, and dazzling jewels do suggest a city worthy of homeriic verse.
But a problem quickly emerges. The allegedly Trojan treasure Schlean unearthed actually dates to around 2400 BC, over a thousand years before the era of Homer’s Iliad. So, did Schleman get it all wrong? Well, maybe not entirely.
Decade after decade, archaeological teams return to his Sarlac, leaving the dynamite at home. They carefully excavate the layer cake structure of the site.
They zero in on the layers Schlean tore through, specifically Troy 6 and 7. What they uncover is stunning. These layers date from the era of the Trojan War as described by Homer, and they reveal the remnants of a grand city with towering fortification walls. All of which suggests the Troy of legend might in fact be real, and that Schllean had dug in the right place, but dug too deep and ended up in the wrong time. But is there any evidence that backs up Homer’s narrative of the Trojan War? Professor Owen Dunan is an archaeologist who has spent 25 years excavating in the region.
>> Archaeology is the most incredibly dynamic field like the question of Troy.
We are always going to be finding shocking and exciting new things. At the site of Troy, there has been evidence found of burning, of destruction that we associate with the time horizon around 1200 BC.
Weapons, burnt buildings, charcoal, burnt bones testify to a fiery destruction within the time associated with the Trojan War. So, not only was Troy a real place, but there is also clear evidence of its catastrophic downfall, but what brought about its destruction? Was it the likes of King Agamemnon and Menaaus in their epic quest to rescue Helen? And can we finally say giddy up to a Trojan horse?
Well, few historians would argue that such a theatrical ploy could have really happened as described. But with so much of the story of Troy bearing out, some experts believe that Homer described a mythic distortion of something very real.
Unfortunately, there’s never been any trace found of the so-called Trojan horse. But there were large wooden vessels that are known around this time called siege engines. A siege engine was sort of like an ancient tank. Early Greek sources use the word hippos when referring to the Trojan horse, but that term is also used to describe certain wheeled weapons of war, some of which were even animal-shaped, hence the term battering ram.
It’s quite possible that something like a siege machine that resembled a form of a horse may have been part of the conquest of the city of Troy. And what about the rest of Homer’s cast?
Agamemnon, Menaaus, Helen, and the rest of the gang. Any truth there? Well, amazingly, the answer is also yes.
Courtesy of discoveries from a neighboring civilization.
Archaeologists have excavated written tablets from the Hittite Empire, a powerful kingdom that flourished in central Turkey between 1600 and 1200 BC.
And some of the tablets contain references to specific names and places that closely mirror those described in Homer’s Iliad.
There has been a trickle of new tablets discovered and translated that mention various characters that we are familiar with from the story. Like the reference to Atari, a king of the Aiyah is widely believed to connect with the name Atrius, the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus in the Iliad. These were the kings who led the Greek expedition to Troy.
William Shakespeare has captivated the world for centuries. author of 39 acclaimed plays, not to mention 154 sonnetss and a reputation as the greatest writer who ever lived.
But for a man who gave us such immortal words, there’s a shockingly light paper trail.
Here’s what we do know. He was born in 1564 to John Shakespeare, a respected glove maker. His parents likely illiterate.
Young William grows up humbly in the quiet market town of Stratford upon Avon about a 100 miles northwest of London.
Then at the age of 18, he weds Anne Hathaway. No, not from the Devil Wears Prada and eventually has three kids.
There’s no historical record of him attending university.
No record of anything really for the next several years, which is why they’re often referred to as the lost years.
[Music] Then in 1592, the now 28-year-old Shakespeare suddenly reappears in London, where he’s making a name for himself as a rising star of the stage.
Shakespeare earns accolades as a valued member of a prominent acting troop. He acts himself, but that’s not what makes him famous. It will be his work writing for this group that truly cementss his legacy. From 1600 on, Shakespeare writes and stages masterpiece after masterpiece. Hamlet, Aello, King Lear, The Tempest, not to mention McBth.
Sorry, the Scottish play. Been around enough curses to know better.
The plays are hits. At least two are even performed for Queen Elizabeth.
After writing more than three dozen plays, it is said that he retires from the London literary scene around 1613.
At 49, he returns to Stratford upon Avon. It’s said that he lays down his prodigious pen to live the quiet life of a country gentleman. He’ll die at age 52 in 1616. Strangely, there’s no record of any notes or unfinished manuscripts at the time of his death. His will mentions no books in his personal collection.
It’s as though the most literary man in history has no connection to literature at all.
In 1623, 36 of Shakespeare’s most iconic plays are published in The First Folio, turning Will into a true household name.
So, how did a poor English country boy churn out masterpiece after masterpiece?
Well, not everyone is convinced he did.
Skeptics point out that there’s no record that William Shakespeare went to university. There’s no record he ever left England or had any ties to high society.
And if that’s the case, then Shakespeare had seemingly impossible insight with deep knowledge of Italy, France, and the royal courts of Europe.
Then there’s the fact that several of Shakespeare’s early plays, including Romeo and Juliet and Richard III, are first published anonymously without any mention of an author. And when his name does appear on the title pages of his printed works, it shows up with curious variations of spellings. Add to that the fact that his own signature appears six different ways, and a provocative theory emerges. What if Shakespeare is just a pseudonym for someone else entirely?
For 400 years, literary sleuths have questioned whether William Shakespeare truly penned the plays credited to him.
Some suspect another author could be behind these masterpieces.
[Music] Enter one of the most intriguing suspects, Sir Francis Bacon. Bacon was a philosopher and statesman who served as Lord Chancellor of England under King James I in the 19th century. The theory that Bacon was the real author of the Bard’s works gains traction.
Supporters argue he had all the education, eloquence, and intellect that the unassuming actor from Stratford lacked. Even Mark Twain jumped on board writing, “Is Shakespeare dead?” in support of the idea.
But opponents of this theory doth protest. They argue that Francis Bacon was never afraid of the spotlight. If he wrote all these great works, he wouldn’t have concealed it. He would have taken the credit. Plus, he was pretty busy inventing empirical philosophy.
The theory goes that Marlo, facing persecution for his rumored spy work for Queen Elizabeth’s Secret Service, fakes his own death in a bar fight in 1593.
[Music] Conveniently, that’s right before Shakespeare’s greatest works began appearing.
Could Marlo have gone underground and continued writing under the safer, more anonymous name of Shakespeare? It sounds like a plot straight out of well Shakespeare full of intrigue, deception, and characters who swap identities to get the upper hand. 12th Night, anyone?
In 2016, cuttingedge textual analysis revealed Marlo’s stylistic fingerprints present in the Shakespeare play Henry V 6th.
As a result, some experts credit both men as co-authors, though it remains controversial.
But could Marlo really have been responsible for all of Shakespeare’s works?
Most experts say not likely. There’s no surviving manuscripts, letters, or confessions that directly tie Marlo to the creation of Shakespeare’s works. The trail is tantalizing, but ultimately circumstantial.
So, it’s likely not Bacon or Marlo, but they’re just two of the almost 80 identities proposed as the real Shakespeare. With all these possible candidates, how in the name of fall staff are Shakespeare skeptics supposed to figure out who really wrote the plays? Well, if you’re Dr. Roger Stitmatter, you take a decadesl long deep dive and narrow it down to just one man. If you ask a typical Shakespeare professor, where does Shakespeare’s life connect with these plays? They don’t really have a very good answer to that.
Shakespeare has essentially almost nothing that would be a legitimate preparation for writing these plays. He may have gone to grammar school. He didn’t go to college. He never traveled out of the country. Nothing about Shakespeare supports the idea that he is a credible author of these plays. At every point you are fighting the evidence. The exact opposite is true of Edward Deve.
>> You’re probably asking yourself, who the hell is Edward Dvere? Well, he’s also known as the Earl of Oxford.
Born in 1550, Dve was a wealthy nobleman and an accomplished poet and playwright.
His position within the court of England gave him an insider’s perspective on the politics and intrigue of royal life. He was also a seasoned traveler, having spent a good deal of time in Venice, Verona, and Florence, the settings of some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays.
And it gets even more interesting.
Dver’s personal Bible contains numerous underlines and notes, several of which show up as themes and quotations in the work of Shakespeare.
Could it be a coincidence? Some scholars use these details to argue that the Earl of Oxford makes a better Shakespeare than well Shakespeare. The theory that Edward Deve was the man behind William Shakespeare isn’t original to Dr.
Stitmatter though. It was first proposed in 1920 by J. Thomas Looney.
Looney was looking for um a person who was sort of placed in society to uh learn about all of the domains of knowledge that are embodied in the Shakespeare plays. So after doing a lot of research, Looney discovered Edward Deve, the 17th of Oxford. He had traveled extensively in Italy. He had a first class education. He was a lyric poet before Shakespeare appears on the scene. And interestingly enough, he is recorded as early as 1589 as being a writer of comedies. He was also a patron of the theater.
Looney also realized as soon as you think of Devere as the author, suddenly it’s like the the life and the plays are deeply intertwined.
For a hundred years though, there was no proof to this theory. As Shakespeare once wrote, there’s the rub. But now, for the first time, Strit Matter believes he’s found it. And he says it’s all thanks to a shocking hidden code.
Did William Shakespeare really write all of his immortal plays? Academic Roger Stitmatter believes he’s confirmed that nobleman and poet Edward Deve was the true voice of the bard. He says he can prove it thanks to a secret code hidden in a book from 1598.
The book in question is Paladis Tamilia, a collection of quotes, moral sayings, and literary criticism written by Francis Mir. The book is notable for being the first to include commentary on Shakespeare’s plays. In the book, Mirs includes several lists comparing famous authors. One links great English writers with classical counterparts from Greece and Rome.
Mirs is a believer in divine mathematics and he arranges these lists so that the norm is they are symmetrical. you have the same number of names on both sides.
And then he varies that. And whenever he varies it, there’s a reason. He wants you to dig deeper and figure out why symmetry doesn’t exist.
>> In other words, move over Da Vinci. This is the Shakespeare code.
Stratter noticed that the two lists are unbalanced.
17 English names, 16 classical ones.
He claims this imbalance indicates that two of the English names refer to the same person.
Your goal is to figure out which two names refer to the same person. And you’ve got a clue over here. The name that corresponds to Shakespeare in the list on the Greek side is Arisaimmus.
Why did he put Arisaimus next to Shakespeare? Well, it turns out that the name Arisanimmus really means the aristocratic name. Well, guess what? There’s only one aristocratic name on the English side in this paragraph, and that’s the very first name, Edward Earl of Oxford.
So, it’s pretty obvious which names are duplicated, and that would be Deve and Shakespeare. Edward Dvere 17th row of Oxford is Shakespeare.
>> Okay, but if Dvere and Shakespeare really were one and the same, why hide it? Stratter thinks it’s because writing anything but poetry was looked down upon as an unworthy pursuit for nobles in that era. Aristocrats like Dvere were known to publish other work anonymously.
For Dvere, having a commoner front for him meant he could indulge his passion for the stage without losing face at court. For Shakespeare, an actor by trade, it meant money in his pocket, a continued presence in London’s theater scene, and the ability to retire a country gentleman back in his hometown.
It was the ultimate win-win. One man kept his reputation, the other made one.