1 00:00:03,921 --> 00:00:06,721 Tonight a mysterious medieval book 2 00:00:06,798 --> 00:00:10,008 written in a secret language so complex 3 00:00:10,093 --> 00:00:13,013 that even the world’s best code breakers can’t crack it. 4 00:00:14,556 --> 00:00:15,846 - No one has been able 5 00:00:15,933 --> 00:00:19,733 to translate or read a single word, 6 00:00:19,853 --> 00:00:21,193 a single letter. 7 00:00:21,271 --> 00:00:23,861 Known as the "Voynich Manuscript," 8 00:00:23,941 --> 00:00:26,191 it’s obsessed everyone from scholars 9 00:00:26,276 --> 00:00:27,816 to conspiracy theorists. 10 00:00:27,903 --> 00:00:30,533 - They sincerely believe that this book 11 00:00:30,614 --> 00:00:33,584 has something monumental to share. 12 00:00:33,700 --> 00:00:35,870 Now we’ll uncover the top theories 13 00:00:35,953 --> 00:00:39,663 surrounding the origins of this cryptic text. 14 00:00:39,748 --> 00:00:42,708 - Voynich thinks this is some sort of secret manual 15 00:00:42,793 --> 00:00:44,503 for the practice of alchemy. 16 00:00:44,586 --> 00:00:48,206 - The "Voynich Manuscript" is written in glossolalia, 17 00:00:48,298 --> 00:00:51,588 which is the language of tongues. 18 00:00:51,677 --> 00:00:55,887 - Has he pulled off one of the greatest hoaxes in history? 19 00:00:55,973 --> 00:00:58,103 Can modern technology finally unlock 20 00:00:58,183 --> 00:01:00,773 its impenetrable code? 21 00:01:00,852 --> 00:01:03,772 - It’s the first definitive answer we have about this book 22 00:01:03,897 --> 00:01:05,647 in 400 years. 23 00:01:05,774 --> 00:01:08,744 What is the "Voynich Manuscript"? 24 00:01:31,883 --> 00:01:34,683 Just outside Rome, famed Polish-American 25 00:01:34,803 --> 00:01:38,013 rare bookseller Wilfrid Voynich 26 00:01:38,140 --> 00:01:42,230 enters a centuries-old Jesuit college. 27 00:01:42,311 --> 00:01:44,271 - Voynich operates what 28 00:01:44,354 --> 00:01:46,734 is probably the world’s largest 29 00:01:46,815 --> 00:01:49,775 rare books business at the time. 30 00:01:49,860 --> 00:01:52,450 He’s got this incredible knack 31 00:01:52,529 --> 00:01:55,069 for digging up the most valuable 32 00:01:55,157 --> 00:01:58,697 and the most sought-after manuscripts on the planet. 33 00:01:58,827 --> 00:02:02,497 His collection is worth millions. 34 00:02:02,581 --> 00:02:05,461 Voynich hopes his next great find is here. 35 00:02:05,542 --> 00:02:08,342 - The Jesuits need funds to support their college. 36 00:02:08,462 --> 00:02:11,012 So what they decide to do is, they decide to sell 37 00:02:11,089 --> 00:02:15,639 some of their most ancient texts very discreetly. 38 00:02:15,719 --> 00:02:18,469 Voynich negotiates a shrewd deal as always, 39 00:02:18,555 --> 00:02:21,465 and he adds 30 more books to his collection, 40 00:02:21,558 --> 00:02:24,638 which he will try to sell for a significant profit 41 00:02:24,728 --> 00:02:25,808 back at his shop in London. 42 00:02:27,522 --> 00:02:30,822 One book in particular stands out. 43 00:02:30,901 --> 00:02:33,531 - As with all of his purchases, 44 00:02:33,654 --> 00:02:37,624 Voynich looks for elaborate bindings, 45 00:02:37,699 --> 00:02:38,869 beautiful books, 46 00:02:38,992 --> 00:02:41,662 heavily illustrated, illuminated manuscripts, 47 00:02:41,745 --> 00:02:46,715 early printed books, really things--luxurious objects. 48 00:02:46,833 --> 00:02:51,253 But among them his eye’s caught by what he later called 49 00:02:51,380 --> 00:02:53,090 an ugly duckling. 50 00:02:53,215 --> 00:02:55,095 - This particular manuscript is small. 51 00:02:55,217 --> 00:02:58,007 It’s only about 9 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches, 52 00:02:58,095 --> 00:02:59,555 and it’s bound in goatskin. 53 00:02:59,638 --> 00:03:02,848 It’s about 230 pages long, but there is some evidence 54 00:03:02,933 --> 00:03:04,353 that some of the pages are missing. 55 00:03:04,434 --> 00:03:07,734 Also, some pages are foldable sheets of varying size, 56 00:03:07,813 --> 00:03:10,613 and this book is filled with lines upon lines 57 00:03:10,732 --> 00:03:13,232 of neatly handwritten text and elaborate drawings. 58 00:03:13,318 --> 00:03:16,398 But here’s the thing. 59 00:03:16,488 --> 00:03:19,198 None of it makes any sense. 60 00:03:22,160 --> 00:03:24,160 There are a couple hundred 61 00:03:24,246 --> 00:03:27,206 detailed drawings of plant species, 62 00:03:27,290 --> 00:03:29,460 none of which can be identified. 63 00:03:29,584 --> 00:03:32,674 There are astrological drawings of constellations 64 00:03:32,754 --> 00:03:34,714 that don’t even exist. 65 00:03:34,798 --> 00:03:39,088 There’s a section where nude, pregnant women 66 00:03:39,219 --> 00:03:42,599 are engaging in these baths and rituals 67 00:03:42,723 --> 00:03:46,433 with these seemingly interconnected tubes, 68 00:03:46,518 --> 00:03:48,768 and then there are these strange hybrids, 69 00:03:48,854 --> 00:03:52,694 these plants with human organs, 70 00:03:52,774 --> 00:03:55,364 and some of these plants even sprout disembodied heads. 71 00:03:55,444 --> 00:03:58,284 It’s--needless to say, it’s wild. 72 00:03:58,363 --> 00:03:59,783 But it’s also indecipherable. 73 00:04:01,450 --> 00:04:03,410 And as for that lovely handwritten text, 74 00:04:03,493 --> 00:04:06,583 that entire thing is written in a language 75 00:04:06,663 --> 00:04:08,793 that no one has ever seen before. 76 00:04:08,915 --> 00:04:11,285 There are very clear and obvious words and letters, 77 00:04:11,376 --> 00:04:13,456 but they’re totally unrecognizable. 78 00:04:13,587 --> 00:04:16,967 So Voynich assumes that this is some type of code. 79 00:04:17,090 --> 00:04:19,260 In addition to experience with codes, 80 00:04:19,342 --> 00:04:23,262 Voynich speaks Polish, Russian, and English fluently 81 00:04:23,346 --> 00:04:27,266 and has a working knowledge of 15 other languages. 82 00:04:27,350 --> 00:04:30,310 - He was born to a noble family in the Russian Empire. 83 00:04:30,395 --> 00:04:33,515 He was educated at three of the top universities, 84 00:04:33,648 --> 00:04:37,488 and then he basically becomes an anti-Czarist revolutionary. 85 00:04:37,611 --> 00:04:38,951 He’s arrested. 86 00:04:39,029 --> 00:04:41,029 He’s sent to a Siberian prison. 87 00:04:41,156 --> 00:04:42,946 He escapes the prison, 88 00:04:43,033 --> 00:04:44,413 and then he heads to London 89 00:04:44,493 --> 00:04:46,793 where he continues his revolutionary activities 90 00:04:46,870 --> 00:04:50,210 for a while before a friend of his at the British Museum 91 00:04:50,332 --> 00:04:52,632 suggested he get into the rare book trade. 92 00:04:54,044 --> 00:04:56,174 - Voynich knows everything there is to know 93 00:04:56,254 --> 00:04:57,764 about rare books. 94 00:04:57,839 --> 00:05:00,169 He’s connected to all the top literary scholars. 95 00:05:00,258 --> 00:05:02,928 He knows multiple languages. 96 00:05:03,011 --> 00:05:05,221 He knows all about codes and code-breaking 97 00:05:05,347 --> 00:05:08,177 from his years as a Russian revolutionary. 98 00:05:08,308 --> 00:05:11,638 Point is, if anyone is gonna be able to make sense 99 00:05:11,728 --> 00:05:16,358 out of this manuscript, it’s gonna be Wilfrid Voynich. 100 00:05:16,441 --> 00:05:18,991 - Voynich spent years trying to decipher the code-- 101 00:05:19,069 --> 00:05:20,699 really the rest of his life-- 102 00:05:20,779 --> 00:05:23,279 and he reaches out to all of the top code breakers 103 00:05:23,365 --> 00:05:26,535 at the time to help, and none of them can crack it. 104 00:05:26,618 --> 00:05:28,698 He sticks with it, because he has a hunch 105 00:05:28,787 --> 00:05:30,997 that this might be the most valuable book 106 00:05:31,081 --> 00:05:32,671 he’s ever encountered, 107 00:05:32,749 --> 00:05:35,879 and if he can figure this out it could be worth millions. 108 00:05:38,088 --> 00:05:40,208 - Based on the materials used to create the book-- 109 00:05:40,298 --> 00:05:43,378 the parchment, the style of ink-- 110 00:05:43,510 --> 00:05:47,140 Voynich thinks it’s going to date to the 13th century. 111 00:05:47,222 --> 00:05:49,722 So while he can’t decipher the words, 112 00:05:49,808 --> 00:05:51,348 the images of plants 113 00:05:51,434 --> 00:05:54,524 and other sorts of natural phenomena lead him to conclude 114 00:05:54,604 --> 00:05:56,864 that it’s probably some sort of guide to a field 115 00:05:56,940 --> 00:05:59,400 that used to be called natural philosophy. 116 00:06:01,278 --> 00:06:02,988 And before there were modern scientists, 117 00:06:03,071 --> 00:06:04,861 this is how people described the study of nature 118 00:06:04,948 --> 00:06:06,528 in the physical universe. 119 00:06:06,616 --> 00:06:10,196 From Aristotle to Isaac Newton, all of these "early scientists" 120 00:06:10,287 --> 00:06:12,037 were actually natural philosophers. 121 00:06:13,290 --> 00:06:14,580 - So because of that date 122 00:06:14,666 --> 00:06:16,576 and the contents of the actual manuscript, 123 00:06:16,668 --> 00:06:20,208 Voynich thinks this is some sort of secret manual 124 00:06:20,297 --> 00:06:22,917 for the practice of alchemy. 125 00:06:23,008 --> 00:06:25,218 Alchemy is this philosophical, 126 00:06:25,302 --> 00:06:28,052 part-science, part-magic practice 127 00:06:28,138 --> 00:06:31,888 that emerged in medieval Europe in the 12th century, 128 00:06:31,975 --> 00:06:35,065 and its practitioners tried to purify certain materials, 129 00:06:35,145 --> 00:06:39,695 so turn lead into gold and to cure diseases. 130 00:06:39,774 --> 00:06:41,534 Now, none of this stuff actually worked. 131 00:06:41,610 --> 00:06:43,900 But it was strongly believed in, 132 00:06:43,987 --> 00:06:47,067 and it was written about for centuries. 133 00:06:47,157 --> 00:06:50,237 - Alchemists’ real objective is perfection of the soul, 134 00:06:50,327 --> 00:06:52,077 and they’ll do this by creating something called 135 00:06:52,162 --> 00:06:54,542 the "magnum opus," or "great work," 136 00:06:54,623 --> 00:06:57,293 which was the philosopher’s stone, 137 00:06:57,417 --> 00:06:59,457 a mythical substance that was said to be able 138 00:06:59,586 --> 00:07:02,586 to grant immortality among other things. 139 00:07:02,672 --> 00:07:04,222 According to Voynich, 140 00:07:04,299 --> 00:07:08,089 there is only one early alchemist brilliant enough 141 00:07:08,178 --> 00:07:10,808 to have produced this book. 142 00:07:10,931 --> 00:07:12,271 - Almost no one in Europe 143 00:07:12,349 --> 00:07:14,479 was creating alchemy textbooks at the time. 144 00:07:14,559 --> 00:07:16,599 They were just translating older works. 145 00:07:16,686 --> 00:07:18,766 So Voynich thinks this is Roger Bacon. 146 00:07:24,819 --> 00:07:26,609 - Voynich believes the book is written in code, 147 00:07:26,696 --> 00:07:28,566 because he believes that whoever wrote it 148 00:07:28,657 --> 00:07:30,487 needed to keep something secret. 149 00:07:30,617 --> 00:07:34,157 - Roger Bacon, today he is incredibly well-respected. 150 00:07:34,245 --> 00:07:36,035 He’s known as one of the early pioneers 151 00:07:36,164 --> 00:07:37,624 of the scientific method. 152 00:07:37,707 --> 00:07:39,207 He was the first person in Europe 153 00:07:39,334 --> 00:07:41,634 to record the formula for gunpowder. 154 00:07:41,711 --> 00:07:44,631 But here’s the problem, he’s also a monk 155 00:07:44,714 --> 00:07:46,974 and a modest member of the clergy. 156 00:07:47,050 --> 00:07:49,140 And the Church doesn’t take too kindly 157 00:07:49,219 --> 00:07:52,509 to some of his more out-there alchemy practices. 158 00:07:52,597 --> 00:07:55,307 In fact, some of Bacon’s contemporaries 159 00:07:55,392 --> 00:07:59,402 accuse him of being a wizard. 160 00:07:59,521 --> 00:08:02,981 - He has an automated, mechanical clockwork head 161 00:08:03,066 --> 00:08:06,356 that he talks to and consults with, 162 00:08:06,444 --> 00:08:09,494 and like all alchemists, he’s also obsessed with forging 163 00:08:09,572 --> 00:08:13,492 the philosopher’s stone and granting immortality. 164 00:08:13,576 --> 00:08:16,996 But in the Church, only God can grant eternal life. 165 00:08:17,080 --> 00:08:20,080 So these are some very dangerous heretical ideas 166 00:08:20,208 --> 00:08:23,168 that Bacon is toying with right under the watchful eye 167 00:08:23,253 --> 00:08:25,003 of his Franciscan superiors. 168 00:08:25,088 --> 00:08:27,168 But Bacon’s not entirely a crackpot. 169 00:08:28,758 --> 00:08:30,088 - He thinks that there’s a way 170 00:08:30,218 --> 00:08:35,008 to bring the Church and science together. 171 00:08:35,098 --> 00:08:37,138 Not everyone agrees with him. 172 00:08:37,225 --> 00:08:40,015 - He thinks these ideas can complement each other. 173 00:08:40,103 --> 00:08:42,863 They don’t have to be antagonists. 174 00:08:42,939 --> 00:08:46,439 - It’s very fortunate for Bacon that he has the protection 175 00:08:46,568 --> 00:08:52,408 of a very high-placed patron and intellectual correspondent, 176 00:08:52,490 --> 00:08:54,660 the pope, Clement IV. 177 00:08:54,743 --> 00:08:58,753 But when Pope Clement dies in 1268, 178 00:08:58,872 --> 00:09:01,252 Roger Bacon’s protection is gone, 179 00:09:01,332 --> 00:09:03,712 and within a decade he’s arrested. 180 00:09:03,793 --> 00:09:06,423 - Bacon is eventually allowed to return to his studies. 181 00:09:06,546 --> 00:09:08,706 But he never puts forth any more of these so-called 182 00:09:08,798 --> 00:09:10,048 "heretical texts." 183 00:09:10,133 --> 00:09:11,883 He mostly sticks to theological writing. 184 00:09:13,970 --> 00:09:15,600 Unless, of course, he continued 185 00:09:15,680 --> 00:09:17,890 his alchemy research in secret 186 00:09:17,974 --> 00:09:21,104 and wrote it all into a coded book. 187 00:09:21,186 --> 00:09:26,356 - So if Voynich is right and this manuscript can be 188 00:09:26,441 --> 00:09:29,241 definitively affiliated with Roger Bacon, 189 00:09:29,319 --> 00:09:31,569 suddenly the manuscript itself 190 00:09:31,654 --> 00:09:35,124 would be worth untold amounts of money. 191 00:09:35,200 --> 00:09:37,620 First, Voynich must prove 192 00:09:37,702 --> 00:09:40,252 Bacon truly authored the manuscript. 193 00:09:40,330 --> 00:09:41,910 - Even though Voynich can’t crack the code, 194 00:09:41,998 --> 00:09:45,458 he does find a letter dated back to 1665 that’s written 195 00:09:45,585 --> 00:09:48,165 by a very important Czech scientist and doctor 196 00:09:48,296 --> 00:09:50,586 named Jan Marek Marci. 197 00:09:50,673 --> 00:09:52,093 He says he has a coded book 198 00:09:52,175 --> 00:09:53,975 that fits precisely this description, 199 00:09:54,094 --> 00:09:55,644 and he’s giving it to his friend, 200 00:09:55,762 --> 00:09:59,772 a renowned code breaker, Athanasius Kircher. 201 00:09:59,849 --> 00:10:02,479 Marci also gives a little bit of history on the book. 202 00:10:02,560 --> 00:10:03,770 He says it was bought 203 00:10:03,853 --> 00:10:06,113 by the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II of Germany 204 00:10:06,189 --> 00:10:09,479 about 100 years prior sometime in the late 1500s 205 00:10:09,609 --> 00:10:11,149 for a large sum of gold. 206 00:10:11,236 --> 00:10:14,106 The letter mentions Roger Bacon by name 207 00:10:14,197 --> 00:10:16,817 as the potential author in the late 1200s. 208 00:10:16,908 --> 00:10:20,908 How did the book go from Bacon to Emperor Rudolf? 209 00:10:20,995 --> 00:10:24,785 - Wilfrid Voynich thinks the connection is Dr. John Dee. 210 00:10:24,874 --> 00:10:27,344 Dr. Dee was born in 1527. 211 00:10:27,418 --> 00:10:30,458 He’s a member of the court of Queen Elizabeth I, 212 00:10:30,547 --> 00:10:32,297 and he’s an avid astrologer 213 00:10:32,382 --> 00:10:35,012 and an occult scientist who studies cipher, 214 00:10:35,135 --> 00:10:38,475 and from a young age he has access to a lot 215 00:10:38,555 --> 00:10:40,145 of Roger Bacon manuscripts. 216 00:10:40,223 --> 00:10:43,063 An accomplished cryptologist himself, 217 00:10:43,184 --> 00:10:46,654 Dee tries to decode the manuscript but fails. 218 00:10:48,231 --> 00:10:50,651 - Eventually, John Dee brings the manuscript to Prague 219 00:10:50,733 --> 00:10:54,073 where Emperor Rudolf would buy it from him for 600 ducats 220 00:10:54,195 --> 00:10:56,655 or roughly $100,000 today. 221 00:10:56,739 --> 00:10:59,029 - So Voynich has this fervent belief 222 00:10:59,117 --> 00:11:00,487 that Roger Bacon wrote this book. 223 00:11:00,577 --> 00:11:02,997 But all the evidence is circumstantial at this point. 224 00:11:04,372 --> 00:11:05,792 If Voynich wants the world to believe 225 00:11:05,874 --> 00:11:09,044 that this is a Bacon original and make a fortune, 226 00:11:09,127 --> 00:11:15,217 he’s gotta decode this thing once and for all. 227 00:11:15,300 --> 00:11:17,510 A mysterious manuscript 228 00:11:17,594 --> 00:11:20,854 dating back centuries, one with a seemingly 229 00:11:20,930 --> 00:11:22,680 unbreakable cipher. 230 00:11:22,765 --> 00:11:25,845 When collector Wilfrid Voynich finds this book, 231 00:11:25,935 --> 00:11:30,015 he spends years trying to prove who wrote it and why. 232 00:11:30,106 --> 00:11:31,226 - Voynich showcases the book 233 00:11:31,316 --> 00:11:33,566 at exhibitions and lecture tours 234 00:11:33,651 --> 00:11:36,361 with the hope that somebody can figure it out. 235 00:11:36,446 --> 00:11:37,736 And of course, he’s getting fame 236 00:11:37,822 --> 00:11:41,412 and publicity all the while and hoping to make a sale. 237 00:11:41,492 --> 00:11:44,202 - He’s trying to sell it for $100,000, 238 00:11:44,287 --> 00:11:46,907 which would be the most anyone had ever gotten 239 00:11:46,998 --> 00:11:50,628 for an old manuscript ever in history. 240 00:11:52,462 --> 00:11:53,592 - Other top code breakers 241 00:11:53,671 --> 00:11:55,131 are trying to decipher the book as well. 242 00:11:55,256 --> 00:11:56,416 For example, you’ve got William Friedman, 243 00:11:56,507 --> 00:11:58,047 the man who’s responsible for 244 00:11:58,134 --> 00:12:00,894 breaking the Japanese code Purple during World War II. 245 00:12:00,970 --> 00:12:02,760 He’s also one of the founders of the NSA, 246 00:12:02,847 --> 00:12:04,267 one of its chief cryptologists. 247 00:12:04,390 --> 00:12:07,060 He spent 30 years trying before declaring 248 00:12:07,143 --> 00:12:10,943 that cracking the manuscript’s code was impossible. 249 00:12:11,064 --> 00:12:14,734 Unfortunately, Voynich dies in 1930 250 00:12:14,817 --> 00:12:17,277 before he can solve the mystery. 251 00:12:17,362 --> 00:12:19,782 - When Voynich dies, he leaves the book to his wife, Ethel, 252 00:12:19,864 --> 00:12:21,574 who lives until 1960. 253 00:12:21,658 --> 00:12:23,448 Then after a couple of short-term owners, 254 00:12:23,576 --> 00:12:26,616 the book ends up at the Yale Library in 1969, 255 00:12:26,746 --> 00:12:28,956 where it remains today. 256 00:12:29,040 --> 00:12:31,130 It’s an artifact that to this day 257 00:12:31,209 --> 00:12:32,749 captures the public’s imagination, 258 00:12:32,835 --> 00:12:36,955 because it’s both intriguing and infuriating. 259 00:12:37,048 --> 00:12:38,968 I mean, we can see it. We can touch it. 260 00:12:39,050 --> 00:12:40,260 We know this thing exists. 261 00:12:40,343 --> 00:12:42,143 It’s not a figment of anyone’s imagination, 262 00:12:42,220 --> 00:12:45,260 except no one knows exactly what it is. 263 00:12:45,348 --> 00:12:46,678 It remains pure mystery, 264 00:12:46,808 --> 00:12:49,478 and once we have the advent of the internet, 265 00:12:49,560 --> 00:12:51,810 that mystery explodes. 266 00:12:55,149 --> 00:12:57,609 When Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book Library 267 00:12:57,694 --> 00:13:02,824 posts scanned pages of the manuscript online in 2004 268 00:13:02,907 --> 00:13:05,827 the book gains even more attention. 269 00:13:05,910 --> 00:13:07,660 - Suddenly, the "Voynich Manuscript" 270 00:13:07,745 --> 00:13:09,455 is world-famous. 271 00:13:09,539 --> 00:13:11,039 It’s attracting millions more people 272 00:13:11,165 --> 00:13:12,455 who want to figure it out. 273 00:13:12,542 --> 00:13:15,292 Every year brings multiple major news stories 274 00:13:15,378 --> 00:13:16,918 about potential breakthroughs. 275 00:13:17,005 --> 00:13:21,015 One of the biggest breakthroughs occurs in 2009 276 00:13:21,092 --> 00:13:23,802 at the University of Arizona. 277 00:13:23,886 --> 00:13:26,006 - Researchers realized that while the language of the book 278 00:13:26,097 --> 00:13:28,307 might be impossible to understand, 279 00:13:28,391 --> 00:13:31,191 the book’s physical materials aren’t. 280 00:13:31,311 --> 00:13:33,651 They can be analyzed. 281 00:13:33,730 --> 00:13:35,520 - The 234 pages of the book 282 00:13:35,606 --> 00:13:37,646 are made up of calfskin parchment, 283 00:13:37,734 --> 00:13:40,034 and because they are organic in nature, 284 00:13:40,111 --> 00:13:42,321 they can be radiocarbon dated. 285 00:13:42,405 --> 00:13:43,955 This is obviously a big deal. 286 00:13:44,032 --> 00:13:46,032 This is a chance to finally get some answers 287 00:13:46,117 --> 00:13:48,617 that have eluded scholars for generations. 288 00:13:48,703 --> 00:13:51,083 They take samples from several sections of the book 289 00:13:51,205 --> 00:13:52,495 just to be sure. 290 00:13:52,582 --> 00:13:53,872 But the results aren’t 291 00:13:54,000 --> 00:13:56,210 what anyone anticipated. 292 00:13:56,294 --> 00:13:57,504 - Remember, Wilfrid Voynich thought 293 00:13:57,587 --> 00:14:01,627 this was a 13th-century text by Roger Bacon. 294 00:14:01,716 --> 00:14:05,426 But the pages date back to the early 15th century, 295 00:14:05,553 --> 00:14:09,433 so about a 140 years after Roger Bacon’s death. 296 00:14:09,557 --> 00:14:11,727 And just like that the primary theory 297 00:14:11,851 --> 00:14:15,021 behind this strange book is shot down. 298 00:14:15,104 --> 00:14:17,234 But this is still fantastic news. 299 00:14:17,357 --> 00:14:19,397 It’s probably the first definitive answer 300 00:14:19,525 --> 00:14:22,695 we have about this book in over 400 years. 301 00:14:22,779 --> 00:14:25,199 So now that the parchment’s been dated, 302 00:14:25,281 --> 00:14:27,741 scholars want to keep the momentum going. 303 00:14:27,825 --> 00:14:32,575 - So Voynich’s hypothesis that this was a 13th-century book 304 00:14:32,705 --> 00:14:34,915 led him to research what possible authors 305 00:14:34,999 --> 00:14:36,919 there could’ve been in the 13th century 306 00:14:37,001 --> 00:14:38,751 to write an alchemical text, 307 00:14:38,878 --> 00:14:40,088 and that led him to Roger Bacon. 308 00:14:41,964 --> 00:14:44,224 With this new dating of the manuscript, 309 00:14:44,300 --> 00:14:45,970 scholars do the same thing again. 310 00:14:46,094 --> 00:14:49,564 They wonder, "In the 1400s, who’s known to be an author 311 00:14:49,639 --> 00:14:52,729 "and illustrator? Who’s writing in code? 312 00:14:52,809 --> 00:14:55,559 Who has an interest in science and alchemy?" 313 00:14:55,645 --> 00:14:59,235 And they think, "Who could’ve written the book?" 314 00:14:59,315 --> 00:15:02,395 In 2017 one researcher announces 315 00:15:02,485 --> 00:15:05,405 she might know the answer. 316 00:15:05,488 --> 00:15:07,948 - Could this book actually have been written 317 00:15:08,032 --> 00:15:10,912 by none other than Leonardo da Vinci? 318 00:15:14,705 --> 00:15:18,415 Dr. Edith Sherwood is a retired biomedical scientist, 319 00:15:18,501 --> 00:15:20,421 and these days she’s fascinated 320 00:15:20,503 --> 00:15:22,213 by the "Voynich Manuscript," 321 00:15:22,296 --> 00:15:24,466 and she spent countless hours studying it, 322 00:15:24,549 --> 00:15:25,759 and according to her, 323 00:15:25,842 --> 00:15:29,142 there’s only one European author in the 1400s 324 00:15:29,220 --> 00:15:30,930 that fits the bill. 325 00:15:31,013 --> 00:15:33,603 - In 2002 she publishes an article 326 00:15:33,683 --> 00:15:35,983 comparing the manuscript to the notebooks and other works 327 00:15:36,060 --> 00:15:38,100 of Leonardo da Vinci. 328 00:15:38,187 --> 00:15:40,977 So then, all of a sudden, she has this new evidence 329 00:15:41,065 --> 00:15:42,355 of the carbon dating. 330 00:15:42,483 --> 00:15:44,653 So now she really is convinced she’s onto something. 331 00:15:44,735 --> 00:15:48,605 And she spends more time researching the manuscript. 332 00:15:48,698 --> 00:15:51,328 15 years later, she publishes a new article 333 00:15:51,409 --> 00:15:53,289 in much greater detail, 334 00:15:53,369 --> 00:15:57,289 and the evidence she finds is actually pretty compelling. 335 00:15:57,373 --> 00:15:58,833 Sherwood starts with a 336 00:15:58,916 --> 00:16:01,586 detailed handwriting analysis. 337 00:16:01,669 --> 00:16:04,169 - Both the anonymous author of the "Voynich Manuscript" 338 00:16:04,255 --> 00:16:06,595 and Leonardo da Vinci use a type of writing 339 00:16:06,674 --> 00:16:09,304 that’s called "humanist miniscule script." 340 00:16:09,385 --> 00:16:10,965 It’s a style that was developed in Italy 341 00:16:11,053 --> 00:16:12,973 in the early 1400s. 342 00:16:13,055 --> 00:16:14,305 It’s different than a lot 343 00:16:14,390 --> 00:16:15,930 of what was being written at the time. 344 00:16:16,017 --> 00:16:17,307 Most scholarly texts were written 345 00:16:17,393 --> 00:16:21,023 in something called gothic script, or black letter. 346 00:16:21,105 --> 00:16:22,555 And it’s a pretty obvious difference 347 00:16:22,690 --> 00:16:24,820 when you look at them side by side. 348 00:16:24,901 --> 00:16:27,321 And not a lot of people were writing like this. 349 00:16:27,403 --> 00:16:29,863 But Leonardo da Vinci was. 350 00:16:29,947 --> 00:16:31,987 - Not only that, but Leonardo da Vinci 351 00:16:32,074 --> 00:16:34,164 and the author of the "Voynich Manuscript" 352 00:16:34,243 --> 00:16:36,543 have a lot of features that are very similar. 353 00:16:36,621 --> 00:16:38,661 Neither writes with capital letters. 354 00:16:38,748 --> 00:16:39,998 Neither punctuates. 355 00:16:40,082 --> 00:16:42,842 There are no line breaks or paragraph breaks. 356 00:16:42,919 --> 00:16:46,049 And also, they never connect their letters. 357 00:16:46,130 --> 00:16:48,380 Dr. Sherwood then turns her attention 358 00:16:48,466 --> 00:16:50,836 to the manuscript’s drawings. 359 00:16:50,927 --> 00:16:53,677 - So we all know that Leonardo da Vinci was-- 360 00:16:53,763 --> 00:16:55,973 he’s an okay artist, to put it mildly. 361 00:16:56,057 --> 00:16:57,267 No, obviously, he’s great. 362 00:16:57,391 --> 00:16:59,061 All you have to do is look at his works, 363 00:16:59,185 --> 00:17:00,235 like the "Mona Lisa," which show off 364 00:17:00,353 --> 00:17:01,563 his otherworldly talent. 365 00:17:01,646 --> 00:17:05,396 But in his notebooks, they’re just full 366 00:17:05,483 --> 00:17:08,403 of these crude drawings and studies. 367 00:17:08,486 --> 00:17:09,816 - Of course, no one would suggest 368 00:17:09,904 --> 00:17:12,364 that the illustrations from the "Voynich Manuscript" 369 00:17:12,448 --> 00:17:17,828 rise to the level of da Vinci’s greatest works or mature works. 370 00:17:17,912 --> 00:17:20,412 Nevertheless, there are some similarities. 371 00:17:20,540 --> 00:17:22,420 - The one thing that was very hard to do 372 00:17:22,500 --> 00:17:24,250 in the 15th century, when drawing and writing, 373 00:17:24,335 --> 00:17:26,885 was to create perfect circles. 374 00:17:26,963 --> 00:17:28,593 Without modern drafting equipment, 375 00:17:28,673 --> 00:17:31,553 only really, really talented artists 376 00:17:31,634 --> 00:17:35,264 could create a perfect circle only using pen and ink. 377 00:17:35,346 --> 00:17:37,056 But da Vinci could 378 00:17:37,139 --> 00:17:39,559 and so could the author of the "Voynich Manuscript." 379 00:17:39,642 --> 00:17:41,232 Dr. Sherwood believes 380 00:17:41,310 --> 00:17:45,900 one page of circular drawings provides the best clue of all. 381 00:17:45,982 --> 00:17:49,782 - There’s an astrological chart representing the sign of Aries 382 00:17:49,860 --> 00:17:54,240 with 15 nude women sitting in birthing tubs. 383 00:17:54,323 --> 00:17:55,993 The women appear to be pregnant, 384 00:17:56,117 --> 00:17:58,987 and in one of the tubs there’s a baby, 385 00:17:59,120 --> 00:18:01,910 and that mother no longer appears to be pregnant. 386 00:18:01,998 --> 00:18:06,128 The woman is holding a striped string with a star on the end. 387 00:18:06,252 --> 00:18:09,422 And all the other women are holding plain strings. 388 00:18:09,505 --> 00:18:14,255 According to Dr. Sherwood, this page is a birth record. 389 00:18:14,343 --> 00:18:16,263 - Aries the ram represents the month of April, 390 00:18:16,345 --> 00:18:17,755 and because of the 15 women, 391 00:18:17,847 --> 00:18:21,977 she believes that this birth took place on April 15th. 392 00:18:22,059 --> 00:18:23,939 And the woman holding the baby is positioned 393 00:18:24,020 --> 00:18:26,650 roughly at00, and guess what. 394 00:18:26,731 --> 00:18:30,321 Leonardo da Vinci was born just around00 p.m. 395 00:18:30,401 --> 00:18:33,531 on April 15, 1452. 396 00:18:33,654 --> 00:18:34,994 - And of course, the final clue 397 00:18:35,072 --> 00:18:37,162 is that the manuscript is written in code, 398 00:18:37,241 --> 00:18:40,041 and Leonardo da Vinci famously wrote his notebooks in code 399 00:18:40,161 --> 00:18:41,451 throughout his adult life, 400 00:18:41,537 --> 00:18:43,867 and he typically used a mirror-image code 401 00:18:43,998 --> 00:18:48,628 that also sometimes combined or separated certain words. 402 00:18:48,711 --> 00:18:50,501 Could the "Voynich Manuscript" 403 00:18:50,630 --> 00:18:53,470 be da Vinci’s first coded notebook? 404 00:18:53,549 --> 00:18:55,629 - The mystery might be even bigger than that. 405 00:18:55,718 --> 00:18:58,798 I mean, was Leonardo da Vinci writing in code to hide 406 00:18:58,888 --> 00:19:00,808 some great secrets of alchemy 407 00:19:00,890 --> 00:19:03,980 that he had discovered or medical cures? 408 00:19:04,060 --> 00:19:07,480 Is the legacy of history’s greatest genius 409 00:19:07,563 --> 00:19:10,323 even greater than we thought? 410 00:19:10,399 --> 00:19:12,689 Until it’s deciphered, we just won’t know. 411 00:19:18,157 --> 00:19:19,867 For over 100 years, 412 00:19:19,992 --> 00:19:23,542 people have speculated on what the "Voynich Manuscript" is 413 00:19:23,663 --> 00:19:25,083 and who created it. 414 00:19:25,206 --> 00:19:28,376 After successfully carbon dating the book’s parchment 415 00:19:28,501 --> 00:19:30,041 to the 15th century, 416 00:19:30,169 --> 00:19:35,379 researcher seek other technology to help understand. 417 00:19:35,508 --> 00:19:37,928 - Dating the book is a huge breakthrough, 418 00:19:38,052 --> 00:19:39,972 but, of course, that still can’t help us 419 00:19:40,054 --> 00:19:41,394 determine what it is. 420 00:19:41,514 --> 00:19:44,564 We know the approximate date of its creation, 421 00:19:44,684 --> 00:19:46,734 but that’s really about it. 422 00:19:48,521 --> 00:19:50,061 And there’s really only one way to fully understand 423 00:19:50,189 --> 00:19:53,479 this book, and that’s to decode the writing, 424 00:19:53,567 --> 00:19:55,277 to figure out what language this is, 425 00:19:55,403 --> 00:19:58,953 what cipher they used, and start to translate it. 426 00:19:59,073 --> 00:20:02,083 Unfortunately, it’s a code no human 427 00:20:02,201 --> 00:20:04,291 has ever been able to crack. 428 00:20:04,412 --> 00:20:06,912 But could there be another way? 429 00:20:10,084 --> 00:20:12,634 - In 2016 some computing scientists 430 00:20:12,753 --> 00:20:15,093 at the University of Alberta in Canada 431 00:20:15,172 --> 00:20:16,922 start doing something incredible 432 00:20:17,049 --> 00:20:17,969 with the "Voynich Manuscript." 433 00:20:19,343 --> 00:20:21,433 They work with artificial intelligence, 434 00:20:21,554 --> 00:20:24,934 and they realize, "Hey, maybe our AI computer 435 00:20:25,057 --> 00:20:29,517 can finally decipher this text where others have failed. 436 00:20:29,603 --> 00:20:33,443 The project is led by Professor Greg Kondrak. 437 00:20:33,566 --> 00:20:34,936 - Their exact field of study 438 00:20:35,067 --> 00:20:37,437 is called natural language processing. 439 00:20:37,570 --> 00:20:40,280 So it combines computer science and linguistics 440 00:20:40,406 --> 00:20:42,276 and artificial intelligence, 441 00:20:42,366 --> 00:20:44,866 and the goal is to improve interactions 442 00:20:44,952 --> 00:20:47,622 between computers and human language. 443 00:20:49,248 --> 00:20:51,458 - Basically, their ultimate goal 444 00:20:51,542 --> 00:20:54,502 is to create a computer that you could give any document 445 00:20:54,628 --> 00:20:57,298 in any language in the history of mankind, 446 00:20:57,423 --> 00:20:58,513 and that computer would be able 447 00:20:58,632 --> 00:21:02,142 to recognize it and understand and analyze it. 448 00:21:02,261 --> 00:21:03,471 With the right inputs, 449 00:21:03,596 --> 00:21:05,846 the computer might even be able to decipher 450 00:21:05,973 --> 00:21:09,483 a complicated code in an unidentified language. 451 00:21:09,602 --> 00:21:10,642 - It is a challenge. 452 00:21:10,770 --> 00:21:13,150 But the computer is programmed 453 00:21:13,272 --> 00:21:15,022 to recognize any and all patterns 454 00:21:15,149 --> 00:21:17,069 and compare them with known languages, 455 00:21:17,151 --> 00:21:20,031 and it can do this thousands and thousands of times 456 00:21:20,154 --> 00:21:24,204 faster than a human can. So it’s worth a shot. 457 00:21:24,325 --> 00:21:26,665 Kondrak starts by entering samples 458 00:21:26,786 --> 00:21:29,656 of 400 different languages. 459 00:21:29,789 --> 00:21:30,709 - The AI goes to work 460 00:21:30,831 --> 00:21:32,371 comparing the "Voynich Manuscript" 461 00:21:32,500 --> 00:21:34,330 to other languages. 462 00:21:34,460 --> 00:21:37,340 It looks at individual characters. 463 00:21:37,463 --> 00:21:39,463 It looks at groups of words. 464 00:21:39,548 --> 00:21:41,378 It looks at how often they’re repeated 465 00:21:41,509 --> 00:21:43,009 and in what combinations, 466 00:21:43,135 --> 00:21:45,385 all the little nuances that could determine 467 00:21:45,513 --> 00:21:48,143 what language this was written in. 468 00:21:48,224 --> 00:21:50,184 - Honestly don’t know if this is going to work, 469 00:21:50,309 --> 00:21:53,189 because this computer is not designed to read 470 00:21:53,312 --> 00:21:55,482 the "Voynich Manuscript." However, they work on it 471 00:21:55,564 --> 00:21:57,864 for weeks and weeks, and after a while, 472 00:21:57,983 --> 00:22:01,703 lo and behold, the computer gives them an answer. 473 00:22:01,779 --> 00:22:03,909 According to the artificial intelligence 474 00:22:04,031 --> 00:22:06,201 at the University of Alberta in Canada, 475 00:22:06,325 --> 00:22:09,195 the "Voynich Manuscript" is in Hebrew. 476 00:22:12,915 --> 00:22:14,755 There had been speculation for quite some time 477 00:22:14,875 --> 00:22:16,035 that the "Voynich Manuscript" 478 00:22:16,126 --> 00:22:18,376 wasn’t written in a European language, 479 00:22:18,504 --> 00:22:22,264 because had it been written in Italian or Greek or Latin, 480 00:22:22,383 --> 00:22:25,393 somebody more than likely would’ve figured it out by now. 481 00:22:27,054 --> 00:22:29,394 And the researchers actually went into this thinking 482 00:22:29,473 --> 00:22:31,933 maybe the manuscript is written in Arabic, 483 00:22:32,059 --> 00:22:36,399 but Hebrew presents an intriguing possibility. 484 00:22:36,480 --> 00:22:38,150 Even if they’ve discovered 485 00:22:38,232 --> 00:22:39,692 the language of origin, 486 00:22:39,775 --> 00:22:42,895 the book may take years to translate. 487 00:22:43,028 --> 00:22:45,568 - The team thinks that not only was it written in Hebrew, 488 00:22:45,698 --> 00:22:47,618 it was written as an alphagram. 489 00:22:47,741 --> 00:22:50,081 An alphagram is a way of coding language in which 490 00:22:50,202 --> 00:22:53,752 you present the letters of a word in alphabetical order. 491 00:22:53,873 --> 00:22:56,753 So for instance, the alphagram of the word "cat" 492 00:22:56,834 --> 00:22:58,844 would be A-C-T. 493 00:22:58,919 --> 00:23:01,299 The problem, of course, is that A-C-T 494 00:23:01,422 --> 00:23:04,932 also is the alphagram for the word "act." 495 00:23:05,050 --> 00:23:07,260 So you can see the challenges here. 496 00:23:07,386 --> 00:23:10,426 - Compounding those challenges is the fact that Hebrew 497 00:23:10,556 --> 00:23:12,216 isn’t typically written with vowels. 498 00:23:12,308 --> 00:23:14,938 So researchers are left with the painstaking task 499 00:23:15,019 --> 00:23:16,599 of going word by word 500 00:23:16,729 --> 00:23:18,109 swapping in the Hebrew letters 501 00:23:18,230 --> 00:23:19,940 and then rearranging those letters 502 00:23:20,065 --> 00:23:21,435 for it to make some sort of sense. 503 00:23:21,567 --> 00:23:24,107 Slowly the team makes progress. 504 00:23:24,236 --> 00:23:26,316 - Once you think you’ve figured out a word, 505 00:23:26,447 --> 00:23:28,157 you move onto the next word. 506 00:23:28,282 --> 00:23:30,952 But if those two words don’t make sense together, 507 00:23:31,076 --> 00:23:32,946 then you have to go back to the first word 508 00:23:33,037 --> 00:23:35,117 and try again. So far, they think 509 00:23:35,247 --> 00:23:37,617 they’ve come up with three grammatical phrases. 510 00:23:47,134 --> 00:23:50,304 - Unfortunately, this AI was never designed 511 00:23:50,429 --> 00:23:53,519 to spend its existence studying the mysteries 512 00:23:53,641 --> 00:23:55,311 of the "Voynich Manuscript." 513 00:23:55,434 --> 00:23:57,484 So the University of Alberta team 514 00:23:57,603 --> 00:23:59,693 only brings its research so far. 515 00:23:59,813 --> 00:24:03,323 All they know is, they think the book was written in Hebrew. 516 00:24:03,442 --> 00:24:05,192 But we still don’t know what it says. 517 00:24:05,319 --> 00:24:07,609 Then in 2017 518 00:24:07,696 --> 00:24:11,866 another researcher picks up where the Canadians left off. 519 00:24:11,992 --> 00:24:13,992 - There’s a German Egyptologist 520 00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:15,329 named Ranier Hannig, 521 00:24:15,454 --> 00:24:18,044 and he also thinks the book is in Hebrew, 522 00:24:18,165 --> 00:24:20,825 and he spends three years studying it, 523 00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:23,170 and he makes some progress in translating it, 524 00:24:23,295 --> 00:24:26,335 and he publishes his findings in 2020. 525 00:24:26,465 --> 00:24:29,175 Hannig manages to translate a number of paragraphs 526 00:24:29,301 --> 00:24:32,351 on multiple pages, and according to his findings, 527 00:24:32,471 --> 00:24:34,681 it looks like the "Voynich Manuscript" 528 00:24:34,807 --> 00:24:36,557 might be a book of prophecy. 529 00:24:42,648 --> 00:24:45,358 On one particular page, according to Hannig, 530 00:24:45,484 --> 00:24:47,364 it says... 531 00:24:58,163 --> 00:25:01,583 Is the "Voynich Manuscript" a Hebrew manual 532 00:25:01,709 --> 00:25:03,339 for predicting the future? 533 00:25:03,419 --> 00:25:04,749 - For quite a while now, 534 00:25:04,878 --> 00:25:07,088 there have been two separate schools of thought 535 00:25:07,214 --> 00:25:09,224 about the "Voynich Manuscript." 536 00:25:09,341 --> 00:25:11,181 The first one, which is also the most popular, 537 00:25:11,260 --> 00:25:17,060 is, what if it’s an encoded version of a known language? 538 00:25:17,182 --> 00:25:19,602 There are a growing number of people who think 539 00:25:19,727 --> 00:25:25,067 that could be entirely wrong. 540 00:25:25,190 --> 00:25:26,480 For many decades, countless code breakers 541 00:25:26,567 --> 00:25:28,487 and scholars have tried and failed 542 00:25:28,569 --> 00:25:32,909 to decipher the mysterious "Voynich Manuscript." 543 00:25:33,032 --> 00:25:36,952 Then in 2009 researchers posed a radical new question. 544 00:25:37,077 --> 00:25:39,577 What if the book isn’t written in code at all? 545 00:25:41,165 --> 00:25:43,835 - Since at least the 1500s people have assumed 546 00:25:43,917 --> 00:25:47,547 the "Voynich Manuscript" is encoded. 547 00:25:47,629 --> 00:25:50,669 But recently a new question has been introduced. 548 00:25:52,926 --> 00:25:56,346 What if the reason no one’s been able to crack the code 549 00:25:56,430 --> 00:25:58,310 is because it isn’t a code at all? 550 00:25:58,432 --> 00:26:00,982 What if it’s an actual language 551 00:26:01,101 --> 00:26:04,441 but a language that’s not human? 552 00:26:04,521 --> 00:26:07,071 Think about what it takes to create a code, 553 00:26:07,149 --> 00:26:08,779 especially one so complex 554 00:26:08,859 --> 00:26:11,899 that it defies translation for centuries. 555 00:26:11,987 --> 00:26:13,987 So first you have to think about what you want to write, 556 00:26:14,114 --> 00:26:16,664 and then you have to convert it into code 557 00:26:16,784 --> 00:26:20,004 letter by letter, word by word. 558 00:26:20,120 --> 00:26:23,040 If you look at the case of another famous code, 559 00:26:23,123 --> 00:26:25,253 the Zodiac Killer, 560 00:26:25,334 --> 00:26:27,884 look at how the symbols are arranged: 561 00:26:27,961 --> 00:26:30,131 spaced out and separate from each other. 562 00:26:30,255 --> 00:26:32,375 Because Zodiac had to stop and think 563 00:26:32,466 --> 00:26:34,176 every step of the way, 564 00:26:34,301 --> 00:26:36,551 each letter sits on its own. 565 00:26:36,637 --> 00:26:39,257 But in the "Voynich Manuscript" it really looks 566 00:26:39,348 --> 00:26:41,848 like the author was writing continuously. 567 00:26:41,975 --> 00:26:43,635 The writing is tightly formed. 568 00:26:43,727 --> 00:26:45,977 It flows evenly from letter to letter. 569 00:26:46,105 --> 00:26:49,325 It’s a swift and continuous movement of the pen. 570 00:26:49,441 --> 00:26:52,111 They didn’t have to stop and think about anything. 571 00:26:52,194 --> 00:26:55,204 So some say even the most ingenious human 572 00:26:55,322 --> 00:26:56,412 couldn’t have pulled this off 573 00:26:56,490 --> 00:27:00,080 while coming up with an unsolvable code. 574 00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:03,580 - If someone is writing in this continuous style, 575 00:27:03,664 --> 00:27:06,714 it’s obviously a language they understood, 576 00:27:06,834 --> 00:27:09,384 and that has some theorists thinking, 577 00:27:09,503 --> 00:27:11,883 "What if that language is extraterrestrial?" 578 00:27:17,136 --> 00:27:20,556 - Did an alien create the "Voynich Manuscript"? 579 00:27:20,681 --> 00:27:22,721 There are some exciting precedents for this. 580 00:27:24,184 --> 00:27:26,444 - Erich von Daniken, well-known for his book, 581 00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:29,060 "Chariots of the Gods," puts this theory 582 00:27:29,189 --> 00:27:31,609 forward into his book in 1968, 583 00:27:31,692 --> 00:27:34,822 and in that book von Daniken asserts 584 00:27:34,903 --> 00:27:36,823 that many of our ancient technologies 585 00:27:36,905 --> 00:27:39,155 were created by aliens, 586 00:27:39,241 --> 00:27:42,661 such as Stonehenge, Pumapunku, all of these other places-- 587 00:27:42,744 --> 00:27:46,254 Easter Island--that we did not have the technology to create. 588 00:27:46,373 --> 00:27:48,293 So it needed alien assistance. 589 00:27:48,375 --> 00:27:52,915 He also cites a bunch of literary examples. 590 00:27:53,046 --> 00:27:56,336 - There’s an early world map known as the Piri Reis map, 591 00:27:56,425 --> 00:27:59,225 and von Daniken describes it as showing the Earth 592 00:27:59,344 --> 00:28:01,934 as it would be seen from space, 593 00:28:02,055 --> 00:28:05,805 which, of course, is an impossible viewpoint in 1513, 594 00:28:05,893 --> 00:28:07,773 when the map was made. 595 00:28:07,895 --> 00:28:09,945 When von Daniken applies the same logic 596 00:28:10,063 --> 00:28:12,903 to the "Voynich Manuscript," he believes he’s finally 597 00:28:12,983 --> 00:28:16,443 unlocked its mysterious origin. 598 00:28:16,570 --> 00:28:19,910 - In his 2009 book "History is Wrong," 599 00:28:19,990 --> 00:28:23,990 von Daniken goes into great detail about his theory 600 00:28:24,077 --> 00:28:25,947 about the "Voynich Manuscript." 601 00:28:26,079 --> 00:28:30,749 He believes that it was written by an alien astronaut 602 00:28:30,876 --> 00:28:33,626 who was stranded on Earth in the 1400s 603 00:28:33,754 --> 00:28:37,134 and spent the rest of his life on planet Earth 604 00:28:37,257 --> 00:28:41,847 recording his observations in the "Voynich Manuscript." 605 00:28:41,929 --> 00:28:43,299 - Even though we don’t understand 606 00:28:43,430 --> 00:28:46,020 the written language, the illustrations seem to indicate 607 00:28:46,099 --> 00:28:48,809 that there was a crude understanding 608 00:28:48,936 --> 00:28:52,146 perhaps riddled with inaccuracies. 609 00:28:52,272 --> 00:28:55,192 Could it be that this alien astronaut 610 00:28:55,275 --> 00:28:58,105 in cataloguing these things was writing about things, 611 00:28:58,195 --> 00:29:00,575 drawing pictures of things he didn’t know anything about? 612 00:29:00,656 --> 00:29:03,316 Are we being observed and studied 613 00:29:03,450 --> 00:29:05,160 by somebody else out there? 614 00:29:07,955 --> 00:29:11,295 - The alien theory is obviously pretty out there. 615 00:29:11,375 --> 00:29:14,345 But the concept that the book is written in its own language 616 00:29:14,461 --> 00:29:17,591 instead of a code, that definitely could be possible. 617 00:29:17,673 --> 00:29:19,053 And, in fact, there’s another really 618 00:29:19,132 --> 00:29:21,552 well-documented phenomenon that this could be. 619 00:29:21,635 --> 00:29:25,685 In 2004 British researchers Gerry Kennedy and Rob Churchill 620 00:29:25,806 --> 00:29:28,386 published a book on the "Voynich Manuscript." 621 00:29:28,475 --> 00:29:29,885 - The theory they put forth 622 00:29:29,977 --> 00:29:31,307 is that the "Voynich Manuscript" 623 00:29:31,395 --> 00:29:32,905 is written in glossolalia, 624 00:29:32,980 --> 00:29:35,190 which is the speaking of tongues 625 00:29:35,315 --> 00:29:37,025 or the language of tongues, 626 00:29:37,150 --> 00:29:40,200 in this case, the writing in tongues. 627 00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:42,320 - There are thousands of examples of this 628 00:29:42,447 --> 00:29:45,527 catalogued from antiquity to the present, 629 00:29:45,659 --> 00:29:47,739 and it typically presents the same way. 630 00:29:47,828 --> 00:29:50,658 Person generates unintelligible words 631 00:29:50,789 --> 00:29:54,789 that appear to be a language but can’t be understood, 632 00:29:54,876 --> 00:29:56,746 and in many cases this is thought to happen 633 00:29:56,837 --> 00:29:59,127 while the person is possessed. 634 00:29:59,214 --> 00:30:01,934 Could that be what’s happening in Voynich? 635 00:30:07,681 --> 00:30:10,351 - Kennedy and Churchill are the first to notice 636 00:30:10,434 --> 00:30:13,604 a potential parallel between the "Voynich Manuscript" 637 00:30:13,687 --> 00:30:16,857 and the work of the 12th-century German saint 638 00:30:16,940 --> 00:30:18,400 Hildegard von Bingen. 639 00:30:18,525 --> 00:30:22,395 She wrote hundreds of pages in a language known as 640 00:30:22,529 --> 00:30:25,489 Lingua Ignota, or the unknown language. 641 00:30:25,574 --> 00:30:29,544 She had her own script. She had her own vocabulary. 642 00:30:29,661 --> 00:30:33,751 Both manuscripts contain perplexing illustrations. 643 00:30:33,874 --> 00:30:37,544 So you could see why the comparisons suggest itself. 644 00:30:37,669 --> 00:30:40,129 - Hildegard claimed she was recording visions 645 00:30:40,213 --> 00:30:43,133 that she was receiving thought to be from the divine. 646 00:30:43,216 --> 00:30:44,586 Kennedy and Churchill 647 00:30:44,718 --> 00:30:47,298 suggest the same phenomenon could have afflicted 648 00:30:47,387 --> 00:30:49,927 the Voynich author causing what is known as 649 00:30:50,057 --> 00:30:53,267 automatic or possessed writing. 650 00:30:53,393 --> 00:30:56,903 - Historically, Judeo-Christianity expresses 651 00:30:56,980 --> 00:30:58,770 possession as being a real thing 652 00:30:58,899 --> 00:31:01,779 from demonic to angelic possessions. 653 00:31:01,902 --> 00:31:05,282 Jesus has many examples of Him driving out demons. 654 00:31:05,405 --> 00:31:06,945 For many years the Catholic Church 655 00:31:07,074 --> 00:31:08,454 tried to downplay possession. 656 00:31:08,575 --> 00:31:11,655 But now in current times especially 657 00:31:11,745 --> 00:31:14,835 they admit that it exists, that it is out there, 658 00:31:14,915 --> 00:31:18,135 and there are dozens if not hundreds 659 00:31:18,251 --> 00:31:20,461 of exorcisms performed every month. 660 00:31:21,922 --> 00:31:24,802 - Of course, there will probably never be any way 661 00:31:24,925 --> 00:31:26,095 to prove this theory. 662 00:31:26,176 --> 00:31:28,466 But it just goes to show how the "Voynich Manuscript" 663 00:31:28,595 --> 00:31:30,675 has captured everybody’s imagination. 664 00:31:30,764 --> 00:31:33,774 The possibilities are literally endless. 665 00:31:33,850 --> 00:31:36,100 - If it turns out the book wasn’t written in code, 666 00:31:36,186 --> 00:31:38,806 it wasn’t written by an alien, it wasn’t written by an angel, 667 00:31:38,939 --> 00:31:40,439 a demon, it wasn’t written 668 00:31:40,524 --> 00:31:43,154 by someone suffering from mental illness, 669 00:31:43,276 --> 00:31:45,946 we may never be able to find out what it says. 670 00:31:46,071 --> 00:31:48,491 Maybe this mystery is truly unsolvable. 671 00:31:53,495 --> 00:31:55,835 One of history’s most infamous books 672 00:31:55,956 --> 00:31:59,496 is a manuscript that no one can understand. 673 00:31:59,626 --> 00:32:03,126 But that hasn’t stopped people from trying. 674 00:32:03,213 --> 00:32:06,593 - After all this time, no one can read it. 675 00:32:06,675 --> 00:32:08,555 No one can understand it. 676 00:32:08,635 --> 00:32:13,505 We all want to believe that the manuscript has meaning. 677 00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:17,350 Someone spent a lot of time, a lot of effort, 678 00:32:17,477 --> 00:32:20,767 and a lot of resources writing it and drawing on it. 679 00:32:20,856 --> 00:32:24,276 The "Voynich Manuscript" must have a purpose. 680 00:32:24,359 --> 00:32:25,739 How could it not? 681 00:32:25,819 --> 00:32:29,699 - And that’s why so many people have dedicated their lives 682 00:32:29,823 --> 00:32:32,373 trying to solve this so-called Voynich code, 683 00:32:32,492 --> 00:32:34,452 because they sincerely and firmly believe 684 00:32:34,536 --> 00:32:37,366 that this book has something monumental to share. 685 00:32:37,497 --> 00:32:39,247 There’s got to be some sort of amazing secret 686 00:32:39,332 --> 00:32:40,882 it wants to let us know. 687 00:32:41,001 --> 00:32:42,211 But what if the answer 688 00:32:42,335 --> 00:32:44,335 is something much more surprising? 689 00:32:46,089 --> 00:32:48,719 - As researchers have hit dead end after dead end 690 00:32:48,842 --> 00:32:51,722 after dead end trying to find patterns, substitutions, 691 00:32:51,845 --> 00:32:54,315 translations, languages of origin, 692 00:32:54,389 --> 00:32:58,229 there’s this one burning question that’s just sitting 693 00:32:58,351 --> 00:32:59,231 in the back of their minds. 694 00:32:59,352 --> 00:33:00,902 No one wants to admit it out loud. 695 00:33:01,021 --> 00:33:04,901 But what if they’re just wasting their time? 696 00:33:06,651 --> 00:33:07,941 In April 2007 697 00:33:08,028 --> 00:33:09,988 Austrian researcher Andreas Schinner 698 00:33:10,071 --> 00:33:11,911 completes his own computer analysis 699 00:33:12,032 --> 00:33:13,952 of the "Voynich Manuscript." 700 00:33:14,034 --> 00:33:15,914 Like everyone else, he’s been looking for patterns 701 00:33:16,036 --> 00:33:17,576 that might crack the code. 702 00:33:17,704 --> 00:33:19,374 But instead, his findings show 703 00:33:19,498 --> 00:33:21,248 that the statistical properties of the text 704 00:33:21,374 --> 00:33:24,754 are most consistent with meaningless gibberish. 705 00:33:26,963 --> 00:33:28,423 If Schinner is correct, 706 00:33:28,548 --> 00:33:31,258 then a lot of people have spent a lot of time 707 00:33:31,384 --> 00:33:32,644 on a wild goose chase. 708 00:33:37,974 --> 00:33:41,814 - In some ways a hoax might be the easiest explanation. 709 00:33:41,895 --> 00:33:46,615 But if so, I mean...wow, what a hoax. 710 00:33:46,733 --> 00:33:48,483 - Still, hoax or not, we’re still trying 711 00:33:48,568 --> 00:33:50,448 to find proof of what this book is, 712 00:33:50,570 --> 00:33:52,160 not just more speculation. 713 00:33:52,239 --> 00:33:54,949 So is there any way to prove 714 00:33:55,075 --> 00:33:58,795 that this book could have been faked? 715 00:33:58,912 --> 00:34:01,462 - The material, the parchment on which the manuscript 716 00:34:01,581 --> 00:34:04,001 has been written, is carbon dated 717 00:34:04,084 --> 00:34:07,464 to the early 15th century. You can’t fake that. 718 00:34:07,587 --> 00:34:09,627 The parchment is 600 years old. 719 00:34:09,756 --> 00:34:13,466 If somebody in the early 15th century created the manuscript, 720 00:34:13,593 --> 00:34:17,393 just gibberish, it will be extremely difficult 721 00:34:17,472 --> 00:34:20,062 to identify who that was. 722 00:34:20,141 --> 00:34:23,811 But there is one person with a possible motive. 723 00:34:23,937 --> 00:34:26,147 - We’re talking about none other than 724 00:34:26,273 --> 00:34:28,653 Wilfrid Voynich himself. 725 00:34:31,611 --> 00:34:34,161 For starters, Voynich has a financial motive. 726 00:34:34,281 --> 00:34:35,661 Think about this. Remember, he was going 727 00:34:35,782 --> 00:34:37,832 around the world trying to convince everybody 728 00:34:37,951 --> 00:34:40,791 that he’s found a long-lost encoded alchemy guide 729 00:34:40,912 --> 00:34:42,622 written by Roger Bacon, 730 00:34:42,747 --> 00:34:45,827 which, of course, he wants to sell for quite a lot of money. 731 00:34:45,959 --> 00:34:47,839 Supporters of the hoax theory 732 00:34:47,961 --> 00:34:51,841 also cite the book’s complete lack of provenance. 733 00:34:51,965 --> 00:34:53,175 - People begin to realize, 734 00:34:53,300 --> 00:34:57,010 "Wait, there’s actually no written evidence 735 00:34:57,137 --> 00:35:00,347 "that proves the existence of the ’Voynich Manuscript’ 736 00:35:00,473 --> 00:35:02,183 before Wilfrid Voynich." 737 00:35:03,643 --> 00:35:05,193 - Remember, Voynich offers proof 738 00:35:05,312 --> 00:35:07,732 in the form of a 17th-century letter that he’s found. 739 00:35:07,814 --> 00:35:11,364 But if you actually read the letter, all it really says 740 00:35:11,484 --> 00:35:14,324 is that there’s this mysterious book 741 00:35:14,404 --> 00:35:16,494 that we can’t seem to figure out 742 00:35:16,615 --> 00:35:18,375 and that it was written by Roger Bacon. 743 00:35:21,328 --> 00:35:22,788 It doesn’t mention any details 744 00:35:22,871 --> 00:35:25,041 specific to the "Voynich Manuscript." 745 00:35:25,165 --> 00:35:26,375 There’s no proof that they’re even talking 746 00:35:26,499 --> 00:35:27,709 about the same book. 747 00:35:29,294 --> 00:35:32,384 - In fact, some say maybe Voynich found the letter 748 00:35:32,505 --> 00:35:35,375 and then he made the book so that he could claim it was 749 00:35:35,508 --> 00:35:38,718 the lost Bacon manuscript they’re referring to. 750 00:35:38,845 --> 00:35:40,505 Additionally, Voynich’s story 751 00:35:40,639 --> 00:35:43,219 seems to change over the years. 752 00:35:43,350 --> 00:35:45,560 - In 1912 he says he got it in a castle 753 00:35:45,685 --> 00:35:47,015 in southern Europe. 754 00:35:47,145 --> 00:35:50,185 In 1915 he says that the castle was in Austria. 755 00:35:50,273 --> 00:35:53,613 When Voynich’s wife, Ethel, dies in 1960, 756 00:35:53,693 --> 00:35:56,533 a letter’s discovered only to be opened posthumously 757 00:35:56,655 --> 00:35:58,825 that says that he actually found the manuscript 758 00:35:58,907 --> 00:36:01,407 in a Jesuit order in Frascati, Italy. 759 00:36:03,578 --> 00:36:05,118 - It all adds up to suspicious behavior, 760 00:36:05,205 --> 00:36:07,255 and one has to ask, 761 00:36:07,374 --> 00:36:12,304 is Wilfrid Voynich just this celebrated and respected 762 00:36:12,379 --> 00:36:16,969 antiquities dealer, or has he pulled off 763 00:36:17,050 --> 00:36:20,430 one of the single greatest hoaxes in history? 764 00:36:24,599 --> 00:36:27,389 Is it possible that the centuries-old mystery 765 00:36:27,477 --> 00:36:31,397 of the "Voynich Manuscript" is a hoax? 766 00:36:31,481 --> 00:36:33,901 - If it’s a fake, it’s an incredible fake. 767 00:36:33,983 --> 00:36:36,573 For starters, it uses materials from the 1400s. 768 00:36:36,653 --> 00:36:40,073 It’s got all of these writings and drawings and charts 769 00:36:40,156 --> 00:36:42,066 and diagrams. It has different-sized pages 770 00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:44,580 that fold out in every which way. 771 00:36:44,661 --> 00:36:48,751 It would take a genius-level expert in antique books 772 00:36:48,832 --> 00:36:50,422 to pull this off. 773 00:36:50,542 --> 00:36:52,922 And some think that genius is none other 774 00:36:53,002 --> 00:36:55,922 than Wilfrid Voynich himself. 775 00:36:56,005 --> 00:36:59,875 - To some it’s not a question of how could it be Voynich? 776 00:36:59,968 --> 00:37:03,758 It’s more a question of how could it not be Voynich? 777 00:37:03,888 --> 00:37:07,598 At some point between 1908 and 1911 778 00:37:07,684 --> 00:37:10,604 Voynich finds a letter by Jan Marek Marci 779 00:37:10,687 --> 00:37:14,017 that talks about an encoded Roger Bacon manuscript. 780 00:37:14,107 --> 00:37:18,107 And then, perhaps, he sets about forging a fake one. 781 00:37:19,904 --> 00:37:21,074 - The problem with this hoax theory, 782 00:37:21,156 --> 00:37:22,776 and it’s the one a lot of people cite, 783 00:37:22,866 --> 00:37:26,906 is that it’s nearly impossible for anyone in the modern day 784 00:37:26,995 --> 00:37:30,295 to have access to a lot of these ancient parchments 785 00:37:30,373 --> 00:37:33,633 and inks and other materials to create such a thing. 786 00:37:33,710 --> 00:37:37,380 But is it possible Voynich did? 787 00:37:37,464 --> 00:37:39,974 - Shortly before the appearance of the manuscript, 788 00:37:40,091 --> 00:37:43,141 Voynich purchases the entire collection 789 00:37:43,261 --> 00:37:45,971 of the Libreria Franceschini in Italy. 790 00:37:46,055 --> 00:37:47,305 It’s a private collection 791 00:37:47,432 --> 00:37:49,892 that consists of over half a million books, 792 00:37:49,976 --> 00:37:52,976 pamphlets, maps, and other manuscripts. 793 00:37:53,062 --> 00:37:57,152 And we can’t say for sure, but it is likely that among 794 00:37:57,275 --> 00:38:00,145 that treasure trove of materials that he purchased 795 00:38:00,278 --> 00:38:06,408 was a large amount of blank 15th-century parchment. 796 00:38:06,493 --> 00:38:08,663 - In any ancient library 797 00:38:08,745 --> 00:38:11,335 you’re going to find blank parchment, 798 00:38:11,456 --> 00:38:13,956 whether it’s sewn into a complete book 799 00:38:14,042 --> 00:38:16,212 or some kind of a blank notebook 800 00:38:16,336 --> 00:38:20,006 or empty parchment that just happens to be sitting around. 801 00:38:20,131 --> 00:38:22,841 Many books and manuscripts have blank pages 802 00:38:22,926 --> 00:38:24,676 at the beginning or at the end, 803 00:38:24,761 --> 00:38:26,851 another place where you can find 804 00:38:26,930 --> 00:38:28,680 ancient blank parchment. 805 00:38:28,765 --> 00:38:31,645 - This would have been a jackpot for Voynich, 806 00:38:31,726 --> 00:38:34,346 and from that moment on he probably had 807 00:38:34,437 --> 00:38:35,687 everything he needed to pull this off. 808 00:38:35,772 --> 00:38:38,022 What about the ink? 809 00:38:38,149 --> 00:38:41,359 - In addition to being a Polish revolutionary, 810 00:38:41,444 --> 00:38:44,204 a Siberian prison escapee, 811 00:38:44,280 --> 00:38:47,160 and one of the world’s premier rare book dealers, 812 00:38:47,242 --> 00:38:49,542 Voynich also has a training in chemistry 813 00:38:49,619 --> 00:38:52,369 from when he was a student at the University of Moscow. 814 00:38:52,497 --> 00:38:55,747 In his restoration work on his own collections 815 00:38:55,875 --> 00:38:59,455 he sometimes uses that work to create inks and pigments 816 00:38:59,546 --> 00:39:03,296 to restore books and manuscripts. 817 00:39:03,383 --> 00:39:04,723 - He may have also had some help, 818 00:39:04,801 --> 00:39:06,391 because it turns out he had a covert friendship 819 00:39:06,469 --> 00:39:08,389 with a famous British secret agent 820 00:39:08,513 --> 00:39:10,263 by the name of Sidney Reilly, 821 00:39:10,390 --> 00:39:13,230 who was also known as the ace of spies. 822 00:39:13,351 --> 00:39:16,561 Reilly allegedly goes into the British Museum Library 823 00:39:16,646 --> 00:39:18,226 and takes out a book that’s called 824 00:39:18,356 --> 00:39:21,396 "Some Observations on Ancient Inks." 825 00:39:21,526 --> 00:39:26,066 - So according to this theory Voynich finds the letter, 826 00:39:26,155 --> 00:39:27,905 buys the parchment, 827 00:39:27,991 --> 00:39:30,581 creates the inks and the pigments, 828 00:39:30,660 --> 00:39:33,250 forges the book, and there you have it. 829 00:39:33,329 --> 00:39:36,079 If the manuscript is a forgery 830 00:39:36,165 --> 00:39:38,995 it didn’t turn out the way Voynich hoped. 831 00:39:39,085 --> 00:39:40,085 - The crazy thing is, 832 00:39:40,169 --> 00:39:41,919 if Voynich was trying to create 833 00:39:42,005 --> 00:39:45,425 a Roger Bacon masterpiece to sell, he failed. 834 00:39:45,508 --> 00:39:48,588 Voynich was never able to sell the book. 835 00:39:48,678 --> 00:39:49,638 - The problem is, 836 00:39:49,762 --> 00:39:52,602 he created too good of a puzzle. 837 00:39:52,682 --> 00:39:55,102 Everyone got so wrapped up in the story 838 00:39:55,184 --> 00:39:58,104 in cracking the code and deciphering it 839 00:39:58,187 --> 00:40:00,107 that they started finding patterns 840 00:40:00,189 --> 00:40:01,939 that Voynich never intended, 841 00:40:02,025 --> 00:40:03,905 clues that weren’t there. 842 00:40:03,985 --> 00:40:06,825 People didn’t want to buy the thing. 843 00:40:06,946 --> 00:40:08,856 They wanted to solve it. 844 00:40:08,948 --> 00:40:11,278 But Wilfrid Voynich did successfully sell 845 00:40:11,367 --> 00:40:13,617 at least one forgery that we know of. 846 00:40:13,745 --> 00:40:15,625 It’s called the "Columbus Miniature." 847 00:40:15,747 --> 00:40:18,077 It’s a painting of Columbus landing in the New World, 848 00:40:18,166 --> 00:40:21,416 which was made by an anonymous Spanish forger in the 1800s. 849 00:40:21,502 --> 00:40:23,422 And he sold it to the British Museum. 850 00:40:23,504 --> 00:40:25,974 Whether he did this knowingly we’re not entirely sure, 851 00:40:26,049 --> 00:40:27,969 but at least there is some precedent 852 00:40:28,051 --> 00:40:29,471 for Voynich selling a fake. 853 00:40:29,552 --> 00:40:30,972 Despite this evidence 854 00:40:31,054 --> 00:40:33,144 most scholars still believe the "Voynich Manuscript" 855 00:40:33,264 --> 00:40:35,984 is a genuine 15th-century article. 856 00:40:36,100 --> 00:40:38,520 - The book has been tested and retested. 857 00:40:38,645 --> 00:40:41,115 It’s been studied using some of the most advanced 858 00:40:41,189 --> 00:40:43,689 scientific techniques, none of which even existed 859 00:40:43,816 --> 00:40:45,816 when Voynich was alive. 860 00:40:45,902 --> 00:40:50,532 So could he have made a forgery that good in the 1910s? 861 00:40:50,657 --> 00:40:51,527 Maybe. 862 00:40:51,658 --> 00:40:53,778 But is it likely? 863 00:40:53,868 --> 00:40:54,988 Probably not. 864 00:40:55,078 --> 00:40:57,828 - Besides, where’s the fun in that? 865 00:40:57,914 --> 00:41:00,174 Where’s the mystery? Where’s the history? 866 00:41:00,291 --> 00:41:01,831 We’re not all clamoring over this book 867 00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:04,000 and studying it piece by piece 868 00:41:04,087 --> 00:41:06,007 because we want it to be a fake. 869 00:41:06,130 --> 00:41:09,840 We want it to be a revelation, the greatest code of all time, 870 00:41:09,926 --> 00:41:11,796 which when unlocked 871 00:41:11,886 --> 00:41:14,676 will reveal the greatest secrets 872 00:41:14,764 --> 00:41:19,694 of the universe. 873 00:41:19,769 --> 00:41:24,059 In 2016 Yale University’s Beinecke Library 874 00:41:24,190 --> 00:41:28,530 scanned all 234 pages of the "Voynich Manuscript" 875 00:41:28,653 --> 00:41:31,363 making it easily available to anyone 876 00:41:31,489 --> 00:41:33,119 who wants to take a crack 877 00:41:33,199 --> 00:41:36,329 at solving the 600-year-old puzzle. 878 00:41:36,411 --> 00:41:38,371 I’m Laurence Fishburne. 879 00:41:38,454 --> 00:41:42,544 Thank you for watching "History’s Greatest Mysteries."