01x05 - Code Breakers

[bunniefuu]

Coming up on "expedition files,"

a notorious serial k*ller goes

on a m*rder spree in the 1960s,

and taunts the police

with cryptic ciphers.

Over five decades later, we

may have finally deciphered

this madman's identity.

An adventurer creates a

modern-day treasure hunt.

Now, new clues might

lead us to where he buried

his precious riches.

And we open the world's

most mysterious book,

potentially cracking impenetrable secrets

encoded within.

In the corridors of time

are mysteries that defy explanation.

Now, I'm traveling through history itself

on a search for the truth.

New evidence,

shocking answers.

I'm Josh gates,

and these

Are my "expedition files."

Whether we realize it

or not, we are all expert

code breakers.

We spend our lives decoding

the world, solving the riddle

of what those around us

are saying, thinking, feeling.

But some codes can't be cracked.

Some mysterious riddles

remain incomprehensible years,

even centuries, after

they were conceived.

Tonight, we'll examine three

files of the strangest and most

disturbing unsolved codes in history.

One, a cryptic cipher that

reveals a brutal serial k*ller.

Two, a puzzling poem that

guarantees incredible riches.

Three, an ancient manuscript

that just might hold the answer

to the origin of life.

Three files, one question

how do we break the code?

Our first story starts

at a good place to get

lost and a terrible place to be found.

To the local teens in vallejo,

California, this peaceful

overlook is known as lover's Lane.

And love is in the air, because tonight,

December 20th, 1968,

17-year-old David Faraday

and his 16-year-old girlfriend,

Betty Lou Jensen, are

on their very first date.

Unfortunately, Betty and

David's night out is about

to turn into a nightmare

because this stranger heading

down the road has

other plans for the couple.

His destination? m*rder.

In moments, the infamous

reign of the zodiac k*ller

will begin.

Please, please stop, please stop!

Please stop!

When police arrive at the scene,

the k*ller has long fled.

Betty and David become

known as the notorious k*ller's

first victims.

The tight-knit community of

vallejo and the surrounding

bay area is stunned by the murders.

Fear quickly spreads that

there's a g*n-crazed maniac

at large. They are not wrong.

The k*ller will soon strike again.

In the summer of 1969,

22-year-old Darlene ferrin

and 19-year-old Michael mageau

are parked at blue rock spring

park, an infamous spot for

rebellious teenagers

less than four miles from

the first attack.

But this twisted m*rder*r is

not content to let his bloody

handiwork speak for itself.

He wants credit where credit is due.

Later that night, a

police dispatcher picks up

a call from a pay phone in vallejo.

The caller's words are

impossible for the dispatcher

to ever forget.

I want to report a double m*rder.

If you will go one mile east on

Columbus parkway to the public

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

I shot them with a 9mm luger.

I also k*lled those kids last year.

Goodbye.

But the k*ller is wrong about one thing.

It is not a double m*rder.

Although Darlene ferrin

tragically dies, Michael mageau

miraculously survives.

But his description of

the k*ller is vague at best,

saying only that he had a large face.

It seems the k*ller's call to

the police fails to give him

the notoriety he craves,

so he decides to take his cat

and mouse game to the next level.

On August 1st, 1969,

he contacts the press.

Dear editor,

this is the m*rder*r of the

two teenagers last Christmas at

lake Herman and the

girl on the 4th of July.

Wanting credit for his horrific acts,

the sh**ter provides facts that

only he would know,

including the exact brand name

of the a*mo used in

the sh**ting, super x.

And here's where

things get truly diabolical.

Accompanying the letter is

a 408-character cryptogram,

which, if solved,

promises to reveal more of

his sinister plans.

He urges the police to publish

the cipher in the newspapers

for all to read, and then

ends with a chilling vow to k*ll

again, and signs off with a

symbol that eerily resembles

the crosshairs of a g*n scope.

And when the police don't

respond, he sends a second,

more detailed letter with

another cipher, and in this

one, the k*ller gives

himself a name, the zodiac.

The letter also contains

more details of the crimes,

convincing the police

that the author is their k*ller.

It seems all they need

to do is crack the code to

reveal his identity.

Desperate for help,

they appeal to the public

and publish the cipher in

the San Francisco chronicle.

Their plan works.

Within a week, a high

school teacher and his wife

ingeniously decipher the complex code,

disclosing a chilling message

that explains the zodiac's

demented purpose.

When I die, I will be reborn in

paradise, and all I have k*lled

will become my sl*ves.

But the code offers no more

clues to identify the culprit,

and they can only hope the k*lling stops.

Unfortunately, on September

27th, 1969, college students,

Cecelia Shepard and Bryan

hartnell, are picnicking along

the shore of scenic lake berryessa when

a stranger approaches.

I think someone's here.

Excuse me, can we help you?

The man tells the couple he's

a prison escapee, and he needs

money and their car to get to Mexico.

Thinking that this is just a robbery,

Cecelia and Bryan comply,

and he ties them up.

Then things take a terrible turn.

No!

Cecelia succumbs to her injuries,

but Bryan survives, yet

frustratingly, is unable to

give a description of the k*ller.

But the zodiac has left a

message on the couple's car

door, the dates and locations

of his previous attacks.

And the very next

month, he strikes again.

Paul Stein is a 29-year-old

San Francisco cab driver.

On October 11, 1969,

he picks up this man,

who asks to be taken to

presidio heights, but this is

no ordinary passenger.

Several blocks later,

the zodiac will k*ll Stein,

sh**ting him in the back of the head.

Within days, the San Francisco

chronicle receives a new letter

from the zodiac, taking

credit for Paul Stein's m*rder.

And to prove it, he

includes a hideous souvenir

from the attack,

a piece of Stein's bloodied shirt.

But there is one positive development.

For the first time, there

are multiple witnesses to one

of the killings.

They describe the zodiac as

a white male, approximately 25

to 30 years old, with a crew

cut and heavy rimmed glasses.

A nationwide apb goes out on the k*ller.

As tips pour in, the

police and FBI interview

over 2,500 suspects in

connection with the murders.

One of the most promising

suspects is Arthur Leigh Allen,

a resident from vallejo,

where those first murders

took place.

Allen's neighbor had seen

him pulling bloody knives from

the trunk of his car on the day

of the lake berryessa m*rder.

And, most shocking of all,

Allen even allegedly confesses

to a colleague that he is the zodiac.

But when confronted by

the police, Allen denies

everything and claims he was

joking about the confession.

And, as for the bloody

knives, he says that it was just

chicken's blood.

The investigators do note

an eerie coincidence, though.

Brand of watch is a zodiac,

its signature symbol exactly

matching the crosshairs

used to sign the k*ller's letters.

But after an intensive

investigation, with nothing

directly linking Allen to any of the crimes,

the police move on.

While the police desperately

search for suspects,

the k*ller's evil letters

continue, threatening bombs,

murders, even the slaughter of children.

And these letters also contain

three more codes to crack,

including one that the

zodiac outrageously claims

contains his name.

And the letters continue for

six long years, but nobody is

able to crack the code of their meaning.

Then comes 1974, the letters stop.

And just like that, the case turns ice cold,

but not closed. Far from it.

In the decades since,

professional and amateur

investigators alike have spent

untold hours puzzling over

the zodiac's three unsolved ciphers.

If they could just be

unraveled, this cruel madman

could at last be identified.

And now, it's finally happened.

One of the codes has been cracked.

For almost 60 years,

the identity of the zodiac

serial k*ller has remained a mystery.

But now, cutting-edge technology has

unraveled part of his blood-soaked riddle.

Software designer and cryptographer,

David oranchak used the latest

code-breaking techniques to try

to solve the ciphers.

The zodiac case was interesting

to me, not only because it was

one of the most famous

unsolved mysteries in the world,

but what really got

me interested in it was

the cryptography aspect of it.

He was sending these

mysterious codes to the newspapers

and taunting people with

these hidden messages.

And the fact that his first

cipher was solved led me to

think that it was possible to

solve the second message that

he had sent.

We leaned heavily on very

advanced computer programs that

would help us do a lot of the grunt work.

Thanks to advances in

technology, David and his team

tackle the zodiac k*ller's most

infamous unsolved puzzle,

the 340-character cipher.

The 340 he sent on one piece

of paper and one big block.

It's a mix of unusual

symbols, just like the 408 was,

but he threw in some new symbols.

There are a lot of times when

you're trying to break the code

where you start to see his

message coming through,

and you think, "this has

got to be from the k*ller."

It says, "k*lling."

It says, "m*rder." It says, "death."

It's from a serial k*ller.

But then you hit a brick

wall, because you can't get

the whole message out.

So I got used to failing until

the breakthrough happened.

After 14 years of relentless

effort, David and his team

finally crack one of the

world's most elusive codes

and immediately send

their breakthrough to the FBI.

The FBI responded to me within

minutes when I sent the report

and they were excited

because they believed that it was

the correct answer.

I hope you are having lots

of fun in trying to catch me.

I am not afraid of the gas

chamber, because it will send

me to paradise all the sooner,

because I now have enough

sl*ves to work for me,

where everyone else

has nothing.

I am not afraid because I

know that my life will be an easy

one in paradise death.

It really did feel like a

new message from zodiac,

even though he had written it

way back in November of 1969.

One down, two unsolved

zodiac ciphers to go.

And tantalizingly, zodiac

cruelly boasts that one of

these two uncracked codes

literally contains his name.

So, building from

oranchak's brilliant efforts,

we decided to roll up our sleeves and join

the community in trying to

solve the remaining ciphers.

And after countless hours

of work by my team and I,

we discovered something astounding.

If you reverse-engineer

the cipher for names of

the most infamous possible

suspects, substituting letters

for symbols, like, for example,

these eight symbols could

represent the letter I,

unscramble the letters,

and you discover that one

suspect's name fits just right.

A. Leigh Allen Arthur Leigh Allen.

The very same suspect who

the police spent the most time

investigating, the same suspect

who confessed to a coworker,

carried bloody knives, and

even wore a zodiac watch.

And remarkably, there's more.

People who knew Arthur Leigh

Allen confirmed that he had

a fascination with

ciphers from his days in

the U.S. Navy.

Plus, investigators

found he had a typewriter,

like the one used to write

some of the zodiac messages,

and he owned a pair of boots

with soles matching those worn

by the k*ller.

Of course, all of this

evidence is circumstantial,

and Arthur himself died in

1992, denying he was the k*ller

to the very end.

But when combined with this

possible code-crack and all of

the mounting evidence,

it leaves us to wonder,

could it be that america's

most infamous serial k*ller is

finally unmasked?

From the cryptic clues left

behind by a vicious m*rder*r to

our next file, which reveals

another enigmatic puzzle,

one that takes us on

a dangerous hunt for

buried treasure.

The year is 2010, and I'm somewhere in

the rocky mountains.

I can't tell you the exact

location because, well,

it's a secret.

And behind me is the keeper

of that secret, 80-year-old

for rest fenn.

He's about to Bury a

treasure worth millions.

That chest he's carrying

is full of gold, diamonds,

rubies, and sapphires.

This millionaire art dealer

is going to set in motion

a modern-day treasure hunt.

What kind of man buries a

chest filled with treasure in

the middle of nowhere,

and then hopes someday

someone else will dig it up?

To properly tell this

puzzling tale, we need to start

at the beginning.

1930 in temple, Texas,

when for rest fenn is born.

From the start, for rest

seemed destined for adventure.

On family trips to yellow

stone national park,

he became an avid fly

Fisher and outdoors man.

Later, he joined the air force,

where he became a fighter

pilot, flying 328 combat missions.

After his military service,

for rest moves to Santa fe

and opens an art gallery.

This proves to be a very successful

and lucrative career.

He's on top of the world

until a routine doctor visit turns

that world upside down.

In 1988, at the age of 58,

for rest fenn is diagnosed with

terminal cancer.

After the shock wears off,

he decides to get his affairs in order.

But for rest isn't writing out

his last will and testament.

Instead, he's writing out

clues to a treasure hunt.

You know, as you do.

Before cancer gets the best of him,

he decides to have one last adventure.

He plans to fill a

treasure chest with gold,

jewels, and other valuables,

and then hide it in one of

his favorite outdoor places

before taking his own life.

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

giving clues that lead

to his final resting place.

Whoever finds his grave will

also find the treasure chest.

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

Like the man himself,

fenn's plan is creative,

audacious, and just a little off-center.

But then comes some

fortune he didn't plan for.

His terminal cancer miraculously goes

into remission.

Cancer-free and with a new

lease on life, he goes back to

his routine in Santa fe,

but his idea for the treasure

hunt never quite leaves him.

So 22 years later, at the age of 80,

he sets the game in motion.

In 2010, he heads back

to his favorite spot in nature

and hides his chest.

Then he publishes his

memoir, "the thrill of the chase."

In it, he writes a cryptic poem

that serves as a map containing

clues that will lead a clever

hunter directly to the prize.

Anyone that would go to these

lengths to create a treasure

hunt is a true original.

I found that out first-hand in 2015.

- You must be Josh.

- I'm Josh, yeah.

When I had the pleasure of

meeting for rest face to face.

Ok, so first question, for

rest, should be an easy one.

Where is the treasure hidden?

At least eight miles north

of Santa fe and below

- the Canadian border.

- Ok.

Still got a lot of ground there to cover.

Can you tell me why you

chose the place that you chose?

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

I have fond memories of that place.

Do you know how much

the treasure's worth?

No, I don't.

There are 20.2 pounds of

gold in the treasure chest.

There are 200 and some odd rubies.

There are two ceylon sapphires.

There are eight emeralds.

- There are lots of diamonds.

- What was your intention?

I had a number of reasons for doing it.

The primary was to get

people out in the sunshine again,

to smell the pine

needles in the mountains.

If you want to be a serious

searcher, my advice is look at

clues in the poem.

The treasure hunt is officially on.

And, like for rest said,

everything you need to find

his chest is contained in the poem.

It begins simply enough.

"As I have gone alone in there

and with my treasures bold,

"I can keep my secret

where, and hint of riches,

new and old."

But the clues in the poem get cryptic.

Begin it where warm

waters halt, and take it to

the canyon down. Not

far, but too far to walk.

Put him below the home of brown.

In all, the poem is 24 lines,

and gives nine clues to find

the buried treasure.

But fenn gives one more clue that isn't in

the poem the treasure

is hidden somewhere in

the rocky mountains.

That narrows it down to

roughly 300,000 square miles.

Not exactly a small playing field to find

a 10-inch bronze box.

In 2013, a series of news

stories brings the hunt

into the mainstream, and

thousands, like these guys,

get bit by the for rest fenn treasure bug.

At the height of the mania,

an estimated 350,000 people

are searching.

For most, the search ends

the same way, empty-handed.

But for a few, the adventure turns deadly.

Between July of 2016 and

march of 2021, five hunters perish

searching for fenn's gold.

The authorities ask for

rest to call off the hunt,

but fenn is torn.

He feels the good of the

hunt outweighs the danger,

and wants to keep going.

He lets people know that

the treasure is not a dangerous

location, and that anyone

who is mobile and relatively

fit can find it.

In nearly a decade, though,

since the game began,

no one has found the treasure.

Then, out of the blue, on

June 6, 2020, fenn posts

a message online. It's

short and to the point.

"The treasure has been found."

It appears the mystery

is over, but in many ways,

it's actually just beginning.

In 2010, eccentric art dealer

for rest fenn announces he has

hidden a treasure trove of

gold and jewels somewhere in

the rocky mountains.

Now, 10 years later, fenn

announces the treasure has

finally been found, but the

supposed discovery only

leads to more questions.

Peter frick-Wright is a journalist who has

investigated this story extensively.

When for rest announces that

the treasure has been found,

every searcher wanted to

know the same three things

who found it? Where was it?

What did all the clues mean?

And what you saw was

essentially the five stages

of grief. People are angry.

People are sad. People don't believe it.

There is a lot of just

resentment, animosity.

I mean, you could call it

jealousy, towards this person

who did the thing that tens

of thousands or hundreds of

thousands of people had been

trying to do for now 10 years.

To put some doubters' minds

at ease, fenn reveals photos of

the chest and even announces

the state the treasure is

discovered in

Wyoming.

Then, on September 7th,

2020, three months after

the search is declared over,

for rest fenn dies at the age of 90.

He lived to see his treasure hunt solved,

but with his passing,

the secret of who found it

seems to go with him to the grave.

Shortly after fenn dies,

an article appears online,

written by someone

claiming to be the one

who found the treasure.

I am the person who found

for rest fenn's treasure.

The moment it happened was

not the triumphant Hollywood ending

some surely envisioned.

It just felt like I had

just survived something,

something, and was fortunate

to come out the other end.

Not long after the finder speaks out,

the lawsuits start flying.

Another treasure hunter

accuses the finder of

stealing his leads.

The finder knows his real

name will come out in court,

so he decides to reveal his identity.

In December of 2020,

outside magazine publishes

an article titled, "the

man who found for rest"

"fenn's treasure," revealing that

the mysterious finder is a man

from Michigan named Jack stuef.

Stuef is a 32-year-old medical student.

He had heard about for rest

fenn's treasure hunt in 2018,

and went down a rabbit

hole, listening to, looking at,

reading everything that for

rest fenn had ever said that

he could find.

He figured out where

the treasure was pretty

much immediately.

But it took him 25 days of

boots-on-the-ground searching

over the course of two

years to actually find it.

Thousands of frustrated hunters

now know who found the treasure

and how he solved the puzzle.

But there is one last question

that Jack stubbornly refuses to

"answer exactly where did he find it?"

Fenn put this in the place

that he wanted to die.

So it was a special place to him.

And Jack wanted to protect that place.

So he said, "I am not going to

share where this was, kind of

no matter what."

To the searchers who've dedicated

years of their lives to

the hunt, the fact that Jack

won't reveal where he found

the treasure is frustrating to

say the least.

People are desperate to know

how close they may have been,

and everybody just wants closure.

And then they get it,

ironically, in the form of

another lawsuit.

This lawsuit was from a man

who accused for rest fenn of

repeatedly moving the treasure,

making it impossible to find.

It looked like Jack stuef was

going to be called to the stand

and forced to reveal the

exact location of where

he found the treasure.

But before this could

happen, an injunction to stop

his testimony came in

from a surprising source,

yellow stone national park.

And so what that told me

and what told the rest of

the hunting community was

for rest fenn hid the treasure

in yellow stone national park.

So it turns out the treasure

was in yellow stone after all.

They just wanted to keep

thousands of tourists from

damaging this pristine spot.

Two years after finding

the treasure, Jack, who is in

debt with medical school loans,

sells the bronze chest and all

the gold and jewels

inside to a private buyer for

an undisclosed sum.

That buyer then puts

it up for public auction,

netting 1.3 million dollars.

And so fenn's thrilling

chase has come to an end.

The mystery of the treasure's

location was in the end

revealed not through

fenn's poem but through

a series of lawsuits.

That's not the way for rest

fenn would have wanted it.

But inspiring thousands of folks to enjoy

the great outdoors?

Well, that's exactly

what for rest intended.

And hiding a chest full of

gold nuggets or yellow stones,

if you will, in yellow stone national park?

Well played, for rest fenn. Well played.

Our next file introduces us

to arguably the world's most

mysterious book, a Tome that's

been identified as everything

from a spy's secret code

to an occultist spell book,

even a message left behind

for us by extraterrestrials.

It's 1912, and I'm in Italy,

on the outskirts of Rome,

where a jesuit college is

selling off old manuscripts to

the highest bidder.

A Polish rare books dealer

named wilfred voynich is hoping

to score some ancient texts

that he can sell for a profit

in London, and today is his lucky day.

While rummaging, voynich

finds a strange book.

When he opens it, it's like traveling into

another universe.

It contains cryptic diagrams

and strange illustrations.

The book is written in an

unknown language that is so

mysterious that, for over

a century, it has defied all

attempts to translate it, and

its author remains unknown.

Now, researchers have uncovered

new clues that will help reveal

whose hands wrote the world's

most enigmatic book and what

secrets it contains.

Voynich is no amateur

when it comes to books.

He's dedicated his life

to buying and selling rare

and unusual texts, but even with all this

expertise, he still can't make

sense of this mysterious Tome.

The voynich manuscript is

relatively small, measuring

nine by six inches

and two inches thick,

with exactly 240 pages.

Each page is made of calfskin

parchment and is densely

covered in cryptic

looping script alongside

bizarre illustrations.

Depictions of strange plants

that don't match any known

species, peculiar scenes of

nude women bathing in pools,

even a six-panel foldout that

looks like the coolest board

game you've ever seen.

Though the artwork is vivid

and strange, it's the cryptic,

indecipherable script that

captures the most attention,

eventually becoming

known as voynichese.

I would love to have a secret

language named after me,

but gatesese doesn't

really roll off the tongue.

As for voynichese, I will say

that I have spent a fair amount

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

It really is as puzzling a text

as anything I've come across.

Luckily, voynich finds a clue.

Within the pages of the

book, he finds a letter, written in

Latin, that mentions the author

was possibly the 13th century

philosopher and alchemist Roger bacon.

Bacon is an interesting

guy, to put it lightly.

He's a franciscan friar by

day, and dabbler in forbidden

knowledge by night.

And he's really into

magic, and using ciphers to

encode texts.

Voynich decides that if bacon

is the author, then he has

his hands on a secret manual

of alchemy and magic, filled with

powerful and perhaps

forbidden formulas.

Voynich is also excited,

because that's something

he should be able to

sell for a significant sum.

With Europe being consumed

by world w*r I, voynich realizes

that if he wants to make

a sale, he needs to travel

somewhere safer.

With book in hand, he heads

to the land of opportunity,

the United States.

Once in america, he

opens a bookstore in.

New York City and tries

to attract wealthy collectors.

But he gets little

interest in this rare book,

because of course the text is unreadable.

So, in 1915, voynich departs

on a tour across america,

trying to woo top libraries

and museums, offering them

the book for a special,

but still expensive price.

While this nonstop promotion

makes the manuscript one of

the most famous books in

the world, voynich realizes

that without cracking the

code, he will be unable to

sell the book.

He knows whatever this book

is, he's got something special

on his hands.

But all of his efforts to publicize the book

unintentionally attract

a different audience.

After all, world w*r I is still

raging, and the authorities are

alerted to this suspicious foreigner.

In 1917, voynich gets

a knock on the door.

In walk the feds.

The bureau of investigation,

which would eventually become

the FBI, interrogate him,

concerned about why he has

an unreadable text and whether

he could have stolen American

codes or be distributing German ones.

Hand over the manuscript!

After turning his bookstore

inside out and going over

voynich's story with a fine-tooth comb,

the U.S. government concludes

voynich isn't a current threat

and doesn't possess

any enemy intelligence.

Although cleared by the government,

voynich unfortunately dies in

1930, having failed to unravel

the text of the manuscript or sell it.

But his constant promotion

has given the voynich manuscript

fame and allure.

Over the next several decades,

the greatest code breakers in

the world use increasingly

cutting edge technology to

decipher the manuscript.

But it remains a mystery.

Many believe the voynich

manuscript can't be cracked.

That is, until now.

Forrest fenn's treasure hunt

had modern day adventurers

channeling their inner

Indiana Jones, but fenn's chest,

as impressive as it was,

pales in comparison to one of

the biggest hidden treasures ever found,

the nuestra senora de atocha.

In 1985, after a 16-year search,

treasure hunter Mel Fisher

struck gold, literally,

off the coast of Florida.

The atocha, a Spanish

galleon lost in 1622,

carried a real-life pirates of

the Caribbean haul packed with

over $400 million in

gold, silver, and emeralds.

Fenn's hunt may have

sparked modern-day gold fever,

but the atocha is the

holy grail of treasure finds,

one that transformed Fisher,

an Indiana-born chicken farmer,

into one of the world's

greatest and wealthiest

treasure hunters.

The mystery of the voynich

manuscript has stumped scholars

for over a century.

Then, in 2009, a new revelation.

Researchers at the university

of Arizona carbon-tested

the calfskin pages, dating

them to 1404 to 1438 ad.

This means voynich's theory

of Roger bacon and a manual of

magic is off the table.

Unless bacon invented time

travel, too, there is no way

a 13th-century philosopher

could write on something from

the 15th century.

Now, a recent book published

by scholar Stephen Skinner could

reshape our understanding

of this enigmatic text.

For a long time, people

believed that whoever

wrote the book must have

been somebody of note.

But historian sami jarroush

has done an in-depth study of this

new theory.

Stephen Skinner, in his book,

posits a theory that the author

of this book is a Jewish

physician, a Jewish herbalist

living in northern Italy in the 1400s.

Here's why.

Skinner starts to take a closer

look at the visual aspects of

the book, all these drawings

of these bizarre plants,

and what might these drawings

have to do with the authorship

of this book.

When considering the images

in the book, some of the most

perplexing are the pictures

of the nude female bathers.

Skinner starts to put pieces

together, and he comes to

the conclusion that, wait,

these aren't just random

nude bathers that exist.

These baths are

what's called a "mikvah."

A mikvah is this ritualistic bathing

that is done by orthodox Jewish women.

Skinner goes on to posit

that the only person who would

really know about this

would be somebody from

a Jewish background. But there's more.

One of the other clues that

he sees is that in the book,

you have these sort of

ramparts that were very specific to

these castles.

These were only found

in parts of Italy around

the 15th century.

Now, in that region of Italy,

you have these towns in these

cities like pisa, for example,

which had a very large

Jewish population.

On top of that, he's also recognizing that

the indecipherable language

in the book, what's been labeled

as voynichese, and

he's thinking to himself,

"it could be a book that is

filled with a lot of medicinal

and medical knowledge."

This is a physician that understands

medicine, that understands

herbs, plants, so on

and so forth.

This is fascinating.

We have a Jewish doctor

from the 1400s living in Italy,

writing a book about medicine.

But the last question is,

"why the indecipherable code?"

So perhaps because the types

of plants that they're talking

about, or the types of herbs

or medicines that they're

talking about, might be

something that this particular

physician didn't want other

people to know or be familiar

with, perhaps this type of

writing is a sort of shorthand.

So in a sense, it's a way

to try to keep his secrets for

himself, so that potentially

this physician could stay ahead

of his competitors,

because they have this

potentially secret knowledge

that they've written down in

this book.

Interestingly enough,

soon after his new theory is

published, a pair of Canadian

computer scientists at

the artificial intelligence

lab at the university of alberta

claim to have solved the language part of

the voynich code.

They fed the text into

an AI trained to recognize

380 languages.

The AI's analysis of letter

frequencies suggested the text

was coded in alpha grams,

where letters are shuffled

and vowels are omitted.

Based on this, they

concluded that the text

was most likely written in

Hebrew, further supporting

this new theory.

When wilford voynich picked

up a dusty manuscript over 100

years ago, he couldn't have

predicted just how much this

one book would captivate the world.

The newest evidence

suggests the author of this

incomprehensible text was

not a magician, not a spy,

not an extraterrestrial,

or even voynich himself,

but rather a doctor.

This may simply be a medical

text, albeit a very exotic one.

But what does it actually say?

Well, today, the voynich manuscript rests

safely in a library at Yale.

The entire volume is also

digitized and available to

the public online.

Just waiting for the

next curious mind to try

and decipher the most

mysterious book in the world.

Good luck. I'm Josh gates.

Until next time, travel adventurously.