History Decoded: The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time

by Meltzer, Brad

  Unrealized Objective

  The U-boat supposedly bound for Antarctica with the Spear of Destiny never reached its destination. It was sunk off the coast of Florida, where its hulk still rests today. Does the real Spear of Destiny rest there with it?

  My Own Spear Story

  Fallen Angels

  Is there a secret group out there that follows Lucifer and believes that with the power of the Spear of Destiny its own messiah will rule the world? Some say such a group exists, and is called the B’nai ha Nephilim—the “Sons of the Fallen.”

  You think we’re done now, right?

  We’re not.

  Because I’m going to do something we don’t do in any other part of this book. I want to tell you my personal tie to the Spear of Destiny.

  Years ago, I was contacted by Chris Blake, a man who said he had some delicate information to share with me. He told me about a plot that would have severe repercussions if it was carried out. Of course, we verified key elements of Blake’s story with the police to make sure it checked out.

  Blake was a personal driver and bodyguard for a wealthy and powerful man. How powerful? His boss was a friend—and had the ear—of a U.S. president.

  According to Blake, his wealthy boss—whom he’s keeping anonymous out of respect for him—apparently knew the location of the true Spear of Destiny.

  In the course of his service to his boss, Blake encountered many other people, including a high-ranking government official who, one night, struck up a conversation over drinks. As Blake tells the story, the federal official worked the conversation around to the Spear of Destiny, and then asked the biggest and most frightening bar-story question Blake had ever heard: “What would you say if I told you that your boss is the man who stole the Spear of Destiny from Adolf Hitler?”

  To say that Blake was stunned is of course an understatement. But as the government official continued to speak, the story took on more frightening details.

  According to the official, Blake’s boss was a member of a secret group calling themselves the B’nai ha Nephilim—the “Sons of the Fallen.”

  Disciples of Lucifer.

  “And just so that you understand,” Blake explained, “they believe that the God of the Bible is evil. And they believe that Lucifer is good.”

  I know. I had the same reaction. But stay with me a moment. This small powerful group believes that the God that we all know is the bad guy in the story.

  According to the story, the Sons of the Fallen believe that when the Temple is rebuilt in Jerusalem, they will send their handpicked man into the Temple—the Holy of Holies—with the Spear of Destiny. There, he will shed his own blood with the spear, and then proclaim himself the Messiah. The Sons of the Fallen “plan on ruling the world. They believe it enough to not only be willing to kill for it. They believe it enough to die for it.”

  Even now, according to Blake, the Sons of the Fallen are at work in Jerusalem, attempting to bring the Temple into being—so they can put their plan into motion.

  Insanity, right?

  But here’s the detail I care about: Blake doesn’t believe the story. He doesn’t think Lucifer is the good guy. He agrees that whether it’s true or not . . . that part doesn’t matter. What matters is the idea that these people still exist today.

  And that may be the most terrifying plan of all for the spear.

  According to the story, the Sons of the Fallen believe that when the Temple is rebuilt in Jerusalem, they will send their handpicked man into the Temple—the Holy of Holies—with the Spear of Destiny.

  To me, whether the Spear of Destiny gives an army unstoppable power is almost irrelevant. If it makes an army believe it’s unstoppable, then that’s power enough. I used to see the cost of that power every Thanksgiving when my wife’s Uncle Charles visited us.

  Charles was a teenager when the Nazis brought him to a concentration camp. He weighed 158 pounds; by the end of the war, he was 66 pounds. He saw the gas chambers himself, and the crematorium, and he knew what it was for. It was an oven to melt people. So, nothing terrifies me like the idea that a Fourth Reich might be back to finish the job. Indeed, history has shown us that whenever groups try to gain that level of power, it’s rarely put to good use.

  While going on this quest, we discovered that no one really knows where the true Spear of Destiny is. But we also found out this—the one fact no one knew: There are still people looking for it.

  So next time you watch a story about fanatics and their quest for power, I promise, you won’t look at that story the same way again.

  The Real Da Vinci Code: Did Leonardo Predict an Apocalypse?

  What if I told you that the secrets of our future—our fate—may be found in the work of Leonardo da Vinci?

  Leonardo da Vinci is considered by many scholars to be the greatest painter of all time, producing both the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.

  Da Vinci was the ultimate Renaissance man. Artist, botanist, architect, scientist, mathematician, writer, musician . . . you name it, Da Vinci did it. And he did it at a level that boggles the mind. As an inventor, Da Vinci accurately predicted hundreds of advancements in science, transportation, medicine, and warfare . . . 500 years before they happened.

  Some call that human genius—but a few think he actually saw the future . . . and many now believe that Da Vinci’s most dangerous prophecy has yet to be unlocked. Now a newly discovered Da Vinci drawing that’s been hidden for centuries may prove to be the final piece to Da Vinci’s most important prophecy.

  It’s time to head to Italy. We’re trying to decode Leonardo da Vinci.

  Born out of wedlock in 1452 to a wealthy notary father and a peasant mother, Da Vinci was just 14 years old when he had his first painting apprenticeship with Renaissance master Andrea del Verrocchio. According to the story, one of his first big opportunities was to paint an angel in the great master’s work The Baptism of Christ. After looking at it, Verrocchio allegedly vowed that he would never paint again, unable to live up to his young student Leonardo da Vinci.

  No question, Leonardo da Vinci was the very definition of a “Renaissance man.” But a literal prophet? A man who foresaw our own world and the potential disasters facing it in precise and specific detail—and foresaw them 500 years ago? How’s that even possible?

  Yet that possibility is exactly what a small group of people claim—and their claims are based on a single page from one of the most mysterious of all of Da Vinci’s works: the Codex Atlanticus.

  Hidden for centuries, that page has now been found, and it may be the most important clue to Da Vinci’s secret beliefs—and perhaps to his prophecies.

  A Prodigious Talent

  Da Vinci was just 14 when he had his first apprenticeship with Renaissance master Andrea del Verrocchio. When the teenager painted an angel in the great master’s work The Baptism of Christ, Verrocchio allegedly vowed that he would never paint again, unable to live up to the gifts his student revealed.

  At some point throughout history, something on page 1033 was removed. Many thought it was lost to history. No one knew who took it; no one knew what had happened to it; no one knew exactly what was missing.

  The Codex Atlanticus

  To explain the Codex Atlanticus, first you need to know what a codex is. Simply put, it’s a collection of ancient works. In that context, the Codex Atlanticus is essentially Da Vinci’s brain on paper. You see, throughout his life, whatever specific project he was working on, Da Vinci was constantly making notes, filling thousands of loose pages, as well as the pages of notebooks, with every idea he came up with . . . every observation he made. These working notebooks and papers were the catchalls for his ideas and visions.

  Had the pages of his notes and sketches been left in his studio, they might’ve been scattered, lost to history.

  But those pages
weren’t left loose. Rather, after his death, his personal journals, sketches, philosophies, and inventions were gathered by admirers and bound into volumes. Such a volume is called a codex, and Da Vinci’s codices are among the most valuable in all of history.

  How valuable? One of the lesser codices, known as the Codex Leicester, focusing primarily on Da Vinci’s later scientific writings and notations, and containing only 72 pages, was purchased in 1994 for $30 million. The buyer? Another visionary: Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

  The Codex Leicester

  Da Vinci’s 72-page Codex Leicester, focusing primarily on his later scientific writings and notations, was purchased for $30 million in 1994 by Bill Gates.

  Far greater than the Codex Leicester, though, was the set of volumes known as the Codex Atlanticus, more than 1,000 pages of Da Vinci brilliance and insight, bound into 12 volumes. Conservative estimates place a value upon these volumes at more than $700 million.

  Of those pages, one stands out as strikingly provocative, even among Da Vinci’s works: page 1033 of the Codex Atlanticus. To many, it is the most wildly apocalyptic work Da Vinci ever created . . . a stark vision of the end of the world and the death of humanity. But to a few, page 1033 doesn’t just describe an apocalypse. It predicts one.

  In the Codex Atlanticus, one of the things most interesting about page 1033 is what’s missing. Not missing from the page’s content, but from a pride-of-place position affixed to it.

  At some point throughout history, something on page 1033 was removed. Many thought it was lost to history. No one knew who took it; no one knew what had happened to it; no one knew exactly what was missing.

  But a recent unexpected discovery showed the path that the missing piece had followed for at least the past century and a half.

  The part turned out to be nothing less than the earliest known self-portrait of Da Vinci himself. It had come into the possession of Cardinal Placido Maria Tadini, Archbishop of Genoa, a man who numbered among his responsibilities the suppression of potential rebellions against religion.

  For reasons unknown, Cardinal Tadini hid the drawing, placing it within the cover of an otherwise undistinguished book. He died in 1847, and his home and possessions were sold at auction. The new owners settled into the cardinal’s home, and if they ever examined the ancient book, they clearly didn’t examine it closely.

  It wasn’t until 1940, when a descendant of the owners moved into new quarters, and the house’s contents were also moved, that someone finally noticed something unusual about the book. Looking closely at the volume, he discovered the drawing hidden within it. But did he realize it was drawn by Da Vinci? Of course not. Still, he had taste. Finding the drawing attractive, the new owner framed it and hung it on a wall.

  There it remained for decades . . . until it was noticed by art collector Cristina Gerbino’s family friend, an antiques restorer who felt that he had spotted something exceptional—and perhaps even more than that.

  After some scientific and historical testing, Gerbino realized that this was, indeed, the work of Leonardo da Vinci. The drawing’s dimensions perfectly matched those of the missing part of the Codex Atlanticus. The paper and the ink were of the sort that Da Vinci used. Even the glue could be matched to the spine of the book. And the signature at the bottom? Well, look at the evidence yourself in Exhibits 4A (the page) and 4B (the drawing). We were lucky enough to have Gerbino show us the page personally: “This is a picture of the lower part of our drawing. So if we read the signature from the left side to the right side, we have two letters that are very clear, E-O. Eo is ‘myself’ in Italian. Then we have four letters together. N-A-R-D. NARD. Then we have O-D-A. Leonardo da Vinci. Myself, Leonardo da Vinci. It’s a signature. Then we can read the signature from the right side to the left side. And our interpretation is if we translate that in English it reads, ‘In this way, I do this myself.’ ”

  Body Fascination

  Da Vinci’s fascination with human anatomy inspired him to focus his talents on sometimes macabre subjects, as in this study of a hanged man.

  Mirror Writing

  The fact that the signature reads backward is a telltale sign that we’re likely looking at a real Da Vinci. He wrote almost all his personal letters in mirror writing (the sentences must be read right-to-left rather than left-to-right). Some say it was because he was a southpaw and he simply didn’t want to smudge the ink. Others say it was so lesser artists wouldn’t copy his masterworks.

  But many believe it was to hide ideas that might have gotten him in trouble with the government, the law, or the Church. You see, in Da Vinci’s time, dissecting anything more than a pig was strictly forbidden. But Da Vinci performed clandestine dissections of humans, and created highly detailed anatomical diagrams and writings, all in mirror writing.

  As a matter of fact, even the mirror version of his own signature contains a coded message. Read one way, the signature is his name: Leonardo.

  Mirror Writing

  Da Vinci wrote almost all his personal letters in mirror writing (right-to-left rather than left-to-right). For reasons unknown, the signature on the drawing in Exhibit 4B was erased—perhaps the owner feared that if Da Vinci’s distinctive signature was visible, the treasured drawing would be taken away from him. But enough of an impression of Da Vinci’s mirror writing remained to be traced, the same way private eyes in the movies can trace the impression of writing on a notepad’s blank page after the top page has been torn off. Pretty sneaky—but also pretty easy to trace. Here, the mirror-written signature of Leonardo da Vinci can be read as “In this way, I do this myself.”

  But by focusing on the individual letters and combinations of letters that make up his name, we can also translate the reversed signature as: In this way, I do this myself.

  It doesn’t sound too provocative, but keep in mind this was the 1400s. This was a time when self-reliance and putting human reason first were considered a threat to the Church. The Church always was supposed to come first, and humans were just its obedient servants. So between chopping up human corpses and the idea that the human body might be a marvel of science (and not God) those were two things that may have put Da Vinci on a short list of people to keep a close, watchful, and potentially suppressive eye on.

  Oh, and to see how hard mirror writing is, try it yourself. Try writing your first name backward forming the letters as they are normally formed. Not too difficult, right?

  Now try writing your name backward while reversing the direction in which the letters face. (To see what the results should look like, write your name the normal way and then hold the page in front of a mirror. The reflection will show you what you’re going to try to re-create.)

  If your name happens to be Otto, you’ve got it made. But the rest of us aren’t going to have it as easy.

  So why is page 1033 of the Codex Atlanticus so special? According to Gerbino, “That page tells about prophecies.” It’s the only page in the entire codex that mentions a prophecy. And yes, something on that one page—page 1033—was purposely removed and hidden by the cardinal.

  And now you see why this drawing matters. Many people believe page 1033 is Da Vinci trying to tell the world something about its future. Make no mistake: His predictions are grim.

  Da Vinci writes of entire forests being destroyed and of weapons of mass destruction. He refers to the extinction of species and the slaughter of man. One of his most recurring themes is destruction by water, flood, or tidal wave.

  By now, Da Vinci scholars have scanned every inch of page 1033, trying to make sense of the prophecy and trying to figure out what the missing piece is. So the idea that this drawing may not only be a Da Vinci—but the missing piece and part of the prophecy—is huge. Add to that that a cardinal considered something about this drawing so important that he felt it needed to be carefully hidden, and I want to know: What was history’s greatest
mind trying to tell us?

  Inventions

  A Visionary Inventor

  Centuries before science and industry could actually produce them, Da Vinci envisioned devices as varied as the tank, the machine gun, the parachute, and the helicopter.

  These are just some of the inventions and devices that Da Vinci envisioned and captured in extraordinary detail on paper:

  A flying machine

  The helicopter

  The tank

  The submarine

  Scuba gear

  The machine gun

  The parachute

  Look at his design for a helicopter in Exhibit 4C. He drew it in 1493 . . . more than 400 years before the Wright brothers.

  The fact that most of these devices were impractical in the 15th century—Leonardo’s scuba gear was to have been made of leather, for instance—doesn’t matter. This was a visionary of the very highest order, and it shows on every page of plans and schematics he made.

  No question, Da Vinci was a genius—but a controversial one. In an age when Europeans were put to death for dissecting cadavers, he was the guy who secretly performed more than 30 human dissections. Why was he doing it? During Da Vinci’s time, when anatomy was studied, the lessons taught were based upon ancient Greek and Roman texts, particularly those of Galen (130–200 ce) and his predecessor Hippocrates. Galen’s knowledge and insights were 13 centuries old and astonishingly inaccurate, containing errors and misunderstandings of the workings of the body and even placement of the organs.

  Further compounding the problem was the requirement that when dissection was available to medical students, they were examining animals, generally pigs.