CLASSIC: The Shugborough Inscription Cipher

From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeartRadio.

Welcome Back Fellow conspiracy realist Tonight's classic episode takes us to Staffordshire, England, where we are going to learn about gosh, do you guys remember this one the Sugarburgh inscription cipher.

Sugarburwh Oh, yeah, that's where sug Knight was from. It was named after sug Knight. That's his childhood home, that sugar Burrow.

Yeahs.

There's a sculpture out there in England that is a recreation of a painting called Shepherds of Arcadia. But this sculpture has a very bizarre inscription. And this inscription has birthed numerous conspiracy theories, or I guess, if we're being a little more diplomatic, numerous fringe interpretations.

Love it accurate, let's start transcribe, no inscribe, I don't know, let's check it out. Sure.

From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know a production of iHeart Radios, How Stuff Works.

Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.

My name is Matt.

They call me Ben. We are joined as always with our super producer Paul, Mission Control decad. Most importantly, you are you, You are here, and that makes this stuff. They don't want you to know. How's everybody feeling back.

For another week? I'm feeling awesome. Can I tell you a quick story please? Okay. So my son is aware of Star Wars. We haven't watched any of the movies yet, but he has a couple of these, the paper or the cardboard books of Star Wars stories, and he knows what a lightsaber is. And he's real hyped about lightsabers. So does he say it? Huh?

He says lightsaber yeah, lightsabers.

Yeah.

He loves it, and he makes this sound. He goes great. Well, So I realized that my wife and I had an old stash of glow sticks, because you know, everybody's just got some glow sticks hanging around that are still packaged from you know, back in your twenties, right, I bro cool? Okay, So I realized that we had some I found like a green one and a red one. So I get to play Darth Daddy and he gets to and he

You think it's because Yoda is like around his height and he recognizes that super agile. Yeah, yeah, that's got to be. It's to mind control powers. That's a that's a selling point.

Yeah. And he does force Tornado on me all the time and it's it's stabilitated.

Yeah. Where is that in the lexicon?

Though?

Forced tornado? Is that? Did he make that up? Or is that canon?

Pretty sure? The next episode is going to have a forced tornado. Okay, and you heard it here first.

Okay, all right, well we look forward to seeing this franchise development.

Yeah, I think the Star Wars things going places.

Yeah, yeah, you know, my Spider sense tells me, how are you doing? Noel, how's it? How's how's it going?

I'm doing well? Speaking of Spider sense, did you guys see the end game? The end of the end game?

I did, I haven't.

Okay you no? No?

No discussion then no, no, I kind of want discussion. Well, I mean this isn't really the place I saved me three hours.

Please Victory Lap.

It's it's a but it's a really really expensive Victory Lap and and it and it has some very satisfying conclusions. It has a few things that are kind of like w TF. And it has a few things that are kind of a little bit glossed over and then sort of like wait what happened to that thread? They sort of like it. But all in all, what a what a feat?

What? What a what a feat?

Though? Like just organizational skills right to give all those characters their.

Due and no one's expecting that wolverine cameo that well, like that is wild.

Is there ever any point in the movie where all of those A list like actors are in one place totally or not, like like you can tell they're not green screened in or whatever.

I can't comment that's too much though.

Okay, well, I mean there the Avengers plus all the others.

Yeah, well, I mean it's a payoff people have been waiting for, and I think it's well worth the price of a ticket. You know, that's the kind of film that's good to see in theaters.

Good to see on the imax. If you have that availability. For sure, I will die on this hill. To quote Ben Bollen, screw three D not worth the price. I'd pay that price just to see it on the bigger screen with the better sound system.

Did you watch it in three No?

I don't. I just some one time Black Panther I saw on three D because someone invited me, having already bought the tickets, and then popped it on. I mean once I got there that it was three D and the tickets were like forty bucks a B.

I don't like three D.

See, it's like, give me a headache. It wasn't fun, and I have my kid with me, so that was like eighty dollars of movie. Oh it was. I mean I'm probably exaggerating.

A little bit, but I don't know. Man, once you factor in popcorn.

I just don't like three D. I don't find it immersive or fun.

We're already in three D, you know what I mean? I don't know.

Album.

Yeah, fully, it's.

Like advertising a movie with sound.

I had this this well yeah, yeah, Ben, how are you doing? You know?

I have an interesting story for you about Avengers that has nothing to do with the film. Really, I won't spoil anything, because I know a lot of us listening feel very strongly about spoilers. I love them. Most people hate them anyway. So I'm watching this I'm watching this thing and it is a long journey. It's long film, and there are ups in there, downs, and I think overall it's very well made, but there's really there's a really, really really sad part that gets a lot of people.

Uh, everybody get a hold of and like.

I thought, people, I was like, wow, it's really going around, you know, it's this And I've never encountered measles in the wild, so it's like, do people have measles or whatever? And then uh, the people I was at the movie with, uh, I like, I asked them about it afterwards and they said, no, you've I don't want to use the strong language they used, but they said, no, dude, don't be a robot. They were crying. Yeah, So I think I just am missing that emotional switch.

Ire one feeling a year would possibly have fallen on the Avengers.

I would have put that beat down to three three three three.

Yeah, I'm going one of your one of your guy.

You could have reserved for the Avenger.

Because you you genuinely did grow up with these characters.

That's right.

I guess we all did.

Well.

Yeah, but out of a lot of people that I know, you're probably one of Yeah, you know the characters in the.

Story, and you know the comics too, you know. That's what I'm saying that the original the comic not no, not to degree, so many of these characters were not big flagship characters, at least for me, you know.

Yeah, yeah, uh. But but be that as it may, I think we did a really great job talking about the Avengers without giving anything away totally. So if if you haven't seen it yet, do check it out. They are not paying us to say this. You just think of it, And Matt, I can't wait till you see it so we can hang out and talk about it.

I can't wait to finally see ant Man get crushed by the boot.

Of some other character that's actually his nemesis. It's a supervillain called the Boot.

No, it's not.

It's like Paul is. Paul is a huge film buff Mission Control over here, and he enjoyed the film as well. So if you can't take Nolan I's co sign as as worth worth it, yeah, take Paul's.

Okay, but what about Game of Game of Thrones, Joe Game of Thrones? What about the Game of Thrones?

Hey?

Did you did you guys love that Cup cameo?

The Cup cameo made my day?

Yeah?

Yeah, I mean I get it because Cup's story is super complicated in the books and it's like a pivotal point. You just can't do it justice on the screen, you know.

Tyrian is like giving it the side eye.

They see gied it out though. That's one of the beauty, beautiful things as far as the networks concerned of streaming is you know, if it's printed and it's in the theaters, they're not going to pull all those prints out of every theater in the in the country. But for this they just go in there, blip, re upload, yep. It's like it was never there, except the internet never forgets.

How many people got fired? Do you think just one? One? Uh one?

Best boy one best boy with the best dream, so well, that guy became a legend. We'll get to the point of the show in just a second.

We guys owe us a little bit of a rambling insurer. I think we've been keeping it pretty tight.

Yeah, yeah, And we want to hear directly from you your opinions about this this intro, or your your opinions about any old thing on your mind from previous episodes, or suggestions for a future episode. Matt our friend and cohort. Matt has been on this amazing journey listening to voicemails.

Yeah, I gotta tell you, I haven't been off of this journey in a while. Now.

Someone need to take up the mantleman.

It's so great. It's such a roller coaster because it gets really dark sometimes and then it is the funniest thing I've heard all week sometimes and then it just happens again. But the best thing is that everything that gets put on that the voicemail message machine is genuine and awesome. And everyone, if you're hearing this, you are awesome. Give us a call again. You can call one eight three three S ST D W I T K right now. Leave us a message. Any suggestions even on the format

Get weird with it. And also, speaking of the phones, shout out to our formerly anonymous caller, Stephen B. Who hipped us to Canada's Shag Harbor incident as an episode. Thanks so much for tuning in, Stephen. Stephen reached out, reached out to us and I hope you don't get mad at us for say this, Steven, but he said, guys, I don't know why I didn't say my name, but I'm the one who called about Shag Harbor incident. So

That's right.

Straffordshire is actually a little bit famous in those realms because there's this tiny little thing relatively to the rest of Straffordshire, tiny tiny little thing. It's a monument called the Shepherd's Monument. And on this monument there's an engraving. It's got one of the most enigmatic as of yet unbroken ciphers that you heard us say, or at least phonetically attempt to say earlier.

Be backwards masking again, that we're going to talk progressively and backwards masking. Yes, nice episode. Yeah it was Paul's idea. Yeah, it's true.

It's true.

We are phonetically pronouncing this very weird cipher.

It's literally eight characters and then two more little characters and an exclamation mark.

No, no, you know. It made me think of do you guys? You know I don't have time to play a lot of video games, but I'm in this somewhat monogamous video game relationship with a thing called Skyrim. And still I went back and started playing it again. I'm different now I'm an Argonian. They're the lizard people.

I was.

You were?

I was?

Yeah?

Were? You were?

You of age? I know you love in age.

I was an Argonian mage.

Nice messed up? You should have been a thief? Why? I don't know. Argonians are awesome with.

The that's a stereotype.

They have a lot of good attributes for it. It's all I'm saying, Oh God, that sounds awful, but it's so true because you literally pick your like species or your race.

Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's it's a great game and you can go back and you can do all the stuff you want to do.

Uh.

Anyway, anyway, it reminds me of the Dragon Shouts where they're all, you know, it's got really dope music in that game and they're like doing Dov King's you know, Oh it totally does it. That's intense stuff, you know.

Sugar Barrow, Sugarbarrow was a little bit I think.

Yeah, I don't know why.

Shug just the word Shug, you know, feels Australia. Seems like the name of some kind of Australian implement, you know, a shug.

Dear OSSes, Yeah, I know.

It's like a shiv, but it's more blunt.

You know, into Australian slang. Calling McDonald's Macca's has like just it's changed my world. I say that, yeah, m Acca nice. I don't know if it'll actually get me to go to a McDonald's, but I like to drive by and say Macca's.

I feel like a shug would be some kind of club. It's not like a club where you party, like a club, like a couch club. Someone with yeah.

Yeah, So this this place, Sugarburw Hall in Staffordshire is the location of this monument and Thomas Anson, although he commissions this monument, the Shepherd's Monument, his brother George, who is an admiral, actually pays for it. And a Flemish sculptor named Peter Shemaker's with two e's is the guy who actually builds the thing. But what does it look like?

Well, the sculpture is comprised of a mirror image, or what's known as a boss relief, of a painting by Nicholas Poussin that's called The Shepherds of Arcadia, and it's also known as Okay, I'm gonna give this a whirl. I think it's his Latin. Yes, yeah, at in Arcadia ego. Les Burger's the Arcadi or the Arcadian Shepherds, and I was painted in sixteen thirty seven or between sixteen thirty seven to sixteen thirty eight.

And it's this fascinating iconic work. You can it's more than worth your time to check it out. And I think some of us listening will be familiar with this painting and know where this is going.

Because it's shepherds that are around a tomb, right, and then they have very specific hand gestures that they're doing, and it's check it out.

So there are four figures in the in the painting, there are three shepherds, there's a female figure gathered around this tomb, as you said, Matt, and two of the shepherds are pointing at the tomb and in a real sketchy way, you know what I mean. And on this tomb there's this Latin text at in Arcadia Ego, which translates to I am even in Arcadia or I am also in Arcadia. You'll hear other versions with like even in arcadia, am I M whatever, it's Latin, it's really

The first big thing you'll notice if you're looking at the monument, the Sugbro monument, is that there is an extra sarcophagus that's sitting on top of a tomb inside the original painting, which you go, Okay, I wonder what that could mean. An extra tomb. Maybe there are two people in tomb that we need to be thinking about in this Who knows it could be more cryptic than that. Let's move on because the other thing is that there are two stone heads above the image from the painting. Okay,

That's right, yes, yes, And while the sculpture itself is impressive, most people are are kind of over the sculpture. They're more fascinated by this inscription carved below it. At first glance, it seems simple. It's as you said, beat, it's a scant two lines of text. Yes, and it looks very confusing. It looks like the worst wheel of fortune.

Clue Ever, I'm going to do a version of your Skyroom of how I would do it.

Chance here, Wow, that was great?

Is that? Did it blow out? Like crazy?

Try?

Okay?

All right, cool?

We got protections against that, against the dark arts. I would do it more as like, oh, that's great, okay, because the double V at the end gives you yeah, how do you how do you add in the D in the M though? This is a separate line.

Yeah, yeah, so this is that's the top line O U O S V A V V and it's encapsulated or bookended by these letters at the bottom line. So if you look at the second at the second line, the line below O U O S V A V v U, there is a letter D below and to the left of the first O if you're looking at it, if you're looking straight at it, and there's an M below and to the right of the last V. So when you put it all together, that's what it looks like.

Yeah, exactly, because a lot of people have been trying to figure out since this thing was put up what exactly it means, and nobody has, let's say, sufficiently come up with an answer. But again, even if you think you completely got the answer, there's a matter of proving it, because who's gonna prove it to you anyway. We'll get into that right now, because let's go through some of the people who've actually attempted several charles in here.

It's very Charles Heavy Charles Dickens. We may be familiar with some of his work. He wrote a ton of things that are popular in West drink Cannon and he was defeated by this series of letters. He tried and he failed.

And we have another important British Charles also with a D for her last name, Darwin, who apparently ate every animal that he documented.

True story that was, wasn't it.

Yeah yeah, wait, you're telling me he was out there in the Galapagos and he was just going to town. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess when you're in the Galapagos.

Well, he apparently had a history. He was in some kind of club of exotic meats at Cambridge or whatever, where he would eat like albatrosses and egrets and weird, you know, stringy gamey meats, and he.

Kept he carried that spirit right into his research. That is like one of the most elite clubs I've ever heard of.

He called he apparently defended. We learned this from Jack O'Brien. Apparently he defended He defended this practice by say it was for science, but he ate like twenty tortoises or something.

Yeah, to the point where I think he threatened their very existence on Set Island because he's thought of as this like great conservationist and that really was not his bag at all. He was mortisis scientist, research or documentary and a devourer.

There we go, lifest dollar.

Yet he mastered the tortoise, he discovered the secret of evolution, and yet he could not surmount these letters.

Wow, neither could a man named Josiah Wedgewood. He was one of the godfathers of industrialization, and oh man, he he got out all the steam works. He like figured out, Okay, we're gonna do this whole thing. We're gonna uh, we're gonna get an assembly line and figure out how to do this. And guess what.

Nope, Nope, he couldn't. Even though he uh industrialized the manufacture of pottery, which you know, that's important. It sounds it sounds weird now, but it was a bit. To take our word for it. He was a big deal. Maybe a subject for a different episode, but here we are. It's twenty nineteen and those old ants and bros Are long since gone to dust and death. The guys who actually made the thing, yeah, well, the guys who commissioned it.

Well, yes, Okay, you're right, But the ones who commission are generally the ones who have the meaning right because the person who sculpted it and chiseled it just knew all that goes there. Yeah, got his marching orders.

Good call. So here we are, and people, everyone still wonders what on earth this code could mean, And just as importantly, everyone is still wondering whether someone has finally solved it. What are we talking about? Will tell you after a word from our sponsor, and we're back.

And I just have to say, Paul was trying to get us to go to ad break for like ten minutes there, and it was so much fun to watch Paul and continually not Tom like, oh yes, of course, but when I could see where exactly we were going. Oh, toying with you, Paul is one of my greatest excitements. Here's where it gets crazy.

So over the past few centuries, numerous people have made varying claims about this inscription. That includes conjecture about the intent, any some kind of explanation or origin story, and most importantly, the meaning.

So let's look at the theories in no particular order. Some are a little out there, some may seem more mundane, but we want to see which one sound the most reasonable to you. So there's an author named Dave Ramsden. In a twenty fourteen book, he references manuscript efidence from the local record office and he says that based on what he found, Thomas Andson's peers thought the monument was a funereal structure that was dedicated to some figure known

By the way, the dismannabus that you heard us talking about, it's in reference to Roman spirits or goat, not ghosts, but spirits of people who have died. It's kind of really interesting because it has actually further back or it has pagan roots as well. So just an interesting thing when you connect it up with what Ben is just talking about there. I don't know, was it in the spirit and a ghost man. Well, isn't it the same thing by the ghost get is trapped and caught behind right?

Ah, yes, they cannot believe. Maybe I like that behind that okay.

And also but having that name Magdalen, I mean, come on, we all know that might be referring to right old Mary Mary Magdalene. Hmmm.

Yes, the plot thickens, but that's not the only thing. Just spoiler alert. People disagree with this author. In another book called Anson's Gold, a fellow named George Edmund says that we have to remember George Anson was a navel man. He was an admiral, and George Edmund argues that Anson created this cipher to hide the latitude and longitude of an island where he had buried or discovered huge Spanish treasure.

Oh, it's a treasure map, of course it.

Is, yeah, and that he mounted a secret expedition in the eighteenth century to recover this treasure, which was located, but due to unforeseen circumstances, left where it was found.

Oh, man, do you think it's in that one, that one giant hole, you know, the one I'm talking about Oak Island? Yeah?

Man, do you think they're really finding stuff at Oak Island or do you think that the production team is.

Slipping growing stuff into the hole feathers?

And I mean, I I don't know. I don't know. I had heard that, but I don't have a ton of experience. I've never been there.

So it would certainly make for a good TV to have things discovered, That's all I would say. Good point, good point.

So the idea here is that letters in code were sent back to Lord Anson by the expedition leader, and that these validate and include part of the cipher, and that this proves what the cipher is for. So George Edmund isn't necessarily saying that the cipher is solved, but he's saying that's the right direction to look into. And then we have a returning school of thought from a

What was her last name, I believe, m hmm. Yeah, that was a great interview, fascinating story. And the whole idea here, right, is that perhaps the Shepherds of Arcadia, they are in this monument, are actually pointed to something very specific, not necessarily anything to do with the tomb,

Christ.

What what is that?

Do we know?

Somebody somebody call us right, Yeah, it's it's this idea, right, that that Jesus Christ, the historical Jesus Christ, did actually have children, yes.

Or issue as they would be called. And you know, this is very Dan Brown. Dan Brown leans very heavily on this in one of his books, at least in The Da Vinci Code. And the idea is that this bloodline was secreted away and you'll read about it being secreted away in different parts of the world, often France. So that that idea is really interesting because these code breakers, Sheila Lahan and Oliver Lawn are no joke. They are

You know what I mean. They're breaking Nazi codes and then they think that that's what happened, right, or that's they think that that's what the meaning could.

Be, right, And Sheila Lahan said that she believes it may also be kind of a love letter of some.

Sort of Yeah. Well, the other thing you have to remember here is that they're having ideas put out there for them to look for in a way, you know, with the way it was shaped, with the promotion for the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, and for what it could mean. You just just keep that in mind. You're the little skeptic part of the back of your mind that they're being led a little bit.

So already this is this is getting weird, right. You've got we've got someone saying it's the one of the clues to the secret story of Jesus Christ. We've got someone else saying it's buried treasure. And we've got someone else saying that Anson was in love drahps with someone and needed for some reason to keep their identity a secret.

Yeah.

So how does this shake out in the modern day?

Yeah, most of the modern theories approach this from sort of acrostic kind of perspective or like, you know, think about any kind of word patterned patterned word art, I guess where various letters line up, almost like a crossword puzzle, but when across is a specific form of this meaning, they interpret each letter as the initial letter of a larger word.

So like m Att, for example, not to pick on you, like make make alice, take tile it all or whatever.

Absolutely so sort of like a mnemonic device of like the way to remember something or it's They're also very popular in like presentations or kind of like self help, touchy feely kind of you know, office power points. You know about things like synergy and you know thing you know S would stand for super cool and e. Anyway, it's not good. I love that.

I'm fond of making up those.

They're fun when you make them absurd on purpose, but like as an actual motivational device, it sort of illicits an instant I roll because it's sort of like a cliche, right, you know what I mean.

Right, But it's it's just a fundamental exercise. It is tough to take it seriously though, well, it's also tough to do it well.

And that's the joke too, right, is a lot of times they end up people run out of ideas and they just kind of become either redundant or just absurd.

If you're ever in a knife fight, remember to stop. That stands for a stab to other people.

There you go, very very good, very very helpful. But yeah, So in nineteen fifty one, More Charred Bishop or more Card and I'm not going to go with the hard ch speculated that the letters might be an initialism for the Latin phrase optim sorous optimy soros vydue a Montese moose. I want to sing this in like a choir, sorrow ses VDUs a Montese moose vovied veritui boo.

That was great, But the big question is what does that mean for those of us who don't speak Latin. Best of wives, best of sisters, a most devoted widower dedicates parentheses this to your virtues.

Oh that's nice.

See now that's really really nice. So that's that's specifically about George andson, right, And that would mean, if this is correct, that those eight letters are actually just a coded dedication to his wife after she passed away.

Which is interesting because why would you have to put that in code?

Well, it's I think it's less of in code and more of fitting it on monument perhaps, right, And this would be my opinion. His his spouse, by the way, Lady Elizabeth Yorke, daughter of Philip Yorke, first Earl of Hardwick. They did not have any children, but I could see that if it's just a person who spouse died and had the means to give some kind of dedication to her that only maybe even had meaning to him. Maybe, Okay, maybe that's there.

Let's be their private thing. Yeah, I just like it. To me, Alan's surface, it seems it seems very strange and a little bit chuckleworthy that this guy would say, all right, I really love my wife and I think all these wonderful nice things about her, but no one can know. Well, yeah, well, guys, I love my wife. Everyone keep it a secret.

The other don't tell anyone. The other thing that you could say here, just before we move on, is that maybe it was a backhanded thing or like a cruel joke in in her memory, because maybe she wasn't devoted, Maybe she wasn't the best of wives and sisters and devoted.

Uh a little tongue in the cheek.

This is before that forward slash s stand for sarcasms. Yeah, and what.

I need to be I need to use that.

But see, but that way, only he knows that he's being a dick to his wife.

Oh good good, Oh, this is this is terrible. I hope that's not the case. Other people don't think it is, though. There's a guy named Steve Regimbal, who interprets the letters as standing for a new Latin translation of the following phrase vanity, oh vanities saith the preacher all is vanity, oh Ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes twelve eight uh. He speculates that this, this phrase, orator ut omnia vanitas vanitatum, would feel like I just cast a spell.

Yep.

He thinks it may be the source of an earlier inscription only a Vanitas, which might have been carved on an alcove at the estate by one of Thomas Anson's pals, George Lyttleton. Interesting, they keep an eye on that, maybe though, that might and that.

Maybe again this one, this is one of the ones that, yeah, I guess I just don't I need to know more about that, because I vanity of vanities, saith the preacher all is vanity, all is vanity. All worldly things and actions are vanity. It's it's just like carving a giant monument for anything.

Yeah. Well, yeah, well, you know, this reminds me of It reminds me of the Georgia guidestones, that whole idea of like give a little thought to what's important, you know what I mean. It's sort of like, but at least the Georgia guidestones intent was to be understood, right, Yeah, you know, it's not really very cool if you have like a message for the world and no one can understand it, or if they're just wildly speculating about what it means.

That's a good point.

So it may be a personal thing, you know what I mean of personal significance to the ants and brothers, if they are. Indeed the people who inscribed this. The NSA also got involved, so we had us intelligence in there. A guy named Keith Massey. In modern times you'll read some press about him claiming to have solved the letters. He interprets them as an initialism for the Latin phrase oro ut omnes sequant vm vitam.

I pray that all may follow the way to true life. Is this biblical again?

Yeah? Yeah, Johnny four sixteen, John, Yeah, that's really good reference to that verse. Reading John four sixteen read I am the Way, the Truth and the life. He goes something via at veritas at vita.

And that's the one that stone cold Steve Austin had printed on the back of his sleeveless leather jacket.

No. I was three sixteen. That's the one.

That's the go too, that's the go to. Yeah, as a child, I never understood that.

Oh I have way too many of those rattling around in my brain that I could probably well, I'm not even going.

Through versus Wrestler trivia, just versus and Wrestler trivia.

The Yeah, I thought the Undertaker was the coolest, but that's very unbranded for me.

Staying Man three sixteen is just for God so loved the world. Yeah, I didn't realize that. Yeah, that's a very nice message that stone Cold has on his That's very counter to his stone cold image.

You know. For God so loved the world that he made me, and then what does he do?

He does the stunner stunner. Yeah, it reminds me of like jewels in pulp fiction doing that Biblical verse. Only that one gets scary though, that one gets I will strike down upon thee and all that you think anyway.

But which wasn't an actual Bible verse?

You kidding?

No, it's what No, really, it's this whole time man. Sorry, it's an interpretation, let's put it that way.

And maybe it's just vanity. Maybe it all is vanity. But these are just some of the most popular concepts. Now it's time to ask whether any of this checks out, And we'll do just that after a word from our sponsor.

And we're back in Matt, you just wrecked my childhood. That Tarantino line isn't from the Bible. It's a much more elaborated version. The real verse is actually just and I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes. And they shall know I am the Lord when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.

So obviously, well that's one translation. There are so many different ones.

Yeah, but vulgate versions and whatnot. I like the word rebuke. Let's bring rebuke back.

I would rebuke some stuff.

Isn't that as when you like call someone out you take them to task. It's sort of like a rebuttal, but it's a little stronger. It's a little it's like it implies shaming of some sort of finger wagging.

Right, criticizing someone, So it's it's not quite rejecting. It's kind of admonishing, but in a very strong way, kind of like how contempt is worse than dislike.

It's a really good white instant for pretty low manocosts. Just so you know.

You have made so many people's day. It's just that said it.

I don't think I understand the reference.

It's the MTG magic together.

Ah, yes, yes, anytime anytime you say something that I don't understand, I should always assume that it's even when you say MTG, I have to be Madison Square Gardens and.

We're making an acrostic move them giblets. I don't ye, yep, I'm working live here.

But literally all of my vocabulary comes from middle school magic.

The gathering plan.

We should get together and play play magic.

At some point you have to learn first, all of us. Yeah, everyone, like, even even you the listener.

Well yeah, yeah, come hang out, let's play, let's do let's do it.

We'll sneak everyone in. I think it's more fun if we feel like it's a heist.

We'll do an MTG meetup.

MTG conspiracy meetup sounds epic. Meet the group MTG or the gang or the guys.

I like the gang now, but it's not.

An acrosstic and an acronym aren't the same thing, right, I mean they're sort of they're they're kind of no, because this isn't the down word has to be a word in and of itself. Oh right, So MTG, even if it's spelled MTG and Magic Gathering, it's not an acrosstic because MTG is meaningless without representing something.

Yeah, an acronym would be the abbreviation made out of the first letters of the words. So our MTG thing is an acronym. But an acrostic would be uh, some kind of poem or form of writing like you described, where the first letter or syllable or word of each line or spells out a word.

Ah. Uh.

So we've got to ask ourselves, does any of this stuff check out?

Uh? Not?

Not our not our plans to invite everyone to play Magic the Gathering with us, uh and have Matt roundly kick kick the snot out of all of us. Very good at that game. You are lying. You're one of my favorite peopil. But I can tell when you're lying. Oh no, Matt, Matt is really really good at this. Uh. So not talking about that stuff, but talking about this concept.

Uh.

The one that I think really stuck out to us and to a lot of us listening now is the idea of this priory of scion.

I think this is definitely where the mystery heightens.

Right, Yeah, yeah, this is this is a wild one. So this is a fringe I guess secret society. Maybe a fraternal order is a good way to describe it. It was founded. The official stories it was founded and then dissolved in nineteen fifty six by a guy named Pierre Plantart as part of a hoax. But people who buy into the idea think it dates back much much further, you know, back to of course the time of the

I would say I have not read the book, but the film I was happier than a lot of the critics about it.

You enjoyed it, yeah, did you see the subsequent film The.

Inferno, Angels and Demons and Infernos, and I did not.

See was there a third one that was an inferno?

Inferno is the third one? Angels and Demons is the second? Is that correct? Well?

Did this do well? I mean they made three of them, they must have done relatively sure.

Yeah, they had to coast off the blockbuster status expensive.

Oh yeah, okay, so Paul just off Mike or in our ears and at last you will never hear the voice of Paul because if you did, it would melt your insides. It was much like hearing the voice of the archangel Gabriel or something like that. But yeah, he says, Inferno was apparently quite bad. I haven't seen any of them. But the reason I asked did they do well? Is because I just don't really have much of a memory of them existing.

I just remember the lyric of the lure of You guys are great at French.

I'm not even gonna try it yet. Yeah. So this also this book, by the way, the da Vinci Code. Just to be fair, we should say that he did receive criticism from other authors and people familiar with the theory, because you know, the authors of Holy Blend and Holy Grail felt to a large degree that he plagiarized their work. Yeah, and that he was essentially using their research to sell a novel. So that that's the moment, though, that is

Melting, My face is melting, he chose he also should have moisturized.

Well, okay, so but if it's not that cup, then has dastardly powers.

What is it? It's a symbol, it's a code phrase. It's describing the physical descendants of Jesus Christ. If this were true, if this were proven, this would be one of the most significant moments in human history. And we found a provable living descendant of the historical figure known as Jesus Christ. So if that's such an amazing thing, why hide it.

Because it would upend everything, right.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, for most of the last two thousand years, the idea of Jesus Christ having children at all was very heretical, and the Catholic Church worked arduously to control its message, and any splinter groups or dissidence schools of thought were brutally suppressed, murdered wholesale, you know what I mean. Ironically, of course, this is exactly what happened to the first Christians, the predecessors of the Catholics.

New ideas banished the and also torture.

Well, it's you know, when you think about it, they wanted to control a message because they didn't have the cost of communication is so high that when people are in isolation, you know, like in an island off the coast of France or somewhere in North Africa, they can begin to make their own saints, for instance. That's a huge thing even now, right.

Yeah, dude, the more we look at it, it seems, at least in my opinion right now, the brutality of the control mechanisms throughout history do seem eerily necessary in a lot of ways, and that scares me a little bit.

It's a real pos kind of move. But this is the idea. So it would make sense then for this to be kept a secret, because the idea is that the Catholic Church doesn't want this truth to get out. And we know that while we don't know for sure whether this is true or whether it's all you know, speculation, bluff and bluster, we do know that the Catholic Church has in the past run very, very large and ambitious information control campaigns, like for centuries. But is this too weird?

Well, I guess if this is what it is, then it makes so many other things hilarious that have happened with the NSA getting involved in other high profile people trying to solve this thing, when in actuality, perhaps it's just some graffiti left by people who lived in the house or the estate after the money was put there. So okay, So it's this historian aj Morton, and he thinks that the inscription is just was put there in the nineteenth century by residents George Adams and his wife

But Vernon Venables.

That's two these, That's at least two of them, and there are a lot of those.

So Morton, who is an expert in graves and monuments, he said that the letters can be matched to this couple, Adams and Vernon Venables, because they were relations of Tom Ansen. And there doesn't appear to be any reference to the curious letters until the nineteenth century. To Morton, this suggests that they were added later. Nothing in Thomas Anson's life fits the letters in the inscription, except the family of

Do we talk about this on air? I don't know that we have maybe as a casual mention.

So there's this thing in the Haiya sofia these to blow people's minds. It is a runic description called the half Dan inscription and was discovered in nineteen sixty four. And for a while, people, you know, not naturally being prone to reading rooms. For a while people thought, whoa, this is amazing. Vikings got all the way down here and the history is hidden and it goes so much

Yeah, we were quote here that says we get five or six people a week who believe they have solved the code, so we're a bit wary of them. Now exhausted Stratfordshire and shireen Stratfordshire would maybe sheer Stretford sheer well, it's Lancashire, Lancashire. I've always heard Lancashire.

Well, if you want, if the Beatles the Day and the Life of is to be believed, it's ten thousand holes in Blackford, Lancashire.

Yeah, but they were just trying to make it fit the song.

It didn't wasn't a rhymestate.

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