All language subtitles for Weird.Or.What.S01E03.WEBRip.x264-ION10

and may contain
mature subject matter.

Viewer discretion
is advised.

♪
and may contain
mature subject matter.

William Shatner:
You know what?

I've been around
for a while.

I've travelled the world,
met some interesting people,

done some crazy things.

So, you might just think

there's not much
that could take me by surprise.

You'd be wrong.

The world is full
of stories and science

and things that
amaze and confound me

every single day,

incredible mysteries
that keep me awake at night.

Some I can answer.

Others just defy logic.

Like in Germany,
where forensic scientists

testing 3,000-year-old
Egyptian mummies

make one of the most remarkable
and controversial discoveries

in history.

Or the thousands
of sea lions

that leave San Francisco
before an earthquake.

Did they sense
impending disaster?

And in Rome,

a mysterious
medieval book is unearthed.

Do its secrets
hold the fate of all mankind?

Yup...

it's a weird world.

And I love it.

♪

Elementary history
tells us that in 1492,

the great navigator and explorer
Christopher Columbus

travelled from
Spain to the Bahamas,

then on to the Americas.

We all know that Columbus
was the first to bring back

artifacts and treasure

from the New World
of the Americas

to the Old World of Europe.

But is it true?

What if
the historians are wrong

and someone else
did all this

thousands of years
before Señor Colón?

This next weird tale
suggests just that,

and the proof might be found...

in a guy like this.

1992.

A German forensic team makes
an extraordinary discovery.

Inside several
3,000-year-old Egyptian mummies,

they find
what appears to be

evidence of
a hard-core narcotic

not present in Egypt

until the late 19th century.

Outrageous hoax,

or is the impossible true?

The ancient Egyptians

are a constant
source of fascination,

an extraordinary civilization

that gave us the pyramids,

Sphinx

and the dark mysteries
of the mummies.

But new research
has unearthed shocking evidence

that may present them
in a different light

and leads us to ask,

"What was really going on
in the Valley of the Kings?"

It would open a big can of worms
for the scientific community.

William Shatner:
Recent advances
in forensic science

have enabled us
to dig deeper

into our past
than ever before.

But what could it tell us
about the lives of people

who lived 3,000 years ago?

Could forensics
unlock the secrets

of the ancient Egyptians?

Searching for clues,

the German forensic team
began the chemical analysis

of fragile
and priceless ancient mummies.

They're amazed
by what they find.

Inside hair
and tissue samples,

they discover evidence of...

cocaine.

So, how did
these Egyptian mummies,

some dating back
to 300 centuries,

get traces
of cocaine inside them,

thousands of years
before the substance was

thought to have reached
the Middle East?

The only
possible answer, then --

that ancient Egyptians
had the Coca leaf.

In other words,

the Pharaohs made contact
with the native South Americans

several millennia
before Columbus.

Is that weird, or what?

Let's look for answers.

The mystery begins
with the coca plant,

from which cocaine derives,

found only in South America.

The plant is not
native to Africa,

so how did
South American cocaine

get into Egyptian mummies?

Bernard Ortiz de Montellano
is a medical anthropologist.

Like many
in the academic community,

he questioned the findings.

I was very skeptical

and knew I would have to look
at the original literature

and do some research myself.

William Shatner:
Anthropologist Charlene Clingman

is also baffled.

The idea of it appearing
in ancient Egyptian mummies

is surprising.

William Shatner:
Examining the Egyptian

and South American cultures

might help solve
this bizarre mystery.

So, could there
be a connection?

Both civilizations
built pyramids,

and both
mummified their dead.

The Egyptians
used salts and resins,

while the natives of Peru

allowed their mummies
to dry naturally.

But were the Peruvians
using cocaine 3,000 years ago?

Larry Cartmell
is a forensic pathologist.

He has tested
several mummies from Peru.

Dr. Cartmell:
The first few we tested

were all negative,

but then,
out of the eight samples,

number five we tested

was positive.

We had no idea

that cocaine metabolite
would last a thousand years.

And later on,

we found that,
actually,

our oldest one
we've had is 3,000 years old.

Cocaine is
a very good local anaesthetic,

and it's
a very good pain reliever.

So, they could have used it

for medicinal purposes as well.

And then we found that

about half the population
tested positive

for coca leaf use.

So, it was probably
used more frequently

than a lot of
anthropologists

had speculated
up until that time.

William Shatner:
Evidence of Cocaine

in Peruvian
and Egyptian mummies

poses an intriguing question.

Did the cultures
actually interact?

Could the Egyptians
have travelled

to South America?

If someone could prove the
theory of trans-Atlantic travel

and back it up with a
significant amount of evidence,

it would open a big can of worms
for the scientific community.

William Shatner:
Could the Egyptians have made
the perilous Atlantic crossing

before Columbus?

So, here's the problem
for the Egyptians.

A round trip
to go pick up some cocaine

would have been
around 32,000 miles.

First, they would have had
to endure the perils

of Atlantic crossing.

And they would need to sail
around the tip of the Americas.

This is an area
known as Cape Horn,

home to some of the world's
most treacherous waters --

winds so fierce

that even today's ships
struggle to make headway.

If they survived the cape,
they would head north to Peru.

Now, for their time,

the ancient Egyptians
were probably

the most sophisticated
civilization on earth.

But did they really
have the sailing technology

to make such an epic voyage?

The ancient Egyptians

built many of their boats
out of papyrus,

a reed-like plant.

Due to the boat's small size,
primitive sails and rigging,

it is highly unlikely
a vessel like this

could survive a voyage
to South America and back.

It just doesn't seem possible.

It would be an amazing,
amazing feat.

And looking at what
the ancient Egyptians

left behind,

they wrote down
all of their conquests --

the heroic activities
that they embarked upon --

and there is little
to no evidence of that.

There's evidence
of maritime technology,

but there's
nothing that shows

that they came
and saw and conquered.

And there's another problem
with the trans-Atlantic theory.

If the Egyptians
did go to South America,

why didn't they leave a trace?

No artifacts from South America
have ever been found

in ancient Egyptian sites.

One would think
that if they made contact

with the South Americans,

things like corn

or other cultural commodities
would have returned with them,

and that's just not appearing
in the archaeological record.

So, you have no record
in the New World;

they have no record
in the Old World.

There is no record
in Egypt of a trip

that mentions cocaine
or going to the New World

or going
in a reed boat anywhere.

There just hasn't been
anything to support the theory

that these ancient individuals
were making contact,

were actually making
successful journeys

across the Atlantic.

You have to be doing 200,
300 round trips a year

to get that much coca leaf
into the Egyptian population.

So, right there,

you have an
enormous number of assumptions.

William Shatner:
The mystery deepens.

If there was no way for cocaine
to have crossed the ocean,

Why was it found
in Egyptian mummies?

♪

William Shatner:
Traces of cocaine are found
in ancient Egyptian mummies,

2,000 years
before the drug is known

to have reached
the Middle East.

Researchers find no evidence
that ancient Egyptians

travelled to South America
and back again.

So, how could
this have happened?

It could have been
a lab contamination.

It could have been
a transfer contamination.

Any number of the mummies
that you would see

in a museum today
have travelled

beyond getting buried
in their tombs.

And there's plenty
of opportunities

for contamination to occur.

If it was housed in, say,

a crate that might have been
used to hold something else

at one point in time,

there's opportunities
for trace contamination there.

So, we know that there's
no way the Egyptians

made it all the way
over to South America.

Oh, well,
it was fun while it lasted.

Columbus, you can stop
spinning in your grave now.

But the question remains --

how did cocaine

get in
the Egyptian mummies?

The 19th century
was a golden age

of archaeological exploration.

The rediscovery of lost
and ancient civilizations

captured
the public's imagination.

The idea of ancient Egypt
was a sensation.

It was as popular as
our blockbuster films today.

People had an interest in it.

They were reading about it.

They were studying it.

They had a vested interest
in this culture.

They wanted a part of it.

They wanted it as close to them
as in their own homes.

William Shatner:
For the European elite,

owning an Egyptian mummy
was a must-have status symbol.

And a lot of
the ancient Egyptian collections

that are out there have been
housed in people's homes

throughout the years.

Coffins, mummies,
funerary objects --

a lot of it comes
from private collections.

Dr. Montellano:
In those days,

rich people (nobles and kings)
had collections

of all kinds of things.

They would collect
strange animals and shells

and minerals and,
you know, weird things.

Among one of the things
they liked to collect

was Egyptian mummies.

And they'd
have these collections,

their own private
little museums,

which they would use
on social occasions

to take people
and show them their collection.

William Shatner:
The archaeological methods
of the time

were very unsophisticated,

often allowing modern debris

to become trapped
next to the mummified remains.

By the late part
of the 1800s,

cocaine was
introduced into Europe

and commonly used as a medicine.

Is it possible these mummies
somehow became contaminated

during this time?

It's a conceivable situation.

William Shatner:
Hmm, conceivable but improbable.

The evidence of cocaine
found by the forensic team

had been ingested into the body
through eating or inhalation.

These traces then became
incorporated into body tissue

and hair while alive.

Brief contact couldn't
produce the same results.

Plus, the team had
carefully washed their samples

to remove any contaminants.

So, the mystery lives on.

How did these drugs

end up inside
these ancient bodies?

Well...

perhaps these mummies weren't
from ancient Egypt at all.

Charlene Clingman:
During the time period

when ancient Egyptian mummies
were being sold as a commodity,

there is an opportunity
for scam artists to get on board

and create fake mummies
in order to turn a profit.

So, fake mummies
were being produced

and sold abroad

to individuals seeking something

glamorous and interesting.

What they got
might have been

something different
than what they paid for.

And so, there's
enormous demand for mummies,

and,
as I said, in Egypt,

there weren't
that many mummies available.

And so,
what you would do is--

The enterprising people
go out there and get linen,

and they wrap up some cadaver.

So, a fake mummy
is one that has been made

in the 19th century

and then sold
as an authentic mummy,

and the argument
that some people would make

is these fake mummies,
in fact, were contaminated.

William Shatner:
But the mummies examined

by the researchers
aren't fake.

They've been
certified genuine

by the museum
where they reside.

So, for now,

it seems unlikely
we will ever know the truth

of the cocaine mummies.

The researchers
have never let anyone else

test their samples.

And evidence of cocaine
in other Egyptian mummies

has yet to be found.

Charlene:
At the end of the day,
the scientific community

is left with a lot
of open-ended questions.

There's a lot of things
that have yet to be answered.

For now,
this is all we've got.

William Shatner:
Is that weird, or what?

Om.

It's common knowledge
that we human beings

have five senses --

touch, taste, smell,

sound and sight.

But what about
the animal kingdom?

As it turns out,
there are lots of animals

out there that can
sense things that we cannot --

bats use sonar
to perceive objects,

and some
marine life can sense

subtle electrical impulses.

But some creatures

may even have more...

(Dog barking)

mysterious awareness--

Be quiet!

The ability to sense disaster.

San Francisco,
December, 2009.

A mysterious event
shocks the city.

Thousands of sea lions
living on its docks

suddenly disappear overnight.

Days later,
an earthquake rocks the region.

Did the sea lions
sense impending doom?

Weird, or what?

♪

William Shatner:
San Francisco
is one of the most popular

tourist destinations
in America.

One of its leading attractions

is the thousands of sea lions

that live on Pier 39.

They've made this
their happy home

for the past 20 years.

But in December 2009,

something remarkable happened.

Suddenly,
the sea lions were gone.

They virtually
disappeared overnight.

Why?

I can't answer that one.

Man:
That would be like the ravens
leaving the Tower of London.

All this dock
used to be full of them.

Man:
We were quite disappointed
when we came and just saw

one or two pontoons,
you know.

We really don't know
why the animals left.

William Shatner:
Jim Oswald runs the
Bay Area Marine Mammal Center.

He witnessed people's reaction
to the disappearing sea lions.

Jim Oswald:
In November,

that number went from 927

down to 20.

And that really
surprised people.

Especially if you're

expecting to see
massive numbers of sea lions,

to only see 20
is quite a shock.

William Shatner:
It's highly unusual behaviour,

but was there a darker side
to this mystery?

On January 9, 2010,

soon after the sea lions
left San Francisco,

a 6.5 magnitude earthquake

rocked the coast
of Northern California

near the town of Eureka.

The quake left thousands
without power

and caused damage
worth millions of dollars.

The US Geological Survey

is responsible for
monitoring seismic activity

but was unable
to predict the earthquake.

Is it possible the sea lions
sensed it and left?

It's an intriguing theory.

Jim Berkland
is a geologist

and former
US Coast Guard adviser.

He has studied
the ability of animals

to sense disaster
for more than 20 years.

Jim Berkland:
I know animals
can predict earthquakes.

It's clear to me

that they left the Bay Area
for a good reason,

and it wasn't because
the tourists were

failing to
feed them or applaud.

William Shatner:
Jim has found an unusual way
to test his theory.

I started keeping track
of missing pets.

William Shatner:
In 1979,

after four earthquakes
rocked California,

Jim checked
the missing pet ads

at the back
of local newspapers.

He was looking to see
if the number of missing animals

increased before the tremors.

Jim:
We had record numbers
of missing pets

just before local quakes.

Never had seen more than,
oh, about 15 missing cat ads,

and there were 27.

And there were
58 missing dog ads.

These were record numbers.

Something had to be going on
that the animals were alert to.

William Shatner:
Remarkably,
there have been similar reports

of this type
of animal behaviour worldwide.

In may 2008,

residents of Taizhou, China,

witnessed thousands of frogs
cross a bridge.

A few days later,

an earthquake killed
more than 60,000 people.

Can animals sense
something we can't?

Jim:
There are tremendous changes
in the electromagnetic field

in the area of earthquakes.

William Shatner:
Some scientists believe

increased strain
on the earth's crust

near earthquake fault lines

produces
electromagnetic signals

hours before
an earthquake strikes.

Jim:
We know
the electromagnetic field

is troubled by changes
in solar flares,

by stresses in the crust,

and the animals have been using
changes in magnetic field

for navigation
for millions of years.

William Shatner:
But not everyone is convinced

that the sea lions knew
of the impending earthquake.

Kim Raum-Suryan
is a marine biologist

at the Marine Animal Institute

at Oregon University.

I'm sure that
they have the ability

to sense things that we don't,

but there have been
many earthquakes

over the past 20 years,

and the sea lions
have not left San Francisco.

I don't think that they left
because of an earthquake, no.

So, if they didn't
leave San Francisco

because of an earthquake,

why did so many sea lions
leave their home so abruptly?

Why don't we ask them?

Why the sea lions left
is still a mystery,

but where they went
would soon become clear,

thanks to a discovery
in nearby Oregon.

Dan Harkins runs
the Sea Lion Caves

in Florence, Oregon,

500 miles up the coast
from San Francisco.

Just one week after the mass
exodus from San Francisco,

Dan noticed that the population
of sea lions in Oregon

had grown dramatically.

Were these the sea lions
from Pier 39?

Dan Harkins:
The Stellar sea lions

are the largest
of the sea lion family.

This time of year,
in the winter,

we have around 500 Stellar
sea lions inside the cave.

And then,
just before thanksgiving,

we started getting reports that
there were sea lions gathering

about a quarter mile
up the road here.

The numbers were way above
anything we'd ever seen.

So, we investigated,

and we found out
that the beach

was just completely
clustered with sea lions.

So, when you have 2,000 or 3,000
more than we normally do,

people were bringing in cameras
and showing us

what they had taken,
and I just couldn't believe it.

William Shatner:
As the number of sea lions
on the coast of Oregon grew,

it seemed likely they were
the ones missing from Pier 39.

But if it wasn't
an earthquake,

what had driven
thousands of them

500 miles north
of their home in San Francisco?

♪

William Shatner:
Thousands of sea lions
suddenly disappear

from a pier in San Francisco.

Soon after,
they are found 500 miles north.

Why?

Marine biologist
Kim Raum-Suryan

has an incredible theory.

She believes
the answer could lie

with the changes
to the ocean

brought on
by something called El Niño.

The primary reason for them
to travel is to find food.

So, there is a strong
El Niño going on,

and it's driving the prey
to the north.

The sea lions and the
other fish-eating birds

are taking advantage of that.

William Shatner:
El Niño is a periodic
change in climate

that warms the subsurface
of the Pacific Ocean

by several degrees.

It can dramatically affect
weather around the world.

But could El Niño
be responsible

for the sea lions'
disappearance as well?

Maybe.

Kim believes
the powerful El Niño of 2010

could have caused sardines
and herring to travel north,

in search of cooler,
food-rich waters,

with the sea lions
in close pursuit.

So, since sea lions
can't order takeout,

is it possible

they just went out for dinner?

Kim:
The fact that we're seeing
so many bait fish

off of the Oregon coast
this year--

We're seeing
a lot of young sardines.

We're seeing
record numbers of gulls.

We're seeing record numbers
of brown pelicans,

and they're staying here
during the winter,

where they usually head south.

The food is
really good here right now,

and the sea lions
are taking advantage of that.

So, my guess is that
the reason they left Pier 39

is just because there was
a lack of food in that area.

So, they took off
in search of food.

William Shatner:
So, what is the answer
to the mystery

of San Francisco's
disappearing sea lions?

Did they predict
an impending earthquake?

Were they simply chasing food,

or was it something else?

Scientists may never know,

but there is a happy ending.

In February 2010,

three months
after their disappearance,

the sea lions returned
to their home on Pier 39.

So, the mystery remains,

but perhaps now,

San Franciscans can rest easy.

Is that weird, or what?

What would you say if I told you
that there was a book...

a book
containing the secrets

of the dark arts
of alchemy and wizardry,

a book that can
literally reveal

all the mysteries
of the universe,

a tome that
threatens everything

our entire civilization
is founded upon.

You'd say,
"Yeah, right."

But...

I'd bet you'd
still want to see it.

Throughout history,

mysterious books and writings

have caused panic
and controversy.

Some believe that
in his book,

"The Prophecies,"

Nostradamus predicted
the rise of Hitler,

the 9/11 attacks,

the end of the world.

But there's another mysterious
book that many believe contains

other cataclysmic predictions.

Its dark secrets
are yet to be revealed.

Historians,
linguists and code breakers

are attempting
to decipher its meaning.

What will they reveal?

Experts worldwide
are obsessed by this...

item --

MS 408 of the Rare Book
and Manuscript Library

at Yale university,
its current home.

Nicholas Terpstra:
The first impression was that
it's extraordinarily bizarre

but that
it's also oddly familiar.

On one level,

it looks like something
you've seen before.

But the more you look at it,
the more you realize

that it's really
like nothing you've seen before.

So, only gradually
do you become aware

that this isn't a normal
kind of manuscript at all.

William Shatner:
This mysterious book

is better known
as the Voynich manuscript.

It was discovered in 1912

by rare book dealer
Wilfrid Voynich

in a
Jesuit library near Rome.

Its author
has never been revealed.

Nearly 100 years later,

historians like
Professor Nicholas Terpstra

are still trying to decipher
the manuscript's contents --

unidentifiable plants--

Are these the plants
from the Garden of Eden?

William Shatner:
Strange astrological symbols--

Is this somehow the astrology

of another level
of the universe?

William Shatner:
And most mysterious of all,

pages of text that,
100 years later,

still remain undeciphered.

As you try to
read the lettering,

you realize that it's completely
impossible to decipher.

If we can just break it out,

we'll find the answer
to everything.

A manuscript that promises
to change the world,

and no one
can read the thing?

And if that
wasn't enough,

no bio
on the back cover?

No one knows
who wrote it?

So, is there anything we do know
about the Voynich manuscript?

Well, in 2009,

researchers at the
University of Arizona

carbon dated it and discovered
it may have been produced

in the first half
of the 15th century,

and that fact

opens up
a whole world of theories.

You won't believe
what I'm seeing here.

♪

William Shatner:
Experts are trying to unlock

the secrets
of the Voynich manuscript,

a mysterious book
discovered in 1912.

What mysterious secrets does
the Voynich manuscript contain?

Could there be predictions,
like those of Nostradamus,

prophesizing our doom?

To begin,

investigators needed to find out
when it was written.

In 2009,
they got a significant clue.

Researchers at the
University of Arizona

carbon dated the parchment.

They discovered
it might have been produced

in the first half
of 15th century.

Could this
vital piece of evidence

reveal the secrets
of the Voynich manuscript?

Medieval Europe was a continent
emerging from the dark ages

into a new dawn
of innovation and discovery.

The early 15th century

is a time
of extraordinary expansion,

expansion of people's
creativity, curiosity.

William Shatner:
This new era of innovation

fuelled interest
in more controversial beliefs,

like alchemy
and other dark arts.

Books were written which
contained what many believed

were ancient scientific
or alchemical techniques.

One of the most famous
was Giambattista della Porta's

famous "Magia Naturalis."

Books of secrets
were common at the time.

The notion was that

the only truths
that are really important

are the truths that
aren't immediately apparent,

so that true knowledge
is secret knowledge.

And the way to
get secret knowledge

was usually
by revelation of some kind.

So, there's a whole tradition
that goes back to the Greeks

of books of secrets
that explain, then,

the secret knowledge
of the universe,

the secret connections
within the universe,

and then
the way to probe this,

to understand it and,

normally, then,
to try to work with it.

So, the whole idea of a book
of secrets is that it's like

a technical manual

for controlling
the powers of the universe.

William Shatner:
But for a time,

these ancient truths
were heresy.

To avoid persecution,

many authors would find ways

to disguise sensitive
information in their writings.

Professor Terpstra:
So, it tended to be things

they wanted to hide
for political purposes.

William Shatner:
One of the most
common forms of disguise

was to compose in a language
few people could read.

Professor Terpstra:
You do find there's
a whole range of languages

that people are rediscovering.

This is the time period,
early 15th century,

when people are
reacquainting themselves

with things like
Egyptian hieroglyphics.

There's also a real
curiosity about learning,

about, particularly,
finding out

what the ancient Greeks
and the ancient Romans knew

and trying to take
that knowledge and bring it back

into contemporary society.

So, everybody thought
that the way to the future

lay through the past.

They're looking
for ancient knowledge

anywhere they can get it --

the more ancient,
the better.

William Shatner:
Have you ever heard of
a language called Eyak?

Eyak.

No, no, "Eyak."

See? I thought not.

This was a language that
was spoken by native Alaskans,

and let me emphasize "was."

In 2008,

the last person
who could speak Eyak died.

Languages come and go.

In fact, of the nearly 7,000
languages around the world,

500 of them --

that's 500 of them --

are teetering
on the edge of extinction.

Is it possible
that the Voynich manuscript

is the remnant of a forgotten,
extinct language?

Is the Voynich manuscript

a remnant
of an ancient language

rediscovered by
a 15th-century scholar?

Stephen Chrisomalis
is a linguistics expert.

Throughout history,

there must have been
tens of thousands,

if not hundreds of thousands,
of languages spoken,

most which
of are now long extinct.

The Voynich manuscript
is fascinating

because it's so close to
something that we could decipher

and we could read.

Many of the letters
look like letters

in the Roman alphabet,
and yet,

as soon as you get into it,
it falls to pieces.

William Shatner:
Linguists call the text found
in the Voynich manuscript

"Voynichese."

If it is indeed a language,

its complex designs
make Voynichese

almost impossible to recognize.

While it appears to have
some familiar characters,

what they mean and how
they relate to each other

has experts baffled.

In most languages,

if you look
at a page of text,

the most common words
in that text will be short.

So, if you were to go to
your shelf and pick out a book,

I could absolutely tell you
with 100% certainty

that the common words
will be nice, short words --

"the," "a," "of," "it," etc.

In the Voynich manuscript,

the most common words
aren't short words,

and that's a mystery.

William Shatner:
The Voynich manuscript seems
as technically sophisticated

as a real written language,

but, incredibly,
it bears no resemblance

to any other language
that we know of.

But some historians believe
that was the intention

and the Voynich manuscript's
unknown author

didn't want
its secrets revealed --

ever.

Could the secret knowledge
within the Voynich manuscript

have been
disguised with a code,

perhaps a
medieval cipher text?

Aw.

You know what
a cipher is, right?

It's a way you can encrypt
or de-crypt something --

uh, jumble things up
to hide sensitive information.

Have you ever
done a cryptogram?

Well, that's a cipher --

a simple
letter-substitution game.

Not for me.

I suck at it.

The simplest type of code
is a simple substitution cipher,

where you take one letter
of the alphabet

and replace it with another.

So, "A" would be encoded
by (B, C) "D."

So, while a message
encrypted by this cipher

might look unintelligible,

if you study it closely,
you'll start to see patterns.

William Shatner:
The problem,
as some of the greatest

code breakers
in history have discovered,

is finding those patterns
in the Voynich manuscript.

By the second world war,
the art of encrypting documents

had been nearly perfected
by the Germans'

Enigma cipher machine.

To crack the Enigma's code,

Allied code breakers
had to push their technology

beyond its limits.

The governments brought together
teams of hundreds

if not thousands
of their brightest minds

to try to figure out
how these ciphers,

how these substitutions,
were working.

And in order
to break the codes,

they had to try
thousands and thousands

and thousands
of different combinations,

to the point where it
couldn't really be done by hand,

and they had to invent machines
to break the codes for them.

William Shatner:
Aided by Colossus,

the world's first electronic
programmable computer,

the Allies deciphered
what was then

the most complex code
in history.

But then they tried to break
the Voynich manuscript.

So, many of these cryptographers

from the UK and the
United States and elsewhere,

who had broken these
extremely difficult ciphers

from the 20th century,

tried to break
this 15th century cipher.

So, why is it
that they failed?

William Shatner:
Even to the world's best minds,

the Voynich manuscript
seems impenetrable.

If it's a code,
no one can break it.

If it's a language,
no one can understand it.

Everything seen on its pages
is a mystery.

Gordon Rugg is a Voynich expert.

He believes
he might have the answer.

He feels the mystery is not

what we can see
in the manuscript

but what we can't.

Professor Rugg:
Even the most perfectionist
modern calligraphers

still make some mistakes.

They have to erase
those mistakes,

scratch the parchment clean
and then write the correct text.

There's no evidence of that
happening in the manuscript.

William Shatner:
But the perfection found
in the Voynich manuscript

could also be its downfall.

♪

William Shatner:
Code breakers and scientists

are unable to uncover
the mysterious secrets

of the Voynich manuscript.

Professor Gordon Rugg
believes he has the answer.

The simplest explanation
for the Voynich manuscript

is that it's a hoax.

It's a brilliant hoax.

It's an amazing hoax.

A hoax that lasts
for 500 years.

Hoax?

What?

All the secrets of the universe
are not in this one book?

That raises
a kind of obvious question.

Why would anyone do that?

It must have taken years.

Didn't they have
anything better to do?

So, what could it be?

Well, let me think.

Hmm, why do most people
do anything?

Usually because of this.

Could it be that
the manuscript was faked

to make money?

Could the Voynich manuscript
be a perfect crime

created by
a medieval prankster?

To investigate,

experts would need to
go back to the 15th century.

Works like those of Nostradamus
were hugely successful

when they were
first published.

The educated classes
revered any book

that promised
the secrets of the universe.

There would be a big market
for something like this,

precisely because
it's so strange and rare

and because it's so secret.

For a renaissance banker,

owning a manuscript
was like owning a Van Gogh

to a modern-day
Wall Street banker.

It shows that you're
about more than money.

William Shatner:
Even if there was
a financial incentive

to create the manuscript,

how could its author make it
appear as technically consistent

as real language?

Professor Rugg:
Most people
have previously assumed

that to create something the
size of the Voynich manuscript

as meaningless gibberish
would take decades.

If you try making up gibberish
out of your head,

it's surprisingly difficult.

You start repeating yourself
over and over again.

That would be
easily detectible.

William Shatner:
But Professor Rugg
has an incredible new theory --

creating the manuscript
was actually easy --

and today,
he is going to

put his theory
to the test.

I think that
what we'll see today

is large quantities
of text coming out,

text which has got similar
characteristics to Voynichese,

in different ways.

I think another thing
we'll see today is how quickly

text can be produced
using this method,

whether or not it would be
feasible to use this method

to produce
a meaningless hoax for profit.

William Shatner:
Gordon hopes his experiment

will reveal
how the author created

an indecipherable manuscript

quickly and easily.

To begin, Gordon is using
three world-class calligraphers.

Working on a table
consisting of 600 blank squares,

the calligraphers copy

random syllables
from the Voynich manuscript

into the squares,

leaving some of them blank.

Three squares are then
cut in random positions

from heavy cardboard,
called a grill.

The grill is then placed
anywhere on the table.

This simple technique
reveals a Voynichese word.

Finally,

the word is copied
onto a page of manuscript.

The grill slides
to the right,

and it's repeated.

Using this method,
the entire Voynich manuscript

could be created in weeks.

These people have produced text
that looks like Voynichese,

and they've produced it fast.

At this speed,
you would be able to produce

the entire manuscript
in a matter of weeks

with a team like this.

So, I think this shows that
my method is certainly feasible.

William Shatner:
The experiment suggests that
the author could have created

the Voynich manuscript quickly

and out of greed.

But until
the truth is revealed,

for many,
the mystery remains.

If this remarkable book
does contain

dark and mysterious secrets,

we'll need to discover
new ways of finding them.

Weird...

or what?

I've got it.

I can read this.

"You saw...

"Tekamah as etceterac.

"Go to now recovery

"in Zulcara."

Professor Terpstra:
It's so close to what we know,

and yet it's so far
from what we can decipher.

So, it's something that lies
just outside our grasp.

We need to find out
what's in there

because it is so intriguing.

William Shatner:
So, there we have it --

three strange
and mysterious stories

but each with many plausible
theories to explain them.

How did traces of cocaine
end up on Egyptian mummies

up to 3,000 years old?

A 19th century scam,

or must history be rewritten?

Did the ancient Egyptians
travel to South America?

Did thousands of sea lions
suddenly leave San Francisco

simply because they were
following their source of food,

or do they have the power

to sense earthquakes?

And is the
Voynich manuscript

a meaningless hoax?

Is it written
in a forgotten tongue,

or does this medieval tome

contain dark,
coded secrets?

You decide.

Join me next time

for more stories
that will undoubtedly be...

weird, or what?"

Join me next time.