Only Time Will Tell: A Vatican Conspiracy

What happens in the archives stays in the archives.  Nothing more true can be said of the Archives in the Vatican.  Built long before their official establishment in 1475, the Vatican Archives are shrouded in mystery.  They are called “Archivum Secretum Apostolicum Vaticanum”, which is Latin for “The Vatican’s Secret Archives”.  Talk about being subtle.  Almost every Roman Catholic conspiracy theory is linked back to these archives, probably because of this veil of secrecy surrounding them.  Containing 53 million miles worth of books, they’re typically not open to the public, and historically only carefully vetted scholars have been allowed to enter.  However, in 2010, following the release of the movie based on Dan Brown’s book “The Da Vinci Code”, there was an uprising in paranoia about the Illuminati, whether or not this secret society truly exists, and if their roots are really buried deep in the Vatican’s Secret Archives.  To fend off some of these rumours, the Archives opened their doors to allow for select members of the public and journalists (Squires, 2010).  But it’s safe to assume that the most sensitive areas of the Archives aren’t a part of the tour…

In addition to the Illuminati, there are many other well-known conspiracy theories surrounding the Vatican (“6 Creepy Conspiracy Theories,” 2016).  These include the theory (or fact?) that these archives hold the largest pornography collection in the world, and that they contain evidence of Jesus Christ’s bloodline.  Some say that the evidence proves that he was not the Messiah, which is definitely something that the church would want to keep hidden away for all of eternity. But I’m not going to talk about the conspiracy theories that have already been analyzed in excruciating detail.

In this post, I’m going to talk about a lesser known conspiracy theory.  The theory that the Vatican Secret Archives holds a time machine.

In 1965, Father Pellegrino Ernetti, a Benedictine monk, musicologist, and esteemed exorcist set about transferring wire recordings of Gregorian chants to magnetic tape.  Father Gemelli, the university archivist who was assisting him, suddenly heard something that was definitely not Gregorian chants on the magnetic tape.  It sounded like his long-dead father, a shoemaker, arguing with someone else about the price of shoe wax.  Father Gemelli was convinced that this wasn’t his father trying to communicate with him from beyond the grave, but a mystical recording of an event that had taken place decades earlier.

Convinced that this phenomenon was rooted in science, Father Ernetti set about trying to reproduce it.  He earned money from the Vatican to create a “time viewer”.  It is said that great scientific minds of the time, including Wernher von Braun (rocket scientist and former director of NASA), J. Robert Oppenheimer (the creator of the atomic bomb), and Enrico Fermi (creator of the first nuclear reactor) were involved in this project (NightTerrors, 2017; Fanthorpe & Fanthorpe, 2007).

The scientific theory behind the time viewer is that all events leave behind electromagnetic radiation, and that a correctly crafted device could retrieve these events, allowing them to be watched.  The final device, Father Ernetti’s “Chronovisor”, looked like “a large cabinet with a cathode ray tube” (Fanthorpe & Fanthorpe, 2007, p. 62).  There were many knobs and keys and gears that allowed its user to navigate the viewer to different points in time.

Father Ernetti claimed that the project was a success.  He observed a recording of events 150 years in the past – of Napoleon Bonaparte.  But there were two of him.  Does this confirm the conspiracy theory that Napoleon sent a body double into war in his place?

The two most significant historical events that Ernetti observed will be discussed here.  He claimed that he observed a performance of a lost play by Quintus Ennius from 169 BC.  He watched the entire play “Thyestes” and transcribed it in the original Latin.  This is an incredibly peculiar claim, and I could not find any accounts from scholars supporting or negating this transcript.  Surely, experts in the field would be able to identify a fraudulent play?  The most significant “observation” that Father Ernetti made was setting the time viewer in order to observe the crucifixion.  Shortly afterward, the Chronovisor went “missing”, but Ernetti had kept a photograph of Jesus Christ on the cross for his own personal records. The image is chilling, but not enough to make me believe…

The thing that makes the existence of a past-viewer, or a “Chronovisor” more realistic, is that it shows the true past -which cannot be altered (Feeney, 2014).  With the traditional “time machines”, as seen in movies and books, the user travels into the past, inevitably changing it in some way.  This is one of the reasons why time machines are so unbelievable – because of the Butterfly Effect theory.

Nevertheless, this story is still unbelievable.  Is a time viewer even possible?  I watched a YouTube video created by the Kepler Telescope Channel that provided an interesting perspective.  A mirror, in itself, is a simple form of a chronovisor.  When you see your reflection, you’re not seeing yourself now, you’re seeing yourself as you appeared several millionths of a second earlier.  When we look up in the night sky, we see stars that are already dead, but their light is just now reaching us. This video provides some interesting insights into the science of observing something from the past.  Can this theory and evidence be used as proof of the possibility of a past-viewer on earth itself?  Watch the video if you’re interested in seeing for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEEciqAj7Do&t=48s
I still have some major concerns with the concept of the Chronovisor. Wouldn’t you have to be in the location of where the event took place in order to observe its electromagnetic radiation?  Apparently, the Chronovisor can be directed to locate a particular person in the past (Fanthorpe & Fanthorpe, 2007), which doesn’t scientifically make sense.  What are the odds that the University Archivist, Father Gemelli, would have heard his own father arguing about the price of shoe wax while at the University? Unless he had taken his work home with him?  To me, this discrepancy in itself doesn’t negate this discovery, because it’s possible that they lied about what they initially heard, which could have been for a number of reasons.  Hearing your own father makes the story seem much more compelling.  It’s also possible they heard something embarrassing, and they decided to modify the story for public ears.  Whatever they heard, it must have convinced them that they were hearing a past event, or they wouldn’t have set out to create this Chronovisor in the first place…

Another issue would be – how did they access specific points in time?  How would they hear specific events through all the noise of events in between?  Travelling back two thousand years is a long time – wouldn’t it make more sense for the Chronovisor to only be able to record events that are a little more recent?

On his deathbed, Father Ernetti admitted that he embellished upon the truth of the Chronovisor. However, his friend, Father Brune, has since spoken to the man’s integrity, and he claims that the confession was coerced… But by whom?

So, what do you think? Do you think the Chronovisor truly existed? Do you think that it worked? If it did, I’m not surprised that it’s kept tucked away, hidden from humanity.  The Vatican wouldn’t want this device to be in anyone else’s hands…  It could be used for an infinite number of nefarious purposes, from spying on enemies to blackmailing government leaders.  One thing is for certain—if the Chronovisor truly worked, it is unlikely that it hasn’t been used since Father Ernetti “lost” it.  Someone would have gotten their hands on it — whether it’s a government or a secret society. (Illuminati, anyone? 😉 ) They would have experimented and updated it over the years.  Does it now show events in colour?  Has the resolution improved?  Am I being watched, right now, as I write this blog, by the current owner of the Chronovisor who will stumble upon my blog post sometime next week?

References: 

1. Fanthorpe, L., & Fanthorpe, P. (2007). Mysteries and secrets of time. Toronto, ON: The Dundurn Group.
2. Feeney, A.M. (2014). Understanding Future-Viewing Machines and Time Travel. Retrieved from: https://philpapers.org/rec/AARUFM
3. 6 Creepy Conspiracy Theories About the Vatican’s Secret Archives. (2016, July 16). Retrieved from http://blog.serialbox.com/6-popular-conspiracy-theories-vaticans-secret-archives/
   NightTerrors. (2017). Chronovisor. Vatican’s Secret Time Camera. Photograph of Jesus. Father Ernetti Time Machine. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPZKFJ7Ak_4
4. Squires, N. (2010, May 27). The Vatican opens its Secret Archives to dispel Dan Brown myths. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/7772108/The-Vatican-opens-its-Secret-Archives-to-dispel-Dan-Brown-myths.html
5. Image of Vatican Secret Archives from Centro Televisivo Vaticano
6. Christopher Chan. “Vatican Spiral Staircase”. Creative Commons license.  Retrieved from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chanc/

Side note: As a librarian, I have to address the elephant in the room—fake news. A lot of conspiracy theories take root in less than reputable resources—conspiracy bloggers websites, less-than-adequately-researched newspaper articles, magazines…  This doesn’t mean that I can’t use cite these resources in my blog – but I won’t take what they say at face value. We have to critically analyze what we read, otherwise we’re just adding the fuel to the fire of delusional conspiracies that have no ground in fact. Still, this is a blog about the strange and unexplained, and part of the “unexplained” aspect is often a result of it not being studied by mainstream scientists or researchers…