[Music]
00:05
[Music]
00:11
Heat.
00:16
Heat.
00:22
According to legend, in 1819, a group of
00:30
men bury a fabulous treasure in the
00:34
Virginia
00:36
countryside of gold and silver and
00:38
jewels worth tens of millions of
00:40
dollars.
00:43
Their leader, Thomas Beal, writes down
00:45
the treasur's location in a secret code.
00:48
He entrusts an inkeeper with its
00:55
safekeeping, vowing to
00:57
return. But then Thomas Beal vanishes.
01:01
Not only does Thomas Beal disappear, his
01:06
whole party disappears. It's complete
01:08
mystery. Years later, two brothers,
01:10
George and Clayton Hart, take up the
01:14
challenge of cracking Beal's mysterious
01:16
code to recover his glittering
01:18
treasure. During their 50-year quest,
01:23
they turned to the world's most famous
01:27
code
01:29
breakers and even the supernatural.
01:32
[Music]
01:36
But when someone is hot on the trail of
01:38
a treasure, they will use every possible
01:40
means at their
01:44
disposal. In the 19th century, a seance
01:48
was science. He genuinely believes that
01:52
mesmeriism will uncover the location of
01:55
this treasure.
01:58
Theirs is an extraordinary quest to
02:00
unravel the mystery of Thomas Beiel's
02:03
lost
02:06
[Music]
02:07
[Music]
02:16
treasure. The story begins in southern
02:22
USA in 1897.
02:25
at the offices of the Norfolk and
02:29
Western Railroad Company in Rowanoke,
02:31
[Music]
02:35
Virginia. Clayton Hart, a 25-year-old
02:39
Clark, spent his working day
02:42
transcribing documents for his
02:44
employer. A man like Clayton Hart, his
02:48
life is rather humrum and boring. I
02:51
think a lot of wrote clerical work. And
02:54
I can imagine that he is looking at the
02:57
world and saying there must be something
02:59
more than my work a day
03:01
[Music]
03:04
existence. One summer morning a senior
03:06
colleague asked Hart to make copies of a
03:09
document. It was a routine
03:13
request but this document was far from
03:16
ordinary.
03:20
Clayton Hart looks at the papers and
03:24
they've got sets of numbers on them.
03:25
There's no context, no clues, no
03:27
history, no nothing. It's just numbers.
03:29
What are they for? Where does this
03:33
lead? Clearly, these numbers are meant
03:39
to signify something. They can engender
03:42
that spark of curiosity. I must find out
03:45
what this means.
03:48
Hart's colleague explained that he
03:51
believed the numbers could reveal the
03:53
location of an extraordinary
03:55
[Music]
03:58
treasure. Buried for almost a century
04:00
under the Virginia
04:03
soil. As far as he knew, the treasure
04:06
still lay undiscovered out there
04:09
somewhere.
04:11
this clerk in this big office can just
04:15
suddenly imagine a completely different
04:18
world and can imagine an adventure that
04:20
is seeming to stare him right in the
04:22
face. So you could see how that would be
04:24
very exciting, a very exciting prospect
04:28
and and the opportunity to break out of
04:30
his humrum existence.
04:34
[Music]
04:37
So Clayton Hart doesn't know at this
04:43
particular moment, of course, that this
04:45
is going to be his life's work. He's
04:47
going to dedicate his entire life to
04:48
discovering the location of this
04:51
treasure horde.
04:53
Clayton Hart made his own copies of the
05:05
numbered pages and from his family home
05:07
in Rowanoke began work to decipher the
05:10
strange and puzzling
05:13
codes. The question is, does Clayton
05:18
Hart have a chance of solving this
05:21
cipher? He's an amateur, but it's not a
05:22
big mathematical cipher. There's a trick
05:25
to it. Maybe you can solve this.
05:28
Clayton scoured the code for clues. He
05:31
tried to identify patterns and establish
05:34
relationships between the
05:36
numbers. But after weeks of effort, he
05:47
had got nowhere.
05:50
He desperately needed to find a new
05:54
lead. If he had any hope of getting his
05:56
hands on the buried treasure.
05:59
So if you can't figure out the code, you
06:02
can at least figure out who was the
06:03
author of the code. What kind of a
06:05
person was this author?
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He begins to speculate that perhaps if
06:11
he had some biographical information,
06:14
some knowledge about where they came
06:16
from, then he could begin to try and
06:17
unpick these
06:20
[Music]
06:22
codes. Hart made
06:27
inquiries and soon received his first
06:32
clue.
06:35
[Music]
06:37
He discovered that a man named James
06:40
Ward had published a strikingly similar
06:42
code in a pamphlet printed 12 years
06:45
earlier in Lynchburg,
06:49
Virginia. When Clayton Hart finds out
06:53
about a pamphlet that was written only a
06:55
decade before that, very similar
06:57
sounding to what he's got, he's very
06:59
excited. He has to go and see it. This
07:01
is the only real clue he's got that
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isn't a number.
07:06
[Music]
07:11
Hart set out for Lynchber, 50 mi away to
07:15
the
07:19
east. He scoured the city's bookshops
07:23
for the mysterious
07:26
[Music]
07:30
pamphlet. Eventually, he found it.
07:32
A small 20page booklet published in
07:38
1885 by a James B.
07:42
Ward. What he reads is the Beal
07:51
papers containing authentic statements
07:54
regarding the treasure buried in 1819
07:57
1821 near Bufords in Bedford County,
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Virginia.
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On closer inspection, Hart noticed that
08:07
the pamphlet contained three sets of
08:10
numbers. The same numbers that have been
08:13
puzzling him for
08:16
weeks. You can almost feel his heart
08:18
start to pound as he recognizes that
08:21
this is the very same material that he
08:25
has, which must have convinced him,
08:27
well, this is too much to be
08:30
coincidental. There must be something
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true. This must be true.
08:33
What an exciting thing. What's been a
08:38
set of numbers is now treasure. Actual
08:40
treasure. Could it get any better than
08:44
that? Clayton Hart had hit the
08:47
[Music]
08:50
jackpot. But who was the be referred to
08:52
in the
08:56
title? And where was the mysterious
08:57
treasure buried?
09:00
Hungry for more clues, Clayton Hart read
09:03
the pamphlet from cover to
09:06
cover. Its pages contained a tangled
09:08
story of mystery and intrigue.
09:12
Hart learned that in
09:25
1821 a mystery man was a guest at the
09:27
Washington Hotel in
09:30
Lynchburg. He gave his name as Thomas
09:32
Beal. He entrusted the hotel's
09:36
proprietor, Robert Morris, with a locked
09:39
box for safekeeping.
09:42
This seems strange to us, but actually
09:45
this was quite common at this time. An
09:47
inkeeper is actually one of the most
09:50
trustworthy people that you can hand
09:51
documents to. So many people would hand
09:54
documents and private possessions to an
09:57
inkeeper for
10:01
safekeeping. Be then disappeared without
10:04
a trace.
10:08
But several months later, Morris the
10:18
inkeeper received word from his former
10:20
[Music]
10:23
guest. There's a letter from St. Louis
10:26
instructing Morris that if Beal does not
10:29
return after a certain period of time,
10:32
10 years, that Morris is to open this
10:34
mysterious locked box.
10:37
[Music]
10:42
Heart read that Morris waited 23 years
10:44
before opening the
10:47
box. Inside he discovered a stack of
10:57
papers, one of which is a letter
11:01
addressed to him. And in it is this
11:03
fantastic account of how Thomas Beal
11:05
came by this vast amount of gold and
11:08
treasure while he was journeying in the
11:12
[Music]
11:19
west. The story goes that in
11:22
1817 Beal and a group of companions set
11:25
out into the west to hunt buffalo.
11:29
They journeyed from their home in
11:34
Virginia across country towards the
11:36
Rocky Mountains of
11:39
[Music]
11:41
Colorado. Whilst exploring the rugged
11:50
terrain, some of Beiel's men made an
11:53
amazing discovery.
11:56
So he tells the story that as they are
11:58
hunting these
12:01
[Music]
12:02
buffalo. They stumble on a gold
12:04
mine. The men abandoned the buffalo hunt
12:10
and began extracting the gleaming ore.
12:13
[Music]
12:18
[Music]
12:24
They spend 18 months, the 30 of them,
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toiling away, pulling out thousands of
12:32
pounds of gold and silver, and they
12:34
debate what it is that they want to do
12:37
with this. How do they want to store it?
12:38
How do they share it with their
12:41
families?
12:42
Clayton Hart read that Beal and his men
12:47
had decided to take their wealth back to
12:50
Virginia. On route, they stopped in St.
12:54
Louis. There they traded the ore for
12:58
gold coins, silver bars, and precious
13:00
jewels.
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[Music]
13:08
They then transported their booty back
13:10
to Virginia in two separate trips. One
13:12
in 1819 and another in
13:15
1821. At that time, banks were not
13:20
considered to be safe. So they stashed
13:24
their fortune in a top secret location
13:26
in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains.
13:29
[Music]
13:36
The pamphlet explained. Beiel then
13:37
encoded the treasure's hidden location
13:40
in an inciphered
13:42
message. Hart was captivated. Could this
13:45
treasure really be buried in the
13:49
Virginia mountains?
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Heart read that along with the letter,
13:59
Morris, the inkeeper, had found three
14:02
sheets of paper inside the mysterious
14:04
box. On each was written line after line
14:07
of what seemed like random
14:11
numbers. The pamphlet explained that
14:15
these numbers form three inciphered
14:17
messages written by Beal.
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Paper one contained the exact location
14:26
of the
14:29
treasure. Paper two was an inventory of
14:30
the
14:34
treasure. And paper three was a list of
14:35
to whom the treasure belonged.
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This is the moment where it all links
14:42
together. It's perfect. It's a treasure
14:43
hunt and he's on the treasure hunt. It's
14:46
his treasure.
14:48
The question was, could this code be
14:50
cracked to reveal the treasure's
14:52
location? Clayton Hart turned the page,
14:54
searching for more
14:57
[Music]
14:59
clues. He read that the inkeeper Morris
15:03
spent nearly 20 years trying to crack
15:06
the
15:09
codes, but the challenge defeated him.
15:10
He passed the codes and Beiel's letters
15:20
to an unnamed
15:23
friend. That friend then wrestled with
15:29
the problem for
15:32
years and eventually made a breakthrough
15:35
on paper, too.
15:38
Morris's unnamed friend makes a really
15:46
good
15:49
guess that what he's looking at in these
15:49
ciphers is a dictionary cipher where
15:53
each number tells you the index of a
15:55
word in a book or paper or something.
15:59
And by looking at the first letter of
16:02
that word, you can decrypt the
16:04
message. He tries lots of different
16:11
books. He tries the Declaration of
16:15
Independence and wonderfully,
16:27
marvelously, it comes out.
16:34
Starting by consecutively numbering the
16:40
words of the declaration, the inkeeper's
16:42
friend began to decode the second
16:45
paper. He referenced the code's numbers
16:49
to the first letters of the numbered
16:52
declarations words and amazingly Beiel's
16:55
cipher began to unravel.
16:58
[Music]
17:03
So using the Declaration of Independence
17:04
and going through these numbers, you
17:07
might end up with the letters from the
17:09
beginning I H A V E D E P I have
17:10
deposited and then the rest of the
17:16
message comes out in that way.
17:18
The pamphlet contained a full
17:22
transcription of the decoded second
17:24
paper. It was as though Thomas Beal was
17:27
speaking to Clayton Hart from beyond the
17:30
grave.
17:33
[Music]
17:34
I have deposited in the county of
17:37
Bedford about four miles from Bufords in
17:39
an excavation or vault the following
17:43
[Music]
17:47
articles. The first deposit consisted of
17:49
1,14 lb of gold and 3,812 lb of silver.
17:52
The second consisted of
18:02
197 lb of gold and 1,288 lb of
18:05
silver. Also jewels obtained in St.
18:11
Louis and valued at
18:15
[Music]
18:17
$13,000. Clayton Hart was
18:21
overwhelmed. Here in black and white was
18:24
not only evidence that the treasure was
18:28
real, but also what it was
18:29
worth. A truly phenomenal sum that today
18:33
would be worth over $60
18:38
million. The pamphlet also included one
18:41
vital clue to its location, that it was
18:44
buried underground about 4 miles from a
18:48
place called Buford's Tavern.
18:51
So from the perspective of Clayton Hart,
18:55
this is wonderful news because it means
18:58
that the codes can actually be cracked.
19:00
Hart was stunned. It then occurred to
19:07
him if the Declaration of Independence
19:09
was the key to the second Beal paper,
19:12
maybe other well-known published texts
19:15
could unlock the first paper, the one
19:18
that contained the precise location of
19:21
the
19:24
treasure. He was convinced that he was
19:25
on the verge of becoming rich beyond his
19:28
wildest dreams.
19:31
[Music]
19:37
Hart headed back to Rowanoke. Keen to
19:45
test his
19:48
theory, he enlisted the help of his
19:51
brother, George, a trainee lawyer with
19:53
dreams of opening offices in Washington,
19:57
DC.
20:00
of the two brothers. He's the more
20:02
rational, more skeptical of the two. And
20:04
Clayton tells his brother about what
20:07
he's found, and his brother becomes
20:10
interested. Clayton described his
20:15
discoveries, and the two brothers began
20:18
trying to trace the vital keys to the
20:21
cipher encoded papers.
20:23
[Music]
20:26
They began to examine paper one that
20:28
contained the treasur's
20:31
location. What the Hart brothers try to
20:38
do now is they try loads of different
20:40
books and loads of different strategies
20:43
with
20:45
[Music]
20:46
books. They count words in different
20:49
ways. Perhaps it's every word. Perhaps
20:52
it's every other word. Perhaps you start
20:54
numbering at the end. Perhaps you take
20:57
the second letter. So they try many
20:59
different methods of trying to solve
21:01
paper number
21:03
one. The brothers toiled for weeks
21:08
hunting for the key text that would
21:12
unlock the location of Thomas Beal's
21:14
treasure. But there are so many books
21:19
and you don't have to start on page one.
21:21
You don't have to even start in the
21:25
first word of a page. You can start
21:27
anywhere. So, where do you start? They
21:29
try all kinds of things, but nothing
21:31
really bites. Nothing really
21:34
works. After weeks of effort, the
21:37
treasur's location was still locked in
21:40
the
21:42
code. It was clear the hearts must
21:43
attack the puzzle from a different
21:46
angle.
21:48
So Clayton suggested a fresh and
21:50
unconventional approach to their
21:53
[Music]
21:55
problem. He proposed that they could
21:59
unlock the treasure's location through
22:01
the power of
22:04
mesmeriism. Mesmeriism is a 19th century
22:07
and early 20th century science by a
22:10
combination of hypnotism and electrical
22:13
currents.
22:16
A subject would be rendered into a state
22:18
of trance where they could cross over
22:21
into another realm and they would
22:24
describe what they were
22:27
[Music]
22:30
seeing. During the 1890s, Clayton Hart
22:32
had witnessed these techniques in
22:35
practice. It's wonderful and had
22:37
subsequently educated himself in the
22:40
arts of mesmeriism and hypnotism. He was
22:42
convinced that he could mesmerize a
22:46
medium and guide them back through time
22:49
to Bedford County in
22:52
1819. The subject would see through the
22:55
eyes of one of Beiel's men and identify
22:58
the location of the buried treasure.
23:01
Clayton Hart is not an irrational man.
23:05
He genuinely believes that this
23:07
application of a scientific process of
23:10
mesmeriism will uncover the location of
23:12
this
23:15
[Music]
23:16
treasure. One year later in early 1898,
23:26
the brothers agreed to conduct a seance.
23:30
For this, they required a suitable
23:36
medium. Clayton enlisted the help of a
23:39
local 18-year-old man who had shown
23:42
promise as a clairvoyant and crystal
23:44
ball
23:47
reader. George Hart sized him up as
23:49
mildmannered and seemingly disinterested
23:53
in what was about to
23:55
happen. Clayton began the mesmeriism
23:58
process.
24:01
A typical mesmerist will sit an
24:03
individual down in a chair and lay their
24:06
hand upon the median nerve on the top of
24:09
their arm and press hard to make a a
24:12
connection. The subject would then be
24:16
handed into their other hand a
24:19
mesmerist's coin, a piece of zinc wound
24:21
with wire, so something like a battery.
24:24
Then the mesmerist would rub their hands
24:28
up and down this person's arm towards
24:32
their head, sending a spasm through the
24:34
individual, which would render them
24:37
unconscious, insensible, and they would
24:40
cross over into another realm where they
24:42
would describe their visions.
24:45
The hearts could see that the mesmeriism
24:49
process was working as the medium gazed
24:51
into the crystal ball and as if
24:54
transfixed took on an unfamiliar
24:56
personality.
24:58
He begins to speak like this, you know,
25:01
rough huneed backount early 19th century
25:03
man would have. He's mouthing words
25:06
through a body and a a persona that
25:09
seems to have really changed into a
25:11
whole new person from the past.
25:14
Believing that the medium was seeing
25:17
events from the past, Clayton Hart
25:19
ordered him to journey to Buford's
25:21
Tavern in November
25:23
1819 to the day before the treasure was
25:25
[Music]
25:29
buried. The medium described that he
25:35
could see a group of men inside the
25:37
tavern building.
25:39
He then followed the man who appeared to
25:44
be their leader, Thomas Beal,
25:45
upstairs. According to the medium, Beal
25:51
placed his saddle bags on the bed and
25:54
opened one of its
25:57
pouches. Inside was a fortune in
26:01
precious jewels.
26:04
When he sees the treasure, the boy
26:12
declares, "I've never seen such a horde
26:15
in all my life. It beats any jeweler's
26:17
show I've ever
26:20
seen." And the the Hart brothers are are
26:22
amazed.
26:26
Clayton ordered the medium to go outside
26:28
the tavern and investigate the party's
26:30
wagons.
26:32
The subject describes looking into the
26:35
pots that are on these wagons and seeing
26:38
gold and silver within these pots.
26:41
Uh this first person commentary seems to
26:46
be just so vivid and so true to them
26:49
that it provides just another brick in
26:55
that wall, that foundation that they're
26:59
building to support this this story.
27:01
Now convinced that the treasure was
27:08
real, Clayton Hart focused his medium on
27:10
identifying its secret
27:14
location. He ordered him to follow the
27:18
men's movements the next day when they
27:20
went out to bury the
27:23
treasure.
27:25
According to the subject in the seance,
27:27
he is describing that these two men who
27:31
are out in the woods near Buford's
27:34
Tavern are digging a hole and that they
27:35
are paving it with stones and on these
27:38
stones they are placing pots, placing
27:40
more stones on top of the pots and this
27:43
is matching exactly what is in the bee
27:46
papers in terms of what is described
27:49
about where the treasure has been
27:51
hidden.
27:52
All of a
27:55
sudden, the medium snapped out of his
27:56
mesmerized state,
27:59
their mesmerized subject gives them
28:03
everything they need except where the
28:05
treasure
28:08
is. But they he fills out the story so
28:09
beautifully, so vividly. It's like he
28:12
was right there with Thomas
28:15
Beiel. The Hart brothers took stock of
28:19
what exactly had just occurred.
28:22
George is a skeptic. Clayton is a true
28:26
believer. And they are not sure whether
28:29
or not this evidence is real evidence or
28:31
not. The boy has said something. Is it
28:34
debatable? Is it is it up for
28:38
questioning? So, they begin to chat with
28:39
one another about whether or not they
28:42
should follow this lead.
28:44
Then the medium spoke.
28:48
He told the brothers that he could lead
28:51
them to the very spot where the treasure
28:53
was
28:55
buried. They said, "How can it get any
28:56
better?" And they think, "He can lead us
28:59
to the
29:01
treasure." The hearts really want this
29:03
to be true.
29:05
[Music]
29:10
In the spring of
29:16
1899, George and Clayton Hart headed out
29:18
into Virginia's Blue Ridge
29:21
Mountains. Along with their 18-year-old
29:29
medium, they scrambled through the
29:32
wooded countryside.
29:34
[Music]
29:38
They headed for an inn that was once
29:44
called Buford's Tavern as the Beal
29:46
papers had stated that the treasure was
29:48
buried close
29:51
[Music]
29:53
by. They take the subject of the seance
29:55
and he's hypnotized again.
29:58
[Music]
30:03
He then proceeds hound dog like to sniff
30:04
his way back to the spot
30:08
where he remembers that this treasure is
30:12
[Music]
30:17
buried. The three men tramped four miles
30:23
through overgrown woodland.
30:26
Suddenly, the medium
30:32
stopped before darting off into the
30:36
woods. He seems to know right where he's
30:42
going. He jumps across a stream. He goes
30:44
up a hill down into an area where
30:47
there's a little depression in the
30:49
ground. And and he acts as though he can
30:51
see the treasure. Look, there it is.
30:53
It's right there.
30:56
This had to be the spot where Thomas
31:02
Beal had buried his legendary
31:05
[Music]
31:11
treasure. For 6 hours they shoveled load
31:15
after load of moist Virginia soil.
31:18
[Music]
31:22
They're digging and digging is hard
31:26
work, but there's always that hope of
31:28
treasure that that keeps them
31:30
[Music]
31:33
going and they're getting tired. They've
31:36
been at it for several hours and then
31:38
it's Clayton's
31:40
turn and he digs and
31:42
clunk. He hits a stone, a big stone.
31:46
Tingling with anticipation, the brothers
31:55
cleared the dirt from the stone's edges.
31:57
[Music]
32:00
Treasure hunters live for a moment like
32:04
this. They've been working so hard for
32:07
so long deciphering the the codes,
32:09
mesmerizing young boys, and what they
32:13
end up finding is a
32:16
hollow stone, and they think, "Wow, this
32:18
is this is my moment. This is the moment
32:23
where we're going to uncover Thomas
32:24
Bele's treasure.
32:27
[Music]
32:31
But there was nothing
32:47
[Music]
32:49
underneath. Frustrated, Clayton asked
32:57
the medium if they had made a mistake.
33:00
Where was the treasure? Then he says,
33:04
"No, no, no. It's not there." And he
33:06
points to an area that's underneath an
33:08
oak tree, saying, "There, there. Can't
33:10
you see
33:12
it?" George Hart had lost all faith in
33:16
their medium. The decision was made to
33:20
return home.
33:24
[Music]
33:38
the next morning. Clayton still believed
33:46
that the treasure was within his grasp.
33:48
He's clearly bought into this story
33:53
locktock and barrel and has devoted I
33:55
think so much of his own energy to this
33:59
that he just can't accept that this is
34:01
the end of the road. So without his
34:03
brother he actually then goes back to
34:06
the spot to the oak tree but this time
34:09
instead of shovels he brings dynamite.
34:12
In a desperate last attempt, Clayton
34:16
Hart set the charge, lit the touchpaper,
34:19
and
34:23
ran. When the air cleared, Clayton
34:36
frantically started digging.
34:39
But again,
34:47
nothing. Thomas Beal's riches had eluded
34:50
him once
34:53
again. The next four years passed
35:05
without any progress.
35:08
But Clayton Hart remained as keen as
35:14
ever to find Beiel's lost
35:16
treasure. Clayton Hart is a true
35:21
believer. He thinks that one new lead is
35:23
all that it'll take for him to uncover
35:26
the hidden
35:29
treasure. He returned to the Beal papers
35:32
and focused in on the pamphlet's
35:35
publisher, James B.
35:38
[Music]
35:40
Ward. He decides to go and find out who
35:45
he is and see what he's got to say. If
35:47
he can help find the treasure,
35:51
Clayton Hart made inquiries. Who was the
35:56
mysterious Mr.
36:00
Ward? Clayton Hart finds out that James
36:03
Ward is indeed real person.
36:07
and he lives in Lynchburg, not that far
36:10
from where they are. So he goes to try
36:13
and find
36:16
him. He journeyed to Lynchburg to meet
36:22
Ward. Hart recounted the brother's
36:28
adventures trying to find Beiel's lost
36:30
treasure and asked if Ward had any new
36:33
leads.
36:35
And Ward tells Hart point blank,
36:38
"Everything in the pamphlet I published
36:41
is true. Everything that you read about
36:43
the expedition and the gold and Robert
36:46
Morris and the unnamed friend cracking
36:49
the code, it's all
36:51
true." But Ward couldn't provide any
36:55
further
36:58
details. Nothing that could help Clayton
37:00
find the treasure.
37:02
Clayton returned to Rowanoke in
37:08
despair. The last living connection to
37:10
the mystery had led
37:12
nowhere, and the location of Beiel's
37:15
riches remained unknown.
37:18
[Music]
37:24
It was another 20 years before the Hart
37:41
brothers got their next
37:44
lead. George Hart was by this time a
37:46
qualified lawyer living in Washington
37:49
DC. In 1924, he read a magazine article
37:54
about a Colonel George Fabian and the
37:58
work of American codereers during the
38:00
First World War.
38:03
[Music]
38:05
He was the founder of what's effectively
38:08
an independent codereing research
38:10
facility, a think tank that was of great
38:13
use to the American military in the
38:16
First World
38:18
War. And Hart thinks, "Wow, maybe
38:20
Fabian's crew can crack this code."
38:25
With Clayton's blessing, George Hart
38:30
mailed Colonel Fabian with the story of
38:32
the brother's
38:34
adventures, together with the codes and
38:35
all the information they knew about the
38:38
mystery. Intrigued, Fabian wrote back to
38:50
George Hart.
38:53
[Music]
38:55
The problem has my interest and I am
38:56
writing in the vain hope that either you
38:59
or Clayton Hart can give us further
39:01
information because the psychology of it
39:03
is about all we have to go on in picking
39:06
our point of attack. In the meantime, we
39:09
will retain the pamphlet and work on it
39:12
as we can find the time to do so.
39:14
[Music]
39:17
Fabian pointed out what the Hard
39:18
Brothers already knew, that in order to
39:20
crack the ciphers on papers one and
39:23
three, he first needed to discover the
39:25
correct
39:27
keys. But he said it's difficult, it's
39:30
very difficult, if not impossible, to
39:33
break a code in a vacuum devoid of all
39:35
context that we understand. And so in
39:39
some sense, this response, which Hart
39:42
hoped would really be uh sort of a magic
39:45
key to open this lock, is simply more of
39:48
what they already understood, which is
39:51
that until you really know more about
39:53
how this code was created, cracking it
39:56
is fishly
39:59
difficult. Fabian's attempts to decipher
40:04
the be papers went nowhere.
40:06
He decided to enlist the talents of his
40:10
two top
40:12
cryptologists. William and Elizabeth
40:14
Freriedman were both accomplished
40:16
codereakers and pioneers of new
40:18
cryptographic techniques born out of the
40:20
First World
40:23
War. William and Elizabeth Freriedman
40:27
are two probably of the most famous
40:30
codereers in the United States. They
40:32
would often look at some of these
40:34
unsolved ciphers and sort of crack them
40:36
for
40:38
fun. The Freriedman's study the Beal
40:42
ciphers and applied their expertise to
40:45
the problem of breaking
40:47
them. Freeman's look at these ciphers
40:51
and they use their toolbox. But the
40:54
difference between them and other people
40:58
is that William Freeman invented the
40:59
toolbox. So when he and his wife look at
41:04
this thing, they look with incredibly
41:07
piercing
41:11
vision. The more the Freriedman's looked
41:15
at the Beal papers, the more they
41:17
suspected they were not what they
41:20
claimed to be.
41:22
In a letter to Clayton Hart written in
41:28
1938, Elizabeth Freriedman gave their
41:31
damning verdict.
41:34
Such maps, when examined, have almost
41:36
invariably proved to be
41:39
forgeries forced upon an unsuspecting
41:41
public, which thanks to the double lure
41:44
of buried treasure and cryptographic
41:47
form, have persisted throughout the
41:49
years since they first appeared in 1885.
41:51
It is likewise believed that the
41:56
cryptogram which you forwarded is
41:58
nothing more or less than a
42:00
hoax. In other words, the Freriedman's
42:03
were confident that the hearts had
42:06
wasted their time on a wild goose chase.
42:08
It is perhaps the the most crippling
42:15
sort of blow to the belief of the hearts
42:18
and other people that this could
42:21
possibly be um an actual story, an
42:23
actual true
42:27
story, that the codereaking experts of
42:29
the time come to the conclusion that
42:32
there's no truth in this at all.
42:35
The Freriedman's had no doubt that the
42:38
story of Thomas Beiel's treasure was a
42:40
cleverly written
42:42
hoax, probably created to sell
42:44
[Music]
42:49
pamphlets. But if it was a hoax, who had
42:51
perpetrated
42:55
it? One theory points the finger at a
42:58
Lynchberg newspaper editor named John
43:01
William Sherman.
43:04
In 1885, John William Sherman purchases
43:08
the Lynchberg, Virginiaian newspaper.
43:12
Very quickly, the Lynchberg Virginiaian
43:18
gets into financial difficulties and
43:21
Sherman, who is known as a famous writer
43:24
of dime
43:27
novels, strikes upon an idea that
43:29
perhaps to reverse the fortunes of the
43:32
Lynchberg, Virginiaian, he should
43:34
publish something that
43:36
sells. Some researchers now believe that
43:39
Sherman created the Beal papers as a
43:42
money spinner.
43:45
[Music]
43:47
It makes a lot of sense if you think
43:50
about it. He certainly had the
43:52
experience and the background and had
43:53
the motive in uh being in a a difficult
43:56
financial position with his with his
44:00
newspaper.
44:02
There is another piece of evidence that
44:05
supports this theory.
44:06
Advertisements for the Beal Papers
44:11
pamphlet run a total of 84 times from
44:13
1885 and only ever in one
44:16
newspaper. The Lynchberg
44:20
Virginia. Who on earth would publish an
44:24
advert 84 times? Who could afford to do
44:27
that? The only person that could really
44:29
do that would be the owner, John William
44:32
Sherman.
44:35
And there's one more startling
44:40
connection. Sherman's first cousin was
44:42
none other than the man Clayton Hart had
44:45
visited in
44:48
1903, the publisher of the Beal
44:51
[Music]
44:55
Papers. James B. Ward
44:57
John Sherman cannot publish the Beal
45:04
papers under his own name. He's well
45:06
known in Virginia as the editor of this
45:09
newspaper. And it's known that he's also
45:11
in financial difficulties. So he enlists
45:13
his cousin to act as agent, James Ward,
45:16
finishing the deception and
45:20
authenticating the text as true.
45:22
In other words, it seems there never was
45:27
a be or a
45:30
treasure. The whole thing was a
45:32
fabrication. But Clayton Hart was
45:40
convinced that the papers were real. He
45:43
went to his grave, believing that Thomas
45:47
Beiel's treasure was out there
45:50
somewhere.
45:52
Despite the evidence that the be papers
46:07
were a hoax, the mystery still continued
46:09
to intrigue treasure hunters and
46:11
codereers alike.
46:14
In the 1960s, a computer scientist named
46:18
Carl Hammer entered the quest to
46:21
decipher the mysterious be
46:24
codes. He put the number sequences
46:28
through the most advanced computers of
46:31
the
46:32
day. He even identified patterns in the
46:34
ciphers, but still he failed to crack
46:37
the
46:40
codes. In the 1980s, a historical
46:43
journal from the 1820s emerged that told
46:47
of a party closely fitting the
46:50
description of
46:51
bees. Was this evidence that Thomas Beal
46:57
and his men really had
47:01
existed? And if Beal was real, was the
47:04
treasure also?
47:08
We know that Beal and his associates
47:12
didn't return for the box that they had
47:14
entrusted with
47:16
Morris and that Beal disappears after
47:18
the 1820s. So what happened to Thomas
47:21
Beal? Did something sinister happened?
47:26
Did he go and dig up the treasure
47:29
himself? There are many possible
47:31
outcomes in 19th century America.
47:34
One theory is that Beiel and his party
47:38
may have returned to retrieve their
47:40
precious
47:42
[Music]
47:43
booty. Another is that before they could
47:45
do so, they came to an untimely
47:48
end. If that's the case, then Beiel's
47:54
treasure could still lie undiscovered.
47:58
[Music]
48:02
Clayton and George Hart spent 50 years
48:09
of their lives trying to solve the
48:11
mystery of Beiel's
48:13
[Music]
48:15
treasure. A mystery that continues to
48:17
captivate treasure hunters and codereers
48:20
to this day.
48:23
The be ciphers, the be papers are a
48:27
source of incredible interest to people
48:31
and they they continue to be even, you
48:33
know, 100 years
48:36
later and they will be 200 years later
48:37
because and I speak as a literary
48:41
critic, they are so well written. I
48:43
myself don't think there is treasure
48:46
sitting somewhere in Virginia. I think
48:49
there is a person who published an
48:52
absolutely fantastic adventure story. To
48:54
those who do believe the legend, there
48:57
is a fortune in gold, silver, and jewels
48:59
buried 6 ft under the Virginia
49:03
soil. And finding it is simply a matter
49:07
of cracking the mystery of Thomas Beal's
49:10
codes. If people just forget about the
49:15
the
49:18
legends, if they can just look at the
49:19
numbers, everything you need to know is
49:23
in the numbers. For me, the be ciphers
49:25
are crackable,
49:29
but it's a mystery. It's a great
49:31
mystery.
49:34
[Music]
49:35
歌词与翻译
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重点词汇
开始练习
| 词汇 | 含义 |
|---|---|
|
heat /hiːt/ A1 |
|
|
legend /ˈledʒənd/ A2 |
|
|
treasure /ˈtreʒər/ A1 |
|
|
code /koʊd/ A2 |
|
|
mystery /ˈmɪstəri/ A2 |
|
|
quest /kwest/ B1 |
|
|
glittering /ˈɡlɪtərɪŋ/ B1 |
|
|
supernatural /ˌsuːpərˈnætʃərəl/ B2 |
|
|
mesmerism /ˈmɛzməˌrɪzəm/ C1 |
|
|
unravel /ʌnˈrævəl/ B2 |
|
|
humdrum /ˈhʌmˌdrʌm/ B2 |
|
|
pamphlet /ˈpæmflɪt/ B1 |
|
|
speculate /ˈspɛkjəˌleɪt/ B2 |
|
|
clairvoyant /ˌklɛərˈvɔɪənt/ C1 |
|
|
dynamite /ˈdaɪnəˌmaɪt/ B1 |
|
|
cryptologist /kraɪˈpɒlədʒɪst/ C1 |
|
|
forgeries /ˈfɔːrdʒəriz/ C1 |
|
|
hoax /həʊks/ B2 |
|
|
fabrication /ˌfæbrɪˈkeɪʃən/ C1 |
|
|
captivate /ˈkæptɪveɪt/ B2 |
|
重点语法结构
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我们正在更新此部分，敬请期待！
相关歌曲