What do you think about this?
For almost two hundred years the Knights Templar were the most powerful men in Europe. They began as a handful of warrior monks guarding pilgrims to Jerusalem, and grew into the richest organization on the continent, the bankers of kings, holders of castles and fleets and a war chest that even monarchs envied.
Then, on Friday the thirteenth of October, 1307, it all came apart in a single morning. King Philip the Fourth of France, deep in debt to the order, sent out sealed orders to be opened at dawn across the country. In one coordinated sweep, hundreds of Templars were arrested, their Grand Master Jacques de Molay among them, and the crown moved to seize everything they owned.
But here is the part that has fascinated treasure hunters ever since. When the king’s men opened the vaults, the legendary Templar treasure was not there. The order’s great fleet, said to have been anchored at the port of La Rochelle, slipped away and was never accounted for. Where it went, and what it carried, no one has ever proven. The trail runs cold into legend, toward Scotland’s Rosslyn Chapel, toward islands in the Atlantic, toward a fortune that may have simply vanished.
What if the wealthiest brotherhood in medieval Europe saw the arrests coming and moved their treasure somewhere it has quietly waited for seven hundred years?
Lost to history, melted into the coffers of kings, or still hidden where the Templars left it? What do you think happened to their treasure?
What do you think about this? Over five months from late 1989, more than 13,000 people in Belgium reported a silent black triangle with three corner lights. In March 1990 two F sixteen jets locked radar on it, and it made moves no pilot could survive. Secret aircraft, or a genuine visitor?
What do you think about this? The Abenaki spoke of something in Lake Champlain long before Europeans arrived, and Port Henry still keeps a sign counting sightings. In 1977 Sandra Mansi photographed a long neck and a dark hump, and no hoax was ever found in it. Log, or a real animal?
What do you think about this? In 1579 Francis Drake beached the Golden Hind somewhere on the northern California coast and claimed the land for England. Nobody can say which beach. A brass plate found in 1936 was celebrated for decades, then proved a hoax. Point Reyes, or somewhere else?
What do you think about this? Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, one is engraved on copper instead of parchment, and it is a treasure map. It lists 64 hiding places holding tons of gold and silver. Not one has ever been found. Real temple gold, or an ancient legend set in metal?
What do you think about this? On August 15, 1977, an Ohio telescope caught a 72 second burst from Sagittarius, 30 times stronger than background, right on the hydrogen frequency. The astronomer circled it and wrote Wow. It never came back. Fluke, or one word of a conversation?
What do you think about this? The Shroud of Turin carries a full length image of a man that behaves like a photographic negative, which nobody noticed until it was first photographed in 1898. Carbon dating said medieval. Nobody can explain how the image formed. Artwork, or something else?
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