December 9, 2022 • 54 mins
It's no secret that human understanding of history is constantly evolving. Each year, experts across the planet make new connections and discoveries that further our understanding of the past. But what if, through incompetence or conspiracy, everyone got it wrong? This is the concept of 'New Chronology,' a strange theory arguing that the vast majority of what we call human history... kind of never happened. Join Ben and Matt as they dive into the tale. They don’t want you to read our book.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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 I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt. Our colleague nol is not joining
us today, but we'll be returning soon. They called me Ben.
We're joined today with our guest producer, Max Friday. To
the Max Williams. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. We're recording on a Friday, as far as
(00:47):
uh calendars tell us, and it's also a Friday in
twenty two again if you believe the official chronology. Uh,
maybe that's a little too much deep water first, Uh, now,
you know, we've talked about it for years and years
and years over our time together on this show. History
(01:08):
is often painted as a series of events set in stone.
Right in the case of archaeology, that's quite literally what
it is. But if you think about it, history is
an ongoing conversation and every single year we find more
and more discoveries that can redefine humanity's view of the
(01:29):
days and the years and the millennia that came before.
And I don't know about you, man, but before I know,
we both spent a lot of time before this show
reading about things like this um and looking at you know,
anachronistic artifacts like the anti Cathera mechanism and so on.
(01:50):
But until we embarked on the show together, I had
no idea how controversial different aspects of the history call
narrative can be. Oh yeah, controversial. Indeed, I think I
had that same belief. Okay, we know history because people
did write it down. There were records. It didn't matter
(02:10):
if a town got sacked, right or an entire empire
went down. They were still recorded record of each one
of those events, and like when it happened and who
had happened too. And then you start to question things
because the bottom gets knocked out sometimes. Like imagine you're
in history class and for the first time you learn
(02:33):
about the Julian calendar and how late in our timeline
that was actually implemented, and then how it got changed again.
I mean, it's it's pretty intense to think to think
that we've only been keeping track of years the way
we understand them for a couple of hundred years. Yeah,
(02:54):
and there are still multiple calendars in use today. Uh,
the grigory In calendar, the Islamic calendar, UH, Chinese Julian,
as you mentioned, the Jewish calendar. Indian County, North Korea
has its own as well. And oftentimes, you know, one
thing you can say about people, people are not perfect,
(03:15):
but people know how to make stuff work. And that's
why you may have many different cultures wherein people adhere
to a calendar for one part of their life and
they adhere to a calendar for another part. So you may,
for instance, um, you may be of the Muslim faith, right,
and so you will use the Islamic calendar for things
(03:40):
like Rama dot right for other high holy days. But
when it comes to your day job, you're just gonna
say September or December like the rest of the business world.
And this this is something people have made work. But
everybody knows the system is imperfect. Everybody knows that his
three has a bunch of worts and wrinkles and unanswered questions.
(04:05):
Quite possibly, history has some conspiracies spoiler. The answer is
yes it does. But we're going to talk about one
today that will be an immense interest to anybody remembers
our old episodes on Phantom Time, this is something related
but distinct. It's something called the New Chronology. Here are
(04:28):
the facts. As much as it sounds like an event
in the d C Comics universe, it's it's a real thing.
The New Chronology is really the story of I would
say one mathematician, he's he's a protagonist here. Well. Yeah.
The the primary quote new chronology unquote that we're talking
(04:51):
about today, because there are others, was formed in the
mind of a man named Anatoly Timotovich Fomenko. Very interesting character,
very smart character. He was born in the USSR the
Soviet Union in nineteen and before you hear anything else
(05:12):
about this guy or his ideas, uh, you need to
know just what Matt said. It is crucial to remember.
He is a very very smart man. He's brilliant. Uh.
He may not be familiar to many of us outside
of Russia or people who are not professional mathematicians, but
(05:32):
he is a mathematician. He's a Russian of note, he's
an artist. He is teaching today. Uh. He was the
son of an industrial engineer and a instructor in literature
and Russian language. So he came from magheads uh and
very quickly met this guy. Showed an enormous aptitude for math.
(05:55):
He was winning multiple math competitions by the time he
was in high school or secondary school. He would call
it there and I was not aware until he dug
into the research that he was also a science fiction writer.
He published his first story when he was just fourteen.
It was awesome too. It is called the Mystery of
(06:17):
the Milky Way. It sounds like a fourteen year old
wrote it. Just the Milky Way doesn't sound that exciting,
but but it is cool. That's kind of you know,
it's where we are um. And the fact that he
wrote it when he was fourteen years old major props.
And to be clear, he's more well known as a
mathematician and an author of different works which he considers nonfiction. Yes,
(06:43):
he considers them studies, right, I mean studies in history
and in a weird way, um, almost like mathematics proofs
kind of, or at least they're based on mathematics proofs
in a way. Yeah. Yeah, he's heavily into statistics if
you ask him. He graduated from Moscow State University in
(07:05):
nineteen sixty seven and just two years later, he gets
a job working at Moscow State University. He was good
enough that the university didn't want to lose him. If
you fast forward through the decades, uh, he becomes the
head of the differential geometry department at Moscow State University.
(07:26):
What we're saying is he's got his stripes. If you
are a mathematician in Russia, you were very much aware
of this guy. He has edited many journals in his field.
He's been on numerous um overseeing councils. This is where
he uh, he is part of a group where someone
(07:46):
defends their dissertation to earn their you know, PhD. And
he even won the State Prize of the Russian Federation,
which was a huge civilian honor in nineteen due to
his work in math. But we're not here to talk
about his impressive math career. We just wanted to wanted
(08:07):
to give those props before we tell you today's story.
You see, fellow conspiracy realist. As the years wended on,
something began to bug our pal A T. Flamenco. Yeah. Uh,
and it kind of just came into his life randomly,
it seems. Ah. He was taking a look at the
(08:29):
mathematics behind the motion of the Sun, a thing that
he calls coefficient d in his book. And he was
looking at basically, um tracking the moon's motion if you
follow it backwards in time as it's been going around
the Earth, right, And he was looking at the work
of another mathematician that was trying to just uh follow
(08:52):
that motion and really trace it out over time, like
going as back as far as you possibly could, and
that math titian that he was following and watching the
work of came up with this massive error in time.
Uh well, it was an error in where the moon
should have been basically, And once he saw that, he
(09:14):
started going down a rabbit hole. He had, like a real,
real rabbit hole. If this is true, then what else
is true? Right? That's the basis of so much great investigation.
That's also the basis of good storytelling. I would just
want to note, so hopefully you'll see some of that
in an upcoming holiday episode. No spoilers, folks, Yeah, you
(09:39):
describe it perfectly. Man. In the years leading up to
the nineties, Famenco becomes increasingly certain that these realizations he's made,
these mathematical astronomical discoveries, have exposed a dangerous, vast and
profound discrepancy in the known historical record. And he wasn't
(10:02):
being a jerk about it. He was just on the trail,
you know. He was just sniffing out if this is true,
what then kind of things? And he eventually concluded that
historical events as we know them just do not correspond
with the official dates when they were supposed to happen. Now,
(10:22):
to be clear, he is not denying that certain things happened.
He thought all all the big tent events in the
human record did occur at some point, just not when
everyone claimed they did. And he's doing this all while
he's a working academic. He starts publishing what would become
(10:43):
a massive, incredibly controversial theory in a massive, incredibly long
series of books. The first book is called History Fiction
or Science. Dating methods as offered by mathematical statistics, eclipses
and zodiacs, parentheses, chronology. Book one, Just book one, Just
(11:07):
book one, Just book one. Ben, you found a PDF
copy in English that we were able to go through
a little bit. I think you went through maybe the
whole thing. I just scratched the surface. But my goodness,
it's big. Yeah, it's big, and if you just to
give you a sense, Um, if you have ever gone
to a museum and you go to their gift shop
(11:30):
and you see the different books they have. They're often
like beautifully illustrated books on history, art or some realm
of the sciences, and you'll see that they're written in
a two column for bats, because there's so much information
that needs to be put on the page. This is
one of those things. It's that kind of approach, and
(11:52):
it would prove to be an opening salvo in what
some of Flamenco's critics call and some of his fans
call a war on history. Uh, let's see right now
that Um, there are seven books in the series, and
they're all saying they're all looking at different ways to
support the argument that most of the ancient history you
(12:16):
have heard of is not ancient at all. This is
the new chronology, folks, and spoiler alert, you'll want to
strap in. Here's where it gets crazy, all right. Top claim.
This is the top claim. Some people might turn off
the episode when they hear this. Please bear with us. A. T.
(12:40):
Famengo one hundred percent believes the written history of humankind
only goes back as far as what we would call
eight hundred C. Yeah, that's uh, that's not very far
back at all. Eight hundred Come on, well, I mean
(13:01):
if you think back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, uh, really,
all of the ancient world, all the ancient history, ancient China,
the life of Jesus Christ. You know. But here's the thing.
He's not throwing that out like none of that happened.
Just what you said, Ben, It's just he's folding it
in on itself, like closer to us in in time. Yeah, yeah,
(13:26):
it's so phantom time. As a longtime listeners will remember,
is this argument that a lot of the Middle Ages
just didn't happen. Uh. And and please check out our
work on that to to learn more. This is different
because Famenco is saying, Okay, good hustle, everybody who ever
(13:49):
looked into history before, but it started in eight hundred
a d. He would call it, or eight hundred s
it's called now and then for the next two hundred years,
he says, modern people know almost nothing about what was
going on, and that most known historical events, the construction
(14:12):
of the pyramids, right, the life and times of your
favorite religious figures, they all happened sometime between the year
one thousand and the year fiftdred Yeah, it seems like
a whole lot happened in five years. Yeah, and uh,
interestingly enough, I don't think either of us put this
(14:34):
in the notes. Uh. He he finds, he finds a
lot of stuff to be flawed in his opinion, but
then he finds other things to be true. He is
a big proponent of the Book of Mormon because he
believes that, when interpreted correctly, it further proves the case
of the new chronology. So what does that mean? You
(14:56):
mentioned the Roman Empire, You mentioned Dan Egypt, Like that's what? Oh, yes,
I did mention the Roman Empire. And that's because Famenco
believes something very interesting that man I wanted, Like my
mind is only beginning to understand. But he believes that
the Roman Empire didn't come around until the late Middle Ages.
(15:19):
And you know, this concept that Roman Empire, in my mind,
goes back to the Greek, ancient Greece and um the
empire that was occurring there. But he believes that ancient
Rome didn't happen ancient Greece. It's was not real. It
wasn't what we think it is, and even ancient Egypt
is not. It just didn't exist as we understand them.
(15:41):
And the stories that we've been told, yeah, they all
happened in the Middle Ages and the names were changed.
And he says, look, uh, Jesus Christ, the actual facts
as their pal Lauren Vogbaum would say, Jesus Christ was
really the only thing is that what that guy lived
(16:03):
and died in the twelfth century. And he says that
traditional chronology it's just too long, you know, which honestly
is the thing. A lot of history students might agree
with this is just too much or or or some
readers of his book maybe being diplomatic here, uh, he claimed.
(16:28):
And he doesn't necessarily say that people were trying to
erase history on purpose. He leaves that relatively open. He
says that historians who came before him or came after
these events, either accidentally or maliciously made phantom copies of
(16:49):
events or rulers and repeated them over and over again,
the same stories under different names. Well, and it's interesting
to see, at least from what I've read, and maybe
correct me or if I'm wrong, then, but uh, the
reason why they might do that, he believed that these
historians were maybe creating these histories in this timeline to
(17:12):
support the goals of governments or you know, um people
in power and regimes. It does seem that way, and
that's that's also a plausible thing, right, because we know
that you if you look at all the contemporary or
(17:33):
near contemporary stuff written about rulers who had fallen out
of power, then all of a sudden they become villains.
That's why so many Roman emperors have contradictory stories about them. Right.
We're not saying those emperors were all dudley do rights.
We're just saying that there was a bit of propaganda
(17:55):
and a bit of political motivation for these things. But
could that go all the way to creating false histories
of entire empires? Exactly? Could the Temple of Solomon really
just be the Hagia Sophia by another name. Could the
biblical Solomon really just be Sultan Soliman the Magnificent? I mean,
(18:16):
he has he matches the names of multiple historical figures
to other historical figures, and he also draws a lot
of this out like because he's an artist, illustrate these connections,
which are interesting and pretty confusing. Dare I say Byzantine
(18:41):
and their complication is a terrible joke. But he says,
you know, the actual Christ inspired a bunch of other
people who are more or less um phantoms, historical accidents.
It reminded me of back in our video days. You know,
(19:01):
we would talk a lot about artifacts, right, artifacts not
in the physical sense, but what what is an artifact
in the world of video, Matt? An artifact in the
world of video? All right? Are you talking about just
like digital like garbled digital signal essentially where where you
(19:22):
just have on your screen a couple of blocks. They
aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing as far
as color and contrast. Yeah, I think that's a pretty
good comparison to what he So he thinks that with
that comparison, people like Pope Gregory the Seven are just
the equivalent of those sorts of artifacts, their mistakes, and
(19:47):
all of our traditional history again Perfamenco, consists of mistakes
like this, the same events repeated multiple times under different names.
The Trojan War is the same thing as their crusades. Uh,
it was revenge for the crucifixion. Let's see, um Imperial
Rome was Constantinople. He thinks they're like four different things
(20:08):
that have been called Rome mistakenly. It just it goes
on and on and on. And it would like if
we were to go over each comparison he makes. Uh,
we our time would be better spent asking you to
just read his seven books. Uh. But despite some of
the translation problems. Right, so this is a lot already.
(20:31):
This is a big thing to lump on people. Uh
when when we we talked a little bit about how
he thinks this all actually happened. But let's maybe revisit
there because you pointed out something really great at the top, Matt.
He didn't make this up out a whole cloth. No,
(20:53):
it goes back to the moon initially, right, this guy
named Robert Newton that Flamenco was just checking out, and
that's the guy who's studying the moon and how I
was moving and he said, hey, there's errors here in
these older dates. I wonder what's going on with these
eclipse dates. Seems like they're off. Um. And then after
looking at the work of Newton, he looked at the
(21:14):
work of a person named and a Morozov. That's probably
just the easiest way for us to remember him. Morozov
and this is another renowned Russian scientist. UH. This guy
had analyzed ancient dates and he claimed that a ton
of them need to be changed or revised, at least
(21:34):
in some way because there were errors. Right, And as
we'll see, that's something that's something that is not foreign
to the world of history, right there. There have been
multiple instances, especially in earlier history, where you will have
experts discovering a new fossil, for example, and that may
(21:57):
be earth shaking, but it's necessarily controversial because everyone can agree. Hey,
if the carbon dating, for instance, tells us this, right,
and it jives with some other things we know, then
let's let's revise what we under our official understanding. That's
how science works. There's nothing wrong with that, Ben Ben,
(22:19):
I'm remembering. It's it was Newton found that there were
errors in uh studying the moon's coefficient D and the
errors were between the centuries of the eighth century and
the tenth century. And when Flamenco looked at that data,
then he looked at what Morozov was saying about dates
that needed to be revised. He put those two sets
(22:40):
together and found that the dates of eclipses, as Morozov
would revise them to actually made the math of Newton work.
That's yes, which is fascinating, right, fascinating and feels like
strong support, you know, uh so Fulmakov believes that this vast,
(23:04):
overarching conspiracy is the result of multiple generations of scholars
often making honest mistakes or possibly also bad faith actors
perpetrating a big lie because and we'll see why this
is funny at the end, because it's better suits their
view of how the world should be. So he's accusing
(23:26):
them of a little bit of confirmation bias quite possibly.
And if you look through his work, what you'll see
basically is that he believes that originally four sources of
historical knowledge referst to these books as A, B, C,
and D. Those latter three, B, C, and D, he argues,
(23:48):
are imperfect copies of A, which he calls the True
History here the capital letters on true History there. So
he says, over time these four sources got copied and
recopied so much so often through multiple translations, that they
became garbled, and the four books were eventually assumed to
(24:10):
be four separate histories rather than what they were three
flawed copies of one narrative for a total of four
things saying different versions of the same story. WHOA, But
it's like they were just going back further and further
in time somehow. It's it reminds me of the old
(24:32):
game of telephone that they you always talk about, Ben
history is a palem cessed and we're just like writing
over everything again and telling it to each other over
and over and trying to be as accurate as possible.
It's tough for me to maybe internalized some of that
because we are writing it down often, and even in
in the explanation of Famenco, these are scholars theoretically writing
(24:54):
it down. But it does make sense to me. When
you're talking about translations specifically. The only thing is we're
talking numbers here right right right, So uh, Roman numerals,
Arabic numbers, those those are often I would want to say,
(25:15):
less vulnerable to translation. But then we have to add
the second ingredient, which which you mentioned earlier, which is
the idea that uh, political factors or social factors might
influence the way something is translated. And that's not necessarily bad.
That doesn't necessarily mean it's propaganda. It could mean that
(25:37):
people have a different cultural framework when they're translating this thing,
when they're writing something down. This is the golden goose.
To Flamenco. He says, when these sub scribes and late
medieval eras were writing history down, they accidentally just made
it four times longer than it should have been. And
they've been repeating the same history four times. And as
(26:01):
proof of this, he says, look, I've found these similarities.
They're indifferent purported periods of human history, but they're all
the same thing. And more importantly, argues, this discovery puts
me in place where I my colleagues can reconstruct the
true history by collapsing the four histories into what they
(26:24):
always were just a few hundred years. That's a that's
a matrix moment, at least if it's true. I I
propose we take a break for a word from our
sponsors and let's take a look at uh his methods.
What do you say, Let's do it and we're back. Okay,
(26:50):
Let's go about figuring out how these four separate books
of history that are too long obviously in collaps them
down into one historical record that occurred in the Middle Ages. Basically,
how did how did Famenco and his team do this well.
(27:11):
Famenco didn't just you know, look at all the works
of previous people and just kind of take him and
write him down as his own. Instead, he came up
with theories that lean on his background mathematics. He's looking
at statistical correlation. He's looking at the mathematics of astronomy,
which are you know, pretty dang reliable, the the big
(27:33):
floating things you know around us, and what the sun
does and the moon and the earth. And he also
looked at comparisons of past timelines that rulers used, So
people that were known to be emperors or kings, what
did they use. It's really interesting. Yeah, And although it's
(27:54):
you know, I even more than most hate the deification
of human beings who happen to be in power. Um,
it does make sense. I have to admit two. Look
to the timelines of time and power right by ruling
figures throughout history, because they are going to be the
(28:17):
people who are most likely to be noted in recorded history. Right.
You can't can't write down the first and last name,
or first and family name of everybody who lives in
in some ancient empire, but you will be much more
likely to find information about the people who ruled and
when they ruled for how long. So Ben Ben Ben,
(28:40):
I just started up skyro him again, and I just
joined the Bard's College and Solitude, and you have to
do this quest where you find the last verse of
King Olaf, which is fascinating because history written about him,
but in this case it's kind of scratched out, so
the head of the Bards College has to make up
some versus and just writes history in the moment with
(29:02):
you in the game. It's pretty great. I'm gonna speak
for our guest producer Max here and say, I think
you made both of our days when you mentioned Skyrim.
How long has it been since you played it? Years?
It was Xbox three sixties the last time I played it,
So now I'm just bringing it back up. I don't care.
(29:23):
It's so great. It's I I turned it on recently
and realized I had I had, and I'm not bragging.
I feel like this is a bad thing. I got
a hundred percent completion, so now it's just radiant quest
and I just walk around. Now it's basically animal crossing
for me. People you shouldn't you really should turn back
(29:48):
you know what I mean, just do the main storyline.
What kind of character do you have? You build? Straight
up barbarian healer. He's a badass. Nice nice. Uh Okay,
so we've got to talk. We've got to talk more
about Skyrim. But that's how amazing that game is, folks,
because I can't believe it. You're right, the bard history
(30:10):
of Oloff Quest is kind of one to one with
what we're talking about. Uh So, Yeah, some of Famenko's
critics may say that he's just writing his own stuff
right to replace what is unknown, But what he's doing
is more what we could call famenco parallelism, and if
(30:30):
you search for that on your browser of choice, you
will see those multiple examples of what we're talking about,
where he says, well, this thing that's called this is
really this other thing with a different name, but if
you think about it, they're the same. And he says,
you know, the Star of Bethlehem as described in the
(30:54):
that's described in the Christian Bible is actually the crab Nebula,
which was ordered by Chinese astronomers around eleven fifty because
there's a super nova that formed that thing that was
super bright and stuck around for a while exactly exactly,
and then Famenco spends a lot of time proving or
(31:14):
attempting to prove, uh, star positions. So back to astronomy, right,
This is an example of you know what what you
said earlier, going, let me lean on my acumen as
a mathematician, right, And now he says, all right, let's
go back to told me and Claudius told me has
(31:37):
recorded star positions, and the rest of history agrees that
he recorded these positions somewhere between one. But he says, actually,
if you do the math, this guy's charting stellar locations
from six hundred to see and he's done the same
(32:01):
thing with Egyptian horoscopes. Yeah, I just don't understand how
most of history agrees that it's a seventy year time
period that those star charts you know, were made, right,
and then Famenco believes, oh no, they're actually done from
six hundred a d uh, you know, just seven hundred years.
It's fine, uh, which I guess it would mean again,
(32:25):
it's like in that case he's expanding time rather than
folding it in. Right. Yes, Yeah, that's that is an
interesting an interesting point. There are a few things that
at least seem contradictory in this in this guy's stuff, right, Uh,
And this leads us to another contradiction. He also says
(32:49):
that astronomical observations that don't jibe with his theory are
either incorrect or irrelevant. So ancient Chinese astronomical observations outside
of things like the crab nebula are useless. Babylonian observations
are likewise incorrect. Uh. They also don't happen to jibe
(33:14):
with the theories of New chronology. But that's weird because
then you'd have basically you'd have to decide that, you know,
human beings that looked up in the sky and made
star charts, you know, in those areas of the world,
we're just lying or just we're really bad at doing it,
or or we're making it up for some reason. That's
(33:37):
just an that's an odd stance to take. Okay, well,
let's keep going. Let's keep going, because it goes past
the astronomy. We also said he correlates lists of rulers
earthly rulers, and this forms a big, big part of
new chronology in general. So he'll he'll take a list
of kings from one country members whatever, and then he
(34:02):
will compare that to a list of rulers from another country,
and then he will show similarities, right that he believes
proves these are actually the same list. Well, it's almost
like he's stating from different centuries to right. Oh, almost
doesn't cover it. Yeah, he's doing different centuries. Yeah. So yeah,
(34:24):
different parts of the world and in different timelines, and
then he's correlating them together. We're like, oh, well, that's
actually just this ruler repeated up here in the timeline. Uh,
It's it's really strange. He he quote proved that the
biblical kings of Israel are just the Western Roman emperors somehow.
(34:45):
And I don't understand that. I haven't looked, honestly, I
haven't looked too deep into that been. I mean, it's
that sounds nuts to me, but okay, okay, and the
Anglo Saxon Kings of England are just other names for
the Byzantine emperors and they're only associated with England because
(35:06):
refugees from Constantinople now is timble, it's nobody's business. But
the Turks uh from the constant to Dople modern day
staple uh fled fled to England after the city was
sacked in fourteen fifty three. So if you are a
an enthusiast of Anglo Saxon history, then it might sound
(35:31):
like this guy is erasing your history, right, uh, because
he kind of is. Uh. This is where a lot
of people, in fact take deep issue with his claims.
You can find examples of his technique as well as
the problems with it. I want to give a special
shout out to Jason Colavito who talks through this just
(35:57):
it gets so granular, folks, it gets so in the
weeds of genealogy. If you're one of those people who
had to read uh, the Old Testament at some point
in your life, Madame aline on on you here, what's
the what's the book of the Old Testament where it's
just a whole bunch of people begatting each other? I
(36:20):
can't remember, but it's in there. Just flipped through until
you so and so begat? Who begat? Who begat? Who begat?
Who begat? Dropped the beat? Begat? Get right? So like
the it's heavily genealogical, right, And in each case he
seems to find what he thinks of as what he
(36:42):
presents as uh quantitative that these are really just four
iterations of the same actual historical person. And he's been
accused of playing fast and loose with this because he
will draw I don't know, he will also draw conclusions
(37:05):
from things that could just be historical coincidences or I
don't know, Bob Ross style happy accidents. And let's let's
just give some more examples here. Uh Famenka Will argues
that a lot of the confusion that modern history has
about some of these actual dates in time, you know,
(37:27):
as he sees them, actually come from Old English, Old English.
Not the isn't that a beer? I don't know, not not,
I think it is. I think it's like a forty ounce,
like a malt liquor. Yeah, that's what it's the images
that conjured in my mind. But it's not because of
that beer. It's because of Old English use of this
(37:48):
term quote year of grace, and it was used as
a synonym for anno domini or a d H. Yeah,
and uh he extrapolates to something like us. Again, there's translation,
not the original Russian. Maybe the original and now forgotten
meaning of a formula years of grace differs from one
(38:09):
which is accepted today. Maybe it was years in Greece,
Greek years or something like this. Huh um, solid, Yes,
you know, if it's three am in the dorm room
and we're passing around the bob, you know, yeah, yeah,
(38:30):
I don't know. That doesn't seem like it has much
of a foundation to me. But you know, Okay, but
I get it. Translation. I understand his contention that translation
is a major issue. Yes, well, and if you're if
you're not talking about numbers in this case, you're talking
about a term to describe either an era or maybe
(38:51):
even a certain number, like maybe maybe it's a phrase
that could represent a number. I could see how that
would be possibly contentious, umb but who knows. I know,
the whole leap year thing was a major issue, right,
and we can we don't have to get into it
fully been but figuring out how to change the calendar
(39:14):
and how many days to add to a calendar to
make the year workout or to catch up in days
like it's it's been a whole thing throughout human history,
Like there was one wasn't there one year that had
four hundred and forty something days? And it was like
right before Julius Caesar was assassinated. He added, like two
(39:34):
months to the calendar or something. I love it. I
feel like that's such a power move, you know. Uh,
I don't think it works out all the time for
those rulers, right, look at the French revolutions attempt to
make a new calendar. Um. But but we I think
we can all accept this supposition about translation in this
(39:59):
case is interesting, but maybe not enough. Maybe it's not
solid enough to justify rewriting the entirety of history. Okay,
so we have the basics, and we have a rough
understanding of his methods, controversial as they may be. But
the next question is what's the motivation why. That's where
(40:23):
it gets even strangers. So we're gonna take a pause
for a word from our sponsors. We're gonna return, and uh,
we're gonna throw a lot of stuff into the mix here. Alright,
we're back. As you might have assumed, Famenco's concepts are
(40:43):
largely dismissed by mainstream academia, and and you know that
includes mainstream academics and Russia. Uh, most of the non
Russian public would probably dismiss this. But the motivation is
one thing, and he implies this, doesn't say it plainly.
The dominant power in Europe and Asia for the entirety
(41:07):
of human history was a Slavic Turkic empire. He calls
the quote Russian Horde. Matt Jengis Khan was Russia Russian.
So we're Scythians, Huns, Goths, Ukrainians, any other Central Asian
tribe mentioned. Ever, Moscow was the third Rome. Uh. It
(41:27):
came after Alexandria and Constantinople, which were also mistakenly called Rome.
The Russian Horde spread across the world under the reign
of Jengis Cod. Everything seems carefully designed to make this
alternative narrative in which Russia has always been the one
true superpower of human history. Oh okay, okay, now I'm
(41:49):
starting to understand Flamenco's thing. So, if if Russia was
actually the one true power, then all these other empires
that were built up with their keyings and all that stuff,
they wouldn't have the type of hegemony that they currently
have in the world. If you think about the Britains,
the Frances, you know, the real Western world, it wouldn't
(42:12):
be the most powerful thing ever. Right. Yeah, So the
idea is that other groups like the Vatican, the Holy
Roman Empire and even the forces behind the Protestant Reformation
wrote these fake histories to hide the real magnificence of
what he calls the Russian Horde, so that modern day
(42:33):
Russians and the world don't recognize they're their true worth
and stay alienated from other places in Central Asia. So
Russia is the fault from which all culture springs. Per Famenco.
Might surprise you to know, folks, his books have sold
(42:53):
over a million copies, well over a million. They've been
translated to other languages, including English. Uh found a survey
that said somewhere up to thirty of Russians today are
kind of sympathetic with the idea. They say, I don't know,
people in authority lie all the time. Why wouldn't they
lie about this? He's got a lot of supports. Yeah,
when the concept that someone else is trying to destroy
(43:15):
your history is very unifying, right, that will make you
come together. So in a way, his goal or his
beliefs are kind of fueling the gold. It's a it's
a circular thing, much like the moon circling around the Earth.
There it is there, it is so uh So It's
(43:38):
also true that Flamenco and his theories would probably never
have been near as well known were it not for
one of his most famous former supporters, uh, the Chess
legend Gary Kasparov, who said, you know, he talked with
Flamenco when they met, uh informed a relationship in the
ninety nineties, and he said, you know, we had a
(44:01):
lot in common. I also am skeptical about history. Kasparov
would later go on to say he doesn't agree with
Famenco's conclusions like that the way in which Famenco reconstructs history,
but he says, I am skeptical of the official narrative
in several key points. And again there's nothing necessarily wrong
(44:23):
with that. You just have to prove it. Uh. We
should also mention Famenco is not the only new chronology
guy out there. There are a couple of other things
that have the same term applied to them, and they're
much more Western, like the Glasgow Chronology and David roll
r O h L. Right, yeah, and you can look
(44:44):
both of those up. Glasgow Chronology g L. A. S.
G Ow. Check that out. It's something that came around
in the nineteen seventies. Uh. I mean you'll see that
it was kind of not really debunked. But even the
people that came up with the concept through it away,
like right after they came up with it, because there's like,
(45:04):
no but the David rawl thing all another quote New
chronology worth your time? Check that out. Uh, it deals
a lot with Egypt, I believe. Yeah. Yeah, And the
idea is um The idea is essentially downdating, like moving
a timeline around. In his case, he's he's lowering traditionally
(45:28):
understood timeline of Egyptian of ancient Egypt by about three
fifty years. And this this might seem you know, like
small beings to a lot of people who are not Egyptologists,
but it's it's a big deal. And if you want
to learn more about the controversy there, if you want
to learn the basis of his claims, you can read
(45:50):
books that he's written, or you can check out a
documentary that came out in or so. But realize that
it is controversial. It's not accepted by most stigyptologists today. Really,
what we should we should think about is what's the
point of all of this? What we're seeing is so
many people feel unsatisfied by history, and why do they
feel it needs to be rewritten to create a more
(46:13):
personally satisfying view of the past. I think in a
lot of cases it can be explained through confirmation bias,
especially if you're a nationalist and you say, my cultures
or my nation or whatever is not getting its due.
Let me tell you a story about a world in
(46:33):
which it does get the recognition it deserves. You know,
like I it reminds me, honestly of some religious sex
like Nation of Islam um or you know, also nazis right,
what there uh, they're weird horrific thing um or you know,
the popular belief that you'll find in other parts of
(46:55):
the world arguing that modern humanity originated in China, which
is a scepted as fact, you know, and to a
degree that might surprise Westerners. You're right, I think you
said this been. Every hero needs an origin story, right,
And if you feel like your country, your nation, your whatever,
(47:17):
your empire is the hero in the story, then it
needs an epic start, like how did it begin and why?
And the bigger that you can make that story, the
more awesome you are now, right, um? So it is
it that kind of checks out to me? I am
(47:37):
I am puzzled. I think as to how this person
from NKO who does appear on the page to be
so brilliant and have a grasp of concepts that I
cannot fathom. How does that person go so deep down
what appears to be a rabbit hole to me of
(47:58):
like making things it when he's trying so hard to
use math to prove things. Yeah, yeah, and it's it's
something that unfortunately, it's a tendency you can see in
humanity pretty pretty commonly. You know a lot of great
thinkers who are responsible for many many innovations also have
(48:24):
their own personal interest in things that would be considered
way out there to their colleagues. I'm thinking of like
um Newton and alchemy. You know, that's another great example.
But uh, this is a little more modern world stuff.
A T. Famenko is alive today, and maybe that's where
(48:48):
we end. The big question is is he open and
constructive criticism about his theories. That's another fundamental brick in
the temple of science. Well, we do know. In two
thousand and four, his English language publisher did something interesting.
They said, Hey, we're gonna have a contest if you
(49:09):
can prove the existence of any human artifact from before
one thousand CE. We will give you ten thousand dollars. Okay,
you can go to museum and find that, right, right, Well,
they do have one caveat You can't submit anything using archaeological, dendo, chronological,
paleographical or carbon dating methods. Well, then how would I
(49:34):
prove that it's from that time period? Yeah, that's a
good question, man, because those are the universally accepted methods
for proving the age of It's got it's gotta be,
it's gotta sharpie written on it. It just says CE.
I mean, that's okay. That's the thing though, because you know,
(49:55):
if this was true, it would inherently fun to mentally
change our understand of human history. I think it's safe
to say it's probably not true, just because of the
discrepancies in in the work compared to the work of
everybody else. Right, But even if it's, even if this
(50:15):
theory can be debunked, we have to remember that for
a period of time, knowledge of ancient history was only
kept around by a very small number of scholars and
also theologians, who definitely had like an agenda, right, But
they were the only members of the literate class. They
were the only ones with the books who could read them,
(50:38):
you know what I mean. And it is very weird
to think about how far spread groups of those human
beings were that were in towers somewhere, protected with all
their you know, papyrus and tablets and papers, gathering all
that stuff together, and everybody kind of writing their own
(50:58):
thing on their own, not can did to everybody else.
And in the case of several orders of monks, they
were probably drunk while they were doing it, but they
were calling it. They were probably just calling it English
back then, not old English. I think. Weren't getting thrown
out for doing meth back then? Or no, No, that's
that's the temple in Thailand of the modern day. But
(51:20):
who knows. Given a few centuries and maybe somebody will
tell us the truth about how those events went down.
That's our show for today, folks. We would love to
We would love to hear your thoughts right now. It's
safe to say that new chronology is not a widely
accepted theory um and there are a lot of problems
(51:42):
with it that we have outlined, but the idea of
this vast conspiracy spanning millennia really is fascinating, and we
want to know. What do you think? Is it possible
that large portions of history have been exercised from the
records or fabricated? If so, how more importantly, why let
(52:03):
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(52:25):
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(52:47):
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(53:31):
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(53:52):
to know is a production of I heart Radio. For
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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 I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt. Our colleague nol is not joining
us today, but we'll be returning soon. They called me Ben.
We're joined today with our guest producer, Max Friday. To
the Max Williams. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. We're recording on a Friday, as far as
(00:47):
uh calendars tell us, and it's also a Friday in
twenty two again if you believe the official chronology. Uh,
maybe that's a little too much deep water first, Uh, now,
you know, we've talked about it for years and years
and years over our time together on this show. History
(01:08):
is often painted as a series of events set in stone.
Right in the case of archaeology, that's quite literally what
it is. But if you think about it, history is
an ongoing conversation and every single year we find more
and more discoveries that can redefine humanity's view of the
(01:29):
days and the years and the millennia that came before.
And I don't know about you, man, but before I know,
we both spent a lot of time before this show
reading about things like this um and looking at you know,
anachronistic artifacts like the anti Cathera mechanism and so on.
(01:50):
But until we embarked on the show together, I had
no idea how controversial different aspects of the history call
narrative can be. Oh yeah, controversial. Indeed, I think I
had that same belief. Okay, we know history because people
did write it down. There were records. It didn't matter
(02:10):
if a town got sacked, right or an entire empire
went down. They were still recorded record of each one
of those events, and like when it happened and who
had happened too. And then you start to question things
because the bottom gets knocked out sometimes. Like imagine you're
in history class and for the first time you learn
(02:33):
about the Julian calendar and how late in our timeline
that was actually implemented, and then how it got changed again.
I mean, it's it's pretty intense to think to think
that we've only been keeping track of years the way
we understand them for a couple of hundred years. Yeah,
(02:54):
and there are still multiple calendars in use today. Uh,
the grigory In calendar, the Islamic calendar, UH, Chinese Julian,
as you mentioned, the Jewish calendar. Indian County, North Korea
has its own as well. And oftentimes, you know, one
thing you can say about people, people are not perfect,
(03:15):
but people know how to make stuff work. And that's
why you may have many different cultures wherein people adhere
to a calendar for one part of their life and
they adhere to a calendar for another part. So you may,
for instance, um, you may be of the Muslim faith, right,
and so you will use the Islamic calendar for things
(03:40):
like Rama dot right for other high holy days. But
when it comes to your day job, you're just gonna
say September or December like the rest of the business world.
And this this is something people have made work. But
everybody knows the system is imperfect. Everybody knows that his
three has a bunch of worts and wrinkles and unanswered questions.
(04:05):
Quite possibly, history has some conspiracies spoiler. The answer is
yes it does. But we're going to talk about one
today that will be an immense interest to anybody remembers
our old episodes on Phantom Time, this is something related
but distinct. It's something called the New Chronology. Here are
(04:28):
the facts. As much as it sounds like an event
in the d C Comics universe, it's it's a real thing.
The New Chronology is really the story of I would
say one mathematician, he's he's a protagonist here. Well. Yeah.
The the primary quote new chronology unquote that we're talking
(04:51):
about today, because there are others, was formed in the
mind of a man named Anatoly Timotovich Fomenko. Very interesting character,
very smart character. He was born in the USSR the
Soviet Union in nineteen and before you hear anything else
(05:12):
about this guy or his ideas, uh, you need to
know just what Matt said. It is crucial to remember.
He is a very very smart man. He's brilliant. Uh.
He may not be familiar to many of us outside
of Russia or people who are not professional mathematicians, but
(05:32):
he is a mathematician. He's a Russian of note, he's
an artist. He is teaching today. Uh. He was the
son of an industrial engineer and a instructor in literature
and Russian language. So he came from magheads uh and
very quickly met this guy. Showed an enormous aptitude for math.
(05:55):
He was winning multiple math competitions by the time he
was in high school or secondary school. He would call
it there and I was not aware until he dug
into the research that he was also a science fiction writer.
He published his first story when he was just fourteen.
It was awesome too. It is called the Mystery of
(06:17):
the Milky Way. It sounds like a fourteen year old
wrote it. Just the Milky Way doesn't sound that exciting,
but but it is cool. That's kind of you know,
it's where we are um. And the fact that he
wrote it when he was fourteen years old major props.
And to be clear, he's more well known as a
mathematician and an author of different works which he considers nonfiction. Yes,
(06:43):
he considers them studies, right, I mean studies in history
and in a weird way, um, almost like mathematics proofs
kind of, or at least they're based on mathematics proofs
in a way. Yeah. Yeah, he's heavily into statistics if
you ask him. He graduated from Moscow State University in
(07:05):
nineteen sixty seven and just two years later, he gets
a job working at Moscow State University. He was good
enough that the university didn't want to lose him. If
you fast forward through the decades, uh, he becomes the
head of the differential geometry department at Moscow State University.
(07:26):
What we're saying is he's got his stripes. If you
are a mathematician in Russia, you were very much aware
of this guy. He has edited many journals in his field.
He's been on numerous um overseeing councils. This is where
he uh, he is part of a group where someone
(07:46):
defends their dissertation to earn their you know, PhD. And
he even won the State Prize of the Russian Federation,
which was a huge civilian honor in nineteen due to
his work in math. But we're not here to talk
about his impressive math career. We just wanted to wanted
(08:07):
to give those props before we tell you today's story.
You see, fellow conspiracy realist. As the years wended on,
something began to bug our pal A T. Flamenco. Yeah. Uh,
and it kind of just came into his life randomly,
it seems. Ah. He was taking a look at the
(08:29):
mathematics behind the motion of the Sun, a thing that
he calls coefficient d in his book. And he was
looking at basically, um tracking the moon's motion if you
follow it backwards in time as it's been going around
the Earth, right, And he was looking at the work
of another mathematician that was trying to just uh follow
(08:52):
that motion and really trace it out over time, like
going as back as far as you possibly could, and
that math titian that he was following and watching the
work of came up with this massive error in time.
Uh well, it was an error in where the moon
should have been basically, And once he saw that, he
(09:14):
started going down a rabbit hole. He had, like a real,
real rabbit hole. If this is true, then what else
is true? Right? That's the basis of so much great investigation.
That's also the basis of good storytelling. I would just
want to note, so hopefully you'll see some of that
in an upcoming holiday episode. No spoilers, folks, Yeah, you
(09:39):
describe it perfectly. Man. In the years leading up to
the nineties, Famenco becomes increasingly certain that these realizations he's made,
these mathematical astronomical discoveries, have exposed a dangerous, vast and
profound discrepancy in the known historical record. And he wasn't
(10:02):
being a jerk about it. He was just on the trail,
you know. He was just sniffing out if this is true,
what then kind of things? And he eventually concluded that
historical events as we know them just do not correspond
with the official dates when they were supposed to happen. Now,
(10:22):
to be clear, he is not denying that certain things happened.
He thought all all the big tent events in the
human record did occur at some point, just not when
everyone claimed they did. And he's doing this all while
he's a working academic. He starts publishing what would become
(10:43):
a massive, incredibly controversial theory in a massive, incredibly long
series of books. The first book is called History Fiction
or Science. Dating methods as offered by mathematical statistics, eclipses
and zodiacs, parentheses, chronology. Book one, Just book one, Just
(11:07):
book one, Just book one. Ben, you found a PDF
copy in English that we were able to go through
a little bit. I think you went through maybe the
whole thing. I just scratched the surface. But my goodness,
it's big. Yeah, it's big, and if you just to
give you a sense, Um, if you have ever gone
to a museum and you go to their gift shop
(11:30):
and you see the different books they have. They're often
like beautifully illustrated books on history, art or some realm
of the sciences, and you'll see that they're written in
a two column for bats, because there's so much information
that needs to be put on the page. This is
one of those things. It's that kind of approach, and
(11:52):
it would prove to be an opening salvo in what
some of Flamenco's critics call and some of his fans
call a war on history. Uh, let's see right now
that Um, there are seven books in the series, and
they're all saying they're all looking at different ways to
support the argument that most of the ancient history you
(12:16):
have heard of is not ancient at all. This is
the new chronology, folks, and spoiler alert, you'll want to
strap in. Here's where it gets crazy, all right. Top claim.
This is the top claim. Some people might turn off
the episode when they hear this. Please bear with us. A. T.
(12:40):
Famengo one hundred percent believes the written history of humankind
only goes back as far as what we would call
eight hundred C. Yeah, that's uh, that's not very far
back at all. Eight hundred Come on, well, I mean
(13:01):
if you think back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, uh, really,
all of the ancient world, all the ancient history, ancient China,
the life of Jesus Christ. You know. But here's the thing.
He's not throwing that out like none of that happened.
Just what you said, Ben, It's just he's folding it
in on itself, like closer to us in in time. Yeah, yeah,
(13:26):
it's so phantom time. As a longtime listeners will remember,
is this argument that a lot of the Middle Ages
just didn't happen. Uh. And and please check out our
work on that to to learn more. This is different
because Famenco is saying, Okay, good hustle, everybody who ever
(13:49):
looked into history before, but it started in eight hundred
a d. He would call it, or eight hundred s
it's called now and then for the next two hundred years,
he says, modern people know almost nothing about what was
going on, and that most known historical events, the construction
(14:12):
of the pyramids, right, the life and times of your
favorite religious figures, they all happened sometime between the year
one thousand and the year fiftdred Yeah, it seems like
a whole lot happened in five years. Yeah, and uh,
interestingly enough, I don't think either of us put this
(14:34):
in the notes. Uh. He he finds, he finds a
lot of stuff to be flawed in his opinion, but
then he finds other things to be true. He is
a big proponent of the Book of Mormon because he
believes that, when interpreted correctly, it further proves the case
of the new chronology. So what does that mean? You
(14:56):
mentioned the Roman Empire, You mentioned Dan Egypt, Like that's what? Oh, yes,
I did mention the Roman Empire. And that's because Famenco
believes something very interesting that man I wanted, Like my
mind is only beginning to understand. But he believes that
the Roman Empire didn't come around until the late Middle Ages.
(15:19):
And you know, this concept that Roman Empire, in my mind,
goes back to the Greek, ancient Greece and um the
empire that was occurring there. But he believes that ancient
Rome didn't happen ancient Greece. It's was not real. It
wasn't what we think it is, and even ancient Egypt
is not. It just didn't exist as we understand them.
(15:41):
And the stories that we've been told, yeah, they all
happened in the Middle Ages and the names were changed.
And he says, look, uh, Jesus Christ, the actual facts
as their pal Lauren Vogbaum would say, Jesus Christ was
really the only thing is that what that guy lived
(16:03):
and died in the twelfth century. And he says that
traditional chronology it's just too long, you know, which honestly
is the thing. A lot of history students might agree
with this is just too much or or or some
readers of his book maybe being diplomatic here, uh, he claimed.
(16:28):
And he doesn't necessarily say that people were trying to
erase history on purpose. He leaves that relatively open. He
says that historians who came before him or came after
these events, either accidentally or maliciously made phantom copies of
(16:49):
events or rulers and repeated them over and over again,
the same stories under different names. Well, and it's interesting
to see, at least from what I've read, and maybe
correct me or if I'm wrong, then, but uh, the
reason why they might do that, he believed that these
historians were maybe creating these histories in this timeline to
(17:12):
support the goals of governments or you know, um people
in power and regimes. It does seem that way, and
that's that's also a plausible thing, right, because we know
that you if you look at all the contemporary or
(17:33):
near contemporary stuff written about rulers who had fallen out
of power, then all of a sudden they become villains.
That's why so many Roman emperors have contradictory stories about them. Right.
We're not saying those emperors were all dudley do rights.
We're just saying that there was a bit of propaganda
(17:55):
and a bit of political motivation for these things. But
could that go all the way to creating false histories
of entire empires? Exactly? Could the Temple of Solomon really
just be the Hagia Sophia by another name. Could the
biblical Solomon really just be Sultan Soliman the Magnificent? I mean,
(18:16):
he has he matches the names of multiple historical figures
to other historical figures, and he also draws a lot
of this out like because he's an artist, illustrate these connections,
which are interesting and pretty confusing. Dare I say Byzantine
(18:41):
and their complication is a terrible joke. But he says,
you know, the actual Christ inspired a bunch of other
people who are more or less um phantoms, historical accidents.
It reminded me of back in our video days. You know,
(19:01):
we would talk a lot about artifacts, right, artifacts not
in the physical sense, but what what is an artifact
in the world of video, Matt? An artifact in the
world of video? All right? Are you talking about just
like digital like garbled digital signal essentially where where you
(19:22):
just have on your screen a couple of blocks. They
aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing as far
as color and contrast. Yeah, I think that's a pretty
good comparison to what he So he thinks that with
that comparison, people like Pope Gregory the Seven are just
the equivalent of those sorts of artifacts, their mistakes, and
(19:47):
all of our traditional history again Perfamenco, consists of mistakes
like this, the same events repeated multiple times under different names.
The Trojan War is the same thing as their crusades. Uh,
it was revenge for the crucifixion. Let's see, um Imperial
Rome was Constantinople. He thinks they're like four different things
(20:08):
that have been called Rome mistakenly. It just it goes
on and on and on. And it would like if
we were to go over each comparison he makes. Uh,
we our time would be better spent asking you to
just read his seven books. Uh. But despite some of
the translation problems. Right, so this is a lot already.
(20:31):
This is a big thing to lump on people. Uh
when when we we talked a little bit about how
he thinks this all actually happened. But let's maybe revisit
there because you pointed out something really great at the top, Matt.
He didn't make this up out a whole cloth. No,
(20:53):
it goes back to the moon initially, right, this guy
named Robert Newton that Flamenco was just checking out, and
that's the guy who's studying the moon and how I
was moving and he said, hey, there's errors here in
these older dates. I wonder what's going on with these
eclipse dates. Seems like they're off. Um. And then after
looking at the work of Newton, he looked at the
(21:14):
work of a person named and a Morozov. That's probably
just the easiest way for us to remember him. Morozov
and this is another renowned Russian scientist. UH. This guy
had analyzed ancient dates and he claimed that a ton
of them need to be changed or revised, at least
(21:34):
in some way because there were errors. Right, And as
we'll see, that's something that's something that is not foreign
to the world of history, right there. There have been
multiple instances, especially in earlier history, where you will have
experts discovering a new fossil, for example, and that may
(21:57):
be earth shaking, but it's necessarily controversial because everyone can agree. Hey,
if the carbon dating, for instance, tells us this, right,
and it jives with some other things we know, then
let's let's revise what we under our official understanding. That's
how science works. There's nothing wrong with that, Ben Ben,
(22:19):
I'm remembering. It's it was Newton found that there were
errors in uh studying the moon's coefficient D and the
errors were between the centuries of the eighth century and
the tenth century. And when Flamenco looked at that data,
then he looked at what Morozov was saying about dates
that needed to be revised. He put those two sets
(22:40):
together and found that the dates of eclipses, as Morozov
would revise them to actually made the math of Newton work.
That's yes, which is fascinating, right, fascinating and feels like
strong support, you know, uh so Fulmakov believes that this vast,
(23:04):
overarching conspiracy is the result of multiple generations of scholars
often making honest mistakes or possibly also bad faith actors
perpetrating a big lie because and we'll see why this
is funny at the end, because it's better suits their
view of how the world should be. So he's accusing
(23:26):
them of a little bit of confirmation bias quite possibly.
And if you look through his work, what you'll see
basically is that he believes that originally four sources of
historical knowledge referst to these books as A, B, C,
and D. Those latter three, B, C, and D, he argues,
(23:48):
are imperfect copies of A, which he calls the True
History here the capital letters on true History there. So
he says, over time these four sources got copied and
recopied so much so often through multiple translations, that they
became garbled, and the four books were eventually assumed to
(24:10):
be four separate histories rather than what they were three
flawed copies of one narrative for a total of four
things saying different versions of the same story. WHOA, But
it's like they were just going back further and further
in time somehow. It's it reminds me of the old
(24:32):
game of telephone that they you always talk about, Ben
history is a palem cessed and we're just like writing
over everything again and telling it to each other over
and over and trying to be as accurate as possible.
It's tough for me to maybe internalized some of that
because we are writing it down often, and even in
in the explanation of Famenco, these are scholars theoretically writing
(24:54):
it down. But it does make sense to me. When
you're talking about translations specifically. The only thing is we're
talking numbers here right right right, So uh, Roman numerals,
Arabic numbers, those those are often I would want to say,
(25:15):
less vulnerable to translation. But then we have to add
the second ingredient, which which you mentioned earlier, which is
the idea that uh, political factors or social factors might
influence the way something is translated. And that's not necessarily bad.
That doesn't necessarily mean it's propaganda. It could mean that
(25:37):
people have a different cultural framework when they're translating this thing,
when they're writing something down. This is the golden goose.
To Flamenco. He says, when these sub scribes and late
medieval eras were writing history down, they accidentally just made
it four times longer than it should have been. And
they've been repeating the same history four times. And as
(26:01):
proof of this, he says, look, I've found these similarities.
They're indifferent purported periods of human history, but they're all
the same thing. And more importantly, argues, this discovery puts
me in place where I my colleagues can reconstruct the
true history by collapsing the four histories into what they
(26:24):
always were just a few hundred years. That's a that's
a matrix moment, at least if it's true. I I
propose we take a break for a word from our
sponsors and let's take a look at uh his methods.
What do you say, Let's do it and we're back. Okay,
(26:50):
Let's go about figuring out how these four separate books
of history that are too long obviously in collaps them
down into one historical record that occurred in the Middle Ages. Basically,
how did how did Famenco and his team do this well.
(27:11):
Famenco didn't just you know, look at all the works
of previous people and just kind of take him and
write him down as his own. Instead, he came up
with theories that lean on his background mathematics. He's looking
at statistical correlation. He's looking at the mathematics of astronomy,
which are you know, pretty dang reliable, the the big
(27:33):
floating things you know around us, and what the sun
does and the moon and the earth. And he also
looked at comparisons of past timelines that rulers used, So
people that were known to be emperors or kings, what
did they use. It's really interesting. Yeah, And although it's
(27:54):
you know, I even more than most hate the deification
of human beings who happen to be in power. Um,
it does make sense. I have to admit two. Look
to the timelines of time and power right by ruling
figures throughout history, because they are going to be the
(28:17):
people who are most likely to be noted in recorded history. Right.
You can't can't write down the first and last name,
or first and family name of everybody who lives in
in some ancient empire, but you will be much more
likely to find information about the people who ruled and
when they ruled for how long. So Ben Ben Ben,
(28:40):
I just started up skyro him again, and I just
joined the Bard's College and Solitude, and you have to
do this quest where you find the last verse of
King Olaf, which is fascinating because history written about him,
but in this case it's kind of scratched out, so
the head of the Bards College has to make up
some versus and just writes history in the moment with
(29:02):
you in the game. It's pretty great. I'm gonna speak
for our guest producer Max here and say, I think
you made both of our days when you mentioned Skyrim.
How long has it been since you played it? Years?
It was Xbox three sixties the last time I played it,
So now I'm just bringing it back up. I don't care.
(29:23):
It's so great. It's I I turned it on recently
and realized I had I had, and I'm not bragging.
I feel like this is a bad thing. I got
a hundred percent completion, so now it's just radiant quest
and I just walk around. Now it's basically animal crossing
for me. People you shouldn't you really should turn back
(29:48):
you know what I mean, just do the main storyline.
What kind of character do you have? You build? Straight
up barbarian healer. He's a badass. Nice nice. Uh Okay,
so we've got to talk. We've got to talk more
about Skyrim. But that's how amazing that game is, folks,
because I can't believe it. You're right, the bard history
(30:10):
of Oloff Quest is kind of one to one with
what we're talking about. Uh So, Yeah, some of Famenko's
critics may say that he's just writing his own stuff
right to replace what is unknown, But what he's doing
is more what we could call famenco parallelism, and if
(30:30):
you search for that on your browser of choice, you
will see those multiple examples of what we're talking about,
where he says, well, this thing that's called this is
really this other thing with a different name, but if
you think about it, they're the same. And he says,
you know, the Star of Bethlehem as described in the
(30:54):
that's described in the Christian Bible is actually the crab Nebula,
which was ordered by Chinese astronomers around eleven fifty because
there's a super nova that formed that thing that was
super bright and stuck around for a while exactly exactly,
and then Famenco spends a lot of time proving or
(31:14):
attempting to prove, uh, star positions. So back to astronomy, right,
This is an example of you know what what you
said earlier, going, let me lean on my acumen as
a mathematician, right, And now he says, all right, let's
go back to told me and Claudius told me has
(31:37):
recorded star positions, and the rest of history agrees that
he recorded these positions somewhere between one. But he says, actually,
if you do the math, this guy's charting stellar locations
from six hundred to see and he's done the same
(32:01):
thing with Egyptian horoscopes. Yeah, I just don't understand how
most of history agrees that it's a seventy year time
period that those star charts you know, were made, right,
and then Famenco believes, oh no, they're actually done from
six hundred a d uh, you know, just seven hundred years.
It's fine, uh, which I guess it would mean again,
(32:25):
it's like in that case he's expanding time rather than
folding it in. Right. Yes, Yeah, that's that is an
interesting an interesting point. There are a few things that
at least seem contradictory in this in this guy's stuff, right, Uh,
And this leads us to another contradiction. He also says
(32:49):
that astronomical observations that don't jibe with his theory are
either incorrect or irrelevant. So ancient Chinese astronomical observations outside
of things like the crab nebula are useless. Babylonian observations
are likewise incorrect. Uh. They also don't happen to jibe
(33:14):
with the theories of New chronology. But that's weird because
then you'd have basically you'd have to decide that, you know,
human beings that looked up in the sky and made
star charts, you know, in those areas of the world,
we're just lying or just we're really bad at doing it,
or or we're making it up for some reason. That's
(33:37):
just an that's an odd stance to take. Okay, well,
let's keep going. Let's keep going, because it goes past
the astronomy. We also said he correlates lists of rulers
earthly rulers, and this forms a big, big part of
new chronology in general. So he'll he'll take a list
of kings from one country members whatever, and then he
(34:02):
will compare that to a list of rulers from another country,
and then he will show similarities, right that he believes
proves these are actually the same list. Well, it's almost
like he's stating from different centuries to right. Oh, almost
doesn't cover it. Yeah, he's doing different centuries. Yeah. So yeah,
(34:24):
different parts of the world and in different timelines, and
then he's correlating them together. We're like, oh, well, that's
actually just this ruler repeated up here in the timeline. Uh,
It's it's really strange. He he quote proved that the
biblical kings of Israel are just the Western Roman emperors somehow.
(34:45):
And I don't understand that. I haven't looked, honestly, I
haven't looked too deep into that been. I mean, it's
that sounds nuts to me, but okay, okay, and the
Anglo Saxon Kings of England are just other names for
the Byzantine emperors and they're only associated with England because
(35:06):
refugees from Constantinople now is timble, it's nobody's business. But
the Turks uh from the constant to Dople modern day
staple uh fled fled to England after the city was
sacked in fourteen fifty three. So if you are a
an enthusiast of Anglo Saxon history, then it might sound
(35:31):
like this guy is erasing your history, right, uh, because
he kind of is. Uh. This is where a lot
of people, in fact take deep issue with his claims.
You can find examples of his technique as well as
the problems with it. I want to give a special
shout out to Jason Colavito who talks through this just
(35:57):
it gets so granular, folks, it gets so in the
weeds of genealogy. If you're one of those people who
had to read uh, the Old Testament at some point
in your life, Madame aline on on you here, what's
the what's the book of the Old Testament where it's
just a whole bunch of people begatting each other? I
(36:20):
can't remember, but it's in there. Just flipped through until
you so and so begat? Who begat? Who begat? Who begat?
Who begat? Dropped the beat? Begat? Get right? So like
the it's heavily genealogical, right, And in each case he
seems to find what he thinks of as what he
(36:42):
presents as uh quantitative that these are really just four
iterations of the same actual historical person. And he's been
accused of playing fast and loose with this because he
will draw I don't know, he will also draw conclusions
(37:05):
from things that could just be historical coincidences or I
don't know, Bob Ross style happy accidents. And let's let's
just give some more examples here. Uh Famenka Will argues
that a lot of the confusion that modern history has
about some of these actual dates in time, you know,
(37:27):
as he sees them, actually come from Old English, Old English.
Not the isn't that a beer? I don't know, not not,
I think it is. I think it's like a forty ounce,
like a malt liquor. Yeah, that's what it's the images
that conjured in my mind. But it's not because of
that beer. It's because of Old English use of this
(37:48):
term quote year of grace, and it was used as
a synonym for anno domini or a d H. Yeah,
and uh he extrapolates to something like us. Again, there's translation,
not the original Russian. Maybe the original and now forgotten
meaning of a formula years of grace differs from one
(38:09):
which is accepted today. Maybe it was years in Greece,
Greek years or something like this. Huh um, solid, Yes,
you know, if it's three am in the dorm room
and we're passing around the bob, you know, yeah, yeah,
(38:30):
I don't know. That doesn't seem like it has much
of a foundation to me. But you know, Okay, but
I get it. Translation. I understand his contention that translation
is a major issue. Yes, well, and if you're if
you're not talking about numbers in this case, you're talking
about a term to describe either an era or maybe
(38:51):
even a certain number, like maybe maybe it's a phrase
that could represent a number. I could see how that
would be possibly contentious, umb but who knows. I know,
the whole leap year thing was a major issue, right,
and we can we don't have to get into it
fully been but figuring out how to change the calendar
(39:14):
and how many days to add to a calendar to
make the year workout or to catch up in days
like it's it's been a whole thing throughout human history,
Like there was one wasn't there one year that had
four hundred and forty something days? And it was like
right before Julius Caesar was assassinated. He added, like two
(39:34):
months to the calendar or something. I love it. I
feel like that's such a power move, you know. Uh,
I don't think it works out all the time for
those rulers, right, look at the French revolutions attempt to
make a new calendar. Um. But but we I think
we can all accept this supposition about translation in this
(39:59):
case is interesting, but maybe not enough. Maybe it's not
solid enough to justify rewriting the entirety of history. Okay,
so we have the basics, and we have a rough
understanding of his methods, controversial as they may be. But
the next question is what's the motivation why. That's where
(40:23):
it gets even strangers. So we're gonna take a pause
for a word from our sponsors. We're gonna return, and uh,
we're gonna throw a lot of stuff into the mix here. Alright,
we're back. As you might have assumed, Famenco's concepts are
(40:43):
largely dismissed by mainstream academia, and and you know that
includes mainstream academics and Russia. Uh, most of the non
Russian public would probably dismiss this. But the motivation is
one thing, and he implies this, doesn't say it plainly.
The dominant power in Europe and Asia for the entirety
(41:07):
of human history was a Slavic Turkic empire. He calls
the quote Russian Horde. Matt Jengis Khan was Russia Russian.
So we're Scythians, Huns, Goths, Ukrainians, any other Central Asian
tribe mentioned. Ever, Moscow was the third Rome. Uh. It
(41:27):
came after Alexandria and Constantinople, which were also mistakenly called Rome.
The Russian Horde spread across the world under the reign
of Jengis Cod. Everything seems carefully designed to make this
alternative narrative in which Russia has always been the one
true superpower of human history. Oh okay, okay, now I'm
(41:49):
starting to understand Flamenco's thing. So, if if Russia was
actually the one true power, then all these other empires
that were built up with their keyings and all that stuff,
they wouldn't have the type of hegemony that they currently
have in the world. If you think about the Britains,
the Frances, you know, the real Western world, it wouldn't
(42:12):
be the most powerful thing ever. Right. Yeah, So the
idea is that other groups like the Vatican, the Holy
Roman Empire and even the forces behind the Protestant Reformation
wrote these fake histories to hide the real magnificence of
what he calls the Russian Horde, so that modern day
(42:33):
Russians and the world don't recognize they're their true worth
and stay alienated from other places in Central Asia. So
Russia is the fault from which all culture springs. Per Famenco.
Might surprise you to know, folks, his books have sold
(42:53):
over a million copies, well over a million. They've been
translated to other languages, including English. Uh found a survey
that said somewhere up to thirty of Russians today are
kind of sympathetic with the idea. They say, I don't know,
people in authority lie all the time. Why wouldn't they
lie about this? He's got a lot of supports. Yeah,
when the concept that someone else is trying to destroy
(43:15):
your history is very unifying, right, that will make you
come together. So in a way, his goal or his
beliefs are kind of fueling the gold. It's a it's
a circular thing, much like the moon circling around the Earth.
There it is there, it is so uh So It's
(43:38):
also true that Flamenco and his theories would probably never
have been near as well known were it not for
one of his most famous former supporters, uh, the Chess
legend Gary Kasparov, who said, you know, he talked with
Flamenco when they met, uh informed a relationship in the
ninety nineties, and he said, you know, we had a
(44:01):
lot in common. I also am skeptical about history. Kasparov
would later go on to say he doesn't agree with
Famenco's conclusions like that the way in which Famenco reconstructs history,
but he says, I am skeptical of the official narrative
in several key points. And again there's nothing necessarily wrong
(44:23):
with that. You just have to prove it. Uh. We
should also mention Famenco is not the only new chronology
guy out there. There are a couple of other things
that have the same term applied to them, and they're
much more Western, like the Glasgow Chronology and David roll
r O h L. Right, yeah, and you can look
(44:44):
both of those up. Glasgow Chronology g L. A. S.
G Ow. Check that out. It's something that came around
in the nineteen seventies. Uh. I mean you'll see that
it was kind of not really debunked. But even the
people that came up with the concept through it away,
like right after they came up with it, because there's like,
(45:04):
no but the David rawl thing all another quote New
chronology worth your time? Check that out. Uh, it deals
a lot with Egypt, I believe. Yeah. Yeah, And the
idea is um The idea is essentially downdating, like moving
a timeline around. In his case, he's he's lowering traditionally
(45:28):
understood timeline of Egyptian of ancient Egypt by about three
fifty years. And this this might seem you know, like
small beings to a lot of people who are not Egyptologists,
but it's it's a big deal. And if you want
to learn more about the controversy there, if you want
to learn the basis of his claims, you can read
(45:50):
books that he's written, or you can check out a
documentary that came out in or so. But realize that
it is controversial. It's not accepted by most stigyptologists today. Really,
what we should we should think about is what's the
point of all of this? What we're seeing is so
many people feel unsatisfied by history, and why do they
feel it needs to be rewritten to create a more
(46:13):
personally satisfying view of the past. I think in a
lot of cases it can be explained through confirmation bias,
especially if you're a nationalist and you say, my cultures
or my nation or whatever is not getting its due.
Let me tell you a story about a world in
(46:33):
which it does get the recognition it deserves. You know,
like I it reminds me, honestly of some religious sex
like Nation of Islam um or you know, also nazis right,
what there uh, they're weird horrific thing um or you know,
the popular belief that you'll find in other parts of
(46:55):
the world arguing that modern humanity originated in China, which
is a scepted as fact, you know, and to a
degree that might surprise Westerners. You're right, I think you
said this been. Every hero needs an origin story, right,
And if you feel like your country, your nation, your whatever,
(47:17):
your empire is the hero in the story, then it
needs an epic start, like how did it begin and why?
And the bigger that you can make that story, the
more awesome you are now, right, um? So it is
it that kind of checks out to me? I am
(47:37):
I am puzzled. I think as to how this person
from NKO who does appear on the page to be
so brilliant and have a grasp of concepts that I
cannot fathom. How does that person go so deep down
what appears to be a rabbit hole to me of
(47:58):
like making things it when he's trying so hard to
use math to prove things. Yeah, yeah, and it's it's
something that unfortunately, it's a tendency you can see in
humanity pretty pretty commonly. You know a lot of great
thinkers who are responsible for many many innovations also have
(48:24):
their own personal interest in things that would be considered
way out there to their colleagues. I'm thinking of like
um Newton and alchemy. You know, that's another great example.
But uh, this is a little more modern world stuff.
A T. Famenko is alive today, and maybe that's where
(48:48):
we end. The big question is is he open and
constructive criticism about his theories. That's another fundamental brick in
the temple of science. Well, we do know. In two
thousand and four, his English language publisher did something interesting.
They said, Hey, we're gonna have a contest if you
(49:09):
can prove the existence of any human artifact from before
one thousand CE. We will give you ten thousand dollars. Okay,
you can go to museum and find that, right, right, Well,
they do have one caveat You can't submit anything using archaeological, dendo, chronological,
paleographical or carbon dating methods. Well, then how would I
(49:34):
prove that it's from that time period? Yeah, that's a
good question, man, because those are the universally accepted methods
for proving the age of It's got it's gotta be,
it's gotta sharpie written on it. It just says CE.
I mean, that's okay. That's the thing though, because you know,
(49:55):
if this was true, it would inherently fun to mentally
change our understand of human history. I think it's safe
to say it's probably not true, just because of the
discrepancies in in the work compared to the work of
everybody else. Right, But even if it's, even if this
(50:15):
theory can be debunked, we have to remember that for
a period of time, knowledge of ancient history was only
kept around by a very small number of scholars and
also theologians, who definitely had like an agenda, right, But
they were the only members of the literate class. They
were the only ones with the books who could read them,
(50:38):
you know what I mean. And it is very weird
to think about how far spread groups of those human
beings were that were in towers somewhere, protected with all
their you know, papyrus and tablets and papers, gathering all
that stuff together, and everybody kind of writing their own
(50:58):
thing on their own, not can did to everybody else.
And in the case of several orders of monks, they
were probably drunk while they were doing it, but they
were calling it. They were probably just calling it English
back then, not old English. I think. Weren't getting thrown
out for doing meth back then? Or no, No, that's
that's the temple in Thailand of the modern day. But
(51:20):
who knows. Given a few centuries and maybe somebody will
tell us the truth about how those events went down.
That's our show for today, folks. We would love to
We would love to hear your thoughts right now. It's
safe to say that new chronology is not a widely
accepted theory um and there are a lot of problems
(51:42):
with it that we have outlined, but the idea of
this vast conspiracy spanning millennia really is fascinating, and we
want to know. What do you think? Is it possible
that large portions of history have been exercised from the
records or fabricated? If so, how more importantly, why let
(52:03):
us know? You can find us everywhere, especially online on
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(52:25):
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(52:47):
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have to do is shoot us a line at our
good old fashioned email address where we are conspiracy at
(53:31):
i heart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you
(53:52):
to know is a production of I heart Radio. For
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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