September 12, 2018 • 57 mins
The Ark of the Covenant is the legendary wooden chest said to hold Ten Commandments, engraved on stone tablets. For thousands of years people have searched for the Ark with little to no success. However, according to the guardians of The Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion, the ark itself has been hidden in Ethiopia for millennia.
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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. M Hello,
(00:24):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt Noel
is on an adventure somewhere. That's true. They called me Ben.
We are joined as always with our super producer Paul Decant.
Most importantly, you are you, and you are here, and
that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
(00:45):
Let's get right into it. You want to, Yeah, Paul,
could we get some some sweeping Spielberg esque music? Yeah,
for a certain you know character that likes to go
spilunking sometimes and other other forms of treasure. Yeah, I
guess we should, Uh, for legal reasons, call him Illinois Smith.
(01:06):
That weka, it's we're We're obviously huge fans of the
Indiana Jones series, which has a bunch of problems. You know,
the thuggy cult in Temple of Doom is vastly misrepresented. Uh.
You know, I feel like you could listen to that
music and watch someone search for their keys in a
(01:27):
couch or something, and it would feel just as epic. Yes,
searching for treasure. Do you ever do that, Matt when
when you're doing a mundane task, do you ever put
on sweeping cinematic music? No? I just to myself, I'm like,
where did I put writer's water bottle? Oh? Don't see.
(01:49):
Oh that's that's a great idea. I I am guilty
of playing soundtracks when I am on a mundane task
to make it feel more like a mission, something righteous,
you know. And today's episode concerns one of the biggest
(02:11):
religious questions in modern history, the fate of something called
the Ark of the Covenant, relic and artifact, highly important fixture,
physical fixture within the Christian and several other faiths. Yes,
and older obviously than Christianity, but older than we initially suspected.
(02:39):
And a long time ago, you and I did a
video together, a video episode on this. It was part
of a series called Secret Places, where wherein we explored
North Sentinel Island, which was a good one. Yeah, I
stand by that one, which we have an update on
that will save for the end of the show, and
(03:02):
wherein we explore the fate or the current location of
the Ark of the Covenant. But maybe we're getting ahead
of ourselves. Let's let's start at the beginning. Here are
the facts, right, the facts about the Ark of the Covenant.
We've mentioned that it is ancient, and I'm sure it's
(03:25):
familiar to all of us right now, conspiracy realists listening
to this. Regardless of what your spiritual or religious orientation is,
you are familiar with the concept of the Ark of
the Covenant due to the circumstances of my early days.
(03:47):
I learned about the Ark of the Covenant through the
Spielberg film Indiana Jones Raiders Have Lost Art. That's how
you learned about it. That's how I learned about it.
You know, I bet that's true for a lot of people,
because it it hidden away kind of not really but
a little bit within popular culture until that movie comes out.
There are a couple of things that you could maybe
(04:08):
point to. And it's also not a major part of
this one book of the Bible Exodus. Yes, and I
defer to your knowledge of biblical text. You and Joe
McCormick from Stuff to Blow Your Mind are my favorite
people to to quiz about this literature. So, what exactly
(04:33):
is the Arc of the Covenant the actual thing, not
the not the Spielberg thing. Well, the the Arc of
the Covenant is it's a couple of things. The first
thing is is a container, this gilded or kind of golden,
not kind of golden container that has a couple of
attributes to it, that holds within it something very very precious.
(04:55):
And that that is stone tablets that Moses old fourth
that you might remember from some film or television series
where he's standing on top amount sinai and he's proclaiming
that these this is the word of God. These are
the commandments that we must follow. Right. Thou shalt not
kill that's a big one, right, the sins, the dues,
(05:19):
and don't of how to be a righteous person? Correct?
The real thing, Yeah, not not a metaphor not a
some sort of strange analogy. This is a physical container
that holds within it the tables of the law, the
(05:39):
stone tablets that bear the word of God, some of
the oldest maintained word of God. Right, and you can
read various translations of these tablets and their construction in
(06:00):
Exodus thirty four one. Correct, So a year after Israelites
leave Egypt after the Exodus. Yes, Uh, the arc is
created according to the legend uh, following the guidelines of
a pattern that God gives to Moses when the Israelites
(06:24):
are living at the foot of Mountain Sinai and thereafter
this this chest it is it is gilded, as you said, Matt,
it is gold plated, but it is a wooden chest,
which is the kind of wood it's made out of
is typically translated as acacia wood. And it is carried
(06:47):
like a palanquin like staves like exactly. There there are
two staves, staffs, whatever you want to call him. Staves
is probably the correct word, but there wooden sticks essentially
um and they're they're very long, and so you can
have at least two people on either side of it
on their shoulders carrying the thing. And it's usually portrayed
(07:07):
as having cherubs on top of it or some kind
of small winged angel creature that looks like a young
child care of them. Yeah, exactly. And there there's you know,
there are so many depictions of it, of what it
possibly could look look like. We can't really give you
an exact picture, but if you you know, if you
go online, you can see some of the circular stuff
(07:30):
that a lot of times is depicted as being on
the sides of it, and just it's basically it would
basically be um gold finishing work. Yes. Yeah, And these
these two figures, which we will examine in detail later
in today's episode. They have their wings reaching out toward
(07:53):
one another such that the wings form a seat of sorts,
and this is called the Mercy seat. And the belief
is that God Yahweh itself sits at this seat. And
the arc is sort of functioning as a footstool. And
(08:17):
after its construction, when the Israelites are moving or when
there is a war occurring, this chest is carried two
thousand cubits, which today translates to about two thousand, six
hundred feet or eight for the entire rest of the world,
in advance of the population with a mass Uh. I
(08:42):
don't want to use the word excess. When there when
there's mass migration with this group of people, this thing
goes at the front. So it's almost like it's the
word of God carrying them and taking them on the path. Yes,
and it is a powerful artifact, and it's not a
passive thing. In the stories. The arc is so powerful
(09:02):
in fact, that it is always carried under a veil
of skins and cloth. It can never touch the ground
pretty much. No one can ever look at it, and
God speaks directly to Moses in that space created by
the two cherubim or angels that we mentioned earlier. It's
(09:22):
like a portal basically, kind of. I don't mean to,
you know, secular arise it too much, but that's what
it kind of functions as God's little portal. And you're
I don't think you're being dismissive at all, because a
lot of the things that we see today in secular
fiction descend from these ancient religious traditions. And we're probably
(09:48):
going to ruin several sci fi films for you along
the way here, because many of the depictions of artifacts
in science fiction are essentially just retellings of this original story.
So no one can look at it. God speaks to
Moses directly through it. It can never touch the ground,
(10:12):
and it is incredibly important. It is credited with parting
the sea right Moses uses it to part the Red Sea.
It it creates other miracles for the tribe, for the
Israelite community. It also brings woe and misfortune upon those
who do not treat it respectfully, or who wronged it
(10:35):
or attempt to use it definitely don't try to use
it for ungodly purposes. And according to the written tradition,
the arc is lost in a terrible, terrible battle with
the Philistines, and the Philistines take it from the Israelites,
and God punishes the Philistines with plagues, with sickness, illness, terrible, terrible,
(10:58):
terrible stuff. And you know, you're looking for a reason,
why is this happening. Maybe it's that thing you went
and putting the treasure room. Maybe the Israelites were correct,
they say so. Eventually they return the arc to its
original owners, and the Israelites keep it at a place
called Kuria Jerem for about twenty years, and then King David, again,
(11:22):
according to the story, takes the Ark to Jerusalem. At
first it is housed in a tent, and then later
it is housed in King Solomon's temple. Solomon's temple, that's
the big one. That's the one that Freemasonry ad models
all of its buildings after, and it is one of
(11:43):
the most important buildings in history. Absolutely from that point
until Jerusalem's destruction by the Babylonians, the Arc disappears from
the story. Yeah, from from the Bible. Yeah, poof that
is gone. Yeah, it says here in the notes Kaiser
sociay style. Yeah, we were. We were talking about that
(12:08):
off air a little bit. So that's a spoiler for
Usual Suspects, which is a great film. I don't I
don't think we spoiled that. I think we have in
the past. Unfortunately, Ah, It's worth a rewatch. The hint
is he's no longer employed by Netflix. Shots fired, Matt.
(12:32):
It's it's true on all these accounts, this mystery person
is no longer employed by Netflix, and the arc vanishes
from the narrative, and it's it's a strange it's a
strange absence because it plays such an important role, this
heart effect in the story of the people of Israel.
(12:57):
So like many physical things, things, places and artifacts and
people even described in ancient text, experts today are still
debating over whether or not it's real. And this is
a this is a thing that pops up pretty often.
(13:17):
Is King Arthur real? Tell us about ex Caliber, what
happened to Noah's arc? Is it really in Turkey? You
know what I mean? And one of the things that
we find is we look into subjects such as this
is that there usually is something genuine there. Perhaps the
stories around it have been embellished and you know, grown
(13:38):
beyond well beyond themselves over time. But usually there is
something there if it's recorded in at least two or
three places true true, and especially if they are independently written,
by which by which we mean those two or three
sources are not reef raisings of the original source. And
(14:03):
now we get to the question with the Ark of
the Covenant. This is fascinating because unlike some other ancient artifacts,
there does appear to be a genuine physical thing. And
ah man I I can't wait until we get into
the really cool stuff. We have to do the background first.
But let's talk about what could be proven about the
(14:27):
arc as a physical artifact. So we'll put to the
side the claims of the extraordinary power of the arc
just as a physical artifact. Is there an actual thing?
According to Baruk Halpern, who is a professor of ancient history,
classics and Ancient Mediterranean studies of Penn State as well
as religious studies. According to him, there is a thing,
(14:50):
because from his perspective is a very well read expert.
The references to the arc throughout the religious text are
consistent and do not change or very over translation. And
this means that whatever the original purpose of this artifact was,
(15:12):
whatever it's actual origin story is, he believes there is
a genuine, real, physical thing, not a metaphor not some
sort of symbol that people talk about. You can't look
inside yourself and find your own arc of the covenant.
You you can't have that young adult novel moment where
(15:32):
you're like, ah, it was me the whole time. No,
this is a real thing, the real thing you can hold,
and you shouldn't look at it. So whatever it is,
it was genuinely taken by the Philistines and then genuinely
given back, and it was it genuinely had something in
it probably and it's it exists, it exists head And
yet here's one of the biggest problems. Ben it is
(15:54):
so stink and old, and it was made of would
well gold plated? Would right? Right? Yes, that's a question
that incorporates some hard science. How long does a wooden
construct last. It's that's dependent upon numerous environmental factors. Exactly
(16:16):
where right and where is it now? If it's still around?
And how old is it? Actually? Because according to various scholars,
this physical thing. Again, this very real container. This artifact
is so ancient that it may predate Judaism entirely, which
(16:37):
sounds crazy, older than Abraham himself. Right, that's that's that's
the idea. Because the various biblical stories of the Arc
may all contain echoes of pre judaic religious practices. You
will see some people calling them ancient cults. And it's
(17:00):
very difficult to untangle the layers of history and myth
that have been added to this story in the great
millennia old game of telephone that has written in oral tradition.
But we we don't want to let anybody feel as
if it is impossible to find the arc. We hunted
(17:23):
down some rumored locations, places where, according to various people,
you can find the arc today in again, don't look
at it. Yeah, and don't look at it when we
come right back from a word for our sponsors and
(17:47):
we're back, Matt. You found a number of places where
people claim the arc exists. Yeah. This, I got some
information from I O nine that had an article that
just kind of a list is a list article. But
then there are a couple of other places that have
been mentioned just throughout time and rumors that have existed.
(18:07):
So let's just go through a couple of these really quickly,
and then later on we can expound a lot further
on these. The one I'm excited about, oh I do
so one of the first places, and this one's a
bit of a softball. It's a Catholic church. It's the
Cathedral of Our Lady of Shot in France, and that's
in Shocked, France. C H A R T R S.
(18:29):
It's a really interesting place. It's a World Heritage site. Um.
It's it's a very Gothic church, like a in this
case French Gothic church. So it's got those jagged lines
with the steeples heading up into the sky. Um. It's
it's got you know, it's the things that you would
see if you're looking at a very old cathedral. It's
got the flying buttresses and it's really I don't know,
(18:53):
it's it's very cool. Is built in like eleven hundred
eleven night No. Eleven ninety four is when it was constructed.
That's when it begins in um. So, you know, perhaps
this is one of the places where the arc ended
up due to the cathedral's association with the Knights Templar
correct another group that we have we done in Knights
(19:15):
of Templar episode. We are far overdue for that. Okay,
absolutely should that's happening. It's another chance to reference Indiana
Jones to be completely candid. So, the one of the
reasons that people historically believed that the actual arc could
be located this cathedral is because of the Knights Templar
(19:38):
involvement and a carving at the cathedral depicting the arc itself.
But you know, that's kind of shaky ground to go on. Yeah,
the story here comes from a twenty century French author
that said the original nine members of the Night Templar
discovered the arc early on in the Templars history while
(20:02):
they were digging under the Temple mount in search of
treasure and secret things. Yeah. This is during the Crusades
to where there's lots of slaughter and lots of plundering. Yes, yeah, absolutely,
and that's not the only place. There's also a pretty
strong tradition or folkloric narrative that argues the Arc of
(20:29):
the Covenant or an Arc of the Covenant will explain
that later exists with the Lemba tribe in Southern Africa.
In Zimbabwe. The Limba tribe may sound familiar to some
of us because this tribe has Jewish roots. Genetic testing
(20:50):
confirms the traditional beliefs of this community. They have They
have always said that they have these roots, that they
are of the people of Israel. And for a long
time there were various other forces and institutions that felt
(21:12):
this was entirely a legend. Yeah, but but it's really
interesting because there is an arc of the Covenant that
exists that the Limit tribe has and they're just a
place called the Museum of Human Science and Zimbabwe, and
the group claims that this this arc that they have
is a replica, like it's not the actual arc, except
(21:33):
that it's built from the remnants of what the arc
became after all of these thousands of years and the
forces of decay upon the wood. And the argument is
that this arc does contain again those physical stone tablets,
it's just the wooden part as a recreation essentially. And
(21:53):
then people say, no, you fools, of course it is
located did in modern day Israel. Oh yeah, that's the thing.
Um that's been a rumor for a long time, and
it's essentially, well, there are a couple of places where
it might be. One of them is deep within tunnels,
(22:14):
the underground basically of Jerusalem, that there's some secret chambers
that exist where where artifacts such as the Ark of
the Covenant are kept, right, And I believe you were
telling me off air that one of the locations is
beneath a lake. Yeah, this one is. It's a slightly
(22:35):
different version of this because it's it's very close. Um,
it's it's Israel's largest freshwater lake, Lake Tiberius, and it's
it's supposedly just at the bottom of this lake, and
it's inaccessible at this point, right, which we see as
a common theme for a lot of these rumored locations.
There's another rumored location, subterranean location rather modern day Jordan's
(23:01):
secret cave or mountain known to a select few, right people,
people who are tasked to guard the arc. That's another
thing we see. It's a very consistent thing throughout the narratives,
from the first mention of the Ark to the modern
day mentions. It always has an elite guard of some sort.
(23:27):
And you know, speaking of an elite guard, sometimes it's
not a physical elite guard. It's a curse of some
sort because for a long time it was thought that
perhaps King Tut's tomb, for some reason, not sure why,
contained in one of these secret chambers that was purported
to exist the Ark of the Covenant. Yeah, yeah, that
(23:49):
is up until around this year, I think May of
this year or a little before that, there was some
extensive scientific testing of King Tutton Common's tomb that essentially
proved no, there are no super secret, hidden, awesome treasure
chambers in that particular too. Yes, I'm gonna I'm gonna agree.
(24:10):
I agree. It's interesting because the stories about the tomb
and the legends of the curse and the idea that
it is a repository for our cane, secret valuable things.
A lot a lot of these legends spring up when
Egyptology is experiencing its Western Renaissance, you know, and there
(24:35):
are a ton of British people saying, ah, yeah it's there,
whatever it is. What did you did you say? You say,
the Ark of the Covenant. Yeah, yeah, totally that yeah,
King tut Man, Oh, King tutt where it is? Yeah, alright, boy, King,
he's got all the stuff. And that has been our
completely accurate reenactment of Egyptology in Britain. So that one
(25:01):
has been disproven primarily through the use of modern technology. Yes,
at least as you're saying, in that particular King Tut's too.
If there maybe King Tutt had multiple tumbs. You know,
he was an enterprising guy. You never know. Well, the
value of the Kings is home to many mysteries still,
and it would be wonderful to visit one day, can we?
(25:25):
I think you know what, if Paul is in, I'm
gonna go okay, Oh he said no, he said no, Yeah,
he said no. Hang on, let me. I just got
daggers a little better. All right, Well, right to us
and let us know if you have explored this area
(25:45):
of Egypt. Who wants to hear your experiences. And while
we're waiting to hear from you, we're getting to the
crux of today's question. We've done a very high level
look at the history of the Ark of the Covenant,
the various claims by differing experts about what it actually was,
and the various claims about where it might be. And
(26:08):
that leads us to the question where is the Ark
of the Covenant today? And we'll take a different trip,
this time to Ethiopia. After a word from our sponsor.
Here's where it gets crazy. That's the stuff. Oh, watching
(26:29):
the watching the video has really brought it back. We
are traveling to northern Ethiopia. Come with us on this
journey of the mind. We are going to Acxim. Some
of some of us who have researched ancient African history
in the past will be familiar with his name spelled
(26:49):
a x u m. It's something that was written out
of a lot of Western history books. But Acum was
a very powerful kingdom that was founded around four rid
b c. E. And the city in modern day Ethiopia
Axim is the former capital of this ancient kingdom and
(27:10):
it is replete with cultural and architectural history and along
with that come legends. One legend is that the Queen
of Sheba herself lived in this city. And while you
can go back and forth about the historosity or that's
(27:31):
the that's the fancy word for the accuracy of these claims,
we can say that in the modern day UNESCO recognizes
these locations, these sites, these constructs and buildings as World
Heritage Sites. So whether or not all the legends are true,
(27:54):
everyone can agree that this is eldridge stuff. And there
are some incredible ruins that you can find in an
Oxom and modern day Oxom. And it's just, I mean,
it's so cool, everything from obelisks to entire just I
(28:17):
don't know if you would call it just a lot
of standing stones, a lot of places where there are
large parts of stone walls and buildings that are that remain,
but it's just it is ruins, but it is just
so cool to see. I have used so many pictures
of this place over the course of stuff they don't
want you to know, as as like stock footage, um,
(28:40):
just because it is fascinating looking. It's it's very very cool.
And in this city there is a church. It's called
the Chapel of the Tablet. It's part of the Church
of Our Lady Mary of Zion. The Chapel of the Tablet,
(29:02):
just if you're a casual passer by, looks like an
old building. It's not huge, and it's clearly clearly ancient,
but it's something that you might not look at twice
as as you're strolling through this city that is filled
to the brim with ancient wonders. But this church has
(29:26):
a particular claim to fame and importance in Ethiopia, in
the world at large and across the Abramaic religions. It
is the home of the actual Arc of the Covenant,
or so they claim. Well, here's the deal. There is
only one human being that can see this, and it's
(29:49):
not you, unfortunately, Well it might be. It might be
one of us if you happen to be listening, If
you're this one person and you're happen to be a stuff,
they don't want you to know. You lonely, one person
with such a burden to bear. Thank you for listening
to the show and for taking care of the Ark
of the Covenant. That's right. There is a single guardian
(30:13):
appointed for life to protect the Ark of the Covenant,
and they are not allowed to leave the bounds of
the temple. They're also always mail. They are the only
person allowed to view this artifact. And it's a lineal
(30:33):
thing too. There's a lineage to it because you, as
the guardian, you continue protecting and protecting and staying in
this place and protecting and protecting, and then you eventually
start to die. And when you're on your deathbed and
you're laying there taking your last breaths, you have to
choose somebody or maybe not in that moment, but you
(30:54):
have to choose the next guardian and then that person
has to stay in that place forever, yes, but until
their death. They have to stay. So according to the story,
this is where the Ark of the Covenant ends up
due to the actions of an Ethiopian prince. According to
(31:17):
the Axomite Christians, the Ark of the Covenant is first
brought to Ethiopia during the reign of King Solomon, and
the Queen of Sheba travels to meet Solomon and has
a child with him named men Lick, and this is
the guy who reputedly takes the ark. So that's according
(31:39):
to this version of events, that's how it ends up here.
And it's still around. It hasn't decayed. Yeah. The story
is essentially that because they had this child, at some point,
the Queen of Sheba travels to meet or for travels
to see Solomon with the child so that they can
(32:00):
actually meet the father and the son, and then when
they return back to to Um where they are in Ethiopia,
they take it with them. I see, which is an
interesting story plot wise, because this is one of the
most powerful artifacts that Solomon possesses, right and perhaps it's
keep it hidden, keep it safe kind of thing. Maybe
(32:21):
it is. Maybe it is. It's just strange that he
would give this away. If he consentually gave it away,
it's a gift to his son. There we go. Maybe maybe.
Despite the official stance that only the guardian of the
arc may gaze upon this artifact, over the years, several
(32:42):
other people have claimed that they also happened to see it,
one of whom was a former administrator of the church.
Here's the thing, though, So it's it's one person typically
looking at it, and a couple of other people, for
one reason or another, have been able to gaze upon
it or lance at it. Their descriptions all match, just
(33:04):
like the descriptions in ancient Judaic text. Everyone is looking
at the same physical thing, and the description furthermore, of
this arc based in Ethiopia, largely gibe with the descriptions
of the container mentioned in Exodus Exodus versus ten through
(33:28):
twenty two. Do you mind if I just go through
here and read the NIV version? Yeah? Please do, please do?
And could we bring back the music? Okay, oh that
sounds on all right? Here we go. So this is
Exodus two New International Version of the Bible. Have them
make an arc of acacia would two and a half
(33:49):
cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a
cubit and a half high. Overlay it with pure gold,
both inside and out, and make a gold molding around it.
Past four gold rings for it and fasten them to
its four ft with two rings on one side and
two rings on the other. Then make poles of acacia
wood and overlay them with gold. Insert the poles into
(34:13):
the rings on the sides of the arc to carry it.
Feels very um um putting together a piece of furniture
kind of thing. I guess that's kind of what it is.
The poles are to remain in the rings of this arc.
They are not to be removed. Then put in the
ark the tablets of the Covenant Law, which I will
give you Ben. Do you want to continue, well, thank
(34:33):
you that I would love to make an atonement cover
of pure gold two and a half cubits long and
a cubit and a half wide, and make two cherubim
out of hammered gold at the ends of the cover.
Make one cherub on one end and the second cherub
on the other. Make the cherubim of one piece with
the cover at the two ends. The cherubim are to
(34:54):
have their wings spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them.
The cherubim are too face each other looking towards the cover.
Placed the cover on top of the arc, and put
in the ark the tablets of the Covenant Law that
I will give you. They're above the cover, between the
two chair of them that are over the ark of
the Covenant Law. I will meet with you and give
(35:15):
you all my commands for the Israelites. Ah. You know,
it's very specific, so specific. It reads like assembly instruction,
which it is. Yeah, it is. And twice it's said, hey, look, seriously,
put the put the tablets in there. Okay, we got that,
or I'm gonna keep going, okay, put the tablets in there.
(35:36):
You got this. But then that last bit of I
will meet you and give you all my commands for
the Israelites at the end. Yeah, in between those wings
and the specificity here is crucial to this story because
it gives us in the modern day a very very
(35:58):
good profile of what to look for what is the ark.
But it also gives anyone who is anyone instructions on
how to make an arc. Yes, so if you want
to make a recreation, you could make it to a
t like seriously, at any point in history, you could
age it. Let's say you made it in the six hundreds.
(36:20):
You could make an arc then, and then it would
look so aged at this point. Unless you had someone
come in and actually do testing on the wood, it
would be difficult to prove you know, that it's some
not some miraculous ancient thing. That's that's a really good point.
He got me. It's got your man hands up on
(36:43):
that one, because it is it is true. The specificity
is a sword that swings both ways cognitively and makes
it difficult for people who are attempting to track down
the actual location of the physical arc. This is the
stuff they don't want you to know about it. Which
which of the claimed arts is replica? Which is the
(37:03):
real deal? And the most important aspect of the arc
that would separate it from a replica is going to
be that it can the true art contains these two tablets,
two tablets made of stone. Yeah, that our stone if
(37:27):
you really want to Oh man, yeah, you're on fire today.
That's just it's a really good point. It's a really
good point. So then if that doesn't work as the
indicator of the true arc, the last thing we are
left with is God or the ability of the arc
to do extraordinary supernatural things. Miraculous things would probably be
(37:53):
a better word in this context. So, except no substitutions,
the true arc of the Covenant is occupied by God
right sitting there on the mercy seat. The arc is
a footstool talking to Moses, or in this case, talking
to the single guardian there at that church in Axim.
(38:15):
And you get to ask yourself, what is this guardian
doing with all the information that he's getting, right? Is
he like one of the most powerful men on earth
or perhaps of the most or does the guardian only
guard it and never really upon it. See, this is
what we need. We need to have a team of
(38:36):
people who are willing to look into the arc and
try and use it to see whether or not faces
melt uh. And you know, anything bad happens to those people.
That's how we begin testing all of these various arcs.
And we haven't we have yet to talk about the
idea that the arc is a piece of anachronistic lee
sophisticated technology. Oh man, that's almost a different episode is
(39:02):
maybe we should do that for a different episode, but
we let you just tell you right now. My favorite one,
personally is that it was some form of radioactive either
material or weapon or something that was very, very bad
that you should not ever open because there's nuclear or
radioactive energy in there right, which sounds as if it
(39:26):
would be something straight out of science fiction. However, I
believe a few years ago you and I were both
startled to discover that ancient nuclear reactors did exist. In
a technical just let me have this, You got it.
It's okay. They're not as far as we know, they're
(39:46):
not man made, but there are on the African continent.
In modern day Gabon. I want to say, there are
clear indications that there were three naturally occurring nuclear reactors.
But if you look at ancient Indian texts, perhaps you
may believe that there was an ancient war of some
(40:07):
kind with flying machines and weapons that could light up
the sky and turn deserts to glass, and maybe it's
a remnant of that war. Right And furthermore, as insane
as some of this sounds, we're going down a rabbit hole.
Please come with this or send help as insane as
(40:31):
this stuff sounds, the fact of the matter is that
human beings are extraordinarily bad at holding onto stuff. Over time,
We've lost people and thought they were fictional to find
out they were real. We've lost cities and thought they
were legends or pure acts of symbolism, only tile or
find out they're real, and we have lost entire civilizations.
(40:51):
We have done that humans. Now is it is it's
probable that there is ancient, sophistic hated technology that was
somehow lost. Yeah, it's only probably because we have found
or rediscovered ancient technologies, but we haven't found anything like
(41:12):
a spaceship there. They're usually going to be something like
Greek fire or Damascus steel, you know what I mean.
They're they're more techniques and and unique mixes of chemicals.
But it would be really cool to find an ancient
aircraft please please see. And one of the arguments against
(41:38):
that is that if something like that. First off, the
argument is no, you're crazy, that would never happen because
we would have heard more about it. And then the
second argument is, oh, even if someone somehow did something
like that, it would have decayed due to the vast
(41:59):
span of time. Time and the chasm between the ancient
world and the modern day. But that brings us back
to your original point, which I love about a gilded
wooden artifact. How could it be intact for so long?
This question leads many scholars to assume that the object
(42:19):
within the church in Ethiopia is itself a replica. Call
it a forgery, and called a replica, I think forgery
has some negative connotations, so let's just say replica. But
they think the arc or the artifact in that church,
while being a replica, is a very old one. It
(42:43):
wasn't made in vent or something. Right, And this is
a believable claim because the forgery of holy objects, relics
of saints, pieces of the True Cross and so on
are his historically quite common. Yeah there, I cannot remember
(43:04):
who said it, but there is a great quotation wherein
someone says they're they're shown a piece of the quote
unquote true cross, the one that held Jesus right upon
which Jesus Christ was crucified, And they say, you know,
I've seen so many of these, there are enough to
make a forest. How big is this cross? Right? And
(43:27):
while that is true, while counterfeits, relics and artifacts are
ubiquitous in the ancient world. That doesn't prove or disprove
the Church's claims. It's just something that's important for us
to know. And of course, not everyone agrees spoiler alert
(43:48):
that this is the actual arc. There are people like
Ron Wyatt who claimed to have discovered the ark for themselves.
Wyatt specifically claims that he discovered it in Jerusalem. And
now we get to the case of Zimbabwe, where the
Limba people who we mentioned earlier, claimed to have once
(44:10):
in the past possessed the original arc and reconstructed it.
According to their traditions. The original container was destroyed and
so the Limba, following the word of God, created a
new container called them Lundu for these holy stone tablets.
(44:30):
That translates Goma Lungundu translates to the drum that thunders.
I know what an amazing name, right, And this container
fits our criteria for the true arc in that it
contains those stone tablets and reputedly has extraordinary powers or capabilities. However,
(44:56):
as you mentioned earlier in the show, mat big problem
is people can look at this, you look directly at it,
no no consequence whatsoever. Maybe it's I mean, we're being
a big lip with this. According to the legends, you're
not supposed to look at the container out of respect.
It's opening it that presents the problem. Right. So our
(45:21):
big buzz kill for this is that other people claim
the arc was real, did exist, and it's not around today,
is not extant because the Babylonians destroyed it. So these
are options. The arc does exist, was destroyed, or was
destroyed and then recreated to contain these these tablets, or
(45:47):
it exists in any number of coincidentally inaccessible places like
the Vatican Archives. I'm so glad you brought this up. Now,
this is just I I did not read this anywhere.
This just is just something that came to mind. If
you were going to safely store an ancient artifact such
(46:07):
as this arelic, you might want to do it at
the Vatican Archives because they've got some technology going on
there to really protect things like this. And it would
make a whole lot of sense if this is where
it ended up. Um like, think about it. It It could.
I don't know, it would be safe for it to
be there, and it would be relatively unknown because there
the Vatican Archives are very difficult to gain access too.
(46:30):
And if you do gain access. You don't get to
see everything, and it's so oh man. The whole process
of accessing the Vatican Archives is strange. So there are
parts of there are parts of the archives wherein you
have to go there in person and you are allowed
(46:51):
to read a restricted work or view a sacred object,
but you're you're not allowed to say, hey, what stuff
do you have here? What's the where's the directory? You
have to you have to know exactly what you're looking for,
which is such an effective way to prevent the curious
(47:12):
from casually investigating things. Ah, hi, excuse me, I'm looking
for the ark of the Covenant. Oh yes, it's a
common right, this way, I'll show you. Yes, sorry, they're perfect. No,
that's perfect, that's perfect. And that was the Pope right,
Oh yes, he's yeah, that's true. From nine thirty a m.
(47:37):
To about four thirty pm Vatican time, you can just
swing by and speak to His Holiness himself. It's it's
kind of like a bookstore. We are absolutely kidding. That
is not meant to so. I think I think the
Pope himself would find it funny. I think at any
(47:58):
time you have to be to poke fund a little bit.
At very very powerful people, just a tiny bit just
to make everything else feel okay. No matter what your
beliefs are. If it's super powerful, you just kind of go,
you know what, it's okay, right, we can be silly. Well,
the question holds though, the recreation that that you depicted, Matt,
(48:20):
it still holds up because it leads us to another question.
If this were in the archives, wouldn't someone have talked
about it at some point? Yeah? Oh yeah, And wouldn't
it wouldn't Okay, If you're a major institution like that,
rather than just protected, why wouldn't you have it in
(48:40):
a protected place? Um, you know, where it can be
displayed for tourists. Can you imagine the tourism dollars you
could get out of that Vatican Church, in the Vatican Bank,
or you know, probably more importantly for that institution. Can
you imagine the validity it gives to adherents, to believers,
to practitioners. People would come from across the world version
(49:03):
ratio for that, Yeah, just for a chance to view it.
Why would it be a secret. A poor example of
this would be the constitutions of various countries, many of
which are on display, and they in a secular sense,
are sacred objects, right, the foundation of various nations. But
(49:24):
the states that function under these constitutions and these declarations
and so on, they want people to see them. They
have lines out the door for people to go look
at these things. So it's it's an interesting conundrum because
if the arc is stored somewhere and someone knows about it,
then why is it a secret. It's a great question.
(49:47):
In two thousand and nine, the patriarch of the Ethiopian
Church had planned to publicly display it display the Ark
of the Covenant that is based there in Axim. However,
this may have been a rumor. The claim was quickly
withdrawn and the church said the original reports were disinformation,
attempting it was implied to pressure the church two allow
(50:12):
at least photographs of the ark to be disseminated. There's
another question that you may have been wandering about as
we were exploring this story. Could there be multiple arcs?
At this point we can say they are at least two, right,
yet the Limba arc right, and the Drum that thunders,
(50:32):
and then this original arc at least two at least two.
And that's of all the stories. That's that's if the
Lemba narrative and the ancient Dai narrative are both correct.
But it turns out there are references in other ancient
texts of similar containers used to transport sacred relics. There's
(50:56):
an author named Thomas Rumor who created a book called
The Invention of God, and Rumor writes that throughout the Lavats,
it was common for pre Islamic Bedouins and Arab communities
to carry holy chest that contained two sacred stones or
the statues of two gods, and that later after the
(51:18):
rise of Islam, these statues were replaced by copies of
the Kuran. No Wow and even Stranger. This is something
that I don't think either of us expected to find
Matt even stranger. The arc may have originally contained two statues,
one representing Yahweh and one representing a Shira. I don't know.
(51:43):
I don't know Ashira. A Shira, according to this folkloric research,
was the divine consort of the god Yahweh. So, if
we're trying to be buzzfeedy about it and make a
headline God's wife, pretty strange stuff, Yeah, definitely. So that's
(52:06):
where we leave it for now. We are going to
return with an episode on the claims of ancient technology
perhaps associated with the Arc, to which we can add
other historical and acronistic objects such as the anti thera mechanism. Dude,
So it sounds like we need to start just traveling
(52:29):
the world trying to prove whether or not this thing exists,
because I don't think we can do it from here.
We got to actually get in these rooms, tackle the
guardians and be like, I'm opening this thing and we
can only do this with your help. Oh no, no, no, wait,
don't don't tackle any guardians. Don't please, don't do that.
(52:50):
I'm totally joking, But we do need you to go
explore the world for us, if that If that's okay,
and let us know if you have been to one
of the play is that we mentioned in this episode,
let us know what your take is on the art. Now,
we're pretty careful to separate our opinions from our research
(53:12):
in every episode of every show we do, and in
this case, I'll put my opinion out there. I believe
it was a real historical object. Yeah, the descriptions are
consistent enough. Now what did it do? What was really inside?
(53:33):
How many instances or iterations or versions of this thing exists.
Those are questions that I don't have the answers to. However,
there clearly was a physical thing and may still be
a physical thing out there. Yeah, I tend to agree
with you. Yeah, I think the physical thing though, if
(53:55):
it did exist, it would go the way of the
limbo one, where it was like broken down into almost
nothing and then it was recreated into a new version
of itself. And that also that makes me wonder about
the old ship of thesis problem, that one ship of thesis. Yeah,
the ship of thesis. It's a it's a thought experiment,
(54:19):
and it's baffling. So the idea is the idea is this,
Let's take a ship and say that over the course
of the ship's existence, it is repaired and pieces of
it are replaced, and eventually the ship is made of
entirely new materials. None of the original ship exists. It's
(54:42):
just been slowly and completely repaired and replaced. Is it
the same ship in this case? Is the arc? The
same arc? Is any human being the same human as
we constantly lose and replace ourselves. That's true, that's true.
These are huge questions we want to hear. We want
(55:02):
to hear your take. We hope that you enjoyed this episode.
As always, thank you to our super producer Paul Decond.
Thank you to the guardians of the Arc, whomever they
may be and wherever they are located. And thank you
Matt for for hanging out here. I can't believe we
went the whole episode and only did a few tasteful
Indiana Jones references. Yeah, well we did some tasteful full references.
(55:28):
Then we read the Bible Indiana Jones style. Okay, yeah,
we did do that. All right. Well, that's that's our que.
That's our cue to call it a day. This concludes
our episode, but not our show. We will be back
very soon with more strange and fascinating stuff they don't
want you to know. In the meantime, you can find Matt, Noel,
(55:51):
Paul and myself on the internet. We're all over the place.
We're on Instagram, we're on Facebook, we're on Twitter. We'd
love to see you over at our community page. Here's
where it gets crazy, where we're getting a lot of
stuff and there's actually I don't know if you saw this, Matt,
there's a guy who I've just decided to never reply
to with anything other than the phrase and all caps
(56:15):
all Hail the King of Toast. Oh I saw that.
I just saw that. It was right before we came
in here. Yeah, I'm gonna take this. I'm gonna run
with it. We are active on the page and we
would like to hear from the most important part of
every show we do, which is you, specifically you, if
none of that really haulds your art and you prefer
(56:36):
to stay off the social media we have all people
completely get it. You can reach us directly via email.
We are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com.
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. M Hello,
(00:24):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt Noel
is on an adventure somewhere. That's true. They called me Ben.
We are joined as always with our super producer Paul Decant.
Most importantly, you are you, and you are here, and
that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
(00:45):
Let's get right into it. You want to, Yeah, Paul,
could we get some some sweeping Spielberg esque music? Yeah,
for a certain you know character that likes to go
spilunking sometimes and other other forms of treasure. Yeah, I
guess we should, Uh, for legal reasons, call him Illinois Smith.
(01:06):
That weka, it's we're We're obviously huge fans of the
Indiana Jones series, which has a bunch of problems. You know,
the thuggy cult in Temple of Doom is vastly misrepresented. Uh.
You know, I feel like you could listen to that
music and watch someone search for their keys in a
(01:27):
couch or something, and it would feel just as epic. Yes,
searching for treasure. Do you ever do that, Matt when
when you're doing a mundane task, do you ever put
on sweeping cinematic music? No? I just to myself, I'm like,
where did I put writer's water bottle? Oh? Don't see.
(01:49):
Oh that's that's a great idea. I I am guilty
of playing soundtracks when I am on a mundane task
to make it feel more like a mission, something righteous,
you know. And today's episode concerns one of the biggest
(02:11):
religious questions in modern history, the fate of something called
the Ark of the Covenant, relic and artifact, highly important fixture,
physical fixture within the Christian and several other faiths. Yes,
and older obviously than Christianity, but older than we initially suspected.
(02:39):
And a long time ago, you and I did a
video together, a video episode on this. It was part
of a series called Secret Places, where wherein we explored
North Sentinel Island, which was a good one. Yeah, I
stand by that one, which we have an update on
that will save for the end of the show, and
(03:02):
wherein we explore the fate or the current location of
the Ark of the Covenant. But maybe we're getting ahead
of ourselves. Let's let's start at the beginning. Here are
the facts, right, the facts about the Ark of the Covenant.
We've mentioned that it is ancient, and I'm sure it's
(03:25):
familiar to all of us right now, conspiracy realists listening
to this. Regardless of what your spiritual or religious orientation is,
you are familiar with the concept of the Ark of
the Covenant due to the circumstances of my early days.
(03:47):
I learned about the Ark of the Covenant through the
Spielberg film Indiana Jones Raiders Have Lost Art. That's how
you learned about it. That's how I learned about it.
You know, I bet that's true for a lot of people,
because it it hidden away kind of not really but
a little bit within popular culture until that movie comes out.
There are a couple of things that you could maybe
(04:08):
point to. And it's also not a major part of
this one book of the Bible Exodus. Yes, and I
defer to your knowledge of biblical text. You and Joe
McCormick from Stuff to Blow Your Mind are my favorite
people to to quiz about this literature. So, what exactly
(04:33):
is the Arc of the Covenant the actual thing, not
the not the Spielberg thing. Well, the the Arc of
the Covenant is it's a couple of things. The first
thing is is a container, this gilded or kind of golden,
not kind of golden container that has a couple of
attributes to it, that holds within it something very very precious.
(04:55):
And that that is stone tablets that Moses old fourth
that you might remember from some film or television series
where he's standing on top amount sinai and he's proclaiming
that these this is the word of God. These are
the commandments that we must follow. Right. Thou shalt not
kill that's a big one, right, the sins, the dues,
(05:19):
and don't of how to be a righteous person? Correct?
The real thing, Yeah, not not a metaphor not a
some sort of strange analogy. This is a physical container
that holds within it the tables of the law, the
(05:39):
stone tablets that bear the word of God, some of
the oldest maintained word of God. Right, and you can
read various translations of these tablets and their construction in
(06:00):
Exodus thirty four one. Correct, So a year after Israelites
leave Egypt after the Exodus. Yes, Uh, the arc is
created according to the legend uh, following the guidelines of
a pattern that God gives to Moses when the Israelites
(06:24):
are living at the foot of Mountain Sinai and thereafter
this this chest it is it is gilded, as you said, Matt,
it is gold plated, but it is a wooden chest,
which is the kind of wood it's made out of
is typically translated as acacia wood. And it is carried
(06:47):
like a palanquin like staves like exactly. There there are
two staves, staffs, whatever you want to call him. Staves
is probably the correct word, but there wooden sticks essentially
um and they're they're very long, and so you can
have at least two people on either side of it
on their shoulders carrying the thing. And it's usually portrayed
(07:07):
as having cherubs on top of it or some kind
of small winged angel creature that looks like a young
child care of them. Yeah, exactly. And there there's you know,
there are so many depictions of it, of what it
possibly could look look like. We can't really give you
an exact picture, but if you you know, if you
go online, you can see some of the circular stuff
(07:30):
that a lot of times is depicted as being on
the sides of it, and just it's basically it would
basically be um gold finishing work. Yes. Yeah, And these
these two figures, which we will examine in detail later
in today's episode. They have their wings reaching out toward
(07:53):
one another such that the wings form a seat of sorts,
and this is called the Mercy seat. And the belief
is that God Yahweh itself sits at this seat. And
the arc is sort of functioning as a footstool. And
(08:17):
after its construction, when the Israelites are moving or when
there is a war occurring, this chest is carried two
thousand cubits, which today translates to about two thousand, six
hundred feet or eight for the entire rest of the world,
in advance of the population with a mass Uh. I
(08:42):
don't want to use the word excess. When there when
there's mass migration with this group of people, this thing
goes at the front. So it's almost like it's the
word of God carrying them and taking them on the path. Yes,
and it is a powerful artifact, and it's not a
passive thing. In the stories. The arc is so powerful
(09:02):
in fact, that it is always carried under a veil
of skins and cloth. It can never touch the ground
pretty much. No one can ever look at it, and
God speaks directly to Moses in that space created by
the two cherubim or angels that we mentioned earlier. It's
(09:22):
like a portal basically, kind of. I don't mean to,
you know, secular arise it too much, but that's what
it kind of functions as God's little portal. And you're
I don't think you're being dismissive at all, because a
lot of the things that we see today in secular
fiction descend from these ancient religious traditions. And we're probably
(09:48):
going to ruin several sci fi films for you along
the way here, because many of the depictions of artifacts
in science fiction are essentially just retellings of this original story.
So no one can look at it. God speaks to
Moses directly through it. It can never touch the ground,
(10:12):
and it is incredibly important. It is credited with parting
the sea right Moses uses it to part the Red Sea.
It it creates other miracles for the tribe, for the
Israelite community. It also brings woe and misfortune upon those
who do not treat it respectfully, or who wronged it
(10:35):
or attempt to use it definitely don't try to use
it for ungodly purposes. And according to the written tradition,
the arc is lost in a terrible, terrible battle with
the Philistines, and the Philistines take it from the Israelites,
and God punishes the Philistines with plagues, with sickness, illness, terrible, terrible,
(10:58):
terrible stuff. And you know, you're looking for a reason,
why is this happening. Maybe it's that thing you went
and putting the treasure room. Maybe the Israelites were correct,
they say so. Eventually they return the arc to its
original owners, and the Israelites keep it at a place
called Kuria Jerem for about twenty years, and then King David, again,
(11:22):
according to the story, takes the Ark to Jerusalem. At
first it is housed in a tent, and then later
it is housed in King Solomon's temple. Solomon's temple, that's
the big one. That's the one that Freemasonry ad models
all of its buildings after, and it is one of
(11:43):
the most important buildings in history. Absolutely from that point
until Jerusalem's destruction by the Babylonians, the Arc disappears from
the story. Yeah, from from the Bible. Yeah, poof that
is gone. Yeah, it says here in the notes Kaiser
sociay style. Yeah, we were. We were talking about that
(12:08):
off air a little bit. So that's a spoiler for
Usual Suspects, which is a great film. I don't I
don't think we spoiled that. I think we have in
the past. Unfortunately, Ah, It's worth a rewatch. The hint
is he's no longer employed by Netflix. Shots fired, Matt.
(12:32):
It's it's true on all these accounts, this mystery person
is no longer employed by Netflix, and the arc vanishes
from the narrative, and it's it's a strange it's a
strange absence because it plays such an important role, this
heart effect in the story of the people of Israel.
(12:57):
So like many physical things, things, places and artifacts and
people even described in ancient text, experts today are still
debating over whether or not it's real. And this is
a this is a thing that pops up pretty often.
(13:17):
Is King Arthur real? Tell us about ex Caliber, what
happened to Noah's arc? Is it really in Turkey? You
know what I mean? And one of the things that
we find is we look into subjects such as this
is that there usually is something genuine there. Perhaps the
stories around it have been embellished and you know, grown
(13:38):
beyond well beyond themselves over time. But usually there is
something there if it's recorded in at least two or
three places true true, and especially if they are independently written,
by which by which we mean those two or three
sources are not reef raisings of the original source. And
(14:03):
now we get to the question with the Ark of
the Covenant. This is fascinating because unlike some other ancient artifacts,
there does appear to be a genuine physical thing. And
ah man I I can't wait until we get into
the really cool stuff. We have to do the background first.
But let's talk about what could be proven about the
(14:27):
arc as a physical artifact. So we'll put to the
side the claims of the extraordinary power of the arc
just as a physical artifact. Is there an actual thing?
According to Baruk Halpern, who is a professor of ancient history,
classics and Ancient Mediterranean studies of Penn State as well
as religious studies. According to him, there is a thing,
(14:50):
because from his perspective is a very well read expert.
The references to the arc throughout the religious text are
consistent and do not change or very over translation. And
this means that whatever the original purpose of this artifact was,
(15:12):
whatever it's actual origin story is, he believes there is
a genuine, real, physical thing, not a metaphor not some
sort of symbol that people talk about. You can't look
inside yourself and find your own arc of the covenant.
You you can't have that young adult novel moment where
(15:32):
you're like, ah, it was me the whole time. No,
this is a real thing, the real thing you can hold,
and you shouldn't look at it. So whatever it is,
it was genuinely taken by the Philistines and then genuinely
given back, and it was it genuinely had something in
it probably and it's it exists, it exists head And
yet here's one of the biggest problems. Ben it is
(15:54):
so stink and old, and it was made of would
well gold plated? Would right? Right? Yes, that's a question
that incorporates some hard science. How long does a wooden
construct last. It's that's dependent upon numerous environmental factors. Exactly
(16:16):
where right and where is it now? If it's still around?
And how old is it? Actually? Because according to various scholars,
this physical thing. Again, this very real container. This artifact
is so ancient that it may predate Judaism entirely, which
(16:37):
sounds crazy, older than Abraham himself. Right, that's that's that's
the idea. Because the various biblical stories of the Arc
may all contain echoes of pre judaic religious practices. You
will see some people calling them ancient cults. And it's
(17:00):
very difficult to untangle the layers of history and myth
that have been added to this story in the great
millennia old game of telephone that has written in oral tradition.
But we we don't want to let anybody feel as
if it is impossible to find the arc. We hunted
(17:23):
down some rumored locations, places where, according to various people,
you can find the arc today in again, don't look
at it. Yeah, and don't look at it when we
come right back from a word for our sponsors and
(17:47):
we're back, Matt. You found a number of places where
people claim the arc exists. Yeah. This, I got some
information from I O nine that had an article that
just kind of a list is a list article. But
then there are a couple of other places that have
been mentioned just throughout time and rumors that have existed.
(18:07):
So let's just go through a couple of these really quickly,
and then later on we can expound a lot further
on these. The one I'm excited about, oh I do
so one of the first places, and this one's a
bit of a softball. It's a Catholic church. It's the
Cathedral of Our Lady of Shot in France, and that's
in Shocked, France. C H A R T R S.
(18:29):
It's a really interesting place. It's a World Heritage site. Um.
It's it's a very Gothic church, like a in this
case French Gothic church. So it's got those jagged lines
with the steeples heading up into the sky. Um. It's
it's got you know, it's the things that you would
see if you're looking at a very old cathedral. It's
got the flying buttresses and it's really I don't know,
(18:53):
it's it's very cool. Is built in like eleven hundred
eleven night No. Eleven ninety four is when it was constructed.
That's when it begins in um. So, you know, perhaps
this is one of the places where the arc ended
up due to the cathedral's association with the Knights Templar
correct another group that we have we done in Knights
(19:15):
of Templar episode. We are far overdue for that. Okay,
absolutely should that's happening. It's another chance to reference Indiana
Jones to be completely candid. So, the one of the
reasons that people historically believed that the actual arc could
be located this cathedral is because of the Knights Templar
(19:38):
involvement and a carving at the cathedral depicting the arc itself.
But you know, that's kind of shaky ground to go on. Yeah,
the story here comes from a twenty century French author
that said the original nine members of the Night Templar
discovered the arc early on in the Templars history while
(20:02):
they were digging under the Temple mount in search of
treasure and secret things. Yeah. This is during the Crusades
to where there's lots of slaughter and lots of plundering. Yes, yeah, absolutely,
and that's not the only place. There's also a pretty
strong tradition or folkloric narrative that argues the Arc of
(20:29):
the Covenant or an Arc of the Covenant will explain
that later exists with the Lemba tribe in Southern Africa.
In Zimbabwe. The Limba tribe may sound familiar to some
of us because this tribe has Jewish roots. Genetic testing
(20:50):
confirms the traditional beliefs of this community. They have They
have always said that they have these roots, that they
are of the people of Israel. And for a long
time there were various other forces and institutions that felt
(21:12):
this was entirely a legend. Yeah, but but it's really
interesting because there is an arc of the Covenant that
exists that the Limit tribe has and they're just a
place called the Museum of Human Science and Zimbabwe, and
the group claims that this this arc that they have
is a replica, like it's not the actual arc, except
(21:33):
that it's built from the remnants of what the arc
became after all of these thousands of years and the
forces of decay upon the wood. And the argument is
that this arc does contain again those physical stone tablets,
it's just the wooden part as a recreation essentially. And
(21:53):
then people say, no, you fools, of course it is
located did in modern day Israel. Oh yeah, that's the thing.
Um that's been a rumor for a long time, and
it's essentially, well, there are a couple of places where
it might be. One of them is deep within tunnels,
(22:14):
the underground basically of Jerusalem, that there's some secret chambers
that exist where where artifacts such as the Ark of
the Covenant are kept, right, And I believe you were
telling me off air that one of the locations is
beneath a lake. Yeah, this one is. It's a slightly
(22:35):
different version of this because it's it's very close. Um,
it's it's Israel's largest freshwater lake, Lake Tiberius, and it's
it's supposedly just at the bottom of this lake, and
it's inaccessible at this point, right, which we see as
a common theme for a lot of these rumored locations.
There's another rumored location, subterranean location rather modern day Jordan's
(23:01):
secret cave or mountain known to a select few, right people,
people who are tasked to guard the arc. That's another
thing we see. It's a very consistent thing throughout the narratives,
from the first mention of the Ark to the modern
day mentions. It always has an elite guard of some sort.
(23:27):
And you know, speaking of an elite guard, sometimes it's
not a physical elite guard. It's a curse of some
sort because for a long time it was thought that
perhaps King Tut's tomb, for some reason, not sure why,
contained in one of these secret chambers that was purported
to exist the Ark of the Covenant. Yeah, yeah, that
(23:49):
is up until around this year, I think May of
this year or a little before that, there was some
extensive scientific testing of King Tutton Common's tomb that essentially
proved no, there are no super secret, hidden, awesome treasure
chambers in that particular too. Yes, I'm gonna I'm gonna agree.
(24:10):
I agree. It's interesting because the stories about the tomb
and the legends of the curse and the idea that
it is a repository for our cane, secret valuable things.
A lot a lot of these legends spring up when
Egyptology is experiencing its Western Renaissance, you know, and there
(24:35):
are a ton of British people saying, ah, yeah it's there,
whatever it is. What did you did you say? You say,
the Ark of the Covenant. Yeah, yeah, totally that yeah,
King tut Man, Oh, King tutt where it is? Yeah, alright, boy, King,
he's got all the stuff. And that has been our
completely accurate reenactment of Egyptology in Britain. So that one
(25:01):
has been disproven primarily through the use of modern technology. Yes,
at least as you're saying, in that particular King Tut's too.
If there maybe King Tutt had multiple tumbs. You know,
he was an enterprising guy. You never know. Well, the
value of the Kings is home to many mysteries still,
and it would be wonderful to visit one day, can we?
(25:25):
I think you know what, if Paul is in, I'm
gonna go okay, Oh he said no, he said no, Yeah,
he said no. Hang on, let me. I just got
daggers a little better. All right, Well, right to us
and let us know if you have explored this area
(25:45):
of Egypt. Who wants to hear your experiences. And while
we're waiting to hear from you, we're getting to the
crux of today's question. We've done a very high level
look at the history of the Ark of the Covenant,
the various claims by differing experts about what it actually was,
and the various claims about where it might be. And
(26:08):
that leads us to the question where is the Ark
of the Covenant today? And we'll take a different trip,
this time to Ethiopia. After a word from our sponsor.
Here's where it gets crazy. That's the stuff. Oh, watching
(26:29):
the watching the video has really brought it back. We
are traveling to northern Ethiopia. Come with us on this
journey of the mind. We are going to Acxim. Some
of some of us who have researched ancient African history
in the past will be familiar with his name spelled
(26:49):
a x u m. It's something that was written out
of a lot of Western history books. But Acum was
a very powerful kingdom that was founded around four rid
b c. E. And the city in modern day Ethiopia
Axim is the former capital of this ancient kingdom and
(27:10):
it is replete with cultural and architectural history and along
with that come legends. One legend is that the Queen
of Sheba herself lived in this city. And while you
can go back and forth about the historosity or that's
(27:31):
the that's the fancy word for the accuracy of these claims,
we can say that in the modern day UNESCO recognizes
these locations, these sites, these constructs and buildings as World
Heritage Sites. So whether or not all the legends are true,
(27:54):
everyone can agree that this is eldridge stuff. And there
are some incredible ruins that you can find in an
Oxom and modern day Oxom. And it's just, I mean,
it's so cool, everything from obelisks to entire just I
(28:17):
don't know if you would call it just a lot
of standing stones, a lot of places where there are
large parts of stone walls and buildings that are that remain,
but it's just it is ruins, but it is just
so cool to see. I have used so many pictures
of this place over the course of stuff they don't
want you to know, as as like stock footage, um,
(28:40):
just because it is fascinating looking. It's it's very very cool.
And in this city there is a church. It's called
the Chapel of the Tablet. It's part of the Church
of Our Lady Mary of Zion. The Chapel of the Tablet,
(29:02):
just if you're a casual passer by, looks like an
old building. It's not huge, and it's clearly clearly ancient,
but it's something that you might not look at twice
as as you're strolling through this city that is filled
to the brim with ancient wonders. But this church has
(29:26):
a particular claim to fame and importance in Ethiopia, in
the world at large and across the Abramaic religions. It
is the home of the actual Arc of the Covenant,
or so they claim. Well, here's the deal. There is
only one human being that can see this, and it's
(29:49):
not you, unfortunately, Well it might be. It might be
one of us if you happen to be listening, If
you're this one person and you're happen to be a stuff,
they don't want you to know. You lonely, one person
with such a burden to bear. Thank you for listening
to the show and for taking care of the Ark
of the Covenant. That's right. There is a single guardian
(30:13):
appointed for life to protect the Ark of the Covenant,
and they are not allowed to leave the bounds of
the temple. They're also always mail. They are the only
person allowed to view this artifact. And it's a lineal
(30:33):
thing too. There's a lineage to it because you, as
the guardian, you continue protecting and protecting and staying in
this place and protecting and protecting, and then you eventually
start to die. And when you're on your deathbed and
you're laying there taking your last breaths, you have to
choose somebody or maybe not in that moment, but you
(30:54):
have to choose the next guardian and then that person
has to stay in that place forever, yes, but until
their death. They have to stay. So according to the story,
this is where the Ark of the Covenant ends up
due to the actions of an Ethiopian prince. According to
(31:17):
the Axomite Christians, the Ark of the Covenant is first
brought to Ethiopia during the reign of King Solomon, and
the Queen of Sheba travels to meet Solomon and has
a child with him named men Lick, and this is
the guy who reputedly takes the ark. So that's according
(31:39):
to this version of events, that's how it ends up here.
And it's still around. It hasn't decayed. Yeah. The story
is essentially that because they had this child, at some point,
the Queen of Sheba travels to meet or for travels
to see Solomon with the child so that they can
(32:00):
actually meet the father and the son, and then when
they return back to to Um where they are in Ethiopia,
they take it with them. I see, which is an
interesting story plot wise, because this is one of the
most powerful artifacts that Solomon possesses, right and perhaps it's
keep it hidden, keep it safe kind of thing. Maybe
(32:21):
it is. Maybe it is. It's just strange that he
would give this away. If he consentually gave it away,
it's a gift to his son. There we go. Maybe maybe.
Despite the official stance that only the guardian of the
arc may gaze upon this artifact, over the years, several
(32:42):
other people have claimed that they also happened to see it,
one of whom was a former administrator of the church.
Here's the thing, though, So it's it's one person typically
looking at it, and a couple of other people, for
one reason or another, have been able to gaze upon
it or lance at it. Their descriptions all match, just
(33:04):
like the descriptions in ancient Judaic text. Everyone is looking
at the same physical thing, and the description furthermore, of
this arc based in Ethiopia, largely gibe with the descriptions
of the container mentioned in Exodus Exodus versus ten through
(33:28):
twenty two. Do you mind if I just go through
here and read the NIV version? Yeah? Please do, please do?
And could we bring back the music? Okay, oh that
sounds on all right? Here we go. So this is
Exodus two New International Version of the Bible. Have them
make an arc of acacia would two and a half
(33:49):
cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a
cubit and a half high. Overlay it with pure gold,
both inside and out, and make a gold molding around it.
Past four gold rings for it and fasten them to
its four ft with two rings on one side and
two rings on the other. Then make poles of acacia
wood and overlay them with gold. Insert the poles into
(34:13):
the rings on the sides of the arc to carry it.
Feels very um um putting together a piece of furniture
kind of thing. I guess that's kind of what it is.
The poles are to remain in the rings of this arc.
They are not to be removed. Then put in the
ark the tablets of the Covenant Law, which I will
give you Ben. Do you want to continue, well, thank
(34:33):
you that I would love to make an atonement cover
of pure gold two and a half cubits long and
a cubit and a half wide, and make two cherubim
out of hammered gold at the ends of the cover.
Make one cherub on one end and the second cherub
on the other. Make the cherubim of one piece with
the cover at the two ends. The cherubim are to
(34:54):
have their wings spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them.
The cherubim are too face each other looking towards the cover.
Placed the cover on top of the arc, and put
in the ark the tablets of the Covenant Law that
I will give you. They're above the cover, between the
two chair of them that are over the ark of
the Covenant Law. I will meet with you and give
(35:15):
you all my commands for the Israelites. Ah. You know,
it's very specific, so specific. It reads like assembly instruction,
which it is. Yeah, it is. And twice it's said, hey, look, seriously,
put the put the tablets in there. Okay, we got that,
or I'm gonna keep going, okay, put the tablets in there.
(35:36):
You got this. But then that last bit of I
will meet you and give you all my commands for
the Israelites at the end. Yeah, in between those wings
and the specificity here is crucial to this story because
it gives us in the modern day a very very
(35:58):
good profile of what to look for what is the ark.
But it also gives anyone who is anyone instructions on
how to make an arc. Yes, so if you want
to make a recreation, you could make it to a
t like seriously, at any point in history, you could
age it. Let's say you made it in the six hundreds.
(36:20):
You could make an arc then, and then it would
look so aged at this point. Unless you had someone
come in and actually do testing on the wood, it
would be difficult to prove you know, that it's some
not some miraculous ancient thing. That's that's a really good point.
He got me. It's got your man hands up on
(36:43):
that one, because it is it is true. The specificity
is a sword that swings both ways cognitively and makes
it difficult for people who are attempting to track down
the actual location of the physical arc. This is the
stuff they don't want you to know about it. Which
which of the claimed arts is replica? Which is the
(37:03):
real deal? And the most important aspect of the arc
that would separate it from a replica is going to
be that it can the true art contains these two tablets,
two tablets made of stone. Yeah, that our stone if
(37:27):
you really want to Oh man, yeah, you're on fire today.
That's just it's a really good point. It's a really
good point. So then if that doesn't work as the
indicator of the true arc, the last thing we are
left with is God or the ability of the arc
to do extraordinary supernatural things. Miraculous things would probably be
(37:53):
a better word in this context. So, except no substitutions,
the true arc of the Covenant is occupied by God
right sitting there on the mercy seat. The arc is
a footstool talking to Moses, or in this case, talking
to the single guardian there at that church in Axim.
(38:15):
And you get to ask yourself, what is this guardian
doing with all the information that he's getting, right? Is
he like one of the most powerful men on earth
or perhaps of the most or does the guardian only
guard it and never really upon it. See, this is
what we need. We need to have a team of
(38:36):
people who are willing to look into the arc and
try and use it to see whether or not faces
melt uh. And you know, anything bad happens to those people.
That's how we begin testing all of these various arcs.
And we haven't we have yet to talk about the
idea that the arc is a piece of anachronistic lee
sophisticated technology. Oh man, that's almost a different episode is
(39:02):
maybe we should do that for a different episode, but
we let you just tell you right now. My favorite one,
personally is that it was some form of radioactive either
material or weapon or something that was very, very bad
that you should not ever open because there's nuclear or
radioactive energy in there right, which sounds as if it
(39:26):
would be something straight out of science fiction. However, I
believe a few years ago you and I were both
startled to discover that ancient nuclear reactors did exist. In
a technical just let me have this, You got it.
It's okay. They're not as far as we know, they're
(39:46):
not man made, but there are on the African continent.
In modern day Gabon. I want to say, there are
clear indications that there were three naturally occurring nuclear reactors.
But if you look at ancient Indian texts, perhaps you
may believe that there was an ancient war of some
(40:07):
kind with flying machines and weapons that could light up
the sky and turn deserts to glass, and maybe it's
a remnant of that war. Right And furthermore, as insane
as some of this sounds, we're going down a rabbit hole.
Please come with this or send help as insane as
(40:31):
this stuff sounds, the fact of the matter is that
human beings are extraordinarily bad at holding onto stuff. Over time,
We've lost people and thought they were fictional to find
out they were real. We've lost cities and thought they
were legends or pure acts of symbolism, only tile or
find out they're real, and we have lost entire civilizations.
(40:51):
We have done that humans. Now is it is it's
probable that there is ancient, sophistic hated technology that was
somehow lost. Yeah, it's only probably because we have found
or rediscovered ancient technologies, but we haven't found anything like
(41:12):
a spaceship there. They're usually going to be something like
Greek fire or Damascus steel, you know what I mean.
They're they're more techniques and and unique mixes of chemicals.
But it would be really cool to find an ancient
aircraft please please see. And one of the arguments against
(41:38):
that is that if something like that. First off, the
argument is no, you're crazy, that would never happen because
we would have heard more about it. And then the
second argument is, oh, even if someone somehow did something
like that, it would have decayed due to the vast
(41:59):
span of time. Time and the chasm between the ancient
world and the modern day. But that brings us back
to your original point, which I love about a gilded
wooden artifact. How could it be intact for so long?
This question leads many scholars to assume that the object
(42:19):
within the church in Ethiopia is itself a replica. Call
it a forgery, and called a replica, I think forgery
has some negative connotations, so let's just say replica. But
they think the arc or the artifact in that church,
while being a replica, is a very old one. It
(42:43):
wasn't made in vent or something. Right, And this is
a believable claim because the forgery of holy objects, relics
of saints, pieces of the True Cross and so on
are his historically quite common. Yeah there, I cannot remember
(43:04):
who said it, but there is a great quotation wherein
someone says they're they're shown a piece of the quote
unquote true cross, the one that held Jesus right upon
which Jesus Christ was crucified, And they say, you know,
I've seen so many of these, there are enough to
make a forest. How big is this cross? Right? And
(43:27):
while that is true, while counterfeits, relics and artifacts are
ubiquitous in the ancient world. That doesn't prove or disprove
the Church's claims. It's just something that's important for us
to know. And of course, not everyone agrees spoiler alert
(43:48):
that this is the actual arc. There are people like
Ron Wyatt who claimed to have discovered the ark for themselves.
Wyatt specifically claims that he discovered it in Jerusalem. And
now we get to the case of Zimbabwe, where the
Limba people who we mentioned earlier, claimed to have once
(44:10):
in the past possessed the original arc and reconstructed it.
According to their traditions. The original container was destroyed and
so the Limba, following the word of God, created a
new container called them Lundu for these holy stone tablets.
(44:30):
That translates Goma Lungundu translates to the drum that thunders.
I know what an amazing name, right, And this container
fits our criteria for the true arc in that it
contains those stone tablets and reputedly has extraordinary powers or capabilities. However,
(44:56):
as you mentioned earlier in the show, mat big problem
is people can look at this, you look directly at it,
no no consequence whatsoever. Maybe it's I mean, we're being
a big lip with this. According to the legends, you're
not supposed to look at the container out of respect.
It's opening it that presents the problem. Right. So our
(45:21):
big buzz kill for this is that other people claim
the arc was real, did exist, and it's not around today,
is not extant because the Babylonians destroyed it. So these
are options. The arc does exist, was destroyed, or was
destroyed and then recreated to contain these these tablets, or
(45:47):
it exists in any number of coincidentally inaccessible places like
the Vatican Archives. I'm so glad you brought this up. Now,
this is just I I did not read this anywhere.
This just is just something that came to mind. If
you were going to safely store an ancient artifact such
(46:07):
as this arelic, you might want to do it at
the Vatican Archives because they've got some technology going on
there to really protect things like this. And it would
make a whole lot of sense if this is where
it ended up. Um like, think about it. It It could.
I don't know, it would be safe for it to
be there, and it would be relatively unknown because there
the Vatican Archives are very difficult to gain access too.
(46:30):
And if you do gain access. You don't get to
see everything, and it's so oh man. The whole process
of accessing the Vatican Archives is strange. So there are
parts of there are parts of the archives wherein you
have to go there in person and you are allowed
(46:51):
to read a restricted work or view a sacred object,
but you're you're not allowed to say, hey, what stuff
do you have here? What's the where's the directory? You
have to you have to know exactly what you're looking for,
which is such an effective way to prevent the curious
(47:12):
from casually investigating things. Ah, hi, excuse me, I'm looking
for the ark of the Covenant. Oh yes, it's a
common right, this way, I'll show you. Yes, sorry, they're perfect. No,
that's perfect, that's perfect. And that was the Pope right,
Oh yes, he's yeah, that's true. From nine thirty a m.
(47:37):
To about four thirty pm Vatican time, you can just
swing by and speak to His Holiness himself. It's it's
kind of like a bookstore. We are absolutely kidding. That
is not meant to so. I think I think the
Pope himself would find it funny. I think at any
(47:58):
time you have to be to poke fund a little bit.
At very very powerful people, just a tiny bit just
to make everything else feel okay. No matter what your
beliefs are. If it's super powerful, you just kind of go,
you know what, it's okay, right, we can be silly. Well,
the question holds though, the recreation that that you depicted, Matt,
(48:20):
it still holds up because it leads us to another question.
If this were in the archives, wouldn't someone have talked
about it at some point? Yeah? Oh yeah, And wouldn't
it wouldn't Okay, If you're a major institution like that,
rather than just protected, why wouldn't you have it in
(48:40):
a protected place? Um, you know, where it can be
displayed for tourists. Can you imagine the tourism dollars you
could get out of that Vatican Church, in the Vatican Bank,
or you know, probably more importantly for that institution. Can
you imagine the validity it gives to adherents, to believers,
to practitioners. People would come from across the world version
(49:03):
ratio for that, Yeah, just for a chance to view it.
Why would it be a secret. A poor example of
this would be the constitutions of various countries, many of
which are on display, and they in a secular sense,
are sacred objects, right, the foundation of various nations. But
(49:24):
the states that function under these constitutions and these declarations
and so on, they want people to see them. They
have lines out the door for people to go look
at these things. So it's it's an interesting conundrum because
if the arc is stored somewhere and someone knows about it,
then why is it a secret. It's a great question.
(49:47):
In two thousand and nine, the patriarch of the Ethiopian
Church had planned to publicly display it display the Ark
of the Covenant that is based there in Axim. However,
this may have been a rumor. The claim was quickly
withdrawn and the church said the original reports were disinformation,
attempting it was implied to pressure the church two allow
(50:12):
at least photographs of the ark to be disseminated. There's
another question that you may have been wandering about as
we were exploring this story. Could there be multiple arcs?
At this point we can say they are at least two, right,
yet the Limba arc right, and the Drum that thunders,
(50:32):
and then this original arc at least two at least two.
And that's of all the stories. That's that's if the
Lemba narrative and the ancient Dai narrative are both correct.
But it turns out there are references in other ancient
texts of similar containers used to transport sacred relics. There's
(50:56):
an author named Thomas Rumor who created a book called
The Invention of God, and Rumor writes that throughout the Lavats,
it was common for pre Islamic Bedouins and Arab communities
to carry holy chest that contained two sacred stones or
the statues of two gods, and that later after the
(51:18):
rise of Islam, these statues were replaced by copies of
the Kuran. No Wow and even Stranger. This is something
that I don't think either of us expected to find
Matt even stranger. The arc may have originally contained two statues,
one representing Yahweh and one representing a Shira. I don't know.
(51:43):
I don't know Ashira. A Shira, according to this folkloric research,
was the divine consort of the god Yahweh. So, if
we're trying to be buzzfeedy about it and make a
headline God's wife, pretty strange stuff, Yeah, definitely. So that's
(52:06):
where we leave it for now. We are going to
return with an episode on the claims of ancient technology
perhaps associated with the Arc, to which we can add
other historical and acronistic objects such as the anti thera mechanism. Dude,
So it sounds like we need to start just traveling
(52:29):
the world trying to prove whether or not this thing exists,
because I don't think we can do it from here.
We got to actually get in these rooms, tackle the
guardians and be like, I'm opening this thing and we
can only do this with your help. Oh no, no, no, wait,
don't don't tackle any guardians. Don't please, don't do that.
(52:50):
I'm totally joking, But we do need you to go
explore the world for us, if that If that's okay,
and let us know if you have been to one
of the play is that we mentioned in this episode,
let us know what your take is on the art. Now,
we're pretty careful to separate our opinions from our research
(53:12):
in every episode of every show we do, and in
this case, I'll put my opinion out there. I believe
it was a real historical object. Yeah, the descriptions are
consistent enough. Now what did it do? What was really inside?
(53:33):
How many instances or iterations or versions of this thing exists.
Those are questions that I don't have the answers to. However,
there clearly was a physical thing and may still be
a physical thing out there. Yeah, I tend to agree
with you. Yeah, I think the physical thing though, if
(53:55):
it did exist, it would go the way of the
limbo one, where it was like broken down into almost
nothing and then it was recreated into a new version
of itself. And that also that makes me wonder about
the old ship of thesis problem, that one ship of thesis. Yeah,
the ship of thesis. It's a it's a thought experiment,
(54:19):
and it's baffling. So the idea is the idea is this,
Let's take a ship and say that over the course
of the ship's existence, it is repaired and pieces of
it are replaced, and eventually the ship is made of
entirely new materials. None of the original ship exists. It's
(54:42):
just been slowly and completely repaired and replaced. Is it
the same ship in this case? Is the arc? The
same arc? Is any human being the same human as
we constantly lose and replace ourselves. That's true, that's true.
These are huge questions we want to hear. We want
(55:02):
to hear your take. We hope that you enjoyed this episode.
As always, thank you to our super producer Paul Decond.
Thank you to the guardians of the Arc, whomever they
may be and wherever they are located. And thank you
Matt for for hanging out here. I can't believe we
went the whole episode and only did a few tasteful
Indiana Jones references. Yeah, well we did some tasteful full references.
(55:28):
Then we read the Bible Indiana Jones style. Okay, yeah,
we did do that. All right. Well, that's that's our que.
That's our cue to call it a day. This concludes
our episode, but not our show. We will be back
very soon with more strange and fascinating stuff they don't
want you to know. In the meantime, you can find Matt, Noel,
(55:51):
Paul and myself on the internet. We're all over the place.
We're on Instagram, we're on Facebook, we're on Twitter. We'd
love to see you over at our community page. Here's
where it gets crazy, where we're getting a lot of
stuff and there's actually I don't know if you saw this, Matt,
there's a guy who I've just decided to never reply
to with anything other than the phrase and all caps
(56:15):
all Hail the King of Toast. Oh I saw that.
I just saw that. It was right before we came
in here. Yeah, I'm gonna take this. I'm gonna run
with it. We are active on the page and we
would like to hear from the most important part of
every show we do, which is you, specifically you, if
none of that really haulds your art and you prefer
(56:36):
to stay off the social media we have all people
completely get it. You can reach us directly via email.
We are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com.
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
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