CAROL VORDERMAN: In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia,
is this treasure hunter about to claim his bounty?
Does this ancient slab of Viking writing
mean America was born in Minnesota?
And could this coded book reveal the elixir of life?
Mysteries from the files of Arthur C. Clarke,
author of "2001" and inventor of the communication satellite--
now in retreat in Sri Lanka, he ponders the riddles
of this and other worlds.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: Like all old buildings,
the Dutch house near my home in Colombo hides many secrets
amassed over three centuries, since the days
when the Dutch were the rulers of this much colonized island.
Within these walls, the Dutch stored
this piece of paper, which must have
been classified as top secret.
It's a treaty they signed with the local rulers.
In the version the Dutch made public,
they agreed to destroy all the forts in the island.
But in this one, which was for Dutch eyes only,
there's no mention of any such promise.
And the Dutch, of course, held onto the forts and to power.
We've only to read both versions of this treaty to find
the truth of the matter.
But all over the world, there are writings, inscriptions,
coded communications, mysterious maps, and weird manuscripts
which have fascinated, obsessed, and usually
frustrated the experts who have tried to crack their secrets.
CAROL VORDERMAN: In this fairy tale castle deep in the forests
of southern Germany, Kirsten Seaver
hopes to find the key to the world's most controversial map.
But across the Atlantic, in Washington, DC,
Dr. Bob McGhee contests her solution to the mystery.
They disagree over this piece of parchment,
known as the Vinland Map.
It's claimed to be the first documentary
proof that the Vikings discovered America.
In the far west, this scrap of land can only be North America.
Its outline matches the Newfoundland coat.
But the map has been dated to 1440, 50
years before Columbus set sail.
In the top left hand corner, an inscription
says that the map is based on information passed
down from Viking explorers.
On Columbus Day 1965, Yale University announced
it had bought the map.
An outcry ensued.
From the first, there were those who
doubted the map's authenticity and demanded
to know its history.
But this man, Lawrence Whitten, who sold the map to Yale,
would not explain where it came from.
Test proved the parchment was medieval.
But scientists disagree about the age of the ink.
Archaeologist Bob McGhee rests his case on historical facts.
He believes the map may well be genuine.
BOB MCGHEE: Well, the Norse were quite
expert at navigating east-west across the Atlantic
alone single lines of latitude.
So the latitude of locations would
be the type of information which we
can see being very carefully passed on to later generations
of sailors.
And this information would have been available to European map
makers of the time.
And if we look at the latitudes of the Vinland configuration
on this map and compare them with those of Europe,
it's quite remarkable how they do line up.
If we look at the southern tip of Vinland
and go across to Europe, we come to Brittany or the northern end
of the Bay of Biscay here.
And if we look at a modern map across here,
from the northern end of the Bay of Biscay, and go west,
we find that it matches almost exactly the southern tip
of Newfoundland.
Now, the northern tip of Newfoundland
matches with about the south coast of Ireland.
And if we go back to the Vinland map
and look at this first big inlet and measure across to Europe,
we find that it matches with the south coast of Ireland.
So this configuration from Bay of Biscay up to the south coast
of Ireland correlates very nicely with the island
of Newfoundland.
CAROL VORDERMAN: It's known that the Vikings
did reach North America.
In the 1960s, archaeologists found the remains
of their settlement.
To McGhee, the dates are everything.
Now, if a forger had drawn this map back in the 1920s and 1930s
and wanted the latitudes to match up with what they thought
at that time the Norse had known, the island of Vinland
would have been placed much further south, because it was
fairly commonly accepted that Vinland would have been
somewhere down Cape Cod, the mid-Atlantic states, perhaps,
whereas since that time, all archaeological evidence
and most scholarly evidence now concludes that Vinland must
have been the island of Newfoundland
or the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, well north where it used to be
thought to be, and exactly where it is shown on the Vinland Map.
CAROL VORDERMAN: McGhee's theories are thought
small [INAUDIBLE] in Bavaria.
Kirsten Seaver is quite sure that the map is a fake.
KIRSTEN SEAVER: It would be like the virgin birth.
It has no tradition behind it.
It has no reality around it.
It would not-- it cannot be.
CAROL VORDERMAN: Seaver is convinced
she knows who forged the Vinland Map-- a Jesuit priest who
died here at Wolfegg Castle.
Only he fitted the profile of the forger.
KIRSTEN SEAVER: The person had to be interested in maps.
Secondly, he or she had to be fluent in Latin.
Thirdly, the person had to know where
all the bones of contention lay buried when
it came to the Vinland voyages.
CAROL VORDERMAN: In the 1930s, Father Josef Fischer
was a world expert on maps.
He devoted his days to teaching history,
until the Nazis closed his college.
Taken under the wing of Wolfegg's prince and princess,
he spent his last years in the bosom of their family.
He left some vital clues.
KIRSTEN SEAVER: Here at Wolfegg Castle,
they have many of Father Fischer's letters.
His handwriting is, of course, of great interest
if we want to pin the Vinland Map on him.
As you can see, it's very impatient handwriting,
with a very characteristic D-- like that.
It's full of strong lateral strokes.
The D that you see in this lecture is so similar to the D
that you see in this map that, for starters, it
is an interesting coincidence.
You will also see that he writes on paper with line guides.
The more tidily written legends, such as the one at Vinland,
are written with a line guide exactly two millimeters apart.
That is not a medieval form.
Father Fischer would not have thought
that it was wrong to make such a map,
because he was convinced that such a map, in some form,
had existed.
I believe he decided to fill in the gap.
Essentially, he made the map he'd
been looking for all his life.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: I'd like to see a solution to the mystery
of the Vinland map.
It's more important than simply deciding whether university
wasted good money on a fake.
If it's genuine, the map would banish myths and illusions
of geographical history.
It would not only show how much of America
the ancient Norse explored.
It might also mean that Christopher Columbus didn't
come across the New World by chance,
but actually knew where he was going.
But perhaps there's another answer
to the mystery of how far the ancient Norse
explorers penetrated America.
It's to be found in a weird inscription which
brings the tourists from far and wide to a small town
in Minnesota.
CAROL VORDERMAN: Alexandria cherishes
its links with Scandinavia.
It's where, in the 19th century, many immigrants
Swedes make their home.
The town's museum boats an extraordinary tourist
attraction.
This stone slab is covered with runes,
lettering of the ancient Norse.
Translated, it says that a party of Vikings
were attacked by Indians and forced
to flee to their longboats.
The date carved into the stone is 1362.
The people of Alexandria have a proud boast.
They believe the Vikings visited their hometown
and left their calling card.
I will show you the rune stone that was found
near Kensington, Minnesota.
It proves that the Vikings were here.
CAROL VORDERMAN: The stone was found
in 1898 by a Swedish immigrant called Olaf Ohman.
He said he found the slab buried in the roots of a tree.
The discovery brought fame to the Ohman family.
But some people doubted the story of the find.
They suggested it was Ohman's own work.
The Ohman farm, where the rune stone was found,
is preserved for posterity by the town.
Grandson, Lalard Kolberg, won't hear a word against Olaf Ohman.
LALARD KOLBERG: My grandfather was an honest man,
and he was a hardworking man.
The Kensington rune stone is a true Viking stone
found by my grandfather on the Ohman farm.
And it would be-- to add, my great grandmother was a very
religious person, so they can't say that my grandfather
made that stone.
There's no way, because he was not educated enough
for doing things like that.
CAROL VORDERMAN: Einar Bakke remembers Ohman from childhood.
EINAR BAKKE: Well, he was a real honest man
as far as I was concerned.
He didn't listen for practical jokes of any kind.
And I'm sure he would not sit and carve a rock like that.
I'm positive it's genuine as far as Ohman was concerned.
CAROL VORDERMAN: But in L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland,
where it's known the Vikings landed,
Norse expert Birgitta Wallace is skeptical of Ohman's claims.
With the help of stonemason Nathaniel [INAUDIBLE],
she is conducting a runic test.
When I first saw the Kensington rune stone,
one thing that struck me as very unusual
was the very, very long inscription.
Normally, a rune stone only says, so and so
erected this stone in memory of so and so.
But that's it.
When I saw that the runes were cut into a weathered surface,
but the runes themselves had not weathered,
it suggested to me immediately that they were quite recent.
Rune marks, as we know them from Scandinavia,
were all done with a pick hammer that makes a U-shaped, much
more uneven cross section.
This was a very clear, straight, V-shaped cut.
CAROL VORDERMAN: Birgitta suspected the runes were
carved with a modern chisel.
So I went and got one.
And lo and behold, they fit perfectly in size.
All the upright ones had been made with a regular North
American one inch chisel.
CAROL VORDERMAN: Birgitta's research in Sweden uncovered
secrets from Ohman's past.
They strengthened the case against him.
BIRGITTA WALLACE: Olaf Ohman has been portrayed
as a simple and rather dumb farmer who couldn't even
in his wildest dreams have thought
of something like a rune stone.
But he was very interested in history
and read very deep philosophical things.
He wrote poetry.
And a very little known fact is that Olaf Ohman
was not a farmer to begin with.
He was a stonemason.
I think that the Kensington stone is proof
not that the Vikings went to Minnesota,
but that Minnesota had a very large
Scandinavian immigrant population in the 19th century.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: When you are dealing with runes,
it's always wise to be wary.
In 1953, Swedish experts announced
they'd found an inscription dating back almost 1,000 years.
But the translation soon revealed
a very different story.
The message actually read, "Joe Doakes went east 1953.
He discovered Europe, holy smoke."
CAROL VORDERMAN: In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia,
there may be gold.
Coded clues left in 1822 by a man
called Thomas Beale have drawn hundreds of treasure hunters
to Bedford country.
Albert Atwell believes his detector
can fin precious metals buried deep underground.
ALBERT ATWELL: I came here looking for the Beale treasure
148 time in the last six years.
And I've hunted all four different directions.
And I've tried to break the codes, tried
to locate the treasure by it.
So maybe one day, we'll find it.
I'm going to keep looking for it in my spare time, practically
every weekend, or at least five times a summer,
because I still believe it's here, and it's gonna be found.
CAROL VORDERMAN: Albert is not the only treasure hunter.
Sergeant Cooper of the sheriff's department
knows this only too well.
DAVID COOPER: The Beale treasure is a nuisance.
And it's part of our job, you know, just to more or less take
care of the complaints.
One man called in that someone had dug six or seven
holes on his property.
There was another incident where a man called that someone
dug where his cattle was at.
If the cows would have fell in it,
he would have lost some cows.
And then there was one incident where they was digging up
a cemetery at a local church.
I arrested a man and a woman, plus this small dog
we had to put in the dog pound.
CAROL VORDERMAN: In the early 1800s,
Thomas Beale is said to have found
gold, silver, and precious jewels on a trip out west.
Three ciphers tell where he hit the treasure
in his native Virginia.
The seemingly incomprehensible lists of numbers
are thought to say where it's buried--
somewhere in these hills.
Code breaking has become a community hobby.
Farmer Jimmy Luck thinks he might have the answer.
JIMMY LUCK: I've been working with a Cheyenne Indian
from Colorado for a good many years.
And he deciphered the code.
And all the information we get out of the code, we have found.
And it has led us to a certain spot
to where we think the treasure's buried.
We are 90% sure-- maybe a little more--
that we're in the right spot.
CAROL VORDERMAN: All Jimmy needs now is the landowner's
permission to dig.
It is really frustrating to know where it is and not
have your hands on it, because after so many years
you worked on it, tried so hard to find it,
and you think you've come up with it,
and then somebody just cuts you off from it.
We're gonna keep working to the find the treasure
as long as we're here.
I think some day, we'll be able to dig
at the place we think the treasure's buried at
and come up with the gold.
CAROL VORDERMAN: Beale's cryptic ciphers
have been scrutinized by one of the world's leading experts
and writers on code breaking.
Dr. Stephen Matyas has tried to put himself
in the mind of Thomas Beale.
He believes he knows how the cipher was concocted.
STEPHEN MATYAS: The key that I have come up with is a 10
by 10 key.
The alphabet in this key consists
of letters, some syllables, some words
and common phrases that would have
appeared in Beale's messages.
CAROL VORDERMAN: Matyas admits that his key depends
on intelligent guesswork, his code breaking
experience, and common sense.
After much trial and error, he believes
he's on the right track.
STEPHEN MATYAS: So for example, the number 21 refers
to the letter in the row number two and column number one,
which is the letter T. Number 17 refers
to the letter A that appears in row one and column seven.
And if you continue in this manner and decipher each
of the numbers, you get a message that reads
"Take the road to Fin Castle.
The vault is beneath a big round stone with the initials TJB."
CAROL VORDERMAN: But Matyas's ingenious work
may yet be in vain.
The Beale ciphers could be a hoax.
If Beale ever existed, and if the treasure ever existed,
I feel confident that the solution method that I am
proposing will be the method shown
to lead to an actual decipherment of paper
number one and will be the basis for leading to the treasure.
CAROL VORDERMAN: Some can't afford to wait.
Albert has hired a backhoe.
ALBERT ATWELL: [INAUDIBLE] Beale treasure could be right here.
More than likely, it is here.
We have to dig and find out.
If I don't find it here today, we'll
go back to work on the codes and buy better equipment
and then hunt somewhere else.
I'm never going to give up hunting for the treasure
until somebody finds it or I do.
CAROL VORDERMAN: At Yale University,
one buildings stands out from all the rest.
The Beinecke Library is a forbidding place.
Susan Tsantiris knows it well.
SUSAN TSANTIRIS: This library does mean a lot to me.
As a child, I came here and saw all the books.
Of course, you couldn't touch anything or breathe in there.
And then, as an undergraduate student,
I spent hours and hours of my life--
I still remember every one of them-- poring over
a particular manuscript was there
and trying to make some sense of it.
CAROL VORDERMAN: The Voynich manuscript
is an exquisite book, first heard
of in Prague in the 1600s.
The writing seems unintelligible.
But the weird illustrations point relentlessly
to a hidden meaning.
Theories include a medieval herbal guide,
an astrological hand book, or even elusive
recipe for the elixir of life.
Only one man has claimed to be close to the answer.
Robert Brumbaugh was a classics professor at Yale.
He died in 1992, but his fascination with the Voynich
lives on in his children, Robert and Susan.
They find it hard to leave their father's notes untouched.
Well, the first thing that hits you when you see it is it
should be something that you could just pick up and read
with just a bit more effort.
The illustrations are beautiful and vivid.
There's a combination of scientific work.
And there's a humor to it that's very rustic.
CAROL VORDERMAN: Together, Susan and her father
identified 14 distinct characters in the Voynich.
Some seemed close to our own writing, others quite strange.
Brumbaugh's inspiration was to use numbers
to translate the manuscript.
With Robert, he began to construct a key.
ROBERT BRUMBAUGH: Father tried several possible arrangements,
came out with this one, which turned out to work the best.
Now, in this box, you see that one number represents
any one of these three letters.
CAROL VORDERMAN: Matching numbers to the Voynich
characters was much more difficult.
But the family had a stroke of luck.
One of the most important clues helping to match the characters
in the manuscript with numerical values
is a set of marginal notes on one
of the folios of the manuscript that appear
to be arithmetic problems.
CAROL VORDERMAN: The discovery of these equations
was a watershed.
Brumbaugh used them to help confirm his suspicions.
He thought he could now understand
some of the Voynich characters to fill
in his code breaking key.
He tested his ideas on the lettering
beside one of his favorite pictures.
SUSAN BRUMBAUGH: If you take the letters that in here--
or the squiggles, the scrawls-- they
look like this-- pi, A, 2-- each one
of those being a distinct form.
If you then ascribe to them the numerical values that appeared
on the chart that my father developed,
you have 7, 5, 7, 7, 5, 2.
One of the possible readings of it-- the only one-- is pepper.
And interestingly enough, this actually
looks very much like a pepper.
My father had a feeling that he could read more and more of it.
But it remained slow going.
And he read bits and pieces here and there.
He read labels.
He read some of the star maps.
Then he began reading pages.
But as he went, some of it was almost distressing
in its ambiguity, because toward the end of some pages,
he thought that perhaps the author lapsed
into a kind of gibberish.
Does that mean that perhaps the code needed adjusting
or that the author was performing
a major hoax on the reader?
We've deciphered enough to show that underneath
is a very heavily padded or repetitive message which either
conceals a second level message, or perhaps
doesn't conceal anything.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: The mysteries in this program
show the extraordinary lengths to which people will go
when they want to keep secrets.
And we've even more secrets to keep today.
As we change information by computers, telephone lines,
and satellites, the more we need uncrackable codes
to make sure that our messages are read only
by the people they're sent to.
So these puzzles from the past may one day
help to guide us on the information superhighway.