The Vatican appears to be enveloped in secrecy, from the still-unsolved disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi in 1983 to a secretive collection of documents known as the Apostolic Archive. The sci-fi mythology of the Chronovisor, though, has to be the most strange of the Vatican’s supposed secrets.
The existence of the Chronovisor, which is said to be a gadget with the power to see past time, has never been verified, although a 2002 book by Vatican priest Father François Brune claims otherwise.
Father Pellegrino Ernetti, a Benedictine monk, invented the Chronovisor, according to Brune. Ernetti supposedly kept the device hidden until the early 1960s, when he confided in Brune and told him that it was built with the assistance of 12 experts, including eminent physicist Enrico Fermi and former Nazi scientist Wernher von Braun.
The Chronovisor, which was made of cathode rays, antennas, and metals that received sound and light signals at all wavelengths, allegedly allowed the team of scientists to chronicle historical events such as Jesus Christ’s crucifixion. As a result, the machine may confirm the Bible’s teachings merely by offering a first-hand peek into the past.
A NASA Engineer Supposedly Designed The Chronovisor
Enrico Fermi, who purportedly assisted in the construction of the Chronovisor, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938.
Brune’s 2002 book, Le Nouveau Mystère du Vatican, is the de facto reference on the Chronovisor. Brune describes how he met Father Ernetti on a boat journey down Venice’s Grand Canal in the early 1960s. Ernetti, like Brune, was well-versed in the history of old languages, which allowed for easy discourse. But Ernetti swiftly shifted their conversation to science.
Brune was expounding on the many interpretations of the Christian Bible when Ernetti offered that he had access to the truth via a time-traveling gadget.
Ernetti said that he and a group of prominent scientists collaborated to reveal the past. One scientist was Enrico Fermi, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938, and the other was the ex-Nazi von Braun, whose work at NASA propelled America to the moon.
Wernher von Braun, a German-turned-NASA scientist (center).
The apparatus, according to Ernetti, featured multiple antennas, three of which were composed of “strange” metals that picked up sound and light waves over their whole spectrums.
The equipment’s “direction finder” was purportedly tuned into the precise era one desired to observe, while a screen presented it and a recording device collected the film.
As a result, the Chronovisor was more of a window into the past than a time machine. Ernetti said it operated like a television, picking up echoes from the past that were “floating” in space — and he claimed to have seen some incredible sights.
The Bible’s Most Important Moments Were Revealed by the Device
The device’s alleged blueprints.
In 63 B.C., Ernetti witnessed Marcus Tullius Cicero’s address before the Roman Senate. Ernetti said, “His motions, his intonation.” “How strong they were! “What oratory flights?” Ernetti made further, increasingly daring claims, such as seeing Jesus Christ’s crucifixion.
Ernetti said that he and his team have peeked into some of the most major events in the Bible, from the establishment of the Roman Empire to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
On May 2, 1972, his assertion was published in the Italian newspaper La Domenica del Corriere. The piece, titled “A Machine That Photographs the Past Has Finally Been Invented,” highlighted Ernetti’s astounding words for the rest of Italy to read.
Along with the apparently questionable allegations, the publication released a purported Chronovisor image that Ernetti claimed showed the Romans crucifying Jesus Christ. According to the 1972 article, Ernetti observed the Last Supper and preserved a photograph of the Biblical event as a remembrance.
One of numerous articles supporting Ernetti’s assertions.
Ernetti insisted until his death in 1994 that the machine had been stored away by the Vatican to keep it out of the hands of the wrong people. Surprisingly, the Vatican said in 1988 that “anyone utilizing such a device would be excommunicated.”
Ernetti published an open letter shortly before his death, strongly stating that the gadget was real. “Pope Pius XII forbid us from disclosing any specifics about this gadget since the contraption was highly hazardous,” he alleged. It has the potential to limit man’s freedom.”
The alleged picture of Jesus (left) and an oddly similar artwork (right), both done years before Ernetti publicized this photograph.
As enticing as the Chronovisor appears to be, many of Ernetti’s claims regarding it have now been refuted. Skeptics have claimed that his alleged portrait of Jesus was actually a low-cost replica of a statue stored in an Umbrian church. Another publication said that the image was simply a reversed image of Jesus from a postcard produced in the Italian town of Collevalenza.
In 1996, Paracelsus journal published more criticisms of Ernetti’s assertions. The article questioned why Ernetti hadn’t given explicit instructions on how to make the gadget to back up his claims. The story also highlighted how the Chronovisor’s design was eerily similar to a similar gadget in a 1947 sci-fi tale.
Ernetti, Pellegrino
Some claim that before his death on April 8, 1994, Father Pellegrino Ernetti confessed to fabricating the entire narrative, however, this is fiercely debated. With the deaths of von Braun, Fermi, Ernetti, and Brune, just the intriguing question remains.
In that way, the Chronovisor has endured as a Vatican enigma through the years.
