They're Hiding Our Past From Us | Forbidden History Pt.5 (Final)

So they slid this altar out of the way, and under the altar was a trap door. And they opened up the trap door. Some of the people who went into the galleries or went into the labyrinth, down into the tunnel system beneath Cusco, died. They died, they never came back out. Others reemerged, but they had lost their minds. They went mad in the tunnels. The tunnels are protected or cursed to keep people out. And that if you go down into them, you're gonna die, or you're gonna go crazy. So the tunnel exists, and it's lined, it's trapezoidal, and it's lined with the andesite blocks, just like in the temple. Sacsayhuamana is one of the most impressive megalithic sites on planet Earth. Nobody really knows who built the megaliths. That's one of the grand mysteries. This is Timothy Albrino, and you are watching In Times Productions. In Cusco, there's a legend of a vast underground network of tunnels. These tunnels are rumored not only to run under Cusco, but under the Andes in general, for hundreds and perhaps even thousands of miles. This is known as the chincana. And chincana is a Quechua word that means the place where one gets lost. It's a labyrinth. So the chincana is a labyrinth. Some of the labyrinth, according to legend, is naturally occurring. In other words, it makes use of lava chambers and tunnels and natural caverns. Some of it is artificial, meaning that the tunnel was dug out and is in some cases lined with stone. There's a particular corridor of the chincana that is 100% artificial. It runs from beneath the Coricancha to the galleries beneath the megalithic complex of Sacsayhuaman. This corridor is known as the chincana grande, and it's a legend. If you ask archaeologists, well, if you would have asked archaeologists in the past, does the chincana grande exist? They'd say, no, it's a legend. It's just a myth. And the reason why they say it's a legend and the chincana in general, this underground network of tunnels. Now, they'll acknowledge that there are some tunnels under Cusco. Archaeologists know this, historians know this, because the Spaniards made use of them to some degree. You can still see the entrance to some of these tunnels in the churches, specifically in the Jesuit church in the plaza in Cusco. If you go into the Jesuit church, go down to the basement, you'll see there's a hole in the ground and you can see there's tunnels beneath the church. So back in 2019, I was in Peru working on a project with my colleague Anselm P. Ramla and my partner, Gary Haven. We were making a film series called Chasing Legends, which today you can see in my members community for those who are interested in watching that film series. But while in Peru, we went to Cusco and we have a state-of-the-art GPR unit that operates off of a drone platform. And we have the capability with this unit, it's Russian technology. We have the capability to see with one of the antennas, we can see, it's a deep penetrating antenna, we can see 300 feet below the surface of the earth. The other antenna is a shallow penetrating antenna, but higher resolution, we can see about 15 feet, but we can see very high resolution. And we took our GPR unit while we were in Cusco and we put it into a duffel bag because we didn't have permission to fly our drone or to use this technology, but we had it with us. So we put the unit in the duffel bag and our guys carried it around the premises of the Coricancha and we detected the tunnel and we were able to image it in 3D. We know where the tunnel begins. And Anselm acquired another unit, the same as ours, and did the same thing. And he verified our find, and he even got a better higher resolution scan than we did. And he was able to map a whole portion of the tunnel. Now Anselm P. Rambla has history in the Coricancha and with this legend of the Shinkana. Anselm was excavating at Sacsayhuaman. I believe it was in the early eighties, he was excavating at Sacsayhuaman. And by the way, as a side note, Anselm P. Rambla is a Spanish explorer who has done extensive work in Peru. And he's a friend and colleague of mine. He and I discovered a lost city in the Andes Mountains called Tauripunku. And Anselm has conducted unprecedented excavations in Peru. He excavated in the eighties, he had permission to excavate at Sacsayhuaman. And Sacsayhuaman is one of the most impressive megalithic sites on planet earth. And you don't just get permission to excavate at Sacsayhuaman. So Anselm was able somehow to get permission to excavate there. And he excavated in several areas. Anselm discovered proof, irrefutable proof, that the walls of Sacsayhuaman were not built by the Inca. And by extension, the rest of the megaliths in Peru. He found at the lowest levels, at the base levels of the wall, he found pre-Inca artifacts, and only pre-Inca artifacts. There were no Inca artifacts at the base of the wall, which suggests, which indicates, that the Inca discovered the walls of Sacsayhuaman, the megalithic site, and decided to rebuild and to refortify it and use it for their own purposes. But Anselm, while he was excavating, and this was years ago, he had his excavations going at Sacsayhuaman, he heard of the legend of the Shinkana, and he decided to go investigate. So here he's over at Sacsayhuaman with his team excavating, and he hears about the Shinkana and diverts himself and a couple of his team members to go over and investigate at the Coricancha. Well, the Coricancha is today occupied by the Dominican Order of the Catholic Church. They built a cathedral and a convent over the ruins of the Coricancha, of the Inca temple. And it is called the Convent and Cathedral of Santo Domingo, Saint Dominic. It's the Dominican Order. And this, they were ceded the Coricancha a long time ago after the conquest, sometime in the 1500s. So the Dominican Order has occupied this site for many, many years, hundreds of years. And Anselm went down to, he went to the convent, to the cathedral, and decided that he would see if he could inquire about the Shinkana, this legendary tunnel, to see if it was real. So he asked the prior if the rumors were true, if the legends were true, if, in fact, beneath the Coricancha, beneath the church, beneath the cathedral, which is built on top of the Coricancha today, if, in fact, there is an artificial tunnel, if, in fact, the Shinkana exists, is it real? And to his utter surprise, the prior said to him, yes, the legend is real. Would you like to see the tunnel? And Anselm was flabbergasted by this proposition and, of course, he accepted. And so the prior took Anselm and a couple of his guys into the cathedral, into the main sanctuary in the cathedral, and he had them help him move an altar out of the way. So they slid this altar out of the way, and under the altar was a trap door. And they opened up the trap door and it led down into a crypt beneath the church. So they descended into the crypt and they're standing there in the crypt and they have their flashlights. As they're standing in the crypt, they notice that there is a wall that's out of place. It doesn't look like the rest of the walls of the crypt. It's made of red bricks and it's covering something up and it's not entirely complete. There's like a gap. And Anselm asked the prior, who's down in the crypt with them, what's this? Where does this go? And the prior said, that is the entrance to the shinkana. And so Anselm walked over to it. He took his flashlight. He had a very high power flashlight and he pointed his flashlight into the tunnel. So this brick wall was blocking off a tunnel, but there was some gaps in the bricks and pointing his flashlight in the tunnel. And he could see, first of all, that the tunnel went on for a very long way. His flashlight, the light didn't get to the end. And he noticed that the tunnel was, it was lined with the same andesite blocks as the temples in the Kodikantsha above. And it was shaped like the trapezoidal doorways as in the Kodikantsha above. Remember, they're basically in the lower levels, the bowels of the Kodikantsha at this point, and in the crypt of the cathedral that was built on top of it. And in the Kodikantsha, the doorways to the temples are these large trapezoidal doors. And the stonework, by the way, the masonry of the Kodikantsha is exquisite. It's beautiful. It's andesite. And it's done in the Cyclopean style. There's no mortar that's holding those walls together. And there are some interlocking parts. So it's incorporating the interlocking megalithic style, although the blocks in the Kodikantsha are not large. They're regular-sized blocks, but it's absolutely exquisite stone masonry. So the tunnel exists, and it's lined, it's trapezoidal, and it's lined with the andesite blocks, just like in the temple. And it runs for one mile. And you have to understand that from the Kodikantsha to the megalithic complex of Saksaywaman, there's an elevation gain of like 1,000 feet or something. But the tunnel isn't going up. The tunnel is going straight. So the further you go, the deeper the tunnel is. So this is the point where the tunnel is most accessible, where it's closest to the surface, where it originates. The further you follow it, the deeper you are under the mountain. And so Ansel, as he's looking at this tunnel with his flashlight, he gets very excited. And he tells the prior, this is great. I've got a team excavating at Saksaywaman right now. We have all the tools and equipment at Saksaywaman. We can bring the team and the equipment here. We can take this brick wall down and go into the shinkana and investigate and explore it. And the priest, Anselm told me that the priest in this moment, his countenance completely changed. He was very accommodating in the beginning, but suddenly on a dime, he became extremely hostile. And he began to shout at Anselm and he said, no, absolutely not, no way. I should not have shown this to you. I made a mistake. I should not have shown this to you. And then he said, get out, get out of here. You're not gonna come back. I made a mistake. Get out of here. And he threw Anselm and his guys out of the church. He turned on a dime and Anselm realized later, talking to a later prior, years later, that the priors were keeping the secret of the shinkana. It was handed down from prior to prior. And the prior is the head priest at the convent, at the cathedral. He's the guy in charge, right? And the secret of the shinkana was passed down through the centuries from prior to prior. The regular priests really didn't know about it. They knew about the legend, but only the priors knew about the shinkana. So he realized this priest, this prior, that he had made a mistake. He wasn't supposed to reveal this. For whatever reason, he did. Anselm believes that it was destiny and that it wasn't time yet to go into the shinkana, but that that time would come. Okay, well. So Anselm, obviously, he's seen the shinkana. And he realizes that if he can get down into the shinkana, it would be one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in centuries, not just in Peru, anywhere. Because again, according to legend, the most important artifacts of the Inca and probably pre-Inca cultures were secreted away beneath the megalithic walls of Sacsayhuaman. And Anselm believes that the revelation of the builders of Sacsayhuaman, in other words, the identity of the builders of the megaliths in Peru is concealed under Sacsayhuaman in the galleries. There's artifacts or some kind of maybe hieroglyphs, something down there that will reveal to the world who built the megaliths in Peru. And other things as well, other things besides. This is what Anselm believes. And I don't doubt it. I personally think there may be some truth to that. Now, unquestionably, I believe that the artifacts were secreted away, that there are revelations about the Inca Empire and about the pre-Inca cultures and about the history of Peru that would demand a rewriting of elements of history in regard to Peru, aspects of the history and the conquest of Peru and all of that. However, I'm not sure how much of that is still there because the Dominicans have had centuries. They've had access to this tunnel, to the labyrinth beneath Cusco and specifically the galleries beneath Sacsayhuaman for centuries. And it's difficult for me to believe that having had the knowledge of the tunnel, that they would not have explored it and ransacked the treasures, if there were any to begin with in the galleries. So I don't know what would be left to this day. Maybe they didn't. Maybe it was too dangerous. Maybe they lacked the resources, the tools to do it properly. Maybe they thought that the tunnels were cursed. Who knows? But we do know that there have been over the years, there have been individuals, specifically in the early 20th century, who managed to penetrate into the labyrinth, the greater Xinkana, get into those labyrinths and make their way into the galleries beneath Sacsayhuaman. Some of the people who went into the galleries or went into the labyrinth, down into the tunnel system beneath Cusco, died. They died. They never came back out. Others reemerged, but they had lost their minds. They went mad in the tunnels. So the natives believe that the tunnels are protected or cursed to keep people out. And that if you go down into them, you're gonna die or you're gonna go crazy. In fact, years later, Anselm would return to Peru and miraculously obtain permission to excavate at the Coricancha. To excavate on the premises of the cathedral and convent of Santo Domingo. No one had ever been given permission like this before. It was unprecedented. And the story of how Anselm got permission is in itself wild, but it would be a digression for us today. But Anselm developed a friendship with the prior, that it was a new prior. The previous one had either died or was sent somewhere else. And when Anselm went back to Peru to get permission to excavate, there was a new prior in place. And this prior was named Father Gamara. And Gamara was a very gentle and good-spirited man. And he was very accommodating to Anselm. And he worked with Anselm so that he could obtain permission to excavate. Permission from the Ministry of Culture in Peru. And the prior heard Anselm's story that he had seen the chincana and was himself very interested in seeing whether or not the legend was true. Now, I think Anselm found out later that Gamara knew the legend was true. And then he told him the following story. I think this was back in the early 20th century. Could have been in the 1800s. That's why I said the relic is 100 to 200 years old. I don't recall. But it happened that two youths somehow penetrated down into the labyrinth. They found an entrance into the tunnels. And they went down there and they somehow managed to make their way into the galleries beneath Saqsaywaman. And keep in mind, Saqsaywaman are the megalithic walls up there in Cusco. One of the most impressive megalithic sites on planet Earth. And as the story goes, related to Anselm by Father Gamara, one of these young men died in the labyrinth. He died because they got lost, obviously. They got lost. And the other managed to make his way out somehow, miraculously managed to make his way out. And the way it happened was Gamara told Anselm that one day it was recorded by a previous prior, the incident was recorded, that one day the priests heard a knocking. They heard a knocking coming from somewhere in the cathedral. And they didn't know where it was coming from. They were looking all over the cathedral. Where is this strange knocking coming from? And eventually they realized that it was coming from that trap door that I mentioned earlier. And somebody was knocking on the trap door from inside the crypt. And when they opened up the trap door, it was a young man. And they lifted him out of the crypt and the young man had in his hand this golden corncob. And he told the prior and the priests who pulled him out of the crypt that he told them the story of how he and his friend had managed to get down into the labyrinth, that they made their way to the galleries beneath Saqsaywaman and that there they discovered a great treasure. And they had selected just this one piece of corn, this golden corn from this hoard of treasure to bring back because they couldn't carry anything else and they were lost. So obviously their primary concern was to get out of there alive. Unfortunately, the other youth, this kid's friend, died in the labyrinth because they were down there for a few days, probably died of dehydration. And this young man had gone mad. He had lost his mind. He was barely coherent. And in fact, he ended up passing away a few days later. But he had given into the hands of the previous prior, one of the previous priors many years ago, this golden corncob, which was melted down and forged into the crown of the virgin and the child. That was the story. So Anselm had proof, the priors had proof that there was still some treasure beneath Saqsaywaman in those galleries. Now, whether or not they had gone into the galleries later on, remember with the advent of modern technology, with the proper gear and flashlights and so forth, maybe they went in and recovered all of that treasure and took it who knows where, maybe to the Vatican, who knows. But there is a possibility that it's still there. And it's not just gold and silver, it's knowledge. That's what you have to understand. There's knowledge in the galleries beneath Saqsaywaman. Anselm believes that once the shinkana is penetrated, that once specifically he is able to get into those tunnels, then the secrets of the Andes are going to be revealed. What he calls actually singular, the secret of the Andes is going to be revealed. And so it's much more than just treasure, it's knowledge. And part of the secret of the Andes is the identity of the megalith builders because they weren't the anchor.