Leap Day Special: Phantom Time Theory

**Discussion begins at 10:15**

Does anyone know much about the Middle Ages? Anyone a big history fan? Well what if I told you a huge chunk of the middle ages, I'm talking a couple hundred of years, never actually existed? That the years 614 to 911 AD have been forged in the historical timeline we know today. Even more, that this was done at the hands of European leaders - the Pope and Emperors who all strived to lead at the change of millennium. These leaders wanted to be a part of a new millennium to become more popular in order for their beliefs to have a stronger hold on the public. Why is there so little physical evidence of this chunk of the Middle Ages? What about the architecture styles used allegedly hundreds of years before the style itself was even created? Can we actually trust the historical dating systems based on trees and radioactivity?

Transcript

Hey guys. 
What's going on? 
Oh, you know, just hangin’
I went out to the country last weekend. 
The country? 
And by country, I mean Frederick.  So really more of like the deep burbs, right? There was an acre of land that felt like the country to me. So we came back. It was my friend Andrew's 40th birthday.  So we went to the birthday party and Rachel and I came home with the three kids and he was out with them with the boys. And I opened the front door to let Tanner out into this massive yard. And a bird flew in. And then as I was trying to, trying to handle the bird, like five seconds pass, and another bird flies in. 
What are the chances? 
So now there's two birds flying around this like huge house. Don't worry guys.  I took care of things. I cornered him, cornered both of them into one of the kids' bedrooms and eventually got them out the window. Although one of them had like nested in a bunch of the little girls' dresses.  And Rachel was like, I don't even care, just throw the dresses out the window. And then Andrew sent a picture yesterday from outside where I guess they were in the backyard and there's a dress hanging off the side of the house.  But I tell this story because after it happened, I text Kait and Colleen like, oh my gosh, it was just me versus like the birds. And what was Colleen's first thought? 
Don't trust the birds. They're government cameras.
Yeah. She's like, that was the government spying on you, Megan. Yeah.
They know you have a podcast, Megan. Yeah. And they were just lurking.  Yeah. Also, but birds in houses are like so funny to me. It wasn't quite so funny.
I just kept being like, this bird cannot poop in these kids' rooms.
And then it also has a lot of bacteria in it. It's like cat scratches.
Yeah. And then at one point I was about two seconds away from being like, this just sounds like a man problem to me like, maybe we just like lock the birds in this bedroom and she doesn't sleep in her bedroom tonight. And a man can deal with this tomorrow.
But my sister has a bird and she just lets it fly around her room. 
Oh, well, I have a friend... 
Does it land on her head? 
She has things dangling.  She's a little bit like me. We're like a maximalist. And she has things dangling from the ceiling.  And the bird just like flies to the things dangling, flies to her cage and like repeat. 
What kind of bird is it? 
A parakeet. 
Oh, one of those like cute little ones.  
But I don't trust that bird.
Um, my friend Steph has a bird and they have like a harness for the bird. And she might be listening.  Hey, Steph, if you're listening. But they sometimes put the bird in like it has like a plastic cage and they'll like take it to the park and stuff. 
I don't trust birds, I particularly don't trust chickens…
You don't trust the chickens? 
I particularly don't trust the chickens. 
Yeah. I just.  
I thought you were over the chicken thing. 
Well, I do want the girls, you know. Yeah.
The ladies. Yeah. The ladies.
Mabel. 
Yeah. I also have like this dream of having a lot of land and like being a sanctuary for the old dogs at the shelter.
Oh, I do like that. 
That people just drop off. 
Well, my brother and his fiancee, they have made the decision to only like adopt elderly dogs.  Like right now they have Tony, who is a spry 19 year old Irish Jack Russell. 
Yes, spry. 
I do love that, but I don't think emotionally I could handle just constant elderly.  All the death. Animals dying all the time. But just think about the like the beautiful life that you could give them at the end.  It's like a doggy hospice. 
When I go pick Tanner up a doggy daycare and it's like all outdoors and usually he's like hanging in the office. But shout out to Dogma Daycare, by the way.  Yeah, Dogma. They used to be right next to my house and it was super convenient. I've since moved, but I still will like venture into the city just to take them there because they're so good to him.  But the point is that even when I walk up and all the dogs are out playing, having fun and they're like barking, I'm like Tanner barking is enough. Now we've got like 20 dogs barking at the same time. And that's what I'm picturing with your sanctuary.  If you just have like 20 dogs running around. 
Yeah. Just be like annoying.
But if they're outside and they have their…
These dogs are all outside. 
But if they have their own little cabin where they have.
Just picture it. How cute a little like barn full of dogs with their own beds in it. I'm picturing the smell of them.
Oh, OK. 
Our dog Yanni came from a barn, like came from like a farm. And he smelled so bad. You guys, you realists. OK, so today we have a shout out to Tinesha.
Tinesha. 
She bought us some coffee. 
Thanks, Tinesha.
Kait, aren't you…  don't you like invest in her husband's small business? Oh, yeah. That's where I am going to buy some coffee with that. 
What's the business? 
So her husband is part of a company named Black Coffee.  It's in Atlanta and they have a storefront in Atlanta. And they opened in 2020 in the storefront. And it's just continued to sort of like skyrocket.  So I am an investor in their company. Their coffee is really good.  You can go online. 
Can you order it? 
Yeah, you can order it online. They sell it by the pound.
We'll share their profile and ways you can support them because they do make some good coffee. 
She also wants to know, do you plan to discuss the implosion of the submersible visiting Titanic ruins or Tupac Shakur? I think those are two unrelated conspiracies. Also, is there any truth to conspiracies around Hurricane Katrina and the levies? What about crack being intentionally planted in communities? Oh, some dark topics…
Yeah.
Look forward to hearing from you and listening to the pod.
So thanks Tinesha.
Thanks for listening. Those are some good add-ons to the list. 
On the list.
Tupac for sure was on the list. I think we got like some pop culture episodes coming up.
We just kind of did one a little bit with like Taylor Swift. I won't bring up her again. I'm sure you guys were tired.
They’ve had enough of her. 
We love the suggestions. Keep them coming.
Keep them coming. So before we get started, don't forget to check out our Facebook and Instagram pages. That's 3SchemeQueens, the number 3, SchemeQueens, all one word.  If you want to check out our website at 3schemequeens.com, you can find links to our social media accounts, our Buzzsprout page, all of our episodes, additional content, and our contact page. Let us know how we're doing or what you want to hear next. There are also opportunities to financially support us.  There are links to buy a cup of coffee, links to our merch store, and Amazon affiliate links to additional content related to the topics that we've covered. And as always, even if you choose not to financially support us, we appreciate the follows, the downloads, the listens.
Yeah.  And if you guys don't mind, after this podcast is done, just go ahead and scroll down to the bottom. Leave us a five-star review, please. It just like helps us get our name out there and sort of boost our listenership.  So yeah. Or if you feel so led, give us a comment. 
Is it time, guys? Is it? Drink check.
Drink check. Drink check. 
Today, I'm drinking.  What is this called? This is Four Sigmatic Boost Organic Cacao Mix. Colleen and I are both drinking it. It's for mental clarity and energy.
It tastes the way... 
Colleen doesn't like it. 
Does it sound like a hippie drink? 
It is a hippie drink. 
It tastes like a hippie drink.
If a drink was like 98% cacao, 1% dirt. 
I was going to say, does it taste like dirt? 
And 1% water. 
I disagree.
It's not bad. It just needs a significantly more flavor. 
It doesn't have a ton.  Well, it's got ginger in it. So I think that the ginger really comes through. 
It's like chocolate tea.
Yeah. I like it. But I will say the first time I drank it, it was like kombucha.  The first time you drink kombucha, you're like, hold on. Wait, this is vinegar. And then you're like, wait a second.
I love kombucha. As we're talking, I'm on my 10th sip and I'm like, it's not that bad. 
Yeah, it's good.
Kait and I are drinking some Chardonnay from Old House Vineyards. 
Shout out Old House. 
Yeah, local winery in the Culpeper area.
So check it out. Pretty good, yeah.
Do you guys ever drink a drink and just become way too aware of time passing? 
I mean, I would like to say not while drinking a drink.
Because actually, when I'm drinking a drink, time passes.
Time is flying. 
Yeah, time is flying.
I have no idea what it is. Yeah, no. You ever think about time too much? Sometimes I just think about, yeah, where has the time gone? 
No, I- Did we just like fast forward 100 years? Like what's going on? Yeah.
What if I told you that about 300 years on our timeline didn't actually happen? 
I would be very skeptical. 
Wait a second. 300 years? 
Yeah.
Not that time didn't pass, but that they changed the year. Like they just fast forwarded the calendar. 
Yeah.
What if I told you that? 
Oh. She's like, she's just stunned right now.
Hold on, I want to hear about it.
Yep. So this theory, before we get into the deep and dirty of it, has a lot of historical references. So this is going to be a conspiracy theory and also kind of a history lesson.
Oh. 
Because it deals with a lot of like historical figures and that were very relevant. 
Well, we are all trying to learn more history.  So I hope you teach us something. 
I hope I'm correct too. 
Don't worry if you're not correct.  We'll only get like 50 text messages and emails about it. So today we're going to be talking about the phantom time theory. So does anybody know much about the middle ages? 
I mean like what we learned in school.  We had like middle age day and we wore dresses. Anybody a big history fan here? Middle Ages? The Middle Ages. Like when I think of the Middle Ages, I think of like the Renaissance Era.  Like the plague. Yeah. Yeah.
So Middle Ages and dark ages. I see. When I did the Valentine's Day football episode, there was a lot of reference to the middle ages and I am not too proud to say.
I actually Googled like what year was actually the Middle Ages? 
Like what era? It was a really long era. 
I wrote, correct me if I'm wrong. I wrote 500 to 1500.
It's just about that. But I'm only talking about a chunk of time during the entire era.
Okay.
Also, could you imagine living in the year 500? 
All I can think of is just how smelly we were.
I always think that too. These people didn't bathe or have deodorant.
Oh, they probably don't have teeth. 
They probably just hurt and they yank them out. 
And the wooden teeth that they had.
So what if I told you a huge chunk of the middle ages, I'm talking a couple of hundred years never actually existed that they crossed out the year and added 300 or so years just to speed things up. 
Wait. They just wanted to like get through time?
Yep. So speed it up. Fast forward.
So the years, this conspiracy is claiming that the year 614 to 911 AD have been forged in the timeline that we know today. So even more that this was done at the hands of European leaders, the Pope and Emperors who all strive to lead at the change of the millennium. Oh.
So these leaders wanted to be part of a new millennium to become even more popular in order for their beliefs to have a stronger hold on the public. Why is there so little physical evidence of this chunk of time during the middle ages? What about the architecture styles used allegedly hundreds of years before and the style itself was before the style itself was even created? Can we actually trust the historical dating systems based on trees and radioactivity? Let's discuss. What do you think? I do have my doubts about carbon dating.I will say that. Megan's giving me the look. 
No, I'm just, I don't know who the leaders were in year 1000 AD.  So I, well, so I would say it didn't really work. 
Right. 
And is this like the entire world was in on this? 
So we get into that.
Okay. Let's hear it. Let's hear it.
Right out of the bat, when I wrote this and researched this, let's just say I truly was in a state of mind where I believed this thoroughly. Okay. I was writing this conspiracy up.  My fingers were flying across the keyboard. I was 100% into it. The next day I woke up and read my notes and was like, oh, I don't believe this.  So this is going to be another one of those conspiracies where I talk a lot and try to make you believe, but I personally probably don't believe. 
Well, you, you give us all the facts and we'll decide. 
All right.  So there's a lot of different historians that this theory has involved and it's kind of been reintroduced a couple of different times. So I'm only going to talk about the big, bigger historians. So it was first introduced by this gentleman named Henry Illig, which was a little confused if Henry and this guy named Dr. Neimitz were the same person or not.  I think it's the same person. And he just made his name easier for us to follow because he's German. Is it Neimitz? Neimitz, Neimitz, Neimitz.
That name sounds so familiar. 
He's kind of like a quite famous historian in Germany. So, and he first wrote up an essay in the 1990s where he explained how he believed the Holy Roman Emperor, Otto III, Pope Sylvester II, and possibly the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII fabricated the Anno Domini dating system retroactively in order to place them at the special year of 1000 AD in order to rewrite history to then legitimize Otto's claim to the Holy Roman Empire.  So these are a lot of like famous historical figures that are completely irrelevant to our time, but are pretty relevant to like the start of like the Catholic church or how the European governments functioned and how it kind of plays into today. So Henry believed it was completed through alteration, misrepresentation, forgery of documents and physical evidence. So he believed that Otto wanted to reign in this year, 1000 AD, because it best suited his understanding of Christian millennialism.
He wanted to kind of enter the new millennium as the leader so that people would kind of respect him more or want to have, create a stronger following, right? Because it shows that he was God's chosen leader for the millennium. So to your question, he was like a Roman leader? 
Yeah. Part of the Roman Empire? The Holy Roman Emperor.
Okay. So allegedly the entire Carolingian period is just like they take the name of the leader during the period and just title that era, like that couple of years. So that's why it's named that.  This period of time, the Carolingian period, included the figure Charlemagne. Henry's theory is alleging that the entire Carolingian period, including the figure of Charlemagne, is made up with phantom time of 297 years. 
What? 
Isn't Charlemagne like a famous person? 
Yeah, he is.
They're saying Charlemagne didn't exist. Charlemagne was the king of the Franks, as it's quoted for. He's famous for political and societal changes that he introduced that had a huge impact on the Middle Ages.  But Henry's theory is believing that Charlemagne didn't exist, that they made up his character, made up his figure just to fill time. He's a character in like a fictionalized era.
Wild. 
Yeah. 
Okay.
He's also known as Carl or Charles the Great. 
Isn't that funny? Carl. Carl.
Okay. I'm still just trying to understand. It doesn't seem like that much incentive just to be like at the change of the century.
Think about it. The Middle Ages was like dark times. What did they have to look for other than what their leaders told them to look for? You know what I mean? 
And were they just thinking that like all the plebes, the peons, the people were just going to like jump on board with this and everyone was just going to pretend the year was a different year? 
Well, they didn't have a good tracking system.
So most people couldn't even read, right? So all it takes is one guy being like, I think let's just fast forward 300 years and no one even knows anything has changed. Yeah.
Okay. Wait, I want to go back to Charlemagne. Yeah. It says that he was the first Holy Roman Emperor. 
Yeah. 
So they wanted to erase him?
Like the theory is that he never existed. He never created him. 
Charlemagne, as far as we know, existed, but she's claiming he's a fake person.
Right, right, right, right. But what's the motivation? 
So they needed a figure to fill that time. It's phantom time.  So they're saying those years didn't happen. They just like fudged the history books, fudged the history books so that Otto could be at 1000 AD. 
And so they're using Charlemagne as a figure to make up those years. 
Oh. So Charlemagne is only a figure like the books.
He did not exist in real life. 
Yeah. I'm reading some facts about his life right now.
Did he live an interesting life? 
Kind of, yeah. 
He's a huge figure in the Middle Ages. 
Right.
Yeah. He wasn't supposed to be king. His father wasn't born a king. And then his brother died. And then he became king. Like it's kind of like this story.  He's considered like the father of Europe. 
But is he fake? 
It was like a surprise for him to be crowned the emperor of Rome. 
Well, I mean, it does sound like it was a bit of a surprise.  He wasn't even real. Right. 
So allegedly.
Allegedly he’s part of the whole phantom theory. He's just the character used to fill the hole.
I'm just in my head. I'm thinking if they made him up, then they would want him to have accomplished all these things because he was supposed to like a character. 
Right.
Yeah. 
So what kind of led to this conspiracy has to do with a lot of how historians were researching like the history of the church and the history of time. So they were trying to interpret all these documents that like were in English or were extremely old and hard to decipher.  So Henry's theory all starts with like the translation of these documents and how they were translated, which kind of in his mind was like suspiciously translated. So beginning in the year 835 A.D., monks were rewriting a piece or piece by piece, all the texts that had been written in Greek. And then the theory is that all these pieces were rewritten and then the originals were then destroyed.
So that means for today's modern day, all existing texts of the then leading culture and the then leading nations, i.e. like the Roman Empire, could have all been changed or rewritten completely in a new script. How can we trust the translations of these monks?  Well, okay. I just feel like are they the most likely to lie? I feel like there's a least likely to lie.
How? I mean, if you say that like the early church wasn't corrupt. 
But you could also maybe feel like they truly believe that Otto should have been the leader at the turn of the millennium. So they were.
They just got on board. 
Yeah. You don't know.
So yeah. So they're claiming we don't have any origin or like. 
And where did their like funding come from? You know? Yeah.
You know? So that's kind of. 
Nazi gold. 
My mom always says, follow the money, Kait. Where's it coming from? 
Nazi gold. Yeah.
I'm going to get more in depth, but that's just like an overview picture of the theory. Let me tell you more about this Henry man himself, because he just sounds kind of like a little lunatic. 
Delulu. 
So he is a historian. He is famous, but he's famous because he's Delulu.
Oh, yeah. Like, yep. He has been like outcasted in the like famous historical population because he's just his theories are out there.  And maybe it's one of them, right? 
Maybe it's syphilis. 
He is from Germany. His hometown name a little too difficult for me to pronounce.
So he's just German. 
Is he actually German? Because I will say in the Denver episode, our fluent Spanish speaker with a minor in Spanish…
What couldn't I pronounce? You said, I don't know.
Jimenez or Jimenez or whatever. The Blucifer. Oh, Jimenez or something.
J-I-M-I-N-E-Z. And I looked at that and I was like, that is a Spanish name. 
I think I thought he was Italian.
And you said, I'm sorry, guys. He's either French or Italian. And then I promptly got on Wikipedia and it was like, he's from Mexico.  Very clearly. But I didn't want to say anything because I was like, this girl knows her Spanish. She knows a lot about the language.
I don't know a lot about the culture, names of people.

But this guy is allegedly where is this guy from? 
Allegedly German. German.
OK, according to Colleen, he's German. So he could be French, could be Irish. We're going to assume he's German.
So Henry was a really big fan of another famous historian called Immanuel Velikovsky. He was Russian, allegedly. 
Probably Russian. Velikovsky sounds Russian. So this man, Immanuel, wrote many books about pseudohistorical interpretation of history. So this is just it.  What this means is that he believed in alternative interpretations of history. Like he argues what we mainstream believe happen. Right.  He argues against what the mainstream belief is for history. And he also believed in something that's called catastrophism, which is like if it's like a theory, like when people are like philosophers, like you can believe in surrealism, you can believe in other different types of isms. This is one of them.
OK. So he believed that the Earth suffered from catastrophic close contact with other planets. And then he proposed that many theories.
Does it all go back to the aliens? 
Yeah, it does. So he proposed that theories surrounding like ancient Greece, Egypt and Middle Ages had all been revised by the people translating documents. So he like Henry pretty much like this guy's correct.  I believe him as well. And just kind of reemphasize Immanuel's theories. OK.  Immanuel and Henry are some of the last famous traditional catastrophists because they've all been shot down by modern historians, like completely shut down, like nobody  truly believes them. Not really, but it's made out of the academia world. But what is catastrophism? Because I low-key believe in this.  It's the theory that Earth has been largely shaped by sudden short-lived violent events, possibly in a worldwide scope. So this is kind of like the dinosaurs and the it's like the Big Bang Theory, like everything. What happens is that every so many chunks of time, something huge happens that clears it all out and we restart.  That's the theory. OK. So like the dinosaurs, they all died and then we restarted.
And so so radiometry -  this water bottle that I am holding is a hundred years old but can I prove that a hundred years ago people believed it to be 1924?
Oh okay 
You know what I mean? 
yeah like I can tell that this water bottle is a hundred years old but I don't know what people a hundred years ago thought what year it was 
And  dendrochronology is events and environmental changes and it uses wood so it uses the patterns of the growing rings on tree trunks to help determine like historical events in the age aging people. They then argue that there are so few samples of wood that old like how many trees existed in the Middle Ages? so there's just not enough evidence...
Wait like trees existing now also existing in the Middle Ages? 
like there's not enough oh it's not enough wood that's old enough to use this like historical dating system is what Henry's arguing 
Oh did you know that the oldest tree in existence is over 5,000 years old? 
Where is that tree?
It's in Atlanta - but it says the reason the bristlecone has lived to be 5,000 years is because it lives in really hard harsh conditions so the harsh conditions have made it stronger
Yeah what doesn't kill you makes you stronger 
 Darwinism 
yeah Henry is specifically talking about the years 1614 to 911 AD and how there is very little evidence documenting the plot of what happened during those years so he questions the translations he questions the physical aging systems okay he went hunting for empty holes when the math didn't work out in the translation of the calendar specifically so 
I like that good for him for yeah 
He yeah yeah he had a little mentee be, a little delulu - not sort of looking for plot holes
We have talked about so many mentee bees 
It's giving unwell yeah 
So there are specific events that have been translated that have made Henry suspicious so the building of Constantinople in 558 AD to 908 AD and the gap in the doctrine of faith specifically the gap in the evolutionary the evolution theory and the meaning of purgatory so these are big events in like religion at the time and during this era religion religion was your leader right this was very impactful
Sso what's the gap in the evolution?
 I'm gonna get 
okay okay 
So and he also questions medieval historians and how they relied too much on just written evidence so first he says there's not enough physical evidence and then he says you rely too much on written evidence so what what then do you have left is my question to Henry.  And he questions the presence of Roman architecture in the 10th century Western Europe because it hints at the fact that the Roman era was not as long ago as we thought oh you know what I mean so we have this physically existing architecture that shouldn't have existed when it did so it makes you think that maybe the timing of it all was a little off maybe so he talks about this thing called the Gregorian calendar so we I was a really confused because I just don't know much about his...
Shocker to our listeners none of us know,..
Yeah, there are two calendars that we like we switched over from one calendar to the other right so we have the Gregorian calendar and the Julian calendar oh yeah but historians had to translate the timeline so then it could make sense in the Julian calendar this was where Henry found the biggest holes
Ooh you know what I could believe that. I don't know if we've lost 300 years, yeah but like days that's fair 
yeah so the Gregorian calendar in 1582 should have had a discrepancy of 13 days between the Julian calendar and the real and like oh the real I can see that so when so it came down to math and astronomy right because how did they document events?  By looking at the sky 
Yeah, looking at the star patterns 
Yeah yeah so when astronomers and mathematicians were working with Pope Gregory they found that the real calendar only needed to be adjusted by 10 days from this Henry concluded that the AD era had counted roughly three centuries of time which never existed so that's that math doesn't make sense when you read it like that yeah so like three days and one calendar equals to like 300 years in another calendar just because we go from like 900 to 1500 does that make sense like no I don't understand how a discrepancy of 10 days somehow convinces people that there's a hundred year okay so we have the Gregorian calendar and we have the Julian care okay the numbers are supposed to correlate but the ratio is different so like a day on one is equivalent to so many on another right okay so there's a when they were translating between the two the math show that there should have been this amount of discrepancy but there actually was found it to be this so Henry said that there should have been a discrepancy of 13 days but they found out it was only like 10 days so because of how the translation between the numbers works Henry then concluded that there was three centuries of time that was skipped okay and so the Gregorian calendar which is what we commonly use there's also the Julian calendar that is used for different purposes in life it was meant to fix that 10-day discrepancy caused by the fact that the Julian year was 10.8 minutes too long so we have two different calendars we have the Gregorian calendar so Gregorian calendar is like the calendar we have on our wall that's like it's January it's February and it includes leap year okay leap days and then the Julian calendar calendar which does get used in certain instances that's just like the day of the year like it is the 231st but it doesn't include like how one year is actually 365 point something yeah I'm tracking I'm tracking okay that make more sense yes in the 1500s they discovered that the year is actually more than 365 days the year is 365 point something oh they had to create leap day they had to create leap year okay make up for that time right and when they're doing the math to associate or to include leap day they realized that the calendar that they were then using has too much of a time gap right like they did the math and they're like it should have been 13 but we're only coming up with 10 okay and then they're like why are we only coming up with 10 it doesn't make any sense and Henry is trying to make sense of that okay and he looks back into the history and it's like oh it happened in the Middle Ages because they purposely changed the year they purposely changed the calendar up a few hundred I am a hundred following now I get it now I get it okay so then and then you're saying that they changed the year because they Otto they wanted Otto to be like the millennial guys okay exactly got it Henry's like boom we got it and he's using this math as proof that it was Otto who did it okay he's like the math doesn't make any sense math's not math a time this could have happened was the Dark Ages the Middle Ages because we don't have enough evidence to prove it didn't happen okay so he's a little crazy I would like to pose a question why did he choose Otto like does he have any physical evidence where I don't have enough like historical background but I think it just because Otto is a major leader at that time like I made a big difference okay things okay so it's very good so in his delusions Otto became the moon yes yeah so I do have a quote specifically from the article when we think it's 2012 it's actually only 1715 the calendar system that we use today is the Gregorian calendar which specifies leap year every four years except for years divisible by a hundred but still including the years divisible by 400 that's just how leap year works mm-hmm this keeps us right on track very well it's adoption in 1582 was largely motivated by the need to keep Easter in the right place on the calendar when some which was something that was important to the church but had drifted off ten days using the previous Julian calendar the Julian system was simpler it had a leap year every four years with no exceptions so was less accurate the correction was ordered by Pope Gregory the 13th and was accomplished by going from October 4th 1582 directly to October 15th 1582 and then proceeding on with time like normal so in the year 1582 they realized that we weren't calculating leap year right and the Pope was like fix it now because now time won't make sense going forward 
It's kind of like everything comes from some little nugget 
So like yeah first of all it's wild how much power the church had yeah but also so what you're saying is like we did have an error we did we did fast-forward time but had days yeah and now someone has taken that and made it a bigger thing 300 yeah this the event that happened in 1582 the fast-forward of 10 days was purposeful and scientifically proven because of leap year okay and leap day and so if you then take 1582 minus 1257 which was the year that the Gregorian calendar began minus the years necessary to produce 10 days of error and the Julian calendar you get 325 so that is the gap of years that Henry said is missing or something right I'll run so in order to have produce 10 days of error we're behind 325 years yeah there has my math that's just because I don't you look at yeah if you add up every single 24 hours of leap day every year it like that's how it maps right it's like a decimal yeah it's a decimal point yeah that like it's part of a day yeah so a decimal of so like whatever 325 divided by 10 is the decimal yeah to which we would run I guess not a decimal but yeah you know so that is what he's saying happened right and now we're gonna get into why this is literal crapola and wrong this is where it makes more sense because okay according to that 325 divided by 10 means that we were missing point zero three days of the year her year that we yeah well yes not allegedly that's that's true yeah okay so hold on might believe this yeah see a he purposely makes it confusing so that you believe it which I think is a common denominator with all conspiracy theories that we introduced they purposely make it over complicated so that you believe it because it's confusing well also you know the more confusing it gets the more convoluted again and the easier it is and you like makeup details you can see how Henry's just in front of his whiteboard like hair askew looking crazy ..
Yeah right so first thing...
A beautiful mind...
Yeah, the first way historians prove them wrong is just based on astronomy and ancient astronomy astronomic events that happen so the biggest things are like solar eclipses and comments specifically Haley's comment so these are things that happen no matter what every so many years that is always documented in written events yeah and so it these things would have happened during the chunk of time that Henry saying we fast-forwarded through okay so immediately he's wrong because we oh yeah love that happened on this year okay okay so immediately wrong other reasons why Henry's wrong is a fossils and finding archaeological proofs of life from those years you know I mean like we could find they didn't specifically state any particular famous fossils but you can find like tools that were buried under layers and layers of dirt buttons on clothing things like that you could you they have found in the dirt yeah 
I thought you guys don't believe in like the carbon dating or whatever 
I don't know if I don't believe in carbon dating - I just think that people put too much emphasis on science sometimes yeah so no I mean like I think that everything is a theory right like everything is a theory if we just believe it to be true so I mean this is where I come from with the conspiracy theorists so like there is no absolute truth in anything like we just believe that like one day there was an explosion and it was the Big Bang Theory and nothing ever had happened before that I mean chaos suddenly became controlled I think that's where I'm like we just believe this?  I don't know I think it takes a lot of belief to believe a theory so just because people  just because all these people say it's true doesn't mean it's true yeah you know that's that's where I am I'm gonna bring up the calendar again so the Gregorian reform which is what they called when they created the Gregorian calendar and tried to adjust leap year it was never meant to actually be in line with the Julian calendar that wasn't its intention so so the Julian calendar itself wasn't started until actually 45 BC and there was a lot of confusing historical jargon but essentially there was a religious council the Council of Nicaea was in 325 AD was attempting to determine the specific timing of Easter based on when it was dated and when the vernal equinox happened in March so that's what they were trying the intention of this was to figure out Easter so the the three missing centuries that Henry is claiming were never actually accounted for when the council correlated the date of Easter with the correct equinox date because they were originally using March 10th when comparing to the Julian calendar but actually they should have been using March 21st no he's claiming these 300 years never happened but the problem like essentially when they were doing the equation they were just using the wrong starting point and so that's why Henry found that gap of numbers because they did the math wrong so if you adjust the starting point then it actually makes sense okay no missing chunk of 300 years okay I also I also think that like just because we fast-forwarded in time for 10 days doesn't mean you miss 300 years yeah well you know so he's saying yeah we we sped up these 10 days but because we sped up these 10 days it really should have been like 15 days according to Henry's math oh but he's saying oh we only sped up 10 days so they did their math wrong so that means 300 years was not accounted for in the calendar so they had to have made up all those events that happened in those 300 years because the church is saying it's this year now Oh okay all right - so he's saying that it that they mathed wrong 
Yes so like even though we sped up 10 days we should have sped up 15 in his mind but the reason why they did the math wrong is because they were basing it off of Easter being on March 10th when Easter happened on March 21st got it does that make sense now yeah and so if the Carolingian Carolinian dynasty and Charlemagne was fabricated we would have also seen the corresponding fabrication of history with the rest of Europe and if not the rest of the world yeah everybody would have had their calendars messed up right right about 
What's happening like in China?
Exactly so even further this chunk of time that Henry is claiming didn't happen would then correlate with the Islamic expansion into the Western Roman Empire or the Tang Dynasty in China so we have proof of things happening with China we have proof of like the Middle East area and the western side of Europe all happening and their calendars  don't correlate with Henry's 
Okay
So Henry's wrong 
Okay okay
So essentially there's just too many major events documented in other areas of the world and so we would just need way too much forgery for it all to make sense right so Henry's true theory is based on that math with the calendars and that's how he started this belief but really that math was wrong to begin with and he's just crazy okay well
It's kind of like when like like a police detective is investigating something and then they are like oh that's weird and then you try to just like make everything fit right?  Like there was a little mistake and now I'm gonna now I have this theory and I'm gonna do whatever I can to make everything else I think fit.
Exactly yeah - he truly believes Charlemagne and his entire lineage in addition to 60 different popes just didn't exist and we made them all up there's just too many people to have made up and so believers of this theory are famous for constantly arguing evidence shown against them is simply unreliable and accurate so if you try to tell Henry he's wrong he'll tell you that what your evidence is just unreliable like your dating system is just unreliable so how can I trust what you're telling me my thoughts when I was going through this this is where I get into it did they actually eliminate the time like was the actual calendars did they actually happen I don't really think so like you know I mean I really believe the Middle Ages happened yeah none of that was fabricated Right 
But then I started questioning like the church itself and how much power the church has to have or at least had back then 
Yeah yeah it was crazy I mean if you want to argue that the church I mean the Roman Empire like controlled everything right yeah so if they changed the calendar then they would change everyone's calendar because everybody yeah everybody would have so like even if we had all these historical dot like events lining up were they using the Roman Empire's calendar and then the in the end the only thing that I truly found confusing was the architecture style that he brings up because nobody really addressed that when they were arguing against Henry.  So there is architecture that you can find that's dated - it showed up way earlier than it should have right and there's just no explanation for that yeah so that one I was like how did they know about this style this far ahead hmm so that was I was gonna have a confused by that oh interesting yeah it was interesting what do you guys think?
 I think it's very confusing...
I think yeah no it just seems like another example of like there's a small nugget of truth up we have ten days that didn't happen and suddenly somebody has taken that and run with it yeah so I don't know if I buy it I don't know if I can believe that like the entire world is in on this conspiracy just so that some guy could be the Emperor at the turn of the century
 That reminded me when he's like when Henry is confronted about  the existence of China during all this he's just like well China's unreliable. That's what he says which like he's like 'How can we trust China?'
Yeah I'm like yeah okay you're right 
Yeah but that is also what that's the conspiracy theory thing too - right is you can always just be like anything you give people 'but can we trust them?' 
And he's like 'well can we trust the church?' it's just like - who do you trust?  
You're not buying into it? 
No yeah I'm not buying into it
We agree I do think that we still lived the years that's what I think I'm stuck on like so technically the only days that don't exist are those days in October that the Pope just skipped in 1582.
Yeah yeah technically those are the only days that were adjust
Right so if you have historical things that happened in the years that Henry's claim - I'm like but just because we don't label it the same way that we labeled today's age doesn't mean we didn't live it and that was how it was documented at that time yeah so yes we did account for like there was a mistake between when you were switching between the calendars but we accounted for it in the 1500s sped up 10 days and the only days that don't exist in time are those days days that we sped up so I guess I'm just like like you don't make sense it doesn't make sense he's saying doesn't make sense exactly So what are our choices Kait? 
The Middle Ages did not exist and Charlemagne is made up the first Emperor of the Roman Empire was made up and 60 Popes after were not real or we just have 10 days missing  we have 10 days missing and that's there is no missing chunk of time 
Yeah I'm  a no no missing chunks
In the end I'm also on your page 
I had a hard time explaining it 
No, I don't think you had a hard time explaining it - I think it's just confusing 
Okay,  well that was a fun festive episode. We didn't have leap year cocktails because they're gin cocktails and we don't like gin 
I like gin though 
I do too
I  thought you guys were with me!  Okay,  there's a leap year cocktail posted that exists - we'll post the recipe for you. So why don't you sip one of those if you're a gin drinker... Yeah, listen to our episode 
I did tell Megan - I said just switch it with vodka! 
I didn't know you guys liked gin. 
My mom's a gin drinker so mom enjoy your gin drinks
Tastes like a Christmas tree 
Drink it with us as you listen 
Especially in the summertime you order a gin and tonic with some lime
Okay well we'll post the recipe for our listeners they can take a listen to the episode they can vote and then what should they do Kait? 
Scroll on down leave us a five-star review leave us a comment tell us how much you like the pod and maybe we'll read it on the podcast yeah if you leave us a good review maybe we'll read it he thanks guys see you next week.