However, this mystery is likely to become even more mysterious if someone claims to have witnessed an important historical event by going back in time using a time travel machine.
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Subscribe to the NewsletterWe are talking about a certain invention called Chronovisor, with the help of which, allegedly, scenes from the life of Jesus Christ were captured on photographic film. And now this device, as it is believed, is kept in the Vatican in especially strict secrecy.
This story began with a man named Marcello Pellegrino Ernetti (1925-1992), who was born in Italy. He was a respected Catholic who devoted his whole life to the service of the church. He had many followers and students.
He was also known as an exorcist, one of the most popular in Venice, a musician, a Bible student, and also a scientist. And one day, just before the outbreak of World War II, he made the strange claim that he was part of a group that had created a time travel machine they called the Chronovisor.
Other members of the 12-member group are believed to have included Enrico Fermi and Wernher von Braun, the famous Italian physicist and no less famous German rocket scientist.
Ernetti further stated that through the Chronovisor, which outwardly resembled a television with a screen and a special keypad, he saw with his own eyes the speeches of Cicero, Napoleon and scenes with the participation of Jesus Christ.
In support of his statement, he showed a certain photo with Jesus, which was allegedly taken by the Chronovisor.
News of the time travel machine spread like wildfire. Many believers sincerely believed that the Vatican now possesses a mysterious and powerful device that allows people not only to return to the past, but also to film and observe what is happening in real time.
This photo was published in 1972 in the Italian magazine La Domenica del Corriere as the same picture of the Chronovisor. And it was quickly proven that it was a fake, as the image exactly copied the old postcard.
This revelation significantly undermined the credibility of Ernetti’s assertions and the purported existence of the Chronovisor. Despite this, Ernetti maintained that the published photograph was not an authentic representation of images produced by the Chronovisor, stating that their device yielded images of a different quality.
In a further attempt to validate his claims, Ernetti also released a transcript of a lost play by the Roman poet Quintus Ennius, in Latin, which he attributed to the Chronovisor’s capabilities.
Adding another layer to the mystery, François Brunet, a friend of Ernetti, claimed that tangible proof of the Chronovisor’s existence, including a genuine photograph of Christ, was destroyed during World War II. According to Brunet, Pope Pius XII and Benito Mussolini allegedly deemed the device a threat to society.
Under their pressure, Brunet stated, Ernetti ceased the Chronovisor project and likely dismantled the apparatus. However, Brunet himself remained skeptical about the complete destruction of the device, suggesting it might still reside within the Vatican archives, possibly in secret use.
Much of the information surrounding the Chronovisor became public through Brunet’s 2002 book, Le Nouveau Mystère du Vatican. With Ernetti’s passing a decade prior, the veracity of these accounts remains uncertain, blurring the lines between fact and speculation.
Skeptical researchers often point out that while the theoretical possibility of some forms of time travel is debated within physics, the Chronovisor as described lacks scientific plausibility.
Notably, the late physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking explored time travel concepts, suggesting that future travel might be achievable by attaining extremely high speeds in space.
Similarly, physicist Fred Alan Wolf has theorized that time travel could involve a nuanced interplay between consciousness and matter.
