It’s About TIME – Part 6 – Time Travel or a Gateway to the Inhabitation of Devils?

The portal in the photo above appeared in the sky and was captured in this photo. I believe it was in California.

As this world gets crazier and crazier, TIME TRAVEL, SPACE TRAVEL, INTER-DIMENTIONAL TRAVEL, AND VIRTUAL TRAVEL, are all becoming more of a reality… OR ARE THEY?  It gets more and more difficult everyday to determine what is real and what is not.  Here are a few interesting articles for you to ponder.  What do you think about TIME TRAVEL?   What do you think they are doing at CERN?  What do you think about THE MANDELA EFFECT?  What do you think about Virtual Reality?

May 29, 2019

In 1911 the rail company “Zanetti” offered well-off Italians a free trial ride on their new train. The passengers were enjoying their ride making small talk and enjoying their refreshments. One of the sites they were looking forward to was a new tunnel that went through a mountain. It was one of the longest ever built at the time. If only they knew they would never come back… Imagine traveling on a train that is actually a time machine. The 106 passengers and crew of the Zanetti train probably would’ve thought twice before they embarked on their adventure, had they known that. Just like the passengers of the “Titanic,” which set off for its first and last cruise almost a year later, they never reached their destination. The difference, though, is that no one knows what happened to the train… Other videos you might like: 4 Mystery Doors That Should Never Be Opened https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfYnU… Scientists Finally Discovered the Truth About Easter Island https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4U5Y… 10 Strange Things Found Frozen In Ice Antarctica https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOtLC… TIMESTAMPS: What exactly happened there 1:20 Medieval monks who saw a three-car train 3:25 The Zanetti passengers were seen in Mexico 4:11 … and even in Ukraine! 4:56 What about a scientific explanation? 6:34 Is there any evidence of a ghost train ever existing? 7:39 #mystery #ghosttrain #timetravel Music by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/ SUMMARY: – The train entered the half mile-long tunnel in Lombardy Mountain and never came out! Just, disappeared! After the incident, the railway workers and police searched every square foot of it, but found no trace of the train. – However, there were two passengers found who’d jumped off the train just before it vanished into the tunnel. Later, when they came to, they were able to tell the story of their eerie trip. – One of the survivors told an Italian newspaper about the incident: “I heard an unclear humming sound. Beyond the black smoke, I could see a milky-white fog creeping from the tunnel – it literally swallowed the train like a wave.” – No one could come up with a sound explanation for this strange disappearance: dozens had witnessed the train leaving the station in Rome and entering the tunnel, but nobody saw it come out. – There are records of medieval monks from Modena who saw a three-car train with people in it. A horse was the fastest means of transport at the time. Railroads hadn’t been invented yet. – Then, in the 1840s, there’s a report that the Zanetti passengers were seen in Mexico. A psychiatrist in a local hospital left notes saying that a group of 104 Italians were admitted all in a hysterical state. – Many years later, the train appeared again in Europe. On October 29, 1955 a three-car old-fashioned train appeared not far from Zavalichi, a small village in Ukraine. The signalman, Pyotr Ustimenko, saw it moving soundlessly. – Some believe all the railroads in the world form a sort of connected web that has its own magnetic field. The trains serve as electric conductors between the earth’s natural magnetic field and the artificial one. – Sometime before the Zanetti train left the station, there had been an earthquake where the tracks were. It’s believed the crust fracture, which appeared under Lombardy Mountain, created a time anomaly at the entrance to the tunnel. – In case you’re already getting goosebumps and swearing off trains forever, rest assured that this isn’t something you have to worry about happening to you because it’s just an urban legend. Subscribe to Bright Side : https://goo.gl/rQTJZz —————————————————————————————- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightgram/ 5-Minute Crafts Youtube: https://www.goo.gl/8JVmuC Photos: https://www.depositphotos.com East News —————————————————————————————- For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me/

 

 

The Ghost Train Caught in a Time Loop

Ghost train© EdSingerThese trains do not run on a set schedule – they appear and moments later disappear again. Where to?

According to some, they disappear into a parallel dimension, and others believe that they get lost in time. And there are those who believe that these trains go straight to the depths of hell. But in reality, no one actually knows where they come from or where they go. These trains do not stop at stations and do not take any passengers along for the ride. And if someone decides to jump on, they will simply vanish along with the entire ghost train.

Fog in the Tunnel

On June 14th, 1911, Italian railway company, “Zanetti” organized an advertising campaign to demonstrate a new type of excursion train. They set up a free trial ride for representatives of the community who were rich and high on the social ladder.

One afternoon, a three-car composition with 100 passengers and a crew of 6 left the train station in Rome. The passengers were to see all the local sights. The super long (for its time) 1 meter (3 feet) wide tunnel, carved in the mountains of Lombard, was of particular interest. While waiting to reach the tunnel, passengers were having the time of their life, drinking champagne and sharing gossip…

Just before reaching the tunnel the train slowed down and a gust of black smoke went up in the air. The train went into the tunnel and was forever lost.

Two passengers who felt that something was off, jumped from the decelerated train seconds before it went inside the tunnel. One of them later discussed the details about the incident in an Italian newspaper: “I heard an unclear humming sound. Beyond the black smoke, I could see a milky-white fog creeping from the tunnel – it literally swallowed the train like a wave. And with it the first car of our ill-fated train split open. It became so horrifying. The train was barely moving so I jumped from the car and my eyes caught another passenger who jumped at the same time. We both hit the ground hard, and that is the last thing I remember.”

Exploration of the tunnel was a waste of time – there was not a single trace to explain the reason for the disappearance of the train. The incident gained popularity very quickly. Frightened Italians avoided using the railway. And the tunnel was closed down. During World War II, a bomb ended up blasting the tunnel’s arch opening, which completely cut off access to it.

Devil’s Composition

One Medieval Italian chronicle of the monasteries in Modena tells the story of a strange, supernatural event. Once, a large train composition was closing in on the walls of the monastery. Monks described it as a sled with a pipe, dragging three smaller ones behind it. On top of that, suffocating black smoke was spouting from its pipes. It couldn’t have been anything other than a Devil’s doing!

Panic spread throughout the monastery. Monks hid in the church, and began chanting prayers to expel the horned enemy of mankind. Two messengers of the Devil emerged from a train car – both clean-shaven and wearing black clothes. They attempted to infiltrate the monastery but its firmly barred gates, chants of the monks and the will of the Virgin Mary did not allow this kind of sacrilege.

This chronicle was being stored in the region of Casta Solea, among an incredible collection of ancient records, collected by many generations of the Sadjino Family. And believe it or not, one of the passengers who had jumped from the Zanetti train was the owner of this property. After reading about the medieval accident, suddenly he thought: what if this devil trail described in the chronicle is the same as the one that I jumped from?

Sir Sadjino wanted to familiarize himself in detail with the Medieval texts, but unfortunately that was impossible – the original manuscript was destroyed by a powerful earthquake which hit the region of Messina. It wasn’t out of the question that the disappearance of the train had been connected in some way with the earthquake.

Italians in a Mexican Frenzy

A psychiatrist living in Mexico in the 1940’s, who took meticulous doctor notes, wrote the following: “One hundred and four people have been admitted in the local infirmary. Their diagnosis is: mass insanity and it is the same in every patient. What a rare occurrence!

All patients are acting completely erroneously, and not comprehending anything of what they are told. The truth of the matter was that none of them were Mexican or Spanish. They were Italians. An interesting fact was that none of them belonged to any ship company – I checked myself.

What’s even more incredible is that each one of them claimed to have arrived aboard the ghost train of Zanetti. And not just from anywhere but from Rome. Our local fools even went as far as to believe that this was a sign from God and that these Italian patients were emissaries from the Eternal City. But this cannot be – trains do not travel on water!”

The fate of these travelers remains a mystery. They couldn’t have kept them in psychiatric facilities forever…

Curse of the Black Prince

On October 29th, 1955, a signalman on duty at the railway near the city of Balaklava (Ukraine) witnessed an unannounced train heading for the barrier of the station, and it was running where there were no tracks.

And here is what he told famous writer, Nikolai Cherkashin: “I rubbed my eyes, thinking that I was only imagining things – it’s not possible for a train to run where there are no tracks, but there it was – a locomotive with 3 passenger cars! And the entire composition did not seem to be one of ours – it seemed like it was from the war, or from an even earlier period in time.

In 1991 in Poltava, the train appeared again but this time a paranormal investigator was there so he boarded the train. He was never seen again, is he stuck in a time loop?

Some believe all the railroads in the world form a sort of connected web that has its own magnetic field. The trains serve as electric conductors between the earth’s natural magnetic field and the artificial one.
Sometime before the Zanetti train left the station, there had been an earthquake where the tracks were. It’s believed the crust fracture, which appeared under Lombardy Mountain, created a time anomaly at the entrance to the tunnel.   Source

It was coming from the Gasfort Mountain with no lights. A true ghost! And suddenly I heard the arrows move. I was only able to lower the barrier…”

On the same day, the “Novorossiysk” ship had exploded. How are the two accidents connected?

In the 19th century there was a cemetery underneath Gasfort Mountain, in which Italian soldiers were buried after the storming of Sevastopol (Crimean War). Later, a railway from Balaklava was constructed on top of the cemetery. But after the revolution of 1917 it was destroyed since it was no longer necessary. In other words, the ghost train had run along ghost tracks, which did in fact exist at one point in time.

In 1955, an amazing chapel was barbarically and mercilessly blown up on the Italian cemetery and the souls who perished with it were left with no heavenly patronage. Could it be that the mysterious train had come for them?

The exploded ship, “Novorossiysk” first belonged to Italy and was called “Julius Caesar”. In 1948 it was handed over to the Soviet Union as reparation. But commander of the legendary secretive division of the underwater spies, Valerio Borghese, known as The Black Prince, remained loyal to Mussolini after the war. He organized a party called “Black Order” and vowed that not one Italian ship would become Russian.

It seems that it would be difficult to blame the fate of “Novorossiysk” on Borghese himself, who had long retired from his post at the time. But…he was the second passenger who had jumped from the lost train. And this could not have been a complete coincidence. The curse of the Black Prince had intertwined with those who were tortured during the explosion of the chapel and as a result – with the fate of the ship.

Time Machine

Railways are truly one of the most impressive inventions of mankind. The metal networks that cover the continents are without a doubt affecting the natural geophysical field of Earth, which means that time sequence is affected as well.

The railways of the world are the kind of machines that carry people not only through physical space but through time as well.

The massive earthquake with its epicenter in Messina (see the next item below) which occurred sometime before the disappearance of the Italian train, caused monstrous cracks not only in the rocky soil, but in the chronal field as well.

The “chronal hole” above the mountain tunnel could have sent the train from our normal three dimensional space into a four dimensional one where time (chronal field) attains depth as well as continuity.

And that is why the mysterious composition, which disappears from its usual vector time, began roaming freely in the past, present, and future. But since its movement is determined by strict special coordinates (the tracks), it could only run through places which once were covered with tracks.

The ghost train got lost in time and, determined to return home to Rome, it continued frightening people for all time.

Messina Plaza
The Messina Plaza | Public Domain Picture

In December 1908 one of the biggest natural tragedies in Italy and Europe struck Messina, Sicily’s second-largest city. It started with an earthquake but did not end there.

The Shake

It was on the dark, early morning of December 28 when a 7.5 earthquake hit the city of Messina. It lasted 23 seconds. By the time the ground had stopped shaking, 91% of the city’s buildings — cut stone houses, estates, and palaces — had been leveled to the ground.

The epicenter was the Strait of Messina: a narrow passage of water connecting the Ionian Sea with the Tyrrhenian Sea, and the island of Sicily with Calabria (the tip of “the boot,” Italy’s mainland). Reggio di Calabria and Messina, the two cities facing each other across the strait, saw the most devastation. Other cities and towns surrounding them were hit as well.  (We know that where  a body of water flows into the sea is a SPIRITUAL Gateway,  so is the place where two or more bodies of water connect.)

Messina was changed forever. Historical and political buildings crumbled. The Norman Cathedral and the Railway Station collapsed. The shoreline was irrevocably altered. Big sections of it sunk several feet underwater and cobblestone covered streets behind the coast were distorted into wave-like shapes. The entire historical center of the city was struck down.

Pier Building | Public Domain Picture

The Fire

The violent tremors of the ground caused a gas tank explosion in Messina, as well as multiple short circuits. Immediately after the earthquake, fires erupted and spread rapidly throughout the city. In addition to the earthquake, the aftershocks, and the resulting landslides that destroyed buildings, many lives were lost to the flames and smoke.

The Tsunami

While chaos was ensuing, water started receding from Messina and Reggio di Calabria’s coastlines. About 10 minutes after the earthquake, a 17m (39ft) tsunami descended upon them. Reggio di Calabria’s seafront was almost completely devastated. The wave engulfed Messina’s shoreline and continued moving three blocks inland, sweeping away boats, ships, and buildings.

The seafront of Reggio di Calabria after the earthquake and tsunami of 1908 | Public Domain Picture

The People

The wheels of tragedy were set in motion several hours before the earthquake. On the evening of December 27, Giuseppe Verdi’s “Aida” was being staged at the Vittorio Emanuele II Theatre. This had attracted numerous out of town visitors. When the earthquake hit at 05:20 AM the following morning, Messina’s official population of 160,000 had temporarily bubbled to a bigger number.

The vast majority of people were asleep when the ground started shaking. In the confusion and the darkness, many had no chance to react and were either immediately killed or buried under debris.

Later, one of the survivors provided a harrowing description of these first moments.

The profound silence was broken by an extraordinary noise like the bursting of a thousand bombs, followed by a rushing and torrential rain.

In the ensuing minutes, many lives were claimed. Buildings were collapsing and fires started raging. Hotel Trinacria collapsed, killing tenor Angelo Gamba (who had performed the previous evening in “Aida”), as well as his two sons. More fortunate was soprano Paola Koralek, who had performed the role of Aida. She was awake when the earthquake hit and jumped out of the window of her room. She broke both her arms but survived.

Among the victims were many other high-profile individuals: the Chief of Police, as well as almost the entire police force, the Attorney General of Messina, the American consul and his wife, the French consul and his children, the former American vice-consul and his family, as well as multiple Italian literati and nobility.

The initial shock took the most lives, but the following fire and aftershocks kept increasing the number of casualties.

Many people who managed to escape the collapsing buildings ran to the shore. Looking for safety away from stone and debris, they were soon swept away and killed by the tsunami which came in three rapid waves.

The prison building did not survive the earthquake either. Prisoners who survived the collapse turned loose on the city and started robbing houses as well as corpses.

Due to the complete collapse of communication services, it took the rest of the world until December 29th to reach the cut-off Messina and send relief efforts.

By this time, the looting had grown worse as the prisoners were joined by peasants from villages nearby. Eventually, it was stopped several days later by military troops after Italy declared martial law.

Relief efforts lasted over a week, with survivors being pulled from the debris days after the disaster. The final death toll reached a range between 75,000 and 82,000. About half of Messina’s population.

The Aftermath

A mass exodus followed the tragedy, making Messina a ghost town with only about 19,000 inhabitants left: Less than a third of the survivors, about a tenth of Messina’s original population.

Most of the survivors, having lost loved ones and their homes, moved to nearby cities across Sicily and Italy. Some migrated to America.

Messina is also called “The city without memory,” having lost its historical buildings to the 1908 tragedy and the bombings by the Allies during WWII. However, the city never lost its pulse and came roaring back to life with an influx of migrants in the 1910s as well as natives returning to their home. Today, a century after suffering the biggest natural disaster in Europe, Messina has grown to a population of over 230,000 and holds a strong place in Sicily’s cultural and commercial life.
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CHAPTER X. 1. Then said the Most High, the Holy and Great One spake, and sent Uriel to the son of Lamech, and said to him: 2. ‘〈Go to Noah〉 and tell him in my name “Hide thyself!” and reveal to him the end that is approaching: that the whole earth will be destroyed, and a deluge is about to come upon the whole earth, and will destroy all that is on it. 3. And now instruct him that he may escape and his seed may be preserved for all the generations of the world.’ 4. And again the Lord said to Raphael: ‘Bind Azâzêl hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dûdâêl, and cast him therein. 5. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see light. 6. And on the day of the great judgement he shall be cast into the fire. And heal the earth which the angels have corrupted, and proclaim the healing of the earth, that they may heal the plague, and that all the children of men may not perish through all the secret things that the Watchers have disclosed and have taught their sons. 8. And the whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azâzêl: to him ascribe all sin.’ 9. And to Gabriel said the Lord: ‘Proceed against the bastards and the reprobates, and against the children of fornication: and destroy [the children of fornication and] the children of the Watchers from amongst men [and cause them to go forth]: send them one against the other that they may destroy each other in battle: for length of days shall they not have. 10. And no request that they (i.e. their fathers) make of thee shall be granted unto their fathers on their behalf; for they hope to live an eternal life, and that each one of them will live five hundred years.’ 11. And the Lord said unto Michael: ‘Go, bind Semjâzâ and his associates who have united themselves with women so as to have defiled themselves with them in all their uncleanness. 12. And when their sons have slain one another, and they have seen the destruction of their beloved ones, bind them fast for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, till the day of their judgement and of their consummation, till the judgement that is for ever and ever is consummated. 13. In those days they shall be led off to the abyss of fire: 〈and〉 to the torment and the prison in which they shall be confined for ever. And whosoever shall be condemned and destroyed will from thenceforth be bound together with them to the end of all generations. 15. And destroy all the spirits of the reprobate and the children of the Watchers, because they have wronged mankind. Destroy all wrong from the face of the earth and let every evil work come to an end: and let the plant of righteousness and truth appear: ⌈and it shall prove a blessing; the works of righteousness and truth⌉ shall be planted in truth and joy for evermore.
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Jun 8, 2016
It’s one of the most iconic sites in Switzerland. The Gotthard massif in the northwestern Alps is one of the continent’s most formidable natural barriers, barring the way between northern and southern Europe. For centuries, this was a key trade route for goods travelling from Germany to Italy, and an important military stronghold. SOUNDBITE 1, Kilian T Elsasser, Transport Historian: “In the 1500s it was the idea that because all the rivers start in this region, they thought it must be the highest region of the Alps. The difference between the Jungfrau or the Matterhorn and the Gotthard is that the Jungfrau and Matterhorn do have an image – when you say ‘Matterhorn’, you just see it in your head; when you say ‘Gotthard’, there are 20 different images. Someone said once that Gotthard has no image, but a lot of stories.” The only way to cross the Gotthard until modern times was by negotiating a narrow pass that forded turbulent rivers and scaled sheer granite gorges. This wild, mountainous Gotthard Pass captured the imagination of Europe’s artists, from William Turner, who painted the famous Devil’s Bridge, to Romantic poets like Goethe. The idea of tunnelling straight through this rock was an enormous undertaking – and an expensive one, the brainchild of the Swiss industrialist Alfred Escher. Excavations on a first rail tunnel began in 1871, with workers using hammers, chisels and the newly-patented dynamite. It was slow and risky progress, with the tunnel advancing by just a meter a day in the beginning. But when it was finally completed, ten years later, it was the world’s longest tunnel, and one of its greatest engineering achievements. It was this line that was first electrified by Brown Boveri & Co., the forerunner to ABB, in the 1920s. Now, ABB engineering has helped complete a new tunnel, and one of the most groundbreaking rail projects ever attempted. SOUNDBITE 2, “Switzerland is a very small country. I think to build such a tunnel in a country with 8 million inhabitants is really something special. And I think…we don’t have the fastest train, the longest train, the highest train – but our pride is to have the longest tunnel, which we do have now for the third time, and I hope for a long time to come.” This newly-completed tunnel reaches all the way through the very base of the Gotthard massif, to form the longest and the deepest tunnel anywhere on the globe – powered and ventilated by ABB engineering. It’s a worthy successor to the past achievements of this imposing region…a landmark project connecting Europe together from north to south. And a suitably iconic milestone in the long and legendary history of Gotthard.

Ian Purnell
Germany, Switzerland
 
Spanish Premiere
SYNOPSIS

A technologically-controlled visit to the longest underground structure on the planet, the Gotthard base tunnel (Switzerland), gives us the chance to explore the worries, obsessions and escapes of a society faced with future that, beyond all its boasting of progress, is presented as overwhelming, inhuman and uncertain. (LGV)

Eighty kilometres southwest of Wrocław, the ‘Sowie,’ or Owl Mountains are one of Poland’s oldest mountain ranges – a compact massif of steep, largely inaccessible terrain overgrown with spruce forest stretching along the Czech border. It was here in 1943, as the tide of war began to turn against the Third Reich, that Hitler ordered the undertaking of a massive, top-secret underground complex known as Project ‘Riese’ (Giant). One of the Führer’s most ambitious and maniacal schemes, the exact nature of which remains unclear, Riese remains one of World War II’s greatest mysteries, about which suspiciously little is known over seventy years since.

Underworld of the Third Reich

Unknowns temporarily aside, let’s begin with the knowns. There are 90,000 cubic metres of excavated concrete tunnels carved into the Owl Mountains, with seven major access points to separate tunnel systems found at Walim-Rzeczka, Jugowice, Włodarz, Soboń (Ramenberg), Sokolec, Osówka and Książ Castle. In addition to these main compounds, a casual walk through the mountains will reveal frequent and somewhat frightening traces of abandoned military barracks, bunkers, warehouses, building materials, excavated matter and tunnel openings, many of which are barricaded, bricked or blocked by hardened сement bags; others are filled with water and some seemingly go on forever, leading nowhere.

In 1943, as the Allies initiated air-raids against Germany, the Third Reich began the endeavour of decentralising its infrastructure and moving it to secret underground locations. As a resource rich region of hindersome mountains with an established mining tradition, Lower Silesia was an ideal choice. Based on the time works were begun, and their similarity to other armament sites, it is widely theorised that the Riese Complex was at least originally intended to house underground arms factories. Several major companies and operations were moved to Lower Silesia at this time, including the Krupp machinery factory which manufactured parts for the Me-262 jet fighter in a temporary warehouse in Głuszyca while awaiting the readiness of an underground facility in the mountains.

In the early stages of Riese, labour was done by Polish, Italian and Soviet POWs from the AL Riese labour camp – a satellite of the nearby Gross-Rosen concentration camp – from which the project took its name. Typhoid was rampant, escapes were frequent and progress was slow. In April 1944 a displeased Hitler gave the directive to transfer production on the project from the Silesian Industrial Company to the Todt Organisation (OT), headed by Albert Speer, Hitler’s chief architect and engineer. Hitler ordered that the prisoners of Gross-Rosen, primarily Polish, Hungarian and Italian Jews, be used as labourers as well. It was at this point that the direction of the project seems to have changed. OT moved their base of operations into Książ Castle where two kilometres of tunnels were hewn into the bedrock beneath the castle and a 50 metre elevator shaft was dug as part of the Riese Project. According to period documents, memoirs and witness testimonies, Książ Castle and its underground chambers were to serve as a secret headquarters for Hitler and his closest accomplices while the rest of the Riese complex was to become a hidden headquarters for the Wehrmacht. With the Nazis expelled from North Africa and the Soviet Union, and every resource needed for the success of the war, there was growing consensus among Hitler’s subordinates that the costly project was not only insane, but impossible to complete. According to his memoir, Hitler’s adjutant Nicolaus von Below repeatedly tried to sway Hitler and Speer to abandon the project. Speer in his own memoirs, which shed significant though perhaps dubious light on the scope of the project, seems to acknowledge his incredulity towards the project, but was unwilling to swerve from his duties: “At a briefing on June 20, 1944, I informed the Führer that about 28,000 labourers were working at the time on expanding his headquarters. The construction of the bunkers in Kętrzyn [Hitler’s famous quarters in Eastern Poland, known as ‘Wolf’s Lair‘] cost 36 million marks, the bunkers in Pullach, which ensured Hitler’s safety when he was in Munich – 13 million marks, and the Riese bunker complex near Bad Charlottenbrunn [Jedlina Zdrój today] – 150 million marks. These construction projects required 257,000 cubic metres of steel-reinforced concrete, 213,000 cubic metres of tunnels, 58 km of roads with six bridges, and 100 km of pipelines. For the Riese project alone, more concrete was used than was earmarked in 1944 for the whole population for the construction of air-raid shelters.” (Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, Macmillan, 1970).

In July, 1944 many of the firms working on Hitler’s unfinished Wolf’s Lair were moved to Lower Silesia to expedite the construction of Riese. However, unfavourable changes on the Eastern Front occurred much faster than anticipated for the Reich and in January 1945, the Red Army rampaged across Eastern Europe on a beeline for Berlin. Bypassing the Owl Mountains, an SS unit was able to remain in Walim-Rzeczka until May 1945, before which time they had bricked or obliterated all entrances into the underground fortress and whatever was or wasn’t stored there subsequently disappeared, as did the estimated 7,000 to 30,000 POWs who built the complex.

Buried Beneath Speculation

Of note is Speer’s calculation of 213,000 cubic metres of Riese tunnels; today less than 100,000 are known, suggesting that much of the complex may remain undiscovered. Survivor accounts, the illogical arrangement of the found tunnels and the inability to fully explore them due to their increasingly dangerous deterioration support this possibility. It is presumed that all the tunnels were to eventually have been linked, and underground narrow-gauge railways exist at some of the sites, as well as extensive plumbing that appears to lead nowhere. Due to the exodus of the German population and the military’s protracted stay in the area upon the war’s end, there is scant first-hand information on the site or its purpose. Conspiracy theories abound, and many believe the Nazis proliferated the idea that Riese was intended as a headquarters in order to hide its true intention, citing German sources as too obvious and forthcoming. Some sensationalists believe a super-weapon was in development here, while others speculate that confiscated Nazi treasure may still be buried in the Owl Mountains including missing gold and cultural treasures from Wrocław, and even the famous Amber Room which disappeared from Saint Petersburg during the war. The mass graves of the prisoners who built the complex have never been found and sadly less absurd is the grisly likelihood that they were herded inside the complex before it was detonated.

Nazi Gold Train, 2015/2016

In August 2015, two men came forward claiming they had information about the location of a buried ‘Nazi gold train,’ obtained via a deathbed confession. The two treasure hunters entered into negotiations with the Polish government, requesting a 10% finders fee for anything discovered based on their information, which they supplemented with ground penetrating radar images that appeared to show an underground shaft with something in it. The claims sparked a worldwide media frenzy and were taken very seriously by the Polish government and military, which swept and secured the indicated area outside Wałbrzych, and conducted a non-invasive investigation of the site, ultimately concluding that no such ‘gold train’ existed. Undeterred, the two men behind the claims were able to secure permissions to dig at the site from Polish Railways – the owners of the land. The work began in August 2016, almost a full year after first coming forward with their claim, and was reportedly financed at a cost of 116,000 Euros by private sponsors. Work was halted after seven days when no tunnel, tracks, train or treasure were found, and the radar images thought to be the legendary train were revealed to be nothing more than natural ice formations. Nonetheless, for dozens of treasure hunters the search for the gold train continues in the mountains surrounding Wałbrzych, and the media publicity has lead to about a 45% increase in tourism in the area, leading one local tourist official to claim that, “Whether the explorers find anything or not, that gold train has already arrived.”

More Information

Of the seven primary Riese sites, three are open to the public – in Walim-RzeczkaWłodarz and Osówka. Run as tourist attractions by private companies, these sites do more to mystify than demystify the history, towards which they are at times insensitive. The Osówka complex is the largest and offers the most to tourists, while the Włodarz/Wolfsburg site features roadside tanks, a dodgy museum, and is commonly used as a paintball battleground; for a site where thousands of prisoners were worked to death or executed, to us that seems more than a little questionable. But judge for yourself.

The Osówka Complexwww.osowka.pl

The Walim-Rzeczka Complexwww.sztolnie.pl (Polish and German only)

The Gross-Rosen Museum in Rogoźnicewww.gross-rosen.eu

Książ Castlewww.ksiaz.walbrzych.pl

Project Riesewww.riese.krzyzowa.org.pl

 

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