>> NARRATOR: It is America's most private organization,
with mysterious meetings held behind closed doors
and a membership that includes the most powerful men in
America and the world. But behind this elite
brotherhood are secrets. Secrets so outrageous...
>> JIM MARRS: Their agenda boils down to, "We want to rule the
world. Let's create a whole new world order."
>> NARRATOR: So controversial... >> MITCH HOROWITZ: When people
are interested in a cult connection, it's always funny
how they overlook those that are right in front of our face.
>> NARRATOR: So dangerous that the members will defend them
with their lives. >> ALEX JONES: If you're
worshipping Lucifer, you'd better damn well keep that a
secret. >> NARRATOR: There are
those who believe in the existence of a book.
A book that contains the most highly guarded secrets
of the United States of America. A book whose very existence is
known to only a select few. But if such a book exists,
what would it contain? Secret conspiracies?
Secret plans? Secret lies?
Does there really exist America's Book of Secrets?
Cannes, France. November 3, 2011.
President Barack Obama and other world leaders arrive
at the sixth meeting of the world's 20 major economies,
known as the G20. At recent summits London,
Toronto and France, thousands engage in violent protests.
But why? What are they so afraid of?
Officially, the members of the G20 meet to discuss, plan, and
monitor international economic cooperation.
But is there another more secret reason?
Among the protesters are those who believe the group's real
intention is to form a single, global, economically based
government, otherwise known as the New World Order.
An order directly connected to something even more secret,
Freemasonry.
>> JONES: The Masonic system is just one vein of that overall
And their tentacles stretch into every town, every city
of this planet. >> NARRATOR: For centuries, the
Freemasons have been believed to be the architects behind the
world's greatest international conspiracies.
Members include industry titans, visionaries, world leaders, and
>> HOROWITZ: Freemasonry in the 20th century is sort of a who's
who of industry, politics, government.
Go into any industry, uh, any branch of government, and you
find prominent Freemasons. So, Freemasonry is almost like a
gallery of American development in the 20th century.
>> NARRATOR: Today, there are an estimated six million Freemasons
worldwide, and there are those who suggest the Freemasons are
perhaps the most powerfully rooted in the United States of
America.
>> HOROWITZ: 14 of 44 U.S. presidents have been Freemasons,
including seven in the 20th century alone.
They include William McKinley, Warren Harding, Howard Taft,
Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and,
most recently, Gerald Ford. >> NARRATOR: But who are the
Freemasons, and where did they come from?
>> HOROWITZ: The origins of Freemasonry are, in many
respects, shrouded in mystery. It's probably the only
organization in modern life for which that's really true.
>> CHRISTOPHER HODAPP: Freemasonry is the world's
largest, oldest, and best-known gentlemen's fraternity.
Mythologically, it started during the building of King
Solomon's Temple, and maybe even before that.
>> AKRAM ELIAS: This is very important because this is where
you see the roots, the real roots of modern Freemasonry.
The Egyptians were great builders, stone builders.
And, uh, obviously, their two greatest achievements in stone
building were pyramids and obelisks.
It is no coincidence that pyramids and obelisks are used
as symbols in the rituals of Freemasonry.
Freemason meaning free builder. Here, we're not talking anymore
only about building structures, physical structures; we're
talking about building your own inner temple.
So, the building concept is very important, and that is why there
is strong association with ancient Egypt.
>> HOROWITZ: The clearest and plainest origin point for
Masonry can be found within the Reformation in the 1600s.
A cluster of academics, merchants, intellectuals,
politicians, clergy wanted to get together and discuss civics
and religion and social issues and science in an atmosphere
that was entirely outside the control or the monitoring of the
church or the aristocracy. And to do this could be
dangerous. People who stepped outside the
accepted order of things, even late into the Enlightenment Era,
could be persecuted, imprisoned, and in some extreme cases, could
still be executed.
>> NARRATOR: But, while the origins of this secret society
may forever remain a mystery, the influences of modern
Freemasonry began to emerge in the American colonies in the
mid-18th century. >> HOROWITZ: Masonry traveled to
America on British troopships. You start to find the first
publicly proclaimed Freemasonic Lodges in the second decade of
the 1700s. So, by that point, uh, it's an
influential organization. >> ELIAS: It is important to
keep in mind the 18th century wareally the Age of
Enlightenment. Obviously, Freemasonry played a
very important role in promoting and propagating ideals and
principles of that age, and the founding fathers of the United
States were disciples of that age.
Freemasons are encouraged to study seven liberal arts and
sciences. Three of them-- grammar,
rhetoric and logic-- are designed to help the Freemason
develop a way of thinking that is based on reason, logic and
developed communication tools.
>> NARRATOR: The foundation that Freemasonry is built upon is
expressed in two symbolic tools: the square and compass.
>> ELIAS: The original universal symbol of Freemasonry is the
square and compass. The compass is the main tool of
the individual. You draw a circle, using the
compass, around you, and if you go beyond the perimeter,
you lose control. Now, because it's a compass, the
circle can be larger. And how do you enlarge?
By seeking knowledge and light. The square is considered a
symbol of wisdom, and G stands for the Grand Architect of the
universe. The idea is to produce
free-thinking people. This is the best way to fight
any form of tyranny over the mind of man.
>> NARRATOR: By the mid-1700s, Freemasons in the American
colonies were regularly meeting in secret.
Assembling in woodland cabins, country barns, upper rooms above
taverns, anywhere they felt their secrets were kept safe
from the untrustworthy public. >> HODAPP: If a man can't be
trusted to keep something as minor as a handshake or a
password as a secret, then his word really can't be taken as a
>> ALICE VON KANNON: As Ben Franklin said, "If we don't hang
together, we will most assuredly hang separately.
So, secrecy was important to bind these-these founding
brothers, not just fathers. They were founding brothers, and
secrecy bound them together.
>> NARRATOR: But just what was it that was being discussed
inside the Freemasons' meeting places?
Were their lodges really functioning as incubators for
diabolical plans? Boston, December 16, 1773.
Relations between the colonies and their British rulers have
reached a breaking point. The Sons of Liberty, a group
dedicated to protecting the rights of colonists against
English oppression, convened at the Green Dragon Tavern and
ignited the most infamous act of rebellion in history.
>> HODAPP: Ground zero for the revolution was in Boston at the
Green Dragon Tavern, and in the 1760s, it was actually bought by
St. Andrew's Lodge, so the tavern was actually owned by the
lodge. >> ELIAS: Paul Revere happened
to be the master of his lodge in Boston, which met in the Green
Dragon Tavern. Hmm. By simple coincidence,
that's where the Sons of Liberty also met.
Interesting. >> HODAPP: The Boston Tea Party
was planned at the Green Dragon Tavern with lots of men who were
members of St. Andrew's Lodge. St. Andrew's Lodge was supposed
to meet, and as a matter of fact, in their minutes, it
actually says meeting called due to lack of quorum...
because they were out dumping tea into the ocean.
>> NARRATOR: Could the taxation protest, known as the Boston Tea
Party, have been a step towards a larger agenda?
And were the colonial Freemasons really planting the seeds for
what would event? >> HOROWITZ: Masonry was a
fundamental part of the American Revolution, and that is because,
some of America's most influential founders, including
Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, were Freemasons.
>> HODAPP: Freemasonry was very important to George Washington.
It was a network that he developed within his command,
and he encouraged his generals to become Freemasons.
He thought it made them more trustworthy.
>> HOROWITZ: 33 out of Washington's 74 generals were
Freemasons. That's 46%.
That's not accidental. There were nine out of 56
signers of the Declaration of Independence who were
Freemasons, so they were well-represented.
One third of the signers of the Constitution were Freemasons.
>> NARRATOR: One of the greatest contributors to the United
States Constitution was also, as many believe, America's
first Master Mason-- Benjamin Franklin.
>> HODAPP: The first Masonic book published in the United
States was published by Ben Franklin.
It was a copy of James Anderson's Constitutions.
He becomes master of the lodge very quickly after that.
He becomes Provincial Grand Master not much longer after
that. And so, he rises through the
ranks very, very quickly and becomes very, very popular
within Freemasonry. >> VON KANNON: For my money, the
most powerful Masonic influence on America as a whole is
Anderson's Constitutions. In 1717, the London Freemasons
formed an official lodge, formed a grand lodge.
They hired a man named James Anderson to write a set of
constitutions by which the Freemasons wld live.
It is startling when you read Anderson's Constitutions for
the Freemasons, written in 1723.
You see concept after concept after concept that appears in
the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
>> NARRATOR: There are those who believe that as long as the
United States has existed, Freemasonic influence on the
nation has been both pervasive and profound.
But are the Freemasons simply a gentleman's club, as some
suggest, or are they a secret government, leading America
toward a New World Order? Perhaps the truth can be found
by examining the group's many strange rituals, secret
ceremonies that have been hidden from public scrutiny, and that
its members seem willing to die for.
>> HOROWITZ: Some of what goes on behind the doors of a
Freemasonic Lodge involves rites and ceremonies that are kept
secret. >> MARRS: If you tell any of
their secrets, they get to cut your throat and hang you by the
>> NARRATOR: Fredericksburg, Virginia, 1752.
A young man of 20 is blindfolded.
His name is George Washington, and he is about to take the
Freemasons' blood oath of secrecy.
>> HODAPP: His initiation was done very much the way
initiations are done now. He was blindfolded.
Then he was led into the meeting room, knocked on the door three
times. (knocking)
And when the door was opened, he was received on the point of a
sharp instrument against his naked left breast.
And then, once that was done, he took the obligation at the
altar. And then, his blindfold was
removed, and he finally was allowed to see all the men in
his lodge, and they were all pointing their swords right at
him, which was to... reinforces the obligation that he had
taken, that he'd better not reveal any of the secrets of
Freemasonry. >> NARRATOR: Even today,
candidates for membership in the Freemasons are subjected to
secret rituals. >> HODAPP: When you enter a
lodge room, you enter what's called the Tyler's room.
And there's an officer outside called the Tyler who's armed
with a sword, and yes, you have to give him a password and the
secret handshake. We really do have a secret
handshake. >> ROBERT HIERONIMUS: The role
of secrecy in Freemasonry is especially difficult when you
get to such things as handshakes, because Freemasons
had to identify themselves, sometimes in the dark.
I'm not gonna show you the handshake, but what I'll tell
you-- it's not really a handshake.
What it is-- it's a grip. >> MARK KOLTKO-RIVERA: Like
ancient initiations in many human cultures around the globe,
Masonic initiation involves a series of ritual challenges, a
sacred obligation, and the imparting of certain information
to enlighten the candidate. If a man can't be trusted with
something that is not that important, like a password or a
handshake, he can't be trusted with the big things in life.
>> HODAPP: Every Masonic Lodge is said to be facing the east.
There's the letter "G" that's also in the east over the
Worshipful Master. The initiate is brought to the
center of the room where the altar is.
There will be a bible on the altar.
When the initiate is brought to the altar, he finally assumes
the obligation of his individual degrees.
There are three degrees-- the Entered Apprentice, the
Fellowcraft and the Master Mason.
When we talk about the secrets of Freemasonry, we talk about
the things that are passed along in this oral tradition.
It's the act of one man sitting down and teaching the ritual to
the next man in that unbroken chain of men that goes back to
the early 1600s. Of course, any more than that,
and I just can't tell you the rest.
You've got to join to find out. >> NARRATOR: Masonic rituals
have changed very little over the last two centuries.
And upon initiation, each new member swears a lifelong vow to
protect the brotherhood's secrets.
A vow, that if broken, could mean death.
>> JONES: In some of the Masonic documents that we have, we do
learn about Masonic trials, and if you're found to have given up
the secrets, then you can be killed.
People were rumored to have their throat slit, um, forced
under water until they died. >> HOROWITZ: What goes on behind
the doors of a Freemasonic Lodge involves ceremonies in which
people will be reminded of the ever-hovering presence of death.
>> NARRATOR: Masonic trials? Ritualistic executions?
What actually goes on behind closed doors of a Freemasonic
lodge may forever remain a mystery, but the details of one
ritual, reenacted during initiation ceremonies, have been
revealed. The murder of Hiram Abiff.
>> KOLTKO-RIVERA: Hiram is presented in a very dramatic way
to the candidate for the degrees of Freemasonry.
Hiram was a special craftsman who was asked to do very special
work by King Solomon in ancient times.
>> HODAPP: In the third degree, the Master Mason degree, tells
an allegorical story of the building of King's Solomon's
Temple and how Hiram Abiff is possessing of certain secrets of
the Master Masons, and how he's set upon by three ruffians who
don't want to wait until the proper moment to find out what
those secrets are. And they attack him.
And he goes to his grave refusing to say what the secrets
of a Master Mason are. >> HOROWITZ: He was conspired
against, he was murdered, and he is a kind of symbolic martyr
within Freemasonry. >> HODAPP: The term "given the
third degree" actually comes from the Master Mason degree,
where everybody tries to, you know, let you have it and, uh,
and really works you over. And if you've been gen the
third degree and you can take it, it means you kept your mouth
shut. >> NARRATOR: Mysterious
handshakes... secret passwords...
passion plays of murder. Are these merely harmless
practices of the Freemasons? Or ancient rituals designed to
confuse the uninitiated? >> JONES: You've got all those
different degrees, and most Masons believe that it only goes
up to the 33rd degree, but we have... I've seen clear evidence
of... that people can go higher than the 33rd degree.
They've been doing it for thousands and thousands of
years, and even their own members don't have the whole
image. The average Mason believes
there's only 33 degrees, but once you become a 33rd degree
Mason, you learn that there's actually 360 degrees.
>> MARRS: Within Freemasonry, you've got a huge outer circle
of membership. They're in there for the
fellowship. And then you've got a small
inner circle that really is privy to some of the inner
secrets. But if you ask a Mason about
these two circles, he's gonna tell you "no," because he's
either a member of the outer circle, or he's a member of the
inner circle, and he's taken a blood oath never to reveal that
fact. >> NARRATOR: Inner circles
guarding inner secrets? But what information could be so
important that Freemasons would risk their lives in order to
keep it hidden from outsiders? Perhaps clues can be found by
examining the many strange symbols that can be found on
numerous documents and buildings.
Even on the currency that we carry with us every day.
Coming up... >> JONES: You will find no
better example of the power of this ancient secret society as
you see on the back of the dollar bill.
On the top, the all-seeing eye, and around it, it says in Latin:
"We are announcing the birth of a new order."
>> NARRATOR: It is one of the most important documents ever
written. It is the very foundation of our
government. But while the Constitution of
the United States is written in plain English, there are those
who believe that America's founders used Masonic symbology
and codes to communicate a secret agenda.
>> ELIAS: The language of Freemasonry is a language of
symbols. Symbols hide universal truths,
and the idea is that each individual gets to discover
those on his or her own. >> HOROWITZ: Washington was very
fond of and drawn to the symbols of Freemasonry.
He was proud to be a Freemason. You do have depictions of
George Washington, for example, wearing his Masonic apron, and
these things are filled with all kinds of occult symbols-- the
all-seeing eye, the square and compass.
>> HODAPP: If there is a logo of Freemasonry, it's the square and
compass with the letter "G." The square is the Square of
Virtue, and teaching someone to be "on the square," and it's a
right angle. The compass is used to draw
circles, and Freemasons say that you circumscribe your character
with that. If you draw a circle with a
compass, you're drawing a boundary line, and that's sort
of a boundary that... you won't cross over that boundary in your
daily behavior. >> HIERONIMUS: What is the "G"?
"G," most people would say, "That's God."
And it is held between the square and the compass, so
therefore it's central to everything.
But it also can be related to geometry, sacred geometry.
>> HODAPP: And, in fact, God is the grand geometrician of the
universe. The Freemasons believed that God
was an architect, the great architect of the universe.
>> NARRATOR: To this day, one of America's most recognizable
symbols, the Great Seal of the United States, remains shrouded
in mystery. In 1934, Freemason and soon-to-
be Vice President Henry Wallace submitted a proposal to fellow
Freemason and President of the United States, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, to include this symbol on U.S. currency.
>> HODAPP: Henry Wallace and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were
influential in putting the Great Seal of the United States on the
dollar bill. Prior to FDR's presidency, the
back side of the Great Seal didn't appear on the dollar
bill. >> HOROWITZ: You can see this
fascination for ancient Egyptian symbols, pyramids.
All of these things get repeated in the ideas and symbols and
>> KOLTKO-RIVERA: The pyramid was meant to stand for strength
and endurance to reflect the hope that the United States
would be strong and would endure.
The Great Seal was a way to express the original values of
the American republic-- that we were an experiment in democracy.
That's why the pyramid's not finished-- because a democracy's
never finished. >> JONES: They understand the
power of symbolism. You will find no better example
of the power... of this ancient secret society as you see on the
back of the dollar bill. There's the pyramid, one of the
most holy symbols, the all-seeing eye, and around it,
it says in Latin, if you translate it: "We are announcing
the birth of a new order." >> BIRNES: Because the phrase
Novus Ordo Seclorum appears on the Great Seal of the United
States, Freemasonry becomes such an element of distrust by those
who think that we are about to be replaced by a New World
Order. >> NARRATOR: Did the Freemasons
use symbology to communicate the existence of a New World Order?
If so, what other secrets can be found hiding in plain sight?
Washington, D.C. Just one mile north of the White
House stands a massive stone building, at the corner of 16th
and S Street. It is the House of the Temple,
the headquarters of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.
>> HODAPP: Its members are believed to be part of a lineage
that dates back to 16th century Scotland.
The Scottish Rite is what's called an appendant body of
Freemasonry. Once you go through the first
three degrees in a Masonic Lodge, you're then eligible to
join other organizations within the family of Freemasonry.
The Scottish Rite has degrees four through 33.
>> KOLTKO-RIVERA: This particular location has the
address 1733, which represents the 33 degrees of initiation in
Scottish Rite Freemasonry. >> HODAPP: The big secret is the
address actually came out to 1733, even though that isn't
actually where it is in the plan of the city because they wanted
"33" as part of the address. 33 appears all over the
building. >> KOLTKO-RIVERA: There are 33
columns around the House the Temple.
Each one of them is 33 feet tall, symbolizing the 33 degrees
of initiation in Scottish Rite Freemasonry.
>> HODAPP: So 33, for centuries, has been a sacred number.
It goes back to biblical times. Christ was 33 years old
when he died. He performed 33 miracles.
God is mentioned 33 times in the first chapter of the Book of
Genesis.
>> NARRATOR: The House of the Temple, like all Masonic
edifices, contains many secret symbols, even in its design.
>> KOLTKO-RIVERA: Even the steps that I'm walking on are
symbolic in number. Down at the street level,
we start off with three steps, symbolic of the three degrees in
standard Freemasonry. Then we have five steps,
which symbolize the five orders of architecture and the five
senses. Then we have seven steps,
symbolizing liberal arts and sciences from medieval times.
Here we have an unfinished pyramid, atop the
House of the Temple. And, of course, that's a
resonance to the unfinished pyramid on the Great Seal of the
United States, as well. Should we imagine an all-seeing
eye up there? Perhaps we should.
>> HODAPP: It's actually a copy of the mausoleum in
Halicarnassus of King Mausolus, which was a burial tomb in one
of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
>> NARRATOR: Buried deep within the House of the Temple lie the
actual remains of a man who many consider one of the most
important and controversial figures in all of Freemasonry,
Albert Pike. >> JONES: He was a Confederate
officer, a general, and he wrote a lot of the writings that have
since been made public, where he talks about the God they worship
is Lucifer. (thunderclap)
We've learned a lot about the inner secrets of Freemasonry
through Albert Pike. >> HODAPP: He wrote the word
"Lucifer" twice in his book, Morals and Dogma.
And he's talking about the origin of the word
Lucifer as meaning "bringer of light" and saying, "Isn't it
interesting that the term 'bringer of light' came to mean
the Prince of Darkness?" Somehow, over the years, that's
been translated into saying Albert Pike somehow brought
Lucifer into Freemason rituals.
>> NARRATOR: Upon his death in 1891, Albert Pike's body was
buried at Oak Hill Cemetery, in Washington, D.C.
A statue was then erected in his honor in 1901, the only such
monument in the nation's capital, honoring a Confederate
officer. In 1944, Pike's body was exhumed
and moved to the House of the Temple.
But why? Did it have something to do with
the strange rites and rituals he wrote about in his book,
Morals and Dogma? Or did his references to Lucifer
suggest that the Freemasons do, in fact, have a another more
ominous agenda? Perhaps the answer can be found
by examining the many buildings and monuments of our nation's
capital and the very design of the city itself.
Coming up... >> ELIAS: No other capital city
was designed with the idea that it should reflect through
symbols the philosophy of governance.
How come all of these architects who worked in the White House,
the Capitol, were Freemasons?
>> NARRATOR: Alexandria, Virginia, 1791.
George Washington lays the cornerstone
for a ten-mile-by-ten-mile diamond matrix that would become
the country's new capital city: The District of Columbia.
Under his thoughtful design, George Washington would create
not just a capital city... but a permanent tribute to
Freemasonry-- one that, at the time, only the eye of God could
see.
>> HODAPP: When Pierre Charles L'Enfant and George Washington
sat down to design the city of Washington, they were starting
from nothing. They were starting from scratch.
And they wanted the city to be an absolute rational, living
plan of geometry. They were living the
precepts of the Enlightenment, and all of this grew out of
Freemasonry, of this fascination with science and logic and
philosophy and symbolism. And all of those things came
together at the design of Washington, D.C.
>> JONES: Architecture is at the core of the Masonic religion.
And that's where they got their political power and money in the
past 3,000 years. And, so, if you have a religion
based on architecture and the great architect of the universe,
you're going to try to build a fabulous Masonic city.
And that is exactly what Washington, D.C., is.
>> ELIAS: No other capital city was designed with the idea that
it should reflect through symbolism a philosophy of
governance. That's what makes Washington,
D.C., unique. How come all of these architects
who worked on the White House, the Capitol, were Freemasons?
>> NARRATOR: In 1793, George Washington, clad in full Masonic
regalia, presided over the laying of the cornerstone for
the U.S. Capitol Building. >> HODAPP: George Washington
marched with the Masons from the construction site of the White
House, up to Capitol Hill, and they set the cornerstone
with a silver trowel and placed a silver marker on top of it.
It was from that cornerstone that the Capitol grew.
>> NARRATOR: The Capitol became the great monument to democracy
that the founding fathers intended it to be.
Yet, according to historians and researchers, the building's
cornerstone is now missing.
But how? And why?
>> HODAPP: There are those who say that this mysterious missing
cornerstone is hiding secret documents, some strange,
alternate constitution, other Masonic documents, that it's
been carefully hidden away from public view.
>> NARRATOR: Washington and fellow Freemason, L'Enfant, were
also responsible for designing the federal triangle, an area
with specific geometrical symbols built into the street
plans of Washington, D.C.
>> KOLTKO-RIVERA: I am standing in the middle of America's
sacred ground. I have the Washington Monument
right behind me, the Statue of Libertas on top of the Capitol
dome to my right. And I have a clear look
at the White House from this spot.
The founding fathers wanted this to be a statement in
stone of American values. They wanted to make sure a
particular set of doctrines were going to be visible for
thousands of years. >> HIERONIMUS: Pierre Charles
L'Enfant realized that this triangle of three buildings was
really key to establishing the new order of America.
So, therefore, it's central to everything.
>> HIERONIMUS: There are symbols hidden in the layout of
Washington D.C. First you had a grid,
horizontals, verticals. Then you had the streets.
Streets on angles. When you start laying angles
over top of grids, you're gonna come up with all kinds of
symbols. >> JONES: The Masonic symbols
are everywhere, like signposts that says, "We are announcing
the birth of our new order."
>> NARRATOR: Further investigation reveals another
occult symbol traced directly into the streets of
Washington D.C. A pentagram.
And its southernmost tip points directly to the White House.
>> HOROWITZ: One of the recurrent occult symbols that
you'll find within Freemasonry is the pentagram.
The five-pointed star. People look at the pentagram
today, and they think there's something sinister about it.
That wasn't the intent at all. >> JONES: They're saying, "This
is our house, and this is our world, and from this command
base, from this Washington D.C., from this square, we're gonna
launch global domination."
>> NARRATOR: But why did the founding fathers weave
Freemasonic symbols into the design and layout of the
nation's capital? Were they sending a coded
message? And if so, to whom?
Coming up... >> JONES: You see a split in
Masonry, the same year the Illuminati is launched, 1776.
We have letters that George Washington wrote, warning about
the Illuminati, trying to emerge and take over all of Masonry.
>> NARRATOR: Colorado, 1995. After years of delays,
construction of the Denver International Airport is
complete. It is the largest international
airport in America. Third largest in the world.
Above ground, it encompasses 53 square miles, or two times the
size of Manhattan. But below the surface, some
believe there is a secret city stretching down into the depths
>> HOROWITZ: Denver International Airport--
some people have these conspiracy theories that it
hosts an underground military base that's supposed to be a
launching point for the New World Order.
>> HODAPP: The Denver Airport has a cornerstone that was laid
by the Freemasons, and it looks like this control panel rising
up out of the floor, and it's got Braille on it.
So, it looks almost like they're push buttons, and it's sort of
like the control panel for the New World Order.
It even says the "New World Airport Commission."
And there's a big square and compass, and so people have
said, "Well, this is clearly the Freemasons built this place."
>> NARRATOR: Could there really be a secret city hidden below
the Denver International Airport?
And if so, will this be where the Freemasons intend to launch
their so-called New World Order? Perhaps the writing is literally
on the wall. >> HODAPP: You have a mural that
shows this soldier in a gas mask with a scimitar, stabbing a
dove, and this endless chain of dying women and babies going out
from under it. It's just horrific.
>> BIRNES: There are scenes of ruination, war, corpses of
babies, people fleeing underground...
of plague, death, Nazism, dictatorship, the coming of a
New World Order. >> NARRATOR: Do the Freemasons
believe in a predestined apocalyptic event?
And is this what the founding fathers have been preparing for
since the Declaration of Independence?
There are those who believe the answer is yes, and some suggest
the Freemasonic view of the future came from another secret
society rooted in Europe at the time of the American
>> MARRS: A university professor named Adam Weishaupt formed a
group called the Illuminati. And he set it up to be a very
secret society and operate very secretly.
>> HOROWITZ: Part of the organization's plan, when they
were founded in 1776, was to join and infiltrate Freemasonic
Lodges. >> MARRS: The way it worked was
he would talk to one person. That one person would contact
one person. And that way, people down the
line had no idea who's at the top or how to get to him or what
the real purpose was. But somewhere at the top of the
heap is somebody who has an agenda.
>> HOROWITZ: And the early founders of the Illuminati were
deep and great admirers of the American Revolution.
Theyelieved in religious liberty.
They believed in free thought. But the fact is, within eight or
nine years of the Illuminati's founding in 1776, the
>> JONES: So you see a split in Masonry.
You see 1776 as the same year that the Illuminati is launched
and then spreads and grows. But simultaneously, events in
1776 lead to the Declaration of Independence.
And we have letters that George Washington wrote, warning people
about the Illuminati trying to emerge and take over all of
Masonry. >> NARRATOR: Historians suggest
the Illuminati actually infiltrated Freemasonic Lodges
in the United States by the late 1700s, just as the founding
fathers were drafting the U.S. Constitution.
But did the Illuminati, under the guise of Freemasonry, really
influence the creation of the government and laws of the
United States? >> MARRS: In a 1792 letter to a
friend, George Washington said he had absolutely no doubts that
the doctrines of the Illuminati had spread to the United States.
He said, "No one is more assured of this than I am."
The most basic tenet of the Illuminati is that the end
justifies the means. And this is what makes them so
dangerous because they'll say anything, pose as anything, and
yet, they cling to their own doctrine.
>> JONES: You see now the Masonic orders that dominate our
globe. This is an Illuminati planet
now. They are the inner group, or the
enlightened ones, or the top of the pyramid.
They have the secret knowledge. They are directing the world.
They are keeping secrets for incredible wealth.
They're keeping secret their political power.
>> BIRNES: This is the biggest secret of all in America's Book
of Secrets, beyond anything, and the secret of the Freemasons
is that there's a coming of the New Age.
It's a big secret in plain sight.
>> HODAPP: As for a book of secrets that contain the secrets
of the fraternity that have been passed down through the ages,
there really aren't any because Freemasons promised not to
write, print, paint, stamp, stain, cut, carve, hue,
marker, or engrave any of the secrets of the fraternity.
>> VON KANNON: Freemasonry will always remain the granddaddy of
all secret societies. The greatest of all of them, the
most international of all of them, and Freemasonry will
remain a society that has a very powerful political impact.
>> NARRATOR: But despite all of the conspiracy theories and all
of the secrets, these facts are clear:
prominent Freemasons helped spark the American Revolution,
they helped create the United States of America,
their fingerprints can be found all across the country on sacred
documents, on monuments, and even embedded in the streets of
our nation's capital. They are a brotherhood of
secrets, and they will protect those secrets with their lives.
But why? What is the Freemasons' ultimate
plan? Perhaps only time will tell.
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