Father Crespi Mystery Deepens: Ancient Origins Urged to Drop Further Investigations

Earlier this month we reported on an investigation into the story of Father Crespi and his missing artifacts. The story of Father Crespi is a mysterious and controversial account of a priest in Ecuador involving claims of unknown civilizations, strange golden artifacts, a subterranean cave system containing a metallic library, depictions of figures connecting America to Sumer, symbols depicting an unknown language, and a Vatican conspiracy involving thousands of missing artifacts. Ancient Origins undertook an investigation to find out how much of the story is true. While our initial enquiries produced valuable information, our latest explorations concluded in being urged to stop pursuing further investigations into the missing artifacts.

If you have not yet read the first article, please read it here before proceeding with this update.

To summarize the results of our findings, our investigations determined that:

• Father Crespi’s collection is not missing but was purchased by the Central Bank of Ecuador and is currently stored in their museum vaults.
• The majority of Crespi’s collection consists of authentic and valuable artifacts gathered from around Ecuador.
• The so-called Metallic Library mentioned by Eric von Däniken in his controversial book ‘The Gold of the Gods’ is nothing more than modern-day carvings on cheap metal.
• A small subset of artifacts, which were photographed and filmed in the 1970s, consisting of gold carvings, hieroglyphs and Sumerian figures is genuinely missing and no one seems to have the answers as to where they are located and what their significance is.

Digging Deeper

On Wednesday the 30th March, Dr Ioannis Syrigos, Co-Founder of Ancient Origins, arranged an appointment with an expert on Father Crespi based in Cuenca, Ecuador, who wished to remain anonymous.  The meeting was to  clarify a few missing pieces to the Crespi puzzle for a video Ancient Origins is preparing about Father Crespi’s life. This is an important video that will present the great personality of Father Crespi and his immense help to the people of Cuenca, Ecuador.  

The missing pieces of the puzzle are of course the golden artifacts depicting hieroglpyhs and Sumerian figures, the ones that Crespi presents and supports in his videos with Stanley Hall and the ones that Professor Barry Fell of Harvard University identified as original. Some of these artifacts can be seen in the video below.

The missing artifacts consist not only of metallic (golden) tablets, but also clay and stone artifacts with unusual carvings, none of which were among the thousands of artifacts that we viewed in his collection held by the Central Bank of Ecuador. Some of the artifacts were accepted by Father Crespi as original and authentic, while others were fake, which he also knew and acknowledged. As a highly educated man – a scientist, educator, anthropologist, botanist, artist, explorer, cinematographer, humanitarian and musician – Father Crespi was in a good position to assess the authenticity of the artifacts.

Expert Withholds Information on Crespi’s Artifacts

We met with the expert, who holds a senior position at a local university, and he was eager to help us complete our research and the video about Father Crespi. 

In our discussion, we explained the importance of having all the facts around Crespi clear in the video, otherwise the video would be incomplete. However, any reference to the missing artifacts made the expert uncomfortable.  It seemed that this was because he preferred that we focus on the other aspects of Father Crespi’s life that he deemed more important than the artifacts – i.e. his charitable endeavours.

The official response of the expert was that these artifacts simply went missing, never to be found again. While initially he said he knew nothing about the location of the missing artifacts, later on he said that he was not authorized to talk about them.   

• The Truth About Father Crespi and His Missing Artifacts Finally Revealed
• Father Crespi and the missing golden artifacts
• Expedition to Tayos Caves: Never Before Seen Photographs Shed Light on Mysterious Underground Network

Involvement of the Vatican?

At some point during our discussion, we asked the Expert about reports that the missing artifacts had been shipped to the Vatican in Italy. His response was not to deny that this took place, but to say that he was aware that pieces of art had been sent to the Vatican because Father Crespi was a collector of Art and he had many items in his possession.

Ancient Origins Urged to Leave the Investigation Alone

In the end, our persistence to clarify the situation led the expert to urge us not to question the local religious community because they are a very proud community with strong influence in Ecuador and therefore it is best that we do not look more into the missing artifacts, which are not important to their cause – i.e. making Father Crespi a Saint.

It was quite clear during our conversation that there is something that someone does not want the public to know about.  Is there a cover up to hide the fact that the precious artifacts were stolen or sold for profit by someone? Or where they hidden away because they revealed something controversial about the history of the country?

Military Involvement? 

In addition to our enquiries with the expert, we also managed to get in touch with an investigator who came to Ecuador around a decade ago to carry out his own search into the Father Crespi mystery. While he asked to remain anonymous, he did allow us to relay some information he obtained during his enquiries. Upon visiting the Central Bank Museum of Ecuador, where Crespi’s artifacts are currently stored, he was told that the missing artifacts had been sold by the Chuch of Maria Auxiliadora, where Crespi carried out his charitable endeavours, to the Ecuadorian Military. He was also told that this information was confidential and not to be made public. We have been unable to verify the accuracy of this information, but it does add a new avenue to explore.

Despite the insistence by the expert that we drop the investigations into the artifacts, we are now proceeding with further explorations through other channels and we will update on the results in due course. We will soon prepare a video showing the incredible life of Father Crespi, a multi-talented man whose main concern was to help the people of Ecuador.

Featured image: A collection of artifacts given to Father Crespi

NOTE: The expert requested for his name and the name of the University to be removed from the content.