EVERY SPOKEN WORD
140 min read · 28,042 words- 0:02 – 4:37
Looted Peruvian burial grounds: drone footage, bones on the surface, and lost history
- SPSpeaker
Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out! The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. [upbeat music]
- JRJoe Rogan
Raul.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Joe. [laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
Very nice to meet you, brother.
- RBRaul Bilecky
It's so good to be here.
- JRJoe Rogan
I have enjoyed your content tremendously online, and, uh, I really got into a video this morning that I was watching, where you found this megalithic site that was undocumented in Peru. It's incredible that they still have these ancient sites that, for whatever reason, it seems like the, um, the money that they get, gets stolen. Like, the money that is supposed to be allocated towards documenting these things and registering these things, people just say, "Fuck it, I'm gonna pocket it," and-
- RBRaul Bilecky
It happens a lot more than you would- you think.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ah, just hard to believe, man. Uh, some of the stuff that you document is very heartbreaking. Like, uh, one of them was when you flew a drone over these ancient ruins, and you showed the amount of places that have been looted.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's just all of it. It's just po- you see these holes, and when I first saw that, I'm like, "What is, what is he showing me?" And then you're like, "These are all spots where someone has dug in and looted," and most of it has been done in this area of Peru over the last 20 years.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Over the last 20 years.
- JRJoe Rogan
So from 2006 to 2026, more-
- RBRaul Bilecky
I, I, I would add, the biggest amount of looting happened... It's actually died down some, uh, but the end of the 20- so 1980s to 2010s, I would say-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's when it really-
- RBRaul Bilecky
... that's when, like, when it really took off.
- JRJoe Rogan
[exhales]
- RBRaul Bilecky
And you can tell from the trash that's left there, like cigarettes that were only produced in the '80s-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh
- RBRaul Bilecky
... you know, soda bottles that were only produced in the '90s, things like that.
- JRJoe Rogan
How nice of them to steal the artifacts and leave trash. [chuckles]
- RBRaul Bilecky
Dude, it- they've become landfills of, of human remains. It's, uh... Th- this place you're talking about is, I mean, it's eight full kilometers of just... It looks like the moon. Every single location has been looted, and I was like, "I gotta go up, up there and see what this looks like." And, and so-
- JRJoe Rogan
Pull up to the microphone a little bit more there. So looting, what are they... At, at that point in time, I mean, these are hundreds, thousands of years old, these sites, so what are they finding?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Well, a lot of the mummies that I've-- 'cause I've, I've found mummies that have been torn, torn apart, literally. Like, they're, the cotton that they're wrapped in, the textiles that they're wrapped in, I mean, it's just, they've been scavenged.
- JRJoe Rogan
Are they looking for jewels?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Or for some sort of metallurgy-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm
- RBRaul Bilecky
... like, on, on the person themselves. Um, the unfortunate thing is, I mean, all, all you'll see is, you'll just see these, these bones littered across the landscape with broken pieces of pottery and-
- JRJoe Rogan
That was also disturbing, how much bones you see everywhere. So this is, uh-
- RBRaul Bilecky
Oh, that's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Look, you see a bone right there. These are all human bones that you just find scattered.
- 4:37 – 6:48
Where the stolen artifacts go: private buyers, grave robbers, and failed protection
- JRJoe Rogan
And so does this stuff wind up in private collections? Is... Do museums ever get it? Like, what, what happens to that stuff?
- RBRaul Bilecky
I, I don't think museums get it at all. It's private, private buyers. I actually met a... Well, the term is waquero. It's a grave robber. I actually met one in Miraflores, in, in Lima proper, at one of the artesanalas, where they're selling, you know, a- ancient goods. Well, some of them have real things that they, they go out, and they loot, and... I mean, that-- This is one of the things I've been thinking about, like, for, for the future. Like, what, what can be done about this? Because the government... Nobody from the government's going out there, and so these things end up in private collections, textiles, humans, uh, pottery, things that you would see in museums. It's just nobody from that official administration is taking the trip to go out there and preserve these things, and-
- JRJoe Rogan
It seems like just the ancient civilization of Peru is a massive mystery.
- RBRaul Bilecky
It's-
- JRJoe Rogan
It seems like there are a lot of uncovered stories in that area, and-
- RBRaul Bilecky
Peru is a hotspot
- JRJoe Rogan
... and it doesn't seem like there's an incredible amount of research being done, other than by independent people.
- RBRaul Bilecky
They, I mean, so... Joe, there, there's just so much in Peru. I mean, you throw a stone, and you're finding an ancient archaeological site. Uh, I mean, they're, they're doing-- Whenever they do construction, they end up coming across structures or bones.... I mean, I, this last expedition, I, I went all over the country, and there is no lack of archaeological sites. So the, the money and, I just- uh, the money it would take to fund research on all these places is just extreme. It, it's extreme. Um, I think there's a lot of history that, that goes missed, uh, because, because of what's currently happening, but a lot of times, a lot of the research is focused on what's going to bring tourism.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, like Machu Picchu, things along those line, which is also insane.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Like, phenomenal.
- JRJoe Rogan
Just incredible. Like, that place is like, what? Why? How?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah. [laughs]
- 6:48 – 8:16
Machu Picchu origin story: seashells at altitude and a lifelong obsession
- JRJoe Rogan
Why'd you build it up here? [chuckles] Fucking nuts. A, a good friend of mine just actually went, just recently took his family-
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... up to Machu Picchu, and he's like, "It doesn't even make any sense, man."
- RBRaul Bilecky
Dude, Machu Picchu is what started, uh... So my family's from Peru, and so I would grow up going there, and, and I have this old- back when you were filming with cameras with, like, a, a videotape, um, there's footage of me finding seashells at Machu Picchu when I was like-
- JRJoe Rogan
What?
- RBRaul Bilecky
... when I was, like, 10 years old. Back then, you, you could go wherever you wanted. You didn't have to stay on a path, and so, I, I don't know, I was 10-
- JRJoe Rogan
And for people that don't know, Machu Picchu's, like, what, 12,000 feet above sea level?
- RBRaul Bilecky
12,000 feet, yeah, yeah. And so, and so I'm, I'm a kid, and, I mean, I still have the footage, the grainy footage, and I'm showing my dad on the cam. I'm like, "Dad, Dad, look, I found seashells." You know, I saw them in, in, inside a, uh, they were, like, glinting in the mud in the wall, and so I, I took them out, and that's what started this whole process for me. I was just like, that... It blew my mind that there were seashells way up there, and, uh, so I studied about earth cataclysms and ancient history, and, and when sea levels were different, and that just, that's- that is a moment that started kind of this whole path for me. [chuckles]
- JRJoe Rogan
How old were you at the time?
- RBRaul Bilecky
10 or 12.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow. Um, so how many times have you been there since?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Well, growing up, we used to go every year and a half or so, and that's continued into my adulthood. It's only been recently, the past two years, that I've been doing what I'm, what I've been doing, which is, like, hardcore [chuckles] solo, uh, expeditions.
- 8:16 – 13:49
Megaliths beneath later construction: Viñaque and the ‘who built it?’ problem
- JRJoe Rogan
And so when you look at a site like Machu Picchu or, you know, any of these ancient sites, what, what is the timeline that conventional archaeologists attribute?
- RBRaul Bilecky
I mean, they, they attribute it to the Inca, which, you know, 14, late 1400s, early 1500s. I think the Inca were conquered in, by the Spanish in 15, uh, 1530, I think, and so mo- most of that megalithic architecture, they attribute to the Inca. However, there's evidence that... There's a site, uh, Jamie, if you could pull it up, it's called Viñaque. This, this place is-- There's megalithic architecture with precision that goes down 50 feet under, under this mountain. It's, it... Check this out.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa! Whoa.
- SPSpeaker
It's buried so deeply underneath.
- JRJoe Rogan
[chuckles] This is crazy.
- RBRaul Bilecky
So I believe they filled in the top to, uh, in modern times, but the-
- SPSpeaker
There's mortar at the top.
- RBRaul Bilecky
And very soon, there's gonna be a guy who shows us a map.
- SPSpeaker
It's incredible.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow. And so you see very different construction-
- RBRaul Bilecky
Very different construction
- JRJoe Rogan
... styles from the bottom to the top, but that's how it always is, right? The most complex stuff-
- RBRaul Bilecky
So that's, that's showing that this architecture here, it goes down 50 feet into this mountain.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm. And what do they think this was?
- RBRaul Bilecky
So this complex is all attributed to the Wari. It's attributed to the culture that came right before the Inca, which doesn't make much sense to me because what you see on the surface, that's Wari construction. They-
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is small stones.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Right. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
What are, what are they held together with?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Uh, mud mortar. Mud as mortar, and, uh... But then, so this site [chuckles] has only been 4% excavated. 4%. It's underneath all of it is that type of architecture, which is crazy. [chuckles]
- JRJoe Rogan
So you have mud and mortar with very small stones, and then underneath it, you have precision-cut megali- megalithic stones?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And how big are these stones, and where are they supposedly coming from?
- SPSpeaker
...
- RBRaul Bilecky
Uh, that, so h- here's a funny story. Um, so this place, if you look, you can, you can find it on, on Google Maps. It's, uh, you know, they call it the El Complejo de Wari, so the Wari complex. But if you go back to the Spanish chronicles, um, Pedro Cieza de León, when he was in Tiwanaku, so Tiwanaku, where Puma Punku is in Bolivia, when they asked the natives, you know, "Who built this?" They said, "We don't know. It was built before us from the people from the lake," the same people who built Viñaque. That's what the natives said. That place, Viñaque, is 800, 1,000 kilometers from Tiwanaku, so, so... And it's the same construction, so would- it makes sense, kind of what they're saying. The people who built Tiwanaku also built this place. But before they know-- before they knew that, uh... They didn't witness it. It was just there when they got there-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right
- RBRaul Bilecky
... is what the locals said.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, that's a lot of stuff, right? That's part of the weirdness of South America.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, you know, even Mexico, right?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah.
- 13:49 – 19:00
Gatekeeping in archaeology and the impact of new scanning tech (Egypt, pyramids, SAR)
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah. I mean, it's... [inhales] I've alway- uh, when I started this path, you know, I was... You know, Fingerprints of the Gods was one of the first books I picked up-
- JRJoe Rogan
Me, too
- RBRaul Bilecky
... as a kid.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RBRaul Bilecky
My dad had it in his library, and, uh, and, and, and that just, that set me off on a, on a course. And, uh, [inhales] the, the inability to be able to, to... I, I, I don't know. I don't, I don't buy the mainstream. Uh, i- i- it's-- it feels a little, little bit lazy, the, the responses [chuckles] that, that the mainstream kind of gives to some of this stuff, um, as opposed to just saying, "I don't know."
- JRJoe Rogan
It's purposely ignorant. It's more than lazy-
- RBRaul Bilecky
[chuckles]
- JRJoe Rogan
... because i- if it was just lazy, the... I mean, they've been confronted by all this other alternative archaeology evidence, and all these other people that have, like, explored these things and shown... And then there was always the conventional wisdom that there was no society back then that was capable of doing this, so they had to attribute it to more recent societies.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Until Gobekli Tepe. [chuckles]
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. And then you're like, "Okay, you guys need to shut the fuck up." [chuckles]
- RBRaul Bilecky
It's, uh, I mean, the, the, the... There's a power in admitting, like, you're-- if we're looking for the truth here, then it's like, "Okay, we got this evidence that disrupts this, that we thought before." All right, just say that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- RBRaul Bilecky
You know what I mean?
- JRJoe Rogan
They can't.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Just say it. It, it, it-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's fascinating that they can't-
- RBRaul Bilecky
[chuckles] It's-
- JRJoe Rogan
... you know, because they are like every other form of academia. They're, they are just like... I mean, it- you might as well be talking to a gender studies teacher.
- RBRaul Bilecky
[chuckles]
- JRJoe Rogan
Just like, they don't want to look at reality. They just, they just want their narrative, and they want to be the gatekeepers of information, and then they just want to push that narrative forward. And they're so mean.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Dude, it... I only started recently, uh, being on X within the past year, and I'm j- just, like, the cattiness of it all, man, is, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it just exposes-
- RBRaul Bilecky
The back and forth
- JRJoe Rogan
... them. It exposes their personality, and they're just not the type of people that I want to talk to about anything.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah. [chuckles]
- JRJoe Rogan
Especially not... You're not the gatepe- if you're a 41-year-old person, you're not the gatekeeper of ancient history. You can't be. There's too much.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's too much all over the world. It doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense, and that's, I think, why they're so terrified of people like Filippo Biondi and the, the-
- RBRaul Bilecky
And the scans
- JRJoe Rogan
... scans underneath the pyramids.
- 19:00 – 23:52
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- JRJoe Rogan
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- JRJoe Rogan
Well, people have to really understand that the whole concept of mainstream academia is only a few hundred years old, and that's what's weird. It's like-
- RBRaul Bilecky
[chuckles]
- JRJoe Rogan
... so these very recent structures, these very recent establishments, want to be the gatekeepers of information of a vast swath of the world.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, the, it's not possible-
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah, I would- [chuckles]
- JRJoe Rogan
... It's not possible that you know everything.
- RBRaul Bilecky
It's, it's not. I was thinking about that.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's just not. They know a lot. They know a lot about things they have discovered. They do. They know a lot about Mesopotamia. They know a lot about Iraq, all the, the, the, and amazing stuff that they find. Some stuff, they, they've very accurately dated, but it doesn't, it doesn't ex- explain things that you can't explain, and they want to try to-
- RBRaul Bilecky
Just fit it into the-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah!
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's what's goofy.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah, that's... I mean, look, if the puzzle piece doesn't fit, stop trying to force it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well-
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... it's also, it's, like, more gigantic, spectacular pieces, and you're like-
- RBRaul Bilecky
[chuckles]
- JRJoe Rogan
... "Well, those aren't important."
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, um, Ben van Kerkwijk, with the, this most recent discoveries, where they're using the ground-penetrating radar to find the labyrinths and this 40-meter-long metallic object-
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... that's inside of an atrium down there. Like, what is that thing?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah, I, I have a, uh... I hope it's something, uh, my, my... If, if whatever, if they go looking, and I hope they do-- And this is the other thing, it's like, let's, let's start putting money to-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right
- RBRaul Bilecky
... towards this, like, now. You know what I mean? [chuckles]
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Like, figure this out. Um, I don't know why I thought this. I, I think it might be a meteorite. If, if it's some sort of-
- 23:52 – 27:53
UFO detour: buried objects, whistleblowers, and why the truth stays murky
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, that's where it gets really weird. Where it gets really weird is these mummies.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Oh, [chuckles] we're gonna go into the mummies again?
- JRJoe Rogan
What do you got there, Jamie?
- SPSpeaker
[clears throat] Uh, Eric Burlison, a representative, talking about how he's asked the White House to give DoD the power to let them go see this stuff, including that bur- a buried UFO.
- RBRaul Bilecky
... Reportedly, an object that is not in this country, that is so large it cannot be moved, uh, that they've built an entire building around it. And I think that, I think, uh, either Greer or another individual has actually mentioned this site, but I'm not gonna mention it because it is a classified location. But there is a, a l- a really apparent... There's reported a really large-
- RBRaul Bilecky
... object, and, and that's one of the locations that I've- I'm requesting to, to get to. It's gonna involve a lot to get to make that happen, but that may be the, uh, final destination.
- JRJoe Rogan
Shit like that makes me wanna run for president. [laughing]
- RBRaul Bilecky
[laughing]
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause that's all I would care about. The economy would be in shambles, I'd be like, "Show me the UFOs!" [laughing]
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah. Do you think, do you think they'd do it? 'Cause I- 'cause I've heard that, like, the-
- JRJoe Rogan
No, they'd kill me.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Uh, I mean, it- on, on, on that need-to-know basis, where they're keeping-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah
- RBRaul Bilecky
... stuff from presidents, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Kennedy got too close, like [laughing] ...
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't think that's what they killed Kennedy for, but I think there's a bunch of things, but-
- RBRaul Bilecky
They, they... I know, there, there's a whole lot of layers to that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, but the, the UFO people love to think that it's UFOs is why they killed Kennedy, but they think everything's UFOs. But it, it's, it, it definitely seems like... [sighs] I don't know about the evidence, you know, because it's just stories, and that's the problem, is that a lot of this stuff, and this is how I feel when a lot of people come on the podcast and talk to me, you know, supposed whistleblowers. Some of them I think are legitimate, and some of them I think are disinformation specialists. I think they're designed to muddy up the water, and this is the, the... what, you know, what they're saying is designed to muddy up the water, and that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to make a lot of this stuff look silly and, and push certain narratives and just create confusion. And I think a lot of it is probably some black budget, weird science stuff that we have. But then it begs the question, where'd you get that?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, is, is that really like the Diana Pasulka work, where she's talking about there... essentially these things are donations, and that we're supposed to, like, take these things-
- RBRaul Bilecky
Oh, yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... and try to figure it out? And then you look at some of the creation of some different inventions that happened very quickly-
- RBRaul Bilecky
Dude
- JRJoe Rogan
... after Roswell. I mean-
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah, our, our, our civilization just, I mean, just been on a boom ever since.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, weird stuff.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like the fiber optic stuff and transistors, the, the just the, the, the history of the cre- creation of the transistor-
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah
- 27:53 – 40:35
Nazca ‘tridactyl’ mummies: why Raul thinks it’s mostly a sophisticated hoax
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause the mum- the tridactyl mummies are weird.
- RBRaul Bilecky
We could, we could...
- JRJoe Rogan
That stuff's weird.
- RBRaul Bilecky
We, we can talk about that, 'cause I went, uh... I, I, I did a deep dive with my friend Will, and from... There, there is, there is too much amok going on with these things for me to, for me, uh, to objectively say, uh, that they are what people are claiming them to be. There, there's just, there's too much wrong with this pi- with the picture.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. Well, first of all, a lot of them are fake.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
For sure.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
A lot of them, people have seemingly created with a bunch of different animal bones-
- RBRaul Bilecky
And human bones
- JRJoe Rogan
... and pieced them, and human bones, and pieced them together. But then there's the weird ones. You know, there's the weird ones that are mummified, and they're in the fetal position, and you see a structure that doesn't exist in the human body, but it's complete with tendons and ligaments, and some of them have eggs inside of them.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Well, that... Joe, I'm telling you, man, I... Look, I want to believe. I, I-
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you think it's bullshit?
- RBRaul Bilecky
I think it is much closer to bullshit than it is to reality.
- JRJoe Rogan
All of them?
- RBRaul Bilecky
I think what we're dealing with here are real human beings from the past, they are ancient, uh, that have been put together. Wi- Will, from Incredible History, has done some amazing work with some amazing specialists. I mean, people at the top of their field on this stuff, looking at the X-rays and the DICOM files and calling out, um, calling out cuts, calling out incisions that were made, calling out why things don't make sense.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- RBRaul Bilecky
And for me, the reason I put out my last video on the Nazca mummies is because there's this [chuckles] whole other narrative, too, of where the money is, who's making money off of these things. And, and I think that-
- JRJoe Rogan
Is there money being made off those-
- RBRaul Bilecky
Oh
- JRJoe Rogan
... little mummies?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Oh. [chuckles] I was gonna-
- JRJoe Rogan
Please.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah, let, let me-
- JRJoe Rogan
You got something?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah. [laughing] So I remember you... Uh, I forget who you were talking to. It might have been, uh, Jesse Michaels, but I remember you saying, "You know, if the... These are one of the greatest art projects, if they were fake."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Well, if you just scroll to the right here, this is what the-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's the goofy one.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah, but that's what the Guacero is selling. He sent that to me personally-
- 40:35 – 42:34
Artifact crime networks and intimidation: ‘Inca Mafia,’ violence, and provenance videos
- RBRaul Bilecky
So that's part of the reason I also decided to make this video, and, and c- a lot of the pushback on this stuff is like, "Oh, you don't, you don't trust, you know, uh, Latin American doctors or anything." It... No, it's, it's, it's not that. It's the- Latin American doctors from Peru and, and journalists from Per- they're afraid to talk about this stuff, because it, things can get violent down there-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm
- RBRaul Bilecky
... surrounding this topic.
- SPSpeaker
[clears throat] Article from 2012 about a mummy being stolen, and it goes on to talk about, um... There's a m- uh, it said right at the bottom, I just saw it.
- JRJoe Rogan
The Inca Mafia.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, there's a mafia.
- JRJoe Rogan
The Inca Mafia, and in fact, the guy-
- SPSpeaker
The Inca Mafia.
- JRJoe Rogan
The guy, Mario, who, um-
- SPSpeaker
There you go. "Officials have warned about the existence of a mafia dedicated to the trade, with links throughout Southern America and Europe," and at the time, it was $18 million a year in stolen archaeological artifacts Peru estimated was being taken out of the country.
- JRJoe Rogan
So this is all going to, like, wealthy people in other countries that wanna have these artifacts in their homes?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And so then someone-
- RBRaul Bilecky
I've seen the text messages with some of the American buyers.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So these guys are just like, "Come on into my den-
- RBRaul Bilecky
Uh
- JRJoe Rogan
... I'm gonna show you a mummy."
- RBRaul Bilecky
The, the, what I'm talking about specifically was, um, tapestries and, and it was actually the guy I met in the Artesanalis in Miraflores, and, and he showed me video. He was very open with me. He showed me videos of, uh... Because the buy- the buyers wanna see provenance. The buyers wanna see them pulling the, uh, the artifacts out of the ground. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, so they just bury them, and then they just-
- RBRaul Bilecky
Well, no, I mean-
- SPSpeaker
Then there's this store in London that sells the stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mummy c- crowdfunder leaves archaeologists fuming. So there's a guy in London that's selling this stuff?
- SPSpeaker
The Victor Wynd Museum in London.
- JRJoe Rogan
Huh.
- SPSpeaker
... Cabinet dedicated to dead people. [laughing]
- RBRaul Bilecky
[chuckles]
- SPSpeaker
And they were trying to get a mummy from Peru.
- 42:34 – 1:05:33
Elongated skulls: head-binding vs. anatomy anomalies, and the need for rigorous studies
- JRJoe Rogan
What do you think is going on with the skulls, the elongated skulls?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Uh, if you, Jamie, I have a-
- SPSpeaker
I got it.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Um, I think that... It's one I found.
- JRJoe Rogan
So here's one. You found that one?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Oh, yeah. That's one of three I've come across.
- JRJoe Rogan
... Now, there, supposedly there's a difference in the way the, the skull, you know, when you're a child, what is it called? Those lines-
- RBRaul Bilecky
The sa- the sagittal, the sutures. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- RBRaul Bilecky
I found some, uh, without the- I, I, I- every elongated skull that I've, the three I've come across, all had the sagittal, uh, all had that suture. They're-
- JRJoe Rogan
Like a normal human does.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Like a normal human.
- JRJoe Rogan
So these would be from pressing boards on the child's head when they're in development?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Binding. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Binding, yeah.
- RBRaul Bilecky
But then the question is, why would you do that?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- RBRaul Bilecky
And, uh, I mean, I err, err on the side of, you don't just come up with that. You're trying to imitate something.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- RBRaul Bilecky
You know? And so that, that's, um... And then you see it in Egypt, in the hieroglyphs-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm
- RBRaul Bilecky
... and stuff. So I, I, I do think, like, there is... You know, there, there's- [exhales] We've, we've labeled things other species with just a bone fragment, you know? I'm like, there, there's, there's deserts of these things, and, and I think that if the right study went to them, you, you might have a separate species if, if you put the money towards studying this stuff, 'cause it, it's all out there, man. It's all out there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, like a separate branch of the human species?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Possibly, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, which makes sense. I mean, they're finding separate branches all the time.
- RBRaul Bilecky
All the time.
- JRJoe Rogan
The Denisovans, you know, all the- all these different ones that they've found within the last 20 years.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And there could be something with a larger head, an elongated head.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yep, and that's the, um... I, I don't know enough about osteo-whatever to-
- 1:05:33 – 1:18:08
Peru’s deep timeline: Caral/Norte Chico, sunken circular plazas, and the lost ‘khipu’ language
- RBRaul Bilecky
You have the oldest stone pyramids in the Americas, pyramids that predate the pyramids of Giza by a thousand years.
- JRJoe Rogan
What do they look like?
- RBRaul Bilecky
If you look up, uh, Caral, uh, they are... Dude, I've done a whole thesis on this. Like, I, I, I plan to write a-- I don't think I'll ever get it peer-reviewed, but I plan to write a paper about my, my theories on some of the stuff I've found. So Caral was this area on the coast. It's, uh, C-A-R-A-L, and these pyramids had... G- Graham Hancock's been looking into this stuff, too, um, this sunken circular plaza. So they're just... This is a-
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa! This, this predates Giza. Uh, well, what we think-
- RBRaul Bilecky
Ye-
- JRJoe Rogan
... is the date of Giza.
- RBRaul Bilecky
The, the, the great pyramids-
- JRJoe Rogan
Conventional
- RBRaul Bilecky
... the conventional dating, right. So, all right, let's, let's see if I can condense this. [chuckles]
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- RBRaul Bilecky
This site has, I don't know, eight of these pyramids. They're actually all throughout the valley and four valleys around it. The earliest one, in a separate valley close to this, dates back to 4000 BCE. It has the remnants of a sunken circular... The main thing that's to keep note of is that sunken circular plaza, because it's a feature that you not only see there in that, those four valleys, but you also see it 200 kilometers north of Peru in-
- JRJoe Rogan
And what's the conventional explanation for these sunken circular plazas?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Uh, ri- ritual, uh, ritual spaces, uh, some people say collecting water, some people say the acoustics are different. Here's the interesting thing about it. This site was discovered in-... the 1940s, and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow, look at that artwork.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Nobody did anything about it. The, the archaeo- this is what you'll f- this is what happens in Peru. In the, from the 1900, early 1900s to 1940s, archaeologists and historians were going up and down the coast finding stuff. I mean, just finding stuff, and they would write it down, they'd put it on the map. That's why the Ministry of Culture has it on their archaeological database. They'd pick through it what they could, put stuff in museums, and just move on. That site, Caral, predated any s- any ceramics. I mean, this was a pre-ceramic culture, so there were no artifacts to find. So they just, they just moved on. It wasn't until Dr. Ruth Shady in, like, the '80s and '90s, actually put research in and figured out, "Hey, this is older than everything else we've found," because they just overlooked it. There were no ar- no artifacts. They were just like, "We're gonna move on."
- JRJoe Rogan
When you say no artifacts, like, that seems weird to me, because, like, why would you make these immense structures and not have a bowl to put rice in, right?
- RBRaul Bilecky
They, uh, a lot of animal skins, uh, and, and the weaving, the... So, uh, these cultures, what they found is, so that's a little, little further inland, they had a sister site on the coast. And so what they would do, the, the only agriculture they would grow was cotton. That cotton, they would trade with the people on the coast, so they could make nets and fish with it. The fish they would bring back, they would give back to those people who made the cotton for them. So it was this weird, you know, interplay. And, uh, the other unique thing about this time period is there was no evidence of warfare for 1,000 years. Nobody was fighting each other. It was very just- everybody, no weapons, no anything like that.
- JRJoe Rogan
No weapons?
- RBRaul Bilecky
No weapons, for 1,000 years.
- JRJoe Rogan
That seems insane. Is that just no evidence of weapons?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Uh, that's currently no evidence of weapons.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, but maybe someone stole the weapons.
- RBRaul Bilecky
That's, that's possible.
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause I mean, you, you're talking about a place that's been looted ad nauseam, right?
- RBRaul Bilecky
That's true. I mean, they, they put in a lot of work, though, excavating it, especially that site, Caral.
- JRJoe Rogan
So you feel like somewhere they would find-
- RBRaul Bilecky
They would-
- JRJoe Rogan
... some sort of a axe head or?
- RBRaul Bilecky
They found, um... The only artifacts of major note, um, are some of those carvings that we saw, and then bone flutes with carvings on them, uh, and the nets, the fishing nets.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- 1:18:08 – 2:09:43
Raul’s method and missions: Google Earth discoveries, agriculture destroying sites, and standout pyramids
- RBRaul Bilecky
That, that's how it works. Um, what's a bigger problem, though, recently, after talking to several archaeologists and witnessing it myself, is agriculture.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Agriculture. They... I actually went to, I went to a couple sites that I, I found this by mistake, looking on Google Earth. So I f- I would find a site, and I would, like, roll the satellite date back because it, sometimes different seasons give you better imagery. I'm like, "Oh, holy hell, what exists now is a quarter of what existed ten years ago." And now all you see is, like, plantations planted. I mean, they have literally paved over the archaeological site-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, no
- RBRaul Bilecky
... to plant. Dude, and that is... It's become one of the bigger missions of, of the channel and eventuality because, dude, you, you don't know. This site could have aligned with that site, could have aligned with-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm
- RBRaul Bilecky
... you have no idea, and there's no documentation of it. There's no documenta- because nobody's going out there. These places are far away, you know? Um, but here, here's another peculiar thing. [chuckles] This last expedition, so I found one of these sites, and, and I'm on camera, and I'm, I'm ready to go in, like-... guns a-blazing, like, "How dare you do this? How dare you erase this?" And I get there, and, I mean, it's crumbled stones, crumbled walls, and it's just this woman on her farm. And so I start talking to her. This wasn't corporate. This woman has, in fact, wr- did, in fact, write to the Ministry of Culture to say, "Hey, I'm expanding my farm." They didn't get back to her, so she did it. She-
- SPSpeaker
Wow
- RBRaul Bilecky
... you know, paved over or created plots on half the archaeological site. So it, it, it becomes a [inhales] I don't know what, I don't know what the right solution is, 'cause I, I feel for this woman. She's actually-- she's, she's not... This isn't corporate. This is just-
- SPSpeaker
She's just surviving.
- RBRaul Bilecky
She's just surviving. The corporate stuff, like, pisses me off, and I'll go hard on them, and, and I do in some of my videos. Um, but she-- And she tried to do the right thing by reaching out to the Ministry of Culture, but what's she supposed to do, wait 10 years to get a response?
- SPSpeaker
Right.
- RBRaul Bilecky
You know?
- SPSpeaker
Right.
- RBRaul Bilecky
And so, um, and then I don't know how you empower these people, 'cause from where I sit, is at least if you could document it, then you'd have a record of it. You know, that's, that's what I'm trying to do when I go out there, create 3D models and put it, put pins on a map or something like that, you know?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- RBRaul Bilecky
So it's, uh, it's a tricky situation to try to figure out.
- SPSpeaker
What's the most compelling site in Peru for you?
- RBRaul Bilecky
I wanted to show you this. Uh, if you, if you look in, in, in my video footage, uh, Purulén Pyramids, P-U-R-U-L-É-N. This site, uh, I think it is much more deserving of future study. It's a site that has 16 platform pyramids.
- SPSpeaker
Wow! And what does this site date to?
- RBRaul Bilecky
So when I do- There's, uh, ha- half my, half my role here is, like, I'll go out and figure- find these places, and then on the back end, when I make these videos, I go hard on the research. Like, I, I spend too much-
- SPSpeaker
Sorry, which video is that?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Uh, Pyramids Purulén.
- SPSpeaker
Oh, I got it.
- RBRaul Bilecky
That's just so you can have a sense of scale.
- SPSpeaker
Thank God for drones, huh?
- RBRaul Bilecky
100%.
- SPSpeaker
Okay, so that's a platform. So that is the remains of-
- RBRaul Bilecky
That's... Dude, and that, so right back, if you look in, back on the horizon, that's the coast. So this is right on the ocean, which means this has been in- inundated for millennia by tsunamis and, uh-
- SPSpeaker
It looks like it.
- 2:09:43 – 2:19:09
Chavín and altered states: underground labyrinths, the Lanzón monolith, and hallucinogenic rituals
- RBRaul Bilecky
Uh, if you look at, uh, Chavin, uh, C-H-A... It's on the, uh, just on the media hard drive. So we're talking about underground structures, and hallucinogens, and stuff like that. This place, Chavin.
- JRJoe Rogan
So-
- RBRaul Bilecky
Now, this is a known archaeological site.
- JRJoe Rogan
And how old is this place?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Uh, I think 2000 A- right around zero.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa! Look how far down it goes.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
How deep does it go? This is nuts.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Right? And this is just-
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa!
- RBRaul Bilecky
... one part of it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa. And this is 2,000 years old, at least?
- RBRaul Bilecky
At least.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow!
- RBRaul Bilecky
So they wouldn't, they won't let you film in the other section. It kind of looks like this. Um, but it-
- JRJoe Rogan
Why won't they let you film there?
- RBRaul Bilecky
'Cause there's something called the Lanzón Monolith, and if you look that up, Jamie, uh, L-A-N-Z-O-N Monolith. So that's it. So they won't let you film in there, because too many people go in there and take pictures, and the flash supposedly... So they just- yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
The flash?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah, it... Dude, but when I went in there, the security guard was right behind me the whole time. He, he, he knew I was gonna try to take a picture.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, but you can take a picture with no flash now, especially-
- RBRaul Bilecky
You-
- JRJoe Rogan
... with, like, the new iPhones and Samsung phones, you could take some really high-resolution photos.
- RBRaul Bilecky
The guard said not enough people know how to turn it off on their phone.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, boy.
- RBRaul Bilecky
So, but when you walk in-
- JRJoe Rogan
The flash is fucking it up? That seems crazy.
- RBRaul Bilecky
It- yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That seems like voodoo, doesn't it?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah, it-
- JRJoe Rogan
Doesn't it? Does that mean-
- 2:19:09 – 2:31:09
Cusco caves and a final looted tomb site: danger, fear, and why he documents everything
- RBRaul Bilecky
Let's, let's go to, uh, Tunnels, Cusco.
- SPSpeaker
The video?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Dude, this whole, this whole part of the Andes... Yeah, it's, um-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- RBRaul Bilecky
There's tunnels everywhere, man. Like, and it's not just what they're doing.
- JRJoe Rogan
So you're climbing down into this tunnel. Now, is this a naturally formed hole?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Some of it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Some of it? Okay.
- RBRaul Bilecky
On the way out, you'll see when I- going in, there are steps. Those were actual steps that were built. But these things... Dude, I, you can't get to the, the end.... you can't find pe- uh, there, there are stories where kids get lost in these things and never found.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, fuck! So, uh, again, these look like natural caves?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Right. Some of them have been carved out, though.
- JRJoe Rogan
So it's a combination of both?
- RBRaul Bilecky
It's a combination.
- JRJoe Rogan
So probably there were some natural caves-
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yes
- JRJoe Rogan
... and then they started carving things out.
- RBRaul Bilecky
Well, the whole thing-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, wow! This gets weird
- RBRaul Bilecky
... the whole thing about it was-
- JRJoe Rogan
This gets weird. So this is the steps?
- RBRaul Bilecky
Yeah, coming up, uh, on, on the right. I mean, it just, it just go- keeps going on.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, I'm not going in there. [chuckles]
- RBRaul Bilecky
There's the ste- there's the steps.
- JRJoe Rogan
Jamie, can you imagine you and me outside the door going, "Uh-uh." [chuckles]
- SPSpeaker
You go first.
- JRJoe Rogan
[chuckles] You go-
- SPSpeaker
I'll follow you. [chuckles]
- RBRaul Bilecky
[chuckles] That's how my Ketchua guide was, man. He was just filming me. [chuckles]
- JRJoe Rogan
[chuckles] Fuck you, bro. I'm not going in there.
- RBRaul Bilecky
I was like, "I'll go in." [chuckles]
Episode duration: 2:31:09
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Transcript of episode BvhFuEp55X0
