Key to the Sacred Pattern

22 March 2012

Ben Hammott Discusses the Bloodline Tomb Hoax

Ben Hammott Bloodline Tomb
Picture of Ben Hammott's "Tomb"
Last night Ben Hammott appeared on Rene Barnett’s Night Vision Radio show to make his first public statements about his hoax of the “Bloodline tomb”. (You can download or listen live to the show here. Scroll down to the 21 Mar 2012 show listing.) Ben’s confession on air was basically a rehashing of the email he had sent out earlier this week with a number of other revelations. I’ll cover the highlights in bullet points below. If you’re interested in this developing story, listen to the interview and make your own determinations about Ben’s statements. Here are some of the highlights of Hammott’s statements:
  • He was the only party who knew of the hoax. Everyone involved with the Bloodline documentary had no knowledge on the hoax.
  • The “tomb” photos that were originally shown of Ben’s website were of a small scale model. A life sized tomb was constructed somewhere in the UK. Ben admitted that when he visited the tomb site in Rennes-le-Chateau with Bruce Burgess, he gave Bruce a bogus recording of the tomb set.
  • The skeleton used on the tomb set was a real skeleton purchased on eBay and doctored with a latex compound to simulate mummified flesh. Other items that were used to “point Ben to the tomb” were vintage items that dated to the late 1800’s to get around carbon dating.
  • Bruce Burgess and an unnamed American investor had visited France after the release of Bloodline to find the tomb. Burgess had told the French authorities that the illegal digging for the tomb was actually Hammott in an attempt to cut Hammott out of the glory of discovering the tomb.
  • Ben had fed information, via an unnamed third party, that led Andrew Gough to question the veracity of Hammott in general. Last week Gough broke the story of Hammott faking pictures of the Loch Ness Monster and indications that Ben had faked an Ark of the Covenant at the present time.
  • Ben further claimed that he had not been pressured or bought off to cover up the location of the tomb. There has been the suggestion that the tomb actually exists and the hoax confession was a ruse to cover up the existence of the tomb.
  • Ben also claimed that he was in Rennes-le-Chateau during last night’s interview. At another point in the interview Ben also stated that he would go back to Rennes-le-Chateau in the future.
  • The primary motivation for the hoax was to spotlight the Rennes-le-Chateau mysteries. Ben hoped to find something “real” relating to Saunière's inexplicable wealth and will continue to look in the future.
  • Hammott, whose real name is Bill Wilkerson, will continue using the pseudonym. (He has been referred to as Hammott in this article simply for simplicity's sake.)
In the popular vernacular, the whole situation is a hot mess. No matter how you come down on Ben Hammott’s situation, the affair is a black eye for the community. It’s time to lick our wounds and move to other business.

8 comments:

Caleo said...

With a hoax of this size, it will take some time to lick all the wounds.
As fascinating as RLC mysteries are, there is so much confusion and so many self serving liars and nutjobs, it gets hard to take any of it seriously.
History points to SOMETHING of deep importance in the area, but it frequently appears unlikely it will ever be known for sure exactly what that something might be.
In the States, Wilkerson could be brought up on criminal charges for this level of fraud.
And does anyone know what Burgess thinks of all this ? Has he responded to any of this ?
Has anyone been able to verify anything Haywood said ?

Nezarka said...

This is not a hoax, but Ben's confession IS.
This is a cover up and A.Gough who broke the story is the mastermind behind it.
See it for Yourself here
nezarka2390.wordpress.com
nezarka2390.blogspot.com

Pay Your Price said...

If Ben was using a pseudonym why would you put his real name in the article?

As entertaining as the implications were, I do not believe any of the religions in the world but I do believe that spirituality can set the truth to a lot of things.

Anonymous said...

I watched this last night..and it seemed to be too easy..the clues in the bottles..all written in red ink. Why? Another question..why was the shroud placed with the cross upside down? All seems bogus and scripted. Not impressed at all.

Paco$o said...

At D.B yea i seen that too the upside down cross just didnt make sense

Paco$o said...

@D.B I seen that too the upside down cross didnt make sense

Clarkston Butler said...

How did he fake the first century and sumarian coins in the box.the rarity of first century coins.espesialy those minted by harod under the rule of the romans makes them almost priceless,although anything can be faked there seemed to be some very good indications not only from tje weathering and the wear but also in chemical reactions of those different coins being held in close proximity to each other

Unknown said...

The video had a sort of "Blair Witch Project" thing to it. Pity. We the public may never learn the truth about Rennes-le-Chateau. As with other things, it is likely being hid in plain view.