Father Crespi was an Italian priest settled in Ecuador , who had a private museum of amazing ancient artefacts extracted from the mysterious Tayos caves...there is even some bizarre speculation that Father Crespi who died in 1982 and whose funeral was strangely attended by many Europeans (who suddenly visited Ecuador at that time) was actually Hitler himself , who had been hiding in disguise all that while !
Regards
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List members , the ancient metallic plates extracted from the depths of the Taos caves in Ecuador , preserved by Father Crespi in his private collection , might even be linked to the secret knowledge of the Mormons...one thing is clear though - nobody had as much knowledge of the mysterious Taos caves (that even Neil Armstrong had gone to explore , AFTER his moon mission) as the elusive Father Crespi...! His secrets probably died with him...who knows ?
Regards
@sidharthabahadur I had initially replied here, but in interest of reducing thread complexity and pointing to other posts, I'll modify this and then point to my initial reply:
Metal plate utilization for records was a common function of ancient civilizations, albeit a generally laborious effort. The Book of Mormon occurred in North America, specifically in the eastern half and, most profoundly, in the north eastern area with the land of Ohio being the Land Bountiful and where Jesus visited in the middle of the Book of Mormon.
See:
@Soretna , the 100 member expeditionary team (including Neil Armstrong) that explored the Taos caves had some high ranking Mormons amongst them...so they had some interest in potential discoveries from those caves , or may have wanted to verify/validate some of their own beliefs...
Once that expedition got over , everything was hushed up and nothing much ever came out about the findings from it - at least in the public domain...
Regards
No doubt that there was high interest, especially since, by that time, many "Mormons" were confused as to the fact that the Book of Mormon had zero chance of ever having happened in that region. The folks at BYU are known in some circles as being somewhat expert in these areas as well as linguistics (Hugh Nibley being one exceptional case, but I'm not sure of timeline alignment here). Any records would be of interest since truth can and should come from anywhere.
Regardless of possibly perceived validation being a motivator, there could have been many other motivators. This is most definitely an interesting expedition.
It is a shame, as you say, everything was hushed up. Would surely be nice to find more details and a list of those 100( or +) who went to the Tayos Caves. I wonder if there may be any details here:
@Soretna , thanks for sharing this article...it does reference the "Mormon sponsored expedition" of 1968 , a full 8 years prior to Neil Armstrong's mission of the Taos caves in 1976...the point is this - whatever lies down there , in these most remarkable caves , especially the "ancient library of inscribed metallic plates" , was of tremendous value to several prominent personalities of the 20th century !
Regards
One interesting trivia about Father Crespi's funeral (a very elaborate ceremony) at Ecuador in May 1982 , was the number of German visitors (many with armed escorts) who had attended...a few days after the funeral , all of Father Crespi's art collections were packed up and taken away by 2 cargo jets , never to be seen again...hmm - I wonder if that had any sort of significance ?
Regards