The main difference Raoul is that with the theories and evidence existing regarding the Knights Templar and Prior de Sion and the craziness surrounding Roswell is that in the case of Roswell it's black and white. You either believe aliens fell to Earth that day and were secreted away by the govenment or that a weather balloon fell down and overactive imaginations came up with ridiculous claims. Needless to say, in spite of some actually buying into the whole James Bond image of the military being able to keep secrets and deploy exotic coverups and conspiracies, history has shown that very rarely does the truth not get out when so many people are involved.

In the case of the Da Vinci code theories you really don't have to believe the final hypothesis in the novel to still be blown away by the incredible happenings that occurred not on a single day in time, but over centuries. I think it's a foregone conclusion, based on very solid evidence, that the Catholic Church sold us a very compelling but extremely embellished or madeup story of the life of Jesus Christ. When one studies religious history of the period, it's clear that, even if the Catholic Church were in some giant conspiracy to hide the truth and promote their edited version of the authors of the Bible books, they really did a piss-poor job of it, leaving clues to their manipulations strewn in their path. This sounds more like what you see after the fact in a true conspiracy.

I don't even know if Jesus ever existed or was simply a blending of many people and pagan legends that got thrown into a character early church leaders knew they needed as a figurehead. After reading books such as "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" I tend to believe he probably was an actual man but more a deposed royal heir to the crown of Israel than some divine hippy prophet.

It stands to reason that there were many around at that time that knew the truth and opposed the rise of early Christianity and that the Christians fought a deathly battle with them to ensure their ideals prevailed. When that type of brutal intimidation exists, it makes perfect sense that those opposition groups would go underground to not only protect their secrets but their own hides. Nobody argues that an organization like the Prior de Sion existed as some offshoot of the mysterious Knights Templar and that it had in it's leadership notable scientists and artists such as Da Vinci, Victor Hugo, and Isaac Newton. They all lived at times when taking stands against the power of the Catholic Church was a dangerous task. Whether they possessed some hidden treasure or secrets damning to Catholic doctrine or not, there is no denying the organization had great wealth from time to time and close collaborations with the Merovginian blood line.

Does this mean they were this organization was protecting the heirs of Jesus and Mary Magdalene? Who knows, but it certainly is great fun to speculate and poses real spritual imbalance and upheaval in the world if even a portion of it turns out to be as the books speculate.

Art