Skull and Bones: Yale's Elite Secret Society

an april night on the east coast of america life for a young man is about to change radically he has been selected by its members to join a secret organization that is extremely elitist the order's initiation process is bizarre the ritual is repeated every april and has been for the last 200 years this secret society is based in yale the distinguished american university in upmarket new haven connecticut [Music] mari and thistle has come to yale where many of america's elite have studied how much truth is there in the rumors surrounding the mysterious student organization anyone

who studies in yale has virtually made it but even experts puzzle over what happens in secret here one major question is how does this fraternity manage to remain so secretive in today's media society especially where many people are so communicative it's striking that so little is known about the order's practices its rituals and also its membership that's most unusual and naturally provokes questions the fraternities activities are said to be diabolical the society's only goal it is claimed is absolute power every student would love to be asked to join because membership is the springboard to a

career anyone who is selected receives strange instructions leave the harkness tower tomorrow evening at the time agreed and go along the high street southwards you must not carry metal nor sulfur nor glass on your person take the right hand book in your left hand and knock three times on the holy gate remember what you have heard here but be silent for a novice things will soon change forever he will become a member of a secret society at the center of the wildest conspiracy theories [Music] mayan fossil is familiar with many of the myths and legends

and now alexandra robbins is about to reveal more to him she herself studied in yale after graduating she made a detailed investigation of the fraternity and published a book on it it took robin's years to find out anything about skull and bones her research was viewed with suspicion [Music] i talked to more than 150 members of skull and bones however more than twice that many yelled at me or harassed me or hung up on me because they do not and they are not supposed to talk about what goes on inside i did get threats from

some members of the society that made me both uncomfortable and also more intrigued why were they so protective of this organization the brotherhood of death as it is known shuts itself off completely from the outside world even so information can still be obtained the archives in yale's university library contained documents from the early days of skull and bones the secret society is 180 years old that much is certain it is said to have built up a key position for itself in the us power structure and established its members in party and government office in industry

and in the secret service up until 1970 its index of members was open to public inspection but since then it has been kept locked away an entire panoply of secrets weird customs and obstruce rituals was thought up by william russell the student who founded the society [Music] russell came from a wealthy family [Music] in 1832 russell studied in germany for a year where it said was initiated into a student fraternity of which skull and bones was a branch the numbers 3 2 2 are always found beneath its logo they could be a reference to one

of the fraternities models athenian orator demothenese his rhetoric is legendary the moths and ease died in the year 322 bc alexandra robbins knows more she has brought marion fussell to an old forbidding building on the campus of the elite university known as the tomb this is the headquarters of skull and bones the interior is said to contain ghoulishly furnished assembly rooms [Music] the inside of the tomb is lined with skeletons and skulls it's almost like an obsession with death and the reason they do that is because they have this uh phrase in the two memento

mori remember that you must die they like to pretend that they are apart and above the rest of the world skull and bones has cultivated this self-perception right from the start as members rise to the very pinnacles of power like george walker bush for example [Music] when bush contested the presidency with democrat john kerry it was a battle between two bonesmen you both were members of skull and bones a secret society of yale what does that tell us not much because it's a secret you were both in skull and bones the secret society it's so

sick what we can't talk about only rarely do bizarre aspects of the society become public knowledge inside the tomb members are said to have their own standard time which differs from hours by five minutes you