Rabbi Harry Hirschel Moskoff, an investigative journalist, is convinced the treasures looted from the Jewish Temple by the Romans in 70 AD are locked away in the catacombs beneath the Vatican, Israel365 News reports.

This would include most of the smaller Temple furniture and utensils, including the golden menorah.

Not included, however, would be the most important piece of Temple furniture, the Ark of the Covenant. This is because it was never in the second Jewish temple that Jesus visited, having disappeared in 586 BC, when the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the first Jewish temple.

Though Moskoff hasn’t personally seen any of the Temple’s furniture in the Vatican, he was taken deep underground beneath St Peter’s Basilica.

He went down about five stories and described the experience as something out of a James Bond movie.

“Every three or four meters there’s a glass door,” Moskoff said, noting the heavy security.

Despite not personally seeing any of the Temple furniture or utensils, he has interviewed several people who claim they have seen them in the Vatican’s collection.

Perhaps the most convincing story comes from Rabbi David Menashe, who was studying medicine in Rome in the 1960s.

While there, Menashe developed a close friendship with the son of the man who was then the governor of the Vatican.

The man’s son told Menashe that if he converted to Christianity, he would be allowed to see the Temple treasures stored at the Vatican.

Though Menashe never converted, the governor’s son must have thought he was close to converting, because he took Menashe down into the Vatican’s archives to see the Temple furniture.

In 2002, Menashe gave a full account of what he had seen to the Israeli government.

There was also a second individual who claimed to have seen the temple items. He was a Swiss Guard on duty at the Vatican, who found out he was actually Jewish.

The guard convinced a nun to take him underground and saw some of the items from the Temple.

“He actually ended up seeing the menorah, lit, but it was bright,” said Moskoff.

He added that another rabbi from the 1930s also claimed to have seen the furniture. He had received an audience with a Vatican official after the intervention of Italy’s King Victor Emmanuel III.

When the Rabbi asked if he could see any items taken from the Jewish temple, the official took him down late at night to see for himself.

Though none of this is definitive proof, Moskoff has noticed a change in tone in how Vatican officials handle questions about the Temple furniture.

Initially, Moskoff said that the Vatican denied having any of the Jewish furniture or utensils in its archives.

But that position has shifted in recent years.

“For centuries they denied it,” Moskoff said. “Now they neither confirm nor deny it, which I think was a great milestone.”

Because God ensured that most of the furniture looted from the first Temple was restored (Ezra 1:7), Moskoff is convinced that the Lord will do the same for the second Temple. He is even convinced that the Ark of the Covenant, which he believes was hidden underneath the temple mount, will also be restored.