Directory hidden on web browsers but visible on windows explorer

I'm having an issue similar to this

I cloned a laravel project from Github, after setting up the project on my local server (wamp) with a hostname for it, I typed the hostname on my browser (chrome) and got "500 internal server error". I had never gotten this issue before because setting up a virtual host on wamp is easy, I do it all the time.

Then I decided to view the project root directory from my browser and noticed that all the directories and files inside it were listed except the public directory.

The public directory is visible from my editor and windows explorer but is hidden when I try to view it from my Web browser thus making it impossible for me to view/run the app

How do I make visible the public directory on my browser?

Whenever I empty the .htaccess file in that public directory, it becomes visible on the browser but when I add the default laravel content of the htaccess file it becomes hidden again.

Please what could be the cause??

I tried setting the permission of that public directory to 777 using php chmod method but directory is still hidden from browser.

I finally saw the culprit.

saw this line SecFilterEngine Off in my htaccess file and when i commented it out, the public folder magically appeared. i really don't know why, maybe it had something to do with mod_security which was disabled.