All language subtitles for Dark.Marvels.S01E03.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

Narrator:
They're designed to be
diabolical and destructive...

They were bombs, hidden bombs,
attached to everyday objects.

( explosion, screams )

Narrator:
...concealed killers,

waiting for the unwary
to trigger them.

28 men were scalded to death
by the steam boiler explosion.

Narrator:
From ancient tombs...

A series of crossbows,
just waiting for anyone

who would dare to try to rob
the grave of the emperor.

Narrator:
...to world wars...

Martin Morgan:
This is how bonkers
World War II could be.

You had smart people that
imagined the weaponization

of the Norwegian roof rat.

There was even a plan
to weaponize a chocolate bar.

Narrator: Tonight,
we'll explore the evolution
of booby traps,

sinister weapons
hidden in plain sight.

Not all inventions are made
with good intentions.

Unlock the twisted history

behind the world's
darkest marvels.

From movies to books,

there's one surefire way
to add suspense to a story--

booby traps.

But these devices aren't
purely works of imagination.

Ancient Egyptians used them

to safeguard
the tombs of pharaohs.

Kara Cooney:
The ancient Egyptians believed
that you had to take

everything you would need
in the afterlife with you.

And the richer people
in ancient Egyptian society

had a lot more
to take with them.

Things like rare minerals,
gold, and silver.

Things like wood
that's been imported,
like cedar from the Lebanon.

And then all of that material
would be collected,

pushed into these tombs,
and then sealed up,

locked away,
ostensibly for forever.

Narrator:
Also inside the tombs
are clever traps

designed to trick intruders,

including those
following orders

from an infamous general.

August 1799.

Napoleon and the French army
invade Egypt.

Fascinated by
the civilization's
great pharaohs,

Napoleon orders
his engineers to map
the Valley of the Kings.

There they uncover
the tomb of Amenhotep III,

who ruled
in the 14th century B.C.

and a booby trap designed
to kill anyone who enters.

Kara Cooney:
When you go into the tomb,

if you were entering this tomb
in the 18th century,

you head straight down
and hit a well,

and it is a pit
that is 25 feet straight down.

You're on your way
in there in the dark,

even if you have a torch,
and you hit that well room,

you're gonna fall
25 feet to your death,
and then that's it.

Narrator: The well appears
to be a variation

on one of the oldest known
booby traps-- the pit trap.

Early man uses it
to catch and kill animals,

from wooly mammoths
to saber-toothed tigers.

After digging a deep hole,

the opening is camouflaged
with lightweight debris.

A single step sends
unsuspecting intruders

plummeting through
a false floor and into
a dark abyss.

Kara Cooney:
There aren't any spikes
at the bottom of it

that we know of,
but there's not a way

to walk around
the well chamber.

It just goes straight down.

So it is a means
of making it very difficult

to get through to
the other side of the tomb.

Narrator: The well is just
the first line of defense.

Kara Cooney:
Behind the well itself

is this false wall
that you have to break down.

So you have to figure out

how you're going to
bridge this expanse

while at the same time break
through this false wall.

And once you get past
the false wall,

there's more
interesting stuff in store
because the tomb turns.

18th dynasty tombs
did this all the time.

They had a kind of
circuitous route
that they would take,

as if we're in
the underworld itself

and there's
no straight lines anymore

and you can't quite find
your way in the dark.

And the tomb of Amenhotep III
is meant to replicate that.

Narrator:
At the end of this labyrinth

lies the pharaoh's
burial chamber,

but it's empty.

The Valley of the Kings
was systematically ransacked

at the end of the 20th dynasty

and into the beginning
of the 21st.

They had stripped
all of these mummies
of their precious metals--

silver, gold,
all of these things,

And they were able
to recommodify

or resell
a whole number of things.

Narrator:
But some ancient chambers
are found perfectly intact,

most famously, the tomb
of Amenhotep's grandson--
King Tut.

Kara Cooney:
Tutankhamun was a king
of the late 18th dynasty.

And yet, when that tomb
was found in 1922
by Howard Carter,

an Egyptologist who was
working with his patron
Lord Carnarvon,

it was found jam-packed
with all kinds of stuff.

Aaron Irvin: The discovery
of Tutankhamun's tomb was
absolutely unprecedented,

a complete tomb, untouched,
all of the grave goods intact,

the body intact,
the sarcophagus intact.

Tutankhamun's tomb gave us
the first complete view

of Egyptian society
that we had ever received.

Nothing like this
had been discovered
up to that point.

And honestly,
nothing like this has
been discovered since.

Narrator: Despite
the vast treasure it holds,

there's no sign of a physical
booby trap in Tut's tomb.

But rumors soon spread
of a different deterrent,

one that also kills.

Almost immediately,
we start to see headlines

talking about
the curse of the tomb,

the curse of the mummy.

Reporter: Dateline, Egypt,
February 16th, 1923.

Aaron Irvin:
It's very easy to dismiss this
idea of spells and curses.

But the idea of the tombs
as this special place,

as being guarded
by this sacred magic

that can strike against you
if you do not respect it,

this is not simply invented
by the modern media.

The Egyptians themselves
thought of these places

as being cursed
and protected by spells.

Narrator: Six months
after the tomb is opened,

a macabre series
of events unfolds.

The man who funded
the excavation and all of
this work, Lord Carnarvon,

he dies in a very unexpected
and strange manner.

Aaron Irvin:
George J. Gould,

an American financier
who comes to the site,

suddenly comes down
with pneumonia later that year

and then dies under
mysterious circumstances.

Kara Cooney: There's also
Archibald Douglas Reid,

the radiologist
who x-rays Tutankhamun,

and three days later,
he dies.

Hugh Evelyn White,
another British archaeologist
who looks upon the artifacts

and then shortly thereafter
unfortunately kills himself,

leaving behind a note that he
has been overcome by this curse

coming from Tutankhamun's tomb.

Narrator:
Are these tragic deaths
just a strange coincidence?

Or is it possible they result

from a supernatural
booby trap?

Is the curse of the tomb real?
Beside the point.

What matters is its
effectiveness as a deterrent,

keeping people from
breaking into the tomb,

from threatening
the body of the pharaoh,

that is what that booby trap
is actually all about.

Narrator:
Egypt isn't the only culture

that protects its dead rulers
with hidden traps.

Over 4,400 miles away,

in the Shaanxi province
of China,

there's a booby trap
worthy of Indiana Jones

guarding the majestic tomb
of the country's first emperor

Qin Shi Huang.

This massive mausoleum is
discovered by farmers in 1974.

It is among, if not
the most intricate burial sites

for a single human being
that's ever existed.

Narrator: Qin commissions
its construction

after he takes
the throne in 246 B.C.

An estimated 700,000 laborers

spend 38 years building it.

On completion,
it's 20% larger than
the Great Pyramid.

Greg Jackson: The tomb
is surrounded by an army

of 8,000 terracotta warriors.

They are meant
to protect his grave.

There's been plenty
of work done around the tomb,

but archaeologists are yet
to actually crack it open.

And the reason for that,
there are still safety concerns.

There's a lot
of mercury in there.

We know that
from ground samples.

Narrator:
According to ancient Chinese
historian Sima Qian,

mercury was considered
a wonder element

that bestowed immortality.

That mercury can't disappear.

So even if it had evaporated,

that elemental mercury
is still present

in some capacity
inside the tombs.

And, of course, that's a
serious health consideration.

What ends up happening
when you get mercury poisoning,

it basically messes with
your central nervous system
and your nerves,

and it also messes
with your kidneys.

It doesn't allow your kidneys
to function the appropriate way,

you get buildup
of byproducts that ultimately

cause cardiac arrhythmia,
and then will die.

Narrator: Surprisingly,
the toxic mercury rivers

are not designed for defense.

Something far more deadly
takes care of that.

Much of what we know
about what's inside the tomb

comes from Sima Qian.

His writings explain
that there are booby traps,

a series of crossbows
just waiting for anyone

who would dare to try to rob
the grave of the emperor.

Narrator:
Though many question
if the crossbows still work.

So far, there are
no volunteers to find out.

Greg Jackson:
2,000 years is a long time.

There's plenty
of reason to expect

that those crossbows
are not going to fire.

All the same,
you got to ask yourself,

do you really want to
be the first person

that steps inside the tomb
to excavate?

That's going to be the person
who really finds out

whether or not they've endured
the last 2,000 years.

Narrator:
But protecting the dead isn't
relegated to antiquity.

Narrator:
In 18th century England,
the study of human anatomy

is improving medical care
for the living,

while also creating
a demand for dead bodies.

As medicine becomes more
scientific, more formalized,

there is an increased
need for cadavers to teach
anatomy to students.

The problem is that
there are not enough
legally available bodies,

and there's a really pressing
need to get fresh corpses.

You can't just go dig up
somebody who's been dead
for two weeks, three weeks.

They are no longer useful
to learn anatomy because
of decomposition.

Rebecca Simon:
So, for fresh cadavers,

you need to employ grave robbers

who are going to be
watching out for new burials

and can go in
and steal these bodies.

Narrator:
Known as resurrectionists,

these body snatchers
can make a nice profit.

Cadavers,
they're not readily available,

and that's what
gives them their value,

so they turn a pretty penny.

Megan Springate:
The resurrectionists
would sell the bodies

from $5 to $30.

And, if you look at
what that's worth now,

it's like $2,000 to $12,000.

So it was not a bad gig.

Narrator:
One frequent customer
is Dr. William Hewson,

known today as
the father of hematology.

William Hewson was
a very respected doctor,

and he was very knowledgeable
of the human body.

And in 1998,
a group of restorationists

went to 36 Craven Street

where Hewson had been
living in London,

and they found about
1,200 bones

underneath the foundation
of this house.

They were bones from men,
women, children, animals.

And the bones showed evidence
of scalpel marks and cuts,

like the kind of cuts
that you would make

when you were
amputating a limb.

Narrator:
The grisly discovery gets
worldwide attention

because of Hewson's roommate,

none other than
Benjamin Franklin,

who worked in London as
a diplomat in the mid-1700s.

This led to a whole bunch
of questions initially.

Was it possible
that Benjamin Franklin

was actually
maybe a serial killer?

No.
It turned out that Hewson

was actually running
an underground anatomy school

and dissecting
loads of cadavers.

Megan Springate: The medical
schools in London at the time

were teaching anatomy

but not teaching anatomy
as in depth

as you would with a cadaver.

So he opened essentially
a private anatomy school
in the basement of the house

that he was sharing
with Ben Franklin,

teaching all of these
physicians about anatomy.

But it doesn't last
terribly long.

He dies at the age of 34
from septicemia,

or blood poisoning,

probably from his work
cutting into cadavers.

Narrator:
Hewson isn't the only doctor

looking for
fresh cadavers to dissect.

Both private
and public medical schools

ramp up their demand,
which enrages the public.

The idea that people
were being dissected

was absolutely
horrific to them,

because if these bodies
were cut up,

where would their souls go?

It might absolutely destroy

people's lives
for the afterlife.

Megan Springate:
And they riot.

They go after
the medical schools

because they recognize that

if the medical schools
weren't buying,

there would be
no resurrectionists.

Narrator:
When authorities do little
to end the practice,

some take matters
into their own hands.

Rebecca Simon: And so,
we start seeing people paying
others to protect bodies

until the body would be
decomposed enough to where it
wouldn't be worth stealing.

Cemeteries began
erecting watchtowers,

and people were employed
to watch over the graveyard

all night to make sure nobody
was going to come in.

We also see
the use of mortsafes,

these iron cages
that were placed over coffins

that would make it impossible
for somebody to break in.

Narrator:
As countless bodies
continue to vanish,

inventors step up
with creative deterrents.

The earliest is known
as the grave gun.

This gun is
a bit similar to a shotgun.
It has a shotgun barrel.

It was placed on a grave,

and someone coming up
to the grave

would step on a trip wire.

And this would trigger
the gun shooting the person

who was coming up
to the grave.

The grave gun
was set up in a way

so that way it was on a swivel
so it could turn towards

the direction
of the actual grave robber.

( gunshot )

Narrator:
But even grave guns

couldn't stop the most
determined robbers.

Anatomists were
particularly interested

in different type of people,
deformed people,

people who were
extremely tall,

people who
were extremely short.

These bodies are rare,
so grave robbers will earn loads

if they're able to excavate
one of these types of bodies
for the anatomists.

So an interesting story
occurs in 1817.

In this year,
a seven-foot-tall soldier died,
and he was buried.

Megan Springate:
The caretaker of the cemetery

knows that this soldier
is going to be a target,

and he sets up
the mega grave gun,

which sounds like
a terrible B movie honestly.

It is multiple grave guns

pointing at the grave.

This meant that one single
trip wire would set off
several grave guns at once

to make sure that
they're actually going to
kill the person

attempting to rob the grave.

One night, the gravedigger
heard all the shots go off...

( gunshots )

...and when he and other
authorities went to the grave,

they found it
actually quite undisturbed.

No one had actually
robbed the grave,

but they did find a helmet

that had a single
bullet hole in it.

Megan Springate: A bullet
in the brain is something

that would have been
of interest also

to the anatomy schools.

So it is entirely possible
that this resurrectionist

who got shot in the head
ended up themself

on a dissection table
at a medical school.

Narrator: By 1832,

new laws are enacted
in Great Britain

to deter the body snatchers.

The United Kingdom
passed the Anatomy Act,

and what this did,
is for the first time,

it allowed families
to donate bodies
of their dead loved ones

to medical schools
and anatomists.

It also allowed people
to designate their own bodies

after they died
in order to go to anatomists,

and any unclaimed bodies,

those who perhaps
had no family to speak of,

those bodies could also get
donated to anatomists
and other medical schools.

And by 1844
in the United Kingdom,

grave robbing had
pretty much ceased to exist

because it was no longer
a money-making endeavor.

Narrator:
But it's a different story
in the U.S.

As grave robbing increases,
a concerned public

takes extreme steps to protect
their deceased loved ones.

Narrator:
By the late 19th century,

grave robbing is an issue
of public concern.

But one incident in 1878
in North Bend, Ohio,

triggers a national uproar.

John Scott Harrison
is an interesting figure
in U.S. history.

He's the only man

that is both the father
of a U.S. president

and the son
of a U.S. president.

Barton Myers:
On May 29th, 1878,

John Scott Harrison
is buried in an Ohio cemetery.

His family is concerned about
the rash of grave robbings
that have occurred,

so they put
John Scott Harrison's body

in a family vault
walled up by brick,

and then hire a watchman
to check the grave

every hour for a month.

Narrator: At the burial
of his late father,

John Jr.
sees something troubling.

Harrison's son notices that
one of their family friends--

Augustus Devin, who has died
just about 11 days before--

that his grave
has been disturbed,

that his body is missing.

The family is shocked.
They're outraged.

John Scott Harrison Jr.
goes to the police,

seeks out a warrant,
so that they can potentially

go find the body
of Augustus Devin.

John Jr. and the police

eventually visit
Ohio Medical College
in Cincinnati.

They begin searching
the building with police.

They move through
the building to the upstairs

and find a square hole
on the second floor
of the building.

In that hole, there's a rope.

The rope is attached
to a body.

They think they've
found Augustus Devin.

When they pull up the rope,

it's the body
of Harrison's father,

John Scott Harrison.

Narrator: The discovery
causes a firestorm.

This idea that somebody
as important as Scott Harrison

can still end up as a successful
target of the resurrectionists

really is the spark that kicks
off this sort of industry

of booby-trapping graves
with explosives.

( explosion )

Narrator:
One of the earliest attempts

comes from Ohio inventor
Philip Clover.

It's called
the coffin torpedo.

Megan Springate: What it is
is a bomb that goes
inside the coffin.

You can hide it
under the coffin trimmings

of the lining on the inside,

or you can hide it under
the clothes of the body.

And it is designed
so if somebody tries

to remove the body,
it explodes.

( explosion )

If you're in close proximity
to an explosive device,

the amount of ways that
it can actually kill you

and hurt you are innumerable.

You have
the concussive forces,

so you can rupture
your eardrums.

You can actually
collapse your lung,

cause something
called a pneumothorax--

basically air
around your lung.

Then shards
of what's flying at you,

nails or pieces of wood
or metal debris,

they are basically
flying objects that
at a high velocity

could puncture
and go into your tissue.

And then obviously,
now you have all these open,
gaping wounds.

Narrator:
That destructive force
is unleashed

in a graveyard
in Mount Vernon, Ohio,

on January 17th, 1881.

Barton Myers:
Three potential grave diggers

are attempting to disturb

the body of
the recently deceased.

They hit the coffin,
triggering the torpedo.

( explosion )

One of the grave robbers,
who we know as only Dipper,

is killed outright
by the device.

A second grave robber
has his legs broken.

The third left
to tell the tale

of what actually
occurred that night.

This is the only
documented case

of a coffin torpedo
actually being detonated.

Narrator:
But the coffin torpedo

isn't the only explosive
graveyard booby trap.

Thomas Howell, in 1881,

develops a different
kind of coffin torpedo,

but he calls it
a grave torpedo.

And it sits
on top of the coffin,

and any kind of jostling
of the coffin

after it's been buried
sets it off to explode.

And Thomas Howell took out
rather ghoulish ads

in the newspapers
to advertise his device.

One of the ads read,

"Sleep well, sweet angel,

let no fears of ghouls
disturb thy rest,

for above thy shrouded form

lies a torpedo
ready to make minced meat

of anyone who attempts
to convey you

to the pickling vat."

Narrator: By the end
of the 19th century,

body snatching
starts to decline.

Six states passed laws
making it easier

for medical schools
to use unclaimed bodies.

But it takes 30 more years
for all of the states

to have enacted these laws

that make the access
to legal cadavers

much easier
for the medical schools.

Narrator: In 1862,
the U.S. enters

the second year
of a bloody civil war.

As Union soldiers push
into southern territories,

the Confederate Army
seems outmatched.

The Union Army
and the northern states

have a numerical advantage

in just about
every possible way
you can imagine.

The South is playing catch up
in terms of resources,

ordinance, powder,
guns, weaponry.

Narrator:
Then a new Confederate
general steps in.

Gabriel Rains,
he attended West Point.

He had always been fascinated
with explosive devices,

gunpowder,
how that technology could be
used in warfare.

Rains lived by
a military maxim--

deception is the art of war.

Narrator:
This leads Rains to create
a new type of device

called the land torpedo.

Made from
a common artillery shell,

it's filled with gunpowder

and attached to a detonator.

Once buried underground,

when the detonator
is touched directly,

it explodes.

It could also be detonated
through a wire

or a string being connected
to the sensitive primer,

and then subsequently
to another object.

And then if someone
moved that object,

it could detonate the primer

and the subterra shell
would explode.

Narrator:
Rains' booby traps
are first used in Virginia

in the spring of 1862,

the start of a dark new era in
modern warfare.

The Battle of Yorktown in 1862.

Confederates that are now
being pushed to retreat

fear that George McClellan,
the Union general

commanding
the Army of the Potomac,

is going to be able
to overtake them quickly.

On the evening
of May 3rd, 1862,

the Confederate Army is ordered
to withdraw from Yorktown.

As they're retreating,
Gabriel Rains leaves

a little present
for the Union Army.

He orders his men to begin
planting subterra shells

all over the position
of Yorktown--

the parapets,
the fortifications,
in the city itself.

They were bombs, hidden bombs,
attached to everyday objects.

Coffee pots,
a pickaxe, a shovel.

Narrator:
After the traps are set,

Rains and his men
leave Yorktown

to join Confederate soldiers
heading to Richmond.

As the Union army arrived
on May 4th, 1862, in Yorktown,

the soldiers stumbled upon
Rains' devices.

Booby traps all over town.

Greg Jackson:
So as the Union troops
come into the camp

that the Confederates
have fled,

the Union army is gonna stop
and see valuable goods.

This is not a world
of mass production.

They're going
to grab those items

and confiscate them,
bring them in

to their own supply.

As they're picking up
coffee pots,

they're picking up
all sorts of supplies...

( explosion )

...they're exploding.

Things are going boom.

( explosion )

Several men
are killed outright,

another dozen are wounded
by Rains' devices.

Narrator:
The Union Army's pursuit
slows to a crawl

and the Confederates
successfully retreat
to Richmond.

But Rains' booby traps
have a much bigger impact.

The immediate reaction
to the use of Rains' devices

at Yorktown is negative.

Both the Union
and Confederate Army operated
under the Articles of War

at the beginning
of the American Civil War.

And it was understood that acts
of deception were allowed.

But perfidious acts,
acts that were not

to some tactical advantage
or military objective,

an act that would just kill
or maim for no purpose,

those military acts
were not permitted

under the Articles of War.

But we're at a point
in American military history,

in world military history,

when the laws of war are
very much in a state of flux.

Then enters Francis Lieber,

America's first
political scientist
and trained historian,

a German emigre who had been
in the United States
for nearly 40 years.

Lieber eventually
is going to be charged

by Abraham Lincoln
and his administration

for writing a new code
for the laws of war.

Greg Jackson: The importance
of the Lieber Code

really cannot be understated.

This isn't something that
happens in the 19th century

and then fades out.

It's really the building block

that will continue

to build our concepts

of how warfare
should be conducted,

right into the 20th,

and even into
the 21st century.

The future Geneva Conventions

and so forth, those all--

at their core, if you will,

the foundation
that those were built upon,

it's the Lieber Code.

Narrator:
As the Civil War rages on,

the Confederacy continues
using nefarious
explosive devices.

The most devious design
of all debuts in 1864

disguised as
a simple lump of coal.

Barton Myers: Another of
the most sinister devices

designed by the Confederates
during the course

of the American Civil War
was the coal torpedo.

Its inventor,
Thomas Edgeworth Courtenay,

was born in Belfast, Ireland,

and had emigrated
to the United States.

Coal torpedo is an ingenious
form of camouflage sabotage,

by taking a small
iron canister filled
with gunpowder

coated in a mixture
of beeswax,

pulverized coal,
and coal tar.

What this does is it makes
this little tiny bomb

look like a piece of coal.

And when it's thrown
into a big pile of coal,

it's basically undetectable.

Eventually, that coal

will be shoveled
into the boiler,

and then instead of burning
like a piece of coal,

it explodes...

( explosion )

...damaging whatever it is

that the coal torpedo
is put inside.

This is at a time
when coal powers

almost any major piece
of machinery.

This left the Union Army
incredibly vulnerable

to this new
deceptive technology.

Narrator:
On April 15th, 1864,

that vulnerability
is made clear

aboard the USS Chenango,

a 947-ton steamboat
making its maiden voyage

from New York to Virginia.

The Chenango
was a paddlewheel gunboat

that was stationed
in New York harbor.

And before it
even leaves the harbor,

the steam boiler
of the ship explodes.

It kills 28 men,
who are scalded to death

by the steam boiler
explosion.

Eventually, Courtenay would
take credit for this attack.

The coal torpedo
was successful.

Narrator: The USS Chenango
isn't the only ship

targeted by Confederate
stealth attacks.

Barton Myers:
On November 27th, 1864,

the Greyhound was
headed back down the river
toward Fortress Monroe,

and it had Admiral
David Dixon Porter on board.

As they're headed back
down the river, the explosion

of the Greyhound
steam boiler occurs...

...sinking the Greyhound
in a catastrophic manner.

Admiral David Dixon Porter,
who survived the attack,

believed that the coal
torpedo was the culprit,

the technology
that had sunk the Greyhound.

Narrator: Ultimately,
such tactics aren't enough

to turn the tide of war.

And in 1865, the South
surrenders to the Union.

But a precedent is set
for using ordinary objects

to hide deadly explosives,

a practice that continues
well into World War II.

It's well known and established
that during World War II

both the Axis and Allies
used some rather crafty

and inventive ways
to get at one another.

Narrator:
Evidence of this is uncovered
in 2015 in England.

Greg Jackson:
Victoria Rothschild,
she and her family

are clearing out
some old things in the house,

and they come across something
that belonged to her father.

Martin Morgan:
Her father, Victor Rothschild,

had been the head of MI-5
during World War II.

And that, of course,
was this counter-espionage

element of
the British government.

Rothschild commissioned
this self-taught artist

named Laurence Fish
to create these drawings

so that they could have
a guidebook

that illustrated
the types of booby traps
the Germans were using.

Narrator: Fish's drawings
provide vivid proof

of how far explosive
booby traps have evolved
since the Civil War.

It was everything
from a thermos that concealed
an incendiary bomb

to a British mess tin
that had a false bottom to it

that concealed an explosive
charge beneath a meal
of bangers and mash.

Or a can of motor oil
that had a false bottom

and below it
was an explosive charge.

You could even pick it up
and shake it,

and it would sound like
a can containing motor oil.

There was even a plan
to weaponize a chocolate bar.

This was an exploding
chocolate bar

that detonated when
you broke off a piece,

and it was thought
that this could be used

to assassinate
Winston Churchill

because he was a bit
of a sensualist

and he had
a taste for chocolate.

And if you could slip
one of these bars

into his collection
of chocolate,
you might just get him.

Narrator: While the Nazis
are developing

their cunning collection
of booby traps,

British intelligence is busy

creating diabolical designs
of their own.

Narrator: 1941.

Covert British agents enter
Nazi occupied territory

with a mission
to sabotage enemy operations

using secret devices worthy
of James Bond himself.

Now the Nazis
aren't the only ones who can
think outside the box.

And the Allies,
the British in particular,

they're doing the same.

So with a mandate
from the prime minister

to set Europe ablaze,

we have British officers
that are behind enemy lines

doing their best to use
incognito booby-trapped items

to disrupt
the German war effort.

Announcer: Then there's
the hollowed-out book.

It detonates immediately
when the book is picked up.

The items that were being used
ranged from an explosive

that was disguised
as a bar of soap,

or an explosive disguised
inside a pack of cigarettes.

Announcer: Here, the trap
is being set in a motorcycle.

Anyone sitting on the saddle
is in danger of instant death.

Just about anything
that didn't look dangerous

could be made into something
that was in the end
actually very dangerous.

Narrator: But the most
exotic booby trap

the British come up with
sounds insane--

the explosive rat.

The plan was
they'd take a couple of
hundred rat carcasses,

they would insert small doses
of plastic explosive
underneath the skin.

And then that rat
would be put into
German occupied territory,

like in a plant or a factory.

The practice at the time
was that if you're

loading a furnace
and you see a dead rat, well,

you pick it up by its tail,
fling it into the furnace.

That's a good way to
get rid of this dead rodent.

So the thinking was that
if you could turn dead rats
into an explosive,

this could be a great way
to disrupt German supply lines
and manufacturing.

( explosion )

This is how bonkers
World War II could be.

You had smart people that
imagined the weaponization
of the Norwegian roof rat.

By the time that
the project was over with,

it had accomplished nothing.

The first consignment of rats

was intercepted
by the Germans

and none of them caused
any damage to anything.

Narrator:
But the Brits' mission

is not a complete failure.

The Germans realized,
okay, they're putting
explosives in rats now.

We need to be on the lookout
for any rat carcasses.

So, the Germans
from that day forward,
then suddenly had to look

at every dead rat carcass
with suspicion.

Because after all,
they might be bearing
explosives into the factory.

So be cautious with them.

Announcer:
The effect of setting

booby traps in an area

is that troops
occupying that area

will have to
examine everything

before touching any object

or entering any buildings.

This will tend
to slow up considerably

their rate of advance.

As it turns out,
the whole thing

is a great waste
of German resources,

greater than
if rats had actually been
thrown into boilers.

The Germans spending
all of this time

and wasting
all of this effort

being concerned
with dead rats

was a better use
of the weapon

than the explosives in
the dead rats to begin with.

Narrator:
While the British are busy
hiding bombs in rats,

across the pond,
an American dentist
named Lytle Adams

envisions
an explosive contraption

that's even more bizarre.

Martin Morgan: On Sunday,
December 7th, 1941,

Lytle Adams had been
on a hike in a cave

where he was admiring bats.

Later that day, he learned
of the Japanese attack

on the fleet anchorage
at Pearl Harbor in
the territory of Hawaii,

and that's where the idea
first came to life.

The idea of, "What if we could
somehow weaponize bats?"

Because once bats move
into something like a cave,

it's really not possible
to get them out.

It just so happens that
Lytle Adams is acquainted
with Eleanor Roosevelt.

And because he has her ear,

he pitches the plan
about the bat bomb.

Narrator: The bat bomb
is an empty bomb casing

filled with over
a thousand sleeping bats,

each with a small explosive
tied to its leg.

As the bomb is dropped
from a plane,

the casing opens,
releasing the bats.

The idea is
as they would be falling,

they would wake up,
and once they woke up,

they would then use
their natural nesting instinct

to find places to rest.

At some point, the bats
would chew off the charges,

which had a time delay fuse
on them, igniting it,

and causing a large-scale fire
wherever the bats would nest.

And we have to remember that
Japanese architecture is
very heavily wooden. Paper.

Bamboo,
very flammable materials.

You now have a thousand bats
starting to roost

in the eaves of these very
wooden and paper buildings.

Well, when they explode,

you're going to cause
a thousand-plus fires

all over
this very flammable city.

Narrator: The bold idea
shockingly becomes

an official U.S. government
research experiment

eventually known
as Project X-Ray.

This project was no joke.

It fell under the auspices
of the U.S. Army Air Force.

Narrator: In 1943, it moves
into the testing phase

at remote sites
in California and New Mexico.

The testing of the bat bomb
program, it doesn't go well.

During a test
at Carlsbad's Army Airfield,

six bats get dropped
a little early.

They end up lighting
buildings on fire.

They light a general's car
on fire.

And this really sounds
like a disaster,

except the whole point
to this is to be destructive.

So, in a weird way,

the disaster of these fires
only proves to the Air Forces

that they're going
in the right direction,

they should continue
to pursue the project.

The bat bomb project
is transferred to the Navy.

The project remains alive,
and the U.S. Navy continues

the further development
of the bat bomb program

until ultimately
the chief of naval operations

Ernest J. King
cancels the entire project.

Narrator: In 1944,
after investing two years

and two million dollars,
Project X-Ray is dead.

Among the reasons,
the U.S. must focus on

a far more
frightening weapon--

the Manhattan Project's
atomic bomb.

Booby traps,
weapons that wait,

infernal machines.

- ( explosion )
- Whatever name they're given,

these deadly contraptions

have left their
devilish mark on history.

They're a testament to the
dark side of human ingenuity,

limited only by
the twisted imaginations
of their creators.