Original subtitles

Narrator: They're watching you.

More than 4,000 satellites Circle the earth.

Every day they uncover New, mysterious phenomena

That defy explanation.

Attack of the giant blobs.

These blobs are just taking over Everything.

Chamberlain: this town Has been wiped from the map.

Narrator: the $500 million Underwater heist.

This is really The greatest story never told

To the american public.

Narrator: and the hunt For wonder woman's tomb.

Maybe we've got our first Flesh-and-blood evidence

That all of those stories Are true.

Narrator: Baffling phenomena.

Mysteries from space.

What on earth are they?

-- captions by vitac -- Www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by Discovery communications

**

Narrator: July 12, 2016.

More than 400 miles above the Southern-central united states,

An orbiting camera captures this In the vast plains below.

Wow.

In this image,

There are large white blobs All over for the landscape.

Kourounis: What the hell?

It looks like this small, Rural farming community

Has been afflicted By some skin disease.

Narrator: Closer analysis reveals

Something even more disturbing.

Phoenix: I can see a grid system here

For roads and neighborhoods.

It looks like There was a town here

But now these whitish blobs Are just taking over everything.

Mairot: it's like a freakin' Bomb test site

Or something like that.

This is crazy. What happened here?

**

Narrator: Hooked by the weird image,

Haley chamberlain Is hitting the road

To study the site up close.

This image is absolutely Fascinating.

I've really never seen Anything like this before.

Is this something biological That has happened?

Is this a weather event?

Is it continuing? Is it spreading?

We're only gonna find Those answers

Once we put our feet On the ground

And figure out What's really happening.

**

Narrator: Chamberlain's journey

Takes her towards oklahoma's Border with kansas.

The first signs Of devastation appear

Long before she reaches The white blobs in the image.

There's some abandoned homes Right up here.

**

These houses are in total ruins.

**

The windows are busted. Completely dilapidated.

**

The eerie part Is that all of this

Must have been bustling With people

And now you just see These open fields

With little remnants Of what used to be.

Narrator: clues suggest that Whatever decimated this town

Began many decades ago.

All of this that looks like Forest and overgrown grasses,

You can see the pathways Of old streets,

Old foundations, Even driveways to houses.

Where did everyone go?

Why did they leave?

**

Narrator: The road gives out

Long before chamberlain Can reach

The strange white shapes Seen from space.

Chamberlain: Looks like I'll be walking

The rest of the way here.

Narrator: As she gets closer to the sites,

The devastation Appears to intensify.

**

This building -- There is nothing left here.

It's just a couple of walls.

[ birds chirping ]

I can't even tell what it was.

It must have been something In its heyday, but now...

I got to say That kind of creeps me out.

This town has been wiped From the map.

**

Narrator: Close to one abandoned street,

Chamberlain spots a danger not Visible in the satellite image.

Chamberlain: oh, wow. I was not expecting this.

**

There's a huge sinkhole Over here.

Narrator: The flooded chasm appears to be

At least 50 feet wide And hundreds of feet deep.

People lived right here.

You can see the foundations Of homes

Crumbling down the sides Of this sinkhole.

If this happened While people were living here,

That would be devastating.

Narrator: Chamberlain fears this tragedy

Isn't an isolated event.

This is definitely the largest Sinkhole that I have ever seen.

If something like this happened In my community,

Literally in my backyard,

That would be an indicator That I needed to leave.

Narrator: This sinkhole lies just yards

From the first of The white blobs seen from space.

[ birds chirping ]

Chamberlain: Oh, look at that.

**

Narrator: The white mountain is big --

Chamberlain believes 40 feet high

And hundreds of feet long.

And it's just one of dozens Littering the ghost town.

I can see off in the distance,

There's a pile that looks Even larger than this one.

There's one Right back over here.

So what's the event that brought All of these piles here?

Narrator: to find out, Chamberlain wants to know

What the white mountains Are made of.

All right. This is an xrf tester.

And it's really gonna give us The chemical makeup

Of what's going on in this pile.

I'm gonna dig down So I get a proper reading here.

Narrator: An xrf machine uses x-rays

To identify individual elements.

Chamberlain: It just takes just a moment.

[ machine beeps ]

And we see there's lead And zinc.

You've got some heavy metals.

Lead and zinc in a big pile Like this --

That's got to be something To do with mining.

Narrator: if these are The remnants of mining,

Then this was once a massive, Highly valuable claim,

Employing many thousands Of people.

So how did it get So out of control

And then make the whole town Disappear?

**

Narrator: coming up -- The ghost town's deadly secret.

Chamberlain: People thought they were safe,

And then they had all of that Taken away from them.

Narrator: And what's lurking in the woods?

I don't think I've ever seen Anything like it.

**

Narrator: haley chamberlain Is in oklahoma.

She's been drawn here By this satellite image...

...And she's discovered A massive mining community,

Its inhabitants forced to flee By a mystery event.

It wasn't just a small town. This was a big, thriving place.

And now...Now there's nothing.

Narrator: Yet, among the devastation,

Chamberlain sees someone.

Thank you.

**

Hi there.

The pickup-truck driver Is unwilling to talk

But does provide her With a lead.

Is there anybody else left To talk to?

Man: Well, there's one guy.

Do you think he'd let me talk To him?

Yeah. He might talk to you.

He lives on the east side Of town.

**

On the outskirts Of the ghost town,

Chamberlain finds joel thompson.

[ metal clicking ]

Hi there. Oh! Hello.

Narrator: Joel reveals

That his family has lived In the town, called picher,

Since soon after It was established,

More than a century ago.

What were they mining for In picher?

They were mining for lead And zinc.

Of course, back then, it was For part of the war effort.

What do you mean, It was part of the war effort?

Well, they used the lead For the bullets in world war I.

Narrator: chamberlain learns The picher lead mines produced

Half of america's bullets In world war I and world war ii.

Its zinc is used to galvanize The steel

That fueled the massive Expansion of american suburbia

And the car industry.

At its peak,

There are almost 250 mills here And 14,000 people.

What was life like During the heyday in picher?

People were happy, And there was a lot going on.

It had two hospitals, Four or five movie theaters,

Two or three banks.

So a big, thriving community, For sure.

Yes, ma'am.

Picher was an excellent place To live.

Yet as the community And mines thrive,

Giant mountains Of toxic by-product called chat

Rise up around the town -- 178 million tons of the stuff.

They become a magnet For local children.

They'd slide down on car hoods And run around on them.

So children were sledding down Chat piles,

Playing on them As if they were piles of sand

Or anything else That was not harmful?

They had no knowledge whatsoever Of this.

Unaware, the children Breathe in dust

From the lead-laced mountains.

They swim in ponds Poisoned with chemicals.

And inside The townsfolks' bodies,

A health time bomb Begins ticking.

Were people affected By the pollution of the mining?

They were starting to get An influx of mine water

Into their drinking water.

Mostly children.

That's who was affected

With, you know, Elevated blood levels.

Blood tests show that over 60% Of picher's children

Suffer from lead poisoning.

But joel reveals That for the town,

It's just one element Of a massive unfolding disaster.

As demand for ore drops In the '50s and '60s,

Jobs disappear, And the mining companies depart.

They leave behind a dying town And a landscape pockmarked

With 14,000 Crumbling mine shafts.

The mining company filled Them up as cheap as they could.

They'd throw anything in them To fill them up,

And then they'd walk off And leave them.

As the old mine shafts And tunnels collapse,

Sinkholes threaten to swallow

More than a third Of the town's houses,

Forcing yet more people to flee.

[ alarm blaring ]

Finally, in 2008,

A 200-mile-per-hour tornado Rips through,

Destroying what little remains Of joel's hometown.

**

The tornado killed seven Or nine people.

Four of them Were my cousins.

It was gone completely.

Everything was gone.

Wow.

Wow. I'm so sorry that happened.

You know, it's hard to adjust. Yeah.

Today joel is one of just A handful of people

Who choose to stay in a place

The epa calls The most toxic town in america.

And all that remains Of the community

That helped to build america And win two world wars

Is a poisoned moonscape Visible from space.

The story of picher Is really emotional,

And this is a place where people Thought they were safe,

And then they had all of that Taken away from them.

And it makes me really sad

For all the families That had to go through this.

**

Narrator: coming up -- The mystery of the cia,

The billionaire, And the stolen russian nuke.

Morgan: this was one of The most outrageous operations

In the history Of the american military.

Narrator: And the ocean's 700,000-ton

Invisible exterminator.

It's the death trap That keeps on killing.

Narrator: May 7, 2012 --

Eyes in the sky capture images Of the u.S. Navy shipyard

At suisun bay, california.

Walters: my eye is drawn To this one on the far left.

The rest are all battleships.

Then you've got this stubby Little thing at the end,

Like a cigar butt.

Narrator: image analysis Suggests the strange vessel

Is 324 feet long.

Military historian martin morgan Thinks he recognizes it.

Based on the photograph, It fits the description

Of this specialized vessel Called hmb-1.

Narrator: it appears that 21st-century satellite images

Have identified the location

Of one of the most secretive Crafts of the cold war.

This vessel was associated With one of the most outrageous,

One of the most ambitious Covert operations

In the history Of the american military.

Declassified cia documents Reveal the hmb-1 has its genesis

During a period of Particularly strained relations

Between the cold war Superpowers.

By the end of the 1960s, Both countries

Are kind of hovering around The trigger button.

The tensions are really high.

Walters: what the united states Are looking for now

Is something that's gonna Give them the competitive edge.

And in 1968, You've got what could be

An absolute gift To the americans.

Narrator: in march 1968,

The russian golf class-ii K-129 submarine

Vanishes in the pacific ocean.

American agents learn It's carrying

The revolutionary R-21 ballistic missile,

The first soviet nuclear warhead

That can be launched From deep underwater.

K-129 was a prized asset Of the soviet union,

And its loss was A serious setback for them.

The soviets searched For over a month

Trying to find k-129 After it sank,

But to no avail.

This is dangled like a carrot In front of the americans --

What a prize to get.

Narrator: while the soviets Search for their lost sub,

The u.S. Navy tracks it To a patch of seabed

1,500 miles north of hawaii.

And in a room At cia headquarters

In langley, virginia, Agents hatch

Perhaps the most audacious heist In history,

Code-named project azorian.

The concept was like The arcade game you would see,

With a big metal claw.

But the idea here was to have A massive metal claw

Pluck this submarine Off the ocean floor

And pull it into the hull Of a large ship.

Narrator: but in this game, The prize is three miles deep

And weighs 2,000 tons.

Walters: this is where The barge comes in.

What she is Is a fully submersible dry dock.

That metal dome completely hides From view

Anything underneath it.

And so what you've got Underneath it

Is what the military engineers Have assembled,

Which is this massive claw.

Narrator: hmb-1's mission Is to drop below the ocean

And covertly attach The massive claw

To a much larger ship Built for the operation,

Called the glomar.

The glomar will then haul The sub up

Into a secret compartment

And steal her away from Patrolling russian warships.

What's paramount Is that the russians not key

Into what the cia Is actually up to,

Because that could have created A diplomatic catastrophe.

Narrator: so as not to arouse Soviet suspicions,

Intelligence agents need to Create a convincing cover story

For the two ships.

They go to none other Than howard hughes,

Who, of course, Is this very eccentric,

Very secretive billionaire.

Narrator: hughes, who has worked With the cia before,

Publicly announces That the two vessels are his

And they're searching for Valuable minerals

On the pacific seabed.

To help with the operation,

Howard hughes launches A fake media campaign.

He has a champagne christening For the vessel

All to basically mark His supposed entry

Into deep-sea exploration.

This is seriously audacious,

Including the cia placing fake Academic articles

Into academic journals.

So it's really A kind of large-scale psyop

Being played for the media And for the american public.

Narrator: project azorian takes Six years to plan

And costs $500 million To set in motion --

Enough to fund an apollo flight To the moon.

Armstrong: The eagle has landed.

Narrator: in june 1974, the two Vessels begin their mission.

Walters: The hmb-1 lets out the claw

And gets it on board the glomar Explorer without anybody seeing.

It's a fantastic piece Of clandestine naval work.

Pavelec: there are two Soviet ships in the area

That are watching All this happen

That don't realize the americans Are snatching this vessel

Right under their noses.

Narrator: what the declassified Cia documents don't disclose

Is what happens next.

Wawro: urban legend is That they grabbed

The weapons on board,

And they would have given The cia

A good insight Into all the technology

On one of these advanced Soviet submarines.

Narrator: but subsequent aerial Photos reveal something strange.

When you look at a satellite Image, it's gone.

Narrator: the craft custom-built To steal russian nuclear secrets

Appears to be on the move again.

Morgan: Something is going on.

But the ship that was the cause Of all of this drama

Is long gone now.

Narrator: Further satellite images

Track the hmb-1 to a shipyard

Belonging to secretive military Engineers lockheed-martin.

And for carlo munoz, That's significant.

Munoz: Years after project azorian,

The company used the ship

To actually help With the development

Of the first stealth ships To be developed.

Narrator: the stealth ship Was the sea shadow.

The sea shadow Was revolutionary.

It's virtually invisible To radar.

It was really groundbreaking.

Narrator: The hmb-1's presence here

Could suggest That the u.S. Military

Is once again using it for Clandestine military technology.

Wawro: To keep this very secret,

What better place to conceal it Than in the hughes mining barge?

Narrator: The latest images from 2019

Above alameda shipyard In san francisco

Confirm that the hmb-1 Has indeed started a new life.

Hymel: This is bizarre.

It looks like somebody Has peeled the roof off

And we're looking Directly down into it.

Narrator: But the barge's new role

Is not what analysts Were expecting.

The craft that stole A russian nuke,

Helped to win the cold war,

And gave rise to the world's First stealth ship

Is now being used To patch up luxury yachts.

Morgan: So what we have left today

Is this barge that can still Be seen from satellite.

That's all that is there To remind us

Of what was at one time

The pride Of the american military.

Narrator: Coming up --

How hollywood helped hoodwink Hitler.

It was a mad and crazy idea, But it worked.

Narrator: and the lost tombs Of the amazonians.

The bodies are women showing Clear evidence of battle injury.

Narrator: april 7, 2015 -- An eye in the sky

Over western england Captures this image.

Kourounis: you've got Beautiful green fields,

But in the middle of it all

Is the most unusual shape -- A pentagon.

It's got odd, Almost star-shaped lines

Coming out of a central Circular area.

I don't think I've ever seen Anything like it.

Narrator: for military historian Martin morgan,

The structure's apparent age and Distinctive shape are telling.

This unusual five-pointed Structure is similar

To some of the sites that were Created during the blitz

As a decoy.

Narrator: The blitz,

Nazi germany's attempt to bomb The british into submission,

Begins in september 1940.

The aerial onslaught Costs 43,000 lives

And leaves many of the country's Industrial centers in ruins.

Britain was facing A desperate situation.

The luftwaffe, The nazi air force,

Was devastating our cities.

They were being bombed Into oblivion.

Narrator: in november 1940, Engineer colonel john turner

Develops an elaborate plan to Defend against the bombardment,

One which could explain The mystery shape.

It's called operation starfish,

An ingenious idea On how to fool the luftwaffe.

And he puts these sites Around major u.K. Cities.

Narrator: turner employs a team Of special-effects artists

From film studios

To construct 230 models Designed to lure german bombers

Away from their Intended targets.

The whole hollywood spirit Took over.

They tried to make these fakes Look as realistic as possible.

[ siren wailing ]

Narrator: as the first wave Of luftwaffe bombers approach,

Operators at the decoy sites Light flares.

Having attracted The nazis' attention,

Technicians trigger a system Of light arrays and pyrotechnics

To create a real-time simulation Of a full-scale attack.

[ explosions ]

Walters: looking out the belly Of a luftwaffe bomber,

That looks like a british town On fire.

That looks like It's being bombed.

That looks like Where I'm gonna drop my bombs.

It was a mad and crazy idea, But it worked.

[ explosions in distance ]

Narrator: Declassified reports reveal

That the decoys fooled The luftwaffe

Into dropping hundreds of tons Of bombs onto fake sites.

These include mock towns And cities

As well as ammunition dumps And fuel-storage facilities.

Morgan: there are sites That look similar

To what we're seeing In the satellite image.

So there's the possibility That this is a starfish site.

Narrator: however, Further analysis

Reveals a problem With this theory.

Silbey: It's filled with water.

It's probably not One of the decoy sites.

Narrator: The starfish-shaped structure

Appears to be an elaborate pond.

When analysts consult Local land records,

They discover it once served

A strange and totally unexpected Purpose.

This bizarre shape Is actually created to collect

And harvest a whole lot of ducks At one time.

Narrator: the records suggest That the duck hunting pond

Is constructed in the 17th Or 18th century,

A time when a heavy meat diet

Was a sign of social standing And wealth.

The english aristocracy Were obsessed with game.

And in meals, feasts, whatever, You'd be serving up game

Rather than ordinary things.

Peasants ate pork And things like that.

The aristocracy ate game.

Narrator: At this time in history,

The total british population Stands at eight million.

Yet just 1% of them owned 80% of the land.

They stocked their game In estates the size of delaware.

It's not enough For the aristocrats

To just shoot one duck Or shoot a few ducks.

There's this sense of "We have to do this at a scale

That's beyond that Of the normal individual."

Narrator: kays learns that Gameskeepers force the ducks

Into the arms of the pond,

Funneling them towards The muzzles of waiting guns.

The ducks start in the middle,

But as they get further And further in there,

It starts to be covered With nets and cages

So that eventually they're Actually stuck in a trap.

Narrator: caught in the Net-covered arms of the pond,

The ducks are easy prey And are picked off by the dozen.

But as time moves on, The british aristocrats

Turn to ways to kill even bigger Numbers of fowl on their ponds.

Enter the punt gun,

A boat-mounted anti-duck Superweapon.

Punt guns were massive guns.

If you look at an old picture

Of somebody holding One of these things,

It looks like It shouldn't even exist.

It had to be mounted To a special boat called a punt.

And that's how the gun got Its name.

Narrator: Up to 14 feet long,

A punt gun can turn a flock Of eider ducks into entrees

Before you can say "Bang."

When you fire the punt gun,

You are sending a spray of shot Into the air,

And you could take down dozens,

Maybe even up to 100 birds In a single shot.

It's like going and shooting Sheep with a machine gun.

Narrator: as guns become bigger And more powerful,

The bizarrely shaped duck Decoy ponds fall out of use.

This site, spotted from space, Is one of the last in the world.

This odd-shaped pond remains

As a window Into the eccentricities

Of european aristocracy At the time.

**

Narrator: coming up -- The 80,000-ton death trap...

This is super dangerous.

Narrator: ...And a code In the deserts of china.

Who put these In this remote place and why?

Narrator: September 8, 2018 --

The worldview-3 satellite over San francisco bay, california,

Spots some strange activity.

This ship has what seems like A really long tail

Just dragging behind the ship.

I mean, what could it be for?

Kays: It's really weird to see a ship

Pulling something so long And skinny.

Narrator: scale analysis reveals The mystery tail

Is 2,000 feet long.

You see these tiny little White bobs along the line,

And I'm wondering if they're Buoys for a net --

Specifically a gill net.

Narrator: if this is A giant drift gill net,

Its presence here Alarms experts.

Maritime law prohibits This kind of fishing

Within three miles Of the coast --

And with good reason.

Gill nets are This microfilament curtain

That hangs down From this big line of buoys

That are floating across The surface of the water.

If a fish tries to swim Through it,

Which they try to,

Often they're caught head deep In by their gills.

Schuttler: And their gills get stuck,

So they can no longer respirate

And they actually drown In the water.

It's like a giant wall of death.

Once deployed, gill nets Can be left unattended.

Kays: because these nets Are left alone

Out there in the ocean, They sometimes get lost.

They can break away From their anchors.

A big storm can come through,

And now you have a giant Floating gill net

Just cruising on its own.

Narrator: every year, a fishery Operating in the atlantic

Loses 25,000 of them.

As they drift away, these walls Of death continue to kill...

...A phenomenon known As ghost fishing.

**

The derelict fishing gear

Catches around 650,000 Marine animals a year

And remains deadly For centuries.

Because there's no fishermen To empty the nets,

These decaying carcasses gather More animals,

Attract more predators, Which also become entangled.

It just is this continuous cycle Of death.

**

Narrator: analysts consider If the aerial image

Has captured evidence Of an operation

To recover one of these killer Nets from close to u.S. Shores.

I don't think that this is A ghost-net cleanup operation

Because by the time they get To them to clean them up,

They're usually in sort of balls Or they're more of a mess.

They're not all In this nice straight line.

Narrator: investigators return To satellite data.

Successive images reveal

The path of the ship With the giant tail.

If you track this ship

All the way out Of san francisco bay and west,

You see it rendezvousing With other ships,

All carrying the same Piece of equipment behind them.

Narrator: the bizarre fleet Congregates in an area

Midway between california And hawaii.

And for some analysts, That's significant.

This is the center of the Great pacific garbage patch.

Kay: the great pacific garbage Patch is this area of the ocean

Where all the currents Kind of come together

So that any piece Of floating debris

Is likely gonna end up Sort of circling around

In the middle of the ocean To this place.

**

Narrator: covering over 600,000 Square miles,

An area twice the size of texas, The great pacific garbage patch

Is the largest of five ocean Plastic dumps on the planet.

Anything you can imagine Is in this patch --

Old toothbrushes, flip-flops -- And it all floats

From everywhere around the world By currents,

And it accumulates In this one big patch.

Plastic doesn't break down In salt water very quickly,

So you end up with a massive Amount of plastic

Of all different sizes.

Narrator: this patch of ocean Contains 80,000 tons of plastic,

The equivalent weight Of almost 500 boeing 747s.

It's estimated to contain 1.8 trillion pieces.

That's 230 For each person on earth.

Kay: the amount of plastic, Of course,

Keeps increasing every year,

But the dimensions of each piece Get smaller.

Animals are eating them,

And they're getting the plastic Incorporated into their bodies.

And then guess who eats the fish Next.

We do.

So we end up eating Our own garbage.

Narrator: a 2019 study Shows we will soon be ingesting

A credit card's worth Of this plastic a week.

That's almost a laptop Every year.

We're only starting to discover What happens when humans

Or other animals eat These tiny bits of plastic.

Narrator: for an area this big, Containing so much garbage,

An ordinary cleanup operation Is impossible.

It's tiny items that are gonna Take forever

If you do it by a net or it's Just an individual vessel.

You have to come up with Some kind of new mechanism.

Narrator: analysts uncover A report from 2018

That reveal scientists have done Just that,

And it explains the giant tail Captured from space.

Patel: researchers came up with This long, floating device

That could funnel in These microplastics.

These long tails we're seeing

Are actually used to collect The garbage.

**

Narrator: the tail in the image Is a surface float

Attached to a long mesh skirt Hanging beneath the water.

As currents and winds move it Around the patch,

It gathers up the tiny bits Of plastic

Like a 2,000-foot-long broom.

Patel: this skirt actually Creates, like, a "U" shape

That helps bring those plastics To the center

So they can't escape back out.

Narrator: When it's full,

The ship's operators haul in The cleanup system

And remove any plastic It's caught.

Scientists estimate That this tail seen from space

Could reduce the great Pacific garbage patch by 50%

In five years.

Ruben: What we're seeing here

Is like a nature-fueled Mobile prison for plastic.

**

Narrator: Coming up --

The drugged-up warrior women Of the ancient world.

These women went To the front line in battle

Right alongside the men.

Narrator: September 9, 2016 --

The worldview-3 satellite

Orbiting over china's Western border with tajikistan

Captures this image.

Horton: This is really interesting.

What we seem to have is nine Of these circular structures.

Schuttler: they're in, like, A straight line.

It looks like somebody took A stamp

And pressed it Across the landscape.

Narrator: To some,

The location of the circular Structures is significant.

Looking at these circular shapes Makes me think about

A burial mound in this area Called a kurgan.

Narrator: kurgans are circular Earth-and-stone mounds

Covering ancient Burial chambers.

Many date back to when a tribe Of notorious mountain warlords

Ruled this region -- The scythians.

[ indistinct shouting ]

Bellinger: the scythians Were fearsome warriors.

They'd roamed across and ruled This entire steppe

For close to 1,000 years.

They were expert bowmen

Who could easily draw And shoot a bow

From the back Of a galloping horse.

Narrator: Between 900 bc and 200 bc,

Scythians ruled about a million Square miles of the steppe,

From the black sea to china.

[ indistinct shouting ]

Their feared archers use arrows Dipped in poison

And often take to battle drunk And high on marijuana.

Elite warriors Are sometimes honored

With elaborate circular tombs.

The scythians would dig a shaft Down the center of it,

And the body of the deceased, Who was mummified,

Is placed in the bottom Along with valued possessions,

Such as fabulous gold jewelry.

Narrator: Dna tests on scythian mummies

Reveal something unexpected.

The bodies are women buried With weapons

And showing clear evidence Of battle injury.

These scythian warrior women Apparently participated

In equal measure In military activities

And went to the front line in Battle right alongside the men.

[ indistinct shouting ]

Narrator: New research suggests

The scythian warrior women's Prowess in battle

Inspires one of the most Enduring legends of antiquity.

One suggestion has been

That the story of the amazons Comes out of scythian culture.

Narrator: the amazon tribe Of female fighters

Features heavily In greek mythology,

Which claims they fought In the trojan war.

Wonder woman is supposedly A descendant

Of these incredible Warrior women.

Well, maybe we've got our first Flesh-and-blood evidence

That all of those stories Are true.

Narrator: yet further analysis Suggests the line of circles

Is an optical illusion.

The shapes are craters, Not mounds.

The spacing And shape of the holes

Leads archeologist patrick hunt To another theory.

It reminds me much more of this Ancient engineering miracle

Of an underground Human-made aqueduct river

That we called the karez system.

**

The karez found to the east Of the structures in the image

Is an ingenious gravity-powered Irrigation system

Constructed 2,000 years ago.

Dubbed china's underground Great wall,

It transports ice melt From the tian shan mountains

To the parched plains below Through 3,000 miles of tunnels.

They didn't have Electronic earth movers.

They didn't have borers And huge drills

That were done by machines.

They dug these by hand.

That's just staggering To consider.

Narrator: karez uses regularly Spaced 300-foot-deep wells

To maintain atmospheric pressure In the canals

And keep the water flowing Steadily.

Hunt: you can't have The gradient too steep

Because the water would flood it Or wash whatever is there away.

And if it's not enough Of a gradient,

The water won't move.

So you have to calculate it Just right.

**

Narrator: It's this extraordinary

Subterranean engineering That enables oases and towns

To flourish In these otherwise barren lands.

They are the arteries That nourish the silk road,

The superhighway Of the ancient world.

[ camel lowing ]

Hunt: Despite how hot and dry it is,

People have actually lived In this area

For thousands of years.

Civilizations have flourished Here.

What was a dry, hot desert Was transformed into a paradise.

**

Narrator: Yet if these are karez,

They appear much more modern

Than ones currently known To archeologists.

The satellite image Raises the possibility

That china is attempting to use This ancient form of engineering

To rejuvenate its secretive Western borderlands.

We can never know for certain

That that's actually what they Are until we can get there.

And, of course,

Because it's such a remote And sensitive part of the world,

The likelihood of that Ever happening is very remote.

Narrator: for now, The strange line of circles

Captured from space Remain a tantalizing mystery.