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.

*

Desert cipher --

Cracking the code Of the world's oldest pyramid.

There's something Underneath the sand.

What it is, is a mystery.

Narrator: Investigating the underwater

Communist terror camp.

What happened there?

Are they trying To hide something?

Narrator: and hitler's Invisible mega ship.

It was nicknamed the beast And the british

Were terrified of it.

Narrator: baffling phenomena, Mysteries from space

What on earth are they?

*

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

Captions paid for by Discovery communications

June 20, 2016 --

More than 400 miles above The eastern european country

Of estonia an orbiting camera Captures this down below.

Well, this is A fascinating image.

You see this sort of Lost city of atlantis

Under the waves here.

Next to the buildings

You can see this large White blob streaked with lines.

Something very strange Is going on in the water here

And I want to know what it is.

Narrator: structures to The north offer a clue.

On further examination,

You see this what appears to be

A fence With watchtowers along it.

Maybe these submerged buildings Are connected.

But why are they underwater?

*

Narrator: stewart johnson Has lived in estonia

For over two decades.

He's journeying to the site To investigate the strange

Set of structures Captured from space.

I have no idea what This thing is,

What happened there.

The only way that I'm going To find out anything

Is if I actually physically Go there myself.

*

Narrator: the satellite image Guides johnson to an area

25 miles southwest Of the capital tallinn.

*

He soon gets his first clue To the site's purpose.

Obviously, This is an old prison.

*

Look at these walls.

And then there's another fence With barbed wire

In front of that.

And then a third fence An old fence here.

*

Narrator: johnson estimates The prison walls

Are around 20 feet high

And stretch over 600 yards Into the distance.

*

Johnson: The feeling that I get here

Is just complete desolation.

Whoever was kept here,

Must have felt like They were in hell.

*

Most people try to break out,

I'm trying to break in.

*

There's a building over here Maybe I'll...

Find some hints in there Of what happened here.

*

Narrator: as johnson approaches The building

He begins to establish When the prison was built.

*

It's been abandoned For so long

They have trees Growing out of the wall.

*

When I look at these buildings They must be

From the 1960s or '70s.

Right smack in the middle of

The soviet occupation of Estonia.

Narrator: Historical records confirm

Estonia is ruled by russia

For much of the 20th century.

Its communist nightmare begins

When stalin orders 500,000 red army soldiers

To annex the country In 1940.

*

For the soviets,

Estonia was always a keystone Of their naval power,

Guarding the approaches To st. Petersburg.

Then the whole soviet Position on the baltic.

Up until the time that The soviet union

Dissolves in 1991,

Estonia is a subservient state To mother russia.

*

Narrator: Cold war era files suggest

That during their decades Of tyrannical rule,

The soviets inter tens of Thousands of estonians

In prisons Such as the one in the image.

Estonia was very Heavily repressed.

Their nationalism is ferocious

So the surveillance of them Was even more intense.

*

The prison appears to be A legacy

Of joseph stalin's Brutal gulag system.

*

Johnston: but the gulag system Itself continues until the 1950s

And ended with stalin's death.

This building looks A little bit newer than that

But the rest of the prison,

Maybe it was part Of the gulag system.

*

Narrator: studies suggest that Between 1920 and 1953

Gulags claimed the lives of over One million people

More than the number of Americans killed in every war

The u.S. Has engaged in.

Johnson: What kind of soviet

Horror stories were hidden In this building?

Narrator: johnson hopes The weird white mass

Next to the prison Could provide some answers.

*

Johnson: So this must be that mountain

I saw from the satellite image.

*

There are whole lines Of ridges everywhere.

Crevices that have been formed By running water

So rainwater itself Must have shaped this.

It's gotta be -- I don't know 40, 50 feet high

Maybe even higher.

I can't imagine that anything Would naturally exist

That looks like this.

*

Narrator: Closer analysis appears

To confirm Johnson's suspicions.

So this all consists Of exactly the same material,

But it is not quite sand.

Now I'm guessing that it might Be some sort of limestone.

This must be Connected to mining.

*

We have this prison camp Right here.

And quite often In the soviet system,

They had forced labor.

And so I'm willing to bet That this is a product of that.

*

Narrator: soviet prison diaries Reveal that inmates or zeks

Are often put to work For 14 hours a day.

While constructing a canal Northeast of estonia

In the 1930s,

200,000 died Many buried in the banks

They helped to construct.

The level of calories You received was correlated

To how much work you did.

So you were producing less, You were fed less.

Which leads To a vicious circle.

You get weaker and weaker And sicker and sicker

Fade away and die.

Johnson: I'm willing to bet That prisoners were forced

To work in this quarry, In this open pit mine.

And this is what You would call a spoil tip.

And at some point this quarry Flooded and that would explain

Why they have the buildings In the water.

*

The only thing That I can't figure out

Is why they would flood That quarry.

[ air hisses ]

I want to find out the answer

So I'm going to actually Get into that water.

*

Narrator: coming up -- Into the underwater prison.

There's an entire hidden world.

Narrator: and the riddle of Ancient egypt's lost catacombs.

It's just extraordinary.

I want to know what this is.

*

*

Narrator: stewart johnson is In northern estonia

Investigating a drowned Communist era prison

Captured from space.

Johnson: were they trying to Hide something?

Which would not surprise me Or did it happen naturally?

Narrator: he wants to explore Its submerged structures to see

If they can shed light On what happened here.

*

It soon becomes apparent That the buildings visible

From the skies Conceal a vast underwater world.

*

Its scales suggest hundreds If not thousands of inmates

Once worked here.

*

Equipment seems to confirm That this was once

A large scale Industrial operation.

The number of tools And bits of furniture

Indicate the structures Were suddenly abandoned.

Yet why this happened Remains unclear.

*

Johnson wants to scan

The underwater Footage for more clues.

*

Inside one of The larger buildings,

He spots something.

It looks like A pump completely underwater.

Clearly it had something To do with mining.

So as they dug deeper,

Maybe they were Trying to pump the water out.

Narrator: johnson speculates That as the prison inmates dug

Down into the quarry, They hit the water table.

I'm thinking The pump stopped working

And it started flooding Really quickly

And they had to escape, they had To evacuate as fast as possible.

*

Narrator: To establish the events

Leading up To the prison's evacuation

Johnson wants to speak With an ex-inmate,

But he knows That's not going to be easy.

People in estonia don't talk Very much

About what actually happened During the soviet occupation.

But I need to find out more

About what actually Happened here.

Narrator: it takes a number of Calls before he finally tracks

Down a former prisoner Who is prepared to talk.

*

Ivar golev was incarcerated At the site in the image

During the 1980s.

[ speaking foreign language ]

Narrator: Ivan reveals that in 1982

He is working as a conductor

When kgb agents infiltrate His orchestra.

On december 27, without warning, The secret police arrest

Ivar and falsely accused him Of stealing from the state.

Forced to share a cell With murderers and rapists,

The soviets transfer ivar To the flooded labor camp

In the image called rummu.

Narrator: ivar tells johnson That communist overseers

Forced many inmates

To hew huge blocks of limestone In the prison quarry.

The spoil from 50 years Hard labor

Creates the weird mountain Visible from space.

Ivar reveals that The structure's drowning

Follows the election of Reformist russian president

Mikhail gorbachev in 1985.

Narrator: gorbachev dismantles The vast soviet empire.

Estonia is liberated From communism

And the prison shuts down.

When the final inmate leaves

The pumps in its slave Labor camp falls silent.

As the groundwater rises, It swamps the quarry

Shrouding the evidence Of decades of oppression here.

*

But for ivar, The scars of his experience

At the hands of the soviets Cannot be so easily concealed.

Though the water has inundated And covered up this camp,

You can't hide history The crimes against humanity

That occurred here are now known

And the world Won't soon forget them.

These stories need To be recorded

They need to be preserved Future generations

Need to be made aware of them

So it doesn't happen again.

*

Narrator: coming up --

Pharaoh fight club in the land Of the dead.

It looks as if this is

A physical assault course

For the soul.

Narrator: and the hunt for The disappearing nazi mega ship.

Churchill's obsessed With finding and sinking it.

[ explosion ]

*

*

November 29, 2017 --

The world view 3 satellite Passing south of cairo, egypt

Captures a structure in the sand Well known to archaeologists.

*

Looking at the image, It's immediately apparent.

That this is the soccer Mortuary complex

Of the stepped pyramid of Djoser.

The pyramid is 4,700 years old

Making it the oldest pyramid In the world.

Narrator: but to a trained eye There's something in the image

That doesn't look right.

You can clearly see from above

Something that I think Would not be

Visible at all From the ground.

Looking at the image,

There is a faint outline of Something underneath the sand.

*

Narrator: further analysis of The image compounds the mystery.

If you look closely At this image you can see

That this is actually around The entire pyramid

And not just on the west side.

Narrator: the satellite appears To have revealed

A series of massive Hidden structures surrounding

One of the wonders Of the ancient world.

This image is Absolutely incredible

How intricate This whole system is.

What are those things for?

Narrator: when teams of Archaeologists begin excavating

What they discover shocks them.

It's extraordinary what These teams are finding

Is that this is Actually a trench.

It's a continuous rectangular

Enclosure for want Of a better word.

Narrator: analysis suggests The giant trench

Stretches nearly 2,500 feet By 2,000 feet.

This raises a whole host Of questions.

What is this trench? Why was it dug?

And does it relate somehow

To the ceremonial function Of this site?

*

Narrator: archaeologists turned To the construction

Of the main pyramid for clues.

The exact dates of Pharaoh djoser's reign

Are a mystery.

What is known is that He entrusts the creation

Of his vast mortuary complex

To his priest and vizier, Imhotep.

Many people know the name Imhotep

From the famous movie "The mummy."

But the imhotep We're talking about here

Was more about brains Than magic.

Narrator: Excavations suggest imhotep uses

Tens of thousands of workers

And blocks weighing over 60 tons To construct the pyramid.

*

These seals djoser's Burial chamber

With a three and a half-ton Door.

*

Surrounding it are more Than three miles of tunnels

Connecting 400 rooms Filled with grave goods.

*

It's an incredible advance

A form of burial methods Which were much simpler.

They involved inhumation In the desert in a pit

Or at most the placement Of a stone slab

Called a mustaba Over the body.

Narrator: the extraordinary Scale of imhotep's construction

Offers a possible clue

To the purpose of The giant trench in the image.

One possibility is that This trench was created

Inadvertently By quarrying the stone

That was actually used For the pyramid.

Narrator: yet when Archaeologists continue

To excavate the trench

They discovered that there is Much more to the mystery.

Kinkella: This is not just a trench.

This is a trench that includes A little alcoves and rooms

Associated with it And stairways.

This is a real Architectural construction.

Narrator: in 2018, A polish team uncovers

Yet more areas and recesses.

And in one of The subterranean structures

Hidden corridors, they find Something unexpected.

It ends in a chamber filled With animal bones

And they found a casket in there An unopen casket

Which was found To contain a harpoon

Decorated with An undulating serpent.

*

Narrator: analysis reveals The serpent on the harpoon

Is a representation of A malevolent deity called apep.

He's a fearsome serpent

Thought to guard the entrance To the underworld.

Narrator: the discovery provides Another clue

To the purpose of the buried Complex revealed from space.

The serpent god is mentioned In the book of the dead,

A guide to help pharaohs through The trials they must complete

Before being granted immortality In the field of reeds.

As pharaohs Would make their way

On that journey Through the underworld,

They would have to go through The 12 chambers of hell.

This serpent was one of

The battles They would have to face.

These researchers Have postulated

That perhaps this harpoon

Represents a weapon that might Have helped the pharaoh

At the gates of death.

Narrator: the labyrinthian Layout of imhotep's trench

And the discovery Of the serpent headed harpoon

Leads archaeologists To a theory

That seems extraordinary.

This polish team are suggesting That this trench

Actually represents A 3d model of the challenges

That a pharaoh would need To overcome in order

To enter the afterworld.

It looks as if this complex

Is a physical assault course

For the soul.

Narrator: if djoser completes

This kind of Afterlife assault course,

He faces judgment Before the green skin lord

Of the underworld osiris.

The final test was a weighing Of the pharaoh's heart

Against a feather.

If the heart was found To be lighter meaning

That the pharaoh Had been good and pure,

He could pass on To the field of reeds.

If however his heart was found To be heavier,

A fearsome beast called amut Would gobble his heart up

And that was the end of it Game over.

*

Narrator: Excavations will soon resume

On imhotep's giant underground Complex revealed from space.

For now the fated Of djoser's soul

And what else lies buried Beneath these ancient sands

Remains to be seen.

Archaeologists have been Digging in egypt

For hundreds of years, But this trench shows us

There's still a lot more left To be discovered.

*

Narrator: coming up, Battling hitler's beast

In the land of the vikings.

All squadron drops hell on it.

And boy, do they wipe it out.

Narrator: And the infernal portal

At the end of the world.

This image Is absolutely stunning.

Amongst all the snow

And ice we see this Bright red glowing spot.

*

*

Narrator: july 19, 2019.

A satellite passing Over a remote fjord

In the norwegian arctic circle

Captures something In the clear waters below.

*

When I look at this image I'm left wondering

What lies beneath

Because something clearly Is here but I don't know what.

I can see right there

Must be quite A long rectangular structure.

*

Narrator: scale analysis reveals The structure

Is 170 feet long.

Ken joyce using maxar Secure watch technology

Finds other shapes In the water nearby.

Joyce: I'm starting to see these Very distinct circular patterns

Right along the coastline here.

They're roughly the same size And roughly the same shape

And they're nearly along A straight line.

Narrator: military historian Martin morgan

Has seen circles Like this before.

Large craters Perfectly circular.

There obviously impacts From bombs.

I think immediately That points to the 1940s.

The second world war.

Narrator: during world war ii The north norwegian coast

Is of vital Strategic importance.

The germans were Very effective in using this

As a base For staging operations

Against the allies.

Man: convoy to russia Fights through.

Even wounded men they say left The sick bay to get at the hun.

[ speaks indistinctly ]

One of the reasons was because It was near allied

Shipping routes taking supplies To the soviet union.

Narrator: the crater's size And concentration

Provide clues to the origin

Of the mystery Underwater structure.

The evidence of extremely Heavy ordnance

Being used against This site suggests

That there was some sort of High value target located here.

We do know that this area Was associated with

One of the most infamous Warships to see combat.

And that was the german Battleship tirpitz.

Narrator: At 820 long and displacing

53,500 tons fully loaded.

The tirpitz is hitler's Most powerful

And fearsome battleship.

*

The tirpitz had as much Of a psychological impact

As a military one.

It was nicknamed "The beast"

And the british Were terrified of it.

Narrator: declassified Nazi files revealed

That the commander in chief Of the german navy

Sends the beast to the area In the image

In january 1942.

In fact, he sent it To the very fjord

That we found this Mysterious structure.

The question is are the two Connected and if so how?

*

Narrator: Over the following months

An epic game of cat and mouse

Unfolds between The british royal air force

And the german navy.

If this thing can get out Of the norwegian fjords

It can cause absolute mayhem

To all those allied convoys.

So for the british, it's one Of the most important objectives

Of the war.

They've got to destroy it.

*

Narrator: operation source, Operation tungsten, mascot,

Goodwood, paraven,

And obviate all failed To sink the beast.

*

Hitler's prized battleship It seems has magic powers

Making her invincible.

Almost all the bombers missed.

How did this happen? These were experienced crews.

These were enormous bombs.

Narrator: Aerial reconnaissance images

Reveal the beast's Secret weapon --

A giant invisibility cloak.

The tirpitz carries These big tanks

Of clorox sulfuric acid

Which they then decant Into the sea.

It reacts with the seawater

And creates this fog That rises around the vessel.

The smoke screen Was a perfect disguise

And it was incredible To believe

That this could shroud The entire vessel.

The raf was left virtually Bombing blind.

Narrator: the continued presence Of the beast

Keeps norway under nazi control And is starving the russians

Of vital supplies From america and britain.

By positioning tirpitz Where they did the ship

Could be used As a floating battery

To prevent an allied Landing in norway

And something had To be done about it.

Narrator: in november 1944,

The royal air force Launches operation catechism.

Led by one of the legendary Crack bombing units

Of world war ii.

617 squadron the so-called Dam busters.

*

Dam busters, These elite british aircrews

That get the really Specialized tasks.

They achieve surprise So the germans

Don't have the opportunity To create that obscuring cloud.

Man: as the lancs approach, Her guns open up.

Visibility is good, There's no smoke screen.

A whole squadron

Of lancaster bombers flies Over the tirpitz

And it drops hell on it.

Hell comes in the form Of these huge bombs.

They're called tallboys. And boy, do they wipe it out.

Man: watch for the 12,000 Pounder that stopped those guns

Once and for all.

Two of these things Hit the tirpitz

It's causing a massive explosion All the way through it.

And of course It's goodbye tirpitz.

That suggests an explanation For those bomb craters.

There the explosions of those Giant bombs

That the british Used against the tirpitz.

Narrator: yet the mystery Of the sunken structure

In the image remains.

That's not the tirpitz, But it's in the exact location

Where the tirpitz was sunk.

What is it?

Narrator: norwegian nautical Records reveal that

After the war Work begins on dismantling

Hitler's terror ship,

A job so big it takes Almost a decade to complete.

The object we see in this image Is actually a metal platform

That was built to conduct The hugely dangerous operation

Of scrapping the ship.

This once mighty battleship Was torn apart for scrap

And then just effectively Ceased to exist.

What we have left today Is still seen from satellite

Basically is all of that Is there to remind us of

What was at one time The pride of the german navy.

*

Narrator: coming up, something Big and weird in the woods.

This looks incredible. Trees don't do that.

Narrator: and the answer To science's greatest mystery?

It may have led to the creation Of all life on earth.

*

*

Narrator: september 1, 2017.

The world view 3 satellite Passing over southern japan

Spies something In the forest below.

*

It looks almost like An owl face

Looking right back at me.

This looks incredible.

There's this sequence Like a biological sequence.

Narrator: but there's nothing Natural about this.

There are many patterns In nature.

They're all over the place, But trees don't do that.

Narrator: researching The location further

Karen bellinger Discovers something.

*

This is a sacred forest.

Nearby sits a temple at The birthplace

Of the first emperor jimmu

Over 2,500 years ago.

In japan, There's a deep seated

And very strong vain Of emperor worship.

*

Is this object in the forest Some sort of link

To the imperial family

Some kind of dedication, A shrine of some sort?

*

Narrator: Historical texts confirm

That the japanese have performed Extreme tasks

To display their dedication To the imperial family.

During hitobashira,

Volunteers are buried alive In large buildings

To protect against Their future destruction.

Japanese emperors were said To be descended

From gods people worship them And revered them as such.

*

Narrator: bellinger considers if The trees have been planted

To represent a revered symbol Of the japanese emperors.

*

The chrysanthemum is perhaps The most potent symbol in japan.

It looks just like This satellite image.

Narrator: yet japanese emperor Worship ended in the 1940s.

These trees Don't look old enough.

The problem with this idea Is that

They'd be a lot bigger by now.

So I think it must be Something else.

Narrator: roland kays has A different theory.

The symmetrical nature of this Actually looks like

What you would see In the atomic gardens

Where they would actually have Radiation as part of the garden.

*

Narrator: like a real life Horror movie after world war ii

Scientists begin using Atomic radiation

To create mutant plants.

They call it atomic gardening.

Atomic gardening Actually arises

From something Called atoms for peace.

It's crazy to think But this atomic gardening

Actually became a kind of A popular hobby for people to do

To take some radiation Into their own backyard

And see what it did To the plants.

Narrator: japan, a nation almost Destroyed by nuclear bombs

Soon joins the quest

For radiation boosted Super fruit and vegetables.

Kays: some atomic gardens Had this circular shape

So it makes me wonder If this was the cause

Of the shape in these trees.

They actually take a source Of radiation like cobalt 60

Put it in the middle And then look

At how this radiation affects The plant as it radiates out.

*

Narrator: around the world,

Glowing Green-fingered gardeners

Succeed in creating over 3,000 varieties of atomic crops.

*

Packets of irradiated seeds

Were being shipped out To housewives.

Now go ahead have a go And it's just extraordinary.

But people did.

Narrator: But scientist tracy fanara

Thinks these Are not mutant trees.

*

With atomic gardening A lot of times

Those plants right around The center

Get too much of a dose And end up dying.

So you'll see in the center

There would be A lot of dead vegetation.

Narrator: fanara's analysis Yields another clue.

You see the trees In the center,

They're shorter but they're also Much more close together.

And as you go out you can see

That the trees are more And more spaced.

Narrator: fanara uncovers Forestry records

From the early 1970s

Which could explain this strange Precise arrangement.

This report shows That japanese scientists

Were running an experiment

To see how space Affects tree growth.

So what they did was plant 10 concentric rings of trees.

They had the same amount Of trees in each ring.

So when you were closer To the center of course

They were closer to each other.

Narrator: in a feat of Superhuman scientific endurance,

Over the next half century Botanist painstakingly monitor

How each ring of trees Develops.

And as you get out From that center

They get more spaced, More room

For sunlight and more room For their roots to grow

And get water so, of course, They grew taller.

Narrator: while the scientific Importance

Of this strange experiment

May be debatable, its impact From space is hard to deny.

*

Coming up,

Something other worldly Is stirring in the antarctic.

It lives and breathes And evolves over time.

*

*

Narrator: january 31, 2018.

Nasa's $855 million Lansat 8 satellite captures

This image of saunders island Near antarctica.

Nothing unusual

Until it reveals Its thermal infrared data.

*

To me, this image Is absolutely stunning.

Amongst all the snow And ice on this island

We see this bright red Kind of glowing spot.

Narrator: the data shows this Red dot is red hot.

How could there be A thermal anomaly

On the top of an icy mountain?

The data we have from Satellites shows us

That the temperatures here are Around 2,000 degrees fahrenheit.

There's only one thing On this planet that it could be

And that's lava.

Narrator: but this is No ordinary volcano.

And this is no ordinary lava.

The thermal data That we've collected

Via satellite has shown us

That this area Doesn't change in size,

It doesn't change in shape.

This spot has been about 2,000 Degrees fahrenheit for decades.

Usually if lava erupts it Solidifies pretty quickly.

It points to one thing That is super rare on earth

And that's a lava lake.

It's basically A cauldron of molten rock.

Narrator: worldwide there are Around 1,500

Potentially active volcanoes

But only half A dozen lava lakes.

For one to be found Under the ice and exist

For such a long period of time

Is almost unprecedented.

Lava lakes Are normally short lived.

To get a lava lake,

You need a situation Where you can continue

To have a persistent supply Of new magma into the chamber

And so that heat Is continually replenished.

That lava lake stays lava.

Narrator: Geologists speculate that

As the magma rises Pressure decreases

Releasing clouds Of superheated gases.

This creates a kind of blanket Insulating the lava lake

From the ice.

That's kind of Like a convection oven, right?

And so, The heat just circulates.

And you can basically Keep that area superheated.

*

Narrator: studies suggest The lava lake in the image

Could be up to 700 feet across

And contains millions Of gallons of lava.

These are unique windows Into the very guts of our planet

And how it lives and breathes And evolves over time.

*

Narrator: research also suggests These hellish portals

Could have played a vital role

In the evolution of life On earth.

*

Three and a half billion Years ago,

Volcanic activity May have provided the heat

And gases necessary

For the creation of amino acids, The building blocks of life.

We owe our existence To volcanoes.

These are the processes That supported the first life

On planet earth.

If it weren't for volcanoes We wouldn't even be here.

Narrator: what's more, During the cambrian period,

600 million years ago,

Volcanoes are the catalyst for The next big leap in evolution,

Multicellular organisms.

Over time, bacteria adapted These cellular membranes to try

And protect them From that extreme environment

And allowed it to divide Allowed it to then evolve.

And that may have led to

The creation Of all life on earth.

*

Narrator: this theory also helps Astronomers zero in

On potential homes For extra terrestrial life.

And nasa images suggest A likely candidate

Isn't too far away.

Jupiter's moon io Is the most volcanic world

In the solar system.

It's covered in volcanoes.

And what's really cool about it Is it also has lava lakes.

*

Narrator: io's powerful volcanic Forces create jets of lava

250 miles high,

A lava lake over 120 miles wide,

And some of the key conditions

That led to the explosion Of life on earth.

*

So by studying lava lakes Here on our own planet

We might start to find life Beyond earth

Elsewhere in our solar system

And maybe even beyond Our own solar system

And to other planetary systems.

Narrator: scientists have yet to Explore the giant lava lake

Discovered from space.

For now what lies hidden In its infernal depths

Remains a mystery.