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.

Revealed from space,

The ancient mega city The size of minnesota.

Funch: wow, look at that.

It's just another world.

It dwarfs any city That humans have ever built.

Narrator: the 5,000-year-old Cannibal chamber.

What happens is medieval In its brutality.

It's utterly barbaric.

Narrator: and the 10,000-ton Underwater time bomb.

It's getting more dangerous Every day.

It's a catastrophe Waiting to happen.

Narrator: baffling phenomena.

Mysteries from space.

What on earth are they?

*

*

July 13, 2019.

Scientist roy funch is Journeying to northern brazil.

He's here to investigate Something bizarre

Revealed from space.

You can't let an opportunity

Like this pass to see Something that's

Never been seen In a very real sense.

Narrator: high over the forests Of the caatinga region,

The geoeye-1 satellite Captures an expanse

Of barren soil recently Cleared by ranchers.

You see a semi-arid landscape With some kind of pockmarks.

It almost looks to me like It could have been bomb craters

Or some type of Holes in the ground.

Narrator: Analysts count more than

300 circles across Two patches of scrub,

But zooming in reveals They aren't holes at all.

It looks like They're not depressions

But are raised areas, Mounds of some sort.

Krueger: when I look At the image,

The idea that these structures Could be some type of

Burial mounds is plausible.

Giant burial mounds have been Discovered elsewhere

In the amazon,

Dating back as far as 6,000 years ago.

Narrator: if the satellite has Revealed an undiscovered

Ancient burial site,

Then its scale is unparalleled.

It's so vast -- The possibility that

They could be burial mounds Is amazing.

Narrator: funch is skeptical Of the burial mound theory.

There's too many of them, You know,

The burial mounds are usually Reserved for, you know, chiefs

And high priests And rich people.

Narrator: yet what they are Is hard to tell.

Funch: there's nothing like this In the world that I know of,

And I've never heard anything About them.

Narrator: the mounds sit In a 386,000-square-mile

Wilderness known As the white forest.

What we call caatinga, Which is a drier land,

Thorny, deciduous Vegetation that's...

Really totally intertwined.

You can't see More than 20, 30 feet in.

*

*

Okay, this should be the spot.

*

Narrator: led by the image Coordinates, funch treks west,

Seeking signs of the mounds Among the thorns and scrub.

*

*

Really hot.

It gets sweltering here.

It's in the 90s Already here,

But it'll get to 100

Quite easily.

I think we're getting near

The mound fields I saw In the, uh, satellite images.

This is -- This is where they are.

Oh, wow, there we go. There we go.

Mounds.

Wow.

Oh, boy.

Look at that.

*

*

Magnificent.

These are not burial mounds.

How tall they are, How evenly spaced they are.

It's just another world.

Narrator: Having reached the site In the satellite image,

Funch doubts These are manmade,

Nor does he believe They are

A naturally occurring feature Of the landscape.

It's just actually Inconceivable that there'd be

A purely

Geological origin, They're too symmetrical,

They're too even.

They're too well-spaced.

For me, they're pretty Obviously biogenic,

Almost certainly built By some sort of a creature.

Narrator: and funch has Suspicions about which creature.

Funch: I'm more pushed toward It being a termite mound

Than any other animal That I can think of.

Termites are famous

For some of The huge structures

In africa and australia.

You get huge termite mounds, Very complex structures

Taller than this.

Narrator: but these structures Look very different from

Termite mounds found Elsewhere in the world,

And as funch explores further,

He discovers that they cover A wider area

Than he ever imagined.

Okay, you can see, There's a mound over there.

It's quite camouflaged -- One, two,

A third one over there.

There's no reason why They shouldn't keep on going.

This far -- It just goes on and on.

*

Narrator: returning to The satellite image,

Funch makes A staggering discovery.

Not hundreds of mounds, Not even thousands...

But millions,

200 million mounds Stretching through

The white forest For 90,000 square miles.

If you zoom out a little bit,

You can see the huge scale That we're talking about,

More than the state Of michigan.

Funch: it's unbelievable.

Narrator: if this is the work Of termites,

It's easily the largest colony On earth.

But what baffles funch Is that

This land appears To be lifeless.

Funch: I don't see any Termite activity.

I haven't seen A lizard, a snake, or an ant

Or anything crawling Around here.

But this is the kind of Environment that

You just don't want To be active during the day.

Narrator: to learn more, Funch waits for dusk.

*

At night, the white forest Is a hunting ground

For various wild animals,

[ animal cries out ]

But funch's prey is smaller.

[ animal cries out ]

Funch: now, You have to be quiet

When you're looking For termites.

You have to tread softly,

Because they're very Sensitive to vibrations

On the ground.

There's the guys.

Lots of 'em around here.

Narrator: termites are Earth's great survivors.

They were here before The dinosaurs

250 million years ago.

Now, there's the hole -- I found the hole.

I see the guy Popping in and out.

Narrator: but there's No building activity.

This seems to be A foraging party

Rather than A construction team.

That's a leaf They chewed on.

They probably have chambers Where they -- where they

Store this food For future.

Narrator: after several hours

Observing in the dark, Funch is no closer

To understanding The hills seen from space.

Funch: the only way we'll Ever know that is

If we come out During the day

And dig 'em up.

Narrator: coming up, A truly ancient mega city.

As far as I know, There's nothing like this

Anywhere in the world.

Narrator: and the human bullet.

It's insane.

It's absolutely Crushing pressure.

Narrator: Roy funch is in brazil's Arid caatinga forest

Investigating mysterious Mounds revealed from space.

These mounds are all over The place, millions of them.

Narrator: 200 million of them.

Funch suspects

They're the work of A monster termite colony.

The only way we're gonna Get to them is to dig.

Narrator: and he's bound For the nearest town,

Looking to hire a crew To dig one up.

*

*

[ dog barking ]

Funch estimates that each Mound is up to 30 feet wide

And 13 feet tall And as hard as rock.

[ speaking foreign language ]

Narrator: breaking into it Will take serious manpower...

[ speaking foreign language ]

...Or horsepower.

*

*

Narrator: termite mounds are Normally riddled with

Ventilation shafts leading To numerous chambers.

At the very heart sits The royal chamber.

Here resides the queen.

One of the most extraordinary Females in all nature,

She can lay 25 eggs a minute For up to 50 years,

Time enough to have a family Of 250 million.

[ creaking noises ]

Narrator: Paydirt would be a series Of labyrinthine tunnels.

*

[ grunts ]

Okay.

This is -- This is pure clay.

This is what's Under the mountain.

Narrator: but they've hit Plain dirt.

We've dug into What appears to be a...

Um, mound of dirt,

All right, this is -- They're not living here.

I'm bamboozled a bit -- I was Expecting some sort of, um,

Chamber underneath here.

Narrator: for entomologist Eleanor spicer rice,

The absence of a chamber Is fascinating.

These termites are Really unique.

Many species will build These structures to live in,

But because the forest Is so dry in this area,

These termites are constantly On the move to find more food.

These mounds are just them Piling up the trash

As they tunnel Through the earth,

Looking for leaves to eat.

Funch: there seems to be No construction involved in it.

This is just a -- A slag heap.

Narrator: these aren't nests, They're waste dumps

For a truly monster Tunneling project,

A termite mega city The size of great britain.

It dwarfs any city That humans have ever built --

It's mind-boggling.

Narrator: analysis suggests That every year,

The insects here excavate Over 50 million tons of soil.

Rice: the amount that's Been moved around to build

These tremendous mounds

Is the equivalent of 4,000 great pyramids of giza.

This is a huge structure Built by tiny insects.

Funch: as far as I know, If there's nothing

Like this anywhere In the world,

Narrator: and funch's Investigation reveals

This ocean of mounds has been Millennia in the making.

Funch: given their level of Preservation here

In the dry lands,

These mounds could be Older than christ.

Narrator: Soil analysis confirms

Some of these insect mounds Are 4,000 years old,

Built more than 2,000 years Before the rise

Of the roman empire,

And the excavation that Produced them is the most

Extensive Bioengineering effort

By a single insect species Anywhere on the planet.

Bellinger: this is Actually a mega city

As old as the great cities Of antiquity.

Absolutely incredible.

Narrator: coming up,

The subsea super bomb Threatening millions of people.

Kourounis: it has the potential To be one of

The largest non-nuclear Explosions in the history

Of mankind.

Narrator: and a new aquatic Threat to our planet.

The need for studying this Is really urgent.

[ helicopter blades whirring ]

Narrator: london,

The world's financial capital,

With a population larger Than new york city,

But a city that may be Under mortal threat.

Satellites constantly monitor Ocean traffic around the world.

Ships ping their position Using automatic

Identification system Transponders, or ais.

Albertson: ais is the vessel Tracking service,

Which allows you to map The location of vessels

In real time to see Where they're going.

Narrator: the ais system tracks Thousands of vessels every year

Entering and leaving the river Thames', the mighty waterway

On which london is built,

And reveals a mystery.

Everybody's staying away From this one spot.

There is a dead zone, A place where

All of these ships are Avoiding like the plague.

What is so dangerous That these ships have

To give this area Such a wide berth?

Narrator: military historian David silbey turns to

A high resolution image Of the area.

There's clearly some kind of Structure there.

It's almost a diamond shape Of buoys,

And then in the middle, there Are other structures that seem

To be sticking Out of the water.

So perhaps there's actually A shipwreck of some sort here.

Narrator: silbey crosschecks The spacing of

The submerged structures With known vessel designs.

The shipwreck there is Of a liberty ship,

And the three shapes

In the middle are the masts Sticking up out of the water.

Narrator: liberty ships hail From world war ii,

Built by america To save britain.

Britain is under siege, because She's being bombed from the air,

And you've got the u boats,

The german submarines,

And there's a severe danger That britain could be

Entirely cut off And run on empty.

Narrator: during the war, American shipyards

Crank out 2,000 liberty ships,

Each capable of carrying 10,000 tons

Of vital supplies to The beleaguered nation.

Silbey: they're slapping them Together as quickly as possible.

By the end of the war,

One liberty ship takes only 42 days to build.

Walters: these liberty ships, That are absolutely vital to

The lifeline of britain During her darkest hours.

Narrator: But the liberty wreck revealed From space puzzles analysts.

Kourounis: Other ships are giving it An extremely wide berth,

More so than they would Really need to

If it was just a regular Navigational hazard.

Silbey: checking further, Things get even stranger.

The whole area is designated As a foul area,

Which means not only is Navigation restricted and ships

Banned from it, but all human Activity is disallowed.

Narrator: Experts turned to declassified World war ii defense records.

Nautical logs reveal that What lies at the bottom

Is actually The ss richard montgomery,

Which sank in 1944.

[ boat horn blows ]

Narrator: in july that year, America sends the ss montgomery

Laden with heavy munitions To liberate europe

From the nazi terror.

The ship had been packed With about 9,000 explosives,

Of which about 300 Are 2,000-pound bombs.

Silbey: montgomery makes it all The way to the thames estuary

And anchors there safely... Or so it seems.

The ship began to drag Its anchor, drifted out

Over a sandbar,

And as the tide went down, It settled on the sandbar.

The keel wasn't able To withstand

The weight of All this stuff on it.

And so it snapped in two And sank

With the munitions on board.

Narrator: Almost eight decades later,

The wreck remains loaded with Over 1,400 tons of munitions,

And it is sitting In shallow water

Not far from one of The largest cities in europe.

The ship is Actually deteriorating,

And the sandbar is Actually shifting.

It's a catastrophe Waiting to happen.

Silbey: Bombs and incendiary devices.

The ship is, quite literally, A ticking time bomb.

Narrator: The montgomery's apocalyptic Cargo forces authorities

To keep her exclusion zone Under 24-hour surveillance.

A ship built to save British lives now presents

A deadly hazard to Countless boats and people.

Kourounis: this is A busy shipping lane,

And at any moment, Something could go wrong.

It only takes one incident To literally send

This ordnance two miles Up into the air.

It can have the potential To be one of

The largest non-nuclear Explosions in the history

Of mankind.

Narrator: london and satellite Towns like sheerness

On the coast face A deadly threat.

The population could have A casualty rate far higher

Than anything it suffered In the second world war.

Narrator: yet a one-and-1/2 Kiloton blast

Isn't the only thing that Could devastate london.

Worst-case scenario,

This ordnance blows And causes a tsunami.

Some analysts have concluded It would race up the thames

And smash into The center of london.

Narrator: A city of countless historical Buildings and monuments,

Nine million people, and one Rusting ship that threatens

To do to the city what Hitler couldn't.

We like to think that World war ii ended in 1945,

But what the richard Montgomery reveals is that

The war is still going on Even to this day.

Narrator: coming up,

The hunt for the mad Dictator's mass graves.

This is just the latest In a long list

Of horrific offenses Carried out against

His subjects.

Narrator: and the world's Weirdest test track.

Picture this thing -- it's Powered by two jet engines

From a b-36 bomber.

Narrator: july 2019.

Europe is in the grip Of a brutal drought.

Janulis: in the summer, Parts of europe recorded

The hottest heatwave they've Experienced in modern history.

Narrator: In spain, temperatures climb To 110 degrees fahrenheit.

Janulis: a consequence of this, A lot of the bodies

Of water began dropping At a rapid rate,

Getting lower than They ever have.

Narrator: as waters recede In the extremadura region

Of the country,

A ghost from the past is Captured by satellite cameras.

Suddenly, Seemingly out of nowhere,

This ring appears On the shoreline,

An almost perfect circle.

Narrator: the ring-shaped mound Is around 120 feet wide.

Krueger: it would have taken

A significant amount of effort To build something like this,

So it must have some Important significance.

Narrator: the waters here form Part of a reservoir system.

David krueger looks at Its history for clues.

Krueger: this was formed As a result of

A dam project by the infamous General francisco franco.

Narrator: Fascist dictator franco

Ruled spain From 1939 to 1975.

Krueger: he's kind of spain's Answer to adolf hitler.

He's a really brutal leader Who ruled

With an iron fist For decades over spain.

Narrator: franco's reign is Characterized by

Violent oppression Of the spanish people.

Krueger: I wonder if this formation is Something that general franco

Actually wanted to cover up By flooding the area.

Narrator: franco's attempt To seize power causes

The spanish civil war Of 1936 to 1939.

With support from hitler And mussolini,

His nationalist rebels defeat The republicans

In a conflict that claims Around 200,000 lives.

The spanish civil war is Particularly brutal, because now

You're incorporating modern Bombers and tanks into combat,

Killing thousands of soldiers

But also killing thousands Of civilians.

Narrator: following his victory, Franco embarks on a campaign of

Violence and terror on those Who oppose his fascist ideals.

Walters: anybody's an enemy of The state, you name it --

Liberals, communists, Christians --

Well, they're all targeted.

Narrator: they call it The white terror.

Franco's death squads butcher Another 200,000 people.

What happens in spain Is kind of medieval

In its brutality.

You hear stories of Death squads carrying out

Mass public executions, You know, in bullrings

And grizzly tales of supporters Supposedly dancing

In the victims' blood.

It's utterly barbaric.

Narrator: Around 140,000 of franco's Victims have never been found,

Buried in secret mass Graves around the country.

People who were killed And ended up

In these mass graves are known Today as spain's disappeared.

Is it possible that what We see here is an example

Of a mass grave site that Franco covered up

Underneath the waters?

Narrator: Yet for klint janulis, Further aerial images of

The structure suggest It has a much older origin.

Janulis: I believe it predates Any industrial technologies.

You've got these stones That have been carved

And then placed vertically In a formation

That looks like Neolithic sites

We see across The uk and europe.

Narrator: the neolithic, Also called the new stone age,

Begins around 12,000 years ago.

It sees mankind evolving From being hunter-gatherers

To farming the land And forming larger tribes.

And at sites around europe,

Mysterious clusters Of standing stones

Begin to appear.

It's an era In which everything

In the world is Changing dramatically,

And people suddenly Have the ability

To build large things On a big scale.

Narrator: The exact purpose of these Ancient edifices is a mystery.

Yet janulis thinks One section of

The spanish structure Could offer a clue.

The interesting aspect for me Is the entryway.

This is a classic shape That we see in sites made

Of stone from the neolithic And the early bronze age.

Narrator: janulis calculates That the entryway is

Precisely aligned

To the rising sun During the summer solstice.

Janulis: what that means is, On the summer solstice,

The first light of day Would have come through there

And lit up The entire inside,

And that makes it a possible Ritualistic or ceremonial site.

Narrator: archaeologists think That the structure once had

A roof, creating a prehistoric Edifice called a dolmen.

Dolmens are ritual structures That are related to death.

We have to remember that With the earth on top of it,

This would have been A very dark entryway

Into the underworld,

Into a sacred space for Communing with the ancestors.

Narrator: archaeological records Offer grim clues as to how

The ancient peoples At this site communed

With their ancestors.

When your relative dies, You might

Engage in cannibalism.

This is the idea that you are Eating a piece of your ancestor,

That you are literally Taking a piece of them

And incorporating it Into your body.

Narrator: Tests reveal that this ritual Death chamber dates back

Around 5,000 years ago,

When pagans worshiped At stonehenge and pharaohs were

Being interred In the great pyramids.

But before archaeologists Can investigate further,

The waters rise, and its Ancient secrets are reclaimed

Once more.

How lucky are we to get This brief glimpse from space

Of this civilization That lived so many years ago?

Who knows when we'll get To see it again.

Narrator: coming up, The human crash test dummy.

His injuries are brutal,

I mean, broken wrists, Broken ribs,

Fillings sucked Out of his teeth.

Narrator: and what's turning Millions of fish into mutants?

This is something that's Happening all over the u.S.

Narrator: july 4, 2019.

The worldview-2 satellite flying Over central france captures

A dark feature in The patchwork of fields below.

Chamberlain: this looks Very unusual.

There is a stick straight Black line.

I mean, just as straight As you can get

Right through these fields.

It's a lot thinner Than a road --

It's not a road.

If I zoom out and follow The structure down,

It keeps going.

Narrator: The arrow-straight streak

Dissects 11 miles of Verdant countryside.

What is this thing, And what's it doing

In the middle of Rural france?

Narrator: journalist Sara carter studies

The strange black streak In detail.

Carter: one thing you can see Are these slats

Equal distances apart In this structure.

So what it appears to be Is a track.

Narrator: carter has seen A track like this before.

It reminds me Of test tracks

At holloman air force base In new mexico.

It's actually used to run Rocket sleds.

Narrator: at 50,000 feet long,

The holloman rocket sled track Is around

The same length As the track in the image.

First deployed in 1949, It plays a critical role

In preparing man and machine For the rigors of

Supersonic flight.

They put whatever they need To be tested on this sled

And just shoot it Off with the rockets.

You need these tracks to test These new technologies,

But you also need human Guinea pigs who will

Subject themselves To this kind of stress.

Narrator: Human rocket sled tests are Pioneered by colonel john stapp.

On december 10, 1954,

He straps himself Into sonic wind 1.

If you're going at jet speed,

It's not the speed that's Dangerous for humans,

It's the acceleration And then the deceleration.

And this is what Designers were testing.

Narrator: The sleds' rockets erupt With 40,000 pounds of thrust.

Stapp accelerates to 632 miles Per hour in five seconds

Then slams to a standstill In just 1.4 seconds,

The equivalent of 46 gs.

That's more than 10 times what Astronauts feel on liftoff

To get out of The earth's atmosphere.

It's insane -- it's absolutely Crushing pressure.

Wawro: his injuries Are brutal, I mean,

Broken wrists, broken ribs,

Fillings sucked Out of his teeth.

Narrator: Yet when geoffrey wawro Reanalyzes the satellite image,

He decides this can't be A rocket sled track.

Wawro: it's not actually Flush with the ground.

It's raised -- we see shadows From the struts of

These stanchions Holding it up.

It looks much more like The classic raised

Monorail platforms.

Narrator: Historian wawro suspects The remote monorail is a relic

Of a bizarre abandoned Engineering project.

In the mid to late sixties,

This french designer, Jean bertin,

Had this idea for A hovertrain.

So it looks to me that This is part of

That initial architecture for What he called an aerotrain.

Narrator: bertin's hovertrain Is born of

A desire to radically Modernize france's

Creaking railroad network.

An aeronautical engineer By training,

Bertin forsakes Conventional steel rails

And designs his train to Work more like an aircraft.

It's powered by these engines That also power compressors

That create this cushion of air Underneath the train.

So the train is guided by This concrete platform

But not actually touching it,

So all friction is eliminated.

Narrator: bertin builds The 16-foot-high test track

At a cost of $30 million In today's money.

On july 7th, 1969, he unveils His prototype aerotrain.

Weighing 11 tons,

She's powered by a pair Of 1,600-horsepower turbines

Driving a seven-foot Ducted fan.

Hymel: these trains at the time Looked like something

Out of buck rogers,

And this was gonna be The next stage of trains.

You were gonna travel in class

And comfort and style At high speeds

All across europe.

Announcer: modern interior decor And luxurious seating

Give passengers Much the same feeling

As riding in a jet aircraft.

Narrator: hovering four inches Above the track,

Bertin's floating train Travels at 155 miles per hour

On its first test run.

It goes on to smash The rail speed record.

Wawro: they tested this thing up To, like, 267 miles per hour.

This was A stupendous achievement.

Narrator: bertin's success Pushes others around the world

To design even more extreme Versions of his hovertrain.

In the u.S., railway engineers Create this monstrous

Jet-powered railcar Called the black beetle.

Ruben: the black beetle Is amazing.

It's a train with wheels Powered by

Two jet engines From a b-36 bomber.

Narrator: following His triumphant test runs,

Bertin draws up plans to build A 500-mile-long track

Connecting brussels With geneva.

But in 1974, bertin's dream is Derailed when the french elect

Valery giscard d'estaing

As their president.

Wawro: giscard d'estaing Sees an opportunity

To shift funding away

From bertin's aerotrain And into the tgv,

The train A la grande vitesse.

It travels up to 200 miles per hour.

[ whining noise ]

Narrator: giscard d'estaing Cancels the aerotrain's funding.

The following year, Jean bertin dies and, with him,

His jet-powered Hovertrain dream.

Chamberlain: so now there are These concrete rails.

You can see them From space,

Standing here as a monument To jet train ingenuity.

Narrator: coming up, Weird science in the water.

There are rumors of Government scientists

Coming in And lakes changing color.

Narrator: august 9, 2018.

Passing 380 miles Above ontario, canada,

The worldview-3 Satellite spots

Something strange In a body of water below.

Fanara: so this image, We see this beautiful lake

In the middle of nowhere,

But then we see these nine Ring-like structures.

Narrator: whatever these are,

Analysts don't think They're fish farms.

Phoenix: there's no signs of Civilization near this lake.

It's almost like these little Circular things

Were just dropped Out of the sky.

It's really strange.

Joyce: this lake is in A very remote area.

It makes me wonder if The activity I'm seeing

At the lake is meant to be Hidden from public view.

Narrator: local social media Posts seem to confirm this.

They have rumors of Government scientists

Coming in And lakes changing color.

Narrator: analysts turn to Historic images of the lake.

This really gives us Insight into

What the population Was talking about.

You see this lake, and it's Two-tone, two different colors

Phoenix: Because it's such a dramatic Difference in water color,

This really reminds me of some Other areas I've seen

Where there have been Algae blooms.

Narrator: left unchecked,

Algae blooms constrict The oxygen from a body of water

In days.

It looks like as if the lake Was partitioned in order

To maybe do something like Prevent the algae bloom

From spreading.

Maybe it was for some type Of experiment.

Narrator: environment department Records confirm that

For half a century,

This lake, and 57 others in The area, are used as giant

Outdoor aquatic laboratories.

This is an actual Experimentation center

Where scientists can find out

How different chemicals And different land use changes

Can affect these lakes.

Narrator: records confirm That during the 1970s,

Scientists partition The lake to investigate

The cause of killer Algae blooms.

They had the hypothesis That it was phosphorus,

A common nutrient Found in fertilizers.

They found that the half With the phosphorus loading

Proliferated a bloom Almost immediately.

I would guess that These floating circles

Are most likely Their next experiment.

Narrator: a detail In the image provides

A clue to the experiment Taking place here.

Up close, Inside these circles,

You can actually see a sheen A lot like when you see

Oil on blacktop.

It makes me think that perhaps There's some oil in there

That they're trying to keep Separated from the rest

Of the lake water.

Narrator: since 1990, Approximately two million tons

Of oil have been spilled Into oceans and waterways.

Dennie: by spilling oil In these pens,

We can observe how it reacts With its natural environment.

Narrator: the satellite Has captured evidence of

The ingenious ways scientists Are tackling

This catastrophic problem.

Brensberger: They figured out that there's A type of oil-eating bacteria

As well as filtering plants That can actually help

Clean all this up,

One of the best solutions We found this far.

Narrator: the giant lake Laboratory revealed from space

Is also investigating why Something fishy is happening

To waterways around the world.

In areas with high Population density,

Scientists have found that Fish present in the waterways

Experience some degree Of feminization.

Narrator: in waterways Around the country,

Male fish are mutating Into females,

And our sexual habits May be to blame.

When birth control pills Are used,

They're not completely Absorbed into the body,

Thus they end up in our waste.

So human waste Goes back into sewage treatment

And then back Into our water supply.

Narrator: 151 million women Across the globe

Use the contraceptive pill.

Studies suggest that As estrogen levels

In water supplies increase,

It could reduce sperm counts And fertility levels worldwide.

The need for studying This is really urgent,

Because this is something That's happening

All over the u.S.

Narrator: To test their hypothesis,

Scientists bombard minnows With synthetic estrogen.

The estrogen feminized The male minnows so much so that

They could no longer even Fertilize the female minnows.

In some cases, They produced eggs themselves.

Narrator: The prospect of egg-laying Humans is mercifully remote,

But from killer algae blooms To lethal oil spills,

The giant aquatic labs seen From space are tackling

Some of mankind's Biggest challenges,

One bizarre experiment At a time.

This is a pretty wacky place, But the reality is,

Is that, as a scientist,

This is a great way To truly understand

How we're affecting the earth.