All language subtitles for What.on.Earth.S10E04.1080p.DSCP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-BTN_track3_[eng]

NARRATOR:
They're watching you.

More than 5,000 satellites
circle the Earth.

Every day,
they uncover new

mysterious phenomena
that defy explanation.

Murder and Masonic rituals
in the wilds of Scotland.

HORTON:
This is really weird.

I've never seen anything
quite like it.

NARRATOR: The ghost soldiers
of World War II.

They've become these almost
mythological warriors that

the Germans just don't know
how to deal with.

NARRATOR:
And terror in the Arctic.

Somewhere down there is
an unrecovered nuclear weapon.

NARRATOR: Baffling phenomena,
mysteries from space.

What on Earth are they?

[theme music playing]

♪

March 10th, 2021.

The barren borders of
south Scotland.

A wilderness of heathland,
forest,

and something hidden from
human eyes.

I'm really excited about
this image, because it's

a genuine mystery that
I'm really keen to unravel.

NARRATOR: The laser pulse
of a LIDAR scanner has

revealed a bizarre structure
concealed by dense forest.

There's something man-made
here under the soil.

It looks like a giant
jigsaw puzzle.

NARRATOR: Archaeologist
Mark Horton is hiking into

these remote lands to
investigate the new discovery.

HORTON: It's really weird --
it appears to be

a gigantic castle or fortress
in these woods.

NARRATOR: Scotland's bloody
history is reflected

in the number of castles here,

but they're always built
on hills to dominate

the landscape.

There's no historical record
of these structures at all,

and then there's a wood placed

on top of them, almost as if
these ancient remains

are meant to be hidden.

NARRATOR: Much of
the 1,800 square miles Scottish

borders are devoid of life
or buildings.

But not far
from the LIDAR structure,

Horton spots an outline that
matches its scale and shape.

Wow, what an amazing castle.

It's all so complete.

NARRATOR: The hilltop
stronghold may hold clues

to the mystery in the woods.

HORTON: It's got arrow slits,
but also these holes

for artillery --
late medieval guns,

so we're talking 14th, 15th
century, something like that.

And maybe the images I've seen
in the LIDAR

might also be of that same
sort of date.

NARRATOR: The walls are up
to 40 feet high

and heavily fortified.

Incredibly small entrance.

You could hardly get a horse
through there.

NARRATOR: To Horton,
there's something

strange about this castle.

Inside, it's all so small.

You'd normally have an enormous
castle courtyard, but actually,

this is the size of most
people's living rooms.

It's kind of like
a domestic house.

NARRATOR:
This hilltop fortification

and structure in the woods

both sit on the frontier with
Scotland's once bitter enemy.

We're right on the border
between England and Scotland,

and of course,
up until the 17th century,

there were different
nations continually

at war with one another.

[indistinct battle noise]

NARRATOR: War between
the English and Scots begins in

the 13th century
and rages for 400 years.

The territory around the LIDAR
image is contested fiercely,

becoming a medieval Wild West.

This border region was an area
of complete lawlessness in

which bandits and raiding
parties were killing everybody,

raiding people's stock,
destroying their houses,

burning their farms,

and these were known
as the border reivers.

NARRATOR:
Reivers, meaning raiders,

hailed from both sides
of the border.

They have no allegiance
to the English

or Scottish crowns, just to
their own family clans.

People here lived in
very small

communities, and family ties
were paramount.

The clan ruled all.

NARRATOR: With crops burned
and food scarce in wartime,

cutthroat reiver clans take
what they need by force.

Skilled horsemen and masters
of arson and extortion,

they terrorized the Anglo-
Scottish border for centuries.

SZULGIT: Sometimes,
the reivers will be made out

to be these lovable rogues,
but in actuality,

these were well-organized,
deadly groups,

and it was more like a mafia.

NARRATOR: Modest farming folk
are powerless to resist,

but the wealthy build
fortified keeps

known as peel towers.

HORTON: They had to live
in places like this,

because they were in fear of
their lives.

There might also be castles
further up

the valley associated with
these border reivers.

NARRATOR: Bearing northeast,
the archaeologist heads to

the greenery recently
scanned by laser.

I think this must be the wood
I've seen on the LIDAR image,

but actually,
it's quite impenetrable.

NARRATOR: 15 acres of
dense forest are

cordoned off with thousands
of feet of wire,

much of it ill-maintained.

It's a bit
of tumbled down fence,

I think, that might get me
in here.

[groans]

♪

Something here --
kind of depression or ditch.

It's so faint,

very difficult to see.

NARRATOR: The ditches match
the outline of the image.

I'm absolutely certain
it's what I've seen

on that LIDAR image.

NARRATOR: But there are

no medieval fortifications
whatsoever.

There's no masonry here.

There's no collapsed walls --
whatever it is,

this is really weird.

I've never seen anything
quite like it.

NARRATOR:
Coming up,

the cult of
the invisible castle.

It's a place of secrecy
and ritual.

NARRATOR: And Nevada's lost

multibillion-dollar
treasure hoard.

It is a geyser of cash for
anyone involved.

NARRATOR: Drawn by strange
shapes revealed

by LIDAR aerial images,

archaeologist Mark Horton is
in the wild Scottish borders.

I've never seen
anything quite like it.

NARRATOR:
He anticipated a ruined fort,

but these shapes
are something else.

What's really odd is that
we've got all

these tree stumps on the top
of the bank.

This woodland is all
a bit higgledy piggledy,

but actually, these stumps
form a deliberate

straight line, as if they've
actually been planned.

NARRATOR:
Lines of rotting stumps match

the contours of the shapes in
the LIDAR image.

Someone has
planted hundreds

of trees to mimic
a medieval fort.

HORTON: Those tree stumps,
okay, they're old,

but they're clearly
not medieval.

Maybe the whole structure is
much more recent.

NARRATOR:
The archaeologists scours

English military records.

After they defeat Scotland
in 1745,

the English decide that to
control this wild land,

they need to map it properly.

This old map from 1858

actually shows our fort.

It's defined by not a wall
but a set of trees.

It's not a fort at all,

but part of a planned
ornamental landscape.

NARRATOR: This isn't
some medieval ruins.

It's a gargantuan garden,
a bizarre castle plantation.

Stranger still, this mighty
undertaking appears to

have been deliberately
concealed in a forest.

Why would anyone
go to the trouble

to create these weird features
in the landscape?

NARRATOR: Searching
the surrounding valley,

Horton finds that the weird
plantation isn't

the only relic hidden
in this corner of Scotland.

What's that over there?

It looks like
a ruined building.

It's in awful condition.

NARRATOR: Father Time
hasn't left much to go on.

These are graves.

That must be the east end.

So they also would originally
have been around here.

Look, we've got
more gravestones.

This must be
a broken-down chapel.

NARRATOR: A chapel suggests
this landscape wasn't always

so desolate.

HORTON: That makes me think
that possibly this is

a big estate here,
with a rich landowner

who had the money
and resources to do

these fancy plantations,

but why would he put
these weird

sort of castle-like features
up on the landscape.

It still doesn't
make sense to me.

NARRATOR: A ruined monument
may hold a clue.

I can make out a sort of
schematic skeleton

holding a lance.

He's holding an hourglass

to show the passage of time.

A skeleton with the scepter

and an hourglass is
a classic symbol of death,

also known as
the king of terrors.

NARRATOR: The king of
terrors is rumored to

be a symbol of an infamously
secretive society.

It's seen in Masonic texts,
so it could suggest that we

are seeing a garden created by
a member of the Masons.

NARRATOR: Freemasonry
is the world's

oldest and largest fraternal
organization.

SZULGIT: No one really knows the
true origin of the Freemasons,

but several people say it
began in Scotland

right around this area.

NARRATOR: Freemasonry
in Scotland is born at

the turn of the 16th century,

cut from the rock that

builds Britain's great castles
and cathedrals.

The Freemasons developed out
of old stone masons, and it was

a way of ensuring that someone
was suitably qualified

to do the job.

There was
a secret language that

evolved in symbols, including
a special handshake.

NARRATOR: As the building
of cathedrals declines,

Masons accept
honorary members.

The rich and influential
are initiated in

strange ceremonies marked by
obscure codes and rituals.

By the late 18th century,

the Masons are a powerful,
clandestine cabal,

who count king George IV among
their ranks.

One of the most famous of

the later Freemasons was
the novelist Sir Walter Scott.

A lot of the pageantry
of Freemasonry owes a debt

to Sir Walter Scott, because he
was obsessed with medievalism.

NARRATOR: Scott is
a Renaissance icon who

writes the legendary
historical novel Ivanhoe .

His swashbuckling tales
paint medieval Scotland

as a land of heroic chivalry,

while his epic ballads
romanticized the outlaws

he calls the border reivers.

SZULGIT: He mythologized the
reivers and the early period.

This idea of the past
was adopted by

the Masons and became part of
their tradition.

NARRATOR: Rich Masons honor
Scott with extravagant

tributes to his obsession
with medievalism,

coded messages to their
most celebrated

member and to
their Masonic brethren.

Landowners inspired by
Walter Scott and his writings

create structures in
the landscape to hark back

to a medieval past
and the border reivers.

Freemasons obsessed with
secret symbols

would have known
what it meant.

NARRATOR: LIDAR has revealed
a rotting cipher

grown from Scots pine
and stout oak

and hidden by forest
in the cradle

of Freemasonry.

But the strangest
stories of this site

remain a mystery, safeguarded
by Masonic oath.

It's tantalizing
to think what might

have actually happened
inside these forests,

a place of secrecy
and ritual.

NARRATOR: Coming up,
Nazi terror from the skies.

The men who survived had gone
through a hellish ordeal.

NARRATOR: And a colossal code
in the desert sands.

This is an incredible
piece of U.S. History,

and you can see it
from space.

NARRATOR:
December 2020.

A satellite passing over
the coastal city

of Tobruk in Libya
captures this image.

MORGAN:
Everything looks very arid,

but running right through
the middle is this line.

Behind the line, are a series
of these oval structures.

It looks like two eyes
and a nose or a mouth,

perhaps --
it's really strange.

NARRATOR: Further analysis
reveals something even stranger.

CAVELL:
When we zoom out,

there are dozens of
these structures

all over the landscape,
and this zigzag line

actually continues in an arc
around the entire city as well.

NARRATOR: Military records
reveal the satellite has

captured the legacy
of an extraordinary

sequence of events,

ones that took place here
over 80 years ago.

HYMEL: It's amazing to think
that these simple shapes in

the desert

had such an incredible
importance to World War II

and world history.

NARRATOR:
During World War II,

Tobruk is the only port in
Eastern Libya

capable of harboring
large military ships.

Between 1940 and 1943,

it plays a central role in
the North Africa campaign,

a battle for domination
of this region's

strategic
and oil-rich sands.

CAVELL: Anyone who has control
of the port of Tobruk

is gonna have control of
the eastern Mediterranean.

If it's captured by an enemy,

it's gonna be very hard
to get shipping

into the Suez Canal.

ALBERTSON:
Tobruk was an extremely

strategically valuable city,

and both the British
and the Germans wanted it.

NARRATOR:
At the outbreak of the war,

Libya is an Italian colony.

To protect his prized asset
from advancing Allied troops,

Mussolini surrounds the city
with a 28-mile-long anti-tank

ditch and defensive positions.

What you're seeing in
the image is actually

a defensive point
for the Italians

constructed prior
to the Allied invasion.

CAVELL: And then
the ovals that we see,

they're actually strong points,
artillery positions,

machine gun nests, and places
where you can have

a number of infantrymen
along the wall.

NARRATOR: On January 21st,
1941, the Allies'

36,000-strong Western
Desert Force attacks Tobruk.

The Italian defensive
forces, accustomed to fighting

smaller armies in colonized
Africa, proved to be no match

for the battle-hardened Brits
and Australians.

The Italians were really good
at beating up on little kids.

That's a very coarse way of
putting it,

but then, suddenly, they're in
the war with the big boys.

[explosion blasts]

Despite the Italians' efforts,

it only takes the Allies 29
hours to breach these defenses

and occupy Tobruk.

NARRATOR: The loss of Tobruk
infuriates Hitler.

To recapture the port,
he unleashes the might of

the Africa Corps, led by
the legendary military

tactician, Erwin Rommel.

ALBERTSON: Erwin Rommel was,
perhaps, the greatest

armor commander
in the German military,

and he was feared by
many of the Allied commanders.

CAVELL: Rommel's siege of
Tobruk is a ferocious operation.

It's mainly the Australians
who are guarding

the city, and what they have
to withstand --

it's pretty gruesome.

NARRATOR:
For eight months,

Rommel's forces launch
a series of brutal assaults

on Tobruk.

Yet using the line of
defenses left by

the retreating Italians,

the Allies managed to repel
the Nazi attacks.

The Australians actually
take on the moniker of

the Rats of Tobruk,
because they hang on,

they burrow in,
and they don't let go.

They're under this constant
threat that

the enemy is gonna
break through.

They're air raided
almost constantly.

So the men who survived
the siege

of Tobruk had gone through
a hellish ordeal.

CAVELL: It's this holding out of
the garrison that really

turns the Rats of Tobruk into
legends of World War II,

but it's this operation that
also gives rise to

another legendary group

of military operators,
and that, of course, is

the British SAS.

NARRATOR: The SAS, short for
Special Air Service,

begins life three months
into the siege of Tobruk

as L Detachment, a handpicked
group of 65 soldiers.

The brainchild of
Major David Stirling,

it will revolutionize the way
war is waged.

What Stirling's doing here in
the desert in Tobruk

during World War II is really

the birth of the special
forces worldwide.

NARRATOR: Like
the U.S. Navy Seals,

the SAS will become one of

the most feared and admired
special forces on Earth,

elite warriors whose exploits
are recorded in

the medals they earn
and the blood they spill.

They took guys that were tired

of being collared
in a regular unit.

They wanted action with
the enemy, and you give them

the fuel, the vehicles,
and the weapons to go out

and do it.

NARRATOR: Stirling tasks his
elite soldiers with a series of

audacious raids to take out

Nazi-held positions
and airfields.

These are men who are fearless,
who are being dropped into very

dangerous positions behind
enemy lines, where they're going

to commit acts of sabotage.

MORGAN: When you take people
like that and give them

latitude to go accomplish
a mission without

micromanaging them,

they can very often be capable
of producing miracles.

NARRATOR: Throughout 1941,
L Detachment destroys hundreds

of Rommel's aircraft, trucks,
and trains,

helping to prevent the Nazi
conquests of North Africa.

These British commandos
conduct raids that are

so audacious and so fast
that they become

these almost mythological
warriors that

the Germans just don't know
how to deal with.

CAVELL: David Stirling becomes
a legend unto himself.

The Germans begin to call him
the phantom major,

because he just appears
and disappears,

seemingly without a trace.

NARRATOR: Eight decades
after the city gave rise to

the legends of the Rats of
Tobruk and the SAS,

Libya is once again
a war zone,

the site and the image
inaccessible to outsiders.

Yet evidence of
the seismic role it

played in military history
remains, revealed from space.

We can't go and walk on
the battlefield the way that

we can Normandy, and so it's
less familiar to us,

and it's a shame for that,
because that is a place where,

in many ways, the outcome of
World War II was decided.

NARRATOR: Coming up,
death and riches

in the Nevada hills.

They find more than
$100 million

in less than a decade.

NARRATOR: And a nuclear
face-off in the Arctic.

You've essentially set
the stage for World War III.

NARRATOR:
November 2017.

480 miles above
eastern Nevada,

an eye in the sky scans
deserted scrubland below

and captures this image.

We're looking at kind of
a hardscrabble landscape, but

then lined up perfectly is
a series of silver circles.

It almost looks like six
gigantic buttons

that you could
push from space.

NARRATOR: The weird line
of giant buttons

is over 200 feet long.

Analysts turned
to Maxar's SecureWatch

technology to study them
in more detail.

JOYCE: Look at the shadows --
because this

image was captured
with a low sun elevation,

we can very clearly see this

cone shape with each
of these objects.

NARRATOR: Each of the giant
stone cones also has

a hole at its summit --
George Kourounis recognizes

the mystery structures.

KOUROUNIS: I think that these
are charcoal kilns.

These kilns would typically
be round or beehive-shaped,

so that's a smoking gun here

that tells me that this is
exactly what we're looking at.

NARRATOR:
Land registry documents reveal

that the kilns are a relic

of an incredible yet often
overlooked period in

American history.

Records show that these
structures are on the land of

Wards Mine,

which was a silver mining
boom town.

RUBEN: Everyone's heard of
the California Gold Rush,

but we sometimes forget that
there was another big one.

There was
the Nevada Silver Rush.

NARRATOR:
The Nevada Silver Rush begins

in 1859,
when vast reserves of

the metal are discovered in
a remote canyon

in the west of the state.

RUBEN: The silver boom is
kicked off by the discovery of

the Comstock Lode,

which is the richest deposit of
silver ever found in

the western U.S.

NARRATOR:
In California,

much of the gold is trapped in
veins hidden deep inside

the mountains,

but at Comstock and elsewhere
in Nevada, silver forms strictly

on the surface,
in beds hundreds

of feet wide
and over a mile long.

HYMEL: The Comstock mine on
the border of Nevada is

the largest silver mine in

the United States and is
really gonna be

the focal point of
this silver boom.

They find an ore vein here
that's worth more

than $100 million dollars
in less than a decade.

HYMEL: The amount of money is
mind-boggling.

It is a geyser of cash for
anyone involved.

NARRATOR: Soon, more reserves
are discovered across Nevada,

and by the 1870s,

20 percent of the world's silver
originates from this state.

600 boom towns rise out of
the desert soil,

including Ward,
the site in the image.

When the word got out,

everyone rushed into that area,
and they began prospecting.

If you could find the source,
and you could claim it

for yourself,

you could become wealthy
beyond your wildest dreams.

NARRATOR: Yet Nevada's riches
also mean that many of its towns

descend into anarchic,

no-go zones, where murder
and rape are commonplace.

MORGAN: The sudden appearance
of vast numbers of people

means that you suddenly have
problems with crime.

HORTON: The conditions there
were lawless.

It was
a very dangerous place to be,

and some people made their
fortune, but many did not.

[gunshots blasting]

NARRATOR: During the 1860s,
the violence unleashed

by the Silver Rush
spreads nationwide,

when the state of Nevada
sends 1,200 men

and $400 million dollars
to aid the Union Army.

It makes a critical difference
to the conflict

at a time when the Confederates
are going bankrupt.

The discovery of silver
in western Nevada doesn't

just enrich the few people
who found it.

It finances the Union Army
in the Civil War.

It helps build the city of
San Francisco.

It leaves an imprint on
financial markets for decades

to come.

NARRATOR: When word of
the Silver Rush reaches Italy,

specialist charcoal burners
called Carbonari head

to Nevada.

They erect the beehive-shaped
ovens in the image

to extract yet more riches
from the Nevada hills.

In order to purify silver
from silver ore,

you need to heat it
to very high temperatures.

PEPPER: This is an incredibly
efficient way of

producing charcoal,

and it adds to
the productivity of the mine.

NARRATOR: By 1879,
the Ward mine,

like many others in Nevada,
has exhausted its reserves,

and the Carbonaris' kilns
grow cold.

Today, much of the former
mining town is being reclaimed

by the desert,
but the structures

seen from space
remain as monuments to

the state's extraordinary
Silver Rush years.

This is an incredible piece of
U.S. mining history,

and luckily in Nevada,

the dryness has preserved it,
and you can see it from space.

NARRATOR: Coming up,
something big

and weird in Greenland.

I can't tell what they are,
but there's hundreds of them.

NARRATOR: And the code
of the cannibal warrior.

A successful warrior might
eat his flesh and present

the head as a trophy to
his chieftain.

NARRATOR:
August 17th, 2020.

A satellite
orbiting over

the Arctic scans a series
of structures in

northwest Greenland.

MUNOZ: The runway
and surrounding facilities

that are Thule Air Base,

and it's the northernmost
base that

the Americans have in
the entire world.

NARRATOR: As the spy bird moves
southeast from the highly

clandestine facility,

it captures something that
continues to baffle analysts.

It looks like a big claw
or something

just took marks out
of the ground.

It's really cut up, like

a knife has sliced through
the territory.

It's bizarre.

NARRATOR: Scale analysis
reveals the weird scars

cover an area
of six square miles.

These are quite regular and
definitely don't look natural.

I can't tell what they are,
but there's hundreds of them.

Analysts study Thule's
history for clues,

a history that begins in
the late 1940s,

when growing Soviet aggression
prompts the U.S.

to establish a military
outpost in the Arctic.

MORGAN: Having a base in
Greenland meant that the U.S.

had a last base of operation

where we can launch
an attack before Soviet

intercontinental ballistic
missiles reached us.

NARRATOR: Using the code name
Operation Blue Jay,

planning for construction of
the base begins in 1949.

MUNOZ: The construction of
Thule Air Base

was probably one of
the most complex

and difficult undertakings

by the U.S. military
at the time.

Thule is a very,
very difficult

place to build anything --
it's uninhabited,

so you have to bring in all
the supplies -- concrete,

food, water, everything.

NARRATOR: In July 1951,
300,000 tons of materials arrive

in the Arctic on a flotilla of
120 ships.

Thick sea ice forces
the military to use dynamite

to open up a safe passage
to the site.

Yet when they arrive,
engineers are

confronted with
an even greater obstacle.

Permafrost up to
1,600 feet deep.

The first efforts
to construct this

base really were not
very successful.

They came unglued
pretty quickly.

Pentagon planners
did not realize

that the heat generated from

the building will essentially
melt the soil, and the building

will sink into the ground.

NARRATOR: The threat of
buildings sinking into

the thawing permafrost forces
engineers to change

their construction plans.

I think there's
a good possibility

that these are actually
the foundations

of the original air base
that was built in 1951.

NARRATOR:
In the decade following

the base's construction,
Thule becomes

a key staging point for
Operation Chrome Dome.

Operation Chrome Dome is
the idea that you

have nuclear armed B-52s
in the sky

24 hours a day,
ready to receive

an order to strike targets
in Russia.

NARRATOR:
One incident during one of

Operation Chrome Dome's
clandestine missions

offers another possible
explanation

for the weird marks in
the image.

On January 21st, 1968,
an American B-52

stratofortress
crashed during

an approach to land
at this airfield.

There's a cabin fire on
the inside of the airplane.

The aircraft commander
realizes that they can't

save the airplane and tells
everybody to evacuate.

MORGAN: The crew bails out --
the aircraft

then belly flops
and bursts into flames.

[explosion blasts]

NARRATOR:
The incident claims the life

of one crew member,

but the U.S. military's problems
have only just begun.

What the aircraft was carrying
was four

B-28 thermonuclear bombs.

Once the plane
actually made impact

on the ground,
these weapons went off.

[explosion blasts]

NARRATOR:
The nukes on the plane

have an explosive yield
400 times

greater than the one which
destroyed Nagasaki

in World War II.

The incident threatens
to dramatically

escalate hostilities between
Washington and Moscow.

MUNOZ: You have
this crazy kind of mix

of a catastrophic accident,

and tensions on both sides

during the height
of the Cold War --

you've essentially set
the stage for what could have

been World War III.

NARRATOR: Mercifully,
a safety mechanism

prevents a full-scale
nuclear explosion,

but the accident still
releases vast amounts of

radioactive material across
permafrost near the base.

MORGAN: An area of over
three square miles

was completely
contaminated by radiation.

The cleanup effort
would go on for nine months.

It would involve 700 people

and would cost the American
taxpayer $10 million.

Maybe the marks
on the soil were caused when

the area had to be cleared out
after this accident.

NARRATOR: Officially,
the cleanup operation

took place to the north
of the marks in the image.

But analysts
learn the scars could still

be connected to the 1968
nuclear incident.

They didn't actually manage
to get everything

in the cleanup operation --
declassified

information revealed that one
of these bombs was never

recovered --
somewhere down there

under the ice in the ocean is
an unrecovered nuclear weapon.

NARRATOR: A nuclear weapon
lost under the Arctic ice.

Strange gashes in
the landscape.

In this corner of Greenland,

the Cold War is far from over.

MORGAN: The entire area
is subject to top secrecy.

And because of that,
it's very,

very difficult to get any
information about this base.

So we may never know what
we're looking at in the photo.

NARRATOR: Coming up, the lost
jungle civilization.

HEIMLER: There are
these weird symbols,

and nobody knows
what they're there for.

NARRATOR: September 2019.

A drone conducts
an aerial survey

over the South Pacific
Islands of Samoa.

As it scans
the dense tropical forest,

it spots something nestled
among the foliage.

HEIMLER: It almost looks like
the stump of a giant tree

that has been cut off at
its base.

However, this formation
is massive.

It's not really obvious at all
what this thing is.

Call me confused.

NARRATOR: Further studies
reveal that there are around

80 of these giant shapes
scattered across

the archipelago,

some thousands of years old.

They're these weird geometric
symbols rising up out of

the dense jungle vegetation,
and nobody knows

what they're there for.

NARRATOR: Experts delve into
the island's history in search

of clues.

What makes this

an especially tricky problem
is that the Samoans

traditionally did not have
a written language.

This is what's called a memory
society, because their stories

and their legends
and their histories

were all passed down orally.

NARRATOR: Studies suggest
the first star mounds appear

soon after Polynesians arrive
in Samoa in around 1,000 B.C.,

having somehow found
the island's concealed

in millions of miles of
open ocean.

JANULIS: Not a lot is known
about the earliest seafarers

that settled Samoa,

but these people colonize
almost every island in

the Pacific in a very short
amount of time.

One of the more interesting
things is they look somewhat

like rays of stars
spanning out,

and the Pacific Islanders
certainly followed the stars at

night when they'd go across
vast expanses of water.

NARRATOR: The seafarers believe
in many gods and goddesses,

heroes, and demons.

Some analysts speculate
the star shapes could also have

been built to honor
the celestial deities

that guided the Polynesians
to their new lands.

There's definitely a sort of

symbolic or ritualistic
aspect to these.

They're repeating the same
shape in uninhabited

parts of very hard to
reach places.

NARRATOR:
According to Samoan beliefs,

people, spirits, and objects
are endowed with a life force

called mana.

As the island's
population grows,

it fuels a series of conflicts
between tribes hoping to

acquire this supernatural power
from their enemies.

JANULIS:
Being a warrior was important.

It was something
expected of you,

and if you hadn't ever gone
to war,

you probably didn't have a lot
of respect from your peers.

NARRATOR: The pursuit of mana
would sometimes lead to

victorious warriors indulging
in gruesome

post-battle rituals.

So a successful warrior might
cut the head off of his enemy,

eat his flesh,
drink his blood,

and present the heart
as a trophy to his chieftain.

By doing so,

they thought that some of
the courage and bravery

that was in
that soldier would

transfer into them
by virtue of eating.

Given Polynesia's
tribal history,

it's entirely feasible
that these are defensible

fortifications that individual

clans would have
retreated to.

NARRATOR:
Yet when local archaeologists

begin excavating the shapes
revealed from the skies,

they discover
something incredible.

It turns out Samoa has
a lot more structures on

it under the dense
jungle vegetation

than we previously assumed.

BELLINGER: These star mounds
are actually just part of

a much broader residential
complex that stretches

for acres and acres.

NARRATOR: It appears that
the island's dense jungle

conceals a series of
megastructures, lost to history.

This shows that we have
greatly underestimated how

complex and large scale

the Samoan society was
before the Europeans

contacted them.

NARRATOR: European explorers
arrive in Samoa

in the early 18th century.

Death comes with them,
and over the next 200 years,

a series of epidemics sweep
the islands.

Populations that have
no contact

with European population
for thousands of

years have no immunity
to our diseases.

When the Europeans finally got
to know the Samoan culture

and people,
they were seeing

the remnants
of a plague apocalypse.

NARRATOR: Previous studies
suggest European diseases

killed around one in
five Samoans.

But the scale of
the structures hidden by

the jungle canopy reveals

the catastrophic effect of
European contact was much

greater than previously feared.

This new evidence shows us
that the Samoans were not

a tiny population at the time

the Europeans arrived,
and that many,

many more aboriginal Samoans
died as a result

of colonization.

NARRATOR: The structures are
both a tribute

to the extraordinary
civilization

that once thrived here and
a record of its sad demise.

We're only beginning to
scratch the surface

of this mysterious
and enigmatic culture,

and these star mounds may hold
part of the mystery.