Original subtitles

(Theme music)

Tom ward (narrates): An elaborate complex in Italy

that continues to mystify us.

This tunnel entrance looks like something straight

out of 'lord of the rings'.

It takes you deep under a mountain,

and it looks like you're entering mordor.

A colossal structure on the American west coast.

There's a real spooky feeling,

especially when the mist is just hanging over it.

It's almost like a ghost workforce has vanished from sight.

An island paradise masking a history of violence.

Some of these drawings are made in blood,

hinting at the island's dark past.

And a ghostly town that fell victim to the pace of change.

They look like something out of a horror movie.

(Theme music)

Some are engineering marvels now abandoned or ruins shrouded

in mystery,

but within each of these decaying structures

are the echoes of history.

While some are associated with dark times,

they are all reminders of human ingenuity and endeavour.

Each haunting shell is now ready to be unmasked

to tell its own unique story.

(Theme music)

At the base of a rugged steep-sided gorge

in the mountain state of West Virginia

is a strange eerie sight.

(Instrumental music)

The town itself is set, sort, of deep within a, sort of,

risen gorge, and so, in some ways,

it's kind of almost protected by the rocks around it

and quite hidden.

Despite being so isolated, the town has an oddly familiar feel.

You kind of feel like you're walking into a movie set

from a late 19th century early 20th century scene,

where maybe there should be some poker dealers,

maybe a few ladies of ill repute.

It really is as though people were there yesterday

and now things have stopped and they've moved on.

(Instrumental music)

A strip full of stores flanking a railway line

seem almost completely intact.

At the base of this narrow gorge,

you come across a strange sight, a row of shops and businesses.

It has all the markings of a town, but then it dawns on you,

"this place has been completely deserted."

It's not like your typical ghost town

where everything's falling down or in ruins,

the buildings look like someone could move in

and fix them up and turn the lights back on.

(Eerie music)

Spooky interiors reveal gold-lined walls,

elaborate flooring,

and there's a big hefty safe with its doors open

as if it was raided only yesterday.

Other buildings though have fared less well.

When you go up on the hills, you see these ruined old houses.

They look like something out of a horror movie.

Yet the occasional train still flashes past

and the clues suggest that this was once a bustling town.

In the distance, through the mist,

you can just about make out a strange structure

protruding above the trees,

and that gives you a clue as to why this town is here.

(Instrumental music)

Over 100 years ago, this was a thriving town...

As Leah perkowski of the new river gorge

national park explains.

The overwhelming feeling for many is that

it is the end of nowhere,

when in truth, in the early 1900s,

it was the beginning of everywhere.

The chesapeake and Ohio railway company

built a depot here in 1904.

The railway was the only way to get in or out,

and just 2 years later,

there were 36 stops over 53 miles of track through the gorge.

And the busiest of them was here, thurmond.

Thurmond was really a transportation centre

as well as a social centre for the new river gorge.

You know, there were multiple stores,

avenues for entertainment, and transportation.

It's hard to imagine now but up to 20 passenger trains

once stopped here every day.

Their engines fuelled by the mighty coal station

that still dominates the town today.

In 1910 alone, the depot served 76,000 passengers.

Local newspapers referred to it as the biggest little town.

The boom years were driven by black gold.

From the mid 19th century to the mid 20th century,

the American economy really ran on coal,

you had the steel industry,

you had coal-powered trains travelling all over,

all that coal had to be mined,

and the new river gorge was one of the best places to mine it.

Through the gorge,

seams of coal have been exposed in the mountainside,

but this isn't just any ordinary coal,

this is top quality smokeless coal.

(Instrumental music)

Thurmond's trains enabled this precious resource

to be swiftly moved from the local mines

to customers across america.

The money began to pour in.

Once you built up a lot of infrastructure,

then come the banks, then come the people,

then come the hotels.

The banks here became the wealthiest in the state.

Yet this was very much a railway town

with a transient workforce,

which had a very specific set of requirements.

You had all these workers moving through,

you had all the support staff for the mines,

so the town needed everything that a major city would have,

it needed butchers shops and stores and shoemakers

and they even had a red-light district.

Wd thurmond, the founder of the town,

ran most of it according to his strict baptist beliefs,

which meant alcohol was banned.

Yet, to his dismay,

the hotels in the wider community became famous

for drinking and much more besides.

The most notorious of these was located just across the river.

The dunglen hotel was kind of the hub of everything.

And it was pretty extravagant for the time period,

there were 3 stories, 100 rooms, a lot of businessmen stayed there.

This was the social core of the town,

where coal barons and labourers alike partied hard.

A red-light district soon developed round this colourful place.

Mining towns tend to be pretty rough places.

You usually have overwhelmingly male population,

and with the male population,

you have certain needs and desires

that a separate underground economy might grow up to satisfy.

The dunglen hotel developed a notorious reputation.

Prostitution, gambling, and supposedly,

it hosted the longest poker game ever in history.

That was rumoured to have lasted 14 years.

As the dunglen became a nationally famous resort,

it flaunted the prohibition laws, so police raids were common.

But in July 1930, everything came to an end,

when the entire building was burnt to a cinder.

The circumstances were very suspicious.

In court, it was alleged that the owner of a rival hotel

had plotted to burn down the dunglen.

There's several theories of why the hotel burned,

but really and truly, it is a mystery.

In truth, thurmond had been in decline long

before the infamous hotel burnt to the ground.

It fell victim to a combination of prohibition,

the rise of the automobile, and the relentless pace of change.

Gradually, technology changed,

there were other ways to mine coal,

strip mining began to replace the kind of deep underground mining

that was done in the new river gorge.

So, over time, the mines began to shut down,

the economic high tide of that era began to recede,

and with it, went the fortunes of the town.

The railroad kept thurmond alive into the 1950s,

before it suffered another blow.

This one was final.

What truly sealed the fate for thurmond was the arrival

of the diesel engine.

Diesel engines didn't need as much maintenance.

Thurmond was home

to a major repair shop for the rail line.

When the steam engines went,

there was much less reason for the railroads

to require service in the town of thurmond.

This was a town built around the steam engine,

but now, its many rail yards and repair shops

were rendered obsolete.

With little of the town left around them,

the railroad offices finally closed in 1984.

Today, trains still rumble through thurmond's haunting remains,

a poignant reminder of its once bustling past.

Thurmond rode the boom

and bust of coal in the United States,

the reasons that a thriving town grew up

in this particular time and place,

those change and, with it, go the people.

On the west coast of the United States,

just north of the city of San Francisco,

lies a colossal structure carved into the ground.

It's a long stadium like structure sitting right next

to the water, and it is enormous, this vast empty pit.

The entire structure slopes away from you and steps,

like an inverted Mayan pyramid.

Whatever this was built for, this was a serious operation.

The base of this vast place offers us some possible clues.

It's clearly designed to be a strong structure

but sort of towards the bottom,

it appears to be made out of something quite different.

The last few steps, they are crumbling away,

and it's just confusing that they've changed

the materials in this way.

Why?

Why would you do that?

Why was this place abandoned?

Do those clues suggest that it all eventually collapsed

under its own weight?

(Dramatic music)

The story of the site goes back to the 19th century,

while the east coast of the usa was well developed and defended,

the younger, newer west coast cities were still vulnerable to attack.

As gold is discovered in California,

it becomes more and more important to project power to the west coast

in order to make sure

that nobody comes along and takes it.

It must be defended.

Battles were being fought against native Americans

in the north and there were other wars

in Central America to the south.

Mare island was the obvious site for the first naval station

on the west coast.

It was the completion of this particular facility in 1891

that would power the us into the next century,

as retired engineer Bruce christensen explains.

This was definitely the dawn of a new era

of the United States Navy in the defence

of the United States of America.

It measured over 400 feet in length and took almost 20 years to build.

This is mare island's dry dock number one.

The construction of this huge dry dock resulted in a new era

to allow ships larger than had ever been allowed

before to dock and be repaired and overhauled.

The dry dock immediately proved its worth,

greatly enhancing the defences of the us west coast.

But an unexpected event soon threatened its future.

The main parts of the structure,

these big steps are made of massive blocks of granite,

and all of that granite had to be brought in by ship.

So, you can imagine, this is a major undertaking.

Granite is heavy.

Whoever built this,

they weren't thinking about saving money,

they were thinking about building a structure that would last.

But the bottom few steps tell a different story.

When you look at this crumbling of the lowest levels,

you wonder, "was it this disintegration

"that caused this place to be abandoned?"

Two very different types of building materials,

both of which are a big part of the dry dock story.

In 1898, the mare island dry dock

was given a severe test by mother nature.

Testament to how good and strong the structure

is that there was a big earthquake that struck that island.

All the buildings in the vicinity,

so around it, they collapsed.

But the structure itself remained pretty much intact

with very little damage whatsoever.

The fractured lower steps, in fact,

reveal a later attempt to adapt the site.

Other shipyards were built that took the defences

on the west coast to a whole new level.

But mare island was in a class of its own,

something it proved during world war I with the construction

of the USS 'ward'.

The USS 'ward' was a wickes-class destroyer

named after James ward,

the first us Navy officer to be killed

during the American civil war.

The urgent need for destroyers during world war I

saw the 'ward' built in a scarcely believable 17 days.

She was commissioned on the 24 July, 1918.

This place set a record in shipbuilding,

just 17 days to construct a battleship.

That's just phenomenal.

After sliding down a neighbouring shipbuilding ramp,

the USS 'ward' entered the dry dock for some essential

finishing touches before joining active service.

However, it was during world war ii that both USS 'ward'

and the mare island dry dock

really wrote their names into military folklore.

The 'ward' had been decommissioned in 1921 but was recommissioned

and upgraded, ready for battle, in 1941.

Both the dry dock and that ship would soon make history.

The pacific starts to be a place of danger for the us,

and in order to ensure that the United States can defend

its pacific coast,

it needs facilities to support a Navy on the pacific coast.

Tension between the usa and Japan had been growing

for years and the diplomatic efforts to ease them

had borne little fruit.

In December 1941, after months of planning,

the Japanese made a surprise pre-emptive attack,

aimed at destroying the us fleet as part of their plans

for the conquest of Southeast Asia.

There had been no formal declaration of war.

The target for the attack was Pearl harbour.

As Japanese forces were preparing to attack,

the USS 'ward' identified and hunted down

a lone two-man midget submarine.

USS 'ward' fired the first shots for the Americans in world war ii.

She saw a Japanese submarine in her sights

and ceased the opportunity.

And it's significant that the first ship

to cause Japanese casualties is a ship that's built

on the California coast in mare island's own facility.

In terms of us history,

the attack on Pearl harbour was one of the country's gravest moments,

but that first retaliation by USS 'ward' would set the tone.

The Americans were gonna come right back at the enemy.

The world war ii saw dry dock number one really

come into its own.

Its ingenious design made light work of getting damaged ships

in and ready for repair.

Well, firstly, we take this dry dock and

we fill it with water through the pumps at the far end.

Next, we bring it to the level of the street out here.

With the water now level on both sides

and the pressure balanced,

this end gate called a Casen was moved out

to allow the damaged ship in.

Then the dry dock was sealed back up and drained.

The ship was now ready to be worked on and repaired.

In order for the United States to keep

its Navy fighting in the pacific theatre,

it had to be able to rebuild warships,

and American ships that had been chewed up by the Japanese Navy

needed to be brought back to america and refitted

and sent back out to fight the Japanese again.

It was all about speed and efficiency.

It was vital.

This dock probably was key in being able to keep the fleet

as operational as it was for as long as it was during the war.

Having played a vital role during two world wars,

mare island would next play its part in the cold war.

And it's that which explains those cracked bottom steps.

Mare island adapted from being a place

where you would build or repair surface ships into a place

where you would repair submarines that would be shadowing

the Soviet Navy in the pacific.

To allow larger ships to dock,

the steps and the long concrete section

at the end were added to the original structure

in the late 1970s.

So, those layers that you see and those bottom few steps,

those ones that are now crumbling,

they were the tagged on extension, so to speak.

Despite its crucial role in the us cold war effort,

the site was finally deemed surplus to requirements in 1993.

And from that moment, while the granite stood strong,

the lower levels began to crumble.

It's funny when you look at the structure

that the most modern parts, those concrete step extensions,

they're the ones that are in the worst state of repair.

Ultimately, this dry dock had been a vital part

of the defence of the west coast for over a century.

Without this place,

the history books might tell a very different story.

In the so-called fire fields of Italy, on the bay of Naples,

is a site with a supernatural feeling.

(Dramatic music)

In the shadow of mount vesuvius, the destroyer of Pompeii,

a labyrinth of underground tunnels continues to mystify.

This tunnel entrance looks like something

straight out of 'lord of the rings'.

It takes you deep under a mountain,

and it looks like you're entering mordor.

A location like this was surrounded

by a lot of myth and mystery.

Symbolically, it certainly seems like

an entrance to the underworld.

The evidence suggests that this tunnel complex

was deliberately filled in and its secrets left buried

for thousands of years.

But new investigations are unearthing clues

suggesting this was some kind of ritual centre.

There's a kind of feeling of showmanship,

this is not just an access a to b tunnel.

This complex network of caverns and tunnels

was so extensive that clearly

some incredible engineering happened here.

This subterranean network is somehow connected

to a grand complex of ruins above.

(Birds chirp)

It was meticulously built with a massive amount

of difficult engineering of tunnels and waterways,

columns, frescos, mosaics.

Above ground, it looks so palatial

that you couldn't help but wonder what this was for or who it was for.

The site is associated with some of the most famous names

in human history.

But why did they come here?

And what secrets are held beneath the mountain?

Descending from the sister volcano of mount vesuvius

is a strange tunnel.

The secrets contained within the base

of the mountain remained buried and hidden

for thousands of years until a dramatic discovery

was made in the 1960s, as caver graziano Ferrari explains.

In the 1960s,

you've got big local NATO base

and all sorts of people are working there,

including a chap whose hobby was archaeology,

and he found this site.

That amateur archaeologist was Robert paget,

and he soon realised he'd stumbled on to something

of real significance.

He read up about it and then the next ten years

spent digging out these tunnels.

And in that ten years,

he came up with the most incredible theories.

Paget became convinced that the passage was part

of an elaborate ceremonial site.

Today, explorers are once again delving into the mystery

and asking,

"could this be the site

"of the famed oracle of the dead?"

Graziano Ferrari is descending into an elaborate tunnel,

equipped with analysers to monitor potentially lethal gases.

It looks ancient and other worldly and at times

is extremely narrow, barely shoulder width.

And you have to descend down these ladders with gas analysers.

It's actually really frightening.

Someone's put a lot of work into this.

There are niches for candles as you go down.

Not just enough to light the way but enough to make a massive impact,

there's some serious illumination going on here.

Paget now passionately believed the tunnel's design confirmed

his theory that it was built for the purposes of ritual.

It's also not straight forward.

As you go down into this tunnel, very narrow,

you have to turn your shoulders,

it doesn't actually lead you straight

to where you're going, it's curved,

it snakes around a little bit.

As the tunnel enters steeper gradients and curves,

there is a sense of the theatrical to the journey.

The point of the journey is partly in this kind of curve,

in this showmanship.

And then it's getting hotter in there,

you can kind of feel the volcanic activity,

you can feel that this is getting into the depths of the earth,

and the smell is kind of sulphurous but exciting.

The question is, where does the tunnel lead?

The tunnel comes across this small underground stream.

It's really a hot spring.

But in the mythology,

perhaps it was a representation of the famous river styx

that the dead would have to be transported across

on their way to the underworld.

This pool of hot water was once a flowing river,

believed by some to be the river styx.

In Greek mythology,

this was the border between the world of the living

and the underworld known as Hades.

Robert paget believed that there was a landing stage

where boats pulled up to take people across to the other side.

Above the pool however is a filled in chamber,

a kind of hidden sanctuary.

This led paget to conclude that the whole design

of this cavernous system was supposed to mimic

a visit to the underworld.

(Eerie music)

He was convinced that he'd stumbled upon

the so-called oracle of the dead.

In both the Greek and the Roman eras,

people believed that in certain locations like this,

there was a special type of a priestess, an oracle,

who could tell your future.

People would descend to the sweltering depths

to hear prophecies and have their futures

told by the priestess.

Historians believe that they may have solved

some of the mysteries surrounding the oracles.

Today, there is a theory that many of these oracles

were actually in locations where, in fact,

there were fumes coming out of the earth that would lead

any person to begin to hallucinate or have out-of-body experiences.

And the priestesses of the area kind of played on that.

And if they were using the sulphurous fumes

and the sheer theatre of the experience,

then perhaps I would fall for it today,

just as people did 2000 years ago.

Some of the tunnels and huge rooms still remain a mystery to this day.

But others provide some clues about the connection

with the ruined site above.

But for current investigator, graziano,

the subterranean tunnel served a purely functional purpose.

This was, in modern terms, a steam room,

part of a wider complex designed to exploit the geology

of the region.

The whole complex was engineered to let visitors

take advantage of all this volcanic heat

and hot water.

There were steam rooms, there were hot tubs,

there were also cold pools, all of them connected,

all of them clearly part of some kind of health-giving ritual.

This is baia archaeological park, once a Roman spa town.

(Instrumental music)

The whole complex was a luxurious resort

for the Roman elite.

You had beautiful mosaics along the walkways,

frescos painted on the walls.

An enormous amount of work and artistry

went into building this complex.

Chambers and tanks interconnected with tunnels

and underground steam channels complete with waterproof lining

created a complex hydraulic system.

Domes such as the temple of Diana,

which is older than the pantheon in Rome,

functioned as cold baths.

Other features include sunning rooms and swimming pools on the terraces,

complete with dramatic views across the bay.

Baia became notorious for that hedonistic lifestyle.

It really became an area of scandalous immorality.

We know from the records that Caesar

and Cicero frequently visited there.

I mean, it was a playground for the rich and famous.

So, how and why did this extraordinary

and famous resort come to be abandoned?

Ultimately, it was all down to geology.

The reason this site is here

is because of the thermal seismic activity.

That was a big part of its downfall.

One day, it all went too far and parts

of the resort started to slip underwater.

And when that happened, the writing was on the wall.

Today, this remarkable site is open to the public,

yet it remains largely unknown to tourists.

Meanwhile, investigators, such as graziano,

continue to delve into the mysteries still held

in this unique complex.

This is over 2000 years old and yet you can imagine

people coming here for that luxury experience.

The joy of the archaeology here is immense and the stories

behind it, well, they could have happened yesterday.

In the Gulf of nicoya,

off Costa Rica's pacific coast

is what appears to be an isolated paradise.

It's an island encircled by palm trees and Sandy beaches.

This island is full of natural life

and surrounded by tropical waters.

At first glance, it looks like some kind of paradise,

but it hides a dark and cruel history.

Today, Costa Rica is a popular holiday destination

for Americans.

This place, however, couldn't be further from that image.

It has a haunted and desolate feel to it.

(Instrumental music)

On the approach to the island,

a rickety old pier leads into a maze of structures,

roots and vines wrap themselves around

ruin remains,

plants and trees emerge from roofless buildings.

The walls of these structures are covered in writing and graffiti,

but it's not your typical drawings and graffiti.

These paintings depict life

and tell stories of severe pain and anger.

On closer inspection,

it appears that some of these drawings

have been written in blood.

So, why is there blood on the walls?

What darkness fell over this apparent paradise?

(Birds chirp)

The island has been used for centuries,

going back to a time when Costa Rica

was part of the Spanish empire.

Isla San Lucas is an infamous island.

It's been used as a prison for centuries,

going right back to the Spanish conquistadors

who used it as a detention centre

for local tribes in the 16th century.

But the remnants of metal bars and the thick security doors

suggest this site has been used more recently.

In 1871, president Tomas guardia created a constitution

for the newly independent nation of Costa Rica.

While he abolished the death penalty,

he also chose this location for a new penitentiary.

And for prisoners here, life was very grim indeed.

This is Isla San Lucas prison.

This became a prison for some of Costa Rica's

most notorious criminals, thieves, murderers, hit men,

you name it, they were here.

(Instrumental music)

It was certainly not a place for the faint-hearted.

Prisoners fought amongst themselves,

not just with their fists but with self-made machetes.

As former inmate eloy solorzano recalls.

I was in a machete fight with some prison inmates.

Thank god I'm alive to tell this story.

These things I experienced, I hope to god never to live again.

Atrocities were common place here,

and overcrowding was rife.

You had as many as 70 prisoners kept in a single cell.

Adolescents as young as 14 years old were incarcerated

and placed in this environment of disease and murder.

And to be sentenced here was considered by many

to be a death sentence.

Inside the crumbling cells, graffiti covers every wall.

The art and graffiti on the cell walls

give a fascinating insight

to what the prisoners were going through.

They clearly depict the life of suffering, pain, hatred,

and loneliness, as well as highly sexual content.

A horrific rumour has recently surfaced

about the suspicious fading red colour

of some of the graffiti.

Some were allegedly painted with the blood of a nurse

who was murdered inside the prison.

It wasn't just the inmates who made the prison notorious.

The brutal prison guards too were infamous.

Barbarous methods including torture were used to control the inmates.

One punishment was particularly cruel.

Here in San Lucas, before human rights came in,

you, for any reason, could be put in la plancher.

One common punishment was placing prisoners in a dungeon

full of raw sewage

and leaving them there for days on end.

It was a penitence to be there.

There were bugs.

It was something subhuman.

I wouldn't wish this for anybody.

Atrocities here were commonplace.

You had up to 70 prisoners kept in a single cell.

You had adolescents as young as 14 sent into this environment

full of violence and disease.

These ruthless methods were used

by a particularly notorious police squad based at the prison.

There was a police squad here called los cocobolos.

Now, if you were a prisoner,

these were guys you wanted to keep on the right side of.

They were good at hitting us with sticks.

That was a really bad part.

You try to get along with them to have a better coexistence.

Little wonder that escape was never far

from the minds of inmates.

Some inmates would throw themselves

into the water trying to escape.

But was it possible to escape from Isla San Lucas?

And what was it that finally led to its closure?

To escape from here was no easy feat.

Even if you could get out of the complex into the water,

you were gonna find sharks and a long dangerous swim.

Isolated on this tropical island,

they'd never have stood a chance.

Many didn't even make it to the water.

And from where they were caught

within the perimeter of the island, they were brought to the dungeons,

hitting them without stopping.

There was never any chance of the perpetrators facing justice.

Here on this island,

there are bodies buried

and no-one knows who killed that person.

However, there are prisoners buried here,

and their bodies never appeared drowned or anything.

Shocking institutional torture, bodies disappearing without trace,

surely enough on their own to close the prison down.

But perhaps they weren't the only reasons.

A lot of people were saying that San Lucas was shut

because of inhumane treatment.

This is not necessarily true.

Some claim the island was set to be turned into a tourist resort,

complete with hotels, casinos, and an airstrip.

If true, that plan has never materialised,

but the prison has been closed and abandoned.

And the future for Isla San Lucas looks altogether brighter.

(Instrumental music)

Today, the island is part of the national wildlife preserve,

with tourists visiting the island daily to enjoy

both the ruins and the stunning nature.

And now, it feels much more like

the Costa Rica that holidaymakers have come to know and love.

(Dramatic music)

Now, they lie abandoned,

but once they were the cutting-edge of engineering.

There are echoes of history within these decaying structures

that remind us of terror and war but also of great innovation

and human endeavour.

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