Original subtitles

A vast Nazi fortune

hidden beneath a Polish castle.

An otherworldly presence,

spawned by an infamous surprise attack...

and a top secret German invention

with the power...

to defy gravity.

World War II was the largest,

and deadliest conflict in history.

From 1939 until 1945, more than 50 nations

engaged in harrowing combat.

And during that time,

a number of intriguing and persistent mysteries were born.

Curious stories about everything from lost gold

to secret societies

and highly advanced technology.

Nearly 80 years later, can new information help us

better understand the strangest tales of the Second World War?

Well, that is what we'll try and find out.

As dawn breaks, Nazi Germany launches a surprise attack

with one and a half million soldiers,

2,500 tanks,

and 2,000 war planes.

This massive invasion marks the beginning of World War II.

After conquering Poland, Hitler expands German territory

throughout Europe,

and steals billions of dollars...

in gold.

One of the things connected to Hitler's grand scheme

of completely restructuring Europe is loot.

As Nazi Germany extended its control

over most of continental Europe,

a great deal of acquisition of valuables went on.

And so, they were just sort of grabbing anything

that might be of value.

Nazi Germany had to be very minded toward the accumulation

of gold as a resource that was going to help it win the war.

Their military went to war with the world,

and then stole a great deal of wealth from millions of people.

In April 1945, near the end of the war,

the U.S. Army received intelligence

about a hidden stash of stolen Nazi gold

in Merkers, Germany.

There, in an abandoned salt mine,

American soldiers discovered a jaw-dropping fortune.

The U.S. Army discovered the most astonishing hidden horde

of Nazi gold.

I mean, they literally walked in and were almost

knee-deep in gold coins and other treasures.

They couldn't believe their eyes.

And the sum total value was, by today's valuation,

8.5 billion dollars' worth.

And that's just in that one tunnel.

So, it makes sense that there are other tunnels

and other caves elsewhere that have more Nazi gold.

Is there billions of dollars in stolen Nazi gold

that has yet to be found?

And if so, where could it be?

Well, according to local legend, some of this vast treasure

could still be hidden where the war started...

in Poland.

During the closing weeks of World War II,

the Germans are hurriedly trying to evacuate things

out of occupied Poland.

And there was a lot of stuff,

in the chaos at the end of the war,

that was being loaded up any way you could

and spirited out of the country.

And then a lot of valuables go missing.

And so that's where you get stories of things

like the Nazi gold train.

The fabled Nazi gold train

is one of the most enduring mysteries of World War II,

and an obsession for treasure hunters around the world.

Legend has it that a Nazi train,

brimming with stolen gold and valuables,

departed from Wroclaw, Poland, in 1945.

And then, it reportedly disappeared without a trace.

As the story is told, they had a special train,

which was to transport this contents.

At least the most valuable contents.

It was armor-plated, and they had gun turrets on it.

So it was very well protected.

And it was filled with 300 tons

of gold bullion, and other valuables

and artwork that were loaded onto the train.

And the train was never seen again.

The belief is that that train,

carrying God only knows how much gold,

was on its way between Wroclaw and a town called Walbrzych.

And somewhere between Wroclaw and Walbrzych,

the train was sent onto a siding,

where it was then ultimately stopped permanently,

and then buried to prevent it

from falling into the enemy's hands.

Could the Nazi gold train really be buried somewhere near

the 40 miles of track between these two Polish towns?

For Polish treasure hunter Michael Dembinski,

this persistent local legend is a fascinating mystery.

Did the Germans hide this train somewhere along the line?

That is the possibility that has intrigued

treasure hunters for the best part of 80 years.

It's all about eyewitnesses, really.

There's nothing on paper.

But this story was doing the rounds.

In Walbrzych, if you talk to older people there,

they will say, "Yes, I remember that story

"from childhood, about these trains

full of treasures that have mysteriously disappeared."

Not only do the people of Walbrzych

distinctly remember the gold train,

they also say that during the German occupation,

there was a stretch of train track

that branched off the main railway line.

And it led to a fortified location

that was under Nazi control...

a place called Ksiaz Castle.

Ksiaz Castle finds itself just outside of Walbrzych?

The castle itself is beautiful.

It's a magnificent palace, really.

Now, very important in all of this is

the rumor that many, many people talk about.

That between Ksiaz Castle itself

and the main Wroclaw to Walbrzych railway line,

there was a spur, linking Ksiaz Castle and the main line.

This is still to be confirmed,

but there are enough rumors to suggest that this

actually was the case.

Ksiaz Castle has been described as the pearl

of Lower Silesia in Poland.

It's a beautiful, fairy-tale place

that the Nazis certainly took a great interest in.

And not only aboveground, but below it.

Local people tell the story of an underground city...

where they would have a lot of

Nazi looted gold and treasures,

and, perhaps,

the great legendary Nazi gold train.

This is crucial to the whole story,

because it was here that the Germans were building

a top secret complex of underground tunnels

and bunkers and caverns.

And to this day, no one can really come up with

a good reason as to why

the Nazis were so obsessed with completing this project.

We don't know what the plan was

for how this site was going to be used.

All we know is there is a massive underground network

of tunnels and caves that were all being interlinked together,

and that there might be a train

with unimaginable gold wealth on it,

buried there in 1945.

A secret underground lair

in the same region that the Nazi gold train

was said to disappear.

For many, it's just too coincidental to ignore.

But only about 10%

of this massive underground complex has been explored.

So even if the legendary Nazi gold train

was buried there,

there's still no guarantee it will ever be found.

The problem for treasure hunters

in that area is where to start.

There are thousands upon thousands of tunnels...

and the difficulty is finding where they begin and end.

The tunnels branch off here and there,

and some of them go underwater.

Each of them is extensive in size,

and it really does beg the question,

why were the Nazis doing this?

So in terms of further searches

for the gold train,

my hunch is that

it's going to be found under Ksiaz Castle.

This active naval and air force base is also home

to the Pearl Harbor National Memorial,

a hallowed site that draws nearly

two million visitors every year.

At the heart of this historic landmark

is a floating memorial built over the sunken wreckage

of the USS Arizona battleship.

It is a solemn place to contemplate

a dark day which will forever

live in infamy.

The morning of December 7th, a substantial Japanese fleet

launched an air assault on the U.S. at Pearl Harbor.

The goal was to cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet

so that they could not contest

Japanese plans for invasion across the Pacific.

They launched about 353 aircraft.

They attacked for about an hour and a half.

And over the period,

they killed some 2,403 Americans...

including 68 civilians.

And they damaged or destroyed 19 ships of the United States Navy.

The Arizona was one of the first ships

to be attacked in the very first attack.

Ten aircraft went after it, and they were dropping

armor-piercing aerial bombs.

One went through five decks into the Arizona...

which had about a million pounds of gunpowder in it.

Caused an explosion so large

that the ship's bulkheads blew outwards.

The entire 30,000-ton ship

was lifted bodily from the water and then sank very quickly.

Fires burned for two days afterwards,

making it almost impossible

to engage in recovery efforts.

And so 1,104 sailors and Marines

of the Arizona are still aboard.

They went down with the ship,

and then the remains were never removed.

So it is definitely a cemetery.

The names of the men who died on the USS Arizona

are immortalized on a marble wall

at the Pearl Harbor Memorial.

And for over 80 years, the attack on Pearl Harbor

has continued to haunt the American people.

With Pearl Harbor, we have a tragedy

that's become part of our national story.

So when we see at Pearl Harbor,

"This is where this happened."

Or "This is where so and so was killed."

I've got goosebumps right now just talking about it.

It is a spiritual experience for anyone.

When you talk about Pearl Harbor, there are

a lot of reports of ghost hauntings.

This is a location that saw so much death,

so much tragedy, and now as people go back,

there's an energy that still permeates the area.

These are echoes of the past.

The people that died in the attack at Pearl Harbor

died in horrible circumstances.

They were burned to death or drowned or both.

If any place was going to be haunted,

Pearl Harbor is such a place.

Pearl Harbor is a graveyard,

but could it also be home to restless spirits?

Some say yes, in light of the fact

that both civilians and military personnel

have reported strange apparitions

and supernatural phenomena throughout the base,

the most famous of which is a mysterious spirit

referred to as Charley.

Reportedly, Charley is this sort of

benevolent, mischievous spirit.

Charley's on Ford Island.

So Ford Island is in the middle of Pearl Harbor.

And it was actually the first to be attacked in the battle.

So many people think of Ford Island as being haunted.

And according to the stories,

sometimes a light will be left on that wasn't supposed to,

or a radio will turn on, or its station will just change.

And when that happens,

they'll say, "That's, that's just Charley."

This is a spirit that's been around the area

for a long, long time.

People attribute it to somebody that perished

there at Pearl Harbor.

So, it's one of those things that really

heightens that idea that Pearl Harbor is haunted.

While encounters with Charley have been

reported on Ford Island for decades,

many visitors have also felt

a ghostly presence near the wreckage of the USS Arizona.

The USS Arizona Memorial is a very reverent location.

You can feel the sadness that is there.

And they've done a really beautiful job

of creating this memorial,

so these sailors who lost their lives

in such a gruesome, horrific fashion

can be remembered to this day.

You go out to this bridge-like structure,

and there isn't a ship sitting there.

It's underwater.

The water is fairly murky.

But you can only sort of make out this...

the-the kind of vague outlines.

And you really have to examine things

to figure out what you're looking at.

You have to keep in mind

that what you're essentially standing over

is a grave.

That, to me, is the most important part.

When the Pearl Harbor attack occurred,

the USS Arizona had just been topped off

the day before on all of its fluids.

So, when it sank, over a million gallons of oil

were trapped within the superstructure.

And what's happening to this day is

oil will rise to the surface.

And they call these the black tears of the USS Arizona.

This oil rises up, and it creates

kind of a slick on the water,

which you can see from the memorial.

And occasionally, people will see in the slick

what appears to be like a ghostly face,

and some of the photos of these are truly haunting.

And of course, it's not surprising that people

would take that as being some sort of representation

of the agony of the men who died aboard the Arizona.

Skeptics may scoff at the idea of ghosts

or things of this nature.

But you cannot deny that when you walk

aboard that memorial,

it is a powerful experience.

It's just a fascinating

and unique piece of American history.

Do the events of December 7, 1941,

continue to cast a dark shadow over Pearl Harbor?

It's a sobering thought.

And that day of infamy

still looms large in our collective consciousness.

But on another note,

historians remain fascinated by a much different kind

of World War II mystery.

Because there are reports which suggest

that German engineers

successfully pioneered technology

that may have actually

defied the laws of physics.

At a top secret military research

and development facility, Nazi Germany unleashes

a terrifying new weapon:

the V-2 rocket.

During the next six months,

the Nazis launch roughly 1,100 V-2 rockets against England,

which decimate buildings throughout London,

and kill approximately 9,000 people.

These missiles belong to a category

of advanced technology that the Nazis call "Wunderwaffe,"

or "wonder weapons."

Hitler's wonder weapons were

high technology weapons.

While the Allies were dropping

bombs on German cities,

the Germans were launching a ballistic missile,

which could travel from Germany to London

in just minutes

and unleash hell.

In many respects,

the Germans were well ahead

of the Allies in technological advances

in a whole range of fields.

And Hitler was promising the party faithful

that "We have a game-changing addition to the war.

We can turn the tide."

So that confidence must have come from somewhere.

What secret technology were Nazi scientists working on

that convinced Hitler that Germany could win the war?

Well, according to Polish researcher

and author Igor Witkowski,

who has investigated that very question for more than 20 years,

it was a mysterious Nazi weapon

known as "die glocke,"

or "the bell."

In 2007,

Igor Witkowski's extraordinary claims

were revealed to the wider world

when he published a book titled

The Truth About the Wunderwaffe.

According to Igor Witkowski,

the bell was described

as being about 12 to 15 feet tall,

and shaped like a bell.

It had two counter-rotating cylinders that were filled

with a mercury-like substance

that was highly radioactive.

Once it was activated,

it emitted a field that was about

600 feet in diameter.

Anybody that got too close to this field died.

Several of the scientists who were working on the Bell

suffered this fate.

The theory was that when the Bell was activated,

if you create a powerful enough electromagnetic field,

that you could actually

warp space-time in a highly localized area,

creating anti-gravity, and possibly even time travel.

But if the Bell did exist, as Igor Witkowski claims,

then where were the Nazis developing

such an extraordinary piece of secret technology?

This densely forested area hides remnants of

an ultra-clandestine test facility

with secret subterranean chambers,

tunnels and fortifications.

And Igor Witkowski contends that this town

was dedicated to the development of the Bell.

Could this secret facility have been the test site for the Bell?

Some believe the proof lies with an enigmatic structure

at the center of the complex

known as The Henge.

The Henge is a name given

to this bizarre structure,

which really does look almost like a concrete Stonehenge.

And some researchers believe that Die Glocke,

or the Bell, was somehow inserted into this structure.

The biggest mystery about Die Glocke is what it was.

We've heard all the theories, but we don't know,

because, apparently, it was not ready for operational use.

But had the Bell been developed,

and had it proven to be an effective weapon,

Hitler would have used it.

The infamous Nazi Bell continues to capture the imagination

of both historians and amateur researchers alike.

Perhaps further clues about the scientific achievements of

the Third Reich can be found by examining

what happened to 1,600 brilliant German scientists after the war.

Because, in an ironic twist of fate,

these former Nazis ended up working

for the United States government.

The Soviet Red Army has surrounded the city,

and the total defeat of the Third Reich is at hand.

On May 7, 1945, the remaining leadership

of the German army officially surrenders to Allied forces.

But as people rejoice around the world...

the United States government initiates a top secret program.

Operation Paperclip.

Operation Paperclip was a secret Allied plan

at the end of World War II

to acquire former Nazi German talent

in the areas of aeronautics, especially,

but also physics, chemistry and medicine.

In other words, they were rounding up

former Nazi scientists,

and bringing many of them to the United States.

The name Operation Paperclip came because

if you were a high-value target,

a scientist that we really wanted,

then there was a paperclip on your folder.

This would have been things like aircraft production,

rocketry, atomic weapons.

Eventually, about 1,600 scientists and their families

were brought to the United States,

where, officially, they did not exist.

Paperclip was essentially an acknowledgment

by the Allied powers that the Germans,

in so many areas, were technologically ahead.

They had science and engineering skills

that we simply didn't have.

So, they wanted to identify these people,

bring them back to the U.S. and set them to work.

We kept Paperclip very secret

because we did not want to tell the American public that we were

out finding Nazi scientists

to come work in the United States.

And so a lot of the paper trail is still just missing.

That's why Operation Paperclip

still leaves you wondering today,

you know, what came from it, and what are we hiding?

What were Nazi scientists working on in the United States

that, even today, remains a closely guarded secret?

Some say a clue lies in the remarkable events

which transpired throughout 1947,

which has been referred to

as "The Year of the Flying Saucer."

During 1947, flying saucers were sighted all over the country,

from the northwest all the way to the southeast.

There was so much panic about what are these things,

who's piloting them, where are they from?

And the sightings of UFOs were on front pages

of newspapers across the country.

On July 8, 1947, the Roswell Daily Record

famously reported that a flying saucer had crashed

in the New Mexico desert,

and was seized by the U.S. Army.

While many people believe that the unidentified craft

was extraterrestrial in origin,

others claim that it may have actually been the result

of Operation Paperclip.

The Germans were known to use non-traditional techniques

and unconventional aircraft design.

Some people say what happened at Roswell was

a saucer-shaped disc that we got from Nazi technology.

Because there's some anecdotal evidence that they were

working on some sort of saucer-shaped aircraft.

And that's the sort of thing we would have been taking

to the United States, that we would have hidden

from the American public.

Is it possible that the mysterious flying object

recovered in Roswell, New Mexico,

was an experimental craft developed by Nazi scientists?

Perhaps the answer can be found by examining

an iconic UFO sighting that took place

only a month before the Roswell crash.

On June 24, pilot Kenneth Arnold reported

seeing UFOs near Mount Rainier in Washington State

flying at supersonic speeds which, interestingly,

matches the velocity of the German V-2 rocket.

And when Arnold described the mysterious crafts

that he had seen, some pointed out their striking similarity to

an aircraft developed by German scientists in World War II.

The Germans did a lot of

crazy aircraft design, and one of them

was this massive bomber that was called the Horton 229.

It was a flying wing. The two look so similar,

how could they not be related?

And those are the sort of scientists

that Operation Paperclip was grabbing,

was the people that built that aircraft.

And so when you keep a lot of secrets,

then you leave room for a lot of speculation.

It's intriguing to think that aircraft

built by former Nazi scientists

may have been mis-identified as extraterrestrial spacecraft.

But on the other hand, many still believe

that these UFOs came from another world.

So, is it possible that one purpose of Operation Paperclip

was to analyze recovered alien technology?

Let's say that you got ahold of some sort of alien craft.

Who are you gonna bring in to look at it?

You would bring in the most savvy people in terms

of aeronautics, rocketry, propulsion systems.

And if you're talking about the late 1940s or 1950s,

Paperclip-connected scientists would be some of

the key individuals you would want to have there.

There is a direct potential connection here

between Nazi scientists and the Roswell crash.

But there's still vast parts of it that we don't know,

and maybe we never will.

Was the flying disc that crashed in Roswell, New Mexico,

created by the German war machine,

or by an extraterrestrial civilization?

Either way, it's a fascinating mystery.

Just like another alleged alien encounter

that took place in 1942 between the U.S. military

and an unidentified flying object.

The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor,

Congress declares war on Japan.

Three days later, Japan's allies, Germany and Italy,

declare war on the United States.

And as the country prepares to send millions of troops

to fight in Europe and the South Pacific,

Americans on the home front anxiously wonder

whether the war will reach the mainland.

In the days and weeks that followed Pearl Harbor,

the American military was on high alert.

The American people were aware of the possibilities

of an enemy attack of some kind

that might fall somewhere else.

It wasn't just Pearl Harbor.

The island of Midway also came under enemy attack.

And so the American people suddenly had to recognize

that we had a long coastline, and it was open and vulnerable.

Just two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor,

a Japanese submarine surfaces off the coast...

and fires armor-piercing shells at the Ellwood Oil Field.

While the bombardment causes little damage...

America is on high alert.

Civilians are reading in their newspapers

on the morning of February 24th about a submarine attack.

And then on the evening of February 24th,

the headquarters of the 37th Anti-Aircraft Brigade

and the Fourth Anti-Aircraft Command received a message

from the Office of Naval Intelligence, stating,

"Predict Los Angeles attack tonight."

Everyone was on the lookout for the submarine

that had shelled the oil refining complex

right near Santa Barbara the night before.

All of Southern California went under a blackout.

No radio stations could broadcast.

There was a full military alert.

What happened was,

over a series of some hours,

strange objects were seen over Los Angeles...

in and around the city itself.

And the witnesses included members of the public,

but also some of the people manning the coastal batteries.

And these people opened fire on

whatever this object or objects were.

Anti-aircraft guns erupted,

firing blindly at unidentified objects in the sky.

But were these objects Japanese planes?

Or could they have been something else?

This strange incident has come to be known as

"The Battle of Los Angeles."

You've got to imagine all these coastal batteries

firing up into the air.

So, the Battle of Los Angeles, in many respects,

took the war to the mainland, continental United States.

And it was apocalyptic.

The city of Los Angeles is stunned.

Nobody's quite sure what's happening.

Are we under attack?

They looked as if they were, but by who or what?

In total, 1,400 rounds were fired

into the sky at unidentified objects.

Remarkably, after the smoke cleared,

there was no evidence of any downed planes,

and no coherent explanation for what happened.

Within hours, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox

held a press conference, dismissing the incident

as "war nerves."

Frank Knox makes a very interesting statement

that it was a false alarm.

A lot of people say that there was a cover-up, and the military

was obfuscating the truth, and everyone's dodging this.

There more than likely is some truth to that.

The civilians didn't know anything except that shrapnel

was raining down on the citizens of Los Angeles,

because many rounds didn't impact and didn't detonate

until they hit the ground.

And this is pretty alarming.

What really happened on February 24, 1942,

over the skies of Los Angeles?

Some say the answer can be found by examining the iconic photo

of the attack that appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

It's an amazing photograph.

And it shows these beams of light going up into the sky

and terminating at one large object

that is, in fact, some kind of oblong shape.

The photo enters the general American cultural zeitgeist

in a powerful way, because in that photograph,

what they think they see is that U.S. Army

coast artillery anti-aircraft searchlight batteries

have illuminated a flying saucer.

Did the U.S. military engage in a firefight

with a flying saucer during World War II, as some believe?

It's a tantalizing question

that is still up for debate, especially considering

that the photo in the Los Angeles Times

was altered for publication.

The original photograph is so faint

that it shows some blurry blobs of light.

And then a few search lights that sort of fade out.

So they helped the viewer see the searchlights

by doctoring it and making it more acceptable for print.

So what is up there?

More than 80 years

after the Battle of Los Angeles...

people still debate whether

a firefight with extraterrestrials

actually took place over a major American city.

Not unlike another strange World War II mystery

that has also stirred controversy.

It involves the Nazis' bizarre quest

to obtain mystical objects believed to possess...

supernatural powers.

World War II spanned six years,

inflicted upwards of 80 million casualties,

and shaped our modern world.

But what most people don't realize

is that remnants of the ideology

that gave rise to this monumental conflict

can still be seen today

in a remote town in Western Germany.

Near the small village of Wewelsburg,

stands an ominous castle

that was home to the strange beliefs

and occult practices of Nazi Germany.

This 400-year-old stronghold is sometimes called

the Nazi Temple of Doom.

Wewelsburg Castle was Heinrich Himmler's headquarters.

It was, to him, a temple for

his particular brand of black magic, if you like.

They had their unholy ceremonies there.

It was the center of the most devilish,

genuinely satanic operation the world has ever seen.

Heinrich Himmler was in charge

of what was called the Schutzstaffel... the SS.

Himmler was very concerned with rituals

and strange occult ideas.

And he invited members of the officer class of the SS

to meetings at Wewelsburg.

In the dungeon area,

they had an eternal flame burning,

and crypts containing Nazi military heroes.

And it's presumed that all kinds of

what would be considered pagan rituals were conducted.

You can visit it today,

and you can still see the 12-armed Black Sun emblem

that Heinrich Himmler had inlaid in the floor

at a considerable cost.

And the point of ritual magic

is to bend reality to your desires.

Well, just imagine what the Nazis wanted.

A world controlled by Nazis.

So everything they're doing there is

this attempt to manifest that reality.

Not only did Himmler and the SS perform dark rituals

at Wewelsburg Castle,

they also sent expeditions to the far reaches of Tibet

and Antarctica in search of relics said to possess

mystical properties.

And while this fascination with the occult is certainly bizarre,

some historians believe it embodies

the Nazis' relentless quest for absolute power.

When we talk about the Nazi obsession

with the occult, I mean, it sounds crazy.

And indeed, it probably is.

The real roots of Nazi occultism

was a great desire to dominate the entire Earth.

So, to establish some kind of mystical contact

and, obviously, get a bit of their power,

was a sensible idea from their perspective.

Despite numerous theories and intense study,

we may never fully understand what drove Nazi Germany

to embrace the occult.

And the surprising truth is that even though

World War II ended more than 70 years ago,

there is still much more we have to learn about

the most devastating conflict in human history.

Why does World War II spawn so many unexplained things,

so many, so many mysteries?

Simple explanation is that it is

the single biggest event in human history.

More blood and treasure, more energy was expended on that

than anything else that we have ever done.

And the world and everybody since has been

irreparably shaped by those events.

World War II was just massive in scale.

We were hiding technologies and developing stuff,

and keeping secrets.

It's not a shock that we come out of there

with an awful lot in our minds,

in our spirits, that is still just unexplained.

It's remarkable how many bizarre,

unsolved mysteries emerged from the Second World War.

These extraordinary tales show the profound influence

that the war continues to have, even in the 21st century.

Which is precisely why both historians

and curious members of the public

will keep investigating the many strange stories

of World War II that remain...

unexplained.

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