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WILLIAM SHATNER: You know, I've been around for a while.

Met some interesting people, done some crazy things.

So you just might think that there's not much that

can take me by surprise.

You'd be wrong.

The world is full of stories and science and

things that amaze and confound me every single day,

incredible mysteries that keep me awake at night.

Some I can answer. Others just defy logic.

NARRATOR: Are we living on a hostile planet?

In Newfoundland, a small community is devastated by

a mysterious explosion.

DARRIN BICKFORD: It really looked like a bomb had gone off.

NARRATOR: Was it a secret weapon or a freak of nature?

On Lake Michigan, a yacht vanishes into thin air.

KATHY DOORE: This is the most extraordinary thing

I have ever, ever witnessed.

NARRATOR: Was it swallowed by an evil fog?

And in the Indian Ocean, two giant flashes of light

send a nation into panic.

JEFFREY RICHELSON: Everybody knew for sure

this was something to be very concerned about.

WILLIAM SHATNER: Yeah, it's a weird world. And I love it.

[♪]

[birds chirping]

WILLIAM SHATNER: Listen. Nature. Isn't it wonderful?

You know, Mother Earth - she's all we have.

Over six billion of us occupy possibly the only

planet in the universe that sustains life but yet

we take everything from her and give very little back.

Is she getting mad at us?

Are killer tsunamis, quakes and tornados the

earth's way of saying enough is enough? Maybe.

But there's something else going on with our planet -

freaks of nature that are impossible to explain and

can strike you out of the blue.

[birds chirping]

NARRATOR: Sunday, April 2nd, 1978.

Twelve-year-old Darrin Bickford was making his

way home on Bell Island, a small community in

Newfoundland on the east coast of Canada.

DARRIN BICKFORD: I was outside riding my pedal bike

and I knew one of my favourite shows came on

television at eleven so I was pedaling back home.

NARRATOR: But Darrin wouldn't get to watch TV

that morning.

Instead, he would witness one of the world's

greatest unsolved mysteries.

DARRIN BICKFORD: As I approached the end of our

driveway, all the birds stopped chirping, all the

dogs stopped barking, it just went so still.

And then it was boom like a shotgun blast, followed

immediately by another boom and then followed

immediately after the second boom the ground

shook underneath me.

It was the biggest noise I have ever heard in my life.

NARRATOR: Suddenly, something unbelievable appears

right in front of Darrin - a glowing ball of light.

DARRIN BICKFORD: It was hovering off the ground

when it appeared out of thin air and the beautiful

colours of blue made up most of the centre of the

ball and outside of the blue, it was orange and

yellow mixing together.

And then just like that, the ball of light just

disappeared into thin air.

It was all over in four or five seconds, but those

four or five seconds are burnt into my brain just

like a roll of film.

NARRATOR: The massive explosion was heard over

sixty kilometers away.

Its impact wreaked havoc.

People reported exploding TV sets, blue flames

shooting from electrical outlets and a strange beam

of light coming from the sky.

This bizarre event was dubbed 'The Bell Island Boom.'

DARRIN BICKFORD: After this happened, everyone

was in bewilderment.

NARRATOR: One house seemed to catch the brunt of the boom.

It belonged to Darrin's grandfather James Bickford.

[♪]

DARRIN BICKFORD: Fuses in his fuse panel were glass

fuses that were screwed into the panel.

These had come out like bullets and went about

twenty-odd feet, the length of their hallway

and buried theirselves in the wall.

NARRATOR: Grandpa's chicken coop is demolished

- the chickens inside killed instantly.

DARRIN BICKFORD: It really looked like a bomb had

gone off in his shed.

NARRATOR: It's a bizarre scene, but even more

baffling are three large holes blown into the ground.

DARRIN BICKFORD: It was a cone shaped hole going

three or four feet down.

We didn't know what it was.

NARRATOR: This weird and mysterious incident soon

generates massive interest around the world.

DARRIN BICKFORD: A lot of people came, the media came.

The television news crew had me describe to them

what I had seen.

DARRIN BICKFORD (ARCHIVE): Myself I thought something

happened to the world or someone dropping bombs or something.

WILLIAM SHATNER: Now this is really weird or what?

A little kid is riding his bike, minding his own

business when - boom!

His town is suddenly smashed by some mysterious

explosion, turning fuses into lethal weapons,

exploding TV - and what about those poor chickens?

Awful!

What could have caused something like that?

[zap]

Was that me?

NARRATOR: Jim Farrell was a local fire investigator

and one of the first to the scene.

After being asked to investigate, he sends his

report to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The RCMP officially concludes that it was lightning.

Farrell begs to differ.

JIM FARRELL: I said I don't believe it's lightning.

I've never encountered anything so great as this force.

NARRATOR: But Jim isn't the only one who wants answers.

Soon, Darrin gets a surprise visit.

DARRIN BICKFORD: There were these strange men.

I was told they were scientists from

Los Alamos, New Mexico.

NARRATOR: The Los Alamos National Laboratory built

and tested the first atomic bombs.

Could there be a connection?

The men interview everyone involved,

including Darrin and Jim.

JIM FARRELL: I told them everything I knew and next

thing I was more or less ordered to turn over my

exhibits to the gentlemen.

NARRATOR: The three strangers leave without

giving any concrete answers.

What were they looking for?

What did Darrin Bickford and the residents of

Bell Island witness?

And what could have created the Bell Island boom?

Science journalist Brian Dunning believes the

answer isn't so earth shattering after all.

BRIAN DUNNING: There was actually about six hundred

booms between starting in late 1977 going through mid 1978.

Nobody could really localize exactly what was

happening but it was, it was heard from South

Carolina all the way up through Canada.

NARRATOR: Could the Bell Island boom be part of

a bigger phenomenon?

What could be responsible for this rash of strange booms?

BRIAN DUNNING: What started happening in

December of 1977 is that the Concorde was flying over.

It was making its supersonic flights between

New York and Europe, and that created sonic booms

coming over the land.

NARRATOR: When planes fly through the air they make

waves, just like a boat in the water.

The faster you fly, the closer the waves build up

at the tip of the airplane.

And when a plane actually goes faster than the sound

waves can move, they pile up into one big sonic

shock wave that can cause damage to the areas on

land below it.

Could the Bell Island boom just have been the effect of

a sonic boom from the world's first supersonic passenger jet?

BRIAN DUNNING: Because it was a sonic aircraft and

made a big sonic boom, it was supposed to go way out to sea.

However, on hot days, because of fuel expansion

issues, it would have to take a short cut route

and it would go over Nova Scotia.

For all the six hundred mystery booms that we

heard, most of them were correlated with sonic

booms from the Concorde and other aircraft.

NARRATOR: Could the world's fastest passenger

jet have caused the tomb on Bell Island?

Or was it something far more deadly?

KARL STEPHAN: It may be something that science

doesn't know about yet.

NARRATOR: A small Newfoundland community is

thrown into chaos by an earth-shattering boom.

Was it caused by a supersonic airliner?

Karl Stephan is a professor of engineering.

His theory is very - electric.

KARL STEPHAN: What I've read of the Bell Island

boom sounds consistent with a super lightning bolt.

NARRATOR: Super lightning bolts are extremely rare

but freakishly powerful bolts of lightning.

KARL STEPHAN: Most lightning has a negative charge.

However, about ten percent or less of lightning bolts

are positively charged.

The current is about ten times what your typical

lightning bolt would have.

So it would make a much louder boom.

NARRATOR: Superbolts almost always occur in the

upper atmosphere over oceans.

Very rarely do they hit land.

But do they explain the weird things seen that day

on Bell Island, like glass fuses acting like bullets?

KARL STEPHAN: Strange things happen when very

large currents flow through wires that aren't

designed to carry them.

Tremendous forces are set up, magnetic forces that

can cause ordinary objects to fly like projectiles.

NARRATOR: Okay, but what about the poor chickens

that were roasted in their coop?

KARL STEPHAN: Chickens are susceptible

to being electrocuted.

What can happen with any kind of animal that are in

a place where lightning hits the ground is the

current running along the ground can actually run up

through the legs and through the body and kill the animal.

NARRATOR: Stephan's superbolt theory seems to

help answer some of the mysterious incidents on

Bell Island, but does it explain the weird glowing

ball of light witnessed by Darrin Bickford?

Stephan believes the answer lies in an

incredibly rare natural phenomena.

KARL STEPHAN: The ball of light hovering sounds

a whole lot like ball lightning.

Ball lightning is sometimes seen to form

right after a lightning strike and it either

disappears silently or it can explode.

We suspect that it is an electrical phenomenon.

It may be something that science doesn't know about yet.

NARRATOR: Did lightning make fuses explode and act

like bullets?

Did it roast those chickens?

Questions persist.

If scientists don't even know what ball lightning is,

how can they think that that's what Darrin saw?

If it was a superbolt, why did high-level personnel

from a top-secret lab show up to investigate?

And finally, what caused the three craters at

James Bickford's place?

Lee Tizzard is an electromagnetic weapons

researcher.

He thinks Mother Nature shouldn't take

the rap for this one.

LEE TIZZARD: I believe the evidence indicates that it

was caused by something manmade and not something by nature.

It was uh an accident.

NARRATOR: But what could cause an accident on this scale?

What kind of accident blows holes in islands?

LEE TIZZARD: During that timeframe the Russians

were pounding North America with a very

powerful and disruptive signal called the

Woodpecker Signal.

NARRATOR: The Woodpecker Signal was a radio signal

used by the Soviets in the 1970s to provide early

warning of an enemy weapons launch.

By bouncing radio waves off the earth's upper

atmosphere, the ionosphere, they could

analyze the returning waves for disruptions

indicating a missile attack.

LEE TIZZARD: It was a ten hertz signal,

ten vibrations per second and it sounded like this,

it sounded like [imitates noise]

and just extremely powerful.

NARRATOR: According to Tizzard, the Woodpecker

Signal was a ticking time bomb.

He believes its use accidentally created

a column of electromagnetic energy, known as

a standing columnar wave, over North America.

Despite being invisible to the eye, this huge energy

field had the potential to be disastrous.

LEE TIZZARD: I believe that the standing columnar

wave that was established collapsed and when the

standing columnar wave collapses, it creates

these vortices of electromagnetic energy

that have to dissipate.

It sent down three spinning vortices of electromagnetic

energy and that's what we believe struck,

explaining the three holes.

NARRATOR: Did a Russian radio signal create an

electromagnetic column over North America, which

accidentally collapsed?

If so, why did it happen on a remote island off

the coast of Canada?

And does it explain the glowing ball of light?

LEE TIZZARD: It's believed that the standing columnar

wave that was created by the Woodpecker Signal was attracted

to Bell Island because of the iron ore content.

It was a former iron ore mine.

NARRATOR: Did the iron-rich Bell Island act

as a giant magnet for a massive burst of

electromagnetic energy caused by the Soviets?

Or was it struck by a superbolt with a side dish

of ball lightning?

Whatever the truth, Darrin Bickford and the other

survivors of the Bell Island boom may never know.

Weird or what?

[♪]

NARRATOR: A mysterious, deadly fog haunts Lake Michigan,

swallowing ships and planes and bending time.

Is this a true freak of nature?

Is it weird or what?

GPS: In three metres, turn right.

WILLIAM SHATNER: You know, modern technology is amazing,

isn't it?

GPS: Turn right.

SHATNER: I mean with nothing but this tiny

gadget I can navigate to within an inch of wherever

I want to go. Look.

GPS: Prepare to turn left.

SHATNER: [laughs]

GPS: Turn left. Go straight ahead.

SHATNER: [laughs] It even talks to you.

What a, what a nice lady.

And it's so accurate.

GPS: Turn right.

Turn right. Turn right.

WILLIAM SHATNER: I can't turn right you stupid thing.

There's a wall here.

GPS: Go straight ahead. Go straight ahead.

Calculating route.

WILLIAM SHATNER: But have you ever felt yourself

disoriented like you're lost in the woods?

Well I am.

GPS: Go straight ahead.

WILLIAM SHATNER: No!

GPS: Calculating route...

WILLIAM SHATNER: It's not a pleasant experience,

I can assure you.

NARRATOR: The Great Lakes of North America hold

a fifth of the world's freshwater.

They're also one of the most popular areas for

sailing in the world.

But on a summer night nearly two decades ago,

Kathy Doore discovered these gentle waters aren't

quite what they seem.

KATHY DOORE: The events of that night challenged

my conventional view of reality.

NARRATOR: It's a warm July evening when Kathy sets

off for a leisurely sail.

KATHY DOORE: Clear sky, light chop.

It was beautiful out. And it was hot.

NARRATOR: Just around nightfall, her calm journey

is upended by something mysterious and alarming.

KATHY DOORE: Very abruptly we encountered fog,

a very strange fog.

It just descended on us. Poof - just like that.

NARRATOR: In minutes, the fog engulfs the boat.

KATHY DOORE: We feared that we might have a crash.

At that point I became very, very, very cold.

In fact, I was freezing.

NARRATOR: Blinded and cold, Kathy and her yacht

have seemingly disappeared into a void.

KATHY DOORE: The boat began a strange aquatic dance.

It began to turn, almost as if it were pirouetting

on its axis.

There was no movement of the sea, this was not a whirlpool.

I looked at the captain and I said who's steering

the vessel?

And he said nobody. It's steering itself!

NARRATOR: Amazingly, the vessel does three complete

360-degree turns.

Then as quickly at it appeared, the fog suddenly vanishes.

They regain control of the boat and head for home but

when Kathy looks at her watch she makes a

startling discovery.

KATHY DOORE: I've gone over this a hundred times.

We should have been back by ten pm and it was after midnight.

We cannot account for two hours.

I don't know what happened to that time.

NARRATOR: Kathy's pleasure cruise had

somehow become a nightmare.

KATHY DOORE: I just remember thinking this is

the most extraordinary thing I have ever, ever witnessed.

NARRATOR: What happened to Kathy and her yacht?

Remarkably, her experience isn't the only weird event

to occur on Lake Michigan.

Numerous unexplained mysteries have occurred

here: passenger airplanes vanishing without a trace,

legends of ghost ships appearing out of nowhere

and thousands of UFO sightings.

Could the mysterious fog Kathy encountered be

linked to these strange events?

Was it a natural phenomenon, or something unknown?

Pilot Bruce Gernon believes he has the answer.

BRUCE GERNON: When I first heard Kathy's story,

I immediately realized that she had experienced what

I call electronic fog.

NARRATOR: Bruce believes that sometimes different

magnetic fields from the earth collide in powerful

freak thunderstorms over remote bodies of water

such as Lake Michigan.

The result is a metallic, highly charged fog.

BRUCE GERNON: It's been known to actually chase

vessels and try to capture them.

NARRATOR: Once formed, the electronic fog is

magnetically attracted to metal objects like ships

and airplanes, wrecking havoc on their

navigational controls and displaying other

incredible properties.

BRUCE GERNON: It has an electromagnetic energy

within it that can become so powerful that it can

affect the fabric of time itself.

NARRATOR: Time warping fog?

An interesting notion, but is there any science that

can back it up?

BRUCE GERNON: NASA has just recently announced

that they have discovered something new in certain

types of thunderstorms and it appears at the top of

the storm - emitting antimatter.

NARRATOR: Created by massive lightning within a

storm, antimatter produces 10,000 times more power

than nuclear energy.

Some scientists speculate that this sort of power

could open doors to new dimensions of time and space.

BRUCE GERNON: And this is a critical discovery that

relates to the electronic fog.

NARRATOR: Incredibly, Gernon says that he knows

what it's like to be enveloped by the

electronic fog.

He claims one of them captured his plane over

the Bermuda Triangle and that he traveled 300 miles

in only ten minutes.

BRUCE GERNON: And that would be impossible to do

in a small plane like this.

You'd have to be going close to two thousand

miles an hour.

NARRATOR: Could a mystery fog have sucked Kathy

Doore forward in time?

Do we need to rewrite our science books?

DAVID CHILDRESS: This is a very real phenomenon.

NARRATOR: A woman and her yacht suddenly disappear

while sailing on Lake Michigan.

Were they taken by a freak of nature known as

electronic fog?

Dr. Donadrian Rice doesn't think so.

DONADRIAN RICE: Human beings are not always

reliable uh witnesses uh to our own experiences.

NARRATOR: For him, the explanation is far more

straightforward.

DONADRIAN RICE: I think what the person was

experiencing was sensory deprivation.

NARRATOR: When our senses are deprived,

say with a blindfold, our brains try to fill in the gaps,

often with strange results.

DONADRIAN RICE: Typically they began to either

hallucinate visually, they could have auditory

hallucinations or they could have kinesthetic

hallucinations with the body.

NARRATOR: Could a regular fog cause Kathy Doore to

hallucinate and mistake an ordinary event for

something fantastical?

Maybe, but how could it explain those two missing hours?

DONADRIAN RICE: You're having a great time at a

party or some place, you know, time seems to go by

very quickly.

If you're sitting in a meeting, [laughs] time goes very slowly.

And of course uh objectively the clocks are

moving exactly the same but that's not your

experience of it.

NARRATOR: Dr. Rice is so convinced that sensory

deprivation is the culprit he's offered to recreate

the weird events of an electronic fog in his lab.

All he needs are headphones, a set of

goggles and ping-pong balls.

That's right, ping-pong balls.

DONADRIAN RICE: The experiment itself is one

where an individual is deprived of visual uh

information by uh having goggles with ping pong

balls cut out placed over the eyes, which lets in a

little light, but otherwise the person is

deprived and at the same time we'll have them

listen to white noise sound.

NARRATOR: The participants are not told how long

their senses will be deprived.

DR. RICE: Tell me a little bit about what you experienced.

MAN: Uh I seen sort of outlines of things, almost

like looking at clouds.

You see shapes in them a little bit.

WOMAN: The darkness around my eyes was growing as

though one was being lowered into the ground,

a little bit unsettling.

NARRATOR: Dr. Rice has proved that depriving the

senses affects perception.

But did they also lose track of time?

[♪]

MAN: I was thinking about five minutes.

I wouldn't have been surprised if it was

actually two minutes.

NARRATOR: Incredibly, the experiment lasted

for twenty minutes.

WOMAN: I don't know where that time went.

WILLIAM SHATNER: Wow, that's an incredible theory.

The fog caused a severe case of sensory

deprivation, which made Kathy hallucinate.

But you know what?

I'm sick of watching all these wonderful experiments.

I want to try this and see for myself.

Great.

Hello? Hello?

Okay, here we go.

Just wait, wait a minute.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

I'm definitely seeing something.

I think Dr. Rice might be really onto something here.

Yeah. Yeah. Ah I can see -

white.

I can definitely see white and I am very

disoriented but I have to ask - can this explain

how an entire yacht could get swallowed up by a fog?

Hello? Hello? Are you there?

[crash]

Can someone call a doctor?

NARRATOR: American author David Childress disagrees

these strange occurrences are simply tricks of the mind.

DAVID CHILDRESS: This is a very real phenomenon.

It's not just something that's a psychological

aberration or hallucination on their part.

NARRATOR: For Childress, the answer lies in ley lines -

a matrix of magnetic pathways

crisscrossing the earth, connected by ancient

ceremonial sites.

He believes they can create vortexes of energy

and manifest as the paranormal fog.

DAVID CHILDRESS: It's my view that these vortexes

of energy occasionally are activated, become alive

and become portals or doorways to other

time/space dimensions.

And this is what people get caught up in, in the

Bermuda Triangle or in the Great Lakes Triangle.

NARRATOR: Incredible.

But does it explain what happened to

Kathy and her yacht?

DAVID CHILDRESS: What may have happened to Kathy on

Lake Michigan was that she was in one of these

vortexes when it became activated and suddenly

a mist or fog starts to come in and surround you.

You're not in the same place that you were.

You feel you're in another dimension.

NARRATOR: If, as Childress believes, Kathy really

traveled to a new dimension, how in the

world did she get back?

DAVID CHILDRESS: Many of the people who have gone

through these bizarre vortex areas and survived

are probably very lucky.

We'll never know how many people have been in these same

vortex areas and situations and they never came back.

NARRATOR: Does this solve the mystery?

Did Kathy Doore sail into a patch of fog or into

another dimension?

Was she merely hallucinating as a result

of sensory deprivation?

Or had she entered a time vortex created by ley lines?

Whatever the answer, it's most definitely weird or what.

[♪]

NARRATOR: A blinding double flash of light

is detected over the Indian Ocean.

Did it nearly cause World War Three?

JEFFREY RICHELSON: Everybody knew for sure

this was something to be very concerned about.

WILLIAM SHATNER: When it comes to the mysteries of

Mother Nature, there's a lot of things that aren't

quite as they seem.

It's all a matter of perspective.

What on one hand can look perfectly normal -

on another could look like the end of the world.

That's exactly what happened in 1979.

NARRATOR: Jeffrey Richelson is a U.S. security analyst.

He knows lots of secrets, but he's yet to solve one

of the biggest - the truth behind a mysterious

event known as the Vela Incident.

JEFFREY RICHELSON: It's a fascinating anomaly.

It's a mystery that reads like a techno thriller.

NARRATOR: The tiny Crozet Islands lie in the Indian

Ocean over one thousand miles south of Africa.

Around 3 am on September 22nd, 1979,

something extraordinary happened there.

Without warning, two giant blinding flashes of light

lit up the sky.

JEFFREY RICHELSON: Everybody knew for sure

this was something to be very concerned about.

NARRATOR: Incredibly, seventy thousand miles away,

the flashes were also detected by a

U.S. satellite called Vela 6911.

JEFFREY RICHELSON: That triggered a very high

level of alert and from there word went to the

White House that something might have happened.

They started calling in advisors.

NARRATOR: They took it very seriously, rushing

CIA agents to the area in military planes.

But what triggered this extreme response?

JEFFREY RICHELSON: In 1979, the United States

had concluded a series of arms control treaties with

the Soviet Union.

NARRATOR: The Cold War rivals had just agreed to

stop nuclear tests but the flash detected by Vela 6911

could mean the Soviets were just playing games.

JEFFREY RICHELSON: The Vela satellite's prime

purpose was to detect nuclear detonations.

What they saw was something that's very

indicative of a nuclear explosion.

NARRATOR: Had the Soviets broken faith?

Had they really violated the new treaty and set off

a nuclear bomb?

Each side had thousands of nuclear warheads pointed

at the other.

The stakes couldn't be higher.

JEFFREY RICHELSON: At first the administration

tried to keep wraps on the story and it was a full

court press of intelligence activities to

try to determine what was actually going on.

NARRATOR: With a potential global crisis on its hands,

the U.S. tries to confirm its suspicions by sending

CIA sniffer planes to the Indian Ocean.

Equipped with sensitive radiation detectors,

they get an unsettling surprise.

JEFFREY RICHELSON: There was no radiation detected.

It was a mystery.

They even sent people, CIA officers into West Africa

to get the leaves off trees to see if there was

a residue from a nuclear explosion.

NARRATOR: So what had Vela really seen?

JEFFREY RICHELSON: Maybe they didn't know what

actually happened.

It's been such a mystery for so many years.

In terms of strange events I think it's, you know,

at the top of the list.

NARRATOR: What happened over the Indian Ocean?

What could cause a giant flash of light so powerful

it could be seen seventy thousand miles away?

Tom Reed is an expert in nuclear weapons.

TOM REED: I've fired them. I built them.

I've seen them go off.

NARRATOR: He believes there is only one explanation.

TOM REED: I believe it was a nuclear test.

A nuclear detonation is kind of hard to hide.

I mean it's not some pin drop in the night.

It's a very major event.

NARRATOR: But if no one witnessed the explosion,

how can he be sure that Vela detected a nuclear blast?

TOM REED: A nuclear explosion has this sort of fingerprint.

It is unmistakable.

NARRATOR: This fingerprint is caused by the way

a nuclear bomb explodes.

First, it blasts out deadly gamma radiation

at the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second.

TOM REED: Technically it's a flash but to the human eye,

uh uh, it's this ball of fire and the sun has

come to earth.

NARRATOR: Then, as the explosion grows,

the shockwave produces a second flash.

TOM REED: It's very mind boggling and

it's very frightening.

NARRATOR: Does the data from Vela confirm the

signature double flash of a nuclear bomb?

The recorded flashes are shown as curves on a graph.

TOM REED: These curves, those are like fingerprints.

This first peak is the device going off.

As the bubble expands the energy releases again

and so you get this second rise.

NARRATOR: But if Vela really saw a nuclear

blast, where was the other fingerprint -

the radioactivity?

TOM REED: They decided to put it in a part of the

world that's mostly water.

You then pick a weather condition like a typhoon.

A really serious typhoon would wash all the

radioactive debris right back into the ocean.

The best solution to pollution is dilution.

NARRATOR: Incredibly, weather records confirm a

typhoon was in the area just before the flash,

but who would take such elaborate precautions to

conceal a nuclear test?

TOM REED: People don't develop nuclear weapons

just because it's Thursday.

There has to be some reason.

Every nation that has gone nuclear has gone in

response to a very clear and present threat.

NARRATOR: Did some nation have a reason to feel

threatened in 1979?

Reed believes the answer is obvious.

TOM REED: Israel has very clear and present dangers

on its borders.

The Israelis have technology, they know

weapons, but they didn't have uranium.

NARRATOR: Israel could only make the bomb if it

had a supplier, but who else was threatened enough

to upend the test ban applecart?

TOM REED: At the same time, the Soviets were

pouring troops into Africa.

South Africans mine uranium as a byproduct of gold.

They got so much of it they don't know what to do with it.

NARRATOR: With Soviet forces in nearby Angola,

did South Africa have reason to partner with

Israel and build a nuclear bomb?

Does this explain why a flash occurred in the

remote regions of the Indian Ocean?

TOM REED: It is quite clear to me that this was

a test by the Israelis with logistical support by

the South Africans.

WILLIAM SHATNER: Why is it that whenever someone sees

something weird, they always assume the worst?

I mean honestly, is the world is so paranoid?

Are we really looking at a massive Cold War cover up?

Was the Vela incident nothing more than a crazy

conspiracy theory, or is there another way to solve

this mystery?

NARRATOR: Nuclear testing - it's a plausible theory,

but not everyone agrees.

RICHARD MULLER: Vela never recorded a secret nuclear test.

NARRATOR: A giant flash of light over the Indian

Ocean puts the world on nuclear alert.

Was it a freak of nature or something more sinister?

Professor Richard Muller is a physicist.

U.S. president Jimmy Carter appointed him to

investigate the Vela incident.

RICHARD MULLER: It was an important international

issue with diplomatic consequences and they

needed good scientific review of the data.

NARRATOR: Muller has analyzed the same

information as the nuclear experts, but he's come to

an entirely different conclusion.

RICHARD MULLER: When we began our study, we were

all convinced this really looks like it was a

nuclear explosion but when we did a scientific review

of the data there was something new and different.

NARRATOR: They discovered that Vela had connected

its data with two light sensors called bhangmeters.

RICHARD MULLER: Bhangmeter was a relatively simple

device designed to detect flashes of light.

NARRATOR: But remarkable, the double flash recorded

by each of the two bhangmeters was different.

RICHARD MULLER: The two pulses from the two

bhangmeters didn't match each other.

That was a real mystery but it indicated that this

thing just didn't look right.

NARRATOR: But if there was no blast, what could have

caused a signal that almost caused a nuclear crisis?

The experts are mystified, until Muller has

a flash of insight.

What if it wasn't anything on earth at all?

RICHARD MULLER: The Vela satellite is at

a medium earth orbit.

It's far away in space.

NARRATOR: Seventy thousand miles above the planet,

Vela wasn't protected by earth's atmosphere.

It was bombarded by tiny bits of rock and metal

called micrometeorites.

RICHARD MULLER: These micrometeorites don't

reach the ground because the atmosphere slows them

down and absorbs their energy.

A satellite, such as the Vela satellite,

is frequently hit by micrometeorites.

NARRATOR: But even if micrometeorites smacked

into Vela, how could specks of space dust

replicate the massive double hump shockwave of

a nuclear explosion?

RICHARD MULLER: If a micrometeorite hits the

surface of the satellite, it knocks off dust.

Dust reflects sunlight differently into

the two bhangmeters.

This could be the signal.

NARRATOR: Is it possible the whole world was

freaked out by a fleck of space dust knocked loose

by a microscopic space pebble?

After running more tests, Muller and his team

finally reached a conclusion.

RICHARD MULLER: What we thought was a bright flash

thousands of miles away was actually just a dim

flash that's only a few inches away.

Vela never recorded a secret nuclear test.

It was micrometeorites.

That's almost certainly what we saw back on

September 22nd, 1979.

NARRATOR: Could this whole mystery be solved by

something as simple as space dust?

After all, no one actually ever saw the flash.

Muller's theory became the official explanation of

the U.S. government.

But not everyone is convinced.

TOM REED: Clearly to me from a political point of

view he had every reason in the world to try to

not talk about this.

Form a committee and kick the, kick it downstream.

NARRATOR: Incredibly, in 2010, declassified South

African documents revealed nuclear discussions with

Israel in the years leading up to the Vela incident.

Could the space dust explanation just be a cover-up?

RICHARD MULLER: There are conspiracy theorists who

keep these things alive despite the fact that they

were pretty much settled by people who understood

the arguments at the time.

NARRATOR: In the end, we are left with a mystery.

Was the Vela incident proof of a secret nuclear weapons test?

Or was it merely some space dust that nearly

took the world to the brink of disaster?

Weird or what?

[♪]

NARRATOR: So there we have it, stories of mysterious

freaks of nature from all over the world.

On the east coast of Canada,

an earth-shattering boom stuns a community and

leaves scientists scratching their heads.

On Lake Michigan, a mysterious fog terrorizes

a sailor and alters the very fabric of time.

And over the Indian Ocean, a blinding double flash of

light creates a nuclear crisis.

[♪]

Are these stories evidence of mysterious forces at

work within the world?

Do we dismiss those who claim they are true?

You decide.

WILLIAM SHATNER: Join me next time for more stories

that will undoubtedly be weird or what?

[♪]