All language subtitles for What.on.Earth.S11E07.1080p.DSCP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-BTN_track3_[eng]

[narrator]
They're watching you.

More than 6,000 satellites
circle the Earth.

Every day, they uncover new,
mysterious phenomena

that defy explanation.

Revealed from high in the sky,

the secret Armageddon weapon.

It could absolutely knock us
back to the stone age.

[narrator] A mystery
mountaintop tsunami.

You can't really wrap
your head around
what you're seeing.

[narrator] And the lost army
of the dead.

They're known
for their fearsomeness

when called to battle.

[narrator]
Baffling phenomenon.

Mysteries from space.

What on Earth are they?

May 8th, 2018.

A group of urban explorers

are trekking through
the Russian Wilderness.

Heading for something weird
revealed from the skies.

[man speaking]

[narrator] A drone, scanning
a forest 33 miles
to the west of Moscow,

has uncovered
towering structures

hidden in a clearing.

[man] Now,
this is just truly bizarre.

You have massive, kind of,
industrial sized,

like, towers and pillars
and coils.

And it's
in the middle of nowhere.

[Guy Walters] These towers
are really strangely shaped.

And they've got
this kind of bulbous hoops

that run right up the side.

[narrator] The towers are
around 130 feet tall,

and form part of
a three million sq ft compound

They look like some kind
of strange '80s space weapon.

These towers
are kept away
from prying eyes.

So what I wanna know is,
what are they trying to hide?

[man speaking]

[narrator] A ten-foot high
fence forms a barrier

around the entire site.

Presence of fencing
around the site

is suspicious.

That automatically
makes me suspect

that maybe it's some sort
of military facility.

[narrator] After finally
gaining access,

the teams discovers
that a fence

isn't the only thing
guarding the site.

Let's go.

[narrator] Using
the trees as cover,

the team heads
for these structures

at the edge of the compound.

[man speaking]

[chuckling]

Crazy place.

[narrator] The towers sit
on giant tanks
of viscous liquid.

[man speaking]

[narrator] If this is
a military facility,

it's one with
a highly unusual purpose.

[Walters] If you get
a good look at this tower,

there appear to be,
like, weird
high-voltage equipment.

These installations
have a very eerie similarity

to Tesla coils.

But why would they be built
out in the middle of nowhere,

in Russia?

[narrator]
Declassified Soviet files

reveal that the drone
has captured a bizarre relic

of one of the most
extraordinary minds

of the 19th century.

Nicola Tesla
is one of the true geniuses

of early electrical power.

He was a pioneer,
whose inventions are
still being studied today.

[thunderclap]

[narrator] Born during
a lightning storm, in 1856,

Nicola Tesla was one
of the most prolific

and innovative engineers
in history.

During his career,

he developed
over 300 inventions.

Including
the alternating current

that still powers nearly every
modern electrical device.

The structures
revealed from the skies

are the legacy of perhaps
his most ambitious project.

[Ruben] One of the ideas
Tesla was most obsessed with,

was this idea of sending out
electricity, wirelessly.

[Kourounis]
He had grand plans

of beaming
wireless electricity

all across the country,
to every household.

[machinery whirring]

[narrator] As well as homes,

the engineer hopes
his wireless beams

will power planes and ships.

Key to his plan
is the Tesla coil,

which he develops in 1891.

[Cerveny] A Tesla coil
basically acts

like a magnetic container.

It allows for electrical
charge to build up

and then be released

in one big burst.

[narrator] In his
early experiments,

Tesla successfully
beams electricity

over a 130-foot distance.

In 1901,

he dramatically scales up
his technology.

Constructing the 190-foot tall

Wardenclyffe Tower,
on Long Island.

[Walters] Tesla
designed this tower

to create this huge
static charge

that would
electrify the stations,
thousands of miles away.

Tesla was attempting
to, literally, electrify

the entire planet.

[narrator] Tesla
runs out of money

before completing the tower.

But he continues to develop
his inventions

and allegedly accepts
a $25,000 payment

from the Soviet Union.

The secret forest facility

is evidence that the Kremlin
later repurposed his invention

for military purposes.

[Ruben] These towers
are something
called Marx Generators.

Which are giant machines
for making
artificial lightning.

[thunder clapping]

All the explorers have found
is essentially a giant,
outdoor lightning laboratory.

[narrator] The laboratory
begins operations
in the 1970s,

amid a major upgrade
of the Soviet Air Force.

Older planes
are being replaced

by a new generation of
2,000 mile per hour
MiG-25 fighters.

The fastest combat aircraft
on Earth.

But supersonic dives
through electrically
charged clouds

make these
war machines vulnerable.

[Morgan]
Aircrafts are often lost,

and experience
a failure of systems,

as a result
of lightning strikes.

[Munoz] It was imperative
for the Soviet military

to understand
how their aircraft reacted
to lightning strikes.

and whether
those planes could still
complete their missions.

[narrator]
To solve the problem,

engineers used
this central tower

to generate and release

nine million volts
of electricity.

Sparking 500-footlong
lightning bolts

that strike aircrafts
positioned below.

[man speaking]

Imagine having
the power of Zeus.

And being capable
of conjuring your own
lightning bolts.

And directing them
exactly where you
want them to be.

That's what
this facility does.

[narrator] Using science
developed at the site
in the image,

the Soviet Union
amasses a fleet
of 10,000 military planes,

the largest air force
of any nation.

Yet, it appears,

the facility's role
in clandestine
Cold War experiments

doesn't end there.

[Morgan] Not terribly far away
is the footprint of this
other, very large, building.

Footprint suggests
something that was very big

and very important.

[narrator] Soviet
military documents

reveal something disturbing.

[Munoz] This facility
was actually used

for development
of a next generation
Soviet weapon.

When used as a weapon of war,

it could knock us
back to the stone age.

[narrator] Coming up...
Apocalypse America...

Everything would
suddenly cease to be.

...and the spies
who lost a nuke.

The CIA has somehow lost
the key ingredient

of an atom bomb,

up on some
desolate mountainside.

[narrator]
Structures hidden
in the Russian wilderness,

have lured urban explorers
to a secret laboratory,

used for researching
lightning strikes
on fighter jets.

[narrator] The ghostly outline
of another structure

reveals this site's
most secretive work
has been wiped from the map,

Declassified records
offer more clues.

[Morgan] If you'd been
at this site in 1985,

what you'd have seen
was this massive
dome-shaped structure.

Bigger than anything like it
in the world.

It could be seen
for miles around.

[narrator] The dome
that once stood here

was codenamed Allure.

And is rumored to have housed
a revolutionary Soviet weapon.

Early on,
in the Cold War period,

the main threat was nuclear.

As time went on,
you saw the evolution
of a different kind of threat.

That was known as
the EMP attack.

[narrator] The cataclysmic
power of electromagnetic
pulse weapons,

or EMPs,

is accidentally discovered
by US scientists in 1962.

On July 9th,

the 1.4 megaton
Starfish Prime
nuclear warhead

detonates 240 miles
above the Pacific.

This huge explosion
generates this just
enormous EMP,

sparking aurora though
this planet's magnetic field.

And it's frying
electronic devices in Hawaii.

That's 900 miles away.

[narrator] A year later,
the US and the Soviets
sign a treaty

prohibiting these kinds
of high altitude atomic tests.

But with EMP's power
now out in the open,

military forces
on each side
of the iron curtain

race to convert it
into a battlefield weapon.

It was a period where
weapons were being
designed on both sides

to, potentially,
take out the other

without triggering
a global thermonuclear war.

[Ruben]
An electromagnetic pulse

can be used
as a very specific
sort of weapon.

It's like a bomb
for electrical components.

[narrator] The Soviet
scientists' aim

is to develop a device

that can generate a burst
of 50,000 volts.

Enough to cripple
US electrical infrastructure.

A report on its capability

sends shockwaves
through Washington.

[Walters] That report,
to Congress, makes really,
really terrifying reading.

Just a single
1.4 megaton explosion

above Kansas

has the power
to potentially bring down

the entire US power grid.

[Kourounis] No power.
No electronics.

Nothing.

All of it, gone.

Because it was blown away
by an electromagnetic pulse.

[narrator] Without
this critical infrastructure,

civilized society will soon
descend into anarchy.

[glass shattering]

[Morgan] That is
a terrifying thing to imagine.

People living in rural areas

might be able
to weather this
quite a bit better,

But people that are living
in metropolitan areas,

they're going to suffer.

They're gonna suffer
very, very quickly.

[narrator] In New York,

a 25-hour blackout in 1977

unleashes a wave of violence
across the city.

Causing $350 million
worth of damage.

And leaving
over 600 people injured.

If an EMP blast take out
the current US grid
for a year,

analysts estimate
that ensuing bloodshed

will claim the lives
of 90 percent
of the population.

[Kourounis] An EMP
is a weapon
of mass confusion.

Our government, our society
would basically

stop functioning.

It would so heavily
disrupt daily life

that it would produce
absolute mass chaos.

[narrator] How close
the Soviets got

to perfecting
their apocalypse device
is unknown.

In the 1980s,

the dome in the image
mysteriously implodes.

Taking its secrets with it.

Yet the presence
of security personnel
at the site

is worrying evidence

that experiments
at the clandestine facility

continue to this day.

[Morgan] When I look
at these structures,

I find that they provide,

sort of,
this menacing narrative

about the world
we are living in, right now.

[narrator] Coming up...

The Sahara's
extraterrestrial cove...

[Kourounis] It
is extraordinary.

But these
are clustered together

in the same pattern
that galaxies have.

...and hunt
for the emperor's hoard.

They thought they will find
an immense room of treasure
to make their fortune.

[narrator] February 8h, 2020.

A satellite passing over

a seemingly endless
desert in Sudan,

scans the ground
420 miles below.

[Bellinger] It's
a desolate desert area.

where you wouldn't expect
to find anything at all,

but...

...there are these swarms
of dark dots,

all over the landscape.

[Anthony]
Each one of these little dots
is exactly the same.

And they seem
to stretch out for miles.

[narrator] Analysis
of the wider region reveals

10,000 similar
stone structures,

covering an area
three times the size
of Los Angeles.

If these were homes,
I would expect to see

roads, infrastructure,
pathways, something.

But there is none of that.

Very mysterious.

[narrator] Archaeologist
Klint Janulis

recognizes the strange
desert features.

I've worked in areas
that have structures
like these,

in Saudi Arabia.

They look, to me,
like Islamic burial mounds
from the middle ages,

called qubba.

But rarely do you see them
in such large numbers

spread out across
such a vast area.

[narrator] The tombs
sit in territories

controlled by
a secretive tribespeople

called the Beja.

[Janulis] The Beja people
have lived in this area
for over 2,000 years.

There's very little
known about them

because they were nomadic.

Leaving behind very little
archaeological evidence.

[Bellinger] The Beja
generally travel around,

living a pretty peaceful
insular lifestyle.

But what they are
most known for

is their fearsomeness
when called to battle.

[narrator] One of the earliest
example of Beja's ferocity

is documented in 250 BCE.

When Roman garrisons
are sent to Sudan

to establish trade routes.

[Janulis] The Beja
wanted to defend their land
against Roman incursion.

So they used
guerilla hit-and-run tacks.

And ambushed.

And the Beja attacks
become so frequent
and regular,

it actually forces the Romans
to pull out of the area.

[narrator] Over
the following centuries,

the Beja strike
uneasy alliances

with the Romans
and the Egyptians,

before taking on
the largest empire in history.

[Janulis] In the 1880s,

the British colonial expansion
was occurring in this region.

And these people,
armed with spears,
charged the British garrison,

going right into gunfire.

Spears meet rifles
and spears win.

It's pretty incredible.

[man] They resisted,
time and again,

slaughtering thousands
of British soldiers.

[narrator] The long history
of the Beja

means the mysterious tombs
captured from the skies

likely date back
many centuries.

In 2021,

archaeologists deploy
groundbreaking technology

to decode
their unusual distribution.

One of the ways
in which archaeologists
have studied these tombs

is using a statistical method

known as
the Neyman-Scott
Cluster Process.

[narrator] The Neyman-Scott
Cluster Process

looks for patterns
in the cosmos

by charting
the invisible forces
that shape galaxies.

Applying the same technique
to the Islamic tombs

reveals something astonishing.

It's extraordinary,
but these tombs
are clustered together

in the same patterns
that galaxies have.

[Janulis] It's almost as if
the Beja have organized
this graveyard

in a way that mirrors
the cosmos, the stars.

[narrator] The Islamic world
has been a crucible
of space science

for thousands of years.

And is knows as
the birthplace of astronomy.

From using the stars
to understand which way
to face Mecca for prayers,

or understanding time zones,

the cosmos has always
been interwoven
with the Muslim faith.

Our understanding
of the universe today

wouldn't be anywhere near
where it is

without Muslim scholars.

[Horton] One
possibility is that
these clusters of tombs

reflect that same obsession

with the cluster
in the stars

that they could see
overhead, every night.

[narrator] Like
celestial objects
gravitating towards a star,

the tombs at the center
of each cluster

appear to contain
the remains of revered members
of the Beja people.

[Hunt] The connection
to ancestors and lineage

is what becomes
the, sort of,
gravitational hub or pull

to build tombs

around your oldest,
venerated ancestor.

[Anthony] As more and more
generations are added,

the small clusters
start to balloon into
these super clusters.

[narrator] The structures
in the image are the legacy

of an extraordinary
desert people.

Revealed and decoded
from space.

[Janulis] It could be
the use of satellite
images like this,

through which we unlock
the secrets of the Beja.

[narrator] Coming up...

Disaster in the death zone.

Whatever happened
must have been devastating.

[narrator]
And the killer cross.

It left huge swaths
of this land decimated.

[narrator]
February 16th, 2021.

An eye in the sky
moves over Northeastern India.

As it scans
the snow-capped
Himalayan mountains,

it photographs an image
that shocks scientists.

[Walters] The satellite
is capturing
this enormous wound

penetrating the snow.

[narrator] The mystery scar
extends around 90 miles

down the frozen mountain.

Just the size
and scope of this,
it's just massive.

You can't really
wrap your head
around what you're seeing.

Whatever happened in this area
must have been devastating.

[narrator] Emergency workers
rush to the site.

They discover
that millions of tons

of rock and water
have engulfed local villages.

Leaving over 200 people
buried in its wake.

[Walters] What it's done
is to devastate
an entire valley.

And no one knows
how or why it happened.

[narrator] Winter floods
on this scale

are almost unheard of
in the Himalayas.

When authorities
turn to eyewitnesses,

some claim clandestine
forces were responsible.

[Walters] A lot of locals
believe that this disaster

is the legacy
of a really bizarre
sequence of events,

that occurred here,
right at the height
of the Cold War.

[narrator] Those events
begin in 1964.

about 900 miles
from the disaster zone.

When, on October 16th,

China shocks the world
by successfully detonating

its first nuclear device.

[explosion]

[Munoz] That explosion
set off alarm bells

among US
Intelligence agencies,

and those of their allies.

[Walters] What it opens up
is this really new
and frightening dynamic

that hasn't been seen before
in the Cold War.

[cheering]

[narrator] The CIA scrambles
to gather intelligence

on this secretive country's
test program.

Finding it hard
to gather information
from within China,

the intelligence agency
formulates an audacious plan.

[Munoz] The CIA
came up with an idea

that could only have been
hatched during the Cold War.

Their idea was to establish
a nuclear powered
listening post,

high in the Himalayas.

These devices
were intended to spy
on Chinese nuclear tests.

And also missile firings.

On the plus side,
if you have surveillance
and reconnaissance equipment

powered by nuclear energy,

you never have to change
the batteries on anything.

On the downside,
if you do it wrong,

it could create
a real catastrophe.

[narrator] In October, 1965,

a joint American
and Indian task force

hauls the surveillance
equipment
and seven plutonium fuel cells

up the mountain,
next to the disaster zone
in the image.

Named Nanda Devi,

its 25,000-foot summit
has a direct line of sight

to Chinese nuclear tests.

[Walters] Their mission
was espionage at altitude.

But it's a lot easier
said than done.

They're hit with this
massive double whammy.

Heavy snowfall
and low oxygen levels.

[narrator]
The perilous conditions

force the team
to abandon their mission,

2,000 feet from the summit.

[Munoz] They ended up stashing
all the nuclear material

in a mountain crevice.

Only to
come back in the spring
to continue the mission.

Now when they came back,
they had a pretty
startling discovery.

The capsules were gone.

[Walters]
It's pretty astonishing

when you consider that the CIA

ha somehow lost
a key ingredient
of an atom bomb

up on some
desolate mountainside.

[narrator] Plutonium
fuel cells are unlikely
to explode on their own.

But they release heat
due to radioactive decay.

The nightmare scenario
is that they've triggered

a catastrophic
radioactive avalanche,

which then swept
into the valley.

[Munoz] One of
the major problems

is that if you pack
a material that emanates heat,

into an area that is mostly
consisting of ice and snow,

the ice and snow
is going to melt.

[narrator] In the aftermath
of the disaster,

investigators turn
to images of the mountain

taken in the days
leading up to the event.

Instead of melting snow,

they discover that a giant
ice-covered slab of rock

one and a half times
the size of the Eiffel Tower,

has splintered off
a cliff face,
above the valley.

And it broke loose,
just like that.

[rumbling]

Catastrophically
moving down the valley,

almost vertically a mile.

[Kourounis] This is a truly
enormous quantity of debris.

That, at one point,
was in near freefall.

[narrator] A freak
sequence of events

sees the ten million ton mass
of frozen rock and rubble

smash into the valley below.

The impact releases energy

equivalent to
200,000 tons of TNT.

Liquefying the ice flow
in an instant.

[Kourounis] What was
originally an avalanche,

ed into a much more
mobile flood

of slurry
and pulverized rock.

[Cerveny] That allows the rock
and rubble to hydroplane,

to kind of glide
down the valley,

without any restraint.

[narrator] A rubble tsunami
moving at nearly
60 miles per hour

engulfs the valley.

Destroying all in its path.

Just imagine looking up
to see this avalanche

of debris and boulders

barreling down the mountain
towards you

with zero chance of escape.

It must have been
terrifying.

[narrator] As the authorities
search for
the missing and the dead,

they evacuate more villages
in the area.

With temperatures rising
across the mountain range,

many fear
this won't be the last time

those living here will face
death from above.

[Cerveny] Although
this was an event
that was unprecedented,

the specter is that it
might not be unprecedented
in the future.

[narrator] Coming up...

Pennsylvania's ghosts of war.

No surprise, that people
sometimes refer to this region

as the arsenal of America.

[narrator] And
the strange tale
of Treasure lake.

I can see this image of a lake
and then gone.

[narrator] May 9th, 2017.

An eye in the sky
over Pittsburg, Pennsylvania,

spots something strange
in a suburb below.

[McRobbie] This is
a really remarkable image.

You've got a very,
very clear impression

of a circle with a cross

right through it.

What's even weirder is that
within the pie slices

of this cross,

there appears to be
some type of
reddish coloration.

Looks like it might be liquid.

[narrator] Historical
satellite imagery
adds to the mystery.

What we see is
each of those sections
of this cross,

they appear to be filling up
with this reddish liquid.

And over time that liquid
moves from place to place
within the cross.

[narrator] Analysts suspect
the giant cross

could be a relic
of this city's
remarkable history.

One which helped build
the America we see today.

[Wakefield] Pittsburg
was very well known
for its steel industry.

And so that gives us a clue
as to what might be
going on here.

[narrator] Pittsburg's rise
as a steel superpower

begins in the 1870s,

when thousands flock here
to exploit its extensive
coal reserves.

[Dennie] In order
to make steel,
you need a lot of coal.

Pennsylvania has
a tremendous amount of coal.

And there, you can essentially
strip mine the surface.

[narrator] Thanks to
Pittsburg's coal bonanza,

within 40 years,
the city's population rockets

from 86,000
to half a million.

By the turn of the century,

its furnaces are producing
25 million tons

of steel a year.

[Wakefield] Steel production
is Pittsburg was massive.

This supported about half
of America's need for steel,

just from Pittsburg alone.

There's a reason why
the Pittsburg football team

is called
the Pittsburg Steelers.

Pittsburg steel
plays crucial role

in American industry

in the 19th
and 20th centuries.

Providing the girders
that are gonna help
build factories

and skyscrapers.

[Kourounis] Things like
the Empire State Building.

The skeletons
of those historic,
iconic structures,

Pittsburg steel.

[narrator] In the middle
of the 20th century,

the city that
helped build America,

plays a vital role
in defending it.

During World War II,
of course, the focus
of the steel industry

shifted from constructing
girders and beams
for skyscrapers

to building things like tanks,
and ships, and guns.

No surprise that people
sometimes refer to this region

as the arsenal of America.

[narrator] Yet the structure
in the image is evidence

that this economic boom
did have a dark side.

[Anthony] As good as coal
was for Pittsburg,

and the steel industry,
in general,

it was not exactly easy
on the environment.

The stripping for coal
left huge swaths
of this land decimated.

To make matters worse,

the burning of all that coal

turned Pittsburg's air toxic.

[narrator] During
part of the 20th century,

thick smog forces
Pittsburg's residents

to turn on street lights
in the middle of the day.

These lethal levels
of pollution

earned the city
a new nickname.

"Hell with the lid off."

[narrator] All this pollution
has a devastating impact

on residents' health.

The most lethal fallout

is the rise in something
called the Black Lung.

Where coal
builds up in the lungs

scarring them.

[narrator] Even today,

air pollution is responsible

for more premature deaths
per capita

in Pennsylvania,
than in any other US state.

The red liquid flowing
through the mystery cross,

is testimony to another
deadly legacy

of its industrial past.

[Wakefield] One of
the byproducts
of strip-mining coal,

is iron oxide.

And when iron oxide
gets into the groundwater,

that's when you see
that reddish color.

[narrator] Water flowing
out of abandoned mines

can contain over 66 times
the safe level of iron oxide.

Poisoning the drinking water
of millions
of Pennsylvanian homes.

[Anthony] Too much
iron oxide in the water supply

can disrupt liver functioning,
your stomach.

There's a whole range
of health consequences.

[narrator] The structure
in the image is used

to filter this noxious liquid.

Cleaning 2,000 gallons
of contaminated water
a minute.

[Wakefield] The groundwater
passes from one section
to the other section

and through that process,

it filters out the iron oxide
from the ground water.

[Anthony] The walls
of this cross

are meant to act
just like your coffee filter.

The iron oxide starts
at one side

and because the walls
of this X are semi-permeable,

then the water
can flow through

but the iron oxide
is trapped on the other side.

[narrator] Over
the past few years,

the giant cross has removed
hundreds of tons of iron oxide

from Pittsburg's groundwater.

Helping turn the tide
on the city's toxic past.

To me, this is one
of the coolest examples

of geoengineering
that I've ever seen.

[Kourounis] As unusual as
this cross looks from above,

it's actually serving
a very important purpose.

[narrator] Coming up...

The mystery
of the vanishing lake.

It's almost as if
someone pulled the plug

and drained the lake
of all the water.

[narrator] July 11th, 2019.

A sequence of images
captured high above

a remote mountain range
in Northern Turkey

uncovers a mystery.

I can see the satellite image
of a blue-green lake.

And then gone.

[McRobbie] It's almost as if
someone pulled the plug,

and drained the lake
of all the water.

[narrator]
In less than 48 hours,

millions of gallons of water

have vanished.

[Kourounis] The biggest
irony of this,

that the lake
is called Dipsiz gol,

which translates to
bottomless lake.

To lose a deep lake like that

is-- is rather inexplicable.

[narrator] Reports
from local newspapers

reveal that
the disappearing act

is the culmination of a story

that unfolds
over more than 2,000 years.

[Kourounis] It's so crazy.

This story has
a bit of everything.

A mysterious vanishing lake,
a treasure hunt.

It is all kinds of history
and mythology
buried in the sands of time.

[narrator] The tale begins
in the second century CE.

[McRobbie] At the time,
this region of Turkey

was famous for gold
and silver mining.

And this particular area
was a hub
of that kind of activity.

[Hunt] The rivers
that flow out of this
northeastern part of Turkey

are rich in gold.

This is where,
according to myth

the golden fleece originates.

[narrator] According
to the ancient Greeks,

the golden fleece
was the wool
of a sacred ram.

Stolen from a dragon
by Jason and his Argonauts.

Recent archaeological studies
in Turkey

suggest there may be
some truth to this legend.

[Hunt] It turns out,

that it's where in the streams

people put down
heavy sheepskin

with heavy wool.

that the gold float into.

Catching the gold
in the curls of wool.

[narrator] In the year 117 AD,

reports of these riches lure
Roman invaders to the area.

These legions were formed
by Octavian,

also known as Augustus,

the first emperor of Rome.

A man who has risen to power

following one of the most
infamous killings in history.

The assassination
of Julius Caesar

is followed by a civil war
between his successors.

Ultimately,

Octavian, his grandnephew,

takes over the reins.

[Nardi] Octavian
was the adopted heir
of Julius Caesar.

And really, his goal
was to flip the republic
into an empire.

[narrator] To fund
their empire building,

the Romans need
to fill their war chest.

So, the gold mines of Turkey
are put under the protection

of some of their
most elite forces.

The feared
15th Apollinaris legion.

[Horton] That legion
had a huge fortress
quite close to this lake,

where the soldiers lived,

and defended
the Eastern Frontier

of this part
of the Roman Empire.

This lake is also
approximately where these
ancient gold mines were.

[narrator] Turkey's mines
help the empire

accumulate around
half a billion dollars
worth of gold a year.

The Romans finally
abandon the area
in the seventh century.

But some locals suspected
they left stashes
of gold behind.

Hidden in abandoned
mineshafts.

[Kourounis] As it turns out,

there were rumors
swirling around

that one of these
ancient Roman goldmines

was buried or hidden
underneath the waters
of this lake

[McRobbie] It's believed
that the lost treasure

of Octavian's 15th legion
was there.

[narrator] In November 2019,

treasure hunters
drain the lake.

And begin digging for the gold
they hope lies buried below.

They thought they will find
an immense Roman treasure

to make their fortune.

[Kourounis] Over the span
of just four days,

they excavated
this entire lake.

And found absolutely nothing.

[narrator] Instead of
uncovering a lost mine,

the treasure hunters
have destroyed
12,000 years of history.

[Kourounis] This site
wasn't a mine at all.

Turns out,
this lake was formed

by receding glaciers
during the ice age.

[Dennie] It's
an unfortunate thing

that we've lost
12,000 years of water,

looking for a mine
that didn't exist.

And now we lost a lake too.

[narrator]
Multimillion-dollar trove
or fool's gold?

The hunt for the legion's
lost hoard continues.

[McRobbie] Maybe there still
are ancient Roman mines
in Turkey,

waiting to be discovered.

But this lake
wasn't one of them.