All language subtitles for Secrets.Declassified.with.David.Duchovny.S01E07.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[mysterious music]

- Throughout time,
governments and the people

who work for them have done
strange and even terrible

things in the name
of national interest,

including scientific
projects so shocking,

they are kept secret
for decades.

From experimenting
on orphans...

- He'd force-feed the children,
stimulate the wrist.

They'd start salivating.

- To breeding super soldiers
using apes.

[dramatic music]

- He ultimately
wanted to create

a living war machine.

- And even to weaponizing
incurable diseases.

- These guys are
playing with fire.

- What could possibly go wrong?

- Just how far will nations go
to gain an edge?

♪ ♪

Now it's time to bring

these dark experiments
into the light.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[tense music]

During World War II,
the Nazis and the Allies

are locked in a race
to develop a nuclear weapon.

But little is known
about how radioactivity

affects people exposed to it.

To learn more,
one nation conducts

covert experiments that are
covered up for decades.

That nation is
the United States.

♪ ♪

Oak Ridge is the headquarters
of the Manhattan Project,

the U.S. quest
to develop an atomic bomb.

[booming]

Scientists here are
facing a problem.

They are working
with radioactive elements

they know are dangerous.

But they don't yet
fully understand

the risks of exposure.

- Workers must
protect themselves

from the "hot stuff,"

as they call
radioactive materials.

- But the deadly radiation
from the "hot stuff" is

invisible and hard to avoid.

Sometimes workers even
inhale plutonium dust.

- If this dust gets
into the lungs,

it can get into the bloodstream
and travel throughout the body.

So they need to determine,

what is a safe exposure
limit for scientists?

And what is going to be lethal?

- So the Manhattan Project
scientists turned

to testing, first on animals.

It's reported that they used
25,000 mice, and even dogs.

But they want
more information.

- They felt that, you know,
the physiological reactions

of mice and dogs
might be different

in significant ways
from humans.

♪ ♪

- So to safeguard their staff,

they need even more
reliable tests.

♪ ♪

- The Manhattan Project
Science Committee decides

to go one step further.

They will run radiation
exposure tests on humans.

♪ ♪

The only question is,

where to begin?

They decide to start
close to home.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

[siren wailing]

An ambulance speeds

through Oak Ridge,

rushing construction worker
Ebb Cade

to the hospital
after a head-on collision

with a dump truck.

- Ebb Cade is in
a horrific car accident.

He shatters his arm
and his leg.

But when he goes
to the hospital,

the doctors start
a course of treatment

that really isn't consistent
for broken bones.

[dramatic music]

- That's because Ebb Cade

is about to become
the Manhattan Project's

first human
radiation testing subject.

♪ ♪

- In the hospital,
Ebb Cade is being injected

with a syringe that's only
marked with the number 49.

♪ ♪

In a few days, he starts
to feel absolutely terrible.

- It turns out that 49,

the substance that
Cade was injected with,

was the code name
for plutonium.

♪ ♪

- Without his knowledge
or consent,

scientists make Cade part
of their experiments.

- Cade is injected
with 4.7 milligrams

of plutonium,
five times what is deemed

to be safe for human exposure.

- They delay Cade's treatment
for his shattered arm and leg

so that they can take
bone samples from him

after a few days
of radiation exposure.

♪ ♪

- As if that's
not enough damage,

the scientists pull out
15 of Cade's teeth.

♪ ♪

It's like they don't give
a damn about this guy.

♪ ♪

They send the teeth,
along with bone samples,

to the labs at Los Alamos.

♪ ♪

- As soon as he can move,
Ebb Cade gets

out of the facility
where he's being treated.

But by that point,
it's kind of too late.

He's already been exposed
to plutonium.

He's already been irradiated.

- A few years after this
incident, he's gone blind.

And he eventually dies in 1953.

♪ ♪

Cade never knew
what had happened to him.

♪ ♪

- Ebb Cade is not
the only victim

of the secret radiation
exposure testing.

Between 1945 and 1947,
Manhattan Project scientists

used 18 other
unsuspecting civilians

as human Guinea pigs.

- They injected these people
with plutonium

and other radioactive compounds

and just waited to see
what would happen.

♪ ♪

- These experiments stay
secret for decades...

[dramatic music]

Until 1987,
when a junior reporter

in Albuquerque,
New Mexico, stumbles

across something strange.

- Eileen Welsome is a new
neighborhoods reporter

at "The Albuquerque Tribune."

- One day, Welsome is flicking
through declassified documents

from Kirtland Air Force base
about radioactive waste.

- There's a footnote
in one of the reports

that she's looking at
that makes reference

to plutonium
exposure experiments.

- And that sets off
alarm bells right there.

Plutonium is one
of the most dangerous

elements in the world.

♪ ♪

- So Welsome sets off on
an investigative deep-dive.

- Over a period of five years,

Welsome tracks down
retired government scientists

and historians.

♪ ♪

- In 1993, Welsome publishes

a series of articles

exposing
the Manhattan Project's

radiation testing
on unsuspecting citizens.

- Welsome's investigation
quickly becomes public.

She's going to win
the Pulitzer Prize

for her reporting
on this issue.

President Clinton is
going to wind up ordering

a deeper investigation
into the allegations

that Welsome has
brought to light.

- They plowed through
a lot of evidence that

had been previously suppressed,
kept at arm's distance

from reporters like
this assiduous member

of "The Albuquerque Tribune."

[tense music]

- And what they find is
the U.S. government

really did inject
American citizens

with radioactive materials

to see what
the effects would be.

- Whether in war or at peace,

this is one
of the most appalling

abuses of government power
in U.S. history.

- Finally there was
an acknowledgment that

this had actually happened.

- So the government is
forced to apologize

and give a payout
of $400,000 apiece

to the surviving families
of 12 of the victims.

- In 1997, the U.S. Congress
passes a law

that prohibits
the use of unknowing subjects

in medical research.

[tense music]

- As experts
from the Manhattan Project

experiment on Americans
without their consent,

some researchers
in the Soviet Union

are also pursuing dark science.

They want to create
a new kind of life,

a cross between human and ape.

♪ ♪

[cheers and applause]

Seven years after
the Russian Revolution,

the Soviet government
cements its power.

Now its leaders look
to stamp out religion,

seeing it as a hindrance

in a socialist society.

- Lenin and Stalin
are both convinced,

they have to absolutely
eradicate religion

if they're going to bring about

the glorious
Communist revolution.

Following the ideas of Marx,

they think it's the opium
of the people.

And it's got to go.

[dramatic music]

- To further that cause,
Stalin turns

to a scientist named
Ilya Ivanov,

who has an unusual interest
in human genetics.

- To show off the potential
of this new science,

Ivanov has already
produced crossbreeds.

- But in 1924, he decides

to try something far beyond
merging two animals together.

- What Ivanov is proposing
is to crossbreed

humans and chimpanzees

to create what he'll call
a humanzee.

[screeching]

- It's a project
that's just so perverse,

it boggles the mind.

But Ivanov is staking
his reputation

and his life on its success.

- Ivanov is convinced that
if his experiments work

and apes and humans
can successfully interbreed,

that this means they share
a common ancestor.

And therefore,
the Bible and the notion

of unique creation is false.

♪ ♪

- Once Stalin gives
Ivanov funding,

the pressure is on to deliver.

♪ ♪

Ivanov travels to Guinea,
French West Africa,

and gets to work.

- Ivanov artificially
inseminates

three female chimpanzees
with human sperm.

Shocker, it doesn't take.

- So he decides to flip
the experiment--

use chimp sperm
in a human woman.

[eerie music]

- This is just so dark
and perverted that

it proves to be too much
for the authorities in Guinea.

They've had enough of Ivanov.

And they just expel him
from the country.

"You are not welcome here."

[tense music]

- Ivanov is terrified
at the prospect

of not being able to succeed.

- He received serious funding
from the USSR.

And this is not a government
to disappoint.

So you can imagine,
the pressure is on.

♪ ♪

- Let's be honest.

Stalin kills anybody

who makes a promise
and can't fulfill it.

♪ ♪

- Coming up...

when Ivanov returns to Russia,

he tries to recruit new
subjects for his experiments.

- He wants to entice
Soviet women in

and artificially inseminate
them with chimpanzee sperm.

- Then the real purpose behind
Ivanov's perverse experiments

is exposed.

- What Stalin wants
is regiments

- What Stalin wants
is regiments

of completely obedient,
super capable super soldiers.

- In the 1920s,
a Russian scientist

named Ilya Ivanov engages
in a shocking experiment

with Stalin's support.

He tries to create
a hybrid creature

by crossbreeding
humans and apes.

His alleged goal?

Challenge the belief
that God created man.

[dramatic music]

After his experiments
in Africa fail,

Ivanov returns home
with four chimpanzees.

- He wants to entice
Soviet women in

and artificially inseminate
them with chimpanzee sperm.

- But the chimp that he has
earmarked to donate samples,

a 26-year-old named Tarzan,
dies of a brain hemorrhage

before he can get a sample.

♪ ♪

- Ivanov is
officially a failure.

And Stalin does what he does
with those who disappoint him.

♪ ♪

Ivanov is off to the gulag.

♪ ♪

- Ivanov's notes and research
disappear for decades,

lost in the labyrinths
of the Soviet archives.

♪ ♪

When they're
finally uncovered,

they reveal something new.

- The real hidden purpose
of Ivanov's experiments

doesn't become known
until 2005,

when a revelatory story
is published

in "The Scotsman" newspaper.

- The paper reveals
that this was never

about undermining religion.

It was about developing
a new breed

of half-human,
half-ape super soldiers.

- It sounds like something
you would read in a comic book

when you were a kid.

But according to the paper,

Stalin ordered Ivanov
to create

a living war machine
for the Red Army.

♪ ♪

- Consider the physical
characteristics

of chimpanzees.

Incredibly strong.

They would ignore pain.

They wouldn't care what type
of food they were being fed.

They would accept any abuse
in service of the state.

- What Stalin wants
is regiments

of completely obedient,
super capable super soldiers.

♪ ♪

- Stalin's hybrid human-ape
army never comes to pass.

But just a few years after
Ivanov is carrying out

his research,
Japanese scientists are

working on their own
dark experiments,

experiments that lead
to the largest

biological warfare attack
in human history.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

Imperial Japanese troops
invade Manchuria

in Northeast China
and begin a brutal occupation.

♪ ♪

- Japan's top microbiologist
in the 1930s

is a man named Shiro Ishii.

And he is posted to Manchuria
during the Japanese invasion

of mainland China.

- Ishii's mission is to develop
hideous biological weapons

for the Japanese army.

- In 1935, with the backing
of the Japanese military,

Ishii creates a huge
bio-warfare laboratory.

- The Imperial Japanese
bulldoze a set

of villages at Pingfang.

- In their place,
they construct

a massive new headquarters

for Ishii's covert division,
Unit 731.

♪ ♪

- It's set to become

one of the most
notorious divisions

in the entire
Japanese military.

[dramatic music]

- They are creating at Pingfang
an Eastern Auschwitz.

♪ ♪

They're creating a place where

they will perfect
the mechanisms

for the extermination
of human life.

♪ ♪

- He creates a cover story

to explain the construction.

He says it's a lumber mill.

And the scientists there refer
to their victims as logs.

- The Japanese, over and over
again at Special Unit 731,

treat Chinese people
as if they are animals,

as if they have no feelings,
as if they have no families,

as if they don't deserve
to live on the planet.

[dramatic music]

- The new facility soon grows

to the size of a small town.

Ishii and his team round up
Chinese citizens

and imprison them there.

What happens next is shocking.

- These monsters,
these butchers in Unit 731,

they deliberately infect
male prisoners

with venereal diseases
like syphilis.

And then those same men
are forced

to rape female prisoners,

just so Ishii can test
disease transmission.

♪ ♪

- They would inject them
with plague and anthrax

and then watch them die.

Sometimes it was
even worse than that.

As the disease was advancing,

they would conduct
a "living dissection,"

a vivisection
of the test subject.

- They were going
to take your organs out

and examine them to see
the progression of disease.

You're still alive
while this is happening.

You're awake.

You're not under anesthesia.

They are holding you down

and taking out your organs.

You are going to die,

and you're going
to watch it happen.

♪ ♪

- By 1942, Ishii reaches

the culmination
of his experiments.

He unleashes biological
warfare on entire cities.

♪ ♪

- What the Japanese do
is they essentially

breed fleas and make sure
that they are plague carriers.

And then they use
aerial bombardment

to drop those fleas
on Chinese urban areas,

in the hopes of touching off
a plague epidemic.

♪ ♪

- Nobody knows
for sure how many

people are actually killed.

But estimates have
given us numbers

as high as 50,000 people,
possibly even more.

This is the largest
biological weapons attack

on people in the whole
war-torn 20th century.

♪ ♪

- In 1945, the Russians
invade Manchuria,

ending Japan's
occupation of China.

♪ ♪

Ishii's reign of terror
is over.

- Ishii and their team
slaughter

their remaining prisoners.

And then they just run
back to Japan,

taking all of this blood-soaked
experimental data with them.

- Between 1945 and 1947,
U.S. war crimes investigators

question Ishii
and the Unit 731 team.

- Through that interrogation,
it was learned

what had been done
at Special Unit 731.

They not only kill about
14,000 Chinese test subjects--

living, breathing
human beings that are

treated like test animals--

they kill off about
50,000 Chinese people

through actual
weaponization of the flea.

- Despite having clear proof
of Ishii's guilt,

investigators decide not to
charge him with any war crimes.

[tense music]

- Why doesn't
the U.S. prosecute

this known war criminal?

The answer is simple.

The military wants his data.

In exchange for his research,
Ishii gets off scot-free.

The facts are revealed
in a 1998 letter

from the Department
of Justice.

- The U.S. government was
prohibited from conducting

actual ghoulish testing
against human test subjects

that had been an everyday
matter of business

at Special Unit 731.

And so we wanted to benefit
from it by having access

to the details of all
of the technical information

that his institute
had developed.

♪ ♪

- Sometimes American
authorities made compromises

with horrible people
as part of its pursuit

of advantage against
the Soviet Union.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

- The leader of Unit 731
lives in peace

until his death
from throat cancer in 1959.

- During the Cold War,
the Soviets carry out

covert science experiments
in remote locations.

One place will become known
as Plague Island.

But it only becomes a priority
for U.S. spy agencies

when a boat strays
too close to shore.

[tense music]

The Aral Sea,

deep inside the Soviet Union,

1971.

♪ ♪

The research vessel "Lev Berg"

is working in waters
near a remote island there.

- It's a normal day on board,
when suddenly,

the ship runs into
something strange.

♪ ♪

- It's a brown cloud of haze
hovering just above the water,

and it's too late to avoid it.

The ship sails
right through it.

♪ ♪

- On board the ship,
a young researcher

comes down with
a mysterious illness,

and a terrible rash breaks out
all over her body.

When she gets back to her home
village, her illness spreads.

- It's a severe contagion.

Within weeks,
three people in the town

are dead, including
two newborn children.

- Doctors find out that
what she was infected with

was one of the most
deadly diseases

that humans have ever
encountered, smallpox.

[dramatic music]

- Smallpox is terrifying.

It killed more people
in the 20th century

than all of the wars
in that century combined.

- But the researcher is
vaccinated against smallpox.

She should have been
immune to it.

♪ ♪

- One year later,
a fishing boat is found

washed up
near the same island.

- Inside the boat are two
fishermen, stone-cold dead.

Meanwhile nearby,
other fishermen are

bringing in catches filled
with dead and dying fish.

- When villagers
examine the bodies

of the dead fishermen,

they find them covered
in pustulous swellings.

♪ ♪

- The lesions
on these fishermen

are consistent
with bubonic plague,

one of the deadliest diseases
that confronts humankind,

with a fatality rate
of about 50%.

♪ ♪

- When U.S.
intelligence agencies

get wind of these strange
deaths, they have questions.

What's happening
on this remote island?

[dramatic music]

- The island is located

1,500 miles from Moscow.

Access is restricted

by the Soviet government.

♪ ♪

- American spies
have been trying

to study the island for years.

Photos of the island snapped
from spy planes and satellites

show that it's
far from ordinary.

- Other settlements
nearby have

fishing piers
and fish packing sheds.

The secret island appears
to instead have

things like barracks
and rifle ranges,

as well as animal pens,
research buildings,

and what appears to be
an open air testing site.

♪ ♪

- The images confirm
the CIA's worst fears.

The island is clearly
a military

scientific research base.

♪ ♪

- But the question remains,
what kind of horrifying weapons

are being dreamed up
and tested there?

- What's going on
on this island

remains a mystery until

after the end of the Cold War.

♪ ♪

- In 1992,
a year after the USSR fails,

Soviet military microbiologist
Colonel Ken Alibek

flees to America
and brings with him

the truth about Plague Island.

- The former insider reveals
that the island

is more than just
a military scientific base.

It's devoted to transforming
natural diseases

into deadly weapons--
bio-warfare,

which is illegal
under international law.

♪ ♪

- For decades,
the Soviets have been

experimenting here
with some of the deadliest

diseases known to man.

- Beginning in the 1930s,
they're attempting

to weaponize everything,
from smallpox and plague

to these monstrous
viral diseases

which have no known cure.

- They were trying to make
bacterial pathogens

resistant to antibiotics,
make viruses

more difficult
to detect and treat.

- What they hoped to create
were unstoppable plagues,

which they could launch
at their enemy:

the United States
and her allies.

- Things that were developed
on that island still,

to this day, have no cure.

- Safety protocols are tight,

but these guys are
playing with fire.

And sure enough,
things go wrong, very wrong.

- Just a little leak
or the smallest spill

can have deadly consequences.

- We have no idea
how many people

were killed in the process
of developing these weapons.

were killed in the process
of developing these weapons.

♪ ♪

- To this day,
Plague Island is

one of the most poisonous
places on the planet.

- Many U.S. soldiers
returning from World War II

carry battle scars,
both physical and mental.

When they seek help,
some receive treatment

that can only be called
shocking.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

The U.S. Army's bombardment
group are flying B-17s

on dangerous daytime raids.

♪ ♪

- Flying combat missions
over Europe

is one of the most
dangerous aspects

of World War II for
American service personnel.

- On every mission, these men
were dancing with death.

- 22-year-old Roman Tritz is

one of those American aviators

flying 34 combat missions
over Europe.

♪ ♪

- Tritz sees many
of his comrades,

his friends,
being shot out of the sky.

- B-17 out of control
at 3 o'clock.

- The unit loses
more than 100 planes

over the course of the war.

- Come on, you guys.
Get out of that plane.

Bail out!

- There's one.
He's come out of the bomb bay.

- Yeah, I see him.

- It's an experience
he'll never forget,

and it'll haunt him
for the rest of his life.

[tense music]

- When the war ends in 1945,
Roman Tritz comes home

to ticker tape parades
and public adulation.

- After being discharged,
Tritz is given

a clean bill of health
by the Army medics.

But for the young
bomber pilot,

the wartime trauma
just won't go away.

- When Tritz comes home,

his life effectively starts
to fall apart.

He can't sleep.

He starts to have
hallucinations and delusions.

- Tritz is probably
suffering from a form

of Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder, or PTSD,

something people don't
understand at the time.

- PTSD as a diagnosis
doesn't exist yet.

So doctors call someone
with these symptoms

either shell-shocked or say
that they have battle fatigue.

- His parents, who are not
psychiatric professionals,

they don't know
what to do with him.

They gave this kid
to the U.S. Army.

The U.S. Army gave him back,
and he was a complete mess.

They couldn't do
anything for him.

And so they have him committed.

- Training footage released
in 1944 by the U.S. military

suggests what veterans like
Tritz might have experienced.

- In the psychiatric facility,
he is given

66 rounds of the so-called
"needle shower."

♪ ♪

He is exposed
to intensely hot water,

followed by
intensely cold water.

And it was thought
that this would somehow

help him get over
this condition.

- The doctors try
insulin shock therapy,

which puts Tritz
into a medically-induced coma.

The treatment is
intended to break

the cycle of mental illness.

- They later hit him with 28
rounds of electroshock therapy,

in the hopes that
this will improve

Tritz's brain chemistry.

♪ ♪

- When this doesn't work,

medics turn to a new form
of psycho-surgery: lobotomy.

- A lobotomy is
a surgical procedure

that was developed in 1935

by Portuguese neurologist
Antonio Moniz.

- Surgeons use a device called
a leucotome to physically sever

the connection
between the frontal lobe

and the thalamus in the brain.

- The operation is
supposed to work

by eliminating
excessive emotions

and stabilizing
wild mood swings.

- Lobotomy is
permanently damaging,

and the VA doctors know it.

- As far back as 1941,

the American
Medical Association

warns of "severe
negative effects."

They report that
some 10,000 lobotomies

had already been performed
in the United States.

- Some patients don't
survive the procedure.

But those that do,
some of them end up

just living out
the rest of their lives

almost like
just a drooling zombie.

- Tritz's parents
don't know that,

and they give their consent.

- In Tomah Veterans Hospital
in Wisconsin,

on the 1st of July, 1953,
Tritz is taken into surgery.

At 11:05 a.m.,
a surgeon peels back

the flesh from his skull

and drills two holes
right into it.

[tense music]

- Tritz survives
the operation,

but he doesn't improve.

- After the surgery,
Tritz experiences

crippling seizures,
which the doctors

do attribute to the lobotomy.

- He lapses into catatonia

and is plagued
by paranoid delusions.

♪ ♪

- In 2013,
more than 50 years after

Roman Tritz is lobotomized,
a journalist unearths

evidence deep
in the National Archives.

♪ ♪

- Against all odds,
journalist Michael Phillips

actually uses this information
to track down Roman Tritz,

who is still alive seven
decades after World War II,

in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

♪ ♪

- Years later,
even into his old age,

Roman is still suffering
from the after-effects

of his brutal lobotomy.

♪ ♪

- He still has
paranoid delusions

about being pursued
by the FBI.

He also makes references

to what he calls
his "magnetic brain."

♪ ♪

- Phillips discovers
that Tritz is not alone.

- Michael Phillips finds
a memorandum

that mentions how
lobotomies are being used

to treat veterans
for psychiatric conditions.

- The memo shows they are
being performed at

some 50 hospitals
across America.

- Between 1947 and 1950,
the VA had carried out

lobotomies in
1,500 American veterans.

And hundreds more are
lobotomized later.

♪ ♪

- Roman Tritz lives

to see his story made public.

He dies at age 97,

He dies at age 97,

still blaming the government
for his brutal surgery.

- At the beginning
of the Cold War,

Washington is on edge
about the threat

of Communist infiltration.

In 1956,
a book by Edward Hunter

is published that confirms
the public's worst fears.

Its subject--
the Soviets are developing

brainwashing as a weapon.

[dramatic music]

- When Edward Hunter comes out
with his book,

it really just throws
a lot of kerosene

on a fire that was
ready to explode.

- Hunter claims that Soviet
brainwashing science is

now so advanced,
it can create a kind of

mass hypnosis
across the country

that would rob Americans
of their free will entirely.

- He suggests that
the Soviets could do this

at such a wide scale
to create an army of puppets

under Soviet control.

- Hunter bases his claims
on the idea

that Americans captured
during the Korean War

were brainwashed into
making false confessions.

- I came over here and dropped
germ bombs on people.

- Hunter traces Soviet
brainwashing experiments

back decades to before
the Russian Revolution,

to Nobel laureate Ivan Pavlov.

♪ ♪

- Pavlov is world famous
for his pioneering

research into the brain.

A film produced
in Russia in 1926

illustrates his work
with dogs.

- Pavlov is most known
for his conditioning dogs.

He trained dogs
to react to a sound.

Every time
they heard the sound,

they would get a treat,
to the point where,

every time
they heard the sound,

they would start salivating
in anticipation of that treat.

- Pavlov calls this behavior
"conditioned response."

- What he's proved is that,
essentially,

the dogs' brains
can be hijacked.

- Hunter gets a lead
that Pavlov's experiments

went far further
than most realize.

[tense music]

- Hunter learns from a source
that Pavlov's experiments

didn't end with dogs.

He hears that there is
hidden secret footage

of other experiments.

And he sets out to find it.

- After months of digging,
he manages to trace a copy.

But his book keeps
the source under wraps.

When he sits down
to watch the secret film,

he discovers
something terrifying.

[whirring, crackling]

- The footage from 1926
proves that

Pavlov's work extends
into much darker experiments

than his famous
animal research.

♪ ♪

- What Hunter finds
is footage of Pavlov

running the same experiments,
but with human children.

He conditions
young orphaned boys

to have the same salivating
response to a sound

that he did with dogs.

- He'd force-feed the children,
stimulate the wrist,

force-feed the children,
stimulate the wrist.

They'd start salivating.

- Pavlov's proving
that humans can be

conditioned, just like dogs.

- Hunter wonders if
the Soviets aren't using

this kind of conditioning
brainwashing tactic

on prisoners of war.

- If a human can be
conditioned,

then how far could
that conditioning go?

[dramatic music]

- Two years after
his book comes out,

Edward Hunter testifies
before the House Committee

on un-American Activities.

- Hunter warns that the U.S.
is losing the Cold War

because the Soviets have
such a massive head start

when it comes
to psychological warfare

and mind control techniques.

♪ ♪

- He wonders if the Soviets
haven't honed this research

and have been doing mass
brainwashing for decades.

- In a country
that's already on edge

about the Communist menace,
Hunter's report

about the advances
in brainwashing science

by the Soviets just
ratchets up that fear

to a pitch of utter hysteria.

- There's a final twist
in the tale

of "journalist" Edward Hunter.

- So a number of years later,
it was discovered that

Edward Hunter actually wasn't
who he purported to be.

- He's an agent of the CIA,

operating in their
propaganda wing.

- Pavlov's experiments
on children were real.

But the link Hunter makes
to Soviet mind control

is entirely fictitious.

- His writing
about brainwashing

is, in effect, a black op,

designed to spread mistrust
and hatred of the Communists

during the Cold War.

- Once you have
a negative thought or feeling

about an individual or a group
or an organization,

it doesn't take much
to continue

to build that confirmation bias
that they are bad,

that they're trying to do
nefarious things against us.

And so that's what
he was doing by spreading

And so that's what
he was doing by spreading

this disinformation.

- When citizens tear down
the Berlin Wall in 1989,

investigators discover
the crimes

of East German scientists.

They've doped their athletes
and used psychological warfare

on their own citizens.

They also uncover
stranger experiments.

[dramatic music]

- For decades after
the Second World War,

East Germans lived in terror

of their notorious
secret police, the Stasi.

- At the head of the Stasi,
we have Erich Mielke.

He's a Stalinist enforcer,
and has no problem

doing that enforcing
in his own homeland.

♪ ♪

- He's in charge
of the most pervasive

police state in modern history.

- And frankly, he's terrifying.

The West German press
dubbed him The Master of Fear.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- As the regime collapses,
East German citizens

storm the Stasi headquarters.

♪ ♪

- Inside they find agents
frantically

shredding documents,
desperately

trying to cover their tracks.

But there's simply
too much evidence to hide.

- There are literally
68 miles of shelving,

just chock full of spy agency
files on their own citizens.

There's photos,
tape recordings--

all kinds of invasions
of citizen privacy.

But there's also
something more puzzling.

- As they continue through

these endless miles
of shelves,

they come to what are
effectively Mason jars,

sealed shut,
inside of which, typically,

are little bits
of yellow cloth.

♪ ♪

- The citizens are
left wondering,

what exactly are these for?

What is the purpose
of these sealed containers?

- Shortly after, newspaper
articles expose the answer.

- The jars have actual
people's scent inside them.

They're smell jars.

These are jars full of
people's actual body odors.

He has been collecting
body odors.

- Mielke believes
that a person's scent

is every bit as individual
as their fingerprints are.

- So just as police
around the world

keep files on fingerprints
of suspects,

that's what Mielke is doing
with body odor.

- This is actually
good science.

Modern researchers find
that by analyzing

some 15 volatile
organic compounds,

they can identify gender
and ethnicity

with up to 80% accuracy.

♪ ♪

- In order to satisfy
his paranoia,

Mielke orders the creation
of a library of body odor.

♪ ♪

- The Stasi take
the collection of odors

very seriously.

They go about the country

stealing articles of clothing.

So, sorry about your
favorite sweater.

They'll go into a home
when no one's there,

leave a little vial
that will collect

the odors in the house.

No constitutional issues
in East Germany.

And they'll come back again
and collect that.

- What agents actually do is,

they wipe some
of their suspects

in their sensitive areas

with a special cloth
to collect their scent.

♪ ♪

Another method involves

calling suspects in
for interrogation.

And when they go in,
they're forced

to sit in a special chair.

- The suspect,
this local German,

is brought in, interrogated,

intentionally pushed
to a point

of great nervousness
so that they will sweat.

And as that sweat then seeps
down into the fabric,

it's being absorbed
by this bit of cloth

underneath the upholstery.

♪ ♪

- But Mielke has a problem.

Humans can't track
these smells.

So he turns to dogs.

- Compared to humans,
dogs have an incredibly

refined sense of smell.

They have up to 300 million
olfactory receptors

in their noses.

And this means
their noses are up to

100,000 times more sensitive
than those of humans.

- So the Stasi trained
dozens of specialized dogs

to smell the odor
within a jar, and then go

track that out and about
in the city to find

their potential suspects.

- Mielke's strange experiment
causes real harm.

It's used to track down
and imprison unknown numbers

of enemies of the state.

- About one in six
East Germans were,

in fact, somehow answering to,
working on, serving, the Stasi.

So everywhere you go in life,
imagine this.

Whether you're at school,
work, perhaps even at home,

you never know just
who might be collecting

this vast catalog of odors,
scents, and smells

from the citizenry,
with the expectation

that this will enable them
to identify a criminal

or enemy of the state
in the future.

[tense music]

- Mielke keeps collecting

his sinister smell samples...

[crowd shouting]

Until East German communism is
finally overthrown in 1989.

[cheering]

♪ ♪

From treatments given
to American citizens

without consent

to attempts to weaponize
deadly diseases,

dark experiments all too often

take place in the shadows.

But with luck and hard work,

these secrets can be revealed.

I'm David Duchovny.

Thanks for watching

"Secrets Declassified."