Original subtitles

Massive stone heads with mysterious magnetic properties.

A miraculous staircase designed by a divine architect.

And a subterranean chamber where ancient priests could speak with the dead.

Since the dawn of civilization, mankind has built countless structures for a

myriad of different purposes.

But there are some that, for one reason or another, are considered to be special

and may be imbued with mystical powers.

For instance, can a formation of standing stones really harness the

the earth?

Or can a magnificent cathedral actually bring people in touch with

God?

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

Cornwall, England.

Here, sitting atop a grassy clearing in the English countryside, about 80 miles

west of the city of Plymouth, is a set of three monoliths that stand out from

the natural landscape.

In the language of ancient Britain, the site was named Menato, which translates

to the Stone of the Hole.

There's nothing else on Earth quite like the Menantol. It consists of a big

round stone with a big round hole in the middle of it.

It's a couple of feet across. You can crawl through it quite comfortably.

And there's a straight stone on either side.

It's highly visible in the landscape and bafflingly mysterious.

Archaeologists believe that Menatol was constructed around the year 2000 BC.

It is also thought that there were once additional models that encircled the

centre stone, which had been lost to time.

There's something very melodramatic about the Menatol.

There has to be a reason why ancient people had put up a big stone with a big

hole in it.

And the real thing to do with a stone with a hole is crawl through it.

So there must be a good reason for that.

Local folklore says that crawling through the centre of the Menantol is

good for you.

Diseased children can get better, especially if they've got rickets.

And if you put a couple of brass pins on the top of the whole stone, the way in

which they fall off can predict your future.

When it comes to Menantol in Cornwall, we have to question what is going on

here.

Is this really a magical place? Is it just ancient traditions? Or is there

reality to the power of these ancient stones?

Manitoul is just one of approximately 1 ,300 ancient monoliths that are

scattered throughout the British Isles.

It may sound outlandish to think that Manitoul and other standing stone sites

can have a mystical effect on people, but...

Who can say for sure that they don't?

Because even after centuries of study, these remarkable structures remain

shrouded in mystery.

Stonehenge gets all the fame and the recognition, but there are thousands and

thousands of other prehistoric monuments that are worth attention up and down

the British Isles.

For example...

Avebury is absolutely stunning because it's a very big place. What you're

looking at there is an enormous bank with a ditch inside it. And

inside this enormous circular enclosure was originally a hundred stones

in a circle.

And inside this enormous circle of stones are the remnants of two other

enormous stone circles.

The place was so big that about half of a village was built inside it.

It was an entire community.

The largest standing stone in Britain is known as the Rudston Monolith.

It's around 25 to 26 feet in height.

But there is just as much of it under the ground, creating this

huge... great monolith almost 60 feet in length.

The significant thing about this is that the type of stone that it's made from

can only be sourced about 30 miles to the north.

That meant that it was dragged in some way to its position in the

village of Rudston.

And we have to ask ourselves, is there a greater purpose behind all of this? And

if so, what is that greater purpose?

In the UK, right now, we have thousands of known monuments.

But there were probably thousands more originally.

We do know that the people who built the megaliths in the UK were...

Early farmers. They were from 4 ,000 to about 2 ,000 BCE.

But we really don't know what language they spoke. We don't really know how

socially organized themselves or their politics.

So it's still very much a question exactly why they built them.

Why would prehistoric people go to the trouble of erecting heavy standing

that weighed, in some cases, as much as 40 tons?

Well, one theory suggests that these monoliths served as a connection to a

higher plane of existence.

In many cases, the standing stars seem to be orientated towards

celestial events, such as the rising and setting of the sun

at the equinoxes and the solstices.

And so...

These monoliths are very clearly a reflection of this belief of contact

higher forces that would have taken place through the ceremonies and the

that would go on once, maybe twice a year.

Were these monolithic sites built for ceremonial purposes?

It's an intriguing theory.

And some researchers suggest that England's standing stones were also

to each other.

Because, as it turns out, many of these monoliths appear to be geographically

aligned on what are commonly referred to as ley lines.

Ley lines, or leys, were first visualized by a thinker and

visionary called Alfred Watkins in the 1920s.

He wrote a book called The Old Straight Track, which said that a whole range of

prehistoric monuments are connected by extremely long lines, even

corridors, that stretch across the length and breadth of Britain.

Alfred Watkins theorized that the straight lines which connect Britain's

monoliths were ancient trade routes.

But some researchers disagree.

and claim that the massive stones were placed along ley lines to serve a more

energetic purpose.

It would seem that the whole long lines of monuments are connected with the

geomagnetic fields of the earth, and that the peoples of

Britain... created the stone circles and standing stones to enhance

this natural energy of the landscape.

Is it possible that ancient people who did not even have written language

figured out how to use monoliths to harness the energy of the earth? And

if so, for what purpose?

If prehistoric people believed that there were currents of earth energy,

then prehistoric monuments may have been put where they were in the landscape

because they would have amplified prayers, invocations, chants,

drumming, singing, and that would have considerably enhanced ceremonies.

It's going to create a very impressive effect for religious purposes.

Although numerous intriguing theories have been put forward, ultimately, no

has been able to explain the purpose, placement, and construction of Britain's

remarkable monoliths.

There's a lot of things we don't know about these megalithic structures.

We really don't know how they did it, why they did it. These are important

questions.

And we have certain hints.

But most of it is still pretty much a mystery.

What we can say is that there was a unified effort around building these

monoliths, and that they are certainly cornerstone and symbolic of

ancient Britain's culture.

Archaeologist Matthew Sterling is excavating an ancient site once occupied

the Olmec people, a lost Mesoamerican civilization dating as far back as

1200 BC.

As Sterling's team unearths and catalogs numerous artifacts, they notice a

number of unusually large, rounded boulders buried nearby.

What emerges from the ground are, quite literally, some of the largest

archaeological finds of the 20th century.

Over the next several decades, 17 colossal heads carved from solid

basalt were ultimately discovered in the area, the largest measuring a

staggering 11 feet tall and weighing 50 tons.

When you walk up to these imposing stone monuments, You see, these things are

huge with these just amazing lifelike features.

It would have taken thousands of people to drag these stones through the

rainforest, through mud and swamps, onto the tops of their sites.

But perhaps what's most striking about these giant heads is not their size or

how they were brought to the middle of the jungle, but rather who they seem to

be depicting.

The colossal heads have an African appearance.

But also, equally, they've been seen to have a Polynesian appearance as

well. Is it possible that the Olmec were the result of trans -Pacific or

even trans -Atlantic migrations of peoples from other continents?

Although mainstream historians dismiss the notion that the Olmec originated in

Asia or Africa, the appearance of the Olmec heads suggests that it is

But not only do we not know where the Olmec came from, we also don't know

they went.

One of the real frustrations to archaeologists who study the Olmec is

don't have a single Olmec skeleton.

that we can look at and analyze.

For over a thousand years, the Olmec were the culture in the middle of

Mesoamerica. But then they faded away.

And why exactly they stopped is something we're not sure of.

The Olmec disappeared so completely, all that's left of them are scattered

remains.

Some sculptures and figurines, which means if we're to answer the riddle of

Olmec's disappearance, there's only one place to look.

Those huge imposing stone heads staring back at us through time with

their odd sphinx -like gazes.

One of the most remarkable discoveries in connection with the art of the

Olmec is the presence of magnetism in a number of different

statues. When a compass is brought up to them, the needles move.

Archaeologists in the late 1960s and early 1970s used magnetometers to find

of the most remarkable colossal heads.

The Olmec head probably gave off magnetic signatures because they're made

basalt.

a dense volcanic rock that becomes magnetic as it cools.

So by making the head of bathalt that came from the volcano itself,

that same energy was inherited by those colossal heads.

What all of this suggests is that the Olmec went out and deliberately chose

rocks that had this magnetic effect.

Magnetic stones.

If the Olmec were harnessing magnetism, what were they using it for?

There are many theories about how the Olmecs may have used magnetism.

One interesting speculation is whether they could have moved some of the large

stones using magnetic levitation.

It's very simple to get magnets to either attract or repel each other if

poles are opposing.

Difficult to imagine even using modern moving technology to move very large

stones, yet they were moved.

Levitation? It's a fascinating theory, although one that's hard to prove.

Not unlike another theory that suggests that the Olmec may have been using the

magnetic properties in their giant stone heads for healing purposes.

Clothelhead 10 from San Lorenzo has what appears to be...

These little multi -perforated beads all over all of the head in his headdress.

In a recent excavation, the lead archaeologist found thousands, 144 ,000

these little magnetic cubes.

And they could have been then strung together in mats and possibly, in this

case, the headdress.

And he's leading some archaeologists to say, well, what about the magnetic

qualities that might have been used in possible healing?

We know the importance of magnets used in certain therapies.

And did the Olmec, did they already discover the important health benefits

magnetic therapy?

If the Olmec leaders were using the power of magnetism for some type of

it may have had the opposite effect.

Magnetic fields can be healing or harmful.

In some cases, people... who have been exposed to very strong magnetic fields,

have lapsed into comas, had seizures.

Some people have even died after being exposed to very strong magnetic fields.

So could the presence of magnetism in the art objects that were fashioned by

old men have had something to do with why they deliberately buried many of

their statues and figurines?

We do not have any definitive answers, but what we do know is that the Olmec

culture dissolved.

It disappeared almost into oblivion.

February 11th, 2019.

Investigative journalist and radio host David Whitehead travels to the Loreto

Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

I'm here to investigate a really mysterious structure, the famous Loretto

staircase.

We don't know who built it, we don't understand the physics behind it, and we

don't even have a good indication as to what it's made of.

Oh, wow.

This place is beautiful.

Meeting with David is chapel curator Richard Lindsley.

So this is it.

Absolutely.

A miraculous staircase.

I've heard so much about it. I've read so many theories about it. And it's

amazing to actually be here to see it.

In 1873, the Sisters of Loretto commissioned the construction of the

their new girls' school.

Officially consecrated five years later, the Loretto Chapel is a triumph of

Gothic revival design.

with its high spires, soaring buttresses, and enormous stained glass

But as construction was nearing completion, the project's architect

died before he could build what was considered the most ambitious part of

job, the staircase, leading up to the choir loft.

The mystery of the staircase actually begins... with this mysterious

The sisters asked the local carpenters to build one, but they failed. They

didn't know how to do it.

The sisters, they decided to turn to prayer and set a nine -day novena asking

St. Joseph, the patron of carpenters, to help them with their problem.

At the last day of their prayer, it said that a knock came at these doors.

This elderly man was standing there with a donkey by his side.

And he told the sister that he had come to build their staircases.

Was it St. Joseph, like the sisters believed?

Some pious people think it was an angel.

But he was very reclusive and insisted upon working inside this chapel by

himself, never allowing anyone to see him work on the staircase.

Throughout the Christian and Catholic world, we have a tremendous amount of

these stories of miraculous help from saints.

And this is a part of the Catholic belief system. You can pray to saints,

they're supposed to try to help.

So it's a built -in part of the package, this idea of an intercessuary, closer

to people and yet closer to God.

After three months, the sisters came into the chapel, and the man was gone.

And when they could not find him to even pay him for his labor, they went to the

only lumberyard in town.

and asked them how much they owed for the materials.

And the lumberyard told the sisters that the man never got any materials from

them at all.

So what material is this staircase made of? I gave a core sample of the wood

from the inner stringer to a U .S. naval scientist, and he determined right away

that it was a form of Pisces spruce.

Is this form of spruce local to Santa Fe? The wood in this staircase did not

match up with any other Pisceus spruce known to science.

This wood does not match up with any other quite like it on Earth.

The staircase at Loretto Chapel is amazing.

It's a double spiral system. There's no glue, there's no nails, there's no

screws.

It's put together in a way that how it's just sitting on itself is holding it

together.

So Richard, an interesting thing about this design is the double helix.

The double helix, or the double spiral, is that it's an incredibly unique

design.

Well, we had a world -renowned physicist come visit us, and he was convinced

that the double helix design was integral to its inner strength.

Mind if I go up?

Please be my guest.

This is a very special privilege.

I definitely feel very privileged. I've waited for this moment for so long.

Wow, yeah, it's a unique feeling just right on that first step.

I almost feel like a vibration.

Feeling like...

I'm floating like there's nothing underneath my feet.

It's truly a remarkable feeling.

Now, how many stairs have we got here? There are 33 steps to the staircase,

which reminded the sisters of our Lord because he lived 33 years.

Well, I find it very interesting that here we are in this chapel in Santa Fe

we're seeing the motif of the sacred number 33.

And this number is important to the Templars.

Thirty -three steps?

One of the most sacred numbers to the fraternal order of builders known as

Freemasons, who in turn are thought to be the spiritual descendants of the

Knights Templar.

Could this number of steps really provide an important clue as to who

stairway and how?

So the number 33 is a sacred number in Templarism.

So they would have encoded that number, whether it be in staircases or artwork

in the stained glass windows, or even the mathematical dimensions of some of

these structures.

To the Templars, they don't just see a staircase or a stained glass window or a

layout of a church design.

They see an esoteric number, the number of a master builder, the manifestation

of the divine on earth, and it's very deeply rooted in the entire Templar

tradition.

I think the quality of construction and detailing show that somebody who did it

was highly skilled, and they must have learned that.

So the person who built that staircase apprenticed with somebody. They learned

some things. They applied those things later in Santa Fe. So there's no doubt

they could have been working with a mason, but they were way too skilled to

been the first time they did something like that.

The construction of the staircase defies all conventional construction

practices. Any kind of rational, conventional explanation.

Where did the materials come from?

Who built it?

It seems like we just have more questions than we do answers. But we do

that it's a mystery and hopefully one day we'll be able to solve it.

Is the stairway of the Loretta Chapel merely the work of a gifted builder?

Or was its construction a miracle performed by the hand of God?

Perhaps further clues about the power of religious structures can be found by

exploring the mystical nature of one of the most famous cathedrals in the world.

Paris, France.

For centuries, Many have remarked on the strange power that Notre Dame, the

historic cathedral that sits at the center of Paris, has on people.

But what exactly is this power?

And could it actually be the presence of God?

What's extraordinary to me is that you've got a building that has been

almost a thousand years, in one form or another.

And even though it's important from an architectural historian's point of view

in various ways, it also has this life in popular culture, which many buildings

don't. Its role in the public view has to do with its subsequent reputation.

You walk into Notre Dame, and all of a sudden you realize the one human being

very small, and you're literally humbled by this, almost falling to the ground

because it's such an impressive.

sort of structure there the light coming through the windows especially the rose

windows has an effect on our consciousness this is something beyond

is the power of ritual and aesthetics to touch us on a spiritual level it can't

entirely be explained it's like there is a presence there

people go silent you know talking whispers And you say, well,

of course there would be. It's a Christian cathedral.

So that's what Christians take from it. It reinforces their belief.

But millions upon millions of visitors have felt it, whether they have any

religion or not.

In 1163 A .D., Bishop Maurice de Soult authorized the construction of Notre

Dame Cathedral.

The bishop wanted...

The majesty and splendor of Notre Dame to show France's devotion to God.

The massive building took over 180 years to complete and features a 115 foot

high roof and two towers that stand 223 feet tall.

The value system of a collective is reflected in the shrines and monuments

build.

Notre Dame was the tallest building in Paris for a very long time. The common

people on the street would look up and see the cathedral towering above all

other human activity.

That was the message.

A thousand years ago, when architects were building bigger and bigger stone

cathedrals, the problem was sometimes they would collapse.

So before they had steel, they had to use stone with weight.

on the outside called the flying buttress to support the roof.

That's the reason why Notre Dame, built a thousand years ago, can have thin

walls and stained glass.

Notre Dame's builders wanted to inspire awe when people came and looked at the

cathedral. So how did they do that? One of the main tricks is to allow light

into the space so that you get this huge sense of height.

You don't see the massive walls, and the building seems to be floating on air.

Historians and architects have also suggested that the power of Notre Dame

come not just from how it looks, but also how it sounds.

So one of the amazing things about Notre Dame Cathedral is the sound, the

acoustical properties, and the acoustics in there are just marvelous.

And that affects us. It physically, literally affects us. Our heart beats in

different kind of way. You know, we can feel it in our bodies.

The great acoustics of Notre Dame Cathedral came from practice and

geometry. So the people who did that, they understood that if you emit noise,

like singing at one location, through the shape of the ceiling, you can bounce

that noise down to another location, like a congregation inside the

The medieval builders of Notre Dame clearly understood how to create a

or holy experience in the cathedral.

And a recent catastrophic event proves that this thousand -year -old sacred

structure continues to hold immense power.

April 15th, 2019.

A fire breaks out at Notre Dame.

400 firefighters launch a valiant effort to fight the blaze, using water pumped

directly from the Seine River.

Parisians watch in horror as the flames and smoke envelop the upper reaches of

the cathedral and its 315 -foot -tall spire.

Collapsus.

Fire began in its timber.

that spread quickly, causing the collapse of its spire, and hundreds of

tons of lead melted and poured down into the interior of

the structure.

And as much as a tragedy as this actually was, the response to it

across the globe was remarkable.

The reaction to the disastrous fire transcended national borders and faiths.

only two days, people around the world contributed nearly a billion dollars to

rebuild and restore this beloved landmark.

The outpouring of donations from within France and from all over the world tells

us what a cathedral means is not just a tourist spot.

If you enter a cathedral, something happens to you. People know they felt

something. They are attached to that building.

So when you had the fire in Notre Dame Cathedral and the rebuilding of that,

that was extraordinary.

The rebuilding of Notre Dame Cathedral shows the attachment that people have to

the divine is infinite.

And I think there's a power there.

Paula Malta, 1902.

While excavating an area for a new housing development just off the eastern

coast of this tiny Mediterranean island, construction workers encounter

something unexpected and quite unusual beneath their work site.

A prehistoric structure hewn from solid limestone dating back more than 5

,000 years.

Upon further inspection,

Archaeologists soon realized that what the unwitting workers have unearthed

isn't merely a lost underground temple or ancient sanctuary, but a massive

subterranean necropolis, the Hypogeum of Hal Cefalini.

The Malta Hypogeum is an architectural wonder of the ancient world.

It was carved using primarily stone and bone tools.

by an ancient population that lived on Malta thousands of years ago.

So it's actually older than the pyramids of Egypt or Stonehenge.

Hypogeum is basically a word that comes from the Greek terms for cavity or space

underground. It extends on three different stories about 7 point some

below ground. It covers an area of about 5 ,400 square feet.

Malta's Hypogeum is, you know, one of those great examples of beautiful

underground.

So the geometry isn't by accident.

It was done by somebody who knows what they were doing.

And it looks to me like, you know, this was done for a purpose.

A purpose?

Although no one knows for certain who originally built the Malta Hypogeum or

why.

The bones of more than 7 ,000 souls.

lined its intricate labyrinth of corridors and alcoves.

So, according to logic, it is exactly what it appears to be, an ancient burial

site.

But logic alone may not be at play here.

There is a very intriguing room in the hypogeum, which is in the middle level,

that is called the oracle room.

And this oracle room is basically a resonance chamber.

And it's designed, it would seem, to amplify any acoustic sound waves. So

even by whispering, for example, the design of the room amplifies this and

it into a very loud baritone sound.

In 2014, while conducting a series of experiments in an attempt to understand

the design elements behind the hypogeum's unusual acoustics,

scientists discovered an unexpected and hair -raising phenomenon.

We set up microphones and we used recording devices that were very

we carried out experiments using the human voice in that 110 to 112 hertz

So these are very low guttural bass sounds and they reverberate in a very

way within these temples.

It's extraordinary. It's like being inside of a bell. Those vibrations are

inside your body. You feel it in your tissue. You feel it in your bones. You

raise the hair off the back of your neck.

Imagine going there to this dark and spooky underground place 5 ,000 years

with this weird eerie sound going on around you and knowing that there are

bones. The whole thing is creepy now.

It clearly was some sort of ritual activity went on there.

There is a niche in the oracle room that if you spoke into it, it could resonate

throughout the whole structure.

So some thought it was significant that a priest might have intoned into it. A

voice that was a booming voice would go through the whole hypogeum.

Like a god.

The voice of a god.

Those who have visited the Malta Hypogeum describe it as feeling like a

into the underworld.

As a result, some experts believe this subterranean nightmare was intentionally

constructed to enable its visitors to speak with the dead.

Overtone chanting is a common practice in many cultures in East Asia.

and North Asia and South Asia as well. You do have a strong connection between

chanting and communication with the divine or with the deceased.

And I believe at the hypogeum, we may have a similar situation in which there

seems to have been an active ritual function of not only placing the

remains there, but where people would attempt to establish communication with

the dead.

People could attain a different level of consciousness in which they would be

susceptible to have experiences with people who had passed away.

Was the Malta Hypogeum designed to be not just a subterranean necropolis, but

also a place where the living could connect with the deceased?

Perhaps further investigation of this mysterious site will one day reveal the

answer.

But there's a structure located in Mexico that reportedly possessed an even

dramatic kind of mystical power.

It's a 160 -ton statue that was built to honor a god of

thunder and lightning.

Cuadalinchon, Mexico, April 16, 1964.

Crowd. gather as workers prepare to transport one of the largest monolithic

statues in the world.

Twenty -three feet tall and weighing 160 tons, the massive idol dates back over

a thousand years.

And although workers are extremely careful with their preparations as they

it onto the trucks that will carry it, there is palpable tension in the air.

Because this is no ordinary statue, but one of the mighty Aztec god.

Tlaloc.

The Aztec religious system had a vast number of gods.

There were water gods and goddesses.

There were sky gods and goddesses, fire divinities and earth divinities.

One particularly important sacred god was Tlaloc, a fertility divinity

associated with weather.

and thunder and lightning. So it is feared, but it is also greatly revered

because life comes from this. The life -giving waters of the rain come from

Tlaloc.

More than 25 ,000 people eagerly wait into the night to welcome Tlaloc to his

new home in Mexico City after his long journey.

But as the trucks carrying the hulking statue finally arrive, the crowd isn't

expecting what would arrive along with him.

As this statue was erected, suddenly

the heavens opened up, and for several days there was intense rain and

thunderstorms.

Now this was done in the summer months, when in theory there should be very

little rain at all. This was so uncharacteristic of this time of year.

Rain during the dry season?

Most people would see such an occurrence as nothing more than a coincidence.

But some believe the rain was actually a good omen, sent by Tlaloc in

response to the warm welcome he received from the Mexican people.

Certainly a lot of people believe that these events, for example, the downpour

following the arrival of Tleilach, are connected. And perhaps they're connected

because of the divine force, or perhaps it's actually the believer's belief and

their faith that is helping to shape these events.

So certainly faith is powerful.

You're coming in contact with the divine, perhaps.

The fact is that it doesn't really matter.

because it's about belief.

If people believe strongly enough in an object, that can create a reality.

Was the torrential downpour that took place in Mexico just a coincidence, or

there a more mysterious force at play?

Well, I guess the answer depends on whether you believe that a massive stone

statue can possess extraordinary powers. In any case, it's clear that there are

mystical structures around the globe which hold secrets, whether they're

in stone or carved in wood, that will remain

unexplained.