Original subtitles

[narrator] In Argentina, a fantasy world built by a desperate man.

Some kind of very obsessive and very unusual mind dreamed this place up.

[narrator] A sin city locked in a skyscraper.

This looming tower went from an opulent apartment building

to a vertical slum.

[narrator] And an ancient castle,

[narrator] And an ancient castle,

the birthplace of a monster.

The superstitious population saw him as a sorcerer

who had made a pact with the devil.

[narrator] Decaying relics.

Ruins of lost worlds.

Sites haunted by the past.

Their secrets waiting to be revealed.

Near the Hillbrow region of Johannesburg, South Africa,

is a dystopian ruin with a checkered past.

[Prof. Michele Mitchell] We're at the center

of one of the city's most notorious neighborhoods

that are known for crime, for violence and that are blighted.

[Sascha Auerbach] This looming tower

that dominates the skyline of Johannesburg,

that dominates the skyline of Johannesburg,

looks like it sprung out of the pages

of a science fiction novel.

It's this massive grey concrete tube

with this bizarre open center that descends

right through the middle of the building.

[narrator] Travelling deeper into the dark abyss,

is an apocalyptic wasteland.

[Auerbach] The floor of the central core is uneven.

There's still huge slabs of bedrock there.

There's still huge slabs of bedrock there.

It's as if they never quite finished removing them.

[Mitchell] When you go inside,

the building has a desolate and dangerous feeling to it.

There are broken windows,

walls that are blackened with smoke.

[Auerbach] You can see from the flats

and the abandoned facilities

that this was once a luxurious residence,

but something terrible happened here.

[Nickolaus Bauer] Some of my best moments were actually lying down

[Nickolaus Bauer] Some of my best moments were actually lying down

in the middle of this core here

and watching the clouds float over the top of the building.

It was a bit like a kaleidoscope.

Some days it would rain as well,

and make it a really, truly special

and unique experience.

[narrator] Journalist Nickolaus Bauer

moved into this brutalist concrete construction in 2012,

and lived here for five years.

[Bauer] This is a truly unique building.

Something that you won't find anywhere else in South Africa.

Something that you won't find anywhere else in South Africa.

Some people say it's got to do with the fact

that the architects took too many hallucinogenics in the '70s

when they put this building together,

but it's actually a municipal bylaw

that stated you needed two sources of light and air going into each apartment.

This was the most bang for buck they could get

in terms of designing a building

with as much living space as possible.

[narrator] Dig deeper,

and the origins of this ambitious structure reveal a dark side.

and the origins of this ambitious structure reveal a dark side.

Its creation dates to a time when the country operated

under the shameful shadow of apartheid.

[Mitchell] Apartheid era in South Africa

is a society in which there are rigid,

rigid boundaries between racial groups

in terms of where one can live,

who one can marry, what one can do.

[Auerbach] And access to the inner part of the city

[Auerbach] And access to the inner part of the city

for South Africa's black residents

was restricted to those who had work in that area.

At this time, the only legal Black inhabitants

for miles around, were live-in domestic workers.

[narrator] Called the Ponte City Apartments,

this was an exclusive residential complex,

built for the city's white elite.

[Rob Bell] If you lived in Ponte in the 1970s

this was the creme de la creme of lifestyles.

this was the creme de la creme of lifestyles.

If you had this address, you were part of the in crowd.

[Auerbach] The three-story penthouses

that crowned the tower boasted jacuzzies,

saunas, and patios with a breathtaking view

across Johannesburg's central business district.

[Mitchell] Johannesburg was considered a akin to New York,

as a sort of a cosmopolitan mecca.

And Ponte City was supposed to be the crown jewel.

And Ponte City was supposed to be the crown jewel.

[narrator] Conceived as a modern utopia

within the city, it had a shopping mall,

a movie theater, and a bowling alley.

The luxury facilities on hand meant the 3,500 wealthy inhabitants

never had to leave.

[Bell] But these highs didn't last for long.

Instead, this tower started a long journey into infamy and decay.

[Auerbach] Although Ponte was designated officially

[Auerbach] Although Ponte was designated officially

as a whites-only area,

the politics of it were a little bit more progressive,

and it wasn't unknown for different racial groups to mix in the region.

[Bauer] Throughout the 70s and into the 80s

there were nightclubs and dance halls which had licenses to allow,

people of different races to mix and socialize.

[Bell] Many landlords found it to their advantage to look the other way

when it came to who they rented to,

since illegal tenants would have little grounds to complain about rent increases

since illegal tenants would have little grounds to complain about rent increases

or maintenance issues.

[narrator] The white-led apartheid government

was appalled by the brazen racial mixing

and acted quickly to stamp it out.

What the apartheid government decided to do was to red line Hillbrow.

Now, red-lining basically means

that the economic taps get switched off to an area

and what you had, very quickly,

from about the mid-80s onwards,

from about the mid-80s onwards,

was this rapid urban degradation of old buildings like Ponte.

[narrator] There was no electricity, running water or any municipal services.

[Auerbach] Residents started to simply

throw their rubbish into the central area

and eventually you had a giant pile of trash five-stories high.

[Mitchell] What ends up happening

is what would be referred to in the United States as "white flight."

The white residents leave,

The white residents leave,

and crime moves in.

And so Ponte becomes

synonymous with crime rather quickly.

[narrator] Ruthless drug lords hijacked the building,

and a deadly new era began.

[Bell] The 14th floor was ruled by gangsters.

And the floor above

became an informal, sinister marketplace.

Whatever it is you were looking for,

Whatever it is you were looking for,

guns, drugs, prostitutes, you could find it all there.

It was so bad that when someone was shot at Ponte

or when there was a crime that was called in to authorities,

paramedics and the police would stay away from the building.

You can't visit this building

and not have some sort of impact on your psyche.

I suppose maybe that's why

for a while it was known as "suicide central."

for a while it was known as "suicide central."

A lot of people decided to end their lives at Ponte.

[narrator] By the mid-1990s,

it had become the world's tallest urban slum.

10,000 people crammed into a space

originally designed to house a third of that number.

It was years before anybody really wanted to touch it.

Ponte, the region around it,

it had some of the worst rates

of murder and rape in the world.

Even after the end of apartheid,

Even after the end of apartheid,

Ponte remained out of control, and it remained

a symbol of lawlessness in Johannesburg.

[narrator] Ponte City's fate was not yet sealed.

In 2001, its owners decided to restore the neglected building.

What they found inside, was truly horrifying.

[narrator] In South Africa is a tower of dreams

that turned into a nightmare.

For years it was overrun by gangsters and pimps

until the building's owners decided to clean it up.

In the process,

gruesome secrets were revealed.

You couldn't get heavy machinery in there

to remove this five-story rubbish pile,

to remove this five-story rubbish pile,

so it had to be done by hand.

[Bell] And reportedly, there were 23 corpses found.

Now most of those

were rumored to be gang murders,

and the others were suicides.

[narrator] It wasn't just human remains and rubbish

that needed to be removed from Ponte.

Every single drug dealer, every single criminal,

every single sex worker was moved out of the building

as the owners of the building tried to turn it around

and make it a decent place to stay

and make it a decent place to stay

for inner city residents.

So it was around that time that the owners of Ponte,

Kempston, decided to enter into an agreement

with developers and turn Ponte into its original incarnation.

[narrator] Today, the Ponte City Apartments

are once again providing a home to the people of Johannesburg,

but transforming the fortunes of this concrete tower

but transforming the fortunes of this concrete tower

didn't happen overnight.

The years of neglect required decades of restoration,

a process that still continues to this day.

[Bauer] No longer is it a den of iniquity,

it's become a safe and clean place

for people to live and really be safe from a lot of the unsavory aspects

of inner city Johannesburg.

[narrator] And Ponte's post-apocalyptic appeal

[narrator] And Ponte's post-apocalyptic appeal

has also attracted

a very different kind of occupant.

Its likeness to a Sci-Fi scene

has not gone unnoticed by Hollywood

and several major films have involved Ponte,

among them, District 9, Chappie and Resident Evil.

[narrator] In the mountains of Idaho

is the scene of a deadly love triangle.

is the scene of a deadly love triangle.

[Prof. Dougal Jerram] So you've got this really quite spectacular valley

at around about 6,000 feet,

which is kind of surrounded by peaks,

some of which are over 9,000 feet,

and a kind of icy river running through it all.

It's beautiful, but also quite a stark place.

While the summer and spring might be beautiful,

You can tell that the winters here are harsh

and you could probably be trapped here for a very long time.

and you could probably be trapped here for a very long time.

[narrator] Scattered over 250,000 acres

are remnants of a community.

[Dr. Katherine Landdeck] When you come upon these settlements,

you see all different states of buildings.

You see these obviously handmade wood structures

in various states of disrepair.

You can see these cabins

that have started to fall in upon themselves.

[Jerram] As you walk around the town

you can see that some buildings are really quite simple,

but others have a lot more to them,

so there must have been money to be made

so there must have been money to be made

in this particular part of the world.

And clearly some people had it and some people didn't.

[narrator] Deep in the wilderness

are clues to what drew so many people to this place.

There are remains of machines and tools littered around everywhere.

So you can clearly tell that this was part of

some kind of mechanical processing project.

Something industrial, something was being processed here,

but it's not exactly clear what.

[narrator] People came here seeking fame and fortune,

but for some this would be their final resting place.

but for some this would be their final resting place.

The real mystery of this place lies in its overgrown cemetery

and the vestiges of three specific graves.

[Landdeck] You have to wonder

what is going to draw people together here?

What are they willing to risk everything for?

And quite often it's going to be money.

[narrator] 150 years ago, this region was empty.

[narrator] 150 years ago, this region was empty.

But in 1877, one man arrived

and founded the town of Bonanza.

[Landdeck] By the mid-1880s

Bonanza had over 600 people,

which is a fairly large community.

They have several businesses in the area.

They have a dance hall, and a market place.

[narrator] It also has its own cemetery.

Park ranger, Larry Gary, has been trying

Park ranger, Larry Gary, has been trying

to figure out the mystery of Bonanza for decades.

[Gary] So we're going up

to what's called a Boot Hill cemetery.

Back in the 1800s,

all three of these people in the cemetery were shot,

but nobody knows who did the killing.

[narrator] Inside are the headstones

of a couple killed on the same day in 1880.

of a couple killed on the same day in 1880.

The number-one suspect was Bonanza's founder.

[narrator] In 1880, in the town of Bonanza,

a married couple were shot and killed.

The prime suspect was the town's founder.

[Landdeck] Many in the community thought he was probably guilty.

We don't know... People in the community

certainly suspected him.

[Jerram] I mean, we all know

from watching these movies, we see the wild, wild west.

from watching these movies, we see the wild, wild west.

I mean, but this was really the kind of place

where it actually happened.

We're seeing the remnants of it.

[narrator] Bonanza is found

in a region called Yankee Fork.

The story of this place begins in the era of the cowboy.

[Dr. Alicia Gutierrez] Around 1866, a group of prospectors

came to this area,

and they were looking for mining opportunities.

The one thing that they did leave

was the name of this place, Yankee Fork.

was the name of this place, Yankee Fork.

"Yankee" because that's what they were

and "Fork" because this place lies

at the fork of the Salmon River.

[narrator] It was in the mountains

of Yankee Fork that a discovery was made.

What they actually found in the mountain was a kind of vein,

a two to three-inch line or vein of material

and that was the actual direct source of the gold.

[narrator] The discovery of gold in Yankee Fork

caught the attention of an entrepreneur.

His name was Charles Franklin.

[Landdeck] In 1877, Charles Franklin decides

to go to this place called Yankee Fork.

He's going to found this town or city of Bonanza,

which of course, grabs onto all that romance,

all that idea of hope and opportunity,

to be in a town called Bonanza.

[Gary] First, he built a few houses,

hotels popped up in these small communities.

hotels popped up in these small communities.

They had to repair tools, we have blacksmith shops.

There was other little dress shops

and general stores, butcher shops.

[narrator] By 1878, hundreds of people

had moved into Yankee Fork,

but that summer, a new couple arrived

going by the name Richard and Lizzie King.

[Gary] A home like this, more upper class, if you will,

was something that Richard and Lizzie King built

was something that Richard and Lizzie King built

and lived in, and across the street

they built a saloon and a large dance hall

where they held dances quite frequently.

[narrator] The Kings helped build the town of Bonanza,

but its founder, Charles Franklin,

had eyes for Lizzie.

Lizzie was described as this golden-haired beauty

and it was rumored that she spent lots of time with Franklin,

even when her husband wasn't around.

And in those days that meant trouble.

And in those days that meant trouble.

[narrator] On July 14th, 1879,

Lizzie's husband fought with a business associate

and was killed.

[Gary] Lizzie had a real hard time with the death of her husband,

but their friend, Charles Franklin,

became even closer to Lizzie.

And everybody in Bonanza

thought that Charles Franklin and Lizzie King would soon be married.

thought that Charles Franklin and Lizzie King would soon be married.

[narrator] But Lizzie was smitten with another.

[Gutierrez] She actually ended up falling in love

with a car dealer at the saloon that she operated,

Robert Hawthorne, and the two were married shortly thereafter,

but it only lasted six days.

So they got married,

and six days after their wedding day,

they had a freight wagon come in

with new furniture for the house,

few seconds later, there was two gunshots.

few seconds later, there was two gunshots.

The surrounding townspeople showed up

and went into Lizzie King's

and Robert Hawthorne's house

to find them deceased.

[Landdeck] The rumor that went around the town,

of course, was that Charles Franklin,

in a fit of jealous rage, had killed them both.

We have no evidence of this, we don't know what happened,

they were obviously murdered.

[narrator] But one clue might attach Franklin to the crime.

[Landdeck] When Charles Franklin

[Landdeck] When Charles Franklin

had Lizzie and her new husband's headstones made,

instead of putting their death date on those headstones,

he instead put the date of their wedding,

which had been six days earlier.

[narrator] After Lizzie and her second husband were buried,

Charles Franklin abandoned the town he once founded.

[Gutierrez] Obviously, people were suspicious

that Franklin had murdered Lizzie and her husband

in a fit of jealous rage, but it couldn't be proven.

in a fit of jealous rage, but it couldn't be proven.

[narrator] Bonanza continued without its founder for nine years,

but in 1889, the Yankee Fork claimed another victim.

[Landdeck] Unfortunately, fires strike Bonanza,

just too much of the town is destroyed

and many of those business owners

just move two miles down the road to Custer

and Bonanza quickly falls into disrepair.

[narrator] Shortly after, the Yankee Fork's gold dried up.

[narrator] Shortly after, the Yankee Fork's gold dried up.

The residents abandoned the towns,

leaving the buildings to nature.

Today, Yankee Fork is silent,

except for wanderers who come to hear the story of Lizzie King.

[Gary] Everybody suspects

that possibly Charles Franklin may have done it,

but then again, Charles Franklin

was so in love with Lizzie King,

why would he kill her too?

why would he kill her too?

Why not just kill Robert?

Makes you wonder.

[narrator] In a suburb of Buenos Aires,

a peculiar-looking town

appears to belong in a fairy-tale world.

[Bell] It looks like it's some kind of medieval village,

and then as you get closer, these strange details start to emerge.

and then as you get closer, these strange details start to emerge.

[Dominic Selwood] There are these strange steampunk houses

with towers coming out in odd places.

[Jim Meigs] It looks like something that maybe

Willy Wonka would have dreamed up.

[narrator] At ground level, the mystery deepens.

[Selwood] Walking through the many passages,

nooks, crannies and secreted places

there's a really intriguing atmosphere.

[Meigs] It feels kinda like a film set

in that everything is sort of artificial,

in that everything is sort of artificial,

but it's built to last.

I mean, it's built with stone and wood.

[narrator] It seems so welcoming,

but apart from a few stray dogs, there was no one around.

[Meigs] Obviously, it's not a place where people really lived,

they are just big, empty spaces.

There's no furniture.

This is an imaginary idea of a town.

[Selwood] In many ways, it's like a cartoon come to life.

It doesn't quite feel like it's the real world.

[narrator] One man decided to build the village of his dreams,

but it was built in a race against time.

[narrator] Campanopolis is a town like no other in the world.

It was the life project of one man.

[Oscar Campana in Spanish] Antonio's vision at the time

was very difficult to spot.

He was a very private person.

He used to say he was building little houses because he enjoyed it.

[narrator] The man behind this enchanting place

[narrator] The man behind this enchanting place

is Antonio Campana,

a self-made supermarket millionaire.

His son, Oscar, now looks after the peculiar village

and has kept his father's office just as it was.

[Oscar in Spanish] We are entering the place where Antonio got inspired.

In a way, his space.

You can see here one of the drawings

that was made with the pencil.

that was made with the pencil.

[narrator] The story began when Antonio Campana

decided to try his hand at farming.

Antonio bought this property

in order to acquire the land and diversify financially.

[narrator] But Campana's dreams

of a pastureland were soon brought to a halt.

[Bell] The year Campana buys the land coincides with the start

of the Argentinian civic-military dictatorship.

of the Argentinian civic-military dictatorship.

[Meigs] It was a very dark period in the country.

It's known as the "dirty war."

Many people were "disappeared", as the say,

they were just taken off the streets never to be seen again.

And the powers that be appropriated his land

and used it as a dump.

[narrator] For years, Antonio stood by,

unable to reclaim what was his,

as the fields were used as landfill.

as the fields were used as landfill.

Yet some terrible news would give him the motivation to fight back.

[in Spanish] A health problem would change his life in an unexpected way.

[narrator] Diagnosed with tonsil cancer,

he was given just a few years to live.

[Oscar in Spanish] That was the moment

when Antonio decided to leave his job,

sold his companies and started on a path to recover this land.

sold his companies and started on a path to recover this land.

[Bell] So Antonio Campana took on the fight,

and even though it took years,

he eventually won his battle against the government.

[narrator] He now had to clear 70 million cubic feet of garbage.

[Oscar in Spanish] They gave the land back to us completely ruined.

People used to come here to pick up waste

and look for metal.

[Selwood] Campana realized that the land

was no longer suitable for cattle raising.

[narrator] Campana had to find a new use for the land.

Campanopolis is a hoarder's paradise.

And it feels like a window

into Campana's unfathomable mind.

[narrator] But exploring the town,

it is possible to piece together the jigsaw and find clues

to the method behind the apparent madness.

[Oscar in Spanish] What Antonio did was to take all that waste

and instead of throwing it inside a well,

he did what you can see now.

Decorating these pillars with railway signs.

At the time, they were ripping up a lot of railroads,

so he was able to get a lot of railroad equipment

and other materials from that process.

[narrator] But Campana was thinking big.

It would take more than railroad equipment

to fulfill his new ambition.

[Bell] Maybe going through this ordeal made Campana acutely aware

[Bell] Maybe going through this ordeal made Campana acutely aware

of all the waste we accumulate as humans.

Maybe he just found lots of treasures

as he was clearing up the site.

Either way, his plans changed,

from farming to creating a town

made from upcycled and recycled materials.

[narrator] He scoured the nearby capital

and found a treasure trove of materials.

Much of it with origins from farther afield.

[in Spanish] Big ships would travel with grain,

[in Spanish] Big ships would travel with grain,

and in order not to come back empty,

they would transport things, like railway signs,

dome roofs,

and bridges back here.

If you walk through Buenos Aires

or travel in our country, you will see plenty of things

brought from England and Spain.

[Selwood] Campana was lucky.

At the time, Buenos Aires was going through

a big boom of renovation.

And many of the older buildings

were being knocked down.

were being knocked down.

People were selling off a lot of the old features.

Architectural moldings, gates, doorways,

posts, fence, so Campana went around auctions.

His motto was "Recycling and optimization."

[narrator] Campanopolis was meant to be a living epitaph,

but for a dying Campana the clock was ticking.

[narrator] In the 1970s,

Argentinian, Antonio Campana, was given four years to live.

So he decided to build himself a fantasy wonderland.

[Oscar in Spanish] And slowly, playing around,

he started with a grid, a door, with a window...

[narrator] By the time Campana began constructing his town in the early '80s,

[narrator] By the time Campana began constructing his town in the early '80s,

he was already years into his terminal illness,

but he powered on undeterred, trawling countless auctions.

Armed only with willpower and a vision.

Campana didn't have any background

as an architect or a builder,

but he did have really big ideas

and enormous enthusiasm and lots of money.

[Oscar in Spanish] He just started to build.

If he didn't find a door or a window,

If he didn't find a door or a window,

he would wait six months or a year,

he kept working in another area.

Then he would build when the materials were available.

[narrator] The plan was not to have a plan

and to allow the place to grow organically.

And this is sometimes reflected in the architectural style,

or perhaps more accurately, the lack of it.

When you open the door to one of these buildings,

it's kind of like opening a door in a dream,

they're not even really buildings inside,

they're not even really buildings inside,

there's no second floor.

It's just a big empty box, like a barn.

And then, some of these buildings have these crazy,

I don't know if they're chimneys or towers,

pointing off in all different directions.

This looks like something

that came out of the mind of Dr. Seuss,

not any kind of normal architect.

[narrator] Year after year, Campana continued

to defy the odds and his prognosis.

[Meigs] Fortunately for Campana, his doctors were wrong,

and that gave him years

and that gave him years

to keep adding on to his fantasy town,

kinda making it up as he went along,

he would come up with all kinds of crazy ideas

and send his builders to work on it.

But over time, he patched together

this really remarkable little fantasy land.

[in Spanish] We used to work long hours.

He made us work hard when we had to look for materials

to build something big.

We went through a lot of stages.

When he was ill,

it was difficult because it was terminal.

Cancer brings fear.

There were a lot of new changes

in Campanopolis, but it was very fun too.

We used to come with family and friends.

[narrator] The 500-acre site

evolved into a beacon of sustainability.

Campana planted 100,000 trees to accompany the structures,

Campana planted 100,000 trees to accompany the structures,

creating a thriving ecosystem on land that was destined for waste.

[Selwood] Campana was a visionary,

not only for his own times, but also for our times.

We are fighting battles of waste and renewability in the world,

but even back in the '70s,

he was able to conceive an entire village

built really only out of recycled materials.

Amazingly, there's almost no plastic in his village.

Amazingly, there's almost no plastic in his village.

He was a real pioneer of sustainability.

[Selwood] In one of those beautiful symmetries,

Campana didn't only give life to the village,

but the village gave life to him.

He was expecting to die very soon,

but in fact lived another 25 years.

[narrator] Today, Oscar looks after

his father's legacy, and has opened up the town

to curious visitors and film crews

to curious visitors and film crews

looking for incredible sets.

[in Spanish] I think this made him find the energy he needed to stay alive.

This kind of project, having things in mind,

generally, makes you forget about the bad things

and focus on the good ones to keep going.

Like the majority of artists, unfortunately,

he became better known after his death.

[narrator] In central Germany, at the top of a hill,

[narrator] In central Germany, at the top of a hill,

is a castle with a famous name.

[Meigs] You see this ruined castle

looming over the hills

and it's hard not to imagine ancient stories

that come to mind once you hear the name of the place.

[Jaega Wise] The castle really uses its surroundings to its advantage.

The solid granite it's built on

acts as a protective barrier.

[narrator] Beyond the walls

[narrator] Beyond the walls

are signs that visitors are not welcome.

[Selwood] Once you're inside the castle,

your imagination takes over because you can see

staircases, towers, a ruined old chapel.

This clearly was a very formidable castle.

[narrator] In the center of the castle's grounds

is a structure that can be seen from miles around.

[Meigs] The thing that stands out

most dramatically is this watchtower

that was clearly part of some kind of fortification.

that was clearly part of some kind of fortification.

[narrator] A hilltop castle, high above a dark forest.

A setting for any good fairy tale.

There really can't be many people in the world

who don't know the name of this place

because it's the name of a notorious fictional character.

[narrator] This is Castle Frankenstein.

[Selwood] Approaching this place is a journey of the senses

because to get to it, you have to hike

because to get to it, you have to hike

through a dense atmospheric forest.

[Ralph Eberhardt in German] Many fairy tales were also told here.

The brothers Grimm from Hanau recorded many legends.

[narrator] Ralph Eberhardt

has heard all the stories of this castle.

[Eberhardt in German] The first mention by name of this castle

was the family Breuberg

who live in the super castle of Frankenstein.

The family Frankenstein still lives today.

They actually do exist to this day.

[narrator] In the castle's chapel is a statue,

but Ralph believes

this is not a member of the Frankenstein family.

[Eberhardt in German] Based on this sculpture,

he was 1.8 meters tall,

which would've been much too tall for his time.

Why Dippel was depicted in this way is beyond my knowledge.

[narrator] He believes the 5' 11'' statue

is of a former resident of the castle,

is of a former resident of the castle,

Johann Conrad Dippel.

[Selwood] Dippel is born there in 1673.

He came from a long line of Lutheran clergymen,

and his father very much wanted young Conrad

to follow in the family footsteps,

so he undertook the boy's education

here in the castle.

[narrator] Dippel grew up in the ways of the church,

but he also had an aptitude for science.

[Eberhardt in German] Dippel was intellectually

ahead of his time.

ahead of his time.

He often argued with the church and claimed, among other things,

that the Earth was a sphere and not a disk.

[Meigs] Like many thinkers in that era,

he was fascinated by alchemy.

The idea that you could somehow chemically transform

a base metal like lead into gold

or transform other things,

alchemy wasn't just about making gold,

it was about this idea of altering things

from a lower state to a higher state.

[narrator] An accident in his lab produced a result,

[narrator] An accident in his lab produced a result,

a chemical with a blue pigment.

[Wise] He actually shared a workshop with a painter.

Now, the two's tools mixed

and this rich blue dye was created.

[Selwood] Blue had only been available before then

at massive cost.

So the sudden availability of blue

that was scalable meant it exploded.

The Prussian army used it for their uniforms,

hence its name, "Prussian blue."

[narrator] Prussian blue raised Dippel's profile,

[narrator] Prussian blue raised Dippel's profile,

but fame soon turned to notoriety.

[Selwood] Dippel, though, wasn't interested

in pigments and paints,

his real focus laid in the search for immortality.

[narrator] It's said that in the 18th century,

central Prussia was shaken by an explosion.

It came from the tower of Castle Frankenstein.

[in German] On the horizon, you can see the skyline of Frankfurt,

which is about 30 kilometers away from here

as the crow flies.

Hanau lies in northeast direction.

[narrator] But explosions

were the least of the locals' concerns.

were the least of the locals' concerns.

It was rumored that a tunnel connected the castle to the village below,

and it was used by Johann Conrad Dippel

in his scientific experiments.

[Meigs] It seems like Dippel was someone

who often kinda freaked out the people around him.

There's a lot of stories about people being warned

about his experiments, what he was doing.

[Eberhardt in German] He experimented

and tried to find the elixir of life.

His constant search for something

and constant experimentation

did not suit many people in the area

did not suit many people in the area

who were mostly Christian.

[narrator] Dippel's methods combined science

with the supernatural.

He searched for a cure to death

by experimenting on the living.

[Selwood] Dippel was fixated with ideas

about the human soul and its meaning.

And in order to experiment with this,

he engaged in soul transference.

In other words, finding animals

and trying to swap one soul from one to another.

and trying to swap one soul from one to another.

[Meigs] He also had this idea

that if he could boil down animal bones

and extract some kind of essence from them,

he would have an elixir

that would be extremely powerful.

[narrator] After years of work, Dippel had a breakthrough.

He produced a substance

which he called "Dippel's oil."

He developed this disgusting, greasy liquid

from this process that he believed

was the secret to a very long life

was the secret to a very long life

and thought it was something of immense value.

[narrator] Dippel's oil

may not have been an elixir of life,

but as an insecticide

and a weapon of war, it had its uses.

[Meigs] At one point he actually tried to buy the castle

by trading it for his formula, for his elixir.

He also claimed that his elixir

would help him live to be 130 years old.

[narrator] But rumors began to circulate

that Dippel experimented on the bodies of people.

that Dippel experimented on the bodies of people.

[Wise] It's said that he had a particular like

for exhuming dead bodies after dark

and he'd try and dig out the fresher bodies

because he believed it still contained

some of their soul within them.

[Eberhardt in German] Allegedly, there is a passage inside the castle

directly to Breuberg,

thus the passage, which is said to have existed,

could also be for getting body parts.

[narrator] Rumors remain about Dippel's research,

[narrator] Rumors remain about Dippel's research,

but for all his efforts

he failed to bottle immortality.

[Wise] Dippel died of a stroke in 1734,

but some claimed that he was poisoned

because he was so unpopular with the locals.

[narrator] After Dippel's death,

Castle Frankenstein faded into obscurity,

but in 1814,

a young woman traveled with her fiance

through central Prussia, her name was Mary Shelley.

through central Prussia, her name was Mary Shelley.

On that journey, they stopped at Gernsnheim,

which is only ten miles away from Frankenstein's castle

and you can see the castle from there.

It's entirely possible that she heard tales

from locals and people in the party

of the castle, and even possibly,

of some of its most notorious inhabitants.

[narrator] Four years later,

Mary Shelley published her debut novel,

Frankenstein, or the modern Prometheus.

[Wise] Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

[Wise] Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

became one of the most iconic horror novels of all time.

It's been in reprint all over the world.

It was an incredibly visionary piece of work,

especially amazing,

the woman who wrote it was only 18 years old.

[narrator] Shelley's story about a scientist

who made life out of death

mirrored the legend of Johann Conrad Dippel.

To many, Dippel was the original Dr. Frankenstein.

[Meigs] It's certainly plausible

that some thread of this story

that some thread of this story

was something she picked up along the way.

The fact that she used the name "Frankenstein"

for her doctor is one hint.

We'll probably never know, but it's certainly fun

to think about that connection.

[narrator] Today, Castle Frankenstein is a tourist hotspot.

[Selwood] Inevitably, there are local legends

that Dippel still haunts this site.

Supposedly, he can be seen

Supposedly, he can be seen

sitting on the chapel roof with his bones clanking,

hunting for the lost entranceway

to his laboratory.

[in German] I've never seen a ghost, but felt? Often.

More often I have the feeling

that there is someone looking at me

or that the tower is somehow creepy today.

An uneasiness is present in any case.