All language subtitles for 1x01 - Strange Places_track3_[eng]

- [Dan Aykroyd] Warning, what
you are about to see

could be disturbing
to some viewers.

(suspenseful music)

Imagine an island so strange

it drives a man insane.

- He decides to pay homage
to the deceased young girl

with a shrine of
thousands of dolls.

- Or a village where,
without warning,

every living thing
simply drops dead.

- He begins seeing dead
bodies around cooking fires,

dead bodies in their homes.

- Everything looks fine

other than this weird,
silent death scene.

- How about a mysterious lake,

where unknown forces result
in macabre collection?

- [Hakeem] What this turns
up is completely unexpected.

- [Don] Skeletons upon
skeletons upon skeletons.

- These are the
places so surprising,

they are truly unbelievable.

(dramatic music)

We've all heard tales
about the Bermuda Triangle,

everything from
magnetic anomalies

to sea monsters and aliens,

but could there be an
even stranger place

in our own backyard?

(suspenseful music)
(thunder rumbling)

- The Lake Michigan Triangle
is shaped like a dagger.

This section of Lake Michigan
has, over the centuries,

earned a reputation for a place

where all kinds of weird things

and disasters have taken place.

- I mean, we're talking
shipwrecks, drownings,

disappearances, strange UFO
sightings, and so forth.

All of this is happening in
an area that is minuscule

compared to the
Bermuda Triangle,

but equal in strangeness.

- The first notable
thing to happen

in the Lake Michigan Triangle

goes way back to 1679.

Rene-Robert Cavelier
is a fur trader.

He builds the largest ship

on Lake Michigan at
the time, Le Griffon.

- This is a huge ship.

It is a 45-ton,
seven cannon barque.

- It's loaded with fur
and he and the crew

really think they're
about to make bank.

- It really indicates how rich
this guy really wants to get.

This is all about getting
the furs out of the Midwest,

up the St. Lawrence
River, and back to Europe.

So the ship's
ready to set sail,

but just before they go,

the Native Americans
there warn them

that the lake is known for these
strange and sudden squalls.

The weather can just
come out of nowhere.

They hear the warning,

but they don't have time
for this local superstition

and they're not
gonna be held back.

- [Dan] Cavelier
ignores the warnings,

ordering his loaded
ship to set sail

while he waits
behind for more furs.

Le Griffon heads off into
the triangle and vanishes.

- There's no
evidence of a storm.

There's no evidence of weird
weather taking the ship down.

There's no evidence of piracy.

- There's no wreckage.
There are no survivors.

It's gone.

- Is there any evidence

of this incredibly expensive
load of furs anywhere?

No, their disappearance
is a total mystery.

- That boat is gone
and 340 years later,

we still do not
know what happened.

- [Dan] Le Griffon
may be the first ship

to fall victim to the
Michigan Triangle,

but it's hardly the
last or the strangest.

(dramatic music)

- In August of 1875,

this hundred foot
schooner, The Rosabelle,

is found floating upside
down in Lake Michigan.

Hull in the air, no
damage to the boat.

The weird thing is the 11 man
crew is gone, disappeared.

No bodies in the water, they
seem to just have vanished.

- There's no evidence
of any kind of foul play

or bad weather.

The ship is in such good
condition, they're able

to right The Rosabelle
and put it back to work.

- [Holly] And it has 50
years of fine service.

- [Dan] That is, until an
unbelievable case of deja vu.

- On October 30th, 1921,

the ship is going out the next
day with a load of lumber,

but the captain, Ed Johnson,

is having a premonition of
something terrible happening.

- So, the captain is
filled with dread

and doesn't wanna board the ship

and decides he doesn't feel
right, can't explain it,

doesn't wanna get
onboard the ship.

- Less than 24 hours later,

the ship is found
floating upside down

and the same exact
thing happens.

11 members are missing
for the second time.

- The odds of this
particular event

reoccurring, the
same exact ship,

same situation,
same circumstances,

no evidence, crew disappears.

I mean, that's just too uncanny.

The odds are impossible.

So when people start hearing
about this particular event,

even the skeptics are convinced.

Something's going on out there.

(loon calling)

- Over the next hundred years,

the triangle claims
hundreds more ships,

prompting countless
searches for evidence,

but resulting in no
definite answers.

Then in 2007, archeologists
make an astonishing discovery.

(tense music)

- A team of faculty and students

from Northwest Michigan
College begin doing sonar scans

in order to find shipwrecks,

but they find something
they weren't looking for,

a formation of rocks seemingly
intentionally put there

by people under
40 feet of water.

- [Dan] What could
these possibly be?

- One of the stones appears
also to have a carving on it

of a mastodon.

Now, the mastodon went extinct
about 10,000 years ago,

which would suggest that this
is a really old rock formation

and that maybe in fact, even
though it's underwater now,

it might've been on the edge

of what was Lake
Michigan at the time.

- [Dan] The discovery
is a sensation.

Some dub it America's
Underwater Stonehenge.

But who put these
stones here and why?

(thunder rumbling)

- One theory put forward
by paranormal investigators

is that given the dark history
of disasters in the lake,

that this may be
some sort of warning

to people on shore.

We don't know.

- It's not just the water
that's strange here.

The next time you
head to Chicago,

you might want to
check your flight path.

(tense music)
(thunder rumbling)

- On June 23rd, 1950,
Northwest Orient Flight 2501,

carrying 55 passengers
and three crew,

leaves LaGuardia
headed to Minneapolis.

- And the weather
is not so great.

It's raining. It's a bit stormy.

At about 11:00 PM, the captain
radios air control and says,

"I'd like to drop
down to 2,500 feet."

Essentially, come
under the storm.

- Not strange request,
perfectly natural,

but at that point,

the DC-4 completely
disappears off the radar.

(dramatic music)
(thunder rumbling)

Local witnesses explained

that they had seen a huge
flash in the night sky

about the time when
this would've happened.

The Coast Guard goes
out into Lake Michigan

to find this plane
has gone down.

They see nothing.

- And then, things
start showing up,

people's clothes,
people's luggage.

It gets a little grisly,
because then bodies

and moreover, parts of
bodies start showing up.

- [Dan] The one thing they
never find, the plane.

- What's weird is that
we found the Titanic

at the bottom of
the Atlantic Ocean.

This is only 60 feet deep.

They can't find a jet airplane?

- There's no fuselage, no
chunk of wing anywhere.

It's just gone.

- [Dan] Since flight 2501,

dozens more planes
have disappeared here.

But if you think you can
avoid the triangle's pull

by staying on dry
land, think again.

- Stephen Kubacki, 23
year old college student,

Hope College, is cross
country skiing near Saugatuck.

A couple hours later,

some snowmobilists find
his gear in the snow.

The police show up, they
arrive on the scene.

- They find
footprints leading out

onto the ice of Lake Michigan,

but then they sort of disappear.

So, they can only assume

that he fell through
the ice and drowned,

but there's no sign
of any broken ice.

- [Sami] Stephen Kubacki
is presumed dead.

- There's memorial service

and they decide to list him
as an accidental drowning,

even though the
ice wasn't broken.

- 15 months later,

Stephen Kubacki
awakens in a field

in clothes that don't belong
to him near his aunt's house,

700 miles away in Massachusetts.

(suspenseful music)

He has no recollection of
how he got there at all.

- It's a very strange story

and he does talk to the press,
talks to the newspapers,

but at a certain point decides
to go into radio silence

and never talk about it again.

So, it remains one of these

great Lake Michigan
Triangle mysteries.

(tense music)

- Today, Steve lives a quiet
life in the Pacific Northwest,

thousands of miles away from
Michigan's strange triangle.

- The next stop on our
strange places journey

takes us just outside
of Mexico City

to an island overrun
with... dolls?

(suspenseful music)

- Outside of Mexico City

is one of the strangest
places on Earth.

Why? Because there are
over 4,000 mutilated dolls

tied to the fences,
to the trees,

and spread around
everywhere on this island.

- [Dan] But this
area's strange origins

go back long before
the dolls took over.

- It's the 16th century

and the Spanish Conquistadors

are invading the Aztec Empire.

What's called Tenochtitlan,

which would later
become Mexico City,

is the capital of
the Aztec Empire.

What we think of being
in a high altitude basin

is actually a massive
lake with manmade islands,

canals, and causeways
all through it.

(suspenseful music)

- So, some of the
earliest, darkest tales

about these islands really
emerge in this period,

and they come from
the Conquistadors

who, when they fall
off these islands,

because of their heavy armor,
sink, never to be seen again.

And this leads to some of
the mythology about them

being haunted or
spiritually guarded places.

(tense music)

By the 20th century, these
islands are still attractive

to people who want
to be off the grid,

and that's the case with
Don Julian Santana Barrera,

who has a falling
out with his family

and decides to go to
one of these islands.

- [Dan] And that's when things
start to get a little weird.

- The lore is that at some
point, he finds the body

of a drowned child,
a drowned girl,

but he also finds a doll nearby
that he believes is hers.

And he hangs the doll up
as this way to honor her.

- He doesn't stop
at this one doll.

He decides to pay homage
to the deceased young girl

with a shrine of thousands
upon thousands of dolls.

- [Dan] Thousands of
dolls hung from trees?

What prompted this
macabre memorial?

- There is this sense
that this discovery

of a deceased child, which
would be harrowing for anyone,

is especially troubling to him

and that this maybe
has caused him

to have some sort of
break with reality

or some sort of issue.

He also is said to hear spirits,

hers and possibly others.

- He continues to hang dolls
as part of superstition,

or to honor this young girl,
or to ward off evil spirits.

He is so moved and
scared of the bad omens

that go with this tragedy

that we assume he
went absolutely crazy.

- [Dan] Even stranger is
what happens to Don Julian

in April of 2001.

- His nephew comes to
visit him on the island

and he finds Don Julian
Barrera face down,

drowned in the canal at age 80

in almost the same
spot that he alleged

that he found the original
girl so many years before.

- [Dan] After Julian's death,

tourists keep his
peculiar tradition alive

by adding their own
dolls to the collection.

- Dolls are created
in our image,

so it doesn't matter what
your belief system is,

to see 4,000 mutilated
dolls hanging from trees.

An island full of that
would drive anybody crazy.

- Today, Gondola like
boats called trajineras

take the curious out
for a closer look,

but only during daylight hours.

The island is strictly off
limits to visitors after dark.

If an island of Chuckys
doesn't make your spine tingle,

our next place will.

20 miles off the coast
of Brazil is an island

that visitors are prohibited
from setting foot on.

Why?

The answer is unbelievable.

(snakes hissing)
(tense music)

- There's approximately five
snakes per square meter.

That is a ton of snakes.

- By all accounts,

it is essentially a
moving carpet of serpents.

(snakes hissing)

- Snake Island is formed at
the end of the last ice age

when rising ocean waters isolate
what had been a peninsula

off the coast of Brazil
and they make this island.

And in doing so, they isolate
a population of snakes.

- [Dan] Specifically, one
of the most venomous snakes

in the world, the
golden lancehead viper.

- The golden
lancehead population

that's left on Snake Island

quickly goes through
all the available prey.

And then, the only thing
left to eat are birds,

which they don't normally eat.

And that forces them

into some pretty tremendous
evolutionary pathways.

Now when a golden lancehead,
which is a venomous snake,

attacks its normal
prey, a mammal,

it bites it, the mammal walks
away, doesn't get too far,

and the snake can
easily find it.

But with birds, the
bird can fly away

and the snake
doesn't get a meal.

So, evolution favors
golden lanceheads

with more potent venom, so
that they can bite a bird

and have it die instantly.

- The snakes on that
island have a venom

that is estimated to
be five times as deadly

as the venom for
mainland snakes.

- So, it's creating
this kind of super snake

on this island that can thrive.

- [Dan] You would imagine
no one in their right mind

would ever set foot
on this island.

Rumor has it that sailors
prefer to stay on burning boats

rather than swim ashore
here, but some have tried.

(dramatic music)

- And in the early 1900s,

a group of entrepreneurial
banana farmers

go to Snake Island

in the hopes of establishing
a banana plantation.

They burn down a
bunch of vegetation

to plant the banana fields

and that's when they
see all the snakes.

They realize immediately
this is not a place,

not only not for a
banana plantation,

this is not a place for
human beings to stay.

- So in 1910, they decided
to build a lighthouse

to warn people to steer
clear of this island.

- It's probably a pretty
difficult job description

in that here you are invited

to inhabit a very picturesque
lighthouse on an island

inhabited by one of the most
venomous snakes in the world

and a lot of them.

- So, they do find
a lighthouse keeper

who's willing to take this job

and he brings his
family to Snake Island.

- [Dan] According to local
lore, life on Snake Island

goes about as well as
you think it would.

- The legend is, one night,

supposedly someone
left a window open,

the snake slithered in and
killed the entire family.

(snake hissing)

Snake Island is basically
communicating to mankind,

"You are not welcome here.

You will die here."

(snakes hissing)

- [Dan] The lighthouse on Snake
Island still stands today,

but it is automated, so no human

has to set foot
anywhere near it.

(snake hissing)

- Caves, most people think of
them as a fun place to visit,

but the ancients believe
they were portals

connecting the
living to the dead.

When it comes to one
cave in New Zealand,

the ancients may be right.

(dramatic music)

- If you were to look at the
north island of New Zealand,

you would see rolling
hills, sheep pastures,

essentially the landscape
of "Lord of the Rings."

However, just below the
surface, there are a series

of limestone caves known
as the Waitomo Caves.

- [Dan] In the light of day,
it's lovely, almost inviting.

- But when night
falls, Waitomo Cave

becomes an entirely
different kind of atmosphere.

Strange, blue, neon
lights, one at a time,

begin to shine on the walls

until you're looking
at millions of them.

(gentle music)

- [Dan] What could account
for this unearthly glow?

Is it a strange new power source
or something more sinister?

- Their scientific name
really says it all.

They are called
Arachnocampa luminosa.

- [Dan] Also known
as the glow worm,

larvae of the fungus gnat.

Their bioluminescence may
seem beautiful from afar,

but up close, it's anything but.

- They combine these
enzymes in their abdomen

to form a chemical
reaction that creates

this urine tinged goop with
this greenish blue glow.

And they lower down
tentacles, if you will,

of this goop, literally in
the scientific literature

are called fishing lines.

And then if a fly or a
moth or some other insect

gets tangled up in
those sticky lines,

the grub reels the line
in and devours them.

- [Dan] Their radiance is
quite literally captivating.

- And I have to say that I
think horror movie directors

have missed a great
opportunity here.

They often rely on the sort
of giant spider routine

and the big web.

That's nothing.

Imagine a moth being dragged
up to the ceiling of the cave

to be eaten alive
by a glowing worm!

Now, that's truly horrifying.

- Strange? I'd say so.

But if you can believe it,

this glowing death trap isn't
the strangest cave out there.

That honor belongs to a
killer cave in Africa.

(suspenseful music)

- Situated between
Kenya and Uganda

is a volcano called Mount Elgon.

At the base of this mountain,

there is a lush, green jungle
and the opening to a cave.

This is Kitum Cave.

The cave mouth is very wide,
but this is totally deceiving

because once you get inside,
there are steep drops

and low ceilings that make
it very, very difficult

to navigate.

- When you walk into Kitum Cave,

you're pretty much guaranteed
to encounter wildlife,

everything from
leopards and hyenas

to buffalo and even elephants.

- [Dan] In fact, elephants
are part of the reason

the cave is 700 feet deep.

- Elephants have learned

that Kitum Cave is
a source of salt.

And for hundreds or perhaps
even thousands of years now,

they have visited that cave,

raking their tusks against the
walls to pry off these stones

that are rich in
salt to the degree

that they have
enlarged that cave.

(suspenseful music)

- [Dan] But something far
more frightening than salt

lurks in this cave.

- In 1980, a 57 year old
Frenchman visits the cave

and leaves in awe of
its beauty and grandeur.

He also leaves with
something else.

(dramatic music)
(coughing deeply)

- In a couple days time, he
starts feeling intensely sick

and he starts noticing
facial paralysis.

In seven days, he starts
vomiting a black bile.

(dramatic music)

His nose, ears, and eyes
start bleeding uncontrollably.

So, he immediately hops
on a plane to Nairobi,

the nearest major hospital.

(suspenseful music)

- He somehow manages
to get to the hospital

where he starts just vomiting
up massive amounts of blood

and finally dies.

- [Dan] His devastating
symptoms are consistent

with those caused
by a rare virus,

one even deadlier than Ebola,

the Marburg virus, named
after the German City

where it was first found.

- Marburg is a viral
hemorrhagic fever.

In fact, Marburg is one
of the deadliest viruses

known to mankind.

And in the military
oftentimes, they refer

to Marburg and Ebola
viruses as crash and bleed.

Meaning that it is
such a dangerous virus

that it has the ability for
you to bleed out, essentially.

- Every doctor is terrified
that this could spread.

Medical authorities retrace
the Frenchman's steps

and they lead it
back to Kitum Cave.

- Investigators visit the cave,
but they can't find any clues.

They can't find any
indication of a virus.

And the trail goes cold.

(suspenseful music)

- Flash forward seven years,

it's 1987 and a very
similar thing is happening.

- [Dan] A Danish
boy living in Kenya

mysteriously bleeds to death.

When he dies, scientists
retrace his movements.

They learn he was a
recent visitor to,

you guessed it, Kitum Cave.

(suspenseful music)

- All the ailments line up

and medical authorities are
again perplexed and terrified

that we've got an infectious
disease on our hands.

- [Dan] A team is
sent to investigate.

Can they find out what's
happening inside Kitum Cave

without contracting whatever's
inside Kitum Cave?

- Just picture this job.

I mean, you're suiting
up in a biohazard suit

to go look for evidence

of perhaps the most dangerous
illness known to mankind

inside of a cave.

- Rocks and caves tend
to come in two types,

super slippery and super sharp.

So, think about what could
happen to a hazmat suit.

The risk is just very
high being on this team.

- [Dan] And it isn't
just scientific experts

putting their lives on the line.

- In addition to
gathering samples,

the scientists leave
behind literal guinea pigs,

hoping that perhaps they
will contract this virus.

- [Dan] After seven days,

the team leaves
Kitum Cave unscathed.

- This is a good news,
bad news scenario.

On one hand, nobody on the
team has contracted Marburg.

The bad news is they
couldn't find any evidence

of the disease inside the cave.

- [Dan] For 20 years, the
source of this deadly virus

remains a mystery.

Until 2007, when miners
near Kitum gets sick.

- The Kitaka Mine
joins Kitum Cave.

So there, all of a
sudden, we've got it.

Finally, scientists go in

and they find a
species of Egyptian bat

whose waste holds this virus.

(dramatic music)

- [Dan] As it turns out,

the mysterious killer
at Kitum is bat poop.

- In the depths of the cave,

there is a roosting site
for the Egyptian fruit bat.

It looks sort of like
a flying teddy bear,

but it's also potentially a
host for the Marburg virus.

And it seems possible then

that people might
contract the virus

by inhaling the desiccated
droppings of these bats.

- [Dan] And there may be
more killers inside the cave.

- There's a lot of
unknowns in Kitum Cave.

We have no idea, you
know, what other viruses,

or bacteria, or fungi live there

that we are yet to discover.

It is a cave that many call
the hellhole for a reason.

- Believe it or not, guided
tours of Kitum are available,

But if you do plan a
visit, bring a hazmat suit.

- Believe it or not, guided
tours of Kitum are available,

Do you believe in ghosts?

For me, it's never
been a question.

My great-grandfather was a
spiritualist psychic researcher

and my father wrote a
book about mediumship.

It's what inspired me

to write the screenplay
for "Ghostbusters."

I've had my own
weird experiences,

but none compare to a place
in Louisville, Kentucky,

dubbed the most haunted
building in America.

(suspenseful music)

- The Waverly Hills
Sanatorium was built in 1910

and it's one of many such
sanatoriums across the country,

because it deals with patients
suffering from tuberculosis.

- TB is a bacterial disease,

and so before the
invention of antibiotics,

the treatment was
to isolate people.

- They don't have an effective
vaccine for tuberculosis

and so, they have
these sanatoriums

that are set up to
essentially isolate

and quarantine individuals
that have tuberculosis.

Give them rest and fresh air

that they consider
treatment back then.

- Because tuberculosis
has a 50% mortality rate,

tens of thousands of people
will take their last breath

at Waverley Sanatorium.

(tense music)

- Some days are so
bad at the sanatorium

that six people a day are dying.

- [Dan] With
statistics like these,

death is a constant presence.

- When people die
from tuberculosis,

the staff carts the bodies
through a particular tunnel

to keep them out of sight
from all the other patients

so as to not lower morale.

- And this underground
tunnel is given the name

the body chute, or death tunnel.

It is a downhill sloping tunnel

and it is about 500 yards long.

Essentially taking the
dead bodies from the morgue

to where they are
going to be disposed.

And that tunnel sees

thousands of dead bodies

moving through it
throughout the TB outbreak.

- [Dan] This probably
doesn't shock anybody,

but an abandoned hospital with
a body count of more than 6,000

is the perfect recipe for
one hell of a haunted house.

(tense music)

- The belief is that there is
so much psychological trauma

trapped by these dead souls

that they now haunt the
Waverly Hills Sanatorium.

People who go there report
seeing shadow people,

seeing apparitions.

- There are people who
say that they see orbs

that they've witnessed.

That there are these strange
spirits lurking around.

And there are even reports
that the lights are coming on

at a time when there
isn't working electricity

in the building.

- [Dan] But that is just a
small sampling of the hauntings

at the sanatorium.

Depending on what you're into,

room 502 is a place you
either want to visit

or avoid like the plague.

- You have the case of Mary Lee.

She's a nurse at Waverley
Hills at the sanatorium.

She contracts tuberculosis.

She also becomes pregnant by
one of the hospital's doctors

and she can't cope with
the fact that she's sick

and the fact that
she's also with child,

and so she ends up hanging
herself in room 502.

Mary Lee's body is
not found for days.

Two years later,
there's another nurse

that jumps to her death
from the window of room 502.

So, people that are studying
hauntings at Waverly Hills

say that room 502
is the epicenter

of a lot of this
negative energy.

(tense music)

- There was a photo taken

and standing in the
doorway of room 502

is the figure of a woman
looking baleful and scary,

maybe even a little angry.

And the resemblance
to Mary is uncanny.

- [Dan] If you prefer your
ghosts a little less frightening

and a little more friendly
in a creepy sort of way,

there's always Timmy.

(tense music)

- Timmy's appeared in
two different photos

and people report
hearing child's laughter.

People report hearing
a ball bouncing.

If you go there and
bring a rubber ball

and roll it down a hallway,

Timmy will supposedly
roll it back to you.

- [Dan] Is it possible
these encounters

with Timmy and Mary are real?

- There is a theory that
some physicists posit

that human beings are these
bio electromagnetic beings

and that our bodies,
when we're in a place,

leave a sort of marker
or shadow behind.

- Maybe what are perceived as
ghosts or spirits and things

are actually just
sort of residuals

from that electrical activity.

That's what they say.

Even if people don't
believe in all that stuff,

it certainly is a place that
if you were to walk into,

it would give you
a funny feeling.

- There's a reason
so many years later,

paranormal investigators are
drawn to spaces like Waverly.

People want to know, if
there's an afterlife,

where's the best
place to uncover it

and it's generally at
sites of mass death.

- Now, that's a place I
genuinely wanna visit.

I'll just need to remember
my proton pack and a trap.

- It's September, 1942, and
high up in the Himalayas,

Indian Forest
Ranger H.K. Madhwal

is collecting samples
of local flowers.

That's when he stumbles
on a small, glacial lake.

(dramatic music)

- As the lakes
water has receded,

this Indian forest
officer noticed bones,

and then more bones.

- He's seeing skulls.
He's seeing hands.

He's seeing all
kinds of features

and he realizes he's
looking at human skeletons.

Skeletons upon skeletons
upon skeletons.

- Eventually,
about 500 skeletons

are discovered in Roopkund Lake.

- [Dan] From this moment on,

Roopkund Lake is forever
known as Skeleton Lake

for 500 obvious reasons.

But that still
leaves one question.

How on Earth did the
bodies get there?

- When he reports back
that he's found this,

the first thing
people start thinking

is that this is a
Japanese invasion force.

This is a time
when Great Britain

is still in control of India.

So, the thinking is that the
Japanese were attacking India

as a way to strike
Great Britain.

But that doesn't really hold up,

because when you actually look
at the various accoutrements

that are with these skeletons,

they're not contemporary
military gear.

- It doesn't look like modern
tools or modern clothing.

There's these leather slippers,
there are these spearheads.

What army is using
spears in World War II?

- [Dan] As the war
comes to an end,

investigators turn
their attention

back to the skeletons
in Skeleton Lake.

- The first serious study
of what these skeletons are

really happens in the
1950s after the war.

The first theory is that these
are some sort of holy men

who committed a mass suicide.

But when they look
closer at the bones,

I mean these are men,
women, and children,

so that's not likely.

- There is also an
idea that these people

were all part of
some huge epidemic

and that they are
trying to stay away

from the rest of the population
for everyone else's safety

by all moving to this lake area.

This doesn't really
hold up either

because none of the
evidence on those skeletons

suggest the kind of, like,
degradation or disease

that would've been
part of that story.

So, that's one more that we can,
(clicks) right out the window.

- Based on an evaluation
of some of the skulls,

they showed damage,

unhealed wounds that
happened to the skull.

- A theory that's a
little more lore bound

that adds a layer to that is
that the goddess Nanda Devi

strikes down pilgrims,
who were not behaving

and that this is
evidence of her wrath.

- Perhaps there was
a once in a century,

once in millennium
hailstorm of giant hail

and people were just
caught out in the open

and they were hit on the head

by these giant hailstorms
and passed away.

- [Dan] What caused
these mysterious deaths

remains, well, a mystery.

Then in 2019, investigators
tried DNA testing,

hoping for answers.

- What this turns up is
completely unexpected.

It turns out that their origins
were from widespread places

across the globe,
Southeast Asia, India,

around the
Mediterranean, Greece.

The other problem, it
stretched over centuries.

- The biggest mystery
of Skeleton Lake

is the fact that this
wasn't one mass death event,

but numerous events

spread across as long
as a thousand years,

involving people from as
far away as Southeast Asia,

as well as people
from several locations

in the Island of Crete.

- [Dan] Rather than
solving the mystery,

the results just deepen it.

- So, what is it
about Skeleton Lake

that made this strange
phenomenon happen?

Why did these people come

and why did all these skeletons

end up at the
bottom of this lake?

- In the world of science and
engineering, we have a phrase,

data solves argument.

Not here.

The data has only made
it a deeper mystery.

So if you have any ideas,
please let us know.

- [Dan] Even after 70
years of speculation,

Skeleton Lake
defies explanation.

- Sunday, July 13th, 1980,
Nottinghamshire, England,

a seemingly normal place
on a seemingly normal day.

That is, until something
bizarre begins to unfold.

(suspenseful music)

- On this particular Sunday,

they're having a marching
band competition.

This is a mining community,

so there's hundreds
of people there.

Families having picnics,
hanging out with each other.

It's a joyous gathering.

- And all of a sudden,
some of the young people

start to feel sick and to faint.

First, it's one or two children,

but then, it really picks up.

- It's men, it's women,

and it's children
fainting all at once.

- People start dropping
right there in the field.

Four, five, six people
just fall to the ground

and this starts to
happen more and more.

No one really understands
what's happening,

but people keep fainting
all over the place.

- [Dan] What could possibly be
causing these fainting fits?

- 300 people faint overall

and 259 of them have
to go to the hospitals.

The symptoms are almost as
strange as the fainting itself,

vomiting, sore throat,
irritated eyes.

Some kids report that they
can't feel their bones.

- Even paralysis is described.

- [Dan] At around 1:00 PM,
people stopped collapsing

almost as suddenly
as they started.

Terrified locals
want to know why.

- One theory is that there were
pesticides that were in use

that could have
caused people to faint

from inhaling the
fumes of the pesticide.

- Another theory has
to do with the fact

that Nottinghamshire
is an old mining area

and there are a number
of old abandoned mines.

These mines sometimes
have gasses in them

and the gases can escape

and make people feel
sick and pass out.

- Another theory was that
it had something to do

with the portable toilets
that were in the field.

Maybe a mixture of cleaning
supplies created some toxic gas

that led to people fainting.

People are affected
across the entire field,

not just near the toilets.

So, that doesn't make
any sense either.

- [Dan] Even stranger,
it happens just once.

Is there something about the
field itself that's to blame?

- They still don't
know what has happened

and there's no real,
satisfying answer.

- [Dan] Our final strange place
is beside a beautiful lake,

one hiding a deadly secret.

- It's a pretty average day

for this young
Cameroonian on his bicycle

riding from his village to the
neighboring village of Nyos.

Well, he's riding down the
road with his wagon behind him

and he encounters
a dead antelope

right in the middle of the road.

"Great," he thinks, "That's
free meat to feed my family."

Straps it to his wagon,
continues on his way,

only to encounter
another dead antelope,

and then dead rats,
and dead cows,

and all kinds of livestock
are dead all around him

and this isn't
looking right at all.

- And as he approaches
the village,

he realizes that it
is freakishly silent.

- So, he goes into one
of the neighbor's houses

and finds that all
those people are dead.

He goes to another
house, same thing.

- He begins seeing dead
bodies around cooking fires,

dead bodies sitting at tables,
dead bodies in their homes.

- He rides his
bike to Lake Nyos,

where that village is named for,

and finds hundreds
of dead bodies

lying along the lake shore.

(dramatic music)

- Stranger still, there are
no flies buzzing around.

They're completely gone.

- The buildings are all
intact, everything looks fine

other than this weird,
silent death scene.

- What you find here
is 1,700 dead people,

thousands of dead livestock.

There's nothing left living,

and even the tiny insects
that feast on the dead

are not even present.

Everything has been killed off.

What can you imagine
is going on here?

Has there been some sort
of new weapon tested

that does not leave a trace,

but yet kills
every living thing?

It's the stuff of
science fiction.

- [Dan] Scientists from
across Africa, the U.S.,

and France are sent
to investigate.

What could cause
such mass casualties?

- Lake Nyos is sitting
on top of a magma pool

where carbon dioxide
is venting continuously

into the waters in
the depths of the lake

and reaching super
high concentrations.

- All these incredibly
deadly gases

are trapped in the
more dense cold water

at the bottom of the lake.

There is a layer on top
of that of warm water,

which is less dense,

but it acts like a
cork sealing a bottle.

- [Dan] Until something
causes that cork to pop.

- So, what happens at Lake Nyos
is that there's a landslide

and the landslide displaces
some of the water at the surface

allowing the carbon dioxide
that's trapped below to escape.

- That's what causes a
limnic eruption to occur.

Limnic meaning a lake eruption.

And then, all of that trapped
gas surges to the surface

and suffocates any living thing
that's caught in the cloud.

(tense music)

- [Dan] But what are the chances

a tragedy like this
could happen again?

Experts worry that it's a
question of not if, but when.

- There's another
lake, Lake Kivu,

that has 2 million
people living around it.

- If a similar
disaster occurs there,

estimates state
that it could result

in the deaths of
4 million people.

Lake Kivu is without question

and in no exaggerated
terms, a ticking time bomb.

- Yet another reminder
that the world we live in

can be as dangerous
as it is fascinating.

In fact, all these
places trigger curiosity.

We find ourselves drawn to
the strange, the peculiar,

and the downright unbelievable.