All language subtitles for Mysteries.Unearthed.with.Danny.Trejo.S02E17.Big.and.Bad.1080p.HULU.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

Mysteries can be
buried anywhere,

under the earth,

beneath the sea,

or even right
under our own feet.

And when we stumble upon them,

sometimes what we find
can change history.

Tonight,

we're diving into discoveries

that are big and bad.

From a remote island

crawling with lethal predators.

The venom can melt
flesh in seconds.

Within an hour, it
triggers kidney failure,

brain hemorrhages,
and even death.

To a huge
underground inferno.

The fire keeps raging
for hours, for days.

The days become weeks.

The weeks become months.

The crew has unleashed
something hellish.

To a massive bomb.

One wrong move

and the entire operation

could turn into a crater.

Join us now,

because nothing
stays hidden forever.

You know the saying,

"One man's trash is
another man's treasure."

Well, in this case,

that trash is the key

to a $100 million mystery.

It's February 17,
2003.

A retired grocer
named August Van Camp

is out hunting rabbits on
his land in rural Belgium.

It's a beautiful day.

The only downside is his land

is right next to
a busy motorway.

Drivers treat his
land like a dump.

All kinds of trash are tossed

by motorists from
their vehicles,

and August is fed up.

Sure enough,

today he finds
himself another mess.

You've got an empty
bottle of wine,

a half a sandwich,

and these colorful rectangles

with these crumpled up little
white envelopes everywhere

and scattered around those
white envelopes: gemstones.

So August calls the cops.

He gets their attention,

because he mentions
three words that

are printed on those
white envelopes:

Antwerp Diamond Centre.

The city of Antwerp
is just

20 miles away from
August's property.

Around 80% of the
world's diamonds

pass through Antwerp
at some point,

and the hub of it all is
the Antwerp Diamond Centre.

Its vault is a
fortress.

It's two stories underground

sealed behind a
three ton steel door.

There's 10 layers of security,

guards everywhere,

cameras, magnetic locks,

sensors for motion, heat, light.

The vault's final defense
is a combination lock

that has up to 100
million different codes.

It is nearly impossible
to get into this vault

without the proper permission.

But in the early morning
hours of February 16,

someone did get into that vault,

and they vanished with around

a $100 million of
diamonds, gold,

and other valuables.

It's the biggest
diamond heist in history,

and thanks to
August's discovery,

investigators now have
their first official lead.

Among the litter
on August's land,

police find a business card

for an Italian
electronics expert.

Well, they pay him a visit,

and they quickly have their
first suspect in handcuffs.

But that's not all
they find on August's land.

Hidden among all
the other debris

is a crumpled sandwich receipt,

so police trace the receipt back

to where the sandwich
was purchased.

Look at a surveillance
camera from the shop.

Find the person in question
that they're looking for.

Now they have their
second suspect.

Now the biggest break
from the trash comes

from an invoice for a
video surveillance system

with a name on it:

Leonardo Notarbartolo.

Police run his record,

and they discover that
he's an Italian national

with a long rap
sheet for robbery.

His arrest
marks a turning point.

Authorities now see the
operation for what it was,

an inside job carefully
staged over months.

Leonardo posed
as a diamond dealer

renting space inside the
Antwerp Diamond Centre.

There he had a front row seat

to the Diamond Centre's
security operations.

He even hid a tiny camera
near the center's vault

and was able to
observe security guards

punching in the code.

The details
investigators uncover

reveal just how carefully
the heist was planned.

On the night of the heist,

the crew sprayed hair spray on

the heat sensors
to disable them,

and they covered the light and
motion sensors in styrofoam.

Then they drilled into
123 safe deposit boxes,

and they took gold,
cash, jewelry,

and of course diamonds.

The job goes
off without a hitch,

but during the escape,
things start to unravel.

As they sped
down the motorway,

the getaway driver got spooked,

and so he stopped to throw out

some trash and some
of the evidence.

But along with those things,

he also threw out
some of the spoils.

And the next day,

August found the lost loot.

So that pile of
garbage led police

straight to the three
members of the crew,

but it also exposed a
fourth unknown accomplice,

who's never been caught.

As for the loot, so
far,

police have managed
to recover only

17 diamonds that they can
trace back to the heist.

The rest, potentially millions
of dollars worth of diamonds,

the crew isn't talking,

and so it's still
out there somewhere.

That last find brought
down a big heist.

This next one nearly
brings down a major city.

It's August of 2017,

and a crew of
construction workers

is busy digging
the foundation for

a new faculty building
at Goethe University,

which is right in the heart
of Frankfurt in Germany.

Everything's going smoothly

until an excavator lowers

its bucket into the ground,

and the bucket clangs
against something

creating this very
harsh metallic sound.

Work stops
immediately.

The foreman comes over.

Looks down into the hole,

and sees a large
curved hunk of metal.

He knows what this is.

Doesn't hesitate.

Evacuates his crew,

and calls the police.

Soon the police bomb
squad arrive on site,

and they confirm

this is a bomb,

Not just any bomb.

It's a British HC
4000 from World War II

packing 4,000 pounds
of high explosives.

During World War II,

Frankfurt is pounded by
Allied bombing raids.

25,000 tons of ordinance
is dropped on the city,

killing thousands of civilians

destroying entire neighborhoods.

The HC 4000 could
level

an entire city
block in an instant,

but this one along
with around 15%

of the bombs
dropped on Frankfurt

during the war fail to detonate.

The scary thing with
an unexploded bomb

is it doesn't get
safer over time.

Decades underground make them

unstable, unpredictable,
and deadly.

Over the years,

unexploded World War II bombs

have killed hundreds
of people in Germany,

including 11 bomb techs
since the year 2000.

That's why
when construction workers

find this bomb,

officials move quickly,
ordering what becomes

the largest evacuation
in Germany since the war.

Police go door
to door checking

every home and every apartment.

Meanwhile helicopters
use thermal sensors

to ensure that nobody
is left behind.

Nearly 70,000
people are evacuated.

That's 10% of
Frankfurt's population.

Finally, officials
clear nearly

a one mile radius
around the bomb site.

The evacuation
includes the university

and Germany's Central
Bank, which holds

half of the country's
gold reserves.

Then comes
the most dangerous part.

The bomb's outer
casing is rusted and corroded,

and its fuse is
degraded and volatile.

When you get a bomb in
a condition like that,

it cannot be exposed to
heat, pressure, or friction.

With steady hands
and surgical precision

technicians remove the nose cap

and slowly remove
the aging fuse.

One wrong move

and the entire operation

could turn into a crater.

Finally, after hours
of work,

the bomb is declared safe.

The bomb shell itself
is carried away,

and the entire city
breathes a sigh of relief

as residents return
to their homes.

The crisis in
Frankfurt may be over,

but across Germany
the danger still lurks

buried under the surface.

Experts estimate that
there could be as many as

a quarter of a million bombs
still hidden under streets

and in backyards
across the country,

and they get more
and more dangerous

the older they get.

Drilling for oil
is always risky.

You never know what
you're going to hit,

which is exactly what
one Soviet crew learned

the hard way.

It's 1971, in the
scorching

Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan,

an Asian country
just north of Iran.

A team of Soviet geologists

are surveying the
land looking for oil.

They find a spot that
they think is good.

They move their equipment in,

and they start drilling.

Without warning,

the ground begins to shake,

and then a sinkhole opens,

swallowing sand as well as
some of their equipment.

The workers scramble,

and they barely
make it out alive.

When the dust settles,
there is a crater

230 feet wide right
there in the desert.

But beneath that crater

is something far more dangerous.

Their drill had
actually pierced

an underground pocket
of methane gas.

This is an invisible gas,

a deadly one, and a
highly explosive one,

and now it's hissing
out of the ground.

There's no easy
way to seal it up,

so ultimately they decide that

they're going to set it on fire.

And I know it sounds crazy,

but that is the common practice

when there is an environmental

geologic gas leak.

The thinking is that
the fire will burn off

the methane within a few days,

and so allegedly someone
throws a hand grenade

into the crater to ignite it.

The crater erupts into flames,

but instead of
burning off quickly,

the crew has unleashed
something hellish.

The fire keeps raging
for hours, for days.

The days become weeks.

The weeks become months.

The crew has created something

much larger than
they ever expected.

They've uncovered
one of the largest

reserves of methane
on the planet,

and now they've started a
fire they can't extinguish.

The Soviets call
it the Shining of Karakum,

but locals give it
a different name:

The Gates of Hell.

Temperatures inside the
pit can reach a scorching

1800 degrees Fahrenheit.

The burning pit is so
bright,

that it can be seen from space.

This is one of the biggest

manmade disasters of all time.

And it keeps
burning for decades,

slowly transforming a
catastrophe into a curiosity.

The government builds
roads,

some simple
infrastructure around it,

and soon they're
attracting something

like 10,000 visitors a year.

After years of
treating it as a spectacle,

Turkmenistan's
government commissions

a fresh task force in 2022

to try to extinguish the
fire once and for all.

They reopen old gas
wells around the crater

and use more recent
technologies to try

to divert the gas
away from the site.

By June 2025, they
announced that

the fire has been
reduced by a third.

So for now, the Gates of
Hell aren't quite shut yet,

but at the very least,
they're also not wide open.

On the other
side of the world,

another accidental
discovery brings

a much older disaster
back into focus.

It's a sunny day in
San Francisco in 2016,

when David Silver, a
vintage camera collector,

is browsing a local flea market

hoping to score some old gear.

As he passes a stand with
some 35 millimeter cameras,

he spots a guy holding
up a vintage film reel

to the sunlight while
smoking a cigarette.

David's alarm bells go off.

It looks like an old
nitrate film stock,

which is extremely flammable,

and the combination of
the sun and a cigarette

could send the whole
thing up in flames.

He rushes over and
he warns the guy,

and then he takes a
closer look at the film.

He sees tiny street scenes

with pictures of
horses and carriages,

and he knows nitrate
film is pretty rare,

so he buys it.

Back home David
doesn't have a projector

that will play this old reel,

so he unspools the
film down his hallway

and breaks out a magnifying
loop to inspect it.

What he sees stops
him dead in his tracks.

Destroyed buildings
standing like skeletons

and rubble in massive
mounds in the streets.

David keeps looking
through the film,

and eventually sees some intact

buildings that look familiar.

Suddenly it all clicks for him.

He realizes he's
looking at the aftermath

of one of America's
worst natural disasters.

The film reel
captures the devastation

caused by the 1906 San
Francisco earthquake.

On April 18, 1906,

a 7.9 magnitude earthquake

rocked San Francisco.

The situation went
from bad to worse

when ruptured gas
lines sparked fires

that raged across
the city for days.

By the time it was
over,

over 80% of the city was gone

and over 3,000 people were dead.

Back then cameras
were a rare luxury.

Filmmaking was in its infancy,

so hardly any footage
exists showing

what San Francisco looked
like right after the quake,

which makes David's
find extraordinary.

David shares the discovery

in an online forum
for history buffs,

and almost immediately someone's

eager to get their hands on it.

A film collector offers to
buy the film and restore it,

and David agrees.

The film's new owner
spends

eight grueling,
excruciating months

restoring the whole nine
minute film frame by frame,

all 8,655 of them.

Tears are repaired,

scratches are cleaned up,

images are brought
back in focus,

and then it's all digitally

pieced back together.

When he
finally hits play,

something about the footage
feels strangely familiar.

The footage matches a 13
minute silent film called

"A Trip Down Market Street",

shot by the local film studio

called the Miles Bros Studio

just four days before
the earthquake.

Turns out two of the
Miles Bros had left

for New York on a train
the morning of the quake,

carrying a fresh print of
"A Trip Down Market Street".

When they heard
about the disaster,

they turned around, came
back to San Francisco,

and brought their cameras
back into the chaos.

The Miles Bros
reportedly captured

nearly two hours of
post quake footage.

For much of it, they
followed the same route

from their previous shoot
now reduced to rubble.

When you watch "A
Trip Down Market Street"

alongside this newly
restored footage,

it's jaw dropping.

On one side you see a city

bustling and full of life,

and then rubble,

a city that is a husk of itself.

Sadly, almost all of
that footage was lost

when the Miles
Bros Studio burned

just a few days later,

as post-quake fires
continue to rage.

David's reel is the longest

and best preserved
piece ever discovered.

The films together,

they form an unparalleled before

and after time capsule of
a city forever changed,

and if not for
David, a cigarette

could have sent it
all up in smoke.

In the quiet
countryside

of Denmark,

a simple dig takes
a very dark turn.

It is 1956, in the
wetlands

of the Jutland
Peninsula in Denmark

where workers are digging
out an irrigation canal.

This is back-breaking work.

You are six feet below ground

shoveling through thick peat.

One worker stabs his
shovel into the earth

and picks up something solid.

It's a human skull staring
up at him from the peat.

He drops down to
clear away some of the peat,

and he soon discovers another
skull and then another.

The authorities
are called in,

and soon a team of
archeologists is on site.

As they begin to
excavate,

even more bones emerge,
ribs, femurs, spines,

more skulls all tangled
together in a big chaotic mess.

The experts launch
an investigation

to find out why these
bodies are here,

and why are they in this
crazy chaotic knot of death.

Over the next
70 years, the site becomes

one of Europe's most perplexing
Iron Age discoveries,

as generations of
researchers attempt

to figure out what
happened here.

Carbon dating shows
that these people all died

around the same time, that
is in the 1st century AD,

but these people didn't all
die of disease or old age.

The bones themselves
tell a story

of an ugly and violent end.

One femur is hacked
completely in half.

One skull has a
deep puncture wound,

which is consistent
with a spear thrust.

These are injuries
from battle,

and the participants
aren't random.

They're all males,

mostly age 20 to 40,

but some as young as 13.

Even more disturbing is

that the violence didn't
end with the fighting.

Marks on the bones
indicate that animals,

like wolves and foxes
gnawed on the bodies,

meaning that the dead
lay exposed for months.

As the
investigation continues,

researchers uncover a critical
detail about the site itself.

2,000 years ago, this
marsh wasn't a marsh.

It was a lake.

These people were
killed somewhere else,

and then they were brought here

and thrown into a lake.

As the
evidence builds,

experts think they
weren't simply discarded,

but placed here for
a specific purpose.

In Northern Europe
during the 1st century AD

people believed
that bogs and lakes

were portals to the
world of the gods,

and very often weapons,

and, yes, sometimes
animals or humans

were sacrificed at
these very sites.

So these bones might
have been the ultimate offering,

fallen warriors given over
as sacrifices to the gods

as trophies of war.

So far,
archeologists have only

excavated a small
portion of the bog,

so there are
potentially hundreds

of more skeletons to be found.

Next up, a different
kind of watery grave

where something big went
down and stayed down.

In the mid 1970s,

British Petroleum is planning

a new underwater pipeline
off the coast of Scotland.

To prepare,

their crew surveys the
sea floor using sonar.

Most of the readings
come back as expected,

reefs, rocks, trenches,

but about 12 miles southwest

of Cruden Bay, Aberdeenshire,

there's a loud ping

from the sonar.

The sonar picks up
something big and solid,

and it looks manmade.

Maybe a ship or a downed plane?

Whatever it is, the team's
curiosity is peaked.

Once they're back on
land,

the team checked log books

for shipwrecks in the area,

and finally they find a match.

A lost German U-boat
from World War II.

U-1206.

U-1206 was
a Type VIIC submarine,

one of the most
advanced underwater

military vessels of its time.

Type VIIC subs were the
pride of the Nazi fleet.

They had state-of-the-art
torpedoes,

deeper diving capabilities.

They were faster,
deadlier, and built

to stay submerged longer
than any other submarine.

But this sub
barely made it out to sea,

sinking just eight days
into its first mission.

So what went wrong?

On April 14, 1945,

U-1206 was nine miles off
the coast of Scotland.

Commander Karl-Adolf Schlitt

was in charge when
nature called,

so he headed to the
submarine's bathroom.

Now the U-1206
was the first U-boat

outfitted with a flush toilet.

Earlier U-boats had to surface

to dispose of waste
risking detection.

The U-1206's new system

allowed it to be
expelled underwater,

but it depended on a
complex series of valves.

On the morning of April 14th,

Captain Schlitt decided to
try to flush the toilet,

but he turned one
of the wrong valves,

and suddenly,

the bathroom began
filling up with sea water.

Things go from bad
to worse when the water floods

the compartment below where
the batteries are stored.

The moment that the sea
water hit the battery,

it creates deadly chlorine gas.

The boat started to
fill with toxic fumes,

so Schlitt had no other choice

but to surface to get fresh air.

Unfortunately,
the sub surfaces

directly below an
Allied aircraft,

which immediately attacks.

Faced with deadly gas
and Allied bombardment,

Schlitt orders the
crew to abandon ship.

Commander Schlitt
and most of his crew

made it onto life rafts,

where they were
eventually picked up

and taken prisoner
by Allied ships.

Within four weeks,
Hitler was dead.

Germany surrendered,
and the U-boat

was forgotten at the
bottom of the ocean.

Decades later,

when the BP team
finds the wreck,

they track down the
commander himself,

and he reveals the
official report

about the toilet mishap was
actually just a cover story.

Schlitt claims
that he and the crew

knew that the Germans were
fighting a lost cause,

so they decided to surrender

instead of continue
to risk their lives.

Commander Schlitt knew

that if they openly surrendered

and were taken to
an Allied POW camp,

they would've been
labeled as traitors

by their fellow Germans.

So to protect
himself and his crew,

Schlitt faked an accidental
toilet malfunction,

as a pretext to surrender.

So far, no one has been able
to enter the wreck of U-1206

to check whether the
toilet is indeed broken,

but hopefully someday,

someone will get to
the bottom of it all.

In 2013,

a discovery in New York City

brings the past crashing back

to one of the darkest
days in American history.

It's April of 2013
in Lower Manhattan.

There's a team of surveyors
that are inspecting a property

that's scheduled to be
demolished to make way

for a brand new building.

It's a routine job.

They're mostly there
to measure things,

but then they peer into a gap

between two old buildings,

and they find that
it's packed with trash.

The space is only
about 18 inches wide.

It's the gap between two
five-story tenement buildings.

It's barely big
enough to move around,

let alone haul stuff out.

As they start clearing
debris,

they see something that's

a bit out of place.

There's a large piece
of metal

wedged in between
these two buildings.

It's about three
feet by five feet,

silver, metallic,

and with gears attached.

They call 911 to report
what

they think is damaged machinery.

And when the NYPD
arrive on the scene,

they recognize that
this piece of metal

is far too big to just pull
out of the gap sideways.

So they bring
pulleys to the scene,

because they realize
that the only way

they're gonna be able to
get this piece of metal

out in one piece is by
pulling it straight up.

Once it's clear,

they inspect it closely,

and notice a serial number.

They run it into the system,

and then everything stops.

It's a piece of a wing

from a United Airlines airplane,

and it's found just three
blocks from Ground Zero.

Eleven-and-a-half years
earlier on September 11, 2001,

two Boeing 767s were hijacked

and flown into the
World Trade Center.

Almost 3,000 people lost
their lives that day

in the biggest terrorist attack

ever carried out
on American soil.

In the months
after the attack,

Ground Zero was
meticulously combed over.

Debris was sorted,
cataloged, and cleared.

Any human remains
that were found

were painstakingly identified.

Ground Zero was treated
with military precision.

Finding something this big

more than a decade
later is unsettling.

So investigators
reexamine the site

to make sure nothing
else was overlooked.

The NYPD locks down the
site,

and forensic teams come
in to search the area.

After a thorough examination
by the medical examiner,

no human remains are found.

Finally, the two
tenement buildings

were demolished

and replaced with
a glass high rise.

As for the piece of metal,

it is now enshrined

in the National
September 11 Museum.

While disaster often
leaves devastation behind,

sometimes they also
reveal big secrets.

In the coastal town
of Mahabalipuram, India,

a group of fishermen are
starting their day as usual.

They're fixing their nets

and preparing to set out to sea,

but today they notice
something alarming.

The sea is beginning to
pull away from the land.

Water drains rapidly
from the beach.

Boats are left high
and dry on the sand,

and coral reefs emerge
into the sunlight.

Further out, the
fisherman's spot

something even stranger.

A perfectly straight
line of massive stones

rising from the
exposed sea floor.

Each one is the size
of a refrigerator.

It looks almost like
the remnants of a wall.

But the exposure
of this eerie formation

is actually the calm
before a deadly storm.

What they're witnessing
is the ocean retreating

ahead of a massive tsunami

triggered by a 9.1
magnitude earthquake

off the coast of Indonesia.

Moments after the massive
stone formations appear,

a 12-foot wall of water

comes crashing into the coast

devastating the town
of Mahabalipuram.

It's actually part of what's

the deadliest natural disaster

of the 21st century.

It kills nearly a quarter of
a million people in India,

Thailand, Sri Lanka,
and Indonesia.

In the aftermath,

global attention turns
to relief and recovery,

but those fishermen by
the shore can't forget

what they saw before
the waves crashed down.

They tell local
authorities about these

strange rock formations
revealed on the sea floor.

Soon scientists from the
archeological survey of India

arrive on the site
accompanied by a dive team

from the Indian Navy.

Using sonar mapping,

they locate underwater features

that match the
fisherman's descriptions,

rows of chiseled stone
blocks a short staircase

and a 33-foot-long stretch
of six-foot tall structures.

It looks like part of a
large manmade complex.

As researchers continue

to investigate the
underwater structure,

they find an intriguing
connection back on land.

Mahabalipuram is famous
for the Shore Temple,

a five-story masterpiece
dedicated to the gods

Shiva and Vishnu and built
around the year 700 AD.

But local legends say
that the Shore Temple

was once one of seven
grand sanctuaries

that once lined the coast
of the Bay of Bengal.

If those
legends are true,

the Shore Temple may be
the last visible remnant

of a much larger
religious complex,

one that later disappeared
beneath the sea.

According to the
story,

the seven temples
were so magnificent

that the Hindu god, Indra,
who was the god of storms,

was incredibly
consumed by jealousy,

and he orders a great storm
to come down and destroy them.

The legend says that six
of the temples were swallowed

by the sea leaving only one
standing above the waves.

Now thanks
to the tsunami,

nature reveals what
time has hidden.

The tsunami washed
away layers of sand

from around the Shore
Temple and exposed

precious statues
and carved reliefs.

Archeologists find
detailed carvings of a lion,

a horse, an elephant, all
dated to around 950 AD.

This was roughly the
time that legend has it

that the temples vanished
beneath the waves.

The evidence may never
prove the full legend,

but thanks to a
tragic twist of fate,

one of India's oldest stories

may be closer to
fact than fiction.

In a world full of
big, bad discoveries,

few are as deadly as an island

where every step
could be your last.

In the early 1800s

about 20 miles off
Brazil's southern coast,

a fisherman feels
hunger gnawing at him.

He spots a small
island on the horizon,

sees banana trees
near the shore,

and steers his
canoe towards land.

Hours pass,

then suddenly his canoe

is found drifting offshore.

Inside,

his lifeless body
lies twisted in agony.

His arms and legs covered
in puncture wounds.

What happened
to him remains unclear

until others return
to the island

and make a chilling discovery.

Decades later, a
budding entrepreneur

wants to build a banana
plantation on the island

until he realizes,

this island is crawling
with venomous snakes!

This deadly
slithering mass

makes the island
impossible to inhabit.

His solution?

Burn them out.

He sets the forest
ablaze.

The fire scorches the trees,

but not the snakes.

They survive,

and they multiply.

From that day forward,

locals refer to the terrifying
landmass as Snake Island.

At just 106 acres,

this little island in the
Atlantic Ocean is home

to the highest concentration
of venomous snakes on earth,

about one per every
10 square feet.

The most dominant predator

is the golden lancehead viper.

It is one of the 10

deadliest snakes in the world,

and this is the only
place on the planet

where they even exist.

If a person's bitten by one,

the venom acts fast.

It can melt flesh in seconds.

Within an hour, it triggers

kidney failure,
brain hemorrhages,

intestinal bleeding,
and even death.

But how did
these killer snakes

get to the small island
in the first place?

There's a legend that the
snakes were placed there

by pirates to guard
their treasure.

But scientists have
a different theory.

They believe the island
was once connected

to the mainland by a
natural land bridge.

When the last Ice Age
ended 11,000 years ago,

the rising seas cut it off,

and with no predators

and no other competition,

the snakes took over.

They quickly wiped out most
other animals on the island.

In order to survive,

they turned to eating
migrating birds.

To catch birds before
they took flight,

they needed speed
and stronger venom.

Over time, their venom evolved

to be five times more potent

than that of their
mainland cousins.

These snakes don't just
strike from the ground,

they also hunt from the trees.

They coil themselves
around tree branches

and dangle while they wait.

So anyone setting foot on
Snake Island has to watch,

not only the ground
under their feet,

but the trees over their head.

It's so dangerous
the Brazilian government

restricts access to
just a handful of

expeditions each year.

Now scientists are
allowed on Snake Island

to collect venom,

but it's not to
test its deadliness,

it's to test its
healing potential.

Researchers hope that
proteins in the venom

can unlock new treatments
for blood disorders

and even cancer.

In fact, one lifesaving
blood pressure drug

has already come from it.

It's an irony
that no one misses.

The world's deadliest
snakes could

someday save lives
around the world.

Fear can drive people

to make strange choices.

One of the oddest
was found right under

New York's Brooklyn Bridge.

It's 2006 in New York
City,

and engineers are conducting
a routine inspection

of the Manhattan side
of the Brooklyn Bridge,

an iconic structure that
represents the borough

and that has stood
for over 130 years.

They're examining a row
of old

stone archways
long ago sealed up,

and behind one boarded up arch,

they find something strange:

a padlock door beneath
layers of grime.

No one remembers
this being there.

So out of curiosity,

they cut the lock
and open the door.

The door creaks open,

revealing a dark narrow passage,

and something no one expected.

Stacked inside are
140 boxes of crackers.

Alongside them are crates
filled with paper blankets,

first aid kits, and
these giant water barrels

that also serve as
emergency toilets.

You could see that all the
boxes very clearly marked,

"Civil Defense All Purpose
Survival Crackers,"

with a date stamp
of October 1962.

The crew
calls in historians

to figure out what this is,

and why it's hiding under one

of America's most
iconic bridges?

Historians focus
in on the fact that

on all of this there are
two dates: 1957 and 1962.

'57 is the year that the
Soviets launch Sputnik,

and 1962 is the year of
the Cuban Missile Crisis.

This government has maintained
the closest surveillance

of the Soviet military
buildup on the island of Cuba.

These were key
moments in the Cold War,

an era when the U.S.
government and its citizens

were full of fear and
paranoia about the Space Race

and about the possibility of
nuclear war with the Soviets.

During those years
of the Cold War,

the fear of nuclear
warfare was everywhere.

Students practiced duck and
cover drills in their schools.

Families were encouraged
by the government to dig

underground bunkers
in their backyards,

and nearly 200,000
citizens did that.

But in New York
the plan was different.

Residents were told to head for
designated fallout shelters,

like this secret space
under the Brooklyn Bridge.

New York City was
considered a prime target

in the event of a nuclear
exchange with the Soviet Union.

And to be prepared for this,

the city built over
17,000 fallout shelters

filled with items to accommodate

as many as 11 million people.

While the
supplies were real,

the sense of security
was mostly an illusion.

Even with concrete
walls,

experts say that shelters,

like the one underneath
the Brooklyn Bridge,

wouldn't have protected
people from a nuclear blast.

And even if it did,

it certainly wouldn't
have protected them

from the radioactive
fallout that would've

followed in the months after.

Fortunately, for
all of humanity,

the Cold War never turned hot,

and bombs never fell.

And as for the bomb shelters,

they were largely boarded
up and forgotten about.

For decades, hundreds
of thousands of people

crossed the Brooklyn
Bridge never knowing that

there was a very dreary
reminder just below their feet

of just how close the
world was to disaster.

From ancient battlefields
buried in bogs,

to bombshells
beneath city streets,

and snakes so deadly,

they have their own island,

these are the biggest
and baddest discoveries

that refuse to stay hidden.

I'm Danny Trejo. Thanks

for watching
"Mysteries Unearthed".