Original subtitles

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, curious "Chambers of Secrets".

From a strange hole under a living room...

This chamber may actually have been

a waystation for bootleggers.

To a classified government base

uncovered by a deadly tragedy.

This horrible crash has unearthed one of a series

of undisclosed underground bunkers,

which is definitely not the norm in Northern Virginia.

To a prehistoric tomb, concealing a modern secret.

When they open the coffin,

they are stunned by what they find.

Join us now,

because nothing stays hidden forever.

Let's say you're a guy who hunts

to put food on your family's dinner table.

When one young man heads into Colombia's jungle,

he uncovers something completely unexpected.

Julio Cesar Sepulveda is hunting

for game along the Guajataca River

on the northern coast of Colombia.

In the distance, he spots a crown of feathers.

It's a wild turkey.

He takes aim.

Bam!

Although his shot hits the turkey,

it doesn't kill it.

The bird gets back up and starts to hobble and jump.

Sepulveda chases after it,

but somehow the bird keeps jumping up higher and higher,

and then suddenly, Julio tilts his head up

and sees a sort of stone staircase

in the middle of the jungle.

He follows the staircase up

wondering where it might lead.

50 steps, 100 steps,

200 steps, 300 steps.

When he finally reaches the top,

he's crossed 1,200 stairs.

At this point, he's high above the jungle.

He looks around below him,

and he simply can't believe his eyes.

There in the middle of the jungle,

he believes he just rediscovered a place

he only knows from legends,

and if he's right, this is the fabled Ciudad Perdida,

the Lost City.

Local legend claims the city

was built by people called the Tairona,

who lived around 800 AD,

and supposedly, they buried a huge collection of gold here.

So, of course, Julio can't wait

to share the find with his family.

Sepulveda leads his family back

through the jungle to the site of the steps.

A sweltering heat simmers as they ascend the stairs.

They struggle to breathe,

so they dub this place "Infierno Verde",

the Green Hell.

They find the remains of an ancient cemetery.

What's inside the tombs is beyond their wildest dreams.

There's gold jewelry, urns,

statues littering the floor.

There's even solid gold sheets attached to the walls.

The Sepulveda's take these objects

and stuff their pockets,

so they can be sold on the black market.

But the family's discovery

doesn't stay secret for long.

Ciudad Perdida is quickly overrun

by competing treasure hunters.

Rivalries form over who controls the turf,

and inevitably, disputes between looters

lead to gun battles, stabbings, and bloodshed.

Tragically, in one of those fights,

Julio Sepulveda is killed.

It takes a year, but Colombian authorities

finally gain control of the site,

and it's not the first time it's seen such violence.

Turns out people have been murdering each other

over this gold for centuries.

The Lost City, originally known as Teyuna,

dates back about 1,200 years,

when the ancestors of the Tairona people began

settling on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada.

But in the early 1500s,

the Spanish arrive

and establish the nearby coastal city of Santa Marta.

For the next century, the Spanish brutally colonize

the Indigenous culture, plundering them

for their gold and their silver.

Along with brutality,

the Spanish bring disease.

By 1570, 80% of the Indigenous people are dead.

Those still alive head into the wild.

The survivors abandoned their towns,

leaving behind their precious gold and silver objects

as they flee deeper and deeper into the jungle,

beyond the colonial reach.

Gradually over time,

the mountainsides reforest,

and the Tairona's deserted villages and cities

are lost to history.

Julio Sepulveda's find changes all that.

Now following this discovery,

the Indigenous people of the region petition

the government to reclaim this land for themselves.

After cataloging the massive treasure trove,

the items are put on display

in museums all around the world,

and the Indigenous communities are once again

caretakers of the Green Hell.

Next, imagine uncovering

a different kind of secret Hell.

That's exactly what happened

on a beautiful Greek island.

In 1860, thousands of laborers from around the world

are carving out the Suez Canal.

It's an unprecedented engineering feat,

spanning 120 miles,

connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Suez.

On Santorini island in Greece,

workers were assigned to excavate a volcanic material

that was gonna be transported and used in the Suez Canal.

As the workers are quarrying away

digging up volcanic ash and dirt,

one of them stumbles on something hard.

The worker gets down on his hands and knees,

and he starts digging this out.

He's found stone, a lot of stone,

so he calls over all the other workers

to help him out.

It turns out to be an entire wall.

Soon, they've uncovered several more stone walls

as well as some broken pottery and rusted metal tools.

These things look ancient.

The workers realize that they found an ancient building,

but it's not their job to excavate it.

They set the artifacts aside

and get back to work on this Suez quarrying.

It takes another 100 years

for the true importance of this find to come to light.

In 1967,

Spyridon Marinatos, a Greek archaeologist,

heard the stories about this ancient wall

and went out to investigate.

He quickly realizes that this isn't just one building.

This is an entire city,

and it's gigantic.

Slowly but surely,

over the next 10 years of careful excavation,

buildings, chambers, artifacts

all appear out of this rubble.

Some of these buildings are several stories tall.

And the archaeologists were fascinated

with what they were seeing.

They discovered toilets, baths, hot and cold water,

and an underfloor system for heating.

His team also finds a large variety of pottery

and furniture in all shapes, sizes, and colors.

He finds large colorful murals that are better preserved

than the frescoes found on other Greek Islands,

and it's not just the art's pristine preservation

that excites Marinatos, he recognizes this art as Minoan.

The Minoans were a mysterious people

based on the island of Crete,

in what's now Greece.

They built sophisticated buildings

and created spectacular art

before vanishing without a trace 4,000 years ago.

So how did so many Minoan objects wind up here?

In the 16th century BC,

this region was hit by one

of the largest volcanic eruptions in human history.

The nearby Thera volcano spewed up as much as

14 billion tons of volcanic debris and lava

in an explosion that could be heard up to 3,000 miles away.

The eruption is so huge that it would've buried

all of the Minoan settlements on Santorini

and on the coast of the neighboring island of Crete.

Which means that this site is actually the legendary

lost Minoan city of Akrotiri.

This discovery gives

new insight into the Minoans,

but there's much more to learn.

We have questions about how their society functioned,

what were the roles of women and men in their society,

and the undiscovered things that we see at Akrotiri

are capable of answering some of those questions.

In this case, they got really lucky,

because the reason this site

is so incredibly well preserved

is because of this volcanic ash and lava,

but that's also the reason

for the disappearance of this civilization.

Some archaeologists think

many people fled the site

thanks to warning signs before the giant explosion.

Regardless, what the Suez worker stumbled on

is a truly remarkable window into an important lost world.

Today, only about 25% of the site has been excavated,

and more research and funding are needed to finish the job.

It's already clear that this was a remarkable civilization,

and it's a remarkable site,

but who knows how many chambers

and artifacts have yet to be revealed?

We all have bad habits, but over 100 years ago,

a Chinese monk's bad habit

led to a great discovery.

In 1900, you have a Daoist monk

by the name of Wang Yuanlu.

He has decided that he is going to be the caretaker

of the Mogao caves in Dunhuang China.

The Mogao caves were once an important

Buddhist religious site along the Silk Road.

But that time has long passed,

and the caves have fallen into a state of disrepair.

Wang Yuanlu wants to protect the caves to preserve

this rich history that's in danger of being forgotten.

And then one day, while Wang is sweeping sand

out of a cave, he decides to take a smoke break.

He notices his cigarette smoke

drifts towards an old crackling wall,

and then suddenly disappears behind the wall.

He wonders where the smoke's going,

and what might be behind the wall.

Wang carefully removes part of the wall,

and behind it,

he finds a hidden chamber.

Inside is a tower of manuscripts,

paintings, holy relics.

There are literally thousands of these well-preserved books

and manuscripts all at his fingertips.

There's a problem.

The monk is illiterate,

so he has this amazing find in front of him

and no clue as to what it's worth, what it means.

He takes some of the manuscripts

to various local officials,

but over the next few years,

rumors of the discovery swirl through Europe

causing several collectors to travel to Dunhuang.

Now the monk, Wang, sells off

thousands of these manuscripts,

but only for a few hundred dollars.

The books make their way to France, England, Germany.

After they're studied, it's clear that they're

far more valuable than the monk ever imagined.

They include the earliest known complete star chart,

Buddhist and Christian paintings,

even the earliest known instruction manual

for the board game Go.

But one manuscript stands out above the rest.

It's a Buddhist scripture

that teaches about the nature of reality

and how to reach enlightenment known as the "Diamond Sutra".

What makes this book even more important

is that it's the world's oldest known example

of a dated, printed book.

The date it's written is May 11, 868.

That's almost 600 years before

the Gutenberg Bible was printed.

Today, the "Diamond Sutra"

is housed in the British library,

and other works have made their way

into museums and libraries around the world.

Check out the next story

about an even more surprising discovery in Russia.

In 1993, on the Altai Mountains,

near the Russia-China border,

you have grave robbers

who have been looting burial mounds in the region.

This has been going on for years.

The local Altaian tribe,

they consider these mounds sacred,

so they've had enough.

They decide that they wanna take action,

so they call on the Russian border patrol.

By the time Russian border patrol arrives,

the thieves are long gone, but they wanna make sure that

the site is handled respectfully.

So they call in Dr. Natalia Polosmak,

who is a renowned archaeologist

that specializes in these ancient cultures.

There's one large burial mound

that has clearly been vandalized.

So Polosmak and her team investigate,

and they find that one shallow grave

has been robbed.

But what was interesting is that

she found a shaft below that grave,

and it was obvious to her that the shaft

wasn't something from recent times.

So she suspects that this grave

might have been robbed years ago,

but she also suspects that it

might sit on top of something else.

So the team keeps digging,

and eventually hits a huge block of ice.

They've uncovered a layer of permafrost underneath the dirt.

The team carefully

melts the ice with boiling water,

hoping to preserve whatever they find beneath.

As they continued working their way through,

they find something astounding,

the frozen remains of six ancient horses.

In elite burials, they would sacrifice the horses

that belonged to the person who died

and bury them around the grave,

and so finding these horse carcasses

means they've stumbled on a really prestigious burial.

Alongside the horses,

the team uncovers a large wooden chamber

with an ornate coffin inside.

But who is the very important person buried here?

When they open the coffin,

Dr. Polosmak and her team

are stunned by what they find.

A perfectly preserved mummified woman.

One of the team members calls her,

"The Siberian Ice Princess,"

and the name sticks.

Researchers estimate that the Ice Princess

lived about 2,600 years ago.

She has this elaborate headdress

with carved wooden animals on it covered in gold leaf.

On the surface of her skin,

they discovered very detailed tattoos.

And even more incredibly,

the ink still looks fresh,

like she almost had this work done yesterday.

The tattoos, horses, and grand burial

suggest the princess may have served a religious purpose

as a tribal priestess.

Against the wishes of the Altaian tribe,

Polosmak and her team decide to move the body

to university for further study.

They perform an MRI on the body,

and they conclude that the princess died young,

anywhere between the ages of 25 and 28,

and they find that the cause of death was breast cancer.

Although the Altaians are unhappy,

the Ice Princess gets moved again,

this time, to a museum.

The Altaian tribe believe that removing mummies

from their resting place is a terrible omen.

They even blame the removal of the mummy

for causing a series of local floods and earthquakes.

Eventually, Russian authorities

send the Ice Princess back to her homeland.

They restrict anymore digging,

and they declare the area to be a Zone of Peace,

so that the dead may finally rest.

It's 1902, on the Isle of Malta,

you're on a construction team in an ancient town

when your dig hits something that shouldn't be there.

It's a hard surface.

They dig a little more,

and then break through what seems to be

the ceiling of some sort of stone chamber.

Afraid it could derail their construction project,

the workers scramble to cover up any signs of the discovery,

but secrets on the small island don't stay buried for long.

And rumors about the find swirl

until they reach local archaeologists.

By November of 1903,

a full archaeological investigation is underway,

and they quickly realize this minor construction mistake

has uncovered something important:

A three-level, ancient complex with a secret.

As they explore, they find a temple, a cemetery,

funeral halls all carved directly into the limestone.

The whole thing was constructed over a period

of a few thousand years, starting in 4,000 BC.

That means it's 1,200 years older

than the first pyramid in Egypt.

Who could have built this so long ago and how?

This is pre-Bronze Age architecture.

This was before the people of Malta

had access to any kind of metal tools,

which means this whole complex was created

from raw limestone using just other stone,

antlers, sticks, and just sheer human power.

They called it the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum,

Hal Saflieni after a nearby Neolithic village,

and Hypogeum, which is the Greek word

for an underground temple.

But a discovery inside the chambers

leads some to question the temple's true purpose.

Researchers discover over 7,000 human remains

scattered throughout the complex,

and this leads them to believe

that this was a special burial place.

But as they explore further, they find

sophisticated engineering features that suggest

this is much more than an underground burial vault.

The chambers are laid out

so that on the winter solstice, sunlight reaches

the center of the structure, illuminating the main temple.

But it's the acoustic properties

that are really significant.

The temple was constructed in such a way

that sound resonates throughout the entire complex.

Given its unique light and sound effects,

it's been speculated by researchers that this site

could have been used for religious rituals,

and with 7,000 human remains on the site,

those rituals might have even included human sacrifice.

It took just one guy with a shovel

to unearth something remarkable in Malta.

Now imagine what an entire Bulgarian Army can dig out.

It's April 1944,

World War II is raging across Europe,

and some of the countries that are allied with Adolf Hitler

and the Nazis are just getting hammered by the Allies.

One of those Axis powers is Bulgaria,

which is under attack from two different directions.

It's being bombed by the Americans and the British

from the west and the Soviets from the east.

The Bulgarian Army is desperate,

so they start building a series

of underground bomb shelters and trenches

surrounding the central city of Kazanlak.

As they dig,

a few of the soldiers hit something hard.

The men chisel a hole in the wall,

and when they bust through,

on the other side they find an underground chamber.

They go through, and they find themselves in a tunnel.

One of the men flicks on his flashlight.

He's surrounded by richly colored frescoes,

depicting men in battle.

The soldiers call the director of a local history museum,

who realizes this is an important discovery.

Learning more will have to wait.

As the Soviets bear down,

Bulgaria switches sides

and declares war on Germany.

This stops the Allied bombing

and very possibly saves the mysterious tunnels.

But after the war, experts return to open the site.

The passageways with the frescoes

lead to a round, domed chamber

with even more murals.

It turns out this accidental find is an ancient tomb.

But not just any tomb,

they find fragments of a crown.

This is a royal tomb.

Further exploration research of this one tomb

actually suggests that it's a small part

of a much larger underground royal cemetery.

Experts soon realize this incredible find

includes tombs belonging to the rulers of Thrace,

a famous kingdom known for its fierce warriors.

Thrace is a big deal to those who study ancient history.

Thrace covered modern day Bulgaria, Turkey, Romania,

and Serbia from the fifth century to the third century BC.

Eventually, Thrace is conquered by Rome,

but some of Rome's most famous warriors,

like Spartacus, were Thracian, as were a few Roman Emperors.

So the discovery of a vast

Thracian tomb is really exciting.

But the real treasures of the tombs are the frescoes

which adorn the walls and ceilings.

They include a couple seated at a banquet table

preparing to enter the underworld.

You've got another one depicting a chariot race,

which is part of the funeral games,

when a member of the elite died.

We don't have much from the Thracians themselves.

We know a bit about their language,

but we don't have any extended texts in it.

So when you find direct evidence of what

the rich and powerful in Thrace were doing

and what they valued,

that's incredibly rare and incredibly valuable.

When people think of pyramids, they think of Egypt,

but believe it or not,

there there are more pyramids in South America,

and at least one of them holds a few secrets.

It's the fall of 2003,

several days of heavy rain sweep through

the Mexican National Park of Teotihuacan,

also known as the City of the Gods.

Located 30 miles northeast of Mexico City,

the site is most famous for its pyramids

and pre-Aztec ruins.

When the storm passes,

workers survey the site for the damage,

and at the base of a large pyramid,

known as the Temple of the Feathered Serpent,

they find something surprising,

a three foot wide sinkhole.

The workers call the park's archaeologist,

Sergio Gomez Chavez, out to investigate.

He hurries down to the site,

looks inside, and sees a shaft that looks like a well,

but as he stares into this dark, mysterious chamber

that shouldn't be there, he knows he has to go in.

So his colleagues tie a rope around him,

give him a flashlight,

and they lower him into the hole.

When his feet hit the ground,

he's surprised to land, not on dirt,

but on a solid floor.

He takes the flashlight and he looks around,

and he realizes he's in a manmade hallway,

But there are stones that are blocking him off

from going too far in.

But since he physically can't go any further,

he brings in a laser 3D scanner,

and what he ends up finding

just blows him away.

The scanner reveals a web of tunnels

underneath the pyramid leading to several larger chambers.

Inside, they find precise arrangements

of things like bones, jewelry, pottery,

golden orb-like balls, and other relics,

suggesting use in ceremonies

and animal sacrifice rituals to the gods.

But the most incredible discovery of all

lies in a secret chamber just below the pyramid's center.

Here, they discover a miniature landscape with a ball,

pools of liquid mercury representing lakes,

and four greenstone statues.

The walls and ceiling of the chamber

are covered in minerals.

They glitter like stars when you shine a light on them.

Many scholars believe

these underground chambers were created

by a mysterious people called the Teotihuacan,

and that it represents the underworld.

Unfortunately, little is known about

the Teotihuacan civilization other than

the vast temples and cities they built and inhabited.

But around 750 AD,

the inhabitants of the city vanished.

Today, all that remains of this once formidable

and incredible culture are the structures

and the sacred marvels that they left behind.

Sometimes it takes a stroke of good luck

to make a discovery,

but other times, a tragedy can bring a secret to light.

It's December 1, 1974,

and TWA Flight 514 is en route

from Indianapolis to Washington DC.

It's a cold and stormy day with very high crosswinds,

and so the flight is diverted from

Washington National Airport to Dulles.

The pilot changes course to make the adjustment,

but between the weather

and a miscommunication with the air traffic controller,

the plane descends below the ridgeline

of the towering Blue Ridge Mountains.

At 11:10 a.m.,

they lose contact with the plane.

30 miles outside of Washington DC,

TWA Flight 514 tragically collides with a mountain

known as Mount Weather.

According to a local fire chief,

the plane explodes into a fireball

and takes the lives of all 92 passengers and crew.

Bodies were all over the place.

The plane was scattered maybe two or three miles apart,

and I didn't see nobody alive,

nobody living nowhere, no moving nowhere.

The crash immediately draws press to the scene,

and when the journalists begin to arrive,

they quickly notice that several things

are out of the ordinary.

One of the reporters on the scene notes

how quickly professional first responders arrive

with state-of-the-art gear and vehicles.

Even stranger, these first responders

are accompanied by the military,

which is not the usual occurrence

in a plane crash in rural Virginia.

Next, high-ranking government officials arrive,

and the area is cleared in a five mile radius.

It becomes obvious that this horrible crash

has unearthed something very important.

Eventually, a government spokesperson

addresses the media,

and lets out one curious piece of information.

The spokesperson says that this location

houses a facility that's associated

with the Office of Emergency Preparedness,

whose responsibilities include

continuity of government in a time of national disaster.

Investigative journalists begin to dig into the story,

and they uncover a shocking government secret.

They discover that Mount Weather is just one

of a series of undisclosed underground bunkers

that are maintained by the U.S.

for continuity of operations planning.

Continuity of operations planning

ensures procedures are in place

for essential government agencies to continue operating

in the case of a national security emergency.

These secure facilities are where high ranking

government officials would relocate during a crisis.

The true scale of Mount Weather

remains a secret for over a decade.

It takes years and multiple Freedom of Information Act

requests until the public learns that Mount Weather holds

a 600,000 square foot Cold War era bunker

that could house up to 200 people for a month.

It includes offices, sleeping quarters, a hospital,

its own utilities and communication systems.

But to this day, the entire site remains highly classified

with high security and restricted access,

preserving secrets that may never come to light.

Secret spaces may be anywhere.

As one Michigan couple found out,

they can even be in your own living room.

It's April 2024, on the shores of the Lake Huron

and St. Clair River near the Canadian border.

Trevor and Hayley Gilmartin are starting renovations

on their newly purchased home,

and they're both in agreement that

the first job on their list is removing this hot tub

that's sitting in the middle of their living room.

As they rip out the tub,

they find a strange hatch

that leads to something completely surprising.

It appears to be a hidden room filled with water,

and they are totally confused, because they've been told

the house sits on a solid, three-foot concrete foundation.

It just so happens that Trevor

and Hayley are certified scuba divers,

so they suit up and dive in.

The water inside is cloudy,

but it's clear enough that they can see

that the room extends two stories deep.

The water seems to be coming from behind the wooden wall,

which is facing in the direction of Lake Huron.

With no other clues, they prepare for a second dive,

this time directly into Lake Huron itself.

Just under the waterline,

they find a metal grate

that is blocking a six-foot-wide tunnel

that's heading in the direction of their living room.

Why would someone build a tunnel

to connect Lake Huron to a secret room under their house?

A local journalist has a hunch.

Back in the 1920s, at the height

of the Prohibition era in the United States,

the Canadian border becomes a hotbed of activity

for liquor trafficking into the United States.

About 75% of illegal alcohol that came to the U.S.

went directly through this Lake Huron-St. Clair shoreline,

and the Gilmartin's house sits right

in the middle of that route.

So reporters speculate that this chamber

under the Gilmartin's living room may actually

have been used as a waystation for bootleggers,

an easy way to clandestinely import alcohol

into the United States.

After the end of Prohibition,

the passage is sealed and forgotten

until the couple posts their underwater

adventure online and get millions of views.

And, hey, if they ever wanna take a scuba dive in Lake Huron,

they got a shortcut.

Finding a secret chamber

under your house is fascinating,

but imagine discovering something

equally amazing on a tiger hunt.

In the summer of 1819,

a British hunting party led by Captain John Smith,

is tracking and hunting tigers

throughout the Sahyadri Hills in India.

Suddenly, a voice calls out.

It's a young shepherd boy.

He is looking to make some money by showing the British officers

where they can find tigers.

The boy points to the top of the hill

where the animals roam in the distance.

But as Smith looks across a large ravine

to a horseshoe shaped hill,

something else catches his eye.

But he notices this gleam

from some kind of stone halfway up the hill,

and he thinks he sees something resembling columns.

He signals the men to follow him down the ravine

and up the thick overgrowth on the other side.

As they climb, they realize that a large ledge

is carved directly into the mountainside.

The slope has been cut away to create a portico.

Between the columns, is an entrance to a cave.

The tiger hunt is quickly abandoned,

so the team can explore their new discovery.

Smith and his men arm themselves with torches

and head inside.

They follow this large hallway

carved out of the mountain rock.

And they pass hand-carved columns, murals.

They find some human remains,

and eventually they come to a chamber with a dome,

and Smith quickly realizes

he's found something absolutely incredible.

The murals on the walls tell the story

of the life of Buddha, and really showcase,

not just beautiful and devout religious piety,

but an incredible array of artistic techniques.

But it's not just the art

that makes these caves so impressive.

All 30 chambers are an amazing feat,

each one dug by hand out of the mountain.

As the group marvels at the site,

Captain Smith pulls out his hunting knife

and carves his name and the date into the wall.

Eventually, archaeologists and historians swarm the site,

and they refer to the entire site as the Ajanta Caves.

Originally a sanctuary and a monastery for monks,

these cavernous chambers are one

of the most important monuments of the era

when Buddhism thrived in India 2,000 years ago.

And though we have Captain John Smith to thank

for bringing global awareness of the caves,

his name would be more fondly remembered

if he hadn't decided to crudely carve it

into a priceless relic.

It is 1986 in Scotland,

and a rugby player turned pub owner

is about to stumble unto something

that will start an international incident.

Norrie Rowan is a 35-year-old Scottish rugby player,

who also happens to own The Tron tavern

in Old Town Edinburgh.

It's a popular hangout for rugby players and their fans.

Norrie has big plans for the tavern,

and part of those plans include expanding down

into the basement to create a themed restaurant.

One day, Rowan is down in the basement

tearing off the grille of an old fireplace,

but instead of finding a flue behind it,

he finds something else, a tunnel.

Curious, Rowan crawls into the tunnel.

It's dark and full of debris,

but he can see that it connects to another tunnel

that ends in a small vault.

Rowan does a little bit of research

and he finds that back in the 1800s,

there was a whole network of storage spaces

built beneath this part of the city.

In time, the tunnels are taken over by

the criminal underworld, housing a red-light district,

illegal gambling clubs,

and as a place to store stolen corpses.

Finally, authorities seal them off,

and they're forgotten for over a hundred years.

Rowan hopes the tunnels are the answer

to his expansion dreams,

but he can't get funding,

so he puts the tunnels out of his mind.

The infamous vaults remain shuttered

until three years later when he hosts a party at his pub

in honor of the Rugby World Championship games

taking place in Edinburgh.

His guests of honor are players from Romania,

then ruled by a communist dictator.

While abroad in Scotland,

the players have been under constant surveillance

by the Romanian secret police.

The secret police are following their every move.

They're monitoring their phone calls.

They're even following them into their locker rooms.

It's no surprise that while the rugby team

is attending this party at The Tron,

the secret police are outside guarding the entrance.

One of the players, the team's forward,

Cristian Raducanu, tells Rowan that he's made

the decision to defect from the Romanians

and seek political asylum here in the UK.

That's when the pub's owner remembers

the tunnels beneath his bar.

So he takes Raducanu downstairs to the sub-basement,

thinking perhaps that this may be a way

that he could assist him in his efforts to defect.

The barkeeper leads the rugby player

through the back of the fireplace

and into the maze of tunnels.

Raducanu heads off

and follows the tunnels until he finds an exit.

Once outside,

he finds a Scottish police officer and requests asylum.

Not surprisingly,

the Romanian secret police were not happy,

and since they were monitoring the outside of the bar,

they got it in their heads that somebody inside the bar

was likely to have assisted Raducanu in his escape.

Journalists come and ask Rowan about it,

and when he's pressed, he admits that he had taken

Raducanu down into the tunnels.

This reignites a whole wave of interest

into this lost history of the city of Edinburgh,

into these tunnels that everybody had forgotten about.

The publicity leads

to a surge of business at the pub,

enabling Rowan to turn the once criminally run tunnels

into a bustling destination spot.

Now dubbed Edinburgh Vaults,

today, these once shuttered passages

are buzzing with activity.

Boasting bars, restaurants, and nightclubs,

they're a must see destination for tourists

as well as a magnet for ghost tours,

paranormal sleuths, and private events.

And The Tron tavern, where it all began,

it's still right there at the center of it.

From Scottish tunnels

offering the perfect escape route,

to the frozen tomb of an ancient princess,

our world is filled with secret chambers

just waiting to be found.

I'm Danny Trejo.

Thanks for watching "Mysteries Unearthed".