Original subtitles

Narrator: A satellite detects intense flashes

In the atmosphere.

Detect what they refer to as a double flash.

Narrator: Is this evidence of a nuclear blast?

Well, maybe we should be looking hard at other possibilities.

Narrator: Search and rescue responds to an s.O.S. Signal,

But finds no plane crash in sight.

What triggered this signal

When the aircraft itself didn't actually crash?

Narrator: Two massive statues emit a mysterious singing.

You were blessed by the gods if you heard the singing.

Narrator: Were they an omen, or something else?

Endless streams of data,

Information bombarding the planet from within

And from the furthest stretches of the universe.

What messages do these phantom signals hold?

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by discovery communications

September 22nd, 1979 --

Atomic energy detection satellite vela 6911

Records a pattern of intense flashes

Over the indian ocean.

Vela's sister satellites detect nothing at all,

And the u.S. Government is reluctant

To even acknowledge the event.

The vela incident is September 1979,

When an array of satellites,

An american satellite system called vela,

Detect what they refer to as a double flash,

Which is a signature of a nuclear device

Detonated somewhere in a 1,000-mile radius

Of an island called prince edward,

Which is a south african-owned island,

Without authorization.

This flash was not picked up, or at least not reported

By any of the other instruments.

On the earth,

This is a series of seismometers,

Hydrophones, infrasound monitors,

And radiation detectors that monitor for any type

Of explosive blast in the earth, in the water, in the air,

Or any radiation released from a nuclear explosion.

We also have detectors in space,

Satellites that are monitoring

For the characteristic flash of a nuclear explosion.

Delaney: The vela satellites were launched in the '60s,

When everybody was sort of a little on edge

About nuclear testing

And the possibilities of nuclear war.

The aim of the exercise was to keep an eye on each other

As well as the other upstarts, shall I say --

The other countries that were vying

For nuclear weapon capability --

To make sure that everybody

Was staying honest to these treaties.

Dr. Kislenko: Very importantly,

There are international treaties,

In particular the 1963 partial test ban treaty,

Which prohibits atmospheric tests.

So there's obviously a lot of concern about this double flash

That appears out of nowhere.

Narrator: Since deployment, the vela system

Accurately detects every known atmospheric nuclear test,

Establishing itself as a highly reliable technology

To be able to detect nuclear blasts today,

It's pretty darn easy. But remember, in the '60s,

We didn't have very many satellites up there.

Satellites orbiting the earth weren't particularly common.

And that's why vela was created with this dedicated

Intention of monitoring for nuclear blasts.

The u.S. Eventually launched six pairs of satellites

Over about a 10-year period.

We generally put telecommunication satellites out

About... Oh, roughly speaking,

35,000 kilometers from the center of the earth.

The vela satellites were in a very, very high orbit --

Something like 100,000 klicks out,

So they could see the entire planet at a glance.

And they were bristling with gamma ray detectors,

X-ray detectors,

Bhangometers, or bhangmeters,

To pick up the flash

That is associated with an atmospheric nuclear blast.

And so it's sitting there just waiting

For that intense burst of double light.

Narrator: But how could these bhangmeters on the satellite

Be constantly monitoring the entire earth

For a burst of light?

Bhangmeter is basically just a light detector.

It doesn't take an image, so it's not like a camera,

But it is able to detect low light level intensity.

And remember, if you're 100,000 kilometers

From the earth, then, you know,

The signal that is coming up is going to be modest

And it's going to be very brief.

So these are instantaneous type detections.

It's the one that will probably alert you first to the existence

Of an atmospheric nuclear blast, but it is part of a suite

To determine the yield, where it came from, and so on.

Narrator: Is this a nuclear detonation?

Or could it be a false positive with a nuclear bomb signature?

The vela incident was a flash that was reported,

Observed at only one satellite.

None of the other sensors picked up

A consistent measurement of nuclear testing.

Dr. Kislenko: That doesn't discount the fact that it could have occurred,

Because satellites at that point

Are often projected to view other things.

They're looking at weather patterns,

They're looking at other targets on the same satellite system.

So it's not out of the realm

That some of the detecting devices on vela

Are picking up the test and others aren't.

Mckinnon: Anytime you only have a signal picked up by one thing,

There's always a question of, is it the equipment

Or is it the signal?

Most people's first reaction was,

Oh, it's got to be a nuclear blast.

But a lot of the other collaborating signals

Weren't being detected, and so it became a bit of an anomaly

And people began to sort of question

Whether or not there were other things

That could generate that double light signature.

Mckinnon: It could have been something local that interfered

With that particular satellite,

Or there could have been human, political reasons

Where we don't actually know what all of the data is

Because only some of it is being reported.

Dr. Kislenko: There isn't corresponding evidence from other quarters.

Or I should say, at least there's no evidence

Of being detected in other quarters.

Not all of the records are necessarily complete.

Delaney: The satellite isn't necessarily continually

Transmitting to earth. They're scanning for events.

And the moment they detect an event,

Then they are starting to transmit back to the earth.

Narrator: The signal comes from a remote location

Somewhere near the prince edward islands,

Nearly 1,000 miles from south africa's southern coast.

The u.S. Air force sample the fallout

Over the detonation site for several days

And find no evidence of radioactive debris.

Where did the signal come from?

And what could have caused it?

Just like the seismic signature of a nuclear test

Can be confused with that of a conventional explosion,

The flash can also have a couple of different characteristics

That look very similar.

Is it a small flash off of a piece of space debris

Very close to the satellite?

Is it the flash of a particular type of lightning

High up in the atmosphere?

Or is it the larger intensity flash of a nuclear weapon

Closer to the ground?

So there's a whole raft of other confirming attributes

Associated with an atmospheric test.

In the atmosphere, of course, you've got shockwaves.

Surface-based or ground-based facilities

Will be listening into the atmosphere

And looking for seismic impressions.

But the vela satellite is sitting there looking

For light, gamma rays, x-rays.

Narrator: So, if vela was designed to detect

Both nuclear energy and intense flashes,

What type of event was the satellite picking up?

Mckinnon: A nuclear explosion and a conventional explosion

Create very similar seismic patterns.

The only real difference is if a nuclear explosion

Is so large, it's bigger than an explosion

That we could create with conventional weaponry.

A characteristic flash of a nuclear explosion

Is very different than the more fiery growl

Of a conventional explosion.

Narrator: Ruling out the possibility

Of a misinterpreted signal,

Researchers and experts need to exhaust every scenario

Before concluding the worst.

Dr. Kislenko: The carter commission,

Which is largely staffed by scientific experts,

Their chief conclusion is that it probably was an anomaly --

It was basically a mistake made by the system.

The system is aging by that point, so they point that out.

It's likely there was some sort of malfunction.

Delaney: The vela satellites, they were designed

For 18 months', two years' worth of life.

But most satellites, of course, tend to live

Much longer than that. Some of the vela satellites

Actually lasted a dozen years.

So they worked very, very well.

Dr. Kislenko: They talk about things like light from the sun

That may have set the system off.

They also talked about a micro meteor

That may have hit it and, you know, dislodged the system

And therefore got a false report.

Meteors flying into the earth's atmosphere --

Not a particularly unusual event.

To have collisions with satellites,

That's a little bit rare. A vela satellite

Is only, at most, a few meters in diameter.

Micro meteors, you know,

Passing through our volume of space...

Space is big. [ chuckles ]

That's really the bottom line to it.

Narrator: With other possibilities dwindling

And the very likely scenario

That the vela satellite's detection of this double flash

Was from a nuclear detonation,

New evidence reports

Come in from an unlikely source.

[ alarm buzzing ]

There was a little bit, I believe,

Of radioactive fallout that australia detected.

Dr. Kislenko: Radioactive tests did take place in australia,

In southern australia, in sheep, and they all of a sudden

Have a kind of abnormal level of iodine,

Which is one of the triggers, one of the effects

Of a nuclear detonation.

Narrator: The likelihood that this is

Anything other than a nuclear test

Is now almost ruled out.

The immediate reaction from the vela satellite is deconstructed

Over the next couple of months by various agencies --

Intelligence and regular government agencies.

And they initially come to the conclusion

That it indeed probably was an unauthorized nuclear test.

That's even before they get to

The next very important question of whodunit.

Narrator: Should authorities be investigating other countries?

Delaney: You can't discount the politics of the day,

The tension, if you will, with other countries,

Including, obviously, the soviet union.

There was politics that sort of suggested,

Well, maybe we should be looking hard at other possibilities.

Narrator: 1979 --

A vela satellite records a pattern of intense flashes

Over the indian ocean.

Dr. Kislenko: An array of satellites called vela

Detect what they refer to as a double flash,

Which is a signature of a nuclear device.

Narrator: Officials quickly snap into action

To determine the source of this nuclear signature.

So what the americans do is several things.

They call in all kinds of different testing

That they've had, other satellites in space

To see whether they've picked it up.

There's all kinds of acoustic devices in the ocean,

Which are principally aimed at soviet submarines

To detect their movements.

There's an ionospheric testing station in puerto rico,

Amongst other places, that picks up ionic waves.

The american air force flies a couple of dozen missions

Over the alleged area of the detonation.

There's all sorts of tests that follow

In just a couple of months. If it is a nuclear detonation,

There's actually a list of likely culprits,

Which the americans went through in sort of,

You know, descending order. So, the russians,

But there's no evidence anywhere else

In a very highly monitored situation.

India, which had nuclear capacity and had admitted it.

Pakistan -- there's virtually no evidence

That they were technologically capable

Of launching a strike that far.

France, which was rather notorious

In the sense that it had not signed

The 1963 test ban treaty, along with china.

But again, very little evidence on either of those parties

To suggest that they were capable of it.

So it leaves you with basically israel,

Which almost everybody in the world knew was developing,

If not already in possession of nuclear devices.

Narrator: Initially pointing towards a nuclear detonation,

The ensuing government investigation

Bafflingly concludes otherwise.

So this commission, after a few months, reports back

That it's likely that vela was not a nuclear detonation.

Their chief conclusion is that it probably was an anomaly,

It was basically a mistake made by the system.

It goes against the initial evidence compiled

By both american intelligence and defense in the area.

Narrator: Despite six months of investigation,

The results of the official investigation

Claim no atomic activity took place.

Lack of specifics in the presidential panel's explanation

Of a zoo event is suspect.

The zoo event is,

It was an event that was not associated

With an atmospheric nuclear blast,

But was something in the menagerie, if you will,

Of other cosmic types of events.

Vela satellites, because of their great sensitivity

To both x-rays and gamma rays,

Weren't just responsible for looking down.

If you had a gamma ray burst,

Which we now know are very common throughout the universe,

And they were actually impinging on the vela satellites

As early as about 1967.

So they were trying to attribute the vela detection

To be something of a more cosmological nature.

Narrator: Regardless of the panel's conclusions,

Experts who believe vela 6911 detected nuclear energy

Aren't exactly dissuaded by the evidence to the contrary.

You have some americans, including some fairly prominent

Scientists in the united states,

Who say, "well, let's be careful.

You've concluded that there's no evidence,

Going against the evidence that we first had,

And why?"

So they start to suspect

That there may be political motivation.

One of the likely culprits in the test is their ally israel.

And the fact that israel would knowingly, wantonly,

And without telling the americans

Conduct a very, very illegal atmospheric test

Is, of course, really disturbing.

Narrator: If the signs all point to a nuclear explosion,

What would motivate the u.S. Government investigation

To conclude otherwise?

What seasons would they have to cover up

Another country's possible nuclear test?

The fact that the vela satellite could not confirm categorically

That was an atmospheric blast, it sort of suggested,

Well, maybe we should be looking at other possibilities

Other than a nuclear test.

Dr. Kislenko: A lot of people at the time, they start to question

That official determination,

That over time, that question, right --

Whether or not it was a nuclear test --

Hasn't gone away.

Narrator: What corroborating evidence exists

That this was, in fact, a nuclear bomb?

Dr. Kislenko: So, carter's diaries, which were kept secret

For a very long period of time --

He himself in 2010 released his memoir.

And in his own handwriting,

He basically says that "more and more of my scientific community

Are privately convinced that it was an israeli nuclear test."

So despite the findings in 1980, inconclusive,

The conspiracy theory has gained momentum over time.

Narrator: Years later, in 1994,

Convicted soviet spy dieter gerhardt claims

The flashes were a joint weapons test

Between israel and south africa

Code named operation phoenix.

A soviet agent who actually had infiltrated

South african military command, he revealed

That this was indeed a nuclear test by the israelis

From a russian intelligence perspective.

Narrator: So, where does this nuclear mystery sit today?

Most conspiracy theories lose momentum over time.

They get debunked by experts, by documents, by details,

By all sorts of things.

The vela incident is almost reversed, that over time,

Especially the last couple of decades,

There seems to be more scientific and expert opinion

That this probably was indeed a rogue nuclear test.

Delaney: We weren't certain of the September '79 event

Being a nuclear blast,

But there was a pretty strong suspicion it was.

And when you look at all of the differing testimonies

Over the ensuing 40 years --

And lots of people have looked back at that incident --

I think the general consensus

Is that it probably was a nuclear blast.

Dr. Kislenko: There remains a possibility

That somewhere there was a corresponding piece of evidence

That we haven't yet seen, but for the most part,

It appears that it was an anomaly

In a very obvious sense, unique to vela.

We'll find out more as more and more documents come true,

But the weight is now shifting away

From denial and sort of "this is an accident"

Towards the plausibility of this actually being a nuclear test.

Narrator: With no smoking gun

To conclusively tie israel to the 1979 vela incident,

It remains a fascinating chapter in the cold war

Where space and geopolitical intrigue overlap.

November 2013 --

A boeing's s.O.S. Signal alerts the canadian military.

They immediately launch cormorant helicopters,

Divert aurora aircraft, and place another boeing on standby.

Air search and rescue scour the area

Of annapolis valley, nova scotia,

For the distressed plane.

A british airways boeing 777 takes off from halifax airport

Heading for atlanta.

Very shortly thereafter, the communications technology

With respect to aviation picks up a signal

That says this aircraft has crashed.

Probably an air traffic controller's worst nightmare

Is getting that piece of information

That something like a crash is happening.

Narrator: But when search and rescue arrive at the site,

They find nothing but green fields.

There is no aircraft.

Narrator: The canadian military responds to an s.O.S. Signal

From a british airways boeing 777 passenger plane

With hundreds on board.

Arama: Well, in a plane crash and search and rescue,

What's the procedures in terms of protocols

For communication devices?

You better have a backup to the backup to the backup.

If an s.O.S. Signal gets output by a plane,

Whether it be a mayday or an automated signal,

It's really, really important.

Dr. Adve: You should have communication

With a ground station, and this should include

Things like your latitude, your longitude

You know, where you are, your speed,

Heading, bearing -- those kinds of things.

Then we scramble a bunch of search-and-rescue aircraft --

Aurora aircraft, cormorant helicopters --

And start searching for this aircraft.

Narrator: But it's the emergency position radio beacons

That provide clues to where a downed plane can be located.

Sparling: Basically, an emergency beacon

Has been activated,

Suggesting that the aircraft has crashed.

Dr. Adve: The plane will transmit a fairly strong signal

So it can be seen by radar that is monitoring the airspace.

Sparling: It's probably just sending out,

"here's my plane identification number.

I'm in trouble." that's it.

It's not probably sending out a lot of other information.

We want it really simple, really precise.

"I have problems. Here's my signal.

You guys figure out where I am, come and save us."

Dr. Adve: Plane is assumed to be flying along a very specific direction.

And so if you get a beacon from that space,

You know things are okay.

There's probably multiple people receiving this signal

And they probably have to think about, each have different jobs

And how to deal with that signal.

It's not the person

Who's receiving the emergency signal's job

To question whether it's right or not.

They have to react.

Narrator: Rescue crews dispatch, anticipating the worst.

Their search comes up empty.

Commercial aircraft fly

On a very, very carefully designed trajectory

And any deviations from that are very quickly noted.

They keep an eye on it just to make sure

That you're staying along that corridor.

Arama: If we're looking at how search and rescue would search

And find a signal,

In two years, things have changed drastically.

The types of equipment they're using

Is 10 times better already.

Automatically, they can triangulate,

'cause almost every smartphone now

Has not only gps built-in, but some satellite capability.

And they can triangulate your latitude, longitude.

Narrator: In a twist of fate, the dispatched rescue teams

Learn the plane landed safely in atlanta, georgia.

Nonetheless, search and rescue got activated and actually

Started participating in an active search.

Dr. Adve: The plane can't just appear and it can't just vanish.

Sparling: We have hundreds and hundreds of lives at stake.

Once we determine the plane is safe,

I want to know where that signal came from.

I want to know how we got this emergency warning.

Narrator: Theories swirl

As to how the plane broadcast the false mayday signal.

So the first thing I would do as an investigator

Is kind of look at the chain of communications --

How it came to me, how it was reported.

Make sure that the way it was reported

Was not some human error, that somebody didn't say,

"oh, we got this signal -- it must be this,"

And hit a button and initiated this whole thing.

And then if the human element isn't involved,

Then start looking at the computers,

The electronic systems, the radio signals, et cetera,

To see if something spurious may have triggered all of that.

So it's not something that we'd expect to normally be activated.

It would take either an active effort on part of the pilots,

Who would be aware of its purpose

And what it would do,

Or some type of failure in the aircraft.

And that wasn't reported in this case either,

Which makes it, again, unusual

Because, again, that device is transmitting

In a really specific frequency range

And to have a false detection is pretty unusual.

It doesn't happen very often.

In north america, the search and rescue spend

Millions and millions of dollars every year

In training, upgrading equipment.

So whenever we're designing emergency communication systems,

We do not want spurious signals,

Because they complicate things should there be an emergency.

The fact that this does happen is really unusual

Because we've taken that into account

In the design of this component.

Narrator: With a possibility that the signal was not caused

By human or computer error,

Is someone maliciously impersonating

A distressed plane?

Narrator: The canadian military respond

To an s.O.S signal from a british passenger plane

With hundreds on board. Search and rescue scour

The area where the plane supposedly crashed,

Only to learn that even though

The s.O.S. Continues to transmit,

The plane has landed safely at its destination point.

Is someone hacking the plane's communication system

To send the false s.O.S.?

As a forensic engineer, we get to investigate

A lot of different things,

And sometimes we get to investigate situations

That may not have been the occurrence of random events,

But intentional acts.

Narrator: What can investigators tell from the equipment?

Was this an intentional cry wolf

Or simply a mechanical anomaly?

As a forensic engineer, one of the things we look at a lot

With respect to how things fail and break

Is does the fracture surface, the actual broken thing,

Tell us a story?

All telecommunications basically, you know,

If there's no hard wire, rely on radio signals.

And there's a huge range of frequencies

That radio signals can use.

But with respect to an emergency beacon on an aircraft,

It would send a radio signal on a very specific wavelength,

And that signal would be picked up

Either by ground-based equipment

Or possibly by geostationary satellites in space.

So, gps is basically triangulation.

It's a very, very sophisticated way

Of triangulating your position with respect to four satellites.

Sparling: So, the signal will get relayed to a satellite,

To a ground base station,

And then communicated to a network

That would pick up that signal and say,

"hey, we've had an incident.

Something's happened to this aircraft."

Dr. Adve: Any transmission is a radio signal.

You would try to find an s.O.S. Signal

By trying to find where you're getting the strongest reception.

Okay, let me move in this direction,

And is my signal getting stronger?

Yes, it's getting stronger. Good.

And then, you know, it's find it that way.

Sparling: It's such a localized single event.

So there's a lot that goes into those investigations,

And the sooner you can get experts there to investigate,

The better the data is going to be.

Narrator: The hunt for answers

Leads investigators to a small, unassuming

Grocery store in the annapolis valley.

Sparling: The information in this case was pretty slim,

But there's a suggestion that a cctv security camera system

Sent out a spurious signal.

Narrator: April huntley, a supervisor of the grocery store

At the time, may be able to shed some light on this situation.

I was at work one day and a couple government officials

Showed up at the store I was working at, avery's farm market,

And they told us that there had been a signal

Sent out from our store that matched an s.O.S. Signal

That a plane had crashed in the area.

They walked around the store with a bunch of equipment.

They had the antenna raised up

Trying to locate where the signal was coming from.

What likely happened is somebody went out with some

Radiofrequency detecting equipment

And triangulated a spurious signal to this cctv equipment

And determined that somehow it may have sent out

A spurious signal that triggered the emergency beacon.

Huntley: But the plane that was apparently sending out

The distress signal actually flew over our area,

But landed safely in the place it was supposed to land.

They located the source of the signal,

Which ended up being, I guess, our security system.

Sparling: That's a little bit unusual.

I mean, normally, a wireless camera system

Wouldn't emit frequencies in the right range

To interfere with the emergency beacon.

Normally, information sent by the cctv wouldn't match

With what the emergency beacon would be expected to send out.

Every electronic device that sends a radio signal

Sends it in a very specific frequency range.

If we didn't give each device very specific signal ranges,

They would interfere with each other.

You don't want somebody's cordless phone at home

On the same frequency as your cell phone.

Otherwise, all your signals are going to get jumbled

And you're not going to be able to hear anything.

About 10 years ago or more,

You weren't allowed to use a cellphone on a plane,

And that was because there was always a concern

That a cellphone may malfunction and interfere

With the radio communications equipment on the aircraft.

We're so concerned about guarding these frequencies,

We won't even allow devices into aircraft

That have a very remote possibility of interfering

With those signals.

Narrator: But turning the digital camera off

Doesn't stop the signal.

Normally, anything like that,

As long as you disconnect the power, unplug everything,

And it should cause the signal to go away.

I mean, there's nothing sending out a signal anymore.

Is it possible that there was a malfunction in the cctv camera

And the electrical wiring in the house

Acted as the antenna

That transmitted the system?

It's possible.

Normally, if you do get a crossed connection

To a building's wiring system,

It usually results in damage to that system.

So there's a possibility that something got crossed up

And a larger signal went out.

Narrator: But experts must be certain

That this is the result of unusual circumstances,

Or else lives may be at risk on a distressed flight.

Narrator: An s.O.S. Signal without a crashed plane...

They did realize that the aircraft

Eventually made it to atlanta safely.

...Gets traced back

To an unassuming convenience store's security cameras.

Huntley: There had been a signal sent out from our store

That matched an s.O.S. Signal

That a plane had crashed in the area.

Narrator: Could this s.O.S. Signal be the result

Of multiple remarkable coincidences?

Radio expert josh nass sets up an experiment

Using the same components as the store in nova scotia.

We decided that a decent experiment would be to source

A similar cctv system like the one in the grocery store,

Running one camera with "b" and "c" wire stretched around

As though it could possibly function as an antenna.

Now, this unit is not malfunctioning.

We don't see any spurious emissions.

It's possible, though, that the grocery store's cctv system

That April worked at

Could have had a malfunctioning power supply,

Which could have been putting out spurious emissions

While still functioning

In its primary role as a cctv television system.

If an item is malfunctioning,

It will not only display spurs in its normal operation,

But we'll see big surges when you turn off the unit

And turn the unit back on.

Looks like nothing is displayed.

Let's turn the unit back on and see what happens.

I don't see anything on the spectrum display.

It is possible that the cctv system at the grocery store

That April worked at was malfunctioning.

It could be putting out rfi, radio-frequency interference,

And it could be powerful enough

That sensitive listening devices for direction finding

Could have been mistakenly picking it up.

What could have also happened was someone nearby maybe

Would have maybe maliciously been putting out

An emergency beacon tone.

Narrator: Are the mechanisms behind these signals

So easily interchangeable?

There's no technological reason

Why you couldn't build a system like that.

These are all very well-defined systems.

Everybody uses them.

But an s.O.S. Signal has a very well-defined structure,

And it's essentially impossible to re-create that structure.

You can interfere with an s.O.S. Signal on a plane,

But it can't be confused for an s.O.S. Signal on a plane.

Sparling: Normally with a cctv camera system,

We have a very low power output. We're not putting out

A hugely intense radio signal, and normally, you know,

You'd want it to go 200, 300, 400 feet at most.

How it gets picked up is really unusual.

It just shouldn't have the range

To trigger another piece of equipment.

It should be very local signal, that cctv.

Yeah, it could inadvertently get boosted,

But it'd be a really, really unusual situation.

There'd have to be an internal failure,

And it'd have to be a very specific internal failure.

So, is it possible? Yes.

Is it likely? Probably not.

We've developed protocols in society as engineers

To stop this from happening.

Maybe the canadian government has that information,

But unfortunately, with what's been made publicly available,

We don't know what the outcome was.

Narrator: Although both technologies have been created

To ensure human safety,

They are interacting in ways we never anticipated.

Even today, this misread signal remains a mystery.

West of luxor, egypt,

Two massive colossi are all that remain

Of the tomb of one of egypt's most powerful pharaohs --

Amenhotep iii, whose reign ended over 3,000 years ago.

These monuments hold an ancient mystery.

Centuries ago, one of them sang.

Mckinnon: The story I heard about the singing colossi of memnon

Is that they were these beautiful carved statues

Which under just the right conditions

Would produce a harmonic noise,

That you could hear them sing to you.

I can't even imagine what that'd be like,

To go here and to hear this eerie singing sound.

Groves: It's an interesting story,

The singing colossi of memnon,

Because it only happened

For maybe 200, 250 years.

So it's a very brief period in egyptian history,

Which we know spans 5,000-plus years.

Narrator: What could these unknown sounds be?

Were they a blessing, an omen,

Or something else entirely?

It sounds like a story of the rocks actually talking.

You would think that there's something mystical,

Something godlike that's happening here.

Narrator: The colossi were unparalleled

In size and splendor --

Representations of the great pharaoh,

Each carved from a single block of quartzite stone.

The colossi originally were built to sit at the entrance

Of amenhotep iii's mortuary temple.

And the temple was massive.

It was the largest structure in egypt,

Even larger than the great pyramid of giza.

And they were upwards of 65 feet high, each one of them.

You can imagine being a person

Walking past these absolutely colossal statues of amenhotep

And representing him as the god on earth.

Narrator: The mystical sounds started

Over 1,000 years after the colossi were built,

At long after amenhotep iii's mortuary temple

Have been ravaged by floods and earthquakes.

It came from the colossi to the north.

But only at sunrise.

Groves: This is where the stories start coming out

That the statue would sing.

There was a sound that had emanated from within the statue.

The stories sort of dictate

That it could be a sound like a lyre string breaking.

Early morning, dawn, the sun coming up --

This was when this phenomena was said to occur.

Narrator: Amenhotep iii, like all the pharaohs of egypt,

Was considered divine in life and death.

During his reign,

He was associated with the sun deity, aton,

Who it was believed amenhotep merged with in death.

Because this otherworldly sound only happened to dawn,

Was this the once-mighty pharaoh,

Now a solar deity,

Returning to the ruins?

On some mornings, the singing didn't happen.

And so you were somewhat blessed by the gods

If you happened to go and heard the singing.

That means the gods were speaking to you.

Narrator: Word soon spread of the luck bestowed

On those fortunate enough

To have the statues sing to them.

Being the possibility that it's an oracle speaking

Or singing to them, going there with maybe their thoughts

And their wishes and their prayers,

And hoping that they might be able to put something forth.

In that time, there was no reasonable explanation.

It had to be the gods speaking.

Groves: And so the statue became a real hub

For tourists to flock to,

To see if they could receive a message.

Narrator: Seekers come from all parts of the ancient empire

To find blessing.

One of the challenges with this type of mystery

Is it happened a long time ago.

There are no recordings. It doesn't happen anymore.

So it's not like we can go there right now and hear them singing.

And what we really have today is those very few writings

By some greek, some roman,

Speaking of the phenomena of the time.

Narrator: The first written record comes from the geographer

And greek historian strabo in 20 b.C.

Inscriptions left at the base of the statue

Indicate whether the singing was heard or not.

90 are still legible today.

Certainly, strabo, he went and he recorded his time there.

Now, his story is a little bit uncertain

Because it says that the statue sings,

But we're not sure did he actually hear it sing.

He doesn't actually admit to himself hearing it,

But he says people he spoke to heard the sound.

But certainly, other people did go,

They did write about it.

Narrator: By the time strabo visits the oracle,

Egypt has become part of the greco-roman empire

And the memory of amenhotep iii is almost forgotten.

The colossi take on a new greek identity --

Memnon, one of the heroes of the trojan war

And the son of eos, goddess of the dawn.

What they did was they took their story of the battle

Between memnon, who was an ethiopian king,

Against achilles.

And achilles killed memnon,

And so his mother cried every morning at dawn.

When the greeks were there,

They took that story of memnon's death

And attached it to the statue.

Narrator: For the next 200 years, people come from all over

For a chance to be blessed by the oracle's song.

So, you just sort of think of it as much the same

As the vatican today.

Narrator: Among the seekers over the centuries

Are several roman emperors,

Including septimius severus in 199 a.D.

He had heard the greek stories

Of this amazing oracle statue, and he wanted to go

And he wanted to hear this voice.

Narrator: Septimius had successfully

Brought the roman empire peace and prosperity

After a long period of unrest.

To cement his legacy,

He wants the blessing of the great oracle.

Groves: And when he got there, he heard nothing.

And so now severus doesn't get his result,

And he decides his way to appease the gods

Was to rebuild the statue to its former beauty.

So he actually had builders come in,

And they cut blocks and they put them back up on top

To try and replicate the south statue.

Narrator: But septimius severus is not blessed

By the mystical singing.

In fact, the statue never sings again.

And after the statue was repaired,

It sort of destroyed the beauty of the phenomenon.

Narrator: What was meant as a gift to incur a blessing

Seemed to cause the spirit of the oracle to vanish forever.

Dr. Proctor: But because there are so many testimonials,

There has to be something happening.

So there's something there.

The question is, what's happening?

And that's what's fun about being a geoscientist.

You get to be the detective to figure out what's going on.

Narrator: Almost two millennia later,

Geoscience shines a light on this ancient phantom signal.

One of the key clues to this mystery

Is that the singing is only happening in the morning.

And so what does that tell us about the conditions

To enable this to happen?

Mckinnon: You can find just the right rock,

Just the right frequency, and move it just the right way.

It will make noise.

Narrator: For over 200 years,

The mammoth colossi of amenhotep iii

Produced mysterious, otherworldly singing

That is simultaneously attributed

To the long-dead pharaoh

And one of the heroes of the greek legend

Of the trojan war -- memnon.

You can sort of step back in time and imagine

That these colossal statues, these huge, beautiful statues

That already were an attraction unto themselves,

But now you have one that's singing.

♪♪

Narrator: The singing colossi take on a new life

As an oracle in the ancient world,

Fueled by the twin beliefs

That the voice is the spirit of a long-dead pharaoh

And the greek goddess of the dawn -- eos.

So, what's going on?

Narrator: Perhaps we could find clues

In the few written accounts that exist.

One of the key clues to this mystery

Is that the singing is only happening in the morning.

And so what does that tell us about the conditions

To enable this to happen?

Everything in this world has this perfect frequency

Where it will resonate.

If you're on a swing and you go back and forth.

You'll find a rhythm and you'll start going into

That reinforcing cycle.

Rocks are the same.

You can find just the right rock,

Just the right frequency, and move it just the right way.

It will make noise.

There may have been a frequency, a natural frequency

That the statues wanted to vibrate at,

And that frequency was probably excited by wind

Or some type of vibration that was picked up

And then converted into a frequency

Which was audible to people.

Groves: We know that the phenomenon of the voice itself

Or that sound emanating

Had to do with the earthquake

Because it didn't sing prior.

There was no record of it

When it was amenhotep's full statue

Of it never making a sound.

Narrator: The first written account came

From the greek historian strabo in 20 b.C.,

Just seven years after the destructive earthquake.

Is it actually possible

For a freak natural event like an earthquake

To turn this statue into a giant wind instrument?

Mckinnon: Once they cracked, it changed the shape

And it changed the acoustics.

Suddenly, we had an accidental geological instrument

Where the player was the wind.

Just like you can blow across a flute or a pipe

And get those perfect moments of a clear note

Coming through, the wind blowing just right

Through the crack could cause it to sing.

Dr. Proctor: Imagine this -- when you have a crack

That overnight, dew forms in that crack.

And then as the sun rises,

Not only does that statue heat up,

But the crack starts to heat up.

And then an interesting thing happens in the morning,

Is that because of the differential in temperatures,

Wind begins to blow.

And so you have just the right combination coming together

For the wind to come in through that moist crack

And whistle.

An example of this

Is when you lick your lips and whistle.

[ whistles ]

Just the right orientation,

Just the right amount of moisture,

Just the right conditions to have a singing statue.

Narrator: But then why did the singing just stop?

Mckinnon: The colossi of memnon no longer sing.

They've been repaired, so the crack isn't there anymore.

And maybe, somewhere along the way,

They got shifted on how exactly they were aligned.

Sparling: When you change the mass of an object,

You change the frequency which it vibrates at.

Narrator: Roman emperor septimius severus,

Looking for a blessing from the oracle,

Repaired the north statue

To bring it back to its former glory.

But in so doing, he silenced it.

And after the statue was repaired,

There's really no record.

Narrator: The song may have ended,

But as with so many strange signs,

The memory of its melody lives on

Through the historic witness records

Of what they heard.