Original subtitles

Narrator: They're watching you.

More than 4,000 satellites circle the earth.

Every day, they uncover new mysterious phenomena

that defy explanation.

The atomic tomb...

It looks like there's something hidden underneath.

Vaughn: This is one big gravestone.

Narrator: ...From the heavens, unleashing hell.

You could get killed, and your buddies could get killed.

Narrator: And did it come from outer space?

That's not just a symbol. That's a message.

Narrator: Baffling phenomena, mysteries from space,

what on earth are they?

-- captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by discovery communications

September 9, 2015 -- when an eye in the sky

passes over the rocky mountains of southwestern colorado,

it captures a large black-and-white shape

amid remote peaks.

It looks almost like one big parking lot

in the middle of nowhere with no structures around it,

no sign of settlement, no sign of human life.

It looks like a big capital letter "a" is imprinted

into the earth.

Narrator: Spectral analysis suggests the massive object

is made from rock or concrete.

It's built up a little bit, maybe like a mound.

Maybe we're looking at the top of something,

and there's something hidden underneath.

Narrator: Further investigation uncovers a puzzling detail.

Several tracks abruptly end

on approach to the mystery structure.

Maybe the roads aren't dead-ending at it,

but the roads are going into it, and it's an underground complex.

The u.S. Military certainly has those.

Narrator: Former intelligence officer trevor albertson

reveals that if this is a military facility,

it's not the only one hidden under the rockies.

Cheyenne mountain is built inside a mountain, literally.

It's about a 4-acre facility.

It's the holy grail

of u.S. Defense command and control.

This is where all air defense in the united states

and canada is coordinated from.

Narrator: The subterranean cheyenne mountain complex

becomes operational in February 1967,

tasked with identifying and tracking attacks on the u.S.

Today, the site houses several clandestine government agencies.

Potential hostile assaults are neutralized

by 25-ton blast doors

that can withstand a 30-megaton nuclear explosion.

Albertson: It's got its own lake for water.

The floors ride on giant springs in the case of a nuclear attack

to help deaden the impact of shaking.

It's quite an amazing facility.

It's possible that this is an underground military facility,

not unlike cheyenne mountain or, perhaps,

even an annex of cheyenne mountain.

vaughn: Satellite images are not going to solve this mystery,

so I'm driving there to see if I can find some clues.

Narrator: Scientist don vaughn has discovered

that the site doesn't appear on any official military records.

He wants to know why

and is heading to the rockies to investigate.

As he ventures deeper into the mountains,

he's struck by the area's suitability

for clandestine activity.

Vaughn: I am in the middle of nowhere.

It's completely uncharted.

All I'm seeing over here is some brush, trees, rocks.

narrator: Vaughn's gps sends him off-road towards the mystery site.

I don't know how I feel about turning off

onto a pretty much unnamed road in the middle of nowhere.

"danger. Keep out." I got to be honest.

My heart is beating a little faster.

It's just -- there's something unnerving about this place.

narrator: The condition of the road suggests

that whatever is up here, it's no longer in use.

There's a 200-foot drop and no guardrails,

and this road hasn't been maintained in decades.

this is it!

This is what I saw in the image.

narrator: The mystery structure is not what vaughn was expecting.

I thought it was concrete, but it's bunch of rocks.

Seems to be some kind of volcanic basalt rock.

Why would someone put tons of rocks in the middle of nowhere

and surround it with barbwire fence?

Narrator: The massive fenced-off mound of rocks

covers an area of 700,000 square feet

and appears to be several feet thick.

vaughn: Something has been buried here.

It's the only explanation for an industrial-scale rock field.

Why would anyone bury something here?

narrator: As vaughn explores the perimeter of the site,

he finds a shocking clue to what lies buried behind the barbwire.

is this a radioactive-waste dump?

Narrator: Records reveal that the last official major radioactive leak

in the u.S. Was almost two decades ago

and over 1,300 miles away in ohio,

yet whatever lies buried here is huge

and appears to have been covered up in recent years.

Vaughn: Why would you dump something here in the middle of colorado?

It doesn't make any sense.

Narrator: Even buried under this mound,

radioactive materials could pose a serious threat.

vaughn retreats.

Heading west, he finds a town...

And stops to question locals about the eerie site.

What vaughn hears seems incredible.

The site in the image is an entire town entombed in rock.

And she knows the history of this place?

She knows everything that --

he learns a former resident lives nearby...

Yeah, okay, okay.

Yeah, we could do that.

vaughn: This is just incredibly bizarre.

Maybe she'll be able to tell me,

why would an entire set of buildings disappear

and a huge concrete structure appear in their place?

narrator: Coming up, what lies beneath?

Vaughn: This is one big gravestone.

Narrator: And a message from the past rises from the earth.

The pattern that was found in this field was binary code.

narrator: High in colorado's rocky mountains,

a satellite image has lead scientist

don vaughn to a town buried

and barricaded with signs warning of radiation.

he's tracking down a former resident...

I think this is it.

...Who he hopes can shed some light on the mystery.

-Well, hey there! -Hi! How are you?

-I'm good! You must be marie. -I am.

Marie templeton reveals that the town buried

under the rubble is called uravan.

She and her family moved there around 70 years ago,

lured by the promise of work in the local mine.

My husband was a miner, and my father was a miner,

and you get mining in the blood, and it just doesn't go away.

The miners extract a mineral from the rockies

called carnotite,

but after several years working with the ore,

marie's father falls sick.

He had cancer.

They did a bunch of tests

and said there wasn't nothing they could do for him, you know?

"go home. Get ready to die."

marie's loss provides the first clue

to the fate of the buried town in the image.

The carnotite ore contains radium,

a radioactive element that glows in the dark,

but the first miners at uravan are unaware

that they're effectively digging their own graves.

When my family was mining, you bought a jackhammer,

some dynamite and some fuse.

You got a lease from somebody and went and mined.

Lester: It wasn't understood that radium

could be damaging to your health.

It wasn't recognized as a cancer producer in the early 1900s.

It was simply a magical element.

Narrator: People used the lethal radium produced

from the uravan ores in toothpaste,

drinking water, jewelry, and other everyday products.

They put this stuff on the numbers in the clocks.

Mm-hmm.

And the clocks glowed in the dark.

Yet vaughn learned that it's the discovery

of another mineral in the carnotite

that leads to uravan being buried under this mound.

During world war ii, scientists find uranium oxide,

known as yellowcake, in the ore,

and the us military takes control of the mine.

They produced yellowcake that was then ultimately refined down

to become weapons-grade fissile material.

Narrator: Uravan becomes a feeder mine

to the manhattan project, the top-secret program

to develop nuclear bombs during the war.

The uranium dug out by marie's father

helps create some of the first atomic weapons.

Do you think your dad and husband

knew what the uranium was being used for?

I don't think any of them.

They just knew it was very, very important

to the war effort.

Morgan: The word uranium was banned from the official reports,

and so the people working at uravan were unaware

that that's what they were doing.

Narrator: On August 6 and 9, 1945,

american planes dropped two nuclear bombs

over hiroshima and nagasaki,

killing 110,000 people and ushering the war to a close,

yet the japanese aren't the only victims of uranium

from the buried town.

My dad was the first one that they absolutely pinned

that to uranium mining.

I was losing my beloved dad when he wasn't really even old,

you know?

Hundreds of uravan miners subsequently developed cancer.

Despite this, many choose to continue working day in,

day out with the radioactive rock.

So everyone knew that uranium could cause health problems?

Yeah.

Well, and, you know, everybody knows you might get

run over by a tractor, but people don't stop farming.

The women the dying miners leave behind

are known as the uravan widows,

yet marie isn't convinced the uranium posed a threat

to the rest of the townsfolk.

My husband had some real high-grade samples of uranium

that were in our living room for 40 years.

Your husband had uranium samples in the house?

Yeah, and I'm 89 years old!

Vaughn learns that what sounds the death knell for the town

isn't the sky-high cancer rates

but an accident 1,700 miles away.

In 1979, a leak at three mile island nuclear power plant

in pennsylvania exposes 2 million americans

to radiation.

Marie reveals that in the aftermath,

the government turns its attention to uravan.

Officials decide not only to shut down the mine

but also raze the entire town to the ground.

They called us up one night and said,

"if you want to see your buildings burn,

be down here at 8:00 in the morning."

that was very emotional, very emotional.

Marie templeton's incinerated hometown is encased in concrete

and covered with thousands of tons of rock

visible from space.

They didn't have to take all those houses out

and destroy them.

I'm still mad about it.

today, while nagasaki and hiroshima have been rebuilt,

has been erased from history.

Vaughn: I would be devastated if my entire childhood

were buried under thousands of tons of concrete and rocks.

This is one big gravestone.

It's like uravan never existed.

narrator: Coming up -- et answers the phone.

Major: If this is a reply from an alien civilization

that received our message,

this is probably the biggest news, ever.

Narrator: And pimp my ride to jail.

Kourounis: Because they are so many super and hypercars,

you need a police force that can catch the speeders.

Narrator: April 26, 2008 --

aerial images taken over the county

of hampshire, southern England,

reveal an unusual pattern in the landscape.

I see a crazy shape in the middle of the field.

It looks like an infinity symbol.

Kourounis: From the ground, you wouldn't be able to tell

that these markings are there.

It makes me think, perhaps,

these were intentionally put there to be seen from above.

Narrator: Local news reports reveal this isn't the first time

something weird has appeared here.

During the night of August 19, 2001,

this pattern materializes in the same field.

Kourounis: The pattern that was found in this field was binary code.

That's not just a symbol or a pattern.

That's a message.

Narrator: Space journalist jason major recognizes

the message.

In 1974, the arecibo observatory in puerto rico beams

an almost exact copy of it into space.

The arecibo message was designed

by astronomers frank drake and carl sagan.

Their attempt was to send a message to a star system

that potentially could have inhabitants.

Narrator: The arecibo encoded radio message contains

a detailed explanation of life on our planet,

the human race, our dna and directions to earth.

Major: It's kind of like a message in a bottle.

Write the note.

You stick it in there, put the cork in and throw it out.

Narrator: 27 years after astronomers

beamed the message into deep space,

an apparent copy appears in this field,

but it has one crucial difference.

In our outgoing message, it said that we were made of carbon.

The reply was identical, except it said that,

"we are made of silicon."

major: The identification of silicon is significant

because we're always talking about life as we know it,

which is carbon-based life,

but there potentially could be other life in the universe

that's based off of other elements like silica.

Narrator: Many suspect the so-called message is a hoax,

yet the appearance of a second weird shape in the same field

may be more than a coincidence.

Could this new pattern in the field

be some other coded message?

Narrator: When amanda marchetti turns to digitalglobe's

securewatch technology, she discovers the strange symbol

has not come from the heavens but from underground.

Marchetti: As I look at this image using our infrared bands,

I can actually see how the plants forming

the infinity symbol are being influenced

by something beneath the earth's surface.

Morgan: These things look like they're here on purpose

and may be the vestiges

of some structures that were buried over.

Narrator: British land registry records offer a clue.

This wasn't always open farming fields.

During the second world war,

this was a functional aerodrome--

raf chilbolton.

Narrator: The records confirm the royal air force's facility

in chilbolton becomes operational in 1940.

It's a date that corresponds with one of the most important

battles of world war ii -- the battle of britain.

The battle of britain is so critical to understanding

the way that the second world war develops.

Adolf hitler set his sights on an invasion of England.

The first stage in the german attempt to invade britain

was for the german air force, luftwaffe,

to knock out the british air force.

Narrator: On July 10, 1940,

british fighters engaged 70 nazi planes

attacking a ship convoy in the english channel.

The first battle in history

fought exclusively in the air commences.

Anchorman: Very impressive and threatening, their look in the air,

bombing a ship, but when you see them like this,

they're not quite as formidable.

What then begins in 1940 and continues all the way

into may 1941 is this day-by-day at first

and then night-by-night after that air battle.

narrator: The luftwaffe have more experienced pilots

and four times as many planes.

For the british to succeed, they must quickly target

and intercept the waves of german aircraft.

experts think the mystery pattern is one of the tactics

the british developed to avoid defeat.

Janulis: What these figure eights represent

are a special type of runway.

Narrator: The so-called spectacle loop

allows multiple hurricane and spitfire fighter planes

to simultaneously prepare to engage the enemy.

These figure eights allowed the airplanes

preparing to take off to change direction

and get into different lanes for takeoff

and landing without being in the way of other aircraft.

Narrator: With help from the spectacle loop design,

it takes the fighters just 6 minutes to take off,

climb to 15,000 feet and engage incoming nazi planes.

Janulis: The key was efficiency.

Get as many planes up as quickly as you can because any plane

that's on the ground is potentially a dead plane.

narrator: After 112 days and nights of intense fighting,

the british prevail, yet victory comes at a huge cost.

More than 500 pilots from air bases

such as chilbolton never return home.

Pilots who flew from this airfield

contributed to that victory,

making it possible, creating the circumstance

whereby the luftwaffe ultimately abdicates

and surrenders the skies to the raf.

Narrator: In 1961, chilbolton is officially shut down,

but the shadow of its pivotal role

in the greatest air battle in history

remains visible from the skies.

coming up, is this the world's weirdest racetrack?

There are millions of dollars being spent on the racetracks

and the races themselves.

Narrator: And aerial armageddon in the desert maze.

You're disoriented. You can't see out of it.

You can get killed.

Narrator: July 28, 2016 -- a satellite passing

over the united arab emirates in the middle east spots

a distinctive pattern.

It's two perfectly symmetrical teardrop shapes,

one inside the other in the middle of the desert.

Narrator: Scale analysis reveals these oval etchings cover

about a square mile.

Kourounis: This thing is massive!

Clearly made intentionally by man, but why?

Narrator: Closer study of the features reveals a detail on the surface.

When I analyze this image a bit more closely,

I'm immediately drawn to these arrows.

It's strange because for every teardrop,

they're all pointing the same direction,

which makes me think this is a racetrack,

but who's racing around here and why?

Narrator: A look at the roads in these parts offers a clue.

Thinks to the uae's 90,000 millionaires,

this small country is supercar central.

One of the ways that the super-rich in the uae love

to spend their money is on cars.

We are talking some of the most ridiculous supercars imaginable.

Ferraris, lamborghinis,

aston martin, bugattis, gold-plated porsches.

Narrator: Yet any fast-and-furious drivers

on the streets of the capital, dubai, are in for a surprise.

The cops have a 1,000-horsepower trick up their sleeves --

super cop cars.

The police force have aston martins,

bugattis and bentleys of their own.

Narrator: The uae's pimped-up police cars have pushed entrepreneurs

to open up private raceways across the country.

Could this be a track for some of the most

extravagant cars on earth?

Yet others think this racetrack is more

"driving miss daisy" than "days of thunder."

sanford: The straightaway on this teardrop

isn't long enough for a supercar to get up to top speed.

It just wouldn't be worth it.

Narrator: Analysts consider if this cluster of buildings

is significant.

Schuttler: If you look at the bottom right of the image,

you see a building, and it's very reminiscent of,

like, holding facilities for animals.

Narrator: The structures appear to open

onto a section of earth between the tarmac strips.

I think I'm actually looking at the wrong thing.

The lines that make up the teardrop

may not be what I should be cueing into.

It looks like there's something being released onto the dirt

in between the two teardrops.

Narrator: Horse racing is big business here.

The dubai world cup carries a purse of $10 million,

yet the track in the image is three times longer

than those usually used in horse racing,

suggesting it's for animals with a little more grit

but a little less grace.

Camel racing has been big here for a very long time.

Maybe that's what happens at this track.

Narrator: Although as old as history, camel racing has exploded

in popularity here in the last few decades.

tens of thousands flocks to the uae's 15 racetracks

to watch these ungainly creatures

reaches speeds of 40 miles per hour.

camel racing in the uae is like horse racing

here in the united states.

You can compare it to something like the kentucky derby.

There are millions of dollars being spent on the racetracks,

the animals and the races themselves.

Narrator: But behind the riches, camel racing has a dark history.

Schuttler: To keep the weight on the camel light,

you're going to need a really light human,

so children were actually used as jockeys,

and sometimes, these children

were even stolen from other countries

and used against their will in camel racing.

Narrator: Observers estimate the uae traffickers

smuggled thousands of child jockeys from asia,

some as young as 5.

Sanford: They didn't take care of these kids.

They would give them the minimal amount of food that they needed.

They wouldn't give them any medical support if they fell

and broke their arms.

Narrator: In 2002, a law banning the use of child jockeys

forces racing-camel owners to get inventive.

The alternative to child jockeys for camel racing,

believe it or not, is actually robots.

They look like regular jockeys. They're wearing silk jerseys.

They've got their colors.

Narrator: Locals fashion these robo-jockeys from drill motors.

Owners remotely brandish whips from the comfort of their cars

as they follow the camels around the track

on the teardrop pattern in the image.

Sanford: You have fleets of suvs that are chasing the camels

with people inside with remote controls flicking switches

to make those robots hit the camels' bumps.

Narrator: There are more than 160 words in arabic for camel,

but only one for giddyup.

coming up -- when war games get real...

It's very dangerous, but it's a key to survival in combat.

Narrator: ...And a country on fire.

If these fires can be seen from space,

they must be blazing infernos.

July 21, 2013 --

eyes in the sky over nevada capture

a striking image.

It's barren. There's nothing going on there.

And then suddenly in the center of it,

you've got these rectangular blocks.

Major: This looks like three lines of code.

They're oddly symmetrical.

Narrator: The mystery feature covers 900,000 square feet of desert.

A search of the wider area yields a clue.

This structure is located only 60 miles

from tesla's new giant gigactory.

This strange symbol in the desert

doesn't look dissimilar from one of tesla's projects,

the hornsdale power reserve in australia.

Narrator: South australia's hornsdale power reserve,

a 100-megawatt power plant,

consists of dozens of storage units,

each containing thousands of lithium-ion battery cells.

It's the brainchild of billionaire elon musk.

It's actually the world's largest battery.

Nelson: Elon musk is pioneering technology

and is basically taking science to the next level

and making it economically viable for people

to utilize this cool tech.

Narrator: Designed to tackle the region's

frequent life-threatening power shortages,

it can fire up and power 30,000 homes

with 1/2 a second's notice.

What's more, the $50 million facility

is the result of an audacious bet.

Talk about putting your money where your mouth is.

Elon musk boasted on twitter that if he could not build

this battery facility in australia in 100 days,

it would be free,

and he pulled it off.

Narrator: Yet further image analysis suggests the desert feature

might not be a musk mega-battery 2.0.

Looking at the satellite image, we can see the structures,

but when I pull back the satellite image

to see the map, there's nothing here.

It's just plain white desert.

Whoever built these structures is trying to hide it.

This is not a tesla construction because elon musk probably would

have put this in the news by now

because he's constantly all over pr.

Narrator: Military analysts think this extreme remoteness

provides a clue.

The military has a long history of using very isolated areas

in the southwest part of the united states

to conduct secret tests,

classified programs, things of that nature.

Narrator: Carlo munoz thinks he recognizes

the regular structures.

Munoz: I suspect that this structure was made out of ship crates.

The us military uses ship crates to do training facilities

all the time because they're highly mobile.

You can just use a simple crane to move them around.

Narrator: The military uses shipping containers as portable barracks,

offices and for storage, but munoz reveals they also make

for the perfect diy metropolis for urban war games.

Munoz: Fighting in the city is a lot different

than fighting on a open plain or anywhere else.

You have to be able to develop certain skills

to move around these areas and be able to survive.

Now, the way to learn these things

are at facilities like this.

Narrator: Like "sim city" for gun nuts,

military brass arranges the containers

to replicate urban training environments around the world,

from a fake fallujah to a counterfeit kabul.

Munoz: You can basically make them look like

whatever you want them to look like.

It could be anything from a mosque to a market

to an actual downtown area.

Narrator: This is the nevada test and training range,

but grunts call it gotham city,

and you'd have to be bat-crazy to live here.

On any given day, f-15s, a-10 warthogs,

and apache helicopters

unleash an aerial apocalypse during live-action exercises.

Albertson: And it's all done in very tight quarters.

It's very dangerous, but it's a key to survival in combat.

Narrator: On the ground, troops rehearse rescue missions,

ambushes and assaults in preparation for the real thing.

Albertson: You're disoriented. You can't see out of it.

It's like a maze.

People could be firing down on you,

from around corners as well, out of windows and buildings.

It's a really confusing kind of situation you're going to be in,

and it teaches you to keep your eyes open all of the time.

Narrator: At night, the nevada skies light up

with tracer rounds traveling at 3,000 feet per second,

turning the containers into colanders

and the local wildlife into insomniacs.

In many ways, you learn on facilities like this

like you would in a video game.

But you could get killed,

and your buddies could get killed.

It's very real, and you learn that out in these facilities

because being out in the real world is no video game.

narrator: Coming up -- the unstoppable infernos.

They could destroy everything in their path.

Narrator: July 12, 2017 --

satellites use visible and infrared technology

to map fires blazing across the globe.

As they pass over northern ireland,

they capture this image.

Nelson: This image is alarming

because it indicates an entire country on fire.

Kourounis: If these can be spotted from space,

we're not talking little campfires here.

These are significant blazes and lots of them.

Narrator: 75% of northern ireland

is dedicated to farming.

Analysts consider if this offers a clue.

Nelson: Swailing is a term used to describe the farming technique,

where you basically burn off all the dead,

dying organic material, and that promotes new growth.

It clears the land, creates a type of fertilizer for the soil,

and even thougit's not the most sustainable type

of farming, it does work.

Narrator: In northern ireland,

much of this wild-weed layer is gorse,

a spiny shrub with bright yellow flowers,

traditionally used to color and flavor whiskey.

The wood's high oil content

burns at 2,000 degrees fahrenheit,

the same temperature as charcoal.

While swailing can have a lot of benefits,

it can also be kind of dangerous.

Kourounis: Gorse fires in northern ireland

can be like the forest fires that you see in california.

Under the right conditions,

they can destroy everything in their path.

Narrator: According to news reports,

in the first half of 2017,

firefighters put out almost 2,000 gorse fires.

80% are started deliberately.

So maybe what we're seeing here are swailing fires

that have gotten out of control.

Narrator: Yet when analysts study the precise location of the fires,

the mystery deepens.

These are concentrated primarily in highly populated areas

like belfast, probably not a wildfire.

Narrator: Historian guy walters takes a closer look.

What's quite striking about this image

is that you see these fires only burning in northern ireland

but not in the republic of ireland.

Narrator: Walters thinks the date of the fires

is significant.

July the 12th is a big day for the protestant community

in northern ireland.

It's the date in 1690 when king william of orange,

a protestant, beats king james ii, a catholic.

Narrator: In 1690, the armies of protestant william of orange

and catholic king james ii square off

on opposite sides of the river boyne near dublin.

It will be the last time the kings of England and ireland

face each other on the battlefield.

Walters: Now, they have this enormous battle, which william wins.

This battle causes problems in ireland for centuries.

The majority of the population are catholic,

yet they're ruled by protestants.

Narrator: William of orange takes

immediate advantage of his victory,

turning ireland into a revenue-generating machine.

Horton: The majority catholic population came to be dominated

by a protestant governing class living in grand houses

with great estate walls around them,

exploiting and taxing and creating massive rents

out of the poor irish.

Narrator: In 1916, following centuries of exploitation,

ireland's catholic population rebels.

450 people die, and 2,000 are injured in a week

of fighting known as the easter rising.

In 1922, ireland declares itself a free state.

Horton: However, there remained a problem

because up in the northeast of ireland,

the area known as ulster,

the population was largely protestant

and were very unwilling to join

what would be the largely catholic island of ireland.

Narrator: Ireland's six northern counties,

where the fires were captured by satellite,

opt out of the free state,

choosing to remain in the united kingdom.

You might think that splitting a country

like that would be a quick fix, but it really isn't.

You've still got catholics living in the protestant north,

and protestants living in the catholic south.

Narrator: Investigators discover that northern irish protestants

commemorate the battle of the boyne by parading

and lighting hundreds of massive beacon fires.

Horton: So what you see on that satellite imagery

is not just that event on the 12th of July

but also a map of where the protestant populations

are located in ireland.

Walters: Clearly, these marches are inflammatory.

It's protestants celebrating their victory over catholics.

It's basically a big "up yours" to your next-door neighbor.

Narrator: Reports from 2018 show violent clashes

across northern ireland during the commemoration.

In belfast, masked men torch hijacked cars,

and a pipe bomb destroys a bus.

It's not just bonfires that are burning that night.

The streets are in flames.

This is evidence from space that the troubles

and the divisions in northern ireland

are still very much there.