All language subtitles for Weird or What S01E06 1080p AMZN WEB-DL DD+2 0 x264-Absinth_track3_[eng]

(mysterious music)

- You know I've been around for a while.

Met some interesting people.

Done some crazy things.

So you just might think that there's

not much that can take me by surprise.

You'd be wrong.

The world is full of stories, science and

things that amaze and
confound me every single day.

Incredible mysteries that
keep me awake at night.

Some I can answer; others just defy logic.

Are we living on a hostile planet?

In Newfoundland, a small
community is devastated

by a mysterious explosion.

(explosion)

- It really looked like
a bomb had gone off.

- [William] Was it a secret weapon

or a freak of nature?

On Lake Michigan, a yacht
vanishes into thin air.

- This is the most extraordinary thing

I have ever, ever witnessed.

- [William] Was it
swallowed by an evil fog?

And in the Indian Ocean,
two giant flashes of light

send a nation into panic.

- Everybody knew for
sure this was something

to be very concerned about.

Ah! (sighs)

It's a weird world, and I love it.

(intense symphonic music)

Listen. (birds chirping)

Nature, isn't it wonderful?

You know, Mother Earth, she's all we have.

Over six billion of us occupy possibly

the only planet in the
universe that sustains life,

but yet we take everything from her,

and give very little back.

Is she getting mad at us?

Are killer tsunamis, quakes and tornadoes

the Earth's way of
saying enough is enough?

Maybe, but there's something
else going on with our planet.

Freaks of nature that
are impossible to explain

and can strike you out of the blue.

(bird poop splats)

Sunday, April 2, 1978.

12-year-old Darin Bickford
was making his way home

on Bell Island, a small
community in Newfoundland,

on the East coast of Canada.

- I was outside riding my pedal bike,

and I knew one of my favorite shows

came on television at 11,
so I was pedaling back home.

- [William] But Darin wouldn't
get to watch TV that morning.

Instead, he would witness
one of the world's

greatest unsolved mysteries.

- As I approached the end of our driveway,

all the birds stopped chirping,

all the dogs stopped barking,

it just went so still.

And then it was boom,
(explosion) like a shotgun blast

followed immediately by
another boom (explosion),

and then followed immediately
after the second boom,

the ground shook underneath me.

It was the biggest noise I
have ever heard in my life.

- [William] Suddenly,
something unbelievable appears

right in front of Darin,
a glowing ball of light.

- It was hovering off the ground when it

appeared out of thin air,
and the beautiful colors

of blue made up most of
the center of the ball,

and outside the blue it
was orange and yellow

mixing together, and then just like that,

the ball of light just
disappeared into thin air.

This is without a doubt the strangest,

most terrifying thing I've ever seen,

but I was terrified, but
I was transfixed by it.

It was so beautiful
looking, this ball of light

and the colors and the
way it swirled around,

you couldn't help but stare at it

even though I was scared, I was shaken,

but I loved it, and I've
never seen anything like it,

and I guess I will probably
never see nothing like it

again in my life.

It was all over in four or five seconds,

but those four or five seconds
are burnt into my brain

just like a roll of film.

- [William] The massive
explosion was heard

over 60 kilometers away.

Its impact wreaked havoc.

People reported exploding TV
sets, blue flames shooting

from electrical outlets,
and a strange beam of light

coming from the sky.

This bizarre event was
dubbed the Bell Island Boom.

- After this happened,
everyone was in bewilderment.

- [William] One house seemed
to catch the brunt of the boom.

It belonged to Darin's
grandfather, James Bickford.

- Fuses in his fuse panel were glass fuses

that were screwed into the panel.

These had come out like bullets,

and went about 20 odd feet,
the length of their hallway,

and buried theirselves in the wall.

- [William] Grandpa's
chicken coop is demolished.

The chickens inside killed instantly.

- It really looked like a
bomb had gone off in his shed.

- [William] It's a bizarre scene,

but even more baffling
are three large holes

blown into the ground.

- There was a cone-shaped hole

going three or four feet down.

We didn't know what it was.

- [William] This weird
and mysterious incident

soon generates massive
interest around the world.

- A lot of people came, the media came.

The television news crew had me

describe to them what I had seen.

- Myself I thought was
something happened to the world

or someone dropping bombs or something.

- Now this is really weird or what.

Little kid is riding his bike,

minding his own business, when boom!

His town is suddenly smashed by some

mysterious explosion, turning fuses

into lethal weapons,
exploding TV, and what about

those poor chickens, awful.

What could have caused
something like that?

(electricity zaps)

Was that me?

Jim Farrell was a local fire investigator

and one of the first to the scene.

After being asked to
investigate, he sends his report

to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The RCMP officially concludes
that it was lightning.

(thunder booms)

Farrell begs to differ.

I said I don't believe it's lightning.

I've never encountered anything
so great as this force.

- [William] But Jim isn't the
only one who wants answers.

Soon Darin gets a surprise visit.

- There were these strange men.

I was told they were scientists
from Los Alamos, New Mexico.

- [William] The Los
Alamos National Laboratory

built and tested the first atomic bombs.

(atomic bomb explodes)
Could there be a connection?

The men interview everyone involved,

including Darin and Jim.

- I told them everything I knew,

and next thing I was more or less ordered

to turn over my exhibits to the gentlemen.

- 33 years later, and I would
still like to know to this day

what was the ball of light that I saw?

If it was lightning,

how did it remain stationary
and motionless in the air?

How did it appear out of thin air?

And then disappear into thin air?

Those things aren't supposed to happen,

but they do happen.

I saw it happen.

- [William] The three
strangers leave without giving

any concrete answers.

What were they looking for?

What did Darin Bickford and the

residents of Bell Island witness?

And what could have created
the Bell Island Boom?

Science journalist Brian
Dunning believes the answer

isn't so earth-shattering after all.

- There's actually about 600 booms between

starting in late 1977
going through mid-1978.

Nobody could really localize
exactly what was happening,

but it was heard from South Carolina

all the way up through Canada.

- [William] Could the Bell Island Boom

be part of a bigger phenomenon?

What could be responsible for
this rash of strange booms?

- As so often happens
when you have a mystery,

all kinds of people started coming up

with crazy explanations
for what these might be.

And the most common one was

people thought it was some
kind of a military test

of a new super weapon, something like

maybe that Nikola Tesla
might have envisioned.

Tesla, when he was in his later years

and was getting kind of
crazy, he was coming up

with all kinds of proposals for ideas.

He never built them or anything,

but one of his ideas was a
giant atmospheric super weapon

that would move a large
chunk of the atmosphere

over a city and destroy it,
and some people were saying

that this might be a test, an actual test,

maybe someone actually built this weapon

and were trying it out.

We don't know any super
weapons that are consistent

with what happened at Bell Island.

It's purely conjecture,
it's purely just hypotheses

that you make up.

There's no evidence supporting that.

Maybe it is the explanation, but we don't

have any reason to think so.

What started happening in December of 1977

is that the Concorde was flying over.

It was making its supersonic flights

between New York and
Europe, and that created

sonic booms coming over the land.

- [William] When planes
fly through the air,

they make waves just
like a boat on the water.

The faster you fly, the
closer the waves build up

at the tip of the airplane.

And when a plane actually goes faster

than the soundwaves can move, they pile up

into one big sonic
shockwave that can cause

damage to the areas on land below it.

Could the Bell Island Boom
just have been the effect of a

sonic boom from the world's
first supersonic passenger jet?

- Because it was a sonic aircraft
and made a big sonic boom,

it was supposed to go way out to sea.

However, on hot days, because
of fuel expansion issues,

it would have to take a shortcut route,

and it would go over Nova Scotia.

For all the 600 mystery
booms that we heard,

most of them were
correlated with sonic booms

from the Concorde and other aircraft.

- [William] Could the
world's fastest passenger jet

have caused the tumult on Bell Island?

Or was it something far more deadly?

- It may be something that
science doesn't know about yet.

- [William] A small
Newfoundland community is thrown

into chaos by an earth-shattering
boom. (explosion)

Was it caused by a supersonic airliner?

Karl Stephan is a
professor of engineering.

His theory is very electric.

- What I've read of the Bell Island Boom

sounds consistent with
a super lightning bolt.

- [William] Super lightning
bolts are extremely rare

but freakishly powerful
bolts of lightning.

- Most lightning has a negative charge.

However, about 10% or
less of lightning bolts

are positively charged.

Positive lightning also
tends to travel farther.

It can go several miles from
cloud to cloud, for example.

So the eyewitness reports
of the Bell Island Boom

that said the sound was
heard for many miles around,

that's consistent with a
long, positive lightning bolt

that was going through several clouds

and several miles distance
before it hit the ground

and did all that damage.

The current is about 10 times what your

typical lightning bolt
would have, so it would make

a much louder boom.

- [William] Super bolts
almost always occur

in the upper atmosphere over oceans.

Very rarely do they hit land.

But do they explain the weird things

seen that day on Bell Island,

like glass fuses acting like bullets?

- Strange things happen
when very large currents

flow through wires that
aren't designed to carry them.

Tremendous forces are
set up, magnetic forces

that can cause (mumbles)
objects to fly like projectiles.

- [William] Ok, but what
about the poor chickens

that were roasted in their coop?

- Chickens are susceptible
of being electrocuted.

What can happen with any kind of animal

that are in a place where
lightning hits the ground

is the current running along the ground

can actually run up through the legs

and through the body and kill the animal.

- [William] Stephan's super
bolt theory seems to help

answer some of the mysterious
incidents on Bell Island.

But does it explain the
weird glowing ball of light

witnessed by Darin Bickford?

Stephan believes the answer
lies in an incredibly rare

natural phenomenon.

- The ball of light
hovering sounds a whole lot

like ball lightning.

Ball lightning is sometimes seen to form

right after a lightning strike.

And it either disappears
silently, or it can explode.

(explosion)

We suspect that it is an
electrical phenomenon.

It may be something that
science doesn't know about yet.

- [William] Did lightning
make fuses explode

and act like bullets?

Did it roast those chickens?

Questions persist.

If scientists don't even
know what ball lightning is,

how can they think that
that's what Darin saw?

(thunder booms) If it was a super bolt,

why did high-level personnel
from a top secret lab

show up to investigate?

And finally, what caused the three craters

at James Bickford's place?

Lee Tizzard is an electromagnetic
weapons researcher.

He thinks Mother Nature shouldn't
take the rap for this one.

- I believe the evidence indicates that

it was caused by something man made,

and not something by nature.

It was an accident. (explosion)

- [William] But what could
cause an accident on this scale?

What kind of accident
blows holes in islands?

- During that time frame the Russians

were pounding North America
with a very powerful

and disruptive signal called
the Woodpecker signal.

- [William] The Woodpecker
signal was a radio signal

used by the Soviets in the 1970s

to provide early warning
of an enemy weapons launch.

By bouncing radio waves off
the Earth's upper atmosphere,

the ionosphere, they could
analyze the returning waves

for disruptions, indicating
a missile attack.

- It was a 10 Hertz signal,
10 vibrations per second,

and it sounded like this
(makes vibrating signal sound).

It was just extremely powerful.

It was so disruptive that the UN and

a number of countries
banded together with the UN

and protested to the Soviet
Union when they found out

that it was originating from
Gomel in the Soviet Union,

and they protested and
demanded it be stopped,

but it really didn't stop for a long time.

I think it stopped in like
the mid-80s, but it went on

for at least 10 years, the
mid-70s to the mid-80s.

- [William] According to
Tizzard, the Woodpecker signal

was a ticking time bomb.

He believes its use accidentally created

a column of electromagnetic
energy known as a

standing columnar wave over North America.

Despite being invisible to the eye,

this huge energy field had the
potential to be disastrous.

- I believe that the
standing columnar wave

that was established, collapsed.

And when a standing
columnar wave collapses,

it creates these vortices
of electromagnetic energy

that have to dissipate.

It sent down three spinning vortices

of electromagnetic energy,
and that's what we believe

struck, explaining the three holes.

- [William] Did a Russian radio signal

create an electromagnetic
column over North America

which accidentally collapsed?

If so, why did it happen
on a remote island

off the coast of Canada?

And does it explain the
glowing ball of light?

- It's believed that the
standing columnar wave

that was created by the Woodpecker signal

was attracted to Bell Island because of

the iron ore content.

It was a former iron ore mine.

- [William] Did the iron-rich Bell Island

act as a giant magnet for a massive burst

of electromagnetic energy
caused by the Soviets?

Or was it struck by a super bolt

with a side dish of ball lightning?

Whatever the truth, Darin
Bickford and the other survivors

of the Bell Island Boom may never know.

Weird or what?

(fire crackling)

A mysterious deadly fog
haunts Lake Michigan,

swallowing ships and
planes and bending time.

Is this a true freak of nature?

Is it weird or what?

- [Voiceover] In three meters, turn right.

- You know, modern technology is amazing.

- [Voiceover] Turn right.

- I mean, with nothing
but this tiny gadget

I can navigate to within an inch

of wherever I want to go, look!

- [Voiceover] Prepare to turn left.

(William laughing)

Turn left, go straight ahead.

- It even talks to you!

What a nice lady, and it's so accurate.

- [Voiceover] Turn right.

Turn right.

Turn right.

- I can't turn right you stupid thing.

There's a wall here.

- [Voiceover] Go straight ahead.

- Ah!

- [Voiceover] Go straight ahead.

Calculating route.

- Have you ever felt yourself

disoriented like you're lost in the woods?

Well I am!

- [Voiceover] Go straight ahead.

- No!

It's not a pleasant
experience, I can assure you.

The Great Lakes of North
America hold a fifth

of the world's fresh water.

They're also one of the most popular areas

for sailing in the world,
but on a summer night

nearly two decades ago, Kathy Door

discovered these gentle waters
aren't quite what they seem.

- The events of that night challenged

my conventional view of reality.

- [William] It's a warm, July evening

when Kathy sets off for a leisurely sail.

- Clear sky, light chop.

It was beautiful out, and it was hot.

- [William] Just around
nightfall, her calm journey

is upended by something
mysterious and alarming.

- Very abruptly we encountered fog,

a very strange fog.

It just descended on us.

Poof, just like that.

- [William] In minutes,
the fog engulfs the boat.

- We feared that we might have a crash.

At that point, I became
very, very, very cold.

In fact, I was freezing.

- [William] Blinded and
cold, Kathy and her yacht

have seemingly disappeared into a void.

- The boat began a strange aquatic dance.

It began to turn, almost as if

it were pirouetting on its axis.

There was no movement of the sea.

This was not a whirlpool.

I looked at the captain

and I said, "Who's steering the vessel?"

And he said, "Nobody,
it's steering itself."

- [William] Amazingly, the vessel does

three complete 360 degree turns.

Then as quickly as it appeared,
the fog suddenly vanishes.

They regain control of the
boat and head for home,

but when Kathy looks at her watch,

she makes a startling discovery.

- I've gone over this 100 times.

We should've been back by 10
p.m. and it was after midnight.

We cannot count for two hours.

I don't know what happened to that time.

- [William] Kathy's
pleasure cruise had somehow

become a nightmare.

- I just remember
thinking, "This is the most

"extraordinary thing I
have ever, ever witnessed."

- [William] What happened
to Kathy and her yacht?

Remarkably, her experience
isn't the only weird event

to occur on Lake Michigan.

Numerous, unexplained
mysteries have occurred here.

Passenger airplanes
vanishing without a trace.

Legends of ghost ships
appearing out of nowhere.

And thousands of UFO sighting.

Could the mysterious fog Kathy encountered

be linked to these strange events?

Was it a natural phenomenon,
or something unknown?

Pilot Bruce Gernon
believes he has the answer.

- When I first heard Kathy's story,

I immediately realized
that she had experienced

what I call electronic fog.

- [William] Bruce believes that sometimes,

different magnetic fields
from the Earth collide

in powerful freak thunderstorms
over remote bodies of water,

such as Lake Michigan.

The result is a nautalic,
highly-charged fog.

- It's been known to actually chase

vessels, and try to capture them.

And once it captures them,

it clings to them, and the
people become disoriented

because it doesn't make sense to them.

No one has ever realized
that it's attached to them.

Everyone always thinks that
they're moving inside this fog.

They don't realize that the
fog is moving with them.

- [William] Once formed,
the electronic fog

is magnetically attracted
to metal objects like ships

and airplanes, wreaking havoc
on their navigational controls

and displaying other
incredible properties.

- It has an electromagnetic
energy within it

that can become so powerful

that it can affect the
fabric of time itself.

- [William] Time warping fog?

An interesting notion,
but is there any science

that can back it up?

- NASA has just recently announced

that they have discovered something new

in certain types of thunderstorms.

And it appears at the top of the storm,

emitting antimatter.

- [William] Created by massive
lightning within a storm,

antimatter produces
10,000 times more power

than nuclear energy.

Some scientists speculate
that this sort of power

could open doors to new
dimensions of time and space.

- And this is a critical discovery

that relates to the electronic fog.

- [William] Incredibly,
Gernon says he knows

what it's like to be enveloped
by the electronic fog.

He claims one of them captured his plane

over the Bermuda Triangle,
and that he travelled

300 miles in only 10 minutes.

- And that would be impossible

to do in a small plane like this.

You'd have to be going close
to 2,000 miles an hour.

And when I landed back at
Palm Beach International,

we always topped off the fuel tanks,

and on this particular trip,

we used 10 gallons less fuel
than we've ever used before,

and I had made this trip a dozen times,

and I saved that receipt,
and I have the original.

- [William] Could a mystery fog

have sucked Kathy Door forward in time?

Do we need to rewrite our science books?

- This is a very real phenomenon.

- [William] A woman and her yacht

suddenly disappear while
sailing on Lake Michigan.

Were they taken by a freak of nature

known as electronic fog?

Dr. Donadrian Rice doesn't think so.

- Human beings are not
always reliable witnesses

to our own experiences.

- [William] For him, the explanation

is far more straightforward.

- I think what the person was experiencing

was sensory deprivation.

- [William] When our senses are deprived,

say with a blindfold, our
brains try to fill in the gaps,

often with strange results.

- Typically, they begin to
either hallucinate visually,

they could have auditory hallucinations,

or they could have kinesthetic
hallucinations with the body.

- [William] Could a regular
fog cause Kathy Door

to hallucinate, and
mistake an ordinary event

for something fantastical?

Maybe, but how could it explain
those two missing hours?

- You're having a great time
at a party or some place,

time seems to go by very quickly.

If you're sitting in a meeting (laughs),

time goes very slowly,
and of course objectively,

the clocks are moving exactly the same,

but that's not your experience of it.

- [William] Dr. Rice is so convinced

that sensory deprivation is the culprit,

he's offered to recreate the weird events

of an electronic fog in his lab.

All he needs are headphones,
a set of goggles,

and ping pong balls.

That's right, ping pong balls.

- The experiment itself
is one where an individual

is deprived of visual information

by having goggles with
ping pong balls cut out,

placed over the eyes, which
lets in a little light,

but otherwise the person is deprived.

And at the same time,
we'll have them listen

to white noise sound.

- [William] The participants are not told

how long their senses will be deprived.

- Tell me a little bit
about what you experienced.

- I was seeing sort of outlines of things,

almost like looking at clouds and you see

shapes in them a little bit.

Sort of like the outline of an
eye or a mask at some times.

Maybe that sort of shape of house.

- A sensation almost as though

I was sinking down a little bit.

- I started feeling a little bit uneasy,

a bit nauseous as it felt like things

were moving around a little bit.

- The darkness around my eyes

was growing as though
one was being lowered

into the ground.

An interesting experience.

A little bit unsettling.

- [William] Dr. Rice proved
that depriving the senses

affects perception, but did
they also lose track of time?

- I was thinking about five minutes.

I wouldn't have been surprised

if it was actually two minutes.

- I was thinking probably
somewhere between five and 10,

like closer to 10.

- It didn't feel like very long.

Maybe, I don't know, five minutes?

- [William] Incredibly the
experiment lasted for 20 minutes.

- I think the most interesting
thing for all three

was the time distortion

because this lasted for 20 minutes,

and they experienced it
from five to 10 minutes.

So again, that's consistent
with the experience

that the person had in the fog,

or others who have been in
these kinds of situations

where they experienced time distortion.

So in this short experiment here,

if that were to be generalized
to a larger situation,

a person may experience
themselves as losing

even more hours, so that
would be very possible.

But what you can actually see here

is how our brain works, and how our brain

tries to make sense out of

a situation where the senses are deprived.

So your brain continues to do that.

- I guess it is pretty powerful
what your mind decides to do

in a situation like that.

It sort of goes where it wants to go.

- It's a bit peculiar that your mind

can sort of play tricks on you like that.

- I don't know where that time went.

- Wow, that's an incredible theory.

The fog caused a severe
case of sensory deprivation,

which made Kathy hallucinate.

But you know what?

I'm sick of watching all
these wonderful experiments.

I want to try this and see for myself!

Right, hellooo?

Hellooo, okay, here we go.

Just wait, wait a minute.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, I'm
definitely seeing something.

I think Dr. Rice might be
really onto something here.

Yeah, yeah!

I can see

white, I can definitely see white.

And I am very disoriented.

But I have to ask, can this explain

how an entire yacht

could get swallowed up by a fog?

Hellooo?

Hello, are you there?

(glass crashing and breaking)

Can someone call a doctor?

American author David Childress disagrees

these strange occurrences
are simply tricks of the mind

- This is a very real phenomenon.

It's not just something that's
a psychological aberration

or hallucination on their part.

- [William] For Childress,
the answer lies in Ley lines.

A matrix of magnetic pathways
criss-crossing the Earth,

connected by ancient, ceremonial sites.

He believes they can
create vortexes of energy

and manifest as the paranormal fog.

- Other people call these
Ley lines different things.

The ancient Chinese
called them dragon lines.

We might call them Earth
currents or, in Australia,

the aboriginals there
call them dreaming tracks.

The Earth itself is like a giant magnet.

And it has a north pole and a south pole

of magnetic energy, and
that energy is created

by the rotating, swirling

magma inside the Earth.

It too is magnetic.

And with this ball

that's the planet Earth

with the magnetic lines
running all through it,

it has its own special energy.

And it's where these magnetic lines cross

and come together in
certain powerful areas,

geometrically scattered around our planet,

that these vortex hyperspace spots occur.

And it's my view that
these vortexes of energy

occasionally are activated
and become alive and become

portals or doorways to
other time space dimensions.

And this is what people get caught up

in the Bermuda Triangle or
in the Great Lakes Triangle.

- [William] Incredible,
but does it explain

what happened to Kathy and her yacht?

- What may have happened
to Kathy on Lake Michigan

was that she was in one of these vortexes

when it became activated.

And suddenly a mist or
fog starts to come in

and surround you.

You're not in the same
place that you were.

You feel you're in another dimension.

- [William] If, as Childress
believes, Kathy really

travelled to a new
dimension, how in the world

did she get back?

- Many of the people who have gone through

these bizarre vortex areas and survived

are probably very lucky.

We'll never know how many people

have been in these same
vortex areas and situations

and they never came back.

- [William] Does this solve the mystery?

Did Kathy Door sail into a patch of fog,

or into another dimension?

Was she merely hallucinating as a result

of sensory deprivation, or had she entered

a time vortex created by Ley lines?

Whatever the answer, it's most definitely

weird or what.

(fire crackling)

A blinding double flash
of light is detected

over the Indian Ocean.

Did it nearly cause World War III?

- Everybody knew for
sure this was something

to be very concerned about.

- When it comes to the
mysteries of Mother Nature,

there's a lot of things that
aren't quite as they seem.

It's all a matter of perspective.

On one hand it could
look perfectly normal.

On another

it could look like the end of the world.

That's exactly what happened in 1979.

Jeffrey Richelson is a
U.S. security analyst.

He knows lots of secrets,
but he's yet to solve

one of the biggest, the truth
behind the mysterious event

known as the Vela Incident.

- It's a fascinating anomaly.

It's a mystery that reads
like a techno-thriller.

- [William] The tiny Crozet
Islands lie in the Indian Ocean

over 1,000 miles south of Africa.

Around 3 a.m. on September 22, 1979,

something extraordinary happened there.

Without warning, two giant
blinding flashes of light

lit up the sky.

- Everybody knew for
sure this was something

to be very concerned about.

- [William] Incredibly, 70,000 miles away,

the flashes were also
detected by a U.S. satellite

called Vela 6911.

- That triggered a very
high level of alerts,

and from there word
went to the White House

that something might have happened.

They started calling in advisors.

- [William] They took it very seriously,

rushing CIA agents to the
area in military planes.

But what triggered this extreme response?

- In 1979, the United States had concluded

a series of arms control
treaties with the Soviet Union.

- [William] The Cold War
rivals had just agreed

to stop nuclear tests, but the
flash detected by Vela 6911

could mean the Soviets
were just playing games.

- The Vela satellite's prime purpose

was to detect nuclear detonations.

What they saw was something
that's very indicative

of a nuclear explosion. (explosion)

- [William] Had the Soviets broken faith?

Had they really violated the new treaty

and set off a nuclear bomb?

Each side had thousands
of nuclear warheads

pointed at the other.

The stakes couldn't be higher.

- At first the adminstration tried

to keep wraps on the story,
and it was full-court press of

intelligence activities
to try to determine

what was actually going on.

(plane zooms by)

- [William] With a potential
global crisis on its hands,

the U.S. tries to confirm its suspicions

by sending CIA sniffer
planes to the Indian Ocean.

(RADAR pings)

Equipped with sensitive
radiation detectors,

they get an unsettling surprise.

- There was no radiation detected.

It was a mystery.

They even sent people, CIA officers,

into West Africa to get
the leaves off trees

to see if there was a residue
from a nuclear explosion.

- [William] So what had Vela really seen?

- They didn't know what actually happened.

It's been such a mystery
for so many years.

In terms of strange events, I think it's

at the top of the list.

- [William] What happened
over the Indian Ocean?

What could cause a giant
flash of light so powerful

it could be seen 70,000 miles away?

Tom Reed is an expert in nuclear weapons.

- I've fired them, I've built
them, I've seen them go off.

- [William] He believes
there is only explanation.

- I believe it was a
nuclear test. (explosion)

A nuclear detonation is
kind of hard to hide.

I mean, it's not some
pin drop in the night.

It's a very major event.

- [William] But if no one
witnessed the explosion,

how can he be sure that Vela
detected a nuclear blast?

- A nuclear explosion has
this sort of fingerprint.

It is unmistakable.

- [William] This fingerprint is caused

by the way a nuclear bomb explodes.

First it blasts out deadly gamma radiation

at the speed of light,
186,000 miles per second.

- Technically it's a flash,
but to the human eye, uh uh,

it's this ball of fire and
the sun has come to Earth.

(explosion)

- [William] Then as the explosion grows,

the shock wave produces a second flash.

(explosion)

- It's very mind-boggling,
and it's very frightening.

- [William] Does the data from
Vela confirm the signature

double flash of a
nuclear bomb? (explosion)

The recorded flashes are
shown as curves on a graph.

- These curves, those
are like fingerprints.

This first peak is the device going off.

As the bubble expands,
the energy releases again,

and so you get this second rise.

- [William] But if Vela
really saw a nuclear blast,

where was the other fingerprint?

The radioactivity?

- They decided to put it
in a part of the world

that's mostly water.

They then pick a weather
condition like a typhoon.

A really serious typhoon could wash

all the radioactive debris
right back into the ocean.

The best solution to
pollution is dilution.

- [William] Incredibly,
weather records confirm

a typhoon was in the area
just before the flash.

But who would take such
elaborate precautions

to conceal a nuclear test?

- People don't develop nuclear weapons

just because it's Thursday.

There has to be some reason.

Every nation that has
gone nuclear has gone

in response to a very
clear and present threat.

- [William] Did some nation

have a reason to feel threatened in 1979?

Reed believes the answer is obvious.

- Israel has very clear and
present dangers on its borders.

The Israelis have technology,
they know weapons,

but they didn't have uranium.

- [William] Israel
could only make the bomb

if it had a supplier, but who
else was threatened enough

to upend the test-banned apple cart?

- At the same time, the Soviets

were pouring coops into Africa.

South Africans mine uranium
as a byproduct to gold.

They've got so much of it,

they don't know what to do with it.

- [William] With Soviet
forces in nearby Angola,

did South Africa have reason
to partner with Israel

and build a nuclear bomb? (explosion)

Does this explain why a flash

occurred in the remote
regions of the Indian Ocean?

- It is quite clear to me

that this was a test by the Israelis

with logistical support
by the South Africans.

- Why is it that whenever
someone sees something weird,

they always assume the worst?

I mean, honestly, is
the world so paranoid?

Are we really looking at a
massive Cold War coverup?

Was the Vela Incident nothing more

than a crazy conspiracy
theory, or is there another way

to solve this mystery?

Nuclear testing is a plausible theory,

but not everyone agrees.

- Vela never recorded
a secret nuclear test.

- [William] Giant flash of
light over the Indian Ocean

puts the world on nuclear alert.

Was it a freak of nature,
or something more sinister?

Professor Richard Muller is a physicist.

U.S. President Jimmy Carter appointed him

to investigate the Vela Incident.

- It was an important international issue

with diplomatic
consequences, and they needed

good scientific review of the data.

- [William] Muller has
analyzed the same information

as the nuclear experts, but he's come

to an entirely different conclusion.

When we began our study,
we were all convinced

this really looks like it
was a nuclear explosion.

Next step though is to check ourselves.

We're all scientists, we're
all scientists who have

discovered things, we know
the process of discovery

consists of coming up with
an idea with a hypothesis,

and then really checking
and double-checking yourself

in every possible way, so we
had a long list of questions

that we wanted to have investigated.

Next step was to have these
teams look at these questions,

get back answers to us,
but after that first day,

I was pretty convinced
this wasn't a nuclear bomb.

With one week of the
scientific review of the data,

there was something new and different.

- [William] They discovered
that Vela had connected its data

with two light sensors called bhangmeters.

- Bhangmeter was a
relatively simple device

designed to detect flashes of light.

It's spelled B-H-A-N-G.

It's actually named after a drug

using an Indian term,

a drug that if you take it
gives you hallucinations,

has you see flashes of light,

so someone with a sense of
humor named these bhangmeters.

- [William] But remarkably,
the double flash recorded

by each of the two
bhangmeters was different.

- The two pulses from the two bhangmeters

didn't match each other.

That was a real mystery, but it indicated

that this thing just didn't
look right. (explosion)

- [William] But if there was
no blast, what could've caused

a signal that almost
caused a nuclear crisis?

The experts are mystified until

Muller has a flash of insight.

What if it wasn't
anything on Earth at all?

- The Vela satellite is
at a medium Earth orbit.

It's far away in space.

- [William] 70,000 miles above the planet,

Vela wasn't protected
by Earth's atmosphere.

It was bombarbed by tiny bits of rock

and metal called micrometeorites.

- These micrometeorites
don't reach the ground

because the atmosphere slows them down

and absorbs their energy.

A satellite such as the Vela satellite

is frequently hit by micrometeorites.

- [William] But even if
micrometeorites smacked into Vela,

how could specks of space dust replicate

a massive double-hump shock
wave of a nuclear explosion?

- If a micrometeorite hits
the surface of the satellite,

it knocks off dust.

Dust reflects sunlight differently
into the two bhangmeters.

This could be the signal.

- [William] Is it possible the whole world

was freaked out by a fleck of space dust

knocked loose by a
microscopic space pebble?

After running more tests,

Muller and his team finally
reached a conclusion.

- What we thought was a bright
flash thousands of miles away

was actually just a dim flash
that's only a few inches away.

They were never recording
a secret nuclear test.

It was micrometeorites.

That's almost certainly what we saw

back on September 22, 1979.

- [William] Could this
whole mystery be solved

by something as simple as space dust?

After all, no one actually
ever saw the flash.

Muller's theory became
the official explanation

of the U.S. government.

But not everyone is convinced.

- Clearly to me from a
political point of view, you had

every reason in the world to
try to not talk about this,

form a commitee and kick it downstream.

- [William] Incredibly in 2010,

declassified South
African documents revealed

nuclear discussions with Israel

in the years leading up
to the Vela incident.

Could the space dust
explanation just be a cover up?

- The mystery was basically
solved back in 1979.

The people who understood the arguments

understood them and
realized we were right.

There's no issue here,
but there are people

who refuse to give up.

There are people who argue

we never landed on the moon,

it was all video taped
in the New Mexico desert.

There are people who believe that

the Kennedy assassination had gunmen

behind the grassy knoll.

There are conspiracy theorists

who keep these things
alive despite the fact that

they were pretty much settled by people

who understood the arguments at the time.

- [William] In the end,
we're left with a mystery.

Was the Vela incident proof of
a secret nuclear weapons test

or was it merely some
space dust that barely

took the world to the brink
of disaster? (explosion)

Weird or what?

(fire crackling)

So there we have it.

The stories of mysterious freaks of nature

from all over the world.

On the East coast of Canada,
an earth-shattering boom

stuns a community and leaves scientists

scratching their heads.

On Lake Michigan, a mysterious fog

terrorizes a sailor

and alters the very fabric of time.

And over the Indian Ocean, a
blinding double flash of light

creates a nuclear crisis. (explosion)

Are these stories evidence
of mysterious forces

at work within the world?

Do we dismiss those who
claim they are true?

You decide.

Join me again next time for more stories

that will undoubtedly be weird or what.

(intense symphonic music)