All language subtitles for The UnXplained Special Presentation S01E17 1080p WEB h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

WILLIAM SHATNER:
A nuclear meltdown

that turned an entire city
into a wasteland.

A ruthless disease

that decimated
the human population.

And a giant wave

that emerged so suddenly,

there was no chance to escape.

It's a terrifying thought

that one natural disaster
could destroy an entire city,

leaving behind only rubble
and death in its wake.

And even with the assistance
of modern technology,

the ability to determine
the path of a hurricane

or foretell
a sudden volcanic eruption

remains somewhat unpredictable.

But what about devastation
on a global scale

that is caused
by mankind itself?

Are we on a path to become

the architects
of our own destruction?

Well, that is what
we'll try and find out.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

SHATNER:
In northern Ukraine

stand the remains
of an abandoned city

known as Pripyat.

Pripyat was founded
by the Soviet Union in 1970

to serve Chernobyl,
the nearby power plant.

At its height,
nearly 50,000 people lived here,

but today,
Pripyat's streets are empty.

Its buildings have
fallen into disrepair.

Nature has reclaimed
large portions of the city.

And it's all because
of a tragic event

that took place
on April 26, 1986,

an event known as
the Chernobyl disaster.

MICHIO KAKU:
In 1986,

we were horrified
to see the greatest

nuclear accident of all time

emerge at the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant.

The reactor went out of control,

creating an uncontrolled
chain reaction,

like a small atomic bomb,

blowing the roof
right off the reactor.

A huge amount
of radioactive material

shot through the roof,

and then, into the atmosphere.

SHATNER:
36 hours after the explosion,

officials finally determined
that the residents of Pripyat

needed to be moved to safety.

The city was then evacuated
in less than four hours.

NIGEL RAAB:
They were evacuated

very, very quickly
at that point.

And when they're evacuated,

they can only take
certain things with them.

Small things.

And the government

put guards outside
of some of these apartments,

basically saying,
"We'll protect your material,"

suggesting the residents

would actually
go back to Pripyat,

which they never did.

Pripyat was built
to be a self-contained town,

which had everything
for the workers

of the Chernobyl power plant.

So that meant kindergartens
to send their kids to,

all this leisure activity.

So the Soviets, in that respect,
were getting better

at providing their workers
with facilities.

Working at Pripyat
would be a much better gig

than different towns
in the Soviet Union.

LUCAS HIXSON:
Before the Chernobyl

nuclear disaster in 1986,

Pripyat was a city of dreams
for the residents

and the people
that lived around.

It offered amenities
and resources

that would not be found
in nearby cities and villages.

After the accident,
people were evacuated,

and they were forced
to leave their hopes

and plans for the future
behind them.

And that's really what we see
in Pripyat today,

is what was left behind.

It is a ghost town.

Pripyat is an example
of an abandoned place

that was vacated
in a great hurry.

And so, of course,

you have vehicles
that are just left abandoned...

...you have household objects,

children's toys,

kitchen utensils
that were just dropped

in the middle
of meal preparation.

There are a lot
of hopeful murals

about science leading you
into a proud future,

and they're in buildings
that have been abandoned

for over 30 years.

That's something
that is sort of impossible

not to feel the weight of.

SHATNER:
While the nuclear meltdown

was caused by both human error
and technical failures,

there are some former residents
of Pripyat

who claim
that the Chernobyl disaster

was actually destined to happen.

HOROWITZ:
Some of the workers
at Chernobyl,

in the days immediately
preceding the explosion,

and following,

reported seeing
this mysterious winged creature

with blazing red eyes.

This creature,
which is referred to

as the Black Bird
of Chernobyl today,

was thought to be
some sort of a warning or...

a kind of crisis apparition.

The concept
of a harbinger of doom

is incredibly common
and incredibly long-standing.

Probably the most famous example

is the Horsemen
of the Apocalypse--

the Four Horsemen--

who are said to foretell
the ending of the world.

So when Chernobyl explodes,

the Black Bird of Chernobyl

was not just
a strange sighting in the sky.

People start to think

that maybe this wasn't
so much an accident

as it was something predestined.

SHATNER:
Is it possible that Pripyat
was destined to be abandoned?

As far-fetched as it may sound,

many locals believe
the answer is yes.

And for further evidence,

they point to a prophecy
of death and destruction

that is written in the Book
of Revelation in the Holy Bible.

McNEILL:
It's interesting
because the word "Chernobyl"

is the Ukrainian word
for "wormwood."

And Wormwood has
a lot of historical

and cultural affiliations
with poison,

with bitterness, with darkness.

And we see that--
most poignantly, perhaps--

prophesied in the Bible,

that there will be seven angels
blowing seven trumpets.

And trumpet number three

is the trumpet that causes
the "star called Wormwood"

to fall from the sky

and poison the land
and the waters,

so that people who drink
the waters will die.

The story could be
an amazing symbolic description

of a nuclear power plant
exploding

and irradiating the landscape,

so that people
who live in that space,

who touch those objects,
who drink that water, will die.

It's really compelling
to see that connection.

And it is hard to simply
write it off as a coincidence.

HIXSON:
You can imagine

the way that people
reacted to this story

after the disaster in 1986.

The people that lived
in this region

were highly dependent on water
for their way of life,

and their lives
were forever disrupted

by the radioactive materials

that were thrown out
of the reactor

on the night of the disaster
and left in the environment.

HOROWITZ:
When you add up
these different elements,

the spotting
of a winged creature

or some sort
of a harbinger of doom

and the fact that a falling star
in the Book of Revelation

has the same name as
the nuclear power plant itself,

you can understand
how some people read meaning

into the Chernobyl disaster.

SHATNER:
Whether the fate of Pripyat
was predestined

or simply the result of modern
technology gone terribly wrong,

this abandoned city
continues to spark

both fascination and fear.

But not all catastrophic events
are triggered on a grand scale

like the size
of a nuclear meltdown.

For instance,
one of the deadliest plagues

in human history
was caused by a creature

barely visible to the naked eye.

SHATNER:
Officials from the California
Department of Public Health

alert residents that a woman
has tested positive

for a dangerous
and quite unexpected disease:

The bubonic plague,

otherwise known
as the black death.

RAJ DASGUPTA:
Does the bubonic plague
still exist?

The answer is yes.

And it's amazing how,
many centuries later,

you could say this
with a calm voice.

What is the difference?

The answer is antibiotics.

We know that
if you have symptoms early,

that antibiotics
can save your life.

KIRSTEN FISHER:
While it's not
as prevalent anymore,

the plague is certainly
still in circulation.

In the United States,
right, in more rural areas

where people come
into contact with rodents

that might be infected with it,

it's still known to, like,
crop up here and there.

The worst case of the bubonic
plague that there was

was known as the black death,

in the middle of the 1300s,

and that wiped out 60%

of all of Europe's population.

SHATNER:
12 trade ships arrive

from the Black Sea,

and drift into the port
of Messina to unload freight.

As dock workers approach
the vessels,

they discover
a disturbing scene.

DASGUPTA:
The port master goes on board

to see the crew
and, to their surprise,

it was almost like there were
zombies on the ship.

Gangrene fingers...

big boils.

And if I saw a crew
that had black fingers

and boils, let's be honest,

it sounds
like a zombie apocalypse.

The black death seems
to have been introduced

via the Silk Road,

which is a major trading route
in the early medieval period

from central Asia,

where the bubonic plague
regularly pops up.

Europe seems to have been
largely unprepared

for this devastating event.

This is in the 1300s.

It went for quite a few years

and whole villages
and areas were wiped out.

And like many plagues,
uh, people wondered why.

DASGUPTA:
These cities would
get the plague

and no one knew why.

And then we always
have the advantage

of looking back
on history and tracing.

Historians could look back
and say, "Wait a minute,

"all the cities with ports

"that do a lot of trading
were infected.

"And what were going
to all these ports?

Ships."

PHILLIPS:
The black death was
spread by fleas

that lived on rats,

and wherever these rats went,
the fleas went,

and they bit people.

That's what made them ill.

CHRISTINE COLBY:
The flea would actually
vomit the bacteria

onto the person's skin
while biting them.

The disease spreads
to the body's lymph nodes

and causes buboes,

which are infected sores

which get to be
about the size of an egg.

And they eventually burst
and expel bloody pus.

The body goes
through such horrific

and gruesome transformations,

that from the time you contract
the bubonic plague until death

can sometimes only be
a matter of days.

SHATNER:
During the Middle Ages,
many believed that demons

were responsible
for the black death.

And people who were deemed

to be wicked or unworthy

were punished in hopes
of driving the demons away.

TZADOK:
Many people believed

that the source of this plague

was caused by evil spirits,

witchcraft and the like.

The powers of the occult.

And this led
many people to seek out

any type of expressions

of the occult,

witchcraft and the like.

And to root it out
in the attempt to placate God.

(screams)

SHATNER:
Some were so convinced
that the black death was

a scourge brought
by evil spirits...

...they were willing
to scourge themselves.

One common occurrence

during the time
of the black death was

to see people
that were called flagellants.

Which,
they were under the belief

that they were being punished
by God for their sins,

so they would publicly atone

and they would march
through the town square

flogging themselves
in the name of God.

(clamoring)

THOMPSON:
This flagellation movement
really exploded.

Whole towns
flagellating themselves.

Those that didn't were accused
of being with the devil.

PHILIPS:
Something else that came
from the black death was

the practice
of selling holy relics.

When the black death was
decimating Europe,

the Church were saying,

"Come to us.

We can cure you."

The bones of a saint

or something that had
once belonged to a saint

kept in these churches,
they were called relics,

and people believed
that if they went there

or close to such relics,

prayed, that God may intervene

and protect them
from the plague.

Now, they weren't curing anyone,

but people were still
flocking to the churches

just on the hope
that they could be cured.

DASGUPTA:
So when we talk about
the many lives that were lost

during the black death,

I think about a horror movie.

SHATNER:
Historians estimate
that the black death wiped out

anywhere from 50
to 200 million people,

at least a third
of Europe's population.

So it's little wonder
that most people thought

that something so destructive...

...must have been some
kind of punishment from God.

But today, we have
a much different understanding

of this disease.

GIGI GRONVALL:
We call it the black death

but it's-it's a bacteria
called yersinia pestis.

But it's not as dangerous
as it was then.

Now, we have antibiotics,
we can detect it.

You know, you can treat it.

SHATNER:
Deep within the ocean floor,

a massive earthquake
suddenly shakes the ground

for nearly ten minutes.

The energy released measures

an astounding
9.1 on the Richter scale,

which is the equivalent
of 23,000 atomic bombs

exploding all at once,

making this disaster

the most powerful earthquake
of the 21st century.

What happened was,

there are two major plates
on the Earth

that are smashing
into each other.

And when this happened,

it raised the sea floor there
more than 100 feet

across 900 miles.

And what does this mean?

This means a tsunami is coming.

MICHAEL WYSESSION:
Tsunamis happen

when something causes

the level
of the sea floor to go up.

And when the sea floor goes up,

it pushes
the whole water column up

and gravity causes
that water to flow away.

This earthquake in 2004
created a massive tsunami

that spread all throughout
the Indian ocean.

SHATNER:
The enormous tsunami traveled
across the Indian Ocean

at a speed of more
than 500 miles per hour

and smashed into the western
part of the island of Sumatra.

McGEE:
Twenty minutes or so
after the quake,

the nearest coastline in Sumatra

suffered a 100-foot wall
of water that came in.

All but the tallest buildings
were completely submerged.

So immediate destruction.

Two hours later,

that same wave traveling
at more than 500 miles per hour

hits Thailand.

(people clamoring)

MAN:
Get in, get in, get in!

SHATNER:
10-year-old Riley Sewell was

on vacation in Thailand
with her family

when the giant tsunami struck.

RILEY SEWELL:
We are playing on the beach,

and we look towards the shore,

and we see this thin
white line is coming at us

and it's getting bigger and
bigger and bigger and bigger,

and this was a 75-foot tsunami.

My mom is shouting, "Run! Run!"
at the top of her lungs,

and we start running up this
pathway up one of the cliffs.

You can just hear,

like this tsunami is loud
and it's smashing...

...and it's,
like, destroying trees,

but you can also hear
the sound of people dying.

Sounds that no person
should ever hear

and no person
should ever experience.

Had we not found that pathway,

had we not run
as fast as we had,

I wouldn't be
talking and breathing

and speaking as I am right now.

SHATNER:
While Riley Sewell
and her family were

lucky to survive,

230,000 people

in 14 different countries
perished

in what was one of the deadliest
natural disasters in history.

WYSESSION:
The tsunami killed people
in Africa, in India,

and 70,000 people died
on Sri Lanka.

So people all across the world

died from the huge tsunami
that hit.

SHATNER:
Frightening images broadcast
around the world gave

billions of people
a firsthand look

at the apocalyptic power
of tsunamis.

And yet, this disaster was
only the latest

in a long history
of doomsday tsunamis

that have been recorded
for centuries.

The earliest recorded
tsunami happened

in the year
1630 before the common era,

when a massive tsunami spread

throughout the eastern
Mediterranean at that time

and hit the island of Santorini,
in the Greek Isles.

Now, interestingly,
1,200 years later,

the Greek philosopher Plato...

...wrote of
the story of Atlantis,

which was a legend that had been
handed down for years orally.

The story involved
the destruction of an island

in a dramatic day and night,
sinking beneath the waves.

And many anthropologists think
that this legend

actually could be referring
back to the tsunami

that hit Santorini.

SHATNER:
A massive tsunami
may have been the inspiration

for Plato's story
of the destruction of Atlantis.

But on the other side
of the globe,

the dangers of tsunamis
were recorded in stone

on the island of Japan.

Japan is based on three
major fault lines that collide,

making it one
of the most geologically

active areas for tsunamis.

In fact,
tsunami is a Japanese word.

Because tsunamis are
a regular occurrence,

they put stone monuments saying,
"In this year, on this day,

the water went up
to this level."

SHATNER:
Coastal areas such as Japan
are still quite vulnerable

to the destructive powers
of tsunamis.

But fortunately, scientists have
created an early warning system

which can alert people before
the next deadly tsunami strikes.

This technology provides people
with a valuable resource

that our ancestors did not have:

the possibility
to get out of harm's way.

There's a network of buoys,
called DART buoys,

and these are pressure sensors
that sit on the ocean seafloor

and can actually detect
the pressure

of the tsunami wave
as it goes over.

So, if a candidate earthquake
is identified

and then verified,
it goes into a warning system

that broadcasts a warning
throughout the ocean basin...

-(alarm blaring)
-...setting off sirens
along coasts,

and alerting people
by cell phone.

However, there's still
many parts of the world

that don't have
adequate coverage,

and we need a lot more sensors

to make sure
that we do a better job

predicting and forecasting
the arrival of a tsunami.

Can advances
in early warning technology

save us from future tsunamis?

Or are these forces of nature
so massive and unpredictable

that the destruction of entire
cities is just a matter of time?

Either way, it's unsettling

to know that powerful forces
on this planet

are entirely out of our control.

Like in the case
of a never-ending fire

emerging from the Earth itself

that could burn for centuries.

SHATNER:
Population: five.

Once upon a time,
this small mining town

was home to more
than 2,000 people.

Today, it's an almost
entirely abandoned wasteland.

Some would say
it resembles a war zone.

But it wasn't war
that ravaged Centralia.

It was something
much more devastating.

DAVID WHITEHEAD:
The story of Centralia

is both tragic and terrifying,

in that it used to just be
a quaint mining town...

...but now
it's a total ghost town.

SHATNER:
Valentine's Day.

12-year-old Todd Domboski

is playing
in his grandmother's backyard

when he notices
something strange

coming up from the ground.

He sees what he thinks is-is
smoke coming up from the lawn,

goes over to investigate,

drops out of sight
into a steaming hole

approximately 170 feet deep.

Saves himself
by grabbing onto a tree root.

WHITEHEAD:
So after what happened
to Todd Domboski,

the media started coming in,

and Centralia
became a big story.

REPORTER: Todd Domboski
was playing when the earth

-opened up below his feet.
-DOMBOSKI: I see the smoke,

and when I did,
I just fell right through.

SHATNER:
After a brief investigation,

the cause of the smoke
in Todd's grandmother's backyard

becomes obvious.

A fire that was
deliberately started,

and thought to have
been extinguished,

had, in fact, never gone out.

And it was now being fueled
by the vast reserves of coal

located underneath the town.

Centralia, uh,
was a very typical, uh,

small coal town
in the anthracite region

of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Its only purpose for being
was to mine coal...

...and its growth was in tandem
with the coal industry.

As new mines opened up,
more people would move there.

Some of those families
in Centralia had been there

for as long as five generations.

And what I'm leading to is that

there's this massive labyrinth
of-of abandoned coal mines

beneath Centralia--
really, under the entire town.

And so, in 1962,

the state dump inspector
told Centralia borough council

that the location
of its landfill

didn't meet state regulations.

And they arranged
for the local fire department

to set the dump on fire
to clean it up.

And they had done this
in the past.

They would just go out
and set it on fire,

let it burn for a while

and then wash it down
with water from a tanker truck

and, uh, go away,
everything's fine.

Except this time,
it wasn't fine...

...because this fire had stayed
smoldering in the garbage,

and then it moved
into this labyrinth

of abandoned coal mines
beneath the town

and that was how
the mine fire got started.

And eventually, the fire
broke out of the ground.

You could see glowing red rocks,

you could see, you know,
blue burning rocks.

It's so, so hot.

If you got even, like,
within ten feet of it,

and your face was-was frying.

You know?
It was, it was that-that hot.

They sent
the fire department back,

but the damage was already done.

WYSESSION:
Attempts to put out
the Centralia coal-seam fire

have been a total failure,

starting in 1962,
when they first lit

that trash pit on fire.

That fire continued
to spread underground,

despite multiple attempts
to put it out.

And then,
over a period of 20 years,

the fire just kept
growing out of control.

To the point
where smoke and steam

come up out of the ground,
where the ground is as hot

as 900 degrees Fahrenheit
in places,

just consuming the entire town.

REPORTER: The people
of Centralia want to know

when the 20-year-old mine fire
will be put out.

They appeared tired
of living with the danger

of toxic gases
entering their homes.

Representative Frank Harrison
says, "It won't be easy."

WHITEHEAD:
And it was at this point

that the town started
to shut down and close shop.

REPORTER: Residents take a vote
to move their homes.

The federal government
forked over another

one million dollars
to move them to safety.

WHITEHEAD:
Businesses started closing,

people started leaving

and the government actually
ended up buying the land

to stop people
from coming back in,

because they realize
at that point

that they had no way
to stop this fire.

And sadly, this fire
is raging right up to this day.

SHATNER:
But why,

after nearly six decades,

why won't the fires go out?

WYSESSION:
It's a question that's
almost impossible to know

because not only can
we not see through the rock,

any attempts
to try to figure it out--

by drilling holes in the ground,
for example--

you provide channels of air
that can actually feed the fire.

And so, you can try
to cut off the fuel

by digging out around it

to remove the coal
to prevent it from spreading.

And you can also
address the fire

by pouring water directly in

through channels underground

to try to cool that fire
below its activation energy.

All of these were tried
in the case of Centralia.

Not one of them succeeded.

You would think
we understand fires enough

that we could,
we could take care of this,

because we know,
for a fire to occur,

you have to have
an ignition source, a spark...

...then you have to have fuel.

Well, it's a coal mine,
so coal is pretty good fuel.

But then you also have
to have an oxidizer.

That oxidizer is-is air,
in most cases.

But if they cut off the tunnels

or whatever's going
into this mine,

no air should get down there,
eventually all the air

should burn out and it should
go out, but it's not doing that.

DEKOK:
What I've been told
by engineers is that

they could pump water
down there for a year

and, if they turn the water off,

there would be a good chance
there'd be enough residual heat

that the fire would start
right back up again.

It's a tremendous monster.

JONES:
Once an accident like this
happens underground

where you have a fire burning,

as time goes on,
the odds of putting it out

get fewer and fewer and fewer.

With a coal fire,
you're talking temperatures

of 1,000 to 2,000 degrees
Fahrenheit.

As the fire grows and grows
and grows like this underground,

all that heat is radiated
through the Earth.

It warms up the Earth
and could get to the point

where you could see temperatures

of 200, 300 degrees
on the surface,

and asphalt
and different materials

actually start melting.

Sinkholes open up,
houses collapse.

This can go on
for a very, very long time.

In the case of Centralia, even
to this day, 50 years later,

you see steam vents
with toxic gases

being emitted out of the ground,

you see vegetation
that has been destroyed

because of those gases
and the heat.

This is almost a wasteland,

caused by these
underground fires.

Some people have estimated
that it'll take 200 years

for this fire to burn out,

and, in my estimation,
nobody knows.

We could be talking, two, three,
four, five hundred years.

There's no answer
to that question.

It's basically hell on Earth.

SHATNER:
Centralia, Pennsylvania,

once booming, now barren.

The ghost of a town
that once was.

The few structures that remain

seem to defy the fumes
to consume them.

Is the story a cautionary tale
about the futility of mankind

trying to bend nature
to its will?

Perhaps.

And it might be fire
of another kind

that could wreak havoc

on a level modern man
has never seen.

Because there are
certain volcanoes

whose eruptions would occur
on such a massive scale...

they could bring us
to the brink of extinction.

SHATNER:
At approximately 11:00 a.m.,

an earthquake measuring
5.0 on the Richter scale

sends great shockwaves

through the island's
most active volcano,

Mount Kilauea.

The ground cracks open,

and 2,000-degree magma

boils to the surface.

As residents who live in
the area flee for their lives,

a torrent of molten lava
gushes from the broken earth,

destroying everything
in its path.

McGEE: It was
a massive volcanic eruption.

We're used to looking
at volcanoes that look dormant,

and assuming
that there's no threat.

But if there's one thing
that the geologic history

of the Earth warns us about,

over and over and over again,

it's that there's
unintended consequences

of the Earth being alive.

And Kilauea proved that in 2018.

Kilauea is
a large volcano that sits

in the middle
of the Pacific Ocean.

And it is generally known

for these lava flows
that it puts out

that unfortunately got into
a populated area

and this very large eruption
unfortunately

destroyed over 700 homes,

destroyed some really
pristine areas of the island.

McGEE:
You have very kind of soupy,

watery lava that was racing
at incredible speeds.

And the problem is,
Hawaii is populous.

We have folks,
many of them, who live there,

and there is nowhere to run.

I think the Kilauea eruption is
one of nature's great warnings.

So long as the Earth
is alive, we will face

the threat
of major volcanic eruptions.

SHATNER:
In 2018, Mount Kilauea topped

the U.S. Geological Survey's
ranking of the most dangerous

volcanoes in the United States.

But according to experts,

even Kilauea's
cataclysmic power pales

in comparison to others

that could potentially pose

great threats
to not only cities,

but the entire world.

They're simply known
as supervolcanoes.

Nuclear weapons?
Yeah, we track them.

We know who has them.

Global warming?
We have computer programs

that simulate global warming.

And meteors from outer space?
We track asteroids.

But when it comes
to supervolcanoes,

we know almost nothing.

A supervolcano could be
1,000 times more deadly,

leaving destruction on a scale
that we haven't seen

in modern civilization.

POLAND: A supereruption
is meant to describe

a truly extraordinary
explosive eruption

that's about 1,000
cubic kilometers in volume.

That's how much material
gets ejected.

SHATNER: According
to volcanologists, there are,

at this very moment,
between 12 and 20

active supervolcanoes
scattered across the Earth.

We've all seen
the devastation of volcanoes.

We see this catastrophe
with all the gas coming out

of the volcano with all
the debris and all the dirt.

But supervolcano eruptions can
disrupt the atmosphere itself,

sufficient to affect the weather
of the entire planet.

You've got sulfur dioxide,
you've got particles,

which are reflecting sunlight,

and that bounce or trap

sunlight and thermal radiation.

And that completely changes
the planet's heat balance.

You can cripple ecosystems
from the bottom up

by darkening the world.

POLAND:
These gases can also poison
agriculture, poison plants,

and that of course
will have a chain reaction

down the-the food web.

So, these eruptions can
really cause a huge impact.

Even if the lava only
affects one small area,

they can have a-a global impact.

Even thousands
and thousands of miles away

from where
the eruption occurred.

SHATNER: It's hard
to imagine a supervolcano

causing a world-wide cataclysm,
but one such event

is believed
to have already occurred

long before humans
walked the Earth.

An apocalypse
that is referred to as...

"the Great Dying."

The Great Dying was a mass
extinction of plants and animals

that occurred
about 250 million years ago.

The largest that occurred
in the history of Earth.

McGEE: Geologists call it
the Permian-Triassic extinction.

It's the largest mass
extinction

in the geologic record
across all time.

And this is related
to a major volcanic eruption

in northern Siberia
that injected so much CO2

into the atmosphere
that we lost 80%

of all marine life.

We lost 70%
of all vertebrate land animals.

This was so bad,
even the bugs got taken out.

So the Great Dying is
one of geologic history's

great warnings
that large volcanism can pose

a true existential threat
to all life on Earth.

SHATNER: This body of water is
one of the most popular

tourist destinations
in the country

due to its natural beauty.

But deep below
the lake's surface

lies an active supervolcano.

Taupo's a beautiful place.

It's serene, it's got
a lovely lake, mountains,

geysers and hot springs.

Absolutely gorgeous.

McGEE:
These nice low-lying areas

that tend to fill up
with water and be very beautiful

often indicate,

lurking underneath you

is an emptied
former supereruption.

The irony is,
the beauty of a lake

often goes hand in hand
with the lurking threat

of volcanic systems ready to go.

POLAND: The last supereruption
of the Taupo volcano

occurred about 26,500 years ago.

We know Taupo is restless.

It has lots of seismicity,
the ground goes up and down.

And scientists in New Zealand
have tied that to magma

moving in the subsurface.

There's geothermal
activity in the region

which indicates
that the system's not dead.

It's alive.

It's on an active
tectonic plate boundary.

So there are massive earthquakes
that can be caused

by a supervolcano
getting ready to blow

on a scale that we've never seen
before or since in geology.

Where Taupo is,

large eruptions
will eventually happen.

Volcanoes are something
that humanity has always had

to live with and always
will have to live with.

We can study these things,
try to understand

how an eruption might occur.

But we don't have a way
to stop a volcanic eruption.

We're not going to stop

something that
the Earth wants to do.

SHATNER:
Oxford University, July 2008.

A panel of experts from
the Future of Humanity Institute

publish the results of a survey

regarding
the global catastrophic risks

that humanity will face
in the 21st century.

The results
of the questionnaire are

both surprising and concerning.

Because the experts agree
that there is

a one-in-five chance
of human extinction

before the year 2100.

PAUL J. SPRINGER:
At the 2008 Oxford conference,
participants considered

nanotechnology,
artificial intelligence,

and war to be
the three categories

that were most likely
to bring about such an event.

Personally, the one
that keeps me awake at night

is the unbridled development
of artificial intelligence.

It's partially because

of the weaponization
of artificial intelligence

and what I like to refer to
as the dark triad

of offensive, lethal,
autonomous machines.

The possibility
of programming errors

or of users deliberately
inflicting these

upon enemy populations

is the type of thing
that makes me nervous.

The development
of artificial intelligence

is supposed
to make lives a lot easier

but in practice might represent

the biggest existential threat
of all.

When we see a civilization
that effectively disappears

without a record
of precisely why they left,

the answer is often rooted

in the development
of advanced technology.

Because advanced technology
enables

a larger population
to live in a smaller area.

But if something happens
to the resources themselves,

then you don't have the capacity

to support
the population anymore.

EDWIN BARNHART:
When I look at an episode like

Rome making an incredible
drainage system out

of lead pipes,
and then everyone goes nuts.

Is it all that different
than a human society

building up technology
to the point

where we forget
that we're really

just part of an ecosystem

that's much more powerful
than us no matter what we build?

SPRINGER: We have a tendency
to assume that we can

always innovate our way
out of the crisis of the moment.

There's also no guarantee
that technology will save

a civilization when it's faced
with an existential threat.

So what's it gonna be?

Will a deadly disease run
rampant through the population?

Could a volcano
block out the sun,

covering entire cities
in suffocating ash and fire?

Or how about
a nuclear disaster triggering

the apocalypse
in the blink of an eye?

Hopefully humanity
will avoid these catastrophes,

but since the final chapter
in the history

of mankind is still unwritten,

just what or who
will bring about

our end of days is
a mystery that remains...

unexplained.

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