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 reindeer cyclone.

Christmas is canceled.

They're moving en masse. It is chaos.

Are they about to kill All these reindeer?

Narrator: the $3 trillion Treasure trove.

Maybe this image is the real King solomon's mine.

Narrator: And dracula's frozen tomb.

It looks like a giant coffin.

[ beeping, distorted music ]

Baffling phenomena.

Mysteries from space.

What on earth are they?

-- captions by vitac -- Www.Vitac.Com

[ beeping ] [ camera shutter clicking ]

[ whirring ]

Captions paid for by Discovery communications

**

[ frequency warbles ] [ whirring ]

February 21, 2019.

480 miles above northern sweden,

The worldview-2 satellite Captures a series of circles

In the frozen tundra.

This is really bizarre. Perfect circles in the snow

In one of the most Remote places on the earth.

It almost looks like Giant bubbles

Emerging from two large circles In the ground.

I've never seen Anything quite like it.

Narrator: the unusual image Intrigues meteorologists.

Because of global warming, What we are seeing is

The melting of the permafrost.

When the permafrost melts,

What we will have are Sometimes eruptions of methane

Explodes out in almost a bomb Blast-type formation,

That produces these very Circular type of formations.

Is this the kind of pattern That we are seeing here?

Narrator: but the only Methane craters

That have been recorded on land

Are on the siberian tundra, Thousands of miles from sweden.

Closer analysis suggest This is something else.

The two large circles Are so regular.

They can't be occurring Naturally.

This is human made.

Who would build a series Of interconnected circles?

This is northern sweden. This is viking territory.

Looking into military history, You'll see that the vikings

Built huge fortified circular Structures called ring forts.

Narrator: satellites have Captured ring fort remains

All over viking territory, But this image is different.

A viking ring fort would have Stood on its own,

Not huddled right up to Neighboring viking round forts.

This structure does not make Sense at all to me as a fort.

Narrator: karen bellinger Searches for something

To explain The conjoined circles

And finds a possible clue In nautical records.

Perhaps what we have here Is a set of blubber ovens.

Blubber ovens are Giant circular structures,

Not dissimilar to what we have In our satellite image here.

They were used To render whale fat.

Narrator: there are accounts Of arctic whaling

Going back To the 16th century,

And it thrived For hundreds of years.

[ whales bellowing ]

At one time, as many as 3,000 ships in this region

Are hunting whales.

For locals, a valuable source of Meat, oil, and other products.

Whale oil used to fuel lamps.

If you think about it,

Living in these far northern Climes in these long winters,

The gift of light was life.

Narrator: these gentle, Giant creatures are butchered

And rendered in the ovens, Boiling copper vats,

Cooked on circular foundations Of bricks and a mix of sand,

Gravel, and whale oil Called blubber cement.

It would have taken A whole team of men

Up to their eyeballs in blubber,

Clambering all over this messy, Bloody, fatty carcass,

Making the waves run red.

[ birds squawking ]

Narrator: all that remains Of scandinavia's mammoth

Mammal cookouts Are blackened circles,

But there's a whale-sized hole In the blubber oven theory.

Looking more widely At the location,

I don't think these can be Blubber ovens,

Because they're too far From the coast.

They have nothing to do With the sea.

I think this is something More modern,

Because when I punch in On the image,

I see large perimeter fences Around these circles.

Kays: this could be some kind of Livestock enclosure,

But it's so far north.

Temperatures here on The swedish tundra

Can drop to 30 below, So this is no cattle ranch.

There are bears, wolves, lynx,

But very few species Can survive this far north.

One animal that it might be Is reindeer.

Narrator: reindeer are Sub-arctic super beasts

With a nose that warms air On its way to the lungs,

Eyes that change color with Seasonal shifts in the light,

And knees that click so animals

Don't lose each other In a blizzard.

If these are reindeer pens, They could be the work

Of one of the oldest Nomadic people on earth.

This is an area

Where historically The sami people live.

The sami have roamed The tundra for 7,000 years.

They're also known as lapps For this is lapland,

The home, According to legend,

Of saint nicholas Or santa claus.

And the lives Of these lapland nomads

Are intertwined With the reindeer.

The reindeer are such a big part Of sami culture.

They not only are food, but also For milk, transportation,

And the hide of these reindeer Are used for clothing.

Nelson: these reindeer Are their lifeblood.

That is what they depend on For their livelihood.

Narrator: in the darkness Before dawn,

Sami tribesmen Of the 21st century

Operate no longer with dogs And sled, but with snowmobiles.

[ men calling ]

This part of northern sweden Has very little light.

It can be very difficult to see,

So they're using verbal calls To each other.

Narrator: as the sami weave In and out of the forest,

It's as if the land is moving.

However, the shifting landscape Is, in fact,

Hundreds of reindeer

Being driven towards the circles In the satellite image.

[ men calling ]

But as science journalist Haley chamberlain observes,

There's something not right About these images.

Reindeer in this area Are usually let to roam free.

Seems really strange That hundreds of them

Are being herded into one spot.

Narrator: the sami arrive at The circles seen from space...

[ calling ]

...And all hell breaks loose.

**

It's chaos. All of these reindeer,

They're moving en masse In a counterclockwise rotation.

Narrator: this phenomenon Is known as a reindeer cyclone.

It's the sign of A herd in peril.

Chamberlain: This is really ominous.

A reindeer cyclone Is a protective measure

That reindeer take so

That they can keep Predators out.

This has all the markings Of an animal cull.

Are they about to kill All these reindeer?

**

Narrator: coming up, End game for rudolf?

We slaughtered all The reindeers. Thousands.

What on earth is going on here?

Narrator: And winston churchill's

Two million-ton ice ship.

You think that sounds Absolutely he crazy, but no,

It actually makes A lot of sense.

**

Narrator: in the sub-arctic Lapland region,

In circles seen from space...

[ calling ]

...Sami herdsman are at The center of a stampede

Called a reindeer cyclone.

But something's wrong.

The sami normally Let reindeer roam free.

There are hundreds of reindeer In these huge circular pens.

What on earth Is going on here?

Could this be in culling?

[ men yelling ]

Narrator: but the sami Approached

Not with knives or guns,

But something else.

[ reindeer grunting ]

I've seen this kind of Equipment before.

These guys are probing For radiation.

Narrator: sensors on the abdomen Test the tissue

For radioactivity,

But why?

This is an utterly remote corner Of sub-arctic wilderness.

Chamberlain: I'm looking At this area,

And there is no nuclear plant.

There's no nuclear Testing facility.

Why are they testing these Reindeer for radioactivity?

Narrator: according to the sami Tribesmen here,

The problems began More than 30 years ago.

[ crowd shouting ]

In fact, they know The exact date in 1986.

This is the year of chernobyl.

[ alarm blaring ]

Narrator: in communist russia, On april 26th,

Poorly trained engineers begin Safety tests

At the badly designed Nuclear plant

Outside the city of chernobyl.

A drop in power Causes a chain reaction

And reactor four explodes...

[ explosion ]

...Firing a deadly cloud Of caesium-137

Into the atmosphere,

Radiation equivalent To 400 nuclear bombs.

Chernobyl is the single Worst disaster

In the history of atomic power.

It's the world's first-ever Level-seven nuclear incident.

But how does a disaster At a soviet nuclear power plant,

Have any bearing On radioactive reindeer

More than a thousand Miles away in sweden?

Narrator: weather satellites Point to the answer.

Cerveny: up in the latitudes Of parts of europe,

The winds are actually Flowing from east to west.

Narrator: following The explosion,

The radioactive cloud above The decimated power station

Begins drifting westwards

Over ukraine,

Finland,

And on to sweden.

The soviet government is Covering up the entire incident.

This toxic cloud of caesium-137 Is propagating across europe,

And most people have no idea.

Narrator: in the atmosphere,

Chernobyl's deadly radioactive Ash cloud,

Turns to radioactive rain And snow.

Radioactive ash Is a really good,

What we call Condensation nucleus.

It's something that the water Can collect around,

And form a raindrop.

Each raindrop is then Going to have millions

Of these little Radioactive seeds.

Narrator: nuclear rain Spells disaster.

[ thunder rumbling ]

And in this game of Russian radiation roulette,

The loser is lapland,

Home of sami reindeer herdsman Like tomas standland.

Standland: my family has been Involved in reindeers

Many generations.

I know every rock In this landscape.

Yeah, we are living With the reindeers,

And we are living in nature.

It's a special life.

After chernobyl, it was -- It was very tough.

It was a new life.

Narrator: 1,000 miles From chernobyl,

The radiation in reindeer Is 250% over safe limits

And standland's herd is doomed.

All the reindeers, We slaughtered them

And then digged them Down in the ground.

It was a waste.

Thousands of reindeers The first year.

Narrator: Yet the mystery remains

As to why the sami's herd Is radioactive,

Three decades After chernobyl.

Analysts consider if the answer Lies in the tundra's vegetation.

This area is very rich And lichen.

Lichen don't have A root system.

They get all of their nutrients From the atmosphere.

Cerveny: lichen acts almost Like a sponge

And absorbs That radioactive material.

Fanara: and lichen is reindeer's Favorite food.

Narrator: lichen covers vast Tracks of the tundra

Where stanland's Reindeer roam and feed.

And tests indicate it will Be potentially lethal

For decades to come.

You have to wait for the Radioactive material to decay.

And in the case of caesium-137, The half life is 30 years.

That means by now, About 30 years after chernobyl,

Only about half of it is gone.

Narrator: the burden On the samii is unrelenting.

They face years Testing reindeer for radiation

Released three decades ago,

Probing for the toxic legacy of Our worst-ever nuclear accident.

**

Coming up, history's Biggest treasure horde.

You're dealing with one of the Absolute giants

Of biblical history.

Narrator: and hitler's Underwater terror fleet.

Morgan: they're operating With a vengeance.

Sinking ships constantly.

[ explosion ]

**

**

Narrator: january 24th, 2012.

The worldview-2 satellite scans The deserts of the holy land,

An area of special interest To archeologists.

It's an absolutely Barren landscape.

It looks like The surface of mars.

Narrator: yet, far from any Signs of human life,

It detects this.

What stands out Is a four-walled structure

Right in the middle Of the desert.

Hunt: the waning of corners. The rubbing away of details.

This looks like A really old structure.

It begs the question, Why is it there?

Why did people bother To build it

In this very dry, Remote part of jordan?

Narrator: historians consider If the structure's

Isolated location Offers a clue.

Krueger: this could be a site Known as a caravanserai,

Which is kind of a way Station for travelers.

Narrator: a caravanserai Is like a truck stop

For ancient caravans.

They grew along treasure-laden Trade routes

At roughly 20-mile intervals.

Caravanserai were separated By about a day's journey

Between each of them.

They would have A squared-off perimeter,

And on the inside you would have A stall to put your camels,

And you would have a building

Where you would have access To water and food.

Narrator: archeologist Patrick hunt

Agrees it looks ancient,

But it's not a caravanserai.

Hunt: going in on a zoom, What you actually see

Is an enormous amount Of smaller squares all around,

A lot higher density Of activity

Than a caravanserai Would support.

Narrator: he scans The surrounding land

For further clues.

Hunt: there's a soil color Difference that's dramatic.

You can see greenish oxide,

The patination Of copper oxide soils,

So we know that copper is here. Maybe they're copper mines.

Narrator: tribes in jordan, Where this image is taken,

Are thought to have mined copper As early as 5,000 years ago.

It's one of the largest copper Mining extraction areas

In the ancient world.

Narrator: copper was The first metal used

By early civilizations.

Its discovery drags Primitive humankind

Out of the two and a half Million year-long stone age.

When you alloy tin to copper, You get bronze.

Bronze can be used to make Swords and other weaponry.

[ soldiers shouting ]

Narrator: copper creates The sumerians' battle axes,

The spartans' shield wall, And the roman sword.

Once you master copper, You now have civilization.

Narrator: in antiquity, Copper is an incredibly

Highly valued commodity And scale analysis

Suggests An ancient mine of this size

Could have produced hundreds Of tons of it every year.

If you are the owner of a mine Like this, you are powerful.

You could arm large groups Of people with weaponry.

You were the top Of the food chain.

Horton: the question is who Is actually running this mine?

Who is actually Getting rich from it?

Narrator: when archeologists Test artifacts

Recovered from the site, It reveals something intriguing.

Hunt: radiocarbon dating hits A narrow window for this site.

What's exactly coinciding With the reign

Of a very important king, Just to the north --

Solomon.

Narrator: born around 1010 bc,

The great king solomon rules Over the kingdom of israel,

Which extended into jordan.

The tenth son of king david,

Famous for his wisdom And his fabulous wealth.

You're dealing with one of The absolute giants

Of biblical history.

Narrator: for each of The 40 years of his reign,

It is said solomon grows richer By 25 tons of gold.

He builds the first temple In jerusalem on temple mount,

Where some believe the arc of The covenant still lies hidden.

Hunt: the temple is adorned With a huge bronze cauldron,

A bath, that's mounted Upon 12 bronze bulls.

Horton: king solomon is mostly Known from biblical sources

As this very rich And powerful king

And, in particular, Had and controlled gold mines.

Narrator: according to The bible,

Solomon's mines contained $3 trillion,

Not of copper, but of gold,

The ultimate prize for The world's treasure hunters.

Walters: archeologists, Historians,

Explorers have spent The past 3,000 years

Looking for king solomon's gold.

They've gone to peru, The philippines, india.

Narrator: the ancient greeks, Renaissance explorers,

And victorian adventurers Have all obsessed

Over finding solomon's Vast horde of gold.

It's never been found.

Narrator: Solomon was rich in gold,

But what if his famous minds Were producing, not gold itself,

But some other Highly valuable metal?

Walters: this great mining Operation

That we see in these sites

Would have produced Enormous wealth.

What is intriguing is that,

Possibly, king solomon's wealth Didn't derive from gold,

But actually derived From copper.

Hunt: maybe king solomon's mines Are copper mines,

Not gold mines.

Maybe this image We're looking at

Is the real king solomon's mine.

Narrator: if so, then surveys Of the site suggest

That not only was solomon A powerful king,

He was a great visionary.

You've got smelting facilities,

You've got furnaces, You've got pipe work.

I mean, this is a proper mine That would work today.

**

Narrator: Coming up, the ice coffin...

This is extraordinary, isn't it?

Narrator: ...And the ring of fire.

The blast blew people Hundreds of feet in the air,

It was absolute carnage.

**

**

Narrator: September 23rd, 2018.

The international space Station orbits

Earth every 90 minutes at speeds Of almost five miles per second.

As it passes 220 miles Above remote

Southern ocean off antarctica,

An astronaut Captures this image.

This is extraordinary, isn't it?

The only way to describe it is, It looks like a giant coffin.

This is obviously ice, but this Doesn't look like anything

That I ever saw In the antarctic.

Narrator: analysts struggle to Find an explanation

For the ice's symmetry And geometric lines.

When you see a chunk of ice

That has really precise angles, That tends to say,

"Well, maybe there's Something weird going on."

It definitely has A manmade shape to it.

Narrator: it's clearly not A giant coffin,

And military historian Martin morgan

Points to one bizarre Possibility.

Human hands have manipulated ice On a large scale in the past.

During the second world war,

Particularly in the battle Of the atlantic,

One of the things that was Considered was taking an iceberg

And turning it into An unsinkable aircraft carrier.

Narrator: in world war ii, The british and russians

Rely on the u.S. For supplies,

Which were shipped across The atlantic.

Allied warplanes are able To defend the convoys

As they leave america And as they approach britain,

But in the mid-atlantic, They are vulnerable to attacks

From wolf packs Of german u-boats.

They're operating very Effectively with a vengeance,

Sinking ships constantly.

One of the biggest problems Faced by the allies

Was what was known As the mid-atlantic gap.

It was an area where aircraft Didn't have enough range

To reach in order to Conduct anti-submarine patrols.

Narrator: to bridge the gap,

The allies need Aircraft carriers,

But there is a chronic shortage Of steel and aluminum.

Morgan: we can't close the gap.

We don't have any physical Means to do so.

This is making us think Of every possible solution

To the mid-atlantic gap crisis.

Narrator: one bizarre suggestion Bears a striking resemblance

To the ice coffin Seen from space.

The plan called for taking A chunk of ice

And flattening off the top To create a runway long enough

For even the largest combat Aircraft in the world to land

And take off from this Structure.

Narrator: code named Project habakkuk,

Scientist geoffrey pyke

Designs an ice warship Twice as big as the titanic

That holds 300 planes.

Pyke's biggest challenge isn't Just building this mega ship.

It's stopping it from melting Like a 2,000-foot long ice cube.

Pyke comes up with the idea Of blending ice

And sawdust Into this new compound

That has a higher Melting temperature.

They call it pykrete.

Walters: you think that sounds Absolutely crazy,

But, no, it actually Makes a lot of sense.

The great thing about pykrete, Compared to normal ice,

Is that the melting takes place Incredibly slowly.

So, if you're making A massive aircraft

Carrier-sized chunk of pykrete, That's going to last for years.

Narrator: in january, 1943, Engineers construct

A 60-foot prototype On patricia lake in canada.

Morgan: this pykrete model Proves that they can

Scale everything up,

But the costs associated Were going to be too great,

And so it was Ultimately abandoned.

World war ii is so filled With these fascinating moments

Of "What could have been",

And this might be the greatest, "What could have been",

But alas, It wasn't to be at all.

Narrator: searching for A natural explanation

For this ice giant's Extraordinary shape,

Analysts track Its historic movements.

The images reveal That in march, 2000,

A massive iceberg breaks off the Ross ice sheet in antarctica.

At 170 miles long and measuring Over 4,000 square miles,

This supersize specimen contains Roughly 3 trillion tons of ice.

Dennie: this is the size of The entire state of connecticut

And, incredibly, there's enough Water within this one iceberg

To match the annual Average rainfall

For all land area on earth For an entire year.

Narrator: the tracking data Reveals this mega berg travels

Thousands of miles around Our southernmost continent.

When icebergs break off Of the antarctic ice sheets,

They tend to drift around in the Currents in the southern ocean.

And as they move further north, They encounter warmer water,

And as soon as they do, Their days are numbered.

Narrator: but the ice coffin's Mother berg

Is so large, That after 18 years,

It's still afloat And over 30 miles long.

To put in perspective, The iceberg that sank

The titanic drifted around For about two years

Before it eventually Got into the shipping lanes

And sank that ship.

This iceberg has been drifting For almost two decades.

Narrator: analysts follow The ice mass as it arrives

At a treacherous swirling Patch of the antarctic ocean

That scientists Call iceberg alley.

The atlantic coastal current Grabs these icebergs,

And over time, they will rub And bump into each other

And will eventually break apart.

Narrator: the cataclysmic Shattering of these giant burgs

Is so loud,

It's picked up by underwater Microphones 4,000 miles away.

The oceans around antarctica Are actually filled with

What you could consider to be Their death throngs of pain

As they melt away into nothings.

Narrator: it might be that once In iceberg alley,

Violent contact With other bergs

Causes the ice chunk To splinter

Releasing This strange shape.

It just so happens that This tabular iceberg broke apart

In a manner That looks like a coffin.

Narrator: which is perfectly apt Because the drifting coffin

Has reached warm waters Where icebergs go to die.

Coming up, Into the fire tornado...

Phoenix: this is literally like

The most destructive forces On earth

Had a baby and It's just rampaging everywhere.

Narrator: ...And arizona's Nuclear condos.

What's really extraordinary is, It's prime real estate.

**

**

Narrator: november 7th, 2018.

Scientists studying radar data

At a national weather Service facility spot

Something strange over the town Of woodbine, georgia.

This is one of the coolest Radar images I have ever seen.

It's like a giant doughnut

Expanding out from A single point in the middle.

It is bizarre.

Faylor: this just looks like An explosion,

And you see it rising, Growing, spreading out.

Boom.

[ explosion ]

Narrator: if this is A catastrophic blast,

It won't be the first one To hit this part of georgia.

Phoenix: this area was known for Manufacturing weapons

During the vietnam war era,

And unfortunately there was A massive explosion

That killed a lot of people way Back then.

[ helicopter blades whirring ]

Narrator: the blast takes place In 1971

In the thiokol-woodbine factory,

A plant in the southeast Of the town

Contracted to Make military flares.

The blast completely leveled The building,

Blew people hundreds of feet In the air, killed 29 people.

It was absolute carnage.

Narrator: yet closer analysis Suggests

The radar hasn't captured A similarly catastrophic event.

This is not just one image From a snapshot in time.

It's a time-lapse.

An explosion would have happened Much more rapidly and expanded

Even quicker.

Narrator: meteorologist Kelsey ellis has another theory.

Ellis: there can be storms That are caused by fires

Called fire clouds,

And I'm wondering If this could be that.

Narrator: fire clouds can form From wildfires and volcanoes.

They can reach temperatures Above 1,400 degrees fahrenheit.

The intense heat generates Violent updrafts

Filling the sky With an expanding tower of smoke

That resembles The radar image.

**

Thunderstorms are caused By a heated surface,

So if a city gets really hot, It can cause a thunderstorm.

So, imagine what a fire can do.

If the ground is on fire, They can cause a cloud

That basically creates Its own weather system.

Narrator: as these fire clouds

Swell up to 30,000 feet Into the sky,

They can unleash A different kind of terror.

They can actually produce Full-sized tornadoes.

Now you've got winds Of 150 miles an hour

Ripping trees Out of the ground.

Hurling cars As if they were toys,

And all of that in the middle Of a raging wild fire.

[ thunder cracks ]

Phoenix: this is literally like

The most destructive forces On earth

Had a baby and it's just Rampaging everywhere.

It is the most metal weather I can possibly think of.

Narrator: but, something's Not right about the image.

If we take a closer Look at this data, it's blue,

And something that's ash or rain Would be red on the doppler.

So, this is pointing More towards something

That's biological in origin.

Narrator: Martin pepper speculates

What biological phenomenon Could do this?

The final piece of the puzzle For me is the timing of the day.

This is happening early In the morning.

So it must be, some organism Is waking up and taking flight.

So, for me it has to be birds.

Ruben: some birds roost In massive groups like this

And they all take off In different directions

Just before dawn to go and feed.

The group captured in the radar Image is so huge,

It might contain 700,000 birds.

Since this is in Southeastern georgia,

The bird that makes The most sense

For these to be Is the purple martin.

It's the only one that I can Think of that can literally,

In giant flocks, Form this perfect ring.

Biologists call this feathered Swarm a roost ring

And this roost ring Is 50 miles wide.

Phoenix: it's almost apocalyptic

When you see the sky fill With that many birds.

It's enough to blot out The sun almost.

[ birds chirping ]

Narrator: investigators learn The size of the flock

May be linked to a hoax Perpetrated back in the 1960s.

Kourounis: one entrepreneur Convinced people

That these purple martins could Eat up to

2,000 mosquitoes per day.

As you might imagine, If you're living in the south

And being pestered By mosquitoes constantly,

It would be very enticing To keep as many of these birds

Around as possible.

Narrator: but research reveals That purple martins

Rarely eat mosquitoes.

It appears that some suspect '60s salesmanship has led

To the creation of a gigantic Mega colony of birds.

So, unfortunately this isn't A giant doughnut,

But it is a whole Bunch of birds.

That's cool.

**

Narrator: coming up, the cia Devices stealing your secrets.

Moran: this is a massive Security dragnet

And any one of us could be Caught in it multiple times.

**

Narrator: june 6th, 2017.

Above black canyon city,

Central arizona, an orbiting Camera takes this image.

So, there are several circular Structures here

That have three smaller square Structures associated with them.

What could have possibly caused These circles in the desert?

The structures outlines Are familiar to some analysts.

Dennie: when I see these Circular shapes, to me,

They resemble water Treatment facilities.

Ruben: in this part of arizona,

Water treatment Is especially important

Because the water Has high levels of arsenic.

Narrator: the bedrock here Is saturated

With this lethal element.

Test show that one In five drinking water wells

In the southwestern u.S. Is classified as poisonous.

Dennie: water treatment plants Have these circular shapes

Where water is brought in

And the solids Are allowed to settle.

So, from a high altitude,

These could be that kind Of settling facility.

Narrator: yet, military analysts Think the flat circular shapes

Have a different origin.

During the cold war, the state Of arizona had launch silos

For the american titan ii icbm.

They had a blast resistant cover Over the silo itself,

And so maybe these pads That we are seeing

Are simply the covers Are the launch silos.

Narrator: the titan ii Nuclear missile

Can hit a target 6,000 miles away

And carries A nine megaton warhead.

Moran: this is an astronomical Payload.

The largest, most destructive Nuclear warhead

That the united states Ever develops.

Narrator: 30 years after The titan ii threatened

To unleash the apocalypse,

Their abandoned silos are being

Put to a very different use In arizona.

Moran: what's really Extraordinary

Is that some of these sites Are actually for sale.

It's kind of prime real estate.

For $340,000, you can have Your own underground bunker.

It's like a survivalist's dream.

If you ever had the ambition To actually be dr. Evil,

You can buy one of these Titan ii missile facilities,

But the nuclear bomb Is not included.

Narrator: however, When journalist sarah carter

Takes a closer look,

She spots a detail that suggests This site has another purpose.

Carter: there is actually A shadow

Being cast against The desert ground,

And it looks like it's coming From a very tall mass.

This appears to be A communication tower.

Narrator: carter learns the site Plays host to seven towers.

What's weird is that locals Have tried to break

Into the compound And destroy them.

They entered the facility

And actually burned down Four of these towers.

Narrator: a clue to what Motivated these attacks

Comes from a covert recording

Of an intelligence services Meeting in 2015.

Moran: a video was leaked Showing then fbi director

James comey Discussing stingray devices.

These devices actually Mimic cell phone towers,

To unbeknownst to anyone In the area,

Their cell phones Are pinging to this network

And pinpointing their precise Location or movement.

Narrator: leaked reports reveal

That every day, The national security agency

Harvests data From a billion cell phone calls

And 200 million text messages.

It does so by using aerials Which resemble

Those photographed From the skies over arizona.

Seven towers in a cluster.

Imagine the power Of this radio signal.

People that lived in the area Were so deeply concerned

That some of them went out and Destroyed some of these towers.

Narrator: the arson attack Is one of several

On suspicious masts Across the world.

These stingrays are deployed Throughout the united states,

Canada, and the united kingdom.

This is a Massive security dragnet,

And any one of us could be Caught in it multiple times.

Narrator: it transpires that In this instance,

The local suspicions Were misplaced.

The masts are used for Commercial radio transmissions,

But the public knows that The threat to their freedoms

Posed by illegal spy towers Is very real.

At least two states have ruled Them unconstitutional,

And it brings up something That we've been grappling with

For years now.

That balance between security And privacy.

**