All language subtitles for What.on.Earth.S09E01.1080p.DSCP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-BTN_track3_[eng]

NARRATOR:
They're watching you.

More than 5,000 satellites
circle the Earth.

Every day, they uncover new
mysterious phenomena

that defy explanation.

Magic circles
in the land of King Arthur.

Oh, wow.
Wow!

NARRATOR: The secrets of
NASA's alien dessert.

This is science fiction,
except you're living it.

NARRATOR: And the mystery
of Skull Island.

Who are these people?

How did they die?

NARRATOR: Baffling phenomena.
Mysteries from space.

What on earth are they?

**

**

**

Cornwall, on the southwesterly
tip of Britain.

Karen Bellinger is traveling
through this historic county

to investigate

a mystery captured from
the skies on April 23, 2017.

The satellite image shows
a really intriguing structure.

It's two gigantic
concentric circles.

NARRATOR: The archaeologist
believes the circles could be

the footprint of a giant
ancient structure.

It will trigger
an investigation that will

lead from ancient magicians
through King Arthur

to the California Gold Rush.

I really want to get a close
look at them, because this is

an area of Britain where there
are thousands of ancient sites,

some of them
literally pre-dating

the Egyptian pyramids.

NARRATOR: Bellinger's journey
takes her

close to Cornwall's
Atlantic coast,

a land of myth
and folklore

and the birthplace,

according to legend,
of King Arthur himself.

If I had
the coordinates right,

it's got to be just up ahead.

**

Oh! There it is!

Oh, wow.

Wow.

It's even bigger than
I thought it would be.

NARRATOR: The structure is
around 300 feet in diameter

and constructed from two giant
rings of earth and stone.

They were not messing around
when they built this thing.

So clearly
this site is ancient.

I don't know how old,
but it could be

thousands of years old.

NARRATOR: The site bears many
of the hallmarks of a henge,

a Stone Age earthwork used
for religious ceremonies.

But what puzzles
the archaeologist

is that the giant wall

appears to have been
added many centuries later.

BELLINGER: This is a much
more recent structure.

This place has been reused,

it looks like
a number of times.

Why is it here in the middle
of this desolate plain?

NARRATOR: Exploring further,
Bellinger finds

what looks like a giant,
lopsided stone table.

BELLINGER: Okay.
You know...

I think I know what this is.

I think this is an ancient
burial tomb dating back to

around the Neolithic,

even, which could be
5,000 years old.

This is what Germans call
a Hunenbett, or giant tomb,

a kind of ritualistic,
ancient grave site.

BELLINGER: This site would be
a community burial site

and probably been used
for other ritual

ceremonial purposes.

NARRATOR: The tomb sits
directly in line

with the entrance of
the structure seen from space.

I think we can assume that
there was some kind of

connection between what was
going on in the circles

and the tomb.

NARRATOR: For reasons
poorly understood,

many ancient peoples would
carefully orient

structures with astronomical
events or other monuments.

Some speculate that they
wanted to create so-called

spirit paths to connect
the living and the dead.

It suggests that people may
have once gathered within

the circles to pay homage
to those in the tomb.

BELLINGER: They're very
carefully sited based on

a sophisticated understanding
of topography,

of the relation between
the ancestors and descendants.

NARRATOR: If this was the site
of ancient pagan rituals,

the addition of
the stone walls suggests

it was reused
at a later date.

Historical records provide
clues as to

what practices may have taken
place there.

In the 16th and particularly
the 17th century in Cornwall,

there was a massive revival
in witchcraft activity.

NARRATOR: This resurgence
attracts the attention

of the witch finders,
who torture

and execute thousands
of people accused of

occult practices.

Analysts speculate that
during those tyrannical years,

these remote structures
could have

concealed such rituals
from the authorities.

HORTON: The conclusion
is that because Cornwall

was kind of so remote
from the rest of Britain,

these pagan practices
were allowed to continue.

NARRATOR: Nearby, Bellinger
finds more evidence connecting

the structure in the image
to occultic ceremonies.

Oh, my gosh.

That is extraordinary.

It's like somebody punched
a hole straight through it.

NARRATOR: For centuries, people
in Cornwall would seek

the assistance of witches
for help with childbirth.

Maybe the purpose of this one
was to pass something through.

I don't know,
but whatever it was,

it was a deeply
ritualistic activity.

HORTON: The possibility
is this is associated

with fertility rites
and probably witchcraft

that we know at this time
was very prevalent

in western Cornwall.

NARRATOR: The structure
seen from space

is surrounded by evidence
of black magic.

Yet to Bellinger,
the addition of these

giant walls suggests it also
served another purpose.

Gotta be 15 feet thick.

I can see that they were
definitely taller in the past.

This has got to be some kind
of fortification.

It's gotta be.

But what were they
defending against?

NARRATOR: The wall commands
360-degree views

of vast expanses of
hills and coastline.

What's that over there?

NARRATOR: Coming up...

the strange structures'

4,000-year-old secret.

Wow.
Look at this.

NARRATOR: And something weird
in the Amazon.

I can see aircraft
etched onto the ground.

That's bizarre.

NARRATOR: Karen Bellinger
is in Southwest Britain,

drawn here by an ancient
structure seen from space.

It appears to have been used

for both ritualistic
and military purposes.

She's discovered
other strange monuments

lining the nearby cliff tops.

Look at this.

NARRATOR:
Unlike the nearby fort,

these crumbling ruins appear
to have been built to house

machines, not men.

None of these openings are
really tall enough for a human

to move easily through,
if at all.

All right.
Huh.

You can see the little metal
concretions and bits of rock.

This is slag.

This is the byproduct of
metal processing.

This place is
a mining facility.

NARRATOR: The cliffs are rich
in a metal that could

explain why these mines
are overlooked

by an ancient fortification.

The clue is right here
in the landscape.

I mean, down in the cliff,

you can see clearly
the silvery, dark

gray discoloration.

That's tin.

NARRATOR: In antiquity,
tin was one of

the most valuable commodities
in the world.

Its discovery in Cornwall in
vast quantities around

4,000 years ago leads

to a boom in mining here
and brings great wealth

to these shores.

Tin was such a valued
commodity that it opened up

an incredibly lucrative trade
between Britain

and the rest of the world.

NARRATOR: What makes tin
so sought after is

that it could be used
to make bronze.

People would come to Cornwall,
because Cornwall was one of

the only sources of tin in
the whole of Western Europe.

NARRATOR: Bronze is the metal
that drags mankind

out of the Stone Age.

Using tin from Cornish mines,

crude tools and weapons made
from stone are replaced with

ones fashioned from metal,

enabling great civilizations
to rise.

Tin makes you powerful.
It makes you strong.

The Bronze Age
possibly would have been

very different had Cornwall's
tin not been available.

NARRATOR: Cornwall's lucrative
tin mines soon

attract warriors and pirates
seeking plunder.

We think that the very
reasons why the Romans

even invaded the British Isles
in the first century A.D.

was in order to acquire
supplies of tin from Cornwall.

NARRATOR: According to legend,
King Arthur was of

Roman descent.

It is perhaps more than
a coincidence that nearby

Tintagel,
where Arthur is rumored

to have been conceived, was a
tin mine before it was a castle.

And it appears the structure

in the image was
similarly fortified

to protect the nearby mines
from invaders and bandits.

HUNT: The place has been
attacked so many times by sea,

so the tin mines and their
proximity to the water means

this place needs to
be defended.

NARRATOR: With
the Industrial Revolution,

which began in England,

tin extraction here reaches
new heights.

The mining industry is
transformed by

pumping machinery,

so these mines got deeper
and deeper.

They not only went
across the land

but also went way
under the sea.

NARRATOR: By the 19th century,
Cornwall has more than

2,000 mines,

many of them perched
on cliff tops.

To reach the rock face,

miners must work in tunnels,
which stretch a mile and a half

beneath the sea.

Of course, this was an
incredibly dangerous operation.

Mines often get flooded,
because the engines failed,

and the miners would drown.

NARRATOR: In the early
20th century,

when cheaper tin
is discovered overseas,

the Cornish mines
begin to close.

The workers there whose mining
instincts and skills had

been honed and passed on
for thousands of years

seek other riches abroad.

They find it in America,

helping to turn California
into the Golden State.

In the mid-19th century,
Cornish miners came

to California and greatly
helped the Gold Rush.

They knew how to work
the stone better than anybody.

NARRATOR:
Today, Cornwall's tin mines

are slowly falling to ruin.

The strange circles that once
protected them are a reminder

of this region's
extraordinary history,

one that transcends
ancient pagan rituals,

mankind's rise out of
the Stone Age, and the dawn of

the industrial world.

BELLINGER: The landscape around
here is just so remarkable,

and the people have left
markers of their passage

on this earth.

It's -- it's truly
an otherworldly

and mystical place.

NARRATOR: Coming up, Arizona's
extraterrestrial desert.

We've been training all
these years, but still,

when you're there,
it is a different world.

NARRATOR:
And the weird jungle ciphers.

This is not
the kind of thing that

I would expect
to see in the Amazon.

NARRATOR:
June 15, 2017,

an aerial
survey above the southern

United States captures unusual
marks in the baked earth below.

RUBEN: This image is from
the middle of Arizona,

and you can see trees
all around,

but then there's
this clearing with no trees

and just a bunch of
large circles.

MORAN: This is just a really
weird landscape.

There's this completely
barren area with,

like, scattershot craters all
over the land.

NARRATOR: There are
top-secret military bases

northwest of this area,

where experimental aircraft
flew and nuclear testing

took place
during the Cold War,

but not near these marks.

WALTERS: What we know
about this area in Arizona

is it had nothing to do
with military testing.

So if this isn't caused
by shells,

what's this crater field
caused by?

NARRATOR: NASA scientist
Pascal Lee studies the image,

and the story
takes a bizarre turn.

He has seen this exact pattern
before, but not on Earth.

When I just saw this, I had to
make a double take on it,

because it looked just like
the impact crater pattern of

the Sea of Tranquility.

NARRATOR:
The Sea of Tranquility is

a large pockmarked plain of
basalt rock on the moon.

Somehow,
and for some reason,

a 250,000-square-foot patch
of Arizona desert

is a perfect match for
a section of lunar landscape.

How is it possible that
a random

spot in the wilderness in
Arizona would happen

to line up so well with
the craters on the moon?

NARRATOR: Lee reveals the crater
field is the legacy of

an extraordinary yet
little-remembered chapter

of the Apollo program.

This is a place where
the future Apollo 11 landing

site was recreated
to serve as

a training ground for
the Apollo astronauts who were

going to make
the first moon landing.

NARRATOR: At the dawn
of the Apollo program

in 1961, NASA is
trailing in the space race.

The Soviets have successfully
launched the first satellite,

and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin has

become the first person
in space.

But the great prize was to
land humans on the moon

and to bring them back again.

We choose to go to the moon
in this decade

and do the other things,

not because they are easy,
but because they are hard.

NARRATOR: Landing on another
world was going to test

the space agency's
capabilities to its limits.

Apollo scientists needed
a surface of volcanic cinders

on Earth,
where they could

perfectly recreate
a lunar landing site.

They found it in Arizona.

The cinder material here

is a near perfect match
of what scientists

thought the Sea of Tranquility
is gonna be like.

NARRATOR: The only thing
the Arizona location lacked

was a few billion years of
crater hits.

To create them,

engineers used 426 precisely
timed explosive charges

to replicate the layout and
age of the Sea of Tranquility's

impact craters

and unleash hell.

[explosion blasts]

They deliberately had
the blasts from newer craters

later than the blasts
from older craters,

so that the debris from one
would be on top of the other.

NARRATOR:
Those working on Arizona's

lunar landing site are just
some of around 400,000

NASA employees dedicated to
the success of the mission,

a mission that swallows 5%

of total
U.S. Government spending.

LEE: A lot of risks
were taken.

A lot of cost was also
committed, and this is why

so much minutia went into
planning the mission,

including reconstructing
this landscape of the first

landing site.

NARRATOR: In the run-up
to the Apollo 11 launch,

NASA uses the crater field to
run mission simulations and

prime the crew for mankind's
first steps on another world.

WALTERS: You gotta remember
that the job of

the lunar astronauts wasn't
just to go to the moon.

They were there to work.

So obviously, in a very
literally alien terrain,

you've got to prepare
these guys.

ANNOUNCER: 3, 2, 1, 0 --
liftoff.

We have a liftoff,
32 minutes past the hour,

liftoff on Apollo 11.

NARRATOR: At 9:32 a.m.
on July 16, 1969,

the Apollo crew blasts off
from Cape Canaveral.

It takes three days
to reach lunar orbit.

But as the crew
descends towards

the Sea of Tranquility's
familiar craters...

OVER RADIO: 1201.

OVER RADIO: 1201 --
roger, 1201 alarm.

...an accidental boost
in pressure

pushes them towards
the surface too fast.

They have to do
an emergency burn,

they have to thrust the craft

some distance away from where
they intended to land.

OVER RADIO:
Engine arm off.

413 is in.

Tranquility base here.
The eagle has landed.

NARRATOR: Following the first
moon landing, the lunar

landscape is used by
subsequent Apollo astronauts.

Alan Bean was one of them.

We'd been training and
simulating all these years,

but still,

when you're there,
it is a different world.

And when you look up there,
and the Earth is 239,000

miles away and this big,

you have a tough
time believing it.

This is amazing.

This is science fiction,
except you're living it.

To date, only 12 humans

have set foot on
extraterrestrial soil

and all of them trained

on this strange echo of
the moon captured from space.

LEE:
Here we have on the Earth,

a patch of ground that was
reshaped to recreate

the surface of another world.

To me, that's -- that's quite
remarkable. It's a treasure.

[beeping noise]

NARRATOR: Coming up,

the FBI versus
the Nazi monks.

These are not nice people.

They even have their cattle
branded with swastikas.

NARRATOR: And the cliff top
cave of horrors.

There are human bones,
thousands of human bones.

NARRATOR:
September 3, 2003.

Orbiting over Brazil,
a satellite spies something

in the jungle
that shouldn't be there.

I'm looking at a clearing --
in the middle of it,

I can see five or six aircraft

etched onto the grounds
in some way.

That's bizarre.

MORAN: This is not
the kind of thing

that I would expect
to see in the Amazon.

NARRATOR: And there are other
strange markings nearby.

Just to the southeast is

the remains of some sort of
square structure.

CADDICK-ADAMS: It looks like
a dilapidated old

building, and given its
remote location,

I'm thinking it's military.

NARRATOR: The structure appears
to be decades old.

MORGAN: It looks like it's
an older facility, and,

quite frankly, almost as if

it belongs to maybe the era of
the Second World War.

NARRATOR: Brazil is an ally
in World War two,

and Brazilian troops form a
division of the U.S. Fifth Army.

But there is no record of
an Allied base here.

Yet Guy Walters has uncovered
declassified FBI documents,

which could explain
the remote jungle base.

In October 1941,
J. Edgar Hoover,

who was director
of the FBI,

wrote to the Assistant
Secretary of State and stated

that there are, quote,
rumors

current in Brazil
as to a German airbase.

NARRATOR: A secret Nazi airbase
close enough to hit U.S. assets

and the strategically vital
Panama Canal buried deep inside

the Amazon.

That's a pretty devastating
cable to read.

And that's gonna send
alarm bells

ringing in the corridors
of power.

NARRATOR: Two months later,
Hoover receives yet

more worrying news from
the Amazon.

A second intelligence report
describes how there were

a series of abbeys populated by
German monks,

and that this network could be
stockpiling fuel in the Amazon.

It was not uncommon for World
War II spies to leave symbols

or markings on the ground that
could only be

visible from the air.

So perhaps these symbols
of aircraft indicate

that this clearing is
a remote jungle airstrip.

For my money, at least, this
initially sounds really crazy.

But actually, it shouldn't.

Brazil has got this
significant influx of

German immigrants during
the early 20th century.

In fact, Brazil had
the highest number

of National Socialist Party
members outside of Germany.

NARRATOR: These Brazilian
Nazi sympathizers are

called the Integralistas.

Now these Integralistas,
these are

not nice people, Okay?

I mean, they set up
slave farms for starters.

They kidnap orphan children,
and they force them

to work under really
brutal conditions.

They even have their cattle
branded with swastikas.

NARRATOR: Such is
the level of Nazi activity

in Brazil
that Hitler establishes

a series of secret
radio stations in the country,

as part of a spy network
code-named Operation Bolivar.

U.S. intelligence officers,
quite understandably, suspect

there's a German kind of

monastic network
in the Amazon rainforest,

so I'm starting to wonder
whether this could be

the missing Nazi airbase.

NARRATOR: After the war,
Brazil gave refuge to Nazis

like Dr. Josef Mengele,

who tortured children and
others in unspeakable ways

in Nazi extermination camps.

No Nazi airbase
was ever found,

but historic newspaper reports
reveal that the site has

a different but equally
troubling origin.

In 1986, Brazil's biggest
newspaper gets a scoop that

the government is building

a secret nuclear test
site in the Cachimbo Mountains.

Well, this matches
exactly the area that

we see in the satellite image.

NARRATOR: In the 1970s,
Brazil's military dictator,

Ernesto Geisel, begins using

this remote jungle airbase and
target range has a clandestine

site to develop and test
atomic weapons.

Under the guise of
research into nuclear energy,

he expands the site
and starts producing

weapons-grade uranium.

Horrifyingly,
reports suggest that Brazil

actually got within two years

of having a working
nuclear weapon.

That would create
a nuclear power

very close
to the United States.

HYMEL: But the story
doesn't end there.

What we find out
is not only

was Brazil developing its own
nuclear program,

it's helping other countries
develop them also.

NARRATOR:
Intelligence reports

suggest that when oil prices
spike during the 1970s,

Brazil starts selling its
nuclear secrets in exchange for

black gold.

It's then that Brazil makes
a deal with the devil.

They agree with a Middle
East leader to help them out,

and that's Saddam Hussein.

MORAN: This revelation
is really a bombshell.

In the 1980s, everybody
fears a nuclearized Iraq.

And here is Brazil basically

selling to Iraq
under everybody's noses.

NARRATOR: Some sources claim
the country's atomic scientists

continue working in Iraq
until 1990,

when Brazil shuts down
its secret jungle

nuclear program.

Fear that Iraq had weapons of
mass destruction

led the U.S. to invade
the country in 2003,

including Special Forces
veteran Klint Janulis.

JANULIS: When I was
in the invasion of Iraq,

I do recall being ordered to
take note of anything relating

to the Brazilian space agency.

Now, learning that Iraq
and Brazil were

trading nuclear secrets
and money and uranium --

it's kind of
a spooky thought.

[shouting indistinctly]

NARRATOR: While the troops find
no trace of Saddam's nukes,

the fate of atomic secrets
and materials traded between

the dictator and the Brazilian
government remains unclear.

Coming up -- brain surgery,
cave man style.

Somebody has actually bored
a hole in the top of

the skull
on multiple occasions.

NARRATOR:
And the kung fu mega egg.

This looks like one of
the most intriguing buildings

I've ever seen.

[satellite beeps]

NARRATOR:
July 2019.

As a drone scans
the mountainous island of

Gran Canaria, 60 miles
off the African coast,

the pilots spot
something extraordinary.

So we're looking
at the side of a cliff,

and there are a lot of white
objects crowded together.

What it seems to show is
a huge quantity

of bone --
looking at shapes of the bone,

one can see that
they're human bones,

thousands of human bones
lying on the surface.

NARRATOR: When archaeologists
explore the macabre scene,

they discover the remains of
around 100 people,

including children.

Who are these people?

How did they die?

Why are their bones
all in the same spot?

NARRATOR: The team recovers
bones for analysis.

Some of the skulls provide
a possible clue.

Several of these skulls had
holes in the back of them.

BELLINGER: Looking at
these holes, which are very

neatly made, immediately makes
me think of trepanation.

NARRATOR:
Trepanation is the world's

oldest form of major surgery.

Trepanation is where somebody
has actually bored

a small hole in the top of
the skull,

and in some of the most gory
cases, on multiple occasions.

For millennia,

patients would endure
trepanation to create

a conduit to release
evil spirits or treat

neurological pain.

5 to 10% of
all skulls recovered

from the Neolithic period
display evidence

of trepanation.

You know,
it's like the cure-all,

the antibiotics of
the ancient world.

NARRATOR: Carbon dating and bone
analysis reveals the cave

skulls do not carry evidence
of prehistoric surgery.

The studies do, however,

provide archaeologists
with another clue.

So the radiocarbon dates
are from

the 8th and the 10th
centuries A.D.

This shows clearly that this is
an indigenous Guanche site.

NARRATOR: The Guanches rule
the Canary Islands

for six millennia,

until they disappear
around 600 years ago.

Few clues to
their time here exist

other than pyramid-like
structures made out of

volcanic rock and accounts
from traders in antiquity.

We have intriguing references
from Greek and Roman

writers that they were
fair-skinned and fair-haired.

NARRATOR: The Guanche tribes
are known to have been

fierce warriors who worshiped
a solar deity called Al-Karak.

The discovery of
children's bodies in

the cave could provide
a clue to their fate.

To mark sunrise
on the summer solstice,

tribes are known to have hurled
children from cliffs,

possibly in honor
of their sun god.

So what's interesting about
this bone deposit is that

it's in a secret
and very remote location.

It's possible that it might be

associated with some form
of sacrifice rituals.

NARRATOR:
But trace evidence of resins

and pieces of animal skin

on the bones suggest
the dead served a different

ritualistic purpose.

Examining these skeletons,
archaeologists found that

a number of the individuals
display evidence

for mummification.

When you see mummification,
you see

a preservation
and a respect for the dead.

NARRATOR: Historians speculate
the Guanches likely learned how

to mummify their dead

from the ancient Egyptians
with whom they traded.

It suggests the cave is a kind
of cliff top cemetery,

reserved for warriors
and other high-ranking members

of the tribes.

RUBEN: Mummification was a way
to give honor to the dead,

so this is not just
a burial site.

This is a special
and sacred burial site.

NARRATOR: To
the Guanches, caves

and mountaintops held deep
spiritual significance.

Originally, they would have
neatly stacked mummies

within this cave,

but then subsequently, the cave
itself has collapsed,

making this deposit of
scattered bones.

NARRATOR: Four centuries
after they start

carrying their dead to
this cave,

a devastating threat
arrives on their shores,

one that this warrior race
cannot resist...

...the Spanish Armada.

The Guanche,
with their warlike practices,

were in a position to fight
really hard against

the Spanish,
and they did.

They held out
for nearly 100 years.

We have reports that
at least some of them

committed suicide rather than
be taken prisoner

by their oppressors.

NARRATOR: By the 16th century,
the Spanish have wiped

the Guanches from
the face of the Earth.

Their cliffside mausoleum
remained hidden from

the world until rediscovered
by eyes in the sky.

Coming up,

crouching monk,
hidden structure.

We know that their bodies

can be trained to do
amazing things.

[satellite beeps]

NARRATOR: December 5, 2019.

Passing high over Henan
Province in central China,

the GeoEye satellite
captures this image.

SZULGIT:
This looks like one of

the most intriguing buildings
I've ever seen.

WALTERS: This one I find really
mysterious, because

it's this great big
sort of egg structure.

Concrete gray, and then
on top of which

is another egg structure.

NARRATOR: End to end,
the mega-sized egg

measures around 200 feet.

This is a big, high-tech
structure that's

obviously expensive.

Somebody's investing
a lot in this.

NARRATOR: Scientist
Alistair Linsell thinks

he knows where
this investment came from.

It looks like it might have
a dish on it,

and we know that China has big
ambitions for space,

so could it be related to that?

NARRATOR: In recent years,
China has spent tens of billions

of dollars on expanding space
facilities all over the world.

As part of its space
exploration roadmap,

Beijing plans to complete
its space station in

2022 and send a mission
to Jupiter in 2030.

China is not particularly
forthcoming with the details

of what it does in space
or what it wants to achieve.

So I'm wondering
if this is some

new secret of this Chinese
space program.

NARRATOR:
Yet scanning the structure

using Maxar's
SecureWatch technology

reveals it serves a different,
more bizarre purpose.

As I zoom in here,

I'm starting to see some
things that make me

think that maybe this is not
a research facility.

I'm actually seeing seating.

Looks like it might be
an amphitheater.

NARRATOR: The weird structure
appears to

be some kind of
entertainment arena.

Scanning Northwest, Ken Joyce
identifies what might

attract spectators to this
mountainous region of China --

the Monks of Shaolin Temple.

So I wonder
if this facility is

where the Shaolin monks
put on their displays.

NARRATOR: The Shaolin Temple
was founded by

a wandering Indian monk
in 464 A.D.

In pursuit of Buddhist ideals,

the monks there meditate
for what adds

up to 12 years during
their lifetimes.

Good for the mind,
not so good for the muscle.

So what they did was started
to try to get

themselves in shape by
practicing kind of martial

techniques and fighting.

Hi-yah!

NARRATOR:
Over the following centuries,

through countless
years of training,

the monks of Shaolin earn
a reputation across China

for their lethal
martial arts prowess.

They become
warriors-for-hire,

tasked with defending
the country from

overseas threats,

including the feared Wokou
pirates from Japan.

There is a mystique built up
around these monk warriors,

and you'll hear stories like
that they could walk across

grass without bending it
or run across water.

NARRATOR: Yet in the 17th
century, as the Shaolins'

fame grows, jealous officials
slaughter many of them

and strip the rest
of their weapons.

So you've got this handful of
surviving monks, and what they

start developing
as a direct consequence

of this is weaponless fighting,
how to make the human body into

the most deadly of weapons.

[indistinct exclamation]

NARRATOR:
This highly disciplined,

unarmed form of combat evolves

into what is known today
as Shaolin kung fu.

Novices as young as three
dedicate their lives to

training their bodies to

perform extraordinary
feats of strength,

agility, and endurance.

WALTERS: It is
your vocation, your job,

your profession,
your calling --

it is your life
being a Shaolin monk.

You start young,
and you end when you die.

We know that their bodies
can be trained to do

amazing things.

One superhuman ability that
many people actually believe in

is that Shaolin monks can reach
a point where they can

actually levitate.

NARRATOR: For centuries,
explorers including Marco Polo

claimed to have witnessed
monks levitating.

Now some Shaolin monks say
they can do this but that their

code of conduct forbids them
from demonstrating it to

the outside world.

And that's where this
structure comes into play.

NARRATOR: The funnel in
the amphitheater is where

ancient mystical martial arts
meets 21st century technology.

What you've got
in the middle of

this structure
is this wind tunnel,

and the monks can then float
on the wind coming out of that

tunnel around the amphitheater,

to the delight of all
the people watching.

NARRATOR: The structure
from space proves

that the monks claims of
superhero-like abilities really

are a load of hot air.

Until someone can figure out
how to

levitate themselves
with their mind,

this is about as close
as you can actually get.

**