All language subtitles for What.on.Earth.S09E03.1080p.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.

Discovered from the skies,

the citadel of
the super warriors

who crushed the legions
of Rome.

BELLINGER:
The scale of this thing

is absolutely mind-blowing.

NARRATOR:
A desert Pac-Man army reveals

a code in the Saharan sands.

This is stamped into
the desert itself.

Why is this here?

And satellites

uncover a terrifying new
menace on America's shores.

The consequences of
this threaten

national security
on every level.

NARRATOR: Baffling phenomena.
Mysteries from space.

What on earth are they?

**

**

**

Aberdeenshire,

in the East of Scotland.

An aerial image taken over
the region on April 18th, 2020,

has revealed a bizarre
structure that could

solve one of Europe's
most enduring

archaeological mysteries.

Karen Bellinger is heading
into these wild,

ancient lands to investigate.

This image is really weird.

There's a very defined,
rounded, rectangular shape.

It's unlike anything
I've ever seen before.

NARRATOR: The mystery
mountaintop feature

measures around
75,000 square feet.

It's like a giant
thumbprint pressed

into the hilltop.

HEIMLER: It appears that it is
surrounded by rocks,

but it almost looks like
they've melted

and slid down the mountain.

NARRATOR: What's more, a recent
laser scan of the mountain has

revealed the slopes are
covered in circular pits

and shadows...

...the remains,

Bellinger believes,
of hundreds of

other structures
lost to history.

Now who built those and what
they were for -- that adds

a whole 'nother level
of mystery to this.

NARRATOR: Human occupation of
this region dates back

around 15,000 years,

and much of this history
is steeped in violence.

Its castles and battlefields
have witnessed bloodshed at

the hands of legendary figures,
such as Macbeth,

Robert the Bruce,
and Rob Roy.

HORTON: William Wallace is
marauding around this part

of the world,
and there was

a lot of warfare
between the different

Celtic tribes,
so there's lots of

possibilities of
who might have built this.

NARRATOR:
To reach the structure,

Bellinger hikes
1,850 feet up slopes,

which, according to legend,

were once guarded by
a fearsome giant called

Jock o'Noth.

Wow!

This is like being
on top of the world!

NARRATOR: Bellinger discovers
that the strange gray mass in

the image is the remains of
a massive ancient wall.

It commands views over
hundreds of square miles

of countryside.

It's a remarkable,
remarkable feat of engineering.

And these walls,
they're a good 6 feet tall.

But I would imagine
they would have been

at least three times
that height.

I think what the image
has revealed from

the sky is the outlines of
a massive fortified settlement.

NARRATOR: If this is
a giant fortification,

the recent aerial scan
suggests it was once home to

thousands of people.

BELLINGER:
The scale of this thing

is absolutely mind-blowing.

NARRATOR: As Bellinger
explores the walls,

she discovers that it's not just
the fort's scale that's unique.

Oh, wow.

So this rock here,

it's all twisted
and melted together.

What this makes me think of is
something called vitrification,

and it happens when stone is
heated, basically to, like,

volcanic temperatures.

NARRATOR: Sections of the fort's
massive walls have

been heated to around
2,000 degrees Fahrenheit,

melting the rocks together.

It's a phenomenon that
baffles archaeologists.

We don't know why this
vitrification

was done for certain.

Some people have suggested
that it was accidental, that it

might have been done by
an attacking army, for example,

but much more likely, it's
been done by the people who

built the hill fort themselves

as a way of creating a much
more impregnable defense.

NARRATOR:
Many centuries ago,

a mystery civilization
carried thousands

of tons of rock up
this mountain

and apparently fused them
with volcanic heat to create

the giant unassailable fort
revealed from space.

Looking back up this mountain
from town here, I am all

the more impressed,
and frankly

amazed, at whoever built that
huge fort up there.

That is no small feat.

NARRATOR: Bellinger continues
to explore the area,

searching for clues
to the identity

of the mystery people.

A slab of granite covered

in strange patterns catches
her attention.

Wow.

I can clearly
make out some carvings.

They're really eroded,
but it looks

like they're animals of
some kind.

NARRATOR: One of the carvings
depicts a fish.

BELLINGER:
I see a tail and a fin.

The fish has really
strong early Christian

connotations,
but I don't know.

This doesn't have
a Christian feel to it,

but it is right in the shadow
of the mountain,

and it makes me wonder if
maybe they're related somehow.

NARRATOR:
Bellinger hits the road.

A recent archaeological survey
of a cave to the south

has revealed a series

of similar stone carvings,
and she wants to study

them up close.

They might have some clues
about the mysterious carvings

on the stone in the field
and the settlement

up around the fort.

NARRATOR:
Bellinger finds herself

on a stretch of
rocky coastline

buffered by the freezing
waters of the North Sea.

Well, from the map,

the cave should be that way.

NARRATOR: The cave is one
of several reaching deep

into the cliff face.

What she discovers
inside stuns her.

[quietly] Wow.

Oh, my God.

NARRATOR: Coming up,
code of the ancients.

It's extraordinary.

NARRATOR: And a desert
munching Pac-Man army.

NELSON: It's as if somebody
was designing

the video game
right here in the desert.

NARRATOR: Aerial images
from Scotland have

uncovered a giant
mountaintop citadel

formed of melted rock

and once inhabited
by thousands of people.

Karen Bellinger hopes
to shed light on

who they were by decoding
ancient stone carvings

she's found nearby.

Wow.

This must be it.

Gonna need some light before
I can get any farther in here.

NARRATOR: The cave reaches
deep into the cliff face.

I feel all of the weight of
this rock all around me.

[gasps]

Oh, my God!

This is very clearly
something human made.

It's an animal of some kind.

NARRATOR: There are dozens
more strange symbols

elsewhere on the walls of
the cave.

One of them provides a clue to

the mystery of
the mountaintop people.

This is incredible.

It's a salmon, but what's
really exciting about it is

that it's just like
the one we saw

in the standing stone
below the fort.

NARRATOR:
To Bellinger,

both the symbols
and the settlement appear to be

legacies of one of the most
enigmatic civilizations

in history.

BELLINGER: Looking at all of
these drawings, these carvings,

there's only one ancient
people I can think of who would

have been able to make them,
and that's the Picts.

NARRATOR: Little is known
about the Picts,

but it is believed they ruled
Scotland for around

600 years,
until the 10th century A.D.

They leave
no written records,

only strange codes etched
in stone.

HUNT: This is a very
mysterious people,

and our fullest portrait
comes from the Romans,

who did not want to deal with
them, because the Romans were

very much afraid of them,

and the Romans weren't afraid
of a lot of people.

NARRATOR: The earliest accounts
of the Picts come from

Romans attempting to conquer

their lands during
the 3rd century A.D.,

accounts which reveal
the Scottish tribes were some

of the most fearsome warriors
in all human history.

The Romans described
the Picts as these just

crazy kind of kamikaze-type
warriors who fought naked.

The word comes from the old
Latin word pictus,

which means painted.

They're known as the painted
people because of their

body art,
their body painting and tattoos.

NARRATOR:
At this time in history,

almost two million square miles
and 65 million people,

1/5 of
the world's population,

fall under the rule of Rome.

In the empire's northern
frontiers, only Scotland,

known as Caledonia,
remains free.

The Romans
had earned their reputation

as the world's
preeminent fighters.

There was nothing
that could stand

against them,
until they hit the Picts.

NARRATOR:
Time and time again,

the Romans attempt to thrust
into Scotland

but are repeatedly defeated
by this fearless race of

blue-painted super warriors,

the likes of which
they had never encountered.

They thought that these
barbarians were too savage

for them.

They must have sent chills
up the Romans' spine.

NARRATOR:
For around 40 years,

the Picts resist every Roman
attack on their lands

before melting like ghosts
back into

the Scottish mountains.

The Romans eventually give up
and resort to building a wall,

Hadrian's Wall, to prevent

the Picts
from attacking them anymore.

NARRATOR: Emperor Hadrian's
extraordinary 73-mile-long

structure separating
his legions from

the savages they so feared
inspires the wall

in George R.R. Martin's
"Game of Thrones."

This is the only place
in the Roman world

where you build walls against
the people around you.

That's how scary the Picts
were to the Romans.

[muffled battle noises]

NARRATOR:
According to Roman accounts,

the Picts were
a ragtag group of savages,

a horde of
cannibalistic barbarians.

Yet the size of the settlement

discovered from the skies
suggests otherwise,

rewriting what we know of
the mysterious painted people

who defied the greatest

war machine in history.

It has totally transformed

our understanding
of who the Picts were.

This shows that
it was a society of

a size and sophistication
that was almost without parallel

in Europe as a whole.

NARRATOR: Studies reveal around
4,000 Pictish warrior families

lived on this mountain,

using the fortress fashioned
from fused rock to launch

ferocious, highly-coordinated
attacks on their enemies.

BELLINGER: It's the biggest
Pictish settlement

that we've found ever.

They managed
for centuries to hold off

the Romans
when no one else could.

It shows that they didn't
do it

just by being
these gonzo warriors,

but they actually were
really strategic.

NARRATOR:
Yet just a few centuries

after they defeated the Romans,

the mighty Picts disappear
From the historical record.

Few clues to their dominance
of the Scottish

mountains remain

other than their incredible
mountain stronghold

discovered from the skies.

They essentially
dropped out of history

in the ninth century.

But they did leave all of
these clues in the landscape,

and we're just starting
to decipher those.

NARRATOR: Coming up, the
Sahara's strange aerial beacon.

We know pilots were captured,
and some were even murdered.

NARRATOR: And ships go crazy
off the California coast.

You've got some moving
over dry land,

which I think we can all agree

is not usual
for a seagoing vessel.

NARRATOR:
In 2014, as satellites pass

over Mauritania in
northwestern Africa,

they capture
a bizarre time lapse

of images of
the desert sands below.

Anybody who's my age will be
very familiar with Pac-Man.

It looks like Pac-Man's
moving across a landscape.

NARRATOR: The moving crescents
in the image are known

as barchan dunes,

up to 1,000 feet wide,

being propelled across
the landscape

by the fierce desert winds.

But what really intrigues
analysts is what's hidden

under these giant walls
of sand.

From far away,
it looks like

just a blip on the lens,
but if you get closer,

it's definitely not an
artifact of taking the picture.

It's a double circle.

NARRATOR: Someone has created
a mystery circular structure in

one of the most remote places
on the planet.

This looks like
something that

is stamped into
the desert itself.

Why is this here?

NARRATOR: The circle's location
raises an alarming possibility.

We know that the French have

done nuclear testing in
the Sahara Desert,

and we know that the Americans
have constructed a concrete

dome over the nuclear testing
site in Bikini Atoll.

So could this be
the remains of

a concrete dome over
a French nuclear test site?

NARRATOR: During the 1960s,
the French

conduct 17 nuclear tests
in the Sahara.

On Bikini Atoll
in the Pacific,

the U.S. uses a giant dome
known as the tube

to conceal waste from their
atomic tests in the region.

Dialing up the magnification
reveals the mystery structure

isn't a Saharan version of
this nuclear coffin.

CAVELL: When we look closer,
this central

rectangle has actually
got writing in it.

There are words here.

NARRATOR:
Sam Cavell believes the circle

is a kind of aerial road sign.

This circle is clearly
designed to give information to

people who are flying overhead,

and I think that it is
a navigational marker.

We know there was an old
African airmail route that went

from over Mauritania,

so that could help us explain
what we're looking at here.

NARRATOR:
Historical records confirm

the satellite has uncovered

a relic of one
of the most extraordinary

periods in the history
of aviation.

The story begins
in World War I,

when pioneering aviators
hatch an audacious plan to

create an airmail service
in the Sahara.

This was launched by a French
company in the 1920s.

They wanted to link
their colonies together,

which at the time
was French West Africa.

NARRATOR:
The plan isn't just bold.

It's also insane.

Pilots must navigate an area
of 1.8 million square miles

in planes built little more than
a decade after

the Wright Brothers'
first flight...

their cockpits open to
the fierce Saharan sand storms.

What's more, their aircraft
are not powerful

enough to carry spare water
or extra fuel.

The earliest aircraft
that were doing

these flights were
very simple affairs.

They're made of canvas,
of wood, of paper.

This was a dangerous operation
for those involved.

CAVELL: They were
absolutely infused

with this spirit of adventure.

This is what propelled them.

NARRATOR: During the 1,500-mile
round trips,

the pilots navigate
entirely by sight.

To aid them,

signs are installed
at key points in the desert,

such as the one visible in
the image marking, nearby towns

and water sources.

You'd look down,
you would know

that in this
vast expanse of inhospitable

land, there was a place
where you could stop, refuel,

have a drink maybe, and then
continue on your way.

NARRATOR: But even with
these markers,

it doesn't take long for
the Sahara to claim

its first victims --

killed by crashes

or held for ransom
by desert bandits.

We know pilots
were captured by

the local nomadic people,
and some were even murdered.

CAVELL: This is an incredibly
dangerous place to be.

If you go down,
you're on your own.

NARRATOR: Despite
the extraordinary challenges,

after a few years,

the service expands
to South America,

with pilots delivering
mail across

the 22,000-foot-high
Andes mountain range.

There is a certain amount of
romance to this

early age of navigation that
makes these men real heroes.

And perhaps we've lost
a little bit of that.

NARRATOR:
Today, over 25,000 planes

carry 60 million tons
of mail

and cargo across
the world each year,

navigating with ease using
satellite-based systems.

All of them trace
their roots to symbols

like this one etched
into the desert floor.

It's amazing to see these
symbols helped give rise to

the aerospace industry

that launched satellites
that took pictures

like the ones you see here.

NARRATOR: Coming up, who's
hacking America's satellites?

By manipulating the data,

you can pretty much
do what you want.

NARRATOR: And the Aztecs'
mystery Martian crater.

This is almost
like a museum of

the Earth's earliest
prehistory.

It's a fascinating place.

NARRATOR: Satellites play
an increasingly vital role in

tracking the movement

of the estimated 100,000 ships
currently sailing

the world's oceans.

By law, each large vessel must
carry an automatic transponder,

which regularly pings its
position to orbit.

An automatic
identification system,

what's known as AIS,
is essentially a homing

beacon that can be tracked
through GPS satellite

locating technology.

NARRATOR:
In the spring of 2020,

analysts at SkyTruth gather
AIS data that makes no sense.

These tracks
are doing some weird

stuff off the coast
of California.

BAKER: You've got some
moving over dry land,

which I think we can all agree
is not a usual pattern for

a seagoing vessel.

NARRATOR: Nine ships appear to
be circling a single location,

the Point Reyes Peninsula
near San Francisco.

What worries defense analysts
is that maritime records

indicate that, in reality,

they are thousands of miles
away from California.

Now you've really got
a problem, now you've

got something you really
have to investigate.

NARRATOR: Whatever is causing
the mystery satellite data,

it's no glitch.

BAKER: If you do have a glitch,
it would impact

the data from all the vessels
that air out in that area.

WALTERS: The really worrying
thing is that a more

sinister explanation is
the AIS system has been hacked.

So the question is,
who's doing this and why?

NARRATOR: One possibility is
that the satellite data is being

manipulated to camouflage what
the ships are doing at sea.

MORGAN: There are ships
that have figured out

a way to adopt another
ship's AIS signal.

So you have a ship
at sea that is

masquerading as another ship
to cover up illegal activities.

NARRATOR:
With a fake AIS signal,

narcos and pirates
can electronically disguise

themselves as innocent
vessels and blend into normal

ocean traffic.

MUNOZ: By manipulating the data
produced by the AIS system,

you can pretty much do
what you want.

Law enforcement keep track of
these things, obviously.

But if they see off the data
that they've just got a day

fishing boat out there,

that's pretty good cover
for the narco traffickers.

NARRATOR:
AIS hacking is

a massive problem
for law enforcement agencies.

[indistinct shouting]

Yet the weird positional data
in this image appears to

be evidence of an even more
chilling form of cyber attack.

This could be evidence of
what's called GPS spoofing.

MUNOZ: Spoofing can actually
allow someone outside

of the ship to interfere
with the AIS system

without anybody on the crew
knowing what's going on.

NARRATOR:
Spoofing can be done

using land-based computers,
which feed a false

location to a ship's AIS
transponder.

One of the best ways to
interfere with a GPS device is

to jam it with
a bunch of noise,

and that prevents it from
communicating correctly with

the satellite.

Now, by doing that,
you interfere with

the signal just enough
where the system

location does not
either attach to

the ship or puts it
off miles away.

NARRATOR: For maritime traffic,
the consequences of

an unknown aggressor
manipulating location data

are catastrophic.

If there's a vessel in
your neighborhood

that you don't like,

such a system could be used
for insidious purposes,

to steer them off course
or make them crash.

NARRATOR:
GPS spoofing

could lead to captains
unwittingly steering

supertankers full of
chemicals into busy ports

or cruise liners carrying
thousands of people onto reefs.

And the potential fallout
from such

cyber attacks isn't restricted
to shipping.

MORGAN: If they can do this
with these ships,

what else can they do?

They could spoof civilian GPS

transmitters that are onboard
commercial airlines.

They could spoof your
phone, something in your car.

They could shut a city down.

[distant sirens]

NARRATOR: The nightmare scenario
is that spoofing could even

decide the outcome of the next
global conflict.

The way modern warfare
can be defined now is less

about bombs and bullets
and more about megabytes

and algorithms.

There isn't a piece of modern
military hardware that

does not have a GPS requirement
hardwired into its design.

NARRATOR: Even more alarming,
GPS data can be spoofed

using just
a few hundred dollars

worth of
store-bought technology,

well within the budget of
any terrorist.

MUNOZ: It's
a terrifying prospect to know

that someone behind
a keyboard can manipulate

the trajectory of a weapon like
an ICBM,

essentially turning it around
and hitting you right in

the face with it.

[explosion blasts]

NARRATOR:
To date, the perpetrator of

the Point Reyes incident
remains unidentified.

This is an extraordinarily
dangerous development,

because the consequences
threatened

national security
on every level.

NARRATOR: Coming up,
into an alien world.

This reminds me of something,
but it's not on Earth.

NARRATOR:
And spies getting high --

the CIA secret
psychedelic experiments.

If somebody's mind becomes
altered, you can control them.

NARRATOR: On January 23rd, 2014,
a mystery emerges that

will take investigators
from the deserts of Mars

to the birth of one of
the greatest civilizations

on Earth.

KOUROUNIS: There's an obvious
crater in the landscape here

in Mexico,

but it's not so much
the crater that catches

my attention.

It's what's inside
this crater.

This is intriguing, because
what we're seeing is this white

color and, boy,
it sure does look like ice.

It's so unusual, because
we're talking about Mexico,

and this white patch
stays here all year round.

NARRATOR: The mystery
white crater is one of

a cluster known as
the Seven Luminaries, which,

when viewed from above, mirror
the Ursa Major constellation.

To NASA's Kasha Patel,

this
extraterrestrial connection

may be more than
just coincidence.

PATEL: This crater
reminds me of something,

but it's not on Earth.

This crater looks pretty
similar to

the Korolev crater on Mars.

NARRATOR: The Korolev crater in
the northern lowlands of

Mars contains

enough water ice to fill
almost a billion Olympic

swimming pools.

Most of the ice found
elsewhere on Mars is mixed with

frozen carbon dioxide,

but it appears that the icy
regions in the Korolev crater

are composed of more
pure water.

NARRATOR: The crater is named
after visionary rocket scientist

Sergei Korolev...

[speaking in foreign language]

...who, during the Cold War,

helped the Soviets
to outsmart NASA by

landing the first spacecraft
on the moon.

In a twist of fate,

the space agency hopes
his legacy will be

key to the future human
colonization of Mars.

LEE: Ice is such a precious
commodity for humans.

It can also be used
as rocket fuel.

If you can make hydrogen
and oxygen on Mars,

you fill your rocket
for a one-way trip,

and then you gas up on
the other end,

and you fly back
to the Earth.

NARRATOR: What stops
the ice from melting during

Mars's 70-degree-Fahrenheit

daytime temperatures is
a process called cold trapping.

NUNO: Cold air goes
into the crater,

and it forms sort of
an insulating layer so any other

water gets trapped there
as water ice.

Could we be seeing the same
process in action in

this image?

NARRATOR:
But our planet's atmosphere is

100 times thicker than on Mars,

creating swirling winds,
which prevent cold trapping from

taking place here in Mexico.

LEE: The Earth has
a very dynamic atmosphere

that tends to even out
the environment.

So this is something
very different

that we're looking at.

NARRATOR: According to those
who live nearby,

the crater did once
contain water,

but it was bleach-like and
killed everything it touched.

To geologists, this suggests
the mystery white substance

is the legacy of
a catastrophically powerful

volcanic event.

NUNO: This means the water
inside this crater is

extremely alkaline.

That tells me that this is
most likely sodium bicarbonate.

It's very broad,
but it's very shallow.

This crater has all
the classic features of

a maar volcano.

NARRATOR: Maar volcanoes are
formed by phreatic eruptions,

which are known as the nuclear
bombs of the natural world.

A maar volcano occurs when
shallow magma intrudes into

an area that has a lot of
ground water.

It creates an amazing amount
of energy.

It vaporizes this water, and it
creates a steam explosion.

NUNO:
After the explosion,

water fills into the bottom of
the creator.

PATEL: Sometimes, you can get
volcanic gases still sleeping

in, so you end up
with this highly alkaline

volcanic soup.

NARRATOR: Over time, the ground
around the crater dries out,

concentrating the volcanic
soup into a chemical sludge.

DENNIE:
As that water evaporates,

it concentrates it further,

until we get these large fields
of crystals that form,

which is what we see in
the image.

NARRATOR: Scientists have
recently discovered the crater's

floor is covered with
a cyanobacteria

called spirulina.

Spirulina itself is
a very simple organism,

but over history, it's been
considered a superfood.

CERVENY: What we found is
that the Aztecs used it

as one of their primary
food sources.

NELSON: They harvest
large quantities of it.

They considered it
the food of the gods.

NARRATOR: Around 100,000 years
after it devastated

this part of Mexico,

this strange white crater may
have helped give rise to one of

the greatest civilizations
in history.

CERVENY: This is almost like

a museum of the Earth's
earliest prehistory.

It's a fascinating place.

NARRATOR: Coming up,
nukes, CIA coverups,

and two billion hits of LSD.

It led to some really horrid
bad trips, if you will.

NARRATOR:
July 18th, 2019.

High above Kansas, eyes in
the sky capture something

out of place in a farming
community far below.

At first glance, it looks
normal, but if you look closer,

there's some structures here
that a farmer would not

have on their homestead.

NARRATOR:
A double security fence

surrounds a 105-foot diameter,

flat concrete platform.

and a close analysis of
the approach

road reveals this is
no ordinary structure.

Paying attention to
the shadows is really

important here.

Where the road comes into
the compound, the shadows really

give the impression
that the road doesn't

stay flat but
actually dips down.

Is this compound hiding
secrets that are

somehow related to a more
sinister purpose?

NARRATOR: Military analyst
Carlo Munoz finds some

historic images that seem

to confirm that
this rural landscape

conceals a terrifying secret.

The remote location,
the security perimeter,

what looks like
an underground bunker, is

a launch site for
a nuclear missile.

NARRATOR: Declassified military
records confirm

this location was one of

a series of top secret bunkers
armed with Atlas E

nuclear missiles.

MUNOZ: The Atlas missiles were
the first intercontinental

ballistic missiles
armed with enough

destructive power to destroy
a city the size of Moscow

or St. Petersburg.

NARRATOR:
What puzzles analysts is that

the Atlas E was mothballed
in 1964,

but the missile silo doesn't
appear to be abandoned.

If you look at the satellite
images, you'll see the road.

You see the cars,
you see a digger.

So you know
there's activity happening

at this site right now.

NARRATOR: Local court
records offer

disturbing evidence
about the nuclear bunker's

post Cold War life.

The reality of this site
really comes to light when

we do a bit of a dig into
the historical records.

This silo was owned by a guy
who was a bit of a chemist

and entrepreneur,
if you will.

NARRATOR: Decades after it
was decommissioned,

the bunker is purchased
by someone claiming

to be a recluse,

but the truth is far
more sinister.

HUNT: He's basically
producing narcotics

In an entrepreneurial fashion,

he teams up with scientist.

The two of them use
this decommissioned

underground facility

to produce LSD.

NARRATOR: LSD stands for
lysergic acid diethylamide

and was created
by a Swiss chemist,

Albert Hoffmann, in 1938.

It famously inspired
the hippie culture of

the Sixties,

but during the same decade,
its psychotropic

properties also attract
the attention of the CIA.

If somebody's mind becomes
altered, maybe you can

control them.

And so certainly,
as a weapon of espionage,

that would be
massively important.

NARRATOR: The CIA sets up
a project code-named MKUltra,

which sees hundreds of people
dosed with LSD.

-Many of the CIA's guinea pigs
-[woman screaming]

suffer permanent brain damage.
-[woman screaming]

Biochemists and neurobiologists
pretty quickly figured out that

LSD was interfering

with the way that brain cells
talk to each other.

It led to some really horrid
bad trips, if you will.

[man shouting]

[techno music playing]

NARRATOR: Three decades later,
the drug makes

a comeback during
the rave music era,

and the new owner
of the Cold War

bunker in the image
decides to cash in.

BAKER: What did he need?

He needed a facility that was
out of sight, right?

He needed something that was

secure where he could
store chemicals.

NARRATOR: At peak production,
Gordon Skinner and his business

partner are producing 90%

of the LSD sold
in the United States.

Up to two billion
hits of acid

were produced
in this one missile silo.

NARRATOR:
But before long,

their master
plan starts to unravel.

I think it's possible that
Skinner may have dipped into

his own supply
a little too much,

and he started to
get paranoid.

He became an informant,
and eventually,

the whole operation
came tumbling down.

The FBI swoops in
on the site in the image,

launching the biggest
LSD raid in history.

When this facility shut down,

it led to a worldwide
shortage in LSD.

Demand just imploded, because
nobody could find it anymore.

NARRATOR: Today,
the bunker shows no sign

of its criminal past.

There's no more LSD
being produced there.

The site has gone respectable,

and it's now owned by
a collector of

military memorabilia.

What a long, strange trip
it's been for this place.