All language subtitles for What.on.Earth.S09E07.1080p.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.

Revealed from space,
Britain's secret terror factory.

BRADSHAW:
It's a relic of death

and grief
for millions of people.

NARRATOR: The temple of
the eater of islands.

They skinned and de-boned
their victims like livestock.

NARRATOR: And the land of
the trillion-dollar druglords.

They make Pablo Escobar
look like small fry.

NARRATOR:
Baffling phenomena.

Mysteries from space.

What on Earth are they?

**

**

October 2017.

Eyes in the sky
scan the Atlantic coast of

the county of Cornwall on
the far southwestern tip of

Great Britain.

Passing over St. Ives Bay,

they capture something
unexpected in the dunes below.

This is
a super strange image.

It's kind of
this lush green area,

but there's all kinds of weird
geometric shapes protruding

from the landscape.

They're squares, there are lots
of, like, indeterminate shapes.

And they're all
kind of pockmarked

without much order at all.

This site is clearly on
a pretty big scale,

but it's been abandoned.

So what happened here?

NARRATOR: Hooked by the image,
archaeologist Rebecca Bradshaw

is heading
into the dunes

to study the mystery shapes
up close.

I'm not entirely sure
why they would be here,

but because these structures
are so overgrown,

I wonder whether it might be

a deserted medieval village.

NARRATOR:
Elsewhere in the U.K.,

there are eerie relics of
abandoned villages,

their inhabitants
forced to flee by one of

the many terrors that stalked
the land in medieval times.

Plagues,
witchcraft, famine.

It could be
any number of reasons

why people would leave
their village.

So if that is what happened
here, then we've got to

figure out why they left.

NARRATOR: Such was the
prevalence of pestilence and war

during the medieval period
that, at some points,

life expectancy
was just 17 years.

During
the 14th century alone,

the Great Famine kills
millions and leads to

cannibalism and infanticide
across Europe.

Barely 30 years later,
the Black Death wipes out

a further 25 million people,

a third of the entire
continent's population.

CAVELL: Disasters would hit,
and it would

force people to have to
move on.

So we get the remnants of
these ancient societies,

and this might be
one of them.

Okay,
I think this is one

of the shapes from
the satellite image.

Wow.

This is a massive wall.

Absolutely vast in width.

Much higher
than I was expecting.

NARRATOR: The structures
are too big to

be the remains of
a medieval settlement.

Instead, they appear to have
been used to conceal

or shield something that once
stood in their center.

BRADSHAW: There's space here
for something,

and that looked like
an entranceway to me.

I think
these four walls were

protective barriers for
a structure that

would have sat deep in
the middle.

Well, I wasn't expecting
to find this here.

This is a early
20th-century building,

and it's only a few hundred feet
from the squares,

so that would make them built
around the same time.

NARRATOR: Nearby stands
another structure not

visible in
the satellite image.

Wow.

This is absolutely vast.

It's without doubt
a fuel-burning device,

probably coal.

NARRATOR: A chimney of
this size would once

have helped generate immense
amounts of energy.

This site, it appears,
is what is left

of a giant industrial
complex of some kind.

The question is,
why is it here

in the middle of sand dunes
on a beach in Cornwall?

And how is it linked to
the other structures in

this complex?

NARRATOR:
A series of strange lines on

the western perimeter of
the site offer clues.

Gosh.

There's something...

epic going on here.

NARRATOR: The rows of concrete
planks, around 40 feet in

length, sit on the highest
part of the complex.

BRADSHAW:
They might be

similar to what I've seen in
other industrial complexes.

I suspect that they would have
these absolutely vast barrels

sitting here
so these would act as

stabilizers and then connected
via pipes that lead from here

down the hill
to the other structures

in this landscape.

NARRATOR: Bradshaw believes the
barrels stored here were used

to feed chemicals into
the giant square structures,

and the size of
their walls suggests

that whatever flowed into them
was extremely dangerous.

If I'm right,
then I'm standing

in an explosives factory,

which is pretty
incredible, really.

NARRATOR: The site's
remote coastal location

and layout lends weight to
this theory.

BRADSHAW: I think that
these series of walls were

specifically designed

to stop a chain reaction
happening if there was

an explosion.

NARRATOR: Local historic records
confirmed that this facility

was once known as
the dynamite works,

and they also revealed that it
played a key role in events

that would change
the course of human history.

MORGAN: It led to the deaths of
millions of people,

and it created shock waves
that are still guiding

the world in which
we live today.

NARRATOR: Coming up,
how the site

revealed from space
unleashed Armageddon.

Its unassuming
appearance belies its potential

for carnage and chaos.

NARRATOR: And the mystery of
the vanishing volcano.

Millions of tons of lava,
like that.

Abracadabra.

NARRATOR: Rebecca Bradshaw is on
Britain's Atlantic Coast,

drawn by a series of strange
shapes revealed from space.

She has uncovered the decaying
remnants of

a massive early 20th-century
explosives factory.

BRADSHAW: This really is such
an incredible sight,

but it's also a relic of death
and grief

for millions of people.

MORGAN: Looking into the
historical records,

this is one of only a handful
of explosives factories

in the U.K.

This site actually goes back
more than 100 years,

predating even World War I.

NARRATOR: The records reveal
that the site opens in

1889, making dynamite for
the local mining industry.

[explosion blasts]

But it's the role that it
played in events

on the Western Front,

the main theater of conflict
of World War I, that helps

define the course of history.

MORGAN:
Here we have an amazing piece

of history that's been
captured from space.

It plays a critical part
in rewriting

the political map
of all of Europe.

[explosions blasting]

NARRATOR: Over a four-year
period, the Western Front's

French and Belgian
battlefields claimed the lives

of nine million people.

[explosions blasting]

But what makes it
so pivotal to military history

isn't just it's
unprecedented scale,

but the way in which it
is fought.

Military technology
undergoes a quantum

development during
the First World War.

This is not the era of old
muskets and cannon.

This is the era of super
precise artillery and rifles.

Warfare as we know it

will never look the same.

NARRATOR: Gunpowder, which has
been in use for almost

1,000 years,

is too dirty and unstable for
this revolutionary weaponry.

A race begins to
produce a new

explosive to help them
maximize their killing power

on the World War I
battlefields.

WALTERS: You've got chemists
working overtime,

trying to perfect new,
deadly forms of explosives.

So, you know,
the war is in

the laboratories as much as
it's on the battlefields.

NARRATOR: Declassified
British military files

reveal that during the early
years of the First World War,

the factory
in the image begins

production of a groundbreaking
explosive called cordite.

Cordite got its name because
of its appearance.

It almost looks like sort of
dried spaghetti noodles.

Its unassuming
appearance, however,

belies its potential
for carnage and chaos.

NARRATOR: Cleaner, cheaper, and
more stable than gunpowder,

cordite helps to transform

the range and rate of fire of
the British arsenal.

Cordite was seen at a time to
be this new super explosive

in the trenches.

MORGAN: We see single-shot
rifles being replaced with

magazine repeating rifles that
fire bullets that are 30 times

more likely to hit
their target than before.

NARRATOR: The new explosives
being made by both sides

mean a million
machine guns will fire

a billion bullets over
the course of the war,

mowing down a generation of
young men.

But their impact on the use

of artillery is even
more cataclysmic.

[explosions blasting]

Accuracy increases by 95%,

and shells weighing thousands
of pounds rain down

on enemy troops
up to 80 miles away.

[explosions blasting]

JANULIS: The hope was that this
technology would ensure it was

a quick war,
but that's not what happened.

It led to the most brutal
warfare on the planet

in human history.

PAVELEC: The Western Front
became dominated by artillery

that each side just fired at
each other on a regular basis

day after day.

NARRATOR: The increasing use of
artillery sees the war descend

into a muddy, bloody deadlock.

During the Battle of Verdun,
40 million artillery shells are

unleashed, meaning that during
the 10-month-long engagement,

the most territory gained by
either side is just five miles.

WALTERS: The reason why
the First World War is

this horrific bloodbath,
you've got

20,000 people dying in
an afternoon, is because of

these weapons.

NARRATOR: To shield themselves
from this aerial hell,

soldiers dig a staggering
25,000 miles of trenches.

But they still die
at the rate of 6,000 per day,

a third of them from
the diseases and infections that

flourish in the filth
and gore of trench warfare.

PAVELEC: World War I
becomes a war of attrition,

carnage on
an industrial scale.

NARRATOR: Such is
the apocalyptic number of shells

and bullets being unleashed on

the Western Front that
the factory in the image can't

keep up with demand.

Britain's children provide
an unusual solution.

One of the raw materials
needed to produce cordite

is acetone,

and that was something that
was in short supply.

But then it was found that

horse chestnuts and acorns
could provide it.

And so there's this massive
campaign launched,

and British schoolchildren
are sent out to collect

horse chestnuts and acorns.

And unbeknownst to them,

their efforts are being used
to support the production of

this deadly explosive.

NARRATOR: The role
the explosives factory played

in Britain's eventual victory
in World War I

can still be seen, etched into
the fields of northern

Europe and onto the graves of
the millions

who perished there.

And while it is now being
swallowed by the dunes,

Bradshaw is hopeful its
legacy will not fade from

history so easily.

For me, this site is a real
monument to our forefathers

and foremothers who sacrificed

so much so that we could live
in the world that we do today.

NARRATOR: Coming up,

the altar of the shapeshifting
eater of islands.

CAVELL: He is a particularly
fearsome God.

He's the God of War.

NARRATOR: And
the guardian of the galaxy.

This is really a critical

element in our defense
and surveillance.

NARRATOR: November 11th, 2019.

The WorldView-3
satellite scans

the northern tip of
the Big Island of Hawaii.

This shows a huge rectangular
enclosure with what looks

almost like a tipped-over
tombstone lying down inside it.

CAVELL:
It's an enormous structure.

It's just this

stamp in the middle of pretty
much nothing else.

NARRATOR: Analysts dial up
the magnification on

the giant 40,000-square-foot
stamp in the landscape.

Closer inspection
does reveal some clues.

The massive walls
were actually built

out of the local rock, basalt.

Seeing that immediately
suggests to me ritual.

NARRATOR: The mystery structure
is constructed from

boulders taken
from a nearby volcano,

one of five that sit
on this island.

The people here have long held
these mountains as sacred,

believing them to be
the home of Pele,

the goddess of fire and
creator of this archipelago.

The Hawaiians believed that
they were surrounded by

supernatural beings,
by spirits

you could find in
the mountains and the valleys

and the shores.

NARRATOR:
The irregular alignment of

the structure's walls suggests

it was built to honor
these supernatural forces.

Before European contact,
Hawaiians would

build their temples
as parallelograms.

It was a symbolic
and spiritual thing

to build it this way.

We're looking at
an ancient Hawaiian temple,

and it's located
in a very imposing,

visible place in the landscape
so people would always be aware

of its power.

NARRATOR: Indigenous Hawaiians
believe in thousands of gods

who are ruled
by four supreme deities.

Their religions trace
their roots back to those of

the Polynesian explorers
who first arrived here

around 1,500 years ago.

Hawaii is one of the most
remote places on Earth,

and one of the mysteries is
how anyone ever discovered

these little pinpricks
in the ocean.

NARRATOR: Having navigated
millions of square miles

of open ocean,

the Polynesians begin
constructing ritual landscapes

to venerate and appease

the gods that they worshipped
and yet also feared.

HORTON:
The Polynesians that came here

had a pantheon of Gods,

and these were given huge
prominence in Hawaiian society.

CAVELL:
One of the legends has it that

the Tahitian
or a Samoan warlord

brought the idea of
this structure with him,

and he was the one behind
the construction of this temple.

NARRATOR: The story goes
that the first temple

to stand at the site
in the image

was built by a race
of little people,

known as the Menehune.

Thousands of men were needed
to construct this temple,

thousands of them,
and it took one night,

according to legend.

NARRATOR: Studies suggest
that in the 12th century,

the temple is rebuilt, and its
walls heightened to 30 feet.

It is dedicated
to the God Ku,

a deity who shapeshifts
between human and shark form

and is known as the eater
of islands.

He is a particularly
fearsome God.

He's the God of War.

HORTON: Ku was probably the most
important of these Hawaiian

gods, and only the king,

the priesthood, and the highest
nobles were allowed

access to the temple.

BELLINGER: What really sets
the God Ku apart from the others

in the Hawaiian pantheon is that
he was the only God

who demanded human sacrifice.

NARRATOR: These gruesome rituals
take place on

a boulder visible in
the image.

While much of the blood
letting is carried out to

appease the eater of islands,

others are slain to enforce
a strict local code of conduct

known as Kapu.

Every aspect
of everyday life is

strictly ordered
according to these laws.

And if one breaks Kapu,
one is condemned to death.

These sacrifices
weren't simple

cut the throat, let them bleed
sort of events.

They skinned and de-boned
their victims like livestock.

One of the more grizzly
aspects of this process

was some of the flesh that was
removed from the bodies was

then consumed by the people

involved in these rituals.

NARRATOR:
During the 17th century,

the eater of islands
plays a key role

in events that change
Hawaii forever.

One of the figures
intimately associated

with this temple
is King Kamehameha.

BELLINGER: In the picture, we
can see lines about 2,000 feet

away from this temple structure,

and that's where King Kamehameha
was actually born.

NARRATOR: Kamehameha was
a warrior king,

said to be 7 feet tall.

At the time of his birth
in 1736 A.D.,

Hawaii had been separate
kingdoms for 1.5 thousand years.

Kamehameha spent a lifetime
warring with other chieftains,

sacrificing many of those
he defeats at the temple

to his war God.

Some might believe
that Kamehameha's power

actually drew directly from
this temple to Ku.

JANULIS: Apparently,
the power of the temple

worked for him, because he was
the first person to ever unite

all of the Hawaiian Islands.

NARRATOR: By 1810,

Kamehameha is ruler of
all Hawaii,

and while the blood-soaked
temple dedicated

to his war God
is crumbling to ruin,

its extraordinary role in

the history of these islands
lives on.

It's incredible that this
structure that's so ancient

and so utterly entwined

with all of Hawaii's most
important mythology

and history is still visible
from space.

NARRATOR: Coming up,
the pit of horrors.

It's amazing that
anybody survived.

NARRATOR: And Earth's
$3 billion force field.

If anything goes through it,
we know about it.

NARRATOR:
April 9th, 2019.

A satellite scans
the mountainous interior

of the East Asian country
of Taiwan.

It's kind of an enduring
image that all of us have

of the Far Eastern Asia is
a rice paddy cut into

a hillside.

NARRATOR: As it moves
towards a coastal area,

it captures patterns
that seem out of place.

KOUROUNIS: The fact
that these lines are so straight

and so parallel tells me

that they were not
created by a Taiwanese farmer.

It just doesn't look right.

HEIMLER: It does sort of
resemble a face.

You've got two eyes on top

and steps almost
descending downwards.

NARRATOR:
Further aerial images

reveal details of
the mystery structure.

MORGAN: It bears the hallmarks
of military architecture,

so perhaps from a bygone era,

this was some sort of
a coastal fortification.

NARRATOR: The crumbling
structure doesn't

resemble Taiwanese
military architecture,

so historians speculate
that it was built

in the 17th century,

a time when the island nation

is ruled by a foreign power,

not a country,
but a company, whose

wealth and influence are
unparalleled in history.

Taiwan was then known
as Formosa,

and it was a protectorate of
the Dutch East India Company.

This company was huge.

It had interests that
stretched all the way from

the Persian Gulf to Japan.

NARRATOR: Founded to protect
Dutch trade in the Indian Ocean,

at its peak, the company

has assets equivalent to
$7.9 trillion.

WALTERS: Imagine every big
company we know today,

roll onto a big ball,
and you still don't get

anywhere near the wealth
and power of

the East India company.

NARRATOR: The conglomerate
and its rival,

the British East India Company,

employed tens of thousands of
people and use massive

private armies to protect
their interests.

Their vast wealth is generated
from trade in spices,

tea, and another very
different product.

MORGAN: They created
an additional revenue stream

in the form of
this smuggling operation

by which
they were selling opium

illegally into China.

WALTERS: They were shipping
drugs around the world

and making an absolute fortune
out of them.

NARRATOR:
Thanks to these companies,

by the middle of
the 19th century,

China is consuming around
5,000 tons of opium a year,

and a third of the population
are hooked on the narcotic.

They make Pablo Escobar
look like small fry.

It was
the most extraordinary example

of capitalism run right.

MORGAN: This could potentially
be one of those opium processing

plants, and if this was,

it would make a lot of sense
that you built fortifications

to protect it.

NARRATOR: Further analysis
reveals the site

is leaching liquids
that have changed

the color of
a nearby waterfall.

It suggests
the structure isn't

a legacy of these giant
trading companies.

HEIMLER: There's some pretty
strange colors going on there.

This tells me
it's probably toxic.

This must be some kind of
industrial site

or maybe a mine.

NARRATOR: Local historic records
shed more light.

In 1933, the Japanese Imperial
Army set up

a copper smelting and mining
operation here in Taiwan.

NARRATOR:
In the early 1930s,

Japan is ramping up
its industrial

and military strength,

but doesn't possess enough
natural resources

to power this growth.

WALTERS:
She desperately needs ironwork,

she desperately needs oil,

and what she also needs
is copper.

NARRATOR: Taiwan, which is
under Japanese rule,

has vast reserves of
the metal.

Soon, the mine and smelter in
the image are helping

to produce the weapons of war

that will unleash hell
on Pearl Harbor in

the Pacific.

[explosions blasting]

If you're gonna shoot guns,
you got to have copper,

and this is the facility
that provided the Empire

of Japan all the copper that
it would ever need.

NARRATOR:
By the start of World War II,

Japan is producing 165 million
rounds of ammunition

and 5,000 aircraft every year.

To keep up with demand,

the following year,
authorities bring in 1,000

prisoners of war
to work the mine.

In order to get
those prisoners of war there,

they packed them onto what
became known as hell ships.

MORGAN: Men were dumped
into the cargo holds,

where the conditions
were wretched beyond

human imagination.

HEIMLER:
Make no mistake,

the hell ship
deserved its name,

but this mine
where they were going,

it was actually even worse.

NARRATOR: In the mine,
the prisoners toil for up to

12 hours in almost
complete darkness

in temperatures of
130 degrees Fahrenheit or more.

Injuries, maltreatment,
and disease will kill

a third of them,

a death rate 20 times higher
than in German

prisoner of war camps.

They're used
to their prisoners of

war to work themselves to
death effectively.

It's amazing that
anybody survived.

NARRATOR: The sweat and blood
shed by the prisoners

here produced tens of
thousands of tons of copper,

which fuel the slaughter of
American troops in the Pacific.

But even as Allied victory
draws ever nearer,

they discover their ordeal is
far from over.

HEIMLER: Once it's clear that
Japan is going to lose the war,

the order goes out to
exterminate

these prisoners en masse.

NARRATOR: Mercifully,
at the last hour,

the POWs are granted
a reprieve.

The place that inflicted
so much terror

and pain on them remains
a monument to barbarism,

visible from space.

It's a massive, grim reminder
of man's capacity for cruelty.

**

NARRATOR: Coming up,
radioactive train wrecks.

MORGAN: They have to be able to
endure anything

because of what they're going
to be carrying.

NARRATOR: And the land of
the cannibal volcano.

It's no surprise that
many revere

and fear this extreme force
of nature.

NARRATOR:
February 22nd, 2018,

a satellite traveling
at 17,000 miles per hour

over southern New Mexico

captures an image
of something strange in

the landscape below.

Here we are in the middle of
the New Mexico desert,

and what I'm seeing is what
appear to be

gashes in the earth.

These are a series of
perfectly straight lines

in the middle of nowhere in
the desert.

It just seems really weird.

NARRATOR:
Closer analysis reveals

the giant lines appear to be
rows of metal tracks.

It's got to be some sort of
a government testing facility,

I'm thinking, but what
the heck are they testing?

NARRATOR:
Martin Morgan uncovers

a clue in local
government records.

MORGAN: The Department of Energy
uses steel tracks to test

the casks that are used to
transport nuclear material.

So maybe these strange
lines in

the desert are associated
with that.

[train whistle blows]

NARRATOR: Over the past decades,
the U.S. government

has transported
100,000 tons of

nuclear waste in giant
containers across the country.

To ensure these containers can
survive any kind of calamity,

New Mexico based scientists
place them on tracks

and test them to the point
of destruction.

[crashing noises]

They hit them with locomotives
going full steam, and then they

put them on trucks
and smash them into walls

going 80 miles an hour.

[crashing noises]

These casks have to be able
to endure

anything because of what
they're going to be carrying.

It would make sense
to carry out that

kind of testing in the middle
of nowhere.

[crashing noises]

NARRATOR: Yet when NASA
planetary scientist Pascal Lee

examines the site in the image,
he reveals

it has an even more
critical origin.

LEE: You're not seeing
a row of train tracks.

What we're looking at here are

antennas laid down on
the ground.

It is actually one of
the archaeological sites,

so to speak, of the dawn
of the Space Age.

NARRATOR: Lee believes
the satellite has captured

a clandestine facility
that played

a vital role in America's
quest to conquer space

for over half a century.

LEE:
This is one of the stations of

a network that was
created by the military

called the Space Fence,

and it was designed to track
foreign objects in the sky.

NARRATOR: The catalyst for the
Space Fence is the Soviets'

1957 launch of Sputnik 1,
the first satellite in history.

[indistinct talking in Russian]

NARRATOR: The Communist coup
spurs NASA to accelerate

its own space program,

sparking a frenzy of launches
that soon become a competition

of political ideology
as much as one of technology.

HEIMLER: It's hard for us to
imagine the tension between

the Soviet Union
and the United States

during the Space Race.

NARRATOR:
When the USSR launches

its first intercontinental
ballistic missile,

concern grows about the U.S.'s
ability to detect and track

the escalating amount of
hardware in orbit

around the planet.

MORAN: For U.S. military
and intelligence agencies,

this is really a critical
element in our defense

and surveillance.

You don't want to mistake

a regular airliner for
an incoming missile

from Russia, for example.

NARRATOR: In 1961,
the U.S. Navy takes action,

constructing nine giant
antenna and receiver stations

such as the one seen
in the image.

By beaming radio waves
into space,

they create 5,000-mile-long

electromagnetic barriers that
dissect Earth's orbit.

If a foreign object passes
through these barriers,

receiver stations on
the ground alert authorities.

If anything goes through it,
we know about it.

You could tell how fast
the object was traveling,

how high it was, and also what
size it was

based on the intensity
of the echo.

The U. S. Military and U.S.
intelligence agencies

see the Space Fence

as a critical early warning
and defensive system.

NARRATOR: As the Cold War thaws,
the specter of a possible

Russian nuclear attack recedes,

but the Space Fence must
instead deal with a new,

equally challenging threat.

Since the 1960s,
we've put so many more

satellites up into the sky,

and there's been a greater
amount of debris.

NARRATOR: With the advent of spy
and communications satellites,

up to 1,200 pieces of hardware
are launched into space

each year.

As soon as they reach the end
of their technological

lifespan, they can break apart,

creating orbiting
17,000-mile-per-hour bullets

that weigh up to a ton.

Any kind of space debris
could collide with one of our

satellites and destroy a vital
component of our military

or communication systems.

NARRATOR: The Space Fence
provides satellite

operators with mission
critical debris data.

On 27 separate occasions,

it has also proved vital
to the survival of

the International Space
Station and those living

on board.

MAN: Ballistic specialists
received data

that showed a conjunction

with a small piece of
a Russian Kosmos satellite.

When there is
a predicted impact,

we can get out of the way
or even show a shielded side to

the incoming debris.

NARRATOR: In 2020, after more
than five decades of service,

this vanguard of space
surveillance is replaced with

an upgraded defense system.

Yet it continues
to gaze up at

the spacecraft it kept watch
over for so long.

It's amazing to look down from
space and see a system that

was built to protect
the very satellite

that we're looking down from.

NARRATOR: Coming up,
the mountain that ate itself.

When the volcano goes quiet,

it's like that calm
before the storm.

NARRATOR:
November 25th, 2018.

The Sentinel-2 observation
satellite scans

the Pacific Ocean
1,000 miles east of Australia.

As it passes over
the Vanuatu archipelago,

it snaps this image of
the volcanic island of Ambrym.

FANARA: Wow, it looks like
there are stars or something

just, like, coming through
the mountain.

KOUROUNIS: There are these two
orange glowing dots,

almost as if this island has
a set of eyes that are looking

up into space.

NARRATOR: The craters of both
volcanoes are brimming

with increasing amounts of
2,000-degree-Fahrenheit lava.

Whenever a volcano
is changing in some way,

that's usually a big red flag
to me saying that,

yeah, you probably want to
keep your distance.

This volcano looks like
it could erupt at any time.

NARRATOR: Yet when the satellite
passes over the island

three weeks later,

it captures an image
that baffles scientists.

KOUROUNIS: There's something
very unusual going on.

Millions of tons of lava
just disappeared like that.

Abracadabra.

NARRATOR: Ambrym has long
been shrouded in mystery.

The locals know it by
another name --

Black Island.

DENNIE: There is a story of back
in 1913 a local tribe

actually asking for the volcano

to erupt and crush
its enemies on the other side

of the island.

NARRATOR: During that same year,
the largest eruption in

the South Pacific
in four centuries

engulfs whole villages
in molten rock.

KOUROUNIS: On Ambrym,

the dominating feature of

the landscape
is this active volcano.

So it's no surprise
that many of them

revere and fear
this extreme force of nature.

NARRATOR: Experts believe
the disappearing lava

could be connected to

a massive earthquake which
struck the island around

the same time.

DENNIE: You can really
see the impacts of

this event on
the surface of the island.

There were roads
that were broken,

structures were damaged.

NARRATOR: An earthquake can
often spark a powerful eruption,

but in this instance,

it instead triggered
an extraordinary

geological event.

This is called [indistinct]
cannibalism, where literally,

the volcano eats itself.

FANARA: This is
an incredible phenomenon,

a volcano actually swallowing
its own lava.

It's really weird.

NARRATOR: Prior to the volcano
turning cannibal,

its craters are filled
with enough molten rock

to fill approximately 160,000
Olympic-sized swimming pools.

There are only a handful of
places on the entire planet

where you have volcanoes
with lakes of lava,

and it just so happens
that there are two

on this one island --
that's really unusual.

NARRATOR: When the quake hits,
it creates deep fractures

in the bedrock under
the giant lava lakes.

KOUROUNIS: Any time you shake
a volcano violently,

you're disrupting the plumbing
inside the mountain beneath

those lakes of lava.

DENNIE: When these fractures
open up, the magma literally

gets pulled back into this void
and out of the lake above,

because it's not supported
by any pressure below.

NARRATOR: The cataclysmic forces
unleashed by this volcanic

cannibalism changed

the entire shape of
the eight-mile-wide caldera

and raise the height of
the island's coastline

by several feet.

We were very fortunate
to capture this event.

It's very rare.

NARRATOR: The latest satellite
images show no

signs of activity in
the craters,

but scientists know there is
still good reason to fear

Black Island.

KOUROUNIS:
It's an unpredictable volcano

that has devastating,
huge explosions.

When the volcano goes quiet,

it's like that calm
before the storm.