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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:01,320 --> 00:00:03,320 Narrator: A facility in rural england 2 00:00:03,360 --> 00:00:06,520 where information was on a need to know basis. 3 00:00:08,280 --> 00:00:11,880 You've got a compound within the larger compound 4 00:00:11,920 --> 00:00:16,520 strongly built to contain something that was very valuable, 5 00:00:16,560 --> 00:00:18,360 volatile, dangerous. 6 00:00:20,120 --> 00:00:23,320 A confused and overgrown collection of ruins 7 00:00:23,360 --> 00:00:24,960 in the woods of Arkansas. 8 00:00:26,080 --> 00:00:30,160 There are fences and cages everywhere. 9 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:33,240 Obviously, this place has been out of use 10 00:00:33,280 --> 00:00:34,360 for some time. 11 00:00:34,400 --> 00:00:35,640 And that begs the question, 12 00:00:35,680 --> 00:00:39,560 was whatever was being kept here released or did it break out? 13 00:00:40,560 --> 00:00:44,560 A Belarusian town that fell victim to catastrophe 14 00:00:44,600 --> 00:00:46,160 and then cover-up. 15 00:00:46,880 --> 00:00:51,000 This place was populated so briefly 16 00:00:51,040 --> 00:00:53,880 that it doesn't even leave a trace. 17 00:00:53,920 --> 00:00:58,240 It's so new that it doesn't even appear on maps. 18 00:01:00,880 --> 00:01:02,880 And a lush Taiwanese island 19 00:01:02,920 --> 00:01:06,200 where thousands endured unimaginable terrors. 20 00:01:07,680 --> 00:01:09,560 For almost half a century, 21 00:01:09,600 --> 00:01:12,320 this collection of buildings struck fear 22 00:01:12,360 --> 00:01:15,320 into the hearts and minds of every Taiwanese person. 23 00:01:21,800 --> 00:01:23,160 Decaying relics... 24 00:01:25,760 --> 00:01:27,920 ..Ruins of lost worlds... 25 00:01:30,600 --> 00:01:33,320 ..Sites haunted by the past... 26 00:01:36,720 --> 00:01:40,160 ..Their secrets waiting to be revealed. 27 00:01:51,200 --> 00:01:54,800 In Suffolk on the edge of rendlesham forest 28 00:01:54,840 --> 00:01:57,920 is a facility that would be hard to miss. 29 00:02:03,400 --> 00:02:05,600 Well, it looks like the biggest runway 30 00:02:05,640 --> 00:02:07,880 I've ever seen in my life 31 00:02:07,920 --> 00:02:12,040 and it's set down in this beautiful bucolic English countryside. 32 00:02:13,880 --> 00:02:15,600 But this is no airport, 33 00:02:15,640 --> 00:02:18,480 this looks more like a military installation. 34 00:02:20,520 --> 00:02:24,720 Rows of uniformed bunkers and hangers populate the site. 35 00:02:25,440 --> 00:02:27,920 But amongst them are other structures 36 00:02:27,960 --> 00:02:29,440 whose purpose is obscured. 37 00:02:33,640 --> 00:02:37,240 Looking at this building it's very advanced, 38 00:02:37,280 --> 00:02:40,080 jetson space age in look and appearance. 39 00:02:42,280 --> 00:02:46,280 There's this one hanger with big doors at the front 40 00:02:46,320 --> 00:02:48,800 and this strange protrusion at the back. 41 00:02:50,480 --> 00:02:53,720 And tucked away on the edge of this vast installation, 42 00:02:53,760 --> 00:02:55,560 a high-security area 43 00:02:55,600 --> 00:02:59,840 designed to keep people out and to keep something in. 44 00:03:01,320 --> 00:03:05,240 It has its own high fences topped with barbed wire 45 00:03:05,280 --> 00:03:07,960 and most disturbing is the watchtower. 46 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:10,320 Something was kept in here 47 00:03:10,360 --> 00:03:13,560 that they didn't want people to know about. 48 00:03:21,560 --> 00:03:25,320 40 years ago on a winter's evening, something happened 49 00:03:25,360 --> 00:03:28,000 that made this place hit the headlines. 50 00:03:35,800 --> 00:03:40,960 In December 1980 people based here on this facility 51 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:44,920 saw this strange lights in the sky. 52 00:03:54,200 --> 00:03:56,480 A squad left the compound 53 00:03:56,520 --> 00:03:59,200 and followed the lights into rendlesham forest. 54 00:04:00,640 --> 00:04:03,000 The reports say that they followed the lights 55 00:04:03,040 --> 00:04:04,880 into a clearing and found... 56 00:04:04,920 --> 00:04:06,680 ..Well, nothing. 57 00:04:08,200 --> 00:04:12,560 Apart from the imprints of three evenly spaced circles 58 00:04:12,600 --> 00:04:13,880 in the forest mud. 59 00:04:17,600 --> 00:04:19,480 After the rendlesham incident, 60 00:04:19,520 --> 00:04:22,360 this site came to the public's attention, 61 00:04:22,400 --> 00:04:25,720 this is raf bentwaters. 62 00:04:28,160 --> 00:04:29,800 The raf, the royal air force 63 00:04:29,840 --> 00:04:32,640 is the oldest organised air force in the world. 64 00:04:35,240 --> 00:04:39,000 Bentwaters was secured with a ten-foot-high fence. 65 00:04:39,040 --> 00:04:42,600 But in one corner security was taken to another level. 66 00:04:43,960 --> 00:04:46,400 Graham Gilbert grew up hearing stories 67 00:04:46,440 --> 00:04:48,320 about this top-secret place. 68 00:04:51,520 --> 00:04:54,240 This area here is called the entrapment area, 69 00:04:55,200 --> 00:04:58,160 another sliding gate would close behind, 70 00:04:59,240 --> 00:05:02,240 security personnel from the building here 71 00:05:02,280 --> 00:05:03,320 would come out, 72 00:05:03,360 --> 00:05:06,800 check the security passes of the occupants. 73 00:05:08,200 --> 00:05:13,440 When a secure military base has an extra high-security area, 74 00:05:13,480 --> 00:05:16,680 you know they've got something big in there, 75 00:05:16,720 --> 00:05:19,040 something that goes well beyond the pay grade 76 00:05:19,080 --> 00:05:20,280 of your ordinary soldier. 77 00:05:23,760 --> 00:05:27,280 The British armed forces are no stranger to covert ops. 78 00:05:28,000 --> 00:05:31,040 But small details suggest that someone else was in charge. 79 00:05:35,040 --> 00:05:38,640 Bentwaters was under the command of the United States air force. 80 00:05:41,400 --> 00:05:45,320 The us air force came to bentwaters in 1951 81 00:05:45,360 --> 00:05:49,640 and they fashioned this into one of their biggest airbases 82 00:05:49,680 --> 00:05:51,040 in the European space. 83 00:05:53,160 --> 00:05:56,600 So sinister with the crows and the rooks 84 00:05:56,640 --> 00:06:02,000 and knowing what was stored in these bunkers here 85 00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:05,160 is really sort of spine chilling. 86 00:06:09,160 --> 00:06:13,320 Inside the compound is a row of short bunker-like buildings. 87 00:06:14,360 --> 00:06:17,440 At one end of that corridor is a watchtower 88 00:06:17,480 --> 00:06:19,720 patrolled by armed soldiers. 89 00:06:21,400 --> 00:06:25,560 And at the other end is a pillbox with holes for more guns. 90 00:06:28,160 --> 00:06:29,600 This is a killing field. 91 00:06:31,320 --> 00:06:34,960 Clearly whatever went on in here was supposed to be hush-hush. 92 00:06:41,160 --> 00:06:44,840 This is one of the nuclear storage bunkers 93 00:06:44,880 --> 00:06:46,920 in the weapons storage area. 94 00:06:46,960 --> 00:06:51,240 And each bunker is covered in a layer of thick earth 95 00:06:51,280 --> 00:06:54,400 that would suppress any accidental explosion as well. 96 00:06:57,840 --> 00:07:00,680 The United States air force came to bentwaters 97 00:07:00,720 --> 00:07:03,320 in a time when tensions were rising 98 00:07:03,360 --> 00:07:06,880 between NATO and Soviet states in Eastern Europe. 99 00:07:07,800 --> 00:07:12,760 The mission was to bring bentwaters up to new NATO standards 100 00:07:12,800 --> 00:07:15,400 so the day that war with Russia came, 101 00:07:16,600 --> 00:07:18,520 bentwaters would be ready. 102 00:07:20,840 --> 00:07:22,680 They built new infrastructure 103 00:07:22,720 --> 00:07:26,000 like the building with the strange slanted walls 104 00:07:26,040 --> 00:07:27,280 that still stands today. 105 00:07:27,920 --> 00:07:30,840 There's nothing like it anywhere else on the base. 106 00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:36,360 The crews at bentwaters had to be in a constant state of readiness 107 00:07:36,400 --> 00:07:37,960 for a very dangerous mission. 108 00:07:41,840 --> 00:07:43,280 The event of world war III 109 00:07:43,320 --> 00:07:44,856 they were supposed to get in their jets, 110 00:07:44,880 --> 00:07:46,760 fly their missions into Europe, 111 00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:49,800 hit the Soviet targets with nuclear weapons. 112 00:07:49,840 --> 00:07:52,320 Pilots were supposed to eject near the coast 113 00:07:52,360 --> 00:07:54,440 either on the European side or the British side, 114 00:07:54,480 --> 00:07:57,360 come down, land, 115 00:07:57,400 --> 00:08:00,880 Bury themselves under soil for three days 116 00:08:00,920 --> 00:08:02,800 to protect themselves from nuclear fallout. 117 00:08:03,840 --> 00:08:05,000 The plan was 118 00:08:05,040 --> 00:08:07,320 that a friendly submarine would then pick them up 119 00:08:08,120 --> 00:08:09,520 but the soldiers knew 120 00:08:09,560 --> 00:08:11,840 that once the bombs started dropping 121 00:08:11,880 --> 00:08:16,360 the chances were very slim that there'd be anybody left at all. 122 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:19,520 They knew it was a one-way trip. 123 00:08:23,760 --> 00:08:27,720 Officially the United States neither confirms nor denies 124 00:08:27,760 --> 00:08:30,040 that there were nuclear weapons at bentwaters. 125 00:08:31,960 --> 00:08:35,040 But weapons of mass destruction weren't the only secret 126 00:08:35,080 --> 00:08:36,480 kept on this site. 127 00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:41,080 On the eastern edge is a hangar with a protrusion out the back. 128 00:08:44,040 --> 00:08:47,720 It's a long metal tube that must be, like, 129 00:08:47,760 --> 00:08:49,640 I don't know, ten feet high? 130 00:08:50,640 --> 00:08:55,800 A funny-looking building clearly centred around this port 131 00:08:55,840 --> 00:08:56,840 for either the... 132 00:08:56,880 --> 00:08:58,800 ..Expelling something or allowing something in. 133 00:09:00,720 --> 00:09:03,280 This building was called the hush house. 134 00:09:04,160 --> 00:09:07,480 It was integral to bentwaters covert operations. 135 00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:16,400 One thing that the us air force may not have considered 136 00:09:16,440 --> 00:09:18,480 when they came to rural england 137 00:09:18,520 --> 00:09:20,040 was that there were limits 138 00:09:20,080 --> 00:09:23,360 on how much noise they could make and when. 139 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:29,960 A law prevented the air force testing their engines at night 140 00:09:30,000 --> 00:09:31,360 or on sundays. 141 00:09:31,920 --> 00:09:35,080 The hush house was designed to let them test in secret. 142 00:09:37,560 --> 00:09:39,400 So they'd bring them into the hush house, 143 00:09:39,440 --> 00:09:42,120 they'd work on the engines, they'd test them here 144 00:09:42,160 --> 00:09:44,840 and there would be no sound to disturb the sleep 145 00:09:44,880 --> 00:09:46,520 of the surrounding civilians. 146 00:09:48,400 --> 00:09:49,560 Inside here 147 00:09:49,600 --> 00:09:51,520 when an engine was running full throttle 148 00:09:51,560 --> 00:09:54,360 it would be unbearable. 149 00:09:54,400 --> 00:09:57,400 There's a special control room where the operators sat 150 00:09:57,440 --> 00:09:59,120 behind thickened glass 151 00:09:59,160 --> 00:10:03,040 to protect them from the sound and the heat. 152 00:10:10,880 --> 00:10:14,560 Today the secrets of the hush house are known 153 00:10:14,600 --> 00:10:15,960 but rumours persist 154 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:18,320 that some information is still classified. 155 00:10:19,520 --> 00:10:22,480 Graham was living in the area when something happened 156 00:10:22,520 --> 00:10:25,920 that would go down in history as britain's roswell. 157 00:10:30,760 --> 00:10:32,480 I was 18 at the time. 158 00:10:32,520 --> 00:10:38,320 I first heard about this incident when it was in the local newspaper. 159 00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:41,800 Security forces went out to investigate it 160 00:10:41,840 --> 00:10:45,800 and they're reporting strange lights and things 161 00:10:45,840 --> 00:10:47,560 zooming about in the sky. 162 00:10:48,800 --> 00:10:51,520 For 40 years some of those soldiers 163 00:10:51,560 --> 00:10:54,720 have been unable to explain what happened 164 00:10:54,760 --> 00:10:58,360 and they're convinced that they had a close encounter. 165 00:10:58,400 --> 00:11:03,120 However, there is another theory that's still out of this world, 166 00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:06,120 it's just not extra-terrestrial. 167 00:11:09,360 --> 00:11:11,960 NASA's Apollo program in the '60s and '70s, 168 00:11:12,000 --> 00:11:15,520 they typically landed, they splashed down in the Caribbean 169 00:11:15,560 --> 00:11:16,760 or in the pacific ocean. 170 00:11:18,680 --> 00:11:20,080 There were contingencies 171 00:11:20,120 --> 00:11:21,880 that if they splashed down in the north sea 172 00:11:21,920 --> 00:11:23,360 or the mediterranean, 173 00:11:23,400 --> 00:11:26,200 they had to have facilities to recover the astronaut 174 00:11:26,240 --> 00:11:27,240 in that case. 175 00:11:28,360 --> 00:11:30,480 So right up until 1975, 176 00:11:30,520 --> 00:11:34,000 they kept a prop capsule on standby in Great Britain 177 00:11:34,040 --> 00:11:37,240 so crews in britain could train on recovering a capsule. 178 00:11:39,360 --> 00:11:42,760 Now one theory is that they used a helicopter 179 00:11:42,800 --> 00:11:45,920 to fly that capsule over bentwaters 180 00:11:45,960 --> 00:11:50,120 but they lost control of it and had to ditch it in the forest 181 00:11:50,160 --> 00:11:54,640 which might explain those strange circular imprints 182 00:11:54,680 --> 00:11:55,680 in the ground. 183 00:11:58,720 --> 00:12:02,480 A dummy Apollo capsule might fit the evidence. 184 00:12:02,520 --> 00:12:05,360 But there are still questions about the rendlesham incident 185 00:12:05,400 --> 00:12:06,800 which remain unanswered. 186 00:12:12,760 --> 00:12:16,400 The us air force was stationed at bentwaters for 42 years 187 00:12:16,440 --> 00:12:19,480 with 11 squadrons based there over that time. 188 00:12:20,280 --> 00:12:23,880 But in 1993 the airbase was decommissioned, 189 00:12:23,920 --> 00:12:26,240 the cold war was over. 190 00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:31,880 Much of the airpower that we were going to deploy 191 00:12:31,920 --> 00:12:34,200 in a third world war against the Soviet union 192 00:12:34,240 --> 00:12:35,840 was based at bentwaters. 193 00:12:35,880 --> 00:12:38,240 This was the world we lived in for so long, 194 00:12:38,280 --> 00:12:40,320 may we never live in this world again. 195 00:12:46,520 --> 00:12:49,960 In northern Arkansas is a wholly unusual scene 196 00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:52,680 lost in the depths of the countryside. 197 00:12:59,240 --> 00:13:01,520 This place is way out in the woods, 198 00:13:02,120 --> 00:13:03,800 it's overgrown. 199 00:13:03,840 --> 00:13:06,800 There are vines creeping all over the place 200 00:13:06,840 --> 00:13:08,200 swallowing it up. 201 00:13:09,720 --> 00:13:12,240 As you travel further into the trees, 202 00:13:12,280 --> 00:13:14,560 you see the beginning of the track 203 00:13:15,600 --> 00:13:19,520 and you start to get maybe some clue of what was going on here. 204 00:13:20,600 --> 00:13:24,800 At one point it goes up pretty high about 30 feet off the ground 205 00:13:25,640 --> 00:13:28,800 so somebody put a lot of engineering ambition 206 00:13:28,840 --> 00:13:29,840 into this project. 207 00:13:31,840 --> 00:13:34,600 Twisted remains are strewn all around, 208 00:13:34,640 --> 00:13:37,400 and together they paint a strange picture. 209 00:13:39,160 --> 00:13:41,680 There are lots of metal grills, bars, 210 00:13:41,720 --> 00:13:43,640 fences and cages, 211 00:13:43,680 --> 00:13:46,080 it's like a prison lost in the jungle. 212 00:13:47,120 --> 00:13:50,520 You're out in the woods, you're miles from the nearest town, 213 00:13:50,560 --> 00:13:53,200 no-one's going to hear you scream out here. 214 00:13:54,520 --> 00:13:58,560 So who or what was being locked up in the cages? 215 00:13:59,800 --> 00:14:03,400 And what catastrophe would cause this site's downfall? 216 00:14:06,040 --> 00:14:07,840 It all looks a little ram shackled 217 00:14:07,880 --> 00:14:10,280 so it makes you think whatever was in these cages, 218 00:14:10,320 --> 00:14:11,560 did they stay in the cages? 219 00:14:12,360 --> 00:14:13,360 What if they got out? 220 00:14:23,120 --> 00:14:27,000 Far from being hidden away, the entrance to this place 221 00:14:27,040 --> 00:14:30,160 was actually designed to catch the eye of passers-by. 222 00:14:34,840 --> 00:14:37,240 So if you were just driving past, 223 00:14:37,280 --> 00:14:40,320 you see what looks like a rest stop 224 00:14:40,360 --> 00:14:44,080 but this was a rest stop like no other in the world. 225 00:14:46,520 --> 00:14:49,000 Rick Montgomery grew up nearby 226 00:14:49,040 --> 00:14:52,200 and can imagine just how strange a site this must have been 227 00:14:52,240 --> 00:14:53,840 for unsuspected travellers. 228 00:14:56,680 --> 00:15:00,280 Well, when you would arrive here and come around that corner, 229 00:15:00,320 --> 00:15:01,960 almost a 90-degree curve 230 00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:03,800 and the first thing you see are these cages. 231 00:15:04,480 --> 00:15:07,200 And in this cage here I'm told was a lion. 232 00:15:07,240 --> 00:15:08,640 That would get your attention. 233 00:15:09,680 --> 00:15:12,520 You begin to look in here and here is a huge black bear. 234 00:15:13,360 --> 00:15:16,760 Everybody's now wondering what is this place? 235 00:15:20,320 --> 00:15:23,520 For those who let their curiosity get the better of them, 236 00:15:23,560 --> 00:15:27,480 a ride upon a miniature railway took them through a dark tunnel, 237 00:15:27,520 --> 00:15:28,960 before all was revealed. 238 00:15:30,680 --> 00:15:33,320 We'd come out of the tunnel and we hit this track. 239 00:15:33,360 --> 00:15:36,000 And as you make the curve you look to your left 240 00:15:36,040 --> 00:15:37,560 and there's giraffes, 241 00:15:37,600 --> 00:15:39,400 and their heads are looking you in the face 242 00:15:39,440 --> 00:15:41,280 because giraffes are so tall 243 00:15:41,320 --> 00:15:42,720 so they're almost level with you. 244 00:15:44,240 --> 00:15:48,120 This strange roadside wonderland once filled with life 245 00:15:48,160 --> 00:15:50,400 was Hallie's rest stop and zoo. 246 00:15:52,120 --> 00:15:55,960 When it opened this place was a huge hit. 247 00:15:56,000 --> 00:15:58,880 People came in droves, they loved it. 248 00:15:58,920 --> 00:16:00,840 People would specifically travel 249 00:16:00,880 --> 00:16:04,280 just to this site from hundreds of miles away 250 00:16:04,320 --> 00:16:07,600 but what I like to imagine is the incredible surprise 251 00:16:07,640 --> 00:16:09,520 of people who didn't know about this. 252 00:16:09,560 --> 00:16:11,920 They just pull over the car expecting a normal rest stop 253 00:16:11,960 --> 00:16:15,160 and ta-da, you've got Hallie's zoo as well. 254 00:16:15,200 --> 00:16:16,720 What an experience. 255 00:16:19,560 --> 00:16:21,240 Opened in the early '70s 256 00:16:21,280 --> 00:16:24,280 and named after its owner Hallie ormond, 257 00:16:24,320 --> 00:16:28,320 visitors would come face to face with an exciting mix of animals, 258 00:16:28,360 --> 00:16:30,440 some more exotic than others. 259 00:16:32,080 --> 00:16:35,560 There was every kind of animal local to the area, 260 00:16:35,600 --> 00:16:38,400 foxes, wolves, deer, 261 00:16:38,440 --> 00:16:40,136 just every kind of animal that you can think of 262 00:16:40,160 --> 00:16:42,280 that's local to Arkansas was here in the zoo, 263 00:16:42,320 --> 00:16:45,800 plus elephant, giraffes, 264 00:16:45,840 --> 00:16:49,600 of course, the orangutan, bear, lion. 265 00:16:51,840 --> 00:16:55,720 But today rusted, broken and weathered 266 00:16:55,760 --> 00:16:58,880 it appears outdated in more ways than one. 267 00:17:01,360 --> 00:17:03,160 You know, a really state of the art zoo 268 00:17:03,200 --> 00:17:05,360 needs a full-time veterinary staff, 269 00:17:05,400 --> 00:17:07,960 it needs people really trained to take care of these animals. 270 00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:09,800 And you see in modern zoos 271 00:17:09,840 --> 00:17:12,360 they at least make an attempt to create habitats 272 00:17:12,400 --> 00:17:15,960 that are more like the habitats of these animals living in the wild, 273 00:17:16,000 --> 00:17:18,640 instead of just confining them to tiny cages 274 00:17:18,680 --> 00:17:19,960 where they go wild with boredom. 275 00:17:21,520 --> 00:17:24,160 This was one of a number of small zoos 276 00:17:24,200 --> 00:17:27,200 that dotted the country at the time, 277 00:17:27,840 --> 00:17:33,040 and regulation of them was relatively light 278 00:17:33,080 --> 00:17:37,080 so, there was a little bit of a wild west feel to it. 279 00:17:38,840 --> 00:17:41,240 Regardless of the approach taken, however, 280 00:17:41,280 --> 00:17:43,360 safety was always a priority. 281 00:17:44,200 --> 00:17:46,640 Wild animals are exactly that, they are wild 282 00:17:46,680 --> 00:17:49,800 and whenever you take them on, even a single one, 283 00:17:49,840 --> 00:17:51,920 let alone the numbers required in a zoo, 284 00:17:51,960 --> 00:17:53,920 you're taking on a huge responsibility. 285 00:17:55,600 --> 00:17:58,000 This was something the management was reminded of 286 00:17:58,040 --> 00:17:59,840 when one resident decided 287 00:17:59,880 --> 00:18:02,480 they'd had enough of sitting alone in their cage. 288 00:18:05,120 --> 00:18:08,240 This cage is super interesting, it's big metal 289 00:18:08,280 --> 00:18:10,400 because originally there was a bear in here, 290 00:18:10,440 --> 00:18:12,840 then they put in here an orangutan. 291 00:18:13,760 --> 00:18:14,960 He was real smart. 292 00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:18,840 He knew how to undo his cage so that he could get out. 293 00:18:18,880 --> 00:18:21,440 And he would get out of his cage and go walking around, 294 00:18:21,480 --> 00:18:22,880 go walking across the street. 295 00:18:23,560 --> 00:18:25,880 That's where the manager was and he knew him. 296 00:18:28,480 --> 00:18:31,560 Luckily no harm was done by the orangutan 297 00:18:31,600 --> 00:18:33,320 masterminding his own escape. 298 00:18:34,160 --> 00:18:36,560 But what if it had been a more dangerous animal? 299 00:18:38,560 --> 00:18:42,560 With this kind of business, if an accident does occur on-site, 300 00:18:42,600 --> 00:18:46,320 the likelihood is it's going to be serious. 301 00:18:49,000 --> 00:18:50,560 As time would tell, 302 00:18:50,600 --> 00:18:54,280 the orangutan wasn't to be the only escapee from Hallie's. 303 00:18:55,320 --> 00:18:57,760 And next time it would be a predator 304 00:18:57,800 --> 00:18:59,960 that would have the locals running scared. 305 00:19:01,480 --> 00:19:04,640 But perhaps this place should never have been opened at all. 306 00:19:07,360 --> 00:19:10,080 Now there are plenty of laws and regulations 307 00:19:10,120 --> 00:19:14,480 regarding exotic animals in the us but... 308 00:19:14,520 --> 00:19:16,320 And this is true of a lot of activities 309 00:19:16,360 --> 00:19:17,440 in the states, 310 00:19:17,480 --> 00:19:19,320 there's a huge amount of variation 311 00:19:19,360 --> 00:19:22,120 and the laws vary state by state 312 00:19:22,160 --> 00:19:25,120 and in some cases, county by county. 313 00:19:26,080 --> 00:19:30,040 What's surprising is that where this zoo was located, 314 00:19:30,080 --> 00:19:34,080 it was actually illegal to own exotic animals. 315 00:19:36,000 --> 00:19:39,200 Whether that law was known at the time or not, 316 00:19:39,240 --> 00:19:41,800 things would soon be brought to a head. 317 00:19:43,240 --> 00:19:46,680 In the late '70s Hallie sold the zoo to a new owner, 318 00:19:47,360 --> 00:19:50,960 and in 1979 the zoo made the headlines 319 00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:52,280 for all the wrong reasons. 320 00:19:55,640 --> 00:19:58,680 Well, this is the cage that got the biggest story to tell. 321 00:19:59,560 --> 00:20:02,280 This was the cage where the lion was kept. 322 00:20:03,120 --> 00:20:06,800 The lion was sheltering in a zoo all of its life, 323 00:20:06,840 --> 00:20:08,200 it was never been out in the wild. 324 00:20:08,920 --> 00:20:11,880 But one day, somebody accidentally left the cage door open 325 00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:12,920 and the lion escaped. 326 00:20:14,200 --> 00:20:18,080 With a lion on the loose, the locals were up in arms. 327 00:20:20,200 --> 00:20:24,360 There are farms all around this place with livestock 328 00:20:24,400 --> 00:20:28,560 and now you've got a predator out there on the loose. 329 00:20:29,640 --> 00:20:31,760 It was spotted a number of times. 330 00:20:31,800 --> 00:20:34,480 The people in the area were pretty freaked out 331 00:20:34,520 --> 00:20:38,520 that there was a wild African lion roaming their backyards. 332 00:20:39,800 --> 00:20:41,520 But luckily, in the end, 333 00:20:41,560 --> 00:20:43,840 it turned out they needn't have worried. 334 00:20:45,160 --> 00:20:47,520 There is a kind of comic end to all this 335 00:20:47,560 --> 00:20:51,640 because after two weeks of wandering the countryside 336 00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:55,000 the lion just wandered back into the zoo, 337 00:20:55,040 --> 00:20:57,080 apparently, because he was hungry. 338 00:20:59,560 --> 00:21:01,880 I guess that lion was a little more accustomed 339 00:21:01,920 --> 00:21:02,920 to being fed 340 00:21:02,960 --> 00:21:04,560 than having to chase down its own food. 341 00:21:05,120 --> 00:21:08,080 The lion came back and went back into his cage here 342 00:21:08,120 --> 00:21:09,720 and they locked him up and fed him, 343 00:21:09,760 --> 00:21:12,240 but that was the beginning of the end 344 00:21:12,880 --> 00:21:13,880 for Hallie's zoo. 345 00:21:14,960 --> 00:21:18,480 No livestock were attacked, no one was injured 346 00:21:18,520 --> 00:21:22,840 but suddenly a new level of scrutiny was focused upon the zoo. 347 00:21:24,280 --> 00:21:26,360 I don't believe that anybody ever knew 348 00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:28,480 that it was illegal to have exotic animals 349 00:21:28,520 --> 00:21:29,560 in Van buren county. 350 00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:33,800 It's just that once the lion incident happened 351 00:21:33,840 --> 00:21:35,560 that was an excuse 352 00:21:35,600 --> 00:21:39,680 to get rid of the exotic animals in Van buren county. 353 00:21:39,720 --> 00:21:41,120 The law was already there, 354 00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:43,640 just no one had ever really enforced it, 355 00:21:43,680 --> 00:21:45,040 no one had really talked about it. 356 00:21:47,160 --> 00:21:50,040 After a decade pulling in excited tourists 357 00:21:50,080 --> 00:21:51,400 and weary travellers, 358 00:21:51,440 --> 00:21:55,680 in 1979 Hallie's rest stop and zoo was shut down. 359 00:22:03,160 --> 00:22:05,080 While the animals are long gone, 360 00:22:05,120 --> 00:22:08,320 there was still another twist in the tale of this place. 361 00:22:08,360 --> 00:22:12,800 When Rick stumbled upon the boarded-up site in 2011... 362 00:22:14,600 --> 00:22:16,240 Well, we were rounding the curve 363 00:22:16,280 --> 00:22:20,360 and I felt like I heard god say, "look to your left," 364 00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:22,800 and all we can see was the corner of the building. 365 00:22:22,840 --> 00:22:24,640 We pulled over and my wife thought 366 00:22:24,680 --> 00:22:27,240 that we were having some kind of car trouble 367 00:22:27,280 --> 00:22:29,000 and I said, "no, I think this is the place 368 00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:30,040 "we're supposed to be." 369 00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:36,320 It's always nice to see old places get turned into something new. 370 00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:38,040 But the best times 371 00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:41,360 are when there's something so surprising like this. 372 00:22:42,480 --> 00:22:45,960 They turned a zoo into a church. 373 00:22:47,120 --> 00:22:49,800 The old restaurant and gift shop has been restored 374 00:22:49,840 --> 00:22:51,720 and become the church itself. 375 00:22:52,480 --> 00:22:53,880 While the old zoo 376 00:22:53,920 --> 00:22:56,080 has been pulled into the action once again. 377 00:22:56,880 --> 00:22:58,480 We utilised the zoo. 378 00:22:58,520 --> 00:23:01,600 This place has helped our church to reach out to the community. 379 00:23:02,280 --> 00:23:04,440 We have biblical who's who at the zoo. 380 00:23:04,480 --> 00:23:07,800 And we actually have people playing biblical characters 381 00:23:07,840 --> 00:23:09,440 in the old cages. 382 00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:11,840 And then for Christmas we decorate the zoo, 383 00:23:11,880 --> 00:23:13,560 we light up the train track. 384 00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:16,760 It's just a good way to minister to the community. 385 00:23:18,120 --> 00:23:20,280 In Rick's eyes as minister, 386 00:23:20,320 --> 00:23:23,640 they couldn't have wished for a better spot to build a church. 387 00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:28,080 My wife and I love the place, as a matter of fact, 388 00:23:28,120 --> 00:23:32,520 if things go as we plan, we will be entombed here. 389 00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:35,240 We plan on staying here, the zoo is us. 390 00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:43,480 In Belarus, 391 00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:46,080 seven miles from the border with Ukraine 392 00:23:46,120 --> 00:23:49,560 is a derelict land that was once a paradise. 393 00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:54,440 Your first impression here 394 00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:55,816 is that you're in the middle of nowhere. 395 00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:59,600 You don't see anyone even looking down from the sky, 396 00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:01,200 you can't see any people. 397 00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:04,440 The people are gone 398 00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:08,440 but the forgotten pieces of a past life have been left behind. 399 00:24:10,600 --> 00:24:14,480 Murals on the walls have been painted for children, 400 00:24:14,520 --> 00:24:18,840 it suggests that whoever lived here did so happily. 401 00:24:20,360 --> 00:24:21,760 You can see abandoned houses, 402 00:24:21,800 --> 00:24:24,920 you can see some personal possessions 403 00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:26,200 scattered about on the ground. 404 00:24:27,040 --> 00:24:29,200 It appears that when people did leave this place, 405 00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:30,240 they left in a hurry. 406 00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:34,880 The evidence suggests something happened here 407 00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:37,440 which turned this place into a wasteland. 408 00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:43,560 But the truth may be bigger than just one neighbourhood. 409 00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:50,640 Belarus and Ukraine were just two provinces 410 00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:52,080 of the Soviet empire. 411 00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:57,480 Used to be that Soviet power spanned this border, 412 00:24:57,520 --> 00:25:04,160 but now something far darker spans this border. 413 00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:09,040 The town's existence was cut so short 414 00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:11,240 that it was never added to local maps. 415 00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:15,160 So what catastrophic event curtailed its life? 416 00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:19,440 And what invisible danger was left behind? 417 00:25:24,200 --> 00:25:28,000 In the 1970s, at the height of the cold war, 418 00:25:28,040 --> 00:25:31,800 the west and the Soviet union were vying for supremacy. 419 00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:35,400 But behind the scenes, the union was in turmoil. 420 00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:41,800 The Soviet system was going to pieces. 421 00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:47,360 The Soviet system of agriculture, in particular, 422 00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:50,560 could not feed the Soviet population. 423 00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:53,080 There was a great irony 424 00:25:53,120 --> 00:25:55,320 that the Soviets had a world-class military 425 00:25:55,360 --> 00:25:58,400 and they were spending billions on nuclear weapons, 426 00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:00,280 but they couldn't even feed their own people. 427 00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:05,760 Piotr romaniuk grew up in Belarus during this time. 428 00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:11,200 Translation: "We're standing in what used to be a shop. 429 00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:15,560 "Those are the remains of refrigerators. 430 00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:18,520 "This shop supplied the whole town with groceries 431 00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:20,040 "and other necessities." 432 00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:25,720 But this shop was different to many others 433 00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:27,040 across the Soviet union... 434 00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:30,840 ..There were no bare shelves. 435 00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:33,880 For here, everyone had plenty of food. 436 00:26:36,560 --> 00:26:39,280 In this part of Belarus the Soviets set up kind of 437 00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:42,600 a model community to raise cattle for food. 438 00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:46,240 And they built the housing, supermarkets, schools, 439 00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:48,760 everything they needed to house the workers 440 00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:49,800 and their families. 441 00:26:50,360 --> 00:26:52,760 The approach worked so well, in fact, 442 00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:55,480 that the people gave this town an unofficial name, 443 00:26:55,520 --> 00:26:56,840 'sunny'. 444 00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:00,200 Translation: "Why sunny? 445 00:27:01,080 --> 00:27:03,120 "Because they planned a hay day for the region. 446 00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:05,800 "Something new, 447 00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:07,920 "that the new town would be bright, 448 00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:11,560 "joyful, sunny." 449 00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:17,000 They wanted this to be a model town 450 00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:19,880 and so it could be used as an example elsewhere 451 00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:21,480 in the Soviet union, 452 00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:25,800 and show that collective work and community could be a big success 453 00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:26,840 for the future. 454 00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:30,656 Translation: "It was a place full of life, 455 00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:33,120 "a place for work and for leisure. 456 00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:37,280 "Behind us is what used to be a house of culture 457 00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:40,840 "which was supposed to have opened in 1986 458 00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:43,120 "but it never happened." 459 00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:50,760 One Sunday morning in 1986 this paradise was lost. 460 00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:57,080 Translation: "It was the first time since world war ii 461 00:27:57,120 --> 00:27:58,840 "that the alarm had sounded. 462 00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:01,640 It was horrifying. 463 00:28:03,360 --> 00:28:05,360 "And people couldn't grasp what was happening." 464 00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:12,080 On 3 may, an order was made, 465 00:28:12,120 --> 00:28:14,800 the residents of sunny were to evacuate 466 00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:15,880 over the coming days, 467 00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:18,240 few understood why. 468 00:28:22,120 --> 00:28:23,440 Translation: "It was horrible. 469 00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:25,960 "People were saying goodbye to each other forever. 470 00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:28,840 "They weren't sure they'd ever see each other again 471 00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:32,000 "because they'd never experienced anything like this before." 472 00:28:34,120 --> 00:28:36,400 A panic had gripped the authorities. 473 00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:39,240 Something so disastrous had happened 474 00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:41,600 that the state tried to keep it secret. 475 00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:47,080 In the Soviet union news was tightly controlled. 476 00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:49,840 Bad news was a state secret, 477 00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:54,920 and there was no news of the nuclear disaster 478 00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:55,960 at chernobyl. 479 00:28:57,280 --> 00:28:58,520 A week earlier, 480 00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:02,560 a large explosion at the site had exposed the nuclear reactor core. 481 00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:07,640 Two of the reactors at the chernobyl nuclear plant 482 00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:08,960 went into meltdown, 483 00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:12,480 they started spewing radioactive smoke into the air. 484 00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:16,440 Firefighters came in to try to put out the Blaze 485 00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:20,680 but, of course, they were subjected to even more intense radiation. 486 00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:26,600 Translation: "Yes, we knew of the accident 487 00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:28,720 "but nobody recognised its scale. 488 00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:31,480 "We thought it would all be over soon. 489 00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:33,560 "They'd put the fire out 490 00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:36,000 "and we would resume living as if nothing had happened. 491 00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:40,400 "When the word radiation was said for the first time, 492 00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:43,520 "the older locals couldn't even repeat it. 493 00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:45,560 "They kept saying 'radio' 494 00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:48,600 "and didn't understand why they were being forced to move out 495 00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:50,640 "of this beautiful place of our country 496 00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:53,200 "because of something that nobody could see." 497 00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:00,480 The town of sunny sits near the border 498 00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:03,240 between what is now Belarus and Ukraine, 499 00:30:03,960 --> 00:30:07,160 chernobyl lies just 20 miles to the south. 500 00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:11,760 Airborne radiation was omitted from the fire at the power plant 501 00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:13,520 for ten straight days. 502 00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:16,040 It spread across Europe, 503 00:30:16,080 --> 00:30:19,680 but around 70% is estimated to have settled 504 00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:21,440 on the ground in Belarus. 505 00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:27,136 It must have been terrifying. 506 00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:28,920 They'd been living in the fall out zone 507 00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:30,160 for almost a week. 508 00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:33,000 But no one really knew how bad the fallout was 509 00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:35,120 and no one really trusted the government 510 00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:36,160 to tell them the truth. 511 00:30:38,080 --> 00:30:41,000 At the time, piotr was working as a teacher 512 00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:43,440 and was assigned to help with the evacuation. 513 00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:48,976 Translation: "We were summoned to the district committee 514 00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:50,880 "so that they could assign party members 515 00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:53,840 "to be in charge of resettlement of different organisations. 516 00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:58,160 "I was sent to kolivan village 517 00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:00,840 "where my main duty was to ensure the resettlement 518 00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:01,880 "of the school." 519 00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:08,680 Within 24 hours, 520 00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:10,880 the town of sunny had been abandoned... 521 00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:15,600 ..But the residents of this former paradise 522 00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:18,200 would face one final injustice. 523 00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:23,440 Years later, when scientists went back 524 00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:25,480 to study the soil and to study the people 525 00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:27,560 and look for the effects of the radiation, 526 00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:30,040 they found that the radiation levels were far lower 527 00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:33,280 than they had suspected at first and, in fact, 528 00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:34,720 the residents of this area 529 00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:36,960 probably didn't need to be evacuated. 530 00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:43,160 As the town sat empty from 1986 onwards, 531 00:31:43,200 --> 00:31:47,120 few outsiders heard the stories of places such as this. 532 00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:51,320 What happened in Belarus 533 00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:54,240 is a really overlooked story of chernobyl, 534 00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:57,640 everybody talks about the immediate area around the plant 535 00:31:57,680 --> 00:31:58,800 and about pripyat. 536 00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:00,280 A lot of people don't realise 537 00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:04,280 that much of the dislocation happened in Belarus next door. 538 00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:06,320 Huge areas evacuated, 539 00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:09,440 lives uprooted, disrupted forever. 540 00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:17,320 Life, however, has returned to sunny. 541 00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:20,880 Today it's classed as a nature reserve 542 00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:24,120 and has been reclaimed by wild elk and wolves. 543 00:32:25,520 --> 00:32:29,600 And piotr now looks for the positives in what lies ahead for this region. 544 00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:35,960 Translation: "I suppose I've made my peace with it. 545 00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:38,360 "The reserve employs many of our people. 546 00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:41,960 "It provides workspaces 547 00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:44,600 "so we treat it like a facility. 548 00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:47,720 "You know, it's our facility." 549 00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:53,720 Over 30 years after residents were forced 550 00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:57,120 from their homes, sunny remains a restricted area, 551 00:32:57,800 --> 00:32:59,840 but change may lie ahead. 552 00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:08,840 Translation: "Today we are rebuilding it 553 00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:10,280 "and everything is growing. 554 00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:14,440 "We are developing very quickly. 555 00:33:18,800 --> 00:33:21,120 "It makes me happy as a citizen of this area 556 00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:24,320 "and as someone who is responsible for socio-economic growth 557 00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:26,440 "of this area. It's great." 558 00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:40,640 Off the coast of Taiwan in the pacific ocean 559 00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:43,040 lies a small volcanic island. 560 00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:52,000 Much of the island is covered in a thick carpet 561 00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:53,720 of emerald green grass, 562 00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:56,400 hence its name green island. 563 00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:01,680 It's a place of towering rocks surrounded by coral reefs. 564 00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:05,000 It's not easy to get to. 565 00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:08,360 Fading clues suggest 566 00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:11,520 this island was more than just a tropical paradise. 567 00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:15,040 Something that really strikes you 568 00:34:15,080 --> 00:34:18,520 is you see all these propaganda slogans 569 00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:22,560 and messages daubed, painted, scrawled, engraved. 570 00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:27,440 So clearly the island was of some political importance 571 00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:30,160 but to whom and why? 572 00:34:32,240 --> 00:34:35,040 A series of brutalist concrete structures 573 00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:37,480 hint at the true nature of this place. 574 00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:43,240 As we look more closely we see a walled-off facility 575 00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:47,080 that really stands out from the rest of the landscape. 576 00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:51,120 For almost half a century, 577 00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:54,040 this collection of buildings struck fear 578 00:34:54,080 --> 00:34:56,960 into the hearts and minds of every Taiwanese person. 579 00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:03,720 Green island is forever tied to one of Taiwan's 580 00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:05,880 and humanity's darkest chapters. 581 00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:13,240 During world war ii, 582 00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:16,280 Taiwan and its islands were ruled over by Japan, 583 00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:22,040 after the fallen empire's surrender China took back control. 584 00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:25,280 For the Taiwanese people, 585 00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:27,840 a new age of terror was about to unfold. 586 00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:36,080 Chiang Kai-shek became the leader of China in 1928. 587 00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:41,000 But in 1949, following the Chinese civil war 588 00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:44,120 he and his nationalist party were defeated 589 00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:45,920 by the communist forces 590 00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:48,280 under the leadership of mao zedong. 591 00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:52,040 And chiang Kai-shek takes his government 592 00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:56,640 which used to govern all of China across to the island of Taiwan, 593 00:35:56,680 --> 00:35:58,480 80 miles from the Chinese mainland. 594 00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:01,560 Forced into exile, 595 00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:04,640 the deposed leader plotted to reclaim China 596 00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:07,120 from the newly installed communist government. 597 00:36:09,120 --> 00:36:11,880 And green island would come to play a key role 598 00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:13,960 in chiang Kai-shek's plans. 599 00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:16,200 As you look around 600 00:36:16,240 --> 00:36:18,240 you see all these propaganda messages, 601 00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:19,520 one of which reads, 602 00:36:19,560 --> 00:36:22,600 "be firm against communism and ready to win." 603 00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:27,320 All this propaganda and the barrack-like buildings 604 00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:30,280 make you think it's some kind of military training facility. 605 00:36:31,720 --> 00:36:35,280 However, this was not a place to house his army, 606 00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:37,960 it was designed to destroy his rivals. 607 00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:43,200 Chiang Kai-shek is beleaguered by political enemies inside Taiwan. 608 00:36:43,240 --> 00:36:45,560 The old locals who resent the intrusion 609 00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:47,680 of these mainlanders onto their island, 610 00:36:47,720 --> 00:36:51,840 but also lots of Chinese spies inside the nationalist movement. 611 00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:56,600 In a desperate attempt to cling to power, 612 00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:59,400 he rounded up those believed to be a threat. 613 00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:04,120 Lin xiu wei lives on green island 614 00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:07,320 and grew up hearing the terrible stories from this time. 615 00:37:10,480 --> 00:37:12,336 Translation: "The people's right to freedom of speech 616 00:37:12,360 --> 00:37:15,200 "and freedom to gather together was stripped away. 617 00:37:15,240 --> 00:37:17,840 "For example, if three people got together 618 00:37:17,880 --> 00:37:19,160 "they would be accused 619 00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:21,640 "of joining a trade union organisation." 620 00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:27,600 This period of brutal martial law became known as the white terror. 621 00:37:29,720 --> 00:37:31,760 Chiang Kai-shek creates this green island 622 00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:35,840 as a place where he can send people for interrogation and detention 623 00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:38,520 as he launches this so-called white terror. 624 00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:43,120 This was the new life correction centre. 625 00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:46,880 Locked inside, however, 626 00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:49,160 was not the typical cast of criminals. 627 00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:52,040 Here the ones being persecuted 628 00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:54,360 were those with the power to influence others 629 00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:57,600 not through violence but through art and reason. 630 00:38:01,600 --> 00:38:03,320 This wasn't a normal prison, 631 00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:05,680 full of hardened and violent criminals, 632 00:38:05,720 --> 00:38:08,120 instead, you had scholars and writers, 633 00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:09,280 poets and artists. 634 00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:14,040 As we know nothing is more dangerous than an idea. 635 00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:17,000 Those deemed to be the most dangerous 636 00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:21,360 with the most dangerous ideas, they were sent to green island. 637 00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:24,200 Isolated from the rest of the population 638 00:38:24,240 --> 00:38:26,120 where even the power of their poetry, 639 00:38:26,160 --> 00:38:28,400 the power of their art couldn't reach anyone. 640 00:38:29,680 --> 00:38:33,800 In time, some of these prisoners would transform Taiwan 641 00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:35,400 into the country it is today. 642 00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:40,120 But while caged, they endured an imaginable hardship. 643 00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:44,080 The main building is a strange hexagonal structure 644 00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:48,080 with four lines of prisoner cells extending out from the core. 645 00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:52,600 Hard labour and torture were daily occurrences too. 646 00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:54,760 For a start, each prisoner had a sleeping space 647 00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:56,240 of only two-foot-wide. 648 00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:04,280 This wasn't just a prison, it was a re-education centre, 649 00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:07,760 really an ideological brainwashing centre as well. 650 00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:10,120 And the methods used were very extreme, 651 00:39:10,160 --> 00:39:14,120 to the point at which some prisoners were tattooed 652 00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:16,600 with propaganda slogans 653 00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:20,760 like, "oppose communism, resist the Russians." 654 00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:25,560 While those locked inside these walls dreamt of escape, 655 00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:28,720 the site's position meant this was nigh on impossible. 656 00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:33,440 Translation: "There were reports of political prisoners 657 00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:35,200 "who attempted to escape, 658 00:39:35,240 --> 00:39:37,480 "but they all failed, why? 659 00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:40,800 "Because green island is surrounded by the sea." 660 00:39:43,360 --> 00:39:45,480 Known as the black current, 661 00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:48,240 the powerful waters that encircled the island 662 00:39:48,280 --> 00:39:50,320 pulled flotsam back to the shore. 663 00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:54,480 It's rumoured one desperate prisoner swam all night 664 00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:55,920 towards the mainland 665 00:39:56,560 --> 00:39:58,840 only to find himself back where he started 666 00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:00,360 as the sun Rose. 667 00:40:02,160 --> 00:40:04,840 Translation: "Some prisoners crafted little wooden rafts 668 00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:06,400 "in an effort to escape. 669 00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:09,560 "However, they were just rolled back to the shores by the waves. 670 00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:12,160 "They were then beaten up by the guards in the bunker." 671 00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:15,760 It's estimated that over five decades 672 00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:20,280 the regime arrested up to 150,000 political opponents 673 00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:22,280 with many of them ending up here. 674 00:40:23,880 --> 00:40:27,520 Around 20,000 were executed without proper trial, 675 00:40:27,560 --> 00:40:31,000 most for the crime of criticising a corrupt government. 676 00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:37,280 So chiang Kai-shek's terror really decimated 677 00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:41,560 an entire generation of Chinese intellectuals 678 00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:46,080 and it would take Taiwanese society a long time to recover. 679 00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:49,960 But for the people held against their will, 680 00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:53,160 their dreams of freedom and Liberty didn't die. 681 00:40:53,200 --> 00:40:56,880 The suffering only fuelled a desire for change. 682 00:40:57,720 --> 00:41:04,000 The seeds of Democratic Taiwan were also sewn by this persecution. 683 00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:08,120 One prisoner was kept here for so long 684 00:41:08,160 --> 00:41:10,760 and resisted so valiantly 685 00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:14,480 and his struggle had such a profound effect 686 00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:16,360 on the course of Taiwanese politics 687 00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:20,040 that he became known as Taiwan's mandela. 688 00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:26,520 In total, shih ming-teh, spent 25 years locked away, 689 00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:29,720 much of it was here in solitary confinement 690 00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:33,000 and several years of that was on hunger strike. 691 00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:37,800 So this guy endured all of these things, 692 00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:40,120 asked for no mercy, put up with it all 693 00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:42,960 and really became the conscience of Taiwan. 694 00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:49,440 Martial law was eventually lifted in 1987. 695 00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:52,320 For the first time in a century, 696 00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:55,160 opposition political parties were allowed to form. 697 00:41:56,040 --> 00:41:59,640 And with that, many of the prisoners still being held 698 00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:00,720 were soon released. 699 00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:04,120 And once released, they formed this party, 700 00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:07,400 they insist on democracy, human rights, 701 00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:09,160 they win elections, 702 00:42:09,200 --> 00:42:11,560 and shih ming-teh is one of the guys 703 00:42:11,600 --> 00:42:13,920 who founds the Democratic progressive party, 704 00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:16,680 the party that now governs Taiwan. 705 00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:20,640 This site continued to operate as a prison, 706 00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:25,280 but this time, criminals more deserving of captivity 707 00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:26,880 occupied its cells. 708 00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:30,800 Its prisoners were now the gangsters and mobsters 709 00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:34,360 who had helped the old regime round up the innocent intellectuals. 710 00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:38,400 In the final years of the 20th century, 711 00:42:38,440 --> 00:42:40,920 the prison was closed and abandoned. 712 00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:44,160 But the trauma experienced here 713 00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:47,520 still lives long in the memory of the island's residents. 714 00:42:49,040 --> 00:42:50,280 Translation: "We must remember 715 00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:53,880 "that Taiwan once experienced strict political rule. 716 00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:56,160 "We must learn from the lessons of the past. 717 00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:58,440 "History might be repeated. 718 00:42:58,480 --> 00:43:01,800 "If we don't learn, the tragedy might happen again." 719 00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:11,560 In 2002, the Taiwanese government once again 720 00:43:11,600 --> 00:43:13,040 opened the doors of the prison. 721 00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:16,920 Though it now welcomes a very different kind of visitor. 722 00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:20,720 Green island today is a tourist destination 723 00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:23,040 with beaches, hotels, snorkelling 724 00:43:23,080 --> 00:43:27,320 but it's really a reminder of Taiwan's very complex past. 725 00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:30,520 Taiwan's frosty relationship with China continues 726 00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:31,920 to this very day. 727 00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:33,840 On the one hand, 728 00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:37,560 you have Taiwan, a flourishing free-market democracy, 729 00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:39,760 on the other hand, you have China, 730 00:43:39,800 --> 00:43:41,880 one-party communist dictatorship 731 00:43:41,920 --> 00:43:47,360 that has never recognised the independence of Taiwan. 732 00:43:47,400 --> 00:43:50,400 Captioned by ai-media ai-media. TV 59108

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