Original subtitles

Tom ward (narrates): A revolutionary craft in Russia

that sent shock waves across the west.

It absolutely terrified the defence department, the CIA,

all of which could not believe this.

An argentinian experiment built on a great promise.

Maybe trusting the old Nazi was not such a good idea.

A mystical complex shrouded by the Cambodian jungle.

It's almost like the forest is growing through it

or is the forest growing it itself?

And an institutional ruin in america

that offered hope to its occupants.

It was regarded as a success,

the true story is much darker.

Decaying relics...

Shadows of lost worlds,

ruins haunted by the past...

Their secrets waiting to be revealed.

In the Russian republic of dagerstan,

at the edge of the caspian sea

lie the remains of a secret Soviet project.

Washed up on the beach

is this amazing strange structure.

It's not a ship but it's not a plane,

it's some place in between.

And if you ramble around inside,

it's got seats for the pilot and the co-pilot

and separate compartments for radar operators

and probably weapons operators.

1.5 mi from the beach leviathan is another structure

it's connection and purpose not immediately clear.

It seems to be in the middle of nowhere.

And how better to keep a secret

than to have it far away from prying eyes.

At first glance it almost looks like a vintage airport terminal,

it even has a tower but it's out in the water

with no obvious or easy way to reach it.

And when we penetrate in to the interior

it looks like a tumble down factory

or some kind of industrial installation.

What links these two hulking beasts?

And why did this strange machine strike fear

in to the hearts of western governments.

Even the CIA was a little freaked out

by this Soviet invention.

This decaying machine

was once at the forefront of Soviet cold war military research.

You can see it was very high tech piece of equipment,

the cockpit is enormous with just a mind boggling array

of gauges and controls.

Former pilot, Ali-gadzhi Abdul spent many years at these controls.

But this is no normal aircraft,

its pilots had to adapt or face deadly consequences.

Dr you have to be very precise,

it's going to be operated in a different way

than other aircraft.

There was one accident where the crew pitched down

and flew like a dart in to the sea and... and sadly were killed.

The revolutionary design of this craft

was intended to give the Soviet military superiority

over their American rivals.

It would do it using a scientific principle called ground effect.

When a plane flies very close to the ground

or say to a flat surface like the ocean

a cushion of air builds up between that surface and the wing

and that gives the plane a little bit of extra lift.

Which means you can float very close to the ground

and at very high speeds and never touch it

and that's going to make it much easier to go faster

and further and more efficiently than ever before.

Prof all the militaries of the world were looking at this

but it was the Soviets that really you know,

worked on it intensively from the 1950s on, why?

'Cause the us Navy ruled the world

and none of the communist navies had the resources to go toe to toe

with American carriers.

The clandestine project

was the brain child of distinguished Russian engineer...

This part plane part ship is called an ekranoplan.

Testing of the prototype began on the caspian sea in 1966.

What the Soviets didn't know

was that American spy satellites were closely monitoring

the secret tests.

When the Americans got a look at this amazing craft

zooming across the caspian sea

they were really pretty blown away.

It absolutely terrified the defence department, the CIA,

all of which could not believe this.

Its fierce some reputation soon earned it an ominous nickname.

But the Soviets wanted something that could go faster

than the caspian sea monster

and they replaced it with a craft they called the loon

which was this behemoth we see on the beach of the caspian sea.

In 1987, the lun was first put through its paces,

at 240ft long it was almost as big as a jumbo jet

and could travel at speeds of over 310mi per hour.

The lun is the most potent of the ekranoplans

and of course it was impossible for radar at the time

to detect the lun

because again it's flying so close to the surface

and you've got the use of advanced missiles.

When NATO commanders got wind of this craft's development

they all knew exactly what it was designed for.

To conduct lightning fast sea born attacks,

the crew of the ekranoplan

needed somewhere to test its deadly weapons.

Aligadzhi first came here in the early 1980s.

It was called the dag diesel plant.

When it was originally built it also had a military purpose.

In the 1930s, the Soviets needed a place to test torpedoes

and the caspian sea was the perfect place to do this.

But this test facility had actually been abandoned

by the time the ekranoplan was being tested.

So, they said hey why don't we fire at this place

which has no more useful purpose.

So, it becomes a target for ekranoplans to practise

their missile skills against potential adversaries.

The fact this structure is still standing is a testament

to the Soviet brutalism

in built architecture and design,

these guys did nothing half way,

the walls are 5ft thick, it was used literally for target practise

by all kinds of different systems including the ekranoplan for decades

and it still looks like it's in pretty good shape.

After testing the lun was declared a huge success

and the Soviet military had big plans

for their devastating new weapon of war.

The west could only look on in fear.

It was an aircraft carrier killer,

that's what they saw it as and they were right,

this was a real threat.

If these ekranoplan's had been deployed on a large scale

and sent against us carrier groups

they would have inflicted considerable damage.

Almost certainly.

Yet the father of the ekranoplan programme

never got to see this model in action.

The inventor was testing a new smaller version of an ekranoplan

in 1980

when he met what was perhaps a very appropriate end.

The craft got out of control and crashed

and he received fatal injuries

and died two days later in the hospital.

The ekranoplan's days were also numbered.

Having never been called in to battle,

the winds of change were beginning to blow

and soon the iron curtain would come crashing down.

By the 1980s the Soviet union was on its last legs,

it was spending every dime it had

trying to keep up with the us in an arms race,

it's economy was falling further and further behind.

When the Soviet union fell in 1989, 90

gorbachev basically cut funding for the ekranoplans

and the few that had been assembled were just sort of left behind

as white elephants, one of them here in the caspian sea.

So, it's sort of heart-breaking in a way

that this experimental ambitious beautiful,

strangely beautiful craft

was just left to kind of rot and fall apart.

The abandoned cold war relic is soon set to have a new home

at a military theme park...

Until construction of the site is finished

the craft remains strained in its coastal grave.

In western Argentina on the chilly waters of lake nahuel huapi

is an island of secrets and lies.

As you approach this island it's big.

It's got a lot of tree cover

and it's right in the middle of the lake

so it is comparatively isolated.

But as you get on to the island

you can see that there's a number of different buildings.

There are collapsed warehouse like ruins and industrial remains.

Any hint of their original purpose has long since vanished.

You've got fairly bare constructs

but things like bolts in the ground,

there was something emplaced there but it's no longer there now.

The buildings weren't damaged by a natural disaster

or an explosion,

they were systematically and surgically taken apart.

This was once the site of a bold experiment.

One led by a man that claimed his work could transform

the fortunes of an entire country.

And there is every indication

that this might be one of the big brains

who is going to make Argentina even more powerful in the future.

Fabian kandel is a local guide...

He's been bringing visitors to this mysterious island

for the last 10 years.

When construction first started in 1949

outsiders were strictly forbidden.

In the late 1940s Argentina was a largely agricultural nation.

President Juan peron wanted the country to industrialise...

At the end of the second world war he ceased an opportunity

to exploit the fallen third reich.

Dr Juan peron tries to get as many Nazi scientists,

Nazi engineers, Nazi builders

to come to Argentina

and help make Argentina more technologically advanced.

In 1948,

Nazi physicist doctor Ronald Richter arrived in Argentina

allegedly using a fake passport

supplied by the Argentine government.

The president invited doctor Richter to Argentina

to potentially talk about powering plans with nuclear power,

but doctor Richter wanted to talk about something else.

Richter wanted to begin a project that would transform Argentina

in to a major super power.

What Richter is pitching is far bigger

than a nuclear powered aircraft.

What Richter is pitching

is the power of the sun and stars

at the service of the Argentine government,

hydrogen fusion.

Prof now, nuclear fusion's the holy grail if you will

because in principle it can generate huge vast amounts of power

and also the bi-products of it are not very radioactive.

Nuclear fusion is the opposite of nuclear fission,

the destructive power that fuels the atomic bomb.

Instead of splitting an atom to create energy,

atoms are smashed together.

The reaction produces

a self-sustaining limitless source of power

no other country had yet come close to achieving.

The problem with nuclear fusion in a nutshell

it's really, really hard to do.

Richter was trying essentially to bottle the sun.

For peron, the risk was worth the reward.

There'd be no need for the combustion engine,

you wouldn't have to wait for a very sunny day for solar power

or a very windy day for wind power,

it would go a long way to solve our energy crisis.

If Richter can produce hydrogen fusion for Argentina

then Argentina becomes the energy capital of the world

and the industrial capital of the world.

This is island, once a top secret nuclear fusion lab

with the potential to alter the course of history.

Peron offers Richter a billion Argentine pesos

and that was a lot of money,

he's effectively allowing Richter to spend anything,

unlimited budget virtually.

And it's an interesting fact that in order to get nuclear fusion

you actually need a lot of energy and a lot of power

so Richter himself would need to have a big power station,

he would need to be able to generate large amounts of power

in order to try and get the reaction to happen.

Estimates suggest Richter used

up to 40,000 freight car loads of bricks, stones and concrete.

In just two years,

Richter's project racked up a bill of 200 million pounds.

Peron needs to keep the news of his investment

in hydrogen fusion under his hat

because the last thing peron wants is uncle Sam

coming down to South America and stopping him.

So, Richter had built this reactor

but for him he said

the key part of it was this thing called the thermatron

which was the thing that generated the vast amounts of energy

to cause nuclear fusion.

But doctor Richter kept the design of his thermatron

a closely guarded secret.

In February 1951, Richter told peron his revolutionary machine

had successfully demonstrated fusion.

On the 24 march, 1951,

just two years after the project started,

president peron announced to the world's media

that Argentina had managed to achieve nuclear fusion.

But not everyone was convinced by peron's bold declaration.

The international scientific community is sceptical.

One guy can't do this,

a little economy can't do this.

So, after the announcement clearly reporters and scientists

really wanted to get on the island to find out

but even after a year they weren't allowed access

and Richter had not provided any evidence

for what he claimed he'd done.

And peron has got to find out what's going on.

Peron has trusted Richter implicitly

and maybe trusting the old Nazi was not such a good idea.

The failed project was immediately cancelled

and the island abandoned.

Richter goes from being the leading man

in Argentine science

to nobody.

And he was forced to retire and live the rest of his life out

in Buenos Aires in disgrace really his name was in tatters.

In the following years the buildings were stripped

and... and some of them were actually destroyed completely.

Richter's fraud was a national embarrassment

and one of the costly scientific deceptions in history.

Despite the failure and the fraud of the huemul project,

it wasn't completely worthless.

In the 1970s huemul island was used by the argentinian military

for bombing and target practise.

But today, it faces a brighter future.

In Georgia, usa, lies a facility strangled by the forest.

You're in a pretty built up area but then there's this one spot

that it is wooded, overgrown,

cutzo is covering everything

and in the middle of it there's this compound ruins really.

You can no longer tell what this was

but you can clearly see

that it's been empty for a long period of time.

Other remains here have better survived the ravages of time.

Inside they offer a glimpse of what this place once was.

The buildings that are intact are creepy,

you've got these long corridors,

they are very, very dark, there's a lot of metal.

You see some doors with bars,

you see something that suggests an institutional nature.

This complex once stood as a beacon of hope

for the people that came here.

The authorities were more than happy

to push this narrative but the reality was far different.

Scott Peterson lives nearby

and has been exploring this place for years.

He became interested in its history from a very young age.

This place is surprisingly well-known

because of its nefarious past.

So, many of us have colourful uncles and colourful grandfathers

and colourful great, great-grandfathers

who shared stories of what happened here.

It's story begins in 1918,

when Atlanta's bureau of prisons bought the land.

At one end they built a conventional penitentiary,

but here created a different kind of correctional facility.

Over many, many years this overgrown path

was the final walk many men took in to this prison.

And they would come slowly in chains up this walkway.

The convicts soon discovered this was no ordinary prison.

Notice in this great distance there's no fences,

there's no walls...

There's no guard towers.

A prison without walls sounds like a recipe for disaster.

But this was a unique experiment based on liberal ideals.

This prison was also a working farm,

prisoners were expected to tend pigs

and the... the chickens and the dairy cattle

and to work in the fields raising crops.

The people in charge of the prisoners

were not normal prison guards.

They were agricultural experts armed now with guns but with farm tools.

So, there's not only the hope to rehabilitate prisoners,

to help them learn a trade,

there's also the sense of having them

not hold up in dark cells.

That might lessen the possibility of becoming institutionalised.

This is the old Atlanta prison farm,

when it first opened

it also went by a different name, one that reflected the principals

on which it was founded.

This prison was known as an honour farm,

was intended for convicts

who were convicted of relatively minor crimes

and the idea was that this was an honour for them

to be able to serve their time in a place

where they had relative freedom

and not be under the thumb of guards

and very, very heavy security.

Even the dormitories were clean and far from overcrowded.

Imagine a beautiful spring day

and the 50 or 60 honour farm prisoners

leave their dormitory which is just the other side of the road,

they cross over the road which is really just a dirt track

and get their tools and start their day at work.

The idea was they could reward positive behaviour

on the part of the inmates

through these good conditions

and the inmates knew that if they screwed up

they might get sent somewhere else and endure much harsher treatment.

Dr by the 1930s, this farm was producing enough milk

and vegetables to be self-sustaining,

it was able to provide for itself

and the penitentiary nearby.

Escape attempts were rare

and the innovative programme appeared to be working.

This prison was regarded as a success,

it was seen as a modern kind of humane way

to rehabilitate and it was seen as something

that was really progressive.

But the prison farms days of reform did not last.

One writer who did a history of this period

said it was the closest thing to slavery

that survived the civil war.

In the mid-1960s,

a new owner took over

and they would Usher in a new age of brutality.

The federal government sold the honour farm

to the city of Atlanta

and other government entities...

And a different era came in,

an era of chain gang,

an era of brutal retaliation,

corporal punishment, even death by working.

The reality was that most of the inmates here

were black Americans

and many of them were housed in cell blocks

that were segregated across racial lines.

Segregation was officially ended by the civil rights act of 1964

but inside these walls the inhumane practise continued.

The honourable experiment that began here was over.

Much of what had been unique about the prison

had... had gone

and people started being treated more like regular prisoners.

The prisoners come in and they are signed up

and they're bought over to this area here through this sliding door.

This is one of the first...

Gates of hell that they would experience.

They spent hours and hours and hours in these holding cells.

It's kind of sad feeling here even though it's been abused

and neglected for many years and lots of graffiti,

you can still feel the angst of the men that were here.

Not only were a disproportionate number of prisoners

by the 1960s black,

not only was there segregation

but you have such crowding for black inmates

where they might not even be sleeping in bunks,

they might be sleeping on floors,

some reported sleeping on bits of cloth

that were soaked in urine.

Can you imagine being in a building like this

with 700 800 men maybe more on a July day?

It had quite an odour.

The food was bad, the conditions were bad.

In the 1970s and 80s

there were attempts to address the shameful conditions.

But its days as a prison farm were numbered.

It seems like this place

went through several different superintendents

who all had positive intentions

but for one reason or another this never really came to fruition

and ultimately by 1995 this place was abandoned

and it's been falling apart ever since.

Some areas you could say they had success,

it was seen as a model at times

for a more enlightened way to run a prison.

Sadly it also reflected

the common place treatment of black prisoners in the south,

it was a especially oppressive, especially difficult.

Today, the once fertile land has become an illegal dumping ground

brimming with toxic waste.

Scott is fighting to save it.

The future of the Atlanta prison farm is still up for debate.

The history points us in the direction

of recycling this beautiful old farm

for maximum benefit to the neighbours

and to the people of Atlanta.

Concealed in the Cambodian jungle

lie traces of a lost world.

As you move through the thick trees of the jungle

you suddenly realise that there is something else here.

It's not hidden,

it's not camouflaged

it's actually being taken back over by the jungle.

Exploring deeper,

there is a distinct feeling you are being watched.

All you see is these...

These eyes peering out from behind the leaves.

We know that this place held stores of gold and silk

and precious gems.

You really feel like

you're in an Indiana Jones or a tomb raider movie.

The snaking roots, and passage of time

have bought decay to this place

but there are indications

that someone else has scoured this site.

Who or what were they searching for?

Dr im sokrithyis an archaeologist who has spent decades

uncovering the secrets of this place.

This is... ta prohm

it was part of the ancient city of angkor

the capital of the vast civilisation.

The empire was at its height in south east Asia

between the 11th and 13th centuries.

And their kings ruled

over much of what is today Laos, Cambodia,

Thailand and Vietnam.

Ta prohm was a focal point

for many of this ancient cities people.

It was in effect at the heart of a city block of the capital...

Dr we know that over 12,500 people were living here

but it also took some 80,000 people

in the neighbouring villages and towns

to ensure that the people here had adequate supplies.

And it housed a share of the empire's enormous wealth.

It once held over 1,000 pounds of gold plate,

35 diamonds,

tens of thousands of pearls

and a host of other luxurious goods.

Ta prohm was commissioned

by a great king called jayavarman 7th...

Before a single stone could be laid here

he had to come out of exile and rid the empire of occupiers

who had deposed his father.

..Was probably in his 50s when he assembled an army

and overthrew the invaders.

He found the city in complete disrepair

but through skill and diligence

he became one of the most powerful of the khmer kings.

Completed in 1186 ad

ta prohm was part of jayavaram's new vision for his subjects.

Yet there is something that marks the temple out

as different from the remains of the civilisation around it.

When you take a look at the carvings

that you can find around this structure,

they represent iconic moments from the Buddhist tradition.

But the vast majority of the buildings

at the angkor watt complex

are dedicated to hindu principles

so what can account for that discrepancy?

During this time in exile,

jayavarman the 7th not only raised an army,

but also strengthen his faith in buddhism.

Ta prohm was the ultimate expression of that faith.

Mahayana buddhism is one of the two great traditions

in Buddhist thought.

At the core of mahayana buddhism

is an ideal that we should all try to reach

to live a life free of desire,

free of attachment to material things.

Throughout the site there are over 260 statues to gods

and over 40 different temples where people can leave offerings

of flowers and gifts.

Even the layout of this site is an embodiment of the beliefs

of the mahayana Buddhist.

The different enclosures represent different levels of enlightenment.

Yet, this was more than just a temple.

The king's faith drove him to affect real change

in the lives of his subjects.

His beliefs in mahayana buddhism

meant that he was deeply invested

in reducing the suffering of his people.

One inscription at this temple even suggests

that he felt the pain of his people more deeply,

he felt it on a spiritual level.

One structure here shows the length he would go

to to put his beliefs in to practise.

They were places where the travellers could cook,

shelter, feed their animals, sleep, pray

and they were open to everybody.

Although many of these structures have since been lost to time,

ta prohm was at the centre of another kind of network.

He built over 100 hospitals across the breadth of his empire

and these were fairly complex institutions,

they would have included managers,

drug combiners, drug distributors, water boilers,

it was almost like an early form of universal healthcare.

As well as the spiritual and mental wellbeing at the temple

people were also treated

with medicines, with honey, butter, oil and molasses

for their physical health.

But the scared walls here

suggest there was a more immediate threat

to his benevolent vision.

You would expect there to be more Buddhist relics

and engravings

but there are surprisingly few,

it's almost as if they've been disappeared on purpose.

Soon after the jayavarman 7th death

a name sake ceased his throne.

Jayavarman the eigth,

was a hindu and a fervent anti-Buddhist.

So, he's going to destroy or alter

a lot of the older carvings.

After the death of its Buddhist king,

the khmer empire entered a terminal decline

but the exact reasons why angkor and ta prohm were abandoned

still remain a mystery.

Some people have suggested that it was climate,

others have thought that it might have been famine

or even pandemic but whatever happened,

people left and the site gradually was reclaimed

by the jungle.

Thanks to its abandonment

and the arrival of a new empire

ta prohm would get a new lease of life many centuries later.

So, it is actually a French naturalist and explorer

who is credited with discovering ankhor and ta prohm

but the people never forgot it was there.

The French diligently and carefully preserved

much of the remains of ankhar

but at ta prohm they decided to leave it as it was

in its natural state as they found it picturesque.

And not only has the picturesque setting drawn tourists

from all over the world

it bought the bright lights of Hollywood too.

This place made the headlines

when it was used as the setting

for the Angelina Jolie tomb raider film.

But that fame comes at a cost

and as the years go on

and more tourists arrived

it becomes harder and harder

to preserve the delicate beauty of this place.

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