Original subtitles

Narrator: worldwide, six billion Cameras are watching us.

On our streets, at work, And in our homes.

They capture things that Seem impossible.

It defies the laws of physics.

Man: Oh, this is unbelievable, man.

Narrator: experts carry out Forensic analysis

Of these unusual events.

There's got to be some Explanation for what's going on.

Woman: [ screaming ]

Narrator: coming up, The real-life iron man

On his way to mars Causes panic in l.A.

-ah! Ah. -oh, [bleep].

Narrator: terror from the deep Causing fish to flee the water.

Those are frightened fish. They are escaping something.

Narrator: and the car from Another dimension.

[ tires screeching ]

Where did that car come from?

It seems to have just Materialized out of thin air.

Narrator: bizarre phenomena,

Mysteries caught on camera.

What's the truth behind this?

"Strange evidence."

-- captions by vitac -- Www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by Discovery communications

Cameras capture a huge, Complex shape

Forming in the night sky Over los angeles.

Man: wow, what is that?

Millions of people Are staring up,

Thinking what the heck Is going on here?

And more importantly, What's gonna happen next?

Man: it's some weird stuff. Look at all that.

Narrator: This is a mass sighting

Caught on multiple cameras.

It's an unidentified flying Object is really what it is.

♪♪

Narrator: los angeles, December 22, 2017,

The start of the holiday season.

Local resident robert brooks

Prepares to head out of town For the long weekend.

it was a beautiful night, Typical of los angeles.

millions of stars in the sky.

And I turned around And there it was.

♪♪

It looked like It was coming right at me.

Narrator: whatever it is,

It's caught on surveillance Cameras throughout l.A.

Man: that's some weird stuff. Look at all that.

Narrator: witness robert brooks

Fears he's filming The end of the world.

I absolutely wondered, Is it spiritual?

You know, Is there a reckoning coming?

♪♪

Narrator: on the freeways, It's the middle of rush hour.

Something is happening To the unidentified object,

And it's captured on Car dash cams.

Man: It's glowing like -- whoo!

narrator: the object Seems to expand then split.

a smaller entity appears active

within what looks like A balloon of smoke or gas.

Man: wow, what is that?

I've never seen that halo effect

surrounding a brilliant Center item,

Moving so rapidly Across the sky.

Narrator: shock turns to Confusion and terror.

[ tires screech ] -ah!

[ bleep ]

-damn. -damn.

it's not normal to see something That big and that bright

overhead in the sky.

It sets off a primal fear In people.

whatever this thing is, It's big,

and it's making a big impact On the skyline.

Man: what kind of [bleep] Is that, man?

♪♪

Narrator: los angeles Is used to alien invasions.

Being burned to the ground, Flattened, or vaporized,

But that's in the movies.

This time, it's for real.

[ siren wailing ]

Man: what is that?

Narrator: this is just The most recent mass reporting

Of strange objects over l.A.

In 1942, authorities received Widespread reports

Of lights over the city.

The military responded With such ferocity,

It became known as The battle of los angeles.

The military, thinking that There was a japanese attack,

Started shooting pretty much Everything into the sky.

It lit up the sky, Terrified the citizens.

[ explosions ]

Narrator: Over 1,000 anti-aircraft shells

Are fired at the lights in The sky, but to no effect.

Afterwards, when they tried to Find some wreckage

Of maybe some japanese planes, There was nothing.

♪♪

Narrator: many believe that Whatever was in the sky

Over l.A. That night in 1942,

It wasn't japanese planes.

They thought it was A government cover-up.

Some people think that The explanation

Is a little bit more alien.

Narrator: it's 75 years later.

The same skies over l.A.,

And another set of unexplained Bright lights cause mass panic.

-any idea what it is? -I don't know, man.

Man: that's some weird stuff. Look at all that.

Cars hit each other. Ufo reports pour in.

Social media, radio stations,

Television, everyone had A all-purpose freakout.

♪♪

Narrator: ex-nypd video analyst Conor mccourt

Studies the dashcam footage.

It's like nothing He's ever seen before.

it's an unidentified flying Object is really what it is.

So I started to look at All the specific things

In that ufo to see, Is it identifiable?

Narrator: he analyzes The footage frame by frame

And notices there's not one,

But two streaks which look like Fiery vapor trails.

at 01:30:14, The second trail appears.

something happens In between there,

indicating maybe a stage In a rocket.

Narrator: if this is some kind Of rocket leaving a vapor trail,

The gap in the trail might mark The shutting down

Of a first-stage engine And the firing up of the next.

But what of the weird object

Hovering strangely within The gas or vapor balloon?

when we zoom into This video image,

Inside the vapor trail, We see a dot in the middle.

is that the back of The rocket falling off?

♪♪

Narrator: mccourt examines The dashcam footage

To locate where the object Might've come from.

Mccourt: It's coming from the northwest

Because we have the coordinates In the bottom of the screen.

So we have to find out, Is anything scheduled to happen

In the north And west of the city?

Narrator: a check of the area Reveals a military facility

Within 140 miles.

The vandenberg air force base.

if there were any launches to Take place from that base,

it would be visible From the city.

Narrator: military correspondent Carlo muñoz

Compares the object Caught on camera

With the type of weapons Believed to be present

On the vandenberg base.

You could very clearly see that This is something moving

At an incredible rate of speed And hitting very high altitudes.

Now there's not that many things That can move that fast,

That high.

Narrator: vandenberg air base Is under the control

Of the 30th space wing, Air force space command.

If there's ever a war in space,

These are the guys Who will fight it.

Among the weaponry at this space War base are four so-called

Interceptor rockets capable of Leaving earth's atmosphere.

Each of these invader-busting

Weapons has multiple rocket Engines which fire in stages.

As each stage separates,

It allows the warhead To accelerate further

And higher into the sky.

So with each subsequent Separation,

The missile travels further Towards it target,

Which would be an incoming Missile to the united states.

Narrator: of the terrestrial Threats to the united states,

The biggest at the moment is Believed to come from asia.

Right now, Things are very tense,

Particularly on the west coast Of the united states.

Narrator: the north korean Military has said they developed

Long-range, Ballistic missile technology

That actually has the ability to Reach the west coast,

Which puts california Within range.

Narrator: but would this Mad marxist dictator

Be crazy enough To pick a fight with america?

♪♪

Coming up, The underwater smog monster.

A creeping cloud killing Everything in its path.

Everything this cloud Touches seems to die.

Narrator: deep-sea death wish.

What's frightening The kamikaze fish?

This looks like mass Fish suicide.

Narrator: scientists investigate How ice can be on fire.

This is really strange Because you imagine ice

Would be impossible To catch on fire.

Narrator: and an extra planetary Puzzle in the skies over l.A.

One of those stages Seems to be moving on its own,

And that's not something That rockets do

In the u.S. Military arsenal.

♪♪

Narrator: a strange object Crossing the sky over l.A.

Caught on multiple cameras Causes panic on the freeway.

[ tires screeching ] -ah!

[ bleep ]

Narrator: could it be An interceptor missile

Launched by the u.S. Air force Space command?

Aviation expert joe pappalardo Is not convinced.

He spots something strange About the object

which appears To have been jettisoned.

it doesn't fall back to earth.

it's not behaving like A missile normally does.

one of those stages seems to be Moving on its own,

so there's something else That's up there.

Narrator: But there is one company

That has the technology to build Something like this,

And running it is a guy Who has been called

The real-life iron man.

When you see something moving Around on the back-end

Of a rocket like that,

It's a good bet That it's gonna be spacex.

Narrator: Spacex is run by elon musk,

The man on whom Robert downey jr.

Based the character of Tony stark.

The u.S. Military allows Musk's company

To operate out Of vandenberg air force base.

And it is known that spacex Is working on a program

To send humans to colonize mars.

That involves building A new kind of reusable,

Multiple-stage rocket.

Pappalardo: When a fuel tank is empty,

They'll guide it down.

The stage will separate, Move in these very unnatural

Weird ways to position itself to Settle back down to the ground

So it can be reused.

♪♪

Narrator: what angelenos Witnessed that night

Is a spacex falcon 9 rocket Blasting towards space.

This successful launch Is one step toward

Humans reaching other worlds.

Robert brooks Has accidentally witnessed

A bit of space history.

I'm very pleased that I got to Be there on the front row seat

of all of this With a fantastic view.

The fact that we can do all These great things,

And we might even be going to Mars pretty soon?

I mean, how awesome is that?

♪♪

Narrator: now, the horror From the blue lagoon.

It looks like some kind of Portal to the underworld.

I'd never seen anything Quite like it.

Narrator: nothing can survive This mystery cloud.

It's a floating serial killer.

Everything this cloud Touches seems to die.

It's pretty terrifying.

♪♪

Narrator: Yucatán peninsula, mexico.

Mysterious ruins Are all that remains

Of the cities Of the mighty mayans,

But the strange fate Of this civilization,

More than a thousand years ago, Remains unexplained.

Many of these cities Are built around giant,

Natural holes Leading into the earth.

To the mayans, these cenotes, Or sacred wells,

Were feared and revered,

The site of ritual, Human sacrifice.

To archaeologist Guillermo de anda and his team,

They are rich, but treacherous Hunting grounds

For ancient treasure.

It's a dream come true For an archaeologist.

there's not only a lot of Artifacts,

they are very well preserved.

Narrator: may 2015, de anda has Ventured into the thick jungle

10 miles south Of the long-abandoned

Mayan city of tulum.

He prepares to dive into one of The mayans' sacred wells.

De anda descends into The gloomy, echoing hole.

The water is shockingly cold,

But de anda and his team Are used to diving

In these conditions.

90 feet down,

He encounters something He's never seen before.

Below him, a vast, Underwater cloud.

As he approaches The edge of the cloud,

He starts to feel pain.

It actually burns your lips.

We don't take our masks off

Because I don't know what effect That could have on your eyes.

Narrator: de anda Realizes something's wrong.

Mayan sacred wells are normally Teeming with life, but here,

Everything is dead.

I have never seen something Like that in any other cenote.

Narrator: Searching for answers,

He posts footage Of the cloud online.

in the middle of the jungle, Where life is abundant,

one of the most biodiverse Places on earth,

You find this pocket of death.

when he realized that It's killing everything there,

you have to ask yourself, What is that?

♪♪

Narrator: the killer cloud Is in a sacred mayan well.

Science journalist john farrow

Looks for clues In mayan religious beliefs

And their obsession with death And the end of the world.

The mayan civilization, which Was quite advanced for its time,

Had a calendar system.

But this calendar Actually had an ending.

It was in the year 2012 when The world was supposed to end.

People really believed this, And in 2012,

They were counting down The minutes

To the end of the world.

Narrator: around the world,

There were some Who feared the mayan prophecy

Would come true.

But when the clock ultimately Hit zero, nothing happened.

So when people see a cloud of Death in the middle of a cenote,

A religious place For the mayans, they think,

Maybe we just got The date wrong,

And the end of the world Is coming,

And it's coming from here.

♪♪

Man: [ speaking foreign language ]

Narrator: But ex-cia agent lindsay moran

Has a less mystical Possible explanation.

This cenote sits inside Narco territory.

There was a 2017 report that Showed that there was cocaine

In the cave systems.

If some huge amount of cocaine Got into the water,

This could be what's creating This cloud of death,

And essentially, causing All the life down there

To have overdoses.

Narrator: It sounds incredible,

But the volume of cocaine

Handled by the narcos Was staggering.

In a single year, the cocaine Smuggled into america

By pablo escobar alone Was equivalent in weight

To 25 statues of liberty.

Pablo escobar is famous For being historically

The most prolific drug Trafficker in this area.

Narrator: escobar's men were Moving 15 tons of cocaine a day,

Much of it through mexico.

And when there was a risk of Capture, the cocaine was dumped.

Man: this raid yielded about 6,500 kilograms

Of processed cocaine Worth well over $1 billion.

Narrator: Escobar's drug runners

Could have used The well-concealed

Mayan sacred wells As drug depots

Or dumping grounds On their smuggling route.

For a drug lord like escobar,

These cenotes might present The perfect place

To stash Huge amounts of cocaine.

Narrator: If this is a cloud of cocaine,

Hundreds of additional tons Could be lying in other cenotes,

Posing a possibly Terrifying threat

To the region's water supply.

♪♪

Coming up, the driver from Another dimension.

A wormhole car crash Caught on camera.

[ tires screeching ]

I mean, cars don't Come out of nowhere.

[ tires screeching ]

Narrator: burning ice.

A freaky frozen inferno Baffles fire investigators.

I have never seen it Before like this.

Fire and ice don't miss.

Narrator: And experts fear the spread

Of the mayan killer cloud...

That is toxic,

Very toxic, and that will kill Anything that comes in there.

♪♪

Narrator: Divers encounter a fog of death

In an ancient mayan sacred well.

Experts wonder if this could be A killer cloud of cocaine

Dumped by narco Drug lord pablo escobar.

Chemist andrea sella looks At the physical properties

Of cocaine And how it acts with water.

Now, cocaine Is extremely soluble.

if you dissolve salt up into Water, you can't see it anymore.

well, exactly the same thing Would happen to the cocaine.

It just vanishes.

The fact that you've got that Cloudiness means that clearly,

Whatever that material is, It isn't soluble in the water.

It's actually tiny particles, Which are suspended.

What the nature of those Particles is, we have no idea.

♪♪

Narrator: Archaeologist guillermo de anda

Risks his life to investigate.

Though the toxic cloud Burns his skin,

He swims into it And emerges from the other side.

Whatever the cloud is,

It's not sitting On the floor of the well.

something was strange Because we realized,

this is not the bottom.

this is something else, And then we put our hand,

Our hand does go through.

Then we venture a little bit More and a little more

Until we get to the other side Of the layer.

It looks like there's a huge Tarp on top of you.

♪♪

Narrator: physicist simon foster From imperial college, london,

Wants to know why the cloud is Hovering in this particular part

Of the well.

what I think we're seeing here

are two separate Bodies of water.

one freshwater and one seawater.

We've actually got that In play here.

On one side, I've got saltwater,

And on the other side, I've got freshwater.

When I remove the separate Between the two,

You'll see that The saltwater moves

Below the freshwater Because it's denser,

It's heavier, and you get this Clear, distinct separation

Of the two layers.

Narrator: foster's test suggests That denser saltwater

Is sitting at the bottom Of the mayan well,

Freshwater lies above.

The lethal cloud Is held in place,

Trapped between these layers.

Now, the real mystery In this footage is this cloudy,

Murky fog that's sandwiched Between the two bodies.

What is it?

That's what We've got to discover.

♪♪

Narrator: fluid dynamics expert James bird

Sets to work trying to identify The killer substance.

The first clue Are the dead trees

Lying in amongst The killer cloud.

it's interesting to see The sticks and other debris that

seems like it could be rotting.

Generally, During the rotting process,

The bacteria can create gases.

Narrator: is the cloud killing All life in its path,

Or is the unusual quantity of Dead matter itself

Creating the killer mist?

We're likely seeing lots of Small bubbles that would give

A cloud-like appearance.

Narrator: Marine biologist erik cordes

Investigates how a killer cloud Of underwater gas could come

From rotting, dead trees.

In environments Starved of oxygen,

The bacteria Digesting the vegetation

Can create toxic gas.

When cordes checks oxygen Readings from the cenote,

He finds that the oxygen levels Are nearly zero.

if there's no oxygen, All the plant matter and leaves

and sticks and everything that Sunk down into the bottom

Would degrade by the bacteria,

And they would start producing Hydrogen sulfide.

Narrator: hydrogen sulfide Is a corrosive acid.

It can suffocate any life that Inhales the poisoned waters

Within seconds.

These chemical reactions

Trigger an unstoppable chain Reaction of death.

Hydrogen sulfide is toxic, Very toxic.

And that will kill anything That comes in there.

And so you get more dead animals

And more hydrogen sulfide Being produced,

And it'll just keep going And going and going

Until the whole thing Becomes toxic.

Narrator: This mayan sacred well is,

Indeed, a well of death,

And this killer cloud could be Hard to contain.

these are caves that are Connected by a system of

essentially underwater rivers.

If one cenote gets polluted,

The rest of them are going to be Polluted, too.

♪♪

Narrator: now, a dashcam Captures a crazy collision.

So where did that car Come from?

It seems to just materialize Out of thin air.

Narrator: experts struggle to Explain this phantom car.

One, I'm just missing something

Or two, this car is invisible.

♪♪

Narrator: yaroslavl, russia.

160 miles northeast of moscow.

This city is a hub of high-tech Research institutes.

From automotive developers

To a branch of the russian Academy of science.

♪♪

August 30, 2012.

A dash-mounted camera Records a journey

Through the city streets.

Then what happens next...

[ tires screech ]

...Is straight out Of the twilight zone.

We've got a car driving down The road at a normal pace.

Everything's completely normal. Everything's fine.

And then wham!

The approaching vehicle Seems to just materialize

Out of thin air.

I've investigated Many car crashes,

but I've never seen one Like this before.

I mean, cars don't Come out of nowhere.

[ tires screech ]

Narrator: The footage of this phantom car

Comes to the attention Of investigators.

when you see something This strange,

you start to think Of science fiction.

If that car was a delorean,

Then maybe it might be Some time travel,

But there has to be A different explanation.

♪♪

Narrator: coming up, Mass suicide at a lake

As thousands of fish leap in Terror out of the water.

I've heard of Flying fish before,

But this is a little crazy.

Narrator: A freaky frozen inferno

Baffle chicago firefighters.

This looks like the ice Itself is on fire.

♪♪

Narrator: and are car wars A new phantom menace?

That's a game changer. They'd basically be unstoppable.

♪♪

Narrator: dashcam footage Shows a phantom car

Coming out of thin air.

[ tires screech ]

An invisible car sounds crazy,

But invisibility Stealth technology

Is something that's being Actively pursued

In secret weapons programs.

exploration and development of Some kind of invisibility

Providing technology is Something that's very real.

And one thing that Every military

Would love to have is some kind Of cloak of invisibility.

Narrator: russia's skies Have been a testing ground

For invisibility programs For decades.

The sukhoi su-57 fighter jet has Advanced stealth technologies.

Its angled shape minimizes Radio waves reflecting back

To enemy detecting systems,

Allowing it to penetrate enemy Air space, undetected by radar.

[ explosion ]

But these jets are still visible To the naked eye.

If a country were able to Develop some kind of technology

That provided for invisibility On the battlefield, I mean,

That's a game changer. They'd basically be unstoppable.

♪♪

Narrator: but the newest Stealth technology

Costs billions of dollars And is top, top secret.

It will be tested on fighter Plants, tanks, and ships,

Not on a small hatchback At a busy intersection.

Video analyst conor mccourt

Studies the collision Frame by frame.

The answer to This wormhole weirdness

Is in the footage itself.

If you look on the back Right side of the car,

There's a little protrusion Right there.

I believe that's the back Of the phantom car

as it strikes the front Of the car.

[ tires screech ]

Narrator: replaying the footage,

Mccourt notices parked cars Beside the crash site.

He begins to suspect The phantom car is always there.

It's just not visible Before the crash

Because it's blocked From the dashcam's view.

As the phantom car Is coming along

And entering the intersection,

There's only a moment Where we can see it,

And that the phantom car Is obscured by the car

That's just about to be hit.

Narrator: The analysis reveals

This is a perfectly timed Optical illusion.

♪♪

What we have here is a very Amazing coincidence.

where, at the exact time That that black car was entering

into the intersection,

It was obscuring the entry of That phantom car

Into the intersection.

So when the collision occurred,

It was almost as if It came out of nowhere,

But it was there the whole time.

[ tires screech ]

♪♪

Narrator: now, in china, Fish are freaking out.

I've heard of Flying fish before,

But this is a little crazy.

What the heck Are these fish doing?

Why are they all jumping out of The water at the same time?

Narrator: kamikaze fish, Driven to their doom

By something super scary In the lake.

Those are frightened fish. They are escaping something.

What could be under the water? They can't breathe.

It's almost like fish suicide.

♪♪

Narrator: jiaozuo, china,

An area of waterfalls and lakes.

It attracts thousands of Sightseers each year.

June 13, 2017.

As tourists take pictures In the tranquil surroundings,

The peace is shattered.

Onlookers are shocked And disturbed

To witness An aquatic horror show.

all of a sudden, Madness breaks out,

and fish start Leaping out of the lake,

And they're just flopping Everywhere.

Narrator: the bizarre sight Baffles scientists.

It's chaos.

This looks like Mass fish suicide.

These fish are absolutely Jumping to their doom.

♪♪

Narrator: coming up, Firefighters battle burning ice.

It looks like some kind of Demonic, frozen ice hell.

♪♪

Narrator: and experts fear These suicide fish

Could be an apocalyptic warning.

It might be There's an earthquake

Right around the corner.

♪♪

Narrator: In a nightmare scene,

Thousands of fish leap onto Dry land from a chinese lake.

Marine biologist Danni washington

Studies the footage.

she zooms in On an individual fish.

The species they belong To could provide a clue

To this bizarre behavior.

looking closer at the fish,

you can see that it's got A blunt nose, large size,

A silvery shimmy on the sides.

It leads me to believe that It's an asian silver carp.

These fish can grow up to Three feet long and 60 pounds.

That's a really big fish to be Jumping randomly out of a lake.

Narrator: asian silver carp Come from china and siberia,

But they're spreading Across the world.

Their numbers are growing Rapidly in american

And european rivers and lakes

With some fearing these fish Will overwhelm the waterways.

♪♪

But across the globe,

There are reports of these carp

Displaying strange behavior When frightened.

Washington: They will get spooked,

And they'll start showing This weird, crazy behavior

Where they're jumping out Of the water.

They can jump nearly 10 feet Out of the water.

Narrator: scientists Are trying to figure out

What's causing these carp To kill themselves.

Marine expert jay hemdal Analyzes the footage.

The fish, he thinks, are trying To get away from something.

Something inside the lake.

those are frightened fish. They are escaping something.

it's difficult to say What that could be.

there could be a predator,

Or it could be what they Perceive to be a predator.

When you're a fish And there's a predator around,

One of your responses is to Actually jump into the air.

Narrator: but to cause such An extreme reaction,

Whatever is down there must be Truly frightening.

[ alligator growling ]

The region's most ferocious Aquatic beast

Is the chinese alligator.

They are fearsome, Apex predators.

Opportunist feeders That will devour anything

That gets too close.

From mammals near the water edge

To any fish in the waters.

If a chinese alligator Were in this lake,

The carp would have cause For concern.

They don't necessarily Have a directional ability,

And they land on the ground by Accident, not on purpose.

Narrator: But this can't be the answer.

This lake is manmade With no connecting rivers

To natural waterways.

No alligator population Has been introduced here.

This is not an apex predator's Hunting ground.

♪♪

Biologist roland kays Studies the footage.

A specialist in animal behavior,

He knows that some species Seem to be able

To predict natural disasters.

there's a lot of stories Going back millennia,

told all around the world,

About animals detecting Seismic events,

Earthquakes, or volcanoes, Before they happen.

Narrator: Reports from across the globe

Reveal giant oarfish Beaching themselves

Before an imminent earthquake.

[ siren wails ]

In 2010, oarfish beached Themselves in japan.

Soon afterwards,

The 9.1 magnitude tohoku Earthquake spawns a tsunami.

Scientists now believe Finding these fish on the coast

Is the sign of A coming catastrophe

And believe they've unpacked The complicated process

That allows fish to predict Upcoming seismic events.

When there's tectonic stress in The earth's crust,

It releases positive ions Into the air.

And when those ions Reach a body of water,

It oxidizes and then creates Oxygen peroxide,

Which is an extreme irritant For fish.

The fish could be jumping Out of the water

Because hydrogen peroxide Is building up in the lake,

And they need to escape.

Which means there's An earthquake

Right around the corner.

Narrator: But if this is a case of fish

Predicting seismic events, The earthquake never comes.

There was no seismic activity Detected anywhere in the region.

seismic activity is not What's happening here.

there has to be something else.

♪♪

Narrator: When local authorities released

Their official explanation,

Residents can't believe The finding.

Authorities lay the blame on A popular chinese pastime.

The local government revealed

What they believed caused this Strange phenomenon.

It was a singing contest.

♪♪

Narrator: it seems that Chinese singers

And chinese songs were so loud And so disturbing,

Even underwater, That they drove the carp crazy.

A sound wave travels through The water for great distances

With a lot of pressure.

A lot of aquatic animals Can sense that pressure

Using something called The lateral line.

It's a series of sensitive pores

That run down the side Of their body.

They can feel the movement of Larger fish around them,

And those larger fish Are usually predators.

So, when you send a lot of Soundwaves through the water,

They feel through their bodies That they're being atacked by

A number of predators At the same time.

Narrator: Locals seem to like it,

But to a carp, some music is Simply unbearable.

Can you imagine that Your singing is so bad

That you caused an entire school Of fish to jump out of the water

And commit suicide?

That's really bad.

♪♪

Narrator: coming up, a frozen Inferno baffles experts.

It doesn't seem like It could be possible.

Narrator: And scientists investigate

How ice can be on fire.

This is really strange Because you imagine ice

Would be impossible To catch on fire.

♪♪

Narrator: Cameras capture an ice-entombed

Chicago building Engulfed by fire.

It seems impossible.

It looks like some kind of Demonic, frozen ice hell.

Narrator: Fire experts are baffled.

I have never seen it before Like this.

Fire and ice don't mix.

♪♪

Narrator: chicago, illinois.

In this city Of 2.7 million people,

Emergencies are inevitable.

The chicago fire department

Responds to nearly 1,000 alarms every day.

January 22, 2013.

Photographer tim olk receives A call from engine 42.

His job is to capture images For forensic analysis.

I heard over the radio There was one block wide,

one block building about five Stories, heavy timber,

Just well-involved with fire.

I automatically go over there

And just start shooting The pictures.

Narrator: what he witnesses Defies explanation.

An inferno inside a building Entombed in ice.

I've seen every Kind of disaster,

Any kind of incident You can imagine.

I've never seen that before.

You got big plumes of smoke

Coming up through The middle of this building,

But the whole thing's Encapsulated in ice.

♪♪

Narrator: firefighters battle The blaze into the night.

Scientists struggle to explain What appears to be burning ice.

it's literally fire and ice,

which are supposed to be Complete opposites.

How can these two things Co-exist?

Narrator: chemist john pojman From louisiana state university

Studies the footage.

Fire department reports Reveal that the building

Is an industrial warehouse.

It makes pojman Suspect the burning ice

Could be explained by Chemical associated

With metal processing.

although it may seem strange, There are chemical reactions --

violent chemical reactions that

Can happen on The surface of ice.

One of them being the reaction Of carbon carbide with ice.

Narrator: calcium carbide Is a chemical

Used in the production of steel.

It's added to molten steel To remove sulfur,

Making the steel stronger.

But there's a problem with Calcium carbide

That makes it extremely Dangerous to store.

Calcium carbide, when added to Water, produces acetylene gas.

Narrator: acetylene is A highly volatile gas

That burns at over 2,500 degrees.

Pojman devises a test to see If calcium carbide

Reacting with ice Could release enough acetylene

To create flames.

So I have a block of ice,

And I'm gonna take some of This calcium carbide.

And you can see now, It's starting to fizz,

And that should be Acetylene gas. Let's see.

Narrator: pojman realizes The intense heat

Means the reaction feeds itself,

Making the blaze Even more violent.

So now what's happening Is the acetylene is burning,

Which is melting the ice, Producing water,

Which is reacting with The calcium carbide

To produce more acetylene.

But it is remarkable.

It really does look as if The ice is burning.

Narrator: in the lab, less than One ounce of calcium carbide

Reacting with ice creates Large flames.

Scale that up and pojman Believes tons of calcium carbide

Inside the warehouse could Create the ice inferno.

And it's not hard to imagine That this reaction

Is what's responsible for The phenomena

Observed in the video.

♪♪

Narrator: journalist jeff wise Checks city reports

To discover more about The fire-ravaged ice building.

it was an abandoned building. It had fallen into disuse.

The building had sat empty For years,

But we don't have any evidence

That that kind of chemical Was stored in this building

At this time.

♪♪

Narrator: the bizarre inferno Comes to the attention of

Scientist kishore hari.

He scans through the footage of The blaze for clues

And discovers a breakthrough For the investigation.

He notices that When the firefighters arrive

At the warehouse, there's no ice On the building.

And realizes the fire Comes first.

we have the fire naturally

burning things Inside the warehouse.

paper, wood, A number of other things.

And the ice, I think, is coming From a different place.

Narrator: Meteorologist angela fritz

Checks the weather records For the day.

She discovers that the fire Erupts at the exact time chicago

Plunges into arctic conditions.

This winter, in particular, Was very, very bad.

Temperatures were 10, 15 degrees below 0.

Fires can burn in cold weather, But at minus-10 degrees,

Any water that you try and use To put out this fire is going to

Freeze instantaneously.

Narrator: In the frozen conditions,

Even the intense heat of The inferno can't melt the ice.

And as the firefighters Keep battling the blaze,

It creates even more ice.

It's a vicious cycle of Freezing,

Leading to a once-in-a-lifetime Disaster.

nature's really working Against these guys

because as soon As that water comes out,

it's turning into ice, and none Of it is actually getting to

where it needs to go.

narrator: firefighters wait Three days for temperatures

to rise and the fire To melt the ice, at which point,

they finally put out this Bizarre ice inferno.

you had the cold weather. You had large amounts of water.

and you mix those all together,

it made like a perfect storm.