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: 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, does a demonic blaze

Signal a genuine threat Of total destruction?

It's the ultimate disaster.

It could be an extinction event.

Davis: that is the Craziest thing I've ever seen.

Narrator: In the land of the witches,

Possessed turkeys do A disturbing dance of the dead.

This looks like Some kind of satanic ritual.

Woman: look!

Narrator: And the ghosts of gettysburg

Finally caught on camera.

-right there! -super creepy!

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

A terrifying blue inferno Erupts from the ground.

Pojman: It looks like the firefighters

Have shown up To a portal of hell.

It's really a chilling sight.

Narrator: Investigators race to find out

The cause of the bizarre blaze.

Youngquist: I've never Seen anything like it,

And I likely won't see Anything quite like it again.

Narrator: what's behind This sinister firestorm?

What created this? It's a blue flame of death.

Narrator: july 7, 2017.

Worland, wyoming.

A tiny town on the banks Of the big horn river.

[ radio chatter ]

It's 10:30 at night When the local fire department

Gets an emergency call.

You don't know What you're getting into.

This could be anything.

Firefighters Race to the location

On the outskirts of town.

As they approach The danger zone,

They witness a disturbing sign Of what lies ahead.

You could see kind of The blue glow on the horizon.

Youngquist: it's a Little bit more adrenaline

and a little bit More fear and concern.

Narrator: Nine miles out of worland,

The firefighters arrive At the apocalyptic scene.

[ sirens wailing ]

Horrified, they record The searing inferno,

But they don't know what kind Of fire they're dealing with...

...Or what could have caused it.

Yule: I've been A firefighter for 10 years,

And I've never seen Anything quite like this.

This is a hellish scenario.

What created this? It's a blue flame of death.

yule: my first thought is, "How do we put it out?"

what's gonna happen When we hit it with water?

Narrator: the footage Comes to the attention

Of geologist sian proctor.

She believes The color of the flames

Could point To a terrifying possibility.

Proctor: in indonesia, there's A volcano called kawah ijen,

and it produces A similar blue flame

to what we see in the video.

And that is produced By the burning of sulfur.

Narrator: kawah ijen Pumps enormous quantities

Of sulfuric gases Out if its vents.

Super-heated up to 1,112 degrees celsius,

The gas erupts into Bright blue flames

16 feet high When it hits the air.

What looks like blue lava Pouring down the mountainside

Is burning liquid sulfur.

The similarity to the fire In worland is striking.

Investigators test to see What gas is present at worland.

Analysis confirms Proctor's worst fears.

It's toxic sulfur dioxide.

There is the potential that It could be a volcano forming.

Narrator: science journalist Jeff wise investigates.

He checks the location Of the wyoming fire

And uncovers A dreadful connection.

Wise: in geological terms,

Yellowstone's not A terribly huge distance.

Narrator: the town sits In the bighorn basin

In the shadow of The absaroka mountain range,

The remnant Of a large volcanic field

That extends To yellowstone national park.

The demonic blue fire Is geologically linked

To one of the biggest natural Threats to life on earth.

Wise: Yellowstone is, in fact,

The top of an Ancient supervolcano

that is due to explode sometime, More or less, around now.

Proctor: If yellowstone goes off,

It's not just a disaster For wyoming.

It's a disaster for the entire United states and the world.

Narrator: The yellowstone supervolcano

Erupted 640,000 years ago With a mega-explosion

That produced enough debris

To bury texas In five feet of ash and rock.

When the next Super eruption strikes,

It could cause a global winter

Even worse than A thermonuclear war.

Proctor: our worse nightmare Is that we have

Volcanic activity anywhere near yellowstone.

Narrator: Proctor fears the signs of Volcanic activity in worland

Could be an omen Of a terrifying scenario...

That the yellowstone Supervolcano

Is about to blow again.

It could be an extinction event.

Narrator: journalist jeff wise Examines seismic surveys

For further signs Of volcanic activity.

Right now It's not an active volcano.

You do have things like hot Springs, geysers, and so forth.

So it's not impossible, but We don't have active volcanos

Right now as such in wyoming.

Narrator: John pojman is a chemist

At louisiana state university.

He looks at the map coordinates Of where the video was filmed.

Records show that the location Of the video was a sulfur mine.

Sulfur has been used Throughout history

for making things like gunpowder

or for making strong acids, Like sulfuric acids.

Narrator: working in A volcanic sulfur mine

Is one of the most hazardous Jobs on the planet.

At the summit of the Ijen volcano in indonesia,

Locals extract "The devil's gold,"

As it is known, From the edges of a lake of acid

That can dissolve human flesh.

The villagers go up There without any Protective equipment,

Collect this, chip it away, Put it in baskets,

And carry it out of the caldera.

Narrator: workers carry 200-pound baskets of sulfur

Two miles down the volcano For about $5 a day.

Their average life expectancy Barely exceeds 50 years.

This is a terrible, Toxic environment.

Narrator: in march 2018,

Mount ijen belches out Thick clouds of sulfuric gas,

Sending 30 people To the hospital.

When you burn sulfur, You get it into your lungs,

And it will scar them.

Mixed with water, It turns into sulfuric acid.

Nasty stuff.

Narrator: the huge sulfur mine In worland closed in the 1960s,

But its sulfurous remains Are a ticking time bomb.

Proctor: When you mine sulfur,

It pretty much gets everywhere And contaminates the soil.

Pure sulfur Is very easy to ignite.

All you can do Is just put a match to it,

And once it starts burning, Then it will melt

And produce the gases And keep burning.

Narrator: Armed with the knowledge That the blue flame is sulfur,

Firefighters tackle the blaze With water.

The cooling liquid reduces The surface temperature.

At 239 degrees fahrenheit, The sulfur solidifies,

Forming a crust That extinguishes the flames.

The cause of the fire

Is eventually identified As an off-road vehicle.

Yule: they were riding Around on the mound,

And they got the atv Up on the pile of the sulfur

And actually got it stuck.

high throttle heated up The exhaust on that atv,

and because it was in Direct contact with the sulfur,

it ignited the sulfur.

Narrator: This time, the fire crew Manages to control the blaze.

Worland remains on red alert.

Next time, The unpredictable sulfur

Could wipe out the whole town.

They never know when to expect The next raging inferno.

When a call comes in, You just don't know What you're getting into.

[ siren wails ]

Davis: bro, this is wild.

Narrator: in an american state Notorious for witchcraft,

Bizarre footage stops zoologists In their tracks.

Something seems to have Possessed these birds.

This is definitely the weirdest Animal behavior I've ever seen.

A circle of death Around the body of a cat.

This looks like Some kind of satanic ritual,

With the uniform circle.

Narrator: Randolph, massachusetts.

The town sits within Striking distance of salem,

A place synonymous with Satanic rituals and witchcraft.

[ crows cawing ]

March 2017.

6:45 a.M.

Jonathan davis heads to work.

I came to a stop sign right About down the street there.

Narrator: it isn't the sign that Stops davis dead in his tracks.

I thought to myself, "Nobody's gonna believe What I'm actually seeing,"

so I was like, "Let me get some video."

[ turkeys gobbling ]

Narrator: 20 wild turkeys are circling

The lifeless body of a cat.

Davis: yo, this is the craziest Thing I've ever seen.

what the heck are these turkeys

doing walking in a perfect Circle around this dead cat?

Narrator: in the 1690s in salem And the surrounding towns,

200 people are accused Of practicing witchcraft.

20 of them are put to death.

At the trials, Ownership of a cat

Was seen as evidence Of devil worship.

Condemned witches Were said to return as cats.

In the footage, It is the lifeless body of a cat

That provides the focus

Of what looks like Some weird animal ceremony.

Kays: this looks like Some kind of satanic ritual,

With the uniform circle.

Narrator: witchcraft is no Longer a punishable crime,

And there are now estimated

To be 800 self-proclaimed Witches in salem, alone.

It seems far-fetched to link The behavior of these animals

With superstitious Pagan practices,

But scientists Are having difficulty

Explaining the turkey behavior.

I've never heard of anything

Such as what I saw That morning happening.

Did they kill this cat Or are they trying To bring it back to life?

[ turkeys gobbling ]

-woman: look! -narrator: coming up...

Ghostly figures strike fear

At america's Bloodiest battlefield.

Woman: right there!

Hyde: thousands of men Died on this spot,

So maybe one of them's Come back.

Narrator: and the mystery around The creepy turkeys deepens.

Could these turkeys be stuck

In some kind of circular Scent trail of death?

♪♪

Narrator: a macabre scene In a massachusetts town

Conjures up images Of witchcraft.

[ cat growls ]

A circle of wild turkeys Walks slowly around a dead cat.

I was freaked out. It was Something out of a scary movie.

Narrator: Cryptozoologist scott mardis

Has an encyclopedic knowledge

Of mythical animals And their supposed powers.

He doubts The turkeys are possessed.

But what he sees at work In the footage

Could be a different form Of mind control.

the turkeys Are not looking around.

they're all just staring at The turkey in front of them.

It's possible these animals

Could have Hypnotized themselves.

♪♪

Narrator: zoologist roland kays Explores the theory

That the turkey gang

Have entered into A trance-like state.

we don't really know why, But chicken and other poultry

can kind of be hypnotized

or become really, really fixated On certain things.

So, one example is you can Draw a line on the ground,

And they'll just become fixated And just stare at that line

Kind of like they're hypnotized.

Narrator: scientists Think this chicken trance

Is a form of tonic immobility,

A defense mechanism In which animals play dead

In order to confuse a predator.

Kay:s so, it makes you wonder If there's something like that

Going on with these turkeys.

Narrator: but wildlife biologist Mark hatfield

Has been studying the behavior Of the wild turkey for 15 years

And is not convinced.

Hatfield: turkeys follow The leader a little bit.

They learn from each other.

But I wouldn't say That they get hypnotized.

Narrator: hatfield instead Believes that the turkeys

Are keeping their distance From perceived danger.

Hatfield: they identified that Cat as a potential predator,

but they did not recognize That the cat was deceased.

narrator: Hatfield observes in the footage

That the turkeys keep a constant 8 feet away from the cat.

They never cross that threshold, And they never got real close,

But they were still far enough Away that if the cat moved,

Then they would have Probably fleed.

Narrator: But this still doesn't explain

Why the turkeys are in a circle.

Zoologist tara pirie Comes up with another theory.

this unusual Circular behavior --

you don't see it very often,

But it has been seen In other species.

Ants, for example, Use pheromones,

And they put this Chemical track down

So that ants can Actually find the food.

Narrator: It's the ant equivalent Of a trail of breadcrumbs,

And each colony has its own Unique chemical signature.

However, if one of these trails Gets drawn in a perfect circle

And loops back, the ants will Walk around and loop back up

And continue on the loop again And again and again and again.

They don't realize that they're Stuck in this continual loop.

Pirie: these ants can go 'round And 'round and 'round and 'round

Until they die.

I mean, that is Absolutely crazy.

Narrator: because of what Can happen to circling ants,

Tara pirie wonders

If the turkeys Are marching to their death.

Pirie: if these turkeys Cannot break the circle,

I mean, this really could be A turkey death dance.

Narrator: ultimately, nobody Has a satisfactory explanation

For why these birds are behaving In this extraordinary way.

Woman: what is that?

Civil war specters...

They had Light-colored clothing on

That appeared to be a uniform.

Narrator: ...A bloodbath that Changed the course of history...

Hyde: thousands of men Died on this spot,

So maybe one of them's Come back.

Narrator: ...And a video image That defies logic.

There's really No easy explanation

To what Would cause that.

What is in that wood?

Narrator: october 2001.

Gettysburg, pennsylvania.

Sight of the greatest battle Of the civil war,

A battle that changes the course Of american history,

Immortalized in Lincoln's gettysburg address

Where he promises That these dead

Shall not have died in vain.

It is also the bloodiest battle Ever fought between americans.

there were 51,000 killed, Wounded, and missing.

one author said It was a vast sea of misery.

And it really was.

Narrator: delia underwood Is a civil war enthusiast.

underwood is studying The isolated location

of one particularly Brutal massacre.

a long-abandoned site, It's known as "Bloody run."

[ men screaming ]

Narrator: As night closes in,

Underwood sets up her camera To take a shot of bloody run.

She is expecting these Remote woods to be empty,

But her camera Captures something.

-right there! See it? -uh-huh.

-you see what I'm seeing? -what's that?

Narrator: There is no path here,

And the figures, or lights,

Appear slightly elevated Off the ground.

woman: what is that?

look!

narrator: the dull, gray lights, Or figures, appear briefly

and then are gone.

woman: what is that?

is it something inanimate?

is it real? Is it chemical? What could it be?

what is in that wood?

Narrator: coming up...

How can a tree Burn from the inside?

When you look at this tree, it Looks like something pure evil.

Narrator: And experts get spooked By the gettysburg ghosts.

Super creepy!

Narrator: With no obvious explanation

For ghostly images Captured at gettysburg,

Some refuse to rule out The supernatural.

there is a real spiritual power In a place like gettysburg.

narrator: Terri forest lives in the area

and believes That there's something eerie

about the gettysburg site.

there are a lot of unexplained Things that go on in gettysburg.

Narrator: For more than a century,

There have been sightings

Of the ghosts Of the restless souls.

But evidence of any paranormal Activity remains elusive.

But the strange images Recorded by the camera

Aren't necessarily ghosts.

♪♪

Anthropologist deborah hyde

Warns that people will often see What they hope to see.

Hyde: With gettysburg, the fact

That so many people Died violently

And died before their time

make it a perfect candidate For a ghost-hunting site.

Narrator: she wonders Whether these aren't just

Ghostly shots of living humans.

You can see that there Are two white figures there,

And they're going In opposite directions.

They look, to me,

Like people walking backwards And forwards behind the trees.

Woman: right there!

Narrator: in virginia, security Analyst william dranginis

Examines the footage.

He uses specialized software

To enhance and decipher Low-resolution images.

dranginis: What the enhancement shows us Is a much brighter shape.

and it's much easier To track its movements

as it goes through the trees.

narrator: Whatever these things are,

He believes they are not Living human beings.

Dranginis: if these are people That we see in the images,

That means they're walking 15 to 20 feet through the air

And through the trees, Which is impossible.

These shapes Seem to be floating.

There's really No easy explanation

To what would cause that.

Narrator: physicist simon foster Of imperial college london,

Reviews the footage And suspects that clues

May lie in how transparent The ghostly figures are.

foster: what could be Happening in gettysburg

is something called "Pepper's ghost."

narrator: foster believes The ghostly images

Could be the result Of an optical illusion

Named after its inventor, John henry pepper.

Foster: it was actually used

To project ghosts Up onto the stage.

The thing about pepper's ghost Is it may be 150 years old,

But it's good enough To even be used today.

Narrator: to test his theory,

Foster erects scaffolding, Bright lights,

And black-out fabric

To construct areas Of light and dark

To replicate conditions At gettysburg.

For this to work, the setup Needs to be really precise.

Everything needs to be In the exact position.

By carefully positioning A source of light,

You can make objects appear In different positions.

If there's anything Even slightly out,

The illusion is ruined.

Narrator: With his equipment

Set up in exactly The right position,

Foster steps into place,

And his ghost appears.

Foster: this is because glass is Actually partially reflective.

You may have seen this When you've looked out

Of a window on a dark night.

When the light's on in the room,

The glass actually Looks like a mirror.

Narrator: it's possible Hoaxers could exploit

This property of glass To deceive.

Foster: this gives this effect Of ghosts appearing.

Now, I believe this is What could be occurring

Here in the gettysburg ghosts.

Narrator: Image analyst william dranginis

Wants to test the theory.

He looks for clues That illusionists

Have used The pepper's ghost technique.

Dranginis: The problem with that

Is that the size Of the glass plate

Would have to be enormous.

Pulling off a hoax like this Would take many people,

Possibly a crane To lift the glass.

I don't think This video is a hoax.

So whatever they filmed there Is still unexplained.

Narrator: coming up, a tree Inferno baffles fire experts.

Nobody expects to see a tree Burning from the inside out.

-right there! You see it? -uh-huh.

Narrator: and has paranormal Activity at gettysburg

Finally been captured on camera?

Bundy: it's tough to tell What's making the shapes

That appear to be Moving in the tree.

Woman: what is that?

Narrator: Gettysburg, pennsylvania.

On the site of america's Bloodiest civil war battle,

Ghostly images Are caught on camera.

Is it something inanimate? Is it real? Is it chemical?

What could it be?

Narrator: chemist andrea sella At university college london

Examines the footage.

initially, I thought,

"Somebody's manipulated This image."

but there's got to be Another explanation.

Narrator: sella suspects The location of the recording

Holds vital clues.

He analyzes the foreground And discovers that it's marshy.

Sella: Scientists have suggested

That the decaying Organic matter in the mud

Produces this strange, Ghostly, white-ish light

Which comes and goes.

Narrator: It's not the first time

People have seen mystery Apparitions over marshy ground.

For centuries, people have been Spooked by ghostly lights

In marshes, bogs, and swamps.

Decaying organic matter

Might produce A mixture of methane

And then traces of A highly inflammable gas

Called phosphate.

And the two together Catching fire in the darkness

Might actually give rise To a ghostly light.

♪♪

Narrator: Anthropologist deborah hyde Re-examines the footage.

But for her, The behavior of the lights

doesn't suggest swamp lights.

the movements they're making Are repetitive.

and they're the same. They're similar.

If this was some Naturally occurring phenomenon,

I would expect it To be a bit more random.

Narrator: Hyde returns to the footage

And discovers That delia underwood

Didn't just capture ghostly Humanoid shapes on camera --

She also recorded something that Deepens the mystery further.

You can't really say what it is,

But there are little Flashes of something,

Something white.

Narrator: underwood is sure She knows what she saw.

[ gunshots ]

♪♪

Narrator: The basic infantry weapon

During the battle of gettysburg

Was a muzzle-loading musket That a good soldier

Could load and fire Three times in a minute.

It is said that during the Three-day battle of gettysburg,

Seven million rounds of ammo Were fired.

But what alternative Rational explanation

Could there be For the flashes?

The footage is analyzed

By scott bundy At new mexico university.

Bundy is an entomologist, An expert on insects.

He thinks he's seen A similar light show before.

it indicates to me It might be fireflies

as the males move around And search for females.

Narrator: Fireflies, or lightning bugs,

Are flying beetles with An extraordinary characteristic.

Bundy: fireflies have Enzymes and proteins

That react with one another,

And they cause This light reaction.

Narrator: Firefly light is the most Efficient light in the world.

Pound for pound, these bugs Are brighter than the sun.

People have always Been impressed with the amount

Of light that's generated By these tiny, little insects.

Narrator: but local terri forest Is used to seeing fireflies,

And she's not convinced.

no. They're too big.

fireflies just flicker briefly And go out.

This was -- This was totally different.

-right there! See it? -uh-huh.

Narrator: Underwood remains convinced

That she has captured A ghostly echo

Of one of the most traumatic And bloody events

in american history.

Yet one more report of ghosts At gettysburg.

-now... -what the [bleep]?

Narrator: ...An ancient oak tree

Spontaneously erupts into flames From the inside.

You do not expect to see The inside of a tree burning

And the outside To be perfectly fine.

Narrator: Investigators wonder

If more trees will combust In this freaky way.

Nobody expects to see a tree Burning from the inside out.

Narrator: is this hellish fire From beneath the earth?

♪♪

Defiance, ohio.

[ bell clanging ]

A small midwestern town named After the 18th-century fort

Built by general "Mad" anthony wayne.

he built this fort,

claimed it was the best fort He had ever built,

and defied the british, The indians,

And all the demons of hell.

Narrator: December 21, 2015.

Warehouse owner scott olsen Is battling the christmas rush.

He hears a cry outside And runs out to investigate.

What he sees Takes his breath away.

Olsen: what the [bleep]?

Narrator: he's met by what looks Like a scene from a horror film.

Olsen: we stood there in Disbelief watching this thing,

Trying to figure out What is going on.

Narrator: The tree is burning,

But it's burning From the inside.

it really looks like the fire Is coming up through the ground.

olsen: How is this happening?

narrator: to some, the footage Looks almost demonic.

to look at something This peculiar,

you may well think that It's been touched by evil.

It looked like the devil tree.

Is satan rising up?

Narrator: the residents, just Like their town, are defiant.

We don't allow demons in town.

Narrator: coming up, A crazy giant column of water...

It's not like any rain That I've ever seen.

Where is all this water Coming from?

Narrator: ...And scientists Look for the strange force

Behind ohio's Towering tree torch.

Olsen: what the [bleep]?

What has enough power To really make this thing burn

And create the fire That I see here?

narrator: in ohio, cameras Capture an oak-tree inferno

burning from the inside.

hyde: how can a tree Suddenly burst into flames?

there has to be an explanation.

narrator: The footage is analyzed

by botanist jeffrey dean At mississippi state university.

he knows that it's possible For organic matter

to burst into flames Without warning.

dean: this is a phenomena That's pretty well known

in composting facilities.

these things catch on fire Spontaneously.

Narrator: With spontaneous combustion,

An object ignites without Any apparent external cause.

There have been Unconfirmed reports

Of spontaneous Human combustion.

In 1980, the charred body Of henry thomas

Is discovered in his home.

Just his legs below the knee Remain.

It is suggested that A human body can burn

Like an inside-out candle --

Clothes are the wick,

Body fat is the wax Keeping the blaze going.

♪♪

Studying the footage,

Dean thinks the center Of the tree looks dead

And speculates that this Might be a possible trigger.

As it rots, heat is being Generated by the microbes

That are breaking That material down.

And if the heat is not able To escape rapidly enough,

It can potentially Set the material on fire.

Narrator: but roger williams Is an expert on wildfires

At ohio state university.

When he analyzes The video evidence,

He spots something That he believes

Rules out Spontaneous combustion.

Williams: all the foliage Is going off of the trees,

So that would tell me That it's in the winter.

One of the critical ingredients

that we are lacking For spontaneous combustion

is heat.

From my point of view,

This could not be Spontaneous combustion.

Narrator: terrifyingly, Williams suspects

The hellish tree fire

Could have been ignited From below.

We had a peat fire here in ohio Not too long ago

Where all the fire Was all underground.

You saw no flame.

Narrator: Unseen beneath the surface,

Peat fires can smolder for years

Before flaring Into raging flames.

♪♪

Only recently in indonesia, Such a fire

Devoured an area 440 times the size of manhattan

With the loss of 100,000 lives.

Vast clouds of smoke from the Blaze reached as far as china.

♪♪

It's very possible For fires to move underground,

And it can work its way up Into some of those trees.

♪♪

Narrator: But there's a problem.

Analysis of the soil In this part of ohio

Shows there is no peat deposits.

And scott confirms there were No signs of an underground fire.

in the weeks Leading up to the fire,

there were no signs of smoke, No signs of fire.

Narrator: At mississippi state university,

Electrical engineer David wallace

Re-examines the footage.

Wallace: When I started looking closer At this tree in the video,

You sort of see A break in the bark

Coming down the side Of the tree.

now, this is A very strong indication

of a lightning strike.

[ thunder crashing ]

Narrator: lightning strikes kill Thousands of people every year.

They ignite deadly forest fires

And cause billions of dollars' Worth of damage.

To have ignition, You have to have a heat source,

And the lightning is certainly Going to provide enough heat.

Narrator: a lightning bolt Heats the air around it

Up to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit --

Five times hotter Than the surface of the sun.

When you have A lightning strike hit a tree,

Current is gonna flow From this bolt

Down to the center of the tree,

Heating it to Extreme temperatures,

And it gets to the point

Where the sap will Actually explode outward,

Creating the pattern Of the lightning going down it.

So, when you look at this tree,

It looks like something Pure evil.

Narrator: studying the Burnt-out stump of the tree,

Roger williams tries To find more evidence

To support his lightning theory.

Williams: you can see Where you have charring.

Have a definite line here.

I believe that Lightning struck this tree.

Narrator: but a cross-check Of local meteorological data

Shows calm conditions On the day

Scott olsen Witnessed the terrible fire.

I do not remember Any lightning storms that day,

And I do not remember Any lightning storms

Leading up to that point.

Narrator: With no conclusive evidence,

The mystery of ohio's Burning devil-tree fire

Remains unsolved.

We still don't know, to this Day, exactly what caused it.

Narrator: The tree is more than a mystery.

To the residents of defiance, It's a cause of anxiety.

If it happened once, It can happen again.

And if it occurs in The tinder-dry summer months,

Their whole town Could be consumed.

And now, an immense, Perplexing pillar of water.

What's surprising About the footage

Is simply the Sheer amount of water.

Narrator: experts fear An apocalyptic weather event.

It's not like any rain That I've ever seen

In 20 years of storm chasing.

Narrator: Yunnan province, china.

A peaceful mountainous region Bordering vietnam.

July 2017.

A bizarre and terrifying event Caught on a tourist's phone.

In the...Valley, A thundering plume of water

Rising from the ground Into the sky.

Is someone messing With mother nature here?

That's a heck of a lot of water Falling in one location.

Narrator: When the mystifying image

Is made available in the west,

Experts struggle to explain it.

at first glance, It's kind of hard to tell

whether this is man-made Or naturally occurring.

Narrator: The clip comes to the attention

Of expert meteorologist Karen kosiba.

She believes It could be evidence

Of a rarely seen And extreme weather event.

this event has a large Concentration of water Over a very small area,

which might make you Initially think a microburst.

Narrator: microbursts Are a terrifying phenomenon

That occurs when rapidly Cooled air in a storm cloud

Rushes to the earth like a bomb.

Storm chaser george kourounis

Confirms that localized rain Is also often a feature.

And that falling air can Quite often drag a lot of rain

With it in a very small area.

Narrator: rain bombs can drop Seven inches of water

In just 30 minutes With catastrophic consequences.

Microbursts can be classified As severe-weather events.

They impact structures And people at the ground,

But they also can cause Problems for air traffic.

Some of these microbursts

Can have wind speeds That rival small tornadoes.

Narrator: coming up, man-made Mayhem in communist china.

This is not how rain works.

Narrator: expert storm chaser George kourounis

Fears that a gushing torrent Of water filmed in china

Is a microburst,

One of the smallest yet Most lethal kinds of storms.

microbursts are where air is Falling rapidly out of a storm.

narrator: he analyzes The clip for evidence.

A frame-by-frame analysis Of the footage fails to reveal

The key element of a Microburst -- storm clouds.

There's no big thunderstorm

That you would associate With a microburst.

This is not how rain works. It's got to be something else.

Narrator: Geologist dr. Sian proctor

Comes across the clip.

She slows down the footage,

Concentrating on the perplexing Movement of the water.

Proctor: It looks, at first, as though

It's coming from the sky, Falling down,

But then you get this other idea

that the water Is coming from below

and being shot up into the sky And then falling back down.

narrator: She suspects another

deadly force of nature Is the culprit.

my first thought, As a geologist, is geyser.

this might be a geyser.

Narrator: Geysers are capable of ejecting

Thousands of gallons Of superheated water and steam

Hundreds of feet into the air.

Geologist alessandro grippo Fears a new super geyser

Erupting in this area Is a troubling sign.

grippo: When I see a geyser,

I'm thinking of volcanic, Magmatic activity,

And all of these activities

Can be related to earthquakes.

Narrator: 2014 --

An earthquake in the same part Of china kills hundreds.

If this is a new geyser,

It could soon be followed By another deadly quake.

But when alessandro grippo

Analyzes the footage In more detail,

The volume of water

Makes him doubt This is a geyser in action.

Grippo: in a geyser, I would expect water

To go up And then slowly come down.

What is real surprising to me Is the speed with which

The water is coming back On the ground,

Like, really, somebody Is throwing a giant bucket.

I would not expect a geyser To be behaving like that.

Narrator: as the water Continues to gush into the air,

The clip is spotted By physicist john di bartolo.

He believes The enormous volume of water

Is not a natural disaster, But a man-made one.

What I think is going on here Is a broken water main.

Narrator: Di bartolo zooms in on the clip

To reveal A semi-submerged structure.

Narrator: further investigation Show it to be

A hydroelectric power station Under construction.

Its turbines are fed from a Huge dam nine miles upstream,

Which holds 29 billion gallons of water.

The dam releases water and Directs it to the power station

Via an underground tunnel.

Di bartolo: the water is kept At extremely high pressures.

a break could result In water being sprayed out

at such a velocity

that it could reach Tremendous heights.

narrator: Di bartolo analyzes the footage

and finds that the water Reaches a height of 300 feet.

di bartolo: The pressure can be

10 to 12 times Atmospheric pressure.

that is easily enough

to send a fountain of water

upward to the heights That we see in this video.

narrator: countless thousands Of gallons of water

are pouring into the sky Every minute.

if chinese authorities don't Find a way to fix the leak,

somebody is going to get One hell of a water bill.