All language subtitles for What.on.Earth.S11E01.1080p.DSCP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-BTN_track3_[eng]

NARRATOR:
They're watching you.

More than 6,000 satellites
circle the Earth.

Every day, they uncover new,
mysterious phenomena

that defy explanation.

Revealed from space,

the mystery of the stolen
space shuttle.

WALTERS: What we're looking at
is one of

the strangest incidents of
the entire Space Race.

NARRATOR: The ghost fleet
of the Devil's Sea.

What's strange is that
this fleet

is moving towards the shore.

NARRATOR: And attack of
the killer mega bugs.

This problem is out
of control.

NARRATOR: Baffling phenomena,
mysteries from space.

What on Earth are they?

[theme music playing]

April 12th, 2021.

As an orbiting
satellite passes over

the central Asian country of
Kazakhstan, it captures a weird

25-square-mile compound in
the desert below.

This facility, whatever it is,

is absolutely vast,
and it actually appears to

be being swallowed up
by the landscape.

ANTHONY MORGAN:
It doesn't look like

this is somewhere that people
spend their time.

The structures around it,
they look dilapidated.

NARRATOR: What really intrigues
analysts is something

in the middle of the compound.

There's this massive structure.

I've never seen anything
like it.

What's really weird about it
is the triangular

sort of shape.

It really looks like
some sort of spaceship.

NARRATOR: Hooked by the weird
structure seen from space,

a team of Dutch urban
explorers is traveling

across Kazakhstan.

Ah.

NARRATOR:
To reach their target,

they must cut a path through
the Kazakh Steppe,

a 300,000-square-mile belt of
dry, featureless grassland.

NARRATOR: Kazakhstan has one of
the lowest population densities

on Earth,

and it has a dark history,

one that could explain

the desolate compound
captured from above.

RODRIGUEZ McROBBIE: Given
this facility's location,

its isolation,
it's quite likely

that this is
connected to Soviet-era

experiments in the country.

NARRATOR:
During the Cold War,

Kazakhstan is one of 15
Socialist Republics ruled over

by the Soviet Union.

The Soviet rule of Kazakhstan
was kind of

characterized by a lot of
highly controversial

nuclear testing.

And in order to conduct
these tests,

the Soviets created
these massive facilities

in Kazakhstan.

One of the goals
was to keep it secret.

They didn't want their enemies
to know about it,

but that meant they kept it
secret from the local

population, as well.

[button clicks]

[explosion blasts]

NARRATOR: Officials claim
the test sites lie

in uninhabited parts of
the country.

In reality, more than
a million people live nearby.

What's more, the Soviets
used them as human

guinea pigs to study
the effects of nuclear fallout.

RODRIGUEZ McROBBIE: What made
the tests even more deplorable

was the fact that the Kazakh
people were unwitting

test subjects.

They didn't know
they were being

exposed to huge amounts
of radiation.

What the Soviets did
at these sites, and I don't

think there's any other word
for it, is basically evil.

NARRATOR: If the site in the
image is a relic of Soviet rule,

the explorers fear it could be
monitored,

so they ditch their car
and continue on foot.

NARRATOR: As the site appears
in the distance,

it becomes clear
their fears were justified.

[gunshots blasting]

[bleep]

NARRATOR: The team waits until
nightfall before proceeding,

hoping darkness can cover
their approach.

NARRATOR: Armed guards
aren't the only

obstacle in their path.

NARRATOR: The team reaches
the site with

only a few hours
darkness remaining.

NARRATOR: The explorers navigate
their way towards

the giant buildings in
the image.

[exhales heavily]

[bleep]

WALTERS: This building is just
like a massive cathedral,

and right in the middle of it

is this really
odd-looking machine.

NARRATOR:
The explorers have made

a discovery that appears
to defy explanation.

I'm not too sure that
it's sitting

in the right place, frankly,

because we're in the middle of
the Kazakh desert.

It looks to me like
a space shuttle.

NARRATOR: At just over 100 feet
long and with swept back wings,

the shape of the craft
is unmistakable.

It's a weird yet pivotal
legacy of the battle

to conquer space.

This thing is the result of
the biggest

and most expensive project in
the history of

Soviet space flight,
but it has been sitting in

this hangar gathering dust
for decades.

NARRATOR: Declassified Soviet
files reveal it took more than

a million people
to design the craft

at a cost of $26 billion.

RODRIGUEZ McROBBIE: Despite
costing huge amounts of money

and years to complete, the craft
only made one mission.

But that's not the really
strange thing about it.

WALTERS: The story
behind this machine is

a combination of revolutionary
engineering and absolutely

audacious spycraft.

NARRATOR: Coming up --
space wars.

They were convinced that
it could nuke Moscow.

NARRATOR: And dragons
of the Devil's Sea.

KOUROUNIS: There are tales
of them attacking

ships and dragging
sailors to their doom.

NARRATOR: Lured by a giant
desert compound in Kazakhstan,

a team of urban explorers has

discovered a rusting
multi-billion dollar spacecraft.

WALTERS: What we're looking at
is the forgotten relics of

one of the strangest incidents
of the entire Space Race.

NARRATOR: That incident has
its origins in the early 1970s.

The Soviet Space Agency, still
smarting from the success of

the Apollo 11 mission,

learns that NASA is working on
a revolutionary new craft,

one that it fears could land
a killer blow in the Space Race.

MUNOZ: The Soviets get
information that

the United States
is working on

a new winged
space aircraft,

what would eventually be
the space shuttle.

WALTERS: The concept of
the space shuttle

absolutely terrified
the Russians.

Many of them felt it could
have totally swung

not just a Space Race, but
the entire Cold War in

America's favor.

OVER RADIO: Standing by now for
solid rocket booster

separation confirmation.

NARRATOR: What scares
the Soviets is that,

unlike their craft,
the shuttle can reenter

the atmosphere and fly down
to any point on Earth.

NASA claimed that the shuttle
was all about science,

but the Soviets didn't buy it.

They were pretty convinced
that it could be used for

nefarious purposes,

like maybe to fly down
and nuke Moscow.

The head of the military
approaches Soviet leader

Leonid Brezhnev,

and tells him that he needs to
do something about this

potential threat,
and he needs to do it fast.

NARRATOR: Brezhnev immediately
orders the KGB to

begin spying on
the shuttle program.

To its astonishment,
the security agency discovers

that many of NASA's plans,

including detailed blueprints,
are in the public domain.

The Soviets couldn't believe
their luck.

This is a country where
people's lunch orders are

classified, and here NASA

had gifted them the plans
for the world's most

advanced spacecraft.

WALTERS: But even though
the designs were made public,

the Soviets still
had a big problem.

There was reams and reams
of material,

thousands and thousands of
documents, and they were spread

through dozens of departments.

NARRATOR: The Soviets reportedly
set up fake research centers to

purchase and funnel vast
amounts of NASA data to Moscow.

When the U.S. government begins
storing its data online,

it forces the KGB
to turn to hacking

to garner yet more intel.

[dial-up internet squawking]

I mean, they steal
anything they can get

their hands on related to
the space shuttle program.

This is possibly
the first case

of internet espionage
in history.

By doing this,
the Soviet Union

saves billions in research
and development costs.

NARRATOR:
Over the following years,

1,200 companies use
the stolen plans to

secretly build a kind
of space shuttle 2.0.

The Soviets call their craft

the Buran,
Russian for snow storm.

But the Kremlin's
long campaign

of espionage has not
gone unnoticed.

MORAN:
The CIA gets wind

of what the Soviets are up to
and starts

feeding them faulty

and fake upgrades that
they hope the Soviets will

incorporate into
the development of the Buran.

MORGAN: They would change things
like the heat shielding

on the outside of
the shuttle.

That is really important,
because as you reenter

the atmosphere,
it risks exploding.

NARRATOR: Despite the CIA's
attempts to undermine

the Buran program,
by 1985,

the Soviets have begun
atmospheric test flights.

It's easy to look
at the Buran and think

that it's just a carbon copy
of the space shuttle.

But it actually included
a number of really

clever designs that were
100% Russian in origin.

MUNOZ: All the mechanics
and all the electronics were

Soviet designed,
but the biggest thing was that

you could fly on automatic mode,

which means it didn't require
a pilot.

NARRATOR: The Soviets choose the
site in the image,

Baikonur Cosmodrome,

to showcase their new
space plane to the west.

What you're looking
at here is in

effect the birthplace of
the Space Race.

It's where
the Soviet Union launched

the first satellite
put in orbit.

[satellite beeping]

It's where the Soviets
launched Yuri Gagarin,

the first human being
to orbit the Earth.

So this is a historical site
for humanity.

NARRATOR: At six a.m.

on November 15th, 1988,
a Buran launches from Baikonur

before successfully completing
a 3.5-hour unmanned flight.

It will prove to be
its only mission.

The Buran was, in many ways,
an amazing achievement.

Let's not forget that.

But unfortunately, it did
suffer from bad timing.

By the time it was
ready to launch,

the Soviet Union was
already imploding.

MUNOZ: The Kremlin
had other priorities,

so the program lost
political support,

and eventually,
it lost its funding.

Today, two remaining Buran
lie forgotten

and gathering dust
in Kazakhstan,

weird relics of one of
the most daring heists

of the 20th century.

It's fitting that we're able
to look down from space

and see something
that, albeit bizarre,

played such an important role
in the history of

space exploration.

NARRATOR: Coming up,
ghosts of Iwo Jima.

WALTERS: They appear to be
rising out from

the ocean and trying to get
onto the land.

And the swamp cipher of
the Congo.

There's so many questions
about this really

strange image.

NARRATOR:
January 26th, 2022.

A satellite scans a remote

archipelago 750 miles
southeast of Japan.

The image shows
a coastline, and right

along the division between
water and sand,

there's this line of what
looks like mangled ships.

I count at least seven
pointed bow sections.

These are hulking,
great pieces of

what must have been
a sunken fleet.

Further analysis
using Maxar's

satellite imagery
deepens the mystery.

I built a time lapse,
which shows images

over the years between
2009 and current day.

It's amazing.

As we roll forward,

The ships appear to be moving
and coming into the shore.

NARRATOR: The ghost fleet's
location intrigues analysts.

It sits in an area known as
the Dragon's Triangle.

The waters in this area have
been called

the Pacific Ocean's answer to
the Bermuda Triangle.

This is a part of the Pacific
known for very,

very unexplained, mysterious
disappearances of ships

and boats.

NARRATOR: Reports of
disappearances in these waters

date back to before 1,000 BCE,

the same time that dragons
begin to appear in

Asian folklore.

According to Chinese fables,

dragons would live in
the waters here, and there are

tales of them coming to
the surface and attacking ships

and dragging sailors
to their doom.

NARRATOR: Over the past
millennia,

the Dragon's Triangle has
claimed thousands of vessels,

including entire fleets.

Perhaps what we're seeing in
the image is casualties

of this mysterious force
rising from the deep.

Martin Morgan studies
the ghost fleet in more detail.

On closer examination
of the wrecks,

something that jumps out is
the fact

that these are not
old wooden wrecks.

This isn't something
from ancient history.

This is something
from recent history.

NARRATOR: Morgan believes
the fleet is the legacy of one

of the most brutal conflicts
of the 20th century.

The island where these wrecks
are pushed

ashore is an island
that's called Ioto,

but it used to be called
Iwo Jima.

NARRATOR: The strategically
vital Iwo Jima becomes

the focus of U.S. naval might

in October 1944.

The United States
wanted to capture Iwo Jima

to establish it
as a base.

It would provide fighter
coverage for the bombers

as they moved on toward targets
in the Japanese home islands.

NARRATOR:
On February 19th, 1945,

more than 450 U.S. ships
unleash a devastating assault

on the island.

70,000 U.S. Marines invade
but are

hampered by the island's
treacherous sandy terrain.

MARTIN MORGAN: The battle of
Iwo Jima ended up being

a brutal battle,
and that's because of

the slow, plodding progress,

the attritional action that
characterized the fighting.

NARRATOR: 36 days of
hellish combat claim over

27,000 American
and Japanese lives.

Yet while the U.S.
emerges victorious,

its mission is far from over.

The intention was to create
this large, artificial

naval base right here
in preparation

for the eventual planned
assault on mainland Japan.

Iwo Jima has no natural harbor
of any kind.

So one had to be created,
and the shipwrecks that

we're seeing were
a part of that plan.

NARRATOR: To create the harbor's
breakwater, Navy engineers

scuttle 24 ships
close to shore.

These enormous ships were
being lined up in a rectangular

shape and with an opening to
let supplies and soldiers in,

You know, what it's doing is to
form this perfect barrier to

powerful ocean waves
and all those currents.

NARRATOR: Eight decades later,
those same ships

mysteriously emerge
from the depths.

A photograph taken following
the U.S. victory all those years

ago offers a bizarre clue to
explain how.

WALTERS: That photo of
those six soldiers

hoisting that American flag

became one of the most
reproduced pictures in history.

This famous photo was actually
taken at the summit of

Mount Suribachi,
which is considered

one of the most dangerous
volcanoes in the world.

Mount Suribachi
and the island sit

on the Pacific Ring of Fire,

a 25,000-mile belt
of volcanoes.

The massive tectonic forces
mean the seabed

can rise up to
30 inches a year.

DENNIE: As magma works its way
up underneath the island of

Iwo Jima, it actually can tilt
or bow the rock upward,

and the entire surface
can raise up.

In fact,
the beach that the U.S. Marines

landed on back in
1945 is now

50 feet above where it was
the day they landed.

NARRATOR: Over time,
the buildup of magma

forces the ships onto shore.

The amount of volcanic
activity here could also shed

light on other historic events
in the Dragon's Triangle.

KOUROUNIS:
Undersea volcanic eruptions

can be tremendously violent,

shooting these rooster tails
of debris and rocks

and water hundreds of yards
through the air.

It makes sense -- lava being
spewed from under the sea

connects directly

with the idea of a dragon
breathing fire

and swallowing whole ships.

NARRATOR: Today,
the Iwo Jima ghost fleet

continues to rise
from its watery grave,

a unique memorial
to those who

perished here
all those years ago.

It's like the earth
is giving us back

a piece of history,
rather than taking it away.

NARRATOR: Coming up,
the monsters eating America.

If we don't have
the means to detect and stop

these creatures,
this could lead

to even more
disastrous situations.

NARRATOR:
And the desert ice fortress.

The oddest thing is that it's

the opposite of
what we would expect.

NARRATOR: March 20th, 2021.

A survey plane scans
the Catskill Mountains in

the northeastern United States

using sensors to detect what
the human eye cannot.

They have really clever
instruments that can measure

near infrared light
and tell us

how green a forest's
trees are.

NARRATOR:
When the images are processed,

red colors represent dense,
healthy vegetation.

What's unusual is
these small patches of gray

and white, which appear
to look like ghostly trees.

RUBEN:
Across thousands of acres,

we see countless individual
trees losing their color.

The fear is that these trees

are dying --
or worse, are already dead.

NARRATOR:
It's not just the scale

of the devastation that
worries analysts.

What's even more concerning
is that

it's actually just one species
that's affected.

It's the eastern hemlock tree.

NARRATOR: The eastern hemlock,
a pine evergreen, can grow

to 100 feet tall
and live for 1,000 years.

They cover
more than two million

acres of the eastern
United States.

RUBEN: They have an amazing
ability to store carbon

and absorb tons of water,

which slows the melting of
the winter snowpack

and can make floods
less severe.

If all these hemlock
trees disappeared,

it would be really disastrous.

NARRATOR: Local historic records
could offer a clue

to the mass death
revealed from the skies.

AUERBACH: Looking into
this region's history,

I wonder if there might be
a connection between this

and the hemlock tree's role in
a once thriving industry,

leather tanning.

NARRATOR: In the first half of
the 19th century,

tanneries spring up across

the Catskills to clothe and
shoe the waves of immigrants

arriving in New York.

It's a bloody, brutal industry,
and one which relies on

the hemlock's thick bark.

AUERBACH: It was really,
really tough work.

They used axes to fell
the trees and special tools

called barking irons
to remove the bark

from the trees themselves.

The bark of the hemlock tree
contains an acid that's easy to

extract when you soak it
in water.

Applying this acid solution
to raw animal hides fuses

the protein fibers, which
produces usable leather.

NARRATOR: The Catskills
tanneries are known to

have stripped some
70 million hemlocks.

But Roland Kays reveals
the trees in the images

are casualties of a different
kind of destructive force.

These ghostly trees
are the victim

of an invasive insect.

Eastern hemlocks are
known to be vulnerable

to a specific type of
invading insect --

the hemlock wooly adelgid.

NARRATOR:
These tiny insects gorge

on hemlocks
in their billions,

releasing a toxic saliva,
which slowly kills their host.

These adelgids suck sap
from the hemlock's

twigs and needles,
disrupting the flow of water

and important nutrients
for the tree.

They're called
a wooly adelgid,

because after they feed
on the sap,

they exude their excrement,
basically, as this sort of

white, waxy substance
that looks kind of like wool.

NARRATOR:
Within four years,

a swarm of the tiny insects
can kill a tree that began life

before the arrival of
Christopher Columbus.

In the lifespan of a tree,
that's a pretty quick death.

All the while, the adelgids
of reproducing and spreading

new generations of bugs

into neighboring trees
and basically spreading

the destruction
throughout the forest.

NARRATOR: Wooly adelgids
are alien invaders,

having been accidentally
smuggled in

from Japan during the 1950s.

Once they reached our forests,

they were able to
spread unimpeded.

RUBEN:
Experts have now spotted

the adelgid
in at least 17 states,

and it's laid waste to
millions of trees.

This problem
is out of control.

NARRATOR: The hemlock isn't
the only tree in peril.

Over the past century,

some 450 other
species of insects

have decimated U.S. woodlands.

Every decade,

they eat their way
through enough forest

to cover Florida
almost twice over.

They don't just threaten
our trees.

They can also impact
our food supply and our homes.

NARRATOR: While adelgids
feast on our forests,

thousands of our homes are now
under attack from a species of

Chinese termite,

causing more than $1 billion
dollars in damage each year.

One big colony of termites
can threaten the structural

integrity of your house
before you even know it.

NARRATOR: Perhaps the greatest
threat these invasive bugs pose

is to agriculture.

Each season, pests ravage
around 40% of U.S., crops.

SCHUTTLER:
There's a fruit fly from

southeast Asia called
Drosophila suzukii.

This insect has serrated hind
quarters that can cut

into ripening fruit,
and it lays its eggs inside.

RUBEN: When the eggs hatch,
the larva will eat

their way out from
the inside of the fruit.

It's impossible to tell which
fruits have been affected,

and it often doesn't spoil
until it's reached

its destination.

NARRATOR: Each year,
Federal agencies spend

billions of dollars
on eradicating

the bugs that are eating
their way across America.

But the killer swarms
show no sign of stopping.

If we don't have the means to
detect and stop

these creatures,
this could lead

to even more
disastrous situations.

NARRATOR: Coming up,
impossible engineering

in the ancient world.

OKEREKE: Large quantities
of ice in blistering climates.

It was almost a miracle.

NARRATOR: And the mystery
of the jungle labyrinths.

Who or what would create
these shapes

in the middle of
the Congo?

NARRATOR:
January 2017.

A satellite passing over
the vast desert

interior of Iran scans
the city of Kashan

and captures this image.

This is definitely unusual.

OKEREKE: This looks like
a large, barricaded plot

of land, almost like
a circular great wall.

NARRATOR: The giant barrier
is 2,000 feet

in circumference
and around 50 feet thick.

And it conceals
something unusual.

When we zoom in,
we see these two domes,

and there's no clue
as to what these are.

It looks very strange.
It looks odd.

NARRATOR: Analysts turn
to local records.

It appears the giant structure
is the legacy of

a fearsome group of warriors
who once ruled these lands.

It's likely
that this was built

by people known
as the Seljuks.

The Seljuk Dynasty
ruled Central Asia

and the Middle East from
the 11th to the 14th centuries.

NARRATOR:
The Seljuks begin life in

the 8th century CE as
a nomadic Mongolian tribe,

yet they soon develop a hunger
for war and conquest.

Over the following centuries,

they move west amassing
a vast army, which, in 1071 CE,

defeats the mighty
Byzantine Empire.

[shouting]

They later went on
to control Persia,

Iraq, and Syria,
and that's when they really

established themselves
as the Seljuk Empire.

NARRATOR: By 1092 CE,
the Seljuks control

more than
1.5 million square miles

of Central Asia
and the Middle East.

Its rulers accumulate

huge wealth
from the 4,000-mile-long

Silk Road, which runs through
the heart of their lands.

They built numerous forts,
similar to what we see in

the images, to help protect
caravan traders while they

traveled the Silk Road.

Seljuk fortresses are called
caravanserai, fortified

rest stations spread exactly
one day's travel apart.

There were places
to stop, to trade,

to eat, and to take shelter
from the elements.

Could this ring structure

we're looking at be
the perimeter ring

of a caravanserai?

NARRATOR: Yet what
puzzles experts is that

the strange domes
within the giant wall

don't correspond to Seljuk
military architecture.

Closer analysis offers a clue.

Zooming in on the image of

these two domed structures,

we see at the very top,
a hole.

I think what we're looking at
is a key characteristic

of an ancient engineering
marvel

called a yakhchal --
it's an ice house.

NARRATOR: Yakhchals are a wonder
of ancient engineering

which first appeared in Persia
some 2,500 years ago.

OKEREKE: Yakhchals were
basically early refrigerators.

These were huge structures
that can chill

large quantities of ice in
blistering climates.

NARRATOR: The yakhchal's
6-foot-thick insulating mortar

enables ice to be stored deep
into the summer months,

extending the shelf life of
food 100-fold.

They were made with a unique
water- and heat-resistant mortar

that was composed of materials,

thought to include things
like egg white,

clay, lime, ash,
and even goat hair.

KOUROUNIS: Food preservation is
of critical importance.

The best way to keep it fresh
was to keep it cold.

NARRATOR: Yakhchals
enabled desert people to

keep fresh food
all year round.

But incredibly,
they can also be

used to make
vast amounts of ice --

not easy when
temperatures regularly

hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit,
and rainfall is rare.

How did they get water into

the heart of the desert in
the first place?

Well, they had an ingenious
solution to that problem,

and it was called
the qanat irrigation system.

NARRATOR: Qanats are underground
canals that carry cold water

from mountains
up to 40 miles away

into pools
located next to the yakhchal.

After sunset, water in
these pools radiates so much

heat that ice can form in
above freezing temperatures.

KOUROUNIS: And so,
on these clear starry nights,

the water at the surface
would cool

just enough to get below
freezing point.

There would be ice to harvest
before sunrise.

It was almost a miracle.

This is a demonstration of
understanding your environment

and using that
knowledge to your advantage.

NARRATOR: While yakhchals
provide Iranians with

an endless supply of ice
for over 2,500 years,

Europeans never developed
this technology.

Instead,
during the 19th century,

they begin importing it
thousands of miles across

the Atlantic.

Demand is such that ice
becomes the second largest

American export after cotton.

The market began with scientists
who wanted the natural ice to

preserve things like medicines.

It quickly expanded to cafes
and restaurants who

wanted iced drinks
to sell to their clients.

Once people tried
this new fad of cold drinks,

they never wanted to go back

NARRATOR: In the 1920s,
the introduction of the domestic

refrigerator freezer

sounds the death knell
for this bizarre

ice harvesting industry.

Yet even today,
yakhchals can be found

across the Middle East,

continuing the incredible
story of ice that began in

the sweltering deserts of Iran.

It blows my mind how they were
able to come up with

this technology so many
thousands of years ago,

whereas today, we completely
take ice for granted.

NARRATOR: Coming up,

cracking God's code.

KAYS:
These shapes pop up in all

sorts of unexpected places
in nature.

NARRATOR:
March 2022.

A satellite passing over
the southern African country

of Zambia captures
an image that continues

to puzzle experts.

It's really easy to miss
what's so mysterious

about this photo
at first glance,

but once you look closely,
you notice the carved spirals

in the earth below.

It's really strange.

There appears to be
at least three

large spiral
curlicue patterns.

They don't seem to
lead anywhere.

They spiral outwards
and then just stop.

NARRATOR:
The weird shapes lie in

the 1.4-million-square-mile
Congo Basin,

one of the largest,

most pristine rainforests
on the planet.

There's so many questions
to ask about this

really beautiful
but strange image.

I just don't know
who or what would

create these shapes in
the middle of the Congo.

NARRATOR: A possible clue
can be found

7,000 miles away in the deserts
of South America.

Just take a look at
the Nazca Lines in Peru,

the famous Nazca Lines.

Now, they feature a giant
representation of the monkey.

And if you look at his tail,
that tail is a perfect spiral.

NARRATOR: The purpose of
this 2,000-year old

animal geoglyph is unclear,

but some believe it served
a religious purpose.

And the people who live near
the Congo spirals

are also known to venerate
the beasts of their jungle.

This region is home to
a people called the Hemba.

When you look at the history
of the culture of

the Hemba,
what you begin to see is that

they follow a faith that
features totemism.

Totemism is the belief
that people have

a spiritual connection
with an animal or a plant.

And that relationship
is represented

by a physical totem.

The Hemba use depictions of
a primate to honor their dead.

KOUROUNIS:
The Hemba revere the monkey.

So it's entirely possible
that they would

honor its spirit with
a large-scale representation.

But biologists think
the strange

spirals may have
a different origin.

These shapes look like
Fibonacci spirals, and these pop

up in all sorts of unexpected
places in nature.

What's more,
the Fibonacci spiral can

be expressed as
a mathematical formula.

It has been called
Nature's secret code.

Nautilus shells are
a famous example

of the Fibonacci spiral,

but so are pine cones,
sunflowers,

microscopic cancer cells.

NARRATOR: The Fibonacci sequence
isn't just found

in the natural world.

Some claim it's also found in
the proportions

of some of the world's
greatest ancient structures,

from the pyramids of Giza

to the Parthenon in Athens.

Dialing up the magnification
reveals a possible clue

to this code's presence in
the Congo.

When we take a closer
look at this image,

we see that the image is
actually not of a forest at all,

and it's actually of a swamp.

So what they could be
are fish traps.

KOUROUNIS: If these are fishing
traps, that would explain

their Fibonacci spiral shape --
as it turns out,

spirals are a really good way
to corral animals

or fish into a small area.

NARRATOR: Fibonacci-shaped
fishing traps have

been used
for thousands of years.

When fish enter,
they encounter a curved wall,

which funnels them deeper
into the net.

They keep swimming on, getting
further and further into

the spiral, where eventually,

they can't turn around
and exit the trap.

To take advantage of
that natural pattern and

essentially allow the fish
to catch itself --

that's ingenious.

NARRATOR:
It's a clever tactic

that's not only
employed by humans.

Throughout the world's oceans,

similar spirals suddenly
appear on the surface.

KAYS: Humpback whales do a thing
called bubble net fishing,

where they swim a quick
circle, letting bubbles out of

their blowhole, that creates
basically a net that

traps all the fish in
the middle.

And then the whales come zooming
up with their giant mouths agape

and swallow all the fish.

NARRATOR: Due to the remote
location of the strange spirals,

their precise purpose
remains unclear,

but they appear to be
an unusual example of mankind

mimicking nature.

These spirals certainly
look strange from above,

but it's entirely possible
that they're a unique

and creative way
that these people

have found to help
feed themselves.