All language subtitles for What.on.Earth.S11E03.1080p.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.

From orbit,

the lost doomsday lair.

This place
played a crucial role

in the fate of millions
of lives.

NARRATOR: The hunt for
the birthplace of humanity.

This is
an astonishing discovery.

NARRATOR: And inside
the New Jersey apocalypse zone.

What you've got is a scene
that's beyond horrifying.

NARRATOR: Baffling phenomena,
mysteries from space.

What on Earth are they?

[theme music playing]

July 2020.

A satellite flying
over Southern Europe

scans the Greek island
of Kefalonia

and spots strange structures
on a mountain peak.

RODRIGUEZ McROBBIE:
We're looking at some kind of

compound in a very
remote location.

And looking a bit closer,

you can see what appear to
be fences all around the edges.

Clearly, whatever's there is
either very valuable, or someone

wants to make sure that it
doesn't have uninvited guests.

NARRATOR:
What's more,

the mystery facility
is not alone.

WALTERS: This site is basically
weird enough,

but there are loads of nearly
identical structures dotted all

over mountaintops
all across Europe.

NARRATOR: More than 80 sites
extend across 8,000 miles of

the continent.

MORAN:
This is super perplexing.

They seem to be aligned in
a kind of giant

semicircle stretching
from northern Norway,

down through mainland Europe
and all the way into Turkey.

It must have involved
a massive amount of

international cooperation
and also a vast amount of money.

But what their purpose is,
is less clear.

NARRATOR: On the hunt for
answers, Dutch urban explorers

are heading for
the mountaintop compound

seen from space.

[high-pitched beeping noise]

Yes.

[high-pitched beeping noise]

NARRATOR: The site's owners
are long gone,

but giant clues
to its purpose remain.

NARRATOR: The mountaintop
dishes are each

over 60 feet in diameter.

MUNOZ:
What this appears to be is

some kind of
communication station.

But look at the scope
and scale of this.

It's unlike anything
that I've ever seen.

If you look at the age of
this facility,

to me, it looks decades old,
and that could

put it right at the heart of
the Cold War.

NARRATOR: Experts turn to
declassified records

to decipher
the site's purpose.

AUERBACH: Further investigation
reveals that these are

all part of a very secretive
communication network

known as the Allied Command

Europe Highband,
or ACE High.

NARRATOR:
According to the records,

the network's origins lie

at the very start
of the Cold War,

when increasing Soviet
aggression threatens to spark

conflict between
East and West.

In 1948,

we see Stalin severely
testing Western resolve by

blockading Berlin,

and the U.S. knew
that she just

had to act,
and NATO was the result.

NARRATOR:
NATO -- short for

the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization --

is a defensive alliance
between the U.S., Canada,

and 12 European nations.

Its objective is to use
collective military

might as a deterrent against
possible conflict.

One of NATO's great strengths
is the large

number of countries
that are included in it.

But this is also, in some ways,
a weakness, because it

makes communication amongst
these different countries

a much more complex process.

What makes things worse is
that some of

the countries' individual
communication systems

were open to interception.

Basically, it left NATO
horribly exposed.

NARRATOR:
Sensing a weakness,

the Soviet Union pours tens of
millions of dollars into

a campaign of electronic
warfare against NATO.

[electronic noises]

200 radio-jamming stations
target and cut

off communication lines
between the Allied states.

Stalin threw
the might of the Soviet Union

into campaigns to
disrupt the Western alliance,

because he knew
a united NATO

was much stronger than
countries acting alone.

RODRIGUEZ McROBBIE:
NATO know that they need

to seriously up their game.

In times of war,
cold or hot,

it is essential that military
leaders are able

to communicate.

[indistinct talking]

NARRATOR: In 1956, NATO
responds by commissioning

the ACE High system,

a unified network that
serves as

a secure line between
Allied leaders.

The whole project was
conducted under the tightest

possible security
to make sure that

no information
about this leaked back to

the Kremlin.

There's very little
information about

the nuts and bolts
of the ACE High.

The details are still
shrouded in mystery.

NARRATOR:
To learn more,

the urban explorers hike
to another site rumored

to have played
a role in ACE High.

NARRATOR: But it appears
the rumors were wrong.

[grunting]

NARRATOR: The mile-long tunnel
guides the explorers into

a labyrinthine compound hidden
deep inside the mountain.

Whenever you walk into
a sealed Cold War facility,

you've really got no idea what
you're going to encounter.

Who knows what's been
locked away in here

for all these years.

NARRATOR: Encased in millions
of tons of rock is

a network of rooms split over
multiple floors.

Look at this place!
It's absolutely incredible.

There are military maps,
there are control desks.

It's like something out of
Dr. Strangelove.

NARRATOR: The team has
discovered evidence of

the ACE High network's
most clandestine mission.

At one point,
this place played a crucial

role in the fate of countless
millions of lives.

NARRATOR: Coming up, on
the front line of Armageddon.

Seconds can mean the difference
between life and death.

NARRATOR: And one of
the weirdest trips in history.

They came up with
a very 1960s answer --

they gave the elephants LSD.

NARRATOR: Lured by mountaintop
compounds captured from space,

urban explorers have
discovered a hidden command

center of NATO's ACE High
communications network.

NARRATOR: This facility played
a vital role in some

of the darkest days of
the 20th century.

This place kind of blows
me away.

It's a kind of
a lost command center for one

of the most secretive NATO
operations of the Cold War.

NARRATOR: According to
Cold War documents,

NATO begins constructing
the command center,

code-named Proto,
in the late 1950s.

Working in conjunction with 82
giant radar stations

built on mountaintops
across Europe,

its mission is to monitor

the Iron Curtain for incoming
nuclear missiles.

At the start of the Cold War,

there are no anti-ballistic
missile systems.

So if the Soviets do launch,

the only thing that we can do
is sound the alarm for every

NATO ally to get ready
for impact.

NARRATOR:
In a worst-case scenario,

military leaders predict over

2,000 Soviet nukes will launch
in a colossal first strike.

Once detected and confirmed,
the alarm fires through

the ACE High network at
the speed of light.

The technology being used at
these radar locations

is twofold.

We have a standard
radio wave receiver.

They're also using
a newer technology,

which was troposcatter.

NARRATOR: Troposcatter dishes
bounce microwaves off layers in

the atmosphere and on to
the next station in the network.

Upon receiving the signal,

that station automatically
forwards on the alarm.

It basically acts
like a giant trip wire

to alert of the incoming
Soviet attack.

RODRIGUEZ McROBBIE: This is
why the ACE High system

is crucial for the Allies.

It is able to send out
an alert across Europe in

a heartbeat at a time

when seconds can
mean the difference

between life and death.

NARRATOR: NATO commanders hope
this alert will provide enough

time to evacuate key personnel
from the Soviets' targets.

WALTERS: The reality is
that there's no way

you can save everybody.

Once you've taken away
the time needed

to detect the missile
and then confirm it,

the British government
reckoned they had about enough

time it takes to make a coffee
before impact.

NARRATOR: Intelligence analysts
calculate the first

bombs would strike
European cities

four minutes
after the alarm sounds.

[explosion blasts]

ANNOUNCER: The Austin area
may be hit by missiles.

There will not be time
to evacuate.

NARRATOR: Minutes later,
warheads descend on the U.S.,

[explosion blasts]

killing a predicted
160 million civilians.

Top-ranking NATO officials
knew that the civilian

death count was going
to be enormous.

Their plan was to
save themselves

in order to serve
their country.

NARRATOR:
As hellfire rains down,

officials based in
the command center would use

the ACE High network
to help coordinate

an unprecedented
counterstrike.

NATO forces had amassed
a huge nuclear arsenal

to create a stalemate that
would never be broken.

But what they knew is that if
the Soviets made the first move

by firing their missiles,

they would need
to retaliate in full.

NARRATOR: During such
a retaliation,

NATO could unleash over 10,000
thermonuclear bombs

and missiles.

Some are over
one-and-a-half-thousand times

more powerful than the nuke
that destroyed Hiroshima.

The result is intended to
completely annihilate

the Soviet Union, striking at
every major city,

every identified military
complex, in order to wipe

the Soviet Union off
the face of the Earth.

[explosion blasts]

NARRATOR: The urban explorers
see evidence that

the ACE High network
could maintain

NATO communications
for several weeks

following
a nuclear onslaught,

long enough for fallout to
drop to survivable levels.

NARRATOR: The ACE High network
secretly maintains vital lines

of communication until 1996,
5 years after

the Soviet Union disintegrates.

Today, these structures
are haunting evidence

of the reality of
nuclear conflict.

MUNOZ: Even though they're not
operational anymore,

these structures sort of have
a new mission.

They kind of serve as
a reminder for

how close we actually came
to World War III.

NARRATOR: Coming up,
a truly monster roadblock.

This is the kind of
situation that could get ugly.

NARRATOR: And the 4,000-year-old
desert treasure hunt.

This area was once
the epicenter

of the ancient world.

NARRATOR: Xishuangbanna Nature
Reserve, Southwest China.

This vast protected rainforest
is home

to hundreds of endangered
Asian elephants.

But in March 2020, eyes in
the sky spot a baffling sight.

What's happening
with this particular herd

is really weird.

KAYS: They left the park,
they're walking into areas

where people are living,

people are farming,
and they just keep going.

They just keep walking
and walking and walking.

NARRATOR:
Drones track the 16 elephants

as they march on for weeks,

then months.

These elephants are on
an epic rampage through

the country, and they're
leaving chaos in their wake.

KAYS: Nothing like this
has ever happened before.

We really don't know
where these elephants

are gonna go next, we don't know
what they're motivated by.

NARRATOR: The pachyderms put
authorities on high alert

when CCTV captures

the 11,000-pound animals barging
into rural villages in

the middle of the night.

You can imagine these
elephants are raising

a lot of concern in
the region.

The Chinese authorities have
gone as far as to leave

truckloads of pineapples
and corn

in the path of these elephants
in an attempt to lure them away

from populated areas.

Unfortunately, the elephants
aren't really cooperating.

NARRATOR: As they continue
their bizarre march,

the giants approach
the heavily populated

Kunming City.

Fearing conflict between
humans and the herd,

authorities evacuate
150,000 people in their path.

Large wild animals and human
built infrastructure

do not mix.

This is the kind of situation
that could get ugly.

NARRATOR: Some experts worry
the big-eared bulldozers are

driven by a psychological
condition known to spark

dangerous behavior.

There is a condition
that causes

irregular behavior in
elephants known as musth.

Musth is a natural phenomenon
that we see in

male elephants
when they're getting

into their reproductive phase.

NARRATOR:
During musth,

an elephant's testosterone
soars to

100 times its normal levels.

The beasts become highly
aggressive, and a hormone-rich

liquid drips from glands on
the side of their heads.

The young bull elephants are
overloaded with hormones,

and they snap into
this seemingly wild,

uncontrollable state.

[elephant trumpets]

When they go into musth, you
never know what's gonna happen.

NARRATOR: In the 1960s,
scientists from

the University
of Oklahoma attempt

a bizarre experiment to learn
more about

this hormone-fueled state.

They actually tried to induce
it in a captive male elephant.

RUBEN: The problem is,
they didn't know how to

induce behavior that resembled
musth in an elephant.

They came up with a very

1960s answer --
they gave the elephants LSD.

KOUROUNIS: Of course, how much
LSD do you give an elephant?

None of them knew what
the doses should be.

NARRATOR:
In the same era,

during C.I.A,
mind control experiments,

soldiers feel the drug's
psychedelic effect

after a 30-microgram shot.

Scaling up to monster size,

they pumped the elephant with
10,000 times

the human dose.

RUBEN:
It was not a good guess.

The result was, immediately
after being injected with LSD,

the elephant keeled over
and started having seizures.

The researchers tried to save
the elephant by injecting it

with other drugs,
but to no one's surprise,

it didn't work.

The animal died.

The scientists didn't really
learn anything other

than don't inject
an elephant with LSD.

It was really just a tragic
waste of an elephant.

NARRATOR:
While musth is known

to trigger the kind of
behavior seen in China,

it appears the trip
these elephants

have taken has
a different explanation.

When you zoom in, you see
baby elephants in the photos,

which means that they are
with their moms,

and female elephants
don't go into musth.

So there must be something
else going on.

NARRATOR: Biologists uncover
another possible clue

to why the elephants
have strayed

so far from
the safety of their reserve.

Over the past 30 years,
a crackdown on poaching

has doubled wild Asian
elephant numbers

in their reserve.

The problem is, although China
has more elephants now,

they had the same amount of
protected forest habitat that

these elephants like to
live in.

SCHUTTLER: So perhaps
there's too many elephants

for the forest,
and they are forced to

venture out and find another
big patch of forest

that they can live in.

NARRATOR:
Outside the reserve,

new habitat is hard to find.

Over the past seven decades,

a Chinese building frenzy
creates an average of nearly

eight new cities a year.

As these concrete
jungles rise,

more than
100,000 acres of forest

are destroyed each month.

So it's possible that
this group didn't really

want to be in the towns
and villages.

They were just looking for
another forest to go to.

KAYS: The elephants don't know
where they're going.

They don't have a map.

They're just wandering north
and exploring new territory

and finding all sorts of food
along the way.

NARRATOR: But another
surprising twist in

the elephants' story throws
this theory into doubt.

After walking over 300 miles,
they make a sudden U-turn

and head for home.

There's a phrase that
an elephant never forgets,

and there's actually
some truth to that.

OKEREKE: They have the largest
temporal lobe out of any animal,

including humans.

This is part of the brain

that deals with things
like spatial memory.

NARRATOR: This spatial memory
allows Asian elephants to

memorize home ranges

almost double
the size of New York City.

They know their way around
their territory,

and if they leave
their territory,

they are most certainly
gonna be able to

navigate back if they want to.

NARRATOR: Two months later,
the elephants reach

the reserve they left
over one-and-a-half years ago.

But the reason why these
adventurous giants

undertook their epic journey
remains a mystery.

KOUROUNIS:
These are wild animals.

They're gonna do what
they wanna do.

They might get home
and then turn around,

decide that they want
to go walkabout again.

It's nature.

NARRATOR: Coming up,
the strange circle

that helped defeat Hitler.

Its importance
cannot be overstated.

NARRATOR: And the
two-million-year-old mystery.

These might unlock
a previously

unknown chapter in humanity's
earliest days.

NARRATOR:
October 2021.

Eyes in the sky
over the eastern

United States capture this
image of a New Jersey suburb.

I'm looking at what looks like
a pretty busy waterfront area,

but then this nearly perfect
circle of forested,

undeveloped area.

It almost seems like
someone took

like a cookie cutter,
just stamped it,

in an area that's pretty
heavily populated.

NARRATOR: Experts take
a closer look.

If we zoom in, what you can
see is a railway running

through the forested area,

and when you follow that
railway west,

what you discover are
various other structures,

which resemble
military bunkers.

NARRATOR: Scale analysis shows
the circular

anomaly is one mile
in diameter.

To military historian
Martin Morgan,

the dimensions are
hauntingly familiar.

What we're seeing here is
an exclusion zone that was

created to prevent

a repeat of the largest
non-nuclear explosion in

the history of
the North American continent.

NARRATOR: That explosion hit
the port of Halifax,

Nova Scotia,
more than a century ago,

while it was being used as
a World War I munitions hub.

Halifax, Nova Scotia,
was one of the most critical

transshipment points
for material

traveling to Europe.

You had Canadian warships,
American warships,

merchant vessels, all
traversing these waterways.

It was a very fine balance
of chaotic logistics.

[boat horn blows]

NARRATOR:
On December 6, 1917,

this chaos
descends into tragedy.

AUERBACH:
Just before nine a.m.

in the morning,
a Norwegian vessel heading

for New York strikes
a French munitions ship

that was just getting ready to
head out across the Atlantic.

The impact from the collision
renders the French vessel

essentially rudderless --
it's just adrift.

It's also
engulfed in flames.

NARRATOR: Concealed inside
the flaming ship

are 2,500 tons
of high explosives.

There's this blinding,
blinding white flash.

[explosion blasts]

In an instant,
a huge shock wave

rolls out from the source
of the explosion.

When the thick,
yellow smoke clears,

the true scale of the
devastation becomes apparent.

What you've got is
a scene that's kind of

beyond horrifying.

The town --
it's in total ruin,

and there's just fire
raging everywhere.

NARRATOR: The explosion destroys
a square mile of the town,

killing 2,000 people
and injuring 9,000 more.

It remains one of the most

catastrophic manmade
disasters in history.

A very important lesson is to
be learned from this incident,

and the lesson
relates to using

a seaside town as a place
where munitions are being

loaded and offloaded
during a time of war.

NARRATOR: In 1943, this lesson
is put into practice when

the U.S. Navy creates a massive
wartime munitions facility at

the site in the image.

The U.S. Navy establishes
Earle Naval Weapons Station,

and it is intended to be
a facility whereby explosive

munitions can be stored
sufficiently far away

from civilian population
so that there's not a civilian

loss of life like there was
in Halifax.

NARRATOR: At this time,
many U.S. factories

have retooled as
munitions plants.

They will manufacture
2/3 of the entire Allied

arsenal, including

40 billion bullets and over
1.5 million tons of bombs.

WALTERS: These are staggering
levels of production.

At the very peak of
the Second World War,

America is manufacturing
almost as many munitions

as its allies
and its enemies combined.

NARRATOR: The Halifax explosion
is a chilling reminder

of just how dangerous
transporting munitions can be.

So engineers construct
an exclusion zone at the site

that matches the blast radius
of the 1917 explosion.

The live munitions are brought
by rail into the circular

exclusion zone,
where they are then stored,

ready for the moment
when ships are ready to load.

MORGAN: If there was
a large-scale explosion,

anyone outside of that
one-mile radius,

they'll probably survive.

NARRATOR: As the conflict
unfolds, the military funnels

increasing amounts of
munitions through the site

to this 2.9-mile-long pier,
where ships await.

At the height of the war,

there was just a nearly
constant stream of ships laden

with munitions, weapons,
coming from the port across

the Atlantic to support
Allied forces.

Earle's importance to the Second
World War cannot be overstated.

Almost every United States
Navy warship or transport that

sailed across the Atlantic

carrying ammunition
took that ammunition

on board at Earle Naval
Weapons Station.

NARRATOR: During World War II,
over 700,000 tons of supplies

and munitions are stored
and shipped

through the exclusion zone.

And while the bombs
and bullets are gone,

the mark it left on history is
still evident from the sky.

Nobody has ever been
allowed to

move into and live inside
that circle.

And that's why it continues to
show up in satellite

photography even to this day,

80 years later.

NARRATOR: Coming up,
the wrath of the pharaohs.

The Egyptians strike back
with vengeance.

NARRATOR: And a killer
above the City of Angels.

Finding the cause of this is
literally life and death.

NARRATOR:
September 2019.

A satellite
scanning the seemingly endless

sands of the eastern Sahara
captures a mystery.

WALTERS:
It's amazing.

There are all these dark holes
cut into the desert.

There are dozens of them,
maybe even hundreds,

in this kind of nest.

NARRATOR: Analysts punch up
the magnification.

Zooming in,

I can see that the holes
have regular shapes.

They're square.
They're oblong.

WALTERS: It looks to me
like these marks have

been made by someone cutting
into the ground.

NARRATOR: The weird cluster of
holes sits in the Republic

of Sudan, whose deserts have
an extraordinary history

stretching back more than
6,000 years.

It was once the epicenter of
the ancient world,

and it got its power from
a resource found under

the desert.

That was gold.

What we're seeing here
is an ancient gold mine.

NARRATOR:
The first kingdom to mine gold

on a grand scale here
are the Kerma,

whose capital rises
on the banks of the Nile River

in 2500 B.C.E.

Over the years,
it became one of

the most important,
most advanced civilizations in

the ancient world.

The Kerma itself was the most
extraordinary urban complex,

which has really only partly
been investigated by

modern archaeologists.

WALTERS:
From this great city,

the Kerma kingdom was able to
spread across North Africa.

NARRATOR:
In 1550 B.C.E.,

driven by a lust
for riches,

the Kerma move north and
invade a neighboring but even

more powerful empire.

The Kerma attacked gold mines
owned by the Egyptian empire.

That was a very bad idea.

NARRATOR: The ancient Egyptians
are obsessed with gold,

believing it to be a symbol of
power and immortality.

The sort of heavenly value
placed on gold means that

when the Kerma attack,
the Egyptians strike back

with vengeance.

[distant battle sounds]

The Egyptians moved into
the land controlled

by Kerma, built a series of
enormous fortresses,

and exploited the gold
mines themselves.

NARRATOR: These ancient mines
eventually fell silent

in around 30 B.C.E.

But over the past few years,
there has been

renewed activity.

A bloody civil war,
which has left Sudan divided

and in ruin,
has led to another gold rush

in the site seen from space.

Mining in this region
increased dramatically after

Sudan was split into
two nations in 2011.

The North Sudanese open new
mines in this same

region once explored by
the Kerma and the Egyptians.

Now,
North Sudan is the second

largest producer of gold
in Africa.

NARRATOR: In 2021,
archaeologists find something

even more valuable
than gold here --

tools made by the ancient
human species

known as Homo erectus.

Homo erectus is the immediate
precursor to Homo sapien,

and what was exceptional about
Homo erectus is it was

the first species of Homo that
closely resembled our modern

bodily appearance.

NARRATOR: Homo erectus marks
a giant leap in our evolution

by becoming the first species
of human to walk upright

1.8 million years ago,

they begin to migrate north
from Africa into Eurasia,

a journey that eventually
gives rise to

the eight billion people on
Earth today.

The tools indicate
they used the site in

the image as some kind of
workshop during this

extraordinary exodus.

Before they became the humans
of today,

our ancestors were

chopping stone tools,

refining blades,
in this very place.

This is
an astonishing discovery.

NARRATOR: What's more,
the location of the tools could

dramatically change

our understanding of the epic
journey made

by these early humans.

NARDI: We've always assumed
that people came up

north through Ethiopia
and out through Yemen,

but what we're finding now
is -- is maybe

there is a different route
out of Africa.

NARRATOR: The deserts of Sudan
could hold evidence of

a new route our ancestors took

on their history-defining
journey.

These mines might unlock
a previously

unknown chapter in
humanity's earliest days.

NARRATOR: Coming up,

something weird
in the skies above L.A.

This cloud covered
the entire region.

NARRATOR: October 2021.

The Sentinel-5P
satellite flies

over the California coast --
as it passes above

Los Angeles,
onboard instruments

scan the skies below.

The satellite is equipped with
sensors that are capable of

detecting gasses
in the atmosphere,

and what these satellites
have picked up

is very concerning.

NARRATOR: When processed,
the data reveals

high volumes of
nitrogen dioxide.

This toxic pollutant
gives L.A.'s infamous smog

its orange tint,
but the size and intensity

of these plumes
are on a lethal scale.

Huge clouds of gas are
enveloping the city.

OKEREKE:
This is really alarming.

Nitrogen dioxide is a nasty
gas that can cause things like

severe respiratory illness,

inflamed lungs.

Finding the cause of the spike
is literally life and death.

NARRATOR: A check of local
weather reports suggests

a freak natural event
could be to blame.

Around a month before
the toxic clouds are seen over

the L.A. area,

a massive storm hits
the Californian coast

in what is known as
the Bay Area lightning event.

[thunder crashing]

RODRIGUEZ McROBBIE:
This Bay Area lightning event

was this string of incredibly
dramatic thunderstorms

that covered
the entire region.

It also would have produced
a huge amount of

nitrogen dioxide.

NARRATOR: Lightning cooks up
nitrogen dioxide

by super heating the air

to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit,

five times hotter
than the surface of the sun.

This is powerful enough
to break

the bonds of nitrogen
molecules in the atmosphere.

Now, once these bonds
are split,

they quickly bond with oxygen
in the atmosphere to form

nitrogen dioxide.

NARRATOR:
Each strike instantaneously

creates up to 15 pounds
of the toxic gas.

During the Bay Area event,
over 1,000

bolts hit the ground in
one night,

along with countless
cloud-to-cloud strikes.

OKEREKE: It's very much possible
that a storm like the Bay Area

lightning event could be

the cause of a sudden rise in
nitrogen dioxide levels

all over
the Los Angeles area.

NARRATOR: But further data
captured from across the country

suggests the killer clouds
have a different origin.

If we look at similar
analysis conducted over

New York,
we see a near identical

distribution pattern
of nitrogen dioxide.

Los Angeles and New York are
both massive cities,

huge population centers, and
they're both coastal cities.

Now we know that
one of the biggest

drivers of nitrogen dioxide
emissions is burning

fossil fuels.

But why is this happening now?

NARRATOR: What's more,
coastal cities around the world

are experiencing the same
nitrogen dioxide surge.

Investigations
reveal the clouds are

an unexpected consequence of
the global COVID pandemic.

This cloud of nitrogen dioxide
that's hanging over L.A.,

it's just another legacy of
a deadly disease

that's already taken so much
and caused so much devastation.

NARRATOR: The events that spark
the deadly spike

begin in early 2020,

when global lockdowns forced
four billion people to stay

at home.

With shops and restaurants
closed, U.S. consumers alone

save up $1.6 trillion dollars
and go on a shopping spree.

A lot of people have been
stuck at home, ordering things

online, and many of these goods
are shipped in from overseas.

OKEREKE: Shipping companies are
racing to meet that demand.

The result is a lot of ships
all trying

to get into the port at
the exact same time.

NARRATOR:
Off the California coast,

queues of more than 100
container ships form, carrying

$25 billion dollars worth
of goods.

The whole time those ships
are sitting there,

they're burning fuel and
pumping out nitrogen dioxide.

RODRIGUEZ McROBBIE:
This is like when

there's a traffic jam
in a tunnel,

and the air outside of
your car is filling

with nitrogen dioxide
and fumes.

NARRATOR: Each day, the waiting
ships pump over 100 tons

of pollution
into the California air,

the same as six million cars
on the road.

It's absolutely horrible for
the local air quality to have

these ships idling,
billowing out noxious fumes

out into the sky.

NARRATOR: Globally,
nine million people a year

die from diseases resulting
from pollution,

20 percent
of all global deaths.

And in COVID-hit cities
like L.A.,

the effect of the container
ship backlog is devastating.

RUBEN: When you think of
the health impacts

caused by COVID,
you think of

the direct deaths
from the virus.

But causing this much damage
to L.A.'s air quality

is sure to have
knock-on effects.

The noxious gasses mean that
in some parts

of the city,
COVID death rates

jump by up to 60 percent,

another terrible legacy of
this disease

revealed from space.