All language subtitles for IneXplicável - S07E10 - Secrets of The Spies

WILLIAM SHATNER:
Shadowy assassins

who vanish into the crowd.

Double agents who sell
their own country's secrets.

And coded messages
hiding in plain sight.

Throughout history,
spies have played

a unique role
in shaping world events.

And these secret agents work at
the behest of an organization,

a government or perhaps
even a single leader.

Their covert orders
could range from

simply collecting information

or something as deadly serious

as assassinating an enemy.

Secrecy is critical
to a spy's success,

so how do these masters
of deception fulfill

their assignments
without getting caught?

Well, that is what
we'll try and find out.

♪ ♪

The CIA, MI6

and MSS.

These are the foreign
intelligence services

for some of the most powerful
countries in the world.

These agencies,
and hundreds of others,

engage in clandestine operations

to aid and protect
their countries.

For many,
their mission is to gather

the most closely guarded
secrets of their enemies,

and their secret weapons
are often...

spies.

ASAF LUBIN:
Spies are

utilized by states to collect

intelligence that is necessary
to advance policymaking.

From figuring out
whether an adversary

has nuclear weapons,
to figuring out whether

a leader of a foreign state
is about to die.

We have intelligence agencies
that specialize in

visual intelligence,
say satellite imagery.

We have intelligence agencies
that specialize in

the interception
of communications.

But there are spies
that more commonly

come to mind, which is

the people at the front line,
the individuals

willing to put their lives
at risk to share information.

At the end of the day, it's
a life of mystery and intrigue

because the spy world
is kind of its own domain.

It remains this
kind of puzzle or mystery

that most people
will not have exposure to

beyond those few moments
we read about in the newspaper.

ANDREW BUSTAMANTE:
Hollywood movies
and books and TV

have made it seem like spies
are some kind of superhero.

That is nothing
like real espionage.

The purpose of espionage

is to be so secret

that nobody even knows
you're there.

True professional espionage

is in and out without anyone
ever even knowing it happened.

That makes your average spy

much more like
an average person.

And what's required of a spy
changes from day to day.

One day,
we're hunting terrorists.

Sometime later, we're exchanging
information in secret.

Some days, we're fighting
a war on drugs.

Some days, we're fighting
a war on misinformation.

It's an incredible

web of information and impact

that the average person
is not aware of.

SHATNER:
How can we ever hope

to understand the mysterious
world of espionage

if it remains
completely hidden from us?

Well, every so often,
information does come to light

that illustrates
how a single spy

can change
the course of history.

A massive scientific complex
is established in secret

for the research and development
of a truly devastating weapon.

This laboratory
becomes ground zero

for the most consequential

top secret military program
ever devised.

It's called
the Manhattan Project.

KAI BIRD:
The Manhattan Project
was this top secret,

federally funded
$2 billion program

to explore whether
it was possible to develop

an atomic weapon

in the midst of World War II.

And they built this
secret city in Los Alamos,

gathering together
chemists and engineers

and physicists
and other scientists

into one spot so that these
scientists can collaborate

and fully converse
inside the secret city

to build this weapon.

SHATNER:
As history shows,
these scientists

would prove successful
in creating the atomic bomb.

But little did
they know at the time

there was a spy among them,

sharing the program's
most intimate secrets.

His codename was "Rest,"

but his identity
has since been revealed

to be a German physicist
named Klaus Fuchs.

LUBIN:
Klaus came from Germany,

and because of his... his
prior background as a physicist,

he quickly got a job

within the Manhattan Program
in Los Alamos.

And, unknown to
the people there,

Fuchs began to share information

with the Soviets
about the program.

A U.S. counterintelligence
program

that involved decrypting
Soviet communications

revealed the scope
of the information

that Fuchs collected
and shared with the Soviets.

In his particular role

as a lead scientist
within the program and access

to the development of the bomb,

he was able to share

pretty detailed technical
information about

the science that goes into

the generation
and enrichment of plutonium,

which served
a huge deal in advancing

the Russians' capacities
in those spaces.

And he collected intelligence
and shared intelligence

for about seven years,
until he was revealed.

The greatest find in
the history of espionage

is the theft
of the atomic secret.

Klaus Fuchs pretty much
shared the recipe

with the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union was able
to get a nuclear weapon

roughly five years
before they could have

done it on their own.

The moment they had the nuke,
they were a world power.

SHATNER:
If one spy can alter
the course of atomic history,

how else has espionage
shaped our world?

Has secret intelligence
informed nearly every

major event in human history?

BUSTAMANTE:
You have to assume

that you only know
about five percent

of all espionage operations.

Every negotiation,
every diplomatic agreement,

every transition
of power from one president

to another president,
for 167 countries,

all over the world,
over the course of decades,

intelligence had a role
to play in every one of those.

So now, when you
start to ask yourself

about how the Soviet Union fell,

and you start
to ask yourself about

how the end
of Afghanistan happened,

and the winning of Gulf War II,

and the taking down
of Saddam Hussein,

you start to see these
major instances in history

where intelligence
worked or failed.

So, when you try to consider

the impact
that espionage has had

over the long-term
history of the world,

you have to remember
that 95% of what they've done,

nobody knows about

except for "need to know"
secret circles.

LINDSAY MORAN:
It's really pretty chilling
if you think about the effect

that just a single spy
or intelligence source

can have on world events.

And the irony is that

we often don't know

what that impact is
until many years

or even decades later,
or sometimes, ever at all.

Even historians looking back

on historical events
or geopolitical movements,

may never have access

to the behind-the-scenes
intrigue and espionage

that took place,
or the machinations

of various intelligence
organizations.

But for sure, spies really can
change the course of history.

SHATNER:
This sleek, modern building

houses over
7,000 unique artifacts

from the history of espionage.

And among them
are ingenious devices

created to hide things,

record secret conversations,

and some are even meant to kill.

The International Spy Museum

houses the world's
largest collection

of intelligence and
espionage-related artifacts.

We have all kinds
of ingenious devices

to do all type of
different types of stuff.

So, a lot of
the gadgets that we see

are there to try to help

to be a more effective agent,

to recruit spies better,
to steal secrets better.

And we've got a fantastic

James Bond collection.

Some of the James Bond movies

have actually
influenced the development

of gadgets in the CIA.

CIA directors come out
of the movie theater

and say, "Guys, do we
have anything like this?

And if we don't,
can someone get on it?"

So we know that there's
a two-way interaction between

the gadgets in fiction
and in reality.

When you look at spy gadgets,
a lot of them

are weapons
of one thing or another.

They're always trying
to come up with new gadgets.

So, the KGB came up
with a lipstick gun,

which was
a little 4.5 millimeter bullet

that could be fired from
a lipstick tube.

The CIA had an ice gun,

which fired
a super-cool needle of ice,

preferably through
your opponent's heart.

That was all around 1960.

And then, there are
famous exploding cigars,

with which they were going
to blow off Fidel Castro's head.

But to the extent
that secret weapons,

spy weapons programs exist,

they're secret, which is why
you don't know about them,

because you're not supposed to.

SHATNER: Over the years,
some spy gadgets

have either been declassified

or leaked to the public.

However, what's less clear

is whether any
of these fantastical

and frankly bizarre devices

were ever successfully
put to use.

But there is a curious
instrument of death

that many believe
was responsible

for one of the most
infamous and unsolved

assassinations
of the 20th century:

The 1978 murder

of British journalist
Georgi Markov.

JACK BARSKY:
Markov was a dissident

in Bulgaria, and he was loud.

And, uh, he... he had to flee.

He wound up
in the United Kingdom,

and he got employed
by, uh, the BBC

and Radio Free Europe,

which we absolutely hated
because it was

Western propaganda
directed to the East.

And he got louder and louder,

and, uh, the Bulgarians,

I think it was the president,

he wanted
to get rid of this guy.

SHATNER: On September 7, 1978,

at around 1:30 p.m.,

Markov was about to catch a bus

on the Waterloo Bridge
in London,

when something
very strange happens.

NIGEL WEST:
Georgi Markov bumps
into somebody

at a bus stop,

and this individual

is carrying an umbrella.

And Georgi Markov feels

some pain in his leg.

And the individual concerned

mutters an apology
and climbs into a taxi.

And Markov,
from that moment onwards,

becomes ill.

He goes to hospital
later that night,

and a few days later,

he succumbs
to a very severe infection.

SPENCE:
Doctors who've examined his body

found red swelling
on the back of his thigh

and, in
a microscopic examination

of the flesh
from the wound site,

they discovered a tiny,

tiny, less than
two-millimeter size little ball,

mostly made out of platinum,

which had holes drilled in it

as a means
to administer a poison.

The poison, which has never
been officially identified,

was most likely ricin,

which is a highly
toxic substance,

which is refined
from castor beans.

SHATNER:
How was this
deadly platinum ball

implanted into Georgi Markov?

Answers were not
easy to come by, but then,

investigators remembered
one seemingly minor detail

that may provide
all the answers.

SPENCE:
They thought,
"Ah, that umbrella.

Eh, what was that all about?"

And later, we learn that
one of the things that both

the KGB and the Bulgarians
had come up with

was an umbrella gun.

They had a whole lab
working on this.

And there was
a little tiny capsule,

it was in the tip
of the umbrella,

which had a needle on it,

and you'd just poke somebody
and then walked away.

BUSTAMANTE:
How do you kill somebody
in plain daylight,

in public, without
anybody knowing about it?

And the answer is
that you find a way

to create some sort
of device, like an umbrella,

that blends in every day,

but can still deliver a lethal
dose when you need it to.

-(umbrella clicks)
-(man grunts)

This is exactly what makes

spy agencies and spy tech

something of
interest and renown,

because there's
a great deal of effort,

a great deal of investment

that's put into making
a clandestine weapon.

SHATNER:
The umbrella suspected
of killing Georgi Markov

was never recovered,
so investigators

had no way
to definitively confirm

such a device was
responsible for his murder.

But as far as the identity
of the mysterious assassin

who bumped into Markov,

well... that's another mystery.

BARSKY:
When it comes
to assassinating people,

we know that the KGB did
quite a... quite a bit of that,

and we know that the Russian
intelligence does it now, too.

There's an arsenal of weapons.

And Markov was
a very loud dissident.

So, he was an enemy
of the revolution,

and he had to be killed.

But the man who was seen

to stick that umbrella
into Markov's leg,

I think he got away with this.

ANDREW HAMMOND:
What history says about the
assassination of Georgi Markov

is a little similar
to "Who was Jack the Ripper?"

"Who killed JFK?"

What's the final
definitive story?

Hopefully, we'll know one day,
maybe we never will.

SHATNER:
Today, a replica of
the notorious umbrella

hangs in the International
Spy Museum's collection.

And while it can never be
proven that a similar device

was used
to poison Georgi Markov,

one thing is certain:

The deadly tools of spy craft

could be made
to look like anything,

and you wouldn't know it

until it's too late.

SPENCE: In terms of

what could be
future spy weapons,

secret spy gadgets
they could come up with,

well, one of them
is tiny, tiny drones

that could fly
inside you, perhaps,

administer poisons,
carry tiny cameras.

The use of frequency weapons
might be something else.

Essentially, some sort
of energy beam

which is being
directed at people,

affecting the brain in some way,

which would create
feelings of disorientation,

and if it managed to

discombobulate
the right targets,

it could interfere with

their ability
to perform their duties.

So, energy weapons
could be useful

in the world of spies.

But yes, there's
a secret war to always try

to be one step
ahead of your opponent

by coming up with something that
they hadn't thought of... yet.

And it can be someone
passing you by with an umbrella.

Was the assassination
of Georgi Markov

the work of Soviet intelligence?

Like the top secret nature
of espionage itself,

there's a lot we may never know.

But there is one spy mystery

that has intelligence
officers worried, even now.

It involves a foreign asset

who infiltrated
the American government

intent on stealing
national secrets.

SHATNER:
President Harry Truman

establishes the Central
Intelligence Agency.

In the wake of World War II,

and with the rise
of atomic weaponry,

a new covert war
is about to begin

between the United States
and the Soviet Union.

This unprecedented era
of espionage

from 1947 to 1991 is known

as the Cold War.

LUBIN:
At the start of the Cold War
as we know it in the 1950s,

the U.S. realized
that it needed to advance

its internal security measures.

This is why Truman

would ultimately generate
a presidential executive order

on confidential materials,

which still, to this day,
is the way by which

we set different degrees
of confidentiality

around secret documents
here in the United States.

SHATNER:
During the Cold War,
both the CIA

and the Soviet Union's KGB

employed spies
to steal each other's

national secrets.

And while any civilian
could be recruited

to spy on their home country
for the other side,

even more valuable
were those already working

in the intelligence community.

These turncoats are known as...

double agents.

HAMMOND:
To be a double agent,

for example, I'm an agent.

I'm working
with the CIA over here.

But I'm also working
with the KGB over here.

I'm a double agent
in the middle.

But it's quite often used
in shorthand to refer

to anybody who works
in this world

who also works
for the other side.

LUBIN:
There will be a closed universe
of individuals in the know

about particular secrets,

and you need to penetrate those
kinds of closed networks.

And so, the best way
to do that is by

turning a double agent,

a person,
into an information sharer.

SHATNER: The U.S.
intelligence community

is made up of 18 different
agencies and organizations.

So, we have to wonder,

are there
double agents among them,

sharing our most
closely guarded secrets

with our enemies?

Remarkably, the answer is yes.

And many consider the most
damaging double agent ever

discovered was
a 31-year veteran of the CIA

named Aldrich Ames.

WEST:
Aldrich Ames was
a counterintelligence officer

in the directorate

of operations.

And he was a senior individual

who in 1985,

as a result of a bad divorce,

was short of money,

and he sold out to the Soviets.

He just simply went
to the embassy,

asked to speak to a KGB officer,

and then sold information
through letters,

which was highly classified
operations,

and a large number of identities

who were people who had worked
either for the FBI or the CIA

in the Soviet embassy
in Washington, D.C.

MORAN:
There were suspicions

that there was a spy
within the CIA

because in the 1980s,

many of our Russian sources

in Russia

started kind of dropping
like flies.

And this set off
alarm bells at the CIA.

And so an investigation
was launched.

But, bizarrely, it took many,
many years to realize

that it was Aldrich Ames,

even though
Aldrich Ames displayed

many of the characteristics

of what would be
a viable target for recruitment.

He had a known problem
with alcohol.

He had married a Colombian woman
who had very expensive tastes.

He bought a house
in Virginia with cash

for $540,000.

He bought a Jaguar.

He started to dress really well.

He got new teeth.

And all of these are
pretty obvious indicators

that someone is working for
a foreign intelligence service

because he couldn't afford
all that on his CIA salary.

Aldrich Ames is
one of the most famous

CIA compromises of all times.

He went many, many years
clandestinely acquiring

and giving information
to the Russians

until his ultimate arrest
in the 1990s.

It's very difficult
to be able to quantify

the amount of damage
that Aldrich Ames did.

We know that CIA spies were
systematically killed.

And even to this day,

CIA is always training
new recruits

to understand Aldrich Ames

to make sure
that they don't have

another instance like that
happen again.

SHATNER:
Aldrich Ames was sentenced
to life in prison.

And his wife, Rosario,
got five years for aiding

her husband in his crimes
against the United States.

But Ames was not the only
double agent discovered inside

an American intelligence agency.

In 2001,

an FBI agent named
Robert Hanssen was arrested

for selling
highly classified information

to Russia for over 20 years.

And it begs an urgent question:

How many more double agents
might be operating

within the American
intelligence community

right now
that have never been caught?

LUBIN:
It is very likely that there is
a Russian double agent

within
the U.S. government today.

In the same way,
it is very likely

that there is a double agent

working
for the Chinese government

or the Iranian government
or the North Korean government.

The United States has
many enemies around the world,

and those enemies are
interested in gathering

intimate information
about U.S. doings.

BUSTAMANTE:
It's very uncomfortable
to admit,

but one thing
that CIA officers are taught

right out of the gates

is that you must always assume
at any given time

that the CIA and the FBI are

penetrated by a foreign
intelligence service.

We have to assume that.

If we're lucky,
there's only one.

Probability-wise,
there is more than one.

Could there really be
a foreign spy

deeply embedded
in a U.S. intelligence agency?

Unraveling this mystery is truly
a matter of national security

because gaining
secret information on an enemy

can quickly shift
the balance of global power.

Such was the case
in World War II,

when Allied forces
were convinced

that a German
double agent was leaking

D-Day plans to the Nazis,

one letter at a time.

SHATNER:
As World War II rages
across Europe,

the Allied forces spent
five months

planning a top secret invasion

to recapture the French
coastal town of Dieppe.

But on August 19th,

as the Allies began
their surprise assault...

...it seems that somehow

the Germans knew
they were coming.

McMAHON: The attack on Dieppe
was a disaster for the Allies.

Something like half
of the 6,000 troops

who land are either killed

or taken prisoner.

And so the concern was

that classified information
was being sent

to the Axis powers,
to the Nazis.

And that using code breakers

or spies,

the attack had been foiled,

had been discovered
by the Axis powers.

GENTILE: The Allies are
repelled by the Nazis

and the mission is a failure.

And then people wanted
to know why.

The defeat was so stunning

that British intelligence MI5
started looking for reasons.

How did the Nazis know
the invasion was happening?

So it was suspected
that there could be a spy

sending messages to the Nazis

to alert them
of upcoming attacks.

SHATNER: After the failed
Dieppe invasion,

British intelligence launched
an investigation

to find a potential Nazi spy
in their midst.

And in the process, they noticed
something rather peculiar.

Just two days before
the surprise invasion on Dieppe,

in the British newspaper
The Daily Telegraph

a curious clue appeared
in that day's crossword puzzle.

Around August 18, 1942,
something very strange happened

in the Telegraph's crossword.

The crossword puzzle clue was
"A French port."

The answer was Dieppe.

The big question was,

was the word Dieppe in
the crossword puzzle innocent?

Or was it a warning to the Nazis

alerting them
that an attack was imminent?

Is it possible
that the Dieppe attack failed

because of that crossword
puzzle answer?

SHATNER: Was a spy sending
top secret Allied intelligence

to the Nazis

through crossword puzzles?

After interrogating
the creator of the crossword,

a mild-mannered school teacher
named Leonard Dawe,

British intelligence concluded

that the puzzle's use
of the word "Dieppe..."

...was nothing more
than a "remarkable coincidence."

It seemed the case was closed
until two years later,

when code words started

to appear in
the newspaper's puzzle again.

McMAHON:
In 1944, the Allies were
planning the D-Day invasion

amidst a huge blanket
of secrecy.

And once again...
(chuckles)

the Daily Telegraph crossword

starts spitting out

information that should not be
in the public domain.

GENTILE:
About three weeks
before the invasion,

in the Daily Telegraph,
in the crossword puzzle,

the code word "Utah" appears.

Then a few days later,
the code word "Omaha" appears.

These are the two beaches where
the American forces will land.

Then the next puzzle,

the code word "Overlord"
appears.

That's the name
of the entire mission.

This is becoming terrifying.

Then the word "Neptune" appears.

That's the code word for
the British warships for D-Day.

And then the word
"Mulberry" appears.

That's the code word
for the portable docks

that were built
across the channel.

When these code words
started appearing,

it-it was too much
of a coincidence.

MI5 were gonna get
to the bottom of it.

Especially after Dieppe.

Once again,
their search eventually led them

to the author
of the puzzle, Leonard Dawe.

Is this the Nazi spy?

And finally, it was determined

that as a reward
to some of the boys

at the boys' school,
he would let them pick the word

to put in the crossword.

And there just happened to be

a lot of Allied soldiers
stationed nearby.

The kids hear
these weird words--

Omaha, Utah--

and they say, "Let's put
those in the puzzle."

Not realizing

they're about to give away
the biggest invasion in history.

SHATNER:
Could the appearance
of secret code names

in British crossword puzzles

have been simply
an extraordinary coincidence,

or was it a clever
spy craft tool?

We may never know for sure.

Like in the case
of another wordplay

70 years after World War II

that some believed was intended

to have deadly consequences.

MORAN:
In 2012, in Venezuela,

there was speculation

that a crossword puzzle

in the daily paper contained
coded messages

that were meant
to signal a threat

against the brother
of President Hugo Chávez.

There was "Asesinen,"
which means "to kill."

There was "Ráfagas," which means
"Burst of machine gun fire,"

and there was also the first
name of Chávez's brother.

And so all of this led
to the conspiracy theory

or conspiracy thought

that this must mean
that an assassination attempt

was on the horizon
of Chávez's brother.

The government essentially
accused the newspaper

and the designer
of this crossword puzzle

of a plot and of transmitting
this coded threat.

Whether or not this actually was

an indication
of an imminent threat

against Chávez's brother,
I don't know.

SHATNER:
No attempt on Adán Chávez's
life was made,

or at least
publicly acknowledged.

If spies really do send
secret messages

via crossword puzzles, it's
still a matter of speculation

and perhaps an ingenious method

to share confidential
information in plain sight.

There are aspects of that

that certainly match
typical trade craft.

So it's not
preposterous to think

that a crossword puzzle could be
used to deliver a coded message.

In fact, that's a very

brilliant way
that you might convey

a coded message to a spy.

Sending covert messages through
newspaper crossword puzzles is

truly a clever way
to share secret information.

But there was also
a simpler tool spies used

during the Second World War
to communicate in code

over vast distances.

All you needed was a radio.

SHATNER:
With $10,000 in his pocket,

29-year-old Soviet spy
Albrecht Dittrich arrives

in the United States.

Using a stolen
birth certificate,

he adopts the alias Jack Barsky
and begins a ten-year mission

to spy on Americans
as a sleeper agent for the KGB.

JACK BARSKY:
A sleeper agent is somebody

who, uh, establishes himself
in enemy territory

and integrates in society
and then waits for the day

when it's time
to spring into action.

My mission
in the United States focused

on me getting close to people

who make
foreign policy decisions

and/or influence foreign policy.

This is towards
the end of the Cold War

where there was
a spy war going on

between the CIA and the KGB.

And the tensions were very high.

SHATNER:
After relocating
to New York City,

Barsky married
and began a family.

He also took a job
at an insurance company

to maintain his cover

working
as a computer programmer.

BARSKY:
I had access to lots
and lots of data.

And some of the data would've
been very important for the KGB.

But there was never
a meeting between me

and another KGB agent on the
territory of the United States.

I got my instructions
and answers to questions

through shortwave radio.

Every Thursday at 9:15,

I had to turn on
my shortwave radio,

dial my frequency,
listen to the call signal,

Morse code,
only digits, no letters

and then start
writing down the numbers.

And there you have your message.

SHATNER:
For nearly ten years,

Barsky's primary tool
for communicating with the KGB

was through a kind
of shortwave radio broadcast

known as a numbers station.

Number stations are essentially
pirate radio stations.

You need to register
a radio station.

Number stations are not
registered.

(radio static)

They were discovered
almost accidentally

during the Cold War.

You had ham radio operators

bouncing around
different frequencies,

talking to each other
all over the world.

And then, they would hit
upon a certain channel

and suddenly you hear

a robotic voice
repeating numbers.

(female voice speaking
foreign language)

GENTILE:
...or you hear

some kind of music
or flute or buzzing sounds.

(beeping, buzzing)

It feels like you're
eavesdropping

on something secret,

but you don't know
what they're saying.

MORAN:
Number stations can
transmit signals

to sources globally,
and they can do so undetected,

because to anyone else,

it might just sound like buzzing

or like a series of noises.

(buzzing)

But what they're transmitting
are coded signals

to a source in place, or a spy.

So even though
they're very low tech,

they're very effective...

(indistinct radio chatter)

MORAN:
...because they're able

to exist and to communicate

under the radar.

(indistinct radio chatter)

SHATNER:
During the Cold War,
both the United States

and the Soviet Union regularly
employed number stations

to communicate
with their agents in the field.

But if anyone with a radio can
tune in to hear the broadcast,

how are these coded
spy messages kept secret?

Well, according to experts,

it's an unbreakable
method of encryption.

A simple piece of paper
known as...

a one-time pad.

A one-time pad has
little numbers on them.

And there's two
identical versions.

One is for the encoding
of a message,

and the other one is
for the decoding.

(indistinct radio chatter)

So you would hear something

like "Nine, seven, six, four,"

and then
you could use the decoder

to decrypt your message.

HAMMOND:
A one-time pad is a sheet
of paper with banks of numbers.

You use this and someone else

that you're trying
to communicate with

uses that same pad.

The two of you can
then communicate,

but it's called a one-time pad

because after you've used it,
you then destroy it.

Assuming that you destroy it,

you can then go on to use
the next one-time pad.

And if you keep using it,
sticking to the protocol,

it's uncrackable.

SHATNER:
If number stations have proven
so effective in the past,

the real question is,
are spies still sending

and receiving coded messages
through them today?

(voice warbling)

BUSTAMANTE:
Even today,

you can flip through
the different channels

and you can hear things
over the radio

that don't make any sense.

Whether they're
verses being read

or whether they're words
being said nonsensically

or whether they're numbers

that are shouted out
to the blindness of space.

(indistinct radio chatter)

So it's very possible
somewhere in there

there's a spy message
that's sent

for a very specific person
at a very specific time

in a very specific way.

ROBOTIC FEMALE VOICE:
One, three...

SHATNER:
If spies are still
receiving messages

via number stations today,
we'll obviously never know.

But what many experts believe
may be even more concerning

when it comes
to national security

aren't relics from the past

but the technologies of today.

SHATNER:
While doing routine
computer maintenance,

a defense contractor finds

evidence that Russian spies
hacked into the base's network

to access
top secret intelligence

from the Pentagon, NASA,
and other U.S. agencies.

It is the first major
cyber espionage operation

that we know of
in modern history.

BUSTAMANTE:
One of the big advancements
in espionage is

something known as the cyber spy

or the spy who lives behind

a digital wall of some sort.

They can steal information,
they can sell information,

they can live and hide
on the dark web.

This is a whole new development,
and with that development,

there's new opportunities
and there's new risks.

We have new technology
that cyber spies can use

to meet in cyberspace.

You can meet with them
on video game platforms,

you can meet with them
in chat rooms,

you can meet with them using

commercially
encrypted technology

that you and I carry
on our phone.

Which makes everything that much
more difficult to track,

not just for the FBI

or for the internal
investigation agency,

but for anyone to see anywhere.

SHATNER:
Advancing technology has

empowered cyber spies to not
only hack government secrets

but also exchange
that information

in complete anonymity.

But some cyber spies are not

interested
in stealing information

but rather to influence
the very beliefs

of their adversaries.

BARSKY: There's a place called
the Internet Research Agency

in St. Petersburg, Russia where

there's a couple of hundred
nerds that produce

these artificial personas,

and then they go on social media
and befriend real people...

...and they search out groups

that are ideologically oriented.

It could be particularly
in politics,

it could be the right wing
and it could be left.

And what they're after is

to create confusion
in enemy territory.

I can give you an example.

When you're talking
about election interference,

they planted misinformation.

What they do is raising doubts
about the American system.

These cyber spies are
extremely dangerous.

SHATNER:
According to America's
Cyber Defense Agency CISA,

during the 2024
U.S. presidential election,

foreign adversaries conducted
influence operations

intended to undermine
the integrity of U.S. elections.

And while we can't say for sure

how espionage will
continue to evolve,

we know that as long
as there are secrets,

there will be spies.

BUSTAMANTE:
The future of secrets is,

in many ways, what will shape
the future of espionage.

But that doesn't mean
that the history of espionage is

any less useful
than it was in the past.

It's the foundation,

it's the bedrock on which
everything else is built.

And no matter where
our future takes us, we know

that those building blocks
of espionage,

those core fundamentals

will always be present
and always be there.

There will always be people
meeting with people

in dark corners to share secrets
that nobody knows about.

In the world of spy craft,
everything is unexplained.

And your job
as an intelligence officer is

to try to gather
that information

that will help explain it.

The anomaly of spy craft is

that you're charged
with seeking out the truth.

And the reality is
you can never be

100% sure that you've
gotten to the truth.

You may never have the answers.

While it appears
that the digital age may be

changing the art of spy craft,

it's pretty safe to say

that as long as there are
secrets worth stealing,

there will be spies
hard at work.

And although we are intrigued

by the elusive
double agent at the CIA

or even the assassin who killed
with the probe of an umbrella,

it's likely
that most tales of espionage

and the covert agents
who operate undetected

will stay top secret
and remain...

...unexplained.

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