Original subtitles

- [Dan narrating]

[eerie music]

- Imagine trying to blast a dictator out of hiding

using heavy metal music.

- The priests and nuns of the embassy,

they can't take it.

They want Noriega there.

- They beg the US military to turn off this racket.

Even the Pope gets involved.

- Or declaring war on emus.

- The emu is not a dumb bird.

They split up and they start running in multiple directions.

- Some of them take fire and keep going.

It's just so mind boggling.

- How about defeating a squad of guerrilla fighters

with vampires?

- Lansdale has this idea of really learning the enemy

and finding out about the superstitions

that are popular in this culture.

- Instead of having a direct military confrontation,

they're going to use psychological operations.

- These are the missions so shocking,

they are truly unbelievable.

[dramatic music]

During the Cold War,

there seems to be no limit

to how far the US will go to fight communism,

but once you turn cats into super spies

or capture the enemy using weaponized dolphins,

what's next?

- It's the 1950s and somewhere deep inside Langley,

the CIA's headquarters,

the brain trust is hatching a plan.

What better way to challenge

the masculine, aggressive Soviet empire

than to hit 'em where it hurts?

- The plan is as crazy as it is simple.

What they're gonna do

is take extra, extra large condoms

that are clearly stamped "Made in America,"

and they're gonna re stamp them as size small.

Then they're gonna drop them over Soviet territory.

- The idea is upon discovering

these American small condoms,

they will see an extra extra large

and they'll say, "That's an American small? Uh-oh."

And it will break the Soviet fighting man's spirit,

knowing that they are not as well endowed as the US of A.

- Overall, the idea is actually not too bad.

It's cheap, it's easy to execute.

This actually seems like a pretty good plan.

- Reportedly, the CIA is on the cusp

of launching this mission

when it finds its way to the ears

of some of the higher ups

and they hit the brakes on this;

they pull the plug.

This just seems a little too bonkers,

a little too crazy,

and Operation Condom Drop is quickly put on the shelf.

- While this mission never actually gets up and running,

the CIA does something even stranger

to scare the hell out of communists in Southeast Asia.

- The Philippines has a somewhat complicated history

with the United States.

From 1898 to 1941, it's an American territory.

But during World War II, Japan invades

[plane engines roar] [gunshots fire]

and they occupy the Philippines.

- In the aftermath of the Second World War,

the country exists as a free democratic republic,

but the United States has influenced there

because the United States has interests there.

- Even though America claimed

to give the Philippines its independence,

they were still controlling the resources of the country.

- The United States,

through the Central Intelligence Agency,

is attempting to influence Philippine elections

to ensure that they elect the right people-

and the right people means not communist.

- [Dan] But not everyone is happy about this arrangement

and by 1950, all hell is breaking loose.

- There is a guerilla group, the Hukbalahap,

and they have an agenda.

- They want to create a self-sufficient Philippines

with no external influence,

but they need to create a fighting force.

The Huks start working their way through the country,

going to villages to recruit people;

saying, "You can either join us or we will kill you."

So naturally most people join up.

- And this method is working quite well

because by 1950, there are 70,000 Huk revolutionaries

that are willing to take up arms

and they're going to take over

the central government in Manila.

- [Dan] Fearing the Philippines will turn communist,

the US decides to intervene.

- The man who oversees this operation for the CIA

is named Edward Lansdale,

and he's an advertising guy.

And he starts to think about creative,

outside the box ways

that they can maybe solve this problem.

- Instead of having a direct military confrontation,

they're gonna use psychological operations.

- Lansdale has this idea of really learning the enemy

and finding out about the superstitions

that are popular in this culture.

- [Dan] During their research,

Lansdale and his men come across a being

known as the Aswang vampire.

- The Aswang vampire presents itself

as a beautiful woman with wings

and a mouth full of razor sharp teeth;

and she lives in the forests

among the people where she can strike and get you.

- [Dan] In the early 1950s,

the US brings this legend to life

and Project Aswang officially kicks off.

- Just outside of a small village,

there are 300 Huk fighters

that have started an encampment

with a mission to convince and persuade

these villagers to join their cause.

- This gives the CIA

the opportunity to implement their plan.

They start spreading the rumor among the villages

around this concentration of Huk fighters

that there is an Aswang nearby in the forest,

and they know that as the rumor

spreads through the villages,

it's also gonna spread to the Huk fighters.

- A few days later,

once Lansdale feels that the rumor

has spread enough amongst the Huks,

it's time for him to strike.

- [Dan] CIA operatives begin stalking

a Huk patrol in the dark forest.

- As the Huks are moving along a trail,

the CIA operatives quietly wait for them to pass.

As the last man in the patrol passes by,

one of the operatives sneaks up behind him,

snatches him off the trail and into the bushes.

- They end up killing this fighter

and they puncture two holes in his neck.

And then they hang him by his feet from a tree

and the blood in his body

drains out via these two holes.

- When his comrades come looking for him,

what they find is someone who, to all appearances,

has been killed by an Aswang vampire.

- [Dan] Once the rest of the squad gets wind of this,

all 300 fighters flee.

But then there's an even bigger, unexpected outcome.

- The villagers themselves feel like

if the Aswang is targeting Huk fighters,

the last thing I want to do is join the Huk.

And eventually, without the support of the villagers,

the Huk dissolves away.

- Definitely an effective strategy,

but sometimes achieving a mission

means getting a little more down and dirty.

[tense music]

- British spies are often considered

the best of the best

and the creme de la creme are known as MI6.

And during the Cold War,

MI6 is really at its peak.

- [Dan] Alongside NATO forces,

MI6 launches a secret mission

to gather information from Soviet-controlled East Germany,

called Operation Tamarisk.

- It's not what you picture

when you imagine a conventional espionage operation,

where a agent is slipping into

an office building at night

and secretly using one of those little tiny spy cameras

to photograph vitally important documents;

that's not what happens in Tamarisk.

- [Dan] To steal intelligence,

MI6 exploits the struggling East German economy;

especially a shortage in one vital consumer product.

- The Soviets are in an arms race with the United States.

This is a very expensive arms race

and the last thing they wanna spend money on

are household items including toilet paper.

- [Dan] Thanks to this,

even soldiers are forced to improvise when nature calls.

- They start to realize that they're literally using

any type of paper they can get their hands on.

Now sometimes this could mean letters from home,

it could mean receipts for supplies,

but then sometimes it might also be classified documents.

- [Dan] Word spreads quickly.

The race is on to discover

the communists' dirty secrets.

- In one mission, you have two British spies

who are hiding out near a firing range

where the Soviet soldiers are practicing.

They wait for the soldiers to finish up and then take off.

- The two operatives then move in

and they go through the septic system.

- These British spies show

a whole new level of dedication.

They have to sort through the muck soil

and everything else in order to find documents.

- They find a lot of what

you would expect to be in there,

but they also find the paper

that the troops have been using to wipe themselves.

- [Dan] The agents take these papers back to an office

to be cleansed, reassembled, and analyzed.

What they find is a treasure trove.

- There are cipher code translations,

there are reports on troop morale.

You've even got detailed instructions on troop movements.

- [Dan] The mission is so successful,

MI6 doubles down and sends spies

to an abandoned Soviet military encampment at Neustrelitz.

- These two MI6 spies start digging

their way through the latrine

and what they come across

is an entire military log.

- It contains valuable information

about the latest Russian tanks in service

and incredibly, includes a report

on the weak points inherent in those tanks.

- [Dan] Thanks to this unlikely intelligence source,

the British create a tank busting missile

that is still in use today.

But even the strangest missions have an expiration date.

- Operation Tamarisk cannot last forever.

As the eighties go on,

the Russians are able to solve

some of their economic problems,

the soldiers get some comfy toilet paper

and no longer do British spies

have to crawl into Soviet latrines.

- As crazy as stealing secrets

from Soviet toilets might sound,

Operation Tamarisk goes down

as the single most effective intelligence operation

throughout the entire Cold War.

- In ancient Egypt,

cats are the embodiment of all things sacred,

bringing good luck to all they come across.

1700 years later,

one Pope disagrees and takes action.

- It's the thirteenth century

and from 1227 until 1241,

Pope Gregory the ninth is the ultimate religious leader

of the western world.

He's the head of the Catholic church,

his word is infallible,

no one is closer to God than Pope Gregory.

- And Pope Gregory is most definitely not a cat person.

In fact, he believes that cats

are the reincarnation of Satan himself.

- [Dan] Just where does the Pope's strong opinion come from?

- Conrad von Marberg is Gregory the ninth papal inquisitor

and his task is to extract confessions and punish heretics.

Through the course of these torture interrogations,

Conrad unearths a satanic cult in Mainz Germany

that worships a half Lucifer,

half cat-like devil being.

- They conduct a black mass in a satanic church

around a statue of a giant cat

who, after a while, comes to life

and the followers go around

and kiss the cat on the butt

and then they have a giant orgy.

- [Dan] Once Pope Gregory learns

about this satanic cat cult,

he issues an official decree in 1233

condemning all cats to hell.

- Some people take this directive

to mean that cats should be destroyed.

- [Dan] Priests and peasants alike

are enlisted in the shocking mission

and the great cat hunt begins.

- Entire communities go on

these brutal hunts to find cats

and when they catch them,

they burn them alive

or they toss them off of tall buildings.

- [Dan] It's not just our furry friends being slaughtered.

- People who are harboring cats

are branded Satan worshiping cat lovers

and they too are subjected to torture and even death,

simply for refusing to kill the cats.

- [Dan] Pope Gregory's cat killing mission

goes on for decades,

but it's the cats who ultimately get the last meow.

- Around a century after Pope Gregory's war on cats,

the bubonic plague rages through Europe,

killing 25 million.

And the culprit? Rats.

[rats squeak and chitter] [tense music]

But you know who's particularly effective at catching rats?

These cats that have been so mercilessly hunted,

so cats begin falling back into favor.

- Lucky for all us feline lovers,

cats make a triumphant come back.

Today there are an estimated 600 million cats on the planet

and I'm sure only some of them are evil.

Unbelievably, 700 years later,

another war is declared on a different animal;

this time down under.

- It's just after World War I

and the Australian government decides to do something

really special for Australian fighters

that come home from the war.

They give the soldiers a plot of land to become farmers

and the 1920s are a great decade for that.

- [Dan] Soon these veterans turned farmers are thriving

until an unexpected rival swoops in.

- The emu is a flightless bird.

They're six feet tall, about 120 pounds.

They're really fast, but they're also really hungry.

- [Dan] Australia's 20,000 emus begin feasting

on the thriving new farmlands,

causing millions of dollars in lost crops.

- If you're a farmer, typically what you might do

is you might take your claim to the agriculture department,

but these aren't only farmers, they're veterans;

so they decide to go to the Ministry of Defense.

- The farmers meet with George Pierce

and their plan is to create an army of well-armed men

to go out and significantly deplete the emu population.

- [Dan] This doesn't exactly

sit well with the government

who reminds them that the emu

is Australia's national bird,

- But Pierce is adamant and he says,

"No, no, no, no. I have a plan.

We're gonna use machine guns

because that'll make the death quick and painless.

And on top of that, this will be seen as a good act

to aid the veterans that fought in World War I."

- [Dan] Apparently Pierce makes a strong case

because parliament gets on board

and officially declares war on emus in 1932.

- The program gets off to a roaring start

when an Australian artillery officer

by the name of G.P.W. Meredith

goes out into an area called Campion

for the purposes of exterminating

the emu population there.

- [Dan] With a herd of about

a hundred emus in their sights,

they begin firing.

[gunshots fire] [tense music]

Then the emus do something they're very good at.

- The emu is not a dumb bird, they're smart,

and they split up and they start running

in multiple directions in smaller groups,

at 40 miles an hour!

- These emu are pretty freaking hard to hit.

They blast into a pack of a hundred, they hit five.

- A handful of emus sadly do get shot,

but some of them take fire and keep going.

It's just so mind boggling

that Major Meredith compares these emus to tanks.

- [Dan] After the emus outsmart them at Campion,

the army works on a different approach.

They're going to mount the Lewis machine gun

on the back of a Jeep,

so they can travel at the same speed as the emu

and fire from the back.

- Problem with this:

it is rough terrain,

so the Jeep is just bouncing up and down the whole way.

Bullets fly everywhere.

Emus are just like, "That's stupid,"

and they scatter once again.

- And again, the outcome is the same: mission failure.

- [Dan] It's now emus two, Aussies nil.

But the soldiers aren't ready to give up.

- Now, Major Meredith and his men

think they've got these emus figured out.

They know the guerrilla tactics of these emus.

They know how they run,

they know where they rest,

they know what directions they spread in.

And with this information

they start carrying out these new missions

and they start to show more success.

- [Dan] Pierce goes back to parliament three weeks later,

proudly touting that he and his men

have killed almost 1000 emus.

- Parliament just kind of looks at him and goes,

"Didn't you say there were 20,000 emus

and you've only managed to kill a thousand of them?"

- They lambast him with insults,

going so far as to even suggest that,

maybe medals should be given to the emu?

- With an unbelievable amount of ammunition

and manpower wasted,

Parliament ultimately decides

to give the victory to the emus

and the mission is declared an unmitigated failure.

- After the emus win the war of 1932,

they continue to wreak havoc on farmers

and their crops for years.

That is, until a worthy opponent appears: better fencing.

- On October 4th, 1957,

the Russians successfully launched

the first satellite into space.

It's called Sputnik 1

and the United States is not very happy about it.

- America at that time doesn't really like it

when Russia beats us to the punch on anything,

especially when it comes to space and weaponry.

- [Dan] The biggest fear among us military brass

is that next the Soviets will beat America to the moon.

- America has to do something

to catch up with the Soviets,

so NASA turns to the Air Force and said,

"Hey, let's work together.

We know it sounds crazy,

but let's just think of every out of the box idea you can

and let's get 'em."

- [Dan] Instead of sending a man to the moon,

the Air Force suggests something much more unbelievable.

- So the idea from the Air Force

is to blow up an atomic bomb on the moon.

- As crazy as it sounds,

the Air Force actually suggests

that we send a nuclear weapon to the moon

and create a mushroom cloud

big enough for everyone to see all over the world.

- The crater that it leaves behind

is going to be ongoing perpetual evidence of supremacy.

They want everyone on Earth

to look up at that thing

and know that it is an American crater.

- What they want to do with this

is send a warning sign,

don't mess with us.

- [Dan] Incredibly, NASA doesn't immediately

shoot down the idea.

In fact, they give it the green light.

- They call this mission Project A119,

and they bring together this team of genius scientists,

including a young graduate student

by the name of Carl Sagan.

They propose using a W25 warhead

that has a 1.7 kiloton yield

and they want to strap it to a ballistic missile

and shoot it straight up to the moon.

- [Dan] But before they can push

the launch button on project A119,

the government abruptly shuts down the mission.

- There are concerns that the weapon might misfire

and come down somewhere in the United States-

or worse yet, come down somewhere in Russia,

triggering a nuclear response from the Soviet Union.

- And then we're in full scale war.

[explosion booms] [ominous music]

- This mission was obviously classified,

so for a very long time,

nobody knew how close we came

to detonating a nuclear warhead on the moon.

- If trying to destroy the moon to best your enemy

sounds a bit brash,

why not do something a little more down to Earth?

This is the story of a property line dispute

and a deadly mission to have a better view.

- On August 18th, 1976,

over two decades after the conclusion of the Korean War,

fifteen soldiers from the United States and South Korea

enter the demilitarized zone, the DMZ.

They enter a specific area of the DMZ called the JSA,

Joint Security Area.

- The JSA is unique

because it's the only space in the demilitarized zone

where soldiers from the north and south can intermingle.

- [Dan] In the middle of this neutral zone

is a sprawling 100 foot poplar tree.

- South Korea and the United States

need clear line of sight of the DMZ.

North Korea could try to stage an invasion

or you could have a citizen that's trying to defect.

Its blocking the view of this particular area of the DMZ.

- The tree is an obvious security issue,

so the South Koreans and NATO decide to chop it down.

No big deal, right?

- [Dan] As it turns out, to the North Koreans,

it is a big deal.

- Here come the North Koreans,

30 soldiers under the command of Senior Lieutenant Pak Cheol

and he is known as Lieutenant Bulldog

for his history of starting fights

and scraps inside the JSA.

Bulldog tells the working group they have to stop.

This is a special tree.

It was planted by their current leader, Kim Ill Sung,

the founder of North Korea.

- Lieutenant Bulldog and his men

pull out crowbars, clubs and axes.

The South Koreans and Americans think they're bluffing,

so they go ahead and proceed to cut down the tree.

- It isn't a bluff.

Lieutenant Bulldogs shouts, [indistinct], or attack,

and the 30 North Koreans rush

the fifteen American and South Korean allies,

and a brutal bloody melee begins.

- [Dan] Two US Army officers,

Captain Arthur Bonifas and First Lieutenant Mark Barrett,

are killed in the skirmish.

- This is the United States of America

we're talking about here,

so there has to be a response,

but it can't be too much of a response

because now we risk sparking a full-fledged war.

However, we can't let North Korea get away

with killing two US service members.

- President Gerald Ford decides on

an appropriate response,

Operation Paul Bunyan.

They're simply gonna go and cut down the poplar tree,

but bring a little security just in case.

- Sixteen US and South Korean soldiers return with axes

and 60 special forces soldiers follow behind them.

They also bring tanks

and seven AH1 Cobra attack helicopters

that are circling overhead,

ready to strike.

- Gerald Ford also makes sure

that there are ten thousand more soldiers stand in reserve

with 12,000 more on the way.

- At that point,

around 150 North Korean soldiers

just stand there in silence,

watching them from the other side of the bridge.

Most notably, Lieutenant Bulldog?

Nowhere to be found.

- About 42 minutes later,

engineers lop off the top of the tree

and the whole crowd,

all of the assembled soldiers erupt in cheers.

And as each subsequent limb falls,

there's another cheer

from the South Korean and American side

until all that remains is a 20 foot stump.

They wanna leave this stump to remind everyone

that there was a tree here and we got rid of it.

- Today, the site of the tree

is marked by a stone memorial

to Captain Bonifas and Lieutenant Barrett.

- And that's the story of how World War III

was almost started over the chopping down of a tree.

- For thousands of years,

music has been used as a military tactic.

Drums, horns and singing have all been implemented

to raise morale and even intimidate the enemy.

But in Panama in 1989,

it gets turned up to a whole new level.

[tense music]

- General Manuel Noriega is a shady fellow.

Across the 1980s,

he more or less becomes the defacto dictator of Panama.

- He begins to traffic drugs via Panama's military

and he amasses a sizable fortune.

[crowds shout indistinctly]

- By the late 1980s,

Noriega is beginning to threaten

the US monopoly over the Panama Canal,

and the Panama Canal is the linchpin

to American economic activity in the hemisphere.

- [MJ] In 1989, when the country holds elections,

he rigs the election and chooses to remain in power.

- This is the last straw for the United States

and they demand that Noriega steps down.

Noriega resists and now we have a showdown.

- [Dan] On December 19th, 1989,

President George H.W. Bush orders 26,000 troops

to storm the capitol city and seize the dictator.

- The mission is called "Just Cause,"

and one of the first things the troops do

is trying to choke off Noriega's escape routes.

- They seize his Lear jet, sees his boat,

he has nowhere to go.

He's cornered.

- [Dan] That's when the general pulls a Hail Mary.

- Noriega is a very crafty man, as we found out.

I'm not sure exactly how it worked.

- General Noriega seeks refuge in an embassy-

but not just any embassy, the Vatican's embassy.

The troops can't enter

because the embassy is part of the Catholic church

and they are offering safe haven.

- [Dan] American forces bang their heads together

and decide on a plan that is as creative as it is loud.

- American intelligence knows

that he is a lover of the opera

and folks who love the opera

don't usually love heavy metal.

- [MJ] Operation Just Cause changes its trajectory.

They roll in a fleet of Humvees

with giant speakers mounted to them.

- [Dan] Then they start blaring rock music

at deafening levels,

attempting to blast the general out of hiding.

- The playlist is pretty perfect.

It includes hits like "I Fought The Law" by The Clash,

"We're Not Gonna Take it" by Twisted Sister,

and of course, "Panama" by Van Halen.

- The idea is that Noriega is going

to be completely unnerved

by all the hardcore metal screaming

that's coming out of these songs.

They'll essentially drive him nuts

and thereby drive him out of the embassy,

and into the waiting hands of the US military.

- After three days,

Noriega is not budging,

but there's a second order effect

on the priests and nuns of the embassy.

They can't take it,

they want Noriega outta there.

- They beg the US military to turn off this racket.

Even the Pope gets involved,

asking President Bush to knock this off.

- The Vatican Embassy tells Noriega

that he needs to give up

and if he doesn't give up,

they're gonna simply move the embassy

to a local Catholic high school,

and the US would be free under these conditions

to just walk in and take him.

- [Dan] Finally, after 10 days of heavy metal torture,

the general comes out, Bible in hand, and surrenders.

- Noriega is flown to Miami

where he stands trial for drug trafficking.

He is convicted and essentially is given a life sentence.

Noriega was a ruthless authoritarian dictator,

he was a hard criminal,

but hard rock is what brought him down.

- While days of musical torture

is enough to take down one dictator,

there are other ways

governments can mess with enemy minds.

[gentle music]

- There is a quiet little hamlet in the south of France

and the local mail carrier in this village,

Leon Armuniere is doing his regular postal route.

Everything seems normal and then he starts to feel unwell

and he falls off his bike.

[Leon crashes]

- He starts screaming.

[Leon screams]

He's yelling that his body is on fire,

that he's physically shrinking in size

and that massive snakes are coiling around him.

- So when Leon is taken to the hospital,

he's actually put into a straight jacket

and confined for his own safety

because he is experiencing hallucinations.

- [Dan] But it's not just the mailman.

All across town people are embarking

on this long strange trip.

- There's a report of a 20-year-old man

who tries to drown himself,

screaming that his belly is being eaten by snakes.

- You have a man who says, "I'm a plane!"

And then just proceeds to jump out of the window,

fall three stories and break both of his legs.

- And by the time it's all over,

300 people have been affected by it.

30 of them have been committed to asylums

and seven are dead.

- [Dan] So what's behind all this unusual behavior?

- Doctors believe it's actually from bread

ingested by the townspeople,

from one bakery in particular.

They suspect that some of the rye

was impacted by a fungus called ergot,

and now they believe that fungus is at work.

- Part of this theory makes sense,

ergot does cause hallucinations.

What's strange, though, is that there hasn't been

an ergot outbreak in France since 1816,

so it's a little suspect as a theory.

- [Dan] There's another very strange possibility.

- In the early 2000s a journalist named Hank Albarelli

is researching a book about Edgewood Arsenal.

- Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland

was a US military test facility

that ran between 1948 and 1975.

- And normally, Edgewood is conducting these experiments

on soldiers who volunteer.

- [Dan] The testing included

the effects of mustard gas, PCP and LSD.

- During his research, Albarelli claims

to find a top secret document

that was buried by the director of Edgewood Arsenal.

The document states that the Pont-St-Esprit incident

is not the result of a hallucinogenic fungus,

but in fact, CIA placed LSD

inside the dough of this bread

to see what the result would be on the people

of this small French town.

- [Dan] But why would the CIA

carry out a top secret mission

to make a bunch of French people hallucinate?

- This is during the Cold War.

This is a time when there are

all kinds of experiments happening

and Pont-St-Esprit may have been a place

where they just thought

they could quietly pull off an experiment

and see how it went.

- It is worth noting that the skeptics say that,

well, if you ingest that much LSD,

the effects should be immediate.

There shouldn't be a delayed response.

So the jury's still out as to whether

this is an example of just tainted flour

or if it was some sort of covert PSYOPs mission

that was carried out by the CIA.

We may never actually find out the truth.

- On a cold February morning in 1942, at 6:30 AM,

the Canadian city of Winnipeg

wakes up to what might just be their worst nightmare.

[tense music] [air raid sirens wail]

- Air raid sirens are blaring,

bombs are going off,

and as they leave their houses,

they hear a cacophony of machine gun fire

that seems to be getting closer.

- By 9:30 AM, it all turns quiet.

Over the Winnipeg radio,

it's announced that their mayor, their government,

have just surrendered to the Nazis.

- They see a sight they never expected:

hobnailed jackboot Nazis

marching past Portage and Main,

the main intersection in Winnipeg.

- This is a crazy moment.

You have tanks on every street corner,

the Nazi flag hanging at City Hall.

- [Dan] But don't worry,

this isn't something you missed

after you fell asleep in history class.

The Nazis never really invaded Winnipeg.

It's all part of a mission

to keep Canadians on their toes.

- It's part of a massive Canadian propaganda operation

that's supposed to awaken Canadians

to the potential danger of Nazi threats.

They call it "If Day."

- This is actually the largest military mobilization

in the history of the province of Manitoba.

3,500 men in German uniforms take to the city streets.

- The Nazis are actually reservists and volunteers

dressed in costumes and gear provided by Hollywood studios.

- [Dan] And these young soldiers

are taking their Nazi acting seriously.

- They board up synagogues, they burn books,

they go into shops, they go into restaurants,

they go into schools

and they verbally abuse and accost people.

This is what life would be like under Nazi occupation.

- [Dan] By 5:30 PM, the prisoners

along with Winnipeg's mayor,

are released and the staged occupation is over.

- The genesis of this idea for If Day

comes from the Greater Winnipeg Victory Loan Committee,

who believes that using fear

will be the best motivation for getting people

to contribute to the war effort.

- And it works.

Within days, 3 million Canadian dollars

are raised in war bonds.

Within weeks, you're talking about $65 million.

- This is one of the greatest fundraising schemes

ever put together.

- Not all missions need to frighten or destroy.

Some missions are there to make people feel good inside.

And for a mission like this to work,

all it takes is a sweet tooth.

- It's post World War II.

Germany has been split in half

and so has the city of Berlin.

- In June of 1948,

Joseph Stalin orders the closure of the transit road

which connects West Berlin,

across communist East Germany,

to West Germany.

Since nothing can be delivered by rail or by truck,

the only means of getting supplies

to 2 million people in the city of Berlin is the air.

- The United States needs to get supplies

to the people in Berlin,

so they create Operation Berlin Airlift.

- A 27-year-old American pilot,

Colonel Hal Halverson,

is involved in Berlin Airlift;

and as Halverson is reporting for duty

at Templehof Air Force Base,

he sees these kids on the other side of a fence.

- The kids are poor, they're hungry,

and they really strike at Hal's heart;

so he wants to give them something

to ease their suffering

and he reaches into his pocket

and all he has is two pieces of gum.

So he gives that to them.

- They're so excited to have these two pieces of gum

that it plants a seed in his mind,

and he comes up with a really unique idea.

- [Dan] Hal wants to use his plane

to bomb the children with candy.

- So he talks to people

and spreads his message around the base

about his mission to airdrop treats to these children

and everybody is on board.

They give them all the candy they have.

- So he and his fellow servicemen get together

and they have a little craft night.

They basically create these little candy parachutes.

They use handkerchiefs that they tie,

and at the bottom of their little knot,

they have pieces of candy.

- [Dan] On July 18th, 1948 Operation Little Vittles,

or Little Food, takes flight.

- They see a group of children down below

and then they start throwing

their little parachute candies out of the window.

- And they drop onto absolutely delighted children below.

They are screaming, "Candy is falling from the sky."

This is like a rare moment of joy in a time of war.

- [Dan] News of the heroic mission reaches the US

and Halverson is quickly dubbed the Berlin Candy Bomber.

- And when the candy makers hear about this,

they want to join in.

So they begin making candy for this mission

and donating it to Hal.

- By the end of the Berlin Airlift in 1949,

American troops had dropped 250,000 handkerchiefs of candy,

totaling about twenty three tons of sweet, sweet treats.

- Throughout history, many leaders have demanded

victory at all costs.

In the case of one mission,

all costs translates to something completely unexpected

and very expensive.

- It's March, 1968, and Soviet submarine K-129

is on patrol around 1500 miles northwest of Hawaii,

when an unknown catastrophic accident happens

and the submarine and its wreckage

sink to the floor of the Pacific,

three miles deep.

- [Dan] Using sonar, the US picks up signals

from this sunken submarine

and becomes very intrigued.

- This is the height of the Cold War.

It's a nuclear submarine,

it's armed with nuclear weapons.

If the United States could somehow get to this submarine,

the intelligence they could gather would be huge.

How they operate,

understanding what their weaknesses are,

how they can be targeted,

this is a massive treasure that they could plunder.

- President Nixon approves a CIA task force

to begin work on getting the sub out of the water.

So the CIA starts building the plan

that they will dub Project Azorian.

- The CIA goes out and hires a company called Global Marine

and they put together a terrific plan.

They want to essentially build a giant claw

just like those arcade games

that reaches down and picks up the toy,

and pulls it back up.

- [Dan] But this is no stuffed toy

and retrieving a vessel this big and deep

has never been done before.

- This is 1700 tons,

three hundred twenty feet long

that you have to get in one grab.

You basically have to bring

the whole thing up to the surface together.

- [Dan] To keep this mission on the down low,

the CIA asks for help from an unexpected patriot.

- For a cover story,

they enlist none other

than famed eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes

to say that he's building this ship in Long Beach

as a mining research vessel.

- Now using Hughes is the perfect cover

considering that Hughes has, in the past,

already spent millions of his dollars

on a sea plane that only flew once

and it earned the nickname the Spruce Goose.

- And it works.

For five years, no one questions

why Hughes would be building such a thing.

- [Dan] In the summer of 1974,

the Hughes Glomar Explorer set sail

on her covert mission from Long Beach, California.

- So the Glomar Explorer gets to the spot

and they essentially park right on top of it.

- [Dan] They slowly begin lowering

the giant claw device named the Clementine.

- It takes three weeks to get just in the right spot

to pick up that sub.

And once they start to lift it,

it takes eight whole days

for them to bring this sub to the surface.

- [Dan] Unfortunately, the vessel breaks apart

before it's out of the water,

leaving just a 38 foot section of the bow intact.

- But the CIA, not deterred.

They start making plans to try to go back

and pick up the rest of the sub.

- The CIA is committed to covering up this mission

because it doesn't want

another escalation of the Cold War.

But a year later, the mission is revealed.

- [Dan] In February, 1975,

the LA Times breaks the story

and it includes some damning details.

- They pour $800 million into it,

and that's about five billion dollars today.

- [Dan] With their cover blown, Project Azorian,

one of the most expensive missions of the entire Cold War,

is officially sunk.

- American taxpayers are irate.

Irate that the CIA wasted so much of their money,

irate about the failure of the mission

and irate about the secrecy itself.

- It takes determination, bravery, and commitment

to complete a mission no matter what its intended purpose.

Whether it's declaring war on emus

or blowing up the moon,

these missions are all so shocking,

they are truly unbelievable.

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