All language subtitles for Mysteries.Unearthed.with.Danny.Trejo.S02E10.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[tense music]

- [Danny] Mysteries can
be buried anywhere.

Under the earth,

[volcano rumbling]
[plane whooshing]

beneath the sea,

or even right
under our own feet.

[coins jingling]

And when we stumble upon them,

sometimes what we find
can change history.

Tonight, some of the deadliest
discoveries ever uncovered.

From an unsettling
ancient tower...

- What they see
is just chilling.

It's a wall made up
entirely of human skulls.

- [Danny] To a destructive
blast from the past...

- Fires raged across the globe

and acid rain showered
down from months on end.

It was truly biblical,

end of times kind of stuff.

[thunderous explosion]

- [Danny] To a place so toxic,
even the air will kill you.

- The pathogens that
have been released here

could bring back
some of the world's

deadliest biological weapons.

- Join us now, because
nothing stays hidden forever.

[mysterious music]

When you think of Yellowstone,

you might picture roaming
bison, beautiful nature,

or peace and quiet.

But beneath the ground,
something deadly is stirring,

and it could strike any day.

[rocket whooshing]
[tense music]

- In 1965, NASA begins a mission

to map the surface of
the Earth from space.

They plan to use
state-of-the-art cameras

mounted on satellites,

but to make sure the images
they are getting are accurate,

NASA decides to make

a control set of pictures on
the ground, at Yellowstone.

- They're making this
map of Yellowstone

so that they have a baseline,

and the person in charge,
his name is Bob Christiansen.

- Yellowstone has the
ideal geology to do this,

because the park is just
chockfull of geysers

and these natural pools,

all of which can test the real
accuracy of these cameras.

- Because Christiansen
is also a geologist,

the National Park Service also
has him collect rock samples

that are later carbon-dated.

- [Danny] These rock samples
reveal something strange.

- It turns out that most
of the rock in Yellowstone

is made up of something
called rhyolite,

which only occurs when
you have lava flowing

or volcanic explosions.

But there are no active
volcanoes in Yellowstone.

- Still, Christiansen's
data doesn't lie,

the bulk of the park's geology

is the result of several
massive eruptions

over the last two million years.

- [Andrew] There are hundreds
of unique geological features

across the park.

So Christiansen's first thought

is that these were the product
of an ancient volcano chain

that has long
since gone dormant.

- [Danny] But when NASA's
satellite mapping of the park

is finally finished in 1972,

Christiansen is shocked

by what the infrared
pictures reveal.

- What the images tell him

is that the unique geological
features of Yellowstone

were not, as he thought,

formed by an ancient
chain of volcanoes,

but by a single supervolcano.

[eruption booming]

- [Don] Of the over 1,000
volcanoes we know of on Earth,

only about 20 are
supervolcanoes,

and this is one of the
biggest ever found.

- The biggest of these
eruptions took place

two million years ago.

This eruption launched as
much as 600 cubic miles

of red, hot lava and
rocks into the air.

This is an explosion
2,500 times bigger

than the Mount St.
Helens eruption.

- [Danny] Surprisingly,
Yellowstone's fury

may not be finished.

- [Andrew] Even though
it has been dormant

for a half a million years,

lava still flows in this
massive super volcano

underneath Yellowstone
National Park.

- [Danny] But in 2022,
what scientists uncover

is far more alarming
than anyone imagined.

- [Don] A study published
in the journal Science

shows that lava
chambers under the park

are rapidly filling.

- [Andrew] This, combined
with the fact that

Yellowstone has over
3,000 earthquakes a year

leads some to speculate

that the supervolcano may
be preparing to erupt,

once again.

- [Sami] If the next eruption
is anything like the last one,

it would spew enough
debris into the sky

to block out the sun

in the western United
States for decades,

leading to widespread famine
and economic collapse.

- [Don] Considering the
Yellowstone supervolcano

has remained dormant for
over a half million years,

let us hope for another
half million, at least.

- Not all threats erupt.

Some, like one frozen
killer in Siberia, melt.

[tense music]

- In a small town in
northwest Siberia,

a farmer is surprised
to find the carcass

of one of his reindeer.

[herd rumbling]

Now, it's not unusual,
every now and then,

an animal will die of some
kind of natural causes.

But over the next month,
other local farmers watch as

more and more reindeer
livestock get sick and die.

[eerie music]

- [Sami] In all, over 1,200
reindeer end up dying.

At first, the villagers
chalk it up to

the stress the
animals are undergoing

due to that summer's
unusually high temperatures,

but then suddenly, the
villagers start getting sick.

- [Danny] Locals develop high
fevers and painful sores.

- [Don] 90 villagers
fall critically ill

and are hospitalized.

Tragically, one sick child dies.

- Doctors are
completely baffled.

They're running blood
tests and throat swabs,

but every test that they run
ends up coming back negative.

- [Danny] Then finally, one
test comes back positive

and the result is shocking.

- It's Bacillus anthracis,

but we know it more
commonly as anthrax.

[dramatic music]

- Most people think of anthrax
as a biological weapon,

but it actually occurs naturally

in soils throughout the world.

When animals like
reindeer graze,

they kick up the spores
and form little dust clouds

and then the animals can inhale
this and become infected.

- [Don] Once it's in the body,
the bacteria grows quickly.

It causes fevers and
difficulty breathing.

And after an
infected animal dies,

its body decomposes, spilling
even more anthrax spores

right back into the earth.

- The spores can sit
there for decades

like this ticking time bomb

just waiting for its
next unfortunate host.

Even with treatment, the
fatality rate in humans

can be as high as around 80%.

- [Danny] As
government officials

rush to figure out the source,

they discover that
in the early 1900s,

Siberia was ravaged by a series

of terrible anthrax outbreaks.

- [Sami] More than a
million reindeer died

with their infected
carcasses sprawled out

everywhere across this tundra.

- [Don] Some of those remains
were frozen in the permafrost,

essentially refrigerating
the dead deer

and the bacteria inside of them.

- [Stephanie] But then,
starting in the year 2011,

the area has five years

of unusually warm summers.

- [Don] And the extreme heat
begins to melt the permafrost,

exposing dormant anthrax spores.

- [Danny] To contain
the outbreak,

officials scour the tundra,

burning thousands of
infected reindeer carcasses

and vaccinating tens of
thousands of living reindeer.

- Gradually, this works,

and the number of new
cases begins to slow

and then eventually,
completely stop.

- [Don] But it's very
likely that more pathogens

lie frozen under the Arctic ice.

- [Sami] If rising temperatures
continue to melt the permafrost,

it is very likely that
animals and humans

will be exposed to
these ancient pathogens

which modern humans have
never had exposure to before.

As one researcher puts it,
"This is Pandora's box."

- In Mexico City,

a construction crew starts
a routine day on the job.

What they uncover should
have stayed buried.

[tense music]

- One morning in 1978,

electrical workers are digging
in an area of Mexico City

to install an underground
power transformer.

But work comes to a
stop when they hit

what appears to be a boulder.

- They start digging
around this thing

and they realize very quickly
that this is no ordinary rock.

- [Danny] It's a 10
foot circular stone

with very detailed carvings.

- It depicts a female figure.

However, scattered
around it are body parts

all cut into pieces.

Archeologists are called in

and they immediately identify
the figure as an Aztec god.

- [Sami] The image is actually
the ancient Aztec female deity

known as Xochiquetzal.

- [Austin] And it's
believed a stone once stood

at the entrance to the
Aztecs' primary temple,

the Templo Mayor.

However, it's been
missing for centuries.

- [Danny] From the early 1300s,

the Aztecs were a powerful
empire for 200 years,

centered in modern day Mexico.

This stone gives us more
insight into their culture.

- In the Aztec belief,

this deity, shown on the
front of this temple,

dismembered and disfigured,

is meant to serve as a warning

for anybody that would
try to enter the temple.

Basically, if you mess with us,

this is what's going
to happen to you.

- And they're not joking around,

because the Aztecs
regularly and persistently

sacrificed people
on the pyramid,

which she sits at the base of.

- [Danny] These human sacrifices

were huge spectacles
with large crowds.

- According to firsthand
accounts in the 1500s,

many of the victims
are decapitated.

- [Don] Other times,
they were stabbed

and had their hearts
removed from their body.

The heart would be held up

in front of the crowd
while it was still beating,

and the lifeless body

would be tossed down
the temple stairs.

At one point, it's even said,

"The Aztecs sacrificed
4,000 of their enemies

at the same time."

- [Danny] But in 1519,
the Spanish arrive

and weakened the Aztecs

with a one two punch
of guns and disease.

- The Spanish then proceed to

wipe out the Aztec
native religion

and force Catholicism
upon the populace.

- [Danny] As the Aztec
religion is erased,

most of its important
artifacts and relics

are lost or destroyed.

But the discovery of
the circular stone

leads researchers to
take a closer look

at the surrounding area,

where they make an even more
disturbing find in 2015,

- [Austin] A building
is being renovated

very close to where
they found the stone.

Workers dig under the
structure when they find

a chamber made of
volcanic rock walls

with a flagstone floor.

- [Sami] And when they
look inside the chamber,

what they see is just chilling.

It's a wall made up
entirely of human skulls.

[eerie music]

- Over the next two years,

archeologists discover
that this wall of skulls

is actually a giant skull
tower called a Tzompantli.

- [Danny] For centuries,

stories of a towering
wall of skulls

were dismissed as legend,

but this discovery
proves it was real

and far bigger than
anyone imagined.

- [Austin] Over the
next couple years,

the archeologists
continue to excavate

and discover around
600 more skulls,

but they do believe that
at one point in time,

it held over 60,000.

- [Sami] Historians are working
to put answers together, but

it seems likely that there are

many more sacred
secrets of the Aztecs

hiding under Mexico City.

- Halfway across the world,

another ancient
tomb guards a secret

tied to one of history's
most dangerous empires.

[tanks booming]

- [Sami] It's April 1944,

World War II is
raging across Europe,

and some of the countries
that are allied with

Adolf Hitler and the Nazis

are just getting
hammered by the Allies.

- One of those Axis
powers is Bulgaria,

which is under attack from
two different directions.

It's being bombed
by the Americans

and the British from the West,

and the Soviets from the east.

[gunfire booming]

- The Bulgarian
army is desperate,

so they start building
a series of underground

bomb shelters and trenches

surrounding the central
city of Kazanlak.

- [Sami] As they dig,

a few of the soldiers
hit something hard.

- [Patrick] The men
chisel a hole in the wall

and when they bust through ,

on the other side, they find
an underground chamber.

They go through and they
find themselves in a tunnel.

- [Don] One of the men
flicks on his flashlight.

He's surrounded by
richly colored frescoes

depicting men in battle.

The soldiers call the director
of a local history museum

who realizes this is
an important discovery.

- [Danny] Learning
more will have to wait.

As the Soviets bear down,
Bulgaria switches sides

and declares war on Germany.

This stops the allied bombing

and very possibly saves
the mysterious tunnels.

But after the war, experts
return to open the site.

- [Don] The passageways
with the frescoes

lead to a round domed chamber
with even more murals.

It turns out this accidental
find is an ancient tomb.

- [Patrick] But
not just any tomb;

they find fragments of a crown.

This is a royal tomb.

- [Sami] Further exploration
research of this one tomb

actually suggests
that it's a small part

of a much larger
underground royal cemetery.

- [Danny] Experts soon realize

this incredible
find includes tombs

belonging to the
rulers of Thrace,

a famous kingdom known
for its fierce warriors.

- [Sami] Thrace is a big deal to
those who study ancient history.

Thrace covered modern
day Bulgaria, Turkey,

Romania, and Serbia,

from the fifth century
to the third century BC.

- [Don] Eventuall, Thrace
is conquered by Rome,

but some of Rome's
most famous warriors ,

like Spartacus, were Tracian,
as were a few Roman emperors.

So the discovery of
a vast Thracian tomb

is really exciting.

But the real treasures of
the tombs are the frescoes

which adorn the
walls and ceilings.

- [Sami] They include a couple,
seated at a banquet table

preparing to enter
the underworld.

You've got another one
depicting a chariot race,

which is part of
the funeral games

when a member of the elite died.

- We don't have much from
the Thracians themselves.

We know a bit about
their language,

but we don't have any
extended texts in it.

So when you find
direct evidence of

what the rich and powerful
in Thrace were doing

and what they valued,

that's incredibly rare
and incredibly valuable.

- On a Soviet research
ship, a routine mission,

collecting plant
and fish samples

takes a fatal turn
when one crew member

brings home a very
different specimen.

- It's mid-July in the Aral Sea,

and the 12 person crew

of the Soviet research
vessel, Lev Berg,

is collecting water samples
and other sea creatures

in an effort to identify

why there is a dramatically
declining population of fish.

- The youngest member of the
crew is a 24-year-old female

who is working on the deck
collecting fish and plants

and then takes them below
deck to evaluate them

and then incorporate them
into her lab journal.

- One morning, the
ship approaches

a remote island
called Vozrozhdeniya,

otherwise known as Rebirth
or Resurrection island.

- This island was once home

to a very picturesque
fishing village,

but today, as the
ship passes by,

it moves through a
mysterious brown haze.

- [Danny] The passengers
don't think much of it

and continue on with
their research project.

- [Martin] On August 6th,
they returned to Aralsk,

and the female researcher
had developed an illness

during the last five
days of the cruise,

and as soon as they put
into port, she rushes home.

- She's suffering from
fever, coughs, muscle aches.

The doctor prescribes
antibiotics and aspirin,

but then, a very
angry looking rash

begins to occur
on her face, back,

and other areas of her body.

- [Kavitha] Eventually, her
fever breaks and she recovers,

but then her
nine-year-old brother

comes down with a fever as well

and also develops a skin rash.

The boy's entire body is
covered with painful lesions.

- [Geoffrey] The boy's school
teacher comes to visit with him

and then she too gets very ill.

She can't eat or drink,
she gets high fever,

and gets covered with sores
everywhere, on her body,

face and scalp,

so many sores that there's
like no space between them.

She dies soon after.

- [Danny] The boy's
parents are terrified

and call a pediatrician to the
house to examine their son.

When he does, he's shocked.

- After multiple incorrect
or simply wishful diagnoses,

the correct diagnosis is
finally made: smallpox.

- [Martin] This
is really strange

because both the
researcher and her brother

had been vaccinated
against smallpox.

She doesn't have any idea

how she could have
contracted the disease.

- [Danny] Over the
next few weeks,

eight more people come
down with smallpox,

and sadly, three die.

- [Rick] The Soviet
government shuts down

the entire town of Aralsk,

stopping all
transportation in or out,

and the 50,000 people are
vaccinated against smallpox

in two weeks.

- Quick containment of the virus

helps to prevent a full-blown
outbreak of smallpox,

and the authorities never
take any responsibility.

- [Danny] It's not
until 30 years later

that the source of the
outbreak is finally uncovered.

- [Rick] Turns out that for
many years, the Soviets

had been using Vozrozhdeniya
Island as a test site

for some of the world's
most deadly pathogens.

- [Martin] The site
is called Aralsk-7,

and on it, they were
developing anthrax, smallpox,

antibiotic-resistant bacteria,

and other diseases that
the world had never seen.

- [Rick] When the
Lev Berg passed

close to the island in 1971,

the female researcher
was the person to get it

because she had spent more
time on deck than anyone else.

- And even though she was
vaccinated, she got it,

because the Soviets were
weaponizing smallpox virus

so that it would evade people

who were vaccinated
and infect them.

- [Martin] When
Aralsk-7 is ultimately

abandoned in the 1990s,

the Soviets pump formaldehyde
across the entire island

in an attempt to
kill everything there

because the pathogens
that have been

released here can
survive for centuries,

and it could bring back

some of the world's
deadliest biological weapons.

- Imagine stumbling across
an even older, deadlier find.

That's exactly what
happened to one man in 2022.

[tense music]

- [Don] In April 2022, a fabric
designer named Philip Jacobs

is out for this leisurely stroll

along the beach near Cambridge
Bay in southern England.

- It's part of his
regular routine,

a chance to get some exercise

as well as partake in one
of his favorite pastimes:

scouring the beach
for hidden treasures.

- [Danny] Over the years, many
fossils have been discovered

on this stretch of beach,

leading to its nickname,
the Jurassic Coast.

- As Jacobs walks
along the shoreline,

he catches a
glimpse of an object

that looks like just
a piece of driftwood.

- [Don] So he takes
a closer lookm

and what he finds is
this two-foot long snout,

complete with these
massive teeth,

and Jacobs knows he has
found something cool,

but he isn't exactly
sure what it is.

- In the meantime,
he contacts a friend

who's a paleontologist
named Steve Etches,

and he brings him to the site.

- [Danny] Etches takes
one look at the snout

and can hardly contain
his excitement.

- Jacobs' found part of
the skull of a pliosaur,

a marine reptile that
lived with the dinosaurs,

also known as the Sea-rex,

which is a nod to its fearsome
land equivalent, the T. rex.

- Pliosaurs ruled the water
150 million years ago.

They were massive creatures.

They could grow to
about 40-feet long,

which is about the
size of a school bus,

and they were the apex
predators of the sea.

- And they didn't take
a backseat to anyone

due to their extremely
powerful jaws.

Today, saltwater crocodiles

are known to have the strongest
bite of any living creature,

but the pliosaur was at
least twice as powerful.

- [Danny] Etches and his team
continue searching the area,

hoping to uncover even
more of the Sea-rex.

- [Don] As they climb
way up the mountainside,

eventually excavating
the rest of the skull,

which turns out to be
over six-feet long,

completely intact
with no missing bones.

Jacobs' discovery reveals
anatomical features

that researchers
haven't seen before,

including one that
is believed to be

a light sensitive third eye,
used for stalking prey.

- And his friend Steve Etches

thinks that this is
just the beginning.

- [Don] He thinks the
rest of this creature

is somewhere buried here, and
is going to reveal even more,

and it's all due to one
guy who went for a stroll

on a local beach.

- It began like any
hunt for treasure,

digging for riches
buried in the ground.

What followed was
truly chilling.

[tense music]

- In 1993, on the
Altai mountains

near the Russia-China border,

you have grave robbers

who have been looting
burial mounds in the region.

- This has been
going on for years.

The local Altain tribe, they
consider these mounds sacred,

so they've had enough.

- They decide that they
want to take action,

so the call on the
Russian border patrol.

[guns cocking]
[dog barking]

- [Kavitha] By the time
Russian border patrol arrives,

the thieves are long gone,

but they wanna make
sure that the site

is handled respectfully.

So they call in Dr.
Natalia Polosmak

who is a renowned archeologist

that specializes in
these ancient cultures.

- [Saim] There's one
large burial mound

that has clearly
been vandalized,

so Polosmak and her
team investigate

and they find that one
shallow grave has been robbed.

- But what was interesting

is that she found a
shaft below that grave,

and it was obvious to her

that the shaft wasn't
something from recent times.

- [Kavitha] So she
suspects that this grave

might have been
robbed years ago,

but she also suspects
that it might sit

on top of something else.

So the team keeps digging

and eventually hits
a huge block of ice.

They've uncovered a layer of
permafrost underneath the dirt.

- [Danny] The team
carefully melts the ice

with boiling water,

hoping to preserve
whatever they find beneath.

- [Sami] As they continue
working their way through,

they find something astounding,

the frozen remains of
six ancient horses.

- In elite burials, they
would sacrifice the horses

that belonged to
the person who died

and bury them around the grave.

And so, finding these
horse carcasses

means they've stumbled on a
really prestigious burial.

- [Danny] Alongside the horses,

the team uncovers a
large wooden chamber

with an ornate coffin inside.

But who is the very
important person buried here?

- When they open the coffin,

Dr. Polosmak her team are
stunted by what they find.

A perfectly preserved,
mummified woman.

- One of the team
members calls her the

Siberian Ice Princess,
and the name sticks.

- Researchers estimate
that the Ice Princess

lived about 2,600 years ago.

- She has this
elaborate headdress

with carved wooden animals
on it covered in gold leaf.

- On the surface of her skin,

they discover very
detailed tattoos.

- [Sami] And even
more incredibly,

the ink still looks fresh,

like she almost had this
work done yesterday.

- [Danny] The tattoos,
horses, and grand burial

suggest the princess may have
served a religious purpose

as a tribal priestess.

- Against the wishes
of the Altain tribe,

Polosmak and her team decide
to move the body to university

for further study.

They perform an MRI on the body

and they conclude that
the princess died young,

anywhere between the
ages of 25 and 28,

and they find that the cause
of death was breast cancer.

- [Danny] Although the
Altains aren't happy,

the Ice Princess gets moved
again, this time to a museum.

- [Sami] The Altain
tribe believed that

removing mummies from
their resting place

is a terrible omen.

They even blame the
removal of the mummy

for causing a series of local
floods and earthquakes.

- [Danny] Eventually,
Russian authorities

send the ice princess
back to her homeland.

- [Sami] They restrict
any more digging

and they declare the area
to be a zone of peace

so that the dead
may finally rest.

- Over 7,000 miles from Siberia

lies another mysterious grave,

but this one wasn't
carved by humans.

It was blasted into
the Earth from space.

[tense music]

- In 1978, a young geophysicist
named Glen Penfield

moves to Mexico to work
for an oil company,

and he spends his time
flying back and forth

across the nation,

using magnetic to
pinpoint the place

to build new oil wells.

- Within a few months,

he has flown over half
the eastern coastline

with nothing to show for it.

All he finds are flat
magnetic readings.

It all looks kind of
the same, no black gold.

- But one day, Penfield sees
these two magnetic lines

on his screen.

Both of them have a
shallow dip in them,

which tells him that
there's something strange

in the water down there.

So he follows these lines

and he discovers
that these anomalies

seem to get stronger
the farther he goes.

- [Don] The strange
readings fall

in a concentric circle pattern

that creates a bulls-eye
about 110 miles wide,

half on land and
half over water.

- Then it just hits him.

As a kid, he had been
fascinated with the moon

and its impact craters.

And so he wonders, could
this be a giant impact crater

from a meteor strike?

- [Austin] Penfield presents
his crater impact theory

to his bosses and then
fellow colleagues

at a geophysics conference,

and they all laugh it
off as Glen's sky rock.

- Then in 1990, 12 years
after his initial discovery,

he gets a call out of the blue

from a grad student
named Alan Hildebrand.

Hildebrand is writing a paper
about the sudden extinction

of the dinosaurs
millions of years ago,

and he thinks there
could be a connection

to Glen's asteroid
impact theory.

- [Danny] Hildebrand tracks
down a rare core sample

from the possible impact
site in the Gulf of Mexico.

- [Don] And lo and behold,
when they analyze the sample,

they discover an unusual form
of rock called shocked quartz.

- [Danny] Shocked quartz is
formed by intense pressure

due to large scale
impact events.

- That means this rock
could only have been formed

by a massive asteroid.

- [Danny] Finally,
Penfield is vindicated.

- [Austin] Penfield, Hildebrand
and several other scientists

publish their findings
in the journal Geology.

- [Danny] They call it
the Chicxulub crater

after the seashore town

where the magnetic anomalies
were first discovered.

- [Don] Subsequent testing finds
that the Chicxulub asteroid

struck Earth 66
million years ago,

the same time the
dinosaurs disappeared

from the fossil record.

- Scientists
continue researching

and find that what happened
after this giant space rock hit

is pretty terrifying.

- [Don] Fires raged
across the globe,

a half mile tsunami
crashed into the Americas,

an acid rain showered
down for months on end.

It was truly biblical.

End of times kind of stuff.

- It didn't just kill
all the dinosaurs,

but also 75% of all plant
and animal life on Earth.

- Instead of an oil well,

Glen discovered something
else truly astonishing,

proof that it was his sky rock

that nearly wiped out
all life on Earth.

- Picture this: it's a
spring Saturday in 1950.

You and your brother
are wading through a bog

just outside your tiny
village in Denmark.

It's an eerie place
on the best of days,

but today, it's about
to get even stranger.

[tense music]

- Two brothers, Viggo
and Emil Hojgaard,

are harvesting this wet,
spongy carpet of peat.

Peat can be cut into brick form

and burned for use in cooking
and heating their houses.

- Now as the brothers
are digging deeper

into the vegetation,

they hit something
that feels off.

- They start digging deeper
and deeper into this hole,

until they see a face looking
right back up at them.

- It is definitely a body, and
it looks like a recent burial,

because the skin and the
soft tissue is intact,

it hasn't decomposed.

- The body is male, he's
wearing a pointed sheepskin cap,

and a belt around his waist,

but other than that,
he's totally naked.

- [Don] The corpse is
on the small side,

a bit like a child curled
up in a fetal position.

And a terrible thought
occurs to these brothers,

A schoolboy nearby has
recently gone missing;

this must be his dead body.

- So the brothers make the trek

to the nearby
village of Silkeborg

to notify authorities
of their dark finding.

- [Kavitha] Police investigate,

but some things
just don't add up.

There are no signs of digging,
so how did it get so deep?

- [Don] Even weirder is
that the corpse's nails

are cured and blackened,

and the skin is this
bluish-black color.

- [Danny] Police call in
archeologist Dr. P.V. Glob

from a local university to help.

- Dr. Glob takes
a look at the body

and he knows one
thing conclusively:

this is not a recent death.

He doesn't know how old
it is, but it's old.

- [Danny] Then, the professor

shares something
even more disturbing.

- [Kavitha] When he
removes a lump of peat

next to the corpse's head,

he finds two leather
ties twisted into a rope

around the corpse's neck.

It's clear that this person
did not die of natural causes.

- In order to study
the body properly,

Glob realizes that they have
to move the body from this bog

to the National Museum
of Denmark in Copenhagen.

- [Danny] When they finally
make it to the museum,

Dr. Glob makes another
surprising discovery.

- [Don] Even though it's
perfectly preserved,

the body turns out to
be over 2,300 years old.

It is from the Iron Age,
and it isn't a child.

From dental analysis, they
estimate that he is between

30 and 40 years old.

They nickname him
the Tollund man.

- [Danny] But why is
he so well preserved?

- [Sami] The moss, which covers
the entire surface of the bog,

it's called sphagnum,
and it discolors

and preserves the
skin and the hair.

- [Kavitha] The moss makes
the bog water highly acidic.

This turns the skin

and soft tissue into a
leather-like material that,

under the right conditions,
can last for centuries.

- Peat bogs also lack
oxygen, which means that

the microorganisms
that cause decay

in dead bodies can't survive.

Coupled with that acidic water,

you have the perfect
recipe for preservation.

- [Danny] This
also allows experts

to figure out how he died.

- [Kavitha] Analysis of his neck

and the rope that
he was buried with

pinpoint that the cause
of death was hanging.

- [Danny] Back in the Iron Age,

people were hanged and
killed not only for crimes,

but as ritual sacrifices.

- To the ancient people

who placed the Tollund
man in the bog,

the wetlands were
seen as otherworldly,

sort of like borderland
to the beyond.

- [Kavitha] People back
then believed that

the Gods controlled everything.

Now that includes the
success of their harvest,

and since the bogs produced
so much of their food,

they would make sacrifices

to ensure that the
God stayed happy.

- [Don] Many scholars see
the fact that he is buried

so intentionally in the bog

with his mouth and
his eyes gently closed

and his body sort of carefully
arranged as eternal rest,

all of these are signs that
Tollund man may have achieved

a kind of immortality as a
sacred sacrifice to the gods.

- Long before sharks
rule the sea,

an even deadlier predator
was said to lurk in them.

Then in 1853, chilling
proof suggests

that an old sailor legend
might just be true.

[tense music]

- As dawn breaks on a
small Danish village,

down the beach, the crowd has
gathered around something

that has been
washed up overnight.

A strange creature
lies dead on the sand.

- It's massive.

It has sort of an
amorphous blob of a body,

two giant, cloudy eyes,

a bony beak that
resembles that of a bird,

and it has 10 long arms with
openings that resemble mouths,

with hooked shark teeth.

- [Andrew] To the villagers,
this looks like a sea monster,

and to some, it looks
like a specific monster,

the mythical kraken.

[dramatic music]

- [Danny] According to legend,

the Kraken is an enormous,
multi-armed beast

that has terrorized the
ocean for centuries.

It was infamous for
smashing boats to pieces

and dragging sailors
to a watery grave.

- [Adam] Kraken or not,

the villagers know that
this massive carcass

is stinking up the beach.

A few fishermen cut off
some pieces to use as bait,

and they bury the rest.

- [Dany] But someone in the
village takes a souvenir:

its beak.

- Three years later,
the beak is gifted

to a Norwegian scientist,
Japetus Steenstrup.

He's fully aware of the stories

about the blood-thirsty Kraken.

- [Andrew] So when
Steenstrup gets his hands

on what may be a piece
of an actual Kraken,

he realizes he may
have the Holy Grail

of maritime mysteries
in his hands.

- He immediately
notices the similarity

between the beak he's received

and the beak of another
animal, a squid.

Squids used their beaks
to pulverize their prey

before they eat them.

- [Andrew] The description of
the sea monster from the beach

also reminds
Seenstrup of squids.

Both have unusually large
eyes and 10 limbs in total.

- [Adam] And in certain
species, the suckers

have small, tooth-like
hooks inside of them

to create a better grip.

- [Austin] Seenstrup
declares to the world

that he's discovered
a new genus of squid,

Architeuthis, the giant squid.

This takes the
myth of the Kraken

and it moves it into
the reality of science.

- [Danny] But does one
beak in a secondhand story

really prove the existence
of a giant killer squid?

The question divides scientists
for decades until 1873.

- [Adam] In Portugal Bay,
Newfoundland, two men and a boy

are out in a fishing boat

when they spy something
floating in the water,

this sort of large,
unidentifiable mass,

so they use a pole
with a hook on it

to pull the objects closer.

- [Andrew] As the point of the
hook pierces the creature,

it roars to life,
charges the boat,

and slings a massive
tentacle over the side.

- The young member
of the fishing crew

grabs their tackle axe and
cuts off part of the tentacle,

after which the creature
pulls back into the sea.

- [Andrew] The men then bring
this 19-foot long tentacle

back to the mainland, and they
give it to a local reverend

who has an interest in biology.

- [Danny] Then one month later,

another local fishing boat
finds an entire giant squid

tangled in its nets.

The reverend buys
the squid for $10

and documents the
discovery in a photograph.

- [Andrew] This is the first
ever complete specimen

of the giant squid
recovered from nature.

It's evidence

that the mythical kraken
may indeed be real.

- And it makes you wonder

what other mythical
creatures actually exist

in the depths of the briny deep.

- Whether it's a deadly
virus frozen in the tundra,

or a secret from the
bottom of the sea,

the deadliest discoveries
don't just tell us a story,

they warn us of what else may
be buried beneath our feet.

I'm Danny Trejo.

Thanks for watching
Mysteries Unearthed.