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Tom ward (narrates): A
network of ominous towers,

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rusting away in the north sea.

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Being out there and living

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in one of these structures

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must have been very
intense and quite terrifying.

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A mysterious concrete pyramid,
dominating the American midwest.

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There's a brooding menace
about the whole environment.

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A dilapidated medieval style
castle in the heart of urban america.

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It looks like someone airlifted

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one of the spectacular
medieval buildings in France

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and just dropped it in
the middle of Philadelphia.

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And one of the biggest
machines ever built,

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forgotten in a German field.

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You're just completely
flabbergasted

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at the enormity of this
thing in front of you.

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(Theme music)

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Once,

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they were some of the
most advanced structures

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and facilities on the planet...

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At the cutting edge of
design and construction.

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Today, they stand abandoned,

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contaminated, and
sometimes deadly.

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But who built them and how?

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And why were they abandoned?

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Off the east coast of england,
at the mouth of the river thames,

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a group of bizarre

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rusting structures
hover above the horizon,

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like something from
'war of the worlds'.

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It looks like an alien
standing as a sentry.

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Coming out of the water,

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it almost looks like deposit
from an alien civilisation.

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It's completely out of character
from what you would expect.

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Standing 80 feet above the sea,

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are 7 huge steel boxes
weighing 580 tonnes,

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supported on four 17 feet
long splayed concrete legs,

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extending down into the waters.

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Being out there and living

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in one of these structures

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must have been very intense
and rather quite terrifying.

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You sort of know
there are people nearby,

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but it must have been a very,
very isolating and scary experience.

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It's easy to see from
their corroded steel plating

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that these mysterious structures
have been derelict for years.

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But what drove engineers to
create these bizarre constructions

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in such an inhospitable place?

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What was their purpose?

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And why were they abandoned?

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By 1943, the second world
war had reached a turning point.

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Allied air forces were engaged
in a new tactic of area bombing.

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Instead of targeting
specific industrial sites,

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thousands of British and
American bombers delivered

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massive round the clock raids
on Germany's civilian centres.

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Hitler, enraged by these
attacks on his cities,

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planned to obliterate London
in a devastating aerial offensive.

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In response,

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the British military developed
a top secret defence project

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to protect the beating heart
of the mighty British empire.

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The river thames was
crucial to London's survival.

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This lifeline allowed
supplies to flow into the city,

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whilst delivering tanks,

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planes and ships
made in its factories

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to the frontlines.

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Churchill and the British

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had to make sure that nobody
ever came up the river thames

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to threaten London again.

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The designs were like
nothing seen before.

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Often really sound,

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practical engineering
solutions can be borne out

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of what's a very difficult
and tragic situation.

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Britain's solution
to the Nazi threat

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was the red sands sea fort.

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It's part of a string
of defences equipped

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with heavy anti-aircraft guns
across the mouth of the thames.

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This was total war.

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And in total war,

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you do not leave
the river that goes up

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to your Metropolis undefended.

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But would the fort prove effective
against Germany's luftwaffe?

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And how big a role did
it play in Hitler's defeat?

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(Dramatic music)

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Construction began in 1942.

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In the past,

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creating defences at sea had
been a long and complex process.

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But for this project,

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the engineers decided to
try a new building technique,

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and it began on land
with prefabrication.

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Taking a fort
and constructing it

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in an easy location,
and then floating it out

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into a strategically
beneficial location

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was a groundbreaking

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and very important innovation
in terms of offshore construction

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and engineering projects.

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Each fort consists of
a concrete grid base

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with angled legs.

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These support a two-storey
accommodation block

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with a gun platform on top.

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So, there's two really,

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really basic principles
of structural engineering

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that have been used in
the design of these towers.

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The first one is making sure
that the weight of the structure

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is as low as possible
'cause the lower that is,

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the more stable
your structure is.

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The second great principle

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that we're seeing is
the use of a triangle.

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So, by having a wide base
and bringing the legs up

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almost into a point,

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you've kind of recreated
that stability of a triangle.

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And structural engineers
absolutely adore triangles

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'cause they're a
really stable shape.

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These legs support towers,
each weighing 580 tonnes.

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Built at Gravesend in Kent,

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they were then carried by
tugboat and sunk into position.

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Three groups of seven towers
were built to defend the thames,

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the majority armed with
heavy anti-aircraft guns.

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(Cannon fires)

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David Phillips is part
of project red sand,

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established to preserve and
restore these historic structures.

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This is the whole
heart of the operation.

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We are now on the
platform of the 3.7 inch gun,

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of which there are three others
on each of the other gun towers.

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The gun that was out
here was very effective.

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They were controlled by
radar and a sperry predictor,

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which was a piece of kit that sat
between the radar and the gun,

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which could automatically get
the gun to lock onto their target.

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By the end of 1943,

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the thames forts
were ready for battle.

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All that remained was to
man them with soldiers,

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165 were needed for
each group of towers.

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To operate the gun,

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there were two
crew on the gun itself,

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and then there were lots of
people in the control tower

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and also watching
by the searchlight.

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Soldiers manned these
remote and isolated forts

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for a month at a time,

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ready to rapidly respond
to incoming planes.

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Coming down here

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is the shell lockers
all around the site,

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all around the gun towers,
which held the 3.7 inch shells.

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They were brought
up from the armoury

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and loaded into these lockers.

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But living conditions
could be brutal.

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Since this was a
military structure,

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the human consideration
of the occupants

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was probably not a priority.

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It was more about can
it withstand the weather?

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Can it withstand
an enemy attack?

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And then, let's worry about
the comfort of the operators.

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If it meant using

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thousands and thousands
of rounds of ammunition

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to try to shoot down only
a few German aircraft,

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that's what you do.

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And if it meant that
soldiers and sailors

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had to live under
miserable conditions

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in the north sea, in
all kinds of weather

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with only a little
bit of fresh water

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and only occasional
re-supply, that's what you do.

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(Dramatic music)

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Crews braved the
volatile conditions

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and guarded this gateway
to the heart of London

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with great success, shooting
down 22 Nazi aircraft.

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And when Hitler targeted
London with swarms of his v-1

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'vengeance weapons'
in the summer of 1944,

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30 of them were sent
plummeting into the sea.

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Having anti-aircraft artillery

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pointed at anyone who
tries to approach London

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up the river thames
limits German options.

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The German bombers
that attacked London

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during the blitz,

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they could not just drive

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right up the river
and attack London.

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Hitting targets with
any degree of accuracy

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was extremely difficult for
world war ii era bombers.

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Rivers provided a
valuable landmark

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and helped crews navigate
their way towards their targets.

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Removing the thames
as a guiding marker

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greatly diminished

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the destructive power
of German bombers.

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These stark forts are

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one of the most extraordinary
engineering successes

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that helped lead the
allies to victory in 1945.

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Having fulfilled their purpose,

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the British government
decommissioned them in 1956,

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leaving them abandoned.

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Today, seven of the original
red sands sea fort towers remain,

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rusting away at sea.

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The fact that the
red stands forts

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are still standing to this day

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is a testament to the
quality of the engineering

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and construction
involved in making them

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and putting them to use.

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The battle to preserve
this piece of history goes on.

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But without urgent funding,

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these remarkable engineering
feats will be lost to the elements.

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Engineering can't last forever,

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and these have
served their purpose.

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So, it's often a
difficult decision,

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but sometimes we do just
have to accept that things

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just can't be there forever.

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Across the Atlantic
ocean in north Dakota,

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just 15 miles from
the Canadian border,

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stands one of
america's most incredible

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and mysterious structures.

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Standing on top
of a sloping mound,

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this 79-foot tall concrete pyramid
looms over the surrounding plains.

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This thing looks
downright sinister.

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This has to be one of
the weirdest looking things

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in the entire country.

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There's a brooding menace
about the whole environment.

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There are no windows visible.

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Sloped at 56 degrees,

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the otherwise blank surfaces
of each wall are punctuated

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with strange white discs.

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You're confronted with
something completely unworldly,

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for where you are.

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This giant structure has the
impression of an aztec pyramid.

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The pyramid lies at the
centre of a 470-acre field,

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surrounded by dozens
of mysterious manholes,

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security fences, and
derelict guard posts.

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This is no ordinary
industrial complex.

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When you get closer,

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you can see this was some
kind of military installation.

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But what?

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These monolithic structures
springing out of the ground.

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You have a concrete parking
lot that has hatches and pillars.

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What is this?

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Who built it and why?

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And why was this giant
pyramid abandoned?

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During the cold war
in the early 1960s,

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the nuclear arms race
between the Soviet union

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and the United States
was reaching crisis point.

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(Distant explosion)

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00:14:09,520 --> 00:14:11,040
A fierce debate broke out

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00:14:11,080 --> 00:14:15,600
within america's armed forces
about the best way to protect the nation

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00:14:15,640 --> 00:14:17,480
and its arsenal of missiles

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00:14:17,520 --> 00:14:21,640
from annihilation by Soviet
intercontinental ballistic missiles.

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00:14:24,480 --> 00:14:26,480
By the 1960s,

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the popular imagination
has fixed on the idea

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00:14:29,560 --> 00:14:32,880
that nuclear war
will involve all out,

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00:14:32,920 --> 00:14:34,360
total war assault.

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00:14:35,760 --> 00:14:39,680
Nuclear armageddon was
very much on the horizon.

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00:14:39,720 --> 00:14:43,400
The potential for mass
destruction was very real.

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The Soviet union truly
respected one thing only,

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and that was military force.

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00:14:52,720 --> 00:14:54,880
And so we had to show

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that our technology was
equal or better than theirs.

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The us army raised the
stakes of military defence

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and developed this,

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the nekoma anti-ballistic
missile system.

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00:15:12,280 --> 00:15:15,520
At the heart of the complex
was a state-of-the-art radar.

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00:15:17,120 --> 00:15:19,760
This is a one-of-a-kind
radar system

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00:15:19,800 --> 00:15:22,400
that was constructed at
the height of the cold war,

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the height of American paranoia.

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00:15:28,880 --> 00:15:32,480
Construction of the installation
began in the late-1960s.

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00:15:34,600 --> 00:15:38,600
Teams of engineers excavated
nearly a million cubic feet of earth

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00:15:38,640 --> 00:15:42,680
to create a vast pit
53 feet into the ground,

256
00:15:42,720 --> 00:15:48,040
lined with concrete and reinforced
with 22,000 tonnes of iron and steel

257
00:15:48,080 --> 00:15:51,200
to shield against nuclear
electromagnetic radiation.

258
00:15:56,200 --> 00:16:01,240
Inside, multiple floors
covered 127,000 square feet

259
00:16:01,280 --> 00:16:04,000
and contained tactical
operational systems,

260
00:16:04,040 --> 00:16:07,280
weapons control, and the
new phased-array radar.

261
00:16:12,040 --> 00:16:16,640
Local resident, Duane Otto, is
caretaker of the nekoma complex.

262
00:16:17,880 --> 00:16:21,080
The phased-array
is a radar that,

263
00:16:21,120 --> 00:16:25,160
through the computer system,
will detect a missile or an object

264
00:16:25,200 --> 00:16:27,960
coming in from Russia
at a greater distance.

265
00:16:29,200 --> 00:16:31,960
The technology
develops to create

266
00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:36,720
a virtual radar antenna
that is capable of focussing

267
00:16:36,760 --> 00:16:40,280
in different directions without
actually having to move

268
00:16:40,320 --> 00:16:42,120
a big piece of steel mesh.

269
00:16:44,160 --> 00:16:47,000
This was the cutting
edge of technology

270
00:16:47,040 --> 00:16:49,960
to allow the usa to feel safe

271
00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:53,080
that should there be
a strike from the ussr,

272
00:16:53,120 --> 00:16:55,920
they'd be able to take out
those nuclear warheads

273
00:16:55,960 --> 00:16:58,280
before they landed
on American soil.

274
00:17:00,360 --> 00:17:02,480
Achieving this level of defence

275
00:17:02,520 --> 00:17:05,640
required the most advanced
computer in the western world.

276
00:17:07,560 --> 00:17:11,440
Engineered to handle 10
million instructions per second,

277
00:17:11,480 --> 00:17:13,680
the radar's computer
was located deep

278
00:17:13,720 --> 00:17:15,240
beneath the blast-proof pyramid.

279
00:17:17,680 --> 00:17:20,880
It controlled an on-site
fleet of 46 missiles

280
00:17:20,920 --> 00:17:23,680
held in underground
launch silos,

281
00:17:23,720 --> 00:17:27,120
designed to shoot down
incoming Soviet weapons,

282
00:17:27,160 --> 00:17:30,000
all directed by the huge
circular radar dishes

283
00:17:30,040 --> 00:17:31,880
mounted on each
side of the pyramid.

284
00:17:35,640 --> 00:17:37,160
The nekoma system was operating

285
00:17:37,200 --> 00:17:40,480
at the limits of
1960 technology.

286
00:17:40,520 --> 00:17:43,120
And the biggest
problem they had was

287
00:17:43,160 --> 00:17:44,560
you had seconds to decide

288
00:17:44,600 --> 00:17:47,360
are you gonna fire your
missile to stop that missile

289
00:17:47,400 --> 00:17:48,400
or is it a decoy?

290
00:17:48,440 --> 00:17:49,480
Is it something else?

291
00:17:51,920 --> 00:17:53,160
To be effective,

292
00:17:53,200 --> 00:17:55,400
it had to be able to
simultaneously target

293
00:17:55,440 --> 00:17:57,760
multiple Soviet
nuclear missiles.

294
00:18:00,800 --> 00:18:02,240
The radars could detect

295
00:18:02,280 --> 00:18:06,720
a Soviet missile incoming
and give six minutes warning.

296
00:18:06,760 --> 00:18:11,720
The missiles could hit a
target on 30 seconds notice.

297
00:18:11,760 --> 00:18:16,640
That meant that as
long as the big computers

298
00:18:16,680 --> 00:18:19,240
could make their
decisions fast enough,

299
00:18:19,280 --> 00:18:22,520
a nuclear tipped
missile could be in the air

300
00:18:22,560 --> 00:18:28,240
and intercepting an inbound
Soviet icbm in time to blow it up.

301
00:18:31,080 --> 00:18:34,000
Refining these technologies
took many years.

302
00:18:35,120 --> 00:18:37,840
Eventually, by late-1975,

303
00:18:37,880 --> 00:18:41,800
the nekoma base was fully
equipped with both long-range spartan

304
00:18:41,840 --> 00:18:44,440
and short-range
sprint nuclear missiles.

305
00:18:45,960 --> 00:18:48,720
These weapons ensured
they would have two chances

306
00:18:48,760 --> 00:18:51,080
to take out incoming
Soviet missiles.

307
00:18:56,600 --> 00:18:59,080
We have here
sprint missile field.

308
00:18:59,120 --> 00:19:01,480
You'll notice that
there's a white cover

309
00:19:01,520 --> 00:19:03,760
on top of this missile site.

310
00:19:03,800 --> 00:19:06,640
That is mainly fibreglass.

311
00:19:06,680 --> 00:19:08,680
When they fired this missile,

312
00:19:08,720 --> 00:19:11,280
it would go directly
through the fibreglass.

313
00:19:14,400 --> 00:19:18,080
When they launched
these spartan missiles,

314
00:19:18,120 --> 00:19:21,720
you'll notice that there is
a steel rail on each side.

315
00:19:22,880 --> 00:19:25,560
When this missile
is ready for firing,

316
00:19:25,600 --> 00:19:27,600
they send the signal

317
00:19:27,640 --> 00:19:30,920
and then there is explosive
charges in that area,

318
00:19:30,960 --> 00:19:33,360
and they'll blow this
cover out of the way

319
00:19:34,360 --> 00:19:37,800
and be speeded on its
way to the outer atmosphere.

320
00:19:41,320 --> 00:19:43,920
But would this high-tech
missile defence system

321
00:19:43,960 --> 00:19:45,960
actually work?

322
00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:47,440
And why was it abandoned?

323
00:19:51,600 --> 00:19:53,840
Completed in 1975,

324
00:19:53,880 --> 00:19:57,000
the complex cost
$5 billion to build,

325
00:19:57,040 --> 00:19:59,720
equivalent to around
20 billion pounds today.

326
00:20:02,640 --> 00:20:05,160
Those missiles were so fast

327
00:20:05,200 --> 00:20:07,080
and so accurate

328
00:20:07,120 --> 00:20:10,560
and directed by radars
that were so powerful

329
00:20:10,600 --> 00:20:13,600
that the United States
was able to demonstrate

330
00:20:13,640 --> 00:20:16,120
its capability to
the point at which

331
00:20:16,160 --> 00:20:20,240
the us could be made
invulnerable to Soviet attack

332
00:20:20,280 --> 00:20:22,160
scared the hell
out of the Russians.

333
00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:28,080
In 1976 however,

334
00:20:28,120 --> 00:20:30,800
the American political
climate took a turn.

335
00:20:31,840 --> 00:20:36,000
In the wake of the Watergate scandal
and president Nixon's resignation,

336
00:20:36,040 --> 00:20:38,400
Jimmy Carter was
elected into office,

337
00:20:38,440 --> 00:20:40,800
bringing with him a
new cold war policy.

338
00:20:42,960 --> 00:20:46,200
After just five months
of full combat readiness,

339
00:20:46,240 --> 00:20:49,080
the us government concluded
that nekoma was no longer

340
00:20:49,120 --> 00:20:53,880
an effective war deterrent and
abruptly shut the complex down,

341
00:20:53,920 --> 00:20:55,520
leaving it abandoned.

342
00:20:57,240 --> 00:21:00,520
Although it was
technically operation,

343
00:21:00,560 --> 00:21:03,440
rumour has it, it was
only ever switched on,

344
00:21:03,480 --> 00:21:08,960
screens alight, lights flashing,
buzzing noises, for three days.

345
00:21:12,320 --> 00:21:14,280
So, when you look at nekoma,

346
00:21:14,320 --> 00:21:15,320
you're in for a shock.

347
00:21:15,360 --> 00:21:16,760
When we waste money,

348
00:21:16,800 --> 00:21:18,440
we really go down
in flames, don't we?

349
00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:20,096
I mean, this has to
be one of the greatest

350
00:21:20,120 --> 00:21:22,000
waste of taxpayers' money

351
00:21:22,040 --> 00:21:24,200
in the cold war
if not in history.

352
00:21:28,120 --> 00:21:31,120
Yet many experts believe
the vast sums of money

353
00:21:31,160 --> 00:21:32,640
spent at nekoma

354
00:21:32,680 --> 00:21:35,080
did in fact help negate
the Soviet threat.

355
00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:38,040
If you look at it that way,

356
00:21:38,080 --> 00:21:41,080
the very fact that the nuclear
war never did break out,

357
00:21:41,120 --> 00:21:44,120
maybe the American taxpayers
did get value for money.

358
00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:45,760
If 5 billion bucks

359
00:21:45,800 --> 00:21:48,520
was the cost of nuclear peace,

360
00:21:48,560 --> 00:21:51,680
that is 5 billion
bucks well spent.

361
00:21:55,080 --> 00:21:59,280
Today, the nekoma safeguard
complex lies abandoned

362
00:21:59,320 --> 00:22:01,520
in a remote corner
of north Dakota.

363
00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:06,400
Plans are afoot for
nekoma to be opened up

364
00:22:06,440 --> 00:22:08,160
as a tourist attraction.

365
00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:09,280
Now, you might think,

366
00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:12,320
"why am I gonna want to
travel a distance and pay money

367
00:22:12,360 --> 00:22:16,120
to go and visit this
giant concrete eyesore?"

368
00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:19,160
Well, you could
look at it this way.

369
00:22:19,200 --> 00:22:20,880
It's all monument to the fact

370
00:22:20,920 --> 00:22:24,400
that the two nations
could come together

371
00:22:24,440 --> 00:22:26,840
and resolve their
issues to create peace.

372
00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:30,800
Despite its short active life,

373
00:22:30,840 --> 00:22:34,440
nekoma pushed the boundaries
of radar and computer technology.

374
00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:39,200
It proved that simply flooding
the planet with nuclear missiles

375
00:22:39,240 --> 00:22:41,760
was not necessarily the
way to win the cold war.

376
00:22:43,880 --> 00:22:47,760
And I think reason enough
to keep nekoma as it is

377
00:22:47,800 --> 00:22:50,560
and to go along to
learn about that history

378
00:22:50,600 --> 00:22:54,360
and feel the significance
of what is otherwise

379
00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:58,800
just this giant, mysterious
concrete structure.

380
00:23:07,320 --> 00:23:09,200
1,500 miles way,

381
00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:11,920
an unusually shaped
complex sits empty

382
00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:13,840
in the heart of the
densely populated

383
00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:15,200
city of Philadelphia.

384
00:23:21,280 --> 00:23:22,280
When you come across

385
00:23:22,320 --> 00:23:26,400
what looks like a medieval
castle in Philadelphia,

386
00:23:26,440 --> 00:23:30,640
with battlements and
flags waving from turrets,

387
00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:34,080
it looks like someone airlifted

388
00:23:34,120 --> 00:23:37,920
one of the spectacular
medieval buildings in France,

389
00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:40,200
the ones that
inspire Disneyland,

390
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:42,960
and just dropped it in
the middle of Philadelphia.

391
00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:51,400
Taking up nearly 10
acres or several city blocks,

392
00:23:51,440 --> 00:23:55,960
it's surrounded by 30 feet
high, 10 feet thick stone walls

393
00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:58,360
that contrast sharply
with the homes

394
00:23:58,400 --> 00:24:00,760
and offices that fill
the surrounding streets.

395
00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:05,760
With seven corridors
extending outward

396
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:08,080
from an octagonal central hub,

397
00:24:08,120 --> 00:24:12,320
this foreboding complex is
shaped like a giant wagon wheel.

398
00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:21,760
It's decaying and mouldy
and dark and damp.

399
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:25,760
A haunted place where you
definitely don't want to spend any time.

400
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:29,120
It's really spooky.

401
00:24:30,960 --> 00:24:34,680
You can smell the
paint peeling off the walls

402
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:36,680
and the damp concrete.

403
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:38,800
It's really, really eerie.

404
00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:43,440
What was the purpose
of this strange site?

405
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:45,000
And why was it abandoned?

406
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:50,320
In the early 1800s,

407
00:24:50,360 --> 00:24:53,920
the state of Pennsylvania
had a problem.

408
00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:56,480
The prisons they controlled
were overcrowded,

409
00:24:56,520 --> 00:25:00,160
hard to keep orderly and
inhumane for the inmates.

410
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:05,720
For decades, prisons were cold,

411
00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:09,840
crowded buildings where
inmates were just crammed

412
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:11,360
in like chickens in a Coop,

413
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:16,560
inviting disease,
violence, even death.

414
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:21,840
So, officials planned
a bold new site

415
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:26,360
for the rehabilitation of prisoners,
the eastern state penitentiary.

416
00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:32,120
The aim was to create
a state-of-the-art prison

417
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:33,760
that put all others to shame

418
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:36,160
and revolutionised
the justice system.

419
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:42,440
You can see that
this was a real reaction

420
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:45,520
to a social reform.

421
00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:48,200
And at the time, very
revolutionary indeed.

422
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:51,440
In 1822,

423
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:55,720
work began on america's biggest
and most expensive prison project,

424
00:25:56,760 --> 00:26:00,120
costing the modern
equivalent of 15 billion pounds.

425
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:08,120
Sara Jane elk

426
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:10,680
is president of the
eastern state penitentiary.

427
00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:15,360
The architect of this
prison, John haviland,

428
00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:18,040
had to think of all the
daily needs of a person

429
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:20,040
while they were by themselves.

430
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:23,160
So, consequently, this prison
was built with central heat,

431
00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:25,520
central plumbing, ventilation.

432
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:30,320
It was the first environmentally
controlled place for human life.

433
00:26:33,120 --> 00:26:35,960
It was a drastic change
from the chaos and violence

434
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:38,080
of ordinary communal prisons,

435
00:26:38,120 --> 00:26:41,600
which experts believed gave
inmates no chance of reform.

436
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:47,120
In 1829, this humanitarian
prison opened.

437
00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:51,040
The purpose behind the design

438
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:53,280
was to give occupants
their own space.

439
00:26:56,800 --> 00:26:59,200
Each inmate has their own cell.

440
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:03,680
They also have their
own little skylight.

441
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:04,760
And this is interesting

442
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:07,760
'cause the whole thinking
was about social reform.

443
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:14,560
The skylight was designed

444
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:17,480
so that inmates would
feel the presence of god

445
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:18,960
as he looked down upon them.

446
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:21,680
The idea was,

447
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:23,760
"we're not just gonna
punish prisoners.

448
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:27,320
We're gonna allow them
time to reflect and repent."

449
00:27:27,360 --> 00:27:30,200
The word penitentiary
comes from repent.

450
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:35,320
So, they isolated each
prisoner by himself in a cell.

451
00:27:35,360 --> 00:27:37,280
They didn't get to
talk to each other.

452
00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:39,160
They were supposed
to spend their days

453
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:42,160
in quiet contemplation
of their crimes.

454
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:45,640
Prisoners were
let out of their cells

455
00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:49,800
twice a day for exercise in
an individually open-air yard.

456
00:27:49,840 --> 00:27:51,000
And the idea here was,

457
00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:53,680
the fresh air and sunlight
would keep people healthy.

458
00:27:56,200 --> 00:28:00,160
The initial design featured
450 individual cells.

459
00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:05,000
To supervise this many
people in an ordinary prison

460
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:06,680
would take an army of guards.

461
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:10,000
So, British architect
John haviland

462
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:13,080
solved this problem by
introducing a unique layout.

463
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:17,640
It's a really ingenious design

464
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:20,320
of having what is
effectively a wagon wheel,

465
00:28:20,360 --> 00:28:22,040
a central hub,

466
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:24,560
where the guards can
look out in every direction

467
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:27,560
and see the cells
going off in the distance.

468
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:30,456
The design of the penitentiary

469
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:33,000
was actually
extremely innovative,

470
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:35,160
which meant that a
small group of guards

471
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:37,120
could keep an eye
on the whole prison

472
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:38,240
from that one location.

473
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:44,520
However, creating a model prison

474
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:47,920
to revolutionise the treatment
of offenders was not cheap.

475
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:55,000
It was one of the most
expensive public building projects

476
00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:56,800
ever carried out in the us.

477
00:29:01,680 --> 00:29:03,800
This is 1828.

478
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:07,520
Now, each inmate has
their own central heating,

479
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:09,440
their own wash basin...

480
00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:13,840
Their own flush toilet.

481
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:15,776
Now, let's put that in
perspective, the white house,

482
00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:19,240
the president, he doesn't
have his own flush toilet.

483
00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:20,520
These guys do.

484
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:23,600
Prisoners were in
solitary confinement,

485
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:24,920
but they did have enough food,

486
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:27,920
they weren't threatened by
violence from other prisoners.

487
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:30,360
You can see why the
founders of the prison

488
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:31,720
thought it was a step forward.

489
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:38,680
Would this revolutionary prison
actually rehabilitate the inmates?

490
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:41,600
And why was it abandoned?

491
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:48,640
After just a few
years of operation,

492
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:50,800
problems began to surface.

493
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:53,440
By the 1830s,

494
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:56,040
engineers had to
expand the penitentiary

495
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:58,360
and alter the design in
order to accommodate

496
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:00,040
a growing number of inmates.

497
00:30:02,720 --> 00:30:04,400
They had to double the cells.

498
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:06,520
They had to bring in a
whole lot more prisoners.

499
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:08,800
So, all those nice
design features

500
00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:13,200
about solitude that would
foster reflection, that was gone.

501
00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:18,080
The prison kept working,
it kept functioning,

502
00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:19,480
but it was no longer

503
00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:23,280
the idyllic prison of
the future it once was.

504
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:27,320
Even the advanced
features of the cells

505
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:28,880
failed to work as planned.

506
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:32,160
There were furnaces at
the end of the cell blocks,

507
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:35,320
and they were to heat the
tunnels underneath the cells,

508
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:37,720
and then the air was to flow in.

509
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:40,280
But the people
closest to the furnaces

510
00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:42,680
were getting carbon
monoxide sickness

511
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:45,001
and the people on the other
ends were getting frostbite.

512
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:47,816
The flush toilets were
flushed twice a week

513
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:49,520
by the prison guards.

514
00:30:49,560 --> 00:30:51,280
Twice a week.

515
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:54,440
And hence the stench
that this created,

516
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:55,920
it was legendary.

517
00:30:58,080 --> 00:30:59,480
On a practical level,

518
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:01,600
the whole idea
of rigid separation

519
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:04,120
of prisoners proved
impossible to maintain.

520
00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:09,160
Cells designed for one man
soon housed two or three.

521
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:19,360
By the end of the century, the
notion of solitary confinement,

522
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:21,600
originally intended to
encourage prisoners

523
00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:23,360
to reflect and reform

524
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:25,600
was replaced with
overcrowding and harsh,

525
00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:27,040
unsanitary conditions.

526
00:31:32,520 --> 00:31:34,560
In 1929,

527
00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:37,120
the prison still employed
solitary confinement

528
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:38,360
to try and rehabilitate

529
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:40,880
one of the most notorious
criminals of all time.

530
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:46,136
And the eastern
state penitentiary

531
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:49,360
actually had quite a few
famous prisoners in it,

532
00:31:49,400 --> 00:31:51,320
the most famous being al Capone

533
00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:55,480
who spent a few years
there for a minor charge.

534
00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:57,720
Now, he was
serving eight months,

535
00:31:57,760 --> 00:31:59,760
although his original
sentence was longer.

536
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:02,200
He described his
time there as easy.

537
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:04,480
Well, it would be easy
when you have your own sofa,

538
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:06,400
your own bookcase, and
your own record player

539
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:08,440
that you play waltzes on.

540
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:09,936
It couldn't have
been that easy though

541
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:12,560
'cause we know he spent a good
deal of his bootlegging income

542
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:15,240
trying to get that sentence
even further reduced.

543
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:18,880
For 42 more years,

544
00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:23,040
the prison continued to operate
despite its notorious conditions.

545
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:28,360
But in 1970, because
of overcrowding,

546
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:32,280
the once revolutionary prison
finally closed its doors for good.

547
00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:41,240
Today, the dilapidated
eastern state penitentiary

548
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:44,720
lies deserted in the middle
of bustling Philadelphia.

549
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:50,080
After it was closed, the
whole site became abandoned.

550
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:52,720
But then a consortium
of concerned citizens

551
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:55,600
got involved and said, "no,
this is a historic landmark.

552
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:57,640
We need to make
it into a museum."

553
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:00,240
And that's what it is today,
and that feels about right.

554
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:04,320
Despite its many drawbacks,

555
00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:07,800
the groundbreaking design
was copied all over the world.

556
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:10,720
More than 300 central
hub prisons were built.

557
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:16,040
Yet the whole concept
of solitary confinement

558
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:19,400
came to be seen not as a
way of reforming criminals

559
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:21,280
but as a punishment in itself.

560
00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:25,176
At the time, it
was thought to be

561
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:26,680
this very enlightened,

562
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:30,040
gentle way to treat these
prisoners, give them time to reflect.

563
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:32,280
But in fact, it was
solitary confinement,

564
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:34,720
a very cruel punishment
to isolate people.

565
00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:39,800
Spending months, years
in these cells all by yourself,

566
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:41,280
it's really hard to imagine.

567
00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:52,200
Over 4,000 miles away,
across the Atlantic in schipkau,

568
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:53,600
east Germany,

569
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:57,120
a corroding mass of steel
towers over the landscape.

570
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:06,360
Out of the thick pine forest
emerges a monster machine.

571
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:12,720
You're just completely
flabbergasted

572
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:17,000
at the enormity of this
thing in front of you.

573
00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:21,680
This thing looks like
something out of star wars,

574
00:34:21,720 --> 00:34:23,920
giant super-structure.

575
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:25,760
It's 160 feet high,

576
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:28,560
it's got this evil-looking
wheel at the front of it.

577
00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:36,640
This vast rusting hulk is
made of three grid-like arms

578
00:34:36,680 --> 00:34:40,040
all connected by a
spider's web of steel cables.

579
00:34:46,520 --> 00:34:48,120
It's very science fiction.

580
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:50,400
You'd be forgiven for thinking

581
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:53,600
this is definitely some
kind of contraption

582
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:56,680
built by an evil genius
planning to take over the world.

583
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:00,560
It's just unbelievable.

584
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:05,840
Incredibly, this metal
leviathan was once mobile.

585
00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:11,800
Two huge tank-like tracks
support 4,000 tonnes of weight.

586
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:19,920
Control cabins perched
among the girders

587
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:21,880
also suggest that
it carried a crew.

588
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:27,640
But what is this
mysterious machine?

589
00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:28,840
Who built it?

590
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:31,400
And why was it abandoned
in the middle of nowhere?

591
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:38,160
In the 1960s,

592
00:35:38,200 --> 00:35:41,800
communist east Germany was
changing its economic policies

593
00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:43,800
in an attempt to
boost industrial growth.

594
00:35:47,680 --> 00:35:50,920
To fuel its power stations
and meet energy demands,

595
00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:53,200
they tapped into their
key energy deposit,

596
00:35:53,240 --> 00:35:54,320
brown coal.

597
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:58,680
Huge deposits lay
just below the surface.

598
00:35:58,720 --> 00:36:00,040
Getting at it, however,

599
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:02,920
was costly and
incredibly labour intensive.

600
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:09,440
In 1964,

601
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:11,960
the engineering firm
lauchhammerwerk

602
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:14,640
developed something radical
to overcome this problem.

603
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:18,800
When designing structures

604
00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:19,880
at such a scale,

605
00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:24,400
engineers face many challenges,
mostly due to the sheer size.

606
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:25,560
Things weigh

607
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:28,960
so much that modern
materials are almost at their limit.

608
00:36:30,360 --> 00:36:32,480
When you take a closer
look at some of the elements,

609
00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:35,520
on the extremities
of this giant monster,

610
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:40,200
you can slowly figure out
what the purpose of it was.

611
00:36:40,240 --> 00:36:45,840
This is schaufelradbagger or
bucket wheel excavator 258.

612
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:49,640
It's one of the largest
machines ever built.

613
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:56,880
Nicknamed 'bagger 258',
this is a strip mining excavator,

614
00:36:56,920 --> 00:36:58,760
designed to remove
earth and rock

615
00:36:58,800 --> 00:37:02,800
to expose veins of brown coal
that run just beneath the surface.

616
00:37:04,720 --> 00:37:10,360
There is nothing delicate about
strip mining with bagger 258.

617
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:15,040
This thing removes
yards of earth at a time

618
00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:17,720
in this great big long trench,

619
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:20,800
following the coal
underneath the earth's surface,

620
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:23,400
until you get down to
what you're after, the coal.

621
00:37:28,080 --> 00:37:32,040
While the company manufactured
13 types of these machines,

622
00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:34,480
they only made one bagger 258

623
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:39,360
and they unleashed it in 1965.

624
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:44,160
The key element of the bagger
is its immense cutting wheel,

625
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:47,200
40 feet in diameter,

626
00:37:47,240 --> 00:37:50,040
each of its 10 buckets
can hold 50,000

627
00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:51,480
cubic feet of earth and rock,

628
00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:55,480
allowing it to cut
deep into the surface

629
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:56,920
at astonishing speed.

630
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:01,880
This thing is shovelling up

631
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:05,560
thousands of tonnes of
earth and rock at a time

632
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:09,840
before dropping it onto its own
conveyor belt to shift it away,

633
00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:12,840
all the while, trundling
along on its tracks

634
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:15,960
to continuously eat up
the earth in front of it.

635
00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:19,160
Machine doesn't do it justice.

636
00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:22,240
This thing's a
factory on tracks.

637
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:25,560
Bucket wheel excavators are

638
00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:29,640
amazingly complex in terms
of their abilities to move,

639
00:38:29,680 --> 00:38:34,000
function, and otherwise
just do their job

640
00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:35,840
with a minimal amount
of human involvement.

641
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:40,680
When you see the size
and the complexity of bagger,

642
00:38:40,720 --> 00:38:43,520
you'd imagine it would
need an army of people

643
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:45,120
to actually operate it.

644
00:38:45,160 --> 00:38:46,160
But that's not the case.

645
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:49,440
It only takes five
people to run,

646
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:51,640
and all of them are
situated on board.

647
00:38:54,720 --> 00:38:55,920
So, whilst it might have cost

648
00:38:55,960 --> 00:39:00,320
the earth to build, running
it comes relatively cheap.

649
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:02,560
There's a trade-off between

650
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:06,400
building one machine that's
really big and using dozens

651
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:08,960
or hundreds of
trucks and shovels.

652
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:10,640
Obviously, if something breaks,

653
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:14,840
you're in trouble and you
need to shut down, but overall,

654
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:17,600
the bucket wheel excavator
is so much more efficient

655
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:18,960
that it's worth the risk.

656
00:39:24,720 --> 00:39:27,840
It began operating in 1965,

657
00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:30,680
and though designed
to extract coal efficiently,

658
00:39:30,720 --> 00:39:32,400
it was painfully slow moving.

659
00:39:34,560 --> 00:39:37,000
Weighing around 4,000 tonnes,

660
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:39,200
it could only move
at 6 yards a minute.

661
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:43,320
And even that was no easy task.

662
00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:50,520
That's hardly gonna beat
any world land speed records,

663
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:53,280
but it's actually
extremely impressive

664
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:56,960
when you consider the size
and the weight of this thing.

665
00:39:57,000 --> 00:39:59,160
In fact, it weighs so much

666
00:39:59,200 --> 00:40:00,680
that as it moves any ground

667
00:40:00,720 --> 00:40:02,840
ahead of it needs to
be specially prepared.

668
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:07,080
And any roads it crosses
needs to be prepared,

669
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:09,680
so that it doesn't just
pulverise the surface.

670
00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:15,720
Yes, bagger is mobile,
but mobility comes at a cost.

671
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:20,120
One of the big challenges

672
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:22,520
is you've got to move
the bucket constantly,

673
00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:26,840
so it's always digging in
to fresh soil or fresh coal.

674
00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:29,520
The bucket
excavator has to pivot

675
00:40:29,560 --> 00:40:32,360
as the wheel is
turning into fresh soil,

676
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:34,680
then the whole thing
also has to creep forward

677
00:40:34,720 --> 00:40:37,720
in order to move into
new areas to be excavated.

678
00:40:40,520 --> 00:40:43,200
That wasn't the only
operational hazard facing

679
00:40:43,240 --> 00:40:44,840
this engineering giant.

680
00:40:46,160 --> 00:40:47,760
What strikes me about bagger

681
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:51,800
is the number of appendages that it
has sticking out from its main body.

682
00:40:53,160 --> 00:40:54,320
You've got a spoil arm

683
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:56,880
sticking out the back
that then spits out

684
00:40:56,920 --> 00:40:59,920
all of that earth into trucks
waiting to take it away.

685
00:41:01,280 --> 00:41:05,040
But crucially, you also
need a counterbalance arm.

686
00:41:05,080 --> 00:41:09,120
Now, this counterweights
the forces and the stresses

687
00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:12,200
at the front of the machine
as it digs through the earth,

688
00:41:12,240 --> 00:41:14,400
otherwise the whole thing
would just topple over.

689
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:21,160
For decades, bagger 258

690
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:24,080
successfully mined coal
across eastern Germany.

691
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:28,920
Even after German
unification in 1990,

692
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:30,880
it continued to fuel
the country's energy

693
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:32,840
needs until 2002.

694
00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:47,240
Eventually, it simply ran
out of material to mine,

695
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:50,920
so operation was halted
and the machine abandoned.

696
00:41:54,520 --> 00:41:57,800
Today, the bagger
258 is rusting away

697
00:41:57,840 --> 00:42:00,520
in a remote and empty field.

698
00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:02,120
But in more ways than one,

699
00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:05,800
it's left an indelible
Mark on the landscape.

700
00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:08,800
The problem with large
bucket wheel excavators

701
00:42:08,840 --> 00:42:10,680
is that they're made
of manmade materials,

702
00:42:10,720 --> 00:42:13,280
metals, that do not
weather very well.

703
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:15,680
So, preserving them
for future generations

704
00:42:15,720 --> 00:42:18,440
would be very
expensive, very costly.

705
00:42:18,480 --> 00:42:20,400
So, leaving them in
the field is probably

706
00:42:20,440 --> 00:42:23,840
the only true solution
we have for us.

707
00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:27,040
Bagger 258 has been left to rot.

708
00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:29,040
It has been abandoned.

709
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:31,640
But maybe that's
not such a bad thing.

710
00:42:31,680 --> 00:42:34,320
Rightly or wrongly, we're
still massively dependant

711
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:38,200
on fossil fuels today
and bagger 258,

712
00:42:38,240 --> 00:42:41,120
for me, is a reminder
and a monument

713
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:44,840
to the effort and the
ingenuity required to exploit

714
00:42:44,880 --> 00:42:46,600
the earth's resources
in the way we do.

715
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:56,080
Now abandoned,

716
00:42:56,120 --> 00:42:59,400
they were once on the cutting
edge of human engineering.

717
00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:03,560
Within these decaying structures
are the echoes of history.

718
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:07,440
They speak of war and terror

719
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:11,640
but also of exploration
and human endeavour.

720
00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:18,160
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