All language subtitles for Americas.Book.Of.Secrets.S01E03_English

[narrator] It is one of the most secure
structures in the world.

It safeguards the vast wealth
of the United States.

And its name is synonymous

with one
of the most precious commodities

in the history of the world: gold.

But behind this building's stone exterior
are secrets.

Secrets so outrageous...

[Bill Still]
Is there any gold in Fort Knox?

We just don't know.

[narrator] So controversial...

In my opinion, there is no such thing
as an impregnable vault.

[narrator] So potentially dangerous...

You cannot get answers,
because the secret history

would explode the markets.

[narrator] ...that they must be
kept hidden from the public.

If I tell you about Fort Knox,
it's going to blow your socks off.

[narrator] There are those
who believe in the existence of a book.

A book that contains
the most highly guarded secrets

of the United States of America.

A book whose very existence

is known to only a select few.

But if such a book exists,
what would it contain?

Secret histories?

Secret plans?

Secret lies?

Does there really exist
America's Book of Secrets?

[bell clanging]

[narrator] July 2007.

Major banking institutions
across America

announce
a series of financial setbacks.

It is the first public indication
of an economic crisis.

One that will hurl
the United States and Europe

into the worst financial recession
since the 1930s.

Over the next four years,

the price of gold skyrockets

to nearly $2,000 an ounce,

its highest price in recorded history.

Gold's unprecedented value

draws attention to the U.S.
government's secret holdings

of the precious metal.

For far too long,
the United States government

has been less than transparent
in releasing information

relating to its gold holdings.

Not surprisingly, this secrecy
has given rise to a number of theories

about the gold at Fort Knox.

The government owes it to the people

to provide them with the details
of these holdings.

[narrator]
America's gold reserves

are held
in four U.S. Mint depositories:

Denver, West Point,
New York's Federal Reserve,

and the largest, Fort Knox.

The nature
and extent of these reserves

are as secret as they are secure.

You are more likely to obtain
from the United States government

the blueprints for the construction
of a nuclear weapon

than you are to obtain
any accurate detailed

accounting of the disposition
of the United States gold reserve

and the gold reserve
of other Western nations.

[narrator] Only a presidential order
can open the Fort Knox vault.

And no audit
of the contents of the vault

has been conducted since 1953.

Certainly there's evidence
that the government is hiding something.

[narrator]
By law, the U.S. Treasury operates

under the direct orders
and supervision of the president.

And not only does the Treasury
print money,

collect taxes
and enforce trade agreements,

it also oversees
America's most precious commodity:

its gold.

[Powell] Militaries will pack
their pilot survival kits

with gold coins,
not with paper currency,

because gold is the universal money.

And its value determines the value
of government currencies.

Gold's value
also profoundly influences

interest rates
and the price of government bonds.

This is the primary reason
why governments have always tried

to control the price of gold.

The gold price is a determinant
of the value of all capital,

labor,
goods and services in the world.

There is nothing else.

[narrator]
The origin of America's gold reserves

dates back to 1933,

when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

outlawed the private ownership
of gold by U.S. citizens

in an effort to jumpstart the economy
during the Great Depression.

In 1933, America nationalized its gold.

In essence, it stole it
from the American people.

[Paul Urbahns]
Roosevelt realized that the only way

in order to bring the country
out of that depression

was for the federal government
to control the money.

[narrator] Under the watchful eye
of federal marshals,

citizens were required
to turn in their gold coins,

bullion
and even gold paper certificates

at the then-current exchange rate
of $20.67 per troy ounce.

Failure to comply
was punishable by heavy fines

and up to ten years in prison.

Almost overnight, U.S. gold reserves
swelled to 5,000 tons,

melted into 368,000 uniform bars,

each weighing 27.5 pounds.

One year later, Roosevelt raised
the new fixed price for U.S. gold

to $35 an ounce.

Once he acquired
all the gold in the country,

he doubled its value.

You could do that when you own it all.

[Ganz] The difference
is the government had the profit,

not the individual people.

And that was the way that the New Deal
attempted to jumpstart the economy.

[narrator] In less than 24 months,

Franklin Roosevelt had consolidated
the single greatest concentration

of wealth in modern history.

And to store it, he constructed
the country's strongest fortress:

Fort Knox.

[Urbahns]
In the 1930s, we were concerned

about rumblings of war in Europe,

and the federal government
was concerned

about our gold being stored

in New York and Philadelphia,
which are both coastal locations

and subject to attack.

Roosevelt decided to build
a vault to put the gold in,

and it had to be a reasonable distance
away from the Atlantic Coast.

[narrator] Not only was
Roosevelt's choice of location

far from the ocean,

it stood adjacent
to the Fort Knox military base.

While the depository remains

under the sole control
of the U.S. Treasury,

the Army's 10,000 soldiers
and M-1 Tanks

still provide a clear deterrent

to anyone
with designs on America's gold.

[explosion]

[Walter Huddleston]
There's a military unit at Fort Knox

that is at all times responsible

if any attack was made
on the gold vault.

[narrator]
Secret guards, a top-secret vault

and a wall of silence surrounding
the true contents of Fort Knox

have led some to speculate
that Roosevelt's choice of location

might be linked to one
of Kentucky's more colorful legends.

There's a story that the Founding Fathers

actually thought during
the Revolutionary period

that the United States Treasury

needed to be hidden
somewhere from the British.

And Kentucky seemed to be
a very likely place,

because it was still part
of Virginia at that time.

George Washington would have realized

there was no fortification
available during that time

that you could safeguard
such a treasury.

But one thing that they did have
was Kentucky,

the wilderness of Kentucky,
and caves in abundance.

[narrator]
Regional folklore has long held

that the deep caves
surrounding Fort Knox

were an ideal place for pirates

and others to stash
their precious valuables.

The pirate legends
do get some credence,

because through the years,

there have been
pieces of gold and silver

found in central Kentucky.

[narrator] But could a cave
like this really have served

as the first gold depository
of the United States?

Some believe the answer is yes.

And for proof, they point
to a colonial Englishman

named Jonathan Swift,

a mysterious associate
of General George Washington,

who owned
extensive land in Kentucky.

Swift may also have served
as the model

for one of the most famous pirates
in literature.

When Robert Louis Stevenson
wrote the famous Treasure Island,

he knew about the legend
of Jonathan Swift.

And many people think
that he actually did take that legend

and create Long John Silver.

If you look at the map
that was drawn for the book,

it looks like
the United States of America.

And then if you look
where X marks the spot,

where the treasure is,
it looked geographically

where it would have been Kentucky.

[narrator]
Using maps and letters of the era,

author Robert Prather suggests
that gold may have been smuggled

in salt barrels to secret caves
on tracts of land owned by Swift,

land located only miles
from the current gold depository.

[Prather] I think it's a possibility
the gold vault was built where it is

due to events of the late 18th century.

The fact that Jonathan Swift
owned this property,

which was nearly in the backyard
of the bullion depository,

the fact that we're not allowed
to know very much

about the contents today,

perfectly demonstrates that secrecy

has always been maximum
when it comes to our national treasury.

[narrator]
Today, official Treasury records set

the Fort Knox gold reserves
at 147.3 million troy ounces,

worth trillions of U.S. dollars.

More gold than the entire reserves
of China, Japan,

Switzerland, Russia
and Saudi Arabia combined.

[narrator] Antwerp, Belgium.

February 2003.

[sirens wailing]

Thieves break into the vault
at the Antwerp Diamond Center

and escape with more
than $100 million in gold,

diamonds and other precious items.

According to authorities,
the vault was impenetrable,

featuring the most advanced
hi-tech security in the world.

It is called the heist of the century.

And even now,
no one is certain how it was done.

But if such a secure facility
could be breached,

could the vast gold reserves
at Fort Knox be equally vulnerable?

People have done
everything that you can imagine

in order to acquire gold

and some things that are best left
to the imagination.

[narrator]
Officially, the Treasury Department

acknowledges only a single attempt
to break in to Fort Knox.

The perpetrator?

Goldfinger.

I think you've made your point,
Goldfinger.

Thank you for the demonstration.

[narrator]
James Bond's arch-nemesis

from the 1964 hit movie.

You expect me to talk?

No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.

[explosion]

[narrator] For the movie's producers,
the challenge was clear:

how best to portray Fort Knox
and its top-secret interior?

They, of course, like everybody else,
asked if they could get in.

The request was denied.

So, the word goes
to the production design department.

What's the interior of Fort Knox
going to look like?

We need to draw something up.

And one of the James Bond producers
somewhat famously remarked,

what he wants to see
is a cathedral of gold.

[screaming]

[Cork] There were, of course,
a number of people who thought

that Goldfinger was allowed to film
inside of Fort Knox.

But the reality, of course,
is just very different.

[narrator] Just how accurate
was the film's portrayal of Fort Knox?

Doug Simmons is one of the few
former Fort Knox employees

willing to speak on the record

about what it's like behind
the depository's forbidden walls.

[Doug Simmons] In Goldfinger,
when Bond goes into the building,

you can see through all the floors
and see the gold.

Of course, when we got in there,
it turned out to be a standard, typical

United States
government boring facility.

It's an impressive building,
but nothing like Goldfinger.

[narrator]
Questions concerning the actual security

at Fort Knox are so classified

that despite requests,

no Treasury Department official
will address them.

Fort Knox is so protected,
I don't believe a fly could get in there.

It is one of the most secure areas
in the United States.

[narrator] What is known
about the depository's security

begins at the perimeter.

Four layers of fence
and a lawn of more than 100 yards

surround the depository,

enough room for minefields
and trip wires and automated guns.

Guard shacks
provide 360-degree coverage

and maximum firing capabilities.

The windows are fake,
disguising barriers of Kevlar and steel.

Even the cover of darkness
is used to defend the structure.

Various lighting techniques have been used

so that the gold vault
actually disappears at night.

[narrator]
To step inside the building

is to enter a maze of 21,000 cubic feet
of granite and concrete

and more than 1,400 tons of steel.

Past offices that line the first floor

is the elevator that leads
to the gold vault below.

The vault door is 21 inches thick
and weighs more than 20 tons.

To unlock it requires
multiple Treasury officials,

each with a unique
secret combination.

Once inside, the vault
is divided into individual cells,

said to measure ten feet by ten feet,

stacked from floor to ceiling with gold.

But are there still other,
more secret security measures

that protect the gold?

[Allan Halverson]
As to the deterrents, gas does exist,

so that if the door
or the lock is attacked

in such a way
as to activate the gas charge,

-it would fill up that room.
-[alarm]

There's multiple rumors
about the gold vault.

One of them
is that it can be flooded.

And that is backed up

by the original newspaper clippings
from the 1930s.

It was designed after a method
used by the Bank of France.

Now, whether that feature
was incorporated

in the final construction,

only the Treasury Department knows,
and they're not saying.

If I tell you what surprised
me most about Fort Knox,

it's going to blow your socks off.

It's the fact that there are
escape tunnels inside the facility.

Nobody talks about them.

They had to do that
as a safety precaution

because the vaults
have 72-hour time locks on them,

and if they're shut,
you're stuck for three days.

This doesn't get you
outside the building,

it doesn't get you
outside the perimeter.

This is just to get you
from an interior vault

into an exterior vault.

[narrator]
Yet ever since the Depository

was constructed in 1937,

rumors have persisted
about its vulnerabilities...

including
this never-before-revealed letter.

In 1998, local Fort Knox
historian Paul Urbahns

received a letter
from a private investigator

in Durango, Colorado.

The investigator claimed to represent
a man who, as a child,

helped police apprehend a murderer

in possession of stolen bars
of Fort Knox gold.

The year was 1946.

The judge allowed him
to return to Fort Knox

when they returned
some of the Fort Knox gold

that these criminals
had stolen to the gold depository.

His description of the facility
was quite credible.

Whether it's true or not,
I don't know.

[narrator]
Does this letter reveal

that Fort Knox security
has been breached?

Could its gold have been stolen?

Are these claims real?

The U.S. government
has never acknowledged

the disappearance
of any Fort Knox gold.

Yet can any vault
ever be 100% secure?

In my opinion, there is no such thing
as an impregnable vault.

Given the opportunity, time, means,

you can circumvent
just about anything.

[narrator] Today, the motives
to destroy or rob Fort Knox are many,

including the very real possibility
of a terrorist attack.

[Simmons] In the '70s and '80s

we would drive
right up to the depository.

There was one wrought iron fence.

And now there's multiple fences
and concrete barricades.

They might have ground-to-air missiles

and, you know, pop-up guns.
And who knows what's out there?

The guards used to tell me, "You'll get
in, but you'll never get out alive."

[narrator] Of the U.S. presidents
who have taken office

since Franklin D. Roosevelt
shut the vault doors

at Fort Knox in 1937,

not one of them has ever visited
the famous gold depository.

At least none that we know of.

And never has a president
opened the doors to the public

in order to verify the status
of its solid gold contents,

except for one time:

in the fall of 1974.

[Simmons] Suddenly Americans
lost faith in the government,

and they started putting
this big focus on Fort Knox,

that that building was empty,

this is a ruse.
It's like our government's become a lie.

[narrator] In 1971,

after a bruising economic battle
with France,

President Richard Nixon
had taken the U.S. dollar

off the international gold standard.

No longer was the U.S. dollar
to be valued based on gold.

[Urbahns] During the 1960s,
when Charles de Gaulle

was Prime Minister of France,

he told other countries,

"If you owe me money,
pay me in American dollars."

And then he would turn
those American dollars in for gold.

That probably caused
the biggest drain of gold

out of the Bullion Depository.

[narrator] But how much
of America's national treasure was left?

An anxious public demanded to know.

So, on September 23, 1974,

Director of the U.S. Mint Mary Brooks

led a carefully selected group
of lawmakers

and the news media on a half-hour tour
of the Fort Knox vault,

as seen here,
in this incredibly rare footage.

We arrived by bus,
up Bullion Boulevard, aptly named.

And as you approach the depository,

you see signs that warn
that federal officers inside

are authorized to shoot to kill,

and that admission
is absolutely forbidden.

Come on, gentlemen.

[Huddleston] We went down
from the first floor on an elevator,

down to the lower level
where the gold is actually stored.

And as we got off the elevator,

and we just walked in
right next to the vaults themselves,

the cell is full of gold.

[Brooks] ...136 gold bars.

[man]
Ready to start counting, boys?

[narrator]
Inside the vault room were 13 cells.

Across each locked door
hung a delicate ribbon with a wax seal,

signed and dated as to the last time
the cell was accessed.

A primitive method, perhaps,
but nevertheless effective.

[Simmons] You can barely touch
those and you can break a seal.

A seal is broken,
no one is leaving that building.

Because they're going
to have to send people down

and audit that compartment

to make sure
that nobody stole anything out of it.

[narrator]
The delegation was ushered in

toward the smallest
of the compartment cells.

Why that one and not one
of the purportedly larger ones,

remains a mystery,

but at the moment,
no one seemed to care.

There, we're cutting the ribbon.

Now, we have to be very careful
of this document.

There's nothing that was as breathtaking

as having the seal cut on that door,
the vault door open,

the floodlights from the television
and from the still cameras,

flashbulbs popping,
going off the gold.

[man] Can you believe that?
Look, they're clear to the ceiling.

[Huddleston]
We had an opportunity to pick it up,

feel it and make sure it was gold.

It was a little bit awe-inspiring,

and I just wanted to sit
and look at it for a few minutes.

[man 2]
It says approximately 22 pounds.

[narrator]
Most of the visitors left satisfied,

having seen firsthand
the magnificent contents of the cell.

[reporter]
Are you satisfied all the gold is here?

Well, I am,
and I was before we came.

[narrator] But to some observers,
not all that glittered was gold.

They opened up the Bullion Depository.

And on that night, they showed
for the first time since the 1930s,

opening these compartments up
and letting everybody see.

But what they did
was they opened Pandora's box.

Because, yeah, everybody saw
a bunch of bars stacked up in a room

and then immediately
started saying,

"What you're looking at
is probably fake."

[narrator] But why had the visitors
been shown only one cell?

And why was access to certain corners
of the vault complex denied?

Over time, photos taken
during the event begin to circulate

in newspapers and magazines.

But rather than reassure skeptics,
as the Mint had hoped,

still more questions arose.

Some questioned the quality
of the gold based on its color.

Others suggested
that according to this AP Photo,

the bars didn't weigh 27.5 pounds
as reported,

but less than 22 pounds.

Of course, the Treasury came out
with a press release and said,

"Oh, well, it was just some cheap scale
and so the scale was inaccurate."

But if you magnify the photograph,
you see that it was not a cheap scale.

It was a standard-issue
U.S. Postal scale.

[narrator] Most intriguing of all
was the possibility of a secret vault,

one hidden
not only from visitors that day,

but one whose very existence
is denied even now.

There is this famous picture
of Mary Brooks

taken by an AP photographer saying,
"Look, all the gold's here."

The room that they showed
was gold vault number 13,

and if you just do a simple
napkin-like calculation

of how many bars you see,

there are about a million ounces
of gold in that room.

And yet the latest Treasury figures
from the Treasury website

show that there are 150 million ounces
of gold in Fort Knox.

So it would take 150
of those gold vault 13s,

so clearly, something's amiss.

[narrator]
But did this single photograph

really prove the existence of another,
even more secret vault?

Unfortunately for Treasury, the former
commanding general of Fort Knox,

General John Ryan,
wrote a letter saying that,

"No, Treasury's wrong.

There is a central core vault,
and I was in it."

And then he made a hand-drawn
map showing where vault 13 was,

which is on the ground floor

and showing
where the central core vault,

which was in a subterranean area
of Fort Knox,

which is much bigger, which comprised
almost the entire perimeter

of the building,
but it was underground.

So, once again,
the government caught in a lie?

Okay, why?

Why don't they just fess up?
So, obviously, they're hiding something.

[narrator]
Why would the government refute

the existence of a central core vault?

Is it part of their security protocol?

And if each of the vault compartments
only holds a million ounces,

then where is the rest of the gold
that the government claims

is being stored at Fort Knox?

I think it might be a good policy
if every few years

the Treasury Department brought down
a few people to take a look at it.

But I don't think
it's going to happen.

[Ganz] When I was
on the congressional inspection tour,

there was gold
in Fort Knox and a lot of it.

I can tell you that being there
was an intense experience.

But knowing that the gold was
there in September of 1974

doesn't mean
that it's still there today.

[narrator] Government officials
had hoped that the public inspection

of the U.S. gold depository
at Fort Knox in 1974

would silence those who doubted
that gold was even being stored there.

But for some, the tour
of the otherwise off-limits facility

only fueled even more
intense speculation

and skepticism.

[Simmons] I was looking for a summer
job and I got a phone call

at home one day, there was a man
on the other end of the phone,

and he asked me,
"Are you interested in a job?"

I said, "Yes, I'm interested in a job.
What kind of job is it?"

He said, "I can't tell you."

[narrator]
The call Doug Simmons received

was from the Gold Bullion Depository
at Fort Knox.

The job was simple: lift and move
the gold from one room to another,

where it would be cleaned
and counted.

[Simmons]
I started there in 1975.

They briefed us that
we were not to discuss with anybody

what we saw inside the building.

Of course, we were 18 years old,

so, you know, by that afternoon,
we had already told all our girlfriends

what we had seen, you know.

[narrator]
But what Doug Simmons discovered

was that Fort Knox
was more than a depository for gold.

Much more.

During World War II, Fort Knox
served as a secret depository

for the U.S. Government's
most important

and cherished documents,

including
the Declaration of Independence,

the Constitution

and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

And as the Battle of Britain raged,

the English government requested
Fort Knox be the hiding place

of the Magna Carta.

[Simmons]
It's always been a storage place,

so when you saw those boxes,

you can only conjecture
what was inside of there.

Now, I was there when the crown
of Saint Stephen was pulled out

and was given back
to the Hungarian government.

There was the crown
and his sword and his scepter

and, you know,
these things are just priceless.

[narrator] The presence
of additional sealed boxes

convinced Simmons that perhaps
the real purpose of Fort Knox

wasn't the secure
storage of gold at all,

but the secret storage of items

of even greater historic
and strategic value.

[Simmons] I don't think
that anybody would ever try

to break in that building
to steal the gold

because, one, it would take
an incredible operation

to get that out of there
because of the sheer weight of it.

If somebody wants
into the Bullion Depository,

it's not going to be for the gold.

[narrator]
But what else, besides gold,

could be so valuable, so top secret

that it would require
the most stringent security measures

that the U.S. government could offer?

Fort Knox held some things

that, of course, people would be
a little frightened of now.

Opium, for example,
was stored there.

The U.S. Army
and federal government has stored drugs

and chemicals in the gold vault
in case of the next war

or time of war.

That was kind of a reality check
when we saw that,

because it kind of let you know that,
did our government ever think

we were going to be involved
in a nuclear war? Absolutely We did.

Because they were stockpiling
painkilling drugs.

[narrator]
According to a 1993 report,

Fort Knox contains nearly 70,000 pounds
of opium and morphine.

It also houses 900,000 carats
of diamonds,

a treasure trove of precious stones

that rivals
that of England's crown jewels.

But there are those who believe
that Fort Knox also houses

something even more valuable,

more strategically important
to our nation

than any amount of gold or jewels.

In 1948, Kentucky Air National Guard
Captain Thomas Mantell

was ordered to investigate
a strange sighting over Fort Knox.

Two important things
about Thomas Mantell.

Number one, he was
a decorated pilot of World War II

and had many hours of flying time.

He was leading a squadron
down to Goddard, Kentucky,

which is near Fort Knox.

During the early morning hours,

an unidentified object was seen
over the airfield,

and Thomas Mantell was requested
by the air traffic controller

to take a look at this object.

Now, he describes this craft as being
a very large, orange, luminous ball,

and he decides to approach it
to figure out what this is.

[Storch]
There was some exchanges

that took place between the captain
and the air traffic control.

We're not sure exactly
what those communications were,

because they, the government,
won't release them to us.

What we do know
is that a Kentucky farmer

heard a noise and looked up
and saw a P-51 fighter plane

come crashing down.

There's speculation
as to what happened.

Initially, it was that Captain Mantell
was shot down

by this unidentified flying object.
That he was hit with a ray

of some sort that knocked out
his engine and he crashed.

A lot of UFO cases don't involve
parameters that involve death.

And unfortunately, the pilot,
Thomas Mantell,

in pursuing this craft
actually lost his life.

That's a pretty dramatic
circumstance.

[narrator]
Some researchers speculate

that the wreckage
of Captain Mantell's aircraft

is kept hidden at Fort Knox.

But if so, why?

Could the incident have really involved
a UFO, as some suggest?

A UFO searching the skies for gold?

What's really intriguing about this

is it happened directly over Fort Knox.

Is there some tie-in to the fact
that we store

large amounts of gold at Fort Knox?

Was the UFO perhaps interested
in some of this gold as a reservoir?

[Storch] It doesn't corrode,

it's an excellent conductor
of electricity,

and it's one
of the natural forming elements

in the universe.

And here you have
this huge deposit of gold.

And so there were
a number of sightings

in and around Fort Knox.

[narrator] Could Fort Knox really
be the top-secret hiding place

for material evidence
that extraterrestrials exist?

[Simmons] I don't know if they've got
the Roswell aliens hidden up there

or Jimmy Hoffa's in there,
or Amelia Earhart's hidden in there.

I don't know who's in there.

But, boy, they're sure spending
a lot of money to guard something.

[narrator] It is considered
the most impenetrable vault in the world.

A fortress of granite and steel.

And armed
with high-tech defense mechanisms.

But the questions
concerning Fort Knox

have never been
about its level of security.

The real questions concern
the mystery of what,

if anything,
is actually being stored there.

Secret things
are done with that gold reserve.

That gold reserve
is public property.

It's the property of all the people
of the United States.

And the things that are done with it
are meant to undertake

secret policies
without any accountability to Congress,

to the people of the United States.
That's objectionable.

[narrator] In 1980,

newspaper reporter Bill Still
received an envelope.

The sender: a wealthy Ohio businessman
named Edward Durrell.

In it, Durrell detailed how
he had spent tens of thousands of dollars

researching Fort Knox
and had come to one explosive conclusion:

There was no gold
being stored there at all.

The way that the gold
was removed, as I understand it,

was by truck and rail.

It was sent to the Federal Reserve Bank
in New York

and then shipped over
to the London Gold Pool.

It was sold into the market
at $35 an ounce.

Immediately thereafter,
the price started shooting up.

And by 1980, it topped out
at over $900 an ounce.

So, you can imagine, if you bought
tons and tons and tons

of gold out of Fort Knox

via the London Gold Pool
at $35 an ounce

there was a considerable profit
when you sold it

at $800 or $900 an ounce.

All it ended up doing was draining
hundreds of millions of ounces

of America's gold,
and we'll never get it back.

[narrator]
Could America's entire gold supply

really have been moved
one shipment at a time?

Photographic evidence does reveal
the existence of loading docks

on the far side of the depository,
invisible from any public road.

Nevertheless, there are those
who remain skeptical.

[Simmons] For all our technology
today, there's still

only one way to get that gold
out of the depository,

and that is to load it on trucks again
and take it back to the railhead.

And to put an operation like
that into effect,

how would you hide that
from media scrutiny?

So, if they've taken all that out,

boy, they must of done it
with a cloaking device,

because there is no way

that they could have done that
without somebody noticing.

[narrator]
The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee

is an organization
dedicated to investigating

the exact nature and extent of gold

being reported
by the world's central banks

and commodities exchanges.

They strongly maintain
that the amount of gold being reported

to exist in the global marketplace

has been deliberately
and grossly exaggerated,

in an effort to keep the price
artificially low.

Based on materials
gathered from public records

and Freedom of Information lawsuits,

GATA co-founder
Chris Powell believes

that even if there is gold in Fort Knox,

it may no longer be property
of the United States.

Someone else may own it.

[Powell]
Governments need to control gold

in order to sustain
the value of their currencies

and sustain the value of their bonds.

And to do this now,
the U.S. government

has resorted
to rigging the gold market.

We believe that the primary purpose
of these gold swaps

is surreptitious intervention
in the gold market.

For example, the United States
may decide that in February

it needs 50 tons of gold to be sold
in the London market,

in order to keep
the gold price under control,

but does not want to be
the central bank identified doing this.

So the United States could call up
the German Central Bank

and say, "Listen, we'd like
you to sell 50 tons of gold in London.

Would you please do that
and we will give you in exchange,

title to 50 tons of gold vaulted
at the depository in Fort Knox."

You could go into Fort Knox
tomorrow and be shown a lot of gold.

That would not dispel
every secret about Fort Knox

unless you also knew
to whom that gold belonged.

Just seeing that gold in Fort Knox
doesn't dispel the questions.

People will look me square in the eye
and tell me I've been duped,

and that none of that's real.
I've been listening to pundits

for the last 30 years
tell me that what I saw wasn't real.

I don't know what they're holding
now inside that building.

But I know that if you cross
onto their land, they'll kill you.

They're protecting something,
and there's a secret there somewhere.

[narrator]
Is the gold in Fort Knox ours?

Or is the depository really empty?

Is it only a myth,
intended to bluff foreign nations

into thinking that the United States

has been stockpiling
vast gold reserves?

Or is the maximum security installation
really housing another,

even more audacious secret?

Perhaps one involving evidence of UFOs

or something even more profound?

One thing is certain:

Fort Knox remains
one of the most highly protected

and closely guarded locations
in the world.

Few have ever been inside.

And fewer still have ever lived
to reveal

its secrets.