All language subtitles for The.Proof.Is.Out.There.Military.Mysteries.S01E05.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

- [Rudy] The following
program contains

footage of military operations.

Viewer discretion is advised.

Tonight, on The Proof Is Out
There: Military Mysteries.

A photo of a doomed
American sub.

Was it sunk by an enemy torpedo

or one of its own?

- The loss of the
Scorpion is one

of the greatest mysteries
of the 20th century.

- [Rudy] Breathtaking footage
of a World War II bomber

exploding in mid-air.

What brought it down?

- Was that a friendly fire

or Japanese
anti-aircraft attack?

- [Rudy] Yes, it's a real photo
of a nuclear bomb in a tree.

How close did we come to
nuking North Carolina?

- One simple low voltage switch

stood between the United States

and potential
nuclear annihilation.

- [Rudy] And our secret
weapon of the week,

a deadly game changer flying

at seven times the
speed of sound.

- This missile would be able

to reach the US in
a matter of minutes.

(dramatic music)

- [Rudy] In the modern history
of war, there are films.

- Shazam.

- [Rudy] Photos,

recordings,

and documents that
raise questions.

- So everything
about this story is

one big mystery.

- This particular
footage has caused

a lot of controversy.

- [Rudy] What's
really happening?

- [Frederick] There's
so little information.

- Nothing like this has
been attempted before.

- [Rudy] That's
where we come in.

Our mission, investigate
the battlefield's

strangest images,
sounds, and more.

- [Tim] This photo
blows my mind.

- You can imagine how
terrifying it would be.

- [Rudy] We'll analyze
each with military experts

and try to come up with answers.

- I'm Ronnie Adkins,

former US Army
Intelligence Analyst.

- I'm Rudy Reyes, Recon
Marine war veteran.

The proof starts now.

(dramatic music)

- Hey everyone, I'm Ronnie.

He's Rudy.

And we're locked, loaded,

and ready to rock
from the battlefields

to the bottom of the ocean.

- The USS Scorpion was one

of only two nuclear submarines
ever lost by the US Navy.

- That's right.

It sank in 1968 and
the question is, why?

- Was it a peacetime accident

or was it attacked?

At the bottom of
the Atlantic Ocean,

500 miles west of
the Azores islands,

these eerie images
mark the watery grave

of the USS Scorpion
and her crew.

In this photo, you can
see the submarine's sail

ripped from her top side.

How did the Scorpion

end up 10,000 feet underwater?

The mystery begins
on May 27th, 1968,

in Norfolk, Virginia.

Wives, friends, and
family members gathered

at Pier 22 on the
Norfolk Naval Station

eagerly awaiting the
Scorpion's return.

But Pier 22 would
remain empty that day

as the USS Scorpion
never makes it home.

- No one really knows why.
The Navy doesn't know why.

The Navy kind of
goes into dither mode

initially with the families.

Eventually, pretty
quickly, people realize

there's a big problem.

Submariners are
extremely reliable.

When a submariner says,

I'm gonna be at a place
at a certain time,

they're either dead
or they're there.

- Since our briefing yesterday,

the search effort has
expanded considerably.

- [Rudy] Nine days after
the Scorpion was a no-show,

the United States
Navy declares the sub

and its 99 crew
members presumed lost.

They commence a
massive oceanic search

but it isn't until October
that they locate the Scorpion

on the ocean floor,

at least what's left of it.

What could have caused
such devastation?

Rumors begin floating
to the surface.

- When it comes to
why the Scorpion sank,

there is no shortage of theories
that claim to explain it.

- The Scorpions is what's known

as the Skipjack-class
of submarine.

After being introduced in 1959,

the Skipjack subs
remain the fastest subs

in the US Navy,
until the mid '70s.

- But what made
the Skipjack-class

truly unique, was its
teardrop hull design.

It moved the torpedo room

back a bit from
the bow of the boat,

which allowed it
to fire torpedoes

diagonally from the sides.

Now that made less noise

to interfere with
the sub's sonar.

- The Scorpion fired
Mark 37 torpedoes

that were lethal for almost
all but the biggest of ships.

So, she was fast, she was
sexy, she was deadly.

But the question
is, why'd she sink?

(tense music)

Almost 25 years after
the USS Scorpion sank,

the Navy finally declassified
its official explanation.

According to this report

from the 1968 Naval
Court of Inquiry,

the most likely explanation
was the Scorpion was sunk

by one of its own torpedoes.

The battery powered Mark 37 is

somehow activated in its tube.

Unable to shut it down,
the crew jettisons it,

but the armed torpedo now hunts

for the nearest target
and destroys it.

That would be the Scorpion.

An interesting theory, but
former submarine commander

David Marquet doesn't buy it.

- I think this is
extremely unlikely.

Scorpion, if she
knew the torpedo was

coming back after her,

has depth, she has speed.

She has a number of ways

to try and evade
her own torpedo.

Secondly, the torpedoes
are deliberately

designed to not do this,

and the warheads don't arm

until the torpedo's
sufficiently safe

away from the submarine.

- [Rudy] If the torpedo
theory doesn't float,

then what really happened?

Could the Soviets have
been behind it all?

(intense music)

Headed for home,
the Scorpion gets

classified orders
to change course.

Why?

A suspicious flotilla
of Soviet warships is

patrolling the Canary Islands

and the Navy wants eyes on it.

Author and former
submarine engineer,

Kenneth Sewell, thinks it was

all a trap to take
down an American sub.

- The Soviets knew
we would investigate.

They knew we'd be sending a sub.

- [Rudy] Just months
earlier, John Walker,

a US Naval Chief Warrant
Officer turned spy,

supplied the Soviets
with secret codes

that allowed them to
intercept naval messages,

like the one that
sent the Scorpion

to the Canary Islands.

- They were getting
the codes from the spy

and for the first
time in their history,

they had the ability to
kind of track and know when

that submarine was
gonna be there.

There's no doubt in my mind

that the Soviet navy attacked
and sank the USS Scorpion.

- [Rudy] Historian Martin
K.A. Morgan disputes the idea

of a Russian torpedo

and suggests the fate of
the Scorpion may have

been something far more simple.

- I think the reality is
that the ship was lost

for much more mundane reasons,

like there was a fire on board.

They couldn't extinguish it
and it knocked out power

and then the submarine just sank

beyond a depth where
it could be saved.

- [Rudy] Morgan
points to the photos

of the Scorpion's
uncrushed bow section

to support his theory.

- If there had been an
explosion onboard that ship,

this wreckage would
not look like this.

What we would see
would be ripped,

torn, and rended
wreckage that we largely

just don't see at
the wreck site.

The wreck site
photography indicates

something slightly less
dramatic than an explosion.

It seems like the better,

the more appropriate
explanation is one

in which you have
a cascading series

of negative events
inside the ship

that start with a small fire

that then gets bigger
and the bigger it gets,

it knocks out power.

When the ship loses power,

it loses the ability
to counter pump

and get rid of any water that
has come inside the hull

as a result of leaking.

And that's going to drag it down

and the result is the
loss of the ship.

- [Rudy] But if it was a fire,

why would the Navy
release a story

about a rogue torpedo instead

of one involving basic
mechanical failure?

Captain Marquet says it may
tie back to another lost sub.

- We've operated
nuclear submarines

since the '50s with an
unbelievable safety record

and Thresher and
Scorpion are two tragic

black marks on the record.

- [Rudy] The Thresher was
yet another US submarine

that sank just five years
before the Scorpion.

During deep dive
testing near Cape Cod,

a leak shorted out the
sub's electrical system

and its ability to surface.

The Thresher and its 129
men never came home.

Many suggest that the
isolated torpedo story is

better than revealing a
potential recurring issue

the US Navy may have had

with the overall maintenance
of its submarines.

- We're in the height
of the Cold War.

For God's sake, it's 1968.

There's a lot going on.

The Navy had to keep the loss
of this submarine quiet,

and that was for no other reason

than operational
security concerns.

Because if it admits
that it's been lost,

there's the possibility
that the Soviet Union

will be at the
scene of the crime

almost immediately trying to
pick through the wreckage.

(tense music)

- To this day, the wreck,

the USS Scorpion remains buried.

- And the US Navy
continues to refuse

all requests to reopen the case,

which has only
added to the mystery

and prolonged the
anguish of the families

who question the official story.

- One of the most
dangerous places

to be during World War II

was onboard a bomber

during a daytime raid
over enemy territory.

- And when the
World War II bomber

in our next clip exploded,

it left people wondering.

What caused a
World War II bomber

to explode in mid-air?

May 4, 1945, it's the
tail end of World War II

but the fighting is
as intense as ever.

(dramatic music)
(explosions booming)

In the skies over
Palau in the Pacific,

22 B-24 Liberators
bombed Japanese

military installations
positioned below.

A film crew has tagged along

and this is the
footage they capture.

- [Reporter] Air Force
cameras follow our planes

through layers of overcast as
they draw near the target.

- [Rudy] Seen here
is a B-24 nicknamed,

The Brief, by our crew.

Everything is going
according to plan.

Then, (explosion hissing)

her mission is cut short.

- My God, it's painful to watch.

You know that there's a
crew onboard this aircraft

that they're
hopelessly spiraling

down to their deaths.

- [Reporter] With one wing
completely shattered,

the plane plummets groundward.

Our Pacific island
warfare is not cheap.

(suspenseful music)

- [Rudy] Ten crew members
tragically lose their lives.

And the one lucky
survivor is captured

and executed by the
Japanese 20 days later.

The film, however
lives on an infamy.

It's released as
a news reel story

and shown in theaters
across the US.

Take another look.

The plane explodes in flames
as the left wing tears off

but it's unclear exactly what
causes the initial explosion.

It's strange that
the plane explodes

just as it's framed
perfectly by the camera.

Did the Japanese really
shoot the plane down?

Was it some kind of accident

or was this whole
incident staged?

Okay, to understand what
happened to this plane,

it's best to get inside it.

The B-24 was a real game
changer from the start.

- That's right, Rudy, it was.

This bomber was crucial
to winning the Pacific

because it could take off
and land on small islands

and that was thanks
to its wing design.

- Its long narrow
wings helped it

get the extra lift it
needed on short runways.

But remember, it
wasn't invulnerable.

So what could have caused such
a terrible explosion here?

(tense music)

Let's tackle the most
outrageous theory first,

posed by some on the internet.

Did the War Department stage

this incident as a
propaganda effort?

After all, the Nazis
had just surrendered

and some on modern social
media have claimed

this was a stunt to keep the
American people committed

to finishing the war with Japan.

- The United States did use this

for a public relations campaign.

It received the big play
in the United States.

- [Rudy] But do we buy that?

Absolutely not.

There's no way we'd
break down a plane

crewed by 10 of our
own American heroes.

And plus, there are more
viable theories out there.

Former Naval aviator
Ward Carroll

offers one that's
gotten some traction.

- There's only one explanation
for what we just saw,

and that is a bomb

from another American airplane
that was located above.

- [Rudy] It's not
that big a stretch.

Look here, just behind the B-24.

You can see bombs
falling from above.

- I believe because of the
way that the wing collapses

and the flash happens
at the top of the wing,

that this B-24 was hit by a
bomb from another American.

(intense music)

- [Rudy] Historian Martin
K.A. Morgan disagrees.

He says the footage contradicts
the friendly fire theory.

- When you look at the footage,

you can see what led
people to believe

the possibility that a bomb

from another B-24 above
it caused the incident

that's captured on camera.

But if that's what happened,

we would see that bomb
moving very slowly

through the air before
it strikes Brief

and causes the explosion.

We don't see that.

(suspenseful music)
(explosion booming)

- [Rudy] So if it wasn't staged
or friendly fire, then what?

- It was Japanese
anti-aircraft fire

on the ground that brought
this airplane down.

The B-24 is
particularly vulnerable

because of the wing.

It gives the aircraft
a lot of lift

and that's what makes

the B-24 such a
war winning weapon.

But because it has to be long,

it has to be high, and it
has to be lightweight.

That makes the aircraft a
little bit more vulnerable.

- [Rudy] In fact,
the B-24 was known

as something of a widow-maker.

More than 80 of them were
lost to anti-aircraft fire

in a single raid in Europe.

And Morgan, who studies
World War II weaponry, says

what we're seeing
here is exactly

what happens when an
aluminum wing gets

hit with anti-aircraft fire.

- It's clearly an
anti-aircraft hit.

Anti-aircraft shells
come from below

and they strike it.

And keep in mind what
they're striking.

Aluminum gives and it
gives very quickly.

It scores a good, direct hit.

On the lower
surface of the wing,

you can see it blow out

and that's all fuel that
begins to spill out of it

which is why you suddenly have
this massive fire that erupts.

(tense music)

- Alright, what do you think?

- Well, Ronnie, the
B-24 has such thin skin,

I'm likely to believe

that this bird was shot
down with AAA fire.

- Yeah, I think that's right.

And because it happened
to take place right

as the camera was
framing it perfectly,

we're still talking about it.

- Ronnie, what's scarier?

The thought of an accident
involving nuclear weapons,

or the fact that there's been
so many of these accidents

that there's a name for it?

- Well, this next story is
about an incident involving

our own nuclear weapons

when they fell over
North Carolina.

It left people asking,

just how close did we
come to nuking ourselves?

1961, Goldsboro, North Carolina.

Here's a terrifying photo.

It's a nuclear bomb
caught in a tree.

We can see the
bomb is tangled up

in its own parachute.

How did this near
disaster unfold?

Wait 'til you hear this one.

Just before midnight
on January 24th,

the walls of 17-year-old
Billy Reeve's bedroom

begin to glow red.

- Yeah, I heard this awful
noise and I raised up.

My mother heard it
and she was praying

as hard as she could.

She thought it was
the end of time.

- [Ronnie] Billy
runs to his porch.

In the night sky, he sees flames
plunging toward the earth.

All of Goldsboro, North
Carolina seems to be on fire.

(indistinct radio chatter)

- [Ronnie] Military
units seal off the area

as Billy and his
neighbors flee in fear.

- [Ronnie] We now know
it was an accident

involving a B-52 Stratofortress,

a heavy bomber that
to this day goes

by the nickname B.U.F.F.,
big, ugly, fat fella.

In 1961, these nuclear
strike aircraft

were a key part of something
called Operation Chrome Dome.

It was a Cold War
insurance policy

that called for a
dozen B-52 bombers

fully armed with nukes to be
airborne 24 hours a day,

seven days a week.

If the Soviets launched
a nuclear attack,

the B-52 would
already be airborne

and able to hit back hard.

- The B-52 bomber is
perfect for this mission

because it has a
payload of 70,000 pounds

so it's able to carry
these heavy nuclear devices

and it's able to fly for
extended periods of time.

- [Ronnie] That night
over North Carolina,

the B-52 bomber loses
over 5,000 gallons of fuel

in just three minutes
and starts to go down.

- The plane starts
to come apart.

The fuel leaking
out on one side is

tearing the aircraft
apart from the inside.

- [Ronnie] Eight men bail out.

Only five survive.

Three are killed.

That's bad enough, but
the plane's payload,

a pair of 3.8 megaton

thermonuclear bombs,
are released.

The term for a nuke
accidentally getting dropped

or going missing, is "broken
arrow" and it's terrifying.

Nuclear historian
Alex Wellerstein.

- This is a weapon
several hundred times

more powerful than
the Hiroshima bomb,

maybe about 200
times more powerful,

meant for destroying
either entire metro areas

or for destroying
underground bunkers.

- If one of these
bombs were to detonate,

it would cause
complete destruction

and would basically vaporize

anything within an
8.5 mile radius.

- [Ronnie] One bomb coasts
to the earth on a parachute.

The other is found in
the plane's wreckage.

The Air Force said no one was

ever in real danger in
Goldsboro that night.

But what's the truth?

We want to reinforce with you
that this is the Cold War.

- That's right, Ronnie.

JFK was going toe-to-toe
with Khrushchev

so the government did
not want the Soviets

to know that one of our
nukes got hung up in a tree.

- But now after
more than 50 years,

these government documents
have been declassified.

They lay out three different
versions of the facts.

And our experts are here
to figure out if the truth

can be found in any of them.

(tense music)

Initially, the Air Force said
they recovered both bombs,

except that was a lie.

Over a period of two weeks,

17-year-old Billy Reeves

kept visiting the crash site
to watch the military dig.

- [Ronnie] The Air Force was
looking for the second bomb,

the one without the parachute

and the swampy earth was
making it hard to find.

- [Ronnie] After five
white-knuckle days

and nights of digging, they
found part of the bomb,

but the rest of it,

which contained the
radioactive uranium,

was so far underground
the Air Force decided

it wasn't worth
trying to recover.

- The conclusion
they came to was

that if the government
couldn't get it,

probably nobody
else could either.

- [Ronnie] So, maybe that bomb,

which is still underground,
isn't dangerous.

But how close did the nukes come
to exploding when they dropped?

- The fact that
neither of the bombs

detonated is a testament

to the fail safes working
correctly as designed.

- [Ronnie] According
to the Air Force,

to arm the bomb, a crew
member in the cockpit would

first need to throw a switch,

then someone must pull
a lanyard from the bomb

which starts the
arming sequence.

Neither step happened.

But according to another
declassified document,

the bomb had almost
armed anyway.

- The plane is heading down.

The same forces that are

breaking apart the
plane in mid-air

also pulled on a
lanyard in the cockpit.

This is the bomb
release mechanism

and one of the bombs
behaves exactly

as if a crew member had
dropped it over a target.

- [Ronnie] As the weapons
dropped over North Carolina,

power starts to switch
on for that bomb.

- The two nuclear
devices that are

hurdling out of this aircraft

as it gets ripped apart
by all these G-forces,

one of them has the
parachute deploy

which you might think,
oh, that's a great thing.

The parachute
successfully deploys

and it's going to safely land.

But in reality,
that's the first step

to the arming procedure.

- As it's going down,

its electronics are
sort of checking off

all of the steps it needs to do,

including opening
up a parachute,

checking how high it
is from the ground,

making sure enough
time has gone on.

And then finally it got down
to the second to last check,

which was, is the bomb
armed to detonate?

- [Ronnie] When the
bomb hit the ground,

it tried to fire but
it didn't detonate.

That's because back
in the cockpit,

nobody ever threw that
switch to arm the bomb.

It's the only safety
mechanism that didn't fail.

- One simple, low voltage switch
stood between the United States

and potential
nuclear annihilation.

- [Ronnie] But here's the thing.

That same arming switch had
failed many times before.

In more than 30 incidents,

crews never even
touched the switch

but the bombs were still
armed due to a wiring glitch.

Engineers had already planned
on replacing the switch

before the Goldsboro accident.

- In many cases, the switch had

spontaneously turned itself to
being armed in other weapons.

And fortunately that
didn't happen in this case.

But had that switch
malfunctioned,

the weapon would've
detonated at full power.

- The US Air Force
kept this secret

because they didn't
want the public

to know that they
had come one hair

away from detonating
a nuclear device

on their own soil.

(tense music)

- One hair away.

But despite that danger,

Operation Chrome Dome continued.

- The program didn't
end until 1968

with another broken
arrow over Greenland

that involved four
hydrogen bombs.

- But that's a mystery
for another day.

- Most people think
of the Vietnam War

as being a guerilla
jungle war on the ground.

- But the North Vietnamese also

used the same guerilla
tactics in the air.

- And to be frank, they
were kicking our butts

until one American
Maverick turned the tables.

- So what was his plan and
how did he pull it off?

You're looking at a photo

of Colonel Robin Olds,
taken on the day

of his most daring
and brilliant mission.

January 2nd, 1967,

a squadron of
state-of-the-art MiG-21s,

the crown jewels of the
North Vietnamese Air Force,

ascend into deep cloud cover
above the Phúc Yên Air Base.

Their target, a group of
American F-105 bombers

that's just been detected.

Preston Stewart is a
former Army lieutenant

and popular podcaster.

He says the specs
of these two planes

are key to this story.

- The MiGs were faster
and more maneuverable

and were used in more
of an ambush setting.

- [Rudy] And these
MiGs are feasting

on the American
bombers every day.

- At this time, the US
Air Force in Vietnam

is getting destroyed and
the F-105 bombers are laden

with these heavy bombs, so
they're unable to outmaneuver

the MiG-21 over the skies,

easy pickings for the MiG-21.

(intense music)

- [Rudy] In fact, the F-105
was known as the "lead sled."

It was supposed to be protected
by the nimble F-4 fighter,

but those planes lacked
radar jamming capability,

making them defenseless
from enemy ground fire.

- They couldn't spend much
time over North Vietnam.

It was just a constant issue

of trying to navigate
these threats.

- [Rudy] But today is different.

As the North Vietnamese pilots
drop out of the clouds

expecting a turkey shoot,

they get hit with incoming.

One by one, they're destroyed.

In just 12 minutes,
half of North Vietnam's

fighter force is
completely destroyed,

all without a
single US casualty.

Another challenge for the US

was that we were fighting
with one arm behind our back.

Our rules of engagement
didn't allow pilots

to bomb the North
Vietnamese airstrips.

- It sounds crazy
but here's the thing.

Chinese and Soviet advisors
are working at these airstrips,

and you had top brass
back in Washington

that's worried about
hitting these communists

and ratcheting up
tensions even further.

These airstrips were
off limits, man.

- So how did we pull
off that comeback?

Let's turn to our experts.

(tense music)

The weapon used to take
out Vietnam's air power

was quite simply the brain

and cajones of
Colonel Robin Olds.

- Robin Olds was straight
out of an action movie.

He graduated from
West Point 1943,

went straight into World War II,

became a "double ace,"

shot down at least 10 aircraft.

- [Rudy] Olds develops
an audacious plan

called Operation Bolo.

The Americans will disguise

their own F-4 Phantoms as 105s,

luring the eager, complacent
enemy into an ambush.

- Commander Olds' plan is to fly

at the same altitude
as a bombing run.

They're even gonna use
the same call signs

and have the same
radio frequency

that a bombing run would have.

- [Rudy] Remember, the
F-4's a badass fighter jet

but it has that Achilles heel,

it's inability to evade deadly
surface-to-air missiles.

Olds convinces the military

to install some radar
jammers used by the F-105s

to thwart missiles
fired at the F-4s.

Not only does this make
the F-4s less vulnerable

to surface-to-air missiles,

but the electronic
signature put out

by the jammers will
make the F-4s appear

as 105s to the North Vietnamese.

Now, the question becomes,

in a straight up dogfight,

how does the F-4 match
up against a MiG?

- F-4s were much more
of a closer match

to the MiG-21s.

And in a one-on-one fight

on level terms if
that ever exists,

the F-4 had a good chance
of taking the MiG-21s out.

- [Rudy] The F-4 has one
big advantage, fire power.

- The MiG-21 has a 23
millimeter cannon on it

whereas the F-4s, they
have eight missiles,

the Sidewinder missile
and the Sparrow missile.

Having those eight
air-to-air missiles

give the F-4
Phantom an advantage

over the MiG-21 at
the lower altitudes.

- [Rudy] When it all goes down,

the dogfight turns
into a major victory.

- Once they start that
attack, it's game on.

- In under 15 minutes,

they're able to destroy
seven enemy MiGs.

- The North Vietnamese
Air Force, after the war,

said that it was the worst
day for their Air Force.

(tense music)

- So, a big shout
out to Colonel Olds

for devising Operation Bolo.

It was an ingenious
plan that took advantage

of the predictability of
the Vietnamese pilots.

- That's right.

Deception works best
when your enemy's

gotten a little bit lazy.

And the moral of this story is,

when you're exploiting
your enemy's weaknesses,

be careful not to
reveal your own.

- Our next intriguing
tale involves

secret nuke tests
on American soil,

spies, and at the
center of it all,

a celebrated soldier
who strangely vanishes

in the middle of the desert.

- It's got all the makings
of a Hitchcock thriller.

There's a lot to unravel
as we try to answer,

what's behind the disappearance
of Lieutenant Paul Whipkey?

The early 1950s,
the Nevada desert,

US Marines hunker
down in a trench

as a nuclear bomb detonates.

Then they start marching
towards the mushroom cloud.

- Here, we can see the blast.

So they're sheltered
from the blast

but then they're coming out

and they're standing
sort of around it.

You can see the formation
of fallout here.

- [Ronnie] These troops,
who would come to be known

as atomic veterans,

were part of a massive
government program.

- These were a series
of exercises intended

to understand, in a
battlefield setting,

what exposure to
radiation would do

to soldiers on the battlefield.

- [Ronnie] But on
July 10th, 1958,

nine months after another blast,

one of these soldiers
goes missing.

26-year-old Army Lieutenant
Paul Byron Whipkey

drives away from his home
base, Fort Ord in California.

He never comes back.

- A few weeks later, Paul's car,
it's this very identifiable

red and white combination,
is found in Death Valley,

some 150 miles away from

where he last was
seen or noticed

in the Mojave Desert
purchasing gas.

- [Ronnie] Just months earlier,

Paul told his brother Carl

that he was going
on an assignment

and that he was going to
make a name for himself,

but instead, he goes missing.

And just one day later,
he's declared AWOL.

- When his brother heard
that he was missing,

he called the post and
then they said, "Well,

we're busy packing
up his stuff."

And it was a day after
he had disappeared.

It's odd to pack up
somebody's belongings

a day after they've
gone missing.

- If he were just AWOL,

one would think
that there would be

some amount of time
that would be allotted

before there would be, kind of,

this cleaning of hands
and purging of the record

that he was ever there.

- [Ronnie] Just one month
after his disappearance,

the Army makes a
scathing conclusion

that Whipkey was a deserter

who cracked under the
stress of his assignment,

drove off, wandered into
the desert, and died.

But those who knew
Whipkey find it hard

to accept those conclusions.

- Paul Whipkey was
a model officer,

no issues, no problems.

- It's highly
unusual for a soldier

who has a great service record
and track record in the military

to go missing and
then be declared AWOL

after only one day.

- [Ronnie] So, what really
happened to Lieutenant Whipkey?

That's the question that's been

keeping his family up
at night for decades.

Service members go missing.

You've just heard the term AWOL

and it means absent
without leave.

It's a serious crime.

But what we're trying
to figure out is,

did Whipkey suddenly become
a dishonorable deserter,

or is there a more complicated
and sinister explanation

for what happened to him?

Let's see if our experts
can figure this one out.

(tense music)

One rumor swirling has Whipkey
being a top secret CIA recruit.

A fellow soldier reports

seeing Lieutenant Whipkey
having clandestine meetings

with two Army intelligence
men in civilian clothing.

Paul's brother Carl
believed Paul had

been recruited to join
an intelligence team

involved in the
top secret missions

of the U-2 spy plane.

Did Whipkey just
become a CIA spook?

- There's certainly
plausibility to the idea

that, given the
nature of a mission,

which is going to
be highly secretive,

that he has crossover
with the CIA

and seems to be kind
of a good candidate.

- [Ronnie] And what's
a good spy story

without a mysterious
chain smoking man?

- Paul wasn't a smoker but
somehow his car is found

with a bunch of cigarette
butts outside of it.

It just adds to the confusion

about what happened.

- [Ronnie] But former US
infantryman Chris Capelluto

doesn't buy the
secret agent angle.

- The argument that
he was recruited

by the CIA doesn't
really make any sense.

His teeth were falling out
and he was medically unfit.

- [Ronnie] The teeth
may be a clue.

Whipkey flew an
observation plane

during five atomic bomb missions

and was exposed to high
levels of radiation.

Accounts vary, but
soon after Whipkey's

participation in
these experiments,

he allegedly
develops black moles

and plantar warts on his skin.

And a few months later,

he has to have all of
his teeth extracted.

Was it possible that
Whipkey's disappearance

was a cover-up relating to these
horrific human experiments?

- These were military exercises.

They were involved in
highly classified tests

and exposed in ways that
were very, very secretive.

And the US is trying to
keep a tight lid on that

so there's potential
that there was a risk

that he was maybe unstable

and thinking about
sharing that information

or taking that
information elsewhere.

It would've been of great
value to an adversary.

- [Ronnie] Of course, we
also need to consider

the simplest, least
dramatic explanation.

This theory posits that
Lieutenant Whipkey

did indeed go AWOL,

but then his car broke
down in the desert.

And when he went
looking for help,

he simply died from exposure.

When the search began,

there was nothing left
of his body to find.

- For him to have perished.

I mean, it seems
entirely possible

that someone could
die in the desert.

Death Valley, it's
called that for a reason.

- [Ronnie] The strength
of the accident theory is

that it sounds like
the most plausible.

The weakness is that it leaves
so many loose threads:

the unexplained cigarettes
found by the car,

the message to the brother,

the allegations of strange
meetings with army intelligence,

and the hasty packing
of Whipkey's room.

- The idea that
it was an accident

and he just perished from
that is very convenient

but it doesn't fit
the fact pattern.

- [Ronnie] In 1982, after
decades of persistence,

Paul's brother Carl
got the Army Board

for Correction of
Military Records

to hold a three day hearing

into Paul Whipkey's
disappearance.

The board ultimately determined

that Lieutenant Paul
Whipkey died the day

after his disappearance
in the desert.

And that his
unauthorized absence

is excused as unavoidable,

and his death was in
the line of duty,

not due to misconduct.

- It's a big deal regarding
Whipkey's military legacy.

It's much more honorable to
go from unauthorized absence

to died in the line of duty.

- [Ronnie] The
official report says

there's no record
of Whipkey being

involved in
intelligence activities

and suggests it's most
likely he wandered

into the desert by
himself and died,

which still makes you wonder,

how is that in the line of duty?

The report has no answer,
stating only that the events

of Whipkey's disappearance
remain obscured and unexplained.

(explosion booming)

(tense music)

- Ronnie, what do you think
of a soldier going AWOL?

- Well, I've never had
anybody in my units go AWOL.

As far as Lieutenant Whipkey,

I'm inclined to
believe that this is

more accidental than that.

His car broke down,
he goes to get help,

and just dies in the process.

- I'm of the same mind.

He got lost, broke down,
could not find help.

He probably died accidentally.

- It's time for this week's
secret weapons segment, Rudy.

And this one's a
potential game changer.

- You got that right, brother.

There's been a lot of hype
over the last couple of years

about these muldoons.

- Rudy's talking about
Russia's hypersonic missiles.

Now, they were top secret
until this next video.

And now our question is,

how dangerous are top
secret hypersonic missiles?

October 6th, 2021,
the Barents Sea,

the Russian Navy's northern
fleet is anchored here

and on this day, the site
becomes Putin's launching pad

for a weapon that'll become

one of the fastest
objects to ever fly.

(dramatic music)
(explosions booming)

- There's gonna
be the first stage

of the explosion goes off.

That's the first
stage of the rocket.

And then the nose
cone fires off,

stabilizing rockets
on the side there.

- Immediately, it
goes straight up

and then pitches over, which
puts it on its trajectory

to whatever its target is.

This tiny missile
just rockets away

and gains speed and
it just disappears

into the sky in a
matter of seconds.

- [Ronnie] You're looking at
a hypersonic missile, people.

And get this, they're so fast,

they can destroy a
building or target

without even having a
warhead attached to 'em,

purely based on the
force of impact.

Author and space
historian Amy Teitel

talks about why it's
got folks worried.

- So, if Russia
were to launch one

against the continental
United States,

there would be very little
we could do to react in time.

This missile would be able

to reach the US in
a matter of minutes.

- Okay, so that's a
scary proposition.

Well, we asked our
weapons dream team

to spell out what this thing
can do in more detail.

(tense music)

- [Ronnie] For
starters, we asked them

to contextualize just how
fast these suckers are.

- The difference
between supersonic

and hypersonic is speed.

Something going at the
speed of sound is Mach 1

and that's about
760 miles per hour.

Something going Mach 5 or up,

which is more than five
times the speed of sound,

is going hypersonic.

- [Ronnie] Okay,
we told you that,

but it gets scarier.

- These missiles
are going at Mach 7,

so more than seven
times the speed

of sound or more than
5,000 miles per hour.

- "Popular Mechanics"
journalist Joe Pappalardo says

that's why Russia
released the video.

- Frame by frame, you can tell

that the state is
sending a message.

And the message here
is fairly clear.

(suspenseful music)

They're saying the
world is small,

and we can hit targets

that are farther away
as if they were close,

so don't mess with us.

You don't have to know anything

about the weapon system
to get that message.

- [Ronnie] And if
that doesn't have you

chewing your fingernails,

China tested its own
hypersonic missile in 2021.

Why the race?

It's because these
weapons can move

around our current missile
defenses, literally.

They can zig and zag,
making it nearly impossible

for us to intercept them.

And they can fly low
enough to avoid detection.

Nobody really knows how to
defend against them yet.

But the US isn't gonna
sit on the sidelines

when it comes to
new military tech.

In fact, the United
States has successfully

tested two Lockheed
Martin hypersonic missiles

amid growing concerns
of a new arms race.

- The I-have-a-pony syndrome

is extremely strong
in military circles.

If there's a lot of
money being pumped in

to a program in China or the
United States or Russia,

the other players are
gonna get involved

because they don't
want to be left behind.

(explosions booming)
(dramatic music)

(tense muisic)

- It's hard to wrap your head

around the speed
of these things.

It's really just next level.

- And nobody really
has an answer yet

on how to take one down.

We'll be sure to keep
following this one,

but that's our show for tonight.

Until next time,
keep your powder dry.

- And your head on a swivel.

Goodnight.

(dramatic music)