All language subtitles for The UnXplained S01E13 Extreme Weather Mysteries 1080p AMZN WEB-DL DDP2 0 H 264-NTb_track4_[eng]

Lightning that follows you into
your home...

rain that falls like blood...

...and a single house spared
total destruction.

History is filled with tales
of strange weather phenomena.

Frogs falling from the sky.

Hail so large that it can
crush an automobile.

And storms so savage they erase
all traces of mankind.

Can science help us to find out
why these things happen?

Or could unseen forces
be at work,

and if so, could we possibly
harness these forces

to serve our own needs?

Well, that is what
we will try and find out.

♪

Scientists at Florida State
University publish the results

of a study on the destructive
power of tornadoes.

Their conclusion:
tornadoes, which are already

capable of generating
200-miles-per-hour winds

are getting five percent
more powerful every year.

And there doesn't appear to be
a limit as to how strong

they will become in the future.

Tornadoes have so much
energy in them.

The-the energy in a...
in a large tornado,

like an EF4 or 5,
is more energy

than is in a nuclear weapon.

The base of these things are
sometimes a mile wide,

and they go all the way up
to 30, 40, 50,000 feet high.

This is a very large structure.

A skyscraper is teeny-tiny
in comparison to a tornado.

SHATNER:
If scientists are correct,

and tornadoes are getting
even stronger,

how are we supposed to
keep ourselves safe

from their awesome power?

Especially considering
we still have no idea

how to predict when and where
they'll appear.

The thing that's hardest
to explain about tornadoes is

why the tornado forms,

and when is it triggered
to come to the surface?

The problem with tracking
tornadoes is they're only

for just a very few minutes.

They form, a warning goes out.

Only 13 minutes elapses

before, most times,
the tornado is on the ground.

So, we don't have a whole lot
of research

as far as looking at those.

There is almost an infinite
number of moving parts

in a tornado.

There's atmospheric turbulence,
there's moisture,

there's pressure changes.

There's electromagnetic discharges

and charging going on.

There's so many phenomena
that you can't even

make the list complete.

MICHIO KAKU:
When we think of the laws
of physics,

we think of firing a bullet.

Moves in a straight line,
never deviates.

But the weather, what a headache
for a physicist.

Remember the butterfly effect?

That is, even the flapping
of the wings of a butterfly

can cause a ripple effect, which
could lead to a tipping point

initiating a thunderstorm.

So even small vibrations here
can cause

massive distortions
of the weather over there.

That's why predicting
the path of a tornado

is virtually impossible.

SHATNER:
After a long, hard week,

the Coffelt family is
looking forward to spending

a Sunday relaxing
in the comfort of their home.

But it isn't long before they
realize their plans

are going to be interrupted.

- [alarm chiming]
- COREY COFFELT: We, uh,
started getting

all these notifications
on our phones.

Like, "Tornado Warning."

And then we started getting
a little bit concerned.

All right.
And we looked outside.

- The weather's getting
kind of bad.
- [thunder crashing]

It was, like, dark clouds.

It's-it's hard to describe
because it was just, like,

coming toward the house.

It was-- It was getting
really dark.

COREY:
I started walking
towards the door,

and it just almost went
pitch black.

[wind whooshing]

My wife yelled, "Go to the
bathroom, go to the bathroom!"

All of us--
my wife and two daughters--

went in the bathroom.

A minute or two went by,

and you heard the tornado
coming in.

- [house creaking]
- [wind whistling]

It started with a small whistle,

and then it got louder
and louder.

And then it just kind of sounded
like a train coming in.

Like a... [whistles]

And it just, boom,
hit the house.

When we were in there,
it was so confusing

because-because you didn't know
what was going to happen.

Especially when we start hearing
stuff happen around us.

And, you know, we're all just
in that tight space.

And I was screaming.

[screaming]

Everything just started shaking,

- and you could hear the little
snaps going on outside.
- [window shatters]

And then it stopped.

[Corey panting]

And then it happened again.

- [glass shattering]
- [house rumbling]

SHATNER:
When the violent shaking
finally subsides,

the frightened family
cautiously leaves

the safety of the bathroom

to assess the damage
to their house.

But to their shock
and disbelief,

there's none.

We came out,
we walked out the front door

and, uh, looked,
saw everything.

Heh, it was just overwhelming.

COREY:
An F4 tornado comes across and
destroys everything around you,

except for your house,
and you and your family

still, still standing.

We were just completely overwhelmed.

We could barely breathe,
and just

couldn't believe the destruction
that was out there.

It was just breathtaking.

It can't be explained.

The emotions and the feelings
that go through, really just,

uh, it's mind-blowing.

SHATNER:
Despite sitting directly
in the tornado's savage path,

the Coffelt house was
somehow spared

when nearly everything else
in sight was leveled.

Aside from some minor
superficial damage,

barely a shingle had been
knocked out of place.

But how?

TAYLOR:
There are so many variables
with a tornado

and why it hits this house
and not that one,

it's really hard to say.

There could be little pockets
of pressure,

little pockets of temperature,
little pockets of moisture.

Who knows what it is?

But it could be little pockets
that change the statistics

of the debris field such that it
just happens to miss that spot.

MICHAEL DENNIN:
Tornadoes never travel in very
straight, regular paths.

When you picture the video,
it's an interesting path

to avoid the house.

But you could imagine

a tornado circling back
on itself.

That is not inconceivable.

This house could have
been lucky to have the tornado

come down the right side,
turn around,

destroy the forest
on the other side,

turn around again
and then go off.

SHATNER:
Could it be that the Coffelts
and their house

survived simply because of luck?

Or was it the result of
some kind of

deliberate intervention?

After all, from Zeus,
the Greek god of thunder,

to Set,
the Egyptian god of storms,

ancient cultures believed
weather was not

a random force of nature,

but a power wielded by the gods.

Major ancient cultures
saw the Earth itself as a god.

More accurately, a goddess.

The Greeks had a name, Gaia.

The ancient Hindu tradition
also saw the planet

as a feminine divinity.

So we are in relationship
with the planet.

There are weather patterns
that are caused

by planetary energies.

And this is a living
relationship which can help

our way of looking
at our relationship

to the ground we live on.

All stemming back to some of
the most ancient cultures

and religious practices
that have been

with us on this planet.

SHATNER:
A living, conscious planet.

If this is true, does it mean
that the Coffelts' house was

deliberately spared by some act
of divine mercy?

Or was it left standing
to serve as a warning

that nature must be respected?

As far as the Coffelts
are concerned,

the answers hardly matter.

If there is some miracle
about all this...

because it's not a miracle.

'Cause getting hit by a tornado,
that... that sucks.

You know, I probably shouldn't
be sitting here today.

I definitely do have
a new respect for the weather.

It-it really can-- It can take
everything away from you

in the blink of an eye.

KAKU:
Predicting the path,
the precise path

of a tornado is beyond
our computational ability.

So when I look at
these videotapes of a tornado

where a houses basically
dodges the bullet,

I say to myself,
"What's happening here?

Was it an act of God?"

I don't know.
I'm a physicist.

I say it's the non-linearity
of the laws of physics

applied to the weather.

SHATNER:
Are tornadoes and other forms
of extreme weather

not scientific problems
to be solved,

but rather messages sent to us
by Mother Nature herself?

- It's an intriguing notion.
- [loud thunder]

Perhaps if we can learn
to decipher these messages,

we'll be able to understand
lots of other

bizarre weather phenomena,

like the one known as
ball lightning.

Lightning is one
of nature's most powerful

and incomprehensible forces.

There are places in the world,
like Lake Maracaibo,

that are constantly being struck

in what seems to be
a never-ending storm.

But there's another type,
called ball lightning,

and nobody seems to know
what it is

or why it happens.

While out
for an afternoon stroll,

a local student spots something
that stops him in his tracks.

SHATNER:
Pulling out his cell phone,
he captures incredible footage

of an eerie ball of what looks
like pure energy,

floating and bobbing,
as if alive.

Later analysis reveals
that the video may be evidence

of one of the most mysterious
weather anomalies in the world:

ball lightning.

DENNIN: Any video of ball
lightning is exciting

and interesting to me
because they're rare.

I-It's hard to see it.

And it does confirm the idea
that what you're really trying

to look at is some sort
of contained plasma-like object.

TAYLOR:
Looking at this video,
what's happening

is this ball lightning
is probably traveling along

the electromagnetic field line
of the power lines.

And then when it hits
the, uh, transformer,

it's just too much power
for the transformer to handle

and it explodes.

And you can see that
in the video.

SHATNER:
Unlike normal lightning,

which follows well-defined laws
of physics,

ball lightning is much more
erratic in its behavior.

Even after centuries
of research,

scientists still don't
really know what causes it.

Or where this incredible energy
comes from.

When we think of a lightning
bolt, we think of electricity

shooting from the heavens,
just crackling with energy...

...which is totally different
than ball lightning.

Ball lightning is basically
a sphere a few feet across

that seems to hover slowly
and then dissipates.

So how can that be?

Ball lightning is essentially
lightning in a bottle,

but there's no glass bottle,

there's an electromagnetic bottle.

So you get these electromagnetic
field lines that form

the shape of a sphere and
it traps the lightning inside.

It can range in size
from pea size to dime size,

baseball size, grapefruit size.

And the uniqueness
of ball lightning is it lasts

from 20 to 30 seconds,

unlike a regular bolt
of lightning,

which is just a flash.

Ball lightning has been
mysterious for so long

because it's hard to capture.

'Cause when it happens,

the ball is skittering
and moves around crazy.

It doesn't just
sit there in one spot,

so you can't walk up to it
and look at it.

SHATNER:
Is it possible that sightings

of ball lightning
are just a trick of the eye?

An optical illusion?

Or could ball lightning be
responsible for everything

from mysterious UFO sightings
to strange accounts

of phenomena known
as spontaneous combustion?

EVANS:
Ball lightning
was first discovered

in the 1600s in a European
church when the ball lightning

came right through the window
and into the sanctuary.

KAKU:
There are many documented
eyewitness accounts--

not just one but scores of them
through history--

of ball lightning entering
people's homes

and being cited
by reputable witnesses.

The most famous sighting
was done in Russia,

by Czar Nicholas II.

He had an eyewitness right
in front of the royal family.

A ball lightning went whizzing
right by and he wrote about it.

People just say,
"Oh, no, I was standing there

"after this thunderstorm
in my living room,

"and this ball of light
came across the field,

"right through the picture
window, into my room,

and touched the steam radiator
and popped like a firecracker."

And I have not read
an explanation for that behavior

that I consider plausible.

EVANS:
It's believed that glass

actually enhances
ball lightning.

The trace elements in glass,
including lead,

is very attractive
and a conductor of lightning.

And we always say stay away
from water and glass windows

when there's lightning,
because those are conductors.

And it seems that ball lightning
is very attracted to glass

and will actually
pass through it

and then can create
a lot of damage.

Ball lightning can be
very dangerous.

It's started fires,
it has put buildings on fire.

It has caused
a lot of destruction

just in and of itself.

SHATNER:
If it sounds impossible
for a primal force of nature

to be contained indoors,
well, you'd be wrong.

Because, as it turns out,
scientists have done just that.

In 2006, Professor Eli Jerby

and researchers
at Tel Aviv University

used powerful microwave beams
to generate a tiny sphere

of plasma for fractions
of a second.

It was the first time anything
resembling ball lightning

was reproduced in a laboratory.

TAYLOR:
It took scientists a long time
to reproduce ball lightning

in the laboratory.

Ball lightning needs
a lot of energy.

And the way
you would create that

is you have really strange
high electromagnetic fields

that are wrapped around each
other that traps and squeezes

the air molecules until they're
so hot that they become ionized

and literally are like
a big ball of plasma,

like a little mini-star.

SHATNER:
Could ball lightning actually be
some kind of miniature star,

one that exists here on Earth?

According to some scientists,

the notion is not
as far-fetched as it sounds.

Which could also mean that
ball lightning has the potential

to develop into one of the most
destructive forces

in the known universe.

TAYLOR:
Some people suggest

that ball lightning could be
primordial black holes.

Primordial black holes are very
small microscopic black holes

that, uh, would have formed

at the beginning of the big bang
or just after.

And it's possible
there's still some of them--

remnants of the big bang--
floating around in the universe.

[thunder crashes]

DENNIN:
When I look at ball lightning,
it just seems such a clear

ion electromagnetic effect

that it's probably not even
necessary or likely

to be connected to something
like micro black holes.

But it-- there's nothing
necessarily in physics

that tells you it's impossible
to have it happen.

SHATNER:
Could ball lightning really be

some type of black hole
in disguise?

If so, it's probably best
to study something like it

from a comfortable distance.

Not unlike
another weather phenomenon

that has made people
run inside to avoid it

for thousands of years...

...blood rain.

SHATNER:
In the skies above this forested
region of rolling hills

in the southwestern state
of Kerala,

storm clouds begin to gather.

Not so unusual
in this part of the country.

[thunder cracks]

But when the rain starts,

no one is prepared
for what falls from the sky.

Something that appears
to be blood.

And it lasts not for hours
or days or even weeks,

but for months.

If I put myself in the shoes
of these people

that experienced this blood rain
coming from the sky,

I can only imagine
how terrifying that must be

and how that must make
those people question

their own existence and question
the forces of nature

that are at work in the world.

That must be earth-shattering
for these people.

You have to think that
that's sent from the heavens.

For some reason,
some mystical reason,

this happened because
it's sent from the gods.

It's sending out a signal
or a message for some reason.

SHATNER:
After months of wondering
whether the apocalypse

was at hand, residents sighed
in relief as, suddenly,

the scarlet deluge stopped.

And just like every other time
this strange phenomenon

happened throughout history,
the skies returned to normal.

CHANDRA WICKRAMASINGHE:
Similar stories of red rain

have essentially spanned history
over thousands of years.

It's been repeatedly reported,
first in mythology

and then in historical accounts.

It goes back maybe
to the sixth century BC.

TAYLOR:
We have stories in our theology
and mythologies

that see this phenomena happening,

so it must be one of the signs
of the coming apocalypse.

But it's a phenomena
that occurs in weather

around the planet all the time.

EVANS:
You never know where red rain
is going to occur.

It's all depending
on weather systems.

All over the world
there's been rain like this,

even in the United States.

Even in the Ukraine and Russia,
this has taken place.

SHATNER:
It's not surprising that
ancient people regarded blood

falling from the sky
as a sign of impending doom.

But today we tend not to believe

in such far-fetched nonsense.

Especially because, as I'm sure
you'll be relieved to know,

blood rain isn't
actually made of blood.

Scientists did analysis of this
red rain and did not find things

like copper or iron,
things that we think of as red

that would cause
this water to be red.

So why was it red?

What else could have
been in the water

that made a blood-red rain?

EVANS:
What scientists thought

is that it is caused by spores

that are on trees,
grassy areas, rocks,

all over the terrain there
in India.

And those spores blast all
of that into the atmosphere.

And that's carried
up into the clouds

and it kind of hangs there.

Oftentimes spores
are produced prolifically.

You know, billions of millions
of spores, right,

go all over the place.

And so you can imagine
that it would be transported

up in the atmosphere,
associate with rain,

and then come down
as-as a red color as well.

SHATNER:
The theory that red algae spores
can and do create red rain

is believed by most scientists
to be a sound one.

But, believe it or not,
there's another theory.

One which proposes
that blood rain

is caused by something extraterrestrial.

If you look at the red rain
under the microscope,

what we found was
absolutely staggering,

because we found
that there were red living cells

dispersed in the rain.

That was the cause
of the red color in the rain.

And these cells were in the
process of actually reproducing.

And when examined under
the highest magnification,

these cells didn't look
like anything

that we had seen on the Earth.

SHATNER:
Life unlike any on Earth?

Could it be that the real cause
of blood rain

is far more profound
than previously thought?

WHITEHEAD:
Coincidentally,

there was also a meteor
explosion in the area.

So the question is: could
those two events be linked?

WICKRAMASINGHE:
What I think happened
was that a fragment

of a comet exploded...

in the high stratosphere,

and this comet had living
entities, alien life,

in the form of these red cells.

And they became the seeds,
the nuclei of raindrops.

TAYLOR:
We've found plankton organisms

on the solar panels of the
International Space Station.

So it's possible that this
meteor that exploded over India

had some sort of red organic
material in it

that came from space.

SHATNER:
If the source of blood rain is,
in fact, extraterrestrial,

might it help explain how life

could have started
here on Earth?

TAYLOR:
One theory

of how life can propagate
from one planet to another

and even one star system
to another is panspermia.

KAKU:
Panspermia is the idea

that life on the Earth
started in outer space.

And, sure enough, when we look
at meteorites on the Earth,

we find some from Mars,
some from the Moon,

and maybe even some from Venus.

And so, if meteors can go
back and forth, why not DNA?

WHITEHEAD:
We tend to think of ourselves

as something that grew
out of some primordial soup

from a random one-time accident
that took place on this planet

millions and millions
of years ago.

But could it be
that we actually, us humans,

are the aliens on this planet?

SHATNER:
Blood rain.

A weather phenomenon so strange
and so unexplained

that it calls into question
everything we think we know

about who we are
and where we come from.

Not unlike another type of rain.

One that carries life

of a very different kind.

Residents awake
to a flash of lightning

and what sounds like hail
falling from the sky.

But, surprisingly, what is
really raining down on the city

is not hail but fish.

EVANS:
The images are so bizarre,
when you first see them,

you think this must be
some kind of a hoax.

Fish falling from the sky.
And they're everywhere.

TOK THOMPSON: If you're out
in the middle of a small village

and all of a sudden
it's raining fish on you,

most people will wonder,
you know, why?

What does this mean?

SHATNER:
I'm sure you're all familiar
with ancient stories

that tell of frogs
raining from the sky.

Most consider them myths.

But in actuality,

the phenomenon of live creatures
showering down from the heavens

is all too real.

When you think about it,
it's really mysterious.

How could it possibly
be raining fish?

Since the tenth century,

there's been records
of fish falls from the sky.

Small fish from all over the
world have fallen from the sky.

I know a-a story
my dad tells me.

When he was a kid,
about ten years old,

that it rained so many fish
in his front yard

that they picked them up
in wheelbarrow loads

and had a big fish fry.

KAKU:
When you look at anecdotal data,

there are many instances in the
past where it's raining fish,

and you say to yourself,
how can that be?

That seems to violate
everything we know

about storms and common sense.

DENNIN:
The reality is, tornadoes
are regularly taking stuff

from one place and dropping them
somewhere else.

But they're over land and
they're definitely moving things

that are typically land-based,
so obviously they're not gonna

drop fish
'cause they're over land.

But, basically, a waterspout
or a tornado over water

is conceivably gonna have
the same effect.

It can suck things
out of the water.

And then, as that object
continues to move,

it moves across land.

At some point those will fall
back out of the tornado

and it will look
like raining frogs or fish.

FISHER:
It's not implausible.

I don't think it's a coincidence
that most of the animal rains

that we experience
are-are aquatic animals, right?

'Cause those are probably the
ones that are easiest to suck up

in a waterspout
and then deposit on the Earth.

SHATNER:
The notion that a waterspout

could siphon tons of fish
from the sea

before raining them down
miles away

is one that is supported
by many scientists.

But if it sounds far-fetched
to you, you're not the only one.

People have watched waterspouts
over lots of places,

but they never seem to see
anything being scooped up

out of the ocean by waterspouts

that we've actually watched
for a long time.

These occurrences are random
and they're out of place

and they make no sense

and there's really no good
explanation for them.

How does that school of fish,
which are far heavier than air,

traverse hundreds of miles, in
some cases, to be distributed,

deposited over land
and on top of people?

Whatever this phenomena is,
it happened very quickly.

You take a fish out of water,
it is fighting for breath.

It's going to, uh, suffocate,

and that suggests that-- is
there some other thing at play?

Like, could there be

some strange physics
we don't know yet?

EVANS:
What's really strange
about the fish fall in Yoro

is that it happens about
the same time every year.

It happens so often, they have
a name for it: lluvia de peces,

which means "raining of fish."

So it couldn't be a waterspout.

It has to be something
more to it.

NARRATOR:
If lluvia de peces can't be
explained by random waterspouts,

then what could it be?

According to some scientists,

the answer could be
even stranger than, well,

fish falling
out of a clear blue sky.

BARA:
There are places on Earth,
like the Bermuda Triangle

in the Caribbean,
where you do have

these very, very strange
occurrences that happen.

People talk about flying
into these electronic fogs.

BRANDENBURG:
I think you have to have
some new physics involved

besides just a waterspout.

Matter is inherently electromagnetic.

And so, if you have a bunch
of moving gas o-or liquid,

then you are actually creating
a flow of electromagnetism,

which could create
a vortex disturbance

that may have allowed
this phenomenon.

It's as if you can create
some kind of space-time portal

that, uh, transports
these fish or frogs.

Just the waterspout explanation
seems barely plausible to me.

SHATNER:
Could interdimensional portals
be what causes fish

to suddenly appear in Yoro
every year?

Perhaps.

But for the people of Yoro,
the question is academic.

As far as they're concerned,
the fish are a welcome sight,

no matter what brings
about their arrival.

If you look
at the people of Yoro,

they go outside and they pick up
all this fish for dinner.

They put it into buckets.

It's a positive thing.

So if we look at it like this,
we take something

that's out of our sphere of
knowledge and we deal with it.

EVANS:
In ages past, fish falling from
the sky was the wrath of God.

I don't think
we're afraid anymore.

But I also think that there
are some things about weather

that we may not understand,
we may never understand.

But that's okay.

SHATNER:
Until we're able to verify
whether animal rain

is due to waterspouts,
or something more exotic,

it seems all we can do is either
keep searching for answers

or grab a bucket.

But imagine how differently
we might feel

if we had the power
to actually harness

the forces of nature

and control the weather.

Beautiful, isn't it?

But what if I told you
that the St. Louis Arch

is more than just
an impressive monument

or a tourist attraction?

What if I told you that there
are people who actually believe

it can control the weather?

[thunder crashes]

Sounds preposterous, huh?

Well, we shall see.

[thunder crashes]

Standing 630 feet tall
and 630 feet wide,

the St. Louis Arch is
the world's tallest

freestanding arch.

Memorializing Thomas Jefferson,
Lewis and Clark,

and other great pioneers,
the arch has been nicknamed

"the Gateway to the West."

Each leg of the arch is sunk
in almost

24,000 tons of concrete,
60 feet deep,

enough to withstand earthquakes
and winds as strong as

150 miles an hour.

The exterior is comprised of
2,000 tons of stainless steel.

The most ever used for
any single project in history.

It is, in short,
a modern engineering marvel.

But that's not even the most
incredible thing about it.

Heavy, dark, dangerous
thunderstorms have been known,

on many occasions, to head
directly for the city

of St. Louis.

And as they get closer,
they seem to split

right down the middle,
go out and around the city,

and reconnect after they've
passed the city of St. Louis.

People have said
for years and years and years

that it has to do
with the St. Louis Arch.

BRANDENBURG:
It's very strange,

but there does seem
to be an effect

where thunderstorms tend
to kind of break apart

when they get near this thing,
and they reform afterwards.

It doesn't mean that St. Louis
doesn't have thunderstorms.

It does.

But it doesn't seem to have
as many thunderstorms

in the area of that arch.

SHATNER:
The St. Louis Arch's
alleged power

to redirect thunderstorms
has led some

to give this phenomenon a name:
the arch effect.

Some people believe
that the St. Louis Arch

is changing the flow of the air

that's causing weather patterns
to occur or not.

But a storm cloud top is
10,000 to 50,000 feet high.

The arch is only gonna be
a few hundred feet high at best.

So how is this affecting something

that is so much larger?

DENNIN:
I think we all are well aware

of the way structures
certainly impact airflow,

air currents and winds.

And the arch is certainly
very large and very geometric,

and I think it does have
what we might call

local micro effects.

But what kind of influences
could that have

on sort of larger weather
systems, particularly storms,

either attracting or
not attracting thunderstorms?

That's harder to kind of really
wrap your head around.

SHATNER:
If the shape of the St. Louis
Arch isn't the reason

it's capable
of affecting the weather,

then what is?

According to some scientists,

it's not how the arch
was designed

but what it's made of.

Now, as you look at the design
of this thing,

it's a stainless steel structure.

It's completely unique architecturally.

It's basically a ring
made of metal.

Metal is a conductor.

The various stainless steels
and other metals that are in it

conduct electromagnetic energy.

You could, you know,
connect a battery

to one side of the arch
and light a flashlight

on the other side of it.

And that's-that's fairly unique.

You can't do that
with most skyscrapers.

So, one mechanism where it could
affect the local weather

is to short out the Earth's
electric field in that vicinity.

[thunder crashing]

In a weird way, it's kind of an
oddly shaped big lightning rod.

And normally we think
of lightning rods

as being sharp and pointed,
and there's a clear

ion electromagnetic effect.

[thunder crashes]

It has been proven by Nikola
Tesla and other scientists

that you can use
electromagnetic fields

to create holes
in the atmosphere

to manipulate the weather.

SHATNER:
Could generating a powerful
enough electromagnetic field

actually make it possible
to manipulate something as vast

and unpredictable as weather?

It's an intriguing
and somewhat unnerving notion.

But believe it or not, in 1990,

the United States military
conducted a series

of experiments designed
to do just that.

There was a secret program
by the military called HAARP,

which was instituted to try
to understand the ionosphere.

This is a matter
of national security.

Communications go through
the upper atmosphere

called the ionosphere,
and we have to study it.

So HAARP shot radio frequency
radiation into the ionosphere

to see how it was distributed
around the planet Earth.

If you look, there have been
many direct correlations

between major storms
and HAARP being active.

It could be that the hurricanes
and superstorms

and tornadoes that are created
while HAARP is working

are actually just
a-a side effect.

But the people that are
operating this device

understand and know
its potential for use

as a weather weapon.

SHATNER:
Is the St. Louis Arch not only
an impressive national monument

but also evidence of
the United States government's

ongoing attempts
to control the weather?

Perhaps the answer lies
not by examining

the design of the St. Louis Arch

but by investigating
the extraordinary career

of the man who designed it.

SHATNER:
As World War II rages
across several continents,

acclaimed architect
and eventual designer

of the St. Louis Arch,
Eero Saarinen,

is secretly enlisted
by the United States military

to work for a new
clandestine organization.

It's name, the OSS:
Office of Strategic Services.

Or, as it is known today,
the CIA.

The fact that Eero Saarinen
was in the OSS designing

weapons systems
during World War II,

and at a time when the OSS
was looking into

ways to "weaponize weather,"

makes his whole connection

to the design
of the St. Louis Arch

extremely interesting.

Now, that isn't to say I believe
it can control the weather,

but it does open the door
to the idea

that it might have been
one of the things

Saarinen was out to achieve.

SHATNER:
While at the OSS,
Saarinen designed buildings

and weapons systems,
many of which were never

completed or built.

Is it possible he later used
these secret plans

to engineer the St. Louis Arch,

creating something
that can actually control

or perhaps harness the weather?

Controlling the weather is
the ultimate superweapon.

It's even more powerful
than the atomic bomb.

So, if Eero Saarinen
was involved in analyzing

and studying the possibility
of weather modification,

and you put
all those factors together,

and I think you have a guy
that basically conducted

a big, giant weather
modification experiment

with the St. Louis Arch.

SHATNER:
Weather as a weapon?

There are some who think
the idea is not as preposterous

as it seems.

Especially when considering
that even today,

many world governments are
pouring millions of dollars

into research designed
to manipulate weather.

I think weather modification
has definitely been

an ongoing endeavor of
governments all over the world

for decades.

The St. Louis Arch appears to be
an experiment

in weather modification.

The HAARP device appears to be
an experiment

in weather modification.

Who knows what the Russians or
the Chinese are doing?

There's some sort of technology
out there.

There's been lots of work
in the field of weather control.

Using silver iodide
inside of thunderstorms

to decrease the size of hail.

That goes on in many parts
of the world to

alleviate that problem.

They're always firing rockets
into the atmosphere in China

to manipulate the weather.

But is this a good idea?

TAYLOR:
You wonder, if you could
steer a tornado,

what would it take?

Even a nuclear weapon might just
nudge it, if even that.

DENNIN:
One challenge with that is,

your shockwave is gonna be hard
to focus, perhaps,

and it might cause the damage

you were hoping to avoid
with the tornado.

I would be looking at how much
can I control or change

local pressures
in the atmosphere

near and around the tornado.

These are forces at work that
could wipe out major cities.

And we're finding out
every day new things

that we've never seen before.

So maybe the lesson
learned here is:

we shouldn't meddle with forces

that we don't really understand.

Because we may not like
the result.

[thunder crashes]

Weather. At its best
it can cleanse and renew,

but at its most extreme
it can destroy

everything in its path.

No matter how much time
and money we spend

trying to control it
and predict it,

it remains, as many things
in our world, among

the unexplained.