Original subtitles

♪♪

narrator: A mysterious frozen lake

filled with the bones of hundreds of people...

Rose: Some even still have flesh attached to them.

This place really gives you the feeling

that something unsettling happened here.

♪♪

narrator: ...An aviation graveyard

buried 300 feet beneath the ice...

Somara: There were no signs of a mechanical error,

so there were still no answers

to what actually happened to these planes.

Narrator: ...And three mummies suspended in the italian alps.

Bellinger: People don't just end up hanging upside down

in a glacier,

unless something terrible happened to them.

♪♪

narrator: These are the strangest mysteries,

trapped in the coldest places.

Lost relics,

forgotten treasures,

dark secrets,

locked in their icy tombs for ages.

But now as ice melts around the world,

their stories will finally be exposed.

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by discovery communications

[ wind whistling ]

♪♪

deep in the indian himalayas, 16,000 feet above sea level,

a centuries-old mystery lies ready to be awakened.

There's nothing up there but ice and rocks

as far as the eye can see.

O'keefe: It's totally desolate, freezing cold,

and completely uninhabited.

Narrator: Hidden in a valley between the icy peaks,

lies a lake frozen so solid it only melts once a year

to reveal its deadly secret.

It's really the last place

you would expect to see something like this.

♪♪

it's a gruesome sight, like a crime scene.

Narrator: Every August,

the ice melts and slowly reveals hundreds of human bones.

♪♪

some even still have flesh attached to them.

♪♪

it makes you wonder what awful fate

did these people meet?

♪♪

o'keefe: This place is totally remote,

the closest village is a four-day trek from here.

Narrator: Where did these human remains come from,

and how did they get here?

It's a mystery that's been simmering

for the better part of a century.

♪♪

in 1942, a man named hari madhwal,

a ranger from india's nanda devi national park,

was patrolling the nature reserve with his team

and stumbled on the gruesome scene.

His porters were so terrified,

they turned around and ran for their lives.

Did they know something that the rangers didn't?

In the early 1940s, india was still under british rule,

world war ii was raging in europe,

and the japanese army had just taken over burma, or myanmar.

It was thought that the japanese were considering an assault

to take india away from the british empire.

♪♪

when british high command heard from the park ranger

about a site in the mountains filled with dead bodies,

they got worried.

♪♪

narrator: Could these bodies be the remains

of a marauding japanese party

that got stuck high in the mountains and died?

The british secretly sent experts to the site

to determine if they could,

in fact, be under threat of a japanese invasion.

They found bits of clothing and shoes,

some of which was still attached to the bones.

Narrator: But that wasn't what really surprised them.

The shoes and clothing were outdated,

suggesting the dead bodies were old.

These bodies weren't invading soldiers,

at least not soldiers from world war ii.

Narrator: In 2003,

a team of researchers turned to the bones themselves

for answers.

Samples from the bodies were sent to be tested

by the radiocarbon accelerator at oxford university.

They were found to be much older than people

had initially thought.

♪♪

rose: These skeletons were from 850 a.D.,

that's over a thousand years old.

Narrator: In the 9th century,

india had one of the world's largest economies.

It had a huge army and a lot of enemies.

Rose: Often when you find hundreds of bodies

lying haphazardly like this in a concentrated area,

it's because they died in battle

and were left behind by the victorious army.

Narrator: Floating this theory, researchers analyzed the bones,

looking for evidence of battle trauma.

What they found was perplexing.

Skulls found in the lake showed strange, identical injuries --

huge spherical-shaped wounds to the tops and the backs

of their heads.

♪♪

narrator: What could have caused these wounds?

Could all of these people have died

from the same type of fracture?

Maybe an opposing army finished these men off

with the same type of weapon.

Narrator: Forensics show that each skull in the sample

had been struck by a heavy, round object,

several inches in diameter.

Wounds like this would have caused extensive bleeding

and swelling of the brain.

They could easily have been inflicted during a battle.

Narrator: But there's a problem with this theory.

If this was a battle, we'd also expect injuries

on arms and legs,

we'd find broken bones and lacerations, but we don't.

Narrator: The only place these skeletons have injuries

is on their heads and shoulders.

Rose: In a conflict,

you'd also expect to find remnants of weapons or armor,

but there's absolutely no evidence of this at all.

It leads us to believe these people didn't die in a fight.

♪♪

narrator: If they didn't die at the hands of their enemies,

how did hundreds of people suddenly end up dead

at the bottom of a lake high up in the himalayas?

♪♪

these mountains are known for terrible and unexpected weather,

could it have been a natural disaster?

Just imagine -- a storm rolls in,

they're caught in the valley,

and the cliffs are towering above them,

they are absolutely impossible to climb.

Narrator: Some wonder if an unexpected storm

could have pummeled them with hailstones.

Local mythology and folklore seem to corroborate this theory,

a traditional song describes a hindu goddess, nanda devi,

becoming so enraged by a king and his court's sinful behavior

on her mountain,

she rained death upon them with hailstones hard as iron.

It's not just folklore, history supports this theory, as well.

In 1888, elsewhere in india, hundreds of people were killed

with hailstones the size of oranges.

♪♪

bellinger: Scientists were convinced

that hail had caused the head wounds.

And for years, the theory of pilgrims caught in a storm

has been held up as credible.

Narrator: But in 2019,

new dna testing would bring this theory into question.

What the scientists found turned everything

that they thought they knew about skeleton lake on its head.

♪♪

for years, the hypothesis was that a single catastrophic event

had killed one large group of people in the valley.

♪♪

narrator: But in 2019,

analysis carried out on a much larger sample of the bones

upended that theory

and revealed that the remains had come

from three distinct periods,

ranging from the 7th century to the 20th.

♪♪

this wasn't just one mass event,

these were multiple fatalities spread over a thousand years.

O'keefe: They weren't all killed at the same time.

How is this possible?

Bellinger: Maybe this is just a normal graveyard

that people have been using for a thousand years.

Rose: It's so remote and difficult to get to,

it just doesn't make sense to haul your dead

all the way up here.

Bellinger: If it was a graveyard,

you'd expect to see some sort of monument or gravestones.

The bodies don't seem like

they were placed or buried in the lake.

The bones are just too scattered and mixed up.

Rose: In a graveyard,

people's bones are usually found close together,

but in this case, they're all over the place.

So we're back to square one.

How did all these bodies end up at the bottom of skeleton lake

over the span of a thousand years?

♪♪

[ wind whistling ]

♪♪

narrator: High up in the himalayas,

at the bottom of a frozen lake,

the remains of hundreds of people lie hidden

within the ice.

♪♪

researchers believe the valley's unique geography

could provide the answer.

♪♪

the lake is at the bottom of an incredibly deep valley,

in fact, it's the lowest point for miles around.

The fact that the bones are so mixed up may provide the answer,

maybe this isn't actually where the people died

who were laid to rest,

maybe they were funneled here over the years

by the movement of the ice.

Narrator: Perhaps these are the remains

of all sorts of people --

pilgrims, merchants, or soldiers,

all of whom fell prey to the mountains throughout the ages.

Over time, rock slides, snow melts, and gravity

moved the bones downwards to the lowest point.

♪♪

rose: It's like the earth itself brought these remains down here,

bone by individual bone.

Narrator: Making skeleton lake

the mountain's own natural graveyard.

It's still only a theory,

but it's the most convincing one to date.

In the meantime, efforts are being made to protect the site

until more answers can be found.

♪♪

♪♪

at the edge of the world

in the far-flung reaches of the arctic...

♪♪

...Greenland is home

to some of the world's most extreme terrain.

♪♪

it's one of the most hostile climates on earth.

It's winter for eight months of the year.

O'keefe: This place is hardcore.

It's almost as if everything is trying to kill you.

Macferrin: It's flat, it's white,

it's just snow as far as the eye can see.

Narrator: Despite it being so remote,

researchers working out on the glaciers

make an incredible discovery deep beneath the surface.

They're out there working with ground-penetrating radar,

and suddenly they locate a large chunk of metal

under the ice.

♪♪

narrator: It doesn't take long to confirm

that the mystery chunk of metal is a world war ii plane.

But how did it get here?

Somara: It's at 300 feet below the ice,

and stranger still, it's not the only plane down there.

♪♪

narrator: This unpopulated part of southeastern greenland

is home to dozens of wrecked airplanes.

It's an aviation graveyard.

♪♪

what could have brought them all down

in this one particular spot?

Narrator: It's no surprise that this area

has become known as greenland's bermuda triangle.

♪♪

to understand why all these planes

were flying over here to begin with,

you have to go back to world war ii.

♪♪

after joining the allies,

the united states faced the problem

of transporting their massive bombing fleet

to bases in great britain.

To avoid german u boats

that were decimating ships in the atlantic ocean,

they started flying rather than shipping aircraft

across the north atlantic

to allied bases in great britain.

All these planes had to land in canada and greenland to refuel,

which meant crossing over the treacherous ice cap.

A high percentage of these planes unexpectedly crashed

in southeastern greenland,

and sometimes the planes sent out to rescue them

suffered a similar fate.

♪♪

these aircraft were flown by expertly trained military pilots

who would have been used to flying in extreme conditions.

♪♪

narrator: What is it about this particular part of greenland

that was bringing these planes down?

♪♪

the researchers who discovered the plane deep within the ice

believe it may have been one of the infamous lost squadron.

♪♪

a squadron of u.S. Planes consisting of six p-38s

and two b-17s was traveling along the snowball route.

The squadron fueled up in greenland without incident,

but heading east over the ice cap,

flying at 12,000 feet, they encountered a problem.

♪♪

somara: The radio operators attempted to make contact

with another plane flying just ahead of them,

but there was no answer.

Narrator: Two hours from the closest air base,

the pilots were forced to make a sudden

and unexpected emergency landing on a glacier.

So the surface of an ice sheet is just snow,

it's like a snow drift that extends forever.

And if you tried to land a plane on it

that wasn't designed to land on the ice

that didn't have specially equipped skis on it,

the wheels would sink.

It would have to be an emergency situation for you to land there.

♪♪

the squad lead was the first to take the plunge,

landing hard and flipping over.

One by one, they all descended and suffered similar fates,

but miraculously, no one was injured.

The pilots were rescued and the planes were abandoned,

left to rust out, eventually to be swallowed whole by the ice.

What forced these planes

to make an emergency landing on the glacier?

♪♪

maybe their proximity to the north pole

was scrambling the plane's compasses?

Somara: When you're flying near

one of the earth's magnetic poles,

it becomes challenging because your regular compass

becomes pretty much useless.

Narrator: Magnetic field lines from the earth's poles

can cause a plane's compass magnets to dip.

When this happens,

it's practically impossible to get accurate readings.

O'keefe: These were experienced pilots.

They would have been trained to adjust for compass variations.

Narrator: So if it wasn't pilot error,

what else could be bringing down the planes?

♪♪

known to greenlanders as piteraq alley,

this area of southeastern greenland is dominated

by sudden extreme winds

that appear seemingly out of nowhere.

So as air cools on the surface of an ice sheet,

it gets dense and starts to flow downhill

under its own weight.

If there's a storm on the coast that has low pressure,

it can actually suck this wind down these valleys

and create a tremendous storm.

♪♪

bellinger: The word piteraq means that which attacks.

There's so strong they can rip the roofs right off houses.

Narrator: These deadly winds can clock up to 200 miles per hour.

It can knock down buildings, it can shred tents to ribbons.

It's a pretty intense wind.

♪♪

narrator: Add in the tunneling effect

from the many fjords and valleys,

and you've created the perfect storm.

♪♪

but there's a problem with this theory.

Piteraq winds occur at pretty low altitudes

so they typically exist below 1,000 feet.

♪♪

the planes flying over greenland at that time

would have almost certainly been flying way higher than that.

So it makes it extremely unlikely

that the winds are to blame.

♪♪

narrator: So if it isn't a piteraq wind

that's bringing all these planes down,

what is?

Recovering the buried p-38 could be crucial

to understanding what happened here.

♪♪

an international team of aviation experts

embarked on mission impossible,

digging the 70-year-old p-38 out of the ice.

But how do you get a 6-ton aircraft

out from under 300 feet of ice?

Narrator: And if they do manage to get it out,

could it help them unlock the mystery

of greenland's bermuda triangle?

♪♪

[ wind whistling ]

♪♪

greenland's southern coastline conceals the wrecks

of over 30 downed planes in an area that's become known as

greenland's bermuda triangle.

Researchers are attempting to retrieve

one of these lost planes, a p-38 from world war ii,

from hundreds of feet below the surface.

It is hoped it will shed some light

on the area's deadly secrets.

The plane is buried 300 feet below the surface,

it's not gonna be easy to extract it from the ice.

♪♪

narrator: The team developed a new type

of thermal meltdown generator

called a super gopher.

It bores through the ice

by heating it and pumping the melted water

back to the surface through a pipe.

♪♪

wrapped in copper hot water lines,

the heat melted the ice at 2 to 4 feet an hour.

It took days for this thing

to slowly bore hundreds of feet into the ice,

but then it finally hit something.

Found in great condition, the plane was expertly taken apart

and painstakingly hauled up to the surface piece by piece.

They named her glacier girl.

♪♪

somara: Other than damage from the ice,

no equipment on the plane was broken,

there were no signs of a mechanical error,

so there was still no answers

to what actually happened to these planes.

♪♪

narrator: With no clues,

researchers would have to look elsewhere for answers.

Our understanding of weather over greenland

has come a tremendous way since the 1940s.

We have satellite observations covering the globe constantly,

we have weather stations

all around every coast on the planet.

These are things we simply did not have in the 1940s.

♪♪

bellinger: In this part of greenland,

deadly whiteout blizzards can form in a matter of minutes.

♪♪

narrator: Blizzards in greenland can happen

with no warning at all.

They form when the northern polar jet stream clashes

with the warmer, moist air moving up from the south,

creating catastrophic blizzards in minutes.

♪♪

bellinger: Let's say suddenly out of the blue,

the squadron is surrounded by a blizzard,

freezing temperatures start to ice the wings.

The heating in the planes is basically nonexistent.

This p-38 from world war ii was rudimentary,

it didn't have the capabilities nor the equipment we have now.

♪♪

narrator: Planes of that era couldn't fly high enough

to avoid the blizzards for long so there was nowhere to go.

Somara: They're flying through thick, heavy clouds,

the ice cap and the sky are all the same color,

so they can't even tell where the horizon is.

♪♪

the pilot's hands and feet are so frozen they can barely stand.

You're two hours from the closest airport,

you can make radio contact, and you're also running out of fuel.

♪♪

there was nowhere to go but down.

Narrator: Landing on the glacier was their only option,

one that proved to be the right decision.

♪♪

fortunately, modern-day aircraft are able to avoid this problem

with increased range capabilities.

And of course, there have been advances

in weather prediction and radar.

♪♪

narrator: Today, glacier girl lives in texas.

♪♪

the crown jewel in a private collection of classic airplanes.

But she flies just as well today

as the day she was made over 80 years ago,

a testament to the aviation technology

that helped win the second world war.

♪♪

♪♪

close to 12,000 feet above sea level in the italian alps...

♪♪

...A mystery hangs suspended in ancient ice.

It's a pretty eerie sight,

they look like an army of the dead reaching out

towards you from the glacier.

♪♪

somara: Can you imagine seeing them for the first time?

It would sent shivers down your spine.

♪♪

rose: What happened to these people,

and how do they end up hanging upside down

in such a strange way?

♪♪

narrator: On a routine climbing expedition,

local mountain guide maurizio vicenzi

stumbles upon something he's never seen before --

the frozen remains of three human bodies.

These men look as if someone hung them there,

it doesn't look natural.

Narrator: When the team examined the bodies,

they appear to be wearing uniforms

from the austro-hungarian army.

♪♪

these are uniforms from world war I,

meaning these bodies have been hanging there

for almost 100 years.

♪♪

narrator: At the start of world war I,

austro-hungary was allied with germany and Italy,

but in 1915, Italy switched sides

and declared war against them.

♪♪

the austro-hungarians were determined

to keep the italians at bay.

As a result, it created an entirely new battlefront

high up in the alps.

The battlefront became known as the white war.

♪♪

rose: These were some of the worst conditions

anywhere in the war.

It was brutally cold,

soldiers faced vicious alpine winters,

and excruciating frostbite.

♪♪

and fighting on top of mountains meant dealing with avalanches.

Narrator: An estimated 60,000 men died

in that way alone.

♪♪

it's clear these soldiers died in the white war,

but when investigators begin to study the bodies,

no one can come up with a reasonable explanation

of how they ended up in such an unnatural position.

Did someone place them here on purpose?

Could this have been some sort of wartime torture?

People don't just end up hanging upside down in a glacier

unless something terrible happened to them.

♪♪

[ wind whistling ]

♪♪

narrator: The bizarre remains of three world war I soldiers

are found hanging upside down from a glacier.

Is there some sort of sinister reason

they've been left like this?

♪♪

the answer could lie on neighboring mountain,

punta linke.

♪♪

a year after he discovered the bodies,

maurizio vicenzi was on another climbing trip

and made a second discovery.

Narrator: A small cabin entombed in the ice,

no bigger than a one-room shack.

What is this strange icebound cabin,

and can it tell us anything about the mummies

hanging in the ice?

This is no place for a ski chalet,

it's way too high and remote.

♪♪

maybe it's a hermit's hut built by someone just trying

to get away from the world.

Narrator: Vicenzi and the group of mountain climbers with him

chip away the ice covering the cabin and explore inside.

There, they make yet another remarkable discovery.

Somara: Using fans to clear away the ice,

investigators find the tunnel is tall enough

for a person to walk down,

and it's dug almost 300 feet into the mountain.

Narrator: It's a lot of work to build a cabin

at the top of a mountain,

let alone excavate 300 feet of ice and rock.

♪♪

could the cabin have been a mine?

Maybe.

But you don't have to put a mine at the top of mountain.

♪♪

what other reason would you possibly dig a tunnel for?

Narrator: Prisoners dig tunnels to escape,

but this is a small, wooden cabin,

not a military jail.

♪♪

o'keefe: During the white war,

the alps were the main battlefield,

and when you have fighting at those elevations,

a major problem is how do you get men, weapons, and supplies

all the way up to the front?

Narrator: The austro-hungarians used the cabin and tunnel

as a vital link in an elaborate supply line,

connecting the peio valley below

to the front line high up in the mountains.

♪♪

crates loaded with supplies were pushed through the tunnel

before being launched onto an unsupported cable 4,000 feet

across the valley.

♪♪

rose: That's an insane way to move supplies,

but how else would you move heavy pieces of equipment

to the top of a mountain?

♪♪

narrator: Through brutal snowstorms

and freezing temperatures,

alpine troops would move supplies as large as field guns

along this high-wire pathway.

They had some engines,

but a lot of that gear was moved using manpower.

That would be a grueling effort and definitely risky.

Maybe these bodies in the ice

were working on a similar supply line but fell to their deaths.

♪♪

narrator: Investigators returned to the bodies looking for clues

to substantiate the theory

that they died by accident.

It's there they make a vital discovery --

bandages in their pockets.

♪♪

these weren't soldiers taking supplies to the front.

♪♪

these were stretcher bearers moving along

with the same supply lines to bring wounded soldiers back.

O'keefe: But that still leaves a couple of questions --

how did these men die, and why did they end up

hanging upside down in such strange positions?

Rose: The only way to answer this mystery

is to exhume them from the ice and autopsy the bodies.

♪♪

bellinger: Once removed from the ice,

it was obvious that the bodies weren't tied together

by any kind of safety line.

So why were they all hanging in a row?

Narrator: The autopsy turns up some amazing findings.

O'keefe: They find wounds on the bodies from shrapnel.

One man even still has fragments in his lungs.

This suggests that they died from artillery shell blasts.

Narrator: Research into written accounts suggest

that these men died in the final battle

for the mountain on September 3, 1918.

Billson: Three medics in the final battle on the front.

They were almost home.

♪♪

o'keefe: These men were killed from a shell blast,

but that wouldn't leave them hanging so close together.

Narrator: The ice itself may hold the answer.

♪♪

[ wind whistling ]

♪♪

the remains of three austrian medics

killed by an artillery blast during world war I

are found hanging in the ice.

♪♪

research into the glacier might unlock the secret

to how these men ended up suspended

by their legs in such an ominous manner.

Rose: Written reports suggest that many of the men

who were killed during the final battle

were buried up there on the mountaintop.

In the midst of the fighting,

soldiers simply couldn't bring the bodies

of their fallen comrades back down the mountain.

Narrator: The answer to how the bodies ended up in this position

may lie in the way the ice is melting.

The glacier isn't melting from the top down,

it's melting from the side.

Narrator: As the ice melts, it exposes the head and torso

of the bodies of the medics.

With their legs still stuck in the ice,

the bodies appear to be suspended from the glacier.

♪♪

so, these three soldiers were laid to rest together

in a common grave,

but over time, the ice melted and the grave gave out

from underneath them.

Narrator: An exhaustive investigation

for the men's identities

failed to turn up the medics' names.

Once investigators finish their autopsy,

the men were transported to a military cemetery in peio

and buried with honor.

After over 100 years,

these medics finally found their resting place.

♪♪

we might not know their names,

but we know they gave their lives

trying to save wounded soldiers,

and for that, they were heroes.

♪♪

♪♪

narrator: At the base of a massive glacier

in southern greenland,

a team of danish archeologists make an odd discovery.

There's something really off about this place,

but you just can't quite put your finger on what it is.

♪♪

you stand there, and you get this really eerie feeling.

Narrator: On the edge of a remote open plain

facing the glacier sits an odd arrangement of ancient stones.

It's almost as if they've been deliberately arranged

in this way.

♪♪

narrator: On first glance, it appears as if they're

in the shape of a circle, but on closer inspection,

it looks more like a boat or a dinghy.

It's clearly the remains of some sort of stone hut.

Someone at some point in time went to a lot of trouble

to lay these stones in the middle of nowhere,

but why?

Narrator: When archeologists excavate the hut,

they find something even more peculiar.

Under a stone and turf bench, they find the remains of a box

filled with a strange collection of artifacts and animal bones.

Rose: It's a unique find.

It's fascinating when you find animal bones

collected and stored like this.

The cache includes tusks, walrus jaw gaming pieces,

an adler comb, an iron knife, and a fragment of soapstone.

Could this place have been used for a mysterious purpose?

Rose: Seeing a collection like this can get under your skin,

it's unsettling.

♪♪

wolf: You don't just build one stone hut on its own

at the edge of a glacier miles from anywhere,

unless you want to be left alone.

Bellinger: So who was out there alone in the middle of nowhere,

burying a box of bones?

Narrator: The inuit have lived in greenland

for about 800 years,

initially arriving from high arctic canada.

Could this be the remains of an inuit shelter?

It's not out of the realm of possibility,

but there's a problem with this.

Traditionally, inuit buildings were square-shaped

and would have been made of turf, sod, or even ice,

but not stone.

♪♪

narrator: However, the inuit did sometimes use stone

in another way.

They would use stones as a temporary base for a tent

while out hunting and trekking.

Could this be the remains of such a tent?

♪♪

rose: The stones don't look temporary.

They're built on a solid foundation,

which means someone meant for this structure to last.

Narrator: And the inuit never would have built a shelter

on an exposed cliff like this.

Billson: So if it wasn't the inuit, then who built this?

Who else was living here hundreds of years ago?

♪♪

[ wind whistling ]

♪♪

narrator: On a remote plane in southern greenland,

archeologists have discovered

the remains of a strange stone hut

in a box containing an intriguing collection

of animal bones and artifacts.

The question is, who built this hut and why?

The vikings arrived in greenland from iceland

in 985 a.D.,

settling into the relatively fertile lake district

on the southern part of the island.

♪♪

life was extremely hard in this part of the world,

but the vikings managed to grow their community

to several thousand inhabitants.

Perhaps this is the remains of a viking home.

♪♪

billson: Based on the location of the hut,

right beside a glacier

with that freezing wind coming off the ice,

it's highly unlikely this would have been anything other

than a temporary dwelling.

♪♪

life would be absolutely horrific here in the winter.

Narrator: Not only is the location all wrong

for a viking house,

so is the size.

It's only about 5 feet in diameter.

♪♪

it's tiny, but its construction looks viking.

The stone and unique boat shape are all signs of a viking build.

Narrator: Upon closer investigation,

archeologists find the remains of a fire pit

and believe it dates to the early 1400s.

So why is there a fireplace if this isn't a house?

Narrator: Vikings farmed the harsh landscape

as best they could

and would often graze their animals

on pastures in the summer.

When the vikings took their animals out in the summer,

they would build small huts called seters

where you could milk animals.

Narrator: But what kind of shepherd

keeps a strange collection

of animal bones and artifacts in a box?

♪♪

rose: When I look at this bizarre collection,

my mind goes immediately toward ritual and magic.

If it's not a house or a farm, then what was going on here?

♪♪

narrator: Could this stone hut be linked to the dark arts?

♪♪

researchers look for clues amongst the artifacts and bones,

zeroing in on one item in particular, a walrus tusk.

The greenland vikings' most lucrative export

was walrus tusk.

They exported a huge amount of it every year

to iceland and denmark.

♪♪

bellinger: Just one walrus tusk would be worth more

than an entire cow.

There's no way someone would just leave that

in the middle of nowhere.

Narrator: Archeologists were puzzled to see

such a strange collection of objects.

It wasn't something they would normally find

in the excavation of viking structures.

They were both high- and low-value items,

often represented by only one or two artifacts of bone,

but from a whole variety of different animals.

This collection gives me the impression of ritual.

Bellinger: If you want to understand the ritualistic side

of the viking world,

the best place to start is the icelandic sagas.

♪♪

narrator: In the sagas, there is a story about a viking seer

from norway, known as the volva,

who carries a strange combination of objects

to practice magic.

♪♪

seeing a collection like this

can give you the heebie-jeebies, it's unnerving.

♪♪

narrator: The sagas show that viking communities

in greenland were highly superstitious.

Medieval icelandic annals tell of a sorcerer named kolgrim

burned at the stake in 1407

for the crime of using the black arts

to steal another man's wife.

♪♪

after 500 years, the viking colonies finally succumbed

to greenland's inhospitable climate.

♪♪

and by the mid 15th century,

they disappeared from its shores altogether.

Who built this hut and why remains a mystery.

♪♪

perhaps it was a norse seer who sat by the fire

in the face of the glacier, casting spells

and trying to stave off the encroaching cold

for just a little longer.

♪♪