Original subtitles

[narrator] This program contains images of mummified remains

that may disturb some viewers.

Viewer discretion is advised.

Shrapnel, buried in the isolated Aleutian Islands

reveals a wartime secret.

[Cantor] It's riddled with holes and it's completely rusted out.

Whatever this is, it's been here a long time.

[narrator] An unassuming shack on the outer edge of Siberia,

hides a series of mysterious frozen tunnels.

There has to be a reason why the Soviets would dig in ground

that's as solid as concrete.

Why would anyone do that?

[narrator] And a scar in the Arctic permafrost

conceals evidence of one of the earliest criminal enterprises

in North America.

Around the world, we've seen similar giant pits.

Could this island be the site of a mass grave?

[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.

In the frigid Bering Sea, nearly 1,500 miles from Anchorage, Alaska,

lies the forsaken Kiska Island.

[Wakefield] Kiska is right at the end of a chain of American islands

that stretch far into the North Pacific.

It's actually closer to mainland Russia

than it is to the United States.

[Clarke] This uninhabited, volcanic island is only 22-miles long.

And it's covered in snow and thick fog for much of the year.

[Leonard] It's so wild and remote,

only researchers with a permit are allowed to step foot there.

[narrator] In the summer of 2018,

a team of archaeologists take advantage

of the break in the ice and snow to study the island.

At the top of a grassy hill, they come across a long metal object

embedded in the dirt.

This thing is big and it looks heavy.

Like, it's made of steel.

It's cut into the banks of a little gully.

It's kind of eerie.

[Cantor] It's riddled with holes of all different sizes and shapes.

There seem to be big chunks missing and it's completely rusted out.

Whatever this is, it's been here a long time.

[narrator] The object is 78 feet long and nine feet high,

folding into the contours of the island.

The sides are curved and tapered towards each end.

[Clarke] When you look at it, you can see that

the shape looks like it was designed intentionally to be streamlined,

almost aerodynamic.

Similar to an airplane fuselage.

Could this be the site of a crashed plane, perhaps?

[narrator] The outside of the object is completely flat

and made of large steel sheets welded together.

There are very few windows.

[Leonard] If these are the remains of an abandoned or a crashed plane,

you'd expect to see other parts, nearby.

Like, wings, seats, wheels, but there's nothing like that there.

So, if this big metal object isn't a plane,

what is it?

[narrator] The archaeologists expand their search of the island,

looking for clues that could shine a light on the nature of this mysterious object.

Elsewhere, on the hill side,

half covered over by grass and soil, they find large guns.

And an assortment of artifacts, gas masks, and a pile of rubber boots.

[Cantor] These are fascinating.

Boots with split toes like this are called Jikatabi.

They were used by the Japanese Navy during World War II.

[Clarke] The artifacts found on the island,

appear to be relics from the Imperial Japanese Navy.

But, what was the Japanese Navy doing here, on an American Island.

[narrator] During World War II,

Japan was expanding its empire,

occupying several nations across the Pacific.

Kiska and the Aleutian Islands were the perfect place for the Japanese empire

to establish a base within reach of North America.

The remote location with its deep harbor

were ideal for launching attacks in the North Pacific.

On June 6th, 1942,

the Japanese attacked the American weather station on Kiska,

taking control of the island.

[Cantor] By the end of 1942,

over 7,000 Japanese troops were stationed on the island.

They used the next year to build infrastructure,

preparing to defend their new territory.

[Leonard] As they continued to explore,

the researchers found evidence of barracks and tunnels built underground.

The Japanese Navy were clearly expecting to be there for a while.

[narrator] Researchers wonder if the rusted machine on the top of the hill

was part of the Japanese arsenal.

If that's the case, what was it?

[Clarke] When you look closely at the panels

you can see there are very few bolts,

which would make it highly streamlined and watertight.

[Cantor] The lack of windows

and that distinctive compartment on the top are interesting.

It looks like the portion of the submarine

that sits above the water, called a sail.

[Wakefield] But navy submarines are hundreds of feet long

and typically manned by dozens of crew.

If this is a submarine, it looks like it could only fit a few people.

So, what were the Japanese doing

with these tiny submarines this far north in the Pacific.

[siren wailing]

[narrator] By the end of 1941,

the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor,

the U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii.

[Cantor] It was a devastating ambush by Japanese forces.

Hundreds of their planes descended on the harbor.

They damaged or destroyed more than 300 airplanes and 18 warships.

Over 2,000 Americans died in the attack.

[Clarke] But a little known part of the Japanese Navy's battle strategy

was that they would surround the island with stealthy submarines,

intended to sink any ships attempting to escape the attack.

[narrator] They were using five top secret Type "A" mini submarines.

They were battery powered,

which limited them to a maximum depth of 100 feet

into a short range of 80 nautical miles at a speed of six knots.

Each submarine had a crew of two men

and was armed with two torpedoes.

[Cantor] That's such a cramped space.

Smaller than a camper van.

But the crew weren't expected to be in them for long.

Their orders were to complete the mission or to sacrifice the submarines and themselves.

[narrator] But the "Mini Submarine's Pearl Harbor" mission was a failure.

Two were sunk and another washed ashore after the attack.

And the remaining submarines disappeared.

Is it possible, with their new base on Kiska,

the Japanese military were planning another attack with mini submarines,

this time closer to the U.S. mainland?

[narrator] In total, the Japanese Navy built around 50 of these small submarines.

Researchers retrieved military records showing that

during the Japanese occupation, up to six Type "A" subs were stationed at Kiska.

They compared the schematics of the fuselage found on the island.

The wreckage is a perfect match to an Imperial Japanese mini submarine.

The Japanese were closing in on the American mainland

with a small fleet of these deadly mini subs.

But there's something about the location of this submarine

that just doesn't make sense.

[Leonard] Submarines belong underwater.

So, how did this one end up half buried in the soil,

up a hill, a few hundred feet from the beach?

[narrator] Archaeologists on the remote Arctic island of Kiska

are perplexed by the discovery of a wrecked Japanese submarine from World War II,

on the top of a hill.

Further inspection reveals the holes and tears in the metal sides

were caused by an explosive force.

But the impact of the explosions

appear to have forced the metal outwards,

demonstrating that the blast had to have come from within.

If it was an inside job, why had it been blown up in the first place?

[narrator] In August of 1943,

the U.S. and its allies staged an elaborate mission with 34,000 troops

and nearly 100 ships to take Kiska back.

But, by the time they arrived,

the thousands of Japanese troops they thought were on the island

were nowhere to be found.

[Cantor] Japanese forces had already been pushed out

of a different Aleutian Island.

And Japan knew that Kiska was next.

So, under the cover of fog, they'd withdrawn from Kiska the previous month.

[Wakefield] These mini subs were top secret

and they could not be taken with the troops as they fled.

So, what do you do if you have something that you can't take with you

and you don't want it to fall into the hands of the enemy?

You destroy it.

[narrator] The Imperial Japanese Navy detonated explosives

inside the many submarines, scuttling them in the harbor.

[Leonard] This was confirmed when researchers found parts

of another submarine underwater and additional pieces strewn along the beach.

[Wakefield] It's highly unlikely that the navy would go through the effort

of hauling a submarine out of the water just to destroy it,

when sinking it is way more efficient.

So, what happened?

[narrator] Researchers turned to satellite images

to see what other remains could still be hidden on the island.

For researchers, studying satellite imagery can be really helpful.

You can see the terrain in places that are, otherwise, too difficult to access.

[Wakefield] These images are used to see

the remains of man-made objects or structures

that have been overgrown by nature

that you wouldn't be able to see otherwise.

[narrator] The satellite images reveal the remains

of structures close to the abandoned submarine.

And a set of parallel tracks leading back towards the beach.

[Clarke] This was a big project.

The Japanese went to great effort to build that infrastructure.

So, these mini submarines were clearly prized machines.

But, what did they have to do with the tracks?

[narrator] The puzzled researchers turned

to historical military photographs,

hoping they can explain

why this submarine was abandoned on the top of a hill.

Photos from 1943 show a rail track

from the water to the top of the hill,

where there appears to have been a large workshop.

Typically, a structure like this, is where large vehicles or machines

come for maintenance and repairs.

[Cantor] So, it's likely that in 1943, the Japanese hadn't had time

to take the submarine from the repairs bay

out into the water before abandoning Kiska.

They were only able to blow up the submarine

right on the spot where it's still found today.

[narrator] The campaign of the Aleutian Islands

was one of the rare World War II campaigns

that took place on U.S. soil.

[Leonard] The Aleutian Islands are so remote and inaccessible

that their part in the war is often forgotten.

But the freezing winters of Kiska have preserved the relics of war

that might, otherwise, have been lost to time.

[narrator] The remains on the island are also a reminder,

of how close the U.S. mainland came to attack during World War II.

Canada's Kodlunarn Island, Nunavut,

on the southern inlet of Baffin Island's Frobisher Bay.

Kodlunarn just blends into the pack ice

that freezes across the bay for most of the year.

[Cantor] Kodlunarn is not much bigger than a basketball arena.

It's on the edge of the Arctic circle above the tree line,

with no protection from the freezing Arctic weather.

[narrator] By late summer, the pack ice recedes,

just enough for an aerial view to reveal a peculiar scar in the middle of the island.

[Leonard] It's a perfectly straight gash.

Too square to be anything other than man-made.

But this area is almost uninhabited. So, what is it?

[narrator] In July 1993,

a team of archaeologists and researchers find not one,

but two trenches dug into the permafrost.

The second is on the island's northern edge,

cut from the beach onto the land.

[Cantor] They're both about 80 feet long, 16 feet wide and three to six feet deep.

They're clearly the work of humans.

Why are these large trenches dug, seemingly at random,

into this tiny Arctic Island?

[Leonard] Around the world, we've seen similar giant pits

as modern and ancient mass burial sites.

Usually, they stem from wars or plagues or natural disasters.

Could this island be the site of a mass grave?

[narrator] A mysterious trench dug into the middle of a desolate Arctic Island,

may be the site of a long-lost mass grave.

But as archaeologists dig, they find no human remains in the trenches.

That rules out mass graves, so, what else could they be?

[narrator] The archaeologists look more closely at the trenches for clues.

They can see that the walls of the trench

on the northern beach are carved cleanly away,

with tool marks and scratches all over the rock face.

As they dig into the permafrost,

the researchers uncover some decomposed wood, dried peas,

as well as the weathered remains of a wicker basket.

It looks like this was some kind of camp.

And analysis of the wicker basket reveals

that it was made from reeds native to Europe.

This basket's a long way from home.

Inuit oral histories, tell of large ships arriving in this bay

hundreds of years ago.

And Kodlunarn Island got its name from the Inuktitut language

meaning, "White man's Island."

[Cantor] In the late 1600s, French and English trading posts

were established across parts of what's now northern Canada.

Is this camp evidence of a merchant ship or trading vessel

that stopped for shelter or repairs?

[narrator] In the center of the island,

just 100 feet from the first trench,

the researchers uncover the remains of a small rocky foundation wall.

[Leonard] They can tell from the foundation that the walls supported

a building about 12 by 14 feet.

The shape of the wall looks nothing like local Inuit stone buildings.

It looks more like a European cottage.

But Kodlunarn Island is so small and isolated

that a European stone building here?

It just doesn't make much sense.

This doesn't seem like much of a permanent camp.

So, what was it used for?

[narrator] The researchers dig deeper and find their first major clues.

Charcoal.

And the ceramic remains of a crucible.

That says it all.

A crucible is a cup used to melt rock.

And you usually only do that when you're looking for metal.

[Leonard] So, the mysterious trenches were actually quarries.

That explains the tool marks and scratches on the rock face.

But, what were they mining?

[narrator] The archaeologists uncover five beads of lead near the hut.

The biggest bead is just slightly larger than a quarter.

[Cantor] When you combine the lead beads

with the crucibles and the charcoal,

it's very likely evidence of an assay furnace

where precious metals like silver and gold are melted out of rock.

[narrator] The people who perform this task are known as assayers.

A profession that goes back millennia.

[Leonard] To assay a rock, you heat it in a crucible until it's molten.

Then you sprinkle in a little lead powder.

The lead is like a magnet to precious metals

and they all pool together at the bottom of the crucible.

Once they've cooled into beads,

the precious metals are extracted from the lead.

Someone on this island was mining for silver or gold.

So, who was it?

[narrator] In the summer of 1578,

an Englishman named Martin Frobisher,

sails a small armada of 15 ships and 400 men

through the ice packed waters of the bay.

He sets up camp on a small speck of land he calls,

"The Countess of Warwick Island",

and gets to work.

Frobisher had been tapped directly by Queen Elizabeth I,

to bring back actual boatloads of Arctic gold.

That's a lot of pressure.

But Frobisher was well-prepared to take on the challenge.

[Morgan] As a young man, Frobisher was in and out of jail many times,

for let's say, "maritime misadventures."

He was a state-sanctioned pirate, a swashbuckler and a bit of a rogue.

[narrator] Over just two weeks in 1578,

Frobisher's crew dug into the permafrost

pulling out ton after ton of the black rock they hoped was filled with gold.

Frobisher built two assay huts to monitor the quality of his wares.

After mining over 1,100 tons of ore,

they packed up, sailed back home to extract the gold,

and present the massive prize to their queen.

It was not an easy expedition.

I mean, Frobisher lost two ships and dozens of men to bad storms.

So, it was a bit of a bittersweet return to England

[Leonard] But his luck got worse.

In England, assayer after assayer found that

his rock contained no traces of gold.

Frobisher's rock was worthless.

It's the opposite of what Frobisher's assayers had claimed.

That Kodlunarn would yield one pound of gold per ton of ore.

Most gold operations are lucky to get a few ounces of gold per ton of ore.

[narrator] The archaeologists and researchers on Kodlunarn

want to know if the unlucky prospectors had simply extracted a bad batch of ore.

Is Kodlunarn Island still an untapped gold mine?

They studied their own samples of the Kodlunarn rock

using the same methods as Frobisher's crew, 400-years ago.

[Cantor] There's no gold.

In fact, the rock is just amphibolite.

And it's actually traces of pyrite and mica

that give it that sparkly appearance.

The most generous explanation is that his assayers had made a big mistake,

and the Queen had sent Frobisher on a fool's errand.

[Cantor] Or was there something fishy going on?

Was Frobisher just a dupe?

Or did he and his assayers perpetrate one of the biggest financial frauds in history?

[narrator] Is a small island on the edge of the Arctic Circle

the site for one of the great gold scams in history?

In 2004, Canadian researchers and scientists pick up the investigation

into Martin Frobisher's alleged fraud.

Using cutting-edge technology,

they inspect the lead beads uncovered

from Frobisher's assay hut on Kodlunarn Island.

By looking at the beads on a molecular level,

the scientists can see exactly what was in the assayers samples from 1578.

[narrator] The scientists do find microscopic traces of gold.

But at levels one hundred thousand times lower

than those claimed by Frobisher's assayers.

The discovery allows the researchers to hone in on a new theory.

Frobisher's Artic gold rush was a fraud.

The Canadian researchers believe the fraud happened when Frobisher's assayers

salted the ore with his own gold dust

to juice the sample and entice further investment.

[narrator] By sprinkling a smattering of real gold into the dead samples,

Frobisher may have designed a conspiracy

tricking desperate financial backers to over-invest in a gold mine with no gold.

If he'd pulled it off, Frobisher could have scammed a lot of money

out of the expedition's investors.

And while his criminal past suggests

he could have been capable of running such a scam,

whether he actually did, is up for debate.

[Cantor] The mining operation in itself was a big gamble for the queen.

Why did she take such a risk,

prospecting for gold in the Arctic in the first place?

[narrator] In 1577, one year before Frobisher's failed expedition,

England was broke.

In debt to the Dutch and on the brink of war with Spain.

With looming debts and an army to fund,

Queen Elizabeth was desperate for cash.

When she heard the rumors about a potential supply of Arctic gold,

the Queen trusted Frobisher to find it and to bring it home.

[Morgan] We're still not a hundred percent sure

if Frobisher perpetrated this epic gold scam.

But when all the experts in London said that the ore was worthless,

he was desperate to keep the act alive.

[Leonard] Frobisher spent years,

trying to prove there was gold in the rocks from the Arctic Island,

but his reputation was tarnished.

The operation's financial backers went broke,

and the Queen had to default on her debt to the Dutch.

[narrator] Frobisher never returned to the bay that bears his name

or to the Arctic.

In 1594, Frobisher was shot during a confrontation with Spanish forces

and died a few days later.

When archaeologists dig,

what they want to find more than anything, is a good story.

And the story of Frobisher that has been hiding

in the permafrost of Kodlunarn Island,

is worth its weight in gold.

[narrator] Novy Port, Russia.

A small sea town on Siberia's northern Yamal Peninsula

is home to a frozen secret.

[Morgan] This place is extreme.

It's north of the Arctic Circle and winter for about eight months out of the year.

[Wakefield] There are no roads in or out of this place.

Everything comes in by boat.

It gets battered by terrible storms.

And it can be iced in for months at a time.

[narrator] A group of scientists working near the River Ob,

come across a dilapidated wooden hut on the beach,

half buried in snow.

Inside the hut they find a ramp leading down into a large dark tunnel,

which is at least 15-feet across and 7-feet high.

[Elliott] It's absolutely stunning.

The floors walls and ceilings of the tunnel

are covered in a glittering layer of frost.

[narrator] Further investigation reveals

thousands of feet of interconnected underground tunnels,

and over 200 small caves branching off them,

all with frosted walls.

They seem to go on and on forever,

like, some type of really cool icy labyrinth.

It's really cool but what is this place?

[narrator] The ground in this part of Siberia is entirely permafrost.

The tunnels have been dug into the icy earth that's as solid as rock.

[Cantor] It would have taken an extreme effort,

to dig such an extensive network of caves and tunnels in such hard ground.

[narrator] Gas, coal and anthracite

are all actively mined in Russia's Arctic region,

including on the Yamal Peninsula.

The village of Novy Port was established

as a coal bunkering port in the 1920's

as part of the Northern Sea shipping passage.

The route traveling along Russia's Arctic coast

is so long that the Soviets tried to fuel boat voyages

by using locally mined coal at each stop.

[Wakefield] Scientists don't find any evidence

of big machines or industrial mining operations in these tunnels.

So, it couldn't have been a mine.

[Elliott] But running along the ceiling throughout the tunnels

are old electrical wires and lights.

People were clearly down here, regularly.

But what were they doing?

[Morgan] This part of Siberia is known for its horrific winter weather.

So, could the Novy Port community be trying

to escape the freezing conditions?

[narrator] Entire underground cities are known to have been built

in places where the climate is too harsh to live.

In Coober Pedy, Australia,

residents of the town near the area's extensive Opal mines,

escape the exhausting desert climate by living underground.

The tunnels of Novy Port,

show no signs of domestication.

Plus, above ground, there are clearly enough regular houses

for the 2,000 people that live there.

So, if they weren't escaping the elements,

were the tunnels built as an escape for something else?

[narrator] The ancient Turkish city of Derinkuyu,

went 18 stories below the surface complete with living quarters,

shops and escape routes.

In case of attack, the city's population of 20,000

could quickly retreat from their above-ground houses

and live entirely underground.

But no one could live in these Siberian tunnels for any significant length of time.

It's, it's way too cold.

And there's no evidence of any infrastructure

or even a source of water that would make it habitable.

[Elliott] So, why would they need such a large underground tunnel?

If it wasn't built for civilians to live or hide in,

then perhaps, it was built for a military purpose.

[narrator] Historians have seen similar tunnels built into the ice before.

During World War I, a battle was raging at high altitude in the Alps.

To avoid the Italian guns and escape the challenges of the mountain environment,

the Austro-Hungarian Army decided to build tunnels into the glaciers.

They dug at least seven miles of tunnels into the ice,

creating rooms, kitchens and storage for over 200 soldiers.

Were the Novy Port tunnels built for a similar purpose?

If it's military, it's probably from the mid-20th century,

when tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union were escalating.

Are these tunnels connected to the Cold War?

[narrator] Both nations engaged in espionage,

built arsenals of nuclear weapons and developed secret bases.

In the 1950's, the U.S. began Project Iceworm.

A top-secret underground base, built into Greenland's glacial ice-cap.

Nearly, two miles of tunnels were constructed

to hide and potentially deploy 600 nuclear missiles

capable of reaching the Soviet Union.

Could this have been built as part of Russia's Arctic defense strategy?

[Morgan] The Siberian tunnels are located inside the Arctic Circle,

which is prime real estate if you're the Soviets

and you want to launch long-range missiles at America.

[Elliott] But if it had been a military post,

you'd expect to find evidence of that,

in terms of weapons, guns, reinforced doors.

There's nothing like that here.

It just can't be military.

[Wakefield] But whoever built this, they knew what they were doing.

There has to be a reason why the Soviets would dig

a 1,000 feet of tunnels

in ground that's as solid as concrete.

Why would anyone do that?

[narrator] In northern Siberia, the enigmatic purpose

of a frozen labyrinth of man-made tunnels has researchers baffled.

As the scientists continue to investigate the tunnels,

they learn that, strangely, the temperature is the same, year round,

only fluctuating between five and ten degrees Fahrenheit.

[Elliott] That temperature finding is interesting.

Peoples living in the Arctic have always known that beneath the permafrost

the ground remains the same temperature, all year round.

The frozen ground keeps food preserved for long stretches of time.

So, how do you keep the spoils of your hunt from spoiling?

You freeze them.

Maybe these tunnels are a kind of giant fridge for people?

[narrator] During the Cold War, the Soviet economy was fragile,

and its people were faced with frequent shortages of money and food.

But the frozen Siberian tundra is no place for large-scale animal farming.

And the main industry was fishing.

[Morgan] So, given the proximity of these tunnels

to the main port of a fishing community,

it's entirely possible that these tunnels could have been

a giant freezer for local fishermen.

[narrator] After the fishing season ends,

the Kara Sea freezes solid, blocking the shipping lane for at least six months.

Until ships could access the ports in the spring, the fish needed to be frozen.

However, the Yamal Peninsula is so remote,

that the cost of providing the electricity required

to power huge electric freezers was too high for the Soviet Union.

The Soviet government did what the inhabitants of the region had done for centuries.

They harnessed the might of the U.S.S.R. to build a massive permafrost cache.

A super-sized version of what people had done at home for generations.

Compared to transporting heavy machinery and materials

to build refrigerated warehouses,

it was cheaper for Stalin to use people from across the Soviet Union,

who had been exiled to Novy Port as forced labor

to dig in the frozen ground.

[narrator] For six years, the state forced laborers

to use pickaxes and shovels to dig deep into the frozen ground.

It was sub-zero most of the year and the ground has frozen so solid

that their tools would have been snapping constantly.

Those conditions must have been unbelievably harsh.

[narrator] When the tunnels were completed,

they could hold up to 1,750-tons of fish.

The local economy flourished,

s they could control the market for their prized catch.

[Wakefield] It was an ingenious plan.

But ultimately short-lived.

Due to changing temperatures, the caves are no longer structurally stable

and they can't be used to their full capacity.

[Elliott] These bizarre frozen underground tunnels

aren't an ominous, secret Cold War bunker,

but the remains of the world's largest refrigerator.

A living reminder of the might of the Soviet system,

hidden behind a rickety shed in the middle of nowhere.

[narrator] Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, in the heart of the Arctic Circle,

just a few hundred miles from the North Pole,

there are no trees.

Just ice, tundra and the mountains of the Arctic Cordillera.

During the short summer, temperatures reach a high of 40 degrees,

enough to melt the ice and expose the permafrost below.

In 2006, a group of scientists from the Canadian Museum of Nature,

exploring the frozen tundra make a puzzling find.

It's a shard of rust-colored organic matter,

about as big as the palm of a hand.

They think it's a fossilized tree branch

because that's what's commonly found in this area.

[Tait] The researchers take the sample back to camp

where they can inspect it with a small hand lens.

They expect to count tree rings and get a sense of this fossil's age.

[Elliott] But they don't see any tree rings.

In fact, it's not even plant matter.

What they have found is a fragment of fossilized bone.

[Leonard] Ellesmere Island is so remote

that digs only happen once every few years.

You want every excursion to matter.

And finding ancient animal parts means there's a chance to add to the fossil record.

[narrator] In total, the team extracts 30 samples of bone shard.

All likely from the same animal.

Some are three inches long. Others, not even one.

[Cantor] It's a really promising discovery.

And the samples are taken back to the lab for analysis.

They're dying to know, what animal are they from?

[narrator] The paleontologists are hoping for a unique discovery,

but brace for disappointment.

This is likely just another musk-ox or reindeer.

All too common in this part of the Arctic.

Using a 3D surface scanner,

the scientists create digital images of each fragment.

[Leonard] The digital technology is really cool

because you can move the 3D digitized fragments around and piece them together

without any damage to the original samples.

[narrator] As the scientists play with the digitized samples,

they discover the fragments were part of a tibia,

a lower leg bone from a very big cloven-hoofed mammal.

Cloven-hoofed mammals are a large group

that includes cows, pigs, goats and antelopes.

And in the Arctic, the largest ones are musk-ox or caribou.

But this tibia is from an animal much bigger.

But which one?

[narrator] In the bleak heart of the Arctic Circle,

paleontologists have unearthed mummified bone fragments from the permafrost.

The bone once belonged to a mammal larger than any that lived there today.

But, what was it?

To find out, the paleontologists

extract any organic matter they can from the bone shards.

They make a small nick on the edge of a bone fragment,

and are immediately struck by the unusual scent of singed flesh.

They recognize the smell immediately.

Collagen.

Collagen creates tendons, which connect muscle to bone.

And it breaks down slower than most organic matter.

The permafrost of Ellesmere Island

has preserved it remarkably well.

That's why it still smells.

[Leonard] The discovery of collagen opens exciting ways to investigate

the age and genetic code locked in these bones

with a high degree of accuracy.

[narrator] To learn the secret identity of the animal,

the team utilizes a new technology called Collagen Fingerprinting.

Every species can be identified by their unique collagen pattern.

Like a fingerprint.

So, if you find an unfamiliar collagen sample,

you can compare its profile to modern species to find a match.

[narrator] The scientists compare the mystery bones collagen,

to 37 modern day mammals.

And the bones from the furthest reaches of the Arctic

are in fact from a camel.

[Tait] Why is a desert animal deep within the frozen Arctic Circle?

It's so out of place and a really incredible discovery.

[narrator] The paleontologists compared the 3D rendering

of their camel tibia to those of modern camels.

It generates another startling find.

This camel was almost 30% bigger than today's largest camels,

the one-humped dromedary of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

[Elliott] Modern dromedaries can reach 7-feet tall and weigh half-a-ton.

The Arctic camel would have been 9-feet tall and weighed a full ton.

This wasn't just an Arctic camel.

It was a giant Arctic camel.

[Leonard] It's not the first camel ever discovered in North America.

It's actually believed, camels evolved across North America

about 45 million years ago.

But it's the most northerly camel ever found.

It's very surprising.

[narrator] The paleontologists are able to place the camel

as being alive 3.4 to 3.8 million years ago.

[Leonard] That's right in the middle of the Earth's Pliocene Epoch.

A period that spans from about five million

to two and a half million years ago.

[Tait] During the Mid-Pliocene, temperatures in the Arctic

were 20 degrees warmer.

This generated a more temperate climate

allowing more animals to thrive.

[Elliott] During this time, grasslands flourished.

It was an environment where many long-legged grazing mammals roamed.

[narrator] Paleontologists have found other fossils near the Ellesmere Island site

that confirm it would have been a world vastly different

than today's frozen tundra.

The fossilized remains of large trees, ancient grasses

and the bones of beavers reveal an ancient forested swampland

teeming with life.

It's more like the boreal forests of the Yukon or Siberia today.

So, this area would have had abundant food for the giant camels.

[narrator] At the same time, Earth's climate was changing.

Seasons became more pronounced.

And the Arctic developed huge swaths of snow and ice

during winters that lasted longer and longer.

How does a giant Arctic camel fit into this ancient landscape?

The camel is so perfectly attuned to life in the desert.

It has flat feet for walking over sand

and its back hump of fat acts like an energy reserve

for the barren desert where vegetation is scarce.

It doesn't seem to belong in the Arctic at all.

Or does it?

[Elliott] Those desert adaptations are also perfect for the Arctic.

Those fatty humps are great food stores in the winter when there's little to eat.

And the large flat feet are great for walking over snow, as well as sand.

So, it turns out the camels we thought were perfectly evolved for the desert,

just retrofit their entire evolutionary package from the Arctic.

[Tait] But if the camels were so well adapted for life in the Arctic,

how did they end up in the desert,

thousands of miles away on a different continent.

[narrator] The end of the Pliocene Epoch

was the beginning of a new and unforgiving period.

The Ice Age.

Temperatures plummeted in areas far outside the Arctic.

Several species went extinct.

Those who survived were forced to migrate further and further south.

[Elliott] The Arctic camels most likely crossed the land bridge

that existed between Alaska and Siberia.

They eventually found themselves in the deserts.

And a million years later, that's probably where they'll stay.

At least, for now.

[Cantor] If we can learn anything from the Arctic camels,

it's that they're travelers, they're survivors,

capable of thriving in the most extreme conditions

the world has to offer.