Original subtitles

-One body without a coffin maybe isn’t that strange,

but six of them together?

-Most of these victims were shot one by one.

[Narrator] Paleontologists uncover a massive find on the

shores of a British Isle.

-These are absolutely enormous bones.

-There are only a few creatures in the world that would have

bones this big.

[Narrator] Unidentified aircrafts are observed over

the islands of Washington state.

-It looked like they’re in some sort of formation.

[Narrator] Isolated.

Scarce on resources.

Islands are worlds unto themselves.

Bizarre creatures.

Ancient gods and haunting ruins.

Baffling murders and deadly spirits.

What will be discovered on Earth's mysterious islands?

[rolling thunder]

[Narrator] The Elaphite Archipelago,

north of the ancient city of Dubrovnik.

The thirteen islands lie roughly parallel to the

Croatian coast and have,

over the course of hundreds of years,

been the home to mariners, aristocrats,

and monks.

-Even though most of the islands are uninhabited now,

abandoned monasteries and churches are found

across several of them.

And you see the ruins of old farmhouses and villas,

all of which are clues about the archipelago’s past.

-The smallest island in the archipelago is Daksa.

But despite its size,

it was home to a monastery as well as a farm.

-It’s incredibly beautiful,

so it's strange that Daksa sees so few tourists today.

It was even recently put on the market for

a cool 2 million euros, but there were no takers.

Why didn’t anyone want this little piece of paradise?

[Dan Riskin] When this island was part of Yugoslavia,

people were not allowed to come here at all.

It was only in 1990,

when Yugoslavia started breaking up that Croatia had

its first parliamentary elections since the

Second World War.

That’s when citizens were allowed to visit Daksa again.

[Narrator] In 2009, one of a few visitors to

the island was walking along its southern end

when they stumbled upon human remains

emerging from the soil next to the old farmhouse.

[Alison Leonard] They were found right next to a

wall of the farmhouse.

So maybe this was an enclosed family graveyard

at some point?

[Narrator] Local investigators are called to the site.

While exhuming the rest of the skeleton,

they discover the remains of five other people,

lying very close to each other.

-None of these remains were buried in a coffin and

there are no old tombstones found at the site either.

One body without a coffin maybe isn’t that strange,

but six of them together?

[Alison Leonard] One of the quickest ways to determine

the sex of an individual is by looking

at the pelvis.

Judging by their size,

these were all adults when they died.

And the pelvis's heavy,

thick bones and their narrower shape identify

all six as male.

The bodies appear to have just been left here.

But why here?

[Narrator] Lying among the skeletons are also rosaries,

a crucifix, and two narrow, curved bands of fabric.

[Anthony Cantor] These are quite stiff, made out of cotton,

and are perfect for fitting around someone’s neck.

It’s likely that they’re clerical collars,

which would also explain what the crucifix and

rosaries are doing here.

Could these six men have been monks from the monastery?

[Narrator] The discovery of remains belonging to six people

prompted a forensic unit to travel to Daksa Island.

During their examinations of the skeletons,

they find evidence that their deaths were

far from natural.

-Some of the skulls have round holes in the back of

the head that were made by bullets.

And the holes are at an angle that indicates the

victims were probably kneeling at the time of death.

[James Ellis] There are also thin bands of wire lying

among the skeletons.

So it’s pretty clear what happened here,

their wrists were tied with wire and they were forced to

kneel with their hands behind their back while their

executioners stood above them.

[Alison Leonard] Some of the bodies were found

next to an underground wall,

in what was actually the basement of the old farmhouse.

It looks like the victims were led down there and shot.

[Narrator] As excavations continue,

the forensic team begins unearthing bullets of a very

specific caliber.

[Anthony Cantor] These are nine-millimeter bullets,

which tells us a few different things.

The first is that they were fired from a handgun,

meaning that the executioners shot the victims one by one.

[Dan Riskin] The holes in the back of the skulls measure

about a centimeter across, so that suggests that the

murderers used nine-millimeter handguns and that number,

nine-millimeters, gives us huge insight into when

these murders took place.

[James Ellis] The nine-millimeter handgun was

only invented and brought to market in the first few

years of the 20th century.

Considering that some of Daksa’s buildings are almost

1,000 years old,

these remains are relatively recent,

from the last 100 years or so.

[Narrator] The forensic team widens the search to

cover 860 square feet.

About 16 yards from the original site and

at a depth of up to six and a half feet are the

remains of dozens of people lying every which way.

[Alison Leonard] In total, around 10,000 bones and bone

fragments are collected from the island.

It’s concluded that they belong to 53 men who were

executed on Daksa and buried in two mass graves.

-22 of the 53 skeletons were found with gunshot wounds

to the back of the head,

numbering between one to three per person.

[Anthony Cantor] And the fact that these people were

shot in a basement, on an island,

also suggests that it was done in secret.

[James Ellis] We know that some monks are among the

unfortunate to be lying here.

But because there is no military insignia or equipment

found at the grave site, it’s highly likely that the

rest were civilians.

-If you look at this region’s history,

it's quite volatile to say the least.

It was the Balkans that provided the spark for

World War I and the region experienced a tremendous amount

of fighting and tragedy in World War II.

-The bones and artifacts found here are way too degraded

to have been from the more recent war,

which was in the nineties,

when former Yugoslavia dissolved into civil war.

-It’s likely that they’re from the Second World War

when the region was torn apart by rivaling political and

nationalist factions.

[Narrator] In April of 1941,

Hitler invaded the Balkans and seized control

over Yugoslavia, exploiting existing ethnic and

political tensions to his presumed advantage.

-He allowed Croatia to proclaim itself an independent state,

but only because they did so under the leadership

of the Ustasa, a fascist party that went on

to brutalize the country for the next four years.

Under the leadership of Ante Pavelic,

they set about murdering those they didn’t consider Croatian,

meaning hundreds of thousands of

Serbians, Jews and Roma.

-German occupation and the Ustasha’s genocidal campaign

were resisted by partisans led by Josip Broz Tito,

head of the Yugoslav Communist Party.

He waged a highly effective campaign against the fascists,

and when the Germans pulled out of the

region in 1944,

it was Tito and his partisans who liberated Croatia and

the rest of Yugoslavia.

As a result, he became Yugoslavia's leader

after the war.

-When Tito’s Communist Partisans swept through the region

liberating occupied areas,

they took absolutely merciless revenge on thousands

of Ustasha militia and anyone associated with them.

-The history surrounding these islands is

full of tragic stories of war,

including several mass executions.

So trying to figure out who these specific 53 people

are isn’t easy at all.

-There aren’t any dental records that can be used to

identify the victims,

or even any personal effects that could help.

But what we can make use of is DNA testing.

If any relatives of the victims are still alive and can provide

a sample, it's possible that a match can be found.

[Narrator] The forensic team obtains DNA profiles from

49 of the 53 skeletal remains.

Their task is to cross-match them with the DNA of the

victims’ living relatives.

-Now this is really amazing,

researchers manage to match one of the skeletons

with the great-grandson of the victim's brother.

That’s pretty astonishing considering how far removed

that man would be from the victim himself.

[James Ellis] The name of the victim is a well-known one,

Father Petar Perica,

a Jesuit priest and the author of two

famous Croatian hymns.

He was arrested by communist partisans on the

night of October 24th, 1944.

[Anthony Cantor] This was less than a week after

Tito’s partisans had entered and liberated Dubrovnik.

Once in control of the city,

they began arresting all those accused of collaborating with

Once in the Nazis and Ustasha.

Who is a collaborator?

And what constitutes collaboration?

[Narrator] In the months leading up to the

end of the war,

Tito's partisans killed and injured countless Yugoslavs.

These were not only limited to Ustasha and collaborators

but also prominent people who weren't pro-Communist,

making it easier for Tito to assume power after the war.

-Maybe Father Perica was one of these unfortunates.

There certainly isn’t any evidence that he was

a fascist collaborator.

He was one among many innocent businessmen,

political leaders, and others

of the social elite who were perceived to pose an

ideological challenge to Tito after the war.

[Anthony Cantor] Five days after Perica's arrest,

a poster appeared in the streets of Dubrovnik

announcing that the

"Court of Military Command for the South Dalmatian Region

had sentenced 36 people to death by firing squad."

Most of these men were well-known intellectuals and

Father Perica was one of them.

-But as we know, the number wasn’t 36,

it was 53,

and they were all transported to Daksa Island

where they were murdered on October 25th, 1944.

They were shot in the back of the head and thrown into

a pit where they lay anonymously for six decades.

[Anthony Cantor] It makes sense now that Daksa was closed

to the public until Yugoslavia started breaking apart in 1990.

The country had been governed by the

Communist Party until then,

and they certainly didn’t want their crimes

coming to light,

preferring to focus on the crimes of the fascists

committed during World War II.

[Dan Riskin] The DNA testing eventually obtained positive

identifications for 18 of the skeletons on Daksa island.

[Narrator] Today Daksa is a peaceful place,

where a memorial has been erected to honor the

53 men buried on the island.

Daksa is not only a reminder of the horrors of

the Second World War,

but also a lesson in what happens when people try to

resolve ethnic and political rivalries with blood.

The Pacific Northwest is well known for its

towering trees, the near-constant rain,

and its eerie beauty.

-From Northern California up to British Columbia this

region has an eerie vibe so rainy and grey,

it can make things seem a little bit... otherworldly.

[Narrator] Maury Island certainly fits this profile.

The small island is tucked away in Puget Sound,

an inlet on the coast of Washington state,

surrounded by the Salish Sea.

-The island has an abundance of wildlife thanks

to its 275 acres of beautiful nature preserves.

[Narrator] Its beauty aside,

Maury Island hasn’t always been known for its

natural charms but rather, its unnatural ones.

-On June 21st, 1947,

the boat, the North Queen was in the

waters of Puget Sound just off the coast of Maury Island.

[James Ellis] Captain Harold Dahl was out salvaging

orphan logs in the area, joined by two crew members,

as well as his teenage son, Charles,

and the family dog, Sparky.

[Narrator] It was a day like any other,

that is till Dahl saw a silvery gold flash in the

sky above him.

-When he looked up,

Dahl spied six large doughnut-shaped objects

above his boat they appeared suddenly hovering

about 2,000 feet above him.

-As Dahl was trying to figure out what these

things really were,

they started to move in slow circles.

But they didn't seem to be moving independently,

it looked like they're in some sort of formation which brings

the military to mind, could it be that these things had

something to do with the Air Force?

-40 miles away is Indian Island a US military base,

and there's another base in Spokane.

-With all that activity in the area it makes sense that

these things were military aircraft.

[Narrator] As Dahl watched,

one of the objects dropped to about 500 feet

above his head which meant he could get a good look at it.

-It looked like a silvery doughnut with no

visible wings or propellers,

and he could make out something that looked like an

observation window that ran along the bottom of the

craft which makes you wonder who is doing the observing and

what are they looking for?

-One thing is certain,

these crafts looked nothing like the military planes locals

generally saw flying around.

[Narrator] It seems unlikely that these were

normal military exercises.

The aircrafts looked and behaved unlike anything Dahl

had ever seen before, but that may be the point.

-In the 1940s, both during and after the war,

the US Military was heavily invested in the research and

development of novel aircraft.

[Anthony Cantor] Some of these purpose-built planes

were focused on speed like the Bell X-1

that broke the sound barrier in 1947,

but there were other, more unusual designs that

the military was also exploring.

[Anthea Nardi] There was an aeronautics designer named

Charles Zimmerman, known for his experimental designs.

As the war raged, he was working on a plane that could

take off vertically designed for things like the

short runway on an aircraft carrier.

[Narrator] Zimmerman developed the Vought V-173,

known as the "Flying Pancake."

This plane was a radical departure from

conventional aircraft design,

featuring a unique circular wing with a flat,

disc-like shape, hence the pancake nickname.

-While it was able to catch air from a short runway,

it didn’t have true vertical takeoff capacity and certainly

wasn’t able to hover silently like the things

above Dahl's head.

So Dahl clearly wasn’t looking at a pancake.

[Narrator] The other five aircraft were still flying

in circular patterns high in the sky when one of them

lowered to join the sixth and they appeared to collide.

[dull thud]

-Shortly after they touched, Dahl heard what he described

as being “a dull thud,

like an underground explosion or a thud similar

to a man stamping his heel on damp ground.”

-The craft started dropping newspaper-like pieces of metal

that fluttered to the ground, then it began raining hot

liquified metal some of which smashed a hole in the

wheelhouse and apparently broke a searchlight

on the deck of the boat.

-Panicking, they made a run for a cliff overhang

on the beach, hoping it would keep them safe.

Sadly, they weren’t fast enough,

and while Dahl’s son sustained a minor injury,

the dog was killed.

[Narrator] When the metal rain stopped moments

later the aircraft returned to their formation

and flew out over the Pacific.

Dahl and his crew emerged from their hiding place and

found pieces of hot metal scattered

across the deck of the boat,

which they brought with them back to the mainland.

-Now, Dahl and his friends were beside themselves.

But they also knew if they started talking about UFOs,

people would think they’re crazy.

So they decided to stay mute on the matter.

But apparently, their silence wasn’t good enough.

-Allegedly, the next morning, a "Man in Black" appeared

at Dahl's house.

That’s right, a "Man in Black."

Just like the movie.

[Narrator] Dahl claimed that the man told him to

keep his mouth shut or harm will come to him

and his family.

-But Dahl and others shared the story and

the news spread like wildfire.

But what did Dahl really see?

-The thing with the term UFO is that it just means an

Unidentified Flying Object.

So any normal thing in the sky that someone can’t quite make

out is literally a UFO to them.

The question was not are these UFOs,

the question is are these Alien spacecrafts?

[Narrator] For the US military the question was perhaps less

about aliens than a much more terrestrial threat.

-The United States is wholly dedicated to

the cause of peace.

We have no purpose of going to war,

except in the defense of freedom.

[Anthony Cantor] In 1947, with the Cold War

in its early stages,

the US was very much on the lookout for Russian

surveillance craft.

So while Dahl's story seemed like it could be pure fantasy

it still had to be investigated.

-About six weeks after the incident,

the Air Corps sent out two intelligence officers to

interview Dahl, both armed with a bunch of questions,

primarily is he crazy is this some kind of

Russian surveillance,

or is it actually a close encounter?

-After the interview, the intelligence officers,

themselves pilots,

boarded a B-25 plane and charted a course for

an airbase in California.

Some say the plane was carrying some of the metal

slag Dahl collected from Maury Island.

[Narrator] On route, the plane’s left engine

caught fire and the plane crashed.

Two of the four passengers survived,

but not the intelligence officers who interviewed Dahl.

[Amma Wakefield] The military sealed off the area and

restricted entry, even to civilian police.

The crash was clearly a tragedy,

but was it really an accident?

-An anonymous source called authorities to say

that the crash was intentional,

and that this plane had been shot down by a

20-millimeter cannon.

Sounds like a prank but FBI files reveal that

the caller knew the names of the intelligence officers

who died and this was all before that information

had been released to the press.

[Narrator] Two weeks later,

the military issued a statement saying it had found

a flying disc at a crash site in Roswell, New Mexico,

but later said it was actually a weather balloon that crashed.

-At this point,

the whole country was in the grip of UFO fever

a wave of sightings would sweep the nation

in the following months.

The media called it the "Summer of the Saucer."

Basically, this was the start of the real-life X-files.

-But then there’s a plot twist, Dahl said he’d made the

whole thing up.

[Narrator] Most people accepted this confession because

the story was so dramatic,

but others believed the real lie was the claim

it was a hoax.

-If you think about it there may be a good reason

for Dahl to lie about lying.

With his story splashed over magazines and newspapers,

he was apparently getting harassed and mocked,

and his business and boat were vandalized.

-From what you can gather from the heavily

redacted documents released 40 years after the incident it

seems the FBI investigators believed that he claimed it was

a hoax simply to avoid further public attention.

[Narrator] To this day,

no one really knows what happened on Maury Island,

but more than 75 years later,

people still talk about it.

Just off England's south coast sits the

Isle of Wight a small,

diamond-shaped island defined by its white chalk cliffs

overlooking the English Channel.

-It’s not very big,

only about 23 by 13 miles but it is exceptionally beautiful.

-It’s not very big, It’s got these beaches,

and these cliffs and rolling green hills that are tourist

attractions for people all over the world.

In fact, this island has actually has even been

designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

[Narrator] In 2018,

on the southwest coast of the island,

near an area called Compton Chine,

a group of amateur paleontologists are excavating

a site when they come across something entirely distinct.

-These are absolutely enormous bones.

One of them appears to be from the pelvis of an animal,

whereas the other appears to be some form of vertebrae.

-There are only a few creatures in the world that

would have bones this big.

Perhaps where these bones were found can

help us date them.

[Narrator] The Isle of Wight is composed of several

different layers of geological history.

These large bone deposits were found in what is known

as the Vectis Formation,

a 220-foot-wide bed of shale that

was formed during what is known as the

Early Cretaceous Period.

-The Vectis Formation was formed around

125 million years ago,

so I’m pretty sure what kind of bones these are!

-These bones are from a

125-million-year-old dinosaur!

But what makes this even more interesting is that

even though we all know dinosaurs can get pretty big,

we have never ever seen anything this big,

at least not in Europe.

[Narrator] The Isle of Wight is one of the richest

dinosaur fossil sites in the United Kingdom.

Over the last 200 years, fossils have been uncovered

across the island,

throughout different geological layers,

signifying vastly different timeframes.

-The number of dinosaur fossils found here is astounding,

so much so that the Isle of Wight has

actually been nicknamed “Dinosaur Island.”

-You can even find what are called "Trace Fossils" here.

Now trace fossils aren’t bones,

those are what result from an animal moving,

like for example an ancient burrow that got dug out and

then fossilized over time.

-You can actually see dinosaur footprints!

They’re like a little map of dinosaur movement,

frozen in time.

-These footprints are absolutely incredible.

You can see their huge feet,

some of which have three toes,

imprinted over 100 million years ago into the ground!

[Narrator] During the Early Cretaceous Period,

the Isle of Wight was a floodplain,

defined by rivers and streams cutting

across the landscape.

The climate was milder,

much like today’s Mediterranean,

and the rivers would have contained a multitude of fish,

sharks and ancient reptiles.

-This is what makes this find so incredible.

It's very rare to find dinosaur fossils in the Vectis Formation

because millions of years ago,

this sediment was part of an aquatic environment,

but because dinosaurs were terrestrial animals,

they’re usually found in terrestrial deposits.

[Alison Leonard] But now that it has been found,

the real question is,

what kind of dinosaur is it?

[roaring]

[Dan Riskin] The three-pronged feet suggest that this dinosaur

was a theropod.

That is a large subgroup made up mostly

of carnivorous dinosaurs.

Theropods ran on their two hind legs,

and they had three toes on each foot.

They also had these short and stubby arms with

razor-sharp claws,

and they came in a broad range of sizes everything from

Microraptor about the size of a crow,

all the way up to the king of them all,

Tyrannosaurus rex, which could weigh over six tons.

-So whichever dinosaur this is,

it must have adapted to the environment.

The thing is, it's really big and the only

other theropod dinosaur we have on record that could

maybe match up with these fossils is Megalosaurus.

-As its name suggests,

Megalosaurus was absolutely massive!

It weighed about a ton,

and if you include its tail,

it could grow to around 30 feet long.

It was a carnivore with short, clawed arms and big,

jagged blade-like teeth.

-But Megalosaurus lived around 176

to 161 million years ago.

That is way older than the sediments here on the

Isle of Wight.

So our dinosaur is too big and too young to be Megalosaurus!

It’s gotta be somebody else.

-There were some absurdly large dinosaur fossils

discovered at a site nearby.

Could it be that they’re related to our mystery dinosaur

at Compton Chine?

[Narrator] About three miles away from Compton Chine,

a fossil collector discovered the gigantic remains

of two other dinosaurs on a beach near Chilton Chine.

-These are actually two pieces of what would

have been quite long snouts,

as well as the caudal vertebrae of what

amounts to two very large dinosaurs.

-Caudal vertebrae,

that's the technical term for the bones in the tail,

and the portion of the skull also includes

these scary-looking, crocodile-like teeth.

-The cylindrical pointed teeth and the long muzzle of these

dinosaurs tell us that they were likely reliant

on fish for food,

because they are perfect for holding on to slippery fish

once the teeth have penetrated the flesh.

-So it's possible that these two dinosaurs stalked the

floodplains of the Isle of Wight just like

modern-day herons do.

Meaning in order to catch their prey,

they stood motionless in shallower water and

waited for a fish to pass by,

then they drove their face down into the water.

-They could also have been lying in wait

like crocodiles with only their snouts peeking

above the water’s surface.

When their target came close enough,

they would strike.

[Narrator] The two dinosaurs discovered by the

fossil collector are identified as being from

the family known as Spinosauridae,

a group of theropods that roamed the earth during

the Cretaceous period.

-Spinosaurids were on the larger end of the spectrum.

some of them could get up to 49 feet long!

Now, the remains of the Spinosaurids found near

Chilton Chine are estimated to be about 30 feet long.

So they’re not the biggest ever,

but they’re still plenty big to be terrifying.

[Narrator] They have been given the very descriptive name

Ceratosuchops inferodios,

meaning “horned crocodile-faced hell heron”

and Riparovenator milnerae,

meaning “Milner’s riverbank hunter.”

-So the horn-faced hell heron and the riverbank hunter were

also adapted to the same environment that our mystery

dinosaur lived in.

-But what's strange is that the geologic layer they

were found in known as the Wessex Formation,

is found just beneath the Vectis Formation,

and it’s also where the vast majority of dinosaur

fossils on the island have been found.

-So the Wessex Formation is older than the Vectis Formation.

That means the fossil first discovered in Compton Chine

is from a dinosaur that lived more recently.

[Dan Riskin] The real revelation is that there’s this

three-quarter-inch thick webbed texture on the inside

of the tail vertebrae.

That suggests that the dinosaur found at Compton Chine

is also a Spinosaurid!

And If it is, that’s a big deal,

because a Spinosaurid this young has never been found

anywhere in Britain.

[Narrator] By comparing the dimensions of the

dinosaur's pelvis and vertebrae to other Spinosaurids,

it’s determined that the Compton Chine fossil is,

in fact, a Spinosaurid.

It measured over 33 feet long and weighed several tons.

making it not just one of the biggest

Spinosaurids in Britain,

but also one of the largest carnivorous

dinosaurs ever found in Europe.

-This newly discovered dinosaur

has been given the name the White Rock Spinosaurid,

after the white rock sandstone that it was found in.

[Alison Leonard] Fossilized Spinosaurid footprints have

been found in the same geological layer as the

White Rock dinosaur.

These footprints show that these dinosaurs would have

stalked the shoreline together hunting for food in

the tidal flats.

-All of these finds,

the three new dinosaurs as well as these beautiful

footprints confirm that the Isle of Wight was an important

site for the evolution of Spinosaurids in Europe.

[Narrator] What more may lie buried in the island's

ancient rock formations is yet to be seen,

but one thing is certain,

the Isle of Wight really lives up to its reputation

as being Dinosaur Island.

A little over 150 miles south of Stockholm,

Sweden's capital city, lies Bla Jungfrun, a tiny,

seemingly insignificant island

steeped in the country's lore.

-This Baltic island is only about a mile long but

rises to almost 300 feet at its highest point.

It's a craggy, granite outcropping covered in very

old, gnarled oak trees,

giving it a dark and mystical feeling.

-The Swedish coastline was formed by the retreating

glaciers of the Ice Age, and along the shore,

there is evidence of this glacial activity,

beautifully rounded,

enormous granite cauldrons known as “Giant’s Kettles.”

-These strange formations seem otherworldly,

which is why they have received the

name Giant’s Kettles,

as it was thought that only something immensely powerful

like a giant or a troll could have created such a shape.

-Something immensely powerful did create them,

but it wasn’t a giant.

It was actually melting water from these retreating glaciers.

But the other more dramatic and storied explanation

does speak to the island’s mystical reputation.

[Narrator] For centuries, the island has been a

source of both fear and mystique.

As early as the 16th century,

passing seafarers would avoid calling the

island by name, otherwise

“a tremendous storm would immediately brew.”

-The fear was so real that they actually

renamed the island.

It used to be called Blakulla, but they changed it to

Blue Virgin Island.

[Anthea Nardi] But the island seems pretty benign.

How did this unassuming island even get such a reputation?

[Narrator] Curious about the origins of these superstitions,

archaeologists decide to investigate,

hoping that there may be some artifacts that can

speak to its past.

-Close to the island’s highest point there is a narrow opening

in a massive granite wall.

[Alison Leonard] If you venture into this crack,

you enter a narrow passageway that brings you

to an almost perfectly rectangular room

that’s partially covered by another massive rock.

[Narrator] Archaeologists notice a large oval depression

on one side of the cave measuring two by

two and a half feet,

and four and a half inches deep.

-At the base of the oval shape there is

also a piece of semi-circular ground that

is slightly elevated.

[Narrator] Archaeological investigation reveals the

slightly elevated area is found to be made of a

four-inch-deep bed of charcoal.

-This clearly indicates that there was a fire going

here over an extended period of time.

And the oval shape was likely man-made

for that purpose.

-This space is partially covered by another massive rock.

From above, people could look down into this narrow grotto.

illuminated by the fire,

it would have created a very interesting

and mystical effect.

-It's possible that people gathered above the

cave and looked down into it in order to observe

a form of ritual or performance.

So the island may have had a ceremonial role at

one point in time.

What exactly this could have been we don't know,

but we may be able to answer who was doing it.

[Narrator] Roughly 150 yards west of the ceremonial cave,

archaeologists notice what looks to be a shelter,

a massive granite boulder overhanging a flat piece of

ground measuring 20 by 26 feet.

-And to make things even more interesting,

worked stones and burnt bones are lying at

the shelter's mouth, right on the surface!

[Narrator] The archaeologists excavate the area in order to

assess what may be found beneath the surface.

-Evidence of human activity extends two feet

down into the soil.

To find such a deep layer means that this place has

likely been used over quite a long period of time.

-But more importantly,

in three of the excavation zones there are over 200 bones

and bone fragments,

most of which are found at the mouth of the overhang.

-These bones show signs of having been burnt.

And there are three indentations running parallel

to each other.

[Narrator] The grooves were created by teeth,

and an analysis of the bones reveal that they are

from the skulls and flippers of seals.

-These aren’t, by any means,

the juiciest, fattiest pieces of the animal.

So they were probably gnawed like this to get

every last piece of flesh off of them.

[Anthea Nardi] Under this overhang is probably where they

butchered these animals and fed the scraps to their hounds.

These grooves are likely from a dog chewing happily away

at the bones following a successful hunt.

[Narrator] Radiocarbon dating of the bones reveal

that they are from around the year 7000 BCE,

a time corresponding to the Mesolithic Era.

-But this was long before any fixed settlements

appeared in Scandinavia.

Life at the time was nomadic with groups of

hunter-gatherers moving from one site

to the next.

[Narrator] Sites were chosen based on the season and

the resources available to them.

The summer would have allowed them to fish and

hunt marine animals,

while the winter would have seen them rely more on

those living on the mainland.

-So the island was likely a seasonal outpost

for hunters of the time,

a place where they could hunt and butcher seal,

before eventually moving on.

Considering that the island represented a very important

resource for them,

it makes sense that they could have had some

ceremonial space here too.

-But all this was happening thousands of years before

people even had the concept of organized religion,

so how did this island get a bad reputation?

[Narrator] As the archaeologists search for

more evidence of the island's early settlers,

they reach the southern end of the island and discover

hundreds of stones laid out in an intricate,

circular pattern.

[James Ellis] It's a labyrinth, but it's a unicursal labyrinth

meaning there is only one point of entry and exit and

only one path that leads to the center.

Similar ones are known to have been built in the

14 and 15th centuries in northern Sweden,

so maybe this was built around the same time,

if not before.

-There are dozens of these labyrinths all across

Sweden’s eastern seaboard.

They were built at a time when people were much more

vulnerable to a change in weather or a poor harvest,

and walking them was said to bring good luck.

[Narrator] Fishermen used to enter these labyrinths,

believing that trolls, who brought bad luck,

would be following them.

Once they were all inside,

the fishermen would make a dash for the harbor

leaving the mischievous trolls stuck in the labyrinth

allowing the fishermen to fish without fear.

But they have also been used symbolically for

thousands of years as ceremonial

and ritualistic sites.

-The association of evil spirits with the

island makes sense.

Sweden was overtaken by a witch hysteria throughout

the 16th and 17th centuries.

At the time it was believed that witches would fly

to the island on the backs of goats or dogs,

where they would then meet with the Devil.

[James Ellis] The island played a central role in

actual witch hunts.

In 1671, 139 people were put on trial and accused

of having taken children to the Blue Virgin Islands.

Fourteen of the accused were found guilty and burnt

at the stake.

-Because the island may have had a spiritual importance

to the people of pre-Christian Sweden,

perhaps its uses were remembered in the form of

superstition and fear following the adoption of Christianity.

But until we have more evidence,

this will only be speculation.

[Narrator] Today the island of the Blue Virgin no longer

strikes dread into the hearts and minds of the locals.

It's a peaceful place, where people can imagine what life

was like for their Stone Age ancestors and perhaps even take

a walk through the labyrinth.