Original subtitles

NARRATOR: An aerial discovery

that could shed light on an ancient mystery.

- How were these incredibly heavy statues moved

to every corner of the island?

NARRATOR: A baffling phenomenon in the pacific northwest.

- What's behind these crazy bumps?

NARRATOR: A puzzle spanning the stone age to the space age.

- Now you have NASA on the case, that's as big as it gets.

NARRATOR: And an incredible structure frozen in time.

- What's it doing in one of the most remote places on Earth?

NARRATOR: Everywhere we look on our planet,

there's evidence of the past.

In nature, in buildings, in relics.

Each holds a mystery that technology now allows us to see from above.

What new secrets are revealed?

Our world is home to the most unimaginable structures.

Massive, complex designs that hold ancient secrets.

Mysterious monuments that can only be truly understood

with a view from above.

More than 3,000 kilometres west of Chile,

a dot appears in the vast blue of the eastern Pacific ocean.

Easter Island, known in the Polynesian language as Rapa Nui.

And it's here that a view from above may help solve an ancient mystery.

- Rapa Nui is hands down one of the most puzzling places on Earth.

It's famous for these mysterious stone statues known as moai.

- There are approximately 900 of these statues in various locations

around the island.

And many of them are placed on these giant platforms

known as "ahu".

- And these moai statues are huge.

Some of them standing 20 metres high and weighing more than 75 tonnes.

That's heavier than ten full-grown elephants.

NARRATOR: Experts believe that the stone material

was likely sourced from a single location

and that the hundreds of statues were somehow transported

across the island.

- Historians and archaeologists have wondered how the makers

of these enormous statues were able to move them

to the various spots all over the island.

- Local legend has long held that the moai statues

actually walked to their various stations across the island.

- They were believed to be imbued with a magical-spiritual essence

called mana.

NARRATOR: The island's first recorded European visitors arrived

in 1722 on what was Easter Sunday,

so they referred to this place as Easter Island.

And the island's great mysteries have fascinated visitors ever since.

How the moai were moved is a question that many have tried

and failed to answer.

But a brand-new vantage from above may finally shed light on

the ancient mystery,

after researchers surveyed the island

with specialised aerial equipment.

- Three... Two... One... Go.

NARRATOR: From the sky,

this extreme wide-angle view reveals something incredible.

- There's this series of mysterious lines crisscrossing the island.

What are they?

NARRATOR: The strange lines have been documented in multiple areas

across the island.

And it's believed that at one time, there were likely many more.

If placed end to end,

the existing lines would measure nearly 32 kilometres.

- And that is really substantial given that the island itself

is less than 23 kilometres long.

NARRATOR: A closer look reveals that the strange features

are actually linear depressions in the ground.

- The grooves themselves are fairly deep.

They're kind of like 20, 30 cm deep, so what could have caused that?

- Who created them and for what reason?

NARRATOR: But the view from above begins to reveal a pattern.

- All these lines seem to be converging on

one very specific spot.

NARRATOR: A monstrous crater known as Rano Raraku,

the largest of the island's three dormant volcanoes.

- What's special about this volcano,

and how might it relate to the emergence of these lines?

NARRATOR: A closer look may provide an answer.

Surrounding the throat of the volcano

are approximately 400 moai statues,

all in various states of completion.

- This is clearly where these ancient statues were carved,

right out of that volcanic rock.

- This is one massive quarry.

- It's believed that the Rano Raraku quarry supplied the stone for

95% of the island's statues.

- But what does this quarry have to do with all these lines?

- Could the lines be somehow related to the transportation

of the moai statues?

NARRATOR: Another clue may be found nearly 15,000 kilometres

northeast on the island of Malta.

Where a view from above reveals the prehistoric site of

Misrah Ghar il-Kbir, said to date back to 2,000 BC.

And it's the site of more mysterious lines.

- These crisscrossing lines are reminiscent of the ones on Rapa Nui.

- Some intersect and others form these junctions.

It almost looks like a switching yard

at a railway station.

- These are prehistoric markings, so obviously nothing to do with trains.

But could they be connected to another more ancient mode

of transportation?

NARRATOR: It's believed that these grooves were engraved

into the limestone rock to accommodate the wheels

of ancient carts.

- Over several millennia,

the wheels of these carts would have made these initial grooves

deeper and deeper,

until you're left with what we see here today on Malta.

- It's absolutely incredible what the passage of time

can leave behind. I mean,

this is like a massive impression of how people were travelling here

over a thousand years ago.

NARRATOR: Could the linear pathways on Rapa Nui

have been created by similar means?

And could this hint at how the moai statues were transported

from the volcanic quarry to the rest of the island?

- When you look at the tracks on Easter Island,

in many ways they're different from those at Misrah Ghar il-Kbir.

First of all, they're singular, and not made up of parallel tracks.

They're also not as deep, and much wider.

NARRATOR: And there's another crucial difference.

- Research on the history of Rapa Nui tells us

that the people who lived here

did not have access to one really useful piece of technology.

The wheel.

So with no wheels, we know that these lines certainly could not

have been made by the passage of carts.

- What if these are just dirt roads

that people used to link them to other villages?

NARRATOR: But the paths don't seem to connect with any known areas

of habitation.

- What we know of the Rapi Nui people is that they were farmers

and they lived mostly in and around the most fertile area

on the eastern-most section of the island.

- A lot of these lines lead to areas kilometres away

from where these people lived, which is quite puzzling.

NARRATOR: But once again,

the view from above reveals additional pieces to this puzzle.

- When you look at all the paths around the island,

you start to notice that there are quite a few statues located

at various places along the perimeter.

- The paths are littered with all these fallen moai statues.

NARRATOR: Researchers have documented scores of moai,

which for some reason, have all fallen along the ancient roads.

- Did they topple over with time? Were they impacted by the elements?

NARRATOR: Or is there another more extraordinary reason?

One that might hold the key to how these mysterious monuments

made their way across the island.

- Researchers believe that all these statues likely fell

during transportation around the island

and that these paths were indeed used to move the moai

from the volcanic quarry to various locations around the island.

NARRATOR: With no knowledge of wheeled transport,

how were these ancient roads used to move hundreds of the heavy statues?

- They've got to be somehow connected, but in what way?

- For decades, experts believed that the moai were placed on logs

and then rolled to their destinations.

But that theory is being questioned.

NARRATOR: Because the dozens of fallen moai,

scattered around Rapa Nui, seem to tell a different story.

- The way these statues are lying is very interesting,

because it looks like they've fallen in a very specific way.

They're either lying face up or face down.

- If you look at where the statues would have been travelling downhill,

they almost always fell on their faces.

And when the roads were going uphill,

the statues tended to fall on their backs.

- So this suggests that the statues weren't transported

in a horizontal position, lying down,

but rather in a standing, forward-facing position.

NARRATOR: And researchers noticed something else

about the ancient roads.

- Rapa Nui is really quite hilly,

but the roads have been built to create a relatively level surface.

Now that is presumably to keep the statues from falling over.

- As the old Rapa Nui myth recounts,

once the statues were carved at Rano Raraku,

the priests began chanting,

which induced the moai to "walk" from the quarry.

- OK, let's get real, these stone statues can't actually "walk"

these ancient roads by themselves.

So the big question is, how were they actually moved?

NARRATOR: In 2011,

a team of researchers used a replica statue to test

whether there may in fact be truth to the ancient island myth.

Is it possible that the statues were transported upright

and that they did in fact walk?

- This is incredible.

Using ropes,

they're actually able to tilt and turn the figure into motion.

- They're rocking this massive statue from side to side,

just like you would if you were moving a refrigerator.

- It appears that the bottoms of these statues

were specifically shaped to accommodate

this forward rocking movement.

- Also, the Rapa Nui people could have easily made ropes

from plant materials available on the island.

NARRATOR: The team of 18 people successfully walk the replica moai

100 metres in just 40 minutes.

- Past theories have suggested that it may have taken

hundreds of people to move these enormous statues.

But transporting them this way, it's possible that the work could

have been done by much smaller groups.

NARRATOR: Moving at this rate

would have taken the statue builders working around the clock

five days to transport a single statue

to the farther point on the island.

- So the ancient legends were right.

The moai did walk to their destination.

They just needed a little help to get there.

- This walking theory makes a lot of sense,

and it shows that the Rapa Nuians likely had a grasp

of complex engineering principles.

It also explains the mysterious lines found across Rapa Nui.

- It's an incredible theory that challenges our concepts of the past.

And the discovery that led to it could only have been made

with a view from above.

NARRATOR: From a series of ancient monuments on a remote island

in the South Pacific

to a mystery nestled in the forests of the Pacific northwest.

In Washington State,

less than 30 kilometres from the capital city of Olympia,

a bird's-eye view reveals an incredible sight.

The Mima mounds.

- You've got this beautiful landscape of rolling hills

and then this geographic anomaly.

What's behind these crazy bumps?

- This field is covered in thousands of circular patterns

as far as the eye can see.

- They have depth to them.

It's like a landscape covered in green bubble wrap.

- I mean, what is this place?

It kinda looks a bit like the surface of the moon -

if the moon was green and all the craters were inverted.

NARRATOR: The monumental formations cover an area spanning

13 square kilometres.

Some of the mounds reach 2 metres high and 12 metres wide.

- How did they get here? Who or what created them?

Is it something natural or the work of some ancient culture?

NARRATOR: A potential key to understanding

this puzzling formation can be found more than

15,000 kilometres away in the southern African country of Namibia.

- This area looks like it's been hit hard by a huge mass meteor shower.

- They're almost like footprints left behind

by some unimaginable creature.

NARRATOR: These geological formations are known as

fairy circles,

and they vary in size from 2 to 15 metres in diameter.

- Like the Mima mounds,

fairy circles have long puzzled scientists

as far as how they've been created.

- One theory is that it's an example of nature adapting

to the lack of water in a desert landscape.

- So to maximize access to that scarce resource,

the bald area of the circle captures water,

which then flows to the outer edges of the ring.

- According to the theory,

this is what creates the strange wreath pattern of vegetation.

- Fairy circles are typically known to occur in Southern Africa

and Western Australia, locations that are quite arid.

However, we're in the Pacific Northwest,

where rain is abundant.

- So if they're not fairy circles, what are they?

NARRATOR: Could the answer lie with the region's ancient civilization,

the Upper Chehalis tribe?

- They describe a great flood washing over this land,

bringing with it creatures from the sea.

And once the waters receded,

it left behind the bodies of whales and porpoises.

And that's what we see today.

The belief is that these humps are the preserved bodies

of these creatures.

NARRATOR: While, to some, the story might be just a fanciful legend,

whale bones have reportedly been discovered along the banks

of the Chehalis River,

less than 5 kilometres from the Mima mounds.

- So in keeping with the idea of Indigenous people,

is it possible that this is a large-scale burial site?

NARRATOR: Like the one located on the small island nation of Bahrain

in the Arabian Gulf.

Home to one of the world's largest ancient cemeteries,

the Dilmun Burial Mounds.

- This is incredible, because these mounds look a lot like

the Mima mounds.

- Like those in Washington state,

the Dilmun Burial Mounds are massive,

some standing as high as 15 metres.

NARRATOR: As seen from the air,

the earthen burial mounds occupy a 30-square-kilometre area,

roughly 5% of Bahrain's total land mass.

- Recent studies have shown that they were built over a period

of 450 years by the Dilmun People,

one of the oldest trading civilizations in the eastern part of

the Arabian Peninsula.

NARRATOR: Could the Mima mounds of Washington State

be a similar collection of ancient burial monuments?

- Back in 1841, you've got a Commander Charles Wilkes.

He's an American naval officer, captain of a ship,

he's an explorer, and he visited the Mima mounds.

And he gets the idea that these were in fact Indigenous burial piles.

- What he found, after digging up three of the mounds,

was a combination of stones, silt, sand, and pebbles.

Nothing else.

- No bones, no teeth, no articles of clothing,

no sign of any human burial whatsoever.

- So clearly, these aren't burial mounds,

so then what are they?

- And who or what made these mounds?

NARRATOR: Is it possible that seismic waves,

caused by powerful earthquakes,

rippled through the ground, creating these monumental mounds?

- We all know how shockwaves created by earthquakes can damage

large human-made structures.

But where there are no structures,

they can also cause dramatic changes to the ground,

displacing earth and rocks, and basically, re-shaping the landscape.

The earthquake hypothesis suggests that shock waves displaced

the earth.

And where seismic waves may have intersected,

they created something called an interference pattern,

which formed the mounds.

- For an earthquake to have created the Mima mounds,

it would have to be an extremely powerful one.

NARRATOR: Powerful earthquakes have been known to hit Washington State.

Because it and the entire American west coast is part of

the Circum-pacific belt, an area known for intense seismic activity

and some of the strongest earthquakes in the world.

- So a recent one happened in November 2002, in Central Alaska.

It measured 7.9 on the Richter scale.

That's a very strong earthquake.

- Closer to home, you had a 6.8-magnitude quake rocking

the Puget Sound back in 2001.

NARRATOR: Under the right conditions,

could a massive quake have created these mounds hundreds

or even thousands of years ago?

Some believe it's a plausible theory, but it's not the only one.

- So if it wasn't an earthquake, could the mounds have been created

by some other really powerful force of nature?

- The State of Washington is home to more than 3,000 alpine glaciers.

And it's believed that, some 16,000 years ago,

massive continental glaciers covered the whole of Puget Sound.

- The theory goes that, over time,

the sun melted holes in the glaciers,

which allowed sediment from the water to fill those holes.

NARRATOR: And when the ice and snow melted away,

it left behind the piles of sediment that we can see today.

- Fact is, we know how erosion caused by glaciers can have

a tremendous impact on shaping and forming our environment.

- Glacial erosion certainly leaves its mark in all sorts of ways,

like elongated shapes of riverbeds, canyons, and fjords.

But it's a lot harder to believe

that it would have created the Mima mounds.

NARRATOR: Even so,

many still wonder whether some form of erosion could have played a part

in creating the Mima mounds.

As was the case for another series of mysterious formations

found in Burnt Cape, Newfoundland, Canada.

- The theory behind these strange and fantastic formations

is that they were created by a different type of erosion

called the Frost Polygon hypothesis.

NARRATOR: The theory suggests that in northern areas of permafrost,

intense cycles of underground freezing and thawing

will disrupt and displace the rocks and soil above,

resulting in these patterned formations.

But these geometric landforms differ from the Mima mounds

in a few distinct ways.

- For one thing, the Frost Polygon patterns aren't exactly like

the Mima mounds in that they lack height.

- For another, they're called polygons.

- Whereas, clearly, the Mima mounds are totally circular.

- So the Frost Polygon theory, it's a good one,

but it doesn't quite fit.

- If the Mima mounds weren't created by humans

or by a powerful force of nature,

what could have possibly created them?

NARRATOR: A clue might be found 10,000 kilometres south

in the Caatinga forests of northeast Brazil

and the Campos de Murundus.

- These are the closest things I've seen so far

that truly look like the Mima mounds.

- You really start to see that they're circular,

they've got height, and they cover a large area.

NARRATOR: Some of the mounds measure as high as 4 metres

and are spread out at roughly 18-metre intervals.

- So what can all these things tell us about how the Mima mounds

may have been formed?

Who or what built the Campos de Murundus?

NARRATOR: The answer is one of our most bothersome pests,

and nature's greatest architects, the termite.

- More specifically, a species of termite called Syntermes dirus,

whose workers are not even half an inch long.

- When scientists collected samples from the centre of 11 of the mounds

here in Brazil,

they determined that the oldest one was about 3800 years old.

- Termites are known to have created mounds older than

the Egyptian pyramids.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that termites also built the Mima mounds?

- While there are about 50 different kinds of termite species

in North America,

the Syntermes dirus termite that built the Campos de Murundus

is found in Northeastern Brazil.

NARRATOR: And mound-building termites are not known to live

this far north in the Americas.

- Also, the Mima mounds were found to contain rather big rocks

that most scientists agree

would be far too large for any termite to carry.

NARRATOR: But there is one local creature big enough

to move heavier rocks.

One also known to create large landscape structures.

The Thomomys mazama, more commonly known as pocket gophers.

- Several biologists think that after the glaciers retreated,

the vegetation grew on the thin soil,

and then you get all these little pocket gophers beginning to excavate

this site and building their nests.

- They moved soil and pebbles upward, forming a mound.

NARRATOR: But why build them so high?

- Gophers usually live underground,

so they tend to build their mounds high so that they have a dry place

to go when rain soaks the soil.

- It speaks to the resilience of nature to find a way to survive

under even the harshest of conditions.

- But this site is massive.

I mean, it would have taken a Herculean effort to build all them.

NARRATOR: If the theory is correct,

it's estimated that each Mima mound could have taken 500 to 700 years

to build.

- Meaning at least 200 generations of gophers would have contributed

to this amazing formation.

NARRATOR: As scientists work to solve the mystery

of the Mima mounds,

the pocket gopher explanation is a leading hypothesis.

But whether these mounds are the work of animals

or the result of some powerful natural force, one thing is certain.

- The Mima mounds are a marvel of nature.

It's a sight that can only be truly appreciated when you get up

in the air and view it from above.

NARRATOR: From the new world to one of the most ancient places

on the planet, a view from above uncovers mysterious monuments

that could reshape our understanding of human history.

The Eurasian Steppe, the world's largest temperate grassy plain,

spanning from Hungary to China.

- This is a massive area that stretches some 8,000 kilometres.

NARRATOR: Predating the famous Silk Road,

the Eurasian Steppe has been a superhighway for human migration,

dating back to the stone age.

- It's along this ancient route that civilizations developed

and dispersed knowledge in the form of language, culture, and commerce.

When it comes to the development of human civilizations,

you can't overstate the role the Eurasian Steppe played.

NARRATOR: But a view from above leads to a baffling discovery.

Along the Steppe, in northern Kazakhstan,

lies an ancient mystery.

- What in the world is that?

- There's this big X and this huge square.

- What could this strange shape be?

NARRATOR: The structure is enormous,

each side measuring nearly 275 metres.

With a surface area equal to fourteen football fields.

The strange shape was first discovered on Google maps,

by amateur archaeologist Dmitriy Dey.

(via translator) I got goose bumps,

because I wasn't expecting to actually find something like this.

I found the phone number of archaeologists

in the Kostanay Region where I live, and I called up one of them.

The archaeologist said that he hadn't seen this object before

and had never heard of it.

NARRATOR: Having just made a monumental discovery,

Dmitriy expands his Google-earth search across northern Kazakhstan.

(via translator) Perhaps about a hundred kilometres to the south

from that spot, I suddenly discovered another object,

about 100 metres in diameter.

NARRATOR: Two never-before-seen artifacts of unknown age and origin,

made visible, thanks to modern satellite imagery.

- How long have these giant symbols been sitting here

waiting to be found?

- What exactly happened in the Eurasian Steppe to prompt this?

- Who created them? And for what reason?

NARRATOR: When these images went public,

various hypotheses began to emerge

with many people drawing comparisons to so-called crop circles,

a phenomenon that some believers claim has

an extraterrestrial origin.

- Over the years, so much has been made about crop circles being

left behind by visitors from another planet.

Of course, they all turned out to be hoaxes.

- (via translator) We, of course, relied on research,

data, assumptions and hypotheses that were more scientific in nature.

NARRATOR: To learn more about its origin,

Dmitriy and a team of researchers make the 5-hour journey

to the mysterious square formation.

- (via translator) We were very interested in conducting actual

archaeological excavations.

So we set up an expedition and conducted archaeological digs

on the site.

- For an explorer, this is like hitting the jackpot.

You're the first person to actually see a mysterious phenomenon

up close.

NARRATOR: For a better look, the team sends up a drone,

giving them a new and unique vantage,

one that no other human in history has seen before.

- Looking at something with Google Earth is great,

but nothing beats the immediate feedback you get with your own eyes

in the sky.

- When you look at lines like this,

you imagine the people who made them,

who would never have been able to see them from above.

So I wonder what they would think if they could see these images.

I wonder if they ever dreamed that someday humans would be able

to fly and look down on what they made.

NARRATOR: This new and unique perspective reveals

that the structures are composed of large earth mounds.

- (via translator) The size of each mound is about 10-12 metres.

We could see that all those mounds were created exclusively from dirt;

there were no stones inside, no stone structures,

there was no other soil brought from afar.

- That description fits perfectly with what we know as geoglyphs,

which are ancient earthworks that are created by either adding

or removing soil or sediments,

creating a distinct image in the ground.

NARRATOR: The most famous geoglyphs in the world are found in Peru.

The Nazca Lines.

- The Nazca Lines are believed to have been created between 200 BCE

and 600 CE.

- I've flown over the Nazca Lines in Peru,

and it absolutely blows my mind how earlier humans,

without the benefit of the technology that we have today,

are able to create these incredible structures

that you can't even see from the ground.

- Over the years, scientists have tried to determine the purpose

of these lines and, so far,

they've failed to reach any definite conclusion.

- All they can agree on is that these geoglyphs have some kind of

religious significance.

- One theory is that the Nazca people of Peru created them

to be seen by deities up in the sky.

- Is that the case with these geoglyphs in Kazakhstan?

Were they put here to connect to the gods?

- (via translator) And so this prompted me to get serious

and to devote all my free time to studying these earthworks.

NARRATOR: Which means excavating the area around the two geoglyphs.

- (via translator) During the excavations,

it was possible to examine the stratigraphy of those objects.

- Stratigraphy is a fancy word for the study of rock layers

for the purpose of establishing how old they are.

NARRATOR: It turns out that the Steppe geoglyphs are not only

perplexing and beautiful, they're also incredibly old.

The findings indicate that the geoglyphs might be as old as

10,000 years.

- If that's true, that would make them one of the oldest human-made

structures on Earth.

- This view from above has the potential to change our

understanding of human history.

- (via translator) Our initial hypothesis was that

this was a type of a burial site,

because these mounds resemble burial hills scattered all over

the Turgay Steppe.

- When you dig around an ancient burial site,

what you expect to find are human bones and personal belongings

that were buried with the bodies.

- (via translator) But we didn't find a thing.

No artifacts, no signs of either burials or any ritual practices,

we found none of this.

And so this raised even more questions.

Because why build such a huge structure

if no activities would take place?

NARRATOR: Solving this mystery will require going beyond drone footage,

beyond Google Earth,

to some of the most powerful and accurate satellite technologies

in existence,

including those on NASA'S International Space Station.

- Now you have NASA on the case, that's as big as it gets.

NARRATOR: But no one could have expected what the space agency's

powerful satellites revealed.

- This is unbelievable.

More of these geoglyphs, and all spread out across this huge area.

NARRATOR: In all, NASA uncovers over 250 additional geoglyphs

spread across the Turgay region of northern Kazakhstan.

DMITRIY: Lines are most common;

second most common are crisscross figures.

NARRATOR: What began as a casual search on Google Earth,

has led to one of the largest historical discoveries in the world,

and one that may upend our understanding of the past.

- Who put them here, and when?

- There must be a reason for these things. But what is it?

NARRATOR: One theory is that the Steppe geoglyphs were designed

to measure the movement of the sun,

like the ancient monumental complex of Chankillo

in the Peruvian coastal desert.

Chankillo is one of the oldest solar observatories on earth.

It's believed to have been built as far back as the 3rd century BCE.

- For centuries,

scientists didn't know what to make of this strange structure.

- It wasn't until 2007

that it was determined to be an astronomical site.

- (via translator) The object in Chankillo

is a near-horizon solar observatory,

which can be used to observe the sunrise throughout the year.

NARRATOR: Using these markers along the horizon,

the sun's annual movements could be charted from the winter solstice

to the summer solstice and back again.

- For a structure to be deemed a near-horizon solar observatory

it has to be built on a hill and it has to be in line with the horizon.

- From the viewpoint of the observer,

the horizon can't be any higher than the mounds themselves.

NARRATOR: Could this also be the case with the Steppe geoglyphs?

Is it possible that they were built as solar observatories?

- (via translator) This is our working hypothesis today.

NARRATOR: If Dmitriy is correct,

it would disprove the idea that these structures were made

as monuments for deities in the heavens,

but rather for the use of people on earth, as solar calendars.

- But what would these calendars be used for?

- And what does it tell us about the people who built them?

- (via translator) The sunrise marks various changes in nature.

This means that people are able to predict certain natural events.

For example, the migration of the Saiga.

- The saiga is an antelope that, since prehistoric times,

has been hunted for meat as well as for its skin and horns.

NARRATOR: Could these mysterious shapes have been built by hunters

to track cycles in nature and the migration of prey?

If so, Dmitriy believes the builders may be an ancient culture

known as the Mahandzhar.

- But not all experts agree with the theory.

- We know very little about the Mahandzhar

other than they were nomadic

and herded livestock in this region from 7000 to 5000 BCE.

Many academics and researchers don't believe the Mahandzhar were

sophisticated enough or, as nomads, had the time, organisational skills,

or the simple inclination to build anything

like these giant stationary geoglyphs.

After all, they were always on the move.

- Unlike the Nazca Lines,

there's no historical or cultural context

by which to infer meaning or purpose behind these earthen structures.

- But if it wasn't the Mahandzhar people,

then who built these incredible structures?

NARRATOR: In order to answer this question, one thing is clear,

more work needs to be done.

- (via translator) And so we invite all interested scientists

who have the knowledge and experience

and perhaps also the technical resources to join our research.

NARRATOR: If the truth about these mysterious monuments

is ultimately revealed,

it could radically alter our view of early civilizations

and reshape our current understanding of human history.

NARRATOR: From a northern desert to a frozen wasteland

at the bottom of the planet,

a view from above uncovers what might be the most improbable

of mysterious monuments.

Antarctica, a barren, icy land mass as big as the U.S.

and Mexico combined.

- The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest on Earth.

It's 14 million square kilometres of thick ice,

punctuated by mountain ranges, valleys, and plateaus.

- It's hard to believe but that ice sheet holds roughly 60 to 90%

of the world's fresh water.

- This place is absolutely remote.

When you're standing at the South Pole,

you're at the very bottom of the globe.

So it doesn't matter which way you look,

every direction is north.

- It's completely off the grid.

This is the only place on Earth that doesn't follow a time zone.

When you get there, you just set your own time.

- It's also dark and spooky.

In the winter, you get 6 months of total pitch black.

The only light comes from Antarctica's version of

the Northern Lights, Aurora Australis.

NARRATOR: And it's over this unique environment

that recent satellite images have revealed something

even more extraordinary.

- In the middle of Antarctica,

you've got what looks like a giant pyramid.

- Antarctica isn't exactly famous for its architecture,

so what is this?

- There's no question it's a pyramidal shape.

It's three-dimensional.

It has a polygonal base, flat triangular faces,

and is joined at a common point called the apex.

At its base, this thing measures two square kilometres.

To put it into perspective,

that's roughly 9 times bigger than the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Have these satellite images revealed an undiscovered engineering marvel?

- What's it doing in one of the most remote places on Earth?

NARRATOR: And yet,

the view from above reveals that this structure isn't alone.

- This ginormous pyramid is flanked on both sides

by what looks like two smaller pyramids buried in the snow.

It almost looks like a pyramid complex.

In Egypt, you have the Great Pyramid of Giza.

And it's part of this thing called the Giza Pyramid complex.

You've got three large pyramids,

grouped with smaller subsidiary pyramids.

And you see this in other places as well.

NARRATOR: Located near the Nile,

in what is now Sudan, another complex of pyramids.

- These are known as the Nubian Pyramids.

NARRATOR: Built for kings around 3,000 years ago,

there are over 200 of these pyramids in Sudan.

- The Nubian Pyramids were built out of granite and sandstone.

- Even though these were built many centuries after the pyramids

in Egypt, you can see how much the Nubian kings were influenced

by the Egyptians.

NARRATOR: Is what we're seeing in Antarctica

a similar pyramid complex?

And could it be even older than those found in Egypt or Sudan?

- As far as we know, humans began building pyramids roughly

5,000 years ago.

How old is this pyramid structure in Antarctica?

- Was there an ancient civilization that lived here

that we don't know about?

That would fly in the face of everything we know from science.

That Antarctica has been under ice for millions of years

and totally uninhabitable for humans.

- We're talking about a place so cold that hypothermia can take hold

in just 10 minutes,

after which death is only hours away.

In winter, temperatures can dip down to around -60°C.

Even in summer, the temperature never rises above zero.

- The only humans that come here are scientists and tourists,

and they stay in climate-controlled research stations.

- The only things that can survive here are basically Emperor Penguins,

a few species of seals, some birds, some fish,

some shellfish, and some worms.

It's essentially a polar desert.

It's got very little or almost no running water.

That means that no vegetation or crops can survive here.

There's no grass. There are no trees.

There's basically no plant life at all.

NARRATOR: Could such a harsh and frigid environment sustain a culture

capable of building a structure on this scale?

- The only way an ancient civilization could have lived here

is if, at some point, a large part of the continent was ice free.

NARRATOR: Over 14,000 kilometres away in Istanbul, Turkey,

a historical document suggests that

this may not be such a farfetched idea.

- In 1929, scholars working in the archives of Turkey's

Topkapi Palace Museum discovered something quite remarkable,

a map of Antarctica dating back to 1513 -

just 21 years after Columbus discovered America.

NARRATOR: On the map, there's a caption that roughly translates to:

"..the Portuguese did not land on these shores,

which are said to be very hot."

- It's like they're describing a totally different place.

That was just 500 years ago.

Could Antarctica have changed that much in that little time?

- As much as that sounds very interesting,

let's not forget that maps back then were far from accurate.

Yeah, you gotta remember that Columbus was said to be

looking for India when he in fact stumbled across the Americas.

NARRATOR: But recent scientific findings seem to support the claims

made by the 16th-century Ottoman map.

- In 2017, geologists collected core samples from deep within

the West Antarctic Sea floor,

to analyse what the climate would have been like

thousands of years ago.

- Researchers were shocked to find more than 60 different species

of plants, similar to those we find today in our rainforests.

- So it's possible that thousands of years ago,

some areas of Antarctica could have been ice-free?

- Based on that evidence,

Antarctica would have been habitable,

but whether it was inhabited is an entirely different question.

NARRATOR: Could the answer lie 8,000 kilometres north

in the myths and stories of the ancient Polynesian people?

- For millennia, Polynesian oral tradition has maintained the belief

that Antarctica was the place of ancestors who ventured forth

on traditional canoes and encountered a southern sea

filled with big white rocks,

which have been interpreted as icebergs floating in the waters

around Antarctica.

- Some have even gone as far as saying that the Polynesian people,

who now live on the scattered islands across the Pacific Ocean,

actually originated from the once ice-free Antarctica.

NARRATOR: But beyond Polynesian folklore,

there's no physical evidence linking human settlers

to this icy continent, or its mysterious pyramid.

- As far as ancient human bones or grave sites,

no one's ever found a single trace of those.

NARRATOR: If humans didn't create this geometric wonder, what did?

At the planet's opposite pole, a possible clue.

This time in Iceland.

- Now this is amazing.

This pyramid is a dead ringer for the one in Antarctica.

NARRATOR: Over 1000 metres high, this is Bulandstindur,

and it's believed to be roughly 8 million years old.

It's a structure known as a nunatak.

- A nunatak is a term coined by the Indigenous people of Greenland

to describe a pyramidal peak

emerging from an ice-covered glacier.

- Nunataks are caused by what's called freeze-thaw erosion.

- Freeze-thaw erosion happens when snow or water fills up cracks

in a mountain during the day.

When the night falls and temperatures drop,

the snow freezes and expands, turning into ice.

The expanding ice causes the cracks to grow.

- Over time, it leads to the creation of larger cracks

that can eventually cause entire rock sections to break off.

- Over millions of years,

the natural cycles of defrost in the mountain ranges can produce

stunning symmetry and geometric forms, like this pyramid.

- When you sit back and look at this thing,

it gives you a whole new appreciation of the power of nature

and the beauty and symmetry it can create.

- This formation is so precise and impressive in its scope

that it stands against anything

our most brilliant engineers could build.

- It's a sight that most of us will only ever see

thanks to these sorts of images from above.

NARRATOR: From the most inhospitable place on earth

to sprawling landscapes dramatically transformed,

and island statues who's walk baffled the ages...

The view from above helps us understand history's most

mysterious monuments and the world that helped shape them.

Subtitles by Sky Access Services