Original subtitles

Narrator: eyes in the sky, Watching us from space.

Hundreds of satellites,

Showing us the world Like we've never seen it before,

Capturing images which are Breathtaking but bizarre,

Objects and phenomena Which defy explanation.

Baker: what is that?

Narrator: An island the size of manhattan That's vanished from the ocean.

Capps: the island is completely Missing, gone.

Not hidden under the water, But gone.

Narrator: Remnants of an amazonian city That could be el dorado.

Gough: our understanding Of civilizations

In the amazon jungle Will never be the same again.

Narrator: bizarre patterns That seem to unleash a torrent

Of devastating weather.

Cerveny: there's no possible way These could be natural.

And has a u.S. Spy satellite Made a biblical discovery?

Huston: there's only one boat

That could possibly have come To rest on mount ararat,

And that's noah's ark.

Narrator: baffling phenomena Seen from space.

What on earth are they?

-- captions by vitac -- Www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by Discovery communications

December 12, 2008,

The geoeye-1 satellite orbits 423 miles above namibia

In west africa When it captures this image...

...Rings, like pock marks On the desert floor.

Analysts zoom out To get a wider view.

Then, the extraordinary number Of rings is revealed --

Countless thousands Of mysterious circles

Stretching 1,200 miles from Mang'ola down the skeleton coast

Through namibia Into south africa.

Analysis indicates that The rings vary in size

From 6 to 65 feet across.

If this is a natural phenomenon, It's like no other on earth.

They're just freaks of nature.

Kays: When you see them from space, They're just so mysterious,

All these different circles In such a regular pattern.

And it just makes you wonder, "What made these circles?"

Narrator: scientists pore over The satellite images,

But no one is able to explain The rings.

They need to be examined At ground level.

Raphael scriba is A namibian journalist

Who has been sent To investigate.

He's heading from the capital

Southwest into the vast Namib wilderness.

This desert has been here for As long as 80 million years.

It's the oldest on earth.

Scriba finally reaches The rings.

They stretch as far as The eye can see.

He notices one thing They all have in common.

Scriba: It is a perfect circle.

As you see, There's no grass inside,

But all of the grass Is outside the circle.

Narrator: Grass cannot survive inside The circles, but that's not all.

The rings seem devoid Of all life.

To sustain life, there needs to Be some water in the ground.

Scriba tests it With a moisture meter.

Scriba: and my testing says Absolutely dry.

There is no moisture in the -- In the ground.

Nothing grows inside here.

Narrator: Desert grass grows in the namib

Because, even in an arid place Like this, there is rainfall.

But scriba's test show No moisture.

An unexplained dead zone Framed by a circle of grass.

And he's found something else.

The local nomadic tribespeople

Say their ancestors Knew about the rings.

Locals called them Rings of death,

And you can totally Understand why.

Narrator: Deadly circles, within which Nothing can survive.

But how can this be?

One of the ideas is that

These were actually formed By termites.

The termites would live in The ground,

Killing the plants That lived over them.

Narrator: There are 32 types of termite In southern africa.

Billions of the creatures Are busy building

Countless huge nests beneath The surface of the namib.

Dr. Walter tschinkel, A termite specialist,

Is drafted in to investigate.

Well, the test we did Was to dig trenches

To look for termite sign, To look for nests of termites,

To map the location Of termite nests

In relation to the circles.

And there was no association.

There just simply wasn't any.

Narrator: searching for Another explanation,

Dr. Tschinkel analyzes Satellite images of the rings

Taken at different times.

What I did was to compare images From 2004 and 2008

And look for circles That had either disappeared

Or appeared In that period of time.

So, in this way, I was able to establish

That the circles have A life cycle, that they're born,

And they mature To some stable size,

And then they disappear again After some period of time.

Narrator: Dr. Tschinkel's findings Are shocking.

These rings are acting like They're alive.

And they're growing.

Science, it seems, Has no answers.

The locals believe the death Rings have supernatural origins.

The native himba people believe The circles are formed

By the poisonous breath of A dragon

That lives beneath the ground.

Might there be an element Of truth in the legend?

Could there be subterranean Toxic gases

Poisoning the desert's soil From below?

There are places on earth Where natural gases escape.

And they come out naturally.

They can kill trees,

They can kill animals,

And it can kill people.

Narrator: it's happened before.

In 1897, the corpses of several Bears were discovered

In a canyon in yellowstone park.

The deaths were attributed to Asphyxiation by carbon dioxide.

The canyon is called Death gulch.

Can the african death rings be Blamed on deadly volcanic gases

Bubbling up from beneath The soil?

Scriba is here to find out.

[ gas monitor beeps ]

What I have here, it's a gas Monitor that tests poisoned gas.

Narrator: scriba's equipment Can detect and identify

A wide range of gases Both toxic and combustible.

[ beeping continues ]

No, there's nothing. No poisonous gas.

It's still a mystery.

Narrator: if it's not gas And it's not termites,

Could there be some other Organic explanation

For the death rings?

Evans: Nonrandom patterns like this

Where there's equal spacing Of these features,

Very commonly, These are biological organisms.

Narrator: From the air, it looks almost Like a viral skin infection.

From space, too, It looks like a disease.

Could this be a clue?

Wickramasinghe: Across the entire planet,

The total mass of viruses Exceeds the mass of all life

By a huge factor.

And this population of viruses Is constantly changing.

So we are in an environment Of viruses

That are uncharted in terms Of what they're going to do

Or what they are.

Narrator: Is this some viral infection Of the earth?

if this is a deadly disease,

It's one for which We have no cure.

Kays: scientists have flocked To this area

And taken all sorts of different Measurements about the soil,

About the insects, About the plants.

And yet we still don't know What causes these circles.

Narrator: A satellite image taken over The south pacific

Shows what appears to be An island.

In later photos of the same Spot, the island has vanished.

An island that was there and is Now not there is a huge mystery.

How do you lose An entire island?

Narrator: in november 2012, 500 miles east of australia,

An image is released of a Pacific island

Captured by An earth observation satellite.

But the island Has been blacked out.

Capps: this island shows up on Open-source satellite footage,

But a lot of it's been Pixilated,

Which is what you do when You're trying to hide something,

Like a military base Or whatever.

Pope: if you see pixilation,

You think, "Wait a minute, What is this, censorship?"

There's something there that Someone doesn't want us to see.

Narrator: It's not like the land mass Is a secret.

Sandy island has been charted Numerous times

And featured on nautical maps Going back 250 years.

In 2012,

Intrigued by the pixilated land Mass in the satellite image,

Professor stephen micklethwaite Sets sail

To find out what's being hidden.

Micklethwaite: We saw this island In the google earth data,

And it looked really weird.

And we thought, "Well, we'll just check it out."

It was pretty big.

It was 26 kilometers long.

We looked at The satellite photos

Of the surface of this island.

It was black.

Narrator: his research vessel Eventually reaches the island.

Micklethwaite: we got there In the middle of the night.

It was a starry night.

We could see A reasonable amount,

And there was just no island.

Stephen and his team Check the navigation systems.

They're fully operational.

And the coordinates Are accurate.

Capps: the island is completely Missing, gone,

Not hidden under the water, But gone.

Narrator: Ships and planes have vanished In the bermuda triangle.

Submarines have sunk Without a trace.

But an entire island?

Micklethwaite: I remember going Up to the bridge

Where the captain was and Saying, "Congratulations, john.

You've just undiscovered An island."

Narrator: the disappearance Presents investigators

With a bizarre challenge --

How to find a scientific Explanation

For an island That's gone missing.

An island that was there and Is not there is a huge mystery.

Narrator: there are a number Of competing theories.

One, it has been submerged Beneath the waves.

Marchetti: the sea level goes up A little bit,

The island is going to Disappear.

When the sea level goes back Down, the island will reappear.

Narrator: but satellite data Shows global sea levels climbing

At just 1/10 inch Per year.

If it is submerged, the island Must have been incredibly flat,

And it should be sitting Just below the surface.

To get an accurate sonar reading Of what's below,

Professor micklethwaite Takes the boat

As near as he dares To the island,

Taking care not to run aground.

The sonar maps the sea bed

And reveals something Even more perplexing.

There is nothing Just beneath the surface,

Just a straight drop To the ocean floor

Some 4,500 feet below.

Sandy island hasn't sunk.

It's vanished.

How could an island the size Of manhattan disappear?

Another theory is that

The original 18th-century maps Charting sandy island

Were flawed.

Early explorers had no gps

Or other sophisticated Mapping tools.

Mistakes were made.

For example, The famous pitcairn island,

Where the "Mutiny on the bounty" Boys settled,

Was safe territory for them

Because they discovered That pitcairn had been misplaced

On the maps By several hundred miles.

The most likely explanation For sandy island

Is that it was One of those cases.

But sandy island was originally Charted by captain james cook,

Arguably the most Celebrated cartographer

In nautical history.

Pope: captain cook saw An island there,

And he's A pretty reliable source.

Narrator: In the late 18th century,

Cook mapped lands From new zealand to hawaii,

Surveyed islands Right across europe.

He was a pioneer of modern, Accurate cartography.

What's more,

This island has been repeatedly Observed and charted.

French navigators recorded it Two decades after cook.

English sailors on the whaling ship velocity

Observed it 80 years after that.

An alternate theory suggests That sandy island

Wasn't an island at all, But rather, floating pumice,

A buoyant rock formed by Volcanic activity.

Nelson: The problem with this idea

Is that pumice islands Are relatively fluid structures.

They move around a lot.

They don't have beaches Or waves breaking on them.

Narrator: Pumice rafts don't stay In one place.

They drift.

When krakatoa erupted in 1883,

Pumice rafts carrying Burnt human skeletons

Drifted 4,000 miles Across the indian ocean.

And, even if the most famous Cartographer of his day

Mistook drifting pumice For an island,

Then what did sailors on the velocity see

At the exact same spot 100 years later?

According to multiple Eyewitnesses,

Sandy island was real.

So where has it gone?

Capps: an island going away

Is not something you see happen In a quick way.

You have to wonder, "Was it moved by man?"

Narrator: with no obvious Logical explanation

For the disappearance,

More outlandish theories Are put forward.

The whole area, of course,

Is one that was used extensively By the u.S. Military.

The military would love This kind of technology

To make something disappear.

Narrator: in 1943,

The u.S. Military is alleged To have conducted an exercise

Codenamed The philadelphia experiment.

Pope: The philadelphia experiment

Was an attempt To make a ship disappear,

And it's claimed that Albert einstein was involved.

According to some people, a u.S. navy ship, the uss eldridge,

Completely vanished.

Now, some people say that It just became invisible.

Other rumors were that it Had somehow gone back in time.

Narrator: But the u.S. Navy deny that any Such experiment ever took place.

And scientists dismissed The idea as fantastical.

Yet the problem remains That sandy island is missing.

Maps that once included The island have erased it.

On the latest satellite images, There is nothing but sea.

No one knows what happened To sandy island,

Or if they do, It's a well-guarded secret.

A set of weird circular shapes

Appear on meteorology maps Of australia.

They can't possibly be real.

Narrator: Each one seems to preempt freak, Extreme weather.

Marrs: we would see These weird formations,

And then, all of a sudden, There was torrential rain.

Narrator: January 22, 2010,

Meteorologists in australia spot A bizarre disc of glowing rings

On their satellite radar images.

It's like nothing They've ever seen --

A strange, Giant white circle

Hanging over the city Of melbourne.

Within this sort of outer band,

There was just lots of little Dots, speckled areas.

Cerveny: When I first saw pictures Of these spiral images,

I thought to myself,

"There's no possible way These could be natural."

Narrator: The disc spans an area of tens Of thousands of square miles

Across southeast australia,

Reaching out to the island Of tasmania off the south coast.

Prior to the appearance Of the white rings,

There have been no storms Or violent weather.

Quite the opposite --

The country is experiencing

One of its longest droughts On record.

The spiral mystifies Australia's meteorologists.

Coleman: this sort of situation Is quite abnormal.

Something quite wrong Is going on.

Narrator: The weather scientists try To find a logical explanation.

Wilby: it was very difficult At that time

To necessarily know Exactly what was going on.

We just thought Maybe there was a radar issue.

Narrator: Ground-based radar technology

Combines with satellite imagery To create a real-time map

Of changing weather Across australia.

But radar is an old And reliable technology.

It doesn't normally pick up Stuff that isn't there.

Then, more circular shapes Begin to appear

In other parts of australia.

One, on the northwest coast, Spans around 400 miles.

Around a red and white eye Is a black circle

With black lines radiating out.

Then, another on the south coast Similar to the first,

A disc of dotted glowing rings.

More images appear,

And the meteorologists Begin to think

Their systems are either failing Or being interfered with.

Is this some computer virus Threatening to bring down

Australia's entire Weather-surveillance system?

Considering the processing That it takes

To take an image from space, Process it through a computer,

Stream it along bandwidth To an earth center,

Reprocess it into an image...

It looks like a computer glitch.

Narrator: But what happens next suggests This is no computer virus.

The appearance of Each strange symbol

Seems to herald extraordinary And extreme weather.

Melbourne is engulfed in One of the worst storms

In the city's history.

[ thunder crashes ]

Flash floods, 4-inch hailstorms,

A month's rain in just 48 hours, And a mini tornado.

The timing of these events Is really unusual.

Before these images were taken,

There had been a very Long-lasting drought

Over australia.

After these images happened,

We suddenly get massive, Big thunderstorms.

Narrator: from one Weather extreme to another,

A record-breaking drought

Suddenly turns into The wettest spring on record.

It may just be a coincidence, But whenever the circles appear,

Reports follow From each location

Of freak weather events.

Just what are these circles And spirals?

Speculation spreads.

Is this some kind of Experimental weather weapon?

[ thunder crashes ]

We had historical incidents

Where the military has had Projects to try to,

For example, control hurricanes.

To be able to control The weather

At the flick of a switch, That's scary stuff.

Marrs: If you can intensify a storm,

And you can guide it To one place or another,

Then you have the foundation

For what has been known For a long time as weather war.

You cause an earthquake Or a typhoon or a hurricane,

Lots of destruction In your enemy's country.

Narrator: It sounds like something Out of science fiction,

But weather manipulation weapons Do exist

And have been used before.

The united states conducted Operation popeye

During the vietnam war From 1967 to '72,

Where they would seed the clouds To make it rain.

Narrator: U.S. Military aircraft

Pumped huge quantities Of cloud-seeding chemicals

Into the air above Enemy territory in vietnam.

The aim was to cause Devastation.

The resulting downpour

Is said to have turned Dirt tracks into rivers of mud,

Created landslides,

Made it impossible To move vehicles and troops.

The monsoon season was extended By weeks, destroying harvests.

The u.S. Military had found Themselves a new mega weapon,

The weather.

But research into more Sophisticated weather weapons,

If it's taking place, Is top secret.

That was 40 years ago,

So you can kind of imagine How much more advanced

They must be today.

Narrator: weather weapon or not, One thing is for sure --

Something happened here,

Something meteorologists Are still unable to explain.

As satellites track over The amazon jungle,

They spot a strange shape In a clearing.

The first time I saw the images, I thought, "Wow."

Narrator: an area once inhabited By cannibals.

Could a satellite Have captured el dorado,

The fabled city of gold?

There's a whole lot of gold Waiting to be discovered.

Narrator: November 20, 2001,

The geoeye-1 Earth observation satellite

Is orbiting high above The amazon rainforest to brazil.

Below, There is logging taking place.

And as it does, It uncovers land

Which has remained concealed For centuries.

As the satellite passes over,

It captures lines carved into The landscape

Of what appears to be trenches, Ditches, and mounds.

These are not the scars Of logging machines,

Nor are they natural.

They form some kind of pattern, Manmade,

In one of the most remote areas On earth.

The first time I saw the images, I thought, "Wow."

They look, literally,

Almost like a geometric equation Etched into the earth.

There's no way These things are natural.

Narrator: The satellite image shows a Rectangular plateau

Surrounded by a supporting mound

With other longer lines In the ground nearby

Extending into the jungle.

Analysis shows that The main feature is large,

Around 850 feet long And 650 feet wide.

if these are manmade,

Then there was once something Much bigger

Than a jungle village here.

Huston: these are not just Ordinary structures.

When you look at the images, They appear to be walls.

They appear to be foundational Structures.

Narrator: the main pattern, Or structure,

Resembles the earthwork Foundations

Of ancient And medieval structures,

The palaces and temples Of the ancient near east,

And the forts and castles Of feudal europe.

But temples and castles are the Work of developed civilizations,

And they're usually found In easily habitable places,

Not the middle of the amazon.

That was such a brutal Environment in the jungle,

That it could only support

Very small, isolated Tribal communities,

And that the environment was Simply not able to sustain

Large populations.

Narrator: So, what strange kingdom Could have existed

In this inhospitable, Dense jungle?

There may be a clue written In the notes of an explorer

Who, in 1925, Manages to reach this far

Into the amazonian jungle --

English soldier lt. Colonel Percival harrison fawcett.

Percy harrison fawcett Was really the last

Of the great victorian And edwardian explorers,

These people who would Venture off

Into the blank spaces of the map With little more than a machete.

Narrator: Fawcett goes to south america,

Sent by the royal geographical Society, to map the jungle.

But his study of historical Records and ancient legends

Convinces him that, Hidden in the jungle,

Are the remains Of an ancient city

That some believe is The legendary el dorado.

Huston: el dorado Was the city of gold,

Which was thought to be On the shores of a lake.

Others thought it was deep In the amazon.

Narrator: south america Was valued as a colony

By the spanish because of its Rich natural deposits of gold.

The conquistadors even learned

Of a jungle kingdom Where gold was so abundant,

They covered their king In gold dust.

He became known to the spanish As el hombre dorado,

The golden man.

Man: expeditions were Sent out on numerous occasions,

All ending in a disaster.

Narrator: at this time,

The vast amazon jungle is Inhabited by savage tribes

Who have never seen a european.

Grann: Hundreds upon hundreds

Of people died On these expeditions.

They would be killed By the natives.

Narrator: but fawcett has a gift For appeasing jungle tribes,

For winning their friendship And their help.

Following clues given to him By tribespeople,

He penetrates deep Into the jungle.

His search for the lost city Of z, as he calls it,

Finally brings him to an area

Close to the spot captured In the satellite image.

What he finds there, He records in his notes.

Grann: he described climbing up An enormous earth mound.

And, when he looked out,

He could see another earth mound Across the way.

And connecting these Earth mounds looked like,

Buried under the jungle,

He could swear were These parallel lines.

They looked like a causeway.

Narrator: Could fawcett's earth mounds

Be the same ones Found by satellite,

Or are there others nearby?

Fawcett believes he is about To discover his lost city.

But the trail leads him Into an area of jungle

Infested with cannibals.

His guides become frightened And refuse to go on.

So fawcett and two others Go alone.

The last account Of fawcett alive

Comes from a tribe he befriended Called the kalapalo.

They had this epic story That was passed down

From generation to generation.

And, in that account, It describes how fawcett

And two other people Were determined

To keep heading towards What the kalapalos call

"The fierce indians."

And they begged him not to go.

And they beseeched him Not to go,

Saying, "You won't survive."

But fawcett was insistent.

He set out, and they were never Heard from again.

Narrator: fawcett believed He had found his lost city.

But if he was right,

It must have been at the center Of a great kingdom,

A kingdom which has long since Been devoured by jungle.

Sure enough, a combination

Of logging and satellite imagery

Is uncovering evidence Of such a civilization.

Many more sights Have been identified

Across an area Almost as big as texas,

Spreading from brazil Into bolivia.

They bear the telltale signs

Of a sophisticated Ancient settlement.

It seems that fawcett was right.

There does appear to have been

Some kind of great Ancient kingdom here.

This must have been one of

The wealthiest ancient Civilizations on earth.

This discovery now gives, For the first time,

Some credence to the existence Of el dorado.

Narrator: technology which Fawcett could not have imagined

May have succeeded Where he failed.

If satellites have unlocked The mystery of el dorado,

A dazzling bounty awaits anyone Who can find it.

There is a whole lot of gold Waiting to be discovered.

Narrator: A cold war spy satellite

Captures something That may prove to be

One of the greatest Archaeological finds in history.

It looks similar to the shape Of a boat,

And it's very interesting.

Narrator: The image of the boat

Goes all the way To the white house,

For the attention Of the president himself.

There's only one boat

That could possibly have come To rest on mount ararat,

And that's noah's ark.

Narrator: december 1973,

The height of the cold war,

The keyhole-9 spy-satellite

Is scanning the mountain range On the turkish-soviet border,

A place of high Strategic significance,

Looking for russian Troop movements.

This photograph is taken By onboard cameras.

It films a strange feature In the landscape

That stands out from the rock Formations around it.

It looks like a boat,

But the image can't be analyzed Right away.

It's the early days Of satellite photography,

And keyhole-9 Still shoots on film.

It takes some time To get the image

From the satellite Back to the u.S.

Pavelec: the canister of film Would drop out of the satellite,

Re-enter the earth's atmosphere, Deploy a parachute.

A specially designed united States air force airplane

Would fly past and grab The parachute out of the air.

Narrator: at cia headquarters In langley, virginia,

This image is processed And sent for analysis.

It always comes down to somebody Hunched over a desk,

Staring at a photo,

Trying to figure out What the hell he's looking at.

Narrator: the analyst Who gets this image

Identifies something at the top Of a mountain.

Marchetti: it looks similar To the shape of a boat,

And it's very interesting.

Narrator: an oval shape, But pointed at both ends,

Rising from the landscape Around it.

The shape is hollowed out with What looks like a flat bottom.

It's an image That creates a question,

And they want to answer The question.

Narrator: it looks to the cia Like the remains of a boat

Or the impression of a boat.

But what is it doing 17,000 feet Above sea level?

A boat at nearly 17,000 feet.

That would have to be Quite some flood

To lift that boat Above that altitude.

Extraordinary claims require Extraordinary evidence.

Where's the evidence For this flood?

Narrator: But what makes this find

Special for the cia Is the location.

This is mount ararat,

The mountain described In the old testament.

According to the bible,

After the great flood sent by God finally begins to subside,

Noah sails his ark To the first bit of land

To appear above the water.

The ark comes to rest on the top Of a mountain.

And that mountain, says The bible, is mount ararat.

There's only one boat

That could possibly have come To rest on mount ararat,

And that's noah's ark.

Baker: you can imagine, it Starts out in the office first.

"I might have found noah's ark."

They're having a cup of coffee Or maybe eating lunch,

Says, "Oh, what do you got?"

"I got a couple of soviet tanks. What do you got?"

"Well, I got the ark."

Narrator: further analysis Of the satellite image

Reveals something extraordinary.

The dimensions of the boat shape

Are estimated to be Approximately 450 feet long

And 100 feet wide.

According to the bible,

When god told noah To build an ark,

He specified the dimensions -- 300 cubits long and 50 wide...

...Which, amazingly, Roughly corresponds

To the shape In the satellite image.

But the cia satellite cameras Produce low-resolution images.

There's one important question The cia can't answer.

Is this a geologic material,

Or is this possibly a material

That was made Of a wooden structure?

What could it be? A lot of things.

Something that's that long,

That has curvature like that And a shape like that,

Could be many things Of ice and rock

Or some combination of it.

Narrator: documents that have Since been declassified

Show the cia investigation Is deadly serious.

There were expeditions To the top of mount ararat,

Uh, that were -- that were done, Trying to resolve this --

This question.

Narrator: unfortunately,

The results of any further Cia investigations

Of the ark remain classified.

So remote and dangerous Is the location

That other reported attempts To reach it

Have ended in injury And even death.

The question of what caused This strange shape

In the landscape May be resolved

Thanks to new developments in Satellite imaging technology.

What I would like to do With noah's ark

Is to actually take Another look at it

With our super-spectral Satellite, worldview-3.

Narrator: The worldview-3 satellite

Has multispectral Imaging cameras

That can detect organic matter

And a camera that can record At a resolution of 12 inches.

With the technology That we have on worldview-3,

We can now Take another look at it

And maybe unlock that mystery In the future.

Narrator: all known expeditions To find the ark have failed.

Today, the turkish authorities Refuse access,

As it's a restricted Military zone.

So, for the time being,

A satellite image may be The closest we can get.

A satellite image taken near Area 51 captures a strange orb.

My first thought was, "This blob Looks very unnatural."

Narrator: weirder still, It appears to be flying.

But it doesn't look like Any aircraft I've ever seen.

Narrator: an earth Observational satellite

Orbits 280 miles Above the nevada desert.

In may 2008, It takes this image.

The resolution is poor, Almost blurry.

But the image shows A strange circular blob.

Based on the size of each pixel,

It looks like the blob Is around 35 feet across.

It is a silvery metallic color.

But what's strange is

It appears to be casting A shadow,

As though it's flying.

Stranger still is its location.

The image is captured At a national security site

Surrounding area 51, nevada.

Released on the internet,

It starts a frenzy Of speculation.

Area 51 is where the government Goes when it wants to be alone.

It's isolated. It's well-controlled.

There's no access to outsiders.

Use of deadly force authorized, It says,

Right on the sign at the gate.

And they mean it.

Narrator: It's been claimed

That everything From secret weapons testing

To dissecting aliens Happened here.

Area 51 has no official purpose.

What is known is this was

A weapons and nuclear bomb Test site.

In the satellite image,

You can make out craters Caused from explosions.

Could they be a clue To the mysterious blob?

When I first looked at it, I said,

"Well, you know, I can see the shadow.

I can see the pedestal It's sitting on.

It is probably a platform

For mounting certain kinds Of instruments

To monitor for radiation leaks,

Both during a nuclear test And then afterwards."

Narrator: But an instrument platform

Would tend to show much sharper And well-defined edges.

And one of the peculiar features

Of the blob Is its blurred edges.

Marrs: My first thought was,

This blob looks Very unnatural.

And I'm just wondering If that is a true photograph

Of something like that On the ground,

Or is it just pixilation

To blur it to cover up something That's there?

Friedman: there weren't Any satellites

Flying around the planet

When area 51 was created Back in the early '50s.

And so that's changed things.

You got to camouflage stuff.

There's a whole game Being played all the time.

And so, who knows how many Of the stories

That get told about it are true?

Narrator: so, if the blob has Been camouflaged, what is it?

Area 51 is officially linked To edwards air force base.

Its airspace is designated Special use.

The base is thought to be used

For testing Experimental aircraft.

Could this explain the blob?

There are eyewitness accounts

Of something strikingly similar To the blob,

Spotted at night just a couple Of hundred miles away

In the town of needles.

Ex-police chief frank costigan Was one of those who saw it.

Costigan: the shape of it Was an oval, like an egg.

Whatever it was, It was totally silent.

There was no noise.

The ground illuminated,

Almost like a helicopter Was flying over,

Shining a spotlight.

I've never seen anything

Resembling what I saw That night.

Narrator: another witness claims The orb crashed across town.

There was a loud thump, No explosion,

No anything, Hardly any report at all,

Just a thud,

Like if you were to drop A bowling ball in the sand.

Immediately was The thump, thump, thump

Of a big, heavy chopper.

They picked this thing up And flew off,

And it was like Nothing had happened.

It was gone in 5 minutes. Everything was gone.

Narrator: so, who took The mysterious orb?

Local talk-show host david hayes Thinks he knows.

You're listening to The tri-state's home of talk,

Ktox 1340 am.

Narrator: The day after the crash,

He had a strange encounter.

Hayes: there were some vehicles Coming off the freeway.

And the first vehicle almost Looked amphibious, black,

Government plates, domes, All kinds of stealth equipment.

And I thought, "Wow, that looks strange."

And, as I turned around The corner, I passed by them,

And the guy kind of stared me Down with this real hard look.

And I thought, "You know,

You're the one driving the 'star wars' vehicle, not me.

I mean, what do you expect us To do, not look?"

Narrator: the vehicle suggests Some agency was involved,

And the eyewitness to the crash Thinks he knows which one.

They picked this thing up,

And they flew off with it To the northwest.

And that's the way to nevada...

And area 51.

Narrator: could the blob Captured by satellite in area 51

Be the same as the orb removed By helicopter from needles?

The descriptions Are very similar.

But are the two objects related?

There's no way to verify.

You can't go in there

And talk to the public Information officer and say,

"Tell me the truth now About what's going on here."

That's not how security works, Believe me.