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.

Objects and phenomena Which defy explanation.

I can't believe this. This can't be.

Narrator: a fleet of ghost ships Stranded in the desert.

Looks like something you might See in a "Mad max" movie.

Narrator: a mysterious haze Covers half of north america.

There is some kind of

Major disaster that has Taken place in the midwest.

Narrator: a desperate sign from P.O.W.S left behind in vietnam.

Could it be a missing in action Serviceman trying to communicate

That he needs to be rescued?

Narrator: baffling phenomenon, Mysteries from space.

What on earth are they?

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

Captions paid for by Discovery communications

Laos, 1988.

15 years after the vietnam war,

A spy satellite spots Something mysterious

In the middle of the jungle.

What you have a 37-foot high, 12-foot long symbol

That is three letters -- "U.S.A."

And under it is The letter "K" with little feet

On all the ends of the "K," Which is called a walking "K."

A walking "K" was a known signal For downed aviators.

Somebody's writing these for Satellite and aerial imagery

To pick up and read.

The question is, who's placing These messages on the ground

And what are they for?

Narrator: what is a u.S. Military emergency signal doing

In the southeast asian jungle

15 years after america withdrew From the vietnam war?

Former republican congressman John leboutillier

Believes he has the answer.

There's no question These symbols

Were deliberately put down, Both in vietnam and laos,

By american missing p.O.W.S.

Narrator: if missing p.O.W.S Were at this location,

What are they doing in laos?

Before the americans Withdrew from vietnam

In january 1973, The u.S. Air force flew

More than five million sorties.

Many crossed Into neighboring countries.

Eland: This was not a declared war.

This crossed International borders.

Richard nixon kept the war In cambodia secret

From the american public,

And I think the same Was true in laos.

Narrator: satellites Were crucial in this secret war.

Nasa's defense satellites Would drop footage from orbit

In airtight canisters.

These gave the u.S. High command An unprecedented view

Of the combat zone.

Hansen: the technology that was Evolving in the early '70s

Was game-changing technology, Both in imagery

And in satellite communications.

The environment In southeast asia makes it

Very, very difficult to see What's going on on the ground

Because of the jungles And the dense forest

That are there.

So the use of satellite imagery

And aerial recognizance imagery Was very, very important

In determining what was Happening during a war.

Narrator: the satellites Could also help ensure

That no man was left behind.

More than 1,600 aircraft Were blown out of the sky

In this secret war.

At least 800 pilots and air crew

Bailed out of their Burning planes

And parachuted Behind enemy lines.

All of them had been trained To leave signs

That they were alive, which Could be spotted from above.

In my experience As a naval aviator,

One of the things you're Told to do is to have some way

Of signaling to others That you are around,

Because it will mean that Near that signal or that symbol

Is some american That needs help or rescue.

Could it be a missing in action Or presumed dead serviceman

Trying to communicate That he needs to be rescued?

Narrator: only problem is,

There shouldn't be Any u.S. Servicemen

Calling for help in 1988.

America's part In the vietnam war

Supposedly ended In january 1973.

As part of the peace deal With the north vietnamese,

President nixon negotiated The return of all u.S. P.O.W.S

At the end of the war.

Secretly done, president nixon Sends to pham van dong,

The premiere of vietnam, A letter in which he promises

To pay vietnam $4.75 billion

In return for north vietnam Gathering up all the p.O.W.S

Throughout southeast asia,

Returning them To the united states.

Narrator: If the 1988 signal was made

After american p.O.W.S Returned home,

Does it mean that nixon's secret Cash-for-prisoners deal failed?

The single best piece Of evidence

That prisoners are still there Are these satellite images.

Narrator: the u.S. Government Has never accepted the claim

That the 1988 image Shows the distress signal

Of a downed aviator.

Four years later, in 1992, Newly declassified images

Fuel fears that there could Still be american p.O.W.S

In southeast asia.

Among them is a photo taken

Just months after The war officially ended.

The numbers "1973" And the initials "T.H."

Appear carved in two-yard-high Letters on the ground.

It's captured twice in 1973, Supposedly after

All the prisoners of war Had been returned

To the united states.

Narrator: officially, U.S. Military aircraft

Should not have been operating Over laos

After america ended Its involvement in the war.

But there may have been Secret operations taking place.

Lynch: the c.I.A. Was flying Airplanes in that area.

One was shot down Within eight kilometers

Of where that symbol was.

There's speculation that maybe The "T.H." was the initials

Of the major That was with the aircraft.

Narrator: the declassified Images provoke an uproar

That forces the government To take action.

In 1992, 19 years after The photo was taken,

A senate select committee on P.O.W.-m.I.A. Affairs reviews

The 1973 "T.H." image.

They conclude that it is not A signal from a downed airman.

It's amazing that The u.S. Government

Has come up with Every excuse in the book.

They've said, "Oh, yeah, Those are shadows,

Those are naturally Occurring vegetation."

There's no way that shadows Could create numbers and letters

The correlate To one missing man.

Narrator: The committee also dismisses

The "U.S.A. Walking 'k'" Discovered in 1988.

The walking "K" Was investigated,

And we discovered That the landowner's son

Liked the shape of the "U.S.,"

And he put that Out in hay straw in the field.

The "K" image was his attempt

To make what he described As an airplane,

So it looks like a "K," But it probably wasn't.

Leboutillier: Why would a 12-year-old boy

Go outside and draw something 37 feet high and 12 feet wide?

Why?

How would he know About the walking "K"?

Why would he want the satellite To see this thing?

It's an absurd debunking Of a piece of serious evidence.

Narrator: for john leboutillier, This is clear evidence

That american servicemen Were left behind.

Leboutillier: I have been there And seen the rice paddy

That this thing was put in.

And right next to it is A p.O.W. Camp that's now

No longer operational, Within 500 yards of where

The walking "K" was.

And, yes, I do find it very worrisome.

I think it's part Of a massive u. S. Government

Intelligence community cover-up Of this issue.

Huston: if they knew about Some survivors

But didn't really Vigorously pursue that,

That would be a real disgrace, And it would be epic.

It would be Of watergate proportions.

Narrator: but not all Military analysts agree.

Eland: I'm a little skeptical That there's a cover-up.

I think in warfare, There's just friction.

That's an unfortunate term For it,

But people get left behind.

Narrator: the congressional Committee says

It has investigated All suspected m.I.A. Signals,

Describing them as Either natural formations,

Tricks of the light, Photographic glitches,

Or marks made by locals.

But john leboutillier believes

That the mystery still needs Investigation.

If the u.S. Government Wanted to solve this problem,

Satellites and drones Could solve the problem today.

There is no question you can Prove there are prisoners there

With technology That's existent today.

Narrator: 1,626 u.S. Military personnel

Remain missing in action In southeast asia.

Huston: it seems to me some Percentage of those lived.

And the question is, where are They and what happened to them?

And have we still to this day Looked hard enough?

Narrator: a satellite monitoring The deserts of central asia

Spots something in the sands.

It really looks like A post-apocalyptic world.

Narrator: in the middle Of a vast arid landscape

Is a fleet of rusting ships.

Looks like it's ships on waves,

But then you realize the waves Are just sand dunes,

So that's impossible.

There is literally A fleet of boats

In the middle of the desert With no water anywhere nearby.

What's going on?

Narrator: october 2005.

As the quick bird Earth observation satellite

Orbits 280 miles Above kazakhstan,

It captures something unusual.

Kourounis: it's hard to Wrap your head around

What's going on in this image.

You've got a vast desert

Where you would expect there To be no water whatsoever.

And yet in the middle, Is a fleet of rusting ships.

What's going on?

Narrator: the picture Clearly shows four ships

Stranded in the desert.

Analysis of the image Begins with a scale comparison

Of the vessels.

So, when you look at This image, you see these dots

That are obviously boats,

But then when you analyze it And look at the scale,

These are enormous ships.

They're not just little boats.

Middleton: they're obviously Fair-sized vessels

Designed to sail in deep water.

And yet they're miles and miles And miles from any water at all.

Narrator: The nearest body of water

Capable of sustaining Such large vessels

Is the aral sea, But it's miles away.

How and why could these ships

Have been transported To the middle of the desert?

It seems impossible.

And yet this is not The first instance

Of ships appearing to defy The laws of physics.

Could it be possible That these ships disappeared

And reappeared somewhere else?

Narrator: reports of ships Disappearing and reappearing

Go back for centuries.

In 1943, the u.S. Navy Is alleged to have teleported

A 1,600-ton ship

In an exercise code named "The philadelphia experiment."

Other ship disappearances

Have been blamed On the bermuda triangle.

The bermuda triangle is a region Of the western atlantic

Where there have been A large number

Of unexplained disappearances Of sailing ships,

Ocean-going vessels, aircraft,

Basically anything that transits Through this region on the map.

Narrator: The aral sea has no record

Of strange happenings Like the bermuda triangle,

So investigators start looking For a natural cause.

Is there a really, Truly rational explanation

For why this Could have happened?

What force could possibly Make a ship this big

End up so far from the sea?

Narrator: thanks To a quirk of history,

This particular region Has been the focus

Of c.I.A. Satellite recognizance Of decades.

O'connor: due to the substantial Interest in kazakhstan

As part of the soviet union During the cold war,

There's a substantial amount Of catalogued information

Analysts can go back to.

Narrator: analysis Of the cold war images

Reveals that this area was once Covered by a massive sea.

But that sea has disappeared.

The speed at which the water On the aral sea has disappeared

Has been unprecedented.

If you look at the last three Decades, it's gone from this

To, like, this.

Narrator: it makes Some commentators wonder,

Could global warming Have evaporated an entire sea?

Global warming Can definitely affect sea level.

Kays: the scale of the change Is just so massive

That it's got to be Something else.

Narrator: climate change Cannot be responsible

For the rapid disappearance Of the aral sea.

Studying the cold war data Reveals another chilling clue

To the mystery Of the desert ships.

The thing that's really unique About this place, though,

Is that in the middle of the sea Is this island, voz island.

It was the site Of bio-weapons testing

By the russians back in the day.

Cerveny: what could they have Been doing to cause a whole sea

To almost completely disappear?

Narrator: voz island.

Soviet bio-weapons central.

Brewing toxic substances Since 1948.

Explorer nick middleton Knows all about this place.

After the fall Of the iron curtain,

He managed to gain access To the highly-restricted area.

There's no question in my mind It was the spookiest,

Most mysterious, most Scary place I've ever been to.

They called it "The place of howling darkness."

I could understand why.

Narrator: when middleton Explored the area,

He discovered Disturbing evidence

Of bio-weapons experiments On a massive scale.

I saw shells Of unexplained ammunitions,

I saw test tubes And petri dishes.

It was an odd, eerie,

Sort of sci-fi-wacko-film-type Atmosphere.

Some of the most lethal weapons They experimented with

Would have been variants Of things like ebola, anthrax,

Smallpox, ricin,

And a number of other Biological toxins.

Narrator: tests reveal That just one teaspoon

Of the most potent bio-weapon From voz island

Could kill Over one billion people.

The soviet union was testing The most deadly bacteria

And viruses That you could possibly imagine.

This was Biological weapons central.

Narrator: the destructive power Of the weapons

Developed at voz island Is chilling.

Could they have turned One of the largest lakes

On the planet Into a desolate wilderness?

Narrator: ships in the desert Caught on camera from space.

In the dead zone That was once the aral sea,

Local teacher akmaral utemisova Has her own personal reasons

For wanting to find out What's going on in this region.

Narrator: Could the contamination

That caused these deaths somehow Be killing the aral sea, too?

We know that the study Of bio-weaponry

And the use of bio-weaponry

Can have a huge effect On the environment.

We have to ask ourselves, Could this be connected

With what's going on?

And it's true that these weapons Can destroy life,

They can destroy Plants and animals,

But they can't cause The dehydration on a scale

That we see here.

Narrator: voz island is unlikely To be the reason

For the disappearance Of the aral sea.

To get to the bottom Of the mystery,

Akmaral utemisova has Tracked down an old man

Who claims he once worked On one of the desert ships.

Narrator: soon after the water Levels started to drop,

He heard stories Of massive construction projects

To the south.

When he investigated,

He learned of a colossal Soviet engineering project

To transform lifeless desert Into farm land.

They wanted to expand irrigation And agriculture

To grow lots of cotton In soviet central asia.

And that's what they did.

They took lots of water Off the two main rivers

That flow into the aral sea.

Narrator: the russians Built dams to diver

The two main rivers Feeding the aral sea.

The water level began to drop At up to one meter per year.

The result -- Environment catastrophe.

Middleton: less and less water Going into the aral sea

From these two rivers,

And slowly, slowly, slowly, The aral sea contracts,

Leaving these trawlers High and dry.

Narrator: Today, the desert ships

Stand as rusted sentinels On a post-apocalyptic wasteland,

Ghostly reminders of one of The most costly experiments

Ever undertaken by man.

In the middle of the dry sea

Is the ticking time bomb Of voz island.

Middleton: this place Is no longer an island.

It's completely accessible now In a way that it never was

As a bio-weapons testing site.

And the fact that anthrax can Last a hundred years and more

Is rather a scary prospect.

Narrator: a mapping Satellite spots strange walls

Across northern california.

There is no record of who Built them or what they're for.

These structures Are a total mystery.

Narrator: and the investigation Threatens to rewrite history.

Phillips: this has a potential To change the history

Of the entire united states.

Narrator: may 2014.

Amateur archeologist Olav phillips

Researches satellite maps Of california.

He's looking for Elusive stone structures

Known as the east bay walls.

I'd long heard rumors That there was some sort of

A structure high up in the hills

Above the san francisco bay Area.

Narrator: the fabled walls Are hard to find.

Phillips: when you're looking For a wall,

You find a lot of fences.

Narrator: at first, Phillips sees only faint lines

In the satellite imagery, Which could just be more fences.

But when he zooms in,

The picture Tells a different story.

Bam. There it was.

Narrator: he spots what looks Like a line of walls

Running to nowhere Across sutter buttes

In the sacramento valley.

Phillips: It could have potentially been Some sort of a defensive barrier

Or some sort of a barrier

To tell an opposing group, "Don't come here."

We really Can't rule anything out.

Narrator: phillips Uses the satellite coordinates

To guide him To the wall's location.

Phillips: They're not easy to get to.

When I first saw them,

I started to think about Who could have built them.

Narrator: archeologists Have been wondering

Who built the east bay walls For at least a century.

They're basically simple walls

With no more mortar or anything, Just piles of rocks.

Narrator: The weathering on the rocks

Shows the walls cannot be A recent construction.

Measuring the radioactive decay Of the rock

Can tell investigators About the materials used,

But it doesn't shed any light On when the walls were built.

Measuring the age of the rocks Is not gonna help us.

These boulders have been Lying there for millennia,

So we have no idea when They were formulated into walls.

Narrator: some of these walls Stretch 50 miles long.

Building them clearly required

A great deal of manpower And organization.

Phillips: some of the rocks Are over a ton.

So how do people move a rock That's a ton into position?

Was machinery used?

Narrator: so who had the ability

And the will To build such walls?

Phillips' investigation First turns

To the original inhabitants.

He finds similar structures On two mountains

Sacred to native american tribes In other parts of the u.S.

So, could they have built These walls?

As early as The 12th century b.C.,

A native american culture By the name of

The ancestral puebloans Were building stone walls

And sophisticated cave villages

In utah, arizona, colorado, And new mexico.

The question is, could they have Done the same in california?

Narrator: anyone suggesting That ancient native americans

Built these walls needs to Answer a fundamental question --

What were they for?

Satellite analysis of the layout Of the walls

Provides a new lead.

One of the more shocking things That I found

Was that in some places,

Those walls would actually Ring small hills.

Why would they do that?

And the only thing I Can think of is,

Was it some sort of celestial Alignment like a stonehenge?

They seem to be more symbolic Than defensive.

So maybe they're a form Of land expression

That native californians Would have been engaged in.

Narrator: but archeologists Can't find any evidence

That native americans In california

Were interested in these kinds Of ceremonial constructions.

Native american people Did not build substantial walls

Running hundreds of feet, Three or four feet high.

It was simply not part Of their culture,

There was no need for that.

Narrator: if native americans Didn't build the walls,

Someone else did.

The investigation turns In an unexpected direction

When 500-year-old Chinese pottery

Washes up Near san francisco bay.

In 1405, a chinese admiral By the name of zheng he

Departed china with 62 ships And nearly 30,000 men

In what would become the first

Of many massive exploratory Missions.

Legend has it that He circumnavigated the globe,

And even discovered america.

Narrator: the chinese Have a history

Of building monumental walls.

In 221 b.C., Emperor qin shi huangdi

Ordered construction Of the great wall of china

As a way of guarding His borders.

Could admiral zheng he's men

Have built chinese walls In california

Almost a century before

Christopher columbus Found the americas?

We take A very western-centric view

Of history and of archeology And exploration.

But what if the chinese Were the first to come here?

Narrator: but the known history Of zheng he's fleet

Suggests that even if They did reach america,

His men would not have built The walls in california.

There was some speculation That they went on around africa

And ended up in the americas.

But they would have ended up On the east coast of america,

Not the west coast.

Narrator: Even if they are not ancient,

These walls might still Be chinese.

450 years After zheng he set sail,

The chinese did show up In california,

In numbers large enough to build Some impressive structures.

The chinese did build rock walls In california -- extensively.

In the 1800s after The gold rush,

To build railroads, The chinese people built

Rock embankments, rock walls.

They blasted the tunnels

Through the sierra nevada Mountains here.

Narrator: Analysis of historical records

Reveals the nearest railway Said to have been built

By chinese laborers Is 40 miles from the walls,

Making it unlikely they were Involved in their construction.

Phillips has to look Further back in history

To find other possible people

Who could have built Such structures.

There are stories That I've heard

About spanish missionaries That did travel inland

And potentially Came to this area.

Narrator: long before colonists Arrived from the east,

Spanish missionaries had been Quietly trailblazing north

From the spanish colonies Of central america.

Europeans first came To california in the 1770s

When the spanish built a series Of missions,

Catholic churches, and forts.

They built small walls around The missions and the forts.

So those were the first walls In california.

But there were very few spanish,

And their activities were Centered around the missions.

So it's unlikely that the walls We see extending on the hills

Here in the bay area Were built by them.

Narrator: there is No conclusive evidence

Showing who could have Built these walls.

With so amy suspects From so many different nations

And different moments In history,

The mystery of who built them May remain unsolved.

Guseghem: we know that history Is very complex,

And so these walls may have Evolved through time,

Been expanded, and served A diversity of functions

For different people.

Phillips: We can't really rule anybody Out as having built the wall.

There's just no evidence Of who built it.

It really is an enigma.

Narrator: the global ozone Monitoring experiment

Is a cutting-edge instrument

That surveys our atmosphere From above.

It's known as gome.

Their main mission is to monitor Ozone, as its name suggests,

But also to monitor

Other pollutant gases In the atmosphere.

Narrator: in 2014, Nasa releases an image

Captured by gome's sensors,

An image that looks like Some strange, unearthly force

Has spread across america.

It shows An enormous cloud-like mass

So vast it covers Half the united states.

But this is no rain cloud.

It's constant.

The only movement, A gentle pulsing.

When I see this image, My thought is that there is

Some kind of major disaster

That has taken place In the midwest.

Nelson: what we have to Figure out here is,

What is the satellite Picking up?

Is it carbon dioxide, oxygen, A greenhouse gas,

Or something Completely different?

Looking at the image, You'd think that

Half the u.S. Was on fire.

Narrator: in recent years, America has experienced

Some of the worst wildfires In its history.

The idea that they may have Caused this image is disturbing.

Marchetti: if I were seeing that Occurring on a satellite image

In relation to a wildfire,

I wouldn't be Sitting here with you,

I would probably Be running for cover.

Narrator: the sheer scale Of the cloud

Casts doubt on this idea.

I've never seen A satellite image

Of a fire that was That dramatically large.

The fuel to support Such a fire doesn't even exist.

Narrator: If fire is not the answer,

What other natural phenomenon

Could occur On such a wide scale?

Volcanic eruptions Can send vast clouds

Of pulverized rock High into the atmosphere.

A volcano is going to put out A plume of ash and smoke

From a point source, From the volcano itself,

And then spread out.

When we look at this image,

We see more Of a globular type of pattern,

And that tells us That it's not likely

Going to be associated With a single volcano.

If a volcano were to erupt In north america,

We'd all know about it.

So what's going on?

So, it's not a volcano.

It's not a wildfire.

But whatever's going on,

It's happening on a massive, Colossal scale.

It's big.

Narrator: It's something strange,

And it doesn't look good.

And to solve it, Investigators are gonna call on

Some very weird science.

Narrator: the ethereal glow Captured by a satellite

Hovering over middle america Has experts baffled.

The location Of the mystery cloud

Could provide a clue To its origin.

Its epicenter lies In big sky country...

...Farmland stretching as far As the eye can see,

Most of it filled with corn.

America's epic corn belt Spreads to 100 million acres.

The man walking through them

With the ghostbuster-style Gadgets

Is nasa scientist Karl fred huemmerich.

Despite appearances, He's not hunting

For anything supernatural In the cornfields.

He's looking For invisible light.

Huemmerich: this is A portable spectrometer,

The same type of instrument That's on the satellite.

The measurements We see in this cornfield

Are similar to the measurements

We see from gome Over the entire corn belt.

So from space, with gome, We can actually see signals

From the leaves Photosynthesizing.

Narrator: incredibly, gome Has captured visual evidence

Of america's cornfields at work.

They are literally Glowing with productivity.

Joiner: what we're seeing Over the corn belt

Is a result of photosynthesis,

And it's happening On a massive scale.

Narrator: experts are astounded.

Through a satellite Orbiting the earth,

We are now able to see Workings of the natural world

That would be invisible To the naked eye.

The amount of light That is generated by plants

Undergoing photosynthesis,

This so-called Photosynthetic fluorescence,

Is a very tiny amount of light.

It has to be, otherwise,

When we walk out In a forest at night,

You'd see the trees And plants glowing.

This image is a testimony

To a great Technological achievement.

Narrator: Thanks to this image,

We can now see the planet In a whole new light.

And the data from gome shows That at its peak,

The u.S. Corn belt Produces 40% more oxygen

Than the amazon rain forest.

With this instrument, I can only Measure a few plants at a time.

With the satellite, We're able to measure

The agricultural productivity Of the entire world.

Narrator: and perhaps one day,

The data it produces will help Feed the world, too.

Peru, 2012.

Archeologist bob benfer Has a puzzle to solve.

Benfer: This site was occupied for About two and a half centuries.

Narrator: he's looking At a 4,000-year-old temple site

Outside lima that has Two ritual mounds

Facing one another.

Everything he knows Tells him the temple

Should sit in the middle Between the mounds,

But it's way off to one side.

Why?

Unable to find answers On the ground,

Bob turns to space To get a new perspective.

It seamed to me that one Possible solution to this puzzle

Would be that somehow, Astronomical alignments

Were involved In the location of the arm.

I decided to use google earth To investigate them,

And I focused down on the area I was interested in, and, wow!

That was astonishing Because I immediately saw

That they were Two animal figures.

Narrator: stylized animals Figure strongly

In the art of the ancient people Who built these mounds.

And benfer believes that he can See such animals on the ground.

One appears to be a bird, Possibly a condor.

The other, a mythical beast Known as a monstro.

They're only visible from space.

On the ground, there's no Indication that they're there.

You can see from here that It does not resemble a bird.

It's only from above That you can see the outline,

Which is clearly that of a bird.

Narrator: when benfer Checks satellite images

Of other sites in the area, He is amazed to discover

That these are also built In the shape of animals.

Why did the ancient peoples Who lived here

Build giant animals that Can only be seen from space?

Narrator: satellites Reveal the existence

Of strange animal-shaped mounds

That would not be visible To anyone at ground level.

Their sheer numbers Baffle archeologists.

One shape Can definitely be a coincidence.

But two, three, Even four shapes,

There's definitely Some planning here.

Whatever purpose these served, There was a lot of work

And a lot of collaboration

Between a lot of people Involved in these things,

So that really testifies To their importance.

Narrator: not everyone Agrees with benfer's findings,

But the veteran archeologist Is undeterred.

One particular feature Of the giant condor mound

Merits further investigation.

This circular structure Has at its center mud plaster,

And all around it is Burned earth and ash.

And from above, It's very visible as a circle.

And as a circle, It's exactly in the right place

To be the eye of this bird, With the beak right behind us.

Narrator: from the way It's constructed,

It's clear to him that This is not a natural formation.

Here in the wall, you can see Hand prints of people.

This is how they Pushed the mud plaster on.

Rocks are a base, Then mud plaster,

And then mud plaster Polish to make floors.

And that makes platforms That overlook this eye.

Narrator: standing at the eye Of the condor,

Bob benfer is convinced

That it's somehow Linked to the stars.

This figure captures the power

Of the mythical animal In the sky

For the people who lived here.

My hypothesis is, The orientation of this one

Is to the milky way At its most vivid

On a day that's the most Important day in the year.

Narrator: the crucial day Is the solstice,

Around december 21 -- The shortest day of the year,

When the stars are at their Brightest above the mounds.

I found that before sunrise On december 21, on the solstice,

The milky way Is pointed directly overhead.

Narrator: Not everyone is convinced

By this potentially Random coincidence.

Many things appear to Align with the stars

Given the number of stars That are out there.

So what specific star is part of The question, obviously.

If it's the north star, Maybe that might mean something.

But, oftentimes, It's just aligning of the stars,

It doesn't mean much, because, Frankly, there are many stars.

Narrator: for benfer, the need To align with the stars

Explains the unusual orientation Of the temple on this site.

He believes that it's lined up With the eye of the condor

For a very particular reason.

I drew a line Between the offering chamber,

Through the entryway,

Through this bird, Through this eye.

And I found it was 30 degrees,

Which is the orientation Of the milky way before sunrise

On december 21st.

Narrator: on this most ritually Significant day of the year,

The high priest would stand On top of the temple

And welcome the milky way

As it reached That crucial point.

But why was this date

So significant To the mound-builders?

The december 21st solstice Was very important

For everyone Who lived in this valley,

Whether fisherman or farmer,

Because it was the time when They would know whether it was

Going to be an el niño year Or not.

Narrator: el niño --

The name strikes fear Into the hearts

Of all who live in its shadow.

The fearsome tempest

Is the great grandaddy Of all storms.

El niño is A global climatic phenomenon

That's centered In the pacific basin,

And it involves warming of water In the eastern pacific.

This changes many different Climatological conditions.

In peru, the warming water Causes torrential rainfall.

Lots of things get washed away.

With all of the water that comes In with the el niño rainfall,

You get plagues of insects And diseases,

Crops rot in the fields.

And so it's largely disaster.

Narrator: el niño is a creature Of habit...

Formed by the buildup Of warm water in the pacific.

If it had not struck by the time

The milky way lined up With the condor,

It meant the buildup Of warm water had not happened

And the storms Would not come that year.

Benfer believes that timing is What made this site

Important to the people Who built it.

That solstice was probably

The most important Day of the year.

When that day passed, If there was no el niño,

They knew they could plan

The rest of the year To be normal.

But until that moment, They wouldn't know.

Narrator: the coastal peoples Who built the mounds

Would have seen condors Above the waves

And orcas swimming below them.

Both were intimately connected With the sea.

And some believe they are Represented in these mounds

Because what happened In the ocean

Was crucial to el niño.

Sandweiss: when el niño Occurs on the coast of peru,

It drives south those animals That can swim, like fish.

And those, like mollusks, That can't swim, tend to die.

There's a little bit Of replacement of species

From the north, but largely, You just have a lot less things

In the ocean you can fish for.

Narrator: the fact That it's impossible

To see the animal shapes From ground level

Has led some to suggest

They could have served Other purposes.

Sandweiss: How are you gonna see the mounds Unless you were in space?

They might, however, Built them as part of the system

For trying to convince The supernatural beings

Not to send el niño back.

Narrator: in an age When el niño only appeared

Every 50 or 100 years,

Mounds such as this May have seemed

An effective defense against Nature's devastating power.

Sandweiss: maybe early on, Faced with these el niño events

That were occurring, But not very frequently,

The religious entrepreneurs

Who were emerging In these societies said,

"Look, build me this mound. I'll make it go away."

Narrator: as long as the mounds Appeared to stave off el niño,

They continued to be built.

But as the climate changed, Their influence began to wane.

It's very interesting that About 2,800 to 2,900 years ago,

They suddenly stopped Building these mounds,

And they don't build new mounds For a couple of hundred years,

And that's exactly When el niño's frequency

Suddenly picked up.

Narrator: Bob benfer doesn't agree.

He believes the link between These creatures and the stars

Remains the most compelling.

I think this figure, This bird

Represents a figure They saw in the sky

And that was seen most vividly

On the most auspicious day Of the year.

Narrator: but even today, It's impossible to be certain

Why these mounds were built.