Original subtitles

Narrator: They're watching you.

More than 4,000 satellites Circle the earth.

Every day, they uncover new, Mysterious phenomena

That defy explanation --

Whatever it is Can't be good news.

It's suspicious.

Narrator: a teenage Indiana jones tracks down

Ancient treasures On a laptop in his bedroom...

How on earth Could this guy find out

What no one else was able to?

Narrator: ...Mounds of doom,

The creepy corpse houses In the city of death.

It's incredible really -- A kingdom of the dead

That you can Actually see from space.

Narrator: ...The spying game -- A journalist spies on the spies.

Just occasionally, The dark world emerges.

Narrator: strange marks On the seabed

And the blood-sucking vampires From the deep.

Kind of creepy fish, something That you probably don't want

To have dreams about.

Narrator: baffling phenomena, Mysteries from space --

What on earth are they?

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

Captions paid for by Discovery communications

[ keyboard clacking ] Narrator: summer 2014 --

13-year-old canadian schoolboy William gadoury

Is in his bedroom online,

But he's not looking At the usual teenage stuff.

William is analyzing Satellite imagery.

Like a cyber detective,

He's looking for clues Which might lead him

To the ancient secrets Of the maya.

Bracken: He's sitting at his computer.

He's looking over Satellite imagery.

He's looking At the maya civilization

And trying to find things That no one's seen before.

Narrator: the maya dominated The yucatán peninsula

Around 2,000 years ago.

Famous for Their brutal blood sacrifices

And their magnificent Stone buildings...

[ thunder crashes, rumbles ] The siting of their cities

In the most inhospitable Regions of central america

Has long baffled archaeologists.

Bracken: Some of their sites were built

In the middle Of the thick jungle.

[ thunder rumbling ]

When you look at a map,

If you plot out Where all these maya cities are,

It doesn't make A lot of sense --

Places that are Just extremely isolated.

Narrator: decades of research At ground level

Have failed To solve this mystery,

But the ingenious teenager Takes a completely new approach.

He looks to the stars.

William was trying to see if There was some sort of pattern

He could pull out of there, Some sort of explanation

For why they were arranged The way that they were.

The maya were basically Obsessed with calendars

And dates And the tracking of time.

Dr. Van gijseghem: william Was inspired by a book

We know as the madrid codex,

Which is an ancient Maya record of their zodiac.

Narrator: the madrid codex Contains a depiction

Of the constellations.

These stars were central To the maya belief system.

William compares the layout Of the mayan constellations

With the locations Of known mayan settlements.

Bracken: He took a satellite image Of the maya region,

And on that image, there were All the major sites indicated.

And what he did was he overlayed A map of the constellations.

He started to see All these stars

Just matched up perfectly To major maya sites.

It was over 100. It was, I think, 142 of them.

He appeared to have unlocked The secret of maya settlements

And basically identified A master plan

For the location of maya sites Over the landscape.

Narrator: it seems The resourceful teen has solved

An age-old mystery,

But one star defies his theory.

One of the very brightest stars In the constellations

That he studied did not match To any known maya settlement.

Narrator: for william's star map To hold true,

There should be an as-yet Undiscovered mayan settlement

In the isolated campeche region Of the yucatán peninsula.

Dr. Sprajc: the area That we are talking about

Is located within the so-called Calakmul biosphere reserve.

[ birds chirping ]

It is really a remote, Hardly-accessible region

Overgrown with tropical forest.

Narrator: unable to explore The site at ground level,

The young investigator turns

To professional archaeologists For help.

William's results Got released to the world,

And it caused a big stir.

Narrator: the canadian Space agency steps in

To offer the teenager help

With his Groundbreaking research.

They program Their radarsat-2 satellite

To scan the location Pinpointed by his star map.

Using powerful radar,

It can peer Beneath the jungle canopy.

The result is incredible.

Bracken: what william had found Was something

Very clearly quadrilateral, Four-sided.

It defied anything That nature would create.

It had to be man-made.

It must have been -- bingo.

This is what We're looking at.

This is huge and significant.

It's absolutely great That a teenager

Might have discovered A new mayan city

In the central american jungle.

This is an archaeologist's Dream come true.

Narrator: Scale analysis reveals

The shape is roughly 700 feet square.

It could be the base Of a pyramid structure

Towering over 280 feet high.

The mayan pyramids Were imposing monuments.

What went on there was Magical and blood-curdling.

Sacrificial human victims Were painted blue

And led to a stone altar.

The priest would Then rip them apart,

Reach in, And remove their hearts,

Which would be offered dripping To appease their savage gods.

[ people screaming ]

The discovery sets The archaeological world alight.

William even names The site k'aak chi,

Or "Fire mouth."

But for established academics, It's tough to accept

That a teenager Might have unlocked

The secrets of the maya From his bedroom

By simply studying Satellite images.

For a number of reasons,

A lot of people Just don't buy it.

Horton: to just see A single rectangle like that

Suggests to me that it's A modern area of cultivation

That's been cleared Out of the rainforest

Maybe some 50 years ago,

And the rainforest Has simply marched over it

And reclaimed it.

Ultimately, the only way that We can ever finally be certain

Is to actually ground truth it,

To go out there on the site

And to see What one is looking at.

Narrator: whether or not The gifted teenager

Has made An astonishing discovery,

His theory has opened intriguing New avenues of research.

Bracken: it's really great That william's work

Has put the maya back out there,

Gotten everyone Talking about them.

But there are Still quite large blanks

On the archaeological map Of the maya areas.

Narrator: one thing is clear -- Satellite are revolutionizing

The hunt For historical treasures.

Horton: we can Totally transform the way

In which we understand Ancient civilization

Through this remote sensing, This satellite imagery.

Narrator: coming up...

Strange mounds in the desert, A portal back in time...

There are literally Hundreds of thousands of mounds

In the sand.

Is this man-made, Or is it natural?

Narrator: ...And the mysterious mega grid

That could spell armageddon.

Driscoll: you have to wonder, "What are they planning?"

It is a strategic point To launch

Into the neighboring countries, And you should beware.

Narrator: december 2015 --

480 miles Above the persian gulf,

The worldview-2 satellite Photographs

A strange desert landscape.

Looking at this image, actually, Although it's from space,

It looks like you're looking At the surface of pimpled skin.

Dr. Krueger: If you take a closer look,

There seems to be A pattern here.

Gough: It's like a honeycomb design.

Is this man-made, Or is it natural?

Narrator: the mounds are located

In the small island kingdom Of bahrain,

14 miles off the coast Of the arabian peninsula.

If you want to work out What's going on here,

You've got to look At the surrounding area.

Narrator: by zooming out, It's clear the strange mounds

Are surrounded By a major settlement,

And the activity That goes on here

Might provide a clue To their purpose.

In the town Around the strange mounds,

Pottery has been The primary industry

For thousands of years.

Bahrain's pottery Is world-famous.

The potters claim The craft originated

In the country 5,000 years ago.

Today's pots are finished off Just like they were

For thousands of years In traditional earth kilns.

The kilns themselves Are fairly large.

Essentially, they look kind of Like ovens almost

With many chambers.

Some kilns were created Out of mud brick.

Other kilns were simply Just earth cobbled together

In a kind of mound With a chamber hollowed out.

These traditional earth kilns Bear a striking resemblance

To the mounds That we're looking at.

Might this be our smoking gun?

Narrator: But the sheer number of mounds

Makes this theory unlikely.

According to legend,

There are 350,000 of them In this region of bahrain.

There are literally hundreds Of thousands of mounds

In the sand.

They simply cannot all be kilns.

Narrator: a clue To their true function comes

When investigators Excavate one of the mounds.

They uncover human remains.

Human remains in these mounds Seem to be ancient.

Horton: they're actually tombs

Which contain copper And bronze objects --

Weapons and so forth.

This is obviously A very large cemetery,

An incredible Archaeological site.

Narrator: the pottery And grave goods

Found with the bodies Date the mounds back 4,000 years

To the enigmatic Dilmun civilization.

The dilmuns' heyday Is around 4,000 years ago,

Around 2,000 b.C.

We know that This bronze-age civilization

Had a big population

And they undertook all sorts Of craft activity,

Particularly ceramics.

Narrator: among the artifacts Found in the graves

Are a number of ancient seals

Bearing the cuneiform script Of ancient mesopotamia

Along with weights And measures from india.

It suggest that the people Buried in these strange mounds

Gained their wealth Trading ivory,

Lapis lazuli,

Gold, and copper ingots

Between the earliest Civilizations in persia

And the first great cities Of the indus valley.

These burial mounds Are the merchants of dilmun

That are being buried Out there in the desert.

Narrator: more than 170,000 Grave sites have been counted

In this kingdom of the dead.

This vast necropolis covers An incredible 5% of the island.

Imagine an entire country, And 5% of it is tombs.

It's amazing.

Narrator: it's one of The largest ancient burial sites

On the planet.

It's incredible really -- A kingdom of the dead

That you can Actually see from space.

Narrator: up next...

The secret super spy station...

This thing can pick up Almost anything they want.

It's basically a god-like Power of surveillance.

[ keyboard clacks ]

Narrator: ...And the journalist Who exposed it.

They had me arrested And charged with espionage.

Narrator: satellite data impacts Every aspect of our lives,

From family photos On social media

To multi-billion-dollar Business deals.

Our most intimate data Is relayed

Across the globe by satellites.

Whatever we do or say, Someone is listening,

And much of that listening Happens here,

The site known as menwith hill

Is located In rural yorkshire, england.

From space, these objects Look like giant golf balls.

They're actually part Of a colossal

Intelligence-gathering Operation.

Carter: every single e-mail, Phone call --

Anything That you do electronically

Can be intercepted At that station.

Porges: this thing can pick up E-mails, phone calls --

Almost anything they want.

It's basically a god-like Power of surveillance.

Narrator: Officially, the purpose Of these giant white balls...

Is to protect the u.S. And its allies

Against its enemies.

Moran: the monitoring Of satellite communications

Exists to protect us

Not just from the most Nefarious characters

Such as terrorists But also to keep an eye

On other foreign Intelligence threats

Or possibly Global criminal activity.

But british investigative Journalist duncan campbell

Believes there is more To the secretive activities

At menwith hill.

Just occasionally, The dark world emerges,

And journalists Are able to play a role

In getting it dealt with.

Narrator: campbell believes He's uncovered evidence

That menwith hill Isn't just spying

On the enemies of the u.S.A.

He believes It's spying on all of us.

Campbell: the nsa and its Counterparts in britain built

A secret network Of satellite stations

To spy on their own countries.

The power to reach Into all communications...

[ devices warbling ]

Is what menwith hill Is there to provide.

This isn't just about protecting Your national security.

This is about having access To things

That nobody Should have access to.

Narrator: campbell's Investigations are so sensitive

That they prompted An extreme reaction

From the security services.

Campbell: the very first time I was writing

About the secret Electronic world of listening,

They had me arrested And charged with espionage

For being a journalist.

That was how hard The game was played

In the 1970s and 1980s.

Narrator: campbell Has explored the site

Using a drone operated From private land nearby.

Campbell: I'm just very carefully Taking it into the air,

Staying away From their boundary,

And having a look At what we can see.

I'm getting a look At the new operations building.

It's huge.

This is giving me Superb pictures

That I've never seen before.

Narrator: his most recent visit Suggests the vast radar domes

Used to intercept Satellite transmissions

Are being scaled up.

Porges: There are several of these Golf-ball shaped structures.

We know what they are.

They're microwave antennae. That's not the mystery.

The mystery is who are They listening to and why?

From that location, Any kind of communication

That goes anywhere through Europe can be intercepted.

[ devices beeping, warbling ]

Narrator: classified documents Released by edward snowden

Show the vast extent Of menwith hill's operations.

Edward snowden's revelations Have shown

That these listening agencies Are not simply

Acquiring information Against military targets.

They spy on everyone All the time.

The papers that you see From inside menwith hill

Talk about targeting gmail Or hotmail or facebook.

Nothing is off limits.

Porges: the u.S. Government Wasn't just spying

And gathering Intelligence information

From our enemies, But from our allies, too,

And just about Everyone they could.

Narrator: campbell is concerned That governments have

The ability To collect commercial data,

Which could be of use To private companies.

Campbell: Commercial information

Is at least As important a target

As military And intelligence information.

[ indistinct conversations ]

Narrator: the nsa makes No secret of the fact

That it collects commercial data As a routine part

Of its day-to-day Surveillance operations.

It claims that Such intelligence-gathering

Is necessary Since surveillance targets

Are sometimes known

To use corporate channels Of communication.

Moran: of course, The notion that we have

A u.S.-controlled Intelligence-gathering apparatus

In europe -- Yeah, it's not very fair,

But in the world Of intelligence and espionage,

Nothing is ever very fair.

Narrator: the covert operations At menwith hill

Remain unconfirmed.

But according to reports, $68 million is being spent

On new supercomputers At the base.

Many analysts fear This is the start

Of an aggressive expansion

In satellite And internet surveillance.

Porges: a lot people still talk About the idea

Of big brother listening in,

Of some sort of hypothetical Nightmare scenario,

But the truth is This happens every day.

Carter: we are actually living In the brave new world.

We are actually living In the time

That people Once warned us about.

Moran: what really does happen At menwith hill is probably

One of the most closely guarded Government secrets,

And there's a chance That we might never find out.

Narrator: still to come...

The mad-killer colonel And the mysterious grid...

Gaddafi was a very strange Character and very unstable.

He made a lot of threats In many directions.

Narrator: ...Monstrous marks In the caspian sea...

Marchetti: something has scoured Through the vegetation

Or the sea bottom And turned sediment upwards.

What's interesting Is the quantity of scouring

That I'm seeing.

I'm wondering What on earth could cause that.

Narrator: ...And fear in the forest -- A warning written in trees.

Why would someone Go to the trouble

Of trying to spell, "Run fast," Using trees

In the middle of a remote part Of the chinese wilderness?

Narrator: february 2015 --

The landsat 8 satellite Captures an image

Of strange marks In the libyan desert.

Driscoll: It makes you wonder, "Why?"

Is this truly on the ground?

Narrator: it looks like the grid Has been digitally added.

But close inspection Of the image reveals

That it's real,

A physical phenomenon carved Into the desert floor.

The fact that these lines And this grid

Is visible from space

Would certainly indicate That they're very large.

It really asks the question Of why these have been created.

And what is the purpose of them?

[ gunfire ]

Narrator: libya is still reeling From the devastating civil war

That ended the reign Of its feared dictator,

Muammar gaddafi.

Gaddafi was A very strange character

And very unstable.

Narrator: colonel gaddafi Seized control of libya in 1969

And turned against the west.

He became increasingly unstable, Surrounding himself

With an amazon guard Of beautiful women,

Holding court In a bulletproof bedouin tent,

And even keeping the head of one Of his enemies in the freezer.

In rambling speeches That went on for hours,

He ranted against america.

He wanted to be a thorn

In the side of the u.S. And its allies.

Driscoll: he knew the important, Strategic location

Of his country.

He made a lot of threats In many directions.

Narrator: in 1999, Gaddafi purchased

50 medium-ranged missiles From north korea.

Perhaps this grid was used

To test guidance systems For these missiles.

One of the reasons That countries test missiles

Is to show they have the Capability to other countries.

You're saying, "I am ready," you know,

"To potentially strike you."

"Look out, world. Here I come."

Narrator: This is the man responsible

For the infamous Lockerbie bombing

Of pan am flight 103 in 1988.

Much of southern europe Is within range of libya.

It would be the perfect place To strike from.

Driscoll: you have to wonder What are they planning?

It is a strategic point To be able to launch

Into the neighboring countries, And you should beware.

Narrator: But just before his fall,

Colonel gaddafi was trying To get back in the good books

Of the western powers,

So building a missile silo Simply doesn't make sense.

If gaddafi wasn't Sending things up,

Then maybe he was looking down.

Analysts investigate Whether the strange patterns

Are calibration markings For eyes in the sky.

I know back towards the latter Half of last century --

1960s, 1970s -- they used To calibrate u.S. Spy satellites

By making marks On desert surfaces

So that they know where they are

And they can calibrate Their movements thereafter.

In order to calibrate The satellite,

They used to make Big marking areas,

Big enough that a satellite Could see it.

They would actually Make grid patterns on the ground

To allow the satellites To calibrate

And make good pictures And marking points.

Narrator: but intelligence Sources reveal

That gaddafi didn't have Any spy satellites to calibrate.

The libyans didn't invest Any serious money

In satellite technology.

And as far as grid markings Like they used to do

In the '60s with satellites --

We don't have To do that anymore.

That level of calibration Is not necessary.

Narrator: instead, gaddafi's New friendship with the west

May provide a clue To what is really going on.

This being in libya, It's probable

That they're looking For oil or for gas.

Narrator: in recent years, Libya has reopened its borders

To western oil companies,

Allowing them to search For black gold

In the rich oil and gas fields Of the desert.

Before drilling a new site,

Prospectors send in Seismic scanners

To analyze its potential,

And they are very methodical.

What we see in this image Is a grid pattern

Of route ways driven By so-called thumper trucks,

Which send waves down Beneath the earth's surface,

And that gives A geologist some idea

Of where they might find Oil or gas.

Narrator: linked To gps satellites high above,

The trucks can hammer out A perfect grid pattern

No matter what the terrain.

The precision of their Technology is breathtaking.

It's a bit like an mri scan.

The more detail they have

Of the structure Inside the earth,

Where the oil deposit Or the oil might be,

The better chance They've got of drilling in

And getting it out effectively.

Narrator: libya is believed To be sitting

On the largest oil reserves In africa --

Over 48 billion barrels.

In 2008, the occidental Petroleum company

Bought a license To prospect for oil

In this exact region,

But with the nation torn apart By war,

Much of it could remain buried For a long time to come.

[ explosion ]

Up next...

Blood-sucking monsters In the caspian sea...

And it latches on And eats its prey

With this giant jaw of teeth.

Narrator: ...The giant marks Suggest a giant cause...

These marks are several meters To tens of meters across

And very, very long.

Narrator: april 2016 --

Orbiting more than 430 miles Above the earth,

Nasa's landsat 8 satellite

Captures a strange set Of markings

In the shallows Of the caspian sea.

It's really hard to know What these marks are.

Are they grooves?

Are they even underwater Or are they just reflections

Off the top of the surface Of the water?

It's almost like something Is digging into the sea bottom.

Narrator: The photograph is captured Over the tyuleniy archipelago

In the north caspian sea.

This is the largest Inland sea in the world,

A sea steeped in legend,

A sea full of monsters.

Marchetti: Something has scoured

Through the vegetation Or the sea bottom

And turned sediment upwards.

What's interesting is The quantity of scouring

That I'm seeing.

I'm wondering What on earth could cause that.

Narrator: scientists Immediately start looking

For a natural explanation.

One of the things My mind instantly goes to --

Is this some form Of, you know, fish event?

Mass spawning events,

When thousands of fish Come together in one place,

And the males and females Get together to mate.

Narrator: huge, writhing masses Of spawning fish

Have been known To disturb the seafloor,

Throwing up sediment that leaves Trails across the water.

One such spawning sea creature

Is a truly horrific monster Of the deep,

The blood-sucking lamprey.

If you've ever seen a lamprey, You'll probably never forget it.

A kind of creepy fish, Something that you probably

Don't want to have dreams about.

Narrator: lamprey's are Like aquatic vampires.

They bite and bore Into the flesh of their victims

To suck their blood.

And the caspian sea is Their gruesome breeding ground.

Lamprey's look A little bit like aliens.

Either that, or we base all Of our aliens off of lampreys.

They have these giants mouths

With backwards-pointing teeth All rimmed around in a circle.

And it latches on And eats its prey

With this giant jaw of teeth.

Dr. Kays: if these marks are The remnants of a fish spawn,

That must've been

One of the biggest Fish-breeding events ever.

Nelson: the only problem With these caspian lampreys

Is that there's actually Not that many of them left.

They've been overfished.

Dams are blocking Their spawning ground.

And so it's unusual to see That many of them.

It's highly unlikely That it's a lamprey.

It's got to be something else.

Narrator: investigators Consider that the marks

Are more likely To have a human origin.

It looks like Something came along

And just, you know, Made a cut along the ocean floor

In repeated places.

Actually, on closer inspection,

The one thing that it really Looks like is that it's scoured.

You know, almost like You take a brillo pad

And you're scraping a pan -- Putting marks in the seafloor.

Narrator: the fact the sea In this area is so shallow

Raises the possibility

That the marks could've been Caused by speedboats.

Marchetti: if there's a lot Of boating activity,

The propellers could be going in And just chopping

The aquatic vegetation, The sea grass,

In a way that might be Causing this pattern.

Now, this image Actually reminds me

Of a place that I know Really well

Just off of the tip of florida In florida bay.

Narrator: florida bay lies Just south of the everglades.

It has a giant bed of sea grass Growing in shallow water

Less than 10 feet deep.

Boats have been cutting Across there for years,

Scarring the sea grass beds.

And when you look At it from space,

It looks very similar to this --

All from boat propellers.

Narrator: but the sheer size Of these marks suggests

They are being made By something more massive

Than a mere boat.

These marks are several meters To tens of meters across

And very, very long.

Propeller marks tend To be just a few feet long,

Maybe a few meters long, But not kilometers long.

So, I think if we want To get to the bottom of this

As to why These streaks were occurring,

We have to look Backwards in time.

Narrator: oceanographers Believe that these marks

Come from an ice age,

But that ice age is more recent Than you might think.

Muller-karger: if you look At the satellite picture

From six months earlier,

You will see that these is Quite a bit of ice cover

Over the northern caspian sea.

This ice is not static.

You can have Either water currents,

Or you can have tides,

Or you can have wind Pushing the ice along.

Dr. Miller: the coastal ocean There in the caspian sea

Is rather shallow, About three-meters depth.

And in a shallow region Like that,

The ice could Actually touch the bottom.

If the wind starts blowing, It'll move it,

And that'll drag The bottom of the ice,

And potentially form These types of streaks.

Narrator: the ice forms A temporary kind of glacier,

Gouging great chunks Out of the sea bottom.

When it melts Into crystal-clear water,

The destruction it has caused Is visible from space.

I'm blown away That it's sea ice actually.

I've never sean sea ice Scour sea grass beds like that,

So this is A really unusual find.

Narrator: still to come...

Strange symbols In a chinese forest

Spell out words of warning...

Kourounis: it looks like The character for, "Run fast."

We know the symbol is there,

But we don't know Who put it there or why.

Narrator: Sichuan province, china --

In 2005, wildlife enthusiast Gao shuxian hikes

Through the woodlands On tiantai mountain.

He climbs a telecom tower To take photos

And captures a bizarre shape In the surrounding trees.

There's definitely Something strange

Going on in this image.

We've got lines of trees

That are A little lighter in color

And a little higher than All of the surrounding trees.

And it seems to be making up Some kind of a pattern.

Narrator: it's only When gao shuxian uses a drone

To capture a view Of the whole pattern

That he discovers the startling Full extent of his discovery.

[ speaking chinese ]

The pattern appears To be chinese writing.

[ laughs ]

Narrator: gao shares his Findings with a local reporter,

Who publishes a story About the strange symbol.

The piece goes viral,

Getting more Than 120 million hits.

Kourounis: it looks like The character for, "Run fast."

We know the symbol is there,

But we don't know Who put it there or why.

Narrator: some commentators Have even claimed

To see the shape Of an extraterrestrial being

In the lines of the symbol.

Exactly who would see this, Apart from a passing satellite,

Is very unlikely.

Narrator: this natural platform Provides a clue

To scientists looking For a more earthly explanation

For the phenomenon.

When we see things Like this, it's easy to say,

"Wow, this is really weird. What's doing this?"

But nature has a tendency To, in many cases,

Produce regular patterns.

Well, it really does make sense To have a closer look

To see if this might've Occurred naturally.

Narrator: weird growth patterns Can sometimes reveal

The presence of something Unusual in the soil below.

When reviewing Aerial photographs

Of landscapes of vegetation,

It's not uncommon To see regular features

Showing up that reflect The underlying soil.

Let's say you have An uneven topography in an area,

And you have plants that grow At slightly different altitudes.

They might be a slightly Different color.

And of course, they'll stand out A little bit more.

Narrator: the area Where the image was taken

Is notorious For its bizarre geology.

These ridge lines Are not far at all

From a crazy-looking place Called the stone forest,

Where the underlying bedrock Is actually exposed.

Narrator: the stone forest In shilin's national park

Is a striking jungle Of limestone formations

That jut out of The earth's surface.

The kind of erosion that created This strange landscape

Can also take place underground.

Lester: limestone bedrock tends To dissolve over time.

And it doesn't Just dissolve downward.

It dissolves in the subsurface, Into caves and caverns,

And then those caves And caverns collapse

Due to the weight Of the overlying material.

Narrator: could this kind Of subterranean erosion

Be creating The mysterious pattern?

It seems to me That a pattern like this

Would be just what you'd expect

From some kind Of linear breaking planes

In the limestone bedrock.

Narrator: if this Is what's happened here,

There should be Similar marks and symbols

Across the rest Of the mountain...

But there are none.

It's only happening In one sort of isolated area.

It seems very unlikely That it's due

To the local geology Of the area.

Narrator: there's no obvious Natural cause for this symbol.

But then, how did it get here?

Someone has gone To a lot of trouble

To make their mark On the landscape.

Why would someone Go to the trouble

Of trying to spell, "Run fast," Using trees

In the middle of a remote part Of the chinese wilderness?

Narrator: "Run fast" -- Is it a warning?

Is it a command?

Does it mark the territory Of some mysterious tribe?

Narrator: but the qiong were An ancient people.

The size of these trees suggest

They were planted In the last 50 years.

Someone in recent history May have shaped the forest

To serve some unknown purpose.

French: there's two ways In which this happens.

The first is weddings.

And people in the countryside Have carved into hillsides,

Or painted on hillsides, Or carved into the fields,

The symbol for -- Chinese character

For "Double happiness."

And the other are Communist-party slogans,

Slogans praising the party,

Praising chairman mao.

Narrator: the size of the trees Suggests they were planted

Between the 1960s And the late '80s,

The right timeframe For a tribute to mao zedong.

But there is no record Of, "Run fast,"

Ever being used as a slogan By chinese communists.

A possible breakthrough comes

When journalists Investigating the mystery

Discover records of strange Scientific experiments

Carried out in the region.

This area is actually an Agricultural experimental forest

Where they're planting Different kinds of trees.

Liriodendrons, A cousin to the magnolia,

Was planted in lines To divide up

The different kinds Of cedar trees

That were growing In the area.

Joe deming was part Of the team involved.

Mousseau: when you look at the Patterns that are generated

By these two species of trees In the area,

It does appear like They spell out, "Run fast."

Nobody really knows Why they would spell out

These words in trees.

Perhaps it was just The agricultural scientists,

The foresters, were having A little fun with this, I think.

Narrator: deming claims That he had no idea

He'd spelled out, "Run fast,"

Until the story hit the internet Years later.

But he's happy To take the credit.