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.

[ beeping, distorted music ]

Death and terror in the town That time forgot...

It has the feeling of a site Of some kind of apocalypse.

They take people and push them Out of helicopters.

Narrator: ...Zombie ancestors rise From their frozen graves...

How terrifying would this be?

You buried your grandmother, And then she's back.

Narrator: ...And who teleported The eiffel tower to china?

Munoz: this is just too weird For words.

I mean, I can't explain it.

Narrator: baffling phenomena.

Mysteries from space.

What on earth are they?

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

Captions paid for by Discovery communications

**

February 17th, 2016.

As the worldview 3 satellite Passes over the arid,

Desolate atacama desert, chile,

It photographs a strange Sprawl of structures.

This is amazing.

We're here in the middle Of the atacama desert.

It's incredibly dry, yet what We seem to have is a huge city.

**

Narrator: there are parts Of the atacama desert

Where there is no record Of a single drop of rain

Ever having fallen.

What would possess anybody To want to build a city

In one of the driest

And one of the most Hostile places on earth?

Archaeologist mark horton Identifies a possible clue

In the origin of a similar Mystery settlement

In neighboring peru.

Well, I immediately Would compare it

To a place like chan chan A bit further north in peru,

Which is also in the desert

And also laid out In a very similar kind of way.

**

Narrator: in the 14th century, Chan chan is the capital

Of the mighty kingdom of chimu,

Whose rulers governed one Of the largest empires

In the ancient andes.

Chan chan once held A thriving population of people.

However, digs outside The walls of the city

Have uncovered The horrific dark past.

Narrator: In 2011, excavations near Chan chan revealed

The horrifying remains of 140 Children savagely slaughtered

In a bloody orgy Of ritual sacrifice.

What they found Is absolutely shocking.

Bodies of children,

Their sternums ripped open, Hearts ripped out,

And it's possible that they Were alive when it happened.

Narrator: Historians think chimu's Superstitious priests

Butchered the children As a gift to the gods

To stop the el nino storms That terrified them.

It's the biggest single act Of mass child sacrifice

Ever recorded.

Could there be a similarity In what happened in chan chan

To what happened Just across the border

In the city We're looking at here?

Maybe that teardrop shape Was used

For these Ritualistic sacrifices.

**

Narrator: hooked by the image,

Archaeologist karen bellinger Strikes out for northern chile,

Hoping to explain The weird desert structures.

Bellinger: I'm headed out on the ground To see if I can perhaps find

Any physical evidence That might shed some light

On the mystery of this site.

Perhaps it has dark Secrets of its own.

Narrator: Bellinger's journey takes her Across an unearthly landscape.

This desert so closely Resembles the surface of mars

That nasa prepares here For missions to the red planet.

What kind of civilization Would have chosen this spot,

Much less thrived here?

Narrator: it takes 8 hours To navigate a route

Through the desert badlands.

Looks as if the road is gone.

Wow.

**

Narrator: as she approaches The settlement's walls,

The archaeologist is drawn To what looks like

Some kind of ceremonial Or ritualistic structure

In the satellite image,

But that's not what she finds.

This is certainly not any sort Of arena or theater

Or ritual site.

There's debris on the ground.

There's abandoned wire rope,

So 20th century, certainly.

I think we're looking clearly At something

More industrial in nature, But the question is what?

**

Narrator: Bellinger heads further Into the settlement.

These are no ancient ruins.

This is a weird ghost town Decaying under the desert sun.

Bellinger: This place is so strange.

I mean, it has a really Foreboding sense.

This was clearly a really Prosperous town at one point.

There's a great deal of evidence Of former grandeur.

Narrator: The carcasses of huge machines Left in the open,

Dozens of abandoned cars.

It appears something forced the People here to leave town fast.

**

Bellinger's sense Of foreboding increases

When she makes a discovery On the edge of town:

A huge iron graveyard Unlike anything

She's encountered before.

**

Bellinger: The scale of this is stunning.

I mean, it's proof that many,

Many, many people Lived in this site

And many people died Here as well.

Narrator: one burial place Enables bellinger

To establish The age of the town.

Bellinger: This grave dates to 1913,

And there's a little baby Buried here,

1 year, 1 month And 20 days.

Narrator: As bellinger makes her way Through the graveyard,

Something disturbing Becomes evident.

I'm struck by how many of these Graves are really tiny.

**

What was causing children And babies to die

In such disproportionate Amounts in this place?

**

Narrator: coming up, Mountain of the damned:

Zombie activity In the land of santa.

One minute, a herd of Healthy reindeer,

And then, bam! Corpses.

Narrator: and karen bellinger Uncovers the horror story

Behind the freaky desert Ghost town.

They are being forced to play Russian roulette.

Every imaginable horror Is taking place in these camps.

**

**

Narrator: archaeologist Karen bellinger has traveled

To the atacama desert To investigate

A ghost town Captured by satellite.

She wants to find out why it was Abandoned in such a hurry

And why the weird rusty Iron graveyard

Is full of children and babies.

At the edge of the settlement, She discovers a clue.

Walking on the ground, It crunches underfoot

Like broken glass Or something.

Bellinger Digs into the ground.

What she finds is not dry Desert sand,

But some other substance.

If you just take that outer Surface off,

It's really just Brilliantly white underneath.

Narrator: For bellinger, the rock's color And large crystalline granules

Suggest it's one of two things: Borax or sodium nitrate.

I'm crushing my sample Really fine

So that I can put it Through a materials test,

See if I can narrow it down.

She mixes the powdered rock With sugar

And puts a flame to it.

[ match strikes ]

Bellinger: oh!

And that looks like Sodium nitrate!

[ rock sizzling ]

Smells like burnt marshmallows.

So this is what they were mining And processing here.

It's the only thing That makes sense.

Narrator: sodium nitrate Is a type of salt.

It gives life, But it also kills.

Bellinger: it could be used To fertilize crops,

And it's even used To create explosives.

Narrator: the incredible dryness Of the atacama

Helps to make this desert

One of the world's Biggest known deposits

Of sodium nitrate, Known as chile saltpeter.

Nitrate deposits have been Referred to as white gold

For a very good reason.

Narrator: this ghost town Was built on white gold.

To mine it, thousands of workers Were brought here to labor

In the fierce desert heat.

This area exploded into bustling Towns just mining nitrates.

This place, it was like California during the gold rush.

Narrator: yet this gold rush Comes at a terrible price.

Workers and their families Endure brutal conditions.

A shocking number of children Died here

Before their first birthday,

Twice as many as In 18th century england.

I've seen that in Comparable sites in england

Of this time period, And the very young population

Suffered disproportionately.

Narrator: The lust for white gold Brings death to the atacama,

But the white gold mined here Will go on

To kill many millions more.

[ explosions, gunfire ]

One of the main uses of nitrates Is gunpowder,

And during world war I,

The whole world Was in a shortage.

Narrator: Industrial mining of white gold

Allowed the mass production Of shells and bullets

On a scale never seen before,

Enough to feed millions Of machine guns.

The british navy stops shipments Of white gold reaching germany,

But german chemists Find a way of producing

A synthetic alternative.

The invention of synthetic Nitrates sounds the death knell

For chile's nitrate industry.

Pepper: nobody wants to buy it, And so all these towns

Just went completely bust.

**

Narrator: But bellinger discovers the Graves of children and babies

Is not the only sign of horror In this ghost town.

As she passes by some empty Buildings,

She notices something On the walls.

**

God, those are bullet holes.

**

Why would there be bullet holes In the walls

Of a mining settlement?

Narrator: the bullet holes Are clustered in groups.

Many of them are in a wall that Faces the town's central square.

It makes me wonder if people Were gathered here

To witness A really terrible thing.

Narrator: it appears there was No sanctuary,

No mercy for the people Who were murdered here.

Looking at the shape Of the building

And these curved walls...

Oh, it looks like This was a church.

"God, where were you when Your temple burned?"

Something pretty awful Must have happened here.

**

Narrator: Chile has a turbulent history.

In 1973, the country's marxist Government is overthrown

In a military coup.

Can this explain Bellinger's discoveries?

[ speaking spanish ]

**

Narrator: With the help of a contact, She tracks down a local

Who is prepared to talk About events in this region,

But only with The promise of anonymity.

He reveals the signs of horror Are the legacy of the man

Who overthrew the marxists: Augusto pinochet.

Morgan: Augusto pinochet came to power In chile in 1973.

He exercises complete And total control

Over the country through A military dictatorship.

Narrator: bellinger Learns that immediately

Following his rise to power,

Pinochet dispatches An army hit squad

Known as the caravan of death To arrest

Or execute Political opponents.

Pinochet's rule is marked By terror and struggle.

Anyone who speaks Out against him

Is either intimidated Into silence or they disappear.

Narrator: pinochet will later Return chile to democracy,

But during his dictatorship, He rules by terror.

His tyrannical regime

Establishes 1,000 Torture centers.

The town built on white gold

Where the babies And children die,

The town that feeds the killing Fields of world war I,

Now becomes the scene Of unspeakable torture.

So here in the middle of The driest desert on earth,

You have a ready-made Concentration camp.

This camp becomes the stage

On which this theater Of barbarism is played out.

Narrator: the miners' lodgings Now echo with the screams

Of pinochet's victims.

Survivors of this hell on earth Tell of brutal beatings,

Electrocution and unspeakable Acts of degradation.

They are being forced To play russian roulette.

They're having bones crushed By being driven

Over by automobiles.

There's even times where They take people

And push them Out of helicopters,

So every imaginable horror Is taking place in these camps.

**

Narrator: The same bone-dry climate that Created the atacama's white gold

Will preserve the ruins of this Ghost town for centuries,

A grim desert memorial.

It's critical to preserve And to honor sites

Like these where we've seen The worst of human nature

In the hopes that history Might eventually

Stop repeating itself.

**

Narrator: coming up: The eiffel tower

Suddenly appears In the middle of a desert.

Munoz: this is just too weird For words.

I mean, I can't explain it.

Narrator: And christmas get canceled.

They're all dead.

Sorry, santa.

**

Narrator: august 2016, Flying over hardangervidda,

A vast desolate mountain plateau In norway,

A helicopter crew Films the terrain.

At first, I didn't see anything Weird about this image.

It just looks like A rocky landscape.

Narrator: but when the chopper Flies lower,

The cameras capture Something terrible.

They're all dead.

It looks like an entire herd Has been wiped out,

And all together, all at once.

Narrator: the crew lands For a closer look.

They discover A scene of carnage.

**

More than 300 reindeer dead.

It's probably the most reindeer You've ever thought of

In your brain all at once, And all of them instantly gone.

Narrator: analysts Struggle to find a cause

For this bizarre Mass annihilation.

Wolves for certain Cannot have done this,

And it's unlikely this Is the work of humans.

Reindeer are a lifeline To people in this community,

So it's insane to think That they would even kill one

And just leave it be, Let alone over 300.

Narrator: zoologist eleanor Spicer rice scours the records

For any other examples Of reindeer mass deaths.

She finds one which occurred On similar terrain

In the frozen tundra Of northeast russia.

In 1941, there was a terrible Outbreak of anthrax.

Anthrax is a bacteria, And it's a very hardy bacteria.

Anthrax can infect Your respiratory tract,

Your digestive tract,

Lead to lesion and Eventually can lead to death.

Narrator: anthrax spores May have caused one of the great

Biblical plagues Of ancient egypt.

Just one pinhead-sized dose

Is lethal to reindeer And humans.

It's no surprise that a number Of nations

And sick individuals Have weaponized anthrax.

It's ruthlessly efficient, And it's deadly.

Narrator: In 1941, the arctic tundra Cryogenically freezes

The anthrax-infested Reindeer carcasses.

The tundra is a layer Of frozen ground,

So anything That gets put into it,

It's like a biological time Capsule, perfectly preserved.

Narrator: seven decades later,

An exceptional heat Wave hits siberia.

Wildfires Rage in its grasslands,

And something is thawing In the icy earth.

These bodies that had been Buried for 75 years

Began to defrost.

The anthrax reanimated.

The zombie outbreak had begun.

**

Ninety people who were exposed To the spores were hospitalized,

And one 12-year-old boy died.

Narrator: is it possible that Some kind of zombie life-form

Has risen up And killed the reindeer

In the norwegian mountains?

This feels like this Is something

From a science fiction Horror movie,

Diseases that were long Since dead

And buried coming back To life and killing again.

Narrator: Terror rising from the ice

Is not without precedent In this country.

In norway in the 1950s,

This whole town that had been Built on permafrost discovered

Their past Was coming back to them.

Narrator: The town is longyearbyen,

Where the dead past threatens To rise from the grave.

Residents become terrified That melting permafrost

Will bring their buried dead Ancestors back to the surface.

Nelson: bodies coming back to The surface completely intact,

How freaky is that?

Usually when you bury somebody,

They start to decompose Relatively quickly.

Here, they're buried In the permafrost.

It's like putting That body on ice.

They look like zombies.

How terrifying would this be?

You buried your grandmother,

And you think that She's at rest for eternity,

And then she's back.

[ crow caws ]

Narrator: terrified that their Diseased zombie relatives

Will turn into killers,

The townsfolk of longyearbyen Take incredible measures.

The authorities handled this

In the most Bizarre way possible.

If the dead couldn't Stay buried,

They would just ban them.

You're not allowed to bury People anymore in this town.

They even discourage People from dying.

So now, if you're dying, they Ship you off to another town.

That's one of the weirdest Laws I've ever heard of.

Narrator: 1,200 miles south Of the town that banned dying,

A zombie virus may have Infected the reindeer

In the Hardangervidda mountains.

Fearful of this horde Of undead ungulates,

The norwegian scientists Have only one option:

They hack off their heads.

Chamberlain: they had to sample The brain tissue,

And in order to do that, They had to decapitate these

And takes samples from there.

Sorry, santa, cupid, Donner, blitzen.

It's for the good of science.

Narrator: in another twist, Postmortems indicate

The reindeer brains are normal.

Climatologist Randy cerveny considers

If the tight grouping Of the bodies

Offers a clue to Another possible cause of death.

The sound of thunder, the flash Of lightning can be threatening

To herbivores Like cattle and reindeer,

And that might have been Part of the reason

Why they were All clumped together.

Narrator: data from weather Satellites confirms

That 3 days Before the aerial images,

A huge lightning storm Pounded the mountain plateau.

The investigators may have Found their killer.

In this particular case, When an object

Near these reindeer were struck,

The lightning was able to flash Through the entire herd

And actually kill them all With one single stroke.

Narrator: A lightning storm can unleash

Hundreds of billions Of volts of electricity,

More than enough to rain death On to these terrified reindeer.

One minute, a herd of healthy Reindeer, and then, bam!

Corpses.

**

Narrator: coming up, Something otherworldly

Is stirring in the arctic.

It's incredible, like, An alien world here on earth.

Narrator: and satellites capture The eiffel tower going awol.

Morgan: I believe I can speak For the world

When I express astonishment To see the eiffel tower

Out in the middle Of inner mongolia.

**

Narrator: march 2015, The gobi desert, northern china:

Half a million square miles Of scorched, barren wilderness.

So what on earth Is this doing here?

**

I believe I can speak For the world

When I express astonishment To see the eiffel tower

Out in the middle Of the vast desert

Wastelands of inner mongolia.

Munoz: this is just too weird For words.

I mean, I can't explain it.

Narrator: Conspirists claim that in 1943, Us navy scientists succeeded

In making an entire Battleship disappear.

Reports of the so-called Philadelphia experiment

Have been widely discredited, Yet the satellite image suggests

That china has made The eiffel tower vanish,

Then reappear 5,000 miles away.

Hmm, in northern china, We have an eiffel tower.

Okay, why?

Narrator: it transpires That several chinese cities

Contain large scale replica Western landmarks.

One, sky city, Features near-perfect

Copies of the champs-elysees And the eiffel tower.

The chinese have long idealized

Paris as some sort Of romantic dream.

The reality is crushingly Disappointing.

**

Narrator: The story of china's obsession With western architecture

Begins in the mid 20th century

When the communist rulers Led by mao zedong

Preside over an era of cultural And physical destruction.

Munoz: china went to war With everything tradition.

What comes with conformity And uniformity is you lose

All these incredible elements Of chinese architecture.

Narrator: the communists Ransacked china's temples

And razed its beautiful Ancient buildings to the ground.

In their place, they erect Featureless concrete eyesores.

They replaced these beautiful Structures with ones

That basically reflected The ideology of communism,

Which was conformity And uniformity.

Narrator: In the 1990s, the chinese Government begins to relax

Mao's architectural dogma,

And the now wealthy nation Is hungry for western goods,

Culture and architecture.

All of a sudden, You had a country

With a lot of people With disposable income

And willing to spend it On things

That they personally wanted,

Which includes unique homes And buildings.

Narrator: Yet the weird eiffel tower In the satellite image

Is nowhere near Any human settlement.

Moran: this area of china Is incredibly remote.

Nobody would want to move here,

Even if they rebuilt The whole of paris here.

I am not convinced that this is The start of a new city.

Narrator: when analysts examine The wider area,

The mystery of the tower grows.

When you look around the area,

You start to see clusters Of buildings

That look like they might Have some military function.

It is within operational range Of asia's largest

And most High-tech military base.

Narrator: zhurihe military base:

It sprawls across 411 Square miles of inner mongolia,

An area almost 20 times The size of manhattan,

And the eiffel tower is sitting Right in the middle of it.

This image could be evidence Of china

Expanding its military Training operations.

The question is, Where does the tower fit in?

Narrator: image analyst Marc d'antonio is puzzled

By another set of structures At the base near the tower.

D'antonio: This is a segment of some type Of city, which is really odd.

Then moving down, we see A similar construction here.

This is not an actual city But rather a mock-up of a city.

**

Narrator: scouring the street Layouts of worldwide cities,

Analysts discover That the structures

Resemble the presidential office Building in taipei,

Capital of the island state Of taiwan.

The discovery fuels fears That they and the tower

Serve a sinister purpose.

Why would the chinese need to Build these large scale replicas

Of culturally significant Landmarks from france

And from taiwan?

There's got to be a military Reason for this.

Narrator: Military analysts confirm That mock city training

Is often a precursor To military invasion.

There's the marine corps base Known as 29 palms in california.

They have full-up replicas Of a village you'd run

Into in helmand province In southern afghanistan.

There's absolutely nothing Like having a replica

Of what your target Looks like on the ground

So that you can prepare For the actual terrain.

Narrator: china's relationships With western powers are tense,

And it makes no secret Of its desire

To bring taiwan back Under communist state control.

Taiwan and china have Basically been at a state of war

Since the communists Took over the mainland

And the non-communists

Were forced into Political exile in taiwan.

Narrator: A chinese invasion of taipei

Could have terrifying Global implications.

Munoz: if the chinese do act,

The united states Would be forced to respond,

And you have a situation where This escalates into all-out war.

Narrator: This satellite image could Indicate that a taiwan invasion

Is just the beginning.

Do they have plans for paris That we need to know about

Because it's kind of What this suggests.

Ideally, we would just call The chinese government

And find out exactly what This tower is being used for,

But they're not really known For being too open

With their information.

Narrator: small comfort, If you're a citizen of paris.

**

Coming up: unexplained circles In the new mexico desert.

Really looks like a giant Dartboard,

But the question is, What game are they playing here?

Narrator: And clues to alien life In the frozen arctic.

It almost looks like An infection.

**

Narrator: september 11th, 2017,

Flying 480 miles Above new mexico,

An earth observation Satellite photographs

A series of strange circles In the desert.

You can't help but wonder, What is this gigantic bull's-eye

Doing in the middle Of the desert?

It really looks like a giant Dartboard,

But the question is, What game are they playing here?

Narrator: aerospace journalist Joe pappalardo

Dials down the magnification On the satellite image

To analyze The surrounding terrain.

When you look at where this Weird structure is located,

Clues start to emerge.

There's the fence line.

There's some of the military Stuff, here is some radar.

It's on the grounds Of kirtland air force base.

Narrator: intelligence experts Reveal that since world war ii,

Kirtland has played a key role In developing

And testing a series Of revolutionary bombers,

Including the b-36 peacemaker And the f-80 shooting star.

This thing looks like a target.

It's very possible that it could Be some sort of area

Where bombing practices Take place.

Narrator: ex-cia operative Mike baker disagrees.

That's probably not likely.

There are no indications Of any past use.

You know, There's no cratering.

Narrator: military historian Martin morgan uncovers

More possible evidence About the origin

Of the mystery bull's-eye.

Morgan: Kirtland air force base is known For being home to the school

For the pararescue jumpers,

Special operators who Are parachute-qualified

And among the most elite In the american military.

Narrator: pararescuemen, or pjs, Are combat medics

Dedicated to rescuing And treating fallen comrades:

Part warrior, part savior, 100 percent badass.

The reason the pararescue teams Are so elite

Is that they are more often Than not behind enemy lines.

They come into a very Dangerous situation,

Recover a pilot, Recover classified information

And get the hell out.

Narrator: The pj selection process is one Of the toughest in the military.

It begins with 9 weeks of brutal Tests of skill and endurance,

Culminating in a 20-hour-long Ordeal known as hell night.

80 percent of potential Recruits fail.

Training for the pjs is An extremely grueling process.

It's everything From scuba diving

To climbing mountains To parachuting in on targets.

These guys are the best Of the best

That the air force Has to provide.

Narrator: But baker is unconvinced That the wide circles

Are an aerial target For a precision parachute troop.

When they're dropping people, They're more inclined to say,

"Okay, you're going to land On this mountainside,

You know, 2 meters To the left of that,

You know, big fir tree," Or whatever.

I mean, it's very technical, And it's very precise.

Narrator: Military journalist carlo munoz Returns to the satellite image

To hunt for further clues.

Six miles northwest of the Bull's-eye, he spots something.

Munoz: there's this large White structure

With a long gangplank Running up to it.

There's definitely some kind Of military application for it.

Narrator: Declassified us military records Reveal that during the 1970s,

The giant structure played A key role in the development

And testing of electromagnetic Pulse weapons, or emps.

Emp weapons are designed To basically take out anything

With an electronic circuit.

It essentially fries Any kind of circuit

Within a certain radius.

Narrator: The structure is called The atlas-I weapons

Testing platform, Codename trestle.

The $60 million construction Is 1,300 feet long

And 120 feet high.

Munoz: it's made of wood And glue.

You can't have metal parts to it

Because it would interfere With the testing.

So you park a plane On this structure.

You'd fire an electromagnetic Pulse at it,

And then the scientists would Basically record the results.

Narrator: Military analysts speculate That the circles were designed

To measure the radiating pulse Of a top-secret emp weapon.

It can disable weapons.

It can ground helicopters And fighter jets.

It's safe to say that That is probably part

Of the american arsenal.

The idea that electromagnetic Pulse testing

Is being done at kirtland Makes complete and total sense.

Narrator: the atlas-I project Was abandoned in 1990,

But rumors persist The department of defense

Is developing an emp weapon With the power

To cripple the electronics Of an entire city.

People like to think that it's A peaceful world out there,

But that's not how it works. All right?

So as much as we'd like to think That if we haven't gamed out

All the potential scenarios For conflict,

That somehow if we don't do it, Then other people

Won't do it either, And that's just crap.

Narrator: The purpose of the new mexico Bull's-eye remains a mystery.

**

Coming up: hell from on high in The jungles of southeast asia.

Faylor: it causes extreme Birth defects,

And not just for Your immediate children,

Three, four generations Down the line.

**

Narrator: july 2006, As nasa's eo-1 satellite sweeps

Over ellesmere island, Norther canada,

It photographs an anomaly In the arctic:

A glacier unlike Any ever recorded.

This is virgin snow.

It should be white, But instead it's yellow.

Never seen anything like this. This is unique.

It almost looks like An infection.

Narrator: The canadian arctic is home To some big beasts,

But even a supersized polar bear With serious bladder issues

Couldn't account For this giant yellow streak.

Kourounis: we all know what it Means when someone says,

"Don't eat yellow snow,"

But I don't think That's what's going on here.

This is something Quite a bit different.

At least, I hope it's something Completely different.

Narrator: chemical scientist Reid faylor uncovers

Declassified Canadian military records

That could explain the origin Of the mystery stain.

Faylor: well, it looks as though Some kind of chemical

Has been sprayed on the land.

A document has come out that Reveals that in 1966 and 1967,

The canadian government Granted the united states

Military permission to test Agent orange on canadian soil.

Kourounis: agent orange Is a potent herbicide.

It's been used As a chemical weapon.

It contains dioxin, Which will strip

Vegetation completely bare.

Narrator: The document reveals that tests Of the toxic herbicide

At the camp Gagetown military base

Continue for almost 3 decades.

It was pervasive.

They tested it for years.

With what we now know About agent orange,

That was a staggering mistake.

Narrator: Evidence of the horrors agent Orange can inflict on a country

And its people Comes from vietnam.

Between 1961 and 1971, The us air force sprays

12 million gallons of agent Orange on to the country,

Destroying 8,000 Square miles of jungle.

Agent orange was used to strip Away all the jungle cover

So the vietcong Had nowhere to hide.

Narrator: but the u.S. Has Unleashed a chemical hell.

It's a slow onset disaster With catastrophic ecological,

Economic and health impacts That continue to this very day.

Narrator: The noxious aerial mist kills Or injures 400,000 people

And leaves 500,000 children

With severe deformities Or genetic disorders.

Agent orange is a very Dangerous chemical.

It can cause cancer.

It causes extreme birth defects,

And not just for your immediate Children,

Three, four generations Down the line.

Narrator: Yet despite canada's dark History of testing

The poisonous chemical, Experts doubt it can account

For the stain In the satellite image.

Major: agent orange is actually Colorless,

But it was stored in barrels With orange labels.

That's where it got the name.

Following the discovery of The weirdly colored glacier,

Nasa dispatches A team of scientists

To the canadian arctic To investigate.

As it turns out, What we're looking at is sulfur.

Sulfur is giving this glacier Its yellowish color,

But that's not The end of the story.

Narrator: As the scientists explore The chemical ice floe,

They find something unexpected:

Life, but not as we know it, An organism that consumes

And produces different Types of sulfur.

They process chemicals As opposed to sunlight.

It's incredible, like an Alien world here on earth.

This is a remarkable Combination of things

That takes us Straight to europa,

One of the moons of jupiter.

Europa is encased In a shell of ice.

Its crust of ice Is full of sulfur.

Narrator: the ice moon europa,

Floating in space about 390 million miles from earth,

Is the smoothest known object In the solar system.

Like the glacier In the satellite image,

Europa is covered With streaks of sulfur.

Nasa believes its smooth Frozen surface conceals

A liquid ocean Up to 100 miles deep.

What if part of this sulfur Staining that we're seeing

At the surface of europa Is actually contributed by life

Living in this deep ocean On europa.

D'antonio: europa is probably A breeding ground

For a different type of life,

Maybe extremophile life Below the icy mantle.

Narrator: In 2024, the space agency plans To launch an unmanned craft

To land on and study This sulfurous alien world.

Who knows what the probe Will discover

In the vanishing darkness Of its bottomless oceans.

D'antonio: it's phenomenal.

Finding small life anywhere

Might lead To multicellular creatures

Or other types of strange fish In a strange alien ocean,

Or perhaps an intelligent being.

Maybe someday We'll find that.