All language subtitles for What.on.Earth.S05E07.1080p.DSCP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-BTN_track3_[eng]

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 ]

A shipwreck that appears
In the middle of the desert...

It's like a giant monster.

This is the very definition
Of weird.

Narrator:
...A ghost town of death still
Stalked by a silent killer...

Faylor: there's buildings.
There's roads.

Everything seems to be in order,
But there are no people.

Narrator: ...And a thing
That came from space.

We have absolutely no idea
Where this came from,

And we have no clue
What it could've been carrying.

**

Narrator:
Baffling phenomena.

Mysteries from space.

What on earth are they?

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

[ beeping ]
[ camera shutter clicking ]

[ whirring ]

Captions paid for by
Discovery communications

**

[ frequency warbles ]
[ whirring ]

**

February 23rd, 2013.

400 miles above namibia,
South west africa,

The geoeye-1 satellite finds a
Strange pattern in the sands.

Nelson:
This is a truly bizarre image.

You have this structure
In the middle

And these rays that shoot out
From it in all directions.

Narrator: ...60 lines,
Like ray from the sun,

Emanating from a central object.

Walters: a mathematician
Has laid this out.

They've got to have
Some purpose,

But I'm really can't,
For the life of me,

Work out what that could be.

Narrator: hooked by the weird
Desert pattern,

Military historian martin morgan

Is crossing namibia
To investigate.

It has this evocative
Appearance like nazca lines.

Why would you go to effort
And expense

To place something out here
Where there is nothing?

Narrator:
This is one of the world's most
Sparsely populated countries.

For morgan, the structure's
Isolated location suggests

It has a clandestine purpose.

You've got two million people
Living in a country

That's three times the size
Of the state of arizona,

So if you wanted to create
A secret facility

Far from prying eyes,

This would be
A good place to start.

Narrator:
Namibia's desert holds

Some of the world's
Largest reserves of uranium.

Military superpowers,
Including china,

Are vying for control of it.

**

This is it.

I have arrived.

**

Narrator:
Yet as morgan approaches

The perimeter of the complex,
It becomes clear

That this is
No high-security installation.

Why is there no security here?

'cause this fence,
It's not electric.

It's just a wire fence.

Up close, the weird radial lines
Are even more striking.

Morgan looks for clues
To their purpose.

So, these track lines
That we can see

In the satellite image --
Pushed up dirt and rocks,

But something's
Clearly been removed.

Narrator: the lines of rubble
Are very precisely arranged.

All of these lines are
Exactly 6 degrees apart,

And they are all converging back
To that central point.

**

This was some sort
Of precision instrument.

Narrator: morgan wants to know
If the central structure

Will shed light
On the mystery.

**

But he finds it to be empty.

The place has been gutted,
So whatever it was

That was in here that was
So important is now gone.

Narrator: whoever cleared
This place went to great lengths

To leave no trace behind.

**

Maybe there's something outside.

**

Narrator: outside, morgan
Notices a wall with holes

Set slightly away
From the building.

As a military analyst,
He's seen this before.

The only time I've seen
A separate wall like this

Is that it functions
As a blast wall

That could potentially absorb
The fragmentation

From exploding bombs
Or a rocket launcher.

**

Narrator: morgan
Returns to the satellite image

And sees something
That makes no sense --

Numerous shipwrecks
Litter the nearby coast.

This is incredible.

Looking at the satellite
Image of wrecks

All along the coastline,
And our mystery facility

Is located right in
The middle of all of it.

This facility is smack in the
Middle of shipwreck central.

**

Narrator: closer analysis
Of the satellite images reveals

Hundreds of these wrecks.

This region is literally
A graveyard for ships.

There are over 1,000 shipwrecks

That dot the coasts
All around this region.

Ships met their fate
Along this coastline

Often in the most horrible
And savage fashion.

Morgan considers if
The perplexing star pattern

Played a role
In their destruction.

Morgan: during the cold war,
Radio jamming

And hacking systems
Were used by both sides

In an attempt to gain
An upper hand.

So, could this be
Some sort of a ship killer?

Narrator: the bizarre shipwrecks
Are spread across

Hundreds of miles
Of desert coastline too risky

To travel to by car...

So morgan takes to the skies.

**

Local tribesmen gave a name
To these desolate sands.

They called it
"The land god made in anger."

Morgan: in one direction,
It's endless sand dunes,

And some of these sand dunes
Appear to be 300 feet tall.

The namib's vast, barren sands

Spill straight
Into the atlantic ocean.

This coastline gets its name
From dead whales

Whose remains are weirdly
Preserved in the sand.

The name that has
Struck fear into sailors

For hundreds of years --
The skeleton coast.

Incredible.
It's totally incredible.

We are not in kansas anymore.

An hour into his flight,
Morgan catches sight

Of something
Truly extraordinary below.

Oh, my god.
Look at that.

**

Narrator: a huge ship,
Hundreds of feet long,

Sunk in the desert as if it has
Been magically carried here.

**

Wow.

Look at this thing.

**

It's like a giant monster...

Left to decompose in the desert.

This is the very definition
Of weird.

**

Narrator:
Coming up, seen from space,
The town that doesn't exist...

Nelson: clearly,
Something happened here,

And it must have been very bad.

Narrator: ...And the reason
Sailors fear the skeleton coast.

It was the most terrifying fate
Befalling anyone

Sailing along
That piece of coast.

**

Narrator:
Martin morgan's investigation

Into this image has led him
To venture along

Namibia's legendary
Skeleton coast.

**

And there, to his amazement,
Surrounded by desert,

He sees this.

This has got to be one of the
Most surreal things I have seen.

**

This ship is big.

It's got to be 400 feet long.

Narrator:
There seems to be no explanation

To what happened to this ship

To leave it sitting
So far from the sea.

**

Morgan:
Its source of locomotion

Is obviously some
Sort of boiler-driven shaft.

This is a 20th-century
Cargo ship.

For some reason,
It is in the namib desert.

Narrator: morgan wants to know
How this ship

And the many others
Met their doom

And whether their fate
Is connected

To the mystery star pattern
That sits in their midst.

The question remains what
Brought this ship to grief here?

**

Narrator: morgan flies
Further up the coast

Till he reaches
The port of swakopmund.

**

He speaks to two local men,
Dreis and simon.

Are you guys
Fisherman?

-yes.
-yeah, we are.

Why are there so many
Shipwrecks here?

Is it treacherous?

-yeah.
-it's very, very treacherous.

Narrator: dreis reveals
Why skeleton coast has

For so long been a place
Of terror for sailors,

Where many ships enter
Never to return.

The fog is very dangerous
In that area.

It's a very
Terrifying experience.

Narrator: naval archives confirm
That the hellish fog

Has been appearing
On this coastline for centuries.

Hundreds upon hundreds of ships
And sailors

Have disappeared here.

Horton: if your navigations
Were defective,

And you hit
The namibian coast,

You are trapped,
And you can't escape.

It was the most terrifying fate

Befalling anyone sailing
Along that piece of coast.

Cerveny: they actually nicknamed
This the gates of hell

Because it was so dangerous
For ships

To actually go
Through this area.

Wind and fog is coming in.
Anything can happen.

Anything can happen.

Narrator: archaeologist mark
Horton confirms that over time,

Many of the beached wrecks
Are being slowly swallowed

By the shifting sand
Of the namib deserts,

And there are treasures
In these wrecks.

In recent times, a miner found
The wreck of a ship laden

With $13 million worth of gold.

The desert is moving
Westwards into the sea,

And so shipwrecks
Of only maybe 100 years ago

Are now some distance inland as
The desert has surrounded them,

Not in a sea of water
But a sea of sand.

Narrator: yet for morgan, any
Connection between the wrecks

And the weird shape
In the image remains elusive.

**

Returning to the image, he sees
Structures to the southeast

Which have a very similar layout
To those next to the star.

**

He heads there next.

Morgan: there's a real skill
To driving in sand,

And I'm getting a crash
Course in it.

That must be it.

There is nothing else around.

**

Narrator:
Exploring the site,

Morgan notices
One building is occupied.

He introduces himself
To joachim cranz,

Who says he owns the building

And that its origins go back
To world war 2.

It's a navigation station
Called decca.

It was a british company
That established,

As far as I know,
Five sites in namibia.

The liberation
Of nazi-occupied europe

Posed a series
Of huge challenges,

And one of them was primitive
Navigation technology.

Walters: trying to get
Your planes to bomb a city,

Trying to land your men
On a specific piece of coastline

Was very, very difficult
Before the war.

Narrator: the allies receive
Help from a record company,

Decca, the label
That will later sign artists

Like the rolling stones.

**

The decca navigational system
Uses a chain of transmitters

To send out
Low-frequency radio waves.

There was a huge mast
As I recall as a kid,

And that was
Emitting a signal.

Decca towers emit pulses
Of radio energy.

By measuring the difference
In time it takes

These pulses to reach a ship,

Decca operators plot lines
Of position on nautical charts.

Sailors use these charts
And time readings

From two pairs of stations
To fix their position.

The british military introduced
The system the day before d-day,

Allowing the allies
To catch the nazis off guard

And helping to turn
The tide of war.

It's a really, really important
Piece of technology

Because you're going to be
Avoiding all sorts of hazards

Such as shoals, submerged rocks,
Treacherous currents.

Narrator: during the 1970s,
The namibian government wonders

If the system can save ships
From their doom

On the treacherous
Skeleton coast.

A transmission station
Is constructed in the desert.

Surrounding it is a buried web
Of copper.

In the 1990s, the invention of
Gps makes the system redundant.

Cranz rips the valuable
Copper from the ground,

Leaving behind lines of rubble
Visible in the image.

We were asked to remove them,
So we dug them all out,

And you still see
The remains of the trenches.

It's a strange story

And a strange image
That only adds to the mystique

Of this legendary
Desert coastline.

Morgan: I can't help but think
Of all of the times

That mariners were lost at sea

For want of
A navigational system

As sophisticated
And effective as decca was.

**

Narrator: coming up,
When nerve gas attacks...

Nelson:
Someone down the way

Starts bleeding
From the nose and mouth.

It's sheer panic.
You don't know what's happening.

Narrator: ...And why are the
British listening to the sky?

Bellinger: they're like people
Wearing elephant ears

Or mickey mouse caps with tubas
Mounted on bicycle wheels.

**

June 24th, 2015.

An earth observation satellite
Flies over the county of kent

On the south coast of england.

It captures images of a curved
Structure facing out to sea.

This is really weird.

It looks as if a sickle blade

Has just been dropped on
Its side like a cookie cutter.

Narrator: scale analysis reveals
The object is 200 feet long.

It's like the wingspan of a 747,
And for such a big structure

To be randomly tossed out in
The kent countryside like this,

It really begs the question
What is it.

**

Narrator: investigators consider
If the structure's

Strategic position
Offers a clue.

From the location
Close to the coast,

It would make sense if these
Were some sort of military

Or defensive fortifications

To protect england
From everybody on the continent.

**

Narrator:
For military historians,

The symmetrical, curved shape
Could be significant.

The smooth lines
And semicircular shape

Of this object make it look like
It might be somehow a receiver

Or a transmitter of some kind.

Narrator: guy walters believes
The size of the structure

Means it is likely made
From concrete,

And signs of erosion suggest
It is several decades old.

[ men shouting ]

He wonders if it has its origins
In world war 1.

What's the image
We have in our minds

When we think
Of the first world war?

We think of mud.
We think of trenches.

But, of course,
It's also an arena

In which a new type of warfare
Is gestating,

And this, of course,
Is aerial warfare.

Narrator:
During the great war,

A lethal new threat appears
In the skies --

German gotha bombers
And zeppelin airships

Raining death
Upon the people of britain.

For the people living
In these cities,

It was a terrifying experience.

You never knew
If your home would be attacked,

And most importantly,
You didn't know

If you were going to live.

Narrator: in a devastating wave
Of attacks,

German aircraft dropped
300 tons of bombs,

Killing nearly 1,500 people.

There's literally no way
To predict an attack

Until it is
Essentially upon you.

Morgan: the aircraft that were
Being used in world war 1,

They moved slowly,
But not slow enough.

By the time you heard them,
It was basically too late.

Narrator: military chiefs
Need to find a way

To give their artillery time

To arm their defenses
Against an aerial attack.

Walters: if you can't use optics
Or your eyes to spot airplanes,

Then what's the next best thing
You can do?

You could actually use sound.

So, is there some way
To actually magnify the sound

Of an incoming aircraft

And focus it onto a very
Specific point and use that?

Narrator:
According to wartime records,

Inspiration comes
From an unlikely source.

Now, we all know those old types
Of hearing aids,

Those kind of ear trumpets.

All the sound collects
At the big end,

And it gets channeled down
To the little end

To the receiver, your ear.

What if you built a machine
On a much larger scale

And then use it to detect
The sound of distant aircraft?

Narrator: in 1915,
Engineers test prototype

Sound detectors in the town
Of farnborough.

The pictures are quite funny.

They're like people
Wearing elephant ears

Or mickey mouse caps,

Like giant trombones or tubas
Mounted on bicycle wheels.

Narrator:
The bizarre contraptions

Prove effective in detecting
Incoming planes

During the latter stages
Of world war 1.

Bellinger: I mean,
It's incredibly ingenious

What they created with these
Advanced listening devices.

Narrator:
The device's success

Pushes british military
Engineers to develop

A more practical
Acoustic defense system.

The so-called "Sound mirror"
Uses a large curved

Concrete surface
And a microphone.

The sound wave would bounce off
The curved wall.

It would be focused
In a single point,

Which then would amplify
The sound to an operator

Who was stationed nearby.

Morgan:
And with that information,

They could simply pick up
A telephone and warn london.

Narrator: in 1930,
Construction begins

On the massive 200-foot
Concrete sound mirror

Visible from space today.

Sitting next to
Smaller versions,

The system enables the british
To detect an incoming aircraft

Up to 15 minutes
Before it arrives.

Morgan: you have a very basic
Concrete structure,

And yet it's capable
Of saving hundreds of lives.

Over the following years,
Military engineers construct

More of these structures
Along the english coast.

Walters: I would say there was
A lot of optimism

About these sound mirrors
When they were first developed.

It was felt that they were
Going to give the british

The edge
Over any incoming invasion.

Narrator: yet these ingenious
Devices are never used.

By the dawn of world war 2,
The invention of radar

Makes the weird structures
Obsolete.

Radar gives you
A more accurate picture

Of where the enemy aircraft are,
How high they're flying,

And, ultimately,
Where they're likely to go.

Narrator: the sound mirrors
Project is abandoned,

But the structures,
Live on as monuments

To old-school ingenuity.

Sound mirrors represent
The the craziness,

But also they're innovatory.

Whoever would've thought
That building a concrete lump

On a beach was a vital way
To defend the nation?

But they worked.

**

Narrator: coming up,
It came from outer space...

Major: it's possible that they
Landed on our planet, evolved,

And maybe we're the end result
Of alien life.

Narrator: ...And mass death
In a desert ghost town.

Faylor: the cult is testing
Their chemical agents.

They want to know how much
Devastation it can cause

And how quickly.

**

Narrator:
January 19th, 2015.

As the worldview-2
Satellite passes

Over the western
Australian outback,

It photographs
A deserted settlement.

Faylor: there's buildings.
There's roads.

Everything seems to be in order,
But there are no people.

Narrator: nothing unusual
About an abandoned town

In the outback,
But government records reveal

Something strange
About this one.

What's really weird here
Is the australian government

Does not allow anyone
To go here.

This town wasn't just abandoned.

It was literally removed
From the maps.

Nelson: clearly,
Something happened here,

And it must have been very bad.

Narrator:
Analysts search historic
Local newspaper records.

They reveal that in the 1990s,
This region is linked

To one of the most disturbing
Terror attacks ever committed.

Nelson: if a terrorist group
Was acting here,

It would make sense as to why
The town was abandoned

And why the government
Has wiped it off the map.

Narrator: the story begins
On march 20th, 1995

In tokyo,
Morning rush hour.

10 terrorists board the subway
In groups of two.

Each team leaves a bag
On the train

And gets off
At the next station.

What nobody knows at the time
Is that these bags

Are full of
A deadly nerve agent,

And they've poked holes
In them with umbrellas.

Narrator: unnoticed,
The odorless nerve agent

Seeps into the air,
Spreading through the cars.

Nelson: you're on
Your normal commute to work,

And then all of a sudden,

Someone down
The way starts coughing,

Then bleeding
From the nose and mouth.

[ siren wails ]

Narrator:
The nerve gas, sarin, kills
13 people and injures 6,000.

Chamberlain: to give you an idea
Of the potency,

They had a bag of sarin,

And one drop of sarin
Can kill an adult.

[ people shouting ]

Narrator:
The atrocity is carried out

By a japanese doomsday cult
Led by shoko asahara.

Police discover
That two years earlier,

The cult buys a cattle station

In sparsely populated
Western australia.

When they head to the location,

The police find rotting sheep
Carcasses infected with sarin.

Faylor: the death cult is
Testing their chemical agents

On animals to see
How effective they are.

They want to know how much
Devastation it can cause

And how quickly.

The cult's training camp
Is in the same state

As the ghost town
In the satellite image.

It makes you wonder.

Did this cult have another base
In this town?

We know this terrorist group
Was using sarin,

And potentially
Some of it escaped.

Could that be the reason
This town is abandoned?

Narrator: yet when analysts
Check the case files,

There's no record the cult
Had a second camp in the region.

**

Geologist martin pepper goes
Back to the satellite image.

To the south of the ghost town,

He observes a blue-gray scar
On the landscape.

Pepper: you see that this blue
All comes from a certain source.

I'm starting to think
That this is mining slag.

Narrator:
Chemical scientist reid faylor

Believes the blue streak
Could be a vital clue.

Once you identify
The mining slag,

The blue material
You see starts to make sense

Because there's one
Blue material

That would absolutely make
A town have to leave,

And that's asbestos.

Narrator: the mineral asbestos
Occurs naturally

And is usually
Colored white, brown, or blue.

Fire- and heat-resistant, it is
Touted as a wonder material

In the late 19th
And early 20th centuries.

Asbestos was used everywhere.

It was in construction.

It was in your homes, in your
Factories, in your offices.

Narrator: asbestos becomes
An ingredient in goods

As varied as toothpaste,
Bowling balls,

And fake snow
In hollywood movies.

**

Little do people know
They're inviting a killer

Into their lives.

**

People started
Getting sick from it...

And people who mined it
Started to get sick,

So it didn't take long
Before we realized

That it was probably
The asbestos itself

That was making people ill.

Narrator: asbestos is made up
Of tiny fibers

Formed of microscopic crystals.

Odell: if these small fibers
Become airborne,

They can get trapped
In your airways,

Killing the cells and causing
A variety of different cancers.

Narrator:
Chemists rate blue asbestos

500 times more lethal
Than white asbestos

Because it sheds smaller
And harder needle-like fibers.

Blue asbestos is so fine
That it embeds in your lungs,

And your body,
To react to it,

Basically grows cells
Around it, causing cancer.

Narrator: geological
And mining records yield a clue

To the identity
Of the mystery ghost town.

Pepper: there's only
One supplier of blue asbestos

In the records
Of western australia,

And it was a small town
Called wittenoom.

Man: in 1948, in the shadow
of the hamersley range,

a town was born --
wittenoom.

Narrator: wittenoom, almost
700 miles northeast of perth,

Is a tiny backwater town,

But when asbestos mining
Starts there in the 1930s,

Wittenoom becomes a boom town
Of 20,000 people.

the comfortable homes
of this remote, tropical town

have amenities which
usually come to mining towns

only after years
of struggle.

Blue-asbestos dust
Becomes part of daily life.

They would have
Shoveling competitions

Trying to see who could dig up
The most asbestos fastest.

Narrator: miners unearth
150,000 tons of asbestos.

That's almost half the weight
Of the empire state building.

Nelson: here you have a whole
Community of people

Who were mining asbestos.

Their livelihood was made
Up of the thing

That eventually
Would be killing them.

Narrator:
7,000 people work at the mine,

But soon workers and town
Residents start to fall ill.

A disease spreads --
Mesothelioma --

A cancer of the chest walls
And lungs,

And they die, at first in their
Tens and then their hundreds.

What I find so horrifying
About all of this

Is we now know
How dangerous asbestos is,

But they didn't,
So they were playing

With this dangerous compound
As if it was harmless.

**

Narrator: in 1966,
The killer mine is closed down.

Cleanup proves impossible.

The deadly dust saturates
The land, buildings, everything.

Eventually, the government
Shuts down the town

And wipes it from the maps.

Pepper:
It all makes perfect sense.

They figure out what
They're digging up is toxic,

They all get the heck
Out of dodge,

And another wittenoom
Is a ghost town.

**

Narrator: coming up,
The visitor from outer space...

Who's to say it couldn't
Survive the impact

And then breed from there?

Narrator:
...And corrupt communist
North korea goes crazy.

This one is one that I would
Never have guessed.

**

Narrator:
September 15th, 2007.

Strange stories emerge

From the andean settlement
Of carancas.

Villagers in a remote part
Of peru

Reported this screaming sound
From the sky.

A massive explosion was heard,

Windows shattered,
And the ground shook.

On arriving,
The locals found a hole

That was basically full
Of boiling mud and steam.

Narrator: satellite images
Confirm a large hole

Has appeared
In the landscape.

The sheer force of the event

Makes some locals fear
A divine reckoning.

After this, the local community
Becomes quite disturbed.

Some people believe
That possibly the crater

Is somehow
Some sort of retribution.

Narrator: yet roland kays
Believes the crater

Has another celestial origin.

Kays:
From the shape of this hole,

My guess is that this must be
A new meteorite crash site.

**

Narrator: analysis of
The 46-foot-wide crater

Suggests that whatever caused it
Was no ordinary meteorite.

**

Janulis: it's a fairly unusual
Impact crater.

This one looks like it came
In completely perpendicular

To the ground, which would
Explain why it's so deep.

And at this point,
The story takes

A bit of a turn for the weird.

Everyone who's around the crater
Suddenly becomes ill,

Falling sick
Almost immediately.

Narrator: locals flood medical
Centers, suffering from vomiting

And a mysterious
Skin condition.

**

The government dispatches
Police officers

To the site
Of the satellite image.

They find a landscape
Littered with bleeding animals.

Livestock near the crater,
Healthy one day, just drop dead.

**

Police officers who were
Sent in to investigate

Also became ill
After leaving that crater.

This is just getting
Stranger and stranger.

It's like an episode
Of "Doctor who."

Narrator: the nightmare scenario
Is that the source

Of the mystery illness
In the meteorite itself.

We have absolutely no idea
Where this meteorite came from.

It could've come
From another planet.

It could've come
From the asteroid belt,

And we have no clue
What it could've been carrying.

Narrator:
Biologists have discovered

That there are some organisms
Capable of surviving in space.

There's things
That we've observed

Like the tardigrade
That can literally exist

In the vacuum of space
Without dying.

Narrator: tardigrades are
Water-based microanimals.

Some scientists believe
They are proof of panspermia,

The theory that life on earth

Was seeded by organic material
From outer space.

It's possible that
The building blocks of life

Hitched a ride on meteorites,

And when they landed
On our planet

During our planet's formation,
Brought life with it.

Here they evolved,
They found a new home,

And maybe we're the end
Result of alien life.

Dotson:
If it's theoretically possible

For organisms to come here
And create life,

It's possible
For them to come here

And exterminate it.

Narrator: 1918 -- spanish flu
Sweeps across the world,

Infecting one-third
Of the global population,

Killing 50 million.

Some astronomers theorize
This deadly plague

Is the result
Of space debris

Depositing frozen alien viruses
Into the atmosphere.

Analysts consider whether
The meteorite in peru

Is hosting a similarly
Lethal substance.

If you have some type of durable
Organism that can exist on,

Say, the surface of a meteor
And make it to earth,

Who's to say it couldn't
Survive the impact

And then breed from there.

[ sizzling ]

Narrator: investigators analyze
Soil samples

From the crater site
And discover it does,

Indeed, contain some lethal.

It's not the meteorite
That brought the sickness,

But it's what the meteorite
Hit on the ground,

Which turned out to be
Groundwaters full of arsenic.

**

Narrator: arsenic is a
Metalloid, a natural element

Which has some
Metallic properties.

Found in trace amounts in soil,
Water, and even food,

Just an ounce
Can kill 3,000 people.

**

Lester: something hit the earth
Really hard and really fast.

What does that do?
Anything on the surface

Is going to get thrown up
Into the air.

In this case,
The meteorite hit material

That was rich in arsenic.

All of a sudden,
That's in the air,

People are breathing it,
And that's why they got sick.

If you're infected by arsenic,

There's no shortage of bad
Things that can happen to you.

You can organ failure.
You can die.

You can get cancer.

Narrator: arsenic is found
Throughout the earth's crust,

And well over 100 meteorites
Fall to earth every year.

This event could happen again.

It could happen anywhere.

We have to live with the reality
That a meteor strike

Could happen anytime,
Anyplace, and hit anything.

**

Narrator: coming up,
Kim jong-un's terror camps.

Mosher: once you go in,
It's a very good chance

That you're never
Going to come out.

**

Narrator: high-resolution
Earth-imaging satellites

Regularly map every square mile
Of north korea,

Searching for suspicious
New structures or activity.

This area is a place that
We really know nothing about.

We're unable to get sources
On the ground,

And so we rely
On satellite technology

And images to find out
What little we can.

On may 4th, 2018,
The quickbird 2 satellite spots

Something unusual just north
Of the capital, pyongyang.

This image is really weird.

We have a long a succession
Of structures

All arranged
In a very orderly manner.

Mosher: it looks like
A giant radio antenna

That was just sort of laid
On the ground

With this central pole

And all of these little bars
Crossing it.

Munoz: the way things are
Set up, it's very regimented.

It's very military.

**

Narrator: when investigators
Closely analyze the image,

They identify what appear
To be fenced-off sections

Within the facility.

Looking again at the image,
You can see

This main access road
And these series of buildings

With areas to pen people in.

Maybe this is a prison camp.

Narrator: intelligence sources
Estimate north korea has

As many as 25 prison camps
Holding up to 120,000 inmates.

Ordinary people
Frequently go missing,

Never to be heard from again.

You never know if saying
The wrong thing

Could cause your neighbor
To denounce you,

And you might end up
In a prison camp

For the rest
Of your very short life.

Narrator: some international
Observers liken the prisons

To the nazi concentration camps
Of world war 2.

Munoz:
There's overcrowding,

Prisoners are routinely beaten,
Interrogated.

We're talking deprivation
To the point of starvation,

Rape, torture, and
Essentially worked to death.

Once you go in,
It's a very good chance

That you're never
Going to come out.

**

Narrator: yet when
Image analyst marc d'antonio

Studies the perimeter
Of the mystery structure,

He casts doubt
On the prison-camp theory.

D'antonio:
Where are the high fences

That would stop prisoners
From leaving?

There don't seem to be
Guard towers here,

So we're missing
A lot of stuff.

Narrator:
D'antonio's analysis

Yields another possible clue
To the mystery.

You can see down the center,
Between the whole rows,

There's a water canal.

What's in the building
Requires water,

So in my view, we're looking
At some type of farm here.

**

Narrator:
Historic images of the region

Reveal the facility
Appears in 1997.

Ex-c.I.A. Operative lindsay
Moran discovers this time period

Corresponds to a devastating
Famine that hit the country.

This was one of the greatest
Famines of our time,

And although the north
Korean government will maintain

That only a few hundreds
Of thousands of citizens died,

The more accurate estimates
Are more likely in the millions.

Narrator:
In 1995 and 1996,

Floods overwhelm north korea's
Farms and grain reserves.

As people starve,
The despotic leaders

Allocate the remaining supplies
Based on the degree of loyalty

People display
To the communist state.

Mosher: north korean farmers
Have to give away

Most of their crop
To the government.

During this time,
They start hiding it

So that their families
Can survive and they don't die.

Narrator: reports emerge
That markets begin selling meat

Labeled, "Special,"
Which investigators believe

Are human remains.

This strikes fear within
The hearts of the people.

They're not only starving,

But they're worried about
Their kids being stolen

And possibly being converted
Into food for humans.

Narrator:
According to dissidents,

The facility in the image
Is evidence

Of one of kim jong-il's
Insane plans

To feed his starving people.

It turns out, it is a farm,

But with a completely unexpected
Animal for north korea.

**

It's actually an ostrich farm.

**

Ostriches. Go figure

I'm happy to say
That this is one

That I would never have guessed.

Narrator: coverage 16 feet
In a single stride,

The ostrich is
The ultimate fast food,

But it also carries a kick.

Their 4-inch-long claws can
Disembowel with a single strike.

And the ostrich farmers
Soon discover another problem

With kim jong-il's
Birdbrained scheme.

It doesn't take a genius
To figure out

That ostriches might not survive
Well in north korea.

North korea has
Really severe, cold winters,

And ostriches are known
For thriving in arid,

Savanna habitats
Of africa.

Narrator:
The cold north korean winters

Drive the ostrich farmers
To desperate lengths.

Moran: they end up
Having to make special vests

For the birds to keep them
Warm in the winter.

Can you just imagine
These ostriches,

Which are already
A really large, awkward bird,

Wearing these little jackets
Around them.

Narrator:
The ostrich farm does nothing
To help the starving population.

The ostriches produce too little
Meat at too high a cost.

Moran: there's distinctly
The possibility

That this could be
A breeding ground

Just for a delicacy
That's enjoyed

Only by the uber elite,
Kim jong-un and his cronies.

Schuttler: it's probably
The most ridiculous attempt

In history
To try to battle a famine

With a bird that's not
Even native to the area.