All language subtitles for The Proof Is Out There Military Mysteries 2024 S01 E02_track3_[eng]

- [Rudy] The following
program contains footage

of military operations.

Viewer discretion is advised.

Tonight, on The Proof Is Out
There: Military Mysteries,

a 747 takes off in a war zone
and lands in a fireball.

Whoa, who's responsible?

The enemy, or us?

- To see one of our aircraft
destroyed in such a manner

is something I've
never seen before.

- [Rudy] Haunting
voices from Vietnam.

Was this how the Army
got in the enemy's head?

- Mysterious sounds that
you've never heard before.

This is a sound that
a ghost might make.

(ghostly voices)

- [Rudy] Photos of a
recently rediscovered

Nazi mountain tunnel complex.

Why was it built?

To hide Hitler's stolen gold?

- Somewhere within
these tunnels,

this gold is there
waiting to be discovered

to this very day.

- [Rudy] And our secret weapon.

Who built this
homemade renegade sub?

- The technology employed
is pretty high tech.

This is a serious submarine.

(Guardsmen shouting
in foreign language)

(film reel clicking)
(dramatic music)

- [Rudy] In the modern history
of war, there are films.

- Shazam.

- [Rudy] Photos,
recordings, and documents

that raise questions.

- So everything about this
story is one big mystery.

- This particular footage has
caused a lot of controversy.

- [Rudy] What's
really happening?

- [Joe] There's so
little information.

- Nothing like this has
been attempted before.

- [Rudy] That's
where we come in.

Our mission: investigate the
battlefield's strangest images,

sounds, and more.

- [Tim] This photo
blows my mind.

- [Amy] You can imagine how
terrifying it would be.

- [Rudy] We'll analyze
each with military experts

and try to come up with answers.

- I'm Ronnie Adkins, former
US Army Intelligence Analyst.

- I'm Rudy Reyes, Recon
Marine war veteran.

The proof starts now.

- Good evening
everybody, I'm Ronnie.

He's Rudy.

And we are primed and psyched
to bring you some of the most

compelling stories from
the world of warfare.

- You know, Ronnie,

sometimes in wartime
when things seem calm-

- Something's about
to hit the fan.

- Exactly.

Let's go to Afghanistan,

Bagram, in particular, a
place we both know well,

to find out why a routine flight
ended in a fiery disaster.

The question: why did a
747 fall from the sky?

It's just before 3:30
p.m. on April 29th, 2013

at Bagram Airbase, the U.S.
military's nerve center

for its fight
against the Taliban.

An Army vehicle with a dash cam

is approaching the
perimeter of the airbase.

And on the right side of the
frame we can see a massive 747,

National Airlines Flight
102, specifically,

taking off at a steep
angle of ascent,

executing a special procedure

called a maximum
performance takeoff.

This is where the pilot puts
the nose up as far as possible

to quickly reach high altitudes

and avoid the threat
of ground fire.

But now, look closely
at the video.

Within seconds, the giant
plane falls out of the sky,

taking the heroes on board
to a fiery and tragic death.

- The 747 can carry about
65,000 gallons of fuel.

It explains the
massive black cloud.

That's an aircraft full of
fuel burning on the ground.

- [Rudy] Preston Stewart
is a military historian

and former Army lieutenant.

- It's difficult to watch
because you can't do anything,

and if you were on the plane
you couldn't do anything,

and that's hard to see play out.

- [Rudy] Former sniper
Nick Irving spent two years

in Afghanistan and knows
Bagram as well as we do.

- I've seen a lot of
devastating things,

especially in Afghanistan,

but to see one of our
aircraft go down and destroyed

in such a manner is something
I've never seen before.

- [Rudy] After the crash, the
dash cam footage goes viral

and viewers ask the question,

what caused this
state-of-the-art plane

to fall from the sky?

The good news, if
we can call it that,

is that normally you think of
a 747 as a passenger plane.

This particular aircraft
was reconfigured for cargo.

- That's right, man.

Using what's called a
two-deck configuration,

a typical 747 can carry anywhere
from 400 to 500 passengers.

but this 747-400
was reconfigured

as kind of a cargo
truck for the sky.

There are only six
passengers on board,

but it had over 200
tons of cargo on board.

- That's a major
cargo haul for sure,

but wide body jets
don't just crash.

And 747's in particular
have a strong safety record.

Only 4% have ever been involved

in an incident with hull loss.

So let's check in
with our experts

and see what exactly
happened here.

(tense music)

Former CIA officer
Joseph Assad says

we first have to eliminate
some kind of ground fire.

- We saw a lot of
Taliban activity,

mortars and rockets constantly
being lobbed at the airport.

- It's one of the
Taliban's target to-do list

is to destroy an
American aircraft.

- [Rudy] And as soon as the
word spread of the incident,

the Taliban took credit.

- They thought that
this is an easy win,

that they can claim this.

However, the value of
having a video like this

is incredible.

- [Rudy] Reviewing the footage,

former Army Lieutenant
Preston Stewart

shoots down the
shoot-down theory.

- [Preston] In this case, when
you're watching the plane,

you don't actually
see any explosions.

You don't see anything
strike the aircraft,

and the first time you
see any sort of detonation

is when the aircraft
strikes the ground.

- [Rudy] So the plane
wasn't shot down,

but in a post 9/11 world, we
have to consider terrorism.

Remember, Afghanistan
was Al-Qaeda's home base.

That's why we were there
in the first place.

- It could have been a hijacked
scenario in which people

stormed the cockpit, took over,

and basically diverted the plane
and forced it into a crash.

- [Rudy] But Assad also says
that the video leaves him

doubting that theory.

- A hijacker would
have a purpose.

We have seen the 9/11 hijackers.

They would hijack an
aircraft full of fuel

in order to crash into a
target to make a statement.

So it didn't make sense
that a hijacker would storm

the cockpit of a
747 full of cargo

only to crash it
into an empty field.

- [Rudy] And the tight
security within the perimeter

is also key.

- There's a lot of layers
of security to get through

for somebody to sneak onto
the airfield in some way,

shape, or form, forcibly
take over the aircraft.

Never say never, but I'm
not aware of that happening

any time in the 20 years
the U.S. was in Afghanistan.

- [Rudy] The plane's
cockpit voice recorder

was recovered
after the disaster,

and it showed no evidence
of a cockpit struggle

or of any kind of pilot error.

But the wreckage did reveal

that a key part of the plane's
controls had been damaged.

- So what happened was
the hydraulic system

that controls the horizontal
stabilizer was destroyed,

which then resulted in

the complete failure
of the aircraft.

- [Rudy] The
horizontal stabilizer

is part of the plane's back
wing that helps produce lift

in order to balance
the plane's gravity

and center of pressure, keeping
the whole aircraft stable.

But what took out the
horizontal stabilizer?

The mystery leads
us back to the fact

that the plane was
carrying cargo, not people.

In this case, a very
special kind of cargo.

- The 747 was loaded
with five MRAPs.

These are mine-resistant,
ambush protected vehicles.

- [Rudy] MRAPs are the
transport vehicle of choice

where RPGs and IEDs
are a common threat.

(explosion booming)

"Popular Mechanics" writer Joe
Pappalardo knows them well.

- An MRAP is an
up-armored Humvee.

If you stack two of 'em
on top of each other,

it kind of looks
like what an MRAP is.

- So imagine five of these
in a 747, which is prone

to being sensitive to
the weight distribution.

- [Rudy] And it turns out
a fatal error was made,

not during takeoff,

but while that heavy
cargo was being loaded.

- So here you have an aircraft
taking off with five MRAPs

and one of them comes loose.

- That enabled that vehicle
to smash into the hydraulics,

destroying the airplane's
ability to control itself.

- [Rudy] The sliding
MRAP not only

damaged the plane's mechanics,

it doomed the flight's physics.

- [Joe] That would throw
the center of gravity off,

that would ruin the
weight and balance.

- So the aircraft was not
able to get enough wind

over the wings in order
to maintain the lift,

causing the engines to stall.

And once the engines are
stalled, you're done.

- [Rudy] This avoidable tragedy
underscores the importance

of an an overlooked aspect
of our military: logistics.

- Armchair generals think
of battles won and lost

because of the weapons and the
warriors, but the logistics

is what really supports
a military campaign.

(tense music)

- Brother, that's
a disturbing story.

- I'll say.

And check it out.

An NTSB investigation
found that the carrier

omitted critical
information in their manual

about how to properly
secure the freaking cargo.

- Well, fortunately since then,

there's been a whole slew
of new regulations and rules

related to cargo
planes like this one.

Hopefully it never
happens again.

- War can mess with
your head space.

Now most of us in the
military are familiar

with post-traumatic stress

and the terrible mental
and emotional burdens

borne by veterans
around the world.

- Ronnie, I still have bad
dreams about my fallen brothers,

but in this next incident,
some Vietnamese soldiers

were hearing the cries
of their dead comrades

while they were awake.

- It was all part of
an ingenious mind game

devised by the Americans.

And the question was, what
was behind the ghost sounds

of the Vietnam War?

February 10th, 1970, units
of the North Vietnamese Army

are deep in the jungles
of Hau Nghia Province

at the height of
the Vietnam War.

It's just after
dusk when the NVA

hear a series of
spine-chilling sounds.

(ghostly moaning)

Let's hear that again.

These are the actual
recordings, by the way.

(ghostly moaning)

And it's not just moans,
but words in Vietnamese.

(ghostly voice
speaking Vietnamese)

- [Ronnie] The voices sound
like the wandering souls

of dead NVA comrades
killed on the battlefield.

(ghostly voice
speaking Vietnamese)

- If I was a 19-year-old

communist soldier
from the north,

you've already got a lot of
things to be scared as hell of,

and then what do you hear?

The jungle is full of
those sounds and voices

that are speaking to you
in your own language.

(ghostly moaning)

- [Ronnie] As the troops
listen more intently,

more sounds follow, banging
gongs, sobbing women.

(ghostly moaning)

And then a clue, an oddly
specific suggestion.

(ghostly voice
speaking Vietnamese)

- [Ronnie] What was behind
these ghostly sounds?

Now, a lot of people believe

that the jungles of
Vietnam are haunted,

especially considering
that over 300,000 people

are still unaccounted for

just from the period
of the Vietnam War.

Rudy, you've spent time
training people in Vietnam.

What do you think about this?

- I hate to say it, Ronnie,

but there are aspects
of these sounds

that remind me of my experiences
both in and out of combat.

This right here, that's straight
out of the PSYOPs playbook.

- You're right, it is.

Our experts are gonna
tell you how it worked.

(tense music)

(ghostly voice echoing)

Superstition was a powerful
weapon in the Vietnam War.

In fact, both sides had
their share of ghost stories.

- There's a story
involving American soldiers

crawling down a tunnel
to find the Viet Cong,

but instead they
heard a female voice

calling for them as they left.

(ghostly cries)

And there were also reports
from soldiers of ghostly figures

moving through trees,
and fanged creatures

who would try to
kidnap and eat troops

while they were in the jungle.

- [Ronnie] But the true
story of these voices

was a closely guarded
secret for years.

It wasn't until 1969 when
the first reports revealed

to the public that the
voices were actually

part of a manipulative mixtape

that was blasted across the
countryside by American GIs.

It was part of a PSYOPs mission,

codenamed Operation
Wandering Soul.

- There was a recognition
that people in Vietnam

had religious beliefs
and superstitions

whereby the souls of dead people

were wandering in the
forests and in the jungles.

The American military understood

that that was a superstition
that the enemy had,

and that maybe it would
provide an upper hand

in the battle space.

(ghostly voice
speaking Vietnamese)

- [Ronnie] Former Green Beret
and PSYOP specialist Mark Sauter

says one ominous recording,
which featured actors

playing a deceased Viet Cong
soldier and his grieving family,

was a big hit.

- Ghost Tape Number 10
was the most frightening

and diabolical
mixtape ever created.

(ghostly voice echoing)

And it was created by the U.S.
Army Sixth PSYOPs Battalion.

- [Ronnie] When first deployed,
Operation Wandering Soul

exhibited its powers
of persuasion.

The audio actually caused
enemy combatants to surrender.

It even terrorized
South Vietnamese troops

and civilians alike.

- In one case, a offshoot
of Wandering Soul

was playing the sounds
of a tiger roaring

near a Vietnamese position

where a tiger had
attacked a soldier.

And according to veterans,

this resulted in more than
a hundred of the enemy

abandoning that position.

- [Ronnie] However, the
psyop could only fool

the enemy's ears for so long

before they eventually
tuned it out.

By the early 1970s, Ghost Tape
10 and many of the recordings

from the operation were
put out of rotation.

And as we know, whatever impact
Operation Wandering Soul had

on the North Vietnamese,
it didn't scare them off

from their goal of
taking South Vietnam.

(tense music)

So Rudy, what do you
think about all this?

It's a pretty original
tactic, right?

- Ah, it's clever, but
in no way original.

Back in the Philippine communist
insurgency in the '50s,

one U.S. advisor helped
the Filipino military

leverage the legend
of a local vampire

to instill sheer
terror in the enemy.

So making use of
folklore for PSYOPs

is an established tactic.

- Yeah, sometimes when
war isn't scary enough,

it helps to enlist
the supernatural.

- Now, if you're American,
you know this picture

of U.S. Marines raising
the Stars and Stripes

during the battle of Iwo Jima.

Rudy, as a Marine, what
goes through your head

when you see that picture?

- Honor, courage, commitment,

the values of the Marine Corps.

But Admiral Chester
Nimitz said it best,

"On this day on Iwo Jima,

uncommon valor was
a common virtue."

- Well, for Russians
and their cool hats,

this picture from World
War II is just as sacred.

But the question is,

was this iconic World
War II photo faked?

May 2nd, 1945, Berlin, Germany.

In the morning, a group
of Russian soldiers

burst through the front
doors of the Reichstag.

This is the main government
building in Nazi Germany.

It's iconic, and
it's a smoking wreck.

When they get to the roof,

three soldiers unfurl
the flag of the USSR.

As the Hammer and Sickle
flap in the breeze,

a news photographer snaps
that incredible photo.

- It comes on the heels of
the iconic Iwo Jima image,

And so the Soviets recognize
how important that was

symbolically, and they're trying
to kind of replicate that.

- [Ronnie] Why is this
single photo so important?

Well, remember,
this is a country

that lost an estimated 27
million people in World War II.

That's almost four
times more than Germany,

and nine times that of Japan.

- The Soviet government
was able to show this photo

to its people and
say, "It's over."

We didn't survive, we
emerged victorious.

- There's a lot of
real pride and emotion

that goes into this image.

They're putting the Soviet
flag on the Reichstag.

That's the the heart of Germany.

It's the heart of Nazi power.

- [Ronnie] The picture is worth
more than a thousand words,

so what's the problem?

Well, today there's
people who feel the photo

at the Reichstag was staged,
and that aspects of it

were faked with a kind
of 1940s Photoshopping

to cover up some ugly
aspects of the story.

Could it be true?

- Okay, okay,
first things first.

There's a difference
between fake and staged.

The Iwo Jima photo was staged.

The real first flag raising,
this is what it looked like.

It happened an hour
and a half earlier,

but they wanted a better
shot for this iconic moment.

So they got a bigger flag
and they did it again.

- Now, this Russian photo,

there might have been
more going on here,

and our analysts dug into it.

(tense music)

First question
about this picture.

Did it really
capture the moment

the Reichstag was first taken?

Historian Martin K.A.
Morgan says, "Nyet."

- The Soviets moved into
and occupied the Reichstag,

and even raised a flag,
the day before this.

That was taken down
overnight by the Germans

when they briefly reoccupied it.

Then the Reichstag building
itself was reoccupied

by Soviet forces
once and for all

on May 2nd, at which
point it was decided

to re-stage a
flag-raising event.

- [Ronnie] What about
the flag itself?

Political scientist and
U.S. Air Force veteran,

Dr. Sarah Kreps says it
was made for the occasion,

a premeditated photo op.

- This is really jerry-rigged.

It's tablecloths that
are sewn together

and you can even
see the seam here.

They are sewn together
to make a flag

for precisely this purpose.

The reason why
that's so important

is because this
is all symbolism.

This is propaganda.

(shutter clicking)

- [Ronnie] Okay, but it
goes further than that.

Remember, the Soviets
pioneered the art

of photo manipulation.

They removed party members
from photos with Stalin

and Lenin if they fell out
of favor or were executed.

So was that kind of
trickery at work here?

Well, here's what we know.

When the photographer, Evgenii
Khaldei, return to Moscow

immediately after
snapping the shot,

Soviet officials suggested
he tweak it a bit.

Look closer, and compare
the before and after.

- In the revised photo,
they pulled it in;

it focuses more on
the destruction.

It's a lot darker.

There is no horizon,
there is no light.

It is more of a
celebration of tragedy

and of the pain that the
Soviets had to go through.

- [Ronnie] All right, the
Soviets doctored it a little

to make a point.

A lot of people would
say, "Big deal."

But look closer.

In the original, the soldier
holding the flag waver's feet

seems to have two wristwatches.

But in the doctored final
version, he only has one.

Why change it?

- A man with one watch,
that's understandable.

A man with two watches is a man

who has been corrupted
by Western influences.

- [Ronnie] That's
the communist spin.

But there may have been
a darker explanation:

in a word, looting.

- Once a city was captured,

the Russian soldiers would
be allowed loose in the city

to take whatever they want.

And for every Soviet soldier
with a watch on his left wrist,

there were probably nine
more watches on his right.

- [Ronnie] Tragically,
this goes way past

stealing watches and jewelry.

- The Soviet military
goes wild with looting,

and raping, and
murdering in this city.

There's an estimate that as
many as 120,000 German women

and girls were raped

in the immediate
aftermath of the battle.

- [Ronnie] The Soviet's
fear news of atrocities

will tarnish their
status as victors.

- When you're looting
on a widespread basis,

you look a little bit
more like a conqueror

than a liberator.

- [Ronnie] So the doctoring
of this now-famous photo

wasn't merely cosmetic.

It was in fact a coverup.

- So instead of a looting thief,

you've got a
responsible soldier.

And it's a very
small difference.

It's almost inconsequential,

but it's extremely consequential
because the Russians

were gonna base their
entire post-world order

on the worthiness
of their troops,

on the right to a
seat at the table

'cause they earned
it from bloodshed.

(tense music)

- So, staged?
- Affirm.

- Altered?
- Check.

- Deceptive?

- Well, there's no doubt the
Russians earned their victory

the hard way, but this
photo seems designed

to cover up some of
the terrible things

they did to achieve it.

- There may be no more
intriguing mystery around here

than the secret Nazi projects

whose true purpose
remains unknown.

- Bro, this next one is
the granddaddy of 'em all.

It's a mystery literally
the size of a mountain.

What were the Nazis
hiding in Project Giant?

August 2016.

A media frenzy has erupted
in Lower Silesia, Poland

after word spreads
that two explorers

may have made a stunning
find in a series of tunnels.

- These seven tunnels
are square miles in area.

They have rooms that are
hundreds of feet long,

ceilings that are
50, 60, 70 feet tall.

They're basically
subterranean neighborhoods.

But what makes them truly
enigmatic and very, very bizarre

is that there's virtually
no primary documentation

as to what these tunnels
were going to be used for.

- [Ronnie] There
is documentation

on when these tunnels
were built: 1943.

At that time, the
Nazis occupied Poland

and over 13,000 prisoners
were used as slave labor

to build a base known
as Project Giant.

One of the workers'
stories was documented

by Menachem Kaiser.

His grandfather's first cousin
spent time at the facility.

- Abraham Kaiser was
one of the prisoners

who worked on the project.

He was one of the
slave laborers,

and he had managed
to keep a diary.

- [Ronnie] Unfortunately,
Abraham's diary only detailed

where he worked and what
his day-to-day was like.

And he never learned
the base's true purpose,

which takes us back
to the question,

what were the tunnels for
and what were they hiding?

- All right, Ronnie,
we've got the map here.

My first question is, if Project
Giant is such a big deal,

why is it in Poland
as opposed to Germany

where all the Nazis are?

- 'Cause the Nazis
were arrogant, man.

- Mm.

- See, the Nazis didn't
expect to lose Poland.

It was supposed to be
a bastion for them.

What they did is they slapped
Project Giant right here

into Lower Silesia.

You're so far away from
U.S., from British,

and all the other
Western Allies.

- Maybe its location is
actually a clue for its purpose.

tense music)

- [Ronnie] People have
theorized that Project Giant

was everything from a
massive occult temple

to a place where Hitler
kept his own fleet of UFOs.

That's right.

As crazy as it sounds,
there are some who believe

the Third Reich had its own
flying saucer project where,

using alien technology, they
created Reichsflugscheiben,

a.k.a., Reich flying discs,
large, pilot-controlled discs

that could reach speeds of up
to 5,000 kilometers an hour.

Many UFOlogists believe
these saucers were built

in the coastal
city of Peenemunde,

where the Nazis developed
the first rockets,

and that the saucers
themselves were stored

in the Project Giant tunnels.

- The absence of documentation,

and the absence of explanation
has created a vacuum.

That vacuum has been
filled by speculation.

There are some people that
believe there are Nazi UFOs

in those tunnels, and
I'm not making that up.

In other words, in the absence
of a plausible explanation,

what do we get?

We get these outrageous,
that make no sense.

- [Ronnie] But there's no
more alluring explanation

than that Project
Giant was meant

as a secret storage facility

for the infamous
Nazi gold train,

one of the biggest and
most enduring legends

of World War II.

- The Golden Train is an
ostensibly legendary train

full of looted Nazi gold.

According to legend,

the Germans had loaded
up 44 crates of gold,

put it on this train,
and for whatever reason,

the train was diverted and
hidden inside of the mountain.

- It was hidden
in these tunnels,

again, to avoid detection,

and that somewhere
within these tunnels,

this gold was hidden,

and it is there waiting to be
discovered to this very day.

- [Ronnie] Has a lost
treasure been discovered?

When ground-penetrating radar
used by Polish explorers

Andreas Richter and Piotr Koper

discovered what
look like a train,

that question
captivated the public.

But hold on a minute.

- I just don't see that Hitler
would just leave this gold

somewhere that Germany
no longer controlled

under the theory of, I'll
come back for it later.

That just doesn't
make much sense.

- [Ronnie] Those radar scans
that look like train cars,

they turned out to be
nothing but rock formations.

- And the reality
is, it's a myth.

We are clinging to these
myths about World War II

that we want to be true that
unfortunately they're not.

- [Ronnie] So if there's
no UFOs, and no Nazi gold,

could Project Giant have
been a place to develop

or store secret weapons?

- There's some wild
theories about weapons that

the Germans were developing,
creating sonic weapons

that can bring down
formations of bombers,

or anti-gravity weapons
that will give them

the perfect aircraft.

- [Ronnie] Nazi anti-gravity
tech may seem like

stories ripped
from a comic book,

but the secret weapons
theory isn't such a fantasy.

- The only reason why you
would build facilities,

as far as we can tell, with
electrical wiring, with sewage,

which are sort of linked
to one another by rail,

is if you're intending for
large amounts of people

and materiel to be
within those facilities,

and you want to be able
to sort of, you know,

move them from one end to
another, which suggests to me

that this would probably
be a place where you would

sort of assemble necessary
German war production.

- The theory kind of makes
sense because if he can

relocate some of this industry

into these underground
facilities in Poland,

would help him
prolong the war longer

by keeping the German
factories running.

- [Ronnie] The real
purpose of Project Giant

may only have been revealed
if the Nazis had won the war.

Fortunately, that didn't happen.

All Project Giant does
today is remind us

of the scale of
Hitler's evil dreams.

- You get like a small taste
of the ambition of the Nazis,

and in that sense it's demonic,

and it really does have a
grip on the imagination,

and it's frightening
and awe-inspiring.

(tense music)

- Okay, I get it.

No gold train.

The structures of Project
Giant remain a mystery

and a breeding ground for all
kinds of conspiracy theories.

- But with accounts suggesting
more tunnels yet to be explored,

this is one mystery that
might someday be solved.

- Being away from home,
sometimes for a long time,

can take its toll
on service members.

- That's right.

Hundreds of servicemen
leave their post every year.

Now some of those desertions
are easy to explain,

and others are bonafide
head-scratchers.

- Like this story of
an intoxicated mechanic

who seemingly pulls off
an impossible heist.

The question: what happened
to the homesick mechanic?

1969, the English Channel.

You're looking at footage
from a rescue mission.

A search team is hoping to
find a missing mechanic.

Instead, all they find
is this big oil slick,

and right here, an
empty life raft.

What really happened
here is a mystery,

and the woman in this photo
is at the heart of it.

It all went down the
night of May 23rd.

While most people are asleep,

a 60-ton C-130
Hercules cargo plane

roars down the runway of
the RAF Mildenhall airbase

in Suffolk, England.

This is a flight
unlike any other.

Not only is the pilot drunk,
he's not even a pilot.

The man in the
cockpit is 23-year-old

U.S. Air Force mechanic
Sergeant Paul Meyer.

- The very idea of
an untrained mechanic

thinking he could take a
C-130 is unthinkable to me.

- [Rudy] Earlier that night,

Meyer had been boozing
at a house party,

becoming erratic and combative.

Plastered and lovelorn,

Meyer decides he wants
to see his wife.

Except there's a hitch:
she's in Virginia.

- He's feeling rather
homesick, has a lot to drink,

and comes up with a brilliant
idea, and that is to fly home.

- [Rudy] So Meyer goes rogue.

He impersonates a high-ranking
officer and calls the base,

asking for a C-130 Hercules to
be fueled up and made ready,

and wait for it, the
dispatcher complies.

- Maybe when you get a call
from a commanding officer

in the middle of the night,
you just follow orders.

- [Rudy] With plenty of cojones,

but absolutely no flight
training, Meyer takes off.

Retired naval
aviator Ward Carroll

shows us why that
was no easy feat.

- So in this government
training film,

you can see a nice view
of the C-130 cockpit.

What jumps out at you right away

is just the number of gauges.

To get the airplane airborne,

you have to know which one of
those dials is the altimeter,

which one's the
airspeed indicator,

then the attitude indicator.

It's a daunting
amount of information

that's in front of you.

- [Rudy] Nevertheless,
Meyer begins flying west

towards the United States.

As soon as the Air Force
realizes something is wrong,

they scramble a fighter
jet and another C-130

to intercept him.

According to the
official record,

they never established contact.

Meanwhile, Meyer's
contacted someone else.

Mid-flight, the fleeing
sergeant places a strange call

to Jane Meyer, his spouse.

As their conversation
drags on for 45 minutes,

Meyer's mood suddenly shifts.

He tells Jane he's
run into trouble.

Seconds later, the
line goes dead.

What happens next is the
subject of intense controversy.

But everyone agrees an hour
and 45 minutes after takeoff,

the C-130 crashes into
the English Channel.

The military says the plane
disintegrated on impact,

but plenty of questions are
still hanging in the air.

- Rudy, how do you
think Sergeant Meyer

acquired the technical
know-how to take off

and fly this plane for
more than 90 minutes?

- Well, think about it this way.

A pilot could know how
to fix the aircraft,

at least the basics.

Conversely, a mechanic might
know the basics of flying

and be able to
taxi and take off.

All those cockpit dials, they
look pretty intimidating,

but Sergeant Meyer could
have picked up just enough

to pull this thing off.

- All this makes you really
wonder what happened to him.

- Well, let's check
with our experts

and see what they think.

(tense music)

Retired officer Preston
Stewart has studied the case.

He says many believe the Air
Force sent up that fighter jet

not to assist Meyer,
but to shoot him down.

That's because Meyer didn't
boost just any plane.

He may have taken one
with sensitive documents

or technology that posed
a national security risk.

- One of the theories put
forward is that the plane,

the C-130 that he
did take control of,

was operated by or
used for the CIA,

suggesting that either
some documents on the plane

might be of a classified
nature that the United States,

British, NATO,
anybody didn't want

falling into the wrong hands.

- Meyer's family has supported
that theory for years.

- I will believe to the
day I take my last breath

that they took him down.

They felt like they
had a right to.

We just wanna know

why the government
didn't tell us the truth.

- [Rudy] Journalist MJ Banias
has a different theory.

- Sergeant Meyer was most
likely not shot down.

The intention would be to
try and communicate with him

to give him instructions
to land the plane

or ditch the plane
in a safe location

so that no one would get hurt.

- [Rudy] The strange call
Meyer made from the cockpit

to his new bride back
home is also a key clue.

- There's this added mystery
where all of a sudden,

he's successfully able to
place a call to his wife

while on board this aircraft.

Telecommunications
were pretty old school.

You know, you needed to
patch the call through radio

in order to make that call.

- [Rudy] In other words,
Meyer couldn't have done this

without Air Force assistance.

The contents of his call
are also interesting.

Meyer tells his wife
he's coming home

and flying low to
avoid radar detection.

She was trying to
convince him to go back,

but after several more
minutes on the call,

the United States
Air Force interjects.

- Somebody chimed in trying
to get her to keep him talking

'cause they were using
that to track where he was.

- [Rudy] Whether the Air
Force wanted to talk him down

or shoot him down, Meyer
never makes it home.

According to this
radar watch log,

the southern radar
station loses contact

at 05:48 that morning,

and the plane disappears
right about here.

- It's very possible that
Meyer knew that his aircraft

was gonna go down.

So instead of attempting
to ditch it into the water,

he simply opened one of
the doors and leapt out.

And when he did
jump out, you know,

he lands in ice-cold ocean
water, hypothermia sets in,

it doesn't take long, and
all of a sudden, he perishes.

- [Rudy] The United
States Air Force

treats this incident as an
accident and closes the case.

But 50 years later, there
may be answers still to come.

In 2018, an exciting discovery:

the wreckage of the C-130
is discovered by a dive team

at the bottom of
the English Channel.

Meyer's family, having
relentlessly pursued answers

for all these years, hopes that
a planned salvage operation

will finally solve this mystery.

- The plane was, for the most
part, pretty much intact.

But why would they tell us the
plan disintegrated on impact

when some divers start out
within a year, two years, maybe,

or so, and found the plane?

(tense music)

- They never find Meyer's body.

Rudy, that part reminds
me of the famous hijacker,

D.B. Cooper.

They never found him either.

- They find parts of the
plane and a life raft.

That tells me he might
even have survived.

- It's not impossible, but
Rudy, you and I both know

that booze, love,
and home sickness,

they can make you do
some crazy things, man.

- You know that's right.

- Now it's time for this
week's secret weapon.

In this case, we're talking
about something dangerous

and rare that lurks
beneath the waves,

and I'm not talking
about a megalodon.

- We're talking
about submarines.

But in this case,

what happens when a sub
is owned by a secretive,

violent organization that
threatens the United States

even as we speak?

The question: how do the
secret narco subs work?

(Guardsmen shouting
in foreign language)

June 18th, 2019,
the Pacific Ocean,

just 200 miles off
the coast of Colombia,

a high-speed cat and
mouse chase is underway

as the U.S. Coast Guard
is in hot pursuit.

As we can see in
this intense footage,

a strange submersible vessel
is doing its best to escape

while Guardsmen are
screaming at it to stop.

Let's give it up for that
Coastie getting it done.

The hatch finally opens,

and the captain of this
unidentified floating object

throws up his
hands to surrender.

But what exactly is the ship?

Former submarine
commander, David Marquet.

- Ah, well this is a
homemade miniature submarine.

I do know I would not
wanna be on that thing.

- [Rudy] This video
quickly goes viral,

not only because of the
vessel's strange design,

but because of its cargo.

More than 17,000 pounds of
cocaine worth over $232 million.

- The cartels are constantly
looking for other means to

transport drugs
from South America

to the continental
United States.

The technology employed
is pretty high tech.

- It's estimated that over
70 of these narco subs

will be made this year alone.

- These things are also
believed to be moving

about 30% of Colombia's
total cocaine.

Now fortunately, the Coast
Guard's had the opportunity

to seize and study some of them.

- But what are we
really looking at?

(tense music)

How do narco subs work?

Well, former submarine
engineer Ken Sewell

says they're not
full-service submarines

as we normally understand them.

- Technically speaking, we're
looking at what's called

a semi-submersible.

They are, just a little bit of
it comes up above the water.

It's just a small amount
of positive buoyancy.

They suck air in,

run a combustion
engine, exhaust it out,

not unlike a speedboat.

- [Rudy] But as Captain
Marquet examines the video,

he sees this design has
a remarkable ability

to elude detection.

And that's why it's
such an important tool

for the clandestine drug trade.

- It's so low, so it's
hard to show up on radar.

I'm guessing it
has a diesel engine

because these are
probably the intakes.

It seems to be
moving pretty well.

- [Rudy] Where did it come from?

We know there's a sprawling
international black market

in illegal weapons,
but Sewell says,

with these submersibles,

it's much easier to
make one from scratch.

- To build one of these,
you really just kinda need

a metal shop and a welder.

To bend the metal
and weld it together,

it's not really
that complicated.

- [Rudy] Still, in order
to even operate a plant,

there must be some
fundamental knowledge

of how this technology works.

- This is technology from folks
who know what they're doing.

You can imagine a former
nuclear sailor in a major navy,

Russian, British,
French, or American,

suddenly being approached
with huge sums of money,

seven digits plus, to
assist in this effort.

The cartels certainly
have it within their means

to woo that kind of talent.

- There are a lot of personnel
from the former Soviet Union,

and I know some of 'em
ended up down there

building these things.

I wouldn't be surprised
if the North Koreans

even got into this.

- [Rudy] And perhaps
the scariest thought

about seeing these
types of innovations

is what other nefarious
purposes could they be used for?

Why stop at drug smuggling?

- I look at something like that,

and I'm thinking
something more of a,

if you can transport narcotics
or illegal contraband,

you can transport a dirty bomb,
a nuclear who-knows-what.

Something that could cause
way more damage than cocaine.

(tense music)

- Recently, President
Joe Biden told Congress

these semi-submersibles
pose, quote,

"A significant danger
to the United States."

- And not just
the United States.

Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka

have become the first
terrorist organization

to develop these kinds
of underwater weapons.

- That's scary stuff, brother.

That's our show for
tonight, people.

Until next time,
keep your powder dry.

- And your head on a swivel.

Good night.

(tense music)