All language subtitles for The Proof Is Out There Military Mysteries 2024 S01 E03_track3_[eng]

- [Rudy] The following program

contains footage of
military operations.

Viewer discretion is advised.

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

This Korean War hero was
officially declared dead

in a plane crash.

So how did he show up on film

standing next to the
burning wreckage?

- I'd say that's
pretty good evidence

that he survived the crash.

- [Rudy] Is this recording proof

the real first woman in
space died on re-entry?

(tense music)

- [Rudy] What happened to
the ships in this photo,

and did it nearly change
the course of World War II?

- The big question is,

did the Germans anticipate
what was going on?

That's a mystery.

- [Rudy] And, is this proof

the government is training
dolphins to kill?

- The dolphin would be swimming,

would see an enemy frogmen,

and bam, would slam this
giant needle into their body.

(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?

- [Expert] 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.

- [Expert] 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.

(dramatic music)

Welcome, everyone.

We're ready to rock and roll
on this week's first mission.

And this one's
important to both of us.

It's a mystery of the missing.

- It is important to both
of us, Rudy, and here's why.

An American hero vanished
in the Korean War,

but the big question became,

what happened to
Major Sam Logan?

It's 2010, and filmmakers
working on a project

about the Korean War come
across a long lost film.

It shows a man in
a white undershirt

standing near what appears
to be the smoldering wreckage

of a US aircraft.

Take a closer look.

If this man is who some
people think he is,

he's supposed to be dead.

- Most Americans had no idea

that there was photographic
evidence of a American hero.

- [Ronnie] Mark Sauter, former
Green Beret and journalist,

is one of many who believe
the man is the missing hero,

Major Sam Logan.

- Logan was a fine man.

He had served honorably
in World War II,

and like many US aviators,

he had been called back to a
war zone during the Korean War.

(foreboding music)

- [Ronnie] This story
begins September 9th, 1950

in the skies of the Korean War.

Logan is piloting a B-29 Super
Fortress named Little Mike

along with 10
other crew members.

(bombs whistling)

- They were performing
a bombing operation

outside of Pyongyang, the
capitol of North Korea,

when they were hit by
anti-aircraft fire.

- [Ronnie] Logan's B-29 bursts
into flames and goes down.

- During the war,

the Pentagon
maintained Sam Logan

in the category of
killed in action,

and stated that there were
no confirmed survivors

from his aircraft.

- Logan was declared dead,

but if he is the man in
the film as many believe,

what happened to him next?

Rudy, what can you tell
us about the bomber

Logan was flying
during the Korean War?

- This is the B-29.

It was one of the most
advanced aircraft of its time.

It featured a pressurized cabin,

four gun turrets that could
be fired by remote control.

Its first mission was in 1942,

but throughout World War II,

we lost a few of these
bad bears to the Soviets.

And those Soviets,
they broke 'em down,

they built 'em up, reversed
engineered the tech,

and built a bomber of
their own, the Tupolev 4.

Now, look at the Tupolev
4, look at the B-29.

A virtual carbon copy.

- Yeah, but a plane
can't tell you

how it's best
flown or even used.

For that you're gonna
need air crews and pilots

like Logan himself, who would've

had a lot of valuable
intelligence in his brain

that the Russians
would've wanted,

and it actually
might just be a clue

into the mystery of
what happened to him.

(intense music)

One theory is that

the North Koreans secretly
transferred Logan

and other American
prisoners to the Soviets.

As evidence, believers
point to a photo

published in a Soviet newspaper
months after the crash.

- It was sent around the world
by the Soviet News Agency,

and it clearly shows
Sam Logan in his t-shirt

in communist captivity.

There is no doubt this man
was captured by the communists.

- [Ronnie] The photo
was apparently taken

at the same time as the film
discovered decades later.

If you compare both to a known
photo of Logan on the right,

there is a striking resemblance.

At about the same time,

troops occupying the North
Korean capitol Pyongyang

discovered these words scratched
into the wall of a prison.

Sam Logan, captain,

US Air Force shot down
9 September, 1950.

- This is something
that was common

that POWs would write on walls

hoping that somebody would
see this in the future.

- [Ronnie] So if the evidence
points to Logan's survival,

why did the Air
Force think he died?

The Pentagon said it was
because Logan wasn't seen

in any POW camps

and wasn't part of
any prisoner exchanges

when the fighting stopped.

But remember, B-29
pilots were prized.

Did the North Koreans
hand him over to the USSR

to help train Tupolev 4 pilots?

Michael Logan was just two
when his father went missing,

and he agrees with the theory.

- Russia, the communists
didn't have big bombers.

And they really, really
wanted pilots from big bombers

so they could, you
know, learn from 'em.

- US servicemen that were kept

where the enemy can
gain intelligence

and knowledge from,
the know-how.

And somebody like
Major Logan would be

hugely useful to our enemy.

It would've been a significant
value for the Soviet Union

to take somebody
like Major Logan.

- [Ronnie] On a trip
to Russia in 1991,

Mark Sauter says he met a former
Soviet intelligence officer

who admitted it happened.

- They found a former Soviet
psychological operations

and intelligence officer

who said he personally
had processed Americans

being sent to the Soviet Union.

I met with him in Moscow
while he was still alive,

and he told me, "Yes, POWs
were sent to the Soviet Union."

They also found many people,

often from the former East Block

or Warsaw Pact
countries in Poland

who said they had been in
the Soviet prison system

and had seen American
POWs from the Korean War.

There seems to be
little doubt now

that the Soviets got US POWs.

I believe one of the ones
they got was Sam Logan.

- [Ronnie] Given that
Logan is standing

under the watchful eye
of an enemy soldier,

it's reasonable to assume
he's a prisoner here.

Sauter thinks the enemy
subjected some prisoners

to brainwashing.

Assad, who's former CIA, agrees.

If that's the case, what
happened to the prisoners

after they provided the
information the Russians wanted?

- Sadly, there were
some servicemen

when they were given the option

after they had been,
you know, reprogrammed,

they did not want to return
to the United States.

- American captives realized
that no one was coming for them.

And they had a choice, they
could refuse to cooperate

and they would be tortured
and probably sent to a camp

to be worked to death,

or they could agree
to tell what they knew

and allowed to survive.

None of those men
were ever returned.

- [Ronnie] Did Major Logan
live out his last days

in the USSR?

His son says it never
would've gotten that far.

- He didn't give them anything.

He wouldn't have lasted long

because they would've
tortured him,

and in a very short amount
of time, they would've,

you know, killed him

because he wasn't gonna
give 'em anything.

(tense music)

- Major Sam Logan is
perhaps the best evidence

of an American fighting man

who is now known to
have been captured

by the communists in Korea
and has never been returned.

- [Ronnie] The Russians denied
they took American prisoners,

and Major Logan's family
may never know for sure.

They're left only with
a 70-year-old film

they believe shows
him being captured

and memories of a loving
husband and father.

- When mother saw the video,
she was just brokenhearted

that she had never
seen that before.

And the fact she saw
her husband as a POW

was really
heartbreaking for her.

Well, I blame the government
for not being diligent

about finding any of
the missing-in-action.

They say they are and they're
trying to find their remains,

and there's a lot that the
United States could do

to find out information
if they really wanted to.

(tense music)

- And it's amazing,

all those years later, the
film is discovered randomly,

by get this,

a person working on a
documentary on the Korean War.

- That's right, man.

The thing that sticks out to
me the most is as of right now,

there's still a lot
of uncertainty

about Major Logan's fate.

His family doesn't have
many answers at all.

I hope they get some soon.

- During the Cold War,

the Soviet Space Program
was run by their military.

That's unlike our own NASA,
which is actually civilian-run.

- Now while NASA's
rocket launches

and their mistakes
are public knowledge,

that wasn't how the
Soviets operated.

This next mystery is
about a voice from space,

and did it belong to
the first woman in space

who died during re-entry?

It's May 17th, 1961.

Italian brothers and
amateur space watchers,

Achille and Giovanni
Judica-Cordiglia

are manning their homemade radio
system when they hear this.

(cosmonaut speaking
indistinctly)

- [Rudy] A panic stricken
voice speaking in Russian.

- [Rudy] The brothers believe

it's the heart-rending last
words of a Russian cosmonaut.

(cosmonaut speaking
indistinctly)

- [Rudy] And that's strange,
because officially,

the Soviets didn't
launch a woman into space

until two months later

when Valentina
Tereshkova made history

as the first woman
to make that journey.

- She was picked because
she had the right pedigree.

She was a parachutist,

which was really important

because the Soviet
cosmonauts at the time

didn't land with
their spacecraft.

They actually ejected
at 10,000 feet

and had to land by parachutes.

(foreboding music)

- [Rudy] But the recording
raises the question,

was Tereshkova the
first woman in space

or just the first
woman to survive?

(rocket whooshing)

- Can two amateur radio
operators actually record sounds

from space?

- All right, with their system,

they claim to have
picked up a transmission

from the first Sputnik
satellite and Sputnik 2.

Well, get this,

they said they heard
the heartbeat of Laika,

the dog that was up
there in that spacecraft.

- Yeah, I'm sure
something was recorded,

but what evidence do we have
that it actually came from space

or even for the theory
of the lost cosmonaut?

(dramatic music)

- [Rudy] First, is the
recording even genuine

or did the brothers fake it?

One of them, Giovanni, is
still alive and he says no.

(Giovanni speaking Italian)

- [Rudy] And Joe Pappalardo
of "Popular Mechanics"

agrees it's possible.

- The radio signals
bounce around.

As they reflect off of
things, they fragment.

So the idea that
someone on the ground

can intercept a space
message is not implausible.

- [Rudy] Not only was the
tech there to hear it,

the Soviets were
known to be secretive

about other space disasters.

- The Russians didn't
always play by the book.

So the idea that the Russians
would launch a mission

and that would've gone poorly

and we didn't know about
it, is very possible.

- In 1960, there was
a horrible accident

that claimed more
than a hundred lives.

(tense music)

That happened on a launch stand.

That killed senior
officials as well.

They still were
able to cover it up,

but history unearthed
it decades later

after the fall of
the Soviet Union.

- [Rudy] Years later in 1967,

cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov
died during reentry

in a capsule widely
known to be defective.

- Things really just fell apart
at the end of the flight.

His parachute didn't
deploy properly,

so he hit the ground
at full speed.

- One of the fatalities
that they had to admit

was Komarov whose
reentry went poorly.

And that is kind of
all you need to know

about the dynamic around
the Russian space program

at that time.

This is a society
built on mistrust.

- [Rudy] So there was a
precedent for deadly mishaps

in the Soviet space program,

but did that happen in the
case of the lost cosmonaut?

(cosmonaut speaking
indistinctly)

- [Rudy] After listening
to the specific words

the woman is saying,
Pappalardo has doubts.

- I don't think that's
very plausible.

I think if it's hot enough to
complain about during re-entry,

you're surrounded by
a sheath of hot plasma

that's ionized gases.

And if you're seeing that,
you're not radioing out,

there's no radio communication

that can get through that shroud
of plasma during re-entry.

So I don't think she
could have communicated.

- [Rudy] We dug deeper,

and our experts can find no
mention of this alleged incident

in the millions of previously
classified documents

released by the Soviet
Space Agency, Roscosmos,

and it's not mentioned

in any US intelligence
documents either.

- Every one of the
cosmonauts in the program

are accounted for, and their
stories go back a long time.

It'd be impossible to
make a cosmonaut disappear

from their official record.

They did lie, they
did cover things up.

They are not upfront,

about things that go
wrong in particular.

However, in the long term,

it's harder to
keep those secrets,

especially in something
like a space program.

- [Rudy] 60 years later,

Giovanni is still haunted by
whoever that voice belonged to.

(Giovanni speaking Italian)

(cosmonaut speaking
indistinctly)

(Giovanni speaking Italian)

(dramatic music)

- It's important to note

that after the fall
of the Soviet Union,

Western sources claim at
least 11 fatal accidents

occurred in the Russian space
program from 1961 to 1967,

and that they were
all covered up.

- Well, you know, it's
definitely the Soviet M.O.,

however, in my gut,

I feel the legend of
the lost cosmonaut

is just that, a legend.

- Four months before D-Day,

Allied ships were
training for the invasion

when they were attacked.

The question is,

how did the attack that
nearly canceled D-day happen?

You're looking at photos

of destroyed American
landing ships.

They were supposed to be
used for the D-day landing

but instead, they're
lying in ruins

on Allied soil months before
the top secret invasion.

What happened here?

(tape rewinding)

It was April 28th, 1944
in the English Channel,

30,000 Allied troops carrying
heavy packs and rifles

are on ships called LSTs,
or landing ship tanks.

This is a test run
for D-Day, people.

Everyone from the top flags
to the swabbies is involved.

It's called Operation Tiger.

The idea is for Allied troops
to make practice landings

in Slapton Sands, England,

because the shore
there resembles

the D-Day target of Normandy.

- They're going to launch

what will ultimately be the
largest amphibious landing

in human history.

They're gonna be attempting

what is the most difficult
military offensives to try

in an event that
you cannot lose.

And so, the best
thing you can do

is attempt to work
out all the kinks

through as realistic as
possible training scenarios.

- [Ronnie] The stakes are high,

but then, some
uninvited guests arrive.

A wolf pack of dreaded
German Schnellboot,

E-boats, as the
Allies called them.

They have diesel engines and
moved faster than the LSTs,

and each is armed with
three cannons and torpedoes.

- These were small, very
fast motor torpedo boats

that relied on high speed

to launch torpedo attacks
against Allied shipping.

- [Ronnie] The E-boats
fire their torpedoes,

the LSTs go down,

and when it's all over,
700 men are dead.

- Numbers of Allied soldiers

had not had proper training
with their life vests.

They ended up drowning

because they put their
life vests the wrong way.

You also had large
amounts of Allied troops

who were burned
by exploding fuel,

which was stored in all the
tanks and trucks and Jeeps

that were on these LSTs

that was ignited by
the torpedo attacks.

- [Ronnie] Supreme Allied
Commander General Eisenhower

processes the loss.

- Well, the big question is,

did the Germans anticipate
what was going on?

Did they just happen
to stumble on it?

That's the mystery.

- So Rudy, we've gotta go to
the map here for some context.

At this point in the war,

Nazis know that the invasion
to liberate Europe is coming,

but they don't know it's
gonna happen at Normandy.

They think it's gonna
happen at Calais.

And that's largely because
the Allies have been

sending all kinds of
bogus radio traffic,

building fake landing craft

as a part of Operation
Fortitude South

since Calais is the closest
distance from Great Britain.

- [Rudy] Got it.

- Now, what do you think
Ike's biggest fear is here?

- That the info's
been compromised.

- Exactly.

Ike's worried that, not only
did a spy tip the Nazis off

about the training
operation in the channel,

but also about the entire
D-day plan as a whole.

(tense music)

Allied forces are
worried about spies

and it's not just paranoia.

We know that as early as 1940,

the Nazis were sending
spies into Britain

by boat and even parachute

to gather intel and
perpetrate sabotage.

But we also know that
by the spring of 1944,

most of the Germans spies sent
to Britain have been caught.

In fact, more than a
dozen have been flipped

and are now acting
as double agents,

feeding the Nazis
disinformation.

- It doesn't ever appear
that the German intelligence

put together what exactly
was going on and why.

- [Ronnie] Military
analyst Tim McMillan says

that raises the
second possibility,

that the E-boats came
across Operation Tiger

purely by chance.

- They got lucky.

- They thought they were
just merchant ships.

This is what the German
patrol boats were doing.

They were trying
to be a nuisance,

sink any sort of shipping.

By the time they
carried out the attack,

they realized it probably
wasn't merchant shipping

but looked more
like landing ships.

- [Ronnie] In other words,

these E-boats were just doing
what they were assigned to do,

patrol the channel
and create chaos.

- The German Navy
had transitioned in,

away from the large scale
battle for the Atlantic

to these smaller 9,
7, 10 vessel groups

that were essentially out

hunting for targets
of opportunity,

which could have been merchant
vessels or in this case,

it would appear
that they stumbled

upon a relatively
sizable military target.

- [Ronnie] And Allied mistakes
contributed to some bad luck.

For one thing, the British
Navy had good intelligence

E-boats were
already in the area,

but the information did
not reach the flotilla

because incredibly,

the American ships were not
on the same radio frequency.

Another thing,
because it was night,

the flotilla traveled
in a straight line

to prevent the ships
from losing one another.

Bad idea.

- Normally, ships
would be zigzagging.

But when you're
zigzagging at night,

that can be a problem because
you can't necessarily see

where other ships are going,

increasing the risk
of collisions.

So at night, if you think
you're going to be safe,

you're most likely gonna
be sailing in a column.

That of course means that
you're more vulnerable.

- [Ronnie] But there
is a third theory.

Historian Anand Toprani argues,

the Germans probably had some
raw unspecific intelligence

from intercepted radio traffic

that the Allies were doing
something in the area,

they just didn't grasp
its significance.

- If they're able to capture
and decrypt communications,

they might understand that
an operation is taking place.

And according to a
post-mortem by the US Navy,

that is what the Germans did.

They were able to capture
Allied communications

and form a rough idea

there was some sort of
exercise taking place,

and basically
scrambled nine E-boats

to launch a hit and run attack
against this training operation.

- [Ronnie] The Allies
considered calling off D-Day,

but went forward once
they were confident

the plan hadn't
been compromised.

For their part, the
Germans may have decided

Operation Tiger was
just another decoy.

How wrong they were.

(tense music)

The moral of the story is,

good intelligence only
works when you believe it.

- The Germans probably knew

a military exercise
was happening,

they just didn't know
how important it was.

- I'm Rudy Reyes.

- And I'm Ronnie Adkins.

- From the air, the structure
in our next mystery

looks like a flying saucer.

It's called the Runit Dome,

and it's located in
the Marshall Islands.

The question is,

what is the Runit Dome hiding
and how dangerous is it?

In a way, the story of the dome

starts with this
piece of footage.

It's May 1958, on the Enewetak
Atoll in the South Pacific,

the US test a nuclear
bomb underwater.

1/10 of a second
after detonation,

a massive dome of ocean
water rises into the air.

At the 20-second mark,
it's nearly a mile high.

- Oh my gosh, look
at that. Shazam.

That is,

the massive amount of
water that has suddenly

become airborne is
absolutely incredible.

- [Rudy] This footage was
classified until 1999.

Military historian and author
Martin K.A. Morgan says

it's an abandoned US navy
ship there in the blast zone.

The brass at the
Pentagon claimed,

these underwater nuclear tests

help them understand the
effects of nukes on navy ships.

- And looked at
this wall of water

that's tumbling toward the ship.

Look at the way it just
sweeps over that ship

like it's not even there.

I mean, that is an
unstoppable force.

And no matter how
modern your navy is,

your navy can't survive that.

- [Rudy] The Enewetak Atoll,
part of the Marshall Islands,

is about 3,000 miles
west of Hawaii.

Our brave GIs
captured these islands

from Japan in World War II.

And in the early Cold War,

the area became ground zero

for nearly 67 nuclear tests
conducted over a 12-year period.

Many of the local Marshallese
had to be relocated.

The US assured the island nation

that it would clean
up the fallout.

And that brings us
back to the dome.

In 1977, the dome was erected

to contain the lethal
radioactive waste

produced by those
massive blasts.

- They had to do something

with all of the now
radioactive material and soil

that was everywhere
in this region.

And so the US government
built effectively a tomb

called the Runit Dome.

- [Rudy] But is the dome
really keeping the area safe

or is it a ticking time bomb?

So what it's hiding is
simple, nuclear waste.

And Rudy, not just a
little nuclear waste.

- That's right,
this thing is huge.

It has the equivalent of
35 Olympic swimming pools

of cemented
radioactive material.

Now we've got some uncemented
radioactive crater debris

and porous soil all around.

Now, to protect
it from the ocean,

we've got a sea wall as well.

But the question is, is it safe?

(dramatic music)

First, we need to ask,
why so much waste?

Historian Alex Wellerstein
says it's because a rivalry

between the US Navy and Air
Force led to more than 60 tests.

- It was the United
States Navy trying to show

that it still had a
role in the nuclear age,

and that the atomic bomb
didn't make it obsolete

because the Army Air Forces
were sort of trying to take

all of the credit for what
the future would look like

in terms of national security.

- [Rudy] And historian and
author Amy Teitel says

the tests only stopped when
the US and Soviet Union

agreed to a moratorium.

- The moratorium called for
an end to atmospheric testing,

but it wasn't an
immediate thing,

which gave both countries
this last ditch effort

to put in as many tests as
they could possibly get.

- [Rudy] The
Marshallese had no idea

there'd be so many tests

or that they'd result in
100,000 cubic yards of waste.

And there was another big
secret being kept from them.

In the 1960s, after
nuke tests ended,

the Navy conducted a dozen
biological weapons tests there.

- The people there were
not really kept informed

of what was gonna happen,

and they were sort
of, in the end,

treated a bit like guinea pigs.

- [Rudy] See, the
Runit Dome was designed

to literally bury that
part of the Atoll's past.

It's 377 feet in diameter
with an apex of 24 feet

and concrete walls 18
inches thick at sea level.

But now, there are new concerns

that the dome isn't
necessarily going to keep a lid

on things forever.

- The water level in
the area of Enewetak

has been rising by about
seven millimeters per year.

That doesn't sound like much,

but in aggregate over
time, that's a lot.

And what that means is
that seawater is in contact

with what the dome is sealing.

- There are places that
water can get into.

The fear now is that
radioactive material

will slowly start leeching out.

- [Rudy] We're left
with a situation that's,

well, fubar is the best term.

And the challenge
is to find a way

to prevent a widespread
radioactive disaster

without making matters worse.

- And at this stage, the
only answer is to go there

and pour more
concrete on top of it.

Everything we do at this point

is going to leave a
destructive footprint.

What we're left with now

is a situation that
cannot be changed.

(tense music)

- Whether or not the
tomb is strong enough

to prevent an environmental
disaster is still a mystery.

- And it's nuts to think
about all the nuke tests

that happened around the
world before the ban.

Here's a time lapse of every
atmospheric nuclear detonation

around the world.

- [Ronnie] There have been 528,

and those are just the
ones that are above ground.

- Let's hope we
don't get to 529.

- This one's pretty
special, Ronnie.

- This one's pretty
special, Ronnie.

It's rare film

of an Allied World War
II battleship exploding.

The footage was so sensitive,

it was kept hidden
from the public.

- A lot of good
men died that day.

The mystery though is
how did the ship explode?

November 1941, in the
Mediterranean Sea,

sailing from Alexandria
along Egypt's northern coast,

the Royal Navy First Squadron

including the HMS Barhum and
two other British battleships

is on the hunt for Axis convoys.

But historian Martin
K.A. Morgan says

that you can see in this
declassified footage today,

they are the ones being hunted.

- The ship's capsizing.

The ship is already
obviously in distress.

And then this massive
explosion engulfs it.

(explosion booming)

- [Ronnie] Take another look.

As seen in this
once secret footage,

the Barhum is already rolling
over to her port side

from a Nazi torpedo

when a massive explosion
rocks the ship.

Arthur Ken Sewell says

862 crew members
perished in the blast.

- But when that ship detonates,
that's when this really,

you know, turned from a
tragedy to a catastrophe.

(explosion booming)

- [Ronnie] But strangely,
nobody sees this footage.

The British government
keeps it secret

and embargoes the
news for months.

And during that news blackout,

this secret metastasizes
into a mystery.

Ship sink but they usually
don't spontaneously combust.

So the only reason
this was caught on film

is because a camera crew
happened to be on board

a neighboring ship, HMS Valiant.

- I keep going back to
the last few seconds.

The ship sinks so quickly

and then detonates
only after it capsizes.

And what could have caused this
massive secondary explosion?

- I know, and how'd the Nazis
get a shot off on this ship

in the first place?

(tense music)

First, some context.

This is the first
half of World War II,

and Nazi U-boats
have been sinking

an average of eight
merchant ships a month.

But it was very rare for them

to take out
well-defended warships.

- Battleships just
didn't sail out

into the open Mediterranean
Sea by themselves.

They were under escort
from smaller ships.

And if a submarine
appeared in the vicinity,

the smaller ships attacked

and then hopefully
destroyed that submarine

so that the submarine
could not present a threat

to the big prize,
the battleship.

- [Ronnie] On this day,
the German submarine U-331

was able to slip through
the convoys defenses,

approaching the
Barhum at an angle

that exploited weaknesses
in Allied sonar technology.

- 1941, anti-submarine sonar
was not very sophisticated.

They had a hydrophone that
would point back and forth

and like a search light.

U-boats would like to
get ahead of its target

and approach it head on,

so if it did get
hit with the sonar,

there's not a lot
to reflect back.

- [Ronnie] The hydrophone,
which is basically a fancy way

of saying underwater microphone,

could easily misidentify objects

if they approached
from an odd angle.

On the day the Barhum went
down in a faithful moment,

an Allied hydrophone
detected the Nazi sub

about a thousand yards away.

But faulty data leads to the
misidentification of U-331.

The Brits don't
think it's a sub,

that allows the German predator
to continue its approach,

threading through the front
cluster of destroyers.

The U-331 hits the Barhum
with three torpedoes,

so that's what causes
the ship to capsize.

(explosion booming)

But why did it explode?

Well, Navy Captain
David Marquet says

it has to do with the
way ordnance was stored.

And what happens when
a ship rolls over?

- You've got all
these big shells

and you're storing
'em in this room.

So they design the
mounts and the brackets

needed to be able
to hold 45 degrees.

- [Ronnie] But as you can
see in this freeze frame,

at this point, we're
way past 45 degrees.

- By the time the ship is
listed 90 degrees on its side,

all those big artillery
shells that the ship carries

in the magazines are falling
out of their brackets.

And you have this massive,
catastrophic explosion.

- [Ronnie] This
was a major event

impacting thousands of lives.

So why did the
British government

immediately classify the footage

and wait weeks before
informing the cruise families?

- The loss of a Queen
Elizabeth-class battleship

of the Royal Navy would
be corrosive to morale.

But that's not the main reason.

The main reason that
this was kept quiet

was primarily out of a concern
for operational security.

- [Ronnie] Turns out, the
U-boat that sank the Barhum fled

before even confirming
the ship had sunk.

And the British wanted to
keep the Nazis in the dark

for as long as possible.

- That was the
British strike force

in the eastern Mediterranean.

If the Royal Navy
is out of action,

there's nothing that'll stop
the Germans in North Africa.

The whole British position
might have been undermined.

(tense music)

- All right, so we've
solved this one.

The Barhum was struck

because Nazi submarines
were able to exploit a flaw

in British sonar.

- And we know the source of
that secondary explosion.

The German U-boat torpedo
capsized the ship.

The shells got loose.

Boom! They detonate.

- Everybody's heard
of Navy Seals,

but in this week's
secret weapon segment,

we wanna talk about
Navy dolphins.

- Militaries around the
world are using them.

But the big question,

are we turning flipper
into a deadly weapon?

February 2022, the
Crimean Peninsula.

It's the eve of Russia's full
scale invasion of the Ukraine

when a mapping satellite
picks up a strange object

that has just appeared in the
waters of Sevastopol Harbor.

Let's take a closer look.

It appears to be some
kind of submerged, bug-like

air or watercraft with two
identical wings or chambers

on either side of a metal frame.

Military historian Mike Guardia

says that the incredibly strange
weapon isn't a weapon at all.

It's actually a pen
that houses the weapon.

- It's not a boat and
it's not a submarine.

Believe it or not, that
is a navy dolphin.

- [Rudy] Did he say dolphins?

Apparently, it's not as
strange as it sounds.

According to journalist
and author Mark Sauter,

the United States military
has relied on trained dolphins

for decades.

- Back around 1960,

the US Navy began to
experiment with marine mammals

such as dolphins, sea
lions, and whales,

to see if they could
accomplish difficult missions

under the water.

And it turned out they could.

- [Rudy] Most commonly,

they've been used to pinpoint
the exact location of mines.

- Dolphins have great low
light vision, incredible sonar.

They're fast, they're agile,

they're able to move
at depths underwater.

So at the end of the day,

the natural solution
that the dolphins have

is better than any technology
we've come up with.

- [Rudy] But many believe
the world's major powers

are also training
dolphins to kill.

That's the rumor about those
Russian dolphins in Crimea.

And the militant
Islamic group Hamas

released this video claiming
one of their members

in their frogmen unit
had been attacked

by a heavily armed dolphin
in the service of Israel.

(soldier speaking Arabic)

- [Rudy] As you can
see in the video,

they claim the dolphin
was wearing this harness,

which would appear to fit
on the dolphin's nose,

and has what looks like a
spear gun attached to it.

Is this for real?

- Hang on, killer dolphins?

Rudy, are you tracking
anything on this?

- My unit works with the
underwater sea mammals.

They protect our harbors.

They pick up rank and they can
retire just like you and me

after 20 years.

- Well, I don't have a
lot of experience here,

but we did ask our experts
to take a deep dive into it.

(tense music)

- [Rudy] First, we
dug into the history

and it turns out there are
allegations of dolphins

being used as assassins going
back more than 60 years.

Mark Sauter says some of the
most compelling public accounts

are from the Vietnam War.

- Now, the reports were, that
the dolphins had been trained

to wear a giant hypodermic
needle on their nose

attached to compressed gas.

And the allegations were,

that the dolphin
would be swimming,

would see an enemy
frogmen, and bam!

Would slam this giant
needle into their body.

The gas would rush through
into their body cavity,

blow up their insides,
and as a benefit,

float them to the top

so that the human guards
could recover them.

- [Rudy] Is it really possible
to train dolphins to kill?

On the one hand, they have

an insanely sophisticated
echolocation system.

They use that clicking sound

not only to map large
areas of the ocean,

but to identify objects with
mind-blowing specificity.

For instance, when a dolphin
echo locates on a person,

they don't just see
muscle and bone.

They can see scar tissue,

metal pins or rods, and
artificial body parts.

But could they be trained to
kill specific kinds of people

and not others?

Preston Stewart is skeptical.

- It's one thing for a dolphin

to identify a mine under the
surface, or a shipwreck,

but to identify an individual
human being in the water

and to take action to
kill that one person,

that's asking a lot.

- [Rudy] The US Navy officially
denies any involvement

in such training.

But that's not the whole story.

Former trainers for the
Navy have come forward

to say it's all true.

They were teaching
dolphins to kill.

One trainer even said
they were mounting weapons

to their snouts.

They believe the program failed

because the dolphins
refused to cooperate.

- If skeptics say,

"Well, the Navy would never
train them to do that,"

or, "The CIA would never
train them to do that,"

I would suggest that's naive.

I think they did.

- [Rudy] Sauter says it's
our buddies at Langley

who have taken the lead with
training killer dolphins.

In fact, we now know through
declassified documents

that the CIA wanted to arm
dolphins with explosives

to sink enemy ships.

The top secret program,
project OXYGAS,

started training
two dolphins in 1964

to carry out combat missions.

- The Navy is doing
the relatively open

and unclassified work,

but there's a shadow program
being managed by the CIA.

And the CIA program
is highly classified,

and involves
dolphins doing things

that the government does
not want the public to know.

(tense music)

- We've got the
declassified CIA case file

for Project OXYGAS here.

Take a look.

This is the actual
artist rendering

of the dolphins carrying bombs.

What could go wrong?

- Now, the CIA shut the
program down in 1970

because the dolphins were
just too unpredictable.

That probably explains
why we don't have dolphins

with lasers on their heads.

But we don't know
what we don't know.

Possibly, there's still some
kind of program like this

alive and flipping.

I'm Rudy Reyes.

- And I'm Ronnie Adkins.

Until next time,
keep your powder dry.

- And your head on a
swivel. Good night.

(dramatic music)