Original subtitles

- [Rudy] The following program contains footage

of military operations.

Viewer discretion is advised.

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

A World War II photo that set the internet on fire.

Is that a Korean man fighting for the Nazis?

- It sparked one of the

weirdest mysteries of World War II.

- [Rudy] The bird that helped us take out Bin Laden.

Why have we never seen anything like this chopper before?

Or since?

- This is some sort of secret stealth tech.

- [Rudy] A viral video spawns the legend

of a Ukrainian Ace fighter pilot,

but who's the man behind the mask?

- "The Ghost of Kiev," all of a sudden,

told the Ukrainians, "We can win this.

We can fight back."

- [Rudy] And our secret weapon of the week.

Is this a boat, a plane,

a missile launcher, or all three?

- People were probably thinking this is ridiculous.

Then, years later, it's no longer a joke.

(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.

- That's where we come in.

Our mission, investigate the battlefield's strangest images,

sounds, and more.

- [Tim] This photo blows my mind.

- 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)

Good evening everybody, and welcome.

Now, let's jump into it.

Still photos played a huge part in World War II.

Not only did they help win over public opinion,

but they provided most of the Allies' intel about the enemy.

- And after a peculiar photo of a prisoner of war

taken right after D-Day was found,

it ignited a mystery.

Did a captured Korean soldier fight with the Nazis on D-Day?

It's June 1944.

The Allied invasion of Normandy is a success.

In the days following D-Day, more than 200,000

members of the German Army surrender,

or are taken prisoner in Western France.

One of them is this man, captured in this photo.

He's clad in a German Wehrmacht uniform,

but he looks to be of Asian descent.

World War II historian, Sayuri Shimizu says

that's why the photo has become famous,

or, at least, internet famous.

- It sparked one of

the most curious,

and, in some ways, weirdest mysteries of World War II.

- [Ronnie] Military historian Martin K.A. Morgan says

the tale wraps around the globe.

And stretches the boundaries of believability.

- The theory that eventually emerges

is that the man in the photograph

is named Yang Kyoungjong.

He was born in Korea in 1920,

and then, ultimately, conscripted

into the Japanese Imperial Army.

- [Ronnie] Some background here,

Japan had annexed Korea years earlier.

In the 1930s, a series of border wars broke out

between Japan and Soviet Russia.

Kyoungjong, serving the Japanese,

is now, allegedly, fighting against the Soviets.

- He ended up fighting in Manchuria.

That's where the Japan's front line going for,

engaging the Russian Red Army.

- [Ronnie] And the legend has it that he was captured

by the Red Army in 1938 and conscripted.

Which means that, as a prisoner,

he was forced into military service.

- And is sent to a gulag.

In 1942, in view of the immense human casualty

as the Red Army has suffered,

he is then put into Red Army hands,

where he is then captured by the Germans in 1942 or '43.

- The Germans then capture him

and the Germans don't conscript him,

but the Germans had a program by which

people and prisoner of war camps could volunteer

to serve in a support unit in the Wehrmacht.

This circuitous path that leads a Korean born man

to appear wearing a German uniform in Normandy in 1944.

- [Ronnie] It's a heck of a theory.

Is it all true?

Is he the most captured soldier of all time?

And did he complete an incredible journey

to fight at D-Day?

And, if not,

then who are we really looking at in this picture?

- You know, Ronnie, the conscription part

makes sense to me.

Throughout millennia,

conquering armies have conscripted the conquered.

- Yeah, I mean, the Romans did it.

Genghis Khan would do it

when he was conquering his territories.

They actually had to outlaw this practice

at the 1949 Geneva Convention.

- So I believe that this could have really happened.

But let's see if our experts

can draw a more accurate picture.

(tense music)

- [Ronnie] The first thing that's tough

to get your head around is the idea that the

race obsessed Nazis would even let

an Asian soldier into their army,

but the truth may really blow your mind.

- Despite their ideological pretension of racial purity,

by that time, Germany, like the Soviet Union,

and like Japan, they were all so desperate for manpower.

They were willing to recruit whoever they could recruit.

Toward the end, it became a really diverse motley crew.

- [Rudy] So, that puts us at a definite maybe.

But the odds of a single soldier fighting

in not one, not two, but three armies in World War II

still sounds so out there.

Professor Anand Toprani digs into the origins of the story.

- According to the historian Steven Ambrose,

a paratrooper had captured,

or soldiers who we thought were Korean.

And then, Ambrose's story was tied to this picture

to create the idea that, actually,

this was a Korean soldier.

- [Rudy] Bestselling author Steven Ambrose

tells this paratrooper story in his 1994 book, "D-Day."

And while he never references the photo,

others start to make their own connections.

- And then people in Korea start using the internet

to try and see if they can identify who this person was.

They come up with a name, Yang Kyoungjong.

- [Rudy] But hold your fire.

Professor Toprani's doubtful a Korean soldier

would've made it as far as the Eastern Russian front,

much less France.

- The Japanese would've conscripted a lot of Koreans

to serve in various roles,

but would they have conscripted them to serve in

elite Japanese army units that were fighting the Red Army?

But, even then, let's assume that that's the case.

Somehow, this person ends up in Soviet hands,

isn't killed by the Soviets, is sent to a gulag.

Well, why would you have released them from the Gulag?

They could actually do important labor in the Gulag.

And that's what most Gulag prisoners

were doing during the war.

And then, somehow, this person ends up

in German hands on the eastern front,

but then is sent to the western front

to serve as cannon fodder.

It just, again,

it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

- He supposedly went through all the

major military inflection points of World War II.

At the risk of sounding too facetious,

he was the Forrest Gump of World War II.

- [Rudy] And Martin Morgan looked for documentation

to support the story that the man in the picture

is Yang Kyoungjong, from Pyongyang.

And he came up with this.

- Yang Kyoungjong never lived.

There is absolutely no proof whatsoever

that anyone of Korean birth

served in the German military during the Second World War.

- [Rudy] So if the legendary Korean Nazi

didn't actually exist,

then who are we really looking at?

- I don't think this man is Korean or Japanese.

I believe the man to be Turkestani.

People from Georgia or Turkestan are the product of

the Turko-Mongol amalgamation.

To this very day, you can see people,

from that part of the world,

who present Asiatic features.

- [Rudy] The Turkestani soldiers were nationalists

who long resented their Soviet rulers,

so they'd made common cause with Germany.

- There were Turkestanis serving as Hiwis, or volunteers,

within the ranks of the German 353rd Infantry Division

that was fighting the American Seventh Core,

in Normandy, during the second week of June 1944.

There are other Turkestanis who are

captured and processed by the American military in Normandy

at about the same time that this photograph was taken

where you can see the patch.

It's just that he's not wearing the patch.

(tense music)

- So we've got one viral photo and two theories.

What do you think, Rudy?

- I like Marty Morgan's take.

It's clean. It's simple.

Our mystery man was actually part of the

Turkestani Battalion stationed in Normandy.

- Now, people, when you normally think of riding

in a Black Hawk Helicopter,

there's a few words that come to mind.

- Yeah.

Loud, not quiet, and absolutely deafening.

- One thing you don't think of is stealth.

And that's our mystery.

Has the US invented a helicopter that can't be seen and heard?

And did we use it to take out

one of history's biggest bad guys?

May 4th, 2011, the Pentagon.

It's two days after the day we took out Osama Bin Laden,

the terrorist behind the

9/11 attacks on the United States,

including this very complex.

His death had people inside the Pentagon celebrating,

but also worried about this photo.

The photo is all over the internet

and appears to show the tail section

of an American helicopter

that crash landed during the mission.

And it's not the only image.

People, this isn't any ordinary Black Hawk helicopter.

Those are badass enough.

But this one's clearly been modified.

Let's take a closer look.

- The thing that was really interesting

about this helicopter, which was kind of unique,

is they put a specialized, sort of,

ring around the rotor blades.

- [Rudy] And check this out.

The skin appears to be a high-tech material

with a special finish.

Your standard bird doesn't come with that nice touch.

And the general shape of what's left of the craft

is highly unusual for a Black Hawk.

- The edging of the aircraft is very smooth.

There's no points where you have lines or rivets

that connect the the body of the aircraft together.

You have sort of these very smooth edges

that, then, sort of kind of slope quickly.

So you have all this speculation running.

This is some sort of secret stealth tech.

- [Rudy] Stealth helicopters have been a dream of

the military going back to the Cold War,

for obvious reasons.

- Helicopters are really, really loud.

You can hear a helicopter from miles away.

(tense music)

- [Rudy] That wasn't gonna work on the Bin Laden raid.

Navy Seals needed a way to penetrate

120 miles into Pakistan

to Bin Laden's compound.

- For the United States, that was really going out for him,

this had to remain

the quietest operation that they had ever,

like, conceived of.

'Cause they knew for a fact that

if Bin Laden caught any whiff of this, he would vanish.

- Okay, so as far as the mystery,

did we invent a stealth Black Hawk?

You look at the material, you look at the shape,

and the answer is probably yes.

So, Rudy, how much of a game changer would that be?

- Quite a bit, Ronnie.

Surreptitious insert allows one to stay dark

until you gain initiative with speed, surprise,

and violence of action.

- Our folks tell us this was likely

a one-time custom job for the Bin Laden mission

or even a mission like it.

But that brings up a second mystery.

How did it work, and why did it crash?

(tense music)

- The Bin Laden raid was one of those missions,

where you, instead of asking for permission,

you ask for forgiveness.

So, in order to be swift and stealthy,

this helicopter

did have a special coating on it to deflect radar.

- [Rudy] We think the paint is a light emitting film

that you find on stealth aircraft, like the F-117.

Radar detects things by emitting energy,

which is reflected back by any object it encounters.

This coating actually absorbs most of that energy

bouncing back a much smaller radar signature.

So, the reading appears more like a small bird

rather than a large aircraft.

But what about a helicopter's moving parts?

- This is a stealth helicopter

and because it doesn't have those protrusions,

or those rivets, and the way the rotors are put together

causes reduced noise.

But, most importantly, increased speed and swiftness.

- [Rudy] Those rotary blades are outfitted

with this unique circular shield,

which not only muffles the sounds of the rotating blades,

it actually makes the chopper less detectable

since it's hiding the rotors

in complex angles and metal components

that would otherwise bounce back

a helicopter shaped energy signature.

Also, the tail rotor

appears to have

one more blade than a

Black Hawk's typical four,

which would allow

for a slower, quieter spinning rotor

that still maintains a Black Hawk's

typical speed of 175 miles per hour.

Pretty cool, unless it's coming for you.

So, why did it crash?

Joseph Assad says that traces back to one small oversight

in an otherwise meticulously planned operation.

- One of the primary reasons

that the helicopter crashed on landing

was the SEAL team had been practicing

on a chain link fence around the compound,

which would've allowed for airflow.

- [Rudy] But the real compound

had walls of solid concrete,

and that made all the difference.

- This helicopter crashed

because of

a vortex that it got into in the compound

caused by the rotor wash.

And it caused the pilots to lose control of the aircraft,

and it caused it to spin, and end up hitting the ground.

And the assault force got out and went after the mission,

'cause that was most important to them,

even more than their own lives.

Mission failure would've been worse.

- [Rudy] So it may well be that

this stealth chopper's first mission was also its last.

Still, for a one hit wonder, that was quite a hit.

(tense music)

This chopper going down the way it did

is a reminder of how essential the right training is.

A simple thing like chain link

versus solid wall makes all the difference.

- Yeah, but let's remember, only the best in the world

could have completed this mission with one bird down.

- What do a missing submarine,

one of the richest men in the world,

and nuclear missiles have in common?

- They all play a major role in our next incident.

What sank the USSR's K-129 submarine?

It's 1974.

Out in the vast Pacific Ocean,

a massive ship just unearthed

a section of a nuclear submarine.

Behind this declassified film is the story of

a tragic and mysterious Soviet naval incident.

It began six years earlier, in 1968,

when the Soviet sub K-129 set sail

from the east coast of Russia

and disappeared in the Pacific,

sending shock waves through Moscow.

- They don't know if the Americans have captured it.

They don't know if the Americans have sunk it.

They don't know if there's a technical issue.

- [Rudy] The Soviets scramble to find their sub.

Meanwhile, the Americans start hunting for it too.

- And that's when things get interesting.

Because the Americans really want this ship.

Because of geography, our listening systems

are basically all around the Pacific.

So, by using this kind of technology,

the Americans are able to get a much better sense of where

this ship probably is,

and it's not where the Russians were looking.

- [Rudy] That American underwater listening technology,

known as the SOSUS system, eventually detects an

acoustic sound that can only be attributed to a submarine.

It's 4,900 meters below the surface,

and 2,000 miles from Hawaii,

and it's confirmed to be the wreck of the K-129.

Jackpot.

- So, if the Americans could have recovered K-129,

it would've been a treasure trove of golden information.

- [Rudy] So, we knew where the sub was,

but the question remained,

how did it sink in the first place?

- Ronnie, take a look at this map.

- Okay.

- This is the last known position of K-129.

You can see it's about 2,000 miles away from Hawaii.

Now, in between, we've got these subsurface

land masses and mountains, known as the Musicians Seamounts,

named after classical composers,

like Mozart, Beethoven, those type of guys.

So, this terrain subsurface was very treacherous

and tricky to navigate.

However, it's understood that Soviet submarines

used this terrain to hide out and get close to the US.

- So, when the boats last heard from,

it looks like it could have been headed towards Hawaii.

And, of course, all of Hawaii's Air Force and naval bases.

- Prime strategic targets. - [Ronnie] Exactly.

- And that leads us to our first theory.

Were the Soviets getting in position

for a surprise attack on the United States?

(tense music)

According to former US Navy nuclear engineer

and author Kenneth Sewell, the K-129's disappearance

reveals a sinister plan

that could have triggered a third World War.

- It became very obvious that the mission of the K-129

was to destroy Pearl Harbor

and make it look like the Chinese did it.

- [Rudy] At the time, the USSR and Communist China

had an ideological split and are enemies.

But what was Sewell's proof?

For starters,

he interviewed colleagues and family members of

the K-129 crewmen who told him the sub was carrying

10 to 15 extra men.

- Based on our research, we discovered that the

extra riders on the submarine were KGB commandos.

These were handpicked, they took control of the K-129

because it sailed straight past its patrol box

and approached Pearl Harbor.

- [Rudy] Sewell believes

satellite images and chemical analysis of the oil slick

at the wreck site indicate K-129 had surfaced

and initiated a nuclear launch procedure.

That's when, he says, the captain of the sub

most likely stepped in and saved the day.

- I believe that, essentially,

the captain understood this was an unauthorized launch

and he knew this was a rogue element.

I think he put the wrong code in

and that caused the missile to fail,

and sank the submarine.

I think he is the man that prevented World War III.

- [Rudy] But is there really enough evidence

to support that thesis?

Defense policy analyst Sarah Kreps

says the extra crew on board

may not have been anybody special.

- I do think that the Russians and Soviets

have kind of a history of questionable quality control.

It wouldn't surprise me that they just decided,

"Look, we need to add these personnel.

We're gonna just do it."

That almost seems more sort of incompetence.

- [Rudy] Fine.

But if the rogue attack theory isn't correct,

what's the real answer?

A competing theory, still held by many Soviet Navy brass,

is that the subs disappearance was

accidentally caused by the Americans.

- The Americans always had attacked

submarines waiting off port from Soviet sub pens

to pick up the boomers and follow them into the deep ocean.

So that, if it did look like a war was going to happen,

they could be neutralized as quickly as possible

before they could launch.

- [Rudy] While the Americans claimed they had

no submarines within 300 miles of the K-129 at any time,

Peter Zeihan says Soviet intelligence claimed

to have photographic evidence to the contrary,

and this is it.

- The Soviet Union's favorite theory, of course,

is that the USS Swordfish, which they say

was the vessel that was assigned to trail it,

got too close and there was a collision.

Now, the Soviets did show satellite photo

of the Swordfish in Japan undergoing repairs.

- [Rudy] But Professor Zeihan says this is likely

just misinformation designed

to cover up an embarrassing accident.

- Every time they have a military mishap,

they attempt to blame it on the other side.

- [Rudy] The US has always denied

responsibility for the wreck.

But, in 1974, a full six years after the sinking,

the CIA uses a salvage ship,

built by eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes,

named the Glomar Explorer, to raise the sub.

How much of the sub they recovered

is the source of intense debate.

- You get some crazy theories.

And the idea that the project to recover the sub

was really about tapping communication lines.

Or that the CIA managed to recover the entire submarine

with that 17,000 foot long cable with a claw.

I mean, that is some serious arcade game.

- [Rudy] Officially, at least,

the US says it recovered a 30 foot section of the K-129.

Recently, we gave the Russians

that declassified film we showed you earlier.

In it, the Glomar's crew respectfully buries

the remains of six Soviet sailors at sea.

And while there will always be competing theories

about what really happened,

today, the official Russian Navy's explanation

for the sinking is much simpler.

And, frankly, more embarrassing.

The sub flooded when the crew accidentally

left the snorkel mast up

when they submerged below periscope depth,

allowing seawater into the diesel engine.

- So you would get catastrophic destruction of

the diesel engine and you would get

thousands of pounds of water

coming into the submarine very quickly.

Then it compounds and things go south from there.

I'm just guessing that's just what happened

to the sorry souls on board that ship.

(tense music)

- Okay, so Rudy, why do you think this sub sank?

- So, I think there's still too many unanswered questions

for me to put my mind on a final answer.

But get this, in 1994, Boris Yeltsin, the Russian President,

he confirmed, on the K-129, they had 98 crew.

That's 15 more than normal.

And he never explained why.

- Yeah, and if that's not juicy enough for you,

consider this.

Today, whatever the Glomar pulled

from the bottom of the deep is rumored

to be behind a locked door in, of all places, Area 51.

- The internet is chock full of insane Nazi stories

involving evil plans

pulled straight from a bad sci-fi movie.

- Like one conspiracy theory that claims

Hitler's rocket scientists helped him

build a secret base on the moon.

- While that seems unlikely,

the Nazis did have a secret base way up north.

And the question is,

what was the purpose of the Nazi base?

October 14, 1944.

Deep in the frozen Arctic waters outside of Greenland,

a small American Coast Guard task force

is on a crucial mission,

to intercept a giant Nazi supply ship, the Echsterstein.

- What we see here, in this photo, is when the United States

successfully captures the Echsterstein.

- [Rudy] And while this footage

captures a triumphant moment for the good guys,

the real question is, what was the supply ship supplying?

Turns out, the Nazis had been establishing

bases in Greenland since 1942,

uncomfortably close to the US.

- The Nazis begin putting assets into Greenland

and they start building, basically,

sort of, these mysterious bases.

Nobody really knows what they're for.

- [Rudy] But why Greenland?

A land with limited population due to

its seriously inhospitable terrain and weather?

Did they know something about some long lost secret treasure?

Was this part of Hitler's goal to secure ancient artifacts?

Or was there another explanation?

The Nazis not only had bases up here on the Arctic,

they were also thinking of building naval bases

in other remote corners of the Earth.

They even planted the Nazi flag

all the way down in Antarctica,

in an area known as New Schwabia,

but they never built anything there.

- Yeah, New Schwabia conspiracy theories

are still running rampant too.

Some people, including many flat Earthers,

believe that there are Nazis still there.

- But, unlike those stories, these bases in Greenland

actually were real.

What were the Nazis looking for?

(tense music)

Investigative journalist Tim McMillan lays out one theory.

The Nazi interest in Greenland may have stemmed

from disturbed Nazi leader, Heinrich Himmler.

- He set off, or commissioned, numerous ventures

for searching for both lost artifacts,

like the Arc of the Covenant.

Or, in addition to proving, what he believed,

this theory that there was a lost race of Germanic people

that inhabited Europe

prior to the early part of the first century.

- [Rudy] Remember, the Nazis had no qualms

about building bases anywhere they could.

In fact, that was kind of the point.

- There are some in Egypt.

There are some all over Africa, Madagascar.

There are places where they set up

and it's very remote operations.

That is in line with the German idea of global conquest.

- [Rudy] But journalist Joe Pappalardo

says building bases in Greenland actually made sense,

and it had nothing to do with

spooky tales of ancient civilizations.

- So Greenland is a perfect location for a Nazi base.

It's on the way

to Europe from the United States.

So its strategic location means everything.

- There is a much more reasonable explanation,

and that is the weather.

- [Rudy] That strategic value,

and the solution to this mystery,

is found in the skies above.

- The intention for these research stations

was to collect meteorological data.

- [Rudy] While it might not seem like the most

important component for turning the tides of war,

weather is a major factor in planning

all military operations, land, sea, and air.

The side with the most meteorological intelligence

has a distinct advantage on the battlefield.

And remember, this was before the age of

Doppler radar satellites.

Predicting the weather was no easy feat.

In fact, you often needed feet on the ground.

- Weather in the northern hemisphere

travels from west to east.

And, ultimately, the Allies,

because they were west of Nazi Germany,

were much better able to predict weather patterns

as they moved eastward.

The Nazis needed to have that same information if they were

going to be able to successfully monitor weather.

- [Rudy] These bases primarily had

small German teams of around a dozen,

including a handful of Nazi officers

backed by a larger group of enlisted men.

The bases were packed full of measuring instruments

and data recording equipment, but were low on firepower.

And when the US realized what Hitler was up to in Greenland,

thousands of troops entered the arctic circle after D-Day

to neutralize the Nazi threat.

- The Americans move in

and they begin securing the eastern coast of Greenland.

They enlist the help of local indigenous groups

who were allied with the the Americans.

And, literally, traveling and fighting on dog sleds.

- Ultimately, the Americans and their new allies

are successful in taking down a number of

these secret Nazi bases and

chasing away the German presence.

(tense music)

- Okay, I get it.

The Nazis needed to build their own weather stations

and Greenland was the perfect spot for that.

- Yep, after losing this conflict,

the Nazis could only gather weather data from U-boats.

Not surprisingly, just seven months later,

the Germans would lose the war.

- In the early months of the war in Ukraine,

a legendary ace fighter pilot

gained worldwide internet fame

for defending the skies of his homeland.

- He even had an awesome nickname, "The Ghost of Kiev."

But the big question,

what's the truth behind the legend of "The Ghost of Kiev?"

(dramatic music)

February 2022.

Just days into the Ukraine War,

smartphone video appears to capture a 21st century dog fight

in the skies above Kiev.

An SU-35 fighter jet, Russia's most advanced war plane,

is streaking across the sky.

It's a solid tactical aircraft.

Then, a heat-seeking missile chases it down,

blasting it into bits.

Another plane appears, this one, a Ukrainian MIG-29.

It's a multi roll fighter, but older,

and inferior to the SU-35.

As the video continues, the MIG pilot then performs

a series of barrel rolls

as a kind of end zone dance.

This Maverick-like cockiness

only adds to the pilot's mystique.

- It had a classic romanticism.

And when you have video evidence to support it,

it starts to perpetuate this legend and it got legs.

One Ukrainian MIG-29 pilot against the Russian hordes.

- [Rudy] Then the Ukrainian Department of Defense

retweets the video, seemingly verifying it is real.

The clip goes viral,

and the superstar pilot is dubbed "The Ghost of Kiev."

- "The Ghost of Kiev," all of a sudden,

told the Ukrainians that, "No.

We can win this, we can fight back."

And he led by example.

That's something that no one thought was going to happen.

- [Rudy] One day after the dogfight video goes public,

former Ukrainian President, Petro Poroshenko,

shares an image of the unnamed pilot,

claiming the Ghost shot down six planes in a single day.

Other photos pop up on the internet, like this one.

Showing the supposed Ghost in front of his plane

with the Ukrainian insignia on his uniform,

and the Ukrainian flag flying proudly in the background.

But, hang on.

An Ace is a pilot who achieves five air to air kills.

Even Maverick didn't accomplish that

until the second Top Gun movie.

Of the 60,000 US fighter pilots over the years,

less than 1,500 became Aces.

So, what's the truth behind "The Ghost of Kiev?"

Is he a real life combat Ace or just a mighty myth?

- The footage is incredible.

But, my first question is,

could an old Ukrainian MIG-29

go head-to-head against Russia's advanced SU-35?

- Well, the SU-35 should be superior

in just about every way.

But, remember, these MIGs are smaller, they're lighter,

and they're just as fast as that SU-35.

They both reach speeds of about 1,500 miles an hour.

Now, another problem with the SU-35

is it's a little bit hyped up.

Aviation experts say that it might look good in an air show

and if you look at this video,

it's performing an Immelmann turn here.

It's gonna go up into its turn, turn around,

and then keep going straight.

And then it's gonna perform a capability

known as super maneuverability.

That being said, this wow factor

doesn't necessarily translate into real life.

(tense music)

- At first glance, the video

of the purported "Ghost of Kiev"

shooting down a Russian jet seems plausible.

- [ROnnie] Former Green Beret Mark Sauter breaks down

the famous dogfight video to determine its authenticity.

- It passed the initial sniff test,

but there were clues.

Doing barrel rolls as an exuberant celebration

of shooting down the Russian jet could happen.

But, a wise pilot would probably not

be fooling around doing a stunt

when there could be other aircraft on his tail.

And then, this is most telling, here it is.

The plane literally disappears.

And that shows you that this is fake.

- [Rudy] Forensic video analysis reveals

that this is actually a sequence from the 2013 video game,

Digital Combat Simulator World.

Okay, so we know this one video is fake,

but that doesn't prove "The Ghost of Kiev" isn't real.

Which brings us back to that photo of the alleged Ace.

Historian Alex Wellerstein studies wartime photography.

- There have been photo manipulation, in wartime,

going back to the Civil War in the United States.

If you really want a myth to be effective,

you don't just have one picture or one video,

you establish a sort of trail of evidence

that makes it look like

this is something that really exists in the world.

- [Rudy] In this instance, a tool called noise analysis

reveals that some of the photos are clearly faked,

with the pilot's face, uniform insignia,

and the Ukrainian flag being added to another photo.

- And, those, you actually can, pretty easily,

see the evidence of manipulation.

You can run them through special filters that show you

which of those pixels don't really

go with the other pixels and see where a face was added,

or where a flag was added, and so on.

- [Rudy] But, by now, the legend has taken on

a momentum of its own.

And major media outlets claim to have identified "The Ghost"

as Major Stephan Tarabalka,

credited with shooting down 40 planes.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry then confirms

he's been tragically killed in action during an air battle

and awards him the title, "Hero of Ukraine."

But experts, like former intelligence officer

Joseph Assad, have doubts.

- I believe that Ukraine had,

not just their intelligence organizations,

but an army of cyber warriors

that were broadcasting and amplifying

a lot of the messages, and a lot of the images,

and videos that we were seeing coming outta Ukraine.

- The Ukrainians made a big decision.

Instead of denying or refuting this video,

and the general story of "The Ghost of Kiev,"

they decided to go with it.

To the point where the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense

retweeted this bogus video,

thereby, giving it a stamp of accuracy for many people.

- I think the myth

of "The Ghost of Kiev" had its utility and,

ultimately, proved to be a smart bit of propaganda.

(tense music)

- On May 2nd, 2022,

Ukraine's Air Force Command finally came clean

admitting on Facebook that, quote,

"The Ghost of Kiev is a superhero legend

whose character was created by Ukrainians."

- The myth may be debunked,

but the patriotic spirit behind it lives on.

- It's secret weapon time.

Every week, we take a look

at a mysterious weapon from history.

And truth be told, some of these deserve

to be left in the idea phase.

- This one's a Cold War relic that's half plane

and half boat.

It reappeared a few years ago and people wondered,

what was this weapon supposed to do?

June 2020.

This video shows one of the most

peculiar oddities in aviation history

floating into the ocean for the first time in decades.

Look closer at this video

and try to make sense of the design.

Those jet engines up near the nose cone.

And are those rocket launchers on top of the fuselage?

This is the Project 903, Lun-class Ekranoplan.

And to understand how it wound up here,

we need to rewind,

oh, about 60 years.

(tape rewinding)

- It all started back in the '60s when the US

branch of the intelligence community

figured out that the Soviets were developing this system.

And it was,

to put it bluntly, just a monster.

- [Ronnie] Now, sea planes had been around since 1912,

but this was something entirely different.

The Americans got their first glimpse of the ekranoplan

when a spy satellite took this photo

at the Kaspiysk Base in 1967.

Take a closer look and see how it dwarfs

the cyclone class patrol ship right next to it.

- It's a bit of a, sort of Frankenstein vehicle

that is kind of the envy of the United States.

- [Ronnie] Footage would later emerge

of another model in action.

The American's nicknamed the ekranoplan,

the "Caspian Sea Monster."

But this thing was no joke, it was a problem.

And a puzzle.

- When the CIA first caught wind of it,

the first thing you're thinking is,

what is this?

What is it gonna be used for?

People were probably thinking, this is ridiculous.

Then, years later, when you start seeing

a actual working ekranoplan, you have to make sure

that you have a firm grip

of what they intend to do with this

and what are its capabilities.

- [Ronnie] How much of a game changer

are we talking about?

Well, in this footage of a later, more advanced model,

you can see it firing missiles

from the top of its peculiar airframe.

Pretty freaky, huh?

That second ekranoplan was designed

to launch a attacks on surface ships.

Hard to judge whether or not that would've worked.

- Maybe the Soviets were trying to develop

a platform that flies low enough to defeat radar,

but out of the water to defeat sonar.

Modern anti-ship missiles,

like the US Navy's harpoon system,

sort of fly in that dead space.

- Let's dig in to see just what this thing was,

and what happened to it.

(tense music)

Author and geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan says the key is

what you're seeing here, as the plane flies.

People, that's its maximum intended altitude.

- Now, the whole idea of this was that it would be able to

fly at incredibly low altitudes, well below radar.

And that would allow it to, theoretically,

sneak into the envelope of

the American carrier battle groups.

And then, once it got to pointblank range,

it would launch a variety of cruise missiles

with nuclear warheads

that would blow the entire formation to hell.

- [Ronnie] On top of the cruise missiles,

the ekranoplan had 23 different mounted gun turrets.

But, probably, its most impressive feature

was its use of ground effects aerodynamics,

which is the reduced drag an aircraft's wings

generate when it's close to the surface.

A cushion of air would allow the craft

to fly just 13 feet above the sea's surface

at a speed of 200 to 250 knots,

making it virtually undetectable to both radar and sonar.

- It is, for lack of a better term, like a hovercraft.

In this case, a very large hovercraft

that is designed to glide over water.

- [Rudy] So, did the plane perform as hoped?

Well, not exactly.

- Now, in the end, it didn't prove feasible.

There are a number of obvious problems.

The engineering for keeping

something like this running is spectacular.

And if one wave gets a little bit too high,

the whole thing goes into the water.

- [Ronnie] That meant the ekranoplan

couldn't fly in rough weather.

Plus, it was a beast to navigate.

Too heavy, too unstable.

- The mechanics of keeping this thing aloft

and also being able to serve an operational function,

in terms of firing missiles, was just limited.

And so, it turned out

just the physics of this couldn't work out.

- [Rudy] So, how did this once promising warship

end up collecting barnacles in the Caspian Sea?

- At the collapse of the Soviet Union,

the resources necessary to continue the programs

just aren't there anymore.

The hybrid sea vessel was just abandoned.

Left in place, beached, and left to the elements to reside.

Somewhat of a tragic ending if you consider

all the work that went into it for decades.

(tense music)

- Now, before anyone gets worried, there's no indication

the ekranoplan is rising from the dead.

- The truth, it's moved to a museum.

Well, that's it for this episode.

I'm Rudy Reyes.

- And I'm Ronnie Adkins.

Thanks for joining us.

And, until next time, keep your powder dry.

- And your head on a swivel.

Goodnight.

(dramatic music)