Phantom Signals (2020–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Alien Evidence: The Holy Grail - full transcript
A radio beam is detected from deep space by an astronomer, but vanishes.
Narrator: A 72-second radio burst
Emanating from deep space.
Oh, my god, it's finally happened.
Narrator: Could the signal have
been sent by extraterrestrial life?
This is where science fiction starts.
Narrator: Is it proof
that we are not alone?
It was their attempt to reach
out and say, "we're here."
Narrator: Seismographs
ring around the world.
When seismometers start going crazy,
You immediately think, "large earthquake."
[ rumbling ]
Narrator: But no reports come in.
Is a terrifying natural
disaster headed for earth?
Pretty mind-blowing.
Narrator: A floating city in china.
This can't be happening.
Everybody else is
experiencing the same thing.
Something's wrong.
Narrator: Sailors see phantom
ships and hovering mountains.
For the camera to also
pick it up and see this thing
That you know isn't there.
Narrator: Are these
visions just superstition
Or a glimpse into another universe?
So what was it?
Narrator: Endless streams of data.
Information bombarding
the planet from within
And from the furthest
stretches of the universe.
What messages do these
phantom signals hold?
1977... the big ear radio telescope
At the ohio state university observatory
Has been in operation for 16 years.
The size of three football fields,
It was one of the largest
radio telescopes in the world,
Built for the sole purpose
of listening to the cosmos.
Big ear is famous for
two great milestones...
Creating the most accurate, for the time,
Map of the radio signals
traveling around the universe
And one cataclysmic discovery,
When in August 1977, astronomer jerry ehman
Noticed a 72-second radio burst
Emanating from somewhere
far beyond humanity's reach.
If I try to place myself in
the shoes of that astronomer,
I can only imagine I would feel excitement.
So you got to wonder what was going through
Jerry's head at that moment.
"oh, my god, it's finally happened.
We finally found evidence
of some intelligent life
Somewhere else in the universe."
You wonder, "what if?
What does this really mean?"
It was their attempt to reach out and say,
"we're here. Hello."
This is where science fiction starts.
Narrator: The readout is a simple series
Of numbers and letters... 6-e-q-u-j-5.
But what do they mean?
What that is conveying is
that that signal at that moment
In time was 30 times higher
than the background noise
Picked up by that antenna.
It punches through that
background radiation
And makes its mark on that
paper because it's so intense.
When a signal peaks above that noise floor
That you can see visibly,
You take it as a signal that
was purposely transmitted.
Gaensler: Jerry saw a cluster of numbers
That they had never seen before,
so this was totally unexpected.
Got out his pen, which
was red, and he circled it
And he wrote w-o-w exclamation mark.
Narrator: Nicknamed the wow! Signal,
It rocked the scientific community
And became news all over the world.
I would have also circled
it in red and went, "wow,"
Because it doesn't feel natural.
30 times higher than
the ambient noise floor
For a specific duration.
Makes you think had
to have been intentional.
Sparling: It's the holy
grail for astronomers.
It would be acknowledgment
that we're not alone here.
It would be monumental.
The wow! Signal had a
pretty significant cultural impact
Because we have to remember
That these resources
were specifically designed
And put into place to
find evidence of contact
Of extraterrestrial civilizations.
Narrator: Outer space
is full of radio signals.
They come from planets, stars,
Even black holes and
elements like hydrogen.
Hydrogen, the most common
element in the universe.
It is needed to create water,
And water is necessary
to sustain life as we know it.
Scientists have long held
the belief that since hydrogen
Is such an essential building block
For life as we know it, it
would be the one element
We would for sure have in
common with alien civilizations.
And if they wanted to reach out,
They would do so through
the frequency of hydrogen,
Which emits a radio
signal of 1,420 megahertz.
The wow! Signal came in at 1,420 megahertz.
Nass: It's almost freaky.
I would immediately probably be worried
That there was some
kind of malfunction, right?
That would be my biggest
fear. It's the most logical fear.
Gaensler: Now, on the
one hand, it is your job
To run a radio telescope
looking for alien signals.
So this is exactly what
you've been waiting for.
And you know that as a
scientist, your entire career
And your reputation
relies on you being right.
Narrator: Equipment malfunction
or a satellite passing through
Were the most common
reasons for the anomaly.
The team at the big ear telescope tested
And re-tested their equipment.
They had to be sure that this
signal really was from space.
You have to rule out every
other possibility you can
Before you can start to consider what you
Secretly really want it to be.
And so that took jerry
and his colleagues in ohio
Years to try and rule
out all the obvious things.
You know, someone watching tv downstairs
Might produce radio interference.
Satellites orbiting overhead.
Satellites generally behave in a way
That lets people know they're there.
They beacon out signals,
they have telemetry,
They downlink signals so
that you can pick them up.
If anything else is a phantom signal,
That's what this is because
it's a very clear, precise signal
That is tracked and confirmed.
It's using state-of-the-art equipment.
The equipment was not malfunctioning.
Viggiani: When you
eliminate all those possibilities,
You're only left with
one... this was sent out
With an intention of getting
somebody's attention.
Narrator: But what would it
take for an intelligent species
To broadcast a signal that strong?
Sparling: For a radio signal
To travel across the vast
distances of the universe
Means it has to be very powerful.
And to send out a radio
signal that's super powerful
In all directions at the same time
Is very, very difficult.
So what we're probably looking at
Is it's a signal that's
been directed as a beam.
Did they direct it towards earth?
Did they somehow know the earth was here?
Narrator: So the question
is, what's the message?
Could it be that an alien civilization
Was simply answering back?
I mean, we fired off vehicles, right,
That have gold plates on it
That talk about our math
system and human beings.
Our desire to find
someone in space is huge.
When we sent out voyager
with all the symbols on it,
It was our attempt to say, "here we are."
Take notice of us, and here's
some of the things about us
That you might be interested in."
That's the way we sent the message out.
Mckinnon: We've been
accidentally broadcasting into space
The entire time we've been
broadcasting around the planet.
We've sent those signals out into space,
Radiating out from
us at the speed of light.
The challenge in something
as vast as the universe is
The distances are huge.
I mean, we measure these
distances in light-years.
The speed of light still
is the ultimate speed limit
As far as pushing material
across the stars is concerned.
Narrator: Light travels at
over 600 million miles per hour.
That is fast enough to go around the earth
7.5 times per second.
And suppose that it was from a star
That was 5,000 years
away at the speed of light.
That means that they hit "send" 5,000 ago.
And even if there was
an intelligent signal,
And suppose they say, "hi. How are you?"
And we immediately say back,
"I'm good, thanks. How are you?"
They would have to wait another 5,000 years
For the signal to get back,
so that's a 10,000-year delay.
Viggiani: What we've yet to get over,
Fundamental idea of the cosmos,
Is that there is no reason in the world
Why we cannot believe
that some species out there
Can either move faster
than the speed of light,
Can move inter-dimensionally,
okay, or even move in time.
Narrator: Decades
later, scientists are still
Hypothesizing about
the origin of the emission
And in 2012, they attempt to
keep the conversation going
By beaming their own
message in the same direction
As the origin of the wow! Signal.
The project is launched at
the arecibo radio telescope
In puerto rico, which, at the time,
Was the biggest radio
telescope in the world.
The signal they send is 20 times stronger
Than the most powerful radio transmission.
But not all scientists
believe continuing the search
For extraterrestrial life is
an initiative worth pursuing.
Dr. Hayes: Perhaps that
would lead to destruction
Or colonization.
If an alien civilization picked
up one of our voyager probes
And looked at our golden record,
If they could even make sense of it,
Maybe they would actually
interpret it as a threat
That they had to guard
against or eliminate.
We're interpreting these
things through our own lenses,
And we are attributing characteristics
To possible contact and possible aliens
That might not actually exist,
but that maybe we're hoping for.
To me, the idea of space exploration is one
That represents a level of maturity
Of the civilization in question.
You're not going to
travel for potentially years,
Decades out of a species' life,
Spend a significant fraction
of a planet's resource budget
Just to go over and
conquer another species.
So I would be in the camp
that says, "yes, we should reply."
The extraterrestrial signals
should be responded to.
And therein lies, how
do we now respond to it?
Viggiani: We're taking baby steps here,
And when you're dealing with
a cosmos of infinite proportions,
The possibilities of getting
something somewhere in space
Are astronomical.
So it's a roll of the dice with everything.
Narrator: Coming up, in 2015,
A russian radio telescope
detects another powerful signal
Coming from a star in the
constellation of hercules.
This must be the proof
that we're looking for,
That this is extraterrestrial intelligence.
Narrator: Then two years later,
an earth-shattering discovery
Astonishes the scientific community.
To discount the
possibility of life out there
Is an untenable conclusion.
Narrator: In 1977, astronomer jerry ehman
Sees a 72-second radio burst
Emanating from somewhere in deep space.
The strength of the signal
is like nothing scientists
Have seen before.
When a signal peaks above that noise floor
At that level of intensity,
We assume that it was
intentional being sent to us.
Narrator: The signal becomes
known as the wow! Signal.
If it is a communication
from an alien civilization,
It would be the first ever detected.
People immediately jumped on
the bandwagon saying that of course,
This must be the proof
that we're looking for
That this is extraterrestrial intelligence.
Narrator: In 2012, a group of
astronomers sent a message
Back in the same
direction as the wow! Signal.
These transmissions, we could transmit
And they can transmit.
But we really have to talk over each other.
We can send them information
and they can send us information,
But unless you want to wait
hundreds of thousands of years,
There's unfortunately no way
to ever have a conversation.
Sparling: The hubble deep field image
Changed our understanding of the universe,
Maybe more than anything else in astronomy
In the last 30 years.
We thought there were
a few million galaxies.
We now think there
are billions of galaxies.
We know each of those galaxies has billions
Or even trillions of stars.
The number of stars in our
universe is immeasurable.
One of the great pioneers of the search for
Extraterrestrial
intelligence is frank drake.
And back in the 1950s, drake
wrote down on a blackboard
An equation has since become
known as the drake equation.
It's a way of calculating how
many intelligent civilizations
There are in the galaxy.
Some of the variables in this equation ask,
How long does intelligent civilization
Last for, before it goes extinct?
Another variable is, how
many years does it take
For an intelligent civilization
To arise on a life-bearing planet?
So all you have to do
is plug in the numbers
To this very simple formula,
and out will come the answer.
The catch is, is that we don't
know what numbers to plug in.
Narrator: But almost 40
years after the wow! Signal,
Another powerful anomaly comes through,
Emanating from a distant star
in the constellation of hercules.
Russian astronomers
pick up the signal in 2015
And pinpoint the location
95 light-years from earth.
If this was an
extraterrestrial civilization
Communicating with us,
Then reason stands that we
would continue to receive signals
Probably from the same region of space,
Probably in the same
frequency and the same intensity,
Beaming the same kind of thing to us,
But this has never
happened, and this is despite
Repeated attempts by physicists,
By astronomers to
search the skies for signals.
Narrator: Upon closer examination,
Astronomers discovered
that the signal most likely
Came from a russian satellite.
But just two years later, in 2017,
Astronomers at the
center for planetary science
Make a startling discovery.
They found two previously unknown comets
In the same area of the sky
The wow! Signal had
originally emanated from.
As comets fly towards the sun,
the gases that surround them
Will, at times, emit radio waves.
Not only did these two
previously unknown comets
Pass through that same area in 1977,
As they pass through almost 40 years later,
They generate a strong radio
signal at 1,420 megahertz,
The same frequency as the wow! Signal.
But the signals from the comets
Are still not as strong as the wow! Signal.
Viggiani: That's a credible
way of being skeptical.
But I think the numerical
values of what were there
Didn't really represent a
random signal from a comet.
Narrator: Even today,
Many astronomers doubt the comet theory.
One of the frustrations about
the wow! Signal, it was there,
And then after 70 or so
seconds, it disappeared,
And despite many attempts over the decades,
No one has ever seen it again.
We have one signal, one data point.
If we had multiple data points,
We might gain some piece of information.
Narrator: Today, the wow! Signal
is the only untraceable signal
Ever received from outer space,
One of the strongest candidates
that someone or something
Was reaching out from the
depths of another galaxy.
People wonder, "well,
what really was this signal?"
And the bottom line is,
Even with all the knowledge
that we have and people who are
Much more knowledgeable
and more expert than I am,
We don't know.
Narrator: Whether the wow! Signal was
Naturally occurring or
the result of a species
Not unlike our own, humanity
continues to watch and wait.
The idea that there is
life out there in a universe
This size, hundreds and
billions of just galaxies,
Not to talk about the
number of habitable planets,
It's just not possible that we, in fact,
Are completely alone in the universe.
♪♪
Narrator: November 11, 2018.
Seismographs in zambia,
chile, new zealand, and canada
Pick up a low-frequency
tremor in the indian ocean.
When seismometers start going crazy,
You immediately think, "large earthquake."
Narrator: The source of
the signal is triangulated
To mayotte, a tiny island
paradise in the indian ocean
That lies between madagascar and mozambique
On the eastern coast of africa.
At the beginning of 2018,
Hundreds of tiny earthquakes
began to shake the island.
They lasted for months,
Building in intensity
until a major quake in may
That measured 5.8 on the richter scale.
Now seismometers warned of the prospect
Of an even bigger earthquake.
When you get a large seismic
signal halfway around the world,
You expect the event that
created it to be pretty large.
We're talking probably 5 or greater
On the richter magnitude scale.
Narrator: The relentless
shaking earlier in the year
Went on for months and caused
some minor damage to buildings.
Anxiety and uncertainty ran
high for the 250,000 residents
Of the tiny island.
People slept in the streets out of fear
That their house might collapse.
When you're dealing with seismic events,
You've got something
that's potentially devastating
On your hands.
And in mayotte in particular,
You've got a 1/4 of a million people
That are in, potentially, harm's way.
Narrator: On the morning
of November 11, 2018,
A mysterious signal threatens
an even bigger earthquake.
Fears of widespread devastation
and a potential tsunami
Take hold once again.
Emergency crews and
firefighters prepare for the worst,
But then nothing.
Trying to get field reports didn't work
Because nobody could feel anything.
Residents reported nothing.
That's really strange to
have all of this seismic activity
And nobody feeling it.
Narrator: No tremor is
felt on the island at all.
With only the seismometer
readings to go on,
Geologists are forced to
consider a chilling possibility.
Anytime seismologists start
talking about an unusual signal,
People immediately get scared
That maybe this is another nuclear test.
Narrator: Coming up,
seismic-wave patterns give clues
To what may really be happening in mayotte.
There's something weird happening here.
Then the next question is,
who the hell would be doing this?
Narrator: In November
2018, a strong seismic wave
Deep in the earth alerts
geologists around the world.
Its origin is the island
paradise of mayotte,
Situated between mozambique and madagascar.
Almost a year earlier, a
series of low-level earthquakes
Began tormenting the tiny island.
Now fear and anxiety again run high
Among the 250,000 residents.
And emergency preparations are underway.
But not one tremor is felt on the island.
The signal persists,
A slow-moving surface
wave that puzzles scientists.
♪♪
For scientists like me,
we are pretty familiar
With everything the earth can throw at us.
But not being able to find
an easy, obvious answer
For the mayotte signal is concerning.
This was a signal that
was happening in real time
Right here, right in front of us.
We can't actually see it,
but we know it's occurring.
So what exactly is occurring?
Narrator: This new signal doesn't look like
Any earthquake
seismologists have seen before.
Could they be wrong? Is
this something entirely new?
Anytime seismologists start
talking about an unusual signal,
People immediately get scared
That maybe this is another nuclear test.
[ explosion ]
Narrator: In the years
following the end of the cold war,
Nuclear testing in the ocean is banned.
So what could this be?
From 1945 all the way up
until the end of the cold war,
We had more than 2,000 nuclear tests.
Some nations, like the united states,
Russia, and France in particular,
Had tried underwater sea
testing in the middle of nowhere
With dramatic consequences,
the americans in particular.
Their major nuclear
test was at bikini atoll,
Right in the middle of the south pacific,
In supposedly nobody's way,
Until they realized how
much radiation they caused
And how much they killed the ocean.
Narrator: American concerns
peaked in the middle of the cold war.
At that time, the u.S. Geological survey
And the incorporate research
institutions for seismology
Created a network of seismic stations
That could detect a nuclear detonation
Anywhere in the world.
So, we needed to be able to monitor
When those explosions happened.
To do that, we put out a whole
bunch of geophysics sensors.
We put out seismometers, hydrophones,
Infrasound networks,
and radiation detectors.
So we started actually
recording all of these noises.
Narrator: That global seismographic network
Is now utilized to enforce the terms
Of the international
nuclear-test-ban treaty.
But could the mayotte signal
Be evidence of secret nuclear testing?
[ explosion ]
Then the next question is,
who the hell would be doing this?
Narrator: Mayotte is an
overseas region of France,
Almost 5,000 miles from paris.
France is a nation with
confirmed nuclear capability.
Have they been conducting
illegal tests there?
There was a treaty that africa has
To keep nuclear weapons out of their area.
France, even though
they administer mayotte,
They wouldn't be able to
have nuclear weapons there
And remain on the right side of the law.
♪♪
Narrator: Both earthquakes and explosions
Send out similar waves deep into the earth
And set off seismometers,
But when compared directly,
The two waves have
some significant differences.
Phoenix: In seismology,
Which is basically the
study of earthquakes,
We have a couple different kinds of waves.
There are primary waves
and secondary waves,
Or p and s waves.
When an earthquake happens,
The first signal is a p
wave, a pressure wave.
Phoenix: Those actually go
through the earth's surface,
So they will go down through
into the core of the mantle.
The next one that follows is
the s wave, the shear wave.
So what that means is
the individual molecules
Are moving up and down
perpendicular to the direction
That the wave is propagating.
A good example is when
we do the wave at a stadium.
Each person moves up and down,
But the actual wave
propagates around the stadium.
Narrator: The third and final set of waves
Are the surface waves
That travel through the earth's crust.
Phoenix: The surface waves
are much, much more restrained
To a local area.
That's what makes it so
you can't stand up anymore.
They're very destructive.
Narrator: Explosions
and earthquakes may have
A similar wave, but
there is a key difference.
The p wave generated by
an earthquake is much weaker
Compared to the s wave,
While an explosion is the opposite...
Stronger p waves and weaker s waves.
What I've got here is a seismograph
That shows what a nuclear test
Would look like versus an earthquake.
Nuclear test... high on the
p waves, no shear waving.
But an earthquake, you can see the p wave,
The s wave, surface waves.
They're completely different.
When I look at the data, I can clearly see
That this is not a nuclear detonation.
Narrator: But upon closer inspection,
The waves from the mayotte signal
Don't fit either an
explosion or an earthquake.
So, when we're looking at this,
It has some of the characteristics,
But it's not exactly right.
There's something else
and weird happening here.
Phoenix: A typical earthquake signal,
You'll be a couple of minutes at most.
And they have that very definite,
Very sharp start point.
So it looks a little
bit like a giant spike,
And then it calms down.
Mayotte was very different.
Mayotte actually had
what we now refer to as
Very long-period signals.
So they lasted for half an
hour, 20 minutes, 30 minutes.
These signals produced a steady hum,
And that is extremely unusual.
Narrator: And there are other
mysterious aspects to the signal
That geologists can't explain
Mckinnon: What made
the mayotte signal unusual
Is that inside of the
signal was another signal.
How do we have an event
that only happens once,
Yet within that has
something that's repeating
Over and over and over again?
What could that be?
Narrator: So the question remains,
What is the mayotte signal?
And is it a sign of impending disaster?
When you're dealing with seismic events,
You've got something
that's potentially devastating
On your hands.
As a scientist, you want answers
Because if there's a danger involved,
You want to be able to tell people.
And so it's really
important that we figure out
What's going on.
Narrator: The earth itself may hold a clue.
The earth is not a cold, hard, dead rock.
This is a clue to what could be happening
When we look at the
signals we're receiving.
Narrator: A mysterious seismic signal
Plaguing the tiny island of
mayotte is baffling geologists.
All attempts to explain it have
been deemed inconclusive.
Not being able to find
an easy, obvious answer
For the mayotte signal is concerning.
Narrator: This new signal
doesn't look like any earthquake
They've seen before,
but what if they're wrong
And disaster is poised
to strike the island?
Geologists again turn to the
global seismographic network
In order to dig deeper into the mystery.
Originally intended as
part of this peace effort,
Our global seismic network
had an unintentional consequence
Of informing a lot of scientific research.
And it's given us a much
better understanding
Of tectonic plates.
Narrator: The earth's
surface is covered in a rigid
Yet flexible crust of tectonic plates.
And the plates are
moving against each other,
And at the boundary,
All kinds of interesting things happen.
For instance, if you have two plates
That are moving towards each other,
One can subduct underneath the other one,
And as it subducts, it melts,
Generating magma leading to volcanoes.
Narrator: The movement of tectonic plates
Doesn't just create magma.
It can also create earthquakes.
[ rumbling, crashing ]
Phoenix: When we look
at this data from mayotte,
I just get really struck by
How similar some of it
looks to volcanic signatures.
It's very curious to me why
we would get data like this.
Narrator: Mayotte itself was
created from an ancient volcano,
But the last known activity
was 7,000 years ago.
Could mayotte's volcanoes
be coming back to life?
The first clue is that you
have an earthquake swarm.
Usually, that means
that rocks are breaking.
When we triangulated
where that was happening,
It was off the coast of mayotte
On the bottom of the ocean floor.
Narrator: Geologists believe
the hundreds of small earthquakes
Mayotte experienced starting
at the beginning of 2018
Were a sign, but of what?
That indicates, maybe magma is starting
To move up to the surface.
But what happens when it breaks through?
That magma is going to go
and create a new volcano.
Narrator: Could a new volcano be forming?
And how much of a threat
could that be to this tiny island?
In the past, there have
been big losses of life
When people haven't noticed subtle changes
Or there wasn't adequate
equipment, instrumentation,
Or training for the scientists involved
In watching whatever the danger might be.
So this could be volcanic eruptions.
Narrator: Finding answers
quickly is a challenge,
Since the source of the mayotte signal
Could be a crack in the earth,
12,000 feet deep in the indian ocean,
Where we have limited
instrumentation and visuals.
Everybody always talks
about how difficult it is
To work in space.
Well, working underwater
is similarly difficult.
Narrator: In 2009 near samoa,
scientists witnessed a volcano
Erupting underwater for the first time
When a remote vehicle
on the ocean floor films
The eruption of what came to be
known as the west mata volcano,
The deepest underwater
volcano ever observed.
It changes the whole ball
game because you say, "okay,
This is a volcano, it is active,
It is going through an eruptive cycle,
And we're witnessing it in real time."
Gives us a whole different insight
Into how those eruptions function.
What was really interesting
about the mata volcano
Is that it produced a plume of pumice.
Now, pumice is a really light rock
That actually floated to
the surface of the water,
And you could see it.
Mckinnon: If there's
an underwater eruption,
We expect to see the
gas and we see the venting
And maybe even if it's erupted,
To have floating rafts of pumice.
We didn't see that at mayotte.
Phoenix: Where mayotte
is located is very, very deep.
This area where the signal was coming from
Is about 12,000 feet below
the surface of the ocean.
So if you've got a volcano down there,
You're not gonna see evidence
of volcanism on the surface.
It just won't make it up to the top.
Narrator: In may 2019,
Seven months after the mysterious signal
Was first detected,
A french geology team dropped
six seismometers into the ocean
Where the anomaly originated
and generated exciting new data.
Upon closer investigation,
scientists were able to tell
That over the course of several months,
That bottom of the sea had changed.
You had this magma chamber
That was under the
surface of the ocean floor,
And then suddenly that
magma worked its way up
And built this big volcano.
So imagine something like
that being built in a month.
If you think about what it
would take to raise the area
Where I'm sitting 2,600 feet, 1/2 a mile,
That would be an incredible force.
We are literally talking about the earth
Creating a new underwater
volcano before our eyes.
That is pretty mind-blowing.
Narrator: It means the mayotte signal
Is both volcanic and seismic.
The leading hypothesis
right now is actually
Magma being injected up
Close to the surface of the ocean floor.
It's breaking the rocks.
And when you break rocks,
you create earthquakes.
Mckinnon: And one of those struck the side
Of a volcanic chamber
and set the liquid inside
To sloshing back and forth.
And that slosh resonated
and produced the signal.
What I love is that the
earth is still a mystery
And we can get new signals
that we just don't understand.
With a bit of luck, we might
see another signal like this again
Now that we know what we're looking for.
Narrator: A whole city
seems to appear as if by magic
Above the city of foshan in china.
Hundreds travel to take a
look at the mysterious image.
They record the event on their smartphones
And upload the videos to the internet,
Which immediately goes viral.
The story is picked up by
news agencies around the world.
I could only imagine how
terrified people would be
To witness a city in the sky.
Narrator: People struggle to
explain what they are seeing.
Some believe that the video is a hoax.
Yes, certainly when you
have a group of people
That experience something
that's beyond the comprehension,
It certainly creates a situation
where it's self-reinforcing.
Everybody is spooked.
You're like, "oh, my god,
this can't be happening.
Something's wrong."
It's this piece that you look
and rationally and logically,
You know it isn't there,
But your eyes are telling
you something totally different.
Dr. Kislenko: And, of course,
it lends credence, right?
If you see it, it's one thing.
If, you know, 10 other
people see it, it's another.
And this is true all the time.
It's a "more the merrier" proposition.
The more people that see it,
The harder it becomes to
deny, at least to ourselves,
No matter what scientists
or experts might say.
Narrator: Many more,
however, start to wonder,
Could this image of a floating city
Have something in common
with seafaring legends
Like mountains that
appear in the wrong place
Or the flying dutchman?
Dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries,
The flying dutchman is reputed
To be the phantom of a dutch man-of-war
That disappeared rounding
the cape of good hope.
Since then, its ghostly light
has struck fear into the hearts
Of all who see it on the horizon.
If I'm an experienced
mariner in the english channel
And I know where the cliffs of dover are,
And then one day I'm out sailing
and I see that they've moved
[laughs] several miles
away from their location,
I'm going to think that this is
some really dreadful foreboding.
It's a cautionary tale.
It's something that I should be afraid of.
"I've done something wrong.
Who knows what fates await me?"
It's a repetition
If I see a ship at sea that's
not supposed to be there
And it's hovering above the
water, sailing upside down.
You get the flying dutchman
seen in all sorts of places
At times where it couldn't physically...
And all of a sudden, the ship appears.
And now it's floating and ghostly.
But then after everybody's seen it,
You continue to sail onwards,
and then the ship disappears.
So you're gonna see
something appear and disappear,
Which is gonna make it appear
very supernatural, very ghostly.
Narrator: Sailors believed
that these visions were signs
Of impending disaster.
They were haunted by them for centuries.
When people see a phantom
ship, especially in a time
Where there isn't gonna
be a scientific explanation
To that phenomenon, there
isn't a point of reference for them.
So they're just gonna see it as fact.
Narrator: For hundreds of years,
there has been no explanation.
But what if these illusions
Were proof of a
long-held scientific theory?
Mckinnon: What if the fabric of
our space-time folded and bent
And some part of it touched and connected?
That connection point would be a wormhole.
We've never seen one. We
don't know what it would look like.
Maybe it's the inside of black holes.
But if something like that existed,
It would be two places at once.
You could think of it almost
like looking at a crystal ball
Into another place.
Narrator: Coming up, can
science prove that parallel realities,
Or wormholes, are the cause
of these phantom visions?
These are physical illusions.
They're happening in the real world.
Physics can explain it.
It would be a single
place with two locations.
Narrator: In 2015, a crowd
of astonished spectators
Capture the specter of a city
Floating above a coastal city
in china on their smartphones.
The floating city was clearly
there in all the pictures.
But how could it be real?
There's always a thought
that there's parallel universes
To our own or that there's
some underlying physics
That allows multiple similar universes
To occupy the same space.
Narrator: In 1935, albert
einstein and his team
Proposed the existence of
bridges through space-time,
Theoretically creating a shortcut
That could reduce travel time and distance.
These bridges came to
be known as wormholes.
Such a shortcut through space-time
Could be a bridge to an alternate universe
Or even give us the
ability to travel through time.
One of the most frustrating
things about science
Is you can only use what
you can observe here and now.
We can only observe our own universe,
Which means that we can only guess
And build theories and build models.
Delaney: But diving into a
black hole, finding a wormhole,
Finding the equivalent
of dilithium crystals,
Warping space...
They are wonderful
concepts in science fiction,
But they're a bit lean when
it comes to real physics.
Narrator: If wormholes
remain more fiction than fact,
What is the reason for
this strange apparition?
Illusions have been a
part of human history.
You can go back to sailors
seeing strange objects
Such as mountain ranges that don't exist
Or another ship, where they think,
"wow, that ship is right
there," but it actually isn't.
Dr. Fallah: And that's
because what you see is real.
It's just not where you see it.
All of the illusion is about
taking something that's real
And you perceive it as being
above where it really exists.
That's why it's called a superior mirage.
This superior mirage is
known as a fata morgana.
It is the flip-side version of
its more well-known cousin,
The desert mirage.
Illusions, as we see them right now,
Can always be explained
by more mundane physics.
Narrator: But rather, the science of light.
Light is a wave that,
Depending on what kind of surface it hits,
Can reflect or refract.
Reflection is what you see in a mirror,
Where the light bounces
directly back to you.
A refraction is when the light
Is bent at an angle and continues on.
Narrator: Light waves travel
at fixed speeds until they hit
Some sort of medium like
glass, water, or even air.
At that point, the waves
will slow down and bend.
If you have ever held a glass of water
And put your finger in behind
And seen that that line is not straight,
That's because of refraction.
It's how light bends.
And that can play tricks on our eyes.
Narrator: There was no glass cylinder
When the floating city
appeared over foshan.
It lends itself to great opportunity
To create ideas that could be played
On manipulating somebody's perception
Of whatever it is I want to achieve.
Narrator: Coming up,
The physics of light have
been used for centuries
To make things appear out of nowhere.
They will actually see an
apparent apparition onstage.
This will make cities appear
As if they're floating
above the ground in the air.
Narrator: Floating cities over china
Took the world by storm in 2015.
Some think it's an elaborate hoax.
The pepper's ghost
originally was a theater trick
To create ghosts in "macbeth."
Narrator: In 1862,
scientist john henry pepper
Developed an optical trick,
One that's deceived audiences for years
By employing reflection
and refraction of light.
The actor who played the ghost would be
In the pit beneath the stage
And, by use of a mirror and a glass pane,
Was able to reflect the
actor's image onto the pane,
Which was at eye level.
Sparling: We then angled
that reflective surface slightly
So that if something enters
the reflection for the audience,
So when the audience looking,
They will actually see something off-stage.
And it gives rise to an
apparent apparition onstage.
And it gives a real effect
That something spooky is going on here.
Narrator: But how could an entire city
Be reflected into the sky?
It's all about temperature,
So if you have a layer
of hot air or cold air.
If you have a layer of cold air,
The light will go up and
bounce back down again.
When that happens,
what really exists over here,
You might see it somewhere else.
Due to the ordering of the cold air
And then the warmer air
on top, all the illusions appear
As if the object is
higher up than it really is.
This will make ships appear
like they're floating over the ocean.
This will make cities appear
As if they're floating
above the ground in the air.
Narrator: Warm air
sitting on top of cold air
Is a phenomenon found primarily
around large bodies of water.
This is an image of a ship
That appears to be hovering
over the water because of a mirage.
And you can see that
Below the ship, it looks like there's sky.
This is an optical effect
that's resulting from refraction.
So what's happening in this
case is that the light from the sky
Is being bent between us and the ship,
Giving rise to the image of the sky
On the surface of the
water, and that, in turn,
Makes the ship look
like it's floating in the air.
Narrator: But why are
these refracted images
Only seen at the edge of the horizon?
The earth is round, and
you can see this curvature
When you're somewhere like in the ocean
And you see the ship sail over the horizon.
We see that,
But we're actually not
quite seeing the real horizon
Because the atmosphere is thicker.
Part of why sunsets are
red are because of this
Thickened atmosphere bending
the light waves differently.
Under the right atmospheric conditions
And the curvature of the earth,
You can actually have
an illusion that looks like
It's right there close by,
But it's actually below the horizon,
And those light waves are being bent
Along the curvature of
the earth to where you are.
It can travel a huge distance.
I want to play around with
the idea of bending light,
And to do that, I'm gonna
use this parabolic mirror.
Now, a parabolic mirror is no
more than two convex mirrors.
And I'm gonna place in the
center some candy in one.
It's gonna reflect off
the other and then back
And, as the light escapes and bends,
Create the illusion that
the candy is on the outside.
This little illusion represents
how in nature, light can bend
And essentially create
something that isn't really there.
So one could see how
someone could be fooled in nature
When the sky,
The ocean reflects back and forth on itself
To create a phantom ship, an ice wall.
You can actually see that there's nothing.
These are physical illusions.
They're happening in the real world.
Physics can explain it.
The light is hitting your eye.
It's just coming from a different angle
Than you would normally
expect off of the object.
Narrator: If you ever see
a city floating over the sea
Or a ship hovering over the water
So real you could reach out and touch them,
Remember that tricks
of light and atmosphere
Are all around us,
And that these spectral visions
continue to be one of nature's
Most impressive tricks.
Emanating from deep space.
Oh, my god, it's finally happened.
Narrator: Could the signal have
been sent by extraterrestrial life?
This is where science fiction starts.
Narrator: Is it proof
that we are not alone?
It was their attempt to reach
out and say, "we're here."
Narrator: Seismographs
ring around the world.
When seismometers start going crazy,
You immediately think, "large earthquake."
[ rumbling ]
Narrator: But no reports come in.
Is a terrifying natural
disaster headed for earth?
Pretty mind-blowing.
Narrator: A floating city in china.
This can't be happening.
Everybody else is
experiencing the same thing.
Something's wrong.
Narrator: Sailors see phantom
ships and hovering mountains.
For the camera to also
pick it up and see this thing
That you know isn't there.
Narrator: Are these
visions just superstition
Or a glimpse into another universe?
So what was it?
Narrator: Endless streams of data.
Information bombarding
the planet from within
And from the furthest
stretches of the universe.
What messages do these
phantom signals hold?
1977... the big ear radio telescope
At the ohio state university observatory
Has been in operation for 16 years.
The size of three football fields,
It was one of the largest
radio telescopes in the world,
Built for the sole purpose
of listening to the cosmos.
Big ear is famous for
two great milestones...
Creating the most accurate, for the time,
Map of the radio signals
traveling around the universe
And one cataclysmic discovery,
When in August 1977, astronomer jerry ehman
Noticed a 72-second radio burst
Emanating from somewhere
far beyond humanity's reach.
If I try to place myself in
the shoes of that astronomer,
I can only imagine I would feel excitement.
So you got to wonder what was going through
Jerry's head at that moment.
"oh, my god, it's finally happened.
We finally found evidence
of some intelligent life
Somewhere else in the universe."
You wonder, "what if?
What does this really mean?"
It was their attempt to reach out and say,
"we're here. Hello."
This is where science fiction starts.
Narrator: The readout is a simple series
Of numbers and letters... 6-e-q-u-j-5.
But what do they mean?
What that is conveying is
that that signal at that moment
In time was 30 times higher
than the background noise
Picked up by that antenna.
It punches through that
background radiation
And makes its mark on that
paper because it's so intense.
When a signal peaks above that noise floor
That you can see visibly,
You take it as a signal that
was purposely transmitted.
Gaensler: Jerry saw a cluster of numbers
That they had never seen before,
so this was totally unexpected.
Got out his pen, which
was red, and he circled it
And he wrote w-o-w exclamation mark.
Narrator: Nicknamed the wow! Signal,
It rocked the scientific community
And became news all over the world.
I would have also circled
it in red and went, "wow,"
Because it doesn't feel natural.
30 times higher than
the ambient noise floor
For a specific duration.
Makes you think had
to have been intentional.
Sparling: It's the holy
grail for astronomers.
It would be acknowledgment
that we're not alone here.
It would be monumental.
The wow! Signal had a
pretty significant cultural impact
Because we have to remember
That these resources
were specifically designed
And put into place to
find evidence of contact
Of extraterrestrial civilizations.
Narrator: Outer space
is full of radio signals.
They come from planets, stars,
Even black holes and
elements like hydrogen.
Hydrogen, the most common
element in the universe.
It is needed to create water,
And water is necessary
to sustain life as we know it.
Scientists have long held
the belief that since hydrogen
Is such an essential building block
For life as we know it, it
would be the one element
We would for sure have in
common with alien civilizations.
And if they wanted to reach out,
They would do so through
the frequency of hydrogen,
Which emits a radio
signal of 1,420 megahertz.
The wow! Signal came in at 1,420 megahertz.
Nass: It's almost freaky.
I would immediately probably be worried
That there was some
kind of malfunction, right?
That would be my biggest
fear. It's the most logical fear.
Gaensler: Now, on the
one hand, it is your job
To run a radio telescope
looking for alien signals.
So this is exactly what
you've been waiting for.
And you know that as a
scientist, your entire career
And your reputation
relies on you being right.
Narrator: Equipment malfunction
or a satellite passing through
Were the most common
reasons for the anomaly.
The team at the big ear telescope tested
And re-tested their equipment.
They had to be sure that this
signal really was from space.
You have to rule out every
other possibility you can
Before you can start to consider what you
Secretly really want it to be.
And so that took jerry
and his colleagues in ohio
Years to try and rule
out all the obvious things.
You know, someone watching tv downstairs
Might produce radio interference.
Satellites orbiting overhead.
Satellites generally behave in a way
That lets people know they're there.
They beacon out signals,
they have telemetry,
They downlink signals so
that you can pick them up.
If anything else is a phantom signal,
That's what this is because
it's a very clear, precise signal
That is tracked and confirmed.
It's using state-of-the-art equipment.
The equipment was not malfunctioning.
Viggiani: When you
eliminate all those possibilities,
You're only left with
one... this was sent out
With an intention of getting
somebody's attention.
Narrator: But what would it
take for an intelligent species
To broadcast a signal that strong?
Sparling: For a radio signal
To travel across the vast
distances of the universe
Means it has to be very powerful.
And to send out a radio
signal that's super powerful
In all directions at the same time
Is very, very difficult.
So what we're probably looking at
Is it's a signal that's
been directed as a beam.
Did they direct it towards earth?
Did they somehow know the earth was here?
Narrator: So the question
is, what's the message?
Could it be that an alien civilization
Was simply answering back?
I mean, we fired off vehicles, right,
That have gold plates on it
That talk about our math
system and human beings.
Our desire to find
someone in space is huge.
When we sent out voyager
with all the symbols on it,
It was our attempt to say, "here we are."
Take notice of us, and here's
some of the things about us
That you might be interested in."
That's the way we sent the message out.
Mckinnon: We've been
accidentally broadcasting into space
The entire time we've been
broadcasting around the planet.
We've sent those signals out into space,
Radiating out from
us at the speed of light.
The challenge in something
as vast as the universe is
The distances are huge.
I mean, we measure these
distances in light-years.
The speed of light still
is the ultimate speed limit
As far as pushing material
across the stars is concerned.
Narrator: Light travels at
over 600 million miles per hour.
That is fast enough to go around the earth
7.5 times per second.
And suppose that it was from a star
That was 5,000 years
away at the speed of light.
That means that they hit "send" 5,000 ago.
And even if there was
an intelligent signal,
And suppose they say, "hi. How are you?"
And we immediately say back,
"I'm good, thanks. How are you?"
They would have to wait another 5,000 years
For the signal to get back,
so that's a 10,000-year delay.
Viggiani: What we've yet to get over,
Fundamental idea of the cosmos,
Is that there is no reason in the world
Why we cannot believe
that some species out there
Can either move faster
than the speed of light,
Can move inter-dimensionally,
okay, or even move in time.
Narrator: Decades
later, scientists are still
Hypothesizing about
the origin of the emission
And in 2012, they attempt to
keep the conversation going
By beaming their own
message in the same direction
As the origin of the wow! Signal.
The project is launched at
the arecibo radio telescope
In puerto rico, which, at the time,
Was the biggest radio
telescope in the world.
The signal they send is 20 times stronger
Than the most powerful radio transmission.
But not all scientists
believe continuing the search
For extraterrestrial life is
an initiative worth pursuing.
Dr. Hayes: Perhaps that
would lead to destruction
Or colonization.
If an alien civilization picked
up one of our voyager probes
And looked at our golden record,
If they could even make sense of it,
Maybe they would actually
interpret it as a threat
That they had to guard
against or eliminate.
We're interpreting these
things through our own lenses,
And we are attributing characteristics
To possible contact and possible aliens
That might not actually exist,
but that maybe we're hoping for.
To me, the idea of space exploration is one
That represents a level of maturity
Of the civilization in question.
You're not going to
travel for potentially years,
Decades out of a species' life,
Spend a significant fraction
of a planet's resource budget
Just to go over and
conquer another species.
So I would be in the camp
that says, "yes, we should reply."
The extraterrestrial signals
should be responded to.
And therein lies, how
do we now respond to it?
Viggiani: We're taking baby steps here,
And when you're dealing with
a cosmos of infinite proportions,
The possibilities of getting
something somewhere in space
Are astronomical.
So it's a roll of the dice with everything.
Narrator: Coming up, in 2015,
A russian radio telescope
detects another powerful signal
Coming from a star in the
constellation of hercules.
This must be the proof
that we're looking for,
That this is extraterrestrial intelligence.
Narrator: Then two years later,
an earth-shattering discovery
Astonishes the scientific community.
To discount the
possibility of life out there
Is an untenable conclusion.
Narrator: In 1977, astronomer jerry ehman
Sees a 72-second radio burst
Emanating from somewhere in deep space.
The strength of the signal
is like nothing scientists
Have seen before.
When a signal peaks above that noise floor
At that level of intensity,
We assume that it was
intentional being sent to us.
Narrator: The signal becomes
known as the wow! Signal.
If it is a communication
from an alien civilization,
It would be the first ever detected.
People immediately jumped on
the bandwagon saying that of course,
This must be the proof
that we're looking for
That this is extraterrestrial intelligence.
Narrator: In 2012, a group of
astronomers sent a message
Back in the same
direction as the wow! Signal.
These transmissions, we could transmit
And they can transmit.
But we really have to talk over each other.
We can send them information
and they can send us information,
But unless you want to wait
hundreds of thousands of years,
There's unfortunately no way
to ever have a conversation.
Sparling: The hubble deep field image
Changed our understanding of the universe,
Maybe more than anything else in astronomy
In the last 30 years.
We thought there were
a few million galaxies.
We now think there
are billions of galaxies.
We know each of those galaxies has billions
Or even trillions of stars.
The number of stars in our
universe is immeasurable.
One of the great pioneers of the search for
Extraterrestrial
intelligence is frank drake.
And back in the 1950s, drake
wrote down on a blackboard
An equation has since become
known as the drake equation.
It's a way of calculating how
many intelligent civilizations
There are in the galaxy.
Some of the variables in this equation ask,
How long does intelligent civilization
Last for, before it goes extinct?
Another variable is, how
many years does it take
For an intelligent civilization
To arise on a life-bearing planet?
So all you have to do
is plug in the numbers
To this very simple formula,
and out will come the answer.
The catch is, is that we don't
know what numbers to plug in.
Narrator: But almost 40
years after the wow! Signal,
Another powerful anomaly comes through,
Emanating from a distant star
in the constellation of hercules.
Russian astronomers
pick up the signal in 2015
And pinpoint the location
95 light-years from earth.
If this was an
extraterrestrial civilization
Communicating with us,
Then reason stands that we
would continue to receive signals
Probably from the same region of space,
Probably in the same
frequency and the same intensity,
Beaming the same kind of thing to us,
But this has never
happened, and this is despite
Repeated attempts by physicists,
By astronomers to
search the skies for signals.
Narrator: Upon closer examination,
Astronomers discovered
that the signal most likely
Came from a russian satellite.
But just two years later, in 2017,
Astronomers at the
center for planetary science
Make a startling discovery.
They found two previously unknown comets
In the same area of the sky
The wow! Signal had
originally emanated from.
As comets fly towards the sun,
the gases that surround them
Will, at times, emit radio waves.
Not only did these two
previously unknown comets
Pass through that same area in 1977,
As they pass through almost 40 years later,
They generate a strong radio
signal at 1,420 megahertz,
The same frequency as the wow! Signal.
But the signals from the comets
Are still not as strong as the wow! Signal.
Viggiani: That's a credible
way of being skeptical.
But I think the numerical
values of what were there
Didn't really represent a
random signal from a comet.
Narrator: Even today,
Many astronomers doubt the comet theory.
One of the frustrations about
the wow! Signal, it was there,
And then after 70 or so
seconds, it disappeared,
And despite many attempts over the decades,
No one has ever seen it again.
We have one signal, one data point.
If we had multiple data points,
We might gain some piece of information.
Narrator: Today, the wow! Signal
is the only untraceable signal
Ever received from outer space,
One of the strongest candidates
that someone or something
Was reaching out from the
depths of another galaxy.
People wonder, "well,
what really was this signal?"
And the bottom line is,
Even with all the knowledge
that we have and people who are
Much more knowledgeable
and more expert than I am,
We don't know.
Narrator: Whether the wow! Signal was
Naturally occurring or
the result of a species
Not unlike our own, humanity
continues to watch and wait.
The idea that there is
life out there in a universe
This size, hundreds and
billions of just galaxies,
Not to talk about the
number of habitable planets,
It's just not possible that we, in fact,
Are completely alone in the universe.
♪♪
Narrator: November 11, 2018.
Seismographs in zambia,
chile, new zealand, and canada
Pick up a low-frequency
tremor in the indian ocean.
When seismometers start going crazy,
You immediately think, "large earthquake."
Narrator: The source of
the signal is triangulated
To mayotte, a tiny island
paradise in the indian ocean
That lies between madagascar and mozambique
On the eastern coast of africa.
At the beginning of 2018,
Hundreds of tiny earthquakes
began to shake the island.
They lasted for months,
Building in intensity
until a major quake in may
That measured 5.8 on the richter scale.
Now seismometers warned of the prospect
Of an even bigger earthquake.
When you get a large seismic
signal halfway around the world,
You expect the event that
created it to be pretty large.
We're talking probably 5 or greater
On the richter magnitude scale.
Narrator: The relentless
shaking earlier in the year
Went on for months and caused
some minor damage to buildings.
Anxiety and uncertainty ran
high for the 250,000 residents
Of the tiny island.
People slept in the streets out of fear
That their house might collapse.
When you're dealing with seismic events,
You've got something
that's potentially devastating
On your hands.
And in mayotte in particular,
You've got a 1/4 of a million people
That are in, potentially, harm's way.
Narrator: On the morning
of November 11, 2018,
A mysterious signal threatens
an even bigger earthquake.
Fears of widespread devastation
and a potential tsunami
Take hold once again.
Emergency crews and
firefighters prepare for the worst,
But then nothing.
Trying to get field reports didn't work
Because nobody could feel anything.
Residents reported nothing.
That's really strange to
have all of this seismic activity
And nobody feeling it.
Narrator: No tremor is
felt on the island at all.
With only the seismometer
readings to go on,
Geologists are forced to
consider a chilling possibility.
Anytime seismologists start
talking about an unusual signal,
People immediately get scared
That maybe this is another nuclear test.
Narrator: Coming up,
seismic-wave patterns give clues
To what may really be happening in mayotte.
There's something weird happening here.
Then the next question is,
who the hell would be doing this?
Narrator: In November
2018, a strong seismic wave
Deep in the earth alerts
geologists around the world.
Its origin is the island
paradise of mayotte,
Situated between mozambique and madagascar.
Almost a year earlier, a
series of low-level earthquakes
Began tormenting the tiny island.
Now fear and anxiety again run high
Among the 250,000 residents.
And emergency preparations are underway.
But not one tremor is felt on the island.
The signal persists,
A slow-moving surface
wave that puzzles scientists.
♪♪
For scientists like me,
we are pretty familiar
With everything the earth can throw at us.
But not being able to find
an easy, obvious answer
For the mayotte signal is concerning.
This was a signal that
was happening in real time
Right here, right in front of us.
We can't actually see it,
but we know it's occurring.
So what exactly is occurring?
Narrator: This new signal doesn't look like
Any earthquake
seismologists have seen before.
Could they be wrong? Is
this something entirely new?
Anytime seismologists start
talking about an unusual signal,
People immediately get scared
That maybe this is another nuclear test.
[ explosion ]
Narrator: In the years
following the end of the cold war,
Nuclear testing in the ocean is banned.
So what could this be?
From 1945 all the way up
until the end of the cold war,
We had more than 2,000 nuclear tests.
Some nations, like the united states,
Russia, and France in particular,
Had tried underwater sea
testing in the middle of nowhere
With dramatic consequences,
the americans in particular.
Their major nuclear
test was at bikini atoll,
Right in the middle of the south pacific,
In supposedly nobody's way,
Until they realized how
much radiation they caused
And how much they killed the ocean.
Narrator: American concerns
peaked in the middle of the cold war.
At that time, the u.S. Geological survey
And the incorporate research
institutions for seismology
Created a network of seismic stations
That could detect a nuclear detonation
Anywhere in the world.
So, we needed to be able to monitor
When those explosions happened.
To do that, we put out a whole
bunch of geophysics sensors.
We put out seismometers, hydrophones,
Infrasound networks,
and radiation detectors.
So we started actually
recording all of these noises.
Narrator: That global seismographic network
Is now utilized to enforce the terms
Of the international
nuclear-test-ban treaty.
But could the mayotte signal
Be evidence of secret nuclear testing?
[ explosion ]
Then the next question is,
who the hell would be doing this?
Narrator: Mayotte is an
overseas region of France,
Almost 5,000 miles from paris.
France is a nation with
confirmed nuclear capability.
Have they been conducting
illegal tests there?
There was a treaty that africa has
To keep nuclear weapons out of their area.
France, even though
they administer mayotte,
They wouldn't be able to
have nuclear weapons there
And remain on the right side of the law.
♪♪
Narrator: Both earthquakes and explosions
Send out similar waves deep into the earth
And set off seismometers,
But when compared directly,
The two waves have
some significant differences.
Phoenix: In seismology,
Which is basically the
study of earthquakes,
We have a couple different kinds of waves.
There are primary waves
and secondary waves,
Or p and s waves.
When an earthquake happens,
The first signal is a p
wave, a pressure wave.
Phoenix: Those actually go
through the earth's surface,
So they will go down through
into the core of the mantle.
The next one that follows is
the s wave, the shear wave.
So what that means is
the individual molecules
Are moving up and down
perpendicular to the direction
That the wave is propagating.
A good example is when
we do the wave at a stadium.
Each person moves up and down,
But the actual wave
propagates around the stadium.
Narrator: The third and final set of waves
Are the surface waves
That travel through the earth's crust.
Phoenix: The surface waves
are much, much more restrained
To a local area.
That's what makes it so
you can't stand up anymore.
They're very destructive.
Narrator: Explosions
and earthquakes may have
A similar wave, but
there is a key difference.
The p wave generated by
an earthquake is much weaker
Compared to the s wave,
While an explosion is the opposite...
Stronger p waves and weaker s waves.
What I've got here is a seismograph
That shows what a nuclear test
Would look like versus an earthquake.
Nuclear test... high on the
p waves, no shear waving.
But an earthquake, you can see the p wave,
The s wave, surface waves.
They're completely different.
When I look at the data, I can clearly see
That this is not a nuclear detonation.
Narrator: But upon closer inspection,
The waves from the mayotte signal
Don't fit either an
explosion or an earthquake.
So, when we're looking at this,
It has some of the characteristics,
But it's not exactly right.
There's something else
and weird happening here.
Phoenix: A typical earthquake signal,
You'll be a couple of minutes at most.
And they have that very definite,
Very sharp start point.
So it looks a little
bit like a giant spike,
And then it calms down.
Mayotte was very different.
Mayotte actually had
what we now refer to as
Very long-period signals.
So they lasted for half an
hour, 20 minutes, 30 minutes.
These signals produced a steady hum,
And that is extremely unusual.
Narrator: And there are other
mysterious aspects to the signal
That geologists can't explain
Mckinnon: What made
the mayotte signal unusual
Is that inside of the
signal was another signal.
How do we have an event
that only happens once,
Yet within that has
something that's repeating
Over and over and over again?
What could that be?
Narrator: So the question remains,
What is the mayotte signal?
And is it a sign of impending disaster?
When you're dealing with seismic events,
You've got something
that's potentially devastating
On your hands.
As a scientist, you want answers
Because if there's a danger involved,
You want to be able to tell people.
And so it's really
important that we figure out
What's going on.
Narrator: The earth itself may hold a clue.
The earth is not a cold, hard, dead rock.
This is a clue to what could be happening
When we look at the
signals we're receiving.
Narrator: A mysterious seismic signal
Plaguing the tiny island of
mayotte is baffling geologists.
All attempts to explain it have
been deemed inconclusive.
Not being able to find
an easy, obvious answer
For the mayotte signal is concerning.
Narrator: This new signal
doesn't look like any earthquake
They've seen before,
but what if they're wrong
And disaster is poised
to strike the island?
Geologists again turn to the
global seismographic network
In order to dig deeper into the mystery.
Originally intended as
part of this peace effort,
Our global seismic network
had an unintentional consequence
Of informing a lot of scientific research.
And it's given us a much
better understanding
Of tectonic plates.
Narrator: The earth's
surface is covered in a rigid
Yet flexible crust of tectonic plates.
And the plates are
moving against each other,
And at the boundary,
All kinds of interesting things happen.
For instance, if you have two plates
That are moving towards each other,
One can subduct underneath the other one,
And as it subducts, it melts,
Generating magma leading to volcanoes.
Narrator: The movement of tectonic plates
Doesn't just create magma.
It can also create earthquakes.
[ rumbling, crashing ]
Phoenix: When we look
at this data from mayotte,
I just get really struck by
How similar some of it
looks to volcanic signatures.
It's very curious to me why
we would get data like this.
Narrator: Mayotte itself was
created from an ancient volcano,
But the last known activity
was 7,000 years ago.
Could mayotte's volcanoes
be coming back to life?
The first clue is that you
have an earthquake swarm.
Usually, that means
that rocks are breaking.
When we triangulated
where that was happening,
It was off the coast of mayotte
On the bottom of the ocean floor.
Narrator: Geologists believe
the hundreds of small earthquakes
Mayotte experienced starting
at the beginning of 2018
Were a sign, but of what?
That indicates, maybe magma is starting
To move up to the surface.
But what happens when it breaks through?
That magma is going to go
and create a new volcano.
Narrator: Could a new volcano be forming?
And how much of a threat
could that be to this tiny island?
In the past, there have
been big losses of life
When people haven't noticed subtle changes
Or there wasn't adequate
equipment, instrumentation,
Or training for the scientists involved
In watching whatever the danger might be.
So this could be volcanic eruptions.
Narrator: Finding answers
quickly is a challenge,
Since the source of the mayotte signal
Could be a crack in the earth,
12,000 feet deep in the indian ocean,
Where we have limited
instrumentation and visuals.
Everybody always talks
about how difficult it is
To work in space.
Well, working underwater
is similarly difficult.
Narrator: In 2009 near samoa,
scientists witnessed a volcano
Erupting underwater for the first time
When a remote vehicle
on the ocean floor films
The eruption of what came to be
known as the west mata volcano,
The deepest underwater
volcano ever observed.
It changes the whole ball
game because you say, "okay,
This is a volcano, it is active,
It is going through an eruptive cycle,
And we're witnessing it in real time."
Gives us a whole different insight
Into how those eruptions function.
What was really interesting
about the mata volcano
Is that it produced a plume of pumice.
Now, pumice is a really light rock
That actually floated to
the surface of the water,
And you could see it.
Mckinnon: If there's
an underwater eruption,
We expect to see the
gas and we see the venting
And maybe even if it's erupted,
To have floating rafts of pumice.
We didn't see that at mayotte.
Phoenix: Where mayotte
is located is very, very deep.
This area where the signal was coming from
Is about 12,000 feet below
the surface of the ocean.
So if you've got a volcano down there,
You're not gonna see evidence
of volcanism on the surface.
It just won't make it up to the top.
Narrator: In may 2019,
Seven months after the mysterious signal
Was first detected,
A french geology team dropped
six seismometers into the ocean
Where the anomaly originated
and generated exciting new data.
Upon closer investigation,
scientists were able to tell
That over the course of several months,
That bottom of the sea had changed.
You had this magma chamber
That was under the
surface of the ocean floor,
And then suddenly that
magma worked its way up
And built this big volcano.
So imagine something like
that being built in a month.
If you think about what it
would take to raise the area
Where I'm sitting 2,600 feet, 1/2 a mile,
That would be an incredible force.
We are literally talking about the earth
Creating a new underwater
volcano before our eyes.
That is pretty mind-blowing.
Narrator: It means the mayotte signal
Is both volcanic and seismic.
The leading hypothesis
right now is actually
Magma being injected up
Close to the surface of the ocean floor.
It's breaking the rocks.
And when you break rocks,
you create earthquakes.
Mckinnon: And one of those struck the side
Of a volcanic chamber
and set the liquid inside
To sloshing back and forth.
And that slosh resonated
and produced the signal.
What I love is that the
earth is still a mystery
And we can get new signals
that we just don't understand.
With a bit of luck, we might
see another signal like this again
Now that we know what we're looking for.
Narrator: A whole city
seems to appear as if by magic
Above the city of foshan in china.
Hundreds travel to take a
look at the mysterious image.
They record the event on their smartphones
And upload the videos to the internet,
Which immediately goes viral.
The story is picked up by
news agencies around the world.
I could only imagine how
terrified people would be
To witness a city in the sky.
Narrator: People struggle to
explain what they are seeing.
Some believe that the video is a hoax.
Yes, certainly when you
have a group of people
That experience something
that's beyond the comprehension,
It certainly creates a situation
where it's self-reinforcing.
Everybody is spooked.
You're like, "oh, my god,
this can't be happening.
Something's wrong."
It's this piece that you look
and rationally and logically,
You know it isn't there,
But your eyes are telling
you something totally different.
Dr. Kislenko: And, of course,
it lends credence, right?
If you see it, it's one thing.
If, you know, 10 other
people see it, it's another.
And this is true all the time.
It's a "more the merrier" proposition.
The more people that see it,
The harder it becomes to
deny, at least to ourselves,
No matter what scientists
or experts might say.
Narrator: Many more,
however, start to wonder,
Could this image of a floating city
Have something in common
with seafaring legends
Like mountains that
appear in the wrong place
Or the flying dutchman?
Dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries,
The flying dutchman is reputed
To be the phantom of a dutch man-of-war
That disappeared rounding
the cape of good hope.
Since then, its ghostly light
has struck fear into the hearts
Of all who see it on the horizon.
If I'm an experienced
mariner in the english channel
And I know where the cliffs of dover are,
And then one day I'm out sailing
and I see that they've moved
[laughs] several miles
away from their location,
I'm going to think that this is
some really dreadful foreboding.
It's a cautionary tale.
It's something that I should be afraid of.
"I've done something wrong.
Who knows what fates await me?"
It's a repetition
If I see a ship at sea that's
not supposed to be there
And it's hovering above the
water, sailing upside down.
You get the flying dutchman
seen in all sorts of places
At times where it couldn't physically...
And all of a sudden, the ship appears.
And now it's floating and ghostly.
But then after everybody's seen it,
You continue to sail onwards,
and then the ship disappears.
So you're gonna see
something appear and disappear,
Which is gonna make it appear
very supernatural, very ghostly.
Narrator: Sailors believed
that these visions were signs
Of impending disaster.
They were haunted by them for centuries.
When people see a phantom
ship, especially in a time
Where there isn't gonna
be a scientific explanation
To that phenomenon, there
isn't a point of reference for them.
So they're just gonna see it as fact.
Narrator: For hundreds of years,
there has been no explanation.
But what if these illusions
Were proof of a
long-held scientific theory?
Mckinnon: What if the fabric of
our space-time folded and bent
And some part of it touched and connected?
That connection point would be a wormhole.
We've never seen one. We
don't know what it would look like.
Maybe it's the inside of black holes.
But if something like that existed,
It would be two places at once.
You could think of it almost
like looking at a crystal ball
Into another place.
Narrator: Coming up, can
science prove that parallel realities,
Or wormholes, are the cause
of these phantom visions?
These are physical illusions.
They're happening in the real world.
Physics can explain it.
It would be a single
place with two locations.
Narrator: In 2015, a crowd
of astonished spectators
Capture the specter of a city
Floating above a coastal city
in china on their smartphones.
The floating city was clearly
there in all the pictures.
But how could it be real?
There's always a thought
that there's parallel universes
To our own or that there's
some underlying physics
That allows multiple similar universes
To occupy the same space.
Narrator: In 1935, albert
einstein and his team
Proposed the existence of
bridges through space-time,
Theoretically creating a shortcut
That could reduce travel time and distance.
These bridges came to
be known as wormholes.
Such a shortcut through space-time
Could be a bridge to an alternate universe
Or even give us the
ability to travel through time.
One of the most frustrating
things about science
Is you can only use what
you can observe here and now.
We can only observe our own universe,
Which means that we can only guess
And build theories and build models.
Delaney: But diving into a
black hole, finding a wormhole,
Finding the equivalent
of dilithium crystals,
Warping space...
They are wonderful
concepts in science fiction,
But they're a bit lean when
it comes to real physics.
Narrator: If wormholes
remain more fiction than fact,
What is the reason for
this strange apparition?
Illusions have been a
part of human history.
You can go back to sailors
seeing strange objects
Such as mountain ranges that don't exist
Or another ship, where they think,
"wow, that ship is right
there," but it actually isn't.
Dr. Fallah: And that's
because what you see is real.
It's just not where you see it.
All of the illusion is about
taking something that's real
And you perceive it as being
above where it really exists.
That's why it's called a superior mirage.
This superior mirage is
known as a fata morgana.
It is the flip-side version of
its more well-known cousin,
The desert mirage.
Illusions, as we see them right now,
Can always be explained
by more mundane physics.
Narrator: But rather, the science of light.
Light is a wave that,
Depending on what kind of surface it hits,
Can reflect or refract.
Reflection is what you see in a mirror,
Where the light bounces
directly back to you.
A refraction is when the light
Is bent at an angle and continues on.
Narrator: Light waves travel
at fixed speeds until they hit
Some sort of medium like
glass, water, or even air.
At that point, the waves
will slow down and bend.
If you have ever held a glass of water
And put your finger in behind
And seen that that line is not straight,
That's because of refraction.
It's how light bends.
And that can play tricks on our eyes.
Narrator: There was no glass cylinder
When the floating city
appeared over foshan.
It lends itself to great opportunity
To create ideas that could be played
On manipulating somebody's perception
Of whatever it is I want to achieve.
Narrator: Coming up,
The physics of light have
been used for centuries
To make things appear out of nowhere.
They will actually see an
apparent apparition onstage.
This will make cities appear
As if they're floating
above the ground in the air.
Narrator: Floating cities over china
Took the world by storm in 2015.
Some think it's an elaborate hoax.
The pepper's ghost
originally was a theater trick
To create ghosts in "macbeth."
Narrator: In 1862,
scientist john henry pepper
Developed an optical trick,
One that's deceived audiences for years
By employing reflection
and refraction of light.
The actor who played the ghost would be
In the pit beneath the stage
And, by use of a mirror and a glass pane,
Was able to reflect the
actor's image onto the pane,
Which was at eye level.
Sparling: We then angled
that reflective surface slightly
So that if something enters
the reflection for the audience,
So when the audience looking,
They will actually see something off-stage.
And it gives rise to an
apparent apparition onstage.
And it gives a real effect
That something spooky is going on here.
Narrator: But how could an entire city
Be reflected into the sky?
It's all about temperature,
So if you have a layer
of hot air or cold air.
If you have a layer of cold air,
The light will go up and
bounce back down again.
When that happens,
what really exists over here,
You might see it somewhere else.
Due to the ordering of the cold air
And then the warmer air
on top, all the illusions appear
As if the object is
higher up than it really is.
This will make ships appear
like they're floating over the ocean.
This will make cities appear
As if they're floating
above the ground in the air.
Narrator: Warm air
sitting on top of cold air
Is a phenomenon found primarily
around large bodies of water.
This is an image of a ship
That appears to be hovering
over the water because of a mirage.
And you can see that
Below the ship, it looks like there's sky.
This is an optical effect
that's resulting from refraction.
So what's happening in this
case is that the light from the sky
Is being bent between us and the ship,
Giving rise to the image of the sky
On the surface of the
water, and that, in turn,
Makes the ship look
like it's floating in the air.
Narrator: But why are
these refracted images
Only seen at the edge of the horizon?
The earth is round, and
you can see this curvature
When you're somewhere like in the ocean
And you see the ship sail over the horizon.
We see that,
But we're actually not
quite seeing the real horizon
Because the atmosphere is thicker.
Part of why sunsets are
red are because of this
Thickened atmosphere bending
the light waves differently.
Under the right atmospheric conditions
And the curvature of the earth,
You can actually have
an illusion that looks like
It's right there close by,
But it's actually below the horizon,
And those light waves are being bent
Along the curvature of
the earth to where you are.
It can travel a huge distance.
I want to play around with
the idea of bending light,
And to do that, I'm gonna
use this parabolic mirror.
Now, a parabolic mirror is no
more than two convex mirrors.
And I'm gonna place in the
center some candy in one.
It's gonna reflect off
the other and then back
And, as the light escapes and bends,
Create the illusion that
the candy is on the outside.
This little illusion represents
how in nature, light can bend
And essentially create
something that isn't really there.
So one could see how
someone could be fooled in nature
When the sky,
The ocean reflects back and forth on itself
To create a phantom ship, an ice wall.
You can actually see that there's nothing.
These are physical illusions.
They're happening in the real world.
Physics can explain it.
The light is hitting your eye.
It's just coming from a different angle
Than you would normally
expect off of the object.
Narrator: If you ever see
a city floating over the sea
Or a ship hovering over the water
So real you could reach out and touch them,
Remember that tricks
of light and atmosphere
Are all around us,
And that these spectral visions
continue to be one of nature's
Most impressive tricks.