Phantom Signals (2020–…): Season 1, Episode 6 - Omen Of The Pharoh's Wail - full transcript
A massive flash, seen from space, and an S.O.S. message that seem to signal a large blast and a crashed airplane, but neither is found. The famous "Colossi of Memnon", two massive, 60 ft. tall, stone statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep I...
Narrator: A satellite
detects intense flashes
In the atmosphere.
Detect what they refer
to as a double flash.
Narrator: Is this evidence
of a nuclear blast?
Well, maybe we should be
looking hard at other possibilities.
Narrator: Search and rescue
responds to an s.O.S. Signal,
But finds no plane crash in sight.
What triggered this signal
When the aircraft itself
didn't actually crash?
Narrator: Two massive statues
emit a mysterious singing.
You were blessed by the
gods if you heard the singing.
Narrator: Were they an
omen, or something else?
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?
September 22nd, 1979...
Atomic energy detection satellite vela 6911
Records a pattern of intense flashes
Over the indian ocean.
Vela's sister satellites
detect nothing at all,
And the u.S. Government is reluctant
To even acknowledge the event.
The vela incident is September 1979,
When an array of satellites,
An american satellite system called vela,
Detect what they refer
to as a double flash,
Which is a signature of a nuclear device
Detonated somewhere in a 1,000-mile radius
Of an island called prince edward,
Which is a south african-owned island,
Without authorization.
This flash was not picked
up, or at least not reported
By any of the other instruments.
On the earth,
This is a series of seismometers,
Hydrophones, infrasound monitors,
And radiation detectors
that monitor for any type
Of explosive blast in the
earth, in the water, in the air,
Or any radiation released
from a nuclear explosion.
We also have detectors in space,
Satellites that are monitoring
For the characteristic
flash of a nuclear explosion.
Delaney: The vela satellites
were launched in the '60s,
When everybody was sort of a little on edge
About nuclear testing
And the possibilities of nuclear war.
The aim of the exercise was
to keep an eye on each other
As well as the other
upstarts, shall I say...
The other countries that were vying
For nuclear weapon capability...
To make sure that everybody
Was staying honest to these treaties.
Dr. Kislenko: Very importantly,
There are international treaties,
In particular the 1963
partial test ban treaty,
Which prohibits atmospheric tests.
So there's obviously a lot of
concern about this double flash
That appears out of nowhere.
Narrator: Since deployment, the vela system
Accurately detects every
known atmospheric nuclear test,
Establishing itself as a
highly reliable technology
To be able to detect nuclear blasts today,
It's pretty darn easy.
But remember, in the '60s,
We didn't have very
many satellites up there.
Satellites orbiting the earth
weren't particularly common.
And that's why vela was
created with this dedicated
Intention of monitoring for nuclear blasts.
The u.S. Eventually
launched six pairs of satellites
Over about a 10-year period.
We generally put
telecommunication satellites out
About... Oh, roughly speaking,
35,000 kilometers from
the center of the earth.
The vela satellites were
in a very, very high orbit...
Something like 100,000 klicks out,
So they could see the
entire planet at a glance.
And they were bristling
with gamma ray detectors,
X-ray detectors,
Bhangometers, or bhangmeters,
To pick up the flash
That is associated with an
atmospheric nuclear blast.
And so it's sitting there just waiting
For that intense burst of double light.
Narrator: But how could these
bhangmeters on the satellite
Be constantly monitoring the entire earth
For a burst of light?
Bhangmeter is basically
just a light detector.
It doesn't take an image,
so it's not like a camera,
But it is able to detect
low light level intensity.
And remember, if you're 100,000 kilometers
From the earth, then, you know,
The signal that is coming
up is going to be modest
And it's going to be very brief.
So these are instantaneous type detections.
It's the one that will probably
alert you first to the existence
Of an atmospheric nuclear
blast, but it is part of a suite
To determine the yield,
where it came from, and so on.
Narrator: Is this a nuclear detonation?
Or could it be a false positive
with a nuclear bomb signature?
The vela incident was a
flash that was reported,
Observed at only one satellite.
None of the other sensors picked up
A consistent measurement
of nuclear testing.
Dr. Kislenko: That doesn't discount
the fact that it could have occurred,
Because satellites at that point
Are often projected to view other things.
They're looking at weather patterns,
They're looking at other targets
on the same satellite system.
So it's not out of the realm
That some of the detecting devices on vela
Are picking up the test and others aren't.
Mckinnon: Anytime you only have
a signal picked up by one thing,
There's always a question
of, is it the equipment
Or is it the signal?
Most people's first reaction was,
Oh, it's got to be a nuclear blast.
But a lot of the other
collaborating signals
Weren't being detected, and
so it became a bit of an anomaly
And people began to sort of question
Whether or not there were other things
That could generate
that double light signature.
Mckinnon: It could have been
something local that interfered
With that particular satellite,
Or there could have been
human, political reasons
Where we don't actually
know what all of the data is
Because only some of it is being reported.
Dr. Kislenko: There isn't corresponding
evidence from other quarters.
Or I should say, at
least there's no evidence
Of being detected in other quarters.
Not all of the records
are necessarily complete.
Delaney: The satellite
isn't necessarily continually
Transmitting to earth.
They're scanning for events.
And the moment they detect an event,
Then they are starting to
transmit back to the earth.
Narrator: The signal
comes from a remote location
Somewhere near the prince edward islands,
Nearly 1,000 miles from
south africa's southern coast.
The u.S. Air force sample the fallout
Over the detonation site for several days
And find no evidence of radioactive debris.
Where did the signal come from?
And what could have caused it?
Just like the seismic
signature of a nuclear test
Can be confused with that
of a conventional explosion,
The flash can also have a
couple of different characteristics
That look very similar.
Is it a small flash off of
a piece of space debris
Very close to the satellite?
Is it the flash of a
particular type of lightning
High up in the atmosphere?
Or is it the larger intensity
flash of a nuclear weapon
Closer to the ground?
So there's a whole raft of
other confirming attributes
Associated with an atmospheric test.
In the atmosphere, of
course, you've got shockwaves.
Surface-based or ground-based facilities
Will be listening into the atmosphere
And looking for seismic impressions.
But the vela satellite
is sitting there looking
For light, gamma rays, x-rays.
Narrator: So, if vela
was designed to detect
Both nuclear energy and intense flashes,
What type of event was
the satellite picking up?
Mckinnon: A nuclear explosion
and a conventional explosion
Create very similar seismic patterns.
The only real difference
is if a nuclear explosion
Is so large, it's bigger than an explosion
That we could create with
conventional weaponry.
A characteristic flash
of a nuclear explosion
Is very different than the more fiery growl
Of a conventional explosion.
Narrator: Ruling out the possibility
Of a misinterpreted signal,
Researchers and experts
need to exhaust every scenario
Before concluding the worst.
Dr. Kislenko: The carter commission,
Which is largely staffed
by scientific experts,
Their chief conclusion is that
it probably was an anomaly...
It was basically a mistake
made by the system.
The system is aging by that
point, so they point that out.
It's likely there was
some sort of malfunction.
Delaney: The vela
satellites, they were designed
For 18 months', two years' worth of life.
But most satellites,
of course, tend to live
Much longer than that.
Some of the vela satellites
Actually lasted a dozen years.
So they worked very, very well.
Dr. Kislenko: They talk about
things like light from the sun
That may have set the system off.
They also talked about a micro meteor
That may have hit it and, you
know, dislodged the system
And therefore got a false report.
Meteors flying into the
earth's atmosphere...
Not a particularly unusual event.
To have collisions with satellites,
That's a little bit rare. A vela satellite
Is only, at most, a few meters in diameter.
Micro meteors, you know,
Passing through our volume of space...
Space is big. [ chuckles ]
That's really the bottom line to it.
Narrator: With other
possibilities dwindling
And the very likely scenario
That the vela satellite's
detection of this double flash
Was from a nuclear detonation,
New evidence reports
Come in from an unlikely source.
[ alarm buzzing ]
There was a little bit, I believe,
Of radioactive fallout
that australia detected.
Dr. Kislenko: Radioactive
tests did take place in australia,
In southern australia, in
sheep, and they all of a sudden
Have a kind of abnormal level of iodine,
Which is one of the
triggers, one of the effects
Of a nuclear detonation.
Narrator: The likelihood that this is
Anything other than a nuclear test
Is now almost ruled out.
The immediate reaction from
the vela satellite is deconstructed
Over the next couple of
months by various agencies...
Intelligence and regular
government agencies.
And they initially come to the conclusion
That it indeed probably was
an unauthorized nuclear test.
That's even before they get to
The next very important
question of whodunit.
Narrator: Should authorities
be investigating other countries?
Delaney: You can't discount
the politics of the day,
The tension, if you
will, with other countries,
Including, obviously, the soviet union.
There was politics that sort of suggested,
Well, maybe we should be
looking hard at other possibilities.
Narrator: 1979...
A vela satellite records a
pattern of intense flashes
Over the indian ocean.
Dr. Kislenko: An array
of satellites called vela
Detect what they refer
to as a double flash,
Which is a signature of a nuclear device.
Narrator: Officials
quickly snap into action
To determine the source
of this nuclear signature.
So what the americans do is several things.
They call in all kinds of different testing
That they've had, other satellites in space
To see whether they've picked it up.
There's all kinds of
acoustic devices in the ocean,
Which are principally
aimed at soviet submarines
To detect their movements.
There's an ionospheric
testing station in puerto rico,
Amongst other places,
that picks up ionic waves.
The american air force flies
a couple of dozen missions
Over the alleged area of the detonation.
There's all sorts of tests that follow
In just a couple of months.
If it is a nuclear detonation,
There's actually a list of likely culprits,
Which the americans
went through in sort of,
You know, descending
order. So, the russians,
But there's no evidence anywhere else
In a very highly monitored situation.
India, which had nuclear
capacity and had admitted it.
Pakistan... there's virtually no evidence
That they were technologically capable
Of launching a strike that far.
France, which was rather notorious
In the sense that it had not signed
The 1963 test ban treaty, along with china.
But again, very little evidence
on either of those parties
To suggest that they were capable of it.
So it leaves you with basically israel,
Which almost everybody in
the world knew was developing,
If not already in possession
of nuclear devices.
Narrator: Initially pointing
towards a nuclear detonation,
The ensuing government investigation
Bafflingly concludes otherwise.
So this commission, after
a few months, reports back
That it's likely that vela
was not a nuclear detonation.
Their chief conclusion is that
it probably was an anomaly,
It was basically a mistake
made by the system.
It goes against the
initial evidence compiled
By both american intelligence
and defense in the area.
Narrator: Despite six
months of investigation,
The results of the official investigation
Claim no atomic activity took place.
Lack of specifics in the
presidential panel's explanation
Of a zoo event is suspect.
The zoo event is,
It was an event that was not associated
With an atmospheric nuclear blast,
But was something in
the menagerie, if you will,
Of other cosmic types of events.
Vela satellites, because
of their great sensitivity
To both x-rays and gamma rays,
Weren't just responsible for looking down.
If you had a gamma ray burst,
Which we now know are very
common throughout the universe,
And they were actually
impinging on the vela satellites
As early as about 1967.
So they were trying to
attribute the vela detection
To be something of a
more cosmological nature.
Narrator: Regardless of
the panel's conclusions,
Experts who believe vela
6911 detected nuclear energy
Aren't exactly dissuaded by
the evidence to the contrary.
You have some americans,
including some fairly prominent
Scientists in the united states,
Who say, "well, let's be careful.
You've concluded that there's no evidence,
Going against the
evidence that we first had,
And why?"
So they start to suspect
That there may be political motivation.
One of the likely culprits
in the test is their ally israel.
And the fact that israel
would knowingly, wantonly,
And without telling the americans
Conduct a very, very
illegal atmospheric test
Is, of course, really disturbing.
Narrator: If the signs all
point to a nuclear explosion,
What would motivate the
u.S. Government investigation
To conclude otherwise?
What seasons would they have to cover up
Another country's possible nuclear test?
The fact that the vela satellite
could not confirm categorically
That was an atmospheric
blast, it sort of suggested,
Well, maybe we should be
looking at other possibilities
Other than a nuclear test.
Dr. Kislenko: A lot of people at
the time, they start to question
That official determination,
That over time, that question, right...
Whether or not it was a nuclear test...
Hasn't gone away.
Narrator: What
corroborating evidence exists
That this was, in fact, a nuclear bomb?
Dr. Kislenko: So, carter's
diaries, which were kept secret
For a very long period of time...
He himself in 2010 released his memoir.
And in his own handwriting,
He basically says that "more and
more of my scientific community
Are privately convinced that
it was an israeli nuclear test."
So despite the findings
in 1980, inconclusive,
The conspiracy theory has
gained momentum over time.
Narrator: Years later, in 1994,
Convicted soviet spy dieter gerhardt claims
The flashes were a joint weapons test
Between israel and south africa
Code named operation phoenix.
A soviet agent who actually had infiltrated
South african military command, he revealed
That this was indeed a
nuclear test by the israelis
From a russian intelligence perspective.
Narrator: So, where does
this nuclear mystery sit today?
Most conspiracy theories
lose momentum over time.
They get debunked by experts,
by documents, by details,
By all sorts of things.
The vela incident is almost
reversed, that over time,
Especially the last couple of decades,
There seems to be more
scientific and expert opinion
That this probably was
indeed a rogue nuclear test.
Delaney: We weren't certain
of the September '79 event
Being a nuclear blast,
But there was a pretty
strong suspicion it was.
And when you look at all
of the differing testimonies
Over the ensuing 40 years...
And lots of people have
looked back at that incident...
I think the general consensus
Is that it probably was a nuclear blast.
Dr. Kislenko: There remains a possibility
That somewhere there was a
corresponding piece of evidence
That we haven't yet
seen, but for the most part,
It appears that it was an anomaly
In a very obvious sense, unique to vela.
We'll find out more as more
and more documents come true,
But the weight is now shifting away
From denial and sort
of "this is an accident"
Towards the plausibility of
this actually being a nuclear test.
Narrator: With no smoking gun
To conclusively tie israel
to the 1979 vela incident,
It remains a fascinating
chapter in the cold war
Where space and
geopolitical intrigue overlap.
November 2013...
A boeing's s.O.S. Signal
alerts the canadian military.
They immediately launch
cormorant helicopters,
Divert aurora aircraft, and
place another boeing on standby.
Air search and rescue scour the area
Of annapolis valley, nova scotia,
For the distressed plane.
A british airways boeing 777
takes off from halifax airport
Heading for atlanta.
Very shortly thereafter, the
communications technology
With respect to aviation picks up a signal
That says this aircraft has crashed.
Probably an air traffic
controller's worst nightmare
Is getting that piece of information
That something like a crash is happening.
Narrator: But when search
and rescue arrive at the site,
They find nothing but green fields.
There is no aircraft.
Narrator: The canadian military
responds to an s.O.S. Signal
From a british airways
boeing 777 passenger plane
With hundreds on board.
Arama: Well, in a plane
crash and search and rescue,
What's the procedures in terms of protocols
For communication devices?
You better have a backup
to the backup to the backup.
If an s.O.S. Signal gets output by a plane,
Whether it be a mayday
or an automated signal,
It's really, really important.
Dr. Adve: You should have communication
With a ground station,
and this should include
Things like your latitude, your longitude
You know, where you are, your speed,
Heading, bearing... those kinds of things.
Then we scramble a bunch
of search-and-rescue aircraft...
Aurora aircraft, cormorant helicopters...
And start searching for this aircraft.
Narrator: But it's the
emergency position radio beacons
That provide clues to where a
downed plane can be located.
Sparling: Basically, an emergency beacon
Has been activated,
Suggesting that the aircraft has crashed.
Dr. Adve: The plane will
transmit a fairly strong signal
So it can be seen by radar
that is monitoring the airspace.
Sparling: It's probably just sending out,
"here's my plane identification number.
I'm in trouble." that's it.
It's not probably sending
out a lot of other information.
We want it really simple, really precise.
"I have problems. Here's my signal.
You guys figure out where
I am, come and save us."
Dr. Adve: Plane is assumed to be
flying along a very specific direction.
And so if you get a beacon from that space,
You know things are okay.
There's probably multiple
people receiving this signal
And they probably have to think
about, each have different jobs
And how to deal with that signal.
It's not the person
Who's receiving the emergency signal's job
To question whether it's right or not.
They have to react.
Narrator: Rescue crews
dispatch, anticipating the worst.
Their search comes up empty.
Commercial aircraft fly
On a very, very carefully
designed trajectory
And any deviations from
that are very quickly noted.
They keep an eye on it just to make sure
That you're staying along that corridor.
Arama: If we're looking at how
search and rescue would search
And find a signal,
In two years, things
have changed drastically.
The types of equipment they're using
Is 10 times better already.
Automatically, they can triangulate,
'cause almost every smartphone now
Has not only gps built-in,
but some satellite capability.
And they can triangulate
your latitude, longitude.
Narrator: In a twist of fate,
the dispatched rescue teams
Learn the plane landed
safely in atlanta, georgia.
Nonetheless, search and
rescue got activated and actually
Started participating in an active search.
Dr. Adve: The plane can't just
appear and it can't just vanish.
Sparling: We have hundreds
and hundreds of lives at stake.
Once we determine the plane is safe,
I want to know where that signal came from.
I want to know how we
got this emergency warning.
Narrator: Theories swirl
As to how the plane broadcast
the false mayday signal.
So the first thing I would
do as an investigator
Is kind of look at the
chain of communications...
How it came to me, how it was reported.
Make sure that the way it was reported
Was not some human error,
that somebody didn't say,
"oh, we got this signal
...it must be this,"
And hit a button and
initiated this whole thing.
And then if the human
element isn't involved,
Then start looking at the computers,
The electronic systems,
the radio signals, et cetera,
To see if something spurious
may have triggered all of that.
So it's not something that we'd
expect to normally be activated.
It would take either an active
effort on part of the pilots,
Who would be aware of its purpose
And what it would do,
Or some type of failure in the aircraft.
And that wasn't reported
in this case either,
Which makes it, again, unusual
Because, again, that device is transmitting
In a really specific frequency range
And to have a false
detection is pretty unusual.
It doesn't happen very often.
In north america, the
search and rescue spend
Millions and millions of dollars every year
In training, upgrading equipment.
So whenever we're designing
emergency communication systems,
We do not want spurious signals,
Because they complicate things
should there be an emergency.
The fact that this does
happen is really unusual
Because we've taken that into account
In the design of this component.
Narrator: With a possibility
that the signal was not caused
By human or computer error,
Is someone maliciously impersonating
A distressed plane?
Narrator: The canadian military respond
To an s.O.S signal from
a british passenger plane
With hundreds on board.
Search and rescue scour
The area where the
plane supposedly crashed,
Only to learn that even though
The s.O.S. Continues to transmit,
The plane has landed
safely at its destination point.
Is someone hacking the
plane's communication system
To send the false s.O.S.?
As a forensic engineer,
we get to investigate
A lot of different things,
And sometimes we get
to investigate situations
That may not have been the
occurrence of random events,
But intentional acts.
Narrator: What can investigators
tell from the equipment?
Was this an intentional cry wolf
Or simply a mechanical anomaly?
As a forensic engineer, one
of the things we look at a lot
With respect to how things fail and break
Is does the fracture surface,
the actual broken thing,
Tell us a story?
All telecommunications basically, you know,
If there's no hard wire,
rely on radio signals.
And there's a huge range of frequencies
That radio signals can use.
But with respect to an
emergency beacon on an aircraft,
It would send a radio signal
on a very specific wavelength,
And that signal would be picked up
Either by ground-based equipment
Or possibly by geostationary
satellites in space.
So, gps is basically triangulation.
It's a very, very sophisticated way
Of triangulating your position
with respect to four satellites.
Sparling: So, the signal
will get relayed to a satellite,
To a ground base station,
And then communicated to a network
That would pick up that signal and say,
"hey, we've had an incident.
Something's happened to this aircraft."
Dr. Adve: Any transmission
is a radio signal.
You would try to find an s.O.S. Signal
By trying to find where you're
getting the strongest reception.
Okay, let me move in this direction,
And is my signal getting stronger?
Yes, it's getting stronger. Good.
And then, you know, it's find it that way.
Sparling: It's such a
localized single event.
So there's a lot that goes
into those investigations,
And the sooner you can get
experts there to investigate,
The better the data is going to be.
Narrator: The hunt for answers
Leads investigators to a small, unassuming
Grocery store in the annapolis valley.
Sparling: The information
in this case was pretty slim,
But there's a suggestion that
a cctv security camera system
Sent out a spurious signal.
Narrator: April huntley, a
supervisor of the grocery store
At the time, may be able to
shed some light on this situation.
I was at work one day and
a couple government officials
Showed up at the store I was
working at, avery's farm market,
And they told us that
there had been a signal
Sent out from our store
that matched an s.O.S. Signal
That a plane had crashed in the area.
They walked around the store
with a bunch of equipment.
They had the antenna raised up
Trying to locate where
the signal was coming from.
What likely happened is
somebody went out with some
Radiofrequency detecting equipment
And triangulated a spurious
signal to this cctv equipment
And determined that
somehow it may have sent out
A spurious signal that
triggered the emergency beacon.
Huntley: But the plane that
was apparently sending out
The distress signal
actually flew over our area,
But landed safely in the
place it was supposed to land.
They located the source of the signal,
Which ended up being, I
guess, our security system.
Sparling: That's a little bit unusual.
I mean, normally, a wireless camera system
Wouldn't emit frequencies
in the right range
To interfere with the emergency beacon.
Normally, information sent
by the cctv wouldn't match
With what the emergency beacon
would be expected to send out.
Every electronic device
that sends a radio signal
Sends it in a very
specific frequency range.
If we didn't give each device
very specific signal ranges,
They would interfere with each other.
You don't want somebody's
cordless phone at home
On the same frequency as your cell phone.
Otherwise, all your signals
are going to get jumbled
And you're not going to
be able to hear anything.
About 10 years ago or more,
You weren't allowed to
use a cellphone on a plane,
And that was because
there was always a concern
That a cellphone may
malfunction and interfere
With the radio communications
equipment on the aircraft.
We're so concerned about
guarding these frequencies,
We won't even allow devices into aircraft
That have a very remote
possibility of interfering
With those signals.
Narrator: But turning
the digital camera off
Doesn't stop the signal.
Normally, anything like that,
As long as you disconnect
the power, unplug everything,
And it should cause the signal to go away.
I mean, there's nothing
sending out a signal anymore.
Is it possible that there was a
malfunction in the cctv camera
And the electrical wiring in the house
Acted as the antenna
That transmitted the system?
It's possible.
Normally, if you do get
a crossed connection
To a building's wiring system,
It usually results in
damage to that system.
So there's a possibility that
something got crossed up
And a larger signal went out.
Narrator: But experts must be certain
That this is the result of
unusual circumstances,
Or else lives may be at
risk on a distressed flight.
Narrator: An s.O.S. Signal
without a crashed plane...
They did realize that the aircraft
Eventually made it to atlanta safely.
...Gets traced back
To an unassuming convenience
store's security cameras.
Huntley: There had been a
signal sent out from our store
That matched an s.O.S. Signal
That a plane had crashed in the area.
Narrator: Could this
s.O.S. Signal be the result
Of multiple remarkable coincidences?
Radio expert josh nass
sets up an experiment
Using the same components
as the store in nova scotia.
We decided that a decent
experiment would be to source
A similar cctv system like
the one in the grocery store,
Running one camera with "b"
and "c" wire stretched around
As though it could possibly
function as an antenna.
Now, this unit is not malfunctioning.
We don't see any spurious emissions.
It's possible, though, that
the grocery store's cctv system
That April worked at
Could have had a
malfunctioning power supply,
Which could have been
putting out spurious emissions
While still functioning
In its primary role as a
cctv television system.
If an item is malfunctioning,
It will not only display
spurs in its normal operation,
But we'll see big surges
when you turn off the unit
And turn the unit back on.
Looks like nothing is displayed.
Let's turn the unit back
on and see what happens.
I don't see anything
on the spectrum display.
It is possible that the cctv
system at the grocery store
That April worked at was malfunctioning.
It could be putting out rfi,
radio-frequency interference,
And it could be powerful enough
That sensitive listening
devices for direction finding
Could have been mistakenly picking it up.
What could have also happened
was someone nearby maybe
Would have maybe
maliciously been putting out
An emergency beacon tone.
Narrator: Are the mechanisms
behind these signals
So easily interchangeable?
There's no technological reason
Why you couldn't build a system like that.
These are all very well-defined systems.
Everybody uses them.
But an s.O.S. Signal has a
very well-defined structure,
And it's essentially impossible
to re-create that structure.
You can interfere with an
s.O.S. Signal on a plane,
But it can't be confused for
an s.O.S. Signal on a plane.
Sparling: Normally with
a cctv camera system,
We have a very low power
output. We're not putting out
A hugely intense radio
signal, and normally, you know,
You'd want it to go 200,
300, 400 feet at most.
How it gets picked up is really unusual.
It just shouldn't have the range
To trigger another piece of equipment.
It should be very local signal, that cctv.
Yeah, it could inadvertently get boosted,
But it'd be a really,
really unusual situation.
There'd have to be an internal failure,
And it'd have to be a very
specific internal failure.
So, is it possible? Yes.
Is it likely? Probably not.
We've developed protocols
in society as engineers
To stop this from happening.
Maybe the canadian
government has that information,
But unfortunately, with what's
been made publicly available,
We don't know what the outcome was.
Narrator: Although both
technologies have been created
To ensure human safety,
They are interacting in
ways we never anticipated.
Even today, this misread
signal remains a mystery.
West of luxor, egypt,
Two massive colossi are all that remain
Of the tomb of one of egypt's
most powerful pharaohs...
Amenhotep iii, whose reign
ended over 3,000 years ago.
These monuments hold an ancient mystery.
Centuries ago, one of them sang.
Mckinnon: The story I heard
about the singing colossi of memnon
Is that they were these
beautiful carved statues
Which under just the right conditions
Would produce a harmonic noise,
That you could hear them sing to you.
I can't even imagine what that'd be like,
To go here and to hear
this eerie singing sound.
Groves: It's an interesting story,
The singing colossi of memnon,
Because it only happened
For maybe 200, 250 years.
So it's a very brief
period in egyptian history,
Which we know spans 5,000-plus years.
Narrator: What could
these unknown sounds be?
Were they a blessing, an omen,
Or something else entirely?
It sounds like a story of
the rocks actually talking.
You would think that
there's something mystical,
Something godlike that's happening here.
Narrator: The colossi were unparalleled
In size and splendor...
Representations of the great pharaoh,
Each carved from a single
block of quartzite stone.
The colossi originally were
built to sit at the entrance
Of amenhotep iii's mortuary temple.
And the temple was massive.
It was the largest structure in egypt,
Even larger than the great pyramid of giza.
And they were upwards of
65 feet high, each one of them.
You can imagine being a person
Walking past these absolutely
colossal statues of amenhotep
And representing him as the god on earth.
Narrator: The mystical sounds started
Over 1,000 years after
the colossi were built,
At long after amenhotep
iii's mortuary temple
Have been ravaged by
floods and earthquakes.
It came from the colossi to the north.
But only at sunrise.
Groves: This is where
the stories start coming out
That the statue would sing.
There was a sound that had
emanated from within the statue.
The stories sort of dictate
That it could be a sound
like a lyre string breaking.
Early morning, dawn, the sun coming up...
This was when this
phenomena was said to occur.
Narrator: Amenhotep iii,
like all the pharaohs of egypt,
Was considered divine in life and death.
During his reign,
He was associated with the sun deity, aton,
Who it was believed
amenhotep merged with in death.
Because this otherworldly
sound only happened to dawn,
Was this the once-mighty pharaoh,
Now a solar deity, Returning to the ruins?
On some mornings,
the singing didn't happen.
And so you were somewhat
blessed by the gods
If you happened to go
and heard the singing.
That means the gods were speaking to you.
Narrator: Word soon
spread of the luck bestowed
On those fortunate enough
To have the statues sing to them.
Being the possibility
that it's an oracle speaking
Or singing to them, going
there with maybe their thoughts
And their wishes and their prayers,
And hoping that they might
be able to put something forth.
In that time, there was
no reasonable explanation.
It had to be the gods speaking.
Groves: And so the statue became a real hub
For tourists to flock to,
To see if they could receive a message.
Narrator: Seekers come from
all parts of the ancient empire
To find blessing.
One of the challenges
with this type of mystery
Is it happened a long time ago.
There are no recordings.
It doesn't happen anymore.
So it's not like we can go there
right now and hear them singing.
And what we really have
today is those very few writings
By some greek, some roman,
Speaking of the phenomena of the time.
Narrator: The first written
record comes from the geographer
And greek historian strabo in 20 b.C.
Inscriptions left at the base of the statue
Indicate whether the
singing was heard or not.
90 are still legible today.
Certainly, strabo, he went
and he recorded his time there.
Now, his story is a little bit uncertain
Because it says that the statue sings,
But we're not sure did
he actually hear it sing.
He doesn't actually
admit to himself hearing it,
But he says people he
spoke to heard the sound.
But certainly, other people did go,
They did write about it.
Narrator: By the time
strabo visits the oracle,
Egypt has become part
of the greco-roman empire
And the memory of
amenhotep iii is almost forgotten.
The colossi take on a new greek identity...
Memnon, one of the heroes of the trojan war
And the son of eos, goddess of the dawn.
What they did was they
took their story of the battle
Between memnon, who was an ethiopian king,
Against achilles.
And achilles killed memnon,
And so his mother cried
every morning at dawn.
When the greeks were there,
They took that story of memnon's death
And attached it to the statue.
Narrator: For the next 200
years, people come from all over
For a chance to be
blessed by the oracle's song.
So, you just sort of think
of it as much the same
As the vatican today.
Narrator: Among the
seekers over the centuries
Are several roman emperors,
Including septimius severus in 199 a.D.
He had heard the greek stories
Of this amazing oracle
statue, and he wanted to go
And he wanted to hear this voice.
Narrator: Septimius had successfully
Brought the roman empire
peace and prosperity
After a long period of unrest.
To cement his legacy,
He wants the blessing of the great oracle.
Groves: And when he
got there, he heard nothing.
And so now severus doesn't get his result,
And he decides his way to appease the gods
Was to rebuild the
statue to its former beauty.
So he actually had builders come in,
And they cut blocks and
they put them back up on top
To try and replicate the south statue.
Narrator: But septimius
severus is not blessed
By the mystical singing.
In fact, the statue never sings again.
And after the statue was repaired,
It sort of destroyed the
beauty of the phenomenon.
Narrator: What was meant
as a gift to incur a blessing
Seemed to cause the spirit
of the oracle to vanish forever.
Dr. Proctor: But because
there are so many testimonials,
There has to be something happening.
So there's something there.
The question is, what's happening?
And that's what's fun
about being a geoscientist.
You get to be the detective
to figure out what's going on.
Narrator: Almost two millennia later,
Geoscience shines a light
on this ancient phantom signal.
One of the key clues to this mystery
Is that the singing is only
happening in the morning.
And so what does that
tell us about the conditions
To enable this to happen?
Mckinnon: You can find just the right rock,
Just the right frequency,
and move it just the right way.
It will make noise.
Narrator: For over 200 years,
The mammoth colossi of amenhotep iii
Produced mysterious, otherworldly singing
That is simultaneously attributed
To the long-dead pharaoh
And one of the heroes of the greek legend
Of the trojan war... memnon.
You can sort of step
back in time and imagine
That these colossal statues,
these huge, beautiful statues
That already were an
attraction unto themselves,
But now you have one that's singing.
♪♪
Narrator: The singing
colossi take on a new life
As an oracle in the ancient world,
Fueled by the twin beliefs
That the voice is the spirit
of a long-dead pharaoh
And the greek goddess of the dawn... eos.
So, what's going on?
Narrator: Perhaps we could find clues
In the few written accounts that exist.
One of the key clues to this mystery
Is that the singing is only
happening in the morning.
And so what does that
tell us about the conditions
To enable this to happen?
Everything in this world
has this perfect frequency
Where it will resonate.
If you're on a swing and
you go back and forth.
You'll find a rhythm
and you'll start going into
That reinforcing cycle.
Rocks are the same.
You can find just the right rock,
Just the right frequency,
and move it just the right way.
It will make noise.
There may have been a
frequency, a natural frequency
That the statues wanted to vibrate at,
And that frequency was
probably excited by wind
Or some type of vibration
that was picked up
And then converted into a frequency
Which was audible to people.
Groves: We know that the
phenomenon of the voice itself
Or that sound emanating
Had to do with the earthquake
Because it didn't sing prior.
There was no record of it
When it was amenhotep's full statue
Of it never making a sound.
Narrator: The first written account came
From the greek historian strabo in 20 b.C.,
Just seven years after
the destructive earthquake.
Is it actually possible
For a freak natural
event like an earthquake
To turn this statue into
a giant wind instrument?
Mckinnon: Once they
cracked, it changed the shape
And it changed the acoustics.
Suddenly, we had an
accidental geological instrument
Where the player was the wind.
Just like you can blow
across a flute or a pipe
And get those perfect
moments of a clear note
Coming through, the wind blowing just right
Through the crack could cause it to sing.
Dr. Proctor: Imagine this
...when you have a crack
That overnight, dew forms in that crack.
And then as the sun rises,
Not only does that statue heat up,
But the crack starts to heat up.
And then an interesting
thing happens in the morning,
Is that because of the
differential in temperatures,
Wind begins to blow.
And so you have just the right
combination coming together
For the wind to come in
through that moist crack
And whistle.
An example of this
Is when you lick your lips and whistle.
[ whistles ]
Just the right orientation,
Just the right amount of moisture,
Just the right conditions
to have a singing statue.
Narrator: But then why
did the singing just stop?
Mckinnon: The colossi
of memnon no longer sing.
They've been repaired, so
the crack isn't there anymore.
And maybe, somewhere along the way,
They got shifted on how
exactly they were aligned.
Sparling: When you
change the mass of an object,
You change the frequency
which it vibrates at.
Narrator: Roman emperor septimius severus,
Looking for a blessing from the oracle,
Repaired the north statue
To bring it back to its former glory.
But in so doing, he silenced it.
And after the statue was repaired,
There's really no record.
Narrator: The song may have ended,
But as with so many strange signs,
The memory of its melody lives on
Through the historic witness records
Of what they heard.
detects intense flashes
In the atmosphere.
Detect what they refer
to as a double flash.
Narrator: Is this evidence
of a nuclear blast?
Well, maybe we should be
looking hard at other possibilities.
Narrator: Search and rescue
responds to an s.O.S. Signal,
But finds no plane crash in sight.
What triggered this signal
When the aircraft itself
didn't actually crash?
Narrator: Two massive statues
emit a mysterious singing.
You were blessed by the
gods if you heard the singing.
Narrator: Were they an
omen, or something else?
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?
September 22nd, 1979...
Atomic energy detection satellite vela 6911
Records a pattern of intense flashes
Over the indian ocean.
Vela's sister satellites
detect nothing at all,
And the u.S. Government is reluctant
To even acknowledge the event.
The vela incident is September 1979,
When an array of satellites,
An american satellite system called vela,
Detect what they refer
to as a double flash,
Which is a signature of a nuclear device
Detonated somewhere in a 1,000-mile radius
Of an island called prince edward,
Which is a south african-owned island,
Without authorization.
This flash was not picked
up, or at least not reported
By any of the other instruments.
On the earth,
This is a series of seismometers,
Hydrophones, infrasound monitors,
And radiation detectors
that monitor for any type
Of explosive blast in the
earth, in the water, in the air,
Or any radiation released
from a nuclear explosion.
We also have detectors in space,
Satellites that are monitoring
For the characteristic
flash of a nuclear explosion.
Delaney: The vela satellites
were launched in the '60s,
When everybody was sort of a little on edge
About nuclear testing
And the possibilities of nuclear war.
The aim of the exercise was
to keep an eye on each other
As well as the other
upstarts, shall I say...
The other countries that were vying
For nuclear weapon capability...
To make sure that everybody
Was staying honest to these treaties.
Dr. Kislenko: Very importantly,
There are international treaties,
In particular the 1963
partial test ban treaty,
Which prohibits atmospheric tests.
So there's obviously a lot of
concern about this double flash
That appears out of nowhere.
Narrator: Since deployment, the vela system
Accurately detects every
known atmospheric nuclear test,
Establishing itself as a
highly reliable technology
To be able to detect nuclear blasts today,
It's pretty darn easy.
But remember, in the '60s,
We didn't have very
many satellites up there.
Satellites orbiting the earth
weren't particularly common.
And that's why vela was
created with this dedicated
Intention of monitoring for nuclear blasts.
The u.S. Eventually
launched six pairs of satellites
Over about a 10-year period.
We generally put
telecommunication satellites out
About... Oh, roughly speaking,
35,000 kilometers from
the center of the earth.
The vela satellites were
in a very, very high orbit...
Something like 100,000 klicks out,
So they could see the
entire planet at a glance.
And they were bristling
with gamma ray detectors,
X-ray detectors,
Bhangometers, or bhangmeters,
To pick up the flash
That is associated with an
atmospheric nuclear blast.
And so it's sitting there just waiting
For that intense burst of double light.
Narrator: But how could these
bhangmeters on the satellite
Be constantly monitoring the entire earth
For a burst of light?
Bhangmeter is basically
just a light detector.
It doesn't take an image,
so it's not like a camera,
But it is able to detect
low light level intensity.
And remember, if you're 100,000 kilometers
From the earth, then, you know,
The signal that is coming
up is going to be modest
And it's going to be very brief.
So these are instantaneous type detections.
It's the one that will probably
alert you first to the existence
Of an atmospheric nuclear
blast, but it is part of a suite
To determine the yield,
where it came from, and so on.
Narrator: Is this a nuclear detonation?
Or could it be a false positive
with a nuclear bomb signature?
The vela incident was a
flash that was reported,
Observed at only one satellite.
None of the other sensors picked up
A consistent measurement
of nuclear testing.
Dr. Kislenko: That doesn't discount
the fact that it could have occurred,
Because satellites at that point
Are often projected to view other things.
They're looking at weather patterns,
They're looking at other targets
on the same satellite system.
So it's not out of the realm
That some of the detecting devices on vela
Are picking up the test and others aren't.
Mckinnon: Anytime you only have
a signal picked up by one thing,
There's always a question
of, is it the equipment
Or is it the signal?
Most people's first reaction was,
Oh, it's got to be a nuclear blast.
But a lot of the other
collaborating signals
Weren't being detected, and
so it became a bit of an anomaly
And people began to sort of question
Whether or not there were other things
That could generate
that double light signature.
Mckinnon: It could have been
something local that interfered
With that particular satellite,
Or there could have been
human, political reasons
Where we don't actually
know what all of the data is
Because only some of it is being reported.
Dr. Kislenko: There isn't corresponding
evidence from other quarters.
Or I should say, at
least there's no evidence
Of being detected in other quarters.
Not all of the records
are necessarily complete.
Delaney: The satellite
isn't necessarily continually
Transmitting to earth.
They're scanning for events.
And the moment they detect an event,
Then they are starting to
transmit back to the earth.
Narrator: The signal
comes from a remote location
Somewhere near the prince edward islands,
Nearly 1,000 miles from
south africa's southern coast.
The u.S. Air force sample the fallout
Over the detonation site for several days
And find no evidence of radioactive debris.
Where did the signal come from?
And what could have caused it?
Just like the seismic
signature of a nuclear test
Can be confused with that
of a conventional explosion,
The flash can also have a
couple of different characteristics
That look very similar.
Is it a small flash off of
a piece of space debris
Very close to the satellite?
Is it the flash of a
particular type of lightning
High up in the atmosphere?
Or is it the larger intensity
flash of a nuclear weapon
Closer to the ground?
So there's a whole raft of
other confirming attributes
Associated with an atmospheric test.
In the atmosphere, of
course, you've got shockwaves.
Surface-based or ground-based facilities
Will be listening into the atmosphere
And looking for seismic impressions.
But the vela satellite
is sitting there looking
For light, gamma rays, x-rays.
Narrator: So, if vela
was designed to detect
Both nuclear energy and intense flashes,
What type of event was
the satellite picking up?
Mckinnon: A nuclear explosion
and a conventional explosion
Create very similar seismic patterns.
The only real difference
is if a nuclear explosion
Is so large, it's bigger than an explosion
That we could create with
conventional weaponry.
A characteristic flash
of a nuclear explosion
Is very different than the more fiery growl
Of a conventional explosion.
Narrator: Ruling out the possibility
Of a misinterpreted signal,
Researchers and experts
need to exhaust every scenario
Before concluding the worst.
Dr. Kislenko: The carter commission,
Which is largely staffed
by scientific experts,
Their chief conclusion is that
it probably was an anomaly...
It was basically a mistake
made by the system.
The system is aging by that
point, so they point that out.
It's likely there was
some sort of malfunction.
Delaney: The vela
satellites, they were designed
For 18 months', two years' worth of life.
But most satellites,
of course, tend to live
Much longer than that.
Some of the vela satellites
Actually lasted a dozen years.
So they worked very, very well.
Dr. Kislenko: They talk about
things like light from the sun
That may have set the system off.
They also talked about a micro meteor
That may have hit it and, you
know, dislodged the system
And therefore got a false report.
Meteors flying into the
earth's atmosphere...
Not a particularly unusual event.
To have collisions with satellites,
That's a little bit rare. A vela satellite
Is only, at most, a few meters in diameter.
Micro meteors, you know,
Passing through our volume of space...
Space is big. [ chuckles ]
That's really the bottom line to it.
Narrator: With other
possibilities dwindling
And the very likely scenario
That the vela satellite's
detection of this double flash
Was from a nuclear detonation,
New evidence reports
Come in from an unlikely source.
[ alarm buzzing ]
There was a little bit, I believe,
Of radioactive fallout
that australia detected.
Dr. Kislenko: Radioactive
tests did take place in australia,
In southern australia, in
sheep, and they all of a sudden
Have a kind of abnormal level of iodine,
Which is one of the
triggers, one of the effects
Of a nuclear detonation.
Narrator: The likelihood that this is
Anything other than a nuclear test
Is now almost ruled out.
The immediate reaction from
the vela satellite is deconstructed
Over the next couple of
months by various agencies...
Intelligence and regular
government agencies.
And they initially come to the conclusion
That it indeed probably was
an unauthorized nuclear test.
That's even before they get to
The next very important
question of whodunit.
Narrator: Should authorities
be investigating other countries?
Delaney: You can't discount
the politics of the day,
The tension, if you
will, with other countries,
Including, obviously, the soviet union.
There was politics that sort of suggested,
Well, maybe we should be
looking hard at other possibilities.
Narrator: 1979...
A vela satellite records a
pattern of intense flashes
Over the indian ocean.
Dr. Kislenko: An array
of satellites called vela
Detect what they refer
to as a double flash,
Which is a signature of a nuclear device.
Narrator: Officials
quickly snap into action
To determine the source
of this nuclear signature.
So what the americans do is several things.
They call in all kinds of different testing
That they've had, other satellites in space
To see whether they've picked it up.
There's all kinds of
acoustic devices in the ocean,
Which are principally
aimed at soviet submarines
To detect their movements.
There's an ionospheric
testing station in puerto rico,
Amongst other places,
that picks up ionic waves.
The american air force flies
a couple of dozen missions
Over the alleged area of the detonation.
There's all sorts of tests that follow
In just a couple of months.
If it is a nuclear detonation,
There's actually a list of likely culprits,
Which the americans
went through in sort of,
You know, descending
order. So, the russians,
But there's no evidence anywhere else
In a very highly monitored situation.
India, which had nuclear
capacity and had admitted it.
Pakistan... there's virtually no evidence
That they were technologically capable
Of launching a strike that far.
France, which was rather notorious
In the sense that it had not signed
The 1963 test ban treaty, along with china.
But again, very little evidence
on either of those parties
To suggest that they were capable of it.
So it leaves you with basically israel,
Which almost everybody in
the world knew was developing,
If not already in possession
of nuclear devices.
Narrator: Initially pointing
towards a nuclear detonation,
The ensuing government investigation
Bafflingly concludes otherwise.
So this commission, after
a few months, reports back
That it's likely that vela
was not a nuclear detonation.
Their chief conclusion is that
it probably was an anomaly,
It was basically a mistake
made by the system.
It goes against the
initial evidence compiled
By both american intelligence
and defense in the area.
Narrator: Despite six
months of investigation,
The results of the official investigation
Claim no atomic activity took place.
Lack of specifics in the
presidential panel's explanation
Of a zoo event is suspect.
The zoo event is,
It was an event that was not associated
With an atmospheric nuclear blast,
But was something in
the menagerie, if you will,
Of other cosmic types of events.
Vela satellites, because
of their great sensitivity
To both x-rays and gamma rays,
Weren't just responsible for looking down.
If you had a gamma ray burst,
Which we now know are very
common throughout the universe,
And they were actually
impinging on the vela satellites
As early as about 1967.
So they were trying to
attribute the vela detection
To be something of a
more cosmological nature.
Narrator: Regardless of
the panel's conclusions,
Experts who believe vela
6911 detected nuclear energy
Aren't exactly dissuaded by
the evidence to the contrary.
You have some americans,
including some fairly prominent
Scientists in the united states,
Who say, "well, let's be careful.
You've concluded that there's no evidence,
Going against the
evidence that we first had,
And why?"
So they start to suspect
That there may be political motivation.
One of the likely culprits
in the test is their ally israel.
And the fact that israel
would knowingly, wantonly,
And without telling the americans
Conduct a very, very
illegal atmospheric test
Is, of course, really disturbing.
Narrator: If the signs all
point to a nuclear explosion,
What would motivate the
u.S. Government investigation
To conclude otherwise?
What seasons would they have to cover up
Another country's possible nuclear test?
The fact that the vela satellite
could not confirm categorically
That was an atmospheric
blast, it sort of suggested,
Well, maybe we should be
looking at other possibilities
Other than a nuclear test.
Dr. Kislenko: A lot of people at
the time, they start to question
That official determination,
That over time, that question, right...
Whether or not it was a nuclear test...
Hasn't gone away.
Narrator: What
corroborating evidence exists
That this was, in fact, a nuclear bomb?
Dr. Kislenko: So, carter's
diaries, which were kept secret
For a very long period of time...
He himself in 2010 released his memoir.
And in his own handwriting,
He basically says that "more and
more of my scientific community
Are privately convinced that
it was an israeli nuclear test."
So despite the findings
in 1980, inconclusive,
The conspiracy theory has
gained momentum over time.
Narrator: Years later, in 1994,
Convicted soviet spy dieter gerhardt claims
The flashes were a joint weapons test
Between israel and south africa
Code named operation phoenix.
A soviet agent who actually had infiltrated
South african military command, he revealed
That this was indeed a
nuclear test by the israelis
From a russian intelligence perspective.
Narrator: So, where does
this nuclear mystery sit today?
Most conspiracy theories
lose momentum over time.
They get debunked by experts,
by documents, by details,
By all sorts of things.
The vela incident is almost
reversed, that over time,
Especially the last couple of decades,
There seems to be more
scientific and expert opinion
That this probably was
indeed a rogue nuclear test.
Delaney: We weren't certain
of the September '79 event
Being a nuclear blast,
But there was a pretty
strong suspicion it was.
And when you look at all
of the differing testimonies
Over the ensuing 40 years...
And lots of people have
looked back at that incident...
I think the general consensus
Is that it probably was a nuclear blast.
Dr. Kislenko: There remains a possibility
That somewhere there was a
corresponding piece of evidence
That we haven't yet
seen, but for the most part,
It appears that it was an anomaly
In a very obvious sense, unique to vela.
We'll find out more as more
and more documents come true,
But the weight is now shifting away
From denial and sort
of "this is an accident"
Towards the plausibility of
this actually being a nuclear test.
Narrator: With no smoking gun
To conclusively tie israel
to the 1979 vela incident,
It remains a fascinating
chapter in the cold war
Where space and
geopolitical intrigue overlap.
November 2013...
A boeing's s.O.S. Signal
alerts the canadian military.
They immediately launch
cormorant helicopters,
Divert aurora aircraft, and
place another boeing on standby.
Air search and rescue scour the area
Of annapolis valley, nova scotia,
For the distressed plane.
A british airways boeing 777
takes off from halifax airport
Heading for atlanta.
Very shortly thereafter, the
communications technology
With respect to aviation picks up a signal
That says this aircraft has crashed.
Probably an air traffic
controller's worst nightmare
Is getting that piece of information
That something like a crash is happening.
Narrator: But when search
and rescue arrive at the site,
They find nothing but green fields.
There is no aircraft.
Narrator: The canadian military
responds to an s.O.S. Signal
From a british airways
boeing 777 passenger plane
With hundreds on board.
Arama: Well, in a plane
crash and search and rescue,
What's the procedures in terms of protocols
For communication devices?
You better have a backup
to the backup to the backup.
If an s.O.S. Signal gets output by a plane,
Whether it be a mayday
or an automated signal,
It's really, really important.
Dr. Adve: You should have communication
With a ground station,
and this should include
Things like your latitude, your longitude
You know, where you are, your speed,
Heading, bearing... those kinds of things.
Then we scramble a bunch
of search-and-rescue aircraft...
Aurora aircraft, cormorant helicopters...
And start searching for this aircraft.
Narrator: But it's the
emergency position radio beacons
That provide clues to where a
downed plane can be located.
Sparling: Basically, an emergency beacon
Has been activated,
Suggesting that the aircraft has crashed.
Dr. Adve: The plane will
transmit a fairly strong signal
So it can be seen by radar
that is monitoring the airspace.
Sparling: It's probably just sending out,
"here's my plane identification number.
I'm in trouble." that's it.
It's not probably sending
out a lot of other information.
We want it really simple, really precise.
"I have problems. Here's my signal.
You guys figure out where
I am, come and save us."
Dr. Adve: Plane is assumed to be
flying along a very specific direction.
And so if you get a beacon from that space,
You know things are okay.
There's probably multiple
people receiving this signal
And they probably have to think
about, each have different jobs
And how to deal with that signal.
It's not the person
Who's receiving the emergency signal's job
To question whether it's right or not.
They have to react.
Narrator: Rescue crews
dispatch, anticipating the worst.
Their search comes up empty.
Commercial aircraft fly
On a very, very carefully
designed trajectory
And any deviations from
that are very quickly noted.
They keep an eye on it just to make sure
That you're staying along that corridor.
Arama: If we're looking at how
search and rescue would search
And find a signal,
In two years, things
have changed drastically.
The types of equipment they're using
Is 10 times better already.
Automatically, they can triangulate,
'cause almost every smartphone now
Has not only gps built-in,
but some satellite capability.
And they can triangulate
your latitude, longitude.
Narrator: In a twist of fate,
the dispatched rescue teams
Learn the plane landed
safely in atlanta, georgia.
Nonetheless, search and
rescue got activated and actually
Started participating in an active search.
Dr. Adve: The plane can't just
appear and it can't just vanish.
Sparling: We have hundreds
and hundreds of lives at stake.
Once we determine the plane is safe,
I want to know where that signal came from.
I want to know how we
got this emergency warning.
Narrator: Theories swirl
As to how the plane broadcast
the false mayday signal.
So the first thing I would
do as an investigator
Is kind of look at the
chain of communications...
How it came to me, how it was reported.
Make sure that the way it was reported
Was not some human error,
that somebody didn't say,
"oh, we got this signal
...it must be this,"
And hit a button and
initiated this whole thing.
And then if the human
element isn't involved,
Then start looking at the computers,
The electronic systems,
the radio signals, et cetera,
To see if something spurious
may have triggered all of that.
So it's not something that we'd
expect to normally be activated.
It would take either an active
effort on part of the pilots,
Who would be aware of its purpose
And what it would do,
Or some type of failure in the aircraft.
And that wasn't reported
in this case either,
Which makes it, again, unusual
Because, again, that device is transmitting
In a really specific frequency range
And to have a false
detection is pretty unusual.
It doesn't happen very often.
In north america, the
search and rescue spend
Millions and millions of dollars every year
In training, upgrading equipment.
So whenever we're designing
emergency communication systems,
We do not want spurious signals,
Because they complicate things
should there be an emergency.
The fact that this does
happen is really unusual
Because we've taken that into account
In the design of this component.
Narrator: With a possibility
that the signal was not caused
By human or computer error,
Is someone maliciously impersonating
A distressed plane?
Narrator: The canadian military respond
To an s.O.S signal from
a british passenger plane
With hundreds on board.
Search and rescue scour
The area where the
plane supposedly crashed,
Only to learn that even though
The s.O.S. Continues to transmit,
The plane has landed
safely at its destination point.
Is someone hacking the
plane's communication system
To send the false s.O.S.?
As a forensic engineer,
we get to investigate
A lot of different things,
And sometimes we get
to investigate situations
That may not have been the
occurrence of random events,
But intentional acts.
Narrator: What can investigators
tell from the equipment?
Was this an intentional cry wolf
Or simply a mechanical anomaly?
As a forensic engineer, one
of the things we look at a lot
With respect to how things fail and break
Is does the fracture surface,
the actual broken thing,
Tell us a story?
All telecommunications basically, you know,
If there's no hard wire,
rely on radio signals.
And there's a huge range of frequencies
That radio signals can use.
But with respect to an
emergency beacon on an aircraft,
It would send a radio signal
on a very specific wavelength,
And that signal would be picked up
Either by ground-based equipment
Or possibly by geostationary
satellites in space.
So, gps is basically triangulation.
It's a very, very sophisticated way
Of triangulating your position
with respect to four satellites.
Sparling: So, the signal
will get relayed to a satellite,
To a ground base station,
And then communicated to a network
That would pick up that signal and say,
"hey, we've had an incident.
Something's happened to this aircraft."
Dr. Adve: Any transmission
is a radio signal.
You would try to find an s.O.S. Signal
By trying to find where you're
getting the strongest reception.
Okay, let me move in this direction,
And is my signal getting stronger?
Yes, it's getting stronger. Good.
And then, you know, it's find it that way.
Sparling: It's such a
localized single event.
So there's a lot that goes
into those investigations,
And the sooner you can get
experts there to investigate,
The better the data is going to be.
Narrator: The hunt for answers
Leads investigators to a small, unassuming
Grocery store in the annapolis valley.
Sparling: The information
in this case was pretty slim,
But there's a suggestion that
a cctv security camera system
Sent out a spurious signal.
Narrator: April huntley, a
supervisor of the grocery store
At the time, may be able to
shed some light on this situation.
I was at work one day and
a couple government officials
Showed up at the store I was
working at, avery's farm market,
And they told us that
there had been a signal
Sent out from our store
that matched an s.O.S. Signal
That a plane had crashed in the area.
They walked around the store
with a bunch of equipment.
They had the antenna raised up
Trying to locate where
the signal was coming from.
What likely happened is
somebody went out with some
Radiofrequency detecting equipment
And triangulated a spurious
signal to this cctv equipment
And determined that
somehow it may have sent out
A spurious signal that
triggered the emergency beacon.
Huntley: But the plane that
was apparently sending out
The distress signal
actually flew over our area,
But landed safely in the
place it was supposed to land.
They located the source of the signal,
Which ended up being, I
guess, our security system.
Sparling: That's a little bit unusual.
I mean, normally, a wireless camera system
Wouldn't emit frequencies
in the right range
To interfere with the emergency beacon.
Normally, information sent
by the cctv wouldn't match
With what the emergency beacon
would be expected to send out.
Every electronic device
that sends a radio signal
Sends it in a very
specific frequency range.
If we didn't give each device
very specific signal ranges,
They would interfere with each other.
You don't want somebody's
cordless phone at home
On the same frequency as your cell phone.
Otherwise, all your signals
are going to get jumbled
And you're not going to
be able to hear anything.
About 10 years ago or more,
You weren't allowed to
use a cellphone on a plane,
And that was because
there was always a concern
That a cellphone may
malfunction and interfere
With the radio communications
equipment on the aircraft.
We're so concerned about
guarding these frequencies,
We won't even allow devices into aircraft
That have a very remote
possibility of interfering
With those signals.
Narrator: But turning
the digital camera off
Doesn't stop the signal.
Normally, anything like that,
As long as you disconnect
the power, unplug everything,
And it should cause the signal to go away.
I mean, there's nothing
sending out a signal anymore.
Is it possible that there was a
malfunction in the cctv camera
And the electrical wiring in the house
Acted as the antenna
That transmitted the system?
It's possible.
Normally, if you do get
a crossed connection
To a building's wiring system,
It usually results in
damage to that system.
So there's a possibility that
something got crossed up
And a larger signal went out.
Narrator: But experts must be certain
That this is the result of
unusual circumstances,
Or else lives may be at
risk on a distressed flight.
Narrator: An s.O.S. Signal
without a crashed plane...
They did realize that the aircraft
Eventually made it to atlanta safely.
...Gets traced back
To an unassuming convenience
store's security cameras.
Huntley: There had been a
signal sent out from our store
That matched an s.O.S. Signal
That a plane had crashed in the area.
Narrator: Could this
s.O.S. Signal be the result
Of multiple remarkable coincidences?
Radio expert josh nass
sets up an experiment
Using the same components
as the store in nova scotia.
We decided that a decent
experiment would be to source
A similar cctv system like
the one in the grocery store,
Running one camera with "b"
and "c" wire stretched around
As though it could possibly
function as an antenna.
Now, this unit is not malfunctioning.
We don't see any spurious emissions.
It's possible, though, that
the grocery store's cctv system
That April worked at
Could have had a
malfunctioning power supply,
Which could have been
putting out spurious emissions
While still functioning
In its primary role as a
cctv television system.
If an item is malfunctioning,
It will not only display
spurs in its normal operation,
But we'll see big surges
when you turn off the unit
And turn the unit back on.
Looks like nothing is displayed.
Let's turn the unit back
on and see what happens.
I don't see anything
on the spectrum display.
It is possible that the cctv
system at the grocery store
That April worked at was malfunctioning.
It could be putting out rfi,
radio-frequency interference,
And it could be powerful enough
That sensitive listening
devices for direction finding
Could have been mistakenly picking it up.
What could have also happened
was someone nearby maybe
Would have maybe
maliciously been putting out
An emergency beacon tone.
Narrator: Are the mechanisms
behind these signals
So easily interchangeable?
There's no technological reason
Why you couldn't build a system like that.
These are all very well-defined systems.
Everybody uses them.
But an s.O.S. Signal has a
very well-defined structure,
And it's essentially impossible
to re-create that structure.
You can interfere with an
s.O.S. Signal on a plane,
But it can't be confused for
an s.O.S. Signal on a plane.
Sparling: Normally with
a cctv camera system,
We have a very low power
output. We're not putting out
A hugely intense radio
signal, and normally, you know,
You'd want it to go 200,
300, 400 feet at most.
How it gets picked up is really unusual.
It just shouldn't have the range
To trigger another piece of equipment.
It should be very local signal, that cctv.
Yeah, it could inadvertently get boosted,
But it'd be a really,
really unusual situation.
There'd have to be an internal failure,
And it'd have to be a very
specific internal failure.
So, is it possible? Yes.
Is it likely? Probably not.
We've developed protocols
in society as engineers
To stop this from happening.
Maybe the canadian
government has that information,
But unfortunately, with what's
been made publicly available,
We don't know what the outcome was.
Narrator: Although both
technologies have been created
To ensure human safety,
They are interacting in
ways we never anticipated.
Even today, this misread
signal remains a mystery.
West of luxor, egypt,
Two massive colossi are all that remain
Of the tomb of one of egypt's
most powerful pharaohs...
Amenhotep iii, whose reign
ended over 3,000 years ago.
These monuments hold an ancient mystery.
Centuries ago, one of them sang.
Mckinnon: The story I heard
about the singing colossi of memnon
Is that they were these
beautiful carved statues
Which under just the right conditions
Would produce a harmonic noise,
That you could hear them sing to you.
I can't even imagine what that'd be like,
To go here and to hear
this eerie singing sound.
Groves: It's an interesting story,
The singing colossi of memnon,
Because it only happened
For maybe 200, 250 years.
So it's a very brief
period in egyptian history,
Which we know spans 5,000-plus years.
Narrator: What could
these unknown sounds be?
Were they a blessing, an omen,
Or something else entirely?
It sounds like a story of
the rocks actually talking.
You would think that
there's something mystical,
Something godlike that's happening here.
Narrator: The colossi were unparalleled
In size and splendor...
Representations of the great pharaoh,
Each carved from a single
block of quartzite stone.
The colossi originally were
built to sit at the entrance
Of amenhotep iii's mortuary temple.
And the temple was massive.
It was the largest structure in egypt,
Even larger than the great pyramid of giza.
And they were upwards of
65 feet high, each one of them.
You can imagine being a person
Walking past these absolutely
colossal statues of amenhotep
And representing him as the god on earth.
Narrator: The mystical sounds started
Over 1,000 years after
the colossi were built,
At long after amenhotep
iii's mortuary temple
Have been ravaged by
floods and earthquakes.
It came from the colossi to the north.
But only at sunrise.
Groves: This is where
the stories start coming out
That the statue would sing.
There was a sound that had
emanated from within the statue.
The stories sort of dictate
That it could be a sound
like a lyre string breaking.
Early morning, dawn, the sun coming up...
This was when this
phenomena was said to occur.
Narrator: Amenhotep iii,
like all the pharaohs of egypt,
Was considered divine in life and death.
During his reign,
He was associated with the sun deity, aton,
Who it was believed
amenhotep merged with in death.
Because this otherworldly
sound only happened to dawn,
Was this the once-mighty pharaoh,
Now a solar deity, Returning to the ruins?
On some mornings,
the singing didn't happen.
And so you were somewhat
blessed by the gods
If you happened to go
and heard the singing.
That means the gods were speaking to you.
Narrator: Word soon
spread of the luck bestowed
On those fortunate enough
To have the statues sing to them.
Being the possibility
that it's an oracle speaking
Or singing to them, going
there with maybe their thoughts
And their wishes and their prayers,
And hoping that they might
be able to put something forth.
In that time, there was
no reasonable explanation.
It had to be the gods speaking.
Groves: And so the statue became a real hub
For tourists to flock to,
To see if they could receive a message.
Narrator: Seekers come from
all parts of the ancient empire
To find blessing.
One of the challenges
with this type of mystery
Is it happened a long time ago.
There are no recordings.
It doesn't happen anymore.
So it's not like we can go there
right now and hear them singing.
And what we really have
today is those very few writings
By some greek, some roman,
Speaking of the phenomena of the time.
Narrator: The first written
record comes from the geographer
And greek historian strabo in 20 b.C.
Inscriptions left at the base of the statue
Indicate whether the
singing was heard or not.
90 are still legible today.
Certainly, strabo, he went
and he recorded his time there.
Now, his story is a little bit uncertain
Because it says that the statue sings,
But we're not sure did
he actually hear it sing.
He doesn't actually
admit to himself hearing it,
But he says people he
spoke to heard the sound.
But certainly, other people did go,
They did write about it.
Narrator: By the time
strabo visits the oracle,
Egypt has become part
of the greco-roman empire
And the memory of
amenhotep iii is almost forgotten.
The colossi take on a new greek identity...
Memnon, one of the heroes of the trojan war
And the son of eos, goddess of the dawn.
What they did was they
took their story of the battle
Between memnon, who was an ethiopian king,
Against achilles.
And achilles killed memnon,
And so his mother cried
every morning at dawn.
When the greeks were there,
They took that story of memnon's death
And attached it to the statue.
Narrator: For the next 200
years, people come from all over
For a chance to be
blessed by the oracle's song.
So, you just sort of think
of it as much the same
As the vatican today.
Narrator: Among the
seekers over the centuries
Are several roman emperors,
Including septimius severus in 199 a.D.
He had heard the greek stories
Of this amazing oracle
statue, and he wanted to go
And he wanted to hear this voice.
Narrator: Septimius had successfully
Brought the roman empire
peace and prosperity
After a long period of unrest.
To cement his legacy,
He wants the blessing of the great oracle.
Groves: And when he
got there, he heard nothing.
And so now severus doesn't get his result,
And he decides his way to appease the gods
Was to rebuild the
statue to its former beauty.
So he actually had builders come in,
And they cut blocks and
they put them back up on top
To try and replicate the south statue.
Narrator: But septimius
severus is not blessed
By the mystical singing.
In fact, the statue never sings again.
And after the statue was repaired,
It sort of destroyed the
beauty of the phenomenon.
Narrator: What was meant
as a gift to incur a blessing
Seemed to cause the spirit
of the oracle to vanish forever.
Dr. Proctor: But because
there are so many testimonials,
There has to be something happening.
So there's something there.
The question is, what's happening?
And that's what's fun
about being a geoscientist.
You get to be the detective
to figure out what's going on.
Narrator: Almost two millennia later,
Geoscience shines a light
on this ancient phantom signal.
One of the key clues to this mystery
Is that the singing is only
happening in the morning.
And so what does that
tell us about the conditions
To enable this to happen?
Mckinnon: You can find just the right rock,
Just the right frequency,
and move it just the right way.
It will make noise.
Narrator: For over 200 years,
The mammoth colossi of amenhotep iii
Produced mysterious, otherworldly singing
That is simultaneously attributed
To the long-dead pharaoh
And one of the heroes of the greek legend
Of the trojan war... memnon.
You can sort of step
back in time and imagine
That these colossal statues,
these huge, beautiful statues
That already were an
attraction unto themselves,
But now you have one that's singing.
♪♪
Narrator: The singing
colossi take on a new life
As an oracle in the ancient world,
Fueled by the twin beliefs
That the voice is the spirit
of a long-dead pharaoh
And the greek goddess of the dawn... eos.
So, what's going on?
Narrator: Perhaps we could find clues
In the few written accounts that exist.
One of the key clues to this mystery
Is that the singing is only
happening in the morning.
And so what does that
tell us about the conditions
To enable this to happen?
Everything in this world
has this perfect frequency
Where it will resonate.
If you're on a swing and
you go back and forth.
You'll find a rhythm
and you'll start going into
That reinforcing cycle.
Rocks are the same.
You can find just the right rock,
Just the right frequency,
and move it just the right way.
It will make noise.
There may have been a
frequency, a natural frequency
That the statues wanted to vibrate at,
And that frequency was
probably excited by wind
Or some type of vibration
that was picked up
And then converted into a frequency
Which was audible to people.
Groves: We know that the
phenomenon of the voice itself
Or that sound emanating
Had to do with the earthquake
Because it didn't sing prior.
There was no record of it
When it was amenhotep's full statue
Of it never making a sound.
Narrator: The first written account came
From the greek historian strabo in 20 b.C.,
Just seven years after
the destructive earthquake.
Is it actually possible
For a freak natural
event like an earthquake
To turn this statue into
a giant wind instrument?
Mckinnon: Once they
cracked, it changed the shape
And it changed the acoustics.
Suddenly, we had an
accidental geological instrument
Where the player was the wind.
Just like you can blow
across a flute or a pipe
And get those perfect
moments of a clear note
Coming through, the wind blowing just right
Through the crack could cause it to sing.
Dr. Proctor: Imagine this
...when you have a crack
That overnight, dew forms in that crack.
And then as the sun rises,
Not only does that statue heat up,
But the crack starts to heat up.
And then an interesting
thing happens in the morning,
Is that because of the
differential in temperatures,
Wind begins to blow.
And so you have just the right
combination coming together
For the wind to come in
through that moist crack
And whistle.
An example of this
Is when you lick your lips and whistle.
[ whistles ]
Just the right orientation,
Just the right amount of moisture,
Just the right conditions
to have a singing statue.
Narrator: But then why
did the singing just stop?
Mckinnon: The colossi
of memnon no longer sing.
They've been repaired, so
the crack isn't there anymore.
And maybe, somewhere along the way,
They got shifted on how
exactly they were aligned.
Sparling: When you
change the mass of an object,
You change the frequency
which it vibrates at.
Narrator: Roman emperor septimius severus,
Looking for a blessing from the oracle,
Repaired the north statue
To bring it back to its former glory.
But in so doing, he silenced it.
And after the statue was repaired,
There's really no record.
Narrator: The song may have ended,
But as with so many strange signs,
The memory of its melody lives on
Through the historic witness records
Of what they heard.