Secrets in the Ice (2020–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - Mystery of Skeleton Lake - full transcript
In the most remote, cold, and inhospitable places on the planet, scientists and adventurers have uncovered mysteries that have been frozen in time. Investigations reveal how and why humans and equipment, have become frozen in time...
♪♪
Narrator:
A mysterious frozen lake
filled with the bones
of hundreds of people...
Rose: Some even still have flesh
attached to them.
This place really gives you
the feeling
that something unsettling
happened here.
♪♪
Narrator:
...An aviation graveyard
buried 300 feet
beneath the ice...
Somara: There were no signs
of a mechanical error,
so there were still no answers
to what actually happened
to these planes.
Narrator: ...And three mummies
suspended in the italian alps.
Bellinger: People don't just
end up hanging upside down
in a glacier,
unless something terrible
happened to them.
♪♪
Narrator: These are
the strangest mysteries,
trapped in the coldest places.
Lost relics,
forgotten treasures,
dark secrets,
locked in their icy tombs
for ages.
But now as ice melts
around the world,
their stories
will finally be exposed.
[ wind whistling ]
♪♪
Deep in the indian himalayas,
16,000 feet above sea level,
a centuries-old mystery
lies ready to be awakened.
There's nothing up there
but ice and rocks
as far as the eye can see.
O'keefe: It's totally desolate,
freezing cold,
and completely uninhabited.
Narrator: Hidden in a valley
between the icy peaks,
lies a lake frozen so solid
it only melts once a year
to reveal its deadly secret.
It's really the last place
you would expect
to see something like this.
♪♪
It's a gruesome sight,
like a crime scene.
Narrator: Every August,
the ice melts and slowly reveals
hundreds of human bones.
♪♪
Some even still have flesh
attached to them.
♪♪
It makes you wonder
what awful fate
did these people meet?
♪♪
O'keefe:
This place is totally remote,
the closest village
is a four-day trek from here.
Narrator: Where did
these human remains come from,
and how did they get here?
It's a mystery
that's been simmering
for the better part
of a century.
♪♪
In 1942,
a man named hari madhwal,
a ranger from india's
nanda devi national park,
was patrolling the nature
reserve with his team
and stumbled
on the gruesome scene.
His porters were so terrified,
they turned around
and ran for their lives.
Did they know something
that the rangers didn't?
In the early 1940s, india was
still under british rule,
world war ii
was raging in europe,
and the japanese army had just
taken over burma, or myanmar.
It was thought that the japanese
were considering an assault
to take india away
from the british empire.
♪♪
When british high command heard
from the park ranger
about a site in the mountains
filled with dead bodies,
they got worried.
♪♪
Narrator: Could these bodies
be the remains
of a marauding japanese party
that got stuck high
in the mountains and died?
The british secretly
sent experts to the site
to determine if they could,
in fact, be under threat
of a japanese invasion.
They found bits
of clothing and shoes,
some of which was still attached
to the bones.
Narrator: But that wasn't
what really surprised them.
The shoes and clothing
were outdated,
suggesting the dead bodies
were old.
These bodies weren't
invading soldiers,
at least not soldiers
from world war ii.
Narrator: In 2003,
a team of researchers turned to
the bones themselves
for answers.
Samples from the bodies
were sent to be tested
by the radiocarbon accelerator
at oxford university.
They were found to be much older
than people
had initially thought.
♪♪
Rose: These skeletons were
from 850 a.D.,
that's over
a thousand years old.
Narrator: In the 9th century,
india had one of
the world's largest economies.
It had a huge army
and a lot of enemies.
Rose: Often when you find
hundreds of bodies
lying haphazardly like this
in a concentrated area,
it's because they died in battle
and were left behind
by the victorious army.
Narrator: Floating this theory,
researchers analyzed the bones,
looking for evidence
of battle trauma.
What they found was perplexing.
Skulls found in the lake showed
strange, identical injuries...
Huge spherical-shaped wounds
to the tops and the backs
of their heads.
♪♪
Narrator: What could have caused
these wounds?
Could all of these people
have died
from the same type of fracture?
Maybe an opposing army
finished these men off
with the same type of weapon.
Narrator: Forensics show that
each skull in the sample
had been struck
by a heavy, round object,
several inches in diameter.
Wounds like this would have
caused extensive bleeding
and swelling of the brain.
They could easily have been
inflicted during a battle.
Narrator: But there's a problem
with this theory.
If this was a battle,
we'd also expect injuries
on arms and legs,
we'd find broken bones
and lacerations, but we don't.
Narrator: The only place these
skeletons have injuries
is on their heads and shoulders.
Rose: In a conflict,
you'd also expect to find
remnants of weapons or armor,
but there's absolutely
no evidence of this at all.
It leads us to believe these
people didn't die in a fight.
♪♪
Narrator: If they didn't die at
the hands of their enemies,
how did hundreds of people
suddenly end up dead
at the bottom of a lake
high up in the himalayas?
♪♪
These mountains are known for
terrible and unexpected weather,
could it have been
a natural disaster?
Just imagine...
A storm rolls in,
they're caught in the valley,
and the cliffs
are towering above them,
they are absolutely impossible
to climb.
Narrator: Some wonder if
an unexpected storm
could have pummeled them
with hailstones.
Local mythology and folklore
seem to corroborate this theory,
a traditional song describes
a hindu goddess, nanda devi,
becoming so enraged by a king
and his court's sinful behavior
on her mountain,
she rained death upon them
with hailstones hard as iron.
It's not just folklore, history
supports this theory, as well.
In 1888, elsewhere in india,
hundreds of people were killed
with hailstones
the size of oranges.
♪♪
Bellinger:
Scientists were convinced
that hail had caused
the head wounds.
And for years, the theory of
pilgrims caught in a storm
has been held up as credible.
Narrator: But in 2019,
new dna testing would bring
this theory into question.
What the scientists found
turned everything
that they thought they knew
about skeleton lake on its head.
♪♪
For years, the hypothesis was
that a single catastrophic event
had killed one large group
of people in the valley.
♪♪
Narrator: But in 2019,
analysis carried out on a
much larger sample of the bones
upended that theory
and revealed
that the remains had come
from three distinct periods,
ranging from
the 7th century to the 20th.
♪♪
This wasn't just one mass event,
these were multiple fatalities
spread over a thousand years.
O'keefe: They weren't all killed
at the same time.
How is this possible?
Bellinger: Maybe this is just
a normal graveyard
that people have been using
for a thousand years.
Rose: It's so remote
and difficult to get to,
it just doesn't make sense
to haul your dead
all the way up here.
Bellinger:
If it was a graveyard,
you'd expect to see some sort
of monument or gravestones.
The bodies don't seem like
they were placed
or buried in the lake.
The bones are just too scattered
and mixed up.
Rose: In a graveyard,
people's bones are usually
found close together,
but in this case,
they're all over the place.
So we're back to square one.
How did all these bodies end up
at the bottom of skeleton lake
over the span
of a thousand years?
♪♪
[ wind whistling ]
♪♪
Narrator:
High up in the himalayas,
at the bottom of a frozen lake,
the remains of hundreds of
people lie hidden
within the ice.
♪♪
Researchers believe
the valley's unique geography
could provide the answer.
♪♪
The lake is at the bottom
of an incredibly deep valley,
in fact, it's the lowest point
for miles around.
The fact that the bones are so
mixed up may provide the answer,
maybe this isn't actually
where the people died
who were laid to rest,
maybe they were funneled here
over the years
by the movement of the ice.
Narrator:
Perhaps these are the remains
of all sorts of people...
Pilgrims, merchants,
or soldiers,
all of whom fell prey to the
mountains throughout the ages.
Over time, rock slides,
snow melts, and gravity
moved the bones downwards
to the lowest point.
♪♪
Rose: It's like the earth itself
brought these remains down here,
bone by individual bone.
Narrator: Making skeleton lake
the mountain's
own natural graveyard.
It's still only a theory,
but it's the most convincing
one to date.
In the meantime, efforts are
being made to protect the site
until more answers can be found.
♪♪
♪♪
At the edge of the world
in the far-flung reaches
of the arctic...
♪♪
...Greenland is home
to some of the world's
most extreme terrain.
♪♪
It's one of the most hostile
climates on earth.
It's winter
for eight months of the year.
O'keefe: This place is hardcore.
It's almost as if everything
is trying to kill you.
Macferrin:
It's flat, it's white,
it's just snow
as far as the eye can see.
Narrator:
Despite it being so remote,
researchers working
out on the glaciers
make an incredible discovery
deep beneath the surface.
They're out there working
with ground-penetrating radar,
and suddenly they locate
a large chunk of metal
under the ice.
♪♪
Narrator:
It doesn't take long to confirm
that the mystery chunk of metal
is a world war ii plane.
But how did it get here?
Somara: It's at 300 feet
below the ice,
and stranger still, it's not
the only plane down there.
♪♪
Narrator: This unpopulated part
of southeastern greenland
is home to dozens
of wrecked airplanes.
It's an aviation graveyard.
♪♪
What could have brought them
all down
in this one particular spot?
Narrator:
It's no surprise that this area
has become known
as greenland's bermuda triangle.
♪♪
To understand why
all these planes
were flying over here
to begin with,
you have to go back
to world war ii.
♪♪
After joining the allies,
the united states
faced the problem
of transporting
their massive bombing fleet
to bases in great britain.
To avoid german u boats
that were decimating ships
in the atlantic ocean,
they started flying rather
than shipping aircraft
across the north atlantic
to allied bases
in great britain.
All these planes had to land in
canada and greenland to refuel,
which meant crossing over
the treacherous ice cap.
A high percentage of these
planes unexpectedly crashed
in southeastern greenland,
and sometimes the planes
sent out to rescue them
suffered a similar fate.
♪♪
These aircraft were flown by
expertly trained military pilots
who would have been used
to flying in extreme conditions.
♪♪
Narrator: What is it about this
particular part of greenland
that was bringing
these planes down?
♪♪
The researchers who discovered
the plane deep within the ice
believe it may have been one
of the infamous lost squadron.
♪♪
A squadron of u.S. Planes
consisting of six p-38s
and two b-17s was traveling
along the snowball route.
The squadron fueled up
in greenland without incident,
but heading east
over the ice cap,
flying at 12,000 feet,
they encountered a problem.
♪♪
Somara: The radio operators
attempted to make contact
with another plane
flying just ahead of them,
but there was no answer.
Narrator: Two hours from
the closest air base,
the pilots were forced
to make a sudden
and unexpected emergency
landing on a glacier.
So the surface of an ice sheet
is just snow,
it's like a snow drift
that extends forever.
And if you tried to land
a plane on it
that wasn't designed
to land on the ice
that didn't have specially
equipped skis on it,
the wheels would sink.
It would have to be an emergency
situation for you to land there.
♪♪
The squad lead was the first
to take the plunge,
landing hard and flipping over.
One by one, they all descended
and suffered similar fates,
but miraculously,
no one was injured.
The pilots were rescued
and the planes were abandoned,
left to rust out, eventually to
be swallowed whole by the ice.
What forced these planes
to make an emergency
landing on the glacier?
♪♪
Maybe their proximity
to the north pole
was scrambling
the plane's compasses?
Somara: When you're flying near
one of the earth's
magnetic poles,
it becomes challenging
because your regular compass
becomes pretty much useless.
Narrator: Magnetic field lines
from the earth's poles
can cause a plane's compass
magnets to dip.
When this happens,
it's practically impossible
to get accurate readings.
O'keefe:
These were experienced pilots.
They would have been trained to
adjust for compass variations.
Narrator:
So if it wasn't pilot error,
what else could be
bringing down the planes?
♪♪
Known to greenlanders
as piteraq alley,
this area of southeastern
greenland is dominated
by sudden extreme winds
that appear
seemingly out of nowhere.
So as air cools on the surface
of an ice sheet,
it gets dense
and starts to flow downhill
under its own weight.
If there's a storm on the coast
that has low pressure,
it can actually suck this wind
down these valleys
and create a tremendous storm.
♪♪
Bellinger: The word piteraq
means that which attacks.
There's so strong they can rip
the roofs right off houses.
Narrator: These deadly winds can
clock up to 200 miles per hour.
It can knock down buildings,
it can shred tents to ribbons.
It's a pretty intense wind.
♪♪
Narrator:
Add in the tunneling effect
from the many fjords
and valleys,
and you've created
the perfect storm.
♪♪
But there's a problem
with this theory.
Piteraq winds occur
at pretty low altitudes
so they typically exist
below 1,000 feet.
♪♪
The planes flying
over greenland at that time
would have almost certainly been
flying way higher than that.
So it makes it
extremely unlikely
that the winds are to blame.
♪♪
Narrator:
So if it isn't a piteraq wind
that's bringing all
these planes down,
what is?
Recovering the buried p-38
could be crucial
to understanding
what happened here.
♪♪
An international team
of aviation experts
embarked on mission impossible,
digging the 70-year-old p-38
out of the ice.
But how do you get
a 6-ton aircraft
out from under 300 feet of ice?
Narrator: And if they do manage
to get it out,
could it help them
unlock the mystery
of greenland's bermuda triangle?
♪♪
[ wind whistling ]
♪♪
Greenland's southern coastline
conceals the wrecks
of over 30 downed planes in
an area that's become known as
greenland's bermuda triangle.
Researchers are attempting
to retrieve
one of these lost planes,
a p-38 from world war ii,
from hundreds of feet
below the surface.
It is hoped
it will shed some light
on the area's deadly secrets.
The plane is buried 300 feet
below the surface,
it's not gonna be easy
to extract it from the ice.
♪♪
Narrator:
The team developed a new type
of thermal meltdown generator
called a super gopher.
It bores through the ice
by heating it
and pumping the melted water
back to the surface
through a pipe.
♪♪
Wrapped in copper
hot water lines,
the heat melted the ice
at 2 to 4 feet an hour.
It took days for this thing
to slowly bore
hundreds of feet into the ice,
but then it finally
hit something.
Found in great condition, the
plane was expertly taken apart
and painstakingly hauled up
to the surface piece by piece.
They named her glacier girl.
♪♪
Somara:
Other than damage from the ice,
no equipment on the plane
was broken,
there were no signs
of a mechanical error,
so there was still no answers
to what actually happened
to these planes.
♪♪
Narrator: With no clues,
researchers would have to look
elsewhere for answers.
Our understanding of weather
over greenland
has come a tremendous way
since the 1940s.
We have satellite observations
covering the globe constantly,
we have weather stations
all around
every coast on the planet.
These are things we simply
did not have in the 1940s.
♪♪
Bellinger:
In this part of greenland,
deadly whiteout blizzards
can form in a matter of minutes.
♪♪
Narrator: Blizzards
in greenland can happen
with no warning at all.
They form when the northern
polar jet stream clashes
with the warmer, moist air
moving up from the south,
creating catastrophic blizzards
in minutes.
♪♪
Bellinger: Let's say suddenly
out of the blue,
the squadron is surrounded
by a blizzard,
freezing temperatures
start to ice the wings.
The heating in the planes
is basically nonexistent.
This p-38 from world war ii
was rudimentary,
it didn't have the capabilities
nor the equipment we have now.
♪♪
Narrator: Planes of that era
couldn't fly high enough
to avoid the blizzards for long
so there was nowhere to go.
Somara: They're flying through
thick, heavy clouds,
the ice cap and the sky
are all the same color,
so they can't even tell
where the horizon is.
♪♪
The pilot's hands and feet are
so frozen they can barely stand.
You're two hours
from the closest airport,
you can make radio contact, and
you're also running out of fuel.
♪♪
There was nowhere to go
but down.
Narrator: Landing on the glacier
was their only option,
one that proved to be
the right decision.
♪♪
Fortunately, modern-day aircraft
are able to avoid this problem
with increased range
capabilities.
And of course,
there have been advances
in weather prediction and radar.
♪♪
Narrator: Today, glacier girl
lives in texas.
♪♪
The crown jewel in a private
collection of classic airplanes.
But she flies just as well today
as the day she was made over
80 years ago,
a testament to
the aviation technology
that helped
win the second world war.
♪♪
♪♪
Close to 12,000 feet above
sea level in the italian alps...
♪♪
...A mystery hangs suspended
in ancient ice.
It's a pretty eerie sight,
they look like
an army of the dead reaching out
towards you from the glacier.
♪♪
Somara: Can you imagine seeing
them for the first time?
It would sent shivers
down your spine.
♪♪
Rose:
What happened to these people,
and how do they end up hanging
upside down
in such a strange way?
♪♪
Narrator: On a routine
climbing expedition,
local mountain
guide maurizio vicenzi
stumbles upon something
he's never seen before...
The frozen remains
of three human bodies.
These men look as if someone
hung them there,
it doesn't look natural.
Narrator: When the team examined
the bodies,
they appear to be
wearing uniforms
from the austro-hungarian army.
♪♪
These are uniforms
from world war I,
meaning these bodies
have been hanging there
for almost 100 years.
♪♪
Narrator: At the start of
world war I,
austro-hungary was allied with
germany and Italy,
but in 1915,
Italy switched sides
and declared war against them.
♪♪
The austro-hungarians
were determined
to keep the italians at bay.
As a result, it created
an entirely new battlefront
high up in the alps.
The battlefront became known
as the white war.
♪♪
Rose: These were some
of the worst conditions
anywhere in the war.
It was brutally cold,
soldiers faced
vicious alpine winters,
and excruciating frostbite.
♪♪
And fighting on top of mountains
meant dealing with avalanches.
Narrator:
An estimated 60,000 men died
in that way alone.
♪♪
It's clear these soldiers
died in the white war,
but when investigators
begin to study the bodies,
no one can come up
with a reasonable explanation
of how they ended up
in such an unnatural position.
Did someone place them here
on purpose?
Could this have been
some sort of wartime torture?
People don't just end up
hanging upside down in a glacier
unless something terrible
happened to them.
♪♪
[ wind whistling ]
♪♪
Narrator: The bizarre remains of
three world war I soldiers
are found hanging upside down
from a glacier.
Is there some sort
of sinister reason
they've been left like this?
♪♪
The answer could lie on
neighboring mountain,
punta linke.
♪♪
A year after he discovered
the bodies,
maurizio vicenzi was
on another climbing trip
and made a second discovery.
Narrator: A small cabin entombed
in the ice,
no bigger than a one-room shack.
What is this strange
icebound cabin,
and can it tell us anything
about the mummies
hanging in the ice?
This is no place
for a ski chalet,
it's way too high and remote.
♪♪
Maybe it's a hermit's hut built
by someone just trying
to get away from the world.
Narrator: Vicenzi and the group
of mountain climbers with him
chip away the ice covering
the cabin and explore inside.
There, they make yet another
remarkable discovery.
Somara: Using fans
to clear away the ice,
investigators find the tunnel
is tall enough
for a person to walk down,
and it's dug almost 300 feet
into the mountain.
Narrator: It's a lot of work to
build a cabin
at the top of a mountain,
let alone excavate 300 feet
of ice and rock.
♪♪
Could the cabin have been
a mine?
Maybe.
But you don't have to put a mine
at the top of mountain.
♪♪
What other reason would you
possibly dig a tunnel for?
Narrator:
Prisoners dig tunnels to escape,
but this is
a small, wooden cabin,
not a military jail.
♪♪
O'keefe: During the white war,
the alps were
the main battlefield,
and when you have fighting
at those elevations,
a major problem is how do you
get men, weapons, and supplies
all the way up to the front?
Narrator: The austro-hungarians
used the cabin and tunnel
as a vital link
in an elaborate supply line,
connecting the peio valley below
to the front line
high up in the mountains.
♪♪
Crates loaded with supplies
were pushed through the tunnel
before being launched onto
an unsupported cable 4,000 feet
across the valley.
♪♪
Rose: That's an insane way
to move supplies,
but how else would you move
heavy pieces of equipment
to the top of a mountain?
♪♪
Narrator:
Through brutal snowstorms
and freezing temperatures,
alpine troops would move
supplies as large as field guns
along this high-wire pathway.
They had some engines,
but a lot of that gear
was moved using manpower.
That would be a grueling effort
and definitely risky.
Maybe these bodies in the ice
were working on a similar supply
line but fell to their deaths.
♪♪
Narrator: Investigators returned
to the bodies looking for clues
to substantiate the theory
that they died by accident.
It's there they make
a vital discovery...
Bandages in their pockets.
♪♪
These weren't soldiers
taking supplies to the front.
♪♪
These were stretcher bearers
moving along
with the same supply lines
to bring wounded soldiers back.
O'keefe: But that still leaves
a couple of questions...
How did these men die,
and why did they end up
hanging upside down
in such strange positions?
Rose: The only way
to answer this mystery
is to exhume them from the ice
and autopsy the bodies.
♪♪
Bellinger:
Once removed from the ice,
it was obvious that the bodies
weren't tied together
by any kind of safety line.
So why were they
all hanging in a row?
Narrator: The autopsy turns up
some amazing findings.
O'keefe: They find wounds
on the bodies from shrapnel.
One man even still
has fragments in his lungs.
This suggests that they died
from artillery shell blasts.
Narrator: Research into written
accounts suggest
that these men died
in the final battle
for the mountain
on September 3, 1918.
Billson: Three medics in the
final battle on the front.
They were almost home.
♪♪
O'keefe: These men were killed
from a shell blast,
but that wouldn't leave them
hanging so close together.
Narrator: The ice itself
may hold the answer.
♪♪
[ wind whistling ]
♪♪
The remains
of three austrian medics
killed by an artillery blast
during world war I
are found hanging in the ice.
♪♪
Research into the glacier
might unlock the secret
to how these men
ended up suspended
by their legs
in such an ominous manner.
Rose: Written reports suggest
that many of the men
who were killed
during the final battle
were buried up there
on the mountaintop.
In the midst of the fighting,
soldiers simply
couldn't bring the bodies
of their fallen comrades
back down the mountain.
Narrator: The answer to how the
bodies ended up in this position
may lie in the way
the ice is melting.
The glacier isn't melting
from the top down,
it's melting from the side.
Narrator: As the ice melts,
it exposes the head and torso
of the bodies of the medics.
With their legs
still stuck in the ice,
the bodies appear to be
suspended from the glacier.
♪♪
So, these three soldiers
were laid to rest together
in a common grave,
but over time, the ice melted
and the grave gave out
from underneath them.
Narrator:
An exhaustive investigation
for the men's identities
failed to turn up
the medics' names.
Once investigators
finish their autopsy,
the men were transported to
a military cemetery in peio
and buried with honor.
After over 100 years,
these medics finally
found their resting place.
♪♪
We might not know their names,
but we know
they gave their lives
trying to save wounded soldiers,
and for that, they were heroes.
♪♪
♪♪
Narrator: At the base
of a massive glacier
in southern greenland,
a team of danish archeologists
make an odd discovery.
There's something really off
about this place,
but you just can't quite
put your finger on what it is.
♪♪
You stand there, and you
get this really eerie feeling.
Narrator: On the edge
of a remote open plain
facing the glacier sits an odd
arrangement of ancient stones.
It's almost as if they've been
deliberately arranged
in this way.
♪♪
Narrator: On first glance,
it appears as if they're
in the shape of a circle,
but on closer inspection,
it looks more
like a boat or a dinghy.
It's clearly the remains
of some sort of stone hut.
Someone at some point in time
went to a lot of trouble
to lay these stones
in the middle of nowhere,
but why?
Narrator: When archeologists
excavate the hut,
they find something
even more peculiar.
Under a stone and turf bench,
they find the remains of a box
filled with a strange collection
of artifacts and animal bones.
Rose: It's a unique find.
It's fascinating
when you find animal bones
collected and stored like this.
The cache includes tusks,
walrus jaw gaming pieces,
an adler comb, an iron knife,
and a fragment of soapstone.
Could this place have been used
for a mysterious purpose?
Rose: Seeing a collection like
this can get under your skin,
it's unsettling.
♪♪
Wolf: You don't just build one
stone hut on its own
at the edge of a glacier
miles from anywhere,
unless you want
to be left alone.
Bellinger: So who was out there
alone in the middle of nowhere,
burying a box of bones?
Narrator: The inuit have lived
in greenland
for about 800 years,
initially arriving
from high arctic canada.
Could this be the remains
of an inuit shelter?
It's not out of the realm
of possibility,
but there's a problem with this.
Traditionally, inuit buildings
were square-shaped
and would have been
made of turf, sod, or even ice,
but not stone.
♪♪
Narrator: However, the inuit did
sometimes use stone
in another way.
They would use stones
as a temporary base for a tent
while out hunting and trekking.
Could this be the remains
of such a tent?
♪♪
Rose:
The stones don't look temporary.
They're built
on a solid foundation,
which means someone meant
for this structure to last.
Narrator: And the inuit never
would have built a shelter
on an exposed cliff like this.
Billson: So if it wasn't the
inuit, then who built this?
Who else was living here
hundreds of years ago?
♪♪
[ wind whistling ]
♪♪
Narrator: On a remote plane
in southern greenland,
archeologists have discovered
the remains
of a strange stone hut
in a box containing
an intriguing collection
of animal bones and artifacts.
The question is,
who built this hut and why?
The vikings arrived
in greenland from iceland
in 985 a.D.,
settling into the relatively
fertile lake district
on the southern part
of the island.
♪♪
Life was extremely hard
in this part of the world,
but the vikings managed
to grow their community
to several thousand inhabitants.
Perhaps this is the remains
of a viking home.
♪♪
Billson: Based on the location
of the hut,
right beside a glacier
with that freezing wind
coming off the ice,
it's highly unlikely this
would have been anything other
than a temporary dwelling.
♪♪
Life would be absolutely
horrific here in the winter.
Narrator: Not only is
the location all wrong
for a viking house,
so is the size.
It's only about
5 feet in diameter.
♪♪
It's tiny, but its construction
looks viking.
The stone and unique boat shape
are all signs of a viking build.
Narrator:
Upon closer investigation,
archeologists find the remains
of a fire pit
and believe it dates
to the early 1400s.
So why is there a fireplace
if this isn't a house?
Narrator: Vikings farmed the
harsh landscape
as best they could
and would often
graze their animals
on pastures in the summer.
When the vikings took
their animals out in the summer,
they would build small huts
called seters
where you could milk animals.
Narrator:
But what kind of shepherd
keeps a strange collection
of animal bones
and artifacts in a box?
♪♪
Rose: When I look at this
bizarre collection,
my mind goes immediately
toward ritual and magic.
If it's not a house or a farm,
then what was going on here?
♪♪
Narrator: Could this stone hut
be linked to the dark arts?
♪♪
Researchers look for clues
amongst the artifacts and bones,
zeroing in on one item
in particular, a walrus tusk.
The greenland vikings'
most lucrative export
was walrus tusk.
They exported a huge amount
of it every year
to iceland and denmark.
♪♪
Bellinger: Just one walrus tusk
would be worth more
than an entire cow.
There's no way someone
would just leave that
in the middle of nowhere.
Narrator: Archeologists were
puzzled to see
such a strange collection
of objects.
It wasn't something
they would normally find
in the excavation
of viking structures.
They were both
high- and low-value items,
often represented by only
one or two artifacts of bone,
but from a whole variety
of different animals.
This collection gives me
the impression of ritual.
Bellinger: If you want to
understand the ritualistic side
of the viking world,
the best place to start
is the icelandic sagas.
♪♪
Narrator: In the sagas, there is
a story about a viking seer
from norway, known as the volva,
who carries a strange
combination of objects
to practice magic.
♪♪
Seeing a collection like this
can give you the heebie-jeebies,
it's unnerving.
♪♪
Narrator: The sagas show
that viking communities
in greenland
were highly superstitious.
Medieval icelandic annals tell
of a sorcerer named kolgrim
burned at the stake in 1407
for the crime of using
the black arts
to steal another man's wife.
♪♪
After 500 years, the viking
colonies finally succumbed
to greenland's
inhospitable climate.
♪♪
And by the mid 15th century,
they disappeared
from its shores altogether.
Who built this hut
and why remains a mystery.
♪♪
Perhaps it was a norse seer
who sat by the fire
in the face of the glacier,
casting spells
and trying to stave off
the encroaching cold
for just a little longer.
♪♪
Narrator:
A mysterious frozen lake
filled with the bones
of hundreds of people...
Rose: Some even still have flesh
attached to them.
This place really gives you
the feeling
that something unsettling
happened here.
♪♪
Narrator:
...An aviation graveyard
buried 300 feet
beneath the ice...
Somara: There were no signs
of a mechanical error,
so there were still no answers
to what actually happened
to these planes.
Narrator: ...And three mummies
suspended in the italian alps.
Bellinger: People don't just
end up hanging upside down
in a glacier,
unless something terrible
happened to them.
♪♪
Narrator: These are
the strangest mysteries,
trapped in the coldest places.
Lost relics,
forgotten treasures,
dark secrets,
locked in their icy tombs
for ages.
But now as ice melts
around the world,
their stories
will finally be exposed.
[ wind whistling ]
♪♪
Deep in the indian himalayas,
16,000 feet above sea level,
a centuries-old mystery
lies ready to be awakened.
There's nothing up there
but ice and rocks
as far as the eye can see.
O'keefe: It's totally desolate,
freezing cold,
and completely uninhabited.
Narrator: Hidden in a valley
between the icy peaks,
lies a lake frozen so solid
it only melts once a year
to reveal its deadly secret.
It's really the last place
you would expect
to see something like this.
♪♪
It's a gruesome sight,
like a crime scene.
Narrator: Every August,
the ice melts and slowly reveals
hundreds of human bones.
♪♪
Some even still have flesh
attached to them.
♪♪
It makes you wonder
what awful fate
did these people meet?
♪♪
O'keefe:
This place is totally remote,
the closest village
is a four-day trek from here.
Narrator: Where did
these human remains come from,
and how did they get here?
It's a mystery
that's been simmering
for the better part
of a century.
♪♪
In 1942,
a man named hari madhwal,
a ranger from india's
nanda devi national park,
was patrolling the nature
reserve with his team
and stumbled
on the gruesome scene.
His porters were so terrified,
they turned around
and ran for their lives.
Did they know something
that the rangers didn't?
In the early 1940s, india was
still under british rule,
world war ii
was raging in europe,
and the japanese army had just
taken over burma, or myanmar.
It was thought that the japanese
were considering an assault
to take india away
from the british empire.
♪♪
When british high command heard
from the park ranger
about a site in the mountains
filled with dead bodies,
they got worried.
♪♪
Narrator: Could these bodies
be the remains
of a marauding japanese party
that got stuck high
in the mountains and died?
The british secretly
sent experts to the site
to determine if they could,
in fact, be under threat
of a japanese invasion.
They found bits
of clothing and shoes,
some of which was still attached
to the bones.
Narrator: But that wasn't
what really surprised them.
The shoes and clothing
were outdated,
suggesting the dead bodies
were old.
These bodies weren't
invading soldiers,
at least not soldiers
from world war ii.
Narrator: In 2003,
a team of researchers turned to
the bones themselves
for answers.
Samples from the bodies
were sent to be tested
by the radiocarbon accelerator
at oxford university.
They were found to be much older
than people
had initially thought.
♪♪
Rose: These skeletons were
from 850 a.D.,
that's over
a thousand years old.
Narrator: In the 9th century,
india had one of
the world's largest economies.
It had a huge army
and a lot of enemies.
Rose: Often when you find
hundreds of bodies
lying haphazardly like this
in a concentrated area,
it's because they died in battle
and were left behind
by the victorious army.
Narrator: Floating this theory,
researchers analyzed the bones,
looking for evidence
of battle trauma.
What they found was perplexing.
Skulls found in the lake showed
strange, identical injuries...
Huge spherical-shaped wounds
to the tops and the backs
of their heads.
♪♪
Narrator: What could have caused
these wounds?
Could all of these people
have died
from the same type of fracture?
Maybe an opposing army
finished these men off
with the same type of weapon.
Narrator: Forensics show that
each skull in the sample
had been struck
by a heavy, round object,
several inches in diameter.
Wounds like this would have
caused extensive bleeding
and swelling of the brain.
They could easily have been
inflicted during a battle.
Narrator: But there's a problem
with this theory.
If this was a battle,
we'd also expect injuries
on arms and legs,
we'd find broken bones
and lacerations, but we don't.
Narrator: The only place these
skeletons have injuries
is on their heads and shoulders.
Rose: In a conflict,
you'd also expect to find
remnants of weapons or armor,
but there's absolutely
no evidence of this at all.
It leads us to believe these
people didn't die in a fight.
♪♪
Narrator: If they didn't die at
the hands of their enemies,
how did hundreds of people
suddenly end up dead
at the bottom of a lake
high up in the himalayas?
♪♪
These mountains are known for
terrible and unexpected weather,
could it have been
a natural disaster?
Just imagine...
A storm rolls in,
they're caught in the valley,
and the cliffs
are towering above them,
they are absolutely impossible
to climb.
Narrator: Some wonder if
an unexpected storm
could have pummeled them
with hailstones.
Local mythology and folklore
seem to corroborate this theory,
a traditional song describes
a hindu goddess, nanda devi,
becoming so enraged by a king
and his court's sinful behavior
on her mountain,
she rained death upon them
with hailstones hard as iron.
It's not just folklore, history
supports this theory, as well.
In 1888, elsewhere in india,
hundreds of people were killed
with hailstones
the size of oranges.
♪♪
Bellinger:
Scientists were convinced
that hail had caused
the head wounds.
And for years, the theory of
pilgrims caught in a storm
has been held up as credible.
Narrator: But in 2019,
new dna testing would bring
this theory into question.
What the scientists found
turned everything
that they thought they knew
about skeleton lake on its head.
♪♪
For years, the hypothesis was
that a single catastrophic event
had killed one large group
of people in the valley.
♪♪
Narrator: But in 2019,
analysis carried out on a
much larger sample of the bones
upended that theory
and revealed
that the remains had come
from three distinct periods,
ranging from
the 7th century to the 20th.
♪♪
This wasn't just one mass event,
these were multiple fatalities
spread over a thousand years.
O'keefe: They weren't all killed
at the same time.
How is this possible?
Bellinger: Maybe this is just
a normal graveyard
that people have been using
for a thousand years.
Rose: It's so remote
and difficult to get to,
it just doesn't make sense
to haul your dead
all the way up here.
Bellinger:
If it was a graveyard,
you'd expect to see some sort
of monument or gravestones.
The bodies don't seem like
they were placed
or buried in the lake.
The bones are just too scattered
and mixed up.
Rose: In a graveyard,
people's bones are usually
found close together,
but in this case,
they're all over the place.
So we're back to square one.
How did all these bodies end up
at the bottom of skeleton lake
over the span
of a thousand years?
♪♪
[ wind whistling ]
♪♪
Narrator:
High up in the himalayas,
at the bottom of a frozen lake,
the remains of hundreds of
people lie hidden
within the ice.
♪♪
Researchers believe
the valley's unique geography
could provide the answer.
♪♪
The lake is at the bottom
of an incredibly deep valley,
in fact, it's the lowest point
for miles around.
The fact that the bones are so
mixed up may provide the answer,
maybe this isn't actually
where the people died
who were laid to rest,
maybe they were funneled here
over the years
by the movement of the ice.
Narrator:
Perhaps these are the remains
of all sorts of people...
Pilgrims, merchants,
or soldiers,
all of whom fell prey to the
mountains throughout the ages.
Over time, rock slides,
snow melts, and gravity
moved the bones downwards
to the lowest point.
♪♪
Rose: It's like the earth itself
brought these remains down here,
bone by individual bone.
Narrator: Making skeleton lake
the mountain's
own natural graveyard.
It's still only a theory,
but it's the most convincing
one to date.
In the meantime, efforts are
being made to protect the site
until more answers can be found.
♪♪
♪♪
At the edge of the world
in the far-flung reaches
of the arctic...
♪♪
...Greenland is home
to some of the world's
most extreme terrain.
♪♪
It's one of the most hostile
climates on earth.
It's winter
for eight months of the year.
O'keefe: This place is hardcore.
It's almost as if everything
is trying to kill you.
Macferrin:
It's flat, it's white,
it's just snow
as far as the eye can see.
Narrator:
Despite it being so remote,
researchers working
out on the glaciers
make an incredible discovery
deep beneath the surface.
They're out there working
with ground-penetrating radar,
and suddenly they locate
a large chunk of metal
under the ice.
♪♪
Narrator:
It doesn't take long to confirm
that the mystery chunk of metal
is a world war ii plane.
But how did it get here?
Somara: It's at 300 feet
below the ice,
and stranger still, it's not
the only plane down there.
♪♪
Narrator: This unpopulated part
of southeastern greenland
is home to dozens
of wrecked airplanes.
It's an aviation graveyard.
♪♪
What could have brought them
all down
in this one particular spot?
Narrator:
It's no surprise that this area
has become known
as greenland's bermuda triangle.
♪♪
To understand why
all these planes
were flying over here
to begin with,
you have to go back
to world war ii.
♪♪
After joining the allies,
the united states
faced the problem
of transporting
their massive bombing fleet
to bases in great britain.
To avoid german u boats
that were decimating ships
in the atlantic ocean,
they started flying rather
than shipping aircraft
across the north atlantic
to allied bases
in great britain.
All these planes had to land in
canada and greenland to refuel,
which meant crossing over
the treacherous ice cap.
A high percentage of these
planes unexpectedly crashed
in southeastern greenland,
and sometimes the planes
sent out to rescue them
suffered a similar fate.
♪♪
These aircraft were flown by
expertly trained military pilots
who would have been used
to flying in extreme conditions.
♪♪
Narrator: What is it about this
particular part of greenland
that was bringing
these planes down?
♪♪
The researchers who discovered
the plane deep within the ice
believe it may have been one
of the infamous lost squadron.
♪♪
A squadron of u.S. Planes
consisting of six p-38s
and two b-17s was traveling
along the snowball route.
The squadron fueled up
in greenland without incident,
but heading east
over the ice cap,
flying at 12,000 feet,
they encountered a problem.
♪♪
Somara: The radio operators
attempted to make contact
with another plane
flying just ahead of them,
but there was no answer.
Narrator: Two hours from
the closest air base,
the pilots were forced
to make a sudden
and unexpected emergency
landing on a glacier.
So the surface of an ice sheet
is just snow,
it's like a snow drift
that extends forever.
And if you tried to land
a plane on it
that wasn't designed
to land on the ice
that didn't have specially
equipped skis on it,
the wheels would sink.
It would have to be an emergency
situation for you to land there.
♪♪
The squad lead was the first
to take the plunge,
landing hard and flipping over.
One by one, they all descended
and suffered similar fates,
but miraculously,
no one was injured.
The pilots were rescued
and the planes were abandoned,
left to rust out, eventually to
be swallowed whole by the ice.
What forced these planes
to make an emergency
landing on the glacier?
♪♪
Maybe their proximity
to the north pole
was scrambling
the plane's compasses?
Somara: When you're flying near
one of the earth's
magnetic poles,
it becomes challenging
because your regular compass
becomes pretty much useless.
Narrator: Magnetic field lines
from the earth's poles
can cause a plane's compass
magnets to dip.
When this happens,
it's practically impossible
to get accurate readings.
O'keefe:
These were experienced pilots.
They would have been trained to
adjust for compass variations.
Narrator:
So if it wasn't pilot error,
what else could be
bringing down the planes?
♪♪
Known to greenlanders
as piteraq alley,
this area of southeastern
greenland is dominated
by sudden extreme winds
that appear
seemingly out of nowhere.
So as air cools on the surface
of an ice sheet,
it gets dense
and starts to flow downhill
under its own weight.
If there's a storm on the coast
that has low pressure,
it can actually suck this wind
down these valleys
and create a tremendous storm.
♪♪
Bellinger: The word piteraq
means that which attacks.
There's so strong they can rip
the roofs right off houses.
Narrator: These deadly winds can
clock up to 200 miles per hour.
It can knock down buildings,
it can shred tents to ribbons.
It's a pretty intense wind.
♪♪
Narrator:
Add in the tunneling effect
from the many fjords
and valleys,
and you've created
the perfect storm.
♪♪
But there's a problem
with this theory.
Piteraq winds occur
at pretty low altitudes
so they typically exist
below 1,000 feet.
♪♪
The planes flying
over greenland at that time
would have almost certainly been
flying way higher than that.
So it makes it
extremely unlikely
that the winds are to blame.
♪♪
Narrator:
So if it isn't a piteraq wind
that's bringing all
these planes down,
what is?
Recovering the buried p-38
could be crucial
to understanding
what happened here.
♪♪
An international team
of aviation experts
embarked on mission impossible,
digging the 70-year-old p-38
out of the ice.
But how do you get
a 6-ton aircraft
out from under 300 feet of ice?
Narrator: And if they do manage
to get it out,
could it help them
unlock the mystery
of greenland's bermuda triangle?
♪♪
[ wind whistling ]
♪♪
Greenland's southern coastline
conceals the wrecks
of over 30 downed planes in
an area that's become known as
greenland's bermuda triangle.
Researchers are attempting
to retrieve
one of these lost planes,
a p-38 from world war ii,
from hundreds of feet
below the surface.
It is hoped
it will shed some light
on the area's deadly secrets.
The plane is buried 300 feet
below the surface,
it's not gonna be easy
to extract it from the ice.
♪♪
Narrator:
The team developed a new type
of thermal meltdown generator
called a super gopher.
It bores through the ice
by heating it
and pumping the melted water
back to the surface
through a pipe.
♪♪
Wrapped in copper
hot water lines,
the heat melted the ice
at 2 to 4 feet an hour.
It took days for this thing
to slowly bore
hundreds of feet into the ice,
but then it finally
hit something.
Found in great condition, the
plane was expertly taken apart
and painstakingly hauled up
to the surface piece by piece.
They named her glacier girl.
♪♪
Somara:
Other than damage from the ice,
no equipment on the plane
was broken,
there were no signs
of a mechanical error,
so there was still no answers
to what actually happened
to these planes.
♪♪
Narrator: With no clues,
researchers would have to look
elsewhere for answers.
Our understanding of weather
over greenland
has come a tremendous way
since the 1940s.
We have satellite observations
covering the globe constantly,
we have weather stations
all around
every coast on the planet.
These are things we simply
did not have in the 1940s.
♪♪
Bellinger:
In this part of greenland,
deadly whiteout blizzards
can form in a matter of minutes.
♪♪
Narrator: Blizzards
in greenland can happen
with no warning at all.
They form when the northern
polar jet stream clashes
with the warmer, moist air
moving up from the south,
creating catastrophic blizzards
in minutes.
♪♪
Bellinger: Let's say suddenly
out of the blue,
the squadron is surrounded
by a blizzard,
freezing temperatures
start to ice the wings.
The heating in the planes
is basically nonexistent.
This p-38 from world war ii
was rudimentary,
it didn't have the capabilities
nor the equipment we have now.
♪♪
Narrator: Planes of that era
couldn't fly high enough
to avoid the blizzards for long
so there was nowhere to go.
Somara: They're flying through
thick, heavy clouds,
the ice cap and the sky
are all the same color,
so they can't even tell
where the horizon is.
♪♪
The pilot's hands and feet are
so frozen they can barely stand.
You're two hours
from the closest airport,
you can make radio contact, and
you're also running out of fuel.
♪♪
There was nowhere to go
but down.
Narrator: Landing on the glacier
was their only option,
one that proved to be
the right decision.
♪♪
Fortunately, modern-day aircraft
are able to avoid this problem
with increased range
capabilities.
And of course,
there have been advances
in weather prediction and radar.
♪♪
Narrator: Today, glacier girl
lives in texas.
♪♪
The crown jewel in a private
collection of classic airplanes.
But she flies just as well today
as the day she was made over
80 years ago,
a testament to
the aviation technology
that helped
win the second world war.
♪♪
♪♪
Close to 12,000 feet above
sea level in the italian alps...
♪♪
...A mystery hangs suspended
in ancient ice.
It's a pretty eerie sight,
they look like
an army of the dead reaching out
towards you from the glacier.
♪♪
Somara: Can you imagine seeing
them for the first time?
It would sent shivers
down your spine.
♪♪
Rose:
What happened to these people,
and how do they end up hanging
upside down
in such a strange way?
♪♪
Narrator: On a routine
climbing expedition,
local mountain
guide maurizio vicenzi
stumbles upon something
he's never seen before...
The frozen remains
of three human bodies.
These men look as if someone
hung them there,
it doesn't look natural.
Narrator: When the team examined
the bodies,
they appear to be
wearing uniforms
from the austro-hungarian army.
♪♪
These are uniforms
from world war I,
meaning these bodies
have been hanging there
for almost 100 years.
♪♪
Narrator: At the start of
world war I,
austro-hungary was allied with
germany and Italy,
but in 1915,
Italy switched sides
and declared war against them.
♪♪
The austro-hungarians
were determined
to keep the italians at bay.
As a result, it created
an entirely new battlefront
high up in the alps.
The battlefront became known
as the white war.
♪♪
Rose: These were some
of the worst conditions
anywhere in the war.
It was brutally cold,
soldiers faced
vicious alpine winters,
and excruciating frostbite.
♪♪
And fighting on top of mountains
meant dealing with avalanches.
Narrator:
An estimated 60,000 men died
in that way alone.
♪♪
It's clear these soldiers
died in the white war,
but when investigators
begin to study the bodies,
no one can come up
with a reasonable explanation
of how they ended up
in such an unnatural position.
Did someone place them here
on purpose?
Could this have been
some sort of wartime torture?
People don't just end up
hanging upside down in a glacier
unless something terrible
happened to them.
♪♪
[ wind whistling ]
♪♪
Narrator: The bizarre remains of
three world war I soldiers
are found hanging upside down
from a glacier.
Is there some sort
of sinister reason
they've been left like this?
♪♪
The answer could lie on
neighboring mountain,
punta linke.
♪♪
A year after he discovered
the bodies,
maurizio vicenzi was
on another climbing trip
and made a second discovery.
Narrator: A small cabin entombed
in the ice,
no bigger than a one-room shack.
What is this strange
icebound cabin,
and can it tell us anything
about the mummies
hanging in the ice?
This is no place
for a ski chalet,
it's way too high and remote.
♪♪
Maybe it's a hermit's hut built
by someone just trying
to get away from the world.
Narrator: Vicenzi and the group
of mountain climbers with him
chip away the ice covering
the cabin and explore inside.
There, they make yet another
remarkable discovery.
Somara: Using fans
to clear away the ice,
investigators find the tunnel
is tall enough
for a person to walk down,
and it's dug almost 300 feet
into the mountain.
Narrator: It's a lot of work to
build a cabin
at the top of a mountain,
let alone excavate 300 feet
of ice and rock.
♪♪
Could the cabin have been
a mine?
Maybe.
But you don't have to put a mine
at the top of mountain.
♪♪
What other reason would you
possibly dig a tunnel for?
Narrator:
Prisoners dig tunnels to escape,
but this is
a small, wooden cabin,
not a military jail.
♪♪
O'keefe: During the white war,
the alps were
the main battlefield,
and when you have fighting
at those elevations,
a major problem is how do you
get men, weapons, and supplies
all the way up to the front?
Narrator: The austro-hungarians
used the cabin and tunnel
as a vital link
in an elaborate supply line,
connecting the peio valley below
to the front line
high up in the mountains.
♪♪
Crates loaded with supplies
were pushed through the tunnel
before being launched onto
an unsupported cable 4,000 feet
across the valley.
♪♪
Rose: That's an insane way
to move supplies,
but how else would you move
heavy pieces of equipment
to the top of a mountain?
♪♪
Narrator:
Through brutal snowstorms
and freezing temperatures,
alpine troops would move
supplies as large as field guns
along this high-wire pathway.
They had some engines,
but a lot of that gear
was moved using manpower.
That would be a grueling effort
and definitely risky.
Maybe these bodies in the ice
were working on a similar supply
line but fell to their deaths.
♪♪
Narrator: Investigators returned
to the bodies looking for clues
to substantiate the theory
that they died by accident.
It's there they make
a vital discovery...
Bandages in their pockets.
♪♪
These weren't soldiers
taking supplies to the front.
♪♪
These were stretcher bearers
moving along
with the same supply lines
to bring wounded soldiers back.
O'keefe: But that still leaves
a couple of questions...
How did these men die,
and why did they end up
hanging upside down
in such strange positions?
Rose: The only way
to answer this mystery
is to exhume them from the ice
and autopsy the bodies.
♪♪
Bellinger:
Once removed from the ice,
it was obvious that the bodies
weren't tied together
by any kind of safety line.
So why were they
all hanging in a row?
Narrator: The autopsy turns up
some amazing findings.
O'keefe: They find wounds
on the bodies from shrapnel.
One man even still
has fragments in his lungs.
This suggests that they died
from artillery shell blasts.
Narrator: Research into written
accounts suggest
that these men died
in the final battle
for the mountain
on September 3, 1918.
Billson: Three medics in the
final battle on the front.
They were almost home.
♪♪
O'keefe: These men were killed
from a shell blast,
but that wouldn't leave them
hanging so close together.
Narrator: The ice itself
may hold the answer.
♪♪
[ wind whistling ]
♪♪
The remains
of three austrian medics
killed by an artillery blast
during world war I
are found hanging in the ice.
♪♪
Research into the glacier
might unlock the secret
to how these men
ended up suspended
by their legs
in such an ominous manner.
Rose: Written reports suggest
that many of the men
who were killed
during the final battle
were buried up there
on the mountaintop.
In the midst of the fighting,
soldiers simply
couldn't bring the bodies
of their fallen comrades
back down the mountain.
Narrator: The answer to how the
bodies ended up in this position
may lie in the way
the ice is melting.
The glacier isn't melting
from the top down,
it's melting from the side.
Narrator: As the ice melts,
it exposes the head and torso
of the bodies of the medics.
With their legs
still stuck in the ice,
the bodies appear to be
suspended from the glacier.
♪♪
So, these three soldiers
were laid to rest together
in a common grave,
but over time, the ice melted
and the grave gave out
from underneath them.
Narrator:
An exhaustive investigation
for the men's identities
failed to turn up
the medics' names.
Once investigators
finish their autopsy,
the men were transported to
a military cemetery in peio
and buried with honor.
After over 100 years,
these medics finally
found their resting place.
♪♪
We might not know their names,
but we know
they gave their lives
trying to save wounded soldiers,
and for that, they were heroes.
♪♪
♪♪
Narrator: At the base
of a massive glacier
in southern greenland,
a team of danish archeologists
make an odd discovery.
There's something really off
about this place,
but you just can't quite
put your finger on what it is.
♪♪
You stand there, and you
get this really eerie feeling.
Narrator: On the edge
of a remote open plain
facing the glacier sits an odd
arrangement of ancient stones.
It's almost as if they've been
deliberately arranged
in this way.
♪♪
Narrator: On first glance,
it appears as if they're
in the shape of a circle,
but on closer inspection,
it looks more
like a boat or a dinghy.
It's clearly the remains
of some sort of stone hut.
Someone at some point in time
went to a lot of trouble
to lay these stones
in the middle of nowhere,
but why?
Narrator: When archeologists
excavate the hut,
they find something
even more peculiar.
Under a stone and turf bench,
they find the remains of a box
filled with a strange collection
of artifacts and animal bones.
Rose: It's a unique find.
It's fascinating
when you find animal bones
collected and stored like this.
The cache includes tusks,
walrus jaw gaming pieces,
an adler comb, an iron knife,
and a fragment of soapstone.
Could this place have been used
for a mysterious purpose?
Rose: Seeing a collection like
this can get under your skin,
it's unsettling.
♪♪
Wolf: You don't just build one
stone hut on its own
at the edge of a glacier
miles from anywhere,
unless you want
to be left alone.
Bellinger: So who was out there
alone in the middle of nowhere,
burying a box of bones?
Narrator: The inuit have lived
in greenland
for about 800 years,
initially arriving
from high arctic canada.
Could this be the remains
of an inuit shelter?
It's not out of the realm
of possibility,
but there's a problem with this.
Traditionally, inuit buildings
were square-shaped
and would have been
made of turf, sod, or even ice,
but not stone.
♪♪
Narrator: However, the inuit did
sometimes use stone
in another way.
They would use stones
as a temporary base for a tent
while out hunting and trekking.
Could this be the remains
of such a tent?
♪♪
Rose:
The stones don't look temporary.
They're built
on a solid foundation,
which means someone meant
for this structure to last.
Narrator: And the inuit never
would have built a shelter
on an exposed cliff like this.
Billson: So if it wasn't the
inuit, then who built this?
Who else was living here
hundreds of years ago?
♪♪
[ wind whistling ]
♪♪
Narrator: On a remote plane
in southern greenland,
archeologists have discovered
the remains
of a strange stone hut
in a box containing
an intriguing collection
of animal bones and artifacts.
The question is,
who built this hut and why?
The vikings arrived
in greenland from iceland
in 985 a.D.,
settling into the relatively
fertile lake district
on the southern part
of the island.
♪♪
Life was extremely hard
in this part of the world,
but the vikings managed
to grow their community
to several thousand inhabitants.
Perhaps this is the remains
of a viking home.
♪♪
Billson: Based on the location
of the hut,
right beside a glacier
with that freezing wind
coming off the ice,
it's highly unlikely this
would have been anything other
than a temporary dwelling.
♪♪
Life would be absolutely
horrific here in the winter.
Narrator: Not only is
the location all wrong
for a viking house,
so is the size.
It's only about
5 feet in diameter.
♪♪
It's tiny, but its construction
looks viking.
The stone and unique boat shape
are all signs of a viking build.
Narrator:
Upon closer investigation,
archeologists find the remains
of a fire pit
and believe it dates
to the early 1400s.
So why is there a fireplace
if this isn't a house?
Narrator: Vikings farmed the
harsh landscape
as best they could
and would often
graze their animals
on pastures in the summer.
When the vikings took
their animals out in the summer,
they would build small huts
called seters
where you could milk animals.
Narrator:
But what kind of shepherd
keeps a strange collection
of animal bones
and artifacts in a box?
♪♪
Rose: When I look at this
bizarre collection,
my mind goes immediately
toward ritual and magic.
If it's not a house or a farm,
then what was going on here?
♪♪
Narrator: Could this stone hut
be linked to the dark arts?
♪♪
Researchers look for clues
amongst the artifacts and bones,
zeroing in on one item
in particular, a walrus tusk.
The greenland vikings'
most lucrative export
was walrus tusk.
They exported a huge amount
of it every year
to iceland and denmark.
♪♪
Bellinger: Just one walrus tusk
would be worth more
than an entire cow.
There's no way someone
would just leave that
in the middle of nowhere.
Narrator: Archeologists were
puzzled to see
such a strange collection
of objects.
It wasn't something
they would normally find
in the excavation
of viking structures.
They were both
high- and low-value items,
often represented by only
one or two artifacts of bone,
but from a whole variety
of different animals.
This collection gives me
the impression of ritual.
Bellinger: If you want to
understand the ritualistic side
of the viking world,
the best place to start
is the icelandic sagas.
♪♪
Narrator: In the sagas, there is
a story about a viking seer
from norway, known as the volva,
who carries a strange
combination of objects
to practice magic.
♪♪
Seeing a collection like this
can give you the heebie-jeebies,
it's unnerving.
♪♪
Narrator: The sagas show
that viking communities
in greenland
were highly superstitious.
Medieval icelandic annals tell
of a sorcerer named kolgrim
burned at the stake in 1407
for the crime of using
the black arts
to steal another man's wife.
♪♪
After 500 years, the viking
colonies finally succumbed
to greenland's
inhospitable climate.
♪♪
And by the mid 15th century,
they disappeared
from its shores altogether.
Who built this hut
and why remains a mystery.
♪♪
Perhaps it was a norse seer
who sat by the fire
in the face of the glacier,
casting spells
and trying to stave off
the encroaching cold
for just a little longer.
♪♪