Secrets in the Ice (2020–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Arctic Doomsday Device - full transcript
A long buried underground installation built by the Americans that was supposed to have housed secret war machinery, but was overcome by nature itself and in Russia a long lost tomb is found when ice melts.
♪♪
Narrator: A secret, underground
military research station
frozen in the middle of nowhere
draws attention 60 years later.
Camp century was one of
the most elaborate cover stories
in the history of the cold war.
Somara: You have
to ask yourself,
what is the purpose
of this underground city?
♪♪
Narrator: A bizarrely disfigured
corpse in an ancient tomb
full of sacrificial victims.
♪♪
To be honest, it looked like
he had been tortured.
It's like,
who did this guy piss off?
Narrator:
And the mysterious reappearance
of a long lost airliner
on a glacier in the andes
raises suspicions.
Bellinger: The strange thing is the
last time anyone heard from stardust,
they were just a few miles
away from the airport.
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 ]
♪♪
Northern greenland, 700 miles
above the arctic circle,
feels like no other place
in the world.
This is one of the most
desolate places on the planet.
♪♪
Narrator: With the wind chill,
temperatures can plummet
to minus 80.
Exposed skin freezes
in less than a minute.
When it's this cold
and this isolated,
being out here messes
with your mind.
It's a psychological test
of endurance.
[ wind whistling ]
narrator: Not even caribou can
survive this far north on the ice sheet.
But if you look closely in
the middle of this icy desert,
you can see
a small collection of tents.
[ wind howling ]
o'keefe: It's just so strange.
What's so special
about this spot? Why here?
[ engine whirring ]
narrator: A group of danish
and american scientists
are keeping a close watch
on something lying dormant
deep within the ice
now in danger of reawakening.
Bellinger: What on earth
could be down there
that would need
so much surveillance?
Narrator: Buried around 30 feet
beneath the surface
are the remains of an abandoned
american military base
with a long forgotten secret.
♪♪
♪♪
In 1959, at the height
of the cold war,
america wanted to experiment
with new concepts
of polar construction.
In a remote region of greenland,
they set about building a city
under ice called camp century.
♪♪
This type of construction
had never been attempted before,
but the u.S. Army engineers
were confident in the design.
♪♪
A system of 23 trenches
would be dug into the ice cap
and then covered
with steel arches and snow.
[ rumbling ]
o'keefe: There was nothing
simple about this project.
The nearest port
is 150 miles to the west,
and the only way to transport
supplies is over the ice.
♪♪
Macferrin: You have an extremely
wide expanse
of heavily crevassed ice...
Deadly crevasses.
Entire vehicles could fall
into these crevasses.
And it's extremely cold.
You get temperatures
negative 40, negative 50.
It takes specialized equipment,
and it takes a lot of effort
and a lot of money
to get anything out
to the middle of the ice sheet.
♪♪
Somara: A project
of this scale and scope
would have been so expensive
and so risky.
You have to ask yourself,
"why are they doing this?"
what is the purpose
of this underground city?
♪♪
Narrator: Many now ask,
was there another,
more ominous reason
the u.S. Military decided
to build a city under the ice
at the ends of the earth?
♪♪
If the engineers knew the true
intent, they weren't talking.
They were busy battling
the effects of the arctic sun,
which blazes around the clock
in the summertime.
Somara: It's called
the midnight sun,
and it posed a constant threat
to the stability of the walls
they were creating.
But the upshot
with building with snow
is that you never
run out of supplies.
♪♪
Narrator: Once the steel arches
were in place,
crews put snow blocks
on top for support.
Then they sprayed the whole
structure with powdered snow,
which hardened under the sun
into a durable surface.
♪♪
Macferrin: So when snow first
falls, it's kind of fluffy.
We know that.
But when it compresses, it
becomes more like cinder block,
and you can actually build
buildings with that material.
[ saw whirring ]
narrator: Once the trenches
were complete,
they cut passageways
between the tunnels
and then closed off the ends
with walls of snow,
ensuring nothing gets in
and nothing gets out.
♪♪
Bellinger: The design
of this station was ingenious.
This had never been done before.
But very few people were privy
to the real purpose
behind this space.
What was the reason
for all the secrecy?
♪♪
Narrator: It took a little more
than a year
to build camp century,
which included barracks
for 200 men,
mess halls, maintenance shops,
kitchens capable
of feeding hundreds,
state of the art
scientific labs,
a church,
and even a barbershop,
all powered by a state of
the art mobile nuclear reactor,
the first of its kind.
♪♪
Macferrin: The u.S. Army
only had 6 of these,
and it was by far
the most expensive component.
It was roughly three quarters
of the cost of the entire base
was just that reactor.
♪♪
Narrator: All told,
the underground city
cost u.S. Taxpayers
$8 million to construct.
Bellinger: To put that
into perspective,
it's the equivalent
of about $71 million today.
Narrator: Within a few weeks,
the crew that built
the city were shipped out,
and the scientists moved in
and started work.
At least that's what the
u.S. Military told the world.
America's public message
was simple and innocent...
Camp century studies snow.
But just a few miles
from the station,
another project
was taking place,
one of a more sinister design.
They were building
a one and a half mile long
railway track under the ice.
The strange thing
was the track led nowhere.
Narrator: A railway track
leading nowhere,
a research station that had
no business being there,
and a group of scientists
worried about it decades later.
None of it adds up.
The disturbing truth
would take years to come out.
[ wind whistling ]
♪♪
Narrator:
Buried deep in the ice
of the most isolated part
of greenland
lies the remains
of a secret american
scientific research station
called camp century,
built in the late 1950s.
So why is it still
being monitored today?
♪♪
In the late 1950s,
america was involved
in an arms race with russia.
As cold war relations
intensified,
the united states
was looking for a way
to be able to launch
a nuclear strike
more quickly and effectively.
O'keefe: The american government
told the world
that the sole purpose
for camp century
was to conduct advanced,
scientific polar research.
But newly declassified documents
now reveal its true purpose.
Bellinger: Camp century was one
of the most elaborate cover stories
in the history of the cold war.
Its true identity?
Project iceworm.
Narrator: The u.S. Army
brain trust
calculated that they could
launch a nuclear attack
on russia from greenland
in half the time it would take
from the american mainland.
♪♪
Project iceworm's
ultimate objective
was to build a military
launch site hidden under the ice
big enough that it could house
600 nuclear missiles
all aimed at moscow.
[ whirring ]
♪♪
Narrator:
But it never happened.
The only nuclear device
that ever made it to greenland
was the reactor
that powered the camp itself.
Narrator: Why didn't the americans
arm the underground station?
It turns out they should have
done a little more research
on the greenland ice cap.
[ crackling ]
macferrin: The greenland ice
sheet moves in a couple of ways.
The ice flows under its own
weight towards the coast,
and it flows at different speeds
in different places.
But also, the snow compacts
down into glacial ice.
Anywhere you are
on the ice sheet,
it's in a constant state
of motion.
Narrator: U.S. Army engineers
miscalculated
how fast the ice sheet
was moving.
So by the late 1960s,
camp century
was starting to collapse.
As the ice shifts,
straight tunnels become curved,
and the tunnels close in on each
other as the snow is compacting.
[ ice groaning ]
somara: I think they realized
pretty quickly
that this environment was never
going to be safe enough
to house hundreds
of nuclear warheads.
Bellinger: With camp century having
been abandoned over 50 years now,
why are scientists camping out,
keeping an eye on it?
Narrator: The answer is in how
they abandoned the base.
While the military removed
the nuclear reactor,
they left everything else,
wrongly believing
that the snow and ice
would crush the remaining debris
and safely entomb
the toxic material forever.
They left a lot of waste
at camp century.
They left behind
huge caches of fuel.
They left behind buildings
full of pcbs
and other
construction materials.
And they left behind
all the coolant water
from the nuclear reactor.
It's all still there.
So if and when camp century
ever melts out,
all those wastes
that were left behind,
all those toxins,
will find their way
through rivers and streams
out to the coast
where people live.
♪♪
Narrator: Scientists continue
to monitor
the temperatures
of the snow and ice,
hoping to predict
how the ice sheet
will behave
over the next century.
At this point,
it's anyone's guess.
♪♪
♪♪
Hidden away in the border
between russia and mongolia
is the valley of the river uyuk.
The vast landscape is frozen
solid for most of the year.
It's called permafrost.
But for a short time
every summer,
the top layer melts just enough
to reveal a priceless discovery.
♪♪
Below the surface,
german and russian archeologists
unearth an elaborate ancient
tomb of a scythian ruler,
and there, they find the remains
of dozens
of sacrificial victims.
When you stand back
and look at it,
it defies belief.
O'keefe: One after another
after another.
Can you imagine stumbling
across so many bodies?
♪♪
Bellinger: Even when
you appreciate the value
of an archeological
find like this,
you can't help but think that
this is a gruesome way to die.
♪♪
Narrator: Archeologists
discover signs
consistent
with ritual sacrifice.
A number of the bodies
have pickax wounds to the skull,
indicating a quick,
relatively humane death.
I've seen evidence of
ritual sacrifice before,
but it's unusual to see
anything on this scale.
♪♪
Bellinger:
There were 30 bodies,
which was in itself
extraordinary,
but your focus immediately
zeroes in on a single individual
whose state was frankly bizarre.
Rose: His injuries are
inexplicable.
They just don't fit
with the others,
so it raises
all kinds of questions.
♪♪
Narrator:
It's clear to archeologists
that most of the victims
in this vast tomb
were killed
in the same manner...
All but one.
Why are his injuries
so different from the others?
To be honest, it looked like
he had been tortured.
He had a slash at
the base of his neck...
A grotesque hole in his
right cheek below his eye...
And this massive crack
running down
the right side of his skull.
♪♪
It's like,
who did this guy piss off?
Bellinger: It's clear that this
man suffered
a great deal before he died.
What did he do to justify
such a brutal death?
♪♪
Narrator: The scythians were
fierce, nomadic horsemen
who ruled an empire stretching
from the black sea
across siberia
to the borders of china
from 900 to 200 b.C.
They had no written language,
but legends about them
spread far and wide.
♪♪
Rose: Herodotus, who was a greek
historian at that time,
described the scythians
as a brutal and ruthless race
of warriors
who committed
a slew of atrocities,
which is a bit rich coming
from the ancient greeks.
♪♪
O'keefe: Apparently, they used
to scalp their enemies,
making cloaks of their skin.
Then they gilded the insides
of their skulls with gold
and used them as drinking cups.
♪♪
Rose: But the truly macabre
ritual the scythians practiced
had to be their death ceremony.
♪♪
Billson: When a king
or a military leader died,
he was buried with everything
he might need in the afterlife,
including his gold, horses, his
warriors, wives, and servants.
♪♪
The whole lot of them
went with him to the tomb
whether they liked it or not.
♪♪
Picture this...
You're perfectly healthy,
but you've just been told
it's time for you to die
because your king keeled over
from prostate cancer.
♪♪
O'keefe: Based on the writings
of herodotus,
all of the other people
in the tomb
would have been strangled.
It may sound horrific now to us,
but at the time,
it was a relatively quick
and painless way to die.
♪♪
Bellinger: You have to wonder
how much those who were
sacrificed knew in advance.
Narrator: Did they go willingly
to their fate?
Or did they fight back
and try to escape?
♪♪
You can't look at an ancient
ritual like this
through modern eyes.
♪♪
The scythians belief
in the afterlife
must have been so strong
that they had absolute faith
their lives wouldn't really end.
They would simply
continue on into another realm.
Maybe they even looked forward
to the next stage of existence.
Maybe they believed this was
an honorable way to die.
♪♪
Narrator: If all the people
in this tomb
had been mercifully sacrificed
as part of an
ancient scythian death ritual,
why are the injuries
to one individual
so markedly different?
♪♪
Narrator: Hidden under the icy
permafrost for centuries,
anthropologists discover
a spectacular
ancient scythian tomb.
But it's not gold and treasure
they're most intrigued by,
it's the remains of dozens
of sacrificial victims.
And among them,
one individual stands out.
All of the other
victims were killed
in the same humane manner...
All but one, who looks like
he might have been tortured.
What killed this man?
And why was his fate different
from all the others?
♪♪
Scientists examine the wound
at the back of his head
as a possible cause of death.
♪♪
Rose: If you look closely
at the shape of the wound,
you can see that it's made
a little groove in the bone
in the shape of a "v,"
so it could have been made
by a large knife or a sword.
And given what we know
about this culture,
it probably happened in battle.
♪♪
This was a pretty
significant blow to the head,
but did that kill him?
♪♪
Narrator: Scientists run the
bones through a ct scanner.
They look closely
at the edges of the wound.
Billson: Here you can see
signs of healing.
New bone had time to grow
before this man died.
Narrator: That means this was
an old injury
and not the cause of death.
So scientists then
turn their attention
to the hole in his cheek.
Rose: The hole itself was
generally pretty clean,
which indicates it was made
by a projectile object
rather than blunt force.
♪♪
Narrator: But what kind of
flying object
would create a hole like this?
It looked like he took a
triple-barbed arrow to the face.
♪♪
It shattered the bone
below his right eye
and then lodged firmly
into his cheek.
♪♪
The pain would
have been unbearable.
Narrator: Then they see some
thin cuts on the bone
unrelated
to the arrow's puncture.
♪♪
Again, we see this "v" shape...
Dozens of them.
♪♪
Rose: The whole unfortunate
series of events
probably happened
on the battlefield.
The warrior takes an arrow
to the face.
Maybe his horse
takes a few, as well.
He falls to the ground.
His comrades ride up,
trying to help.
They're thinking,
"we've got to
get that arrow out of his face."
so what do they do?
They try and hack it out
with a small knife.
♪♪
O'keefe: They literally tried to
cut or saw the arrowhead
out of his cheekbone repeatedly
using a small blade.
Hence the multiple
"v" shaped scars.
Can you imagine?
♪♪
Bellinger: If he was even still
conscious at this point,
you've got to imagine
he was ready to just give it up.
♪♪
The scythians may have been
skilled in a lot of things,
but medicine...
That wasn't one of them.
♪♪
Rose: So his friends go to get
the battlefield medic,
and at this point,
you're probably thinking,
how could this situation
get any worse?
♪♪
Narrator: Along the skull,
experts see
a single major fracture
running from the hole up
the right side of the skull.
♪♪
They conclude it could only
have been made by one thing.
[ clanking ]
in one last vain attempt
at saving the warrior's life,
the battlefield medic
must have picked up a chisel
and hammered it
into the cheekbone,
trying to break the arrow free.
Instead, it cracked his skull.
Narrator: They conclude this
is what killed him.
So why was he buried
in this tomb,
along with all of these
sacrificial victims?
He must have been regarded as
such a hero on the battlefield
that he was given
the highest honor...
To ride with his king
into the afterlife.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
Narrator: On one of the highest
mountains of the andes,
on the border of argentina
and chile,
lies an unusual glacier...
The tupungato rock glacier,
whose icy core is buried a meter
beneath its rocky surface.
♪♪
It's here that a gruesome
and perplexing
discovery is made.
♪♪
Human remains.
♪♪
Can you imagine how it must
have felt to stumble on that?
♪♪
O'keefe: Was it one person?
Two?
Three?
Your thoughts are just racing.
Narrator: Who did these bones
belong to,
and how did they end up here?
It's just horrific.
There's still nail polish
on the fingernails.
Bellinger:
Was this an accident?
You're just trying to
wrap your head around
what could have happened here.
Narrator: After the bones were
discovered,
the argentinean army
mounted a two-week expedition
to the remote glacier
to investigate.
Not far from the human remains,
they found an object
that could solve one of the most
enduring aviation mysteries
of all time...
A battered airplane engine.
A 1945 rolls-royce merlin.
Several planes use
the rolls-royce merlin engine,
one of the most famous
being the lancaster bomber.
[ engine whirring ]
so you start connecting
the dots...
Mid-1940s, the andes, lancaster.
The only known lancaster
to go missing
in the andes during that time
was a plane called stardust.
Narrator: The serial number on
the wreckage confirms it.
After disappearing from the face
of the earth over 70 years ago,
the long lost airliner
has been found.
♪♪
[ wind whistling ]
bellinger:
The strange thing is,
the last time
anyone heard from stardust,
they were about
to land in santiago.
They were just a few miles away
from the airport.
Narrator:
But the tupungato glacier,
where the wreckage is found,
is over 50 miles to the east.
How does this engine end up
50 miles away
in the middle of the andes?
[ wind whistling ]
narrator: The wreckage
of an airliner
that vanished off the face
of the earth 51 years ago
suddenly reappears on one of the
highest mountains of the andes,
far from where the crew said
they were when they disappeared.
Is there a sinister reason
behind this mystery?
Researchers explore the plane's
final hours looking for clues.
On August 2, 1947,
a british civilian version
of the wartime lancaster bomber
took off from buenos aires
on a scheduled flight to
santiago.
Flight cs59 was carrying
five crew members
and six high-profile
international passengers.
At the helm was the captain
reginald cook,
a distinguished
world war ii pilot,
along with his first
and second officers,
also boasting extensive
combat experience.
Bellinger:
These guys weren't rookies.
They were seasoned
combat veterans,
used to flying
in all kinds of weather
in the most stressful
environment there is... battle.
So what happened?
Narrator: According to the
accident report,
the last message ever
transmitted
from the crew of the stardust
was in morse code,
announcing their e.T.A. At the
airport in four minutes.
But that wasn't the strange part
of the message.
It was how they signed off
that caused the confusion.
[ morse code beeping ]
"stendec"?
What does "stendec" mean?
Narrator: The radio operator had
no idea,
so she asked the crew
to repeat the message,
which they did...
Two more times
in rapid succession.
After that...
Radio silence.
♪♪
Somara: Could it have been
some sort of code?
If you look closely
at the letters
that form the word "stendec,"
it's actually an anagram...
"descent."
maybe the crew were just having
a little fun
after a long flight.
O'keefe: A crew with this level
of experience
wouldn't be playing around,
especially when you're
responsible for people's lives.
Standard operating procedures
are drilled into pilots
for years before they even
make their first flight.
And if they break form,
they could lose their license.
It just isn't done.
♪♪
Narrator: Some believe
that the crew
might have been attempting
to spell the name of
the aircraft.
Bellinger: If you look at the
morse code for "stendec,"
and compare it to "stardust,"
there are some similarities.
But why would the operator
randomly tap out
the name of the aircraft
and get it wrong
three times in a row?
Not only that, but if he was
trying to identify the aircraft
to the air traffic control,
he would have used
the numeric code on the flight,
not the name of the aircraft.
Again, it doesn't conform
to aviation protocol.
[ morse code beeping ]
narrator: Another possibility
is that with a tiny adjustment
of the dashes and spaces,
it spells the words
"e.T.A. Late."
but why would the radio
operator message
that they were late
when they just informed them
that they would be landing
in four minutes?
O'keefe:
There's no rational answer
to why they transmitted
the word "stendec."
so what if the crew
weren't rational at the time?
Narrator: The lancaster
wasn't pressurized,
which meant that each individual
on the plane
had their own oxygen supply.
What if that supply got cut off,
rendering the crew susceptible
to hypoxia?
Bellinger: Stardust had
been cruising at an altitude
of 24,000 feet
the day they went missing.
The air that high is very thin,
meaning there's not enough
oxygen in it
to keep a person
functioning for very long.
Narrator: If there isn't enough
oxygen circulating in your blood,
your organs start to fail.
Hypoxia can come on within
very few minutes...
Can't breathe, you start to
sweat, your muscles seize up,
and you can become
euphoric or delusional.
Narrator: Was hypoxia the
reason the crew announced
they were four minutes
from landing at the airport?
Were they actually
still in the andes,
but suffering from delusions?
O'keefe: After the plane
disappeared in 1947,
an intensive five-day search
of the entire mountain range
along the flight path
yielded no results.
If stardust had crashed
in the andes,
they would have found
the wreckage back then.
♪♪
Narrator: Investigators
turn their attention
to the passengers on the flight,
looking for clues.
The passenger list
could be ripped
from some of the greatest
spy novels.
Narrator:
On board the fateful flight
were three brits,
a german woman,
a palestinian, and a swede.
Bellinger: The palestinian
was a businessman,
wealthy enough
to have a large diamond
sewn into his suit jacket.
The german was returning
to chile
with the ashes
of her dead husband.
And the brit
was a king's messenger
carrying critical
diplomatic correspondence.
I mean, where do you begin?
Narrator:
Diplomatic relations
between great britain and
argentina were tense in 1947.
O'keefe: The two countries were
fighting over territory in the antarctic.
Could it be that someone didn't
want the king's messenger
to deliver those
diplomatic documents?
[ suspenseful music plays ]
[ wind whistling ]
narrator: 51 years after it
vanished without a trace,
the wreckage of a british
airliner called stardust
magically reappeared
in the middle of the andes,
50 miles to the northeast
of where the crew said
they were when they disappeared.
Could this have been
a hijacking gone wrong?
Subsequent searches uncovered
more fragmented pieces
of the fuselage
on the crash site,
including
a largely intact propeller
and a piece of the wing.
Somara: Gps logging shows that
the debris field
covers just one square mile,
which is too small for a bomb.
But one thing
is becoming obvious.
Every piece of the wreckage
is crushed and crumbled,
which can only mean one thing...
The crash was the result
of a massive high-speed impact,
and it happened right there
on mount tupungato.
Narrator: Why then
did the crew message
that they had cleared
the mountains
and were minutes
from the santiago airport?
It's easy to forget that in
1947, there were no computers
to tell you where you are,
where you were,
and what time you're going
to get to where you're going.
Navigation was done
by pen and paper.
It was something
they called "dead reckoning."
bellinger: Dead reckoning
is a way of determining
where you are using time,
speed, and direction,
all in relation
to a fixed starting point.
Somara: But the formula only
works if the estimations are correct.
If you miscalculate, it could
have devastating consequences.
Narrator: So what could have
caused captain reginald cook
and his all-star crew
to make a major miscalculation
in either time or speed or
direction?
Somara:
You're racking your brain,
trying to figure out
what could have gone wrong.
It's a routine flight with
an extremely experienced crew.
And then you have
this "aha" moment.
O'keefe: If you look at
the weather report
on the day of stardust's
disappearance,
it was pretty bad.
That's why the crew decided
to fly above the weather.
So they ascended to 24,000 feet,
which put them out of sight
of the mountains
and the ground below.
Irving: The lancaster was one of
very few planes in existence
that could fly that high.
So little was known about
the weather systems
at that altitude.
[ wind whistling ]
narrator: At 24,000 feet,
they would have encountered
a meteorological phenomena
called a jet stream,
a fast-moving air current that
circulates high above the earth.
Jet stream winds can blow up to
275 miles an hour.
They're really strong.
And if you're heading into one,
they can really slow you down.
If the stardust was flying
into the jet stream,
they might not have known it.
They must have slowed down
so much
that their dead reckoning
calculations
were completely off.
O'keefe: When they radioed
santiago,
announcing that they were
four minutes away
from landing at the airport,
in actuality, they hadn't
even cleared the mountains.
So when they started
their descent,
they were on a collision
course with the glacier.
♪♪
Somara: With the cloud cover,
by the time they would
have seen the mountain,
it would have been too late.
Narrator: So why didn't
the argentinean army
find the wreckage back in 1947
when they searched the andes?
There's only one
probable explanation.
When the stardust crashed
into the mountain,
the vibration likely
caused an avalanche...
Which buried the wreck
under tons of snow,
and the glacier
just swallowed it up.
Narrator: Over the years,
the glacier inched its way
down the mountain.
When it got to
the lower altitudes, it melted,
revealing the wreckage.
90% of the wreckage
is still inside the glacier,
but with enough time,
we should eventually see
the rest of the plane.
Narrator: But as far as what
"stendec" means,
it's a mystery that will
likely remain buried forever.
[ dramatic music plays ]
♪♪
In the remote reaches
of northwest greenland,
buried under a massive glacier
lies a secret that's been hidden
for thousands of years.
The greenland ice sheet is a
massive blanket of snow and ice
covering nearly
the entire island of greenland.
Narrator: But even against
this immense backdrop,
the hiawatha glacier
dominates the landscape.
It's comprised of millions
of tons of snow and ice.
The hiawatha glacier is over
3,000 feet deep in certain places,
but until recently,
very little was known
about the landscape
that existed below it.
♪♪
Narrator: In 2016,
using ice-penetrating radar,
scientists make
a startling discovery...
A massive depression
under the glacier
that measures more than
19 miles across.
♪♪
The edge of the ice sheet
follows the contours
of the crater below it.
♪♪
Macferrin: It's actually amazing
it's remained hidden for so long.
It's right in front
of your eyes.
Narrator: The shape of the
depression is almost perfectly round.
Could it have been caused by an
asteroid of massive proportions?
♪♪
[ wind whistling ]
♪♪
Narrator: An enormous crater
has been discovered
underneath the hiawatha glacier
in greenland.
Scientists are exploring
whether it could have been
caused by an asteroid.
And if that's true, it could
change our understanding of life
on this planet.
About 13,000 years ago,
all the large ice age mammals
were wiped out
in one fell swoop.
Why is it that
so many big mammals,
including the wooly mammoth,
disappear from the fossil record
at about the same time?
Narrator: One theory is that an
enormous asteroid smashed into the earth,
causing widespread death
and destruction.
It's called the younger dryas
impact theory,
but until now,
there's been no proof.
Macferrin: Younger dryas has
been a controversial concept
in climatology
and geology for a long time,
simply because
they never found a crater
that would fit the theory...
Until now.
[ dramatic music plays ]
♪♪
Narrator: Scientists set about
trying to see if the depression
could, in fact, have been caused
by an asteroid.
First, they have to analyze
the ground underneath.
♪♪
Macferrin: Nasa's
ice-penetrating radar is unique,
because it's specifically
designed to map
the bedrock underneath the ice.
It gives us an idea
of what the ground looks like.
In this particular case,
underneath the ice, there's all
sorts of bumps and peaks
that, combined with the shape
of the crater,
points towards what
would be characteristic
of an asteroid strike.
Narrator: But scientists need
more evidence
to corroborate their theory.
They look to the melted water
running off the glacier
for clues.
And they find an unusual
rock formation...
Shocked quartz,
which looks like stained glass.
Irving: Quartz is one of
the most common minerals
in the crust of the earth.
But shocked quartz can only
be created
with intense heat and pressure.
Narrator:
There are only two events
powerful enough
to create shocked quartz...
Nuclear explosions
and asteroid strikes.
♪♪
The presence of shocked quartz
at this site
is completely consistent
with something like an asteroid
strike happening there.
Narrator: But if this was
an asteroid strike,
would it have been big enough
to kill off
all the large
ice age mammals on the planet?
♪♪
Macferrin: The hiawatha crater
is 19 miles wide.
It would take a hunk of iron
nearly a mile thick
to cause something like this.
♪♪
An asteroid that size
would have been three times
brighter than the sun at midday.
♪♪
Irving: When something
that big hits the earth
going more than 40,000
miles per hour,
it's going to make
a spectacular hole.
[ dramatic music plays ]
♪♪
Poinar: The energy released
by the impact
is greater than 700
one megaton nuclear bombs.
♪♪
Landscapes would have been
completely altered,
water would have been diverted,
and animals would have been
burned and buried alive.
[ fire crackles ]
even if you avoid
the initial strike,
you only have a few seconds
before the fireball hits.
Narrator: The impact instantly
evaporates ice
and showers flaming rock debris
as far away
as north america and europe.
Irving: So if you imagine
you're on a beach in california
and there's dust
and rocks raining down
and they're coming all the way
from greenland...
...There's nowhere to run,
everything's on fire,
it would have felt like
armageddon.
♪♪
It's not certain,
but it's conceivable
that an impact
this large would be enough
to extinct multiple species
around the world.
♪♪
Narrator: But did it hit
the earth at the right time?
Scientists haven't been able to
accurately date the crater yet.
Irving: At this point,
it's just a theory.
We need to do more research.
But now we have a new suspect.
The discovery of this crater
is extremely tantalizing.
The next step would be
to send an expedition
to drill beneath the ice
to see if the crater
can be dated more accurately.
Narrator: Until then, the
secret remains hidden in the ice.
♪♪
Narrator: A secret, underground
military research station
frozen in the middle of nowhere
draws attention 60 years later.
Camp century was one of
the most elaborate cover stories
in the history of the cold war.
Somara: You have
to ask yourself,
what is the purpose
of this underground city?
♪♪
Narrator: A bizarrely disfigured
corpse in an ancient tomb
full of sacrificial victims.
♪♪
To be honest, it looked like
he had been tortured.
It's like,
who did this guy piss off?
Narrator:
And the mysterious reappearance
of a long lost airliner
on a glacier in the andes
raises suspicions.
Bellinger: The strange thing is the
last time anyone heard from stardust,
they were just a few miles
away from the airport.
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 ]
♪♪
Northern greenland, 700 miles
above the arctic circle,
feels like no other place
in the world.
This is one of the most
desolate places on the planet.
♪♪
Narrator: With the wind chill,
temperatures can plummet
to minus 80.
Exposed skin freezes
in less than a minute.
When it's this cold
and this isolated,
being out here messes
with your mind.
It's a psychological test
of endurance.
[ wind whistling ]
narrator: Not even caribou can
survive this far north on the ice sheet.
But if you look closely in
the middle of this icy desert,
you can see
a small collection of tents.
[ wind howling ]
o'keefe: It's just so strange.
What's so special
about this spot? Why here?
[ engine whirring ]
narrator: A group of danish
and american scientists
are keeping a close watch
on something lying dormant
deep within the ice
now in danger of reawakening.
Bellinger: What on earth
could be down there
that would need
so much surveillance?
Narrator: Buried around 30 feet
beneath the surface
are the remains of an abandoned
american military base
with a long forgotten secret.
♪♪
♪♪
In 1959, at the height
of the cold war,
america wanted to experiment
with new concepts
of polar construction.
In a remote region of greenland,
they set about building a city
under ice called camp century.
♪♪
This type of construction
had never been attempted before,
but the u.S. Army engineers
were confident in the design.
♪♪
A system of 23 trenches
would be dug into the ice cap
and then covered
with steel arches and snow.
[ rumbling ]
o'keefe: There was nothing
simple about this project.
The nearest port
is 150 miles to the west,
and the only way to transport
supplies is over the ice.
♪♪
Macferrin: You have an extremely
wide expanse
of heavily crevassed ice...
Deadly crevasses.
Entire vehicles could fall
into these crevasses.
And it's extremely cold.
You get temperatures
negative 40, negative 50.
It takes specialized equipment,
and it takes a lot of effort
and a lot of money
to get anything out
to the middle of the ice sheet.
♪♪
Somara: A project
of this scale and scope
would have been so expensive
and so risky.
You have to ask yourself,
"why are they doing this?"
what is the purpose
of this underground city?
♪♪
Narrator: Many now ask,
was there another,
more ominous reason
the u.S. Military decided
to build a city under the ice
at the ends of the earth?
♪♪
If the engineers knew the true
intent, they weren't talking.
They were busy battling
the effects of the arctic sun,
which blazes around the clock
in the summertime.
Somara: It's called
the midnight sun,
and it posed a constant threat
to the stability of the walls
they were creating.
But the upshot
with building with snow
is that you never
run out of supplies.
♪♪
Narrator: Once the steel arches
were in place,
crews put snow blocks
on top for support.
Then they sprayed the whole
structure with powdered snow,
which hardened under the sun
into a durable surface.
♪♪
Macferrin: So when snow first
falls, it's kind of fluffy.
We know that.
But when it compresses, it
becomes more like cinder block,
and you can actually build
buildings with that material.
[ saw whirring ]
narrator: Once the trenches
were complete,
they cut passageways
between the tunnels
and then closed off the ends
with walls of snow,
ensuring nothing gets in
and nothing gets out.
♪♪
Bellinger: The design
of this station was ingenious.
This had never been done before.
But very few people were privy
to the real purpose
behind this space.
What was the reason
for all the secrecy?
♪♪
Narrator: It took a little more
than a year
to build camp century,
which included barracks
for 200 men,
mess halls, maintenance shops,
kitchens capable
of feeding hundreds,
state of the art
scientific labs,
a church,
and even a barbershop,
all powered by a state of
the art mobile nuclear reactor,
the first of its kind.
♪♪
Macferrin: The u.S. Army
only had 6 of these,
and it was by far
the most expensive component.
It was roughly three quarters
of the cost of the entire base
was just that reactor.
♪♪
Narrator: All told,
the underground city
cost u.S. Taxpayers
$8 million to construct.
Bellinger: To put that
into perspective,
it's the equivalent
of about $71 million today.
Narrator: Within a few weeks,
the crew that built
the city were shipped out,
and the scientists moved in
and started work.
At least that's what the
u.S. Military told the world.
America's public message
was simple and innocent...
Camp century studies snow.
But just a few miles
from the station,
another project
was taking place,
one of a more sinister design.
They were building
a one and a half mile long
railway track under the ice.
The strange thing
was the track led nowhere.
Narrator: A railway track
leading nowhere,
a research station that had
no business being there,
and a group of scientists
worried about it decades later.
None of it adds up.
The disturbing truth
would take years to come out.
[ wind whistling ]
♪♪
Narrator:
Buried deep in the ice
of the most isolated part
of greenland
lies the remains
of a secret american
scientific research station
called camp century,
built in the late 1950s.
So why is it still
being monitored today?
♪♪
In the late 1950s,
america was involved
in an arms race with russia.
As cold war relations
intensified,
the united states
was looking for a way
to be able to launch
a nuclear strike
more quickly and effectively.
O'keefe: The american government
told the world
that the sole purpose
for camp century
was to conduct advanced,
scientific polar research.
But newly declassified documents
now reveal its true purpose.
Bellinger: Camp century was one
of the most elaborate cover stories
in the history of the cold war.
Its true identity?
Project iceworm.
Narrator: The u.S. Army
brain trust
calculated that they could
launch a nuclear attack
on russia from greenland
in half the time it would take
from the american mainland.
♪♪
Project iceworm's
ultimate objective
was to build a military
launch site hidden under the ice
big enough that it could house
600 nuclear missiles
all aimed at moscow.
[ whirring ]
♪♪
Narrator:
But it never happened.
The only nuclear device
that ever made it to greenland
was the reactor
that powered the camp itself.
Narrator: Why didn't the americans
arm the underground station?
It turns out they should have
done a little more research
on the greenland ice cap.
[ crackling ]
macferrin: The greenland ice
sheet moves in a couple of ways.
The ice flows under its own
weight towards the coast,
and it flows at different speeds
in different places.
But also, the snow compacts
down into glacial ice.
Anywhere you are
on the ice sheet,
it's in a constant state
of motion.
Narrator: U.S. Army engineers
miscalculated
how fast the ice sheet
was moving.
So by the late 1960s,
camp century
was starting to collapse.
As the ice shifts,
straight tunnels become curved,
and the tunnels close in on each
other as the snow is compacting.
[ ice groaning ]
somara: I think they realized
pretty quickly
that this environment was never
going to be safe enough
to house hundreds
of nuclear warheads.
Bellinger: With camp century having
been abandoned over 50 years now,
why are scientists camping out,
keeping an eye on it?
Narrator: The answer is in how
they abandoned the base.
While the military removed
the nuclear reactor,
they left everything else,
wrongly believing
that the snow and ice
would crush the remaining debris
and safely entomb
the toxic material forever.
They left a lot of waste
at camp century.
They left behind
huge caches of fuel.
They left behind buildings
full of pcbs
and other
construction materials.
And they left behind
all the coolant water
from the nuclear reactor.
It's all still there.
So if and when camp century
ever melts out,
all those wastes
that were left behind,
all those toxins,
will find their way
through rivers and streams
out to the coast
where people live.
♪♪
Narrator: Scientists continue
to monitor
the temperatures
of the snow and ice,
hoping to predict
how the ice sheet
will behave
over the next century.
At this point,
it's anyone's guess.
♪♪
♪♪
Hidden away in the border
between russia and mongolia
is the valley of the river uyuk.
The vast landscape is frozen
solid for most of the year.
It's called permafrost.
But for a short time
every summer,
the top layer melts just enough
to reveal a priceless discovery.
♪♪
Below the surface,
german and russian archeologists
unearth an elaborate ancient
tomb of a scythian ruler,
and there, they find the remains
of dozens
of sacrificial victims.
When you stand back
and look at it,
it defies belief.
O'keefe: One after another
after another.
Can you imagine stumbling
across so many bodies?
♪♪
Bellinger: Even when
you appreciate the value
of an archeological
find like this,
you can't help but think that
this is a gruesome way to die.
♪♪
Narrator: Archeologists
discover signs
consistent
with ritual sacrifice.
A number of the bodies
have pickax wounds to the skull,
indicating a quick,
relatively humane death.
I've seen evidence of
ritual sacrifice before,
but it's unusual to see
anything on this scale.
♪♪
Bellinger:
There were 30 bodies,
which was in itself
extraordinary,
but your focus immediately
zeroes in on a single individual
whose state was frankly bizarre.
Rose: His injuries are
inexplicable.
They just don't fit
with the others,
so it raises
all kinds of questions.
♪♪
Narrator:
It's clear to archeologists
that most of the victims
in this vast tomb
were killed
in the same manner...
All but one.
Why are his injuries
so different from the others?
To be honest, it looked like
he had been tortured.
He had a slash at
the base of his neck...
A grotesque hole in his
right cheek below his eye...
And this massive crack
running down
the right side of his skull.
♪♪
It's like,
who did this guy piss off?
Bellinger: It's clear that this
man suffered
a great deal before he died.
What did he do to justify
such a brutal death?
♪♪
Narrator: The scythians were
fierce, nomadic horsemen
who ruled an empire stretching
from the black sea
across siberia
to the borders of china
from 900 to 200 b.C.
They had no written language,
but legends about them
spread far and wide.
♪♪
Rose: Herodotus, who was a greek
historian at that time,
described the scythians
as a brutal and ruthless race
of warriors
who committed
a slew of atrocities,
which is a bit rich coming
from the ancient greeks.
♪♪
O'keefe: Apparently, they used
to scalp their enemies,
making cloaks of their skin.
Then they gilded the insides
of their skulls with gold
and used them as drinking cups.
♪♪
Rose: But the truly macabre
ritual the scythians practiced
had to be their death ceremony.
♪♪
Billson: When a king
or a military leader died,
he was buried with everything
he might need in the afterlife,
including his gold, horses, his
warriors, wives, and servants.
♪♪
The whole lot of them
went with him to the tomb
whether they liked it or not.
♪♪
Picture this...
You're perfectly healthy,
but you've just been told
it's time for you to die
because your king keeled over
from prostate cancer.
♪♪
O'keefe: Based on the writings
of herodotus,
all of the other people
in the tomb
would have been strangled.
It may sound horrific now to us,
but at the time,
it was a relatively quick
and painless way to die.
♪♪
Bellinger: You have to wonder
how much those who were
sacrificed knew in advance.
Narrator: Did they go willingly
to their fate?
Or did they fight back
and try to escape?
♪♪
You can't look at an ancient
ritual like this
through modern eyes.
♪♪
The scythians belief
in the afterlife
must have been so strong
that they had absolute faith
their lives wouldn't really end.
They would simply
continue on into another realm.
Maybe they even looked forward
to the next stage of existence.
Maybe they believed this was
an honorable way to die.
♪♪
Narrator: If all the people
in this tomb
had been mercifully sacrificed
as part of an
ancient scythian death ritual,
why are the injuries
to one individual
so markedly different?
♪♪
Narrator: Hidden under the icy
permafrost for centuries,
anthropologists discover
a spectacular
ancient scythian tomb.
But it's not gold and treasure
they're most intrigued by,
it's the remains of dozens
of sacrificial victims.
And among them,
one individual stands out.
All of the other
victims were killed
in the same humane manner...
All but one, who looks like
he might have been tortured.
What killed this man?
And why was his fate different
from all the others?
♪♪
Scientists examine the wound
at the back of his head
as a possible cause of death.
♪♪
Rose: If you look closely
at the shape of the wound,
you can see that it's made
a little groove in the bone
in the shape of a "v,"
so it could have been made
by a large knife or a sword.
And given what we know
about this culture,
it probably happened in battle.
♪♪
This was a pretty
significant blow to the head,
but did that kill him?
♪♪
Narrator: Scientists run the
bones through a ct scanner.
They look closely
at the edges of the wound.
Billson: Here you can see
signs of healing.
New bone had time to grow
before this man died.
Narrator: That means this was
an old injury
and not the cause of death.
So scientists then
turn their attention
to the hole in his cheek.
Rose: The hole itself was
generally pretty clean,
which indicates it was made
by a projectile object
rather than blunt force.
♪♪
Narrator: But what kind of
flying object
would create a hole like this?
It looked like he took a
triple-barbed arrow to the face.
♪♪
It shattered the bone
below his right eye
and then lodged firmly
into his cheek.
♪♪
The pain would
have been unbearable.
Narrator: Then they see some
thin cuts on the bone
unrelated
to the arrow's puncture.
♪♪
Again, we see this "v" shape...
Dozens of them.
♪♪
Rose: The whole unfortunate
series of events
probably happened
on the battlefield.
The warrior takes an arrow
to the face.
Maybe his horse
takes a few, as well.
He falls to the ground.
His comrades ride up,
trying to help.
They're thinking,
"we've got to
get that arrow out of his face."
so what do they do?
They try and hack it out
with a small knife.
♪♪
O'keefe: They literally tried to
cut or saw the arrowhead
out of his cheekbone repeatedly
using a small blade.
Hence the multiple
"v" shaped scars.
Can you imagine?
♪♪
Bellinger: If he was even still
conscious at this point,
you've got to imagine
he was ready to just give it up.
♪♪
The scythians may have been
skilled in a lot of things,
but medicine...
That wasn't one of them.
♪♪
Rose: So his friends go to get
the battlefield medic,
and at this point,
you're probably thinking,
how could this situation
get any worse?
♪♪
Narrator: Along the skull,
experts see
a single major fracture
running from the hole up
the right side of the skull.
♪♪
They conclude it could only
have been made by one thing.
[ clanking ]
in one last vain attempt
at saving the warrior's life,
the battlefield medic
must have picked up a chisel
and hammered it
into the cheekbone,
trying to break the arrow free.
Instead, it cracked his skull.
Narrator: They conclude this
is what killed him.
So why was he buried
in this tomb,
along with all of these
sacrificial victims?
He must have been regarded as
such a hero on the battlefield
that he was given
the highest honor...
To ride with his king
into the afterlife.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
Narrator: On one of the highest
mountains of the andes,
on the border of argentina
and chile,
lies an unusual glacier...
The tupungato rock glacier,
whose icy core is buried a meter
beneath its rocky surface.
♪♪
It's here that a gruesome
and perplexing
discovery is made.
♪♪
Human remains.
♪♪
Can you imagine how it must
have felt to stumble on that?
♪♪
O'keefe: Was it one person?
Two?
Three?
Your thoughts are just racing.
Narrator: Who did these bones
belong to,
and how did they end up here?
It's just horrific.
There's still nail polish
on the fingernails.
Bellinger:
Was this an accident?
You're just trying to
wrap your head around
what could have happened here.
Narrator: After the bones were
discovered,
the argentinean army
mounted a two-week expedition
to the remote glacier
to investigate.
Not far from the human remains,
they found an object
that could solve one of the most
enduring aviation mysteries
of all time...
A battered airplane engine.
A 1945 rolls-royce merlin.
Several planes use
the rolls-royce merlin engine,
one of the most famous
being the lancaster bomber.
[ engine whirring ]
so you start connecting
the dots...
Mid-1940s, the andes, lancaster.
The only known lancaster
to go missing
in the andes during that time
was a plane called stardust.
Narrator: The serial number on
the wreckage confirms it.
After disappearing from the face
of the earth over 70 years ago,
the long lost airliner
has been found.
♪♪
[ wind whistling ]
bellinger:
The strange thing is,
the last time
anyone heard from stardust,
they were about
to land in santiago.
They were just a few miles away
from the airport.
Narrator:
But the tupungato glacier,
where the wreckage is found,
is over 50 miles to the east.
How does this engine end up
50 miles away
in the middle of the andes?
[ wind whistling ]
narrator: The wreckage
of an airliner
that vanished off the face
of the earth 51 years ago
suddenly reappears on one of the
highest mountains of the andes,
far from where the crew said
they were when they disappeared.
Is there a sinister reason
behind this mystery?
Researchers explore the plane's
final hours looking for clues.
On August 2, 1947,
a british civilian version
of the wartime lancaster bomber
took off from buenos aires
on a scheduled flight to
santiago.
Flight cs59 was carrying
five crew members
and six high-profile
international passengers.
At the helm was the captain
reginald cook,
a distinguished
world war ii pilot,
along with his first
and second officers,
also boasting extensive
combat experience.
Bellinger:
These guys weren't rookies.
They were seasoned
combat veterans,
used to flying
in all kinds of weather
in the most stressful
environment there is... battle.
So what happened?
Narrator: According to the
accident report,
the last message ever
transmitted
from the crew of the stardust
was in morse code,
announcing their e.T.A. At the
airport in four minutes.
But that wasn't the strange part
of the message.
It was how they signed off
that caused the confusion.
[ morse code beeping ]
"stendec"?
What does "stendec" mean?
Narrator: The radio operator had
no idea,
so she asked the crew
to repeat the message,
which they did...
Two more times
in rapid succession.
After that...
Radio silence.
♪♪
Somara: Could it have been
some sort of code?
If you look closely
at the letters
that form the word "stendec,"
it's actually an anagram...
"descent."
maybe the crew were just having
a little fun
after a long flight.
O'keefe: A crew with this level
of experience
wouldn't be playing around,
especially when you're
responsible for people's lives.
Standard operating procedures
are drilled into pilots
for years before they even
make their first flight.
And if they break form,
they could lose their license.
It just isn't done.
♪♪
Narrator: Some believe
that the crew
might have been attempting
to spell the name of
the aircraft.
Bellinger: If you look at the
morse code for "stendec,"
and compare it to "stardust,"
there are some similarities.
But why would the operator
randomly tap out
the name of the aircraft
and get it wrong
three times in a row?
Not only that, but if he was
trying to identify the aircraft
to the air traffic control,
he would have used
the numeric code on the flight,
not the name of the aircraft.
Again, it doesn't conform
to aviation protocol.
[ morse code beeping ]
narrator: Another possibility
is that with a tiny adjustment
of the dashes and spaces,
it spells the words
"e.T.A. Late."
but why would the radio
operator message
that they were late
when they just informed them
that they would be landing
in four minutes?
O'keefe:
There's no rational answer
to why they transmitted
the word "stendec."
so what if the crew
weren't rational at the time?
Narrator: The lancaster
wasn't pressurized,
which meant that each individual
on the plane
had their own oxygen supply.
What if that supply got cut off,
rendering the crew susceptible
to hypoxia?
Bellinger: Stardust had
been cruising at an altitude
of 24,000 feet
the day they went missing.
The air that high is very thin,
meaning there's not enough
oxygen in it
to keep a person
functioning for very long.
Narrator: If there isn't enough
oxygen circulating in your blood,
your organs start to fail.
Hypoxia can come on within
very few minutes...
Can't breathe, you start to
sweat, your muscles seize up,
and you can become
euphoric or delusional.
Narrator: Was hypoxia the
reason the crew announced
they were four minutes
from landing at the airport?
Were they actually
still in the andes,
but suffering from delusions?
O'keefe: After the plane
disappeared in 1947,
an intensive five-day search
of the entire mountain range
along the flight path
yielded no results.
If stardust had crashed
in the andes,
they would have found
the wreckage back then.
♪♪
Narrator: Investigators
turn their attention
to the passengers on the flight,
looking for clues.
The passenger list
could be ripped
from some of the greatest
spy novels.
Narrator:
On board the fateful flight
were three brits,
a german woman,
a palestinian, and a swede.
Bellinger: The palestinian
was a businessman,
wealthy enough
to have a large diamond
sewn into his suit jacket.
The german was returning
to chile
with the ashes
of her dead husband.
And the brit
was a king's messenger
carrying critical
diplomatic correspondence.
I mean, where do you begin?
Narrator:
Diplomatic relations
between great britain and
argentina were tense in 1947.
O'keefe: The two countries were
fighting over territory in the antarctic.
Could it be that someone didn't
want the king's messenger
to deliver those
diplomatic documents?
[ suspenseful music plays ]
[ wind whistling ]
narrator: 51 years after it
vanished without a trace,
the wreckage of a british
airliner called stardust
magically reappeared
in the middle of the andes,
50 miles to the northeast
of where the crew said
they were when they disappeared.
Could this have been
a hijacking gone wrong?
Subsequent searches uncovered
more fragmented pieces
of the fuselage
on the crash site,
including
a largely intact propeller
and a piece of the wing.
Somara: Gps logging shows that
the debris field
covers just one square mile,
which is too small for a bomb.
But one thing
is becoming obvious.
Every piece of the wreckage
is crushed and crumbled,
which can only mean one thing...
The crash was the result
of a massive high-speed impact,
and it happened right there
on mount tupungato.
Narrator: Why then
did the crew message
that they had cleared
the mountains
and were minutes
from the santiago airport?
It's easy to forget that in
1947, there were no computers
to tell you where you are,
where you were,
and what time you're going
to get to where you're going.
Navigation was done
by pen and paper.
It was something
they called "dead reckoning."
bellinger: Dead reckoning
is a way of determining
where you are using time,
speed, and direction,
all in relation
to a fixed starting point.
Somara: But the formula only
works if the estimations are correct.
If you miscalculate, it could
have devastating consequences.
Narrator: So what could have
caused captain reginald cook
and his all-star crew
to make a major miscalculation
in either time or speed or
direction?
Somara:
You're racking your brain,
trying to figure out
what could have gone wrong.
It's a routine flight with
an extremely experienced crew.
And then you have
this "aha" moment.
O'keefe: If you look at
the weather report
on the day of stardust's
disappearance,
it was pretty bad.
That's why the crew decided
to fly above the weather.
So they ascended to 24,000 feet,
which put them out of sight
of the mountains
and the ground below.
Irving: The lancaster was one of
very few planes in existence
that could fly that high.
So little was known about
the weather systems
at that altitude.
[ wind whistling ]
narrator: At 24,000 feet,
they would have encountered
a meteorological phenomena
called a jet stream,
a fast-moving air current that
circulates high above the earth.
Jet stream winds can blow up to
275 miles an hour.
They're really strong.
And if you're heading into one,
they can really slow you down.
If the stardust was flying
into the jet stream,
they might not have known it.
They must have slowed down
so much
that their dead reckoning
calculations
were completely off.
O'keefe: When they radioed
santiago,
announcing that they were
four minutes away
from landing at the airport,
in actuality, they hadn't
even cleared the mountains.
So when they started
their descent,
they were on a collision
course with the glacier.
♪♪
Somara: With the cloud cover,
by the time they would
have seen the mountain,
it would have been too late.
Narrator: So why didn't
the argentinean army
find the wreckage back in 1947
when they searched the andes?
There's only one
probable explanation.
When the stardust crashed
into the mountain,
the vibration likely
caused an avalanche...
Which buried the wreck
under tons of snow,
and the glacier
just swallowed it up.
Narrator: Over the years,
the glacier inched its way
down the mountain.
When it got to
the lower altitudes, it melted,
revealing the wreckage.
90% of the wreckage
is still inside the glacier,
but with enough time,
we should eventually see
the rest of the plane.
Narrator: But as far as what
"stendec" means,
it's a mystery that will
likely remain buried forever.
[ dramatic music plays ]
♪♪
In the remote reaches
of northwest greenland,
buried under a massive glacier
lies a secret that's been hidden
for thousands of years.
The greenland ice sheet is a
massive blanket of snow and ice
covering nearly
the entire island of greenland.
Narrator: But even against
this immense backdrop,
the hiawatha glacier
dominates the landscape.
It's comprised of millions
of tons of snow and ice.
The hiawatha glacier is over
3,000 feet deep in certain places,
but until recently,
very little was known
about the landscape
that existed below it.
♪♪
Narrator: In 2016,
using ice-penetrating radar,
scientists make
a startling discovery...
A massive depression
under the glacier
that measures more than
19 miles across.
♪♪
The edge of the ice sheet
follows the contours
of the crater below it.
♪♪
Macferrin: It's actually amazing
it's remained hidden for so long.
It's right in front
of your eyes.
Narrator: The shape of the
depression is almost perfectly round.
Could it have been caused by an
asteroid of massive proportions?
♪♪
[ wind whistling ]
♪♪
Narrator: An enormous crater
has been discovered
underneath the hiawatha glacier
in greenland.
Scientists are exploring
whether it could have been
caused by an asteroid.
And if that's true, it could
change our understanding of life
on this planet.
About 13,000 years ago,
all the large ice age mammals
were wiped out
in one fell swoop.
Why is it that
so many big mammals,
including the wooly mammoth,
disappear from the fossil record
at about the same time?
Narrator: One theory is that an
enormous asteroid smashed into the earth,
causing widespread death
and destruction.
It's called the younger dryas
impact theory,
but until now,
there's been no proof.
Macferrin: Younger dryas has
been a controversial concept
in climatology
and geology for a long time,
simply because
they never found a crater
that would fit the theory...
Until now.
[ dramatic music plays ]
♪♪
Narrator: Scientists set about
trying to see if the depression
could, in fact, have been caused
by an asteroid.
First, they have to analyze
the ground underneath.
♪♪
Macferrin: Nasa's
ice-penetrating radar is unique,
because it's specifically
designed to map
the bedrock underneath the ice.
It gives us an idea
of what the ground looks like.
In this particular case,
underneath the ice, there's all
sorts of bumps and peaks
that, combined with the shape
of the crater,
points towards what
would be characteristic
of an asteroid strike.
Narrator: But scientists need
more evidence
to corroborate their theory.
They look to the melted water
running off the glacier
for clues.
And they find an unusual
rock formation...
Shocked quartz,
which looks like stained glass.
Irving: Quartz is one of
the most common minerals
in the crust of the earth.
But shocked quartz can only
be created
with intense heat and pressure.
Narrator:
There are only two events
powerful enough
to create shocked quartz...
Nuclear explosions
and asteroid strikes.
♪♪
The presence of shocked quartz
at this site
is completely consistent
with something like an asteroid
strike happening there.
Narrator: But if this was
an asteroid strike,
would it have been big enough
to kill off
all the large
ice age mammals on the planet?
♪♪
Macferrin: The hiawatha crater
is 19 miles wide.
It would take a hunk of iron
nearly a mile thick
to cause something like this.
♪♪
An asteroid that size
would have been three times
brighter than the sun at midday.
♪♪
Irving: When something
that big hits the earth
going more than 40,000
miles per hour,
it's going to make
a spectacular hole.
[ dramatic music plays ]
♪♪
Poinar: The energy released
by the impact
is greater than 700
one megaton nuclear bombs.
♪♪
Landscapes would have been
completely altered,
water would have been diverted,
and animals would have been
burned and buried alive.
[ fire crackles ]
even if you avoid
the initial strike,
you only have a few seconds
before the fireball hits.
Narrator: The impact instantly
evaporates ice
and showers flaming rock debris
as far away
as north america and europe.
Irving: So if you imagine
you're on a beach in california
and there's dust
and rocks raining down
and they're coming all the way
from greenland...
...There's nowhere to run,
everything's on fire,
it would have felt like
armageddon.
♪♪
It's not certain,
but it's conceivable
that an impact
this large would be enough
to extinct multiple species
around the world.
♪♪
Narrator: But did it hit
the earth at the right time?
Scientists haven't been able to
accurately date the crater yet.
Irving: At this point,
it's just a theory.
We need to do more research.
But now we have a new suspect.
The discovery of this crater
is extremely tantalizing.
The next step would be
to send an expedition
to drill beneath the ice
to see if the crater
can be dated more accurately.
Narrator: Until then, the
secret remains hidden in the ice.
♪♪