Strange Evidence (2017–…): Season 4, Episode 2 - Alien Armageddon Conspiracy - full transcript

Narrator: Worldwide, six
billion cameras are watching us...

On our streets, at work, and in our homes.

They capture things that seem impossible.

It defies the laws of physics.

Man: This is unbelievable, man.

Narrator: Experts carry out analysis

of these unusual events.

♪

[ screaming ]

I wanna know what I'm looking at.

There has to be some sort of explanation.



What else is going on here?

Narrator: Coming up, is america
being attacked from space?

Oman: Do you see that weird light?

It's like that movie "independence day."

a beam of light shoots down from the sky,

and stuff blows up.

Narrator: An invisible force
throws a girl to the ground.

Bam!

It's like she's hit by an unearthly power.

Narrator: And a slab of meat
lives on from beyond the grave.

It looks like a... some
kind of horror movie.

I would run.

I would just run.

Narrator: Bizarre phenomena... Whoa.



Narrator: ...Mysteries caught on camera...

Now, that's an explosion.

Narrator: What's the truth
behind this strange evidence?

Now, in the dead of night,

a blackout hits an american town.

Oman: Oh, the power just went out.

Narrator: Then, an explosion.

Strangest of all, cameras
capture a beam of light

that seems to strike from above.

It defies imagination.

Narrator: The sky pulses with energy.

It felt like an atck.

Narrator: Experts fear this could be

a new weapon of mass destruction

striking from space.

It looks a lot like armageddon.

♪

Narrator: Escanaba, on
the banks of lake michigan...

A quiet port town of 12,000 residents.

Its sandy beaches and large harbor

draws thousands of tourists

and fishermen to the town each year.

February 2, 2015... late evening.

As the sun goes down, locals relax at home.

One of them, artist kate
oman, is about to go to bed.

Oman: We were settling in for the night.

I was home alone.

Narrator: But then, all goes dark.

Oman: I don't know
what the heck's going on,

but all the power just went out.

Narrator: The darkness is
broken by an ominous light

flooding in from outside.

Oman: There's some weird colors going on.

I thought, "well, maybe
there's an electric storm,

but I didn't hear any
thunder. There was no rain.

There was nothing going on.

Narrator: Oman ventures
outside to investigate,

and that's when she sees it.

Oman: Do you see that weird light?

-Uh-huh. -Like, straight beam?

I don't know what's going on.

Narrator: Escanaba is in darkness.

The only light is this
blinding beam on the horizon

and a devastating explosion at its base.

The phenomenon baffles scientists.

This video really has all the hallmarks

of a sci-fi action movie.

You've got beams of
light. You've got explosions.

You've got people
running around in a panic.

Oman: So weird.

This is really frightening.

What's going on?

♪

Oman: I'm going over there.

Narrator: On the ground, oman
heads toward the blinding light.

And as she nears... Oman: Holy [bleep].

Narrator: ...She realizes
the city's power station

lies immediately under the beam.

Oman: Look at that.

The power station had actually blown up.

It just was on fire.

Narrator: Oman continues to
film as she tries to figure out

why the power station is burning,

and if the beam above is to blame.

Her mind races for an explanation.

I thought it could be aliens.

♪

Narrator: It's a nightmare straight out

of a hollywood science fiction film.

♪

It's like that movie "independence day."

a beam of light shoots down from the sky,

and stuff blows up.

You're kind of looking in the clip

for any sort of ship above.

Narrator: The footage is sent to retired

united states army colonel daniel davis.

He wonders if this is a weapon

of mass destruction firing from above.

Although it may seem
like stuff of science fiction,

in the 1980s we started what's called

the strategic defense initiative...

The sdi, or the star wars program

as it's come to be known...

Which was basically wanting
to have laser weapons,

whether airborne or in space.

Sdi will go forward.

Narrator: Declassified
documents reveal that after the u.S.

Kick-starts the space arms race,

other military superpowers follow.

All the major powers are doing research

to try to weaponize space.

Certainly china, russia are

doing lots of research and development

to try to make something like that happen.

Narrator: New evidence suggests

russia could already have
an operational space weapon.

♪

In August 2018,

the u.S. State department
expresses concerns

about a russian orbiting
object behaving abnormally.

They describe the craft's
movements as "very troubling."

russia dismisses the claims
as slanderous accusations.

But many are concerned it is a weapon

in disguise orbiting the planet...

A potential threat to
america's military dominance.

The first country to deploy a
fully operational space-based

weapon into orbit

will automatically have the
high ground in any future war.

Narrator: Witnessing this beam,

muñoz ponders if an enemy military

is showing their space laser's ability

to attack the american heartland.

Worse case scenario, what we're seeing here

is an operationally weaponized satellite

basically destroying this power grid.

It's literally death from the sky.

Narrator: Science journalist joe pappalardo

considers this terrifying possibility.

It's an almost james bond villain plan

to put a satellite into orbit
that has a strong enough laser

that it can strike anything below.

Narrator: Looking for
the potential space laser,

pappalardo checks the
space surveillance network...

A system capable of tracking the tens

of thousands of objects orbiting the earth.

Pappalardo discovers
no sign of a killer satellite

above escanaba on that day.

You can't hide things in orbit very easily,

not when they're big and not
when they're shooting death rays

down onto the planet below.

It's just not a viable theory.

♪

Narrator: The footage alerts
geophysicist sian proctor.

As a scientist, I want to know
what exactly is going on here.

There has to be an explanation.

Narrator: The beam is more
intense close to the ground.

It makes proctor
believe it isn't firing down

from the skies...

It's shooting up from within the inferno.

It is probably a really hot heat
source at the earth's surface.

Narrator: Analysis of
other power station fires

reveals none produce a beam
like the escanaba explosion.

It makes proctor suspect
there must be another

explosive ingredient in the
blaze powering the beam.

Oman: I have no idea what the heck it is.

♪

Narrator: Coming up, strange
powers are at work in mexico.

What force threw this girl to the ground?

Narrator: And proctor unleashes
the power of a deadly chemical

to try and explain escanaba's bizarre beam.

Proctor: You can see
how bright that's burning.

♪

♪

Narrator: A blackout, an explosion,

and a bizarre beam of light
shooting miles into the sky

from an exploding power
station in escanaba, michigan.

If I lived in that neighboood,
I'd be, um, terrified.

So what's going on?

Narrator: Geophysicist
sian proctor searches

the local area for clues,

and discovers there's a ship building yard

next door to the power plant.

It makes her wonder if
the beam could be powered

by an extremely dangerous
metal used in ships... magnesium.

♪

Proctor wants to test her theory.

♪

Whoo!

Whoo!

Narrator: Proctor analyzes the reaction

in super slow motion

to compare it to the escanaba beam.

It reveals the magnesium

does create a rising
channel of burning light,

but it's not focused or constant
like the beam over escanaba.

Well, it's pretty clear
from this experiment

that magnesium and
water burns really bright.

However, it doesn't produce
that beautiful column of light

that we see in the video.

♪

Narrator: The footage is sent
to meteorologist chris walcek.

He analyzes the video,

looking at the conditions
surrounding the beam,

and wonders if there could
be any natural explanation

and notices the clouds
appear extremely low in the sky.

It gives him a new idea...

The beam could be a result of weird weather

focusing the power plant's light.

Under the right conditions,
if it's not too heavily

snowing above even street lamps,

you'll see what looks
like a straight beam of light

pointing straight up.

Narrator: This rare
phenomena is called a light pillar.

They form whenever you have,

situations that are very cold with

very light falling snowflakes.

They act like a mirror.

They will reflect that light,

and it'll look like a perfect column.

Narrator: Extreme weather
expert chris bell discovers

supporting evidence
in local weather records.

So, this is michigan in
the middle of February.

Your had temperatures below freezing.

It looks like there's a little
bit of mistiness or haziness.

It does seem like the kind of conditions

that you would expect ice pillars to form.

It makes it quite plausible
that that's what it was.

Narrator: Finally, as eyewitness
kate oman gets closer,

suddenly the source of the beam

and the inferno vanishes as quickly

and mysteriously as it started.

Oman: Now the power
just went out over there.

Completely dark.

Narrator: And when oman
tries to get official answers

to explain what happened that night,

she is met with a wall of silence.

No one on a... on a
city level talks about it.

And they don't mention it to the public.

I still would like an answer.

♪

Narrator: Now, a dish
best served twitching.

Is it dead? Looks like it's alive.

How is that even possible?

Narrator: Some believe
it's proof of life after death.

The doors of death could open.

Narrator: Or is this the darkest experiment

ever attempted by science?

This looks like frankenstein's
opened a butcher shop.

♪

Narrator: Liaoning
province, northeast china...

This once-remote region
has been transformed

by industry and technology
into a vast metropolis

with a total of over 43 million residents.

♪

December 10, 2017... late evening.

Stove tops turn on to
cook dinner across the city,

but one resident discovers

her cut of beef is on the move.

At is the grossest thing I've ever seen.

I would run. I would just run.

Narrator: This twitching
meat baffles scientists.

Clearly dead and yet it's still moving.

It looks like a... some
kind of horror movie.

What's causing it to do that?

♪

Narrator: Folklorist deborah hyde

analyzes the footage.

For her, this flinching flesh
reminds her of a legend

found all over the world
...the rising of the undead.

The idea that flesh can have

some kind of peculiar supernatural life

after it should be dead is
common in most folklore.

They keep coming back even though

they should be still in their graves.

Narrator: We comfort
ourselves with the idea

there's a clear boundary
between life and death.

But records show this
isn't always the truth.

Exhumed coffins from
the 18th and 19th century

have been discovered with
scratch marks on the inside.

And cases of premature
declarations of death

are still recorded today.

The line between life and
death can be really fuzzy.

Around the world, people
have been declared dead,

and minutes or hours or even
days later have sort of woken up

and had this sort of
scary miracle of a rebirth.

Narrator: Mississippi,
2014... a 78-year-old man

arrives at a funeral parlor.

Then his body bag moves.

Inside, he is alive and kicking.

January 2018... a spanish
prisoner is declared dead

and taken to the morgue.

Hours later, morticians hear snoring

from one of the morgue fridges.

Then the dead man awakes as
though nothing has happened.

♪

In the past, people called this magic.

But biologist greg szulgit has studied

the science behind the phenomenon.

Often, a person can seem dead
because their heart has stopped,

for example, so their body is "dead."

but as long as their brain is still going,

they can get that to reengage
and get the heart started again.

They come back "alive."

narrator: But experts are
baffled at how a hunk of beef

could seemingly show signs of life.

What makes this so
weird and eerie is that we...

We're not used to seeing a piece of meat

that doesn't have any lungs,
any heart, any bloodstream,

any way of sustaining
itself attached to it,

and still moving.

♪

Narrator: Science journalist jeff wise

analyzes the twitching steak.

He thinks someone could be using technology

to keep this flesh moving.

There's something
else causing this pulsing,

like someone is trying to
bring this steak back to life.

Narrator: Reanimating dead flesh sounds

like something out of "frankenstein."

"frankenstein" is obviously fiction,

but it was based on very good science

that was going on at the
time and inspired by it.

People were taking small batteries

and shocking things like frogs' legs

that had been removed
from the head of the frog,

and they would twitch.

This was the creation of the first

sort of frankenstein's monsters.

It was a real thing.

Narrator: And experiments continued

to give life to dead body parts.

In the 1950s, soviet scientist

vladimir demikhov gruesomely tests

if head transplants are possible,

grafting the head and forelegs
of a puppy onto another dog,

connecting the two dogs' blood
supply to keep the puppy alive.

Incredibly, some heads live
on their new body for 29 days.

And today, sergio canavero
is dubbed the modern-day

dr. Frankenstein.

His experiments successfully
reattach the heads of rats,

using electric shocks
to briefly revive the brain.

Could similar sinister science
be making this meat move?

That's what this looks like.

This looks like a piece of dead meat

that is, like, being
animated with electricity.

Narrator: The footage is sent to ex-nypd

video analyst conor mccourt.

He looks for evidence
that electricity is stimulating

this unearthly-looking activity.

What we're looking for in this image

is something that would be
able to move this piece of meat.

Narrator: But close video analysis

makes him doubt the theory.

There's no sign of any electrical wires,

and the meat is on wood
that doesn't conduct electricity.

So the meat must be moving on its own.

♪

Narrator: Neuroscientist jayde lovell

examines the footage.

Listening to the voices
in the clip for clues,

she discovers crucial new evidence.

Lovell suspects that if this
meat has just been bought,

it would still be extremely fresh.

It makes her think the seemingly
impossible could be true...

Just like a zombie, this meat is undead.

It's possible that the
animal itself is dead

but twitching after death.

Narrator: Coming up, a schoolgirl victim

of an invisible attacker.

She literally goes down like a rag doll.

♪

Narrator: A river of fire and a wall

of ice combine to destroy.

-[ screams ] -you hear people screaming.

There's wreckage everywhere.

What the heck is going on here?

Narrator: And could this mysterious meat

hold the secret to immortality?

It looks like life after death,

like somebody coming
back from the other side.

♪

♪

Narrator: In a chinese kitchen,

a slab of meat flinches like it's alive.

Experts suspect that the
flesh could be living on its own,

a true case of the undead.

When you kill an animal,
the animal is dead...

There's no more brain function.

But the cells within the animal's muscles

are still alive for several minutes.

Narrator: It's an affect reported

across the natural world.

This rattlesnake moves after
being decapitated and skinned.

Man: And he is gutted and dead!

Narrator: And in japan,

the recently deceased entertains diners.

Freshly killed squid dipped in soy sauce

makes the muscles spasm.

It's the sodium chloride in the soy sauce

that they put on it that
activates nerve fibers

in the muscles that
contract to make it move.

Narrator: Post-mortem reports reveal humans

can also move after death.

Leftover energy in cells trigger
muscle nerves to activate,

making a corpse twitch.

It's called cadaveric twitching,

or post-mortem spasms.

Narrator: Experts suspect that if this

steak is also freshly killed,

just like a new corpse,
it's post-mortem twinges

are the last sparks of
life leaving the body.

This could be just really
recently butchered meat.

Narrator: This meat suggests
that there is life after death,

at least for a few freaky minutes.

I've heard of rare steak
and I've heard of blue steak,

but still-alive steak?

That's a step too far.

It might look a little bit disturbing,

but you know it's fresh.

♪

Narrator: Now, in troubling footage,

a schoolgirl walks out of a shop

and is slammed head-first into the ground.

Bam!

Narrator: An attack
seemingly out of nowhere.

There must be something
that we're not seeing.

Narrator: In a country with a
cult that worships the dead,

are evil spirits taking
victims on the streets?

It's like she's hit by an unearthly power.

♪

Narrator: Puebla, mexico
...a devout catholic area.

Over 90% of the population
here are believers.

They pray to god and fear the devil.

Tuesday, November 28, 2017,

a cctv camera keeps
watch on the city streets.

Locals go about their daily lives.

A girl walks out of a
shop then shockingly...

That's crazy.

Narrator: It seems like this
violence comes out of thin air.

This unseen attacker shocks
and confuses scientists.

She literally goes down like a rag doll.

Obviously some force at work here

there's something that we're not seeing.

What force threw this girl to the ground?

Where did it come from?

Narrator: The footage is
sent to biologist, greg szulgit.

Wow!

It almost seems supernatural the way

she just suddenly flies
so some kind of poltergeist

grabbing her and flipping her over.

That's worth investigating.

Narrator: Folklorist, deborah hyde,

has studied belief and superstition

in this part of mexico.

Some do believe in
possession, and they do believe

that demonic activity happens
in the city and accounts

for an awful lot of the dreadful
things that happen there.

Narrator: Witnessing this
horrifying sucker punch,

hyde believes many
will fear this schoolgirl

is in the grip of a
poltergeist-style menace.

Some people would wonder
if that was a demonic event,

this girl being pulled backwards like that.

Dark forces at play.

Narrator: Ex-nypd video
analyst conor mccourt studies

the footage watching
the horror frame-by-frame.

He wonders if the evil force involved here

is actually a bullet.

As a retired police sergeant from the nypd

who has examined many
thousands of videos of shootings,

when I looked at this I
thought maybe she was hit.

[ gunshot ]

♪

Narrator: Coming up, something is stalking

the sewers of denver.

We were just wondering what
this was and how we could stop it.

♪

Narrator: And a mysterious
flash offers a clue

to the identity of the visible attacker.

Right here in this area
right behind the truck,

just momentarily, I wanted
to see what that was.

♪

♪

Narrator: In puebla city, mexico,

a disturbing attack as a schoolgirl

is slammed to the ground
by an invisible force.

Some wonder if she's
been assaulted by a demon,

others fear she's been shot.

Looking at this, her being
swept off her feet like that,

it could be indicative
of a high-velocity round

hitting her in the head.

Narrator: Criminal
gangs in the area carry out

shootings on the streets,

with civilians often becoming
tragic collateral damage.

Gang culture in mexico
is incredibly brutal.

It makes gang activities
in the united states

almost look like child's play.

Narrator: Police reports
reveal shocki levels of violence.

July 5, 2017, a lethal shoot
out between rival drug cartels

erupts in the streets of chihuahua,

in northern mexico.

Both sides are armed with heavy weaponry.

The gun battle lasts two
hours, leaving 14 dead.

[ gunshot ]

in modern mexico, this death count

is nearly an everyday event.

Last year alone, 30,000
people were killed in mexico

in some kind of drug-related
or gang-related violence.

That's the official statistic,
the real number is unknown.

Narrator: Moran fears
this is girl is the latest victim

of the gang shooting epidemic.

Is this an innocent catholic schoolgirl

who's caught up in the random violence

that surrounds every ordinary mexican?

Narrator: Military expert carlo muñoz

analyzes the footage
for evidence of a shooting.

That... I did not see that coming.

Narrator: But on closer examination,

there's something missing.

Muñoz: There's no blood.

If this was somebody who
was gunned down in the street,

you'd expect a really messy situation.

You're not seeing that here.

This isn't a gunshot,
something else is going on here.

♪

Narrator: Attempting to form a new theory,

mccourt returns to the
footage for fresh clues.

He uses software to enhance the cctv image,

and within the upgraded video,
he makes a crucial breakthrough.

Right here in this area
right behind the truck,

just momentarily,
there's a little reflection.

I wanted to see what that was.

It happened right before the
girl smashed to the ground.

Narrator: Mccourt
focuses in on the reflection.

And I realized it was a wire.

I traced the wire, and I traced the path.

Narrator: Tracing the
wire through the video,

it ends up around the girl's throat.

And I could see that the wire
wrapped around the girl's throat

and smashed her to the ground.

Narrator: Re-analyzing the video,

mccourt notices the wire falls from above,

and then is dragged
down the street by a truck.

It makes them suspect
this is a horrific accident.

The wires were dangling across the street,

the truck got tangled up in the wire,

dragged it down the street,

it got tangled up in her neck area,

and then threw her to the ground
as the truck exited off screen.

Narrator: The girl is unlucky
to be caught up in this horror.

But fortunate the outcome isn't worse,

because she walks
away without major injury.

Had that snag got her and
taken her with it, she'd be dead.

I think she's lucky to be alive.

This is a reminder that in a busy city,

danger could be around every corner

and could come out of nowhere.

♪

Narrator: Now, in the
denver city sewer system,

a slime-coated horror emerges.

This is a monster under the city.

Narrator: Experts are baffled.

Is this some kind of creature,
unidentified yet to science?

Narrator: And fear what could happen

if it emerges from the depths.

Wise: The sewer connects all of us.

What is down there really,
and could it come back up?

♪

Narrator: March 2008... denver, colorado.

Surveillance cameras keep
watch of the mile-high city.

Residents bask in the spring sunshine,

unaware of a horror just
seven feet beneath them.

On a residential street,

sewage crews send a remote-operating camera

down into the darkness
for a routine inspection

of denver's 1,900-mile-long sewer network.

♪

The camera pushes
farther into the sewer pipes.

At first, everything looks clear,

but up ahead, a sinister
form emerges in the dark.

Sewer engineers alert denver city official

heather burke to this gruesome enigma.

It's just kind of gross and creepy looking,

kind of like some sort of sea monster.

Narrator: Investigating
closer reveals a disgusting,

maggot-coated horror
show and then it moves.

This blob is what my
nightmares are made of.

We were just wondering what
this was and how we could stop it.

Narrator: Burke sends
the footage to scientists

hoping to discover its identity.

It's disgusting, it's moving,

and it's under the city.

What is this monster

that's just living under the streets?

Narrator: Coming up, a frozen
river mysteriously explodes.

All of a sudden, boom.

Narrator: And experts uncover evidence

the sewers could be super
sizing a subterranean creature.

In a lot of cases,
you'll hear these stories

about animals becoming huge.

♪

♪

Narrator: In the sewers
of denver, colorado,

a maggot-coated monster
moves in the depths.

In the sewer, we have
some weird conditions.

It's like nowhere else on earth
so are we seeing something here

that we haven't seen anywhere else?

Narrator: The bowels of our cities

often inspire the dark side

of human imagination.

Hollywood movies have us believing

that they're super scary,
like in the movie "it,"

there's a clown living down there.

Narrator: But there is truth
to tales of sinister sewers.

In tehran, iran, after a flood,

rats weighing as much as small dogs emerge

from the sewers and terrorize residents.

It was so terrifying and malevolent

that the army had to call
out its snipers to pick them off.

♪

Video analyst conor
mccourt scours for any clues

that could reveal what
this creature could be.

But on close inspection,

he realizes he can't see anything

that identifies this bizarre beast.

No mouth, no ears, no eyes.

Mccourt: We're not really seeing that here.

Does that mean it's not a creature?

♪

Narrator: Science journalist jeff wise

searches for reports of similar discoveries

in other sewers and uncovers descriptions

from across the globe
of a disgusting entity

that isn't just one creature,
it is a multi-headed monster

containing hundreds of organisms.

A mass of maggots and deadly disease

all contained within a chunk
of slithering hair and fat.

There have been reports
from all around the world

of sanitation workers
having to deal with these

disgusting accumulations
of discarded grease

and fat, called fatbergs.

♪

Narrator: New york, dublin,
and melbourne are all fighting

these growing masses of fat.

And in london, wise finds reports

of the most monstrous of them all.

There was one story of an epic fatberg

that was so huge it
could take down a titanic,

that weighed 130 tons.

Narrator: That's heavier than a blue whale.

At 800 feet, it's over
two football fields long.

This is the embodiment of
everything foul congealed

into one gloopy, veiny thing.

It's just the most disgusting
thing you can imagine.

Narrator: Inside the fat,

investigators find fly eggs, maggots,

and deadly diseases...

E. Coli, salmonella, and leptospirosis,

an infection that can cause
heart and kidney failure.

They track down the source of the grease

back up on the surface.

It turned out that this huge fatberg

was located in a part of town

where there are all these restaurants

that were dumping their
waste grease down the drain,

and that's why it got so huge.

Narrator: Burke investigates the buildings

that lie above this sewer

and amazingly, finds the culprit.

The homeowner was pouring hot grease

down his drain for years
and years and years

and then it cooled off and solidified

and kind of became this disgusting blob.

Narrator: Like the london fatberg,

denver's disgusting discovery

is a many-headed beast,

a living mass of organisms
and deadly bacteria.

Fatbergs that are left
unchecked could get massive.

We don't want to see more of these fatbergs

popping up in our sewer systems.

Narrator: But with reports
of fatbergs on the rise,

this menace from the deep
is bound to strike again.

Fatbergs are a threat

and could take over the
world beneath our feet.

♪

Narrator: Now, an attack of fire

and moments later, an invasion of ice.

It's like a slow-motion tsunami,

and it can just steamroll over
anything that it encounters.

Narrator: Are military forces turning

icebergs into battering rams?

Could russia have deliberately
caused this explosion of ice?

♪

Narrator: Semi, kazakhstan...

A university town on the irtysh river

close to the russian border.

March 29, 2018, students and residents

try to stay warm on
this freezing spring day.

Staying inside, they leave
the roads and fields empty

when out of nowhere...

...A frozen river explodes.

And the scale of this explosion is massive.

Narrator: The explosion
fires a destructive shock wave

towards residents' homes.

You hear people screaming,
and you see people injured,

and there's wreckage everywhere.

There's got to be a reasonable explanation

for what we're seeing in the video.

♪

♪

Narrator: In a kazakhstan university town

near the russian border...

...A frozen river erupts.

All of a sudden, boom.

Narrator: The explosion shatters
windows and sparks panic.

Woman: [ screams ]

narrator: And after the blast
comes a frozen shockwave

the ice breaks into giant slabs

that break the banks of the river.

This is terrifying.

This explosion unleashes
this monstrous natural force

which takes this wall of ice
and brings it up onto the shore.

What the heck is going on here?

♪

Narrator: The footage is sent
to military experts for analysis.

Studying the power of the explosion

and carnage it creates, it
looks like a planned attack.

My immediate thought is this
is some kind of military exercise

or operation.

The density and the color of
the cloud looks like explosives.

This is like something you'd
see hanging over a battlefield.

Narrator: Considering the location,

there's a prime suspect

that could be setting off
military firepower... russia.

Kazakhstan is one of
the former soviet republics.

It's certainly is an area
that russia would love

to stake its imperialistic claims on again.

Narrator: The residents are no strangers

to russian military might.

Semey was once a test
site for soviet nuclear bombs.

456 atomic explosions
detonated over 40 years,

making this the most
nuked place on the planet.

The radiation from the tests

still affect many of its 300,000 residents.

For locals, this new
explosion means a new fear.

You have to wonder is this moscow

flexing its military might?

Narrator: The ice tsunami
makes experts wonder if russia

could be testing an
entirely new kind of warfare.

Could russia have deliberately
caused this explosion of ice

to essentially weaponize nature to go in

and wreak havoc and destruction

without your military
ever having to fire a shot?

Narrator: Nature's devastating
energy has been harnessed

by military powers in the past.

World war I, the alps mountain range,

the italian military released
huge boulders from the cliffs

which crashed down
on austrian troops below.

World war ii, british bombers

nicknamed "the dam busters"
target nazi dams in germany,

unleashing a torrent that floods towns

and ammunition depots downstream.

And in 2012, on the indian-pakistan border,

an avalanche buries a
pakistani military base, killing 140.

The pakistani media claims

that indian forces
trigger it with explosives.

If russia is blowing
up frozen rivers to use

as a natural weapon,

it adds an unstoppable
force to their arsenal.

It's kind of a brilliant strategy

to essentially weaponize nature,

to use the ice itself
as, like, battering arms.

Narrator: But when
military expert carlo muñoz

looks for further russian military action,

he discovers this is somehow
a one-off explosive catastrophe.

There were no additional explosions,

no further military action.

Either this was a warning from the russians

or something else entirely.

Narrator: Science journalist dave farina

discovers local reports

revealing the kazakhstan government

admits it is responsible for
the devastating explosion.

The authorities claim
it's an attempt to clear ice

that's blocking the river.

When a very large river
freezes over completely,

there's little else to do
other than just blow it up.

Narrator: Many countries with sub-zero

winters deploy this method
for clearing waterways,

but there's no evidence
of similar explosions

causing this much carnage.

It makes chemist kishore hari suspect

the footage could be evidence
of a catastrophic mistake.

Any time you're working
with explosions there

is a potential for danger.

Those explosions can
go anywhere in terms of

how they break up the ice.

Narrator: Analyzing the explosion,

hari believes the kazakhs' mistake

is placing the explosives
on the surface of the ice

instead of underneath it.

This seems like the
explosion was on top of the ice

in the way that it sort of
blew the ice up into the air.

Instead of the explosive energy
going into cracking the ice,

the explosive energy
seems to have pushed the ice

outward onto land

or even some of that
explosive concussion effects

going into buildings and breaking glass.

♪

Narrator: Experts agree
that this was a clumsy

and catastrophic attempt

by the kazakhstan
government to clear the river,

and locals hope next year the authorities

will have learned their lesson.

Look at the damage inside
these apartment buildings,

there must be serious injuries inside.

It's just shocking.

Woman: [ gasps, speaks russian ]

[ screams ]