Strange Evidence (2017–…): Season 5, Episode 9 - Alien in Paradise - full transcript

[narrator] worldwide, 36 billion cameras

are watching us on our streets, at work

and in our homes.

They capture things that seem impossible.

Science says this shouldn't happen.

[man] do you see that?

[narrator] experts carry out forensic
analysis of these unusual events.

Wow! What a blast.

[woman screams]

this doesn't make sense.

There has to be some sort of explanation.



What else is going on here?

[narrator] coming up,

is this is a scrap cut
from the carpet of death?

Black carpet crawls across the ocean floor,

devouring anything in its path.

[ashanti] now that we
know that this stuff exists,

we need to figure out how to destroy it.

[narrator] the invisible man appears.

[athena] are there portals between worlds?

Science says it's a possibility.

[narrator] and a handful of horror...

[gasps]

...As mystery mini-beasts invade a kitchen.

I've never seen anything like it.



They look almost alien.

[narrator] bizarre phenomenon.

Oh, my gosh. [gasps]

[narrator] mysteries caught on camera.

[girl screaming]

[narrator] what's the proof behind this

strange evidence?

The island of saint lucia in the caribbean.

April 2nd, 2020.

Two men explore the
coast, a haven for wildlife

like bottlenose dolphins
and leatherback turtles.

But on this beach...

...They find a hideous black slime

writhing on the rocks.

[eric] it's slimy, it's black,

and it keeps retracting.

What is that?

That's unpleasant.

This looks like a writhing, slithery mass

of weirdness.

This pushes the boundaries of "disgusting."

[narrator] the throbbing
blob seems impervious

to the men's slashing machete.

It has this strange quality to it that,

as the person cuts into it, it reforms.

It's almost like self-healing or something.

Very bizarre. I've never
seen anything like it.

[narrator] the men don't dare touch it.

[george] I was half-expecting to see this

lump of black mass jump up at the camera.

[man] it makes me think
of venom from spiderman,

the black symbiote alien
that takes over your body.

Did this come from the ocean

or has someone brought it to this place?

This island is supposed to be a paradise,

but you sure don't see
this in the tourist brochure.

[narrator] saint lucia's beautiful seas

have long been thought
to hide hideous monsters.

This lends credence to ancient stories of

some kind of creature

that lives in the tropical
waters of saint lucia.

[narrator] the lusca is a sea creature

described by pirates and other adventurers

who came here in the early
days of european settlement.

This tentacled beast was said
to grow to over 75 feet long,

and reported to lurk in the deep trenches

and blue holes in the caribbean.

Some of which plunge to over 400 feet deep.

But, recently, reports have come in

of a new tropical terror.

For years, divers night-diving

off of the coast of saint lucia

have reported this writhing creature,

fifteen feet long and
as wide as a man's arm.

They've nicknamed it, aptly, "the thing."

[narrator] for decades,

the thing was believed
to be just a salty sea tale,

but then, one was caught on film.

It's a segmented worm
called eunice roussaei.

And the face of this worm is

truly out of a sci-fi horror movie.

That's where the mandibles

and all the eating parts are,

and various tentacles
that senses environment.

Active at night.

This is a great example of
some of the sea tales of divers

turning out to be absolutely true.

[narrator] but recent reports have
come in of a new tropical terror.

Scuba divers speak of encounters

with a mysterious writhing mass

that sounds strikingly similar
to the thing in the footage.

They call it "the black carpet."

the black carpet appears to be

a single organism

that could be hundreds of feet across,

that crawls across the ocean
floor devouring anything in its path.

[narrator] this creature has
so far not been photographed,

but sightings of this undersea entity

coincide with an increase in
scuba deaths in the caribbean.

Over 90 divers perish in just ten years.

There's a monster in paradise,
and humans are on the menu.

[narrator] biologists
haven't yet identified

this massive black sea monster.

But in the pacific in 2010,

scientists found an enormous white carpet,

consisting of billions of microbes

forming a living mass on the ocean floor.

It certainly makes you wonder what other
mysteries are hidden below the sea floor.

[narrator] this film could be
the first photographic evidence

of a caribbean black carpet,

a writhing mass of
interconnected organisms,

perhaps a section cut
off from the main body,

or a young one in its
early stages of formation.

Are we looking at something that's
about to become a giant black carpet?

[narrator] biologist kiki sanford

wonders if this could be
one monstrous creature

bathed in its own slime.

The slimy mucus and dark coloring

leads me to believe that
this is a bootlace worm.

Bootlace worms are known
to grow to extreme lengths.

One individual was
found to be 180 feet long.

That's two blue whales, end to end.

[narrator] and these enormous
creatures can be deadly.

When bootlace worms
are attacked or threatened,

they produce a sticky mucus

that is actually a powerful neurotoxin.

Many ribbon worms

are known to produce tetrodotoxin,

which is the same toxin
produced by puffer fish.

[narrator] tetrodotoxin
is 1,200 times more toxic

to humans than cyanide.

Just a pinhead of it is a lethal dose.

-[vomiting] -[narrator]
first you begin vomiting

and experiencing excruciating stomach pain.

Then comes muscle paralysis,
and finally, death, from suffocation.

[monitor flatlines]

[narrator] in 2019, a florida man

permanently lost the use of his kidneys

after tetrodotoxin got into his body.

In 2020, two cambodian men,

a dog and seven chickens

were all killed by the poison
after eating it in sea food.

But that's not the only trick that
ribbon worms have up their sleeve.

They're also incredibly hard to kill.

If you try to kill a ribbon
worm by cutting it in half,

it just produces two new worms.

They survive.

And, in fact, one ribbon worm can be cut

into 200,000 new worms.

So this guy hacking away at this worm

with his machete is not gonna hurt it.

He's just going to make an army of worms.

[narrator] but a bootlace worm

shouldn't be living on a
busy caribbean beach.

They aren't normally
found in the caribbean.

They're native to cold-water regions.

So, how did it get here?

[narrator] coming up,

is this arctic alien poised
to bring death to paradise?

Even humans can find
themselves under threat

from their presence.

[narrator] and a doorway
to another dimension

seems to open on to a street.

Could whatever it is invade this world?

[narrator] a man films a
sinister-looking black ooze

writhing on a beach in the caribbean.

Biologist kiki sanford

identifies it as a poisonous bootlace worm,

a cold water species that
shouldn't be found here.

Sanford suspects transatlantic ships

crossing from cold seas to the caribbean

could've brought a stowaway
bootlace worm with them.

Invasive species can rapidly adapt

to threats and prey
opportunities in new environments.

[narrator] these invasive
species can quickly spread.

Every year, from saint lucia to cancún

and up to the keys in florida's coast,

millions of sun lovers

stretch out on the beautiful golden beaches

that lie in the tranquil
waters of this region.

Newly arrived bootlace worms

could turn these sun-traps into hellholes.

Could the bootlace worm
have adapted its neurotoxin

to be even more dangerous

to caribbean predators?
In fact, it might even be

more dangerous to us.

[narrator] if these toxic
monster blobs are spreading,

the residents and tourists at the caribbean

will have to find ways to deal with this

virtually indestructible menace.

Now that we know that this stuff exists,

we need to figure out how to destroy it.

If you can't kill it with knives,

burn it with fire.

[narrator] now, tokyo, japan.

September 23, 2019.

A busy daytime street in a downtown area.

As pedestrians go
about their daily business,

a cctv security camera

captures a mysterious arrival.

Wait. Can you rewind?
How on earth did he do that?

He just appears out of nowhere.

[narrator] experts don't
detect a glitch in the footage

or any lost frames to
indicate a camera fault.

The man seems to step out of thin air

and over a small fence
onto a busy sidewalk.

I've seen a lot of strange things,

but this one particularly
is blowing my mind.

It was weird.

It was weird to see that
man come out of nowhere.

[narrator] magician ben nemzer

discovers a theory being
widely circulated on the internet.

Many of the people who've
been watching this online

think that he's a visitor
from another dimension.

[narrator] stories of people and things

suddenly appearing out of
interdimensional gateways

go back centuries.

There's a famous story about
two children with green skin

that were found wandering in the
forests near the village of woolpit

in the uk in the 12th century.

The girl learned english

and told people that she
and her brother had come from

another dimension, a place
called saint martin's land.

They said they heard a loud noise,

then passed through a tunnel-like opening

that dropped them in medieval England.

[narrator] more recently,
japan has had strange visitors.

Newspapers report that during the 1950s,

a man approaches customs
at tokyo haneda airport

with a passport from
a country called taured,

which doesn't exist in our world.

It's claimed that the man
is detained by immigration

and held under guard
on the 15th floor of a hotel.

When the guards enter the room
to check on him in the morning,

the man has allegedly vanished.

Are there portals between worlds?

Science says it's a possibility.

[saad] stephen hawking's
paper suggests that ours

isn't the only universe
created in the big bang,

but a whole multitude of others
were created at the same time.

[narrator] physicists have put
forward a number of theories

that argue that multiverses
are not only possible,

they're actually very likely.

These include bubble universes

where many universes exist side by side,

each within their own space-time bubble.

Daughter universes,

where every action creates
universes of alternative outcomes.

And parallel universes,

where our own universe
is replicated infinite times.

This sounds far-fetched, but
the equations in these theories

make this theoretically possible.

[narrator] scientists at

the oak ridge national
laboratory in tennessee

have started conducting experiments,

hoping to prove the existence

of a mirrorverse parallel world.

What would lie on the other side?

Some of these universes might contain

earth-like planets, societies

and even individuals that look
just like people here on earth.

[narrator] image analyst ben radford

looks at the other people in the street

and notices something strange.

[ben] when you're analyzing this video,

you can look at the bystanders' reaction.

In this case, we have at
least half a dozen people

walking on the street who are within

ten, fifteen feet of when this guy
suddenly appears out of nowhere.

And what they do is interesting.

And what they do is nothing.

They're not surprised, they're not shocked,

they don't stand back and say,
"where did this guy appear?"

they go about their day.

So this tells us that

what we're seeing in the video clip

is not what happened in real life.

It's a digitally manipulated image.

[narrator] the area the man
appears to be stepping out of

seems to have been
overlaid with another image

to conceal something or someone.

So then the question is, okay, well,
why take an image of the empty road

and overlay it so it's covering up

where the guy comes from?

[narrator] coming up,

are invisible yakuza assassins
stalking the streets of tokyo?

If these gangs could cover
their tracks so efficiently,

law enforcement does not have a chance.

[narrator] and twitching in the kitchen.

Have micro-rats broken out of a lab?

[kevin] he saw those things on the floor,

and then he just picked them up.

There's no way I would touch that at all.

[narrator] cctv captures a man
who seems to step out of nowhere

onto a busy tokyo street.

Former fbi agent rhonda glover

locates the area where
the camera was installed.

This is the shibuya ward in tokyo.

This is a busy downtown neighborhood.

[narrator] glover discovers that

beneath its
respectable-looking main streets,

a group of criminals has ruled the
underworld of shibuya for decades.

The yakuza.

And their rule has often
come at a bloody cost.

They spent years fighting
and killing each other

in inter-gang wars.

[narrator] the yakuza are criminals
with a reputation for violence.

One of their godfathers, kenichi shinoda,

murdered a rival with a katana.

The yakuza are involved
in running gambling,

prostitution and protection rackets,

but have also penetrated the
mainstream business world.

But in recent years,

the yakuza have turned from guns and knives

to keyboards and hard drives.

Many people say that the yakuza
are becoming more sophisticated,

using technology to become
less visible to the police.

Like any business, they're
becoming more modern

and they're hiring hackers.

[narrator] and the yakuza
are using these hackers

to commit truly audacious crimes.

In may 2016,

the yakuza were involved in a digital heist

from cash machines across japan,

stealing 17 million
dollars in just three hours.

If these hackers are sophisticated enough

to steal 17 million dollars from atms,

surely they're also good enough

to scrub somebody's image
from a security camera.

[narrator] security cameras
were a criminal's worst enemy,

forcing thieves to try to disguise
or cover their appearance.

But now the yakuza seem to have the power

to hack security systems

and edit out their crimes altogether.

The yakuza have attacked politicians

with molotov cocktails.

They've stabbed their
enemy's children in the street.

[narrator] glover discovers that the yakuza

are involved in a violent turf war

with iranian gangs in the shibuya area.

She suspects part of this conflict

might be playing out on
the road behind the man

who seems to step out of thin air.

Maybe this camera recorded somethin'

that could send someone to jail.

Considering their history of violent crime,

anything that was caught
on tape would be hard to miss

and very dangerous to the organization.

So, if this was worth erasing,

it must've been pretty bad.

[narrator] author h.G. Wells

wrote the invisible man in 1897,

a tale of a man embarking on an almost

unstoppable spree of crime and murder.

A hundred and twenty years later,

science fiction looks like it
could become science fact.

[narrator] camera technology

has led to a 25% reduction in street crime.

But if gangsters can now make
their digital footprints invisible,

crime fighters will have to find a
new way of catching them in the act.

If these gangs could cover
their tracks so efficiently,

law enforcement does not have a chance.

If these hackers are sophisticated enough

that they can hack into a security camera,

then that is terrifying.

[narrator] now,

the city of auckland in new zealand.

January 30th, 2019.

A man notices something
moving on a kitchen floor.

He saw those things on the floor.

And then he just picked them up.

Now there's no way I
would touch that at all.

[narrator] they look unlike
any creature on earth

and appear to be twitching.

I would be worried that
they would burrow in,

like a tick or something like that,

leaving a disgusting
little tail sticking out.

This is one of the creepiest
things I have ever seen,

that it will not stop twitching.

[narrator] their strange appearance

leaves experts unsure about their origin...

I've never seen anything like it.

They look almost alien.

[narrator] ...And whether
they might be intelligent.

Are they reaching out for each other?

Are they kinda
communicating with each other?

Are they dangerous?

[narrator] biologist leslie
samuel studies the footage,

and thinks these tendrils
could be some kind of tail.

They look like they have tails,

which is something we see
in certain types of maggots.

I think we're looking at
some sort of insect larvae.

[narrator] the most
common of these tailed larvae

is the rat-tailed maggot,

which is the spawn of a type of hoverfly.

The tail acts as a snorkel

that allows them to
breathe while submerged.

And they thrive in wastewater
environments, including swamps,

sewers and even human stomachs.

If you're unlucky enough
to ingest rat-tailed maggots,

they will feast on your flesh

causing lesions, intense stomach
pains and uncontrollable diarrhea.

The problem with that
is the rat-tailed maggots

are usually a totally different color.

So maybe we're looking at
an entirely different creature.

[narrator] coming up,

could these horrors be an experiment
in vermin control gone wrong?

These are things that have
taken millions and millions of years

to evolve just the way they are.

And now we're coming along and
we're chopping and changing them,

you know, overnight.

[narrator] and in texas,

a mirror that seems to
have a mind of its own.

[ben] that's just not how mirrors work.

Your reflection's supposed
to copy you exactly.

[narrator] a man in new zealand
films weird, twitching objects

he discovers on the kitchen floor.

Biologist steve potvin thinks they
remind him of an all too familiar pest.

It almost looks kind of like a
rat, but that's way too small.

[narrator] new zealand was
isolated for over 80 million years

from the rest of the planet.

It became an avian paradise.

Birds here were so safe
from any kind of predator

that many took to the ground
and lost their ability to fly.

Big mistake.

When humans came around 1300 ad,

they brought rats in their boats

who enjoyed an easy-to-eat bird buffet.

Now the new zealand government

is looking at a controversial solution

to dealing with these ravenous rodents.

Potvin believes these twitching
horrors could be the result.

One technique that's come up recently

to deal with populations of rats

is crispr gene editing.

[narrator] crispr is a
technology that allows scientists

to directly alter parts
of an organism's dna

to change biological traits.

Scientists in new zealand
are hoping that gene editing

will work where traps and
poison have failed in the past.

Scientists have been
using crispr technology

to mess around with the genes of animals
to try and control their population.

[narrator] this technology
could sterilize rats

or make them all male, preventing breeding.

New zealand has vowed that all rats
will be gone from the island by 2050.

But many scientists fear that
this frankenstein technology

could also lead to genetic abominations.

[steve] these are things that have
taken millions and millions of years

to evolve just the way they are.

And now we're coming along and
we're chopping and changing them,

you know, overnight.

[narrator] potvin investigates
if the footage is evidence

that genetically modified rats have
already been released in new zealand,

causing horrifically shrunken pups.

Could it be that they're producing
offspring but they're just too small

or, you know, they have genetic defects?

Or could this be affecting
rats in some other way

that's making them look like this?

[narrator] entomologist kevin kasky

detects deposits of a shiny
dust near the twitching objects,

leading him to believe that these
might not be individual organisms

but rather parts of a larger creature.

[kevin] you can see a little
sheen on this guy's palms.

Moths. They're covered
with a dust-like scale.

Could these be the legs of a moth?

[narrator] severed moth legs can exhibit

the strange twitching
behavior seen in the footage.

Like a lot of insects if a moth's
legs are removed from its body,

there are still electrical
impulses in the leg muscles

that can explain this
twitching that we're seeing.

The fact that they're still twitching

means that they haven't
been detached for very long.

[narrator] if these are moth
legs, they look truly massive.

It begs the question, what kinda
moth do these legs belong to?

How big would this moth have to be?

[narrator] some of the
largest moths in the world

can be found in this part
of the southern hemisphere.

The hercules moth that
lives in queensland, australia

can have a wing span of over a foot.

I mean, these moths
are bigger than your head.

[narrator] moths may seem harmless,

but some have a sinister reputation.

One, known as calyptra or the vampire moth

feeds on the blood of mammals.

Their powerful proboscis works like a drill

allowing them to penetrate
even elephant skin.

Vampire moths can suck
blood for over 50 minutes,

and they have even been
known to feed on humans.

Imagine one of these moths paying
you a visit in the middle of your night

flapping around your bedroom.

I'd probably wanna keep my windows closed.

[narrator] new zealand is
a land of enormous bugs.

The giant weta is native to new zealand.

It's about the size of a gerbil,

and it's been around for 190 million years.

[narrator] twenty-three
percent of the country

is dense virgin forest

where many moth species reside.

If you're looking for a giant insect,

then new zealand is
the place for you to go.

[narrator] could this clip be evidence
of an undiscovered giant moth?

Perhaps, an unknown carnivore

that's been hiding out in the
island's remote wilderness?

At least 70% of the plants and animals
living in new zealand and australia

have yet to be discovered
and are complete mysteries.

Maybe they're lucky
they only found the legs.

I personally would not wanna come close

to a moth with a two-foot wingspan.

[growling]

[narrator] now, san antonio, texas.

August 2018.

A young boy is filmed
playing with a mirror.

It's a kid looking at himself in
the mirror sticking out his tongue.

[narrator] then the camera
captures something disturbing.

- Ooh! Oh, my goodness.
- What happened there?

Wait, hold on. Did that kid's
reflection just move before he did?

[narrator] the child's reflection
appears to break the laws of physics.

The longer I look at
this clip, the weirder it is.

Because how is it possible
that the person's reflection

can leave before the person themselves?

[ben] that's just not how mirrors work.

Your reflection's supposed
to copy you exactly.

It looks like his reflection
has a mind of its own

and isn't taking orders from anyone.

[narrator] humans have been
making mirrors for over 6,000 years.

And although they are found in almost
every home in the developed world,

we are still not entirely
comfortable having them around.

In jewish culture when someone dies

all the mirrors are covered
while the household mourns.

It's a tradition called sitting shiva

that some people believe protects
against demons that visit the home

after a loss or tragedy has occurred.

These demons can't be
seen with the naked eye,

but their horrifying reflections
can be seen in mirrors.

[narrator] some cultures believe
mirrors can even steal your soul.

In german and dutch cultures mirrors were
always covered up when someone had died.

This is because they say that if you saw

your reflection in the mirror
after someone had died,

it is believed that you
would be the next one to die.

[narrator] magician ben nemzer wonders
if this footage shows a clever trick

intended to shock and disturb audiences.

There's a lot of illusions that are
spooky and frightening and unsettling,

and this is definitely one of them.

[narrator] nemzer suspects
this isn't a mirror at all

but instead, two identical
twins working in perfect unison.

[ben] so the way the
classic mirror tricks work

is usually there's an empty frame

and there is somebody on
the other side of the mirror

and every move is exactly
choreographed and rehearsed

to make sure that the person
pretending to be the reflection

and the person who looks just like them

are doing the same
movements at the same time.

[narrator] around half a million
identical twins are born every year.

As many as one in three claim
to have a telepathic connection

that allows them to anticipate
their sibling's next move.

Some twins use these
powers for criminal ends.

In 1994, identical twin donald anderson

did jail time for his
convicted brother, ronald,

with the authorities none the wiser.

If the kid had a twin

and they practiced that
"ahh" with the tongue

exactly at the same
point, it could be pulled off.

[narrator] but historian marcus harshaw

doesn't believe the dimensions
of this ordinary looking room

would support such a trick.

Given the angle of the mirror and
the space between that and the wall,

it doesn't seem likely that
someone could fit back there.

It's definitely a true reflection.

[narrator] coming up,

chad orzel attempts to
bring his own reflection to life.

Wow, look at that.

There's a real biological basis

for why many people find
mirrors to be unsettling.

[rumbling]

[narrator] and locals rush to
escape the village of the damned.

What kind of powerful underground force

is being unleashed here?

[narrator] in texas, the
reflection of a young boy

playing in front of a mirror
appears to move by itself.

Physicist chad orzel suspects
that a strange scientific illusion

associated with mirrors can explain
the boy's disconnected reflection.

He sets up an experiment
to see if he can recreate

the unnerving effect seen in the video.

I wanna test if the angles between
the camera, the boy and the mirror

are what's causing this phenomena.

[narrator] he copies the setup of
the mirror and camera in the footage.

I know the mirror needs to be tilted

slightly away from the
line of sight of the camera.

And now I just need to adjust the camera
to get exactly the right line of sight.

[narrator] orzel believes the boy's head

moves imperceptibly towards the camera.

But the angle of the mirror exaggerates
the movement of his reflected image.

[chad] so now I'm standing
very close to the mirror,

holding my head still and my
refection isn't going anywhere.

But if I just lean my
way back a little bit,

I see my reflection move in the mirror.

The question is, what does this look like

to the camera looking over my shoulder.

Have I managed to make my reflection
look like it's moved of its own accord?

[narrator] orzel reviews the footage.

Wow, look at that. That is
exactly the thing in the clip.

[narrator] orzel thinks
he solved the riddle

of how the boy's reflection
appeared to move by itself.

[chad] we managed to find
exactly the right set of angles

to make my reflection
look like it moved on its own.

This wouldn't work in
any other orientation.

It's really amazing that this kid
was able to get this effect by accident.

[narrator] this footage
offers a unique window

into how susceptible the human psyche is

to the brain-bending power of mirrors.

Moments like these are a reminder

of how easily the human
brain can be tricked.

And it can make you ask what else is there

that we see in the world around us

that looks different because
we're looking from the wrong angle?

[narrator] now,
mahakalapada in odisha, india.

June 5th, 2020.

It's a quiet afternoon
in a small indian village

as a group of men stand around a work site.

There's a whole bunch of guys. I
don't know exactly what they're doing.

[narrator] then, without warning,

the ground begins to
churn as though it's alive.

[gasps]

how is that even possible?

It looks like the ground is just boiling.

[narrator] and locals
fear that their entire village

is about to be consumed
by the exploding earth.

The only thing that you can
do if you were standing there

is pray that it won't spread any further.

[craig] this is a terrifying scene.

There's a force in nature here.

It's completely out of control.

What kind of powerful underground force

is being unleashed here?

[narrator] george kourounis
investigates the area

and discovers a widespread
undercover industry

that could be responsible for
disturbances beneath the earth.

Here in the odisha region of india,
there's been a recent explosion

in the illegal mining of gemstones
like rubies, emeralds, garnets

and even some diamonds.

Is it possible we're looking at an illegal
mining operation that's gone horrible wrong?

[narrator] it's one of the
toughest jobs in the world.

[craig] illegal mines in india
are often called rat holes

because they are very small, very confined,

and that's the space that illegal
miners are forced to work in.

[narrator] an emerald
plucked from the ground here

can be worth around $7,000 per ounce.

But an illegal miner will get
paid less than two dollars a day

by the mine's gang masters.

And for this meagre wage the
miners endure terrible conditions.

One area in india called meghalaya,
there was a mining accident

where one of these rat holes actually
collapsed. 15 miners lost their lives.

Why? Because the mine was too
confined to execute a rescue operation.

[narrator] being trapped
and killed in these tiny tunnels

isn't the only danger miners face.

Journalist jeff wise discovers that
many of these secret illegal mine shafts

are funded by a dangerous organization.

This illegal mining, we're not talking
about mom and pop operations.

These are really large
and well-funded operations

that are run by a terrorist rebels.

[narrator] coming up.

Is this village hiding an
underground criminal operation?

So what we're seeing here is something's
that's putting the entire village at risk.

[narrator] a man films villagers fleeing

as their home seems to explode from below.

Journalist, jeff wise discovers that
many illegal gem mines in this region

are being run by a dangerous
guerrilla group known as the naxalites.

The united states' state department
has categorized these rebels

as the world's sixth most
dangerous terrorist organization.

[narrator] in just under a decade,

illegal mining in the
odisha region of india alone

has unearthed over 9.6
billion dollars' worth of minerals.

And this money funds acts of terror.

Just in 2018 alone the insurgency
in india killed more than 300 people.

[narrator] the naxalites exact terrible
retribution against anyone who stands up to them.

[jeff] in 2010, the rebels watched
a revenge attack on a village

just for the arrest of some of its members,

and they burnt a family of four to death.

[narrator] wise believes that this group

would even be willing to
sabotage one of their mines

to punish a village for
threatening their operations.

If someone has accidently uncovered a rebel

illegal mining operation, that
would be extremely concerning.

[narrator] but historian craig
gottlieb looks at mining surveys

and doubts this is an
exploding or collapsing mine.

Geological surveys of the
area do show mineral deposits

in this region, but not in
this village. So that tells me

this is probably not the result
of an illegal mining operation.

[narrator] image analyst conor
mccourt studies the footage

and wonders if this could be a disaster
caused by india's unquenchable thirst.

So what we're seeing here is something
that's putting the entire village at risk.

It's very unusual, the floor is bubbling.

There is mud splashing everywhere.

We see a blue pole in
the middle of watery mud.

I think what we have here
is a well drilling operation.

[narrator] india is suffering from a
catastrophic shortage of fresh water.

Looking at the water situation in india,

by 2030 it's estimated that there's
gonna be twice the amount of demand

compared to what they can actually supply.

A solution for this lack of water

is to go underground to find new resources.

For instance, utilizing aquifers.

[narrator] aquifers are large
layers of super saturated rock

located underground below the water table.

They contain about 30% of all
the available fresh water on earth,

over 2.7 million trillion gallons.

If aquifers are near the surface

then they will easily release
this water through natural springs.

Or even by digging a shallow well.

But many aquifers lie over
thousand feet beneath the surface.

And tapping their water
is like drilling for oil.

Your ground water is an essential resource
that's in crucial demand right now.

When you take it out, it
doesn't just magically reappear.

So as you use up your ground water

you have to dig deeper and deeper
and deeper to get that resource.

[narrator] across india
33 million borewells

have been drilled to
depths of up to 1800 feet.

So much ground water has been extracted,

that it has caused the
earth to tilt on its vertical axis,

shifting eastwards seven inches a year.

If the world was to tilt too far,

our seasons and climate
would be thrown into chaos.

But there are other more immediate dangers.

Now the thing is there's a lot
of complications with drilling.

If you drill a little bit
you might be okay.

But the deeper you drill and the
further you go the older the rock gets,

there's quite a lot of risk at hand.

For instance, gas pockets.

[narrator] it's not
just india that's at risk.

The united states sits upon

the fifth largest natural
gas field in the world.

Estimated at more than
450 trillion cubic feet.

When released by a drill,
this high pressured methane

will hit straight to the
surface without warning.

And if the friction of the metal drill
against the hard rock causes a spark,

it will ignite.

Now drills have caught fire before.

And borewells have burst into flames.

[narrator] but it's even more
dangerous if the gas reaches the surface

without encountering a source of ignition.

Natural gas is odorless.

So it could be seeping on the
surface and cover everything

and nobody would know.

[narrator] in August 2014,
cody murray, a texas rancher

investigates why his groundwater
well isn't pumping correctly.

A build-up of methane
in the pump shed ignites

and turns the air in the
shed into an explosive fireball.

He survives the blast, but suffers
third-degree burns over a quarter of his body.

[sirens wailing]

[narrator] if the churning
ground captured in the video

is the result of huge
quantities of methane gas,

then hundreds of lives could be in danger.

[craig] it could entirely
impregnate the ground

making the village a powder
cake ready to explode.

One spark and boom!