Strangest Things (2021–2022): Season 1, Episode 1 - The Scarab, the Ark and the Rock - full transcript

[Narrator] Was this ancient glass
scarab in Tutankhamun's tomb

created by forces
from beyond our world.

So really, the question
becomes, what is it?

[Rebecca] Where did it
come from?

It's a real mystery.

[Narrator] Is this
4,000 year old clay tablet

the original instruction
manual for Noah's ark?

Sell your possessions,
build a boat, fill it with animals.

[Narrator] And how can this bizarre
red moon rock contain signs of life?

As you start to look closer,
things just get even more weird.

[Narrator] These are the most
remarkable and mysterious objects on Earth.



Hidden away in museums,
laboratories and storage units.

Now, new research and technology
can get under their skin like never before.

We can rebuild
them, pull them apart...

and zoom in... to
reveal the unbelievable,

the ancient
and the truly bizarre.

These are the world's
Strangest Things.

In the grand Egyptian museum
in Giza

is one of the greatest
treasures of the pharaohs.

The pectoral of Tutankhamun.

This stunning piece of jewelry was
worn on the front of the king's garments

and it was meant to keep
the boy King's body whole

on its journey to the afterlife.

This item
is extraordinarily beautiful.

[Narrator] Now,
using the latest technology



we can finally
solve an ancient mystery.

Nearly six inches tall.

The 3,000 year old
royal ornament

is made of silver and gold

and covered in expertly
crafted decorations.

[Rebecca] This pectoral was
really laden with meaning.

There are lots of hieroglyphs in
there and it's inlaid with precious jewels.

[Narrator] At its heart lies an object,
both eye catching and unexplained.

[Rebecca] In the very center,
there's a scarab beetle

with the wings of a falcon.

And this represents
the God, Ra. The sun God.

[Narrator] This scarab is carved
from a single piece of stunning glass.

[Rebecca] It's yellowy green.

It's incredibly clear,
translucent.

But really is
a perfect piece of glass.

[Narrator] Too perfect.

Across the entire planet,

no other glass artifact
this ancient is so flawless.

Now,

new research can reveal the
secrets of Tutankhamun's scarab.

Where did it come from?

How was it formed?

What makes this scarab
so unique?

The ancient civilization
of Egypt.

Buried in the sand and rock here,
are thousands of years of history,

culture and massive
ancient monuments.

And 100 years ago, English
archaeologist Howard Carter,

hits the mother lode.

Carter famously said when
he was peering into the tomb,

he had seen wonderful things.

[Narrator] Carter has unearthed the
tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun,

the boy king of Egypt's
eighteenth dynasty.

He died over 3,000 years ago.

His tomb contains
unimaginable treasures.

[Rebecca] There were about
5,000 items

in the tomb, so it really was
a fantastic moment in history.

[Narrator] Statues, gold,
jewelry, chariots, model animals

and, of course, the famous sarcophagus
and mask of Tutankhamun himself.

It is one of the most important
discoveries in the history of archaeology.

Hidden amongst these treasures,

Carter finds the most
extraordinary object.

Tutankhamun's pectoral.

At its heart, sits the scarab
beetle made of a glass

unlike anything else
from ancient Egypt.

[Rebecca] The scarab was
extremely symbolic and important

for the ancient Egyptians,

it represented amongst
other things, transformation,

um, and part of this reason
is because the scarab beetle

stood for something
that helps the sun

to go across the sky every day
and was therefore also

associated with
regeneration and rebirth.

[Narrator] Tutankhamun clearly
has access to unimaginable wealth.

So, if the scarab beetle is so important,
why on Earth make it from glass?

Glass is a pretty easy
material to make.

All you need is
sand and a source of heat.

You melt sand at very high temperatures
and then you can add other materials,

like metallic oxides,
which give the glass color.

[Narrator] But glass is rare
in ancient Egypt

and the Egyptians
are fascinated by it.

Even the blue stripes on
Tutankhamun's iconic death mask

are made of glass.

Glass had almost
magical qualities to it.

[Narrator] But all Egyptian
glass is flawed.

[Anna] Ancient Egyptian glass doesn't
look like modern glass does today.

It's not that beautifully
transparent material.

It's got all these bits and
inclusions and bubbles in it

and that's because their
furnaces weren't able to

get up to hot
enough temperatures

in order to properly melt
the glass

into a really runny material.

[Narrator] The glass in the
scarab lack such imperfections.

It is flawless,

which means the scarab glass
can't have been made

by the ancient Egyptians

or any other humans
from that time.

[Rebecca] So really, the
question becomes, what is it?

Where did it come from?

It's a real mystery.

[Narrator] For years,
archaeologists have no explanation

for the origins
of the scarab glass.

The first clue is uncovered
on an expedition

into the largest desert
on the planet,

the Sahara.

In the 1930s, there were
a group of treasure hunters.

He went to
the Egyptian-Libyan border

to look for a mythical
ancient city called Zerzura.

One of the party was a British
surveyor, Patrick Clayton,

and as he was
whizzing across the desert.

In his vehicle,
he heard a crunch.

[Narrator] To his amazement,
the desert floor is littered

with chunks of clear
green-yellow glance.

He brings them back to the UK, where he
takes them to the Natural History Museum.

But they really have
no idea what these are.

[Narrator] It's almost 50 years,

before an Italian team
of scientists

follows up Clayton's discovery
with some hard science.

[Dougal] The Italian team
go in to the desert

and collect bits
of the Libyan desert glass.

And they also look at the
glass in the scarab.

And they analyze it
and demonstrate

that they're
geo-chemically identical.

The fingerprint is identical.

[Narrator] It is definitive proof,
the scarab is made of glass

found in the sands
of the Libyan desert.

But that leaves
an even bigger mystery.

How does this perfect,
flawless glass

end up in the middle of
the Sahara in the first place?

Scientists have identified
the source

of the strange glass

in Tutankhamun's scarab.

The Sahara Desert.

The bigger mystery,
how it got there?

The answer may
lie, 7,500 miles away

in the
Jornada del Muerto Desert.

There is glass on the sand here
that forms a circle 1,000 feet across.

The pattern is so perfect,
it looks almost manmade...

because it is.

[distant explosion]

July 16th, 1945.

The Trinity Test

and the first successful
atomic explosion happens.

This was the first product
of the Manhattan Project

and they needed to find out
if it worked.

They set up this bomb to sort of
perch on a platform in the desert.

[Narrator] A ball of fire,
tears through the sky,

reaching temperatures
three times hotter

than the surface of the sun,

a giant mushroom cloud surges

seven miles into the atmosphere.

[Sascha] The world will never
be the same again.

It detonated with a force of

around 20,000 tons of T.N.T.

[Narrator] The test produces
an unexpected by-product.

When scientists went back
to investigate the site,

there were these little blobs
of what looked like glass.

They were given the name
Trinitite.

[Narrator] Some of it looked
very similar to the scarab glass.

But surely they cannot
have the same origins.

Clearly, that's not where
that glass came from.

There weren't any nuclear
bombs in ancient Egypt.

[Narrator] There's no natural
force on Earth that can produce

the concentrated power
of an atomic blast.

So, where could the immense
energy needed to create

the scarab glass have come from?

Could Tutankhamun's tomb
hold a clue?

Another object that has
stirred some controversy

and encouraged us to all ask
questions, um, is a dagger.

It was found inside
Tutankhamun's sarcophagus

which in itself is not
particularly unusual.

But the dagger is made of iron.

[Narrator] Which
is a problem because

ancient Egypt
is still in the Bronze Age.

There's no evidence of
iron smelting in ancient Egypt

until 800 years after
Tutankhamun died.

So there's no way
that this dagger blade

could have been made
by the ancient Egyptians.

[Narrator] Like the glass
in the scarab,

the iron in the dagger
is a mystery.

Scientists did X-ray
chemical analysis

on the metal blade.

And what they found was quite
a lot of nickel inside.

[Narrator] Eleven percent
of the blade is nickel.

No naturally occurring iron on the Earth
has a nickel content close to that level.

Only one natural source
of iron does.

The heart of a meteorite.

Meteorites are hitting
the Earth all the time.

Most of them, um, are almost
too small to detect.

But every so often, something
a lot bigger comes along.

[Narrator] February 13th 2013,
Chelyabinsk, Russia.

A meteor the size
of a six story building

slams into the atmosphere.

This meteor traveled through the Earth's
atmosphere at 40,000 miles per hour.

It actually exploded 15 miles
above the Earth's surface.

The energy released was 22
times that of the Trinity bomb.

If it had struck
the Earth's surface.

It would have been powerful
enough to turn sand into glass.

[Narrator] Could the scarab
glass in Tutankhamun's pectoral,

have been produced by a meteor
impact in the Sahara Desert?

In 2019, a couple of
geologists were looking in detail

at the structure within
the desert glass.

And they found that one of the
impurities they could measure was Zircon.

[Narrator] They recognized an unusual
arrangement of atoms in this mineral.

It's a crystalline signature
only seen in Zircon,

that has formed from the decay
of a very unstable,

very rare crystal
called Readite.

Readite only formed when high
temperatures and high pressures

squashed the atoms together
into a certain formation.

On Earth you only really
get these high temperatures

and high pressures in one place.

The glass from the scarab
must have formed

in a catastrophic meteor strike.

We think that it formed
29 million years ago,

when a meteor
struck The Great Sand Sea.

[Narrator] That leaves
one last mystery.

If it is a meteor strike
that creates the scarab glass,

where is the crater?

The glass in the scarab
of Tutankhamun's breastplate

formed when a meteorite struck
the Earth 29 million years ago.

[explosion]

But this theory has
one enormous hole in it.

Or rather, it doesn't.

[Maggie] A meteorite with enough
energy to turn sand into glass.

Would have left an impact crater
of about 20 miles in diameter.

[Narrator] The problem is,
nobody can find the crater.

Unfortunately, you probably
couldn't pick a worse place to look.

[Dougal] A desert system
is dynamic.

It constantly keeps
retracing itself.

You imagine walking up a sand
dune and coming back two days later.

The wind will have erased
your footprints.

[Narrator] Could that be
what happened to the crater?

It's quite possible

that the structure's
there beneath

the Saharan Desert Sand Sea.

But we haven't found it yet.

[Narrator] The ancient
Egyptians may not have grasped

the astonishing
extraterrestrial origins

of the scarab.

But they clearly knew they
had something very, very special.

While it's fair to say that the ancient
Egyptians probably didn't know

where this glass had come from,

What they did recognize,

was the fact that it was rare,
particularly beautiful.

I mean, really flawless.

And therefore really
only fit for a king.

[Narrator] This perfect piece
of glass created by a meteorite

is literally out of this world.

Over 100,000 of these ancient
clay Mesopotamian tablets

have been found across
the Middle East.

They're the work of one of the
oldest civilizations on Earth.

But in the last decade,

one of them has rocked
the world of archaeology.

This tiny ancient tablet.

Made from sun baked clay,

it measures just
4.5 by 2.5 inches.

The surface of this 4,000
year old tablet is covered

in the oldest writing system
on Earth,

Cuneiform.

[Mark] It has about 60 lines,
so it's quite small,

very compressed
kind of writing on it.

[Narrator] When the tablet
is translated in 2009,

it turns out to be an
astonishing instruction manual.

The tablet features
a set of instructions

for building a
boat, a large boat

About half the length
of a football field

[Narrator] And it explains
what this boat is for.

What we have here is...

the appeal of a God to a man

and the instructions of what to
do to save his family and his flocks.

[Narrator] It sounds like
a familiar biblical story,

but there's one very big catch.

This tablet was written
a thousand years before

the Old Testament story of Noah.

How is this possible?

The tablets, wedge shaped
Cuneiform writing

tells a great tale.

[Kevin] The story
in the Ark tablet,

is a message from the God Enki

to a man called Atra-Hasis

saying, "Sell your possessions
build a boat, fill it with animals."

[Narrator] It gives astonishingly
detailed building instructions.

The tablet tells you to make what
is effectively a reed rope corical

In other words, a boat using
reeds from swamp land,

bonding them together with ropes

and then waterproofing them
with bitumen.

Modern day Iraq
is known for its oil

and, uh, pitch is
a by-product of oil.

So, if you were an ancient
Mesopotamia, you can grab your pitch,

something resembling
modern asphalt.

Um, and put it on your boats

and seal your boat
and make it waterproof.

And you can basically
traverse the ocean,

which we know the ancient
Mesopotamians did with these reed boats.

[Narrator] The fundamental
design of these boats

hasn't changed for thousands
of years

and they're still in use today.

But according to the tablet,

this is no ordinary boat design.

This boat that's
described in the tablet

is effectively to the scale
of a football pitch.

[Narrator] One line
of text reads,

"Let her floor area be
one field."

A field is an ancient
measurement of roughly

39,000 square feet,

giving the boat a
diameter of 220 feet.

If you dropped it
in Yankee Stadium,

it would cover more than
half the playing surface.

And the scale of the boat is
not the only striking similarity

to the story of Noah
and his ark.

The tablet says that the
animals should be put in the boat,

[speaking foreign language]

Or, in other words, two by two.

[Mark] The poor story of a flood

and a person with his family

being saved by a God
has remained.

And of course, we would
immediately recognize

that this is like
our Genesis flood story.

[Narrator] It seems unlikely that there
have been two identical great floods.

Is it possible
that the story of Noah

has just been adopted
from a more ancient culture?

A strange ancient tablet written
1000 years before the Bible,

appears to tell the story
of Noah's Ark.

So who wrote it?

The markings on the clay are written
in the ancient language of Akkadian.

It was the language
of Mesopotamia.

Mesopotamia covers modern day
Iraq parts of southern Turkey,

a little bit of western Iran,
uh, as well as eastern Syria.

[Narrator] Mesopotamia, along
the edges of the Euphrates River,

is considered by many the
origin of human civilization.

[Mark] They developed
all kinds of innovations,

everything from the first
canals and irrigation networks

to the first laws,

to the first idea of governments,
to a whole host of firsts.

[Narrator] One of the greatest of
those firsts is the invention of writing.

[Mark] The point when writing's
invented is the time when cities were

beginning to arise
for the first time.

That meant a lot of goods had
to come and feed these people

to bring the kind of things
that we need to survive

but also, of course, to thrive.

[Narrator] Early Cuneiform
develops as a way

to keep track of goods
and maintain records.

[Kevin] If I've given you a certain
quantity of grain to store for me,

it is useful to have a way
of proving that.

[Narrator] Which leads
to one inescapable conclusion.

Effectively, writing
is invented by accountants

[Narrator] By around the
third millennium B.C.

Cuneiform has evolved into
the sophisticated writing

found on the art tablet.

Including this story,

describing a giant boat with
animals entering two by two.

Almost 1,000 years before
the first Judaic texts about Noah.

Could this ancient
Babylonian story

be the origin of the one
in the Jewish Bible?

The Babylonian...

civilization was at war
on several occasions

with Judaic civilization.

Nebuchadnezzar attacked
Jerusalem on two occasions

and he enslaved people and
carried them back to Babylon.

[Narrator] The Book of Daniel
describes

the story of the Jewish
peoples in Babylon

in some detail.

They would have encountered
the Babylonian traditions,

the stories that heart back

to the ancient Mesopotamian
stories such as the flood

and they would have
incorporate these stories

into their own text.

[narrator] So, is the story
of Noah and the flood,

just a Mesopotamian tall tale?

Or could it be real?

The flood story is
surprisingly common

in Cuneiform writings.

While the Ark tablet
does not describe the flood.

There at least three other
instances on cuneiform tablets

where such floods are described.

[narrator]
The Era Do Genesis Tablet

tells an almost 4000 year
old Samarian story,

of a king being told by God that
mankind will be destroyed by a great flood.

It describes a huge storm and rain that
lasts for seven days and seven nights.

[thunder rumbling]

Some recent theories believe all
these stories could be explained

by a massive flood
in the Black Sea.

The Black Sea is linked
to the Mediterranean

through a fairly narrow
channel, the Bosporus Channel.

In 1997,
a couple of marine geologist

suggests that a great flood
could have happened

through the Bosporus Channel
about 7000 years ago.

[narrator] The theory is that the flood
is caused by the end of the last ice age.

There's a lot of water craft and
sea levels have really lowered,

but as you melt that ice, you
dramatically rise the sea level.

[narrator] Eventually, sea
levels in the Mediterranean rise

high enough to breach
the Bosporus channel.

A huge wall of water
cascades into the Black Sea.

They suggested that
this was actually

200 times the flow rate
of Niagara Falls.

This could've
cataclysmically flooded,

in a very, very short period
of time in the Black Sea.

[narrator] They estimate
39,000 square miles of land

could have been by this flood.

But this theory remains
controversial with some scientists.

However, there is another idea that would
also explain the story of a huge flood.

And it fits in right where
the Ark tablet is found.

Around the Euphrates
and the Tigris rivers.

There's lots of flood plains,

and all of
the river catchment areas

feed into those flood plains.

So if you actually have
extreme weather events,

extreme storms, massive snow melts,
they could cause localized flooding.

And if you're in the middle
of a flood plain with flat land,

as far as you can see
and that gets flooded,

all of a sudden you're in the
middle of what appears to be a Sikh.

[narrator] Scientists have actually
found flood deposits 11 feet deep,

dating back to around
5000 years ago,

just before
the Ark tablet is written.

Right at the center
of the big flood deposit,

is the city of Surabaya,
and that's the place that

always features in
all of the message

Mesopotamian's stories
about this Noah like character.

[narrator] So, we know that
a great flood is possible.

But despite the impressive
technical instructions

for building a giant boat
written on the Ark tablet,

it's impossible to know if it
is ever really constructive.

Or is it?

Could another tablet one
that we have already found,

hold the answers
we're looking for?

The ark tablet tells the story
of Noah and his boat

a thousand years
before the Bible was written.

But is there another
ancient tablet

that proves Noah's Ark
was more than just a story?

It's possible
we already have it.

There are over 1,30,000 stored
at the British Museum alone.

So, it's important to remember
that we have only read

a very small fragment
of what exists.

[narrator] Most of these
tablets remain untranslated.

This is a body of literature
that's fast.

There certainly will
never be enough experts

to really translate
all the written material

that derived from
ancient native form.

[narrator]
To overcome this problem,

researchers are turning to
artificial intelligence.

You basically feed in
pictures of cuneiform,

and they can reconstruct
what the meaning is.

Sometimes directly read
the actual symbols,

but also guess what
symbols might be.

Oftentimes you get a tablet
and it's broke, so for instance,

machine learning techniques
can also reconstruct

what symbols
may have been missing.

[Mark] You can read vast archives
of cuneiform, literally in minutes.

If this works, who knows what new
things we might learn in the coming years?

[narrator] Perhaps the full
story of the Ark tablets boat

is lying in one of these
untranslated texts

just waiting to be read by
a computer.

Stored in a European museum,

this unassuming chunk of rock was
once valued at half a million dollars.

Because it comes from the Moon.

Or does it?

It weighs just over three ounces

and measures roughly
two inches by one inch,

which is awfully big
for a Moon rock.

It's huge.

Everything about it
look strange.

[narrator] That's because it is.

When you look in detail
things are not quite right.

[narrator] Scientists are deeply
confused by this strange thing.

As you start to look closer,

things just get even more weird.

[narrator] Close up,

it shows strange
cell like structures

that no other Moon rock has.

And it's red, which is unique.

That's not the only
strange thing about it.

Because this rock isn't
in a NASA lab

or part of a
scientific research project.

It's in an art gallery
in the Netherlands.

When the scientists
finally get to look at it,

it leads to controversy and
questions about its authenticity.

There's good reasons to suspect when
you encounter an alleged Moon rock

that there's a strong potential that
there's something shady going on.

[narrator]
Now, new research is making us

fundamentally rethink
what we consider Moon Rock.

So how does this chunk of the
Moon end up in a Dutch art gallery?

Well, we do at least know
how we got hold

of most of our Moon rocks
in the first place.

The U. S. Apollo missions.

But picking up bits of rock
isn't really the point of Apollo.

America is desperate
to get to the Moon

because they want to get there
before the Soviets do.

It's a space race.

You've got to get there,
you got to plant your flag.

And even though there's
no real strategic victory,

it's sort of like the first person who
gets there, kind of owns the Moon.

[narrator] On July 20th, 1969,

America wins the race.

[man] For every American,

it has to be the proudest day
of our lives.

[narrator] NASA wants people to
know that they got more for their

25 billion than simply getting
won over on the Russians.

They want to show that the
mission has scientific value as well.

Armstrong and Aldrin were
there for just 21 hours.

Now, in that time, they did use
some of the things we've seen,

you know, like,
planting the American flag.

But they also very critically gathered
some samples of the Moon rock.

[narrator] Scientists are queuing
up to get their hands on the rocks

to answer some pretty major
questions about the Moon.

The two big ones were...

What was the Moon made of
and how it was formed.

[narrator] And that's the first
strange thing about this rock.

If these Moon rocks are
so scientifically important,

how does this one end up
in a Dutch art gallery?

The Apollo astronauts are
the global heroes.

With a PR bonanza on his hands,

US President Richard Nixon
wants to really drive home

the scale of America's technological
superiority across the globe.

The idea that they come up
with is a whistle stop tour.

24 different countries
send the astronauts around.

It's like a tour by
The Beatles, right?

Everyone knows who they are
and really excited to meet them.

They are meeting dignitaries,
kings and queens,

presidents and prime ministers.

Everyone wants to get a piece
of the Apollo program,

and some are lucky enough to literally
get a piece of the Apollo program.

[narrator] It's a massive PR
coup for the United States.

Fragments of Apollo 11 Moon
Rock are gifted to every U.S. State,

and 135 countries
around the world.

And that's where the connection
to the Rijksmuseum comes in.

In 1991. it receives
a collection of artifacts

donated from the estate of Dutch
former prime minister Willem Drees.

Amongst the collection
is the Moon Rock.

Drees claims that,

the US ambassador gave it to him

to commemorate the visit

to the Netherlands of the
Apollo 11 astronauts.

[narrator] That explains how a piece
of the Moon ends up in an art gallery.

But why does this particular
Moon rock

cause scientists so much alarm
when they finally catch sight of it?

The Drees Moon rock lies
forgotten in storage

at the Rijksmuseum for 15
years until a new space exhibition

brings its center stage
for the public to view.

The museum ensures it for
five hundred thousand dollars.

While on display, it grabs the attention
of a scientist visiting the exhibit.

But for all the wrong reasons.

[man] As he look closer,

it really just doesn't
quite sit right.

[narrator] For a start,
there's its impressive size.

This fist size piece of rock
is about 89 grams in weight,

and that's clearly way too big
for a piece of Moon rock.

The Apollo missions only brought
back a really tiny amount of samples.

In fact, Apollo eleven is total
haul of samples is just 22 kilos.

So when the Americans
went around the world

giving gifts of Moon rocks
to all the other countries,

they gave a few grams, little
rocks, no bigger than a grain of rice.

But this is a massive rock.

[narrator] And size isn't the
only thing that bothers scientists

about this rock.

From the Apollo samples,

they have learned something
really important about the Moon.

It's grey.

Rijksmuseum Museum Rock is red.

No Moon rock that we know
is red in color it all.

It tends to be sort of
dark grey,

sometimes a bit lighter grey,

sometimes,
almost black in color.

Occasionally you can see
bits of green in it,

but there's no red at all.

[narrator] And there's a very
good reason for that.

Most rocks in the world
have a lot of iron in them.

And that iron reacts
with the atmosphere

and with water, and it rusts.

And you don't get
down on the Moon.

There's almost no atmosphere.

There's very little water.

There's nothing that's going to
react to make the iron in the rock rust.

[narrator] And in 2009, when
scientists put the Dutch rock,

under the microscope,
things go from bad to worse.

They found lots of small holes
filled with quartz.

Now that's the problem.

[narrator] Quartz is
abundant on the Earth

because it takes heat
and liquid water to form.

The problem is neither of
those are found on the Moon.

And there is something
else about the rocks.

Something even more
extraordinary than quartz...

Life.

[birds chirping]

The Drees Moon Rock is said
to have been brought to the Earth

by the Apollo 11 astronauts.

But the more scientists
look at it,

the odder, it seems.

The elephant in the room was the
fact that they could identify structures

which were clearly organic,
cell like structures.

[Dougal] This looked like
structurally finding wood.

[narrator] The Moon rock,
isn't a rock at all.

It is fossilized wood.

So, in short, this strange sort of
fist size red rock that was insured

for half a million dollars,

turned out to be a very,
very old piece of tree.

[narrator] And that's a
big problem for a Moon rock.

[Andrew] The Moon is an arid,
desolate rock.

There's almost no water
up there that we know of.

There's almost no atmosphere,
and that means that

two of the fundamental things
that plants need air and water

simply aren't present.

[narrator] So, the Moon
can't support plant life.

Or can it?

In 2019, a Chinese mission
called Chang,

touched down on the surface
of the Moon.

[Andrew]
And on board was an experiment.

Tiny miniature biosphere.

They were hoping with Germany

a number of different
kinds of seeds.

There's no fruit flies in there,
they were hoping would awaken

and started buzz around
and live and

also, some yeast for
those fruit flies

The flies in the east
would have made it.

But one of the seeds germinated.

We got single cotton ceiling
with just two tiny leaves.

[narrator] The Drees Moon
rock was once a plant,

and the experiment suggested
a plant could exist on the Moon.

Or maybe not.

[Andrew] It's fair to say this experiment
wasn't an unmitigated success.

That cotton ceiling died
in the freezing in night,

with temperatures falling as
low as minus 170 degrees,

which is gonna cause
of air frost damage.

The idea of trees growing up
that is completely implausible.

Maybe once upon a time there
was some tiny microscopic life,

all be it very briefly,

but the idea
of a fully-fledged forest,

no way.

[narrator] The Drees rock
isn't from the Moon.

So is the whole thing a fake?

Is this criminal fraud?

It wouldn't be the first time.

The theft or seeking
through legal means

of these Moon rocks
has been a problem

from the very beginning,
and the main reason is,

is that they're
extraordinarily valuable.

I mean, there's God knows how
many diamonds in this world,

but there's only a couple
hundred pieces of the Moon,

and each one of them is absolutely
unique and absolutely precious.

[narrator]
Over the past 60 years,

some of the goodwill rocks
have been stolen and sold.

The value of these things
keeps going up.

So, in 1998,

US Customs officials seized
the Honduran Goodwill rock,

which had been stolen, and
this is the size of a fingernail.

But allegedly it was going to
fetch a price of five million dollars.

[narrator] Could this explain
the Drees rock?

There's certainly strong
motivation to sell fake ones

because the real ones
are worth so much.

[narrator] But nothing about this Moon rock
suggests it was meant to defraud anyone.

[man] The construction of the
plaque doesn't look like the construction

of the other
Goodwill Rock plaques.

Even the spelling is wrong.

The word center appears on
the trees plaque and have spelled

in the British Way C and TR E
rather than in the American way.

Center.

[narrator] A mistake, this obvious
simply doesn't fit with the idea that

there's some kind of
space fraud going on.

It looks more like what it
probably is.

Some kind of miscommunication.

Even more importantly,
there's no motive.

We do have to remember that Drees clearly
had the best of intentions, you know,

bequeathing his belongings
to the museum.

It's not like he was
trying to sell it

for five million dollars
or anything like that.

He was giving everything away.

And it was probably
just a misunderstanding,

you know, or misremembering.

But there's no evidence that
there's any intent to deceive

or certainly to
profit off of it.

[narrator]
One thing is crystal clear.

The Drees Moon Rock
is from Earth.

Case closed.

You don't find Earth rock
on the Moon.

Or at least that's what
people thought.

But astonishing new research
suggests that this isn't true.

In 1971, Apollo 14,

brings back a particularly
sizable chunk of Moon rock,

nicknamed Big Bertha.

Big Bertha was a Moon rock
returned by the Apollo programs,

and we analyzed in 2019.

[narrator] Inside it, the scientists
find a fragment of rock, weighing

one fifteenth of an ounce, dated
it around four billion years old.

But it isn't the age
that shocks scientists.

Embedded within Big Bertha
was bits of granite and quartz.

Now granite, of course, occur
widely across the earth.

But very, very, very,
rarely on the Moon.

[narrator] It has led the
scientists to a shocking conclusion.

What we have here is a piece of
the earth that's sitting on the Moon.

How did it get there?

The common idea behind this,

is that in the very early
solar system,

and a period called the
Late Heavy Bombardment,

things were thinking
about all over the place.

A meteorite was hit here.

[man] The idea is that giant meteor impact
on the Earth spewed up a load of daubery.

And gave some of it enough energy that it
was able to fly all of the earth's gravity

in down to space.
And one of those bits of rock,

obviously crash landed
on the surface of the Moon.

It was then retrieved
by the Apollo astronauts.

[man] Given that we managed
to stumble across them,

Earth Rock on only a 3rd
expedition on the surface of the Moon,

seems to me like there might
be more of that stuff up.

[narrator] The Drees Moon
Rock was declared a fake

because it must have
come from Earth.

There's no doubt that
the Drees rock itself,

was never on the Moon.
But Big Bertha has turned

the scientific arguments
on their heads.

So petrified trees may be
a stretch, but it turns out

that you can find Earth Rock
on the Moon.