NARRATOR: They're watching you.
More than 6,000 satellites circle the Earth.
Every day, they uncover new,
mysterious phenomena that defy explanation.
Revealed from the skies,
Armageddon in the land of the Bible.
EGLASH: Wow, look at this devastation here.
That's unreal.
NARRATOR: Debauchery in the swamps.
KERLEY: People could do just about whatever they wanted.
It was pretty wild.
NARRATOR: And death and salvation
at the end of the world.
HORTON: This played a critical part in one of the most
extraordinary survival stories
of human history.
NARRATOR: Baffling phenomena, mysteries from space.
What on Earth are they?
[theme music playing]
February 2022, Israel.
Journalist Ruth Eglash is journeying through
the 4,000-mile-long Rift Valley,
drawn here by a worrying phenomenon
captured from the sky.
What's happening here is really weird
and a little bit scary.
NARRATOR: Drone footage taken above the east of
the country has revealed an unfolding catastrophe in
coastal areas.
These look almost like gigantic teeth marks,
as if someone is chewing away at the shorelines.
DENNIE: They're almost perfectly round,
and it turned this coastline into what looks like
Swiss cheese.
NARRATOR: Some of the chasms have
the appearance of sinkholes,
but their number and magnitude are unprecedented.
KOUROUNIS: These holes appeared in clusters,
but there's no clear indication as to what's forming them,
and the fact that there are so many
just adds to the mystery.
JANULIS: The only thing I've seen that looks like this
essentially is the remnants of a battlefield
after artillery strikes.
NARRATOR: The giant craters are eating away at land
around the Dead Sea,
a place that has held deep significance to humankind
for millennia.
The Dead Sea is one of the most remarkable places
on Earth,
with evidence of continuous occupation that goes back into
the Stone Age.
EGLASH: The Dead Sea, it has a special place
in the hearts of people around the world.
NARRATOR: According to the Bible, the Dead Sea
was once verdant and filled with life.
It also contains stories that echoed
the destruction revealed from the skies.
HORTON: It's been a place people visited
because of its extraordinary magical qualities.
But perhaps the Dead Sea is most famous for
the stories around two twin cities
known as Sodom and Gomorrah.
[people shouting]
KOUROUNIS: The tales go that Sodom and Gomorra were
destroyed entirely by fire and brimstone,
leaving nothing left behind, not even vegetation.
NARRATOR: According to the book of Genesis,
God brings devastation to the twin cities as punishment
for their sins and sexual immorality,
devastation that could explain
the giant voids in the aerial footage.
Most explanations
that are credible about the destruction of Sodom
and Gomorrah are geological ones based on seismic activity.
HORTON: The Dead Sea is at the end
of the Great East African rift valley,
and it's an area that's very unstable with earthquakes,
and I just wonder whether our holes
are in some ways related to these earthquakes.
NARRATOR: Eglash continues eastward, bearing down
on the site in the images.
It is believed that Sodom and Gomorrah once stood
in an area of the Dead Sea much like this one.
Approaching the coast,
the journalist finds more evidence
that history could be repeating itself.
This is weird.
The road is supposed to carry on here, but it ends suddenly.
The ground is opening up.
It's like someone just pulled it apart.
That's...unreal.
I don't know if I should get too much closer here.
NARRATOR: As Eglash approaches the shoreline,
the scale of the destruction intensifies.
Wow! Look at this devastation here.
This is unbelievable.
There's a whole building,
it seems to have just collapsed
inside this enormous hole right here.
NARRATOR: It appears that this was once
a thriving coastal resort,
but it is now being consumed from below,
forcing its residents to flee.
EGLASH: This place is just eerie.
That looks like a gas station.
Looks like they got out of here in a hurry.
They just ripped everything from
the walls as quick as they could,
saved everything that needed saving,
and they got out of here.
This destruction is on an almost unimaginable scale.
NARRATOR: Further aerial images show that this isn't
the only community being devoured
by the mystery craters.
Many more have materialized along the Dead Sea's shores,
and the rate at which they're appearing is increasing.
JANULIS: This is something significant going on here.
It's basically the whole coastline
is littered with the things.
KOUROUNIS: There are literally thousands of these holes.
What could be causing this?
NARRATOR: Local records reveal the devastation is
the consequence of decades of political upheaval
and conflict,
a tragic side effect of humankind's attempts
to play God with these historic lands.
This area has turned into a very dangerous place to live.
It's shocking.
The Dead Sea is dying right in front of us.
CERVENY: These strange holes have ramifications
for the entire world.
NARRATOR: Coming up, decoding the Dead Sea.
EGLASH: This is amazing.
I mean, it's incredible.
NARRATOR: And the lost temple of heaven.
We're talking an ancient megastructure on a scale
basically never seen before on this planet.
NARRATOR: Aerial images have revealed town-swallowing craters
around the Dead Sea,
echoing the biblical destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Ruth Eglash is investigating.
Hi, there, Captain Jacky.
Thank you so much for having me on your boat.
To learn more, Eglash is
meeting with Jacky Ben Zaken, who has
worked on the Dead Sea almost a decade.
Like so many people here,
his life has been devastated by the mysterious craters
on its shores.
EGLASH: What's the impact in this area?
Well, families lost their livelihood,
and people left -- people left the area.
NARRATOR: According to Jacky, the disaster here is
the culmination of a series of events
three million years in the making.
BEN ZAKEN: In order to understand the problem
of the Dead Sea, we have to understand
the uniqueness of the Dead Sea.
NARRATOR: The Dead Sea was originally formed when
flooding from the Mediterranean created
a giant lagoon.
Two million years ago,
rising tectonic plates cut the lagoon off from the ocean,
and over time, it turns into a highly saline inland sea.
There's less water going in that is going out
through evaporation,
making it saltier and saltier and saltier.
NARRATOR: Throughout the Dead Sea's history,
the salt in its waters
has precipitated into the bedrock,
meaning it now sits on layers of the mineral
up to 55 feet thick.
All of the salt that has been produced when the sea dried up
in the past is still there.
It lies underneath the sea in layers of rock.
Ben Zaken also reveals that the unique geology here has
created giant columns of salt that rise up from the seabed.
You look down, you see how deep it is.
EGLASH: This is amazing.
I mean, I knew the Dead sea was salty, but to see it
like this, it's incredible.
NARRATOR: For countless millennia,
the Dead Sea's salt beds remain stable.
But when Israel declares its independence in 1948,
events unfold which trigger the disaster
revealed from the skies.
Water is everything here. Water is worth more than gold.
So, to ensure the survival of the newly created country
of Israel, they had to make sure they had water.
NARRATOR: To secure its water,
in 1953, Israel turns to the River Jordan,
the main source of water for the Dead Sea.
Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan also siphon
their supplies from the 223-mile-long waterway.
The River Jordan had its water flow
massively reduced by Israel's water program.
JANULIS: The entire history of the region is one of warfare
over water.
So anytime somebody modifies the water system,
you're looking at potential conflict,
and that's exactly what happened.
NARRATOR: Escalating disputes over water supplies
between Israel and Arab nations
are one of the contributing factors of the Six-Day War
in 1967.
The 132-hour conflict claims over 20,000 lives
and results in Israel laying claim to land
in the West Bank and Golan Heights.
The name of the war, the Six Days War,
makes it sound like a sort of minor incident.
But it wasn't, it changed
the entire political landscape of the Middle East.
NARRATOR: Over the following decades,
more and more water is diverted from the River Jordan,
meaning just 11 percent of the once mighty waterway
now trickles into the Dead Sea.
EGLASH: You can really see how the water has receded.
Where that jetty is, that was where the water was.
And today, we're all the way down here.
It's unbelievable.
NARRATOR: Every year, the water level here drops by three feet.
When it rains, freshwater flows into cracks in
the newly exposed shoreline,
dissolving the thick layers of salt below.
This creates chasms, which then collapse.
The challenge for Jacky and the other locals here
is predicting when this will happen.
-And you see that's...whoa! -[shrieks]
-That's okay. That's a sinkhole. -Okay.
[indistinct]
-Whoa. -You see, that's a sinkhole.
Don't want to get too close to the edge.
BEN ZAKEN: Yeah.
NARRATOR: Every year,
hundreds more holes, up to 100 feet deep,
materialize along the coast.
For locals like Jacky,
the effect is devastating, and thousands may
soon be forced to flee these historic shores.
Why should you stay -- I mean, why --
why should you live in a place where you don't see a future?
NARRATOR: Hour by hour,
the Dead Sea's water level continues to drop,
meaning the situation here will only get worse.
For now, all the authorities can do is
continue to monitor the devastation from the skies.
The Dead Sea is clearly one of the greatest wonders of
the world, but if it keeps receding the way it has,
there'll be nothing left.
HORTON: If the Dead Sea was to dry up,
it would be a real tragedy to humanity.
NARRATOR: Coming up, wild times in the Wild West.
You came to this town, and whatever your vice was
was wide open.
NARRATOR: And ice tomb.
Being trapped in Antarctica is a death sentence.
NARRATOR: June 2020,
California.
A drone scans the 550-square-mile expanse
of the San Francisco Bay.
You have this vast, empty area,
and it looks to be some sort of marsh.
But when we look closer, you start to see
that there's also a scattered handful
of dilapidated old buildings.
NARRATOR: The crumbling structures sit between
the cities of Fremont and Palo Alto.
KERLEY: We are talking some of the most expensive
real estate in the world,
and then inside these marshes is a ghost town.
NARRATOR: Local records reveal the mystery settlement is
called Drawbridge,
and its history is one steeped in blood, lust, and vice.
KERLEY: People could do just about whatever
they wanted to do in Drawbridge.
It was pretty wild.
NARRATOR: Drawbridge has its origins
in the 19th century Gold Rush,
when San Francisco's population explodes from 1,000
to 25,000 in the space of 12 months.
Prices skyrocket, with prospectors paying a dollar for
a single slice of bread,
forcing many to turn to hunting to feed their families.
If food is scarce, if you have a hard time
putting food on the table, you have to hunt wild game.
RUBEN: The ability to hunt and either eat or sell
the meat was very attractive to a lot of people.
NARRATOR: As game stocks become depleted,
officials restrict how much the locals can hunt.
In 1876, travelers on a train
across the San Francisco marshes discover an opportunity.
In the middle of it, they had to put in a drawbridge,
which meant that, occasionally,
the train had to stop, and when it did,
the passengers realized there are a lot of ducks around here.
AUERBACH: When hunters realized that this was a good spot
for duck hunting,
a kind of ad hoc community built up.
NARRATOR: Soon, 1,000 hunters are disembarking at Drawbridge
every weekend, using makeshift weapons
that can slaughter up to 500 birds with a single shot.
Illegal gun clubs spring up to service
the bloodthirsty crowds,
many accepting poultry as payment.
AUERBACH: The hunting was so plentiful that dead ducks were
actually used as betting currency
at the gambling tables,
I'll see your duck and raise you three mallards.
NARRATOR: In 1920, the carnage at Drawbridge steps up a gear,
when Congress passes the 18th Amendment,
banning the production and sale of alcohol.
As bars and booze factories close,
smugglers use the Bay Area's creeks and inlets
to quench San Francisco's thirst.
HUNT: Boats docked all along the coast,
and rum and whiskey
and all kinds of liquor
flowed through this area.
NARRATOR: Hidden in the marshes, Drawbridge becomes ground zero
for the Bay Area's Prohibition partying.
RODRIGUEZ McROBBIE: Drawbridge's initial appeal
was in the booze, but it became a hotbed
of anything that was
illegal and fun.
NARRATOR: Within a year, Drawbridge expands from
a handful of shacks to over 90 buildings,
a mix of cabins, speakeasies, gambling dens,
and brothels.
Visitors are offered four options --
drink, gamble, smoke, or leave.
You came to this small little town right off
the rail line, and whatever your vice was, was wide open.
BROWN: People could drink freely.
They could gamble freely.
They could engage in prostitution freely.
Anything went in Drawbridge.
NARRATOR: In 1933, Prohibition ends,
and San Francisco's bars and clubs reopen.
People desert the marshes,
and Drawbridge's heyday draws to a close.
You have this kind of marshland area
and this really ramshackle town,
and there's no real reason to want to go there anymore.
Really, all that was left was one lonely former
drawbridge operator,
wandering around trying to pay for sex with a dead duck.
RUBEN: The final blow for Drawbridge came when
the buildings started to sink into the marsh.
The residents decided this was the last straw
and started to leave the area.
NARRATOR: Today, Drawbridge's revelers are long gone.
But this strange legacy of some
of the most debauched times in U.S. history
is still visible from the skies.
The remains of the town are slowly sinking into the same
marsh that, in its heyday, had protected it from prying eyes.
NARRATOR: Coming up, the 1,000-year-old ghost fleet.
BELLINGER: Many of them are eerily intact.
It's as if they sank yesterday.
NARRATOR: And the town that turned Antarctica red.
WALTERS: I find it amazing that this remote place
has this incredibly rich story attached to it.
NARRATOR: March 19th, 2020.
A satellite scans
an archipelago off the Swedish coast.
It's a series of islands, and there are two very
parallel rows of mysterious white floating objects
sprinkled between them.
The fact that they are evenly spaced out
and parallel to each other is very --
very strange.
NARRATOR: The mystery structures' location could
offer a clue to their purpose.
They sit in the Baltic Sea,
a 150,000-square-mile treasure trove of maritime history.
HUNT: This area of the Baltic
has so many shipwrecks over hundreds,
if not thousands of years.
BELLINGER: There have been reports of divers
and even looters visiting these wrecks
and, at times, removing artifacts from them.
Could it be that these platforms have
something to do with the recovery of shipwrecks?
NARRATOR: When military veteran Clint Janulis
studies the image, he reveals
the structures serve a different purpose.
A strong clue is it's really close to
a major naval base, used to refit, repair,
and overhaul submarines.
What we're actually seeing in this image
is what's called a deperming station.
NARRATOR: Deperming stations are clandestine facilities used by
the military to conceal subs and ships from enemy tracking.
JANULIS: It's a bit like camouflaging a tank aboveground,
but you can do a bit more than just hide its visual appearance.
You can actually change its magnetic signature.
NARRATOR: The ability to change a vessel's magnetic
signature is critical to navies around the world.
It's a technology born from some of
the darkest days of 20th century history.
The whole idea of de-magnetizing was basically an outgrowth
of the threat posed by mines deployed during World War II.
NARRATOR: During World War II, Allied and Axis powers
construct thousands of naval vessels,
but they suffer from a critical flaw.
WAKEFIELD: Any steel vessel will have a magnetic field
around it, and this magnetic field
will disrupt the Earth's magnetic field,
and so this allows it to be detected.
If you think of the trick of using a needle,
rubbed against something magnetic,
the needle is suddenly magnetized.
That magnetization becomes a signal.
So that's a big problem.
NARRATOR: At facilities like the one in the image,
engineers wrap vessels in giant coils of copper wire
and bombard them with electricity.
The electrical currents running through
these copper cables is as high as 4,000 amps.
And what this does is it resets
the magnetic signature of the vessel.
NARRATOR: In World War II, the technology enables
thousands of vessels to evade Nazi sea mines,
but it becomes even more critical to
naval commanders in the post-war years.
JANULIS: During the Cold War,
both the Soviet Union and the rest of the world
were essentially playing a giant game of cat and mouse.
Submarine warfare and technology was central to that.
NARRATOR: At the height of the Cold War,
the Soviet Union possesses twice as many
nuclear armed subs as the U.S.
Many of them patrol the seas in the image,
meaning they become the focus of potentially apocalyptic
stealth warfare between the two superpowers.
WALTERS: The Baltic really is this massive potential
flashpoint for any future conflict,
where all sides are kind of flexing
their military muscles.
JANULIS: Both the Soviet Union and the Allied submarines
were hunting each other, tracking each other down.
They were trying to show that they had the superiority.
NARRATOR: To evade detection, nuclear subs shut
down systems and minimize propeller noise,
a technique known as silent running.
[indistinct talking]
NARRATOR: But they can still be tracked by magnetic detection,
meaning each must regularly visit facilities
such as this one.
MUNOZ: A submarine's biggest asset is
its ability to travel undetected.
If you can detect it, you can sink it.
Western forces decommission the site in the image in 2004,
but escalating tensions mean there
has been renewed activity here.
[boat horn blowing]
A new Cold War played out in
the freezing depths of the Baltic Sea.
As the Russians encroach further into that area,
there is a concern that this buildup is gonna eventually
lead to something.
Worst case scenario, a new conflict breaks out.
NARRATOR: Coming up, carnage at the end of the world.
KOUROUNIS: The most miraculous part is that
every single one of them survived.
NARRATOR: And built on bones.
If people died, their bodies became part of the wall.
November 7th, 2021.
Satellites scan the tiny British island of
South Georgia,
approximately 900 miles from civilization.
We're right down here in
the southern oceans, in a little harbor.
But what I can see is this huge industrial complex.
This is one of the most
inhospitable places on the entire planet.
So what could possibly draw people
to this area of the world?
NARRATOR: Abandoned buildings and shipwrecks
litter the isolated facility.
The most curious part are these large, circular structures.
They look like...
storage tanks.
Are we seeing fuel tanks here?
NARRATOR: Historical records shed more light.
AUERBACH: The stuff stored in these tanks is fuel,
but it's fuel from a very different age.
This crumbling site was once one of
the largest whale oil refineries in the world.
NARRATOR: During the 1700s, mankind embarks on a global
whale massacre that will last for two centuries.
By the 1840s, 900 whaling ships are patrolling
the oceans in hunts that can last for four years.
We're getting development of machinery,
which required lubrication
and before the discovery of petroleum,
the only form of lubricant that was available
was whale oil.
KOUROUNIS: Literally the wheels of
the Industrial Revolution were greased by whale oil.
NARRATOR: By the early 20th century,
whalers have killed around three million
of these giant mammals.
And every room in every household in
the US contains items derived from whale carcasses.
Many different parts of whales
were used in different industries.
The bones were used as ribbing in women's corsets.
The teeth were carved like ivory
into chess pieces and piano keys.
NARRATOR: In 1904, dwindling whale numbers
in the Atlantic lure a Norwegian captain
to establish a station at the site
in the image called Grytviken.
Thousands of whales have traveled down to feed
on the rich waters of the Antarctic summer.
It was Grand Central Station of whales.
At Grytviken,
500 men catch and kill 200 cetaceans each year,
including a 110-foot-long blue whale,
the largest animal ever hunted.
There would have been countless corpses
of these whales dragged ashore,
with dozens of men flensing off the blubber
of these animals.
AUERBACH: This was the equivalent of a kind of
factory production, where the raw material was
whale carcasses.
NARRATOR: Over the following 60 years,
this facility churns out 450,000 tons of oil.
But the tale of this whaling station doesn't end there.
This whaling station played a critical part in one
of the most extraordinary survival
stories of human history.
NARRATOR: On December 5, 1914,
British polar explorer Ernest Shackleton set sail
from the site attempting to make the first
land crossing of Antarctica.
In that part of the world, plans can often go awry,
and that's exactly what happened.
His ship got trapped in the ice,
was crushed, and eventually sank.
NARRATOR: With his crew marooned,
Shackleton returns to South Georgia for help,
piloting a lifeboat for 16 days
through 1,000 miles of ice-packed ocean.
He then assembles a rescue team
and heads back to recover his stranded shipmates.
The most miraculous part of this entire story
is that every single one of them survived.
Shackleton's sailing of this tiny, tiny little boat is still
considered one of the greatest feats
of sailing ever undertaken.
NARRATOR: Five decades after Shackleton's heroic mission,
the whaling station closes.
Today, life has returned to this place of death,
and its once blood-soaked buildings
can be seen from space.
WALTERS: I find it amazing that this remote place on this tiny
little island in the middle of this vast,
almost frozen sea,
has this incredibly rich story attached to it.
NARRATOR: Coming up -- curse of the emperor.
We're seeing the impacts of this echoing
through to the modern day.
NARRATOR: May 15th, 2019.
Satellites flying over the Yin Mountains
in northern China photograph a mystery structure.
JANULIS: It seems to be made up of concentric rings,
one inside the other, almost like a bullseye.
NARDI: Given the way the circles sort of protrude
from the ground, it looks like it could be
some sort of a tower, but it's really hard to tell
without getting a closer look at it.
NARRATOR: The newly discovered edifice is around 330 feet in
diameter and sits over 5,000 feet above sea level.
HUNT: These concentric rings are actually high up on a mountain.
So what would this be doing out here
in the middle of nowhere?
NARRATOR: A wider search of the area yields a clue.
It's actually close to a section of
the Great Wall of China.
So this leads me to believe
that perhaps there's some military connection.
NARRATOR: The site sits between two sections of
the Zhao State Wall,
one of dozens of separate structures
that comprise the Great Wall of China.
What we call the Great Wall of China is a bit
of a misnomer, because, in fact, it's not one single wall.
NARDI: The wall was built in different sections,
oftentimes running in parallel to one another throughout
different periods of time.
Around 220 BCE,
Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor
of a unified China,
connects different sections of wall to
protect his new kingdom from northern raiders.
We're talking an ancient mega structure on a scale
basically never seen before on this planet.
HUNT: The labor force was forced
to work under such dire circumstances.
If people died, they were just put into the wall.
NARRATOR: Qin stations garrisons and communication systems
along his 3,100-mile-long wall to guard against invaders.
JANULIS: When you look at the image,
you can see how it could be a beacon tower.
NARDI: These towers allowed soldiers to communicate
with one another, either through smoke signals
during the day or lighting fires at night.
That's how they communicated great distances very quickly,
literally at the speed of light.
NARRATOR: When archaeologists excavate the site,
they discover that it does have ties to China's
war-torn past, but from a different period.
This structure gives a fascinating insight
into a little-known dynasty
that had a really vital role in shaping
modern China.
NARRATOR: The mystery structure has its origins
in the third century CE,
a period of bloody unrest in this region.
From this chaos,
a clan of nomadic warriors emerge, who establish
a 780,000-square-mile empire
and become known as the Wei dynasty.
HORTON: They're best remembered for the legends
about a girl warrior called Mulan
who dressed up as a man
and led the army for over a decade.
NARRATOR: As the dynasty grows, its emperors construct
ceremonial sites, including
the one in the image, to beg the gods for continued
good fortune.
Like the Temple of Heaven in Beijing,
it was used by the Wei
for a practice known as imperial worship.
HORTON: The belief is that
there is an emperor of heaven who controls all natural
phenomenon -- earthquakes, rainfall, tsunamis.
BELLINGER: The circular shape of it is extremely important,
because in ancient Chinese history, heaven is round.
NARRATOR: The Wei emperors use ceremonies at the site to
reinforce their godlike status
and maintain their grip on power.
But their success ultimately leads to their downfall.
HUNT: The dynasty became too wealthy,
too much like the elites of the rest of China,
and they lost touch with their people.
JANULIS: So the working class people were propping up
their leaders to live in lives of luxury,
and they basically said, "No,
we're gonna rebel."
NARRATOR: In 534 CE, following a brutal civil war,
the dynasty collapses.
1,500 years later, the mark it made on
the history of China is still visible from space.
When we look at China today, we're seeing the impacts
of this ancient dynasty
echoing through to the modern day.