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[William Shatner]
A dense forest,

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leveled without explanation.

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Ravenous insects on a path
of total destruction.

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And a massive tremor

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that may have been caused
by human hands.

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Fire.

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Floods. Earthquakes.

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Humanity has always faced

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natural disasters that often
strike without warning,

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leaving death and destruction
in their wake.

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But there are many other strange

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and rare events that
are just as frightening

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and deadly.

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Like mysterious fireballs
that race through the sky,

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exploding toxic lakes

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and powerful tsunamis
that some believe

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can summon the dead.

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Are these disasters
simply freak events?

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Or could they be signs
of something unnatural at work?

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Well, that is what
we'll try and find out.

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♪ ♪

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[Shatner reads on-screen text]

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At over two million
square miles,

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it's the largest forest
on Earth.

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And on June 30, 1908,

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this remote
and inhospitable landscape

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experienced
a devastating disaster

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known as the Tunguska event.

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On this June morning in 1908,
a massive explosion

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occurs over this
remote part of Siberia.

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This became a major mystery
in world history.

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At this period in time,
this area was mostly inhabited

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by an Indigenous group
called the Evenki.

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They had traditionally engaged
in reindeer herding,

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and there were
several of them who were out

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pretty close
to the epicenter of the blast.

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Evenki herders see
a bright object in the sky,

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described as
brighter than the Sun.

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[loud booming]

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And then,
they heard these loud booms,

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louder than gunshots.

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[Ben McGee] What the Evenki
described was nightmarish.

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Suddenly, another sun
appears in the sky.

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[loud booming]

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You hear the loudest noise
you've ever heard

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along with
a very violent shockwave.

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People were blasted
off their feet

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and thrown a distance.

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And then,
almost as fast as it started,

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this fades away, and

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you're left wondering,
what happened?

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[Tony McMahon]
There is an enormous explosion,

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and what happens
is that something like

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80 million trees are flattened

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over an 800-square-mile area.

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I mean, this is
absolutely bizarre,

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and yet, here you have
this devastation.

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[Paul Byrne]
It must've been terrifying.

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Every single tree is flattened
in the same direction.

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80 million of them
over 800 square miles.

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We just see flattened trees

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completely scorched and devoid
of any branches or leaves.

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[Shatner]
What kind of explosive force

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had the power to annihilate

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an 800-square-mile area?

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It's been estimated
this would require

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the energy equivalent
of 1,000 atomic bombs.

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Early 20th century theories
proposed the disaster

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was the work of a massive meteor

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striking
the Siberian wilderness.

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[Bruno] When the Tunguska blast
occurred in 1908,

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and even when it was first
investigated in the late 1920s,

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the expectation was

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that this must be
one of the largest

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meteorite events
in modern times.

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One of the early researchers
was this guy, Leonid Kulik,

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who gets support from the
Soviet Academy of Sciences

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to begin these expeditions.

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In 1928, Leonid Kulik
expected to find

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a crater
and a big chunk of metal.

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But he did not find
a crater or a meteorite.

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Even to this day,
we have not found

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a crater that was caused
by Tunguska or even material

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that can clearly be traced back
to a cosmic origin in 1908.

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[Byrne] How did something
smashing into Earth

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leave no crater
and flatten 80 million trees

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without leaving
any other trace of it?

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When an asteroid or comet
smacks into Earth's surface,

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the classic thing that you get
is an impact crater.

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Meteor Crater in Arizona
is a perfect example of this.

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But in the Tunguska event,

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we see no evidence
of a crater at all.

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And so, the enigma here is,

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how do you get, potentially,
something striking Earth, but

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not seemingly
to strike Earth at all?

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[Shatner] In the absence
of an impact crater

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or verified cosmic debris,

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attempts to explain
the unnatural event

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have ranged from a black hole
passing through Earth

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to weapons of mass destruction.

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But 70 years after Tunguska,

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a strange anomaly on a small
island in Newfoundland, Canada

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may offer some clues
to the cause

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of the mysterious
Siberian disaster.

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It's known
as the Bell Island Boom.

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April 2, 1978, in Newfoundland,

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about 5,000 residents
of Bell Island

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suddenly, spontaneously,
see an enormous flash of light,

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and it's followed
by an explosion

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that damages almost
every building in the town.

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Gouts of blue fire erupt
from power outlets.

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Livestock were killed,

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and the sound of this blast
was heard 80, 90 miles away.

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And initially,
they thought, well,

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maybe this was a giant
meteor impact, but

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there was no crater,
there was no impact debris.

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So, people thought immediately
of similarities with Tunguska.

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One possible explanation
for the Bell Island Boom

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is what we call a superbolt.

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We think that superbolts
are basically lightning bolts,

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but they're far, far
more powerful than a normal one.

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They release trillions of watts
of energy instantaneously.

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So, that leads scientists
to wonder,

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could a superbolt be responsible
for this Bell Island Boom?

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[Shatner] Was an extremely rare
and powerful lightning strike

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the cause of both
the Bell Island Boom

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and perhaps the Tunguska event?

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While it's a matter
of speculation,

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many scientists believe the real
answer came even more recently,

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and much closer to where
the Tunguska event took place.

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[Shatner reads on-screen text]

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This major industrial center

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near the border
of the Siberian taiga

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is one of the largest
cities in Russia.

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On February 15, 2013,
at approximately 9:20 a.m.,

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residents record
incredible footage

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of a meteor the size of a house

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rocketing through the sky.

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Sometimes, an asteroid
or a comet can come in

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at a very shallow angle,

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parallel with the surface
of the Earth

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to blow up in the atmosphere,

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and it's there where you can get
something we call an airburst.

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In 2013, there was
just such an airburst.

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It was about 14 or 15 miles up.

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It came in, heated up,
turned into a fireball

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brighter than the Sun, and left

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a huge cloud
through the atmosphere.

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[man speaks Russian]

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[McGee]
And people filed outside

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to see what the bright light
was caused by.

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And little did they know,
that whole time, through the air

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was an invisible shock wave
carrying the sound

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and the force of that blast,
half a megaton.

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And boom!

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Every window in the town
is shattered.

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Every car alarm
goes off at the same time.

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Thousands of buildings
were damaged,

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thousands of people injured.

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And this was a small-scale
Tunguska that we got on video.

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[Byrne] We now think that
the most likely explanation

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for the Tunguska event
is that an object

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hit Earth's atmosphere
at extremely high velocity

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and exploded, and that
energy release was enough

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to flatten those trees,
scorch the ones nearby.

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And rather than
excavating a crater,

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it basically just
blasts out a wave of energy

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that flattens trees.

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And it may be that
the Chelyabinsk event

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explains all
of the eyewitness testimony

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of people back in 1908
reporting what they saw.

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It's our best explanation
right now,

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but we may never know for sure

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what caused the blast in 1908.

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[Shatner reads on-screen text]

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This dry and arid region
encompassing Kenya,

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Ethiopia, and Somalia

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is famous for
its dramatic mountains

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and vast savannas.

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But in 2019,
it became ground zero

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for a locust swarm
of unimaginable proportions.

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[Jeffrey Lockwood] The most
famed or infamous locust

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is the desert locust of Africa.

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Where they land,
it's utter devastation.

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They are descending
in order to feed,

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and you can watch your fields
disappear before your eyes.

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So, to understand locust swarm,

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you have to kind of
go back a few,

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a few months or a few years.

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The parents of these locusts

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would've appeared
as garden-variety grasshoppers.

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But then, the conditions change.

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It becomes drier,
and they undergo

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a Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde
transmogrification.

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And instead of their offspring
looking like their parents,

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they're like mobs of small,
wingless, uh, locusts

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that march across the land just
eating whatever they encounter.

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And then,
after about three weeks,

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they molt into adults,
winged adults.

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And they rise
into the sky, and they

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appear to be kind of
a glittering storm cloud

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on the horizon.

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And if you're a farmer,
you watch

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your crops melt in front of you

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so it looks like a wildfire
has swept through.

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Nothing is gonna stop them
until they're done.

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They leave nothing behind
except misery and hunger.

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[Shatner] The East African
locust swarm of 2019

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destroyed an estimated $8.5
billion dollars' worth of crops,

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resulting in a food crisis

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affecting nearly
25 million people.

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But history's most devastating
and mysterious swarm of locusts

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assembled nearly 150 years
before the African disaster.

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This time, in the United States.

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[Shatner reads on-screen text]

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From the Rocky Mountains
to the Mississippi River,

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American farmers
struggle to survive.

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Years of harsh
weather conditions and drought

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creates hard, dry
prairie soil difficult to farm.

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But even more devastating
is the freakish mega swarm of

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Rocky Mountain locusts
that have assembled

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on a biblical scale.

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[McGee] This wasn't just
any locust swarm.

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There were more than 12 trillion
locusts that made a swath

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that was a thousand miles long,

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and basically, you can think of

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a swarm the size of California

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munching its way
across the American Midwest.

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And these locusts
were so ravenous,

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they not only
absolutely annihilated

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all the crops
in the American Midwest,

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the locusts began eating

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anything else they could find
that was organic.

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That includes
the wool off of live sheep,

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it includes wood
structural elements of houses,

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and it includes clothing
that people were wearing.

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And so, this was terrifying.

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These things were alive
and they were hungry.

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[Lockwood]
This mega swarm of 1875

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is the largest recorded swarm
in human history.

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It was 2,000 times larger than
the next largest known swarm

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of locusts on planet Earth.

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Something that summer coalesced
them into this mega swarm.

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It was a natural disaster
of unimaginable scale.

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500 to a thousand tons
of vegetation

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have to be consumed every day
to fuel that swarm.

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Much of the Midwest
was gonna face hunger.

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People are gonna die.

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But we don't really know very
much about what led up to it.

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00:13:41,208 --> 00:13:43,417
[Shatner]
Over the course of three years,

251
00:13:43,583 --> 00:13:46,875
the ravenous insects devoured
$116 billion dollars' worth

252
00:13:47,042 --> 00:13:48,792
of crops and property,

253
00:13:48,917 --> 00:13:51,583
leading to widespread starvation

254
00:13:51,750 --> 00:13:55,167
and complete financial ruin
for countless families.

255
00:13:55,292 --> 00:14:00,792
And based on this unfathomable
devastation, many wondered

256
00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:04,667
was this mysterious disaster
a grim judgement

257
00:14:04,875 --> 00:14:06,375
from the Almighty?

258
00:14:07,958 --> 00:14:10,958
[McMahon] If you read
the newspapers from the time,

259
00:14:11,083 --> 00:14:13,000
it really conveys the terror

260
00:14:13,208 --> 00:14:15,500
that these farming
communities felt

261
00:14:15,708 --> 00:14:19,333
as these locusts completely
destroyed their livelihoods.

262
00:14:19,458 --> 00:14:22,833
And of course,
many of these God-fearing people

263
00:14:22,917 --> 00:14:25,167
looked to the Bible
and thought, "Well,

264
00:14:25,375 --> 00:14:29,208
Pharaoh in Egypt
was punished with locusts.

265
00:14:30,250 --> 00:14:32,792
Surely, we're being punished
for our sinfulness.

266
00:14:32,958 --> 00:14:34,750
We have done something wrong

267
00:14:34,917 --> 00:14:38,583
and we are now facing
divine retribution."

268
00:14:38,750 --> 00:14:40,417
That's what many people thought.

269
00:14:41,833 --> 00:14:43,708
[Lockwood]
Governors in five western states

270
00:14:43,917 --> 00:14:46,125
declared days of prayer.

271
00:14:46,292 --> 00:14:48,833
And then, you say, "Well,

272
00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:51,333
God helps those
who help themselves."

273
00:14:51,542 --> 00:14:57,292
What do you do in the
industrial age to fight nature?

274
00:14:58,583 --> 00:15:00,125
Build a machine. Right?

275
00:15:00,250 --> 00:15:02,000
Machinery must be the answer.

276
00:15:03,125 --> 00:15:05,083
All kinds of machines are built.

277
00:15:05,250 --> 00:15:07,583
One was called
the King Suction Machine.

278
00:15:07,708 --> 00:15:12,500
A belt-driven, gigantic vacuum
that would suck up

279
00:15:12,667 --> 00:15:14,542
the nymphs-- these are
the wingless immatures--

280
00:15:14,708 --> 00:15:16,167
and bag them.

281
00:15:16,375 --> 00:15:17,667
[horse neighs]

282
00:15:17,875 --> 00:15:22,042
You might try various rolling
devices to crush these locusts.

283
00:15:22,208 --> 00:15:25,000
One of my favorites
was, basically,

284
00:15:25,208 --> 00:15:29,000
a flamethrower
to torch the locusts.

285
00:15:29,125 --> 00:15:32,458
Not very effective, but it
probably felt pretty good.

286
00:15:33,708 --> 00:15:36,125
Now, did it make a dent
in the locusts, probably not,

287
00:15:36,208 --> 00:15:40,042
but it did give the people
a sense of being in control.

288
00:15:41,625 --> 00:15:43,500
[Shatner] While we still don't
know what caused the largest,

289
00:15:43,667 --> 00:15:46,083
most destructive
locust swarm in history,

290
00:15:46,250 --> 00:15:48,667
what's even more perplexing

291
00:15:48,750 --> 00:15:53,458
is that, by the year 1902,
just 27 years later,

292
00:15:53,542 --> 00:15:57,167
the Rocky Mountain locust
completely vanished

293
00:15:57,333 --> 00:15:59,208
from the face of the Earth.

294
00:16:00,708 --> 00:16:02,333
[McGee] It was only
a couple of decades after

295
00:16:02,500 --> 00:16:03,833
this titanic storm

296
00:16:04,042 --> 00:16:06,708
of locusts
that the Rocky Mountain locusts

297
00:16:06,875 --> 00:16:08,458
went extinct,
disappeared forever.

298
00:16:09,458 --> 00:16:11,292
You talk about
a dynamic contrast.

299
00:16:11,458 --> 00:16:14,625
It went from effectively
swallowing the country...

300
00:16:15,875 --> 00:16:17,667
...to vanishing without a trace.

301
00:16:17,875 --> 00:16:19,167
And why?

302
00:16:19,375 --> 00:16:21,167
Well, perhaps
it was loss of habitat

303
00:16:21,333 --> 00:16:24,458
and human civilization's advance
just meant the conditions

304
00:16:24,625 --> 00:16:25,875
weren't favorable
for them anymore.

305
00:16:26,042 --> 00:16:27,500
We don't really know.

306
00:16:28,875 --> 00:16:30,375
[Lockwood]
Another theory was

307
00:16:30,542 --> 00:16:32,083
they didn't go anywhere,
they're still here.

308
00:16:32,292 --> 00:16:35,000
And it just so happens
that the right conditions

309
00:16:35,208 --> 00:16:36,500
have not happened again

310
00:16:36,708 --> 00:16:40,958
that would transform
an existing grasshopper

311
00:16:41,167 --> 00:16:43,083
into the Rocky Mountain locust.

312
00:16:43,250 --> 00:16:47,125
We still can't explain
what caused the rise

313
00:16:47,292 --> 00:16:49,083
of the Rocky Mountain
locust swarm

314
00:16:49,250 --> 00:16:51,750
and ultimately
what caused their demise.

315
00:16:51,958 --> 00:16:54,167
And it may forever
remain a mystery.

316
00:16:54,292 --> 00:16:56,542
♪ ♪

317
00:16:56,708 --> 00:17:00,458
It's baffling to think
that trillions of locusts,

318
00:17:00,667 --> 00:17:03,917
swarming over an area more than
a thousand miles wide,

319
00:17:04,042 --> 00:17:06,917
could suddenly vanish
into extinction.

320
00:17:07,083 --> 00:17:08,417
[clicks tongue]

321
00:17:08,583 --> 00:17:10,000
But that's not
the only mystery of nature

322
00:17:10,167 --> 00:17:13,125
that continues to defy
scientific understanding.

323
00:17:13,333 --> 00:17:15,667
For example,
there's a lake in Cameroon

324
00:17:15,833 --> 00:17:21,708
that may be part of a network
of toxic, ticking time bombs.

325
00:17:26,708 --> 00:17:28,292
[Shatner reads on-screen text]

326
00:17:32,125 --> 00:17:35,167
The Sun rises
over the hills surrounding

327
00:17:35,333 --> 00:17:38,417
an ancient body of water
known as Lake Nyos

328
00:17:38,625 --> 00:17:42,542
and reveals
an apocalyptic scene.

329
00:17:43,875 --> 00:17:47,583
In nearby villages,
lifeless bodies are strewn about

330
00:17:47,750 --> 00:17:51,667
as if a mysterious force
had swept across the land

331
00:17:51,792 --> 00:17:55,167
killing nearly everything
in its path.

332
00:17:55,333 --> 00:17:57,292
There was a terrifying

333
00:17:57,458 --> 00:17:59,333
geological catastrophe
that occurred.

334
00:17:59,458 --> 00:18:01,917
Something disrupted this lake.

335
00:18:02,958 --> 00:18:07,458
Locals reported a rumbling sound
and what might be described

336
00:18:07,583 --> 00:18:13,292
as an explosion as the lake
suddenly came to life.

337
00:18:13,417 --> 00:18:16,000
And anyone who was caught
in its path

338
00:18:16,167 --> 00:18:17,500
instantly dropped dead.

339
00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:21,208
[Shatner]
The death toll was staggering.

340
00:18:21,375 --> 00:18:25,333
It's estimated around
1,700 people and 3,500 animals

341
00:18:25,542 --> 00:18:29,083
were killed
across a 14-mile radius.

342
00:18:30,500 --> 00:18:33,667
With no obvious cause of death,

343
00:18:33,792 --> 00:18:36,000
an international team
of scientists--

344
00:18:36,208 --> 00:18:39,708
including American
biologist George Kling--

345
00:18:39,833 --> 00:18:42,583
was dispatched to investigate.

346
00:18:42,708 --> 00:18:45,708
We really didn't know what had
happened, what had caused this.

347
00:18:45,875 --> 00:18:48,750
And the lake itself was

348
00:18:48,875 --> 00:18:52,625
very reddish-orange,

349
00:18:52,792 --> 00:18:54,625
like a rust color

350
00:18:54,833 --> 00:18:59,042
that we really don't see
very often in lakes.

351
00:18:59,208 --> 00:19:02,625
And there was a lot of damage
around the shoreline

352
00:19:02,833 --> 00:19:04,708
from some large wave

353
00:19:04,875 --> 00:19:07,958
that must have been produced
with enough force

354
00:19:08,083 --> 00:19:11,792
to wash away all the vegetation
and soil down to bare rock.

355
00:19:11,958 --> 00:19:14,167
And lakes just
don't explode like that.

356
00:19:14,375 --> 00:19:17,500
[Shatner]
What exploded out of Lake Nyos

357
00:19:17,667 --> 00:19:20,208
killing everything in its path?

358
00:19:20,417 --> 00:19:25,208
Given that the lake was formed
in an ancient volcanic crater,

359
00:19:25,375 --> 00:19:27,750
investigators feared
that an eruption,

360
00:19:27,917 --> 00:19:32,292
deep underground,
released a surge of deadly gas.

361
00:19:32,458 --> 00:19:36,375
[Kling] Many of the survivors
reported smelling rotten eggs

362
00:19:36,542 --> 00:19:40,333
or gunpowder, and that's
an unmistakable smell of sulfur,

363
00:19:40,500 --> 00:19:43,167
and they reported feeling warm.

364
00:19:43,250 --> 00:19:46,250
And we know volcanoes produce
a lot of sulfur gas

365
00:19:46,417 --> 00:19:48,167
and a lot of heat.

366
00:19:48,292 --> 00:19:51,208
But when we started
analyzing our samples,

367
00:19:51,375 --> 00:19:53,583
we found no sulfur
in the lake water.

368
00:19:53,708 --> 00:19:58,333
We found no excess sulfur
in the plants

369
00:19:58,542 --> 00:20:01,792
around the lake that had been
exposed to this gas cloud.

370
00:20:01,958 --> 00:20:05,125
And when the army pathologists
did autopsies,

371
00:20:05,292 --> 00:20:07,000
they found no evidence

372
00:20:07,208 --> 00:20:10,458
that people were poisoned
by sulfur gas.

373
00:20:11,667 --> 00:20:14,833
[Shatner]
No poisoning by sulfur gas?

374
00:20:15,042 --> 00:20:16,375
Experts were left wondering

375
00:20:16,542 --> 00:20:18,458
if the cause
of this deadly disaster

376
00:20:18,583 --> 00:20:20,375
was even geological at all.

377
00:20:20,542 --> 00:20:25,542
Local rumors swirled
about chemical spills,

378
00:20:25,750 --> 00:20:27,333
weapon tests,

379
00:20:27,500 --> 00:20:31,625
even stories about
vengeful spirits in the lake.

380
00:20:31,792 --> 00:20:35,083
But George Kling
found something intriguing

381
00:20:35,250 --> 00:20:38,375
buried in old medical reports.

382
00:20:38,542 --> 00:20:43,625
A clue pointing to
a rather unlikely culprit,

383
00:20:43,750 --> 00:20:47,458
a gas that we all produce
when we exhale,

384
00:20:47,625 --> 00:20:51,792
carbon dioxide,
otherwise known as CO2.

385
00:20:54,750 --> 00:20:57,250
[Kling] We ran across
some older medical literature

386
00:20:57,375 --> 00:20:59,917
that had used
high concentrations of CO2

387
00:21:00,042 --> 00:21:03,375
to test for oxygen stress
in fighter pilots.

388
00:21:03,542 --> 00:21:07,000
And it turns out that CO2

389
00:21:07,208 --> 00:21:09,500
above concentrations
of about six percent

390
00:21:09,708 --> 00:21:11,917
acts as a sensory hallucinogen.

391
00:21:12,042 --> 00:21:14,833
And one of the most common
reports from the fighter pilots

392
00:21:14,917 --> 00:21:17,333
was that they smelled
rotten eggs and gunpowder

393
00:21:17,500 --> 00:21:20,500
and that they felt very warm.

394
00:21:20,667 --> 00:21:25,208
So, we knew that
this was a CO2 release,

395
00:21:25,417 --> 00:21:29,000
and we suspected that the gas
was held in the lake.

396
00:21:29,208 --> 00:21:31,958
It turns out that
the lake itself

397
00:21:32,167 --> 00:21:35,500
could hold a huge amount
of gas in the bottom waters.

398
00:21:36,708 --> 00:21:38,500
[Shatner]
Kling's tests reveal

399
00:21:38,708 --> 00:21:41,667
that Lake Nyos
was primed for disaster.

400
00:21:41,875 --> 00:21:45,375
Over centuries, the lake
had become a pressurized

401
00:21:45,542 --> 00:21:48,167
chamber of carbon dioxide.

402
00:21:48,375 --> 00:21:51,333
And when that chamber exploded,

403
00:21:51,500 --> 00:21:55,000
it released a massive wave
of suffocating gas

404
00:21:55,167 --> 00:21:58,958
that raced across the land
at over 60 miles per hour.

405
00:22:00,375 --> 00:22:01,917
Lake Nyos, as it turns out,

406
00:22:02,083 --> 00:22:04,750
was supercharged
in carbon dioxide,

407
00:22:04,875 --> 00:22:07,250
much like a soda can

408
00:22:07,417 --> 00:22:10,167
if you shook it up
before you opened it.

409
00:22:11,042 --> 00:22:13,667
So, anyone unfortunate
to be caught in its path

410
00:22:13,833 --> 00:22:15,833
couldn't breathe.

411
00:22:16,875 --> 00:22:20,375
[Kling] One of the things
that made this event so deadly

412
00:22:20,542 --> 00:22:25,500
was that this CO2 gas cloud
was enormous, first off,

413
00:22:25,708 --> 00:22:28,333
but because
it was heavier than air,

414
00:22:28,542 --> 00:22:31,167
it flowed out of the lake
and down the river valleys

415
00:22:31,333 --> 00:22:33,917
very quickly,
so even if people had seen

416
00:22:34,083 --> 00:22:36,375
the cloud coming, they couldn't
have gotten out of the way.

417
00:22:36,583 --> 00:22:40,292
And people just
essentially died in place.

418
00:22:41,375 --> 00:22:46,167
Lake Nyos was vulnerable
to this kind of an event because

419
00:22:46,375 --> 00:22:48,333
it was formed
by volcanic activity,

420
00:22:48,542 --> 00:22:51,000
and it's also very deep.

421
00:22:51,208 --> 00:22:54,833
So, those deep waters
could store a lot of gas.

422
00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:58,167
But once we have the gas build
up, we have to have a trigger,

423
00:22:58,333 --> 00:23:00,167
and this could be
any number of things.

424
00:23:00,333 --> 00:23:04,333
For example,
it could be a landslide

425
00:23:04,458 --> 00:23:06,333
that caused the gas burst,

426
00:23:06,542 --> 00:23:09,167
but we'll probably
never know for sure

427
00:23:09,333 --> 00:23:11,500
what triggered this disaster.

428
00:23:13,042 --> 00:23:15,333
[Shatner]
Based on Kling's discovery,

429
00:23:15,542 --> 00:23:19,417
Lake Nyos is now monitored
around the clock

430
00:23:19,625 --> 00:23:22,542
to help anticipate
another deadly gas event.

431
00:23:22,708 --> 00:23:26,708
But solving
the Lake Nyos disaster reveals

432
00:23:26,875 --> 00:23:29,333
a far more terrifying question.

433
00:23:29,542 --> 00:23:31,500
With more lakes
potentially primed

434
00:23:31,708 --> 00:23:34,750
for the same kind
of catastrophe,

435
00:23:34,917 --> 00:23:39,750
when and where
could this happen again?

436
00:23:39,917 --> 00:23:45,125
Lake Kivu in East Africa is the
nasty big brother of Lake Nyos.

437
00:23:45,292 --> 00:23:48,375
It's 1,600 times larger.

438
00:23:48,542 --> 00:23:51,375
It has a thousand times
more gas in it.

439
00:23:51,542 --> 00:23:53,333
And because there are
millions of people

440
00:23:53,458 --> 00:23:55,667
living around
the shoreline of that lake,

441
00:23:55,875 --> 00:23:58,667
it's the largest
ticking time bomb in the world.

442
00:23:58,792 --> 00:24:01,667
There are active volcanoes
in the area.

443
00:24:01,833 --> 00:24:05,208
And these volcanoes
could destabilize it

444
00:24:05,375 --> 00:24:06,875
and trigger a gas burst.

445
00:24:07,042 --> 00:24:09,583
We haven't looked at
every single lake in the world,

446
00:24:09,750 --> 00:24:12,458
but we know now
enough about what

447
00:24:12,625 --> 00:24:14,583
kinds of lakes
could be dangerous.

448
00:24:15,833 --> 00:24:17,583
[McGee]
Knowing that this is a process

449
00:24:17,750 --> 00:24:19,542
that the Earth can throw at us,

450
00:24:19,708 --> 00:24:22,000
it's natural to wonder,
are other lakes susceptible?

451
00:24:22,208 --> 00:24:24,667
The good news is
it doesn't happen everywhere.

452
00:24:24,875 --> 00:24:27,875
But the bad news is, if there's
one that we don't know about,

453
00:24:28,042 --> 00:24:32,500
we need to find it first
before it lets us know

454
00:24:32,708 --> 00:24:34,583
it's there
in all the worst ways.

455
00:24:35,708 --> 00:24:39,417
How many lakes around the world
are filled with poisonous gases

456
00:24:39,625 --> 00:24:41,333
that could explode
at any minute?

457
00:24:41,500 --> 00:24:43,833
While there's
much left to learn,

458
00:24:44,042 --> 00:24:45,292
there are some disasters

459
00:24:45,417 --> 00:24:48,375
that aren't triggered
by natural processes

460
00:24:48,542 --> 00:24:50,417
that take millions of years
to unleash.

461
00:24:50,583 --> 00:24:54,333
Like in the case
of a catastrophic earthquake

462
00:24:54,458 --> 00:24:55,625
that may have been the result

463
00:24:55,792 --> 00:24:58,167
of human engineering.

464
00:25:02,375 --> 00:25:05,375
[Shatner] Throughout history,
Mother Nature has revealed

465
00:25:05,500 --> 00:25:07,000
that the ground beneath our feet

466
00:25:07,167 --> 00:25:11,125
is far less stable
than we like to imagine.

467
00:25:11,292 --> 00:25:13,833
In the last century alone,

468
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:17,042
cities have been suddenly
reduced to rubble.

469
00:25:18,125 --> 00:25:20,458
And nearly two million people
around the world

470
00:25:20,625 --> 00:25:24,167
have been killed
by the unbelievable ruin

471
00:25:24,333 --> 00:25:27,000
caused by earthquakes.

472
00:25:28,667 --> 00:25:31,167
[Klose] Earthquakes we can
observe around the world.

473
00:25:31,333 --> 00:25:33,583
Wherever you are
on any continent,

474
00:25:33,750 --> 00:25:36,000
you have plenty
of fault zones everywhere.

475
00:25:37,042 --> 00:25:40,750
Large fault zones
will cause large earthquakes,

476
00:25:40,917 --> 00:25:44,375
and an earthquake happens
if you build up stress

477
00:25:44,542 --> 00:25:47,417
over thousands
and millions of years,

478
00:25:47,583 --> 00:25:51,125
and those fault zones can
basically rupture at some point.

479
00:25:54,208 --> 00:25:56,167
[Shatner]
While scientists can't predict

480
00:25:56,333 --> 00:25:57,875
when an earthquake will strike,

481
00:25:58,042 --> 00:26:00,083
we generally assume
that they're caused

482
00:26:00,250 --> 00:26:04,875
by natural processes that take
an extraordinarily long time.

483
00:26:05,042 --> 00:26:10,500
But could some of the deadliest
earthquakes of the modern age

484
00:26:10,625 --> 00:26:12,958
be caused by human hands?

485
00:26:16,583 --> 00:26:18,792
[Shatner reads on-screen text]

486
00:26:21,875 --> 00:26:25,083
This region is home
to over 80 million people,

487
00:26:25,250 --> 00:26:29,042
making it one of the most
populous places in all of China.

488
00:26:29,208 --> 00:26:32,292
But just before 2:30
in the afternoon,

489
00:26:32,417 --> 00:26:34,125
a massive earthquake unleashes

490
00:26:34,208 --> 00:26:38,125
unspeakable death
and destruction.

491
00:27:26,292 --> 00:27:28,042
[Shatner] The deadly earthquake
struck along

492
00:27:28,208 --> 00:27:30,667
a 155-mile fault line

493
00:27:30,833 --> 00:27:34,083
running the base
of the Longmen Mountains.

494
00:27:34,292 --> 00:27:36,917
But when scientists pinpointed
the quake's epicenter,

495
00:27:37,083 --> 00:27:41,167
they found something massive
and man-made.

496
00:27:42,167 --> 00:27:44,792
The question is,
what triggered that earthquake?

497
00:27:44,958 --> 00:27:46,458
Although we know
that this region

498
00:27:46,583 --> 00:27:48,667
is a natural seismic region

499
00:27:48,875 --> 00:27:51,667
where we have earthquakes
every other hundreds of years,

500
00:27:51,792 --> 00:27:54,708
seismologists
are able to measure

501
00:27:54,875 --> 00:27:57,833
how waves propagate
through the Earth's crust.

502
00:27:58,000 --> 00:27:59,667
And that's what they did.

503
00:27:59,875 --> 00:28:02,417
They looked at the seismic wave
they recorded

504
00:28:02,542 --> 00:28:06,375
and they could see that,
in the first ten to 15 seconds,

505
00:28:06,542 --> 00:28:09,125
most of the energy was released

506
00:28:09,292 --> 00:28:13,208
right in the vicinity
of the Zipingpu Dam.

507
00:28:13,417 --> 00:28:17,708
[Shatner] The Zipingpu Dam
stands over 500 feet tall,

508
00:28:17,875 --> 00:28:19,833
and its reservoir holds

509
00:28:20,042 --> 00:28:23,625
more than 296 billion
gallons of water,

510
00:28:23,750 --> 00:28:27,500
weighing more than
one trillion tons.

511
00:28:27,667 --> 00:28:30,208
Scientists began to wonder,

512
00:28:30,375 --> 00:28:34,333
did this monumental
engineering project somehow

513
00:28:34,500 --> 00:28:36,083
trigger the earthquake

514
00:28:36,250 --> 00:28:39,833
that killed
an estimated 87,000 people?

515
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:42,125
When it comes to the idea
of humans

516
00:28:42,292 --> 00:28:44,958
artificially triggering
earthquakes to occur,

517
00:28:45,125 --> 00:28:48,583
if you do something to add
a lot of weight to an area--

518
00:28:48,792 --> 00:28:52,583
like create a dam
and then generate a new lake--

519
00:28:52,708 --> 00:28:55,792
well, the weight
of all of that water

520
00:28:55,917 --> 00:28:58,000
can induce
any number of changes.

521
00:28:58,167 --> 00:29:00,833
And in some areas,
definitely activate earthquakes.

522
00:29:46,625 --> 00:29:49,625
That's what led us to suggest

523
00:29:49,708 --> 00:29:53,167
that the pressure
can be that large

524
00:29:53,333 --> 00:29:59,208
and that could weaken the fault
and trigger the earthquake.

525
00:30:00,792 --> 00:30:02,833
[Shatner] While it seems
the Zipingpu reservoir

526
00:30:03,042 --> 00:30:05,833
could have a role in
the deadly Sichuan earthquake,

527
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:08,292
the theory remains controversial

528
00:30:08,458 --> 00:30:11,708
and is not acknowledged
by the Chinese government.

529
00:30:11,875 --> 00:30:15,333
But it all raises
a chilling question.

530
00:30:16,708 --> 00:30:20,667
What other massive man-made
structures could potentially

531
00:30:20,792 --> 00:30:24,167
bring about
an unnatural disaster?

532
00:30:25,208 --> 00:30:27,625
[Byrne] Closer to home,
the Hoover Dam is among

533
00:30:27,792 --> 00:30:29,750
the largest reservoirs
in the world.

534
00:30:29,917 --> 00:30:31,833
[explosions]

535
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:34,125
And in fact, even during
its construction in the 1930s,

536
00:30:34,292 --> 00:30:37,333
there were quakes nearby
because there are structures

537
00:30:37,458 --> 00:30:40,292
in the ground
that are going to move.

538
00:30:40,458 --> 00:30:45,000
The big question becomes this,
if those structures move again,

539
00:30:45,125 --> 00:30:48,125
are we going to have
an issue with this dam?

540
00:30:49,750 --> 00:30:52,708
There's no doubt that

541
00:30:52,875 --> 00:30:55,125
whether it's caused
by man or Mother Nature,

542
00:30:55,250 --> 00:30:57,792
those impacted
by a disaster are left

543
00:30:57,917 --> 00:30:59,667
haunted by the event itself

544
00:30:59,833 --> 00:31:02,500
and the aftermath that follows.

545
00:31:02,667 --> 00:31:05,625
But when the tsunami of 2011

546
00:31:05,750 --> 00:31:09,042
destroyed parts of Japan,
some locals were affected

547
00:31:09,250 --> 00:31:11,667
on an otherworldly level,

548
00:31:11,792 --> 00:31:14,500
when the living
were reportedly visited

549
00:31:14,667 --> 00:31:16,458
by the dead.

550
00:31:21,250 --> 00:31:23,333
[Shatner reads on-screen text]

551
00:31:26,417 --> 00:31:29,333
A massive
9.1 magnitude earthquake

552
00:31:29,542 --> 00:31:33,375
strikes dangerously close
to the Japanese mainland.

553
00:31:33,583 --> 00:31:37,167
This seismic event
displaces so much water,

554
00:31:37,333 --> 00:31:39,750
it sends hundred-foot waves

555
00:31:39,875 --> 00:31:41,958
barreling towards
Japan's eastern shore

556
00:31:42,125 --> 00:31:45,000
at 500 miles per hour,

557
00:31:45,167 --> 00:31:50,667
in an event known as the
Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

558
00:31:51,708 --> 00:31:55,292
[Parry] The earthquake set off
a massive tsunami,

559
00:31:55,417 --> 00:31:58,667
which struck
the coastline of Eastern Japan,

560
00:31:58,875 --> 00:32:02,125
and that is what caused
devastating damage.

561
00:32:02,292 --> 00:32:04,958
It's like the tide coming in

562
00:32:05,125 --> 00:32:09,000
unstoppably, massively,
and very, very, very fast.

563
00:32:09,208 --> 00:32:14,042
The tsunami smashed
into villages, towns, ports

564
00:32:14,208 --> 00:32:15,708
all along the coast.

565
00:32:15,875 --> 00:32:17,417
It caused a meltdown

566
00:32:17,625 --> 00:32:20,833
at the Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear power station,

567
00:32:21,042 --> 00:32:23,125
which turned into
the second worst

568
00:32:23,292 --> 00:32:25,875
nuclear disaster in history.

569
00:32:26,042 --> 00:32:29,208
The devastation is overwhelming.

570
00:32:29,417 --> 00:32:34,333
Imagine turning all houses,
factories sideways,

571
00:32:34,458 --> 00:32:37,458
spreading out
all the chemicals and debris,

572
00:32:37,625 --> 00:32:39,208
destroying roads.

573
00:32:39,375 --> 00:32:41,250
You have flows that are filled,
not just with mud and trees,

574
00:32:41,375 --> 00:32:44,917
but cars, and building
fragments and rooftops.

575
00:32:45,125 --> 00:32:49,417
And this is spread
all the way inland, many miles,

576
00:32:49,583 --> 00:32:52,458
and then dragged
back out to sea.

577
00:32:52,625 --> 00:32:55,167
There were more than
19,000 people killed

578
00:32:55,333 --> 00:32:57,333
in this event, and it becomes

579
00:32:57,500 --> 00:33:00,583
the deadliest event in Japan's
history since World War II.

580
00:33:01,750 --> 00:33:04,208
[Shatner] The entire region
grappled with enormous loss

581
00:33:04,375 --> 00:33:07,167
and unimaginable trauma.

582
00:33:08,167 --> 00:33:10,167
And some who managed
to escape death

583
00:33:10,375 --> 00:33:12,958
would also experience
disturbing events

584
00:33:13,125 --> 00:33:15,458
of an otherworldly kind.

585
00:33:15,625 --> 00:33:19,167
Because in the months
after the tragedy,

586
00:33:19,333 --> 00:33:22,417
tsunami survivors
started to report

587
00:33:22,542 --> 00:33:25,417
ghostly encounters
with the dead.

588
00:33:25,583 --> 00:33:27,833
[Parry] Six months or so
after the tsunami,

589
00:33:28,042 --> 00:33:30,042
among many people
who survived it,

590
00:33:30,208 --> 00:33:31,750
you did begin to hear

591
00:33:31,958 --> 00:33:35,000
various stories about

592
00:33:35,125 --> 00:33:37,250
supernatural mysterious events.

593
00:33:38,167 --> 00:33:40,833
There were stories about

594
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:45,250
mysterious figures glimpsed
by the coast on the beach.

595
00:33:46,208 --> 00:33:47,500
And then, there were

596
00:33:47,625 --> 00:33:51,583
also the stories told
by-by taxi drivers.

597
00:33:51,708 --> 00:33:57,042
A taxi driver is flagged down
by a lonely figure

598
00:33:57,250 --> 00:33:59,250
who got in the back of the taxi

599
00:33:59,417 --> 00:34:00,833
and gave him an address.

600
00:34:00,958 --> 00:34:02,333
And he gets there

601
00:34:02,500 --> 00:34:04,500
and, sure enough,
there is nothing there.

602
00:34:04,583 --> 00:34:07,125
All the houses have been
smashed to pieces by the wave.

603
00:34:07,292 --> 00:34:09,500
He looks in the back
of the taxi--

604
00:34:09,708 --> 00:34:11,583
the person isn't there.

605
00:34:11,750 --> 00:34:13,333
And he understands that

606
00:34:13,500 --> 00:34:16,500
the passenger was a ghost
who wanted to go back

607
00:34:16,708 --> 00:34:18,667
to the place where
they'd formerly lived.

608
00:34:19,833 --> 00:34:21,833
There was something ghostly

609
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:24,792
happening along
that stricken coast.

610
00:34:27,417 --> 00:34:30,167
[Shatner] Did thousands
of sudden deaths unleash

611
00:34:30,333 --> 00:34:33,625
the spirits of those
that perished in the tsunami?

612
00:34:33,750 --> 00:34:36,750
It's an unnerving question

613
00:34:36,875 --> 00:34:40,833
because there were also
reports that these spirits

614
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:43,333
possessed the living.

615
00:34:44,833 --> 00:34:46,125
[speaking Japanese]

616
00:34:46,292 --> 00:34:48,333
[translated]
I perform purification rituals,

617
00:34:48,542 --> 00:34:50,333
but also exorcism, if you will.

618
00:34:52,292 --> 00:34:55,167
Living people
were possessed by spirits.

619
00:34:55,292 --> 00:34:57,458
After the tsunami,
everyone around there

620
00:34:57,625 --> 00:35:00,375
had almost no physical
or mental immunity left.

621
00:35:00,542 --> 00:35:02,667
So, they were
in a state where spirits

622
00:35:02,875 --> 00:35:04,875
could easily attach themselves.

623
00:35:05,042 --> 00:35:07,000
So, our method of exorcism

624
00:35:07,167 --> 00:35:09,125
involved guiding them
into a meditative state

625
00:35:09,292 --> 00:35:12,208
and then expelling it
with a big breath.

626
00:35:12,375 --> 00:35:14,458
Strangely enough,
with one woman,

627
00:35:14,625 --> 00:35:18,667
smoke suddenly puffed out of her
mouth and the spirit left her.

628
00:35:18,750 --> 00:35:20,250
And when she
came back to normal,

629
00:35:20,417 --> 00:35:22,167
she was like, "Why am I here?

630
00:35:22,333 --> 00:35:24,583
Did something happen to me?"

631
00:35:25,708 --> 00:35:27,292
[Shatner]
While the actual number

632
00:35:27,458 --> 00:35:29,500
of claimed spirit possessions
is unknown,

633
00:35:29,667 --> 00:35:33,458
mediums, folk healers,
and holy men

634
00:35:33,625 --> 00:35:37,500
became inundated
with desperate calls for help.

635
00:35:38,417 --> 00:35:40,042
[speaking Japanese]

636
00:35:40,208 --> 00:35:41,542
[translated]
I was in the thick of it,

637
00:35:41,750 --> 00:35:43,417
facing people
suffering from possession

638
00:35:43,625 --> 00:35:45,208
and doing whatever I could.

639
00:35:46,792 --> 00:35:50,375
They're in a daze. Their face
is blank. They're limp.

640
00:35:51,625 --> 00:35:54,208
It feels like
their personality has changed.

641
00:35:54,417 --> 00:35:57,667
We performed rites to calm them.

642
00:35:59,708 --> 00:36:03,625
You need the power of ritual
and the power of deep listening.

643
00:36:05,292 --> 00:36:09,292
I engaged with them and
released them from possession,

644
00:36:09,417 --> 00:36:11,542
and brought them back
to daily life.

645
00:36:13,500 --> 00:36:16,167
But facing possession
takes so much out of you,

646
00:36:16,375 --> 00:36:19,500
to the point
you feel you might die.

647
00:36:21,833 --> 00:36:26,042
[Shatner] Did tsunami ghosts
roam Japan's devastated coast

648
00:36:26,208 --> 00:36:29,750
and possess those that survived?

649
00:36:29,875 --> 00:36:32,000
While some are convinced
that this was a real

650
00:36:32,083 --> 00:36:33,667
supernatural phenomenon,

651
00:36:33,875 --> 00:36:38,375
others suggest
a less esoteric explanation.

652
00:36:39,250 --> 00:36:42,292
After a terrible
disaster like this,

653
00:36:42,458 --> 00:36:45,000
I think there are two impulses
that people have.

654
00:36:45,208 --> 00:36:46,917
One is naturally to feel

655
00:36:47,083 --> 00:36:49,042
horror about what has happened,

656
00:36:49,250 --> 00:36:51,833
and I think
these stories of ghosts,

657
00:36:52,042 --> 00:36:55,167
the sense of the supernatural
bearing in on all sides,

658
00:36:55,375 --> 00:36:58,500
is an aspect of that,
of that fear and that horror.

659
00:36:58,708 --> 00:37:00,083
But there was
another side to it.

660
00:37:00,250 --> 00:37:02,167
There's a strong,
strong yearning

661
00:37:02,250 --> 00:37:04,500
to connect with the dead.

662
00:37:04,708 --> 00:37:08,000
To say the goodbyes,
the farewells

663
00:37:08,125 --> 00:37:10,667
that weren't possible
in this sudden catastrophe.

664
00:37:10,875 --> 00:37:13,917
But to the people
having the experiences,

665
00:37:14,042 --> 00:37:15,500
they were very, very real,

666
00:37:15,667 --> 00:37:18,000
and they needed
to be taken seriously.

667
00:37:25,750 --> 00:37:28,375
[Shatner] Natural disasters
have always threatened humanity.

668
00:37:29,417 --> 00:37:32,500
Some believe the danger's
only growing.

669
00:37:32,583 --> 00:37:35,833
Between the year 2000 and 2019,

670
00:37:36,042 --> 00:37:40,667
there were over 7,000
major recorded disaster events

671
00:37:40,792 --> 00:37:42,417
around the world,

672
00:37:42,542 --> 00:37:46,792
nearly twice as many
than the previous two decades.

673
00:37:46,917 --> 00:37:50,917
And scientists warn
that the next major disaster

674
00:37:51,083 --> 00:37:54,000
could come from immense forces

675
00:37:54,167 --> 00:37:56,042
buried beneath
the Earth's crust.

676
00:37:56,208 --> 00:37:57,625
[loud booming]

677
00:37:57,792 --> 00:38:00,417
[Byrne]
One source of catastrophic

678
00:38:00,625 --> 00:38:03,167
environmental change we know
happened in Earth history

679
00:38:03,375 --> 00:38:05,083
are gigantic volcanic eruptions.

680
00:38:05,250 --> 00:38:07,208
If we look through
the geological record,

681
00:38:07,417 --> 00:38:09,875
we see thousands
of these events.

682
00:38:10,042 --> 00:38:13,750
Like we saw in Siberia
about 250 million years ago

683
00:38:13,917 --> 00:38:17,833
leading to the biggest mass
extinction in Earth history.

684
00:38:18,042 --> 00:38:21,667
98% of all species
on Earth went extinct.

685
00:38:21,875 --> 00:38:24,792
The atmosphere was rendered
almost unbreathable

686
00:38:24,958 --> 00:38:26,875
because of how much CO2
came out.

687
00:38:27,042 --> 00:38:29,083
We know that these kinds
of events have happened

688
00:38:29,208 --> 00:38:30,750
through Earth history.

689
00:38:30,917 --> 00:38:33,958
In fact, geologically,
they happen regularly,

690
00:38:34,125 --> 00:38:35,458
and we do not have the ability

691
00:38:35,667 --> 00:38:38,542
to predict if or when
the next one will happen.

692
00:38:38,750 --> 00:38:43,333
There are catastrophic eruptions
that volcanoes are capable of,

693
00:38:43,542 --> 00:38:45,833
and Yellowstone
is a great example.

694
00:38:46,042 --> 00:38:49,125
Yellowstone Caldera is
a huge depression in the ground

695
00:38:49,292 --> 00:38:51,792
with an enormous body
of magma at depth.

696
00:38:51,958 --> 00:38:55,500
Now, right now, that magma
seems to be relatively stable,

697
00:38:55,667 --> 00:38:58,625
but we know that there were
gigantic volcanic eruptions

698
00:38:58,750 --> 00:39:01,583
in the past, and it may yet
explode in the future.

699
00:39:02,708 --> 00:39:05,333
[Shatner] Could a massive
volcanic eruption

700
00:39:05,458 --> 00:39:08,458
unleash Earth's next
mass extinction event?

701
00:39:08,625 --> 00:39:10,292
It has happened before.

702
00:39:10,458 --> 00:39:16,000
But there are other apocalyptic
forces not born of this Earth,

703
00:39:16,167 --> 00:39:18,375
like the same cosmic threat

704
00:39:18,583 --> 00:39:21,750
believed to have killed
the dinosaurs.

705
00:39:21,917 --> 00:39:25,333
A lot of extinctions in our past
were actually caused by comets.

706
00:39:25,542 --> 00:39:27,625
If you were to look
at our solar system,

707
00:39:27,750 --> 00:39:29,417
the whole solar system
is surrounded

708
00:39:29,583 --> 00:39:33,667
by a giant sphere of old junk.

709
00:39:33,750 --> 00:39:36,542
Think of it as icy spare parts

710
00:39:36,667 --> 00:39:38,917
from when the solar system
was first built.

711
00:39:39,875 --> 00:39:41,500
This is where
all comets come from.

712
00:39:41,667 --> 00:39:44,125
And one hypothesis is that,

713
00:39:44,250 --> 00:39:48,750
as our solar system moves
through the galaxy-- bam.

714
00:39:50,083 --> 00:39:54,125
A slew of comets are fired in
toward the inner solar system,

715
00:39:54,292 --> 00:39:56,125
and so it really does
make you wonder

716
00:39:56,250 --> 00:39:58,458
whether future mass extinctions

717
00:39:58,625 --> 00:40:00,792
have to do with our
galactic neighborhood.

718
00:40:01,958 --> 00:40:04,167
[Shatner]
Will a series of comets

719
00:40:04,375 --> 00:40:07,250
soon bombard Earth
like artillery shells?

720
00:40:07,458 --> 00:40:11,792
The fact is, we can't accurately
predict future disasters at all.

721
00:40:13,125 --> 00:40:15,958
And mankind lives and dies

722
00:40:16,125 --> 00:40:20,708
at the mercy of forces
that are beyond our control.

723
00:40:20,875 --> 00:40:23,625
[Byrne]
At some point in the future,

724
00:40:23,792 --> 00:40:26,167
it won't be a question
of if, but when

725
00:40:26,333 --> 00:40:28,333
Earth decides to clean house.

726
00:40:28,458 --> 00:40:31,250
But every time
these disasters happen,

727
00:40:31,375 --> 00:40:33,667
the environment bounces back.

728
00:40:33,875 --> 00:40:36,458
Now, I hope we won't learn this
on our own lifetimes,

729
00:40:36,583 --> 00:40:39,042
but it will surely
happen again at some point.

730
00:40:39,167 --> 00:40:42,417
One question we should ask is,
have we figured out all the ways

731
00:40:42,542 --> 00:40:45,167
in which these disasters
might happen?

732
00:40:45,333 --> 00:40:48,500
[Kling] Most of us understand
that being prepared

733
00:40:48,708 --> 00:40:50,833
doesn't always help us when
we're exposed to the unknown.

734
00:40:50,958 --> 00:40:54,125
We have to accumulate
more facts,

735
00:40:54,250 --> 00:40:55,667
more information.

736
00:40:55,833 --> 00:40:57,292
Sometimes, people assume that

737
00:40:57,417 --> 00:40:58,542
scientists have it all
figured out,

738
00:40:58,708 --> 00:41:01,500
that they have seen everything.

739
00:41:01,625 --> 00:41:04,042
They pretty much understand
what's happening.

740
00:41:04,208 --> 00:41:08,250
But these disasters
have really shown us

741
00:41:08,417 --> 00:41:13,542
that we had no idea
about major events

742
00:41:13,708 --> 00:41:16,167
that have happened in the past

743
00:41:16,333 --> 00:41:18,958
and may happen
in the future as well.

744
00:41:19,958 --> 00:41:23,833
Is Earth overdue
for an unspeakable disaster

745
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:26,625
on a scale we've
never witnessed before?

746
00:41:26,792 --> 00:41:28,875
Well, I sure hope not.

747
00:41:29,042 --> 00:41:32,500
And whether
a massive volcano erupts,

748
00:41:32,625 --> 00:41:35,250
a giant space rock
collides with Earth,

749
00:41:35,417 --> 00:41:39,833
or any number of terrible
cataclysms are on the horizon,

750
00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:43,833
it's clear that deadly
catastrophes are inevitable

751
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:46,000
as long as we call
this planet our home.

752
00:41:46,208 --> 00:41:49,542
While Mother Nature has taught
us to respect the elements,

753
00:41:49,708 --> 00:41:52,542
it's the unpredictable

754
00:41:52,708 --> 00:41:55,833
and unnatural disasters
that leave us humbled

755
00:41:56,000 --> 00:42:00,958
by forces that remain
unexplained.

756
00:42:01,125 --> 00:42:03,667
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