a thousand lightning bolts in a single hour.
[thunder crashes]
A never-ending fire that destroys an entire town.
And bizarre humming noises...
[distorted screaming]
...that drive people insane.
We call everything around us...
"nature,"
as if the incredible world we live in
is "natural," "normal."
Something we can understand.
But what happens when nature is unnatural--
bizarre, unreal?
How can nature defy the very laws
that are supposed to govern it?
What then? Are we simply at its mercy?
Or is it something we must figure out
before it's too late?
♪
SHATNER: Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela.
This body of water, near the mouth of the Catatumbo River,
has been called "The Lightning Capital of the World,"
because almost every night, it's a place
where the lightning never stops.
[thunder crashing]
300 days out of a year, we see this lightning.
It's called "Catatumbo lightning."
It's like sheets of lightning constantly for hours and hours
and hours, and it goes on and on,
and it lights up everything around it.
And it's not like any other lightning
anywhere else on the planet.
It's amazing.
You have to wonder why is there not lightning like this
everywhere else in the world?
SHATNER: There's an old expression that says lightning
doesn't strike twice in the same place.
But at Lake Maracaibo, not only does it strike
at the same place, it does so over and over.
But why?
There are some areas of the Earth
which seem to be like lightning valleys.
[thunder crashes]
Areas that are just inundated with lightning bolts
on a given storm. And why?
Well, we're not sure.
When you look at Venezuela, you can take some guesses
as to what's going on.
Maybe it's the water.
But it also could be things like the altitude,
or the general atmospheric conditions.
So it's very hard to pin down exactly what's going on
in that place, and why that place is special.
There's a thing called "chaos theory,"
and in chaos theory, there are these places
that are called "attractors."
They're regions that just occur sort of randomly
that cause a vortex.
Things occur there, things collect there.
Perhaps the Earth has an attractor
over this lake in Venezuela
that's causing the Catatumbo lightning.
One thing about lightning is there is
a tremendous amount of energy involved.
But that's not the most exciting piece.
It's the power.
It's how quickly the energy is released.
Lightning represents one of the most powerful,
high-power phenomena in nature.
So lightning's really exciting because there's pieces
we do understand,
but there's still a lot of pieces we don't understand.
[thunder crashing]
KAKU: For example, recently it was revealed
that the energy of a lightning bolt is so great
that even antimatter can be formed.
To create antimatter,
you need a particle accelerator.
You need an atom smasher to create antimatter
-in the laboratory. -[explosion]
But it turns out an ordinary lightning bolt
will also create minute quantities
of this exotic form of matter.
[thunder crashes]
The lightning in Lake Maracaibo is an interesting case
of scientists trying to figure out an unusual phenomenon.
This region had been identified for many years
as a hotspot of lightning.
And it turns out, with a detailed NASA study,
it is indeed the greatest lightning hotspot in the world.
SHATNER: Lightning hotspots?
Are there really places on Earth that act like lightning rods?
Perhaps further clues can be found
by examining not only places
that are repeatedly struck by lightning,
but the story of one woman who's been struck twice,
and has lived to tell the tale.
Fort Benning, Georgia.
July 20, 1992.
Army specialist Beth Peterson is working
at an ammunition point when storm clouds
begin to gather over the base.
I saw lightning strike and hit the concertina wire
on the-the fence going around the ammunition point.
And then I watched lightning strike a tree across from me.
And next thing you know, lightning struck again.
It entered my feet, it exited my mouth.
It grounded on top of my head.
It felt like my body exploded.
And it just lifted me as it launched me.
And everything just felt like burnt.
I felt like it took my head off.
SHATNER: Beth was rushed to the infirmary,
and, incredibly, she survived.
But after months of recovery, Beth realized that
-something was different. -[monitor beeping]
She had been changed.
Not enough people get hit by lightning
and survive, like the strike that I survived the first time.
And so there isn't a lot of research
for my doctors to understand, to be able to say,
"You've been hit by lightning, and this is the end result."
In my case, they say, "You've been hit by lightning,
and we have to help you figure out a way to cope with it."
Because there are things that happen that are unexplained.
I really believe in the electromagnetic
changes in the body, because the first ten years
of having, with my children, having the Christmas tree up,
and putting maybe tinsel on it,
the tinsel would jump six feet off the Christmas tree onto me.
I couldn't get it to stay on the tree.
-Turning on lights... -[electricity crackles]
...touching things...
I'm very staticky.
My hair likes to get very floaty.
I can feel it in my body.
SHATNER: After such a harrowing experience,
Beth took solace, both in the fact that she had survived,
and that her near-fatal encounter with lightning
was over.
Or was it?
PETERSON: July 19th of 1993,
I was struck by lightning again.
I had a psychologist tell me that I was a soldier.
I needed to get over it, I needed to carry on
and soldier on,
and that I should go home and watch the storm.
And that's what I told myself as I drove home
and took off my boots, and opened the French doors,
and was struck again.
It threw me approximately eight to nine feet
back into the house.
No one has ever come forward and told me why
this has happened.
I have had a team of incredible doctors,
and they have tried and tried and tried
through the years to medically have some explanation.
Because when a person's going through what I've gone through,
you want an answer.
And the answer just always keeps coming back to,
"You've been struck by lightning."
SHATNER: Was it merely a coincidence
that Beth was struck a second time?
Or could there have been something larger at play?
[thunder crashes]
Is it possible that,
like Lake Maracaibo,
some people attract lightning?
They say that being hit by a lightning bolt
is similar to winning the lottery,
and yet, some people are hit by lightning bolts
more than once, and what's the reason?
Is it just bad luck?
DENNIN: As people, we do have a certain composition,
and we're mostly water.
And water is a great conductor of electricity.
But the exact details and specifics
of how each person is set up is gonna vary enough
so you can imagine some people are greater
or lesser lightning rods.
So if you think about the whole electrical system,
and how they fit into the electrical system
of the Earth and the atmosphere,
some people are more likely to be hit by lightning than others.
PETERSON: I always have a heightened awareness.
I know where the storms are coming.
I can feel it by the hair on my arms standing up.
The hair on the back of my neck,
my static in my own hair...
it floats.
I can tell when the changes in the weather are happening
by the response of what I feel in my body.
I do not necessarily think it was a coincidence
that I was struck a second time.
I think the changes in my body made it more attractive.
Why are certain places and people
repeatedly struck by lightning?
I'm sure Beth Peterson would love to know the answer.
Just like the people who used to live in a small town
in rural Pennsylvania,
one that has literally gone up in smoke.
Not from being hit by lightning,
but from a fire...
that has been burning...
for more than half a century.
SCOTT JONES: You basically, you see the fire and brimstone things
Population: five.
Once upon a time, this small mining town
was home to more than 2,000 people.
Today, it's an almost entirely abandoned wasteland.
Some would say it resembles a war zone.
But it wasn't war that ravaged Centralia.
It was something much more devastating.
DAVID WHITEHEAD: The story of Centralia
is both tragic and terrifying
in that it used to just be a quaint mining town...
...but now it's a total ghost town.
SHATNER: February 14, 1981.
Valentine's Day.
12-year-old Todd Dombowski
is playing in his grandmother's backyard
when he notices something strange
coming up from the ground.
He sees what he thinks is-is smoke coming up from the lawn,
goes over to investigate...
...drops out of sight into a steaming hole
approximately 170 feet deep.
He saves himself by grabbing onto a tree root.
WHITEHEAD: So after what happened to Todd Dombowski,
the media started coming in,
and Centralia became a big story.
DOROTHY LUCEY: Todd Dombowski was playing when the earth
opened up below his feet.
I see the smoke and when I did, I just fell right through it.
SHATNER: After a brief investigation,
the cause of the smoke in Todd's grandmother's backyard
becomes obvious.
A fire that was deliberately started,
and thought to have been extinguished,
had, in fact, never gone out.
And it was now being fueled
by the vast reserves of coal located underneath the town.
Centralia was a very typical small coal town
in the anthracite region of Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Its only purpose for being was to mine coal...
...and its growth was in tandem with the coal industry.
As new mines opened up, more people would move there.
Some of those families in Centralia had been there
for as long as five generations.
And what I'm leading to is that
there's this massive labyrinth of-of abandoned coal mines
beneath Centralia, really under the entire town.
And so, in 1962,
the state dump inspector told Centralia Borough Council
that the location of its landfill
didn't meet state regulations.
And they arranged for the local fire department
to set the dump on fire to clean it up.
And they had done this in the past.
They would just go out and set it on fire,
let it burn for a while, and then wash it down with water
from a tanker truck and go away, everything's fine.
Except, this time it wasn't fine...
...because this fire had stayed smoldering in the garbage,
and then it moved into this labyrinth
of abandoned coal mines beneath the town
and that was how the mine fire got started.
And eventually, the fire broke out of the ground,
and you could see glowing red rocks,
you could see blue burning rocks.
And so, so hot.
If you got even, like, within ten feet of it,
your face was frying, you know? It was that, that hot.
They sent the fire department back,
but the damage was already done.
WYSESSION: Attempts to put out the Centralia coal seam fire
had been a total failure, starting in 1962,
when they first lit that trash pit on fire.
That fire continued to spread underground
despite multiple attempts to put it out.
And then, in over a period of 20 years,
the fire just kept growing out of control,
to the point where smoke and steam come up out of the ground,
where the ground is as hot
as 900 degrees Fahrenheit in places,
just consuming the entire town.
SUSAN JELLIG: The people of Centralia want to know
when the 20-year-old mine fire will be put out.
They appeared tired of living with the danger
of toxic gases entering their homes.
Representative Frank Harrison says it won't be easy.
WHITEHEAD: And it was at this point
that the town started to shut down and close shop.
LUCEY: Residents take a vote to move their homes.
The federal government forked over another $1 million
to move them to safety.
WHITEHEAD: Businesses started closing,
people started leaving,
and the government actually ended up buying the land
to stop people from coming back in,
because they realized at that point,
that they had no way to stop this fire,
and sadly, this fire is raging right up to this day.
SHATNER: But why,
after nearly six decades,
why won't the fires go out?
WYSESSION: It's a question that's almost impossible to know.
Because not only can we not see through the rock,
any attempts to try to figure it out
by drilling holes in the ground, for example,
you provide channels of air that can actually feed the fire.
And so, you can try to cut off the fuel
by digging out around it
to remove the coal to prevent it from spreading,
and you can also address the fire
by pouring water directly in through channels underground
to try to cool that fire below its activation energy.
All of these were tried in the case of Centralia.
Not one of them succeeded.
You would think we understand fires enough
that we could, we could take care of this,
because we know, for a fire to occur,
you have to have an ignition source, a spark...
...then you have to have fuel.
Well, it's a coal mine, so coal is a pretty good fuel.
Then you also have to have an oxidizer.
That oxidizer is-is air, in most cases.
But if they cut off the tunnels,
or whatever's going into this mine,
no air should get down there,
eventually all the air should burn out,
and it should go out, but it's not doing that.
DEKOK: What I've been told by engineers is that
they could pump water down there for a year,
and if they turn the water off,
there'd be a good chance it'd be enough residual heat
that the fire would start right back up again.
It's a tremendous monster.
JONES: Once an accident like this happens
underground where you have a fire burning,
as time goes on, the odds of putting it out
get fewer and fewer and fewer.
With a coal fire, you're talking temperatures
of a thousand to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
As the fire grows and grows and grows like this underground,
all that heat is radiated through the earth.
It warms up the earth, and could get to the point
where you can see temperatures of two, 300 degrees
on the surface.
And asphalt and different materials
actually start melting.
Sinkholes open up, houses collapse.
This can go on for a very, very long time.
In the case of Centralia, even to this day, 50 years later,
you see steam vents with toxic gasses
being emitted out of the ground,
you see vegetation that has been destroyed
because of those gases in the heat.
This is almost a wasteland,
caused by these underground fires.
Some people have estimated that it'll take 200 years
for this fire to burn out, and my estimation, nobody knows.
We could be talking two, three, four, 500 years.
There is no answer to that question.
It's basically hell on Earth.
SHATNER: Centralia, Pennsylvania: once booming, now barren.
The ghost of a town that once was.
The few structures that remain
seem to defy the fumes to consume them.
Is this story a cautionary tale about the futility of mankind
trying to bend nature to its will?
Perhaps.
But in a forest halfway across the world,
there's an equally compelling story,
not about mankind trying to bend nature,
but about nature succeeding in bending itself.
GEORGE NOORY: People are hearing a strange hu,
just outside the village of Nowe Czarnowo,
stands a grove of pine trees unlike any other.
Instead of rising straight up to the sky,
these trees bend, bow...
...and buckle
in a most curious-- and some would say-- unnatural fashion.
Which is why this place has come to be known as...
the Crooked Forest.
WYSESSION: When you see this forest, it's very striking.
Trees come up initially straight,
and then they take a sharp bend all to the north,
and eventually curve back up again.
And to see maybe one tree grow this way might not be unusual,
but to see a whole grove of trees grow this way,
clearly something was at work.
SHATNER: Although scientists have dated the unusual trees to the 1930s,
local records became lost after the end of World War II.
The only thing we know for certain
is that these are otherwise normal pine trees that,
for whatever reason, didn't grow straight.
JOSH SLOAN: I don't know of anywhere else in the world
that we could walk into a forest
and see such broad, dramatic sweeping curves
throughout the entire stand.
And so there have been a lot of questions,
a lot of speculation as to what caused this.
Everything from tank maneuvers
that might have occurred in the area
around the time of World War II
to snow and wind loads on these stands...
...to chemicals that might have been in the soil,
or genetic questions that might be at play.
And be it the human intervention...
I think most of the natural processes would cause
a much more sort of gradual curve or lean in a tree,
but not such a distinctive sort of hook shape.
In this case, the fact that it's very consistent
and more extreme than you would typically see
in any sort of natural situation
would suggest that it was probably human manipulation.
But we'll never know for sure if that was the case.
WYSESSION: One possible explanation
comes from records of timbers called compass timbers,
that were trees that were grown particularly.
They were pruned, much like topiaries or bonsai trees,
to have a curved shape.
And these timbers were used in the hulls of ships.
Rather than trying to bend boards with steam to make ships,
they actually grew trees that already had that curved shape.
Whatever happened to these trees
most likely happened when they were very young.
This obviously would have taken a lot of thought and work
on the part of somebody to go out and plant this forest,
to go in and prune or otherwise manipulate these young trees
and tend them to create this kind of a big sweeping bend.
And then that raises the other part of this mystery:
what changed that nobody came back?
WHITEHEAD: So, the idea that humans cultivated these trees
to make furniture or for some other manufacturing purpose,
it doesn't really add up.
The question is, why would anybody
go to that kind of trouble?
And, I mean, we're talking at least ten years
to produce a tree with that kind of bend,
only to disappear when it comes time to harvest them.
SHATNER: If the Crooked Forest isn't the result
of some arborist's bizarre plan, then what else
could explain the trees' strange and contorted shapes?
There's got to be something more to this.
Maybe it's something that we haven't yet thought of.
Could it be that these trees have some kind of capability
that we have yet to fully understand?
In Native American traditions,
plants have spiritual essence--
or you might say souls, plants have souls--
and in that sense, what we might think in terms of being a person
or having a consciousness.
Amongst our people, the trees,
they, they do have a spirit.
Not only trees, but everything.
But mankind, we don't see that, we don't understand that.
WHITEHEAD: We see this also in Japanese culture,
where they talk about nymphs and spirits that inhabit the trees.
And even in the Druid traditions,
they wouldn't even approach a tree
or walk underneath the leaves of a tree
without asking permission.
They would speak to the tree.
SHATNER: Is it possible that the pines of the Crooked Forest
are actually capable of communication?
While such a notion may seem far-fetched,
scientists are beginning to discover that trees,
and other plants,
have far greater capabilities than previously known.
FISHER: When you step into a forest, all the trees around you
are not just isolated organisms.
They're actually a community
that are communicating with each other.
Forests are more often connected underground
through their root systems by fungal mycelia,
which are basically little threads of fungi
that tap into the roots and then connect that tree to other trees
that it's also connected to.
WHITEHEAD: So, the question is,
is there an advanced form of consciousness, in a way,
that inhabit trees?
And even in the scientific world,
they've been changing the way that they look at trees,
and they've been seeing that trees
possess a sort of intelligence,
where they communicate amongst each other.
SHATNER: Did the trees of the Crooked Forest
grow that way because someone, or some force, willed them to?
If true, it could revolutionize the way we humans
interact with the wondrous world we live in.
But it might also help to explain
another, less benign phenomenon,
one in which a sound is produced that is so subtle,
yet so persistent, that it can drive those who hear it...
[window rattling]
-...stark raving mad. -[screams]
TAYLOR: This hum is affecting people.a.
Located along the Detroit River, this Canadian city seems,
by all appearances, to be quite normal.
But if you listen closely, you'll hear something strange.
[low humming]
Do you hear it?
That humming noise?
Well, if you do, be careful.
It may just drive you mad.
WYSESSION: About a decade ago, in Windsor, Canada,
people began hearing a hum.
Some people, not everyone, and not all the time,
but this was a serious, significant hum.
NOORY: I was born in Detroit and I would go to Windsor, Canada
quite often during my days as a reporter in that city.
People are hearing a strange hum that affects them.
It literally drives them crazy,
and nobody's been able to pinpoint exactly
what's happening.
Most people would describe it as a very low frequency,
modulating sound,
or they'd characterize it as a large diesel truck
or even train locomotive parked outside their window,
chugging away.
Sometimes I get, like, a rumble, like, almost thunder,
but it's definitely not thunder.
It changes from one moment to the next.
Sometimes we get four hours, sometimes we get four days,
four weeks, sometimes it's nonstop.
DREW TRAUX: Some nights it's been, like,
really, really intense, where it kind of has a little,
to me, I-- has a little grind to it as well.
SONYA MACKIE: It would be in the middle of the night.
You couldn't tell whether you're hearing it or, or feeling it.
It was, uh, it's like a "voom, voom" noise.
TAYLOR: Imagine that you're sitting in a room
trying to relax,
and there is this low-level humming sound in the background
that you can just barely hear, and it's continuous.
So, if you have this constant acoustic hum in the background,
this could cause adverse reactions.
This hum is affecting people, keeping them awake.
It's ruining their lives.
[loud humming]
PROVOST: It does affect my sleep.
The pulsing and the pounding, yeah, it-it wakes you up.
It just resonates through the house.
Sometimes it gets so bad, you get so infuriated with it,
that it scares the hell out of you.
You just want to get away.
Windsor being such a highly industrialized city,
we have a lot of different sources of noise.
But when it didn't go away,
that's when people started to get concerned.
SHATNER: For the residents of Windsor,
the hum is no longer a mere curiosity.
For them, it's become a full-fledged crisis,
one that the local authorities have tried to address.
CRAIG PEARSON: The Canadian government did a study
and the report suggested that it came from Zug Island,
across the Detroit River in Michigan.
WHITEHEAD: And the conventional theory
is that the U.S. steel factories that are located on Zug Island
are somehow causing a weird reverberation effect
that is carrying that sound
across the lake and people are hearing it.
WYSESSION: One possible explanation has to do
with a phenomenon called resonance.
So, it could be, whatever the low frequency machinery is
that's vibrating, it's vibrating at just the wrong frequency
that is causing surrounding structures
to begin to amplify at that exact resonant frequency.
DENNIN: The human use of industry
is fairly common from place to place.
And so when you think about Detroit,
if the hum or the noise is from industry,
and that type of noise, you would expect it in other places.
However, nature and natural noise
is more localized and distinct.
MACKIE: When it first started, no one knew what the hum was.
They started studying it,
and that's where the Zug Island theory came up,
but there's all these what-if questions that come up.
Why is it felt in the evening hours,
maybe verses more so during the daytime?
Why do you feel it on a weekend?
Are they actually running their facility on the weekend?
Why is it worse during when the weather patterns are different?
It definitely does pose a lot of questions and a lot of what-ifs.
It could be many other places that generate this.
And low frequency sound could be due to seismic activity.
In the Detroit area,
we know there's been an increase in seismic activity.
One natural phenomenon that creates low frequency noise
is earthquakes.
In several cases, you can hear the earthquakes occurring.
They're very low frequency,
mostly below the human hearing range.
But in some cases, they can be heard.
Interestingly, some of the residents in Windsor
have noted the rattling of windows.
And I've experienced an earthquake where I had no idea
it occurred except all the windows of my house
started vibrating.
There was something in that resonance of that earthquake
that was the same frequency as my windows.
NOORY: So, these hums are around
on this planet in certain areas.
Exactly what's causing it, nobody knows.
But it's very annoying to a lot of people.
Just imagine yourself trying to sleep,
feeling this hum all the time.
It drives you nuts.
I don't think it'll ever be solved.
I'm hoping it will be. I won't give up
until they find an answer or tell us what's going on.
If they can fix it, fix it. If not, let us know why not.
MACKIE: It'd be nice if it would be explained.
Maybe one day.
It would be great if it went away.
It'd be nice not to hear it anymore.
SHATNER: Is the nauseating hum
experienced by the people of Windsor
really caused by nearby industrial plants?
Or is it due to something even stranger?
There are some who believe that the hum
may come from the same place
where geologists believe there lies an incredible energy,
one so powerful and so unstoppable,
that one day it may actually wipe out
all of mankind.
WYSESSION: It is so anomalous, it is easy
stretching out to strike the sky.
A colossal, 900-foot shaft of rugged rock,
one whose very name conjures notions of both awe
and dread.
Devils Tower.
Devils Tower is remarkable because you can drive across
the sedimentary plains, see nothing but flat ground
for miles and miles,
and then this tall, dark tower emerges
as you drive towards it.
There is nothing like it in the surrounding area.
The rock has a grayish, even a greenish-gray color.
And so, as you approach Devils Tower,
it's a distinct, stark contrast to the sort of tans and browns
of the surrounding sedimentary rocks.
SHATNER: Located in northeastern Wyoming,
Devils Tower was declared America's very first
national monument in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt,
who sought to protect it as an object of scientific interest.
Since then, many have asked:
what could have caused this massive tower to form?
There are many theories about it,
but there's no agreement on what it was
that produced this miracle of nature.
It's made of volcanic-type materials,
but there's no other volcanic activity around it.
So what caused this thing?
We don't know the answer to that question.
It's a really interesting conundrum.
SHATNER: Is Devils Tower really a miracle of nature?
Something that simply cannot be explained
by natural and scientific laws?
Sorry, but that explanation is simply not good enough.
As much as we like to walk around with the confidence that
we know this planet
and we understand the planet we live on,
there seems to be nothing but mystery on this planet.
We don't understand how to predict earthquakes.
[rumbling]
We don't understand how lightning travels.
There's so many questions that we have
about what produces the forces of nature.
SHATNER: Some have suggested that the key to understanding Devils Tower
is to think of it the way many Native Americans do:
not as a natural formation,
but as an unnatural one.
The native peoples of the area have worshiped this tower
as an altar of sorts,
and many feel like they can climb to the top of this place
and get divine inspiration, uh, become empowered.
And the question is, is there some truth to this native legend
that this place is a sacred place on the planet
and it is a sort of altar that allows humans to communicate
to the spirits or to the universe
or to the gods that they believe in?
To view Devils Tower, if you want to call it that--
Mathó Thípila is what we call it--
it's a sacred place,
and when you see it from a certain distance,
even then, you start to feel the wonder of it,
the sacredness of it, and as you get closer and closer,
the positive sacred energy starts to build,
and you feel it even more when you
get to the base of the tower.
I think, in the case of Devils Tower,
it is so unusual, it is so anomalous,
that it is easy to ascribe a mystical
or spiritual attribute to it.
It's not surprising that Hollywood directors
would choose this as the place
that aliens would land from outer space.
In the mid-1970s, one of the most important events
in the history of, uh, Devils Tower took place,
and that was the filming of the movie
Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
In that movie by Steven Spielberg,
the tower is a spot that many people are drawn to,
and they don't know why they're drawn to it.
They're drawn to it from all over the country.
It turns out, as the movie goes on,
that they're drawn here because they've been abducted
some time during their life by aliens.
A UFO lands on top of the tower,
and Richard Dreyfuss and several other people
climb into the UFO and fly off into space.
The number of visitors that came to the tower
doubled the year after that movie came out,
and it stayed at that level every year ever since.
I don't know if it's a landing site for UFOs,
as Spielberg had in his movie,
or what it might be.
I mean, the more we look at it, the more baffled we are.
We are going to find things as we continue
to observe and search and study the Earth that we had no idea
how they got there, what type of physical process created them,
and we're gonna learn new things all the time.
SHATNER: Is it Devils Tower that is unnatural,
or is it our own limited understanding of nature
that produces the confusion?
Perhaps Devils Tower exists to keep mankind humble,
as a reminder that we still have a lot to learn.
ATNER:Yellowstone National Park.
Each year, more than four million people
travel from all over the world
to experience its canyons,
hot springs, and other natural wonders.
But the most wondrous sight of all
is a geyser that shoots a jet of superheated water
more than 150 feet into the air.
And it does so at such regular intervals
that you can practically set your watch by it,
which is why they call this geyser
"Old Faithful."
WYSESSION: If you visit Yellowstone,
it's spectacular; there are geysers all over the place.
Some erupt every few minutes,
some erupt every few hours.
But what is remarkable about Old Faithful
is you can go there with a stopwatch and-and you can time,
almost to the minute,
when the next eruption of Old Faithful will occur.
DENNIN: Most of nature is radical and unpredictable,
but the really surprising feature of Old Faithful
is not that it's periodic and regular--
because that also happens in many places in nature--
it's that it's been periodic and regular for so long.
That is something that really shows us there's a lot
we don't understand about nature and a lot more we need to learn.
SHATNER: Old Faithful. For centuries,
we've thought of it as a mere tourist attraction,
a quaint example of Mother Nature
at her most punctual.
But what if we're wrong?
What if it is really providing a geological countdown
to mankind's ultimate extinction?
Yellowstone is famous for bears,
it's famous for magnificent geysers,
but underneath your feet
is a supervolcano,
and it's at least 44 miles across.
Is a whole network of magma pools
that could one day blow up...
...and cause tremendous havoc.
TAYLOR: A supervolcano, if it were to erupt,
is so massive amount of energy being released
that it would destroy half of the continental United States,
and it would be more devastating to the entire planet
than the asteroid that hit, that we think killed the dinosaurs.
KAKU: This gigantic eruption has happened three times,
three times in the recorded history,
and we are due for another one who knows when,
maybe tomorrow, maybe a hundred, maybe 200,000 years from now,
but it will happen.
What do we really know about this planet we live on?
Just when we think we have Mother Nature figured out,
something reminds us that we're not as smart as we think we are.
After all, have we found a way to put out the Centralia fire?
Or how Devils Tower was formed?
What if not knowing all the answers
is why we were put here in the first place.
Perhaps we're made to keep searching, to keep learning,
and to keep trying to figure out the answers...
to The UnXplained.
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