00:00Satellites are listening to every call you make at a military base.
00:03A dome is leaking deadly radiation into the ocean from a small island.
00:07And another series of islands are crawling with radioactive sharks.
00:11From haunted hotel rooms and secret spy museums to underground cities,
00:15these are restricted places more secret than Area 51.
00:18Royal Air Force Menwith Hill is a super-secret facility in England.
00:22It's a military base up in North Yorkshire,
00:25and even though it's technically an RAF station,
00:27the United States runs most of what goes on there.
00:31When you see pictures of it, what jumps out are the huge white domes.
00:34Those domes are covering big satellite dishes that point at the sky.
00:38Those dishes are listening to signals and communications from all over the world.
00:42Basically, Menwith Hill is part of a massive spy system
00:45that the U.S. and the U.K. use to gather intelligence.
00:49They're listening to phone calls, emails, and who knows what else,
00:53trying to figure out if there are threats out there before they happen.
00:56The idea is that this stuff will help stop attacks or criminal stuff before it gets out of hand,
01:01but because it's listening in on so many signals,
01:04a lot of people wonder whether it goes too far.
01:07Do they sweep up personal information from ordinary folks?
01:11Yeah, almost definitely.
01:12And because of that, for decades, people have protested outside the base.
01:16They see it as a threat to privacy and don't trust what's happening behind those walls.
01:20And understandably so.
01:22A place like this makes you wonder where the line is between keeping people safe and just spying on everyone.
01:28Out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean lies Runnet Island, part of the Anahuataka Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
01:34To the untrained eye, it's just another tiny speck of sand and palm trees, but there's something buried here.
01:40Between 1946 and 1958, the United States detonated dozens of nuclear bombs across Anahuataka Atoll.
01:48The test left the islands contaminated with radioactive soil, debris, and fragments from six different islands.
01:55In the late 70s, the U.S. launched a cleanup, but not the kind that you'd expect.
01:59Workers gathered the radioactive soil and debris and dumped it into a massive crater on the island
02:05that had been created during a 1958 nuclear test called Cactus.
02:09So they mixed it all with concrete and then poured a giant slab over it, creating the Runnet Dome.
02:15Some call it the Tomb.
02:16The dome was never built to last forever, though.
02:19Minor cracks have already shown up.
02:21Scientists warn that storms and rising ocean levels could eventually let radiation seep out into the surrounding lagoon.
02:28Obviously, the area is strictly off-limits.
02:31Barely anyone gets to set foot on Diego Garcia.
02:34It's a tiny island out in the Indian Ocean, part of the British Indian Ocean Territory,
02:38but the U.S. built a huge military base there.
02:41Back during the Cold War, the U.S. decided Diego Garcia was the perfect spot for a Navy and Air Force outpost
02:47because it's right in the middle of the Indian Ocean, with quick reach to the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
02:53The base is so locked down that most of what happens there is secret.
02:57There are stories it's one of the most important U.S. military hubs in the world.
03:00Because it's so isolated, rumors have grown up around it for years.
03:04Some people claim there's a secret prison on the island where prisoners are taken and never seen again.
03:09Others think it might be a place where they test weapons or do experiments that nobody's supposed to know about.
03:14None of this has ever been officially confirmed, but because it's off-limits and so isolated,
03:19it really doesn't seem like much of a stretch.
03:22What we do know is this.
03:24Unless you're military or have some special clearance, you're not stepping foot on that island.
03:29The Farallon Islands are a group of rocky little islands off the coast of California that most people call the Devil's Teeth.
03:36And that name fits.
03:37A bunch of things make this place dangerous.
03:39First, there are a lot of hazards in the water around this island.
03:42There are shoals and jagged rocks that can rip the bottom out of a boat if you get too close.
03:47Second, the water is full of sharks.
03:49A lot of them.
03:50And then there's the radioactive waste.
03:52Back in the day, tens of thousands of metal drums full of radioactive material were dumped around the islands.
03:58Around 47,800 drums.
04:01These drums have been sitting there for decades and many of them are slowly leaking.
04:05So that means the water, the fish, and the wildlife around the islands are getting exposed to radiation.
04:11You can imagine swimming around mutated sharks.
04:14Because of all that, the Farallon Islands are off-limits to the public.
04:17Now, let's talk about something a little spookier.
04:20Haunted Hotel Rooms.
04:21There's a story about a room at the Fairmount Banff Springs Hotel in Canada that people have been telling for years.
04:27The hotel is beautiful, set up in the mountains.
04:30But for a long time, folks have said something weird happened in one room.
04:34Room 873.
04:36The versions of the story differ, but it usually starts with a family.
04:40A couple and their daughter, staying in room 873.
04:43Way back in the early days of the hotel, something tragic happened.
04:47Some say the daughter died.
04:48Others say the entire family died.
04:51After that, people who stayed in that room reported strange stuff.
04:55Guests would check in, then suddenly run out screaming, saying they heard terrible noises or saw bloody handprints on the mirrors.
05:01Because of the weird reports and the fear of bad publicity, the hotel eventually sealed off room 873 and stopped renting it out.
05:10Even though the room is totally closed to the public, people staying nearby still talk about strange sounds.
05:16Like crying, footsteps or shadows moving around.
05:18The hotel staff usually act like the room never existed, if you ask them about it.
05:22But if you walk down the hallway on the 8th floor, there's a weird gap where a room should be.
05:28Complete with a ceiling light, just like the other rooms.
05:31And you'll see rooms ending in 7-3 on each floor, except that one.
05:36Denver International Airport is a busy place where millions of people fly in and out every year.
05:41But for some reason, it's also one of the most talked about spots for conspiracy theories in the United States.
05:47On the surface, it's just an airport.
05:49But people will point out the weird artwork, the strange symbols, and unusual design elements.
05:55One of the big parts of the rumor mill is the talk about underground tunnels and secret spaces beneath the airport.
06:02Sure, the airport does have tunnels.
06:04Every big airport has tunnels for things like baggage handling or maintenance.
06:07But some people claim these tunnels aren't just for luggage.
06:11They think behind closed doors, there could be secret bunkers for important people if disaster hits.
06:16Some even believe there are alien bodies stored away down there.
06:20These wild ideas mostly come from the fact that the airport's layout and artwork feel different from what you'd see at other airports.
06:28And there's that big blue horse statue out front with glowing red eyes, often referred to as Blucifer online.
06:35Whether it's meant to be creepy or not, the whole vibe of the place makes it easy for conspiracy talk to spread.
06:41The Deep Underground Command Center, or DUCCS, may or may not actually exist.
06:48Back in 1962, the U.S. government pitched a plan to build a massive underground facility deep beneath the ground, between 3,000 and 4,000 feet down.
06:57The idea was that if there was a nuclear attack, people inside this underground center could survive and keep running parts of the government or military.
07:04Two versions were talked about.
07:06A smaller one that could hold about 50 people, and a larger version that could expand to about 300.
07:12The plans were intense.
07:14The facility was supposed to withstand massive explosions, way bigger than any single explosion used in World War II.
07:21Engineers of the time said it could survive blasts of up to 200 or 300 megatons on the surface, or around 100 megatons if the blast was deeper.
07:30It was pitched to President Kennedy just before he died, and after that point, the project basically disappeared.
07:36Public records say it never got built, but some people still wonder if parts of it actually do exist somewhere deep underground.
07:44Mount Shasta in Northern California is a massive mountain that's beautiful and peaceful on the outside, but it's also the center of one of the wildest legends you'll ever hear.
07:54See, for a long time, people have talked about a hidden underground city beneath this mountain.
07:58According to the stories, this underground world isn't just a cave system, it's a whole city.
08:03Some versions claim it's home to an advanced civilization that either came from another world, or survived from an ancient lost land called Lemuria.
08:11Lemuria is kind of like Atlantis in the way people talk about it.
08:16The legend says this continent once existed in the Pacific, but sank into the ocean long ago.
08:22Supposedly, some of the survivors found their way to Mount Shasta and built the city under the mountain.
08:27When we imagine places on Earth that are unexplored, most people think of the deep ocean.
08:31And that makes sense, because we've only mapped a small percentage of it.
08:35But there are parts of land that are still barely touched by science, too.
08:39The Northern Triangle subtropical forests are one of these places.
08:43These forests span parts of Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and stretch out across huge stretches of land.
08:50Compared to something like the Amazon, you don't really hear about the Northern Triangle nearly as much,
08:54but it's packed with life, from all kinds of plants to animals that researchers haven't fully studied yet.
09:01Scientists who have looked at the area a little bit, see it's a gold mine waiting to be explored.
09:06There could be species we've never seen before.
09:09That's plants, insects, mammals, birds, who knows what else.
09:13The forests are tough to get through, which makes it hard for big research teams to just roll in with equipment.
09:18It's also not the easiest place for a casual hike if you're not prepared.
09:22Because of that, large portions of the forests are unexplored.
09:26So whatever secrets they're holding are still out there waiting to be found.
09:31That's been the video for today. I will catch you, yes you specifically, next time.
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