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00:00Mysteries can be buried anywhere, under the earth, beneath the sea, or even right under
00:17our own feet. And when we stumble upon them, sometimes what we find can change history.
00:26Tonight, explosive discoveries from a ticking time bomb underneath our nation's capital.
00:37As he peers down into the hole, he's stunned. They are panics. This is a real World War I
00:44mortar shell. To remnants of a killer asteroid. From the size of the crater, the asteroid was
00:52about twice the size of the Superdome, striking the earth at over 45,000 miles per hour.
00:58The impact was a cataclysmic event.
01:02To a lost weapon of war.
01:05It's loaded with over 270 pounds of high explosives. In other words, this thing could bring down
01:10a small building. Join us now, because nothing stays hidden forever.
01:27When fishermen head out to sea, they hope to return with a full net. But one captain hauls
01:34in a catch that might just sink him.
01:40It's October 2022, and Captain Glenn Westcott and his crew are fishing off the coast of Rhode
01:46Island. It's a family operation, so helping him man the rigging are his son and nephew.
01:53As they haul their catch and drop it on deck, fish are flopping around everywhere.
01:58That's when Captain Glenn notices something unusual.
02:02Mixed with the fish is a large, corroded metal barrel. But it doesn't look like a normal barrel,
02:10like an oil drum. It's covered with all these bolts and metal plates, and it's really heavy.
02:18Captain's first move is to call the Coast Guard, who then races a boat out to evacuate the crew.
02:23The Coast Guard quickly realizes that they're in over their head, so they call in the Navy.
02:29When the Navy explosive experts arrive, they lose no time in identifying the threat.
02:35It's a World War II MK-6 depth charge, loaded with 270 pounds of TNT. It's enough to bring down a small building.
02:46During World War II, depth charges played a vital role, serving as a primary defense
02:52against German U-boats.
02:54After these depth charges roll off the back of a destroyer escort or a frigate, they sink very rapidly.
03:01And when they reach a specific depth, which has been preset by the crew, the pressure fuse triggers
03:07the bomb, and it goes off and it sends a shockwave. And that shockwave reaches the enemy submarine hull
03:13and crushes it.
03:15The goal was to sink any submarines lurking in the area. In some cases, multiple ships would rain down
03:22hundreds of depth charges, hoping one of them will cause the destruction of the U-boat.
03:29Based on where it was found, naval historians believe this particular depth charge was dropped
03:36in one of the final sea battles of the war.
03:40So in May 1945, a Coast Guard frigate and a Navy destroyer spotted a German submarine, U-853,
03:47just two miles off the coast of Rhode Island.
03:50The two American ships unleashed a barrage of 195 depth charges, hoping to sink the sub.
03:56Eventually, the relentless pounding sent the German U-boat to the ocean's floor.
04:07Apparently, not all those depth charges detonated, because here one is, 80 years later, in Captain
04:12Glenn's net.
04:14All of those control measures that are in the depth charge to keep it from going off have
04:18all corroded. It really could go off at any minute. So the Navy works with the Coast Guard
04:22to set up a perimeter to ensure that nobody gets too close.
04:26The Navy carefully removes this from the fishing boat. They take it out to sea. They're a mile
04:31offshore. They put other explosives around it, and they detonate it. And as an explosion,
04:39bystanders said they could feel on the shore.
04:42I know fishermen are full of tall tales about the one that got away, but in this case, I'm
04:47sure that Captain Glenn and his crew were happy to let this one go.
04:50The ocean floor isn't the only place that World War II left behind a few surprises. Just
04:58ask the kids who uncovered something just as shocking on a beach a decade earlier.
05:06In May of 2008, two nine-year-old boys are playing on the sands of Ovig Beach in Denmark on
05:14a family vacation. They're jumping in the water, running around, and they're having a great time.
05:20One of the boys spots something near a bluff. It looks like a bucket sticking out of the
05:25sand, so he runs over to check it out. But when he gets there, he finds something even
05:31more interesting. Buried in the sand next to the bucket is what appears to be a metal door
05:37with concrete around it.
05:39They clear the sand from around the door and pry it open. When they peek in, they discover
05:47something amazing and horrifying.
05:50This is a concrete room that's about 200 square feet, and it's filled with beds, uniforms, and
06:00military equipment. They even find that some of the equipment is marked with a swastika.
06:05The authorities finally arrive and call in archaeologists, who confirm what the locals already suspect.
06:13They found a long-lost Nazi bunker from World War II.
06:18In the early days of the war, German forces invade Denmark. But the Danish military is no match for
06:26the Nazi war machine, and the country quickly falls.
06:30The Germans then spend the rest of the war fortifying Denmark's western shoreline. These
06:36bunkers are part of a broader system that Germany builds during World War II that consists of over
06:417,000 bunkers and fighting positions that stretch from Norway all the way to the Franco-Spanish border.
06:47It's designed to defend their conquered territory from a counterattack by the Allies.
06:52The project is known as the Atlantic Wall.
06:54The scale is staggering. It takes over 300,000 workers to build these bunkers.
07:01They use over 700 million cubic feet of concrete and over a million tons of steel.
07:09The Danish bunkers are designed to hold out against anything the Allies can hit them with.
07:16They have six-foot-thick walls to stop bomb blasts, mortars, and gunfire.
07:22With thousands of such bunkers and fighting positions along the Danish coast,
07:26archaeologists are convinced that there could be more hidden by sand bins.
07:30So they start searching.
07:33Sure enough, nearby they find two more bunkers poking out of the sand.
07:38These things have been buried out of sight for nearly 70 years, and now suddenly they found three of them.
07:45What's really amazing is that the inside of these bunkers, they're like time capsules, untouched since the end of the Second World War.
07:52They find boots, socks, underwear, Hitler postage stamps, soda bottles, mustard.
08:00They even find half-finished bottles of schnapps and a pipe with tobacco still in it.
08:05What they don't find are any bodies or remains of German soldiers.
08:13When the war ended with the German surrender on May 8th, 1945, the soldiers inside these positions simply walked out, closed the doors, walked to the nearest town, and surrendered.
08:23Soon after, many of the bunkers were looted and stripped, but some were never discovered until now.
08:29In the end, all of the items inside are preserved and sent to a museum.
08:35And the bunkers themselves, although once hidden, are now preserved and open to the public.
08:41They attract thousands of visitors every year.
08:48When you're digging in your yard, you have to be careful.
08:51You could hit a pipe, sprinkler line, or if you're really unlucky, something much more dangerous.
08:59In 1993, in the Spring Valley section of Washington, D.C., a construction crew is preparing to dig a trench.
09:09They're surrounded by some of the fanciest houses in D.C., the kind of place where your next-door neighbor might be a U.S. senator or an ambassador.
09:17A backhoe operator fires up his engine and begins digging.
09:20Suddenly, the bucket on his backhoe hits something and makes a large clang.
09:26He climbs out of the machine to go down and have a closer look.
09:29As he peers down into the hole, he's stunned.
09:34What he's hit isn't a rock, and it looks pretty alarming.
09:38It's metal and shaped like a foot-long bullet.
09:42They are panning, so the crew calls the fire department.
09:45When they see it, they panic and call the cops.
09:48And yes, the cops also panic, so they call the bomb squad.
09:51The bomb squad confirms that this is a real World War I mortar shell.
09:56Concerned there could be more bombs buried nearby, the authorities carefully search the rest of the area.
10:07They find dozens more of these mortar shells.
10:09Of course, they immediately evacuate 25 of the surrounding homes, and they call in the Army to try to get a handle on the situation.
10:17Even though these shells are old and corroded, they're still alive, therefore still dangerous.
10:23So they could explode.
10:24When the Army arrives, they start carefully removing these shells, and within a few days, they've uncovered 140 of these.
10:33However, what looks like standard ammunition hides an even deadlier secret.
10:39These shells were not designed to kill and maim through fragmentation.
10:42It's worse than that, because this site used to be home to a U.S. Army chemical weapons depot.
10:50Inside of these shells are some of the deadliest chemical compounds known to humankind.
10:57World War I broke out in 1914, and it was the first war that started since the Industrial Revolution.
11:04A lot of new weapons were being tried out for the first time, and one of the worst of these was chemical weapons.
11:11Highly poisonous compounds like mustard gas were loaded into shells and fired at the enemy.
11:16When they hit, they'd unleash a cloud of death.
11:19They would burn and blister flesh, destroy soldiers' lungs, cause blindness, and often they'd lead to an excruciating, painful death.
11:29In 1917, as the United States is preparing to intervene in the First World War, it establishes a chemical weapons service in the U.S. Army.
11:40The new U.S. Army Chemical Service enters into an agreement with the new American University, and together they establish this facility called Camp Leach.
11:49There, they tested chemicals on soldiers' skin, tried out new designs of gas masks, and they developed toxic chemical compounds, loaded them into mortars, and fired them there right on sight.
12:04But before the new weapons could be sent to the front, Germany surrendered and the war was over.
12:09Camp Leach was shut down, they dug pits in the ground, stuffed the chemical weapons in, and just buried them.
12:16At the time, the military thought, these chemicals would dissipate on their own.
12:21So no one really thought much when 10 years later, 1928, the ground was turned over to developers to build what would become this ritzy neighborhood.
12:31Now, seven decades later, these canisters remain just as lethal as the day they were buried, making this wealthy neighborhood a dangerous minefield.
12:42The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and several private hazardous waste disposal companies have been working to try to bring this problem under control.
12:52But the problem keeps getting bigger and bigger.
12:55They'll clean up one burial site of former World War I chemical weapons and then immediately find another one.
13:00The Spring Valley site is about 661 acres of land and nearly 1,600 private homes, several embassies, and American University sit atop this collection of toxic chemicals.
13:13In the end, it takes the government nearly 30 years and 250 million dollars to clean up the mess.
13:22They remove over 1,000 military shells filled with the deadliest chemicals and poisons man has ever developed.
13:29And yes, today they say they think they've got it all.
13:32But honestly, if I were buying a house, I'd be looking for a discount.
13:35Next up, another war-era surprise washes up on the shores of Normandy, just in time for its close-up.
13:45In 1961, a film crew is clearing the beaches where the historic D-Day landing site occurred in Normandy, France.
13:57They're prepping to start filming their own World War II epic film called The Longest Day, starring none other than the Duke himself, John Wayne.
14:06Before the cameras can start rolling, the beach, which has a lot of debris on it, has got to be cleaned up.
14:11As they come up with the sand, they uncover what at first looks like a random piece of metal.
14:16But as they begin to clear the sand away from it, it gets bigger and bigger.
14:21They at first think they've uncovered some kind of vehicle, maybe a jeep.
14:25They keep digging, and it becomes pretty clear that this thing, it's way bigger than a jeep.
14:30It is a buried, full-size tank.
14:35The film's military advisors quickly identify the machine.
14:41It's a vintage World War II Sherman tank used by the Americans on the D-Day landing beaches 17 years earlier.
14:50On June 6, 1944, nearly 160,000 Allied soldiers crossed the English Channel and landed on the Normandy beaches.
14:59This was a coordinated attack along 50 miles of German-controlled and fortified coastline, and it turned out to be one of the bloodiest battles of the war.
15:08One of the reasons that it was so difficult for Americans was because that initial wave was also supposed to include 64 Sherman tanks.
15:17The tanks were supposed to provide cover, lay down fire, and then roll over German fortifications.
15:24Unfortunately, nearly half of the tank fleas sunk in the rough waters of the English Channel before they reached Normandy.
15:34While this particular tank was lucky enough to make it to the shore, it quickly ran into another problem.
15:42The film's military advisors think that the tank may have broken down not long after it made it to the beach, and that it was left behind during the Allied advance.
15:51Eventually, it sank into the sand, where, in the end, it was covered by a dune.
15:57But it turns out to be a fortunate find for the producers of The Longest Day.
16:01They're desperately looking for period-accurate props for the movie, so when they find the tank, they're ecstatic.
16:07The film crew refurbishes the tank, slaps on a fresh coat of paint, and gives it a role in the D-Day sequence of the movie.
16:14And that's how a lost, forgotten relic turned into a motion picture star.
16:19Sure, home improvement projects often come with surprises.
16:31But for one couple in France, what was hidden in their wall was no mold or mouse nest.
16:41In 2017, in France's Burgundy region, a couple is remodeling their home.
16:47And as they're doing so, they pull down the drywall, and in one area of the house, they see that there's something hidden inside.
16:59As it turns out, the object is an old pistol.
17:04They pull it out of the wall, and they're shocked to see there's another gun behind it, then another, and then a submachine gun.
17:12By the time they're done, the couple has pulled out three Sten submachine guns, three pistols, over a dozen live hand grenades, and a thousand rounds of ammunition.
17:26The biggest mystery is that two of the machine guns have names engraved on them.
17:32Pipette and Alice.
17:34The couple contact a local military museum who date the weapons back to World War II.
17:41Turns out, at the same time, French resistance leader Armand Simonot was living in the house.
17:47The French resistance was a paramilitary unit waging guerrilla warfare against the German occupation.
17:53It started as a scattered and loosely organized group.
17:58But by 1943, French General Charles de Gaulle was coordinating the activities of multiple factions from exile in England.
18:07The French resistance blew up rail lines, sabotaged supply routes, rescued downed allied pilots.
18:15And by 1944, they grew into a 400,000-strong force that was a major thorn in Germany's side.
18:24Among them, the well-armed Commander Armand Simonot.
18:29It's clear that Simonot hid these weapons in his house from prying eyes or to keep them close in case the enemy came knocking.
18:37When he died, the secret died with him.
18:40And it wasn't unearthed until a sledgehammer hit the wall.
18:45It still leaves one question.
18:48Who were Pipette and Alice?
18:50Researchers wonder, were Pipette and Alice fighters?
18:54Or were these just simply nicknames that people gave to the guns?
18:57Fortunately, the couple that found these items understood their historical significance.
19:03They donate them to a local museum and they remain on display as a testament to the courage and the sacrifice of the French resistance.
19:15Finding an arsenal hidden in your wall is pretty wild.
19:19But that's tile's play compared to what's found at one playground.
19:26On January 14, 2025, a crew is hard at work expanding a children's park in Northumberland, England.
19:34They're adding things like a balance beam and a net bridge, and they have to clear the land and lay foundations to install those.
19:45As they dig, one of the workers strikes something solid and it rings out with a clang.
19:52Work grinds to a halt as the rest of the crew comes over to take a look at this partially exposed object.
19:57As they clear away more dirt, a shape comes into view that stops them cold.
20:04It's a bomb.
20:08It's a foot long with a conical shape and what looks like a fuse at one end.
20:13The first call goes to the local police, and within minutes, the bomb squad is on site.
20:20The experts quickly identify it as a British World War II era bomb.
20:26It's not big.
20:27It's only 10 pounds.
20:28So it's quite a bit smaller than most World War II bombs.
20:31But with a live fuse and an intact charge, it's still lethal.
20:37Authorities evacuate the entire park.
20:39Local officials bring in a private bomb disposal company for what they expect will be a couple of days of searching the site to make sure there are no more explosives.
20:48It soon becomes clear that this is a much bigger job than they expected.
20:53By the end of the first day, they've uncovered 65 more bombs.
20:59The next day, they find 90 more.
21:02Altogether, they remove 176 bombs and smoke devices.
21:06The real mystery isn't just how many bombs there are.
21:11It's why they're here in the first place.
21:14It turns out this playground was sitting on what used to be a British Home Guard training site.
21:20These are specialized training munitions that were called practice bombs.
21:25Don't be fooled by the name.
21:27Practice does not mean harmless.
21:30These bombs have a smaller explosive charge than regular ordnance.
21:34But they can still explode.
21:35And when they do, they can kill.
21:37These bombs are used in training exercises where the bomb is dropped over a target.
21:43When it strikes the ground, it can either produce smoke or a visible flash that allows the trainee to ascertain whether or not they hit the target.
21:51During World War II, the Home Guard was a last line of defense.
21:56A citizen militia trained to fight in case the Nazis invaded.
22:01But the German invasion never occurs.
22:04And then in the aftermath of the war, the practice bombs that were located there were not carefully dealt with.
22:10They were simply buried under the training grounds and forgotten about until now.
22:13Until authorities are confident that every bomb has been found, the playground in Northumberland remains closed.
22:22But when they are able to safely reopen, there's no doubt the kids will have a real blast.
22:28Some explosions don't impact cities or battlefields.
22:37They ripple through space.
22:39And on one quiet night in 2016, an amateur stargazer catches something no one has ever seen before.
22:48One night in September 2016, Victor Buzo is outside taking pictures with his new camera.
22:58When he gets a cool idea, he attaches the camera to his 16-inch telescope to try to take some pictures of the stars.
23:05After searching around for something interesting to shoot, he spots what appears to be a distant, spiral-shaped galaxy.
23:15Victor sets the camera to take a sequence of images, each with a 20-second exposure.
23:23He waits for the camera to click, and then he checks to see how each photograph turned out.
23:28The images turn out about how he was expecting, some great images of the spiral-shaped galaxy, cool, but ultimately unexceptional.
23:39But then, in one of the last photos, he sees something strange.
23:46A bright dot of light suddenly appears in the galaxy.
23:50But what's even weirder is that the dot of light gets brighter and brighter in subsequent images.
23:57Victor thinks he's captured something interesting, but he's not really sure what it could be.
24:03So he posts the pictures on an astronomer's message board, where they catch the attention of some Argentinian astronomers.
24:10They immediately freak out.
24:14It turns out that Victor Buzo has captured something that no one has ever imaged before.
24:20One of the holy grails of astronomy.
24:27It's a supernova event, taking place over 60 million light-years away.
24:32A supernova occurs when a very massive star, which is essentially a nuclear furnace, runs out of fuel.
24:39In that case, the outer layers of the star collapse inward, crushing the supernova down onto the core.
24:46A shockwave goes through the entire thing, and that triggers the biggest explosions in the universe.
24:54When a supernova blows, it destroys everything in its solar system.
24:59All the moons, all the planets, everything.
25:02The blast is so powerful, it can affect planets and other star systems light-years away.
25:09Victor's incredible photos give scientists their first visual evidence that many of their theories about supernovas are correct.
25:21It's one thing to think you know how something happens.
25:24It's another to see it with your own eyes.
25:26It just happened to be pointed in the right place to capture a star that burned for billions of years
25:35at the exact moment that flash of light hit planet Earth.
25:41As proof, you just never know what you might find the next time you look up into the night sky.
25:47Not all evidence of huge space explosions come from above.
25:55Sometimes it's hidden far beneath the waves.
26:01In 2017, engineers are exploring the seafloor off the coast of Guinea in West Africa.
26:10They work for a company that's looking for offshore oil deposits,
26:13and they use sound waves to create a map of the Earth deep underground.
26:18When Dr. U.S.D. Nicholson starts breaking down their data,
26:22he notices something strange, and it has nothing to do with oil.
26:27About 3,000 feet beneath the ocean's surface,
26:31there appears to be a small ridgeline or mountain range.
26:36What's strange is that it doesn't fit with the known geology of the region.
26:40As he expands his search, Nicholson realizes
26:45this odd geological feature stretches nearly five miles,
26:50and it's in the shape of a circle.
26:53He's looking at a massive, round ridge,
26:57and in the center appears to be a mountain.
27:02He also sees that outside of this ring is debris
27:05that looks like it's been blown out of the center in all directions.
27:08Nicholson has an aha moment because he's seen this type of formation before.
27:15It's the site of a massive meteorite crater.
27:19News spreads in the scientific community about the discovery,
27:22which becomes known as the Nader Crater.
27:24From the size of the crater, astronomers are able to calculate
27:28that the asteroid that created it was about 1,500 feet wide.
27:33That's an object twice the size of the Superdome in New Orleans,
27:37striking the Earth at over 45,000 miles per hour.
27:42Upon impact, it would have created a tsunami.
27:482,600 feet high.
27:50That's a wall of water twice the height of the Empire State Building,
27:54crashing upon the Atlantic coast, wreaking complete heaven.
27:57But the real surprise comes when scientists date samples from the impact zone.
28:04It turns out that this asteroid struck 66 million years ago,
28:09and that catches everyone by surprise
28:11because there was another very well-known asteroid
28:14that also struck around the same time.
28:17That asteroid was called Chicxulub,
28:19and its impact is credited with wiping out the dinosaurs.
28:24That asteroid was between six and nine miles wide,
28:28which is wider than the island of Manhattan.
28:31It left a 124-mile crater under the Yucatan Peninsula,
28:36and it blackened the skies with ash and debris,
28:39triggering global fires and wiping out 75% of all life on Earth.
28:45So the discovery of the Nadir Crater led to the question,
28:50was the extinction event due to two asteroids at once,
28:55like a one-two punch?
28:57Or is the Nadir Crater a completely separate event
29:01a few hundred years before or after the Chicxulub impact?
29:05Until scientific dating methods are more precise,
29:09we'll likely never know.
29:10Either way, the impact was still a cataclysmic event
29:17of the magnitude that we certainly wouldn't want to experience
29:21in our lifetimes.
29:27It started as a search for something ordinary, water.
29:31But what surfaced was anything but.
29:34In 1709, in the town of Racina, Italy,
29:41a group of workers is digging a well for a monastery.
29:45When they get about 50 feet down,
29:47they strike something hard.
29:50It appears to be a man-made wall,
29:54five stories underground.
29:56They decide to break off some pieces
30:00so they can show them to the local Prince of Lorraine,
30:03Emmanuel Maurice.
30:04The Prince examines the stone
30:07and identifies it as marble.
30:09This gets the Prince thinking,
30:11if there's a marble wall down there,
30:14then maybe there are more treasures to be found as well.
30:17He orders some crews to dig a tunnel.
30:20When they do,
30:21they find that the wall is part of an entire buried building
30:25and it's stuffed with ancient artifacts.
30:29These incredible finds
30:30are buried under several feet of solid stone
30:35that the workers have trouble cutting through.
30:38Eventually, it becomes too difficult
30:40and they give up.
30:42The site lays undisturbed for nearly 30 years
30:47until King Charles VII of Naples
30:49hears about the mysterious underground structure.
30:53Charles hires military engineers
30:55to conduct a proper excavation.
30:58As the king's engineers restart the dig,
31:00they realize that this discovery
31:02goes way beyond marble walls and statues.
31:06First, they find more rooms
31:08in the uncovered building.
31:10Then, they discover more buildings
31:13and soon, they realize
31:15what they found is incredible.
31:19An entire city buried underground.
31:24There are city streets,
31:26beautiful frescoes,
31:27bronze sculptures,
31:29ornate jewelry,
31:30and even statues of Roman emperors.
31:34Clearly, this is a city
31:36of wealth and importance.
31:38It's a stunning discovery.
31:40So, experts scramble
31:42to figure out what city it could be.
31:45They scour ancient records and texts,
31:48trying to put some clues together.
31:50And eventually, scholars realize
31:52that this is the long-lost city of Herculaneum.
31:56Herculaneum was the exclusive seaside retreat
31:59of luxurious houses for the Roman elite.
32:02Think of it as the Hamptons of ancient Rome.
32:05But this paradise turned into hell.
32:08In the year 79 A.D.,
32:10the nearby volcano, Mount Vesuvius, erupted.
32:13This is the same eruption
32:15that famously buried the nearby city of Pompeii.
32:20The cities were struck by a wall
32:23of 750-degree superheated gas, rock, mud, and ash.
32:28Within five minutes,
32:30the entire city was buried under volcanic tuff.
32:36Ironically, the same searing heat
32:38that brought devastation
32:40also preserved items from the past.
32:43Wood, textiles, loaves of bread,
32:47even human waste
32:48were instantly cooked by the intense heat,
32:52preserving their shapes in a kind of charcoal.
32:55It's a process that's called carbonization.
32:59And many items look exactly like they did
33:02on the day of this disaster.
33:05What archaeologists don't find are any human remains.
33:09Then, in the 1980s,
33:10archaeologists discover 300 human skeletons
33:14packed together in a boathouse.
33:18They speculate that these were residents
33:21trying to escape the eruption by sea,
33:23but they didn't make it.
33:25The extreme heat was so intense
33:27that it burned away flesh
33:29and violently contorted bodies in an instant.
33:33All that's left are twisted skeletons
33:35all piled together,
33:38frozen in their final moments.
33:40While much of Pompeii has been uncovered,
33:43it's estimated less than a third of Herculaneum
33:46has been explored.
33:48Considering what has already been found,
33:50there are surely more discoveries to be made
33:53in this unique and tragic archaeological site.
33:59Not all blasts bury history.
34:02Sometimes they reveal it.
34:04In 1954, workers are clearing out and rebuilding an area
34:11of Walbrook Square in East London.
34:15The city as a whole is basically still recovering
34:18and rebuilding from the massive amount of damage
34:22inflicted upon it by German bombers
34:24during the Blitz of World War II.
34:27As the workers are digging test wells
34:30in preparation for construction,
34:32they hit something long and flat.
34:36It doesn't look like a slab of rock
34:38or part of the rubble,
34:40so the workers are confused.
34:42What they've struck isn't a World War II casualty.
34:45It's something much older.
34:47So the workers call over an archaeologist
34:50to take a closer look.
34:5321 feet down lies what looks like
34:57a pinkish-gray mortar floor.
35:00They continue the excavation
35:03and expose more of the foundation.
35:07What they find is a floor that's roughly 60 feet long,
35:1230 feet wide,
35:14a perfectly rectangular chamber
35:16buried below ground
35:18with the remnants of pillars
35:20that must have stretched
35:21all the way up to the ceiling.
35:23Then they start finding amazing artifacts,
35:28sculptures and statues.
35:31There's a bust of the goddess Minerva.
35:34There's a statue of the god Mercury
35:36seated next to a ram.
35:38They begin to put two and two together
35:40and realize this isn't just
35:41some random assortment of relics.
35:43This is some kind of temple or a shrine.
35:46They feel it most likely dates back
35:48to the Roman origins of the city
35:50when it was still called Londinium.
35:52But beyond that,
35:54the archaeologists are mystified.
35:57Then, on the last day of their excavation,
36:00the team makes a critical discovery.
36:04It's another bust,
36:05this time of a man wearing a special hat
36:08known as a Phrygian cap.
36:11The archaeologists know this particular image very well.
36:15It's the Roman god Mithras.
36:19Mithras was originally a Persian god
36:22that was adopted by Roman soldiers
36:24in the second or third century.
36:26He became sort of a patron saint to them,
36:29representing loyalty, strength, and secrecy.
36:32In fact, he was so revered
36:33that his followers sort of built
36:35a secret society around him.
36:38Followers traveled all throughout Europe
36:40and they built hidden temples called Mithraims
36:43where they could worship in secret.
36:47We do know that only men were allowed inside
36:49to worship Mithras,
36:51but beyond that,
36:52it's mostly a mystery.
36:54Despite the mystery,
36:56archaeologists date the site
36:58to 240 A.D.,
37:00and they turn it into a museum.
37:03As many as 30,000 people come out
37:05and wait for hours just to see the site.
37:08This temple stands once again,
37:11and the mystery and intrigue of Mithras lives on.
37:14Imagine your life's work going up in flames,
37:23but when you return to assess the damage,
37:26you find an even bigger mystery.
37:29That's just what happened
37:30to one researcher in Wyoming.
37:36In 2003,
37:38Wyoming state archaeologist Dan Eakin
37:41is researching wooden animal traps
37:44left behind by the indigenous Shoshone people.
37:47On one summer day,
37:48he's watching uneasily
37:50as storm clouds gather over the forest.
37:53Sure enough,
37:54within moments,
37:55lightning strikes
37:57and trees erupt in flames.
38:01Over the next few days,
38:04this fire burns over 11,000 acres
38:07of the Shoshone National Forest.
38:10Dan is devastated
38:12because he really believes
38:14that all these wooden traps
38:15that he's been looking at
38:16and any other sort of artifacts
38:18would have perished
38:19in this kind of a blaze.
38:22As soon as authorities
38:23give the all clear
38:24to re-enter the forest,
38:27he goes in
38:28and tries to survey the damage.
38:30The devastation is even worse
38:32than he had initially feared.
38:34The fire had burned
38:35through nearly all the trees and brush,
38:37leaving behind
38:38only smoldering earth.
38:40And the ancient wooden traps
38:42he's dedicated
38:43his entire career to
38:45are nearly all wiped out.
38:48But as Eakin surveys
38:49the charred grounds,
38:51something catches his eye.
38:55Scattered on the smoldering earth
38:58are hundreds of ancient-looking artifacts.
39:00There are arrowheads,
39:03flint tools,
39:05glass beads and ceramics.
39:07Eakin recognizes
39:09that these are Native American items.
39:11But he's stunned
39:13to suddenly find so many
39:14where none had been noticed before.
39:18He contacts
39:19some fellow archaeologists
39:21and soon they're combing
39:23all over the fire zone.
39:25What they uncover
39:26is staggering.
39:29Thousands of artifacts
39:30from bone knives
39:32to metal tools.
39:35They find a tri-notched projectile point
39:38once used for a spear
39:39and the remains
39:40of indigenous lodges.
39:43Now, what's really extraordinary
39:45about this
39:46is that these objects
39:48weren't just placed there anew.
39:50What has happened
39:51is that the fire
39:52has burned
39:54all of the underbrush.
39:55And what it did
39:56is reveal
39:57centuries-old artifacts
39:59that have been lying there
40:01the entire time.
40:02This accidental discovery
40:04is just the beginning.
40:07With each wildfire season,
40:09more artifacts emerge.
40:11Some date
40:12to just after
40:12the last Ice Age.
40:14Even more surprising,
40:16metal artifacts
40:17were found at the site.
40:18This means
40:19once Europeans
40:20came on the scene,
40:21locals were trading
40:22with them
40:23much earlier
40:24and more widely
40:25than previously thought.
40:27In all,
40:28over 600
40:29previously unknown sites
40:30have been revealed,
40:32leading to the discovery
40:33of more than
40:34160,000 artifacts.
40:37The finds
40:38are remarkable,
40:39but once uncovered,
40:41these relics
40:42face a new challenge,
40:44staying intact.
40:45They can be washed away
40:47by rain,
40:47trampled by wildlife,
40:48and stolen by looters
40:50looking to make a buck.
40:52So it's ironic
40:53that these destructive wildfires
40:55have revealed
40:57these lost artifacts.
40:59But now,
40:59researchers are in a race
41:01against man and nature
41:02to catalog them
41:03as quickly as they can
41:04before they are lost once more.
41:06Whether it's an explosive asteroid
41:12from the heavens
41:13or a fiery eruption
41:14that covers
41:15an ancient city,
41:17these blasts
41:18from the past
41:18left an unforgettable mark.
41:22I'm Danny Trejo.
41:23Thanks for watching
41:24Mysteries Unearthed.
41:25Transcription by ESO. Translation by ESO. Translation by —
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