Skip to playerSkip to main content
Screen Time
#movieclips #movienight #movietime #MovieTrailer #webseries #webseritrailers #movies #Anime #animefan #animemovie #newmovies #newwebseries

Category

📺
TV
Transcript
00:00What would happen if every human being on Earth disappeared?
00:12This isn't the story of how we might vanish.
00:16It's the story of what happens to the world we leave behind.
00:22In this episode, life after people takes to the skies.
00:26What will happen to some of the best-known planes in the world?
00:32What strange flying creatures will black out the sun?
00:37How might this spacecraft change the universe?
00:41And how did this secret place designed to protect man from airborne Armageddon become a post-apocalyptic nightmare?
00:50Welcome to Earth.
00:53Population...
00:53Zero.
00:56For a creature so bound to the Earth, mankind's dreams often took him to the skies.
01:13But what will become of the flying machines humans use to conquer the air?
01:19And what will seize control of the skies?
01:22One day after people.
01:40Air Force One, possibly the most recognized plane in the world, sits empty on the tarmac of Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C.
01:4963 feet longer than the White House, it has the body of a Boeing 747.
01:58Its two kitchens, soundproofed conference room, and a secure communications bay made Air Force One unlike any other aircraft in the world.
02:08There is an enormous amount of extra equipment on board Air Force One, equipment that you would never see on a private jetliner, a regular commercial jet.
02:19There was a risk that the plane could be a target for missiles, so Air Force One carried an ingenious countermeasure.
02:33If a heat-seeking missile locked onto the plane, a series of false target flares would shoot out, generating more heat than the engines themselves, and diverting the missile.
02:43Air Force One was a flying fortress.
02:52Aircraft are not designed to sit around not being maintained.
02:57Air Force One has more stuff in it that can go wrong than any other 747s in the world.
03:03Air Force One
03:04Air Force One
03:05Air Force One
03:06Air Force One
03:07Air Force One
03:08Air Force One
03:09Air Force One
03:10Air Force One
03:11Air Force One
03:12Air Force One
03:13Air Force One
03:14Air Force One
03:15Air Force One
03:16Air Force One
03:17Air Force One
03:18Air Force One
03:19Air Force One
03:20Air Force One
03:21Air Force One
03:22Air Force One
03:23Air Force One
03:24Air Force One
03:25Air Force One
03:26Air Force One
03:27Air Force One
03:28Air Force One
03:29Air Force One
03:30Air Force One
03:31Air Force One
03:32sky as most commercial airliners the final 3,000 feet to its summit was
03:42called the death zone because there's so little oxygen at this height the human
03:47body could not sustain itself you've got one-third the oxygen that you have at
03:54sea level basically you're gonna have acute mountain altitude sickness and as
03:58it gets worse you get fluid in the lungs or fluid in the brain and as that
04:03progresses people are gonna die with every ounce of energy needed to survive
04:09climbers routinely left behind food tins plastics used oxygen bottles and
04:16anything that wasn't essential
04:21in 1994 climber Brent Bishop organized a cleanup effort that removed over 12 tons
04:28of rubbish from the mountain
04:33but with 400 climbers a season litter continued to be a problem
04:40and one day after people the mountains mighty glaciers conceal even greater
04:46secrets that aren't going to vanish in the thin air
04:52three days after people
05:02although some battery-powered radios are still on the broadcasts have ceased
05:11nearly 15,000 radio stations once beamed news talk and music across the
05:22United States every day now with people gone and the power failing radio across the
05:30country signs off forever
05:32yet there's one place in the American Southwest where the airwaves still
05:45crackle with the voice of man
05:49all over the world New Mexico radio station k-tau was completely solar powered
05:54and because of its remote location it was engineered for a computer to take over
06:02when humans weren't there in the northern part of the state music and
06:08announcements beam across the empty land
06:10home of solar radio without any human input
06:13little sunshine
06:14your ears with zero emissions radio
06:17four days after people
06:27airports that were once full of passengers are empty
06:32and so are the skies around the world in the time of humans there were more than 5,000
06:44flights in United States airspace alone at any given moment now there are none
06:57this had happened only four other times in modern aviation history three times in the 1960s when
07:04the US military cleared the skies to test their radar warning system and most recently after
07:12the attacks of September the 11th 2001 for three days after 9-11 commercial
07:20flights were grounded scientists noticed a surprising side effect each day the
07:26airliners were not flying the average difference between the high and low
07:30temperatures across the United States increased by two degrees but why normally
07:38jet plane contrails spread out in the sky creating a thin but significant layer of
07:43artificial clouds some atmospheric scientists believe that this layer kept
07:48the earth a little warmer at night like a blanket and cooler during the day
07:53because it reflected some of the Sun's heat in a life after people the absence of
08:00this artificial cloud cover could rapidly change the climate on earth
08:04one week after people seagulls and Canada geese flock to airports taking advantage of the peace and quiet
08:24Canada geese like to graze they're basically flying cows the thing that attracts gulls to airports is the big open space they like to have what we call loafing areas where they can sit and rest and see any danger approaching
08:41in the time of humans the greatest danger was from aircraft in the United States bird strikes occurred 20 times a day on average
08:52in 2009 US Airways flight 1549 suffered complete engine failure when it ran into a flock of geese just after takeoff
09:04only a miraculous landing on the Hudson River by pilot Chesley Sullenberger prevented a catastrophic crash
09:11prevented a catastrophic crash but collisions between birds and planes didn't begin in the jet age
09:17the first recorded bird strike was in 1905 and the pilot was Orville Wright
09:26but of all the aircraft that revolutionized the world of man
09:33one of the most iconic was the spirit of Saint Louis
09:40piloted by Charles Lindbergh it was the first plane to be flown solo across the Atlantic
09:47many believe that it was this daring achievement that convinced the public that the skies did indeed belong to mankind
09:55one week after people the plane is still aloft
10:02because it hangs from the ceiling of America's National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC
10:09suspended by three cables that loop through ordinary bolts
10:13how long will it be before the renowned aircraft makes its final flight
10:18one month after people the tallest structure in North America still stands
10:33it's not the Empire State Building or the Sears Tower or Canada's CN Tower
10:40it's the 2,063 foot high KVLY television tower in North Dakota
10:52broadcast towers are usually placed atop hills, mountains or existing skyscrapers
10:59but on the Great Plains building high was the only way to reach an audience of 240,000 households
11:07spread out over more than 15,000 square miles
11:11the galvanized steel frame was engineered to withstand severe winter storms and 85 mile an hour winds
11:18now the tremendous height of this tower makes it a vulnerable target for nature's arsenal
11:26it has happened before
11:29their failures and there have been many are spectacular
11:33six months after people
11:45of all the trees growing worldwide
11:49the tallest is the Coast Redwood in Northern California at 379 feet
12:00with a lifespan that can stretch for 2,000 years
12:04a tree that was a seedling when Jesus was born
12:07could have been flown over by a plane in the 21st century
12:11in the time of humans people sought to protect these trees by suppressing forest fires
12:20now with no firefighters to beat back the flames wildfires burn unchecked
12:28but redwoods are hard to kill
12:32when fire burns their leaves it triggers a signal in the tree to sprout new limbs and shoots
12:38while their competitors are often destroyed redwoods quickly flourish again
12:49and although man is gone some other creatures from Earth are rocketing towards a new frontier
13:08one year after people
13:11the plane that was Air Force One has begun to rust on the tarmac of Andrews Air Force Base
13:23the tarmac was once kept pristine by a ground team that scoured the runway for debris before each flight
13:29now
13:31nature has already begun to reclaim it
13:35we know this
13:39because there's an abandoned airport in Berlin
13:42that already shows what life is like one year after people
13:46Tempelhof
13:48in 2008 the enormous terminal was closed to air traffic
13:58but it was once at the heart of the biggest air relief operation in history
14:05six decades ago these runways were a frenzy of air traffic in one of the first major struggles of the cold war
14:13the Berlin airlift
14:15it was a constant sound in the air of those incoming airplanes
14:22every 90 seconds there was traffic on those runways
14:27every 90 seconds there was traffic on those runways
14:32in 1948 Berlin was deep inside Soviet occupied Germany
14:39the city was divided in half between the Soviets and the West
14:44when a struggle for territorial control boiled over
14:47the Russians blockaded West Berlin
14:49cutting off access to food and supplies by ground
14:53West Berliners faced starvation or surrender
14:57the threat for the West Berliners was that we then would have been taken by the Russians
15:03and would have finally lost our freedom
15:07the West responded with an airlift
15:13fully loaded cargo planes roared in and out of Tempelhof every minute and a half
15:19ferrying up to 13,000 tons of food and supplies each day
15:25after 10 and a half months the Soviets lifted the blockade
15:28and Tempelhof became known as the airport that saved the city
15:38shut down in the 21st century
15:41after a more modern airport opened outside the city
15:44its ticket counters are empty
15:48its vast hallways are filled only with shadows
15:52and wild grass obscures signs on the runways that once made history
15:59three years after people
16:13in the wilderness of Yellowstone National Park
16:18a tiny flying creature that once terrified North Americans has returned
16:25the Rocky Mountain locust
16:31locusts were a common sight in the 19th century
16:34swarms that often covered 2,000 square miles blackened the skies from the Rocky Mountains
16:40to the Mississippi River
16:43like a biblical plague wherever they landed
16:45the ravenous mass devoured every blade of vegetation
16:49they're pelting you
16:50they're landing crawling crawling up into your clothing
16:53it's like a horrific rainstorm or a hailstorm of locusts as they cover everything
16:58in 1875
17:00in 1875 one swarm was so massive it was deemed the largest single gathering of living creatures in recorded history
17:07nothing comes close to this enormous swarm of Rocky Mountain locusts in 1875
17:12that swarm was approximately 1,800 miles long and 110 miles wide
17:17if we had squared them up
17:20it would have covered the state of Colorado border to border
17:24but in the late 19th century settlers began farming the insects fragile habitat in the river valleys of the upper Rocky Mountains
17:34within 25 years the locusts have disappeared
17:38only a few small pockets may have survived in pristine areas like Yellowstone National Park
17:49three years after people the population of a surviving pocket of locusts grows in the absence of humans
17:56might the ravaging swarms that once terrified settlers return
18:01five years after people most aeroplanes are deteriorating slowly
18:19but Air Force One has hidden potential for sudden disaster
18:24one weakness is a defense system called false target flares that diverts heat-seeking missiles away from the aircraft
18:37the electrical circuits that trigger it were not designed to be left unmaintained
18:44the flare circuits they are a major point of failure
18:49these things are dangerous if just left in place they deteriorate very quickly
18:57when a circuit fails it deploys the flares
19:01the plant growth on the tarmac below becomes kindling for a mammoth blaze
19:08and the plane itself has plenty of fuel to feed the fire
19:13unlike most planes Air Force One's 50,000 gallon fuel tanks were kept filled
19:18in case the president had to be flown out of harm's way at a moment's notice
19:24but now there is no one to move Air Force One out of danger
19:30eight years after people
19:46a spacecraft called Cassini silently orbits Saturn 750 million miles from Earth
19:52in the time of humans it generated countless revelations about the ringed planet and our solar system
20:01now it's alone in the freezing void of space
20:07well not quite alone
20:19in the innards of the Cassini spacecraft there are probably very very hardy bacteria which hitched a ride on the mission
20:25they're called extremophiles
20:28we know that these extremophiles can survive very harsh conditions we find them in the dry valleys of Antarctica
20:37we find them in the Yellowstone mud pot
20:40we find them in basically every environment no matter how harsh
20:43these hardy bacteria were believed to stow away on all kinds of space vehicles
20:50to make sure there'd be no unintended consequences from these microorganisms crash landing on another world
20:57NASA planned to end Cassini's mission by incinerating it in Saturn's atmosphere
21:01but now without mission control to order its demise
21:08Cassini and its tiny stowaways are on a voyage into uncharted territory
21:1410 years after people
21:29airports are already crumbling
21:31many simply weren't built to last
21:36architects are quite humble about airports
21:39a terminal building often doesn't last more than 40 or 50 years
21:43before it's massively redesigned
21:46so we have the ultimate disposable building
21:49there were some exceptions
21:51like the otherworldly LAX theme building at Los Angeles International Airport
21:56this architectural landmark was built in 1961 to resemble a landing spacecraft
22:02it was called the theme building to usher in a jet age future for the airport
22:07by 2010 it was one of the few surviving airport buildings of its era
22:13thanks to a two-year renovation that strengthened it to withstand the test of time
22:1810 years after people
22:21its arches dominate the empty airport
22:23and it will continue to endure because of a surprising form of protection that will keep it safe from nature's most powerful forces
22:37but there's no protection for the buildings of a little-known enclave that once safeguarded North America from an airborne Armageddon
22:50now it faces an apocalypse of its own
22:53now it faces an apocalypse of its own
23:0710 years after people
23:08the places that once protected mankind from nuclear annihilation
23:18now face their own destruction
23:21it's a future that has already happened here at Edgar radar station
23:26Edgar once looked like an ordinary town
23:33but the entire site was constructed in 1952 for a single purpose
23:38to scan the skies for an airborne apocalypse
23:47the defense department realized
23:51that the Russians would be able to build plenty of nuclear weapons
23:55put them in bombers
23:58fly the bombers over the North Pole
24:00and destroy targets in Canada and in the United States
24:08Situated about 80 miles north of Toronto
24:11Edgar was large enough to be a self-contained town
24:14and self-sufficient as a matter of security
24:18We had everything, dentists, we had doctors, we had messing facilities
24:23a recreation center with an indoor swimming pool
24:28More than 300 people lived and worked on the base, which hummed with daily life
24:36Now, stools in the station's cafe sit long empty
24:40A tree branch sprawls across the roof of an abandoned home
24:45The floor of the old gym is in ruins
24:50and some buildings have already been demolished
24:55This is what's left of the single men's barracks
24:58You can actually see the tile still on what was once the inner floor
25:08and you can see where the walls and corridors actually laid out
25:11The entire enclave was built to support a single technology
25:17radar
25:18It scoured the northern skies 24 hours a day for an attack by Soviet planes laden with atomic bombs
25:28The more that the United States and Canada knew about Russian intentions
25:34the less chance there was for someone to make a mistake and push the button
25:40Radar's electromagnetic waves could pierce the sky for 200 miles
25:48If a plane was in that radius, waves would bounce back from it
25:52providing critical information about where the plane was
25:56and how fast it was flying
25:59This made Edgar part of the United States' first early warning system
26:03but it also put the base near the top of the enemy target list
26:08Radar can be homed in on by the coming forces
26:14and naturally the Soviet Union would like to knock our eyes out so we couldn't see them
26:19So we were very vulnerable here
26:21Life at Edgar was always on edge
26:25Very tense, it was very tense for everyone
26:28For 12 years, Edgar's radar scoured the skies
26:34In 1964, the station was made obsolete by a longer range radar base
26:39needed for a new threat
26:41Intercontinental Missiles
26:45Over the years, as attack times shrank from hours to minutes
26:50the job of advance warning rose to the ultimate vantage point
26:54Satellites in outer space
26:56Although the radar operations at Edgar were removed
27:00The rest of the base was used by civilians until 1999
27:04When it was closed for good
27:09Ten years of decay have taken their toll
27:16The cinema has an audience of none
27:20A children's playground is overrun by nature
27:33The single women's dorm has long been empty
27:39Its entryway has faded, but not the memories of what once happened here
27:45She was standing right there and I got down on my hands and knees
27:52And I said Joy, will you marry me?
27:56The gymnasium that hosted rowdy games
28:01Is now home to birds
28:04Celebrations once held here are now distant memories
28:07This is where Joy and I, my fiancé, went and celebrated our engagement at the New Year's Eve ball for the rest of the base
28:20Now, the floors have buckled almost beyond recognition
28:28The green line here is the outer bound line for basketball court
28:35A very small amount of water has actually caused this damage
28:38If you think about it, these little drops of water have created a wave of wood
28:49The community that once searched the skies for an attack is now under assault from above
28:54In this new war, the buildings of Edgar are defenceless
29:14Fifteen years after people
29:16It's the cleanest sound on earth
29:19Powered by the sun, radio station KTOW broadcasts some of the last human voices to be heard on earth
29:26Reggae, blues and sweet sounds from all over the world
29:29This is KTOW's 1019
29:32Inside the computer that automatically plays the music
29:36The bearings of a cooling fan grind to a halt
29:39Across the windswept hills of the southwest, birds still chirp
29:46Coyotes howl
29:50But as the station computer overheats, the music of mankind
29:55Falls forever silent
29:5920 years after people
30:13The Cassini spacecraft continues to orbit Saturn
30:19But Saturn has more than 50 moons
30:23Making any orbit fraught with peril
30:25Now the spacecraft crashes into one of these moons
30:32It should be the last of Cassini
30:38But this moon has something that was never expected in the frigid depths of space around Saturn
30:4430 years after people
30:56On the distant horizon of a peaceful prairie
31:01A dark cloud begins to blot out the sun
31:04Within minutes, a frenzied crush of insects from a massive swarm
31:07Pours out of the sky
31:13Once so few in numbers, many scientists believe they were extinct
31:18The Rocky Mountain locust has returned
31:22We're hesitant to use the E-word in ecology and entomology
31:25That E-word being extinction
31:27And the reason is what we call the Lazarus effect
31:30The term Lazarus effect is used when a species thought to be extinct is rediscovered
31:37As if risen from the dead
31:39The return of the locusts is linked to their cousins that live just outside Yellowstone Park
31:45Grasshoppers
31:46In life after people, grasshoppers are no longer controlled by pesticides and their numbers explode
31:59The birds that kept locusts in check for decades now gorge on grasshoppers instead
32:05For the first time in more than a century, locusts flourish
32:10When they sense their territory is becoming overcrowded
32:17Instinct tells them to take to the air en masse in search of more food
32:22Thirty years after people, the Rocky Mountain locust swarms into the skies of the American Midwest once again
32:31Thirty-five years after people
32:45Some of the highest glaciers in the world continue to inch down Mount Everest
32:51Entombed within the ice
32:54Is the rubbish that climbers leave behind
33:02They believe the colossal ice would crush it into smithereens
33:07There was this theory that the glacier with the millions of tons of ice
33:11Would just grind up whatever trash was dumped into the crevasse into dust
33:16But they're found that, you know, thirty, forty years later
33:19Things came out at the foot of the glacier relatively intact
33:22Thirty-five years after people
33:27A length of rope with a climbers glove still curled around it emerges from the glacial ice
33:35And the frozen citadel has one more secret inching its way down the mountain
33:42Fifty years after people
33:56The KVLY Tower, the tallest structure in North America
34:01Still soars the equivalent of more than 150 stories high into the North Dakota sky
34:06It was built to withstand almost all forms of extreme weather
34:13Except severe ice and wind
34:17Just three feet shorter was the second tallest structure in North America
34:23The TV tower of a sister station KXJB located less than ten miles away
34:28In April 1997, when a severe ice storm struck
34:35The fierce wind and weight of the ice sent the second highest structure crashing to the ground
34:41Five decades after people, another ice storm blows in, buffeting the nearly 450 ton tower
34:52As the ice builds up, it adds many tons of additional weight to the structure
34:59The huge stress of the extra weight shears section bolts off
35:03Snapping the tower in the middle
35:07The top of the tower plummets for more than ten seconds
35:11Accelerating to nearly 250 miles per hour
35:14Before smashing into the earth
35:16Its reign as the tallest structure on the continent
35:23Is cut short
35:25On America's east coast
35:31The spirit of St. Louis rocks in the wind that whistles through the National Air and Space Museum
35:38In 1976, curators had the plane carefully inspected
35:45Apart from minor rust and small tears in the cotton fabric of the fuselage
35:50The aircraft was still fit to fly
35:53The weakness now is not with the plane
35:59But the system that holds it aloft
36:01The three cables and clamps that secure it to the ceiling are strong enough to hold five times the weight of the plane
36:11But the cables loop through standard steel bolts never designed to withstand decades rocking in the wind
36:18Exposure to the elements combines with the chafing of the cable to weaken the bolts until each fails
36:24And the plane that so sensationally opened the doors to global air travel makes one final flight
36:41The fate of high-flying relics is just one of civilization's many falls
36:46Another otherworldly crash will plant some startling new seeds
36:51One hundred and twenty-five years after people
37:07The only two buildings remaining at Los Angeles Airport are the steel reinforced control tower
37:13And the LAX theme building
37:15In the time of humans, seismologists discovered a major fault line just a few miles away
37:24They calculated that the odds of a massive earthquake occurring within a hundred and twenty-five years were one in eight
37:31As part of the overhaul of the theme building in 2010
37:35Engineers installed 600 tons of steel on rubber rollers to counteract the devastating shock waves of a major quake
37:42Called a mass damper, these systems are usually placed underneath or inside buildings
37:50But the space-age architecture of the theme building made that impossible
37:55Think about the theme building
37:58Four stilts not really connected to one another until you get up to the restaurant level
38:02And you'd want the four stilts to all move perfectly together
38:07There would be no way to guarantee that in an earthquake
38:11Instead, it became the first building in North America with a mass damper on the roof
38:21One hundred and twenty-five years after people, when a violent 6.5 magnitude quake strikes at dawn
38:26The mass damper saves the theme building
38:30Leaving it the only structure at the airport still standing
38:37Five thousand years after people
38:40A glacier on Mount Everest is in spring melt once again
38:44What thaws is a poignant relic
38:56The frozen corpse of a climber
38:59We know humans can be preserved in glaciers
39:04Because of Otzi the Iceman
39:08He was found on a melting snowpack in the Italian Alps in 1991
39:15Some 5,300 years after he died
39:19His body had been so perfectly preserved
39:22That scientists could determine what he'd eaten for his final two meals
39:26From the contents of his stomach
39:28Of the more than 180 climbers who died on Everest
39:33As many as 50 were never recovered
39:35There have been climbers that have been caught in avalanches
39:40They've been trapped in the Khumbu Icefall when tons of ice have shifted
39:45It's likely that most of those people are still trapped on the mountain, if you will
39:49Entombed in the ice
39:56Now, the sun and flow of glacial ice have freed one climber
39:59But there are no scientists to greet him
40:05Only water and bacteria
40:09That make quick work of his remains
40:21Two million years after people
40:24The Cassini spacecraft is long gone
40:26But its stirways have flourished
40:30Because the moon they smashed into was a very special one called Enceladus
40:37It's one of the few places in the solar system believed to have liquid water
40:42If Cassini were to crash on Enceladus
40:44If Cassini were to crash on Enceladus
40:47Then it's possible that the bacteria that hitched a ride on the spacecraft
40:52Could survive in that watery region
40:54Just below Enceladus' surface
40:56In a thousand years you would have a growing colony of bacteria in the Enceladus environment
41:02And over millions of years and even billions of years
41:04That bacteria might evolve into a whole ecosystem
41:09It would be quite remarkable if the sort of final legacy of our technological society here on Earth
41:15Was the greening of another moon in the solar system
41:18Where humans reached for the sky
41:26It appears that the sky was not, in fact, the limit
41:31Cold dark space has proven surprisingly open to Earth's most unstoppable force
41:39Life
41:40Life
Be the first to comment
Add your comment