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Mysteries Unearthed with Danny Trejo Season 2 Episode 8
Mysteries Unearthed with Danny Trejo
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Mysteries Unearthed with Danny Trejo
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00:00Mysteries can be buried anywhere, under the earth, beneath the sea, or even right under
00:17our own feet.
00:20And when we stumble upon them, sometimes what we find can change history.
00:26Tonight, secrets from the skies, like a flying predator that dealt death from above.
00:36This was a massive killer.
00:39They've never seen anything like this.
00:41To a mysterious rock that fell from the stars.
00:46It turns out to be really heavy.
00:49He's shocked, and he thinks that maybe this stone is full of gold.
00:53But this is not made of gold.
00:54There's something even better and more rare.
00:58To a strange skull found in a cave.
01:02It's abnormally large and bulbous.
01:04The eyes seem to be set far apart.
01:06I mean, this is right out of a horror movie.
01:10Join us now, because nothing stays hidden forever.
01:14It's 2014 in Cincinnati, and a widow named Carol Knight is going through her late husband's
01:32belongings in his office.
01:33Much of what she's finding is exactly what you would expect.
01:36Some papers, an old, well-worn pair of sneakers, that kind of thing.
01:42And as she's looking in the back of the closet, she comes upon this white bag.
01:46She lifts it up, and she can hear it make a loud clank.
01:49She opens it, and inside, it's loaded with this technical equipment.
01:54There are these metal coils that run to these odd-looking sensors.
01:58There's, like, straps and tools and a small 1960s film camera.
02:05Usually stuff like this might just get tossed in the trash, or maybe donated to Goodwill or
02:10something.
02:11But these aren't just random items.
02:13They belong to Carol's late husband, legendary astronaut, Neil Armstrong.
02:18Obviously, in the astronaut hierarchy, Neil Armstrong sits at the very top.
02:26He's the first person to set foot on the moon.
02:29And in July 1969, 650 million people huddled around their television sets to watch that
02:36moment happen.
02:37Tranquility Base here.
02:39The Eagle has landed.
02:40Obviously, any artifact associated with him or the Apollo 11 mission is going to be extremely
02:49valuable.
02:51After he dies in 2012, Carol gives curators from the National Air and Space Museum access
02:57to his office.
02:59They come in, and they collect anything that they think might be important for the museum.
03:04Two years later, when Carol finds this bag in the closet, she doesn't know what to make
03:09of it.
03:09So before throwing it all away, Carol calls the museum again and sends curator Alan D.
03:16Dale a photograph of the contents of the bag.
03:19When Alan sees the photos, he can't believe his eyes.
03:23This looks like stuff from the Apollo 11 mission.
03:27And this means that these items have been to the moon.
03:32Everybody knows the Westinghouse TV camera that took this famous shot.
03:45Armstrong and Aldrin used this camera to film themselves while they're tearing around the moon, taking
03:58samples of moon dust and moon rocks and planting the American flag.
04:02So how did this priceless piece of history end up buried in a closet for more than 40 years?
04:09It seems that nobody but Armstrong knew that this camera was in the closet because it wasn't supposed to even come back to Earth in the first place.
04:18When it comes to space travel, there is no more valuable commodity than mass.
04:23They even have a saying, every ounce matters.
04:26When Apollo 11 returns to Earth, they come back with 50 pounds of moon rocks that they didn't leave Cape Canaveral with.
04:34So they had to leave an equivalent weight of items behind to compensate for the rocks.
04:40But Armstrong didn't want to leave the prized camera on the moon.
04:43It seems that Armstrong makes an executive decision to take the 16 millimeter film camera back.
04:51And he keeps this secret.
04:53He doesn't tell NASA.
04:54He doesn't even tell his wife for decades.
04:57And now Armstrong's secret camera could turn out to be worth a fortune.
05:01Buzz Aldrin's Apollo 11 jacket sells for $2.8 million in 2022.
05:08And bags used to collect rock samples sell for $2 million at auction.
05:13And they don't even have moon rock in them anymore.
05:16So can you imagine what this camera would sell for?
05:19Carol Knight, however, does not cash in.
05:22Instead, she donates the camera to the Space Museum for public display.
05:27You can still go see it today.
05:30And it helps to ensure that Armstrong's legacy will carry on.
05:36Uncovering a priceless NASA relic in a closet is one thing.
05:41But imagine literally stumbling over something even more valuable that fell from the sky.
05:46The Maryborough Park in Melbourne, Australia, is right in the middle of the Goldfields region, which is where the 19th century gold rush boomed.
05:58Its golden age is over, but amateur gold rushers and tourists still try their luck, hoping to get the odd nugget.
06:06In 2015, David Hole is walking around the park, not expecting to find much.
06:13He digs here and there for fun.
06:15But as he's walking through some thick red clay, he practically trips over a medium-sized rock.
06:23He wonders if something might be under it.
06:25He tries to move it out of the way, but it turns out to be really heavy.
06:29He's shocked, and he thinks that maybe this stone is full of gold.
06:35David excitedly lugs the stone back home, and once he's there, he breaks out his angle grinder to crack it open and get to the prize inside.
06:45But as he goes to cut it open, the angle grinder can't even make a dent.
06:51Then he tries smashing it with a sledgehammer, but the sledge just bounces right back off.
06:58He tries acid, but again, no dice.
07:02He's never seen anything like it.
07:04This thing has not a scratch on it.
07:06Whatever it actually is, it's clearly no gold nugget.
07:10Unlike the rock itself, David's dreams of a big payday are shattered.
07:14So, he brings it to the Melbourne Museum to see if anyone can figure out what exactly it is.
07:22Museum scientists examine the indestructible lump and have both good and bad news for David.
07:29The bad news is that, as David suspected, this is not made of gold.
07:33But the good news is that it's something even better and more rare.
07:39It's a meteorite.
07:41Over the last 37 years, this museum curator has examined thousands of rocks people thought were meteorites.
07:49But so far, only two had delivered on that promise.
07:53So, finding a meteorite is extremely rare.
07:56To unlock the secrets inside, scientists need to look deeper.
08:01Carbon dating puts the rock's arrival on Earth somewhere between about 100 to 1,000 years ago.
08:08But to get the full story, the lab has to crack this rock open, which is easier said than done.
08:15The outer shells of meteorites are hardened by their passage through the Earth's atmosphere, which generates an enormous amount of heat.
08:25It's like putting them in a super forge, the same way we would harden steel.
08:30To crack it open, they need the hardest tool they have.
08:34It takes a diamond blade saw to finally cut into the rock.
08:37And what they find inside is a blend of rare minerals and a high concentration of iron.
08:45Based on its makeup, experts believe that it came from the huge asteroid belt that sits between Mars and Jupiter and may have even been part of a core of a planet that failed to form.
08:58Incredibly, David's rock turns out to be far more valuable than gold.
09:05Because they're so rare, meteorites can be worth anywhere between $10,000 to $1,000 per gram.
09:12This one weighs 37 pounds or about 17,000 grams.
09:18So, it could be worth millions.
09:20For now, David's meteorite is on display at the Melbourne Museum.
09:25Time will tell if David decides to finally cash in on his find or keep it in the museum as the world's most indestructible nest egg.
09:36The Bermuda Triangle is famous for swallowing ships and pulling planes from the sky.
09:43But when treasure hunters dig up planes lost in World War II, they uncover a mystery no one expected.
09:53In the spring of 1991, explorers from the scientific search project of New York City are scouring the ocean floor off Fort Lauderdale looking for gold from old Spanish galleons.
10:08Graham Hawks is leading a search using a small submarine with a remote camera.
10:14But as he patrols the seafloor, he sees something that distracts him.
10:20What Hawks and his team have just found is the wreckage of a World War II-era TBM Avenger torpedo bomber.
10:28And it's not alone.
10:29They find not two, not three, but five Avenger bombers all on the bottom of the Atlantic and all within about a mile of each other.
10:38They seem too close together for it to be a coincidence.
10:41The only logical conclusion seems to be that they were flying together and then all went down at the same time.
10:48To the cruise historians, the clues point to a single infamous case, the disappearance of Flight 19.
10:59In December 1945, three months after the end of World War II, five Avenger bombers take off from the Fort Lauderdale Naval Base on a routine training mission.
11:10The lead plane starts experiencing compass trouble and the pack gets disoriented.
11:18Radio contact with the naval base in Fort Lauderdale becomes fainter and fainter.
11:24The base is struggling to track the position of the planes.
11:28It's almost as if something is interrupting or interfering with the signal.
11:33Eventually, radio contact with all five planes is lost.
11:44Night falls and the pilots and planes of Flight 19 are never heard from again.
11:49The planes vanish without a trace in a vast, merciless area of ocean known as the Bermuda Triangle.
11:58No other incident fuels the mystique of the Bermuda Triangle more than the loss of Flight 19.
12:05So solving that mystery while looking for Spanish gold could be the only thing luckier than actually finding Spanish gold.
12:13The find is too compelling to ignore, so Hawks' team takes a closer look at the planes.
12:20They need to look for identifying markers.
12:23So they comb through the videos and first they make out the letters F and T,
12:28which means that these planes did take off from Fort Lauderdale, just like Flight 19.
12:33They also make out the number 28 on the tail of one plane,
12:38which partially matches up to one of the missing Flight 19 planes.
12:42So at this point, they're very excited.
12:45Then they find more tail numbers, but these do not line up with Flight 19.
12:50And at least some of these planes are under-armed,
12:53which suggests that they're actually older planes than the ones who flew in Flight 19.
12:59As Hawks and his team uncover more evidence, it starts to tell a different story,
13:04one that only deepens the mystery.
13:07So it turns out that not only is this not the Flight 19 group,
13:10but these planes, which crashed basically on top of each other,
13:14didn't even crash at the same time.
13:17These crashes span years, going back to 1943.
13:21So now, instead of solving one Bermuda Triangle mystery,
13:25researchers now have two unsolved mysteries.
13:28The Bermuda Triangle isn't the only place famous aircraft vanish.
13:37Sometimes they turn up in the last place you'd expect.
13:40It's the fall of 2023, and business partners Dustin Riach and Jason Revis
13:49have just popped the lock on a storage unit in Van Nuys, California.
13:54They won an online auction for the contents of the unit, sight unseen.
14:00Revis calls the gamble shooting dice in the dark.
14:02These storage units can come packed with old clothes or holiday decorations
14:07or sometimes even hazardous materials.
14:10On occasion, though, they might actually have something valuable.
14:13They pop open some boxes, and they find some nitrate film rolls from the 1800s and the 1900s,
14:19which might be worth a couple of bucks, but it's really not anything of profound value.
14:25Then they start opening some garbage bags, and Jason pulls out a model of a spaceship.
14:31They realize that this is a model of the USS Enterprise
14:35and figure that it might have some value to Star Trek fans.
14:39Dustin and Jason decide to list it on eBay to see how much they can get for it.
14:45As soon as the auction goes live, people start freaking out
14:48because the base of this model has a business card with the name of the model maker, Richard C. Dayton.
14:55Richard C. Dayton is nothing short of a legend in the Star Trek community.
15:00In fact, he built the original model of the Starship Enterprise in 1966.
15:07He built the one that goes soaring across the screen
15:11in the opening credits of Gene Roddenberry's series.
15:14But that original piece of Trekkie treasure has been missing for decades,
15:19and fans online think this could be the original prototype.
15:24Back in 1979, the makers of Star Trek The Motion Picture
15:28borrowed the model from Gene Roddenberry, the show's creator,
15:33and never gave it back,
15:34even though Gene would send letter after letter begging for its return.
15:39Dustin and Jason pull the item from eBay
15:42and bring it to the Heritage Auction House for verification.
15:46Sure enough, this is the original Enterprise model
15:49that's been missing for over 40 years,
15:52and its value is estimated at $800,000.
15:57To this day, nobody knows how the model ended up in the storage unit,
16:02but the discovery sends shockwaves through the Star Trek universe,
16:06and it doesn't take long for the original creator's family to step in.
16:11Now, even though the show's creator, Gene Roddenberry, died in 1991,
16:15his son, Gene Jr., hears about the model, and he wants it back.
16:19I mean, his dad didn't give it away.
16:21His dad loaned it out.
16:22He feels it should definitely be part of his estate.
16:26Revis and Reoc strike a deal to return the model
16:29to Roddenberry's son in exchange for $500,000.
16:33It's not $800,000,
16:34but it's a lot more than they expected to get out of the model
16:37when they posted it on eBay.
16:38Exploring the ocean can reveal strange things.
16:46In 2022, divers uncovered a tragic piece of space history.
16:55It's 2022.
16:57An underwater explorer, Mike Barnett,
16:59and rec specialist, Jimmy Godomsky,
17:02are diving off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
17:06They're part of a documentary.
17:08Searching for a downed rescue plane
17:11that went missing in the 1940s.
17:14The particular aircraft that they're looking for
17:16is a PBM Mariner flying boat.
17:19It's got a large superstructure,
17:21and it'll be easily recognizable
17:22because of its top-mounted inverted gull wings.
17:26On the ocean floor,
17:28Mike spots a shape that's buried under coral sand,
17:30and his gut is leading him to believe
17:33that it's part of a wing of that PBM Mariner plane,
17:36so he decides to check it out.
17:38They use blowers to delicately remove
17:42sand and coral fragments from the object.
17:46But as the sand blows off,
17:48they see something that doesn't make sense.
17:51They uncover what appears to be a series of
17:54white bricks or cobblestones mounted to the object.
17:58Now, even though it appears to have been buried for a long time,
18:01these bricks are still very white
18:04with no signs of any rust or oxidation.
18:07They seem to be made of a composite
18:09that neither of them recognize.
18:11Mike realizes this isn't a World War II plane,
18:15but the location of the wreck gives him another idea.
18:20They're just offshore from Cape Canaveral,
18:23which launches rockets all the time.
18:25And parts of rockets, like boosters,
18:27are designed to fall back into the ocean from 50 miles up.
18:32But this thing is flat and wide,
18:34and so it can't be a rocket booster.
18:37As he heads back to shore,
18:38Mike calls a former astronaut friend named Bruce Melnick
18:41to look at the video.
18:43It takes Melnick all of two seconds
18:45to recognize those white bricks.
18:48These are heat tiles
18:49of the type that were used on the space shuttle
18:51to protect it from heat during reentry.
18:54Then Melnick says something
18:56that stops everyone in their tracks.
18:59Melnick is sure that if there's a big piece
19:03of a space shuttle just off the coast of Florida,
19:06it belonged to Challenger.
19:12Challenger, go with throttle up.
19:19When space shuttle Challenger detonates
19:21in the skies above Cape Canaveral
19:23in January 1986,
19:25it sends the entire country into mourning.
19:29It kills all seven crew members,
19:31including schoolteacher Krista McAuliffe,
19:34who was supposed to be the first civilian in space.
19:38Obviously, there's a scramble
19:39to see what caused this horrific tragedy.
19:42So the Navy undertakes
19:43the biggest salvage operation in history.
19:46But it's an incredibly difficult mission
19:47because debris is spread
19:50across 500 square miles of ocean.
19:53They collect over 100 tons of wreckage.
19:58And that wreckage, combined with film footage,
20:01reveals that the fault is an O-ring,
20:04a little rubber gasket in a rocket booster
20:06that was responsible for triggering the explosion.
20:09Mike brings footage from his dive to NASA program director
20:14Mike Cinelli, hoping to confirm that what they found
20:18truly is a piece of the Challenger shuttle.
20:21And I'm always a little cautious
20:23because, as you know, we've launched rockets for over 70 years.
20:26So there's a lot of objects out there.
20:28But after looking at the object in greater detail,
20:32you've discovered Challenger.
20:35I certainly can't thank you enough for showing me this.
20:40Yeah, it's powerful.
20:45Everyone who was alive and conscious at the time
20:47remembers where they were when it happened.
20:50Seeing this artifact is enough to bring you right back
20:55to that moment in history.
21:00Lots of deadly things can descend from above,
21:03but few are as frightening as one giant predator
21:07that once ruled over Canada's skies.
21:12In 1992, a professional nature photographer
21:16explores the snow-covered terrain in Alberta, Canada.
21:19As she scans the blank white canvas
21:21and contemplates her next shot,
21:24she spots something odd on the ground.
21:26And as she gets up close,
21:27she realizes it could be a fossil.
21:30She's curious.
21:31She gently chips away at the frozen soil
21:34all around this object.
21:35And sure enough, she begins to see
21:38a massive form take shape.
21:41It looks like a long neck,
21:44gigantic wing bones, and a ribcage.
21:46Now, she's no dinosaur expert,
21:49but she does feel like she stumbled onto something special.
21:52She calls the Royal Tyrell Museum,
21:55and once their paleontologists look at the specimen,
21:58they determine it's a kind of pterosaur
21:59known as Quetzalcoatlus,
22:02a giant flying reptile
22:04that once ruled the skies
22:05is 77 million years ago.
22:08It's a magnificent find.
22:10But in the fossil world,
22:12this is old news,
22:13since the species was already discovered
22:15in Texas back in 1972.
22:18So the fossils are exhumed
22:19and basically forgotten about.
22:21Sometimes, however,
22:23even the experts can miss something.
22:25In 2019, another team of paleontologists
22:28pulls the fossils out of mothballs
22:30to take a second look.
22:31But this time, looking at the morphology,
22:34they see something doesn't add up.
22:36The neck on this specimen
22:38is shorter and wider
22:40than the Quetzalcoatlus from Texas.
22:42They've never seen anything like this.
22:44This is a new,
22:45badass species
22:46of a super predator.
22:48Like her Texas cousin,
22:50this was a massive killer.
22:53We're talking a 32-foot wingspan,
22:55which is equivalent
22:56to a four-seater Cessna plane.
22:58The head was huge,
23:01about three times longer
23:02than the actual length of its body.
23:04In fact,
23:05one expert described it
23:06as a giant flying murder head.
23:09This ancient flying eating machine
23:11is dubbed Cryodrachon boreas,
23:14Greek for frozen dragon
23:16of the north wind.
23:17But around the lab
23:18and in the press,
23:20it becomes known
23:21as the ice dragon.
23:23It likely fed on a diet
23:25of lizards and baby dinos,
23:27but because this ice dragon
23:28had no teeth,
23:30it would swallow prey whole
23:31using its powerful neck muscles.
23:33But for this particular ice dragon,
23:37dinner didn't go as planned.
23:39The Alberta specimen
23:41is covered in battle scars.
23:43In fact,
23:44one of the leg fossils
23:45has a velociraptor tooth
23:48embedded into it.
23:49Experts can't tell
23:50if this is what killed
23:51the ice dragon,
23:52but what they can tell
23:53is that it died young,
23:55probably a teenager.
23:57It's the first of its kind
23:58ever found in Canada,
24:00and one of the best preserved
24:02flying reptiles
24:03ever discovered
24:04on the continent,
24:05taken out before
24:06it had realized
24:07its full terrifying potential.
24:14For centuries,
24:15people have looked
24:16to the skies for answers,
24:18but in Mexico,
24:19one teenager finds
24:20something buried underground
24:22that seems to come
24:23from the stars.
24:24It's the 1930s,
24:27and somewhere in Copper Canyon,
24:29about 100 miles south
24:31of Chihuahua, Mexico,
24:33a teenage girl on vacation
24:34stumbles across
24:35an abandoned mine.
24:38This area is littered
24:39with these old
24:40abandoned mine shafts,
24:41and the girl's parents
24:42tell her to stay away
24:43from them
24:43because they could be dangerous.
24:45Naturally,
24:45her curiosity
24:46gets the best of her,
24:47and she goes in
24:48and she's crawling
24:49through the dust
24:50and the dirt,
24:50even though the ceiling
24:51of one of these mines
24:52could collapse in on her
24:54at any moment.
24:55At the end of one tunnel,
24:57she comes across something
24:58that stops her
24:59in her tracks.
25:00In the corner
25:01of this dark, dusty cavern,
25:03she makes out
25:04what looks like a body.
25:07And as she gets closer to it,
25:09she sees it is
25:10an adult skeleton.
25:14As she continues
25:15looking around,
25:16she notices
25:17something chilling.
25:19Next to that skeleton
25:20is a mound of dirt,
25:21and sticking out
25:22from it
25:23is this small,
25:24misshapen skeleton hand.
25:26And that little hand
25:28is holding hands
25:29with the first skeleton.
25:31I mean,
25:31this is right out
25:32of a horror movie.
25:35Still unafraid,
25:36this 13-year-old girl
25:38starts uncovering
25:39the second skeleton.
25:42The first thing
25:43she notices
25:43is the body
25:44is the size of a child.
25:47But when she gets
25:48to the skull,
25:49she can tell
25:50that it looks
25:50strange.
25:52Compared to the rest
25:53of the body,
25:54the skull
25:54is unnaturally large
25:56and bulbous
25:58with wide,
25:59sad eyes.
26:00It's so strange
26:02that she just
26:03has to have it.
26:04She winds up
26:05taking both skulls
26:07home with her
26:07and tucks them away
26:08in a storage area
26:10where they stay
26:10undisturbed
26:11for decades.
26:12After the girl
26:14passes away,
26:16the skulls end up
26:17in the hands
26:17of family friends
26:19who turn over
26:20the specimens
26:21to a researcher
26:22named Lloyd Pye.
26:24Pye is not
26:25your typical biologist
26:26or researcher.
26:28He's an author
26:28and proponent
26:29of what's called
26:30the intervention theory,
26:32which basically argues
26:33that aliens
26:34visited the Earth
26:35and, among other things,
26:36genetically contributed
26:37to modern humans.
26:39As Pye studies the skull,
26:41he gets very excited.
26:42He remarks
26:43that the bulbous head
26:44and offset eyes
26:45are consistent
26:46with alleged eyewitness accounts
26:48of so-called
26:49gray aliens.
26:52Gray aliens
26:54are those stereotypical
26:55big-headed,
26:57big-eyed aliens
26:58often depicted
26:59in science fiction.
27:02Pye is convinced
27:03that the skull
27:04is not human
27:05and names it
27:07the star child skull.
27:09He looks at the skull
27:10and wonders now
27:11if this might be evidence
27:13of an alien-human hybrid,
27:15essentially the missing link
27:16that he's been looking for.
27:18He raises money
27:19to do carbon dating
27:21and DNA testing
27:22of the skull.
27:23When his test results
27:24come back,
27:26Pye claims
27:26that they show
27:27the skull dates back
27:28to 900 years ago.
27:30The sample shows
27:31lots of human DNA,
27:33but Pye claims
27:34that there are elements
27:35that the lab
27:36can't account for.
27:38And Pye argues
27:39that these holes
27:40in the DNA sample
27:41must be
27:42where the alien
27:43contributions are.
27:45Eventually,
27:46mainstream scientists
27:47are able to retest
27:48samples from the skull
27:49and fill in
27:51some of those
27:51previous gaps
27:52in the skull's DNA.
27:53Turns out,
27:54they disagree with Lloyd.
27:55They argue
27:57that the Starchild skull
27:58is not evidence
27:59of a gray-alien-human hybrid.
28:01Instead,
28:02they say
28:02that it's a male human
28:03with a birth defect
28:05probably like hydrocephalus,
28:07informally known
28:08as water on the brain,
28:09which can cause
28:10the kinds of features
28:11that appear
28:11in this skull.
28:12But Pye
28:13and his followers
28:14are not backing down,
28:15and no scientist
28:16or evidence
28:17is going to dissuade them
28:19from their beliefs.
28:21Lloyd fights this battle
28:22right until he dies
28:23in 2013,
28:24eight decades
28:25after the Starchild skull
28:27is pulled
28:27from that abandoned mine shaft
28:29outside Chihuahua.
28:31As for his followers,
28:33they believe the truth
28:34is still out there.
28:38Almost a century later,
28:40another teenager
28:41makes an incredible find,
28:43one that lies
28:44far beyond
28:45our solar system.
28:48It's 2019,
28:50and 17-year-old
28:51aspiring astrophysicist
28:53and Star Wars superfan
28:55Wolf Kukier
28:56has landed his dream job
28:58as a NASA intern.
29:00In addition to standard
29:02intern duties
29:03like fetching coffee
29:04and making copies,
29:06he's tasked
29:06with analyzing data
29:08of variations
29:09in star brightness
29:11using NASA's
29:12TESS satellite.
29:14TESS stands for
29:15Transiting Exoplanet
29:17Survey Satellite,
29:19which is a fancy acronym
29:20for a very powerful
29:21space telescope
29:22that is shot into orbit
29:24in 2018
29:25to look for planets
29:26outside our solar system.
29:28He's asked to comb
29:29through brightness data,
29:30also known as
29:31a star's light curve,
29:33which is essentially
29:33its brightness
29:34versus time.
29:36These are pretty
29:37pictures of stars.
29:38These are pretty much
29:39just dots on a page.
29:41If the brightness
29:42doesn't change,
29:43the dot stays in the same place.
29:44If it gets dimmer,
29:45the dot goes down.
29:46For the scientists,
29:47this is kind of like
29:48grunt work.
29:49But for Wolf,
29:50as an intern,
29:51he is in heaven.
29:53On day three
29:54of his internship,
29:56Wolf stumbles
29:57upon a light curve
29:59that gets his blood pumping.
30:02It's a two-star system
30:03that sits in the
30:04Pictor constellation.
30:06As he's looking
30:07at this light curve,
30:08he sees a dip
30:09that comes in intervals.
30:11This represents
30:12the star dimming
30:13and then coming back
30:14to full brightness.
30:15That suggests
30:17a third object
30:18orbiting both
30:19of these stars.
30:21An excited Wolf
30:22leaps to his feet,
30:24straightens his name tag,
30:25and in his most
30:26confident intern voice
30:27tells his NASA supervisor
30:29he thinks he's got
30:31something worth looking at.
30:32When Wolf's boss
30:34looks at the computer screen,
30:36he is absolutely stunned.
30:38This intern
30:39on his third day
30:40of the job,
30:42somehow,
30:43in the cold,
30:44expansive space
30:451,300 light years away,
30:47has stumbled across
30:49a previously undiscovered planet
30:51orbiting two stars at once.
30:54Now, if you're
30:55a Star Wars fan
30:57like Wolf,
30:58you know that Luke Skywalker's
31:00home planet
31:00had two suns.
31:02And just like Tatooine
31:03in Star Wars,
31:04if you were to look up
31:05the sky
31:06from the surface
31:07of this newly discovered planet,
31:09you would see
31:10two sunsets.
31:12But in this case,
31:13the planet is so hot,
31:15you would also be vaporized.
31:17This is a remarkable discovery
31:19because
31:19this is the first time
31:21the test satellite
31:22was able to discover
31:24a planet orbiting
31:25a double star system.
31:27And it was found
31:28by a high school student.
31:30The astronomers
31:31leading the study
31:32published their results
31:34in a major
31:34international science journal,
31:36and they do
31:37a very classy thing.
31:38They include
31:3917-year-old high school
31:40intern Wolf
31:41as a co-author.
31:43But it's not
31:44all good news for Wolf.
31:46Because even though
31:47he's the guy
31:48who discovered the planet,
31:49he's not allowed
31:51to name it.
31:52NASA names it
31:53TOI-1338B,
31:56which doesn't
31:57exactly roll off
31:58the tongue.
31:58Some reporters
32:00ask Wolf
32:00if he's disappointed
32:01by the name,
32:02and he says
32:02his brother suggested
32:03they call it
32:04Wolftopia,
32:05which, let's face it,
32:06is far more awesome.
32:12High in the Andes,
32:14two climbers
32:14reached the summit
32:15of a frozen peak.
32:17But instead
32:17of a breathtaking view,
32:19they discovered
32:20a clue
32:21from an old mystery.
32:25It's a cool day
32:26in January of 1998
32:28on the Chilean-Argentinian border.
32:31Mountain climbers
32:31Pablo Reguera
32:32and Fernando Germandia
32:34are summiting
32:35one of the highest
32:36peaks in the area,
32:37Mount Tupangada.
32:39As they cross
32:39the 15,000-foot mark,
32:42they notice something
32:43in the distance.
32:44As they get closer,
32:45it becomes obvious
32:46that what they're looking at
32:47is some sort of engine.
32:50And a quick wipe
32:52of the valve cover on top
32:53reveals the words
32:55Rolls-Royce.
32:57Now, obviously,
32:58nobody has taken
32:59their luxury automobile
33:00three miles up
33:01a mountain in Argentina,
33:02so the two conclude
33:03that what they must be
33:04looking at
33:04is an airplane engine.
33:06There are no recent reports
33:08of crashes
33:09or missing airplanes
33:10anywhere in the area.
33:12And while the engine
33:13looks pretty banged up,
33:14it's tough to tell
33:15just how long
33:16it's been there.
33:16A quick search
33:17of the area
33:18reveals what appears
33:19to be a damaged fuselage
33:21as well as some strips
33:23of sun-bleached clothing.
33:25At this point,
33:25the mountain climbers
33:26realize that this is
33:27definitely a crash site.
33:29The question is,
33:31from when?
33:33They snap a few photos
33:34and they head back
33:35down the mountain
33:36and report it.
33:37This is enough
33:38to raise interest
33:39in mounting
33:40a full expedition.
33:41And so volunteers
33:42from the Argentinian army
33:44form a caravan,
33:46trucks, men,
33:47even mules
33:47to try to get to places
33:49where the trucks
33:49can't go on the mountain.
33:50When the team
33:51reaches the crash site,
33:52they spread out
33:53and comb over the area.
33:55Then the search
33:56takes a gruesome turn.
33:58They find human body parts
34:01scattered across
34:02the crash site.
34:04Parts of five different bodies
34:06are ultimately discovered,
34:08all preserved
34:09atop this frozen mountain.
34:12The team then turns over
34:13their findings
34:14to Argentine scientists.
34:16Over the next two years,
34:17they conduct DNA testing
34:19and eventually confirm
34:20the identities
34:21of all five individuals.
34:23As they notify
34:24the families,
34:25they realize
34:25these victims
34:26are all linked
34:27by one thing.
34:29They were all on a plane
34:30that vanished
34:31nearly 50 years ago.
34:34On August 2nd, 1947,
34:37a decommissioned
34:38World War II bomber,
34:39now converted
34:40into a passenger plane
34:41called the Stardust,
34:42takes off
34:43from Buenos Aires
34:44with 11 people on board,
34:46bound for Santiago.
34:47There's a snowstorm
34:48that day
34:49as well as
34:49a strong headwind.
34:51Then,
34:52just four minutes
34:53before the aircraft
34:53is scheduled
34:54to land in Santiago,
34:56the pilot sends
34:56a Morse code message
34:58announcing his
34:59estimated time of arrival,
35:01followed by
35:02a cryptic message,
35:04Stendek.
35:05The radio man
35:07in Santiago
35:07has never heard
35:08this phrase.
35:09He asks for the message
35:10to be repeated
35:11and it comes back
35:12the same twice more,
35:14Stendek,
35:15Stendek.
35:16The signal
35:17cuts off
35:18without warning
35:19and the plane
35:20simply disappears.
35:24The Argentine
35:26and Chilean
35:26air forces
35:27send up aircraft
35:28searching for
35:29wreckage of Stardust
35:30and yet they find
35:32nothing.
35:32It's like it simply
35:33disappeared off
35:34the face of the earth.
35:36For 50 years,
35:37the fate of Stardust
35:38remained an
35:39aviation cold case.
35:40But now,
35:41there's a chance
35:41to solve it all
35:42because some
35:44mountain climbers
35:44tripped over
35:45its engine.
35:46From what
35:47investigators can tell,
35:48the plane crashed
35:50into the side
35:50of the mountain
35:51during a controlled
35:51descent.
35:52The visibility
35:53would have been bad
35:54and if the crew
35:55hadn't accounted
35:56for the strong
35:57headwinds,
35:58they may have thought
35:59they were past
36:00the Andes
36:00when they began
36:01their descent.
36:02Under whiteout
36:03conditions,
36:04they may never
36:04have even seen
36:05the mountain
36:05before they collided
36:06with it.
36:07And if the collision
36:08was violent
36:09enough,
36:10it may have
36:13triggered an
36:13avalanche
36:14that buried
36:14Stardust,
36:16obscuring it
36:17from the view
36:17of the search
36:18and rescue
36:19aircraft that
36:20were looking
36:20for it.
36:21With the fate
36:22of the people
36:23aboard figured
36:24out,
36:24one question
36:25remains.
36:27What does
36:27Stendek mean?
36:29Some think
36:29that it might
36:30be some sort
36:30of abbreviated
36:31distress message
36:32like,
36:33severe turbulence
36:34encountered,
36:35now descending,
36:36expect crash.
36:38But there's
36:38no proof
36:39of this.
36:39And why tag
36:41a routine
36:42arrival message
36:43with this
36:44complicated
36:45acronym?
36:46We may
36:46never crack
36:48the code
36:48of Stendek,
36:49but at least
36:50the families
36:51of the passengers
36:52and crew
36:52of the Stardust
36:53now know
36:54the fate
36:54of their loved
36:55ones.
36:56And this
36:5650-year-old
36:57aviation cold
36:58case is,
36:59at least
36:59partly,
37:00closed.
37:00Sometimes
37:07mysteries
37:08about the
37:09heavens
37:09aren't found
37:10above us,
37:11but instead
37:11are buried
37:13deep in the
37:13ground,
37:14like one
37:15ancient object
37:16discovered in
37:17Germany.
37:20In 1999,
37:21in a remote
37:22part of
37:22Nebra,
37:23Germany,
37:24metal
37:24detectorists
37:25Henry Westfall
37:26and Mario
37:27Renner are on
37:28the hunt for
37:29coins and other
37:30trinkets that
37:30they can pawn
37:31to subsidize
37:32their hobby.
37:33As they swing
37:33their metal
37:34detector over
37:35the ground,
37:36they hear that
37:37high-pitched whine
37:38and that gets
37:39them really
37:40excited because
37:41this is what
37:42they're here
37:43for.
37:44They start
37:45digging with
37:46small shovels
37:46and then pickaxes
37:48and as they
37:48dig, their signal
37:50gets stronger
37:51and stronger
37:51and soon
37:54they uncover
37:55something large
37:56and flat.
37:58It's a
37:58bronze
37:59sword
38:00and it's
38:01old,
38:02possibly
38:03ancient.
38:04They wave
38:05the metal
38:06detector over
38:07the now
38:07empty hole
38:08and to their
38:09amazement,
38:10they still
38:12have a signal.
38:13Finally,
38:13one of them
38:14gets their
38:14hands wrapped
38:15around a
38:15particularly
38:16stubborn piece.
38:17Whatever this
38:18is, it's
38:19wide and round
38:20and much tougher
38:21to free.
38:22They use the
38:23pickaxe to
38:24jostle a little
38:24bit and finally
38:25this strange
38:26object emerges
38:27from the ground.
38:30This piece
38:31is kind of
38:32disc-shaped
38:32and it has
38:33the image
38:34of a golden
38:34crescent moon
38:35and stars.
38:38They don't know
38:38what to make
38:39of it, but
38:40they think that
38:41it's got to be
38:41worth something.
38:43To the finders,
38:44it looks like
38:45treasure, but in
38:46the eyes of the
38:47law, it's
38:48contraband.
38:49In Germany,
38:50this kind of
38:51stuff is considered
38:52state property.
38:53You're not allowed
38:54to keep it and
38:55you're supposed
38:55to have a
38:56license just
38:56to hunt for it.
38:57Let's just say
38:58Henry and Mario
38:59haven't exactly
39:00filled out the
39:01proper paperwork.
39:02So they're
39:03in a pickle here.
39:04They want to
39:04make some money,
39:05but they don't
39:06want to get
39:06caught, so
39:07they've got
39:07to move fast.
39:10The next day,
39:10they race to
39:11a dealer in
39:12Cologne.
39:13He gives them
39:1431,000 Deutschmarks.
39:15That's equivalent
39:16to about $17,000
39:17today.
39:19As the men
39:20disappear to
39:21count their money,
39:22their strange
39:23disk creates a
39:24buzz in the
39:25underground collector
39:26world.
39:27For years, the
39:28disk passes from
39:29collector to
39:30collector, rising
39:31in value to over
39:32half a million
39:33bucks.
39:34But still, nobody
39:35knows exactly what
39:37it is.
39:39Experts date it
39:40to the Bronze Age
39:41around 1600 B.C.E.,
39:43but it's the
39:44markings that
39:45actually fuel
39:46speculation.
39:47Some astronomers
39:48note that a
39:49cluster of stars
39:50on the disk
39:51seems to
39:52correspond to
39:53the constellation
39:54Pleiades.
39:55And on the
39:56side of the
39:56disk, there
39:57is a long
39:58arc with a
39:59very precise
40:00measurement of
40:0182.5 degrees.
40:03This corresponds
40:04to the
40:05difference between
40:06sunsets at
40:07winter and
40:08summer solstice.
40:10Soon, experts
40:11start to think
40:12maybe this
40:14strange disk
40:14is the
40:15oldest graphical
40:16representation of
40:18astronomical
40:18phenomena
40:19ever discovered.
40:22It's dubbed
40:23the Nebra Sky
40:24Disk, and
40:25German officials
40:26are eager to
40:27get their
40:27hands on it.
40:28One seller
40:29who's looking to
40:30unload it for a
40:31cool million
40:32gets busted in
40:33a sting operation,
40:34and the government
40:35is getting ready to
40:36throw the book at
40:37them for selling
40:37black market
40:38antiques.
40:39Looking for
40:40leniency, they
40:41provide information
40:42that leads
40:42authorities back to
40:44Henry Westfall
40:45and Mario
40:45Renner.
40:46Henry and
40:47Mario get
40:48arrested on the
40:49grounds of
40:49treasure hunting
40:50without a license
40:51and stealing
40:52state property.
40:53So now, it
40:54looks like they're
40:54going to have to
40:55spend that 31,000
40:56Deutschmarks they
40:57got to pay for
40:58some lawyers.
40:59After a short
41:00trial, Henry and
41:02Mario are sentenced
41:03to four to ten
41:04months in jail.
41:06As for the Sky
41:07Disk, well, it's
41:08now kept in a
41:09state museum where
41:10people can visit and
41:11continue to speculate
41:12about whether it is
41:13indeed the first
41:14depiction of the
41:15cosmos.
41:16cameras on the
41:18moon, wreckage in
41:20the sea, and
41:21treasures pointing
41:23towards the stars.
41:25Some mysteries from
41:26the skies go far
41:27beyond anything we
41:29expect.
41:30I'm Danny
41:30Trail.
41:31Thanks for
41:32watching Mysteries
41:33on Earth.
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