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00:09Mysteries can be buried anywhere, under the earth, beneath the sea, or even right under
00:19our own feet.
00:21And when we stumble upon them, sometimes what we find can change history.
00:31Tonight, puzzling discoveries that lead to more questions than answers, from a top-secret
00:37message in an unlikely place.
00:39They find words like sword and Juno.
00:42These are code names for Normandy landing sites.
00:45To MI5, this is no longer a coincidence.
00:50It's a crisis.
00:52To a mysterious metal object.
00:55His heart is racing.
00:56He knows something about this has to be important.
01:00To a strange underwater signal.
01:04SOSUS is top secret.
01:07Sharing what he's figured out would risk exposing this classified government program.
01:13Join us now, because nothing stays hidden forever.
01:30Most of us don't give spare change a second thought.
01:33We toss it in a jar and move on.
01:35But for one New Yorker, a few cents cracked open a vault of Cold War secrets.
01:43It's June of 1953, and a 14-year-old newsboy named Jimmy Bozart is leaving a Brooklyn apartment
01:50building.
01:51It's collection day, so his pockets are heavy with coins.
01:56He knows that one of his regular stops, a pair of school teachers, always give him a tip.
02:00They give him 50 cents on a 35-cent subscription to the Brooklyn Eagle.
02:05He finds a quiet corner to go through the day's take, and as he's sifting through the coins,
02:11he drops a nickel on the stairs.
02:13That's when something extraordinary happens.
02:17The coin splits clean in half, like opening an Oreo, except instead of cream filling,
02:24the coin is hollow.
02:25And inside, there's a tiny piece of microfilm.
02:30Jimmy brings the coin in the film home and holds the film up to the lamp in the living room.
02:37Only this film, it doesn't include a photograph.
02:40It doesn't show a person, a place, or a thing.
02:42Instead, it's just columns of numbers in eight and ten digits.
02:47To most people, these would be random numbers.
02:50But Jimmy has read his share of spy comics, so he knows what this really is.
02:57A secret code.
02:59He shows his dad, who tells him to take the film and the nickel to the police.
03:04So the next day, Jimmy brings the strange nickel to his friend, whose father is an NYPD officer.
03:12The officer can tell this isn't just pocket change.
03:16So he contacts federal agents to investigate further.
03:21Federal agents take one look and realize that this is a precision-built device
03:28meant to convey secret messages to spies.
03:32The most impressive part about this is that it's not one nickel that has been split down the middle.
03:38It's two separate nickels that have been composited together to make this piece of spycraft.
03:44There's even a tiny pinhole in the letter R of trust, which opens a secret latch.
03:51The engineering is impressive, but the real mystery is the message inside.
03:56The FBI's top code breakers can't crack this.
04:00They pass it along to the CIA.
04:02But that agency is still in its infancy and doesn't have the sophistication to break this code.
04:09For four years, the CIA can't make sense of the message until 1957, when an unexpected lead blows the case
04:19wide open.
04:19A man walks into the U.S. Embassy in Paris looking haggard and anxious.
04:25He identifies himself as being a Soviet intelligence officer and announces his intention to defect to the United States.
04:33His name is Reino Hehanen.
04:36He's a low-performing KGB agent who's been summoned back to Moscow.
04:40And he's convinced that this means he's about to be killed.
04:44So instead of following orders, he decides to switch sides and work for the Americans.
04:48He's eventually interrogated by FBI agents who begin showing him different pieces of evidence, including a photograph of the hollow
04:57nickel.
04:58Hehanen not only confirms that the coin was Soviet, but he gives the FBI the key to decipher the code.
05:06In a stunning final twist, it turns out the message in the nickel was meant for Hehanen himself.
05:14The code is a set of instructions for him to start up life in America.
05:20Meeting locations, dead drops, sites, contact protocols.
05:26It's everything a freshly deployed Soviet spy would need.
05:30It seems like the kind of crazy coincidence that would be featured in a movie, and eventually that's what it
05:35became.
05:37Decades later, the story of the hollow nickel becomes a part of Steven Spielberg's movie, Bridge of Spies.
05:44In the end, this Cold War mystery wasn't solved thanks to advanced espionage techniques,
05:51but really instead thanks to a paperboard, counting change on a step in Brooklyn.
05:59That wasn't the only surprising place secrets turned up.
06:03In wartime Britain, a different puzzle almost unraveled a mission far bigger.
06:10It's 1942, and World War II is raging throughout Europe.
06:14As bombs fall across London, a British intelligence officer tries to find a moment of peace with his morning ritual,
06:22the crossword puzzle in the telegraph.
06:24He sits down with a hot cup of tea and reads the first clue, French port.
06:29He knows the answer, Dieppe, and starts to write it in.
06:33Then his hand freezes as a chill runs down his spine.
06:38Dieppe is more than a French port.
06:41It's the name of the French town where, in just two days,
06:45Allied forces plan to launch a secret amphibious raid.
06:48The invasion is meant to test the Allies' ability to take back a small piece of France and boost morale.
06:55This town being in the crossword puzzle, it's weird, but he figures it's just a coincidence and goes on with
07:01his day.
07:01Two days later, the raid proceeds as planned.
07:08However, instead of becoming a morale boost, it's a massacre.
07:13Of the 6,000 Allied troops that land that morning, nearly 60% are killed, wounded, or captured.
07:22The survivors retreat, and everyone else is taken by the Germans.
07:27The Allied commanders can't shake the feeling that the Germans were waiting for them.
07:33To figure out what went wrong, MI-5 is brought in to investigate.
07:39That's when one of the intelligence officers remembers that crossword puzzle.
07:44They track down the puzzle's creator, a man named Leonard Sidney Daw.
07:48Daw is a respected headmaster at a local school, a World War I veteran, by all accounts, a model British
07:55citizen.
07:56After a thorough investigation, MI-5 determines no signs of espionage.
08:03This was just an unfortunate coincidence.
08:07Almost two years later, it happens again.
08:10And this time, the stakes are much higher.
08:14In May of 1944, the Allies are preparing for what is the largest amphibious assault in military history.
08:21Operation Overlord.
08:23The D-Day invasion that could crack open Hitler's fortress Europe and change the course of the war.
08:28Over the next several days, MI-5 personnel once again find a series of strange crossword puzzle answers in the
08:37telegraph.
08:38Words like sword, juno, and gold.
08:41All of these are top secret codenames for Normandy landing sites.
08:46Then even more codewords show up.
08:49Utah, Mulberry, Omaha.
08:52Finally, the most alarming of all, Overlord.
08:56The classified codename for the entire D-Day operation.
09:02To MI-5, this is no longer a coincidence.
09:06It's a crisis.
09:07They storm into puzzle writer Daw's classroom.
09:11He is escorted out in front of his stunned students.
09:14Within hours, he's interrogated, accused of being a German spy.
09:19Daw is baffled.
09:21He maintains he's innocent.
09:22He claims that he doesn't even choose the words of his crossword puzzle.
09:28He enlists the help of his teenage students to give the words, and then he creates the clue.
09:34As D-Day approaches, he maintains his story.
09:37But MI-5 keeps him in custody, anxiously waiting for updates.
09:42If the Germans are tipped off, Daw will be tried as a traitor.
09:47Fortunately, this time, the invasion succeeds, and the Germans are caught completely off guard.
09:54With no evidence linking the puzzle to a leak, MI-5 has to let Daw go.
10:01But decades later, an unexpected confession finally sets the record straight.
10:07In the 1980s, some of Daw's students come forward.
10:11They explain that in the weeks before D-Day, their small English town was swarming with American and Canadian soldiers.
10:19The students overheard troops using strange words like Utah, Overlord, Omaha.
10:27They didn't think they were secrets, just cool-sounding words for their headmaster's puzzles.
10:33And to think, had the D-Day invasion failed, Leonard Daw would have faced a firing squad for treason.
10:40And he most likely would have been convicted on nothing more than an incredible string of coincidences.
10:51In 1831, a walk along Scotland's coastal sand dunes uncovers the first pieces of a tantalizing puzzle.
11:03Malcolm MacLeod, or Sprott, as he's known to his friends, is out tending his cattle amongst the sand dunes on
11:10the Isle of Lewis in Scotland,
11:12when he comes upon something strange in the sand.
11:17It looks like a chess piece.
11:20So Sprott starts digging, and before he knows it, he's pulling out all these ornate game pieces.
11:2878 chess pieces, to be exact, and 14 backgammon pieces.
11:34He doesn't know what to do with them, so he sells them for around 30 pounds.
11:39They change hands a few more times, and eventually, they end up at the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in
11:46Edinburgh.
11:47When experts take a look, they can't believe what they see.
11:52Turns out, these chess pieces aren't just old.
11:56They're medieval.
11:59Researchers date them to about 1150 to 1200 A.D., and then they realize that these pieces are made out
12:07of walrus ivory.
12:10Walrus ivory was so rare and valuable in the Middle Ages that it was referred to as Arctic gold.
12:19The craftsmanship on the pieces is stunning.
12:23The faces are so expressive, they're almost human.
12:26These are some of the most well-preserved medieval chess pieces ever discovered.
12:31And they're also among some of the very first medieval objects in the British Museum.
12:37Today, they're known as the Lewis Chessmen.
12:40But the discovery also sparks a new mystery.
12:44The set is incomplete.
12:46It appears to be a mix of multiple sets, but several pieces, four rooks, a knight, and multiple pawns, are
12:54missing.
12:55And they remain missing for nearly 200 years, until an unexpected encounter in 2019.
13:02In Edinburgh, Scotland, a woman walks into Sotheby's with a little figurine, and she wants to have it appraised.
13:10She doesn't know what it is, but says her grandfather, who was an antiques dealer, acquired it in 1964.
13:17It's a warrior with a helmet, a shield, and a sword.
13:21She tells the appraisers he bought it for five pounds, but he didn't think much of it, so he threw
13:27it in a drawer, and there it remained for 55 years.
13:30At Sotheby's, expert Alexander Cater examines the piece, and his heart nearly stops.
13:37The level of craftsmanship is unmistakable, and every test confirms it.
13:42It's one of the missing Lewis Chessmen warders, which functions like a rook in modern chess.
13:49Since the Scottish woman is the owner, she decides to cash in and sell it, rather than donating it to
13:55the museum.
13:55So now, this is the first Lewis Chessmen to be available for private collections.
14:02Around the same time, interest in this age-old artifact is soaring, thanks to a boost by a blockbuster cameo.
14:10In 2001, the Lewis Chessmen became part of a movie, inspiring the look of the giant enchanted chessboard in the
14:18film Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
14:21So, when it hits the market, the art world goes crazy.
14:27Bidding starts low, but climbs quickly.
14:30The final price?
14:32$929,000.
14:35This is one of the most profitable antique sales in history.
14:40An item originally purchased for five pounds sells for nearly $1 million.
14:50$9,000 miles away, another stretch of dunes guards a different kind of secret.
14:58In January 2018, Tanya Illman is strolling along the shoreline of Wedge Island in Western Australia.
15:06As she passes some sand dunes, something catches her eye.
15:10She makes her way to this object and picks it up off the ground, and she notices that it's a
15:15very distinct-looking bottle with some raised lettering on it.
15:20Then she hears a faint rattle on the inside of this bottle, and as she looks inside, she sees this
15:25small, rolled-up piece of paper.
15:28It's like something out of an adventure tale, an actual real-life message in a bottle.
15:37Tanya brings it home to show her husband, Kim, but as they try to extract the paper, they realize it's
15:43super fragile, waterlogged, and decaying.
15:47They worry that any wrong move might destroy the whole thing, so they carefully place it in a very low
15:54-heated oven to dry it out.
15:56Slowly, some faded writing appears.
15:59It's written in German, and at the bottom of the page are a bunch of random numbers and blank spaces.
16:05But from the look of it, it doesn't appear to be a personal note.
16:08It looks like an official document.
16:12Kim can tell it contains some printed text requesting coordinates with some handwritten entries in the blank spaces.
16:19And scrawled faintly in the center of the form is the name Paula.
16:23To get to the bottom of the strange clues, Kim and Tanya turn to the Western Australian Museum.
16:30Experts find out that the name Paula doesn't refer to a person.
16:33It actually refers to a ship.
16:36And they soon discover that the ship Paula was part of this massive oceanographic experiment.
16:43Even more incredible, it took place over 150 years ago.
16:51Between 1864 and 1933, thousands of bottles with messages in them were launched overboard from ships.
17:00Part of a 70-year study to examine ocean currents.
17:04Each message contained the ship's name, coordinates, data, and instructions for whoever found it.
17:10Record where and when the bottle ended up, then mail it back to the German Naval Observatory.
17:15When combined with data from all the other bottles, scientists could map the ocean current movement from all over the
17:21globe.
17:22It might sound primitive now, but at the time, it was pretty groundbreaking.
17:26It was one of the first comprehensive oceanography studies ever.
17:30Of the thousands of bottles released during this German oceanographic experiment,
17:35only 662 messages had ever been returned before Tanya and Kim's discovery.
17:41This particular message and bottle that was launched by the crew of the Paula took place on June 12, 1886,
17:49roughly 590 miles off the coast of Australia.
17:52That makes this 132-year-old discovery the oldest message in a bottle ever found.
18:04When you picture war heroes, you probably think of great generals on the front lines.
18:10But during World War I, a very different kind of hero emerges.
18:18It's 1915 in England, and World War I is raging.
18:23But in the back rooms of Britain's war office, a different battle is underway.
18:29Here, a mostly female team of workers sift through thousands of letters every day.
18:35Under special wartime powers, they monitor all correspondents entering or leaving the country.
18:41They're checking for any details or information that might accidentally provide Britain's enemies with an advantage in the war.
18:52One gray morning, an assistant censor clerk named Mabel Elliott is sorting through her pile.
18:59The letter she opens appears to be routine business correspondence.
19:03Very dry talk of trade and deals, but something about it feels off.
19:09Mabel holds the paper up to the light and notices a slight discoloration between the lines.
19:17She's seen enough letters to know these marks aren't accidental.
19:21So Mabel makes moves to confirm her suspicion.
19:25She gently exposes the letter to low heat from a clothes iron.
19:31And as the heat reaches the paper, suddenly those stains and splotches, they take the form of clear and distinct
19:39lettering.
19:40What she was seeing on the letter was the telltale signs of invisible ink.
19:46The secret message dictates the deployment of ships all along Britain's highly vulnerable coastline.
19:56It details the deployment of troops, the numbers, the types of equipment that are defending London.
20:03And that information, in the hands of the Germans, could have easily turned the tide of the war and destroyed
20:11Britain.
20:14British intelligence is able to trace the letter to a German-born American named Anton Kupferlo.
20:19They find him living under an assumed identity in a London flat and promptly arrest him.
20:27After hours of questioning, Kupferlo finally confesses.
20:32He admits that he's not a German-born American wool merchant.
20:37He is, in fact, a German military captain who is sent to Britain as a spy.
20:44As British agents continue to drill him, the terrified spy reveals the names of two other German agents operating on
20:52British soil.
20:53From there, the confession helps crack open an entire hidden spy network operating in the country.
21:00Kupferlo is put on trial at the Tower of London under conditions of complete secrecy.
21:05And Mabel is the star witness in that trial.
21:08However, with the knowledge that German intelligence would do anything to try to silence her,
21:14her testimony is done under an alias to protect her identity.
21:18Before Kupferlo is sentenced, he's discovered hanging in his cell.
21:25After the war, Mabel goes on to become a business manager at the Royal Society of Chemistry.
21:30For decades, no one knows about Mabel's role in uncovering one of World War I's most dangerous spy rings.
21:37It isn't until almost 100 years later in 2011 when archivists finally stumble upon her name
21:44and Mabel Elliott emerges as a hidden hero of World War I.
21:51Some messages hide in enemy letters.
21:53Others are sealed in objects so sacred no one would ever think to look.
22:00It's 2017 in northern Spain, and restoration artists are hunched over their benches in the quiet church workshop.
22:07Their latest project is restoring an 18th century wooden statue of Jesus on the cross.
22:13This isn't just any crucifix.
22:15This is the church's centerpiece.
22:18Known as the Cristo del Miserere, this near-life-size statue has hung over worshipers for over 200 years.
22:27The restorationist takes this wooden statue and they're examining it all over,
22:31looking for any kind of wear or damage on it.
22:34At first, their examination reveals pretty normal wear and tear for the old relic.
22:39Splintered wood, cracks in the varnish.
22:41But when they turn the statue over, they see something strange.
22:47Along the seam of the wooden loincloth draped around Jesus' waist, there's an unusual gap.
22:54And carefully, carefully, they lift up the back of this piece of wood
22:58and notice that inside, there's a hidden compartment.
23:04And amazingly, inside the compartment, they find two delicate scrolls
23:11that have been rolled up and placed inside that cavity.
23:15As they gently unroll the scrolls, it becomes clear they're holding letters written over two centuries ago.
23:23It's dated to the year 1777, and they're written in an elegant script on sheepskin.
23:30The author is Joaquin Minguez, who was the chaplain of the Cathedral of Burgo de Osma.
23:36The scrolls vividly describe life in the 18th century.
23:41But between the lines, Minguez's words reveal something darker.
23:47He uses the scrolls to comment candidly on two particularly powerful things going on at this moment in time.
23:56One is the reign of King Carlos III of Spain.
24:00The other is the Spanish Inquisition.
24:05The Spanish Inquisition was established as a religious court in 1478.
24:10But it also was a brutal enforcer of orthodoxy, using torture and execution to quash any dissent.
24:18The court helped consolidate power in the newly unified Spanish monarchy.
24:22It targeted Jews, Muslims, Protestants, even Catholics who showed any signs of wavering from church orthodoxy.
24:31For a Catholic chaplain like Minguez, criticizing either the Inquisition or the king's policies was treason.
24:39And if anyone were to find out, he would face imprisonment, torture, or execution.
24:46So he hid his words in the one place no one in this devoutly Catholic country would ever look.
24:56Historians believe the letters were meant to be some sort of time capsule for future generations.
25:02And so, after careful documentation, the letters were sent to the Archbishop of Burgos to be carefully preserved and archived.
25:10But, in a poetic gesture, copies of the two original letters were placed back into the hidden compartment of the
25:18crucifix.
25:18Today, the statue hangs once again where it continues to gaze down upon the devout.
25:30Most metal detector finds are pretty ordinary.
25:34But this one is something that stops even the experts in their tracks.
25:41It's a cold, crisp day in December 2022 in northern Belgium.
25:46Amateur treasure hunter named Patrick Shurmans is out sweeping his metal detector back and forth across a farmer's field.
25:54In the past, Patrick had found a few old coins, but nothing really worth bragging about.
26:00But for Patrick, it's more about the thrill of discovery, what could be underneath the ground.
26:05And on this particular day, as Patrick is sweeping his metal detector, it goes off, it starts to beep,
26:10and so he puts it down, gets down on his hands and knees, and starts digging.
26:16What he pulls from the earth is no old coin, but an object unlike anything he's ever seen.
26:23It's small, it looks bronze, it's decorated with geometric lines, and it has a small sphere right at the top.
26:31His heart is racing, and he knows that something about this has to be important.
26:36So he takes it to the experts at the Gallo Roman Museum in the nearby town of Tongaran.
26:41When archaeologists examine the artifact, they immediately recognize it.
26:48It's one of history's most enduring puzzles.
26:51It's known as a Roman dodecahedron.
26:54It's a 12-sided box, hollow, with a hole in each face.
26:59You can think of it like a combination of a wiffle ball and a 12-sided die.
27:04Over a hundred of these dodecahedrons have been found.
27:07When they pop up, it's usually in northern Europe, in places that used to be part of the ancient Roman
27:12Empire.
27:14Each dodecahedron is unique.
27:17Some of them are about the size of a marble, whereas others can be about the size of your fist.
27:22Based on the design, researchers are able to conclude that this particular dodecahedron that Patrick brings them is around 1
27:30,600 years old.
27:31While experts can date it, even after years of study, no one knows what these things were for.
27:37Some think that this is an ancient dice used in a high-stakes Roman gambling game.
27:44Others speculate that because so many have been found near military sites, that this was some kind of military tool,
27:52maybe used to calculate distances to targets.
27:56Some even suggest a more mythical and a more mystical meaning behind them.
28:04As Christianity was on the rise in the Roman Empire, it suggested that Roman pagans went underground,
28:10and these objects were a part of their secret rituals.
28:15Whatever their significance, the meticulous design suggests that they held real importance.
28:22Every dodecahedron is unique, and they were obviously crafted with great skill and care.
28:27And yet, no Roman document mentions them.
28:31As for the piece that Patrick discovers, he donates it to the Gallo-Roman Museum,
28:36where it's on display next to another dodecahedron that was discovered back in 1939.
28:43Some puzzles are forged in bronze.
28:46Others are hidden between the pages of an old book, waiting for the right set of eyes to find them.
28:53It's 2019 at the University of Cambridge's Special Collections.
28:58This is the place where the university keeps old books and manuscripts dating back thousands of years.
29:05Archivist Sean Collins is flipping through a 16th century property registry,
29:11essentially a record of who owned what land centuries ago.
29:15In an archive full of exciting and arcane ancient texts,
29:18this is one of the collection's more mundane items.
29:25But as she looks through the book, something feels a little bit off.
29:29The binding feels a little too thick, and also a little too stiff.
29:35Most people would just move on, but Collins has a keen eye for detail.
29:42She holds the book up to the light, and that's when she notices a piece of what seems to be
29:48parchment
29:49stitched right inside the 16th century binding.
29:54Sean looks a bit closer at this parchment,
29:57and she makes out ancient writing that appears to be Old French, but she can't read it.
30:03Luckily, she has a colleague who can.
30:06When she squints at the page, two names jump out of her.
30:12Arthur and Merlin.
30:15Arthur and Merlin, of course, are King Arthur
30:19and Merlin, the wizard from Camelot.
30:22They're the guys from all of those stories and books, movies, the Broadway musical.
30:30If this unassuming book holds a long-lost King Arthur tale,
30:35unlocking it will take a different kind of magic.
30:38Now, in order to read what this full parchment says,
30:43they need to remove it from the binding, but that would completely destroy it.
30:47And so, they turn to technology.
30:52They use something that's called multispectral imaging.
30:55Basically, what this is, is technology that takes thousands of photos of an item
30:59using all manner of light, everything from UV to infrared.
31:05Each wavelength reveals a different feature of the hidden text,
31:09and it enables them to scan the entire manuscript without touching it.
31:13After taking thousands of images, computer programs are able to reconstruct the text.
31:20What emerges is a brand new, 800-year-old, 3,000-word Arthurian story.
31:30It comes from the Vulgate cycle, which is sort of like the medieval equivalent of a cinematic universe.
31:36It was written between 1210 and 1230, and it's the collection of stories that catapulted Arthur and his knights to
31:44fame all across Europe.
31:45Now, most stories of this period focus on the characters of Lancelot, Guinevere, and Arthur.
31:52A lot of, like, soap opera-style drama that was considered to be real spicy for the 13th century.
31:56But this story is different.
32:01It depicts Arthur as a military leader.
32:04He's defending England against Saxon invaders.
32:08And it shows Merlin using some serious magical powers as a wizard.
32:15He's conjuring mists to hide Arthur's troops.
32:18He's also summoning storms to try to thwart enemy archers.
32:24This new story fills in a crucial piece of the bigger picture.
32:28It portrays a much more warrior like Arthur and a much more magically powerful Merlin than we see in some
32:36later stories.
32:37It makes you wonder, if this story slipped through the cracks, what other legends might be lost, just hidden inside
32:45the bindings of an ancient book?
32:51When divers uncover a baffling formation on the ocean floor, the quest to learn more about it begins.
33:01It's 1995, and a group of divers are exploring the Philippine Sea off the coast of this remote Japanese island.
33:09They're about 80 feet down, following a school of parrotfish, when suddenly their eyes catch something unusual.
33:18It looks like a perfect geometric formation, etched into the seafloor.
33:23It's about six feet across and is comprised of a variety of ridges, peaks, valleys, seemingly meticulously carved right into
33:31the sand.
33:33It looks like a massive mandala or elaborate snowflake.
33:37Concentric circles, rays radiating out from the center, framed by pebbles and shell fragments.
33:45The divers swim closer for a better look, and what they've found looks too perfect to be natural, but also
33:51too strange to be man-made.
33:54They snapped some photos and raced ashore to share their strange discovery.
34:00Back on land, they show some pictures to local fishermen, and the more these photos are circulated, the more of
34:08a stir they cause.
34:09Eventually, the photos air on a local TV program, and after that, they go global.
34:15And the more people that see them, the more ideas come about, and some of them are truly out of
34:21this world.
34:21Some self-proclaimed experts say that these are too mathematically precise to be naturally occurring.
34:29And among those, some see this as proof of an alien civilization trying to get our attention.
34:37UFO enthusiasts began to compare these shapes to the famous crop circles that started appearing in fields during the 1980s
34:44and 1990s.
34:45And although those were eventually ruled out to be elaborate hoaxes, these formations appeared underwater, and no one could explain
34:52exactly how they could have gotten there.
34:55Who created these shapes, and why remains a mystery for another 16 years?
35:01In 2011, a Japanese marine biologist and underwater photographer named Yoji Ukata decides he's going to get to the bottom
35:11of this once and for all.
35:13He spent nearly 50 years documenting sea life, and with the help of a team, installs time-lapse cameras underwater
35:20just off the coast, and waits.
35:23The footage they capture blows everyone away.
35:28Turns out the architect of these magnificent formations aren't aliens at all.
35:34It's a tiny, previously undocumented species of pufferfish.
35:41The footage shows a male working day and night.
35:45He uses his tiny fins like rakes, sculpting the valleys and ridges, and slowly moving pebbles and seashell fragments one
35:55at a time into place around the perimeter as decoration.
35:59Ukata is astounded.
36:01This little pufferfish is working like a builder on the seafloor laying tiles for a masterpiece.
36:06And the geometric designs he creates would even impress human architects.
36:12It's not just for show.
36:14These designs serve a practical purpose.
36:18The geometric formations actually function as a sophisticated current control mechanism.
36:24By making these ridges and valleys, that disrupts the water flow across the seabed,
36:30and as a result, in the center of the pattern, there is an area of calm water.
36:35And that area is perfect for the female to lay her eggs.
36:39If the female pufferfish is impressed with the male's architectural skills, she'll mate with him.
36:47Even with all of the underwater footage, scientists are still unsure what criteria female pufferfish use to judge a potential
36:56mate's design.
36:57Is it beauty?
37:00Symmetry?
37:01The placement of shells?
37:03Size?
37:04We still don't know.
37:13In the middle of Cold War surveillance, a mysterious sound deep in the ocean unlocks a discovery that has nothing
37:21to do with enemy subs.
37:26It's the 1950s, and the Cold War is in full swing.
37:30As the U.S. and U.S.S.R. build up their nuclear arsenals, deep beneath the surface of the
37:35Atlantic Ocean, a different technological arms race is unfolding in complete secrecy.
37:41Frank Watlington is a U.S. Navy engineer stationed at a classified underwater listening post off the coast of Bermuda.
37:49This site is part of a network known as SOSUS, the Sound Surveillance System.
37:54SOSUS is one of the most ambitious engineering projects of the Cold War.
38:00It's a massive array of underwater microphones called hydrophones, all positioned across the ocean floor.
38:07Each microphone is wired to a coastal processing center.
38:11Watlington's mission is to search the sea for the acoustic signatures that might indicate the presence of Soviet submarines prowling
38:19America's coastal waters.
38:21One day he hears something, but it doesn't sound like the mechanical signature of a submarine.
38:28Instead, it's long, low groans followed by high, piercing cries.
38:37Watlington considers a disturbing possibility that this is the sound of a new weapon.
38:47He comes through shipping records and title charts looking for any evidence of what these sounds might be, but he
38:54can't figure it out.
38:56Eventually, he decides to place hydrophones closer to the surface to see if he can track whatever it is in
39:04the vicinity of where he's hearing the sounds.
39:07Sure enough, one day, as he's listening to the long, low notes, he notices a humpback whale swim right past
39:17his microphone.
39:18It's a breakthrough. These aren't random noises. The humpbacks are communicating.
39:24But Watlington can't tell a soul.
39:30Sosus is top secret. Sharing what he thinks he's figured out with marine biologists would risk exposing this classified government
39:39program.
39:40So Watlington has no choice. He has to keep his data and his theory secret for the next 15 years.
39:48In 1967, when the recordings are finally declassified, Watlington is able to share his amazing discovery.
39:58He reaches out to Dr. Roger Payne, a biologist studying animal vocalizations.
40:04He travels to Bermuda to listen to these recordings.
40:08And when he hears them, he is stunned.
40:14These sounds aren't random. They're fixed, repeated patterns of rhythmic sounds.
40:21In other words, they're songs.
40:26These compositions can last from anywhere from 6 to 30 minutes, and the whales will repeat them for hours on
40:33end.
40:33Eventually, he discovers that all humpback whales in a region sing nearly identical versions of the same song.
40:41And the song gradually evolves over time.
40:45Eager to share their discovery, Watlington and Payne release an album in 1970, Songs of the Humpback Whale.
40:54The album turns out to be a surprise sensation.
40:57They quickly sell about 125,000 copies and eventually go multi-platinum.
41:03It becomes the highest selling environmental album of all time.
41:08Frank Watlington's ears were trained to detect Cold War danger beneath the waves.
41:13But instead, he discovered music that moved not just whales, but people as well.
41:21From coded clues to covert coins, tonight showed us that even the most unassuming objects can hold world-changing secrets.
41:31I'm Danny Trejo.
41:32Thanks for watching Mysteries on Earth.
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