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Secrets.Declassified.With.David.Duchovny.S02E02
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00:07Tonight on Secrets Declassified, government sites so surprising or dangerous that they're
00:13kept from the public. From a luxury resort hiding a government doomsday bunker. If a bomb drops on
00:20the golf course, anyone behind the blast doors would be okay. To an explosive factory where
00:26every shift is life or death. I can't imagine something more stressful than trying to disassemble
00:33a thermonuclear warhead. And even a fake country in Virginia that's really a CIA training camp.
00:40When you cross the border into this fake world, it's Disney World for adults. These are the
00:48astonishing and sometimes terrible places built by governments and the people who work for them.
00:53It's time to bring them to light.
01:03In West Virginia, there's a luxury hotel for the rich and famous that boasts over 700
01:09guest rooms, exclusive restaurants, an 18-hole golf course, and a secret underground bunker
01:16primed for Armageddon.
01:22Nuclear anxiety is peaking in the 1950s. And the U.S. president is concerned about the safety of the
01:31government in the case of nuclear attack. The government has commissioned these bomb-proof
01:36havens for the president and his cabinet. Now they want a bunker for members of Congress,
01:43somewhere big enough to house over 1,000 government officials and discreet enough to keep it secret.
01:49The answer? A five-star hotel.
01:52The Greenbrier is a luxury resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. This place is a slice of old-school
02:00luxury, where the rich and powerful come to do business and relax. You can find
02:05presidents or celebrities sipping drinks at the bar. It sounds like the perfect place to see out World War III.
02:12It's far enough from Washington, D.C. that hopefully it could escape the effects of a direct nuclear attack on
02:17the capital city, but also close enough that people would be able to escape to it in time.
02:22It's shielded by mountains for extra protection.
02:25Perhaps what swings it, literally, is the hotel's golfing facilities. Eisenhower is a regular on the Greenbrier course.
02:37The government discreetly approaches the hotel for their assistance, and the management at the Greenbrier are happy to oblige.
02:45The only problem is keeping it a secret.
02:48An immense construction project on the grounds of the Greenbrier is sure to get the VIP guests gossiping, so the
02:55bunker needs a cover story.
02:57The Greenbrier gets a brand-new extension, the West Virginia Wing.
03:03Underneath, a vast doomsday bunker, unlike any other, begins to take shape.
03:09The bunker underneath the Greenbrier Hotel hosts 153 rooms, spread out over 112,000 square feet.
03:18There are two chambers for the House and the Senate, and there is this vast hall for joint sessions.
03:23It's essentially a giant underground capital for the government to continue functioning in the event of a nuclear war.
03:30Beyond these chambers are the facilities you'd expect in a top-of-the-range government survival bunker.
03:36High-pressure shower to rinse off nuclear fallout, over 1,000 beds for congressmen and women, a hospital, a cafeteria,
03:43and a small arsenal of handguns.
03:47Perhaps the most impressive features are two enormous blast doors to seal congress inside.
03:54Each door is 19 inches thick, weighs 28 tons, and they're strong enough to withstand a nuclear blast from only
04:032,000 feet away.
04:05If a bomb drops on the eighth hole of the golf course, anyone behind the blast doors will be okay.
04:11And these doors are hidden behind a false wall in the exhibition hall, just inches away from where guests are
04:18mingling.
04:19For 30 years, the false wall stands firm, and the bunker remains secret, until 1992, when rumors finally begin to
04:29leak out.
04:31Ted Gup is an investigative reporter for the Washington Post, and an anonymous source tips him off that the Greenbrier
04:40Resort might not be all that it seems.
04:44Gup speaks to former employees who confirm that something mysterious is hidden beneath the West Virginia wing.
04:51But for a genuine scoop, Gup needs hard evidence.
04:56So he decides to go stay at the Greenbrier himself, to see if he can get that final bit of
05:01proof.
05:03When Gup meets the manager, he goes straight to the point.
05:07He asks, is there a government nuclear fallout shelter under the hotel?
05:11Well, the manager immediately denies this.
05:17Gup doesn't get the answers he's hoping for, but he's determined not to leave the Greenbrier without his story.
05:24Gup visits the office of a maintenance company called Forsyth Associates, who are supposedly in charge of maintaining the Greenbrier
05:32TVs.
05:33When he gets to the offices, he sees something strange.
05:37He sees a wall covered with books on nuclear war in Armageddon.
05:43You don't need that if you're building TV antennas.
05:46When he digs deeper, he finds out that many of the people who work at Forsyth Associates are former U
05:52.S. military cryptographers and radio specialists.
05:55Turns out, Forsyth Associates is just a front company.
05:59Their real job is maintaining the communication for the bunkers.
06:03The Washington Post runs Gup's story on May 31st, 1992.
06:11And the Greenbrier secret is finally unearthed.
06:15Within days, the government goes public about the Greenbrier bunker and announces its deactivation.
06:24Today, the bunker is a tourist attraction.
06:27For about $50, you can go tour the halls where the American government might have been reborn after Armageddon.
06:35A luxury hotel might be the perfect place to hide a government bunker.
06:39But in the 1950s, the CIA has to hide something much bigger.
06:44A vast college campus set up to train the next generation of super spies.
06:55At the dawn of the Cold War, the CIA realizes that this is a conflict that's not going to be
07:00fought by traditional soldiers with bullets and bombs,
07:04but by covert agents stealing secrets from under the enemy's nose.
07:08When it comes to training spies, though, the Americans are on their back foot compared to their rivals at the
07:13KGB.
07:14The KGB has a decades-old infrastructure for training spies, and CIA is relatively new to the game.
07:21So they realize that if they're going to keep up with their KGB counterparts, they have to step up big.
07:27The spy craft skills that could save your life and maybe even your country isn't something that's taught in any
07:34college or university.
07:35The CIA brass realizes that their agents need training to prepare them for the real world, what they're going to
07:41face out there in the field.
07:43So in secret, they set up a new espionage university.
07:48The first step is finding the right place for a campus.
07:52They need a very large place, someplace secluded, someplace cut off, but someplace large enough with infrastructure enough to simulate
08:00the activities of a normal city.
08:03They find it at a former naval base called Camp Perry.
08:07It stretches for 9,000 acres, more than half the size of Manhattan.
08:13To the outside world, Camp Perry remains a regular naval base, but behind its fences, the site is transformed into
08:21an elite proving ground for spies.
08:24Trainees refer to it as the farm, and generations of spies are secretly schooled here, right up to the present
08:32day.
08:34Training begins when students leave CIA headquarters in Langley on a blacked-out bus.
08:41The men and women chosen for this are among the most elite.
08:44They've gone through rigorous testing, psychological testing, physical testing to prove that they are truly the best of the best.
08:52When a CIA trainee arrives at the farm, they leave their real identity at the door.
08:57They're given a new cover story that they must maintain throughout the training.
09:02They are leaving the real world to go into a fake world, a fake microstate that simulates life in a
09:10foreign country.
09:11And it's in this simulated country that their undercover training begins.
09:16The whole location of the farm is one giant set.
09:21There's a town square, a shady downtown neighborhood, suburbs, and then the countryside.
09:28Everyone on the site, from visiting diplomats to the local cafe owner, is a veteran CIA operative playing a role.
09:35There's even a cable news channel reporting on the region's fictional politics.
09:40The farm really is Disney World for adults.
09:45In this college, lessons aren't learned in the classroom, but on the streets of its fake town.
09:52The foundation of undercover work is being able to recruit and handle foreign intelligence sources.
09:57You're looking for people who have access to secrets.
10:01The whole time, they're playing cat and mouse with their rivals and enemies.
10:07Other students and operatives who are trying to catch them out.
10:11Outfox and the enemy calls for some of the more advanced maneuvers that a wannabe James Bond must learn.
10:18You're trained how to flip a car during a car chase.
10:21How to get in a firefight and not shoot unarmed innocent civilians.
10:26How to parachute out of aircraft and survive in the woods on, you know, no food.
10:31You learn all the kind of things that you would see in a spy movie.
10:35New recruits are pushed to the edge of their wits.
10:38After six months of intense blood, sweat, tears, stress, strain, anxiety, this siren blares out and signals that the simulation
10:50is over.
10:52And any trainees that are left have made the cut.
10:56The government has never officially admitted it exists at all.
11:00Graduates of the farm rarely go on the record about their experience.
11:04Until 2019.
11:05Former CIA intelligence officer Amaryllis Fox actually wrote about all of her experiences at the farm in her book, Life
11:12Undercover.
11:15The farm is truly a journey that's inspiring and pleasurable more than it is something that's scary and terrifying.
11:23The scary and terrifying part is when you have to use those skills in the real world.
11:31As the blitz hits London, Winston Churchill needs a bomb-proof shelter where he can lead his troops in secret.
11:38It's got 70 rooms, 500 staff, and the strangest thing about it, a private line to the president inside his
11:46restroom.
11:50By 1938, the British government know that war with Germany is on the horizon.
11:57And this war is going to be unlike anything in human history.
12:00For starters, the Germans have the aerial capability to rain bombs over Britain's towns and cities on an apocalyptic scale.
12:08To stand any chance of winning the war, the British government needs an emergency hideout.
12:14And the safest place is underground.
12:17Halfway between the prime minister's residence in Downing Street and the British parliament sits the Treasury.
12:23Here they have a vast basement, 10 feet below the ground, which is used to store thousands of Treasury documents.
12:31A top-secret makeover begins.
12:34This underground space beneath the Treasury is divided into 70 hyper-secure rooms.
12:39Now, this included everything from the cabinet office, offices for secretaries and switchboard operators, and a dedicated bedroom for the
12:48prime minister himself.
12:51The war rooms are kept on standby for a year, until London comes under attack, and Winston Churchill takes his
13:00cabinet underground.
13:04On September 7, 1940, the Luftwaffe dropped 1,000 bombs over the capital, killing 430 civilians and injuring 1,600
13:15people.
13:16It's called Black Saturday.
13:20Black Saturday is only the beginning.
13:23Fifty-seven consecutive days of attacks follow, testing the resilience of both London and its leadership as never before.
13:33Despite the hammerings, the war rooms and Churchill survive.
13:37So, the Germans turn up the heat.
13:40By late 1940, the Germans are using parachute mines, and these weapons descend under an open parachute,
13:47and they're fused such that they will explode at rooftop level, and they'll create a pattern of destruction that's 300
13:54feet in diameter.
13:55They can flatten an entire city block.
13:57If a weapon like this were to explode over the cabinet war rooms, it could bury the prime minister and
14:04the entire war cabinet in one shot.
14:06That's a risk that simply cannot be taken.
14:09The underground compound is reinforced with a massive concrete roof, referred to as the slab.
14:16That means that the cabinet war rooms can sustain a direct hit from a 500-pound bomb.
14:22During the renovation, Churchill requests the expansion of the complex itself.
14:27It triples in size, making room for 500 personnel working underground 24-7.
14:34Such a bustling underground workspace brings one particular problem that Churchill hates above all others.
14:42Churchill is notoriously sensitive to excess noise, so 500 people working in a busy, claustrophobic, and echoey underground environment can
14:52cause quite a ruckus.
14:53To make the boss happy, several things are put in place.
14:57One of them is phones that don't ring, but instead light up whenever someone is calling.
15:03They also import noiseless typewriters from the United States to mitigate all the noise that will be created inside this
15:11underground bunker.
15:13The expansion of the cabinet war rooms brings a new problem.
15:16With so many people coming in and out, Churchill fears classified talks with the U.S. president may be compromised
15:23by spies working for the other side.
15:25But he needs a secure line of communication with Franklin D. Roosevelt.
15:30So he figures, where's the one place I'm not going to be interrupted or eavesdropped on?
15:36The bathroom.
15:38Churchill has a new private toilet installed for his personal use.
15:42And inside is actually a phone that connects to an encrypted line direct to the Pentagon in Washington.
15:48So any spy will just assume that the prime minister is taking a bathroom break, when in reality, he's actually
15:55masterminding victory.
15:57Kind of goes back to the old adage of your best ideas happen when you're on the toilet.
16:01Perfect example.
16:03The cabinet war rooms remain the beating heart of Britain's war effort for almost six years.
16:09Then, two days after Japan's surrender, on August 16, 1945, the war rooms and its secrets are locked for good.
16:20For 40 years, it lays beneath London, untouched and forgotten.
16:26Then, in 1984, the bunker secrets are finally revealed when the Imperial War Museum opens its doors to the public.
16:39Everything is restored to its original state, frozen at the precise moment when the Allies won the war.
16:48After World War II, the United States engages in a race to stockpile the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons.
16:55Building the most destructive warheads on Earth requires a new kind of top-secret factory.
17:00A place so dangerous, it comes with a chilling fail-safe.
17:04One wrong move, and it self-destructs.
17:11By the early 1950s, we're in the beginnings of the Cold War, and both the Americans and the Soviets have
17:18the bomb.
17:19So, in order to regain nuclear superiority, the U.S. goes all in on maximizing production.
17:25The attitude from American military leaders is this.
17:28If we can't have the only nuclear weapons, then we have to have the most.
17:34A few hundred warheads won't cut it.
17:37The U.S. wants thousands.
17:39You're creating these things in volume, in a factory packed full of volatile materials.
17:45One false move, and you'll have a nuclear fireball on home soil.
17:49A site this hazardous needs to be remote, secure, and secret.
17:55The Atomic Energy Commission, or the AEC, begins scouting for suitable sites.
18:00One facility that ticks all the boxes is an old World War II munitions plant in the Texas Panhandle, 25
18:07miles from Amarillo.
18:08It's called Pentex.
18:11During the war, thousands of workers, mostly women, packed munitions and shells here.
18:17But now, the factory is closed.
18:20The AEC spends $25 million renovating the old factory.
18:25And in 1951, the U.S. has itself a brand new nuclear weapons facility.
18:31Workers at Pentex quietly and efficiently assemble the world's most lethal product,
18:37while trying not to blow themselves up.
18:41Workers assembling the warheads must perform what's called the mating process,
18:45when the explosives and the nuclear materials are brought together inside the warhead.
18:50If there's one accident, it's going to set off a chain reaction that will produce a nuclear explosion.
18:57A single second of human error could wipe out a large portion of the Texas Panhandle.
19:02To avoid this nightmare scenario, Pentex builds six new bunkers for assembling these warheads, called gravel girdies.
19:10Each gravel girdie is a steel-reinforced concrete lab where the technicians work.
19:17And above them is what amounts to a mountain of gravel held in place by steel cables.
19:22Inside the lab, three workers assemble the nuke.
19:26And this process is so sensitive that one of the workers' jobs is just to read the instructions step by
19:33step
19:34as the other two workers carry out their direction.
19:38One false move from a tired technician, and the whole facility goes out.
19:43Hence, the merciless fail-safe.
19:45If there's an accidental detonation, the explosion will snap the steel cables supporting the roof.
19:52The entire chamber is then buried under thousands of tons of gravel.
19:58The design traps the radioactive material, reducing fallout by 90%.
20:03However, it also entombs the three workers who triggered the explosion.
20:08It's a literal death trap.
20:10The possibility that each shift could be their last hangs over the heads of the Pentex workforce.
20:17And yet production rates rocket.
20:20Pentex is producing 2,000 nuclear warheads a year.
20:24The U.S. arsenal swells to 37,000.
20:28That's enough to destroy not only the Soviets, but every civilization on the face of Earth.
20:35For four decades, Pentex fuels the nuclear stockpile.
20:39Until the end of the Cold War, force is a sudden U-turn.
20:42The slowdown in missile production makes the world safer.
20:46But for workers at Pentex, the danger levels skyrocket.
20:51Nuclear weapons that were manufactured, in some cases decades previously,
20:56have to come into a manufacturer for disassembly.
21:00I can't imagine something more stressful than trying to disassemble a thermonuclear warhead.
21:06Nuclear weapons aren't designed to be disassembled.
21:09And some of these have been sitting around for up to 40 years.
21:12They've degraded.
21:13And some of their explosives are not as stable as they once were.
21:17Now it's turned over to Pentex and go,
21:19here's the problem.
21:20You solve it.
21:20You take it apart.
21:22And try not to have an explosion.
21:26It's not just the nukes that are passed, they're used by a date.
21:30At this time, Pentex is over 50 years old, and it's in desperate need of an upgrade.
21:34But instead, they're rushing to complete the materials.
21:38The rush is so intense that in 1996, factory workers blow the whistle.
21:46The New York Times publishes some astonishing and disturbing claims
21:50that at Pentex, the equipment is faulty and safety measures are being ignored.
21:57For the first time, the public is alerted to a nuclear threat on their own doorstep.
22:05The site is still in operation,
22:08with as many as 2,000 warheads still waiting to be disassembled.
22:18If the Soviets send assassins to try and kill you, not once, but 22 times,
22:23it makes sense to build a secret underground hideout.
22:26But that doesn't mean it can't be comfortable.
22:29This is the story of how one European dictator
22:31commissions his own private super bunker
22:33to the tune of $20 billion.
22:40After World War II, Yugoslavia is led by a socialist dictator
22:45by the name of Josip Broz.
22:47He is better known to the world as Tito.
22:50Yugoslavia is independent from both Western Europe and the Soviet Union.
22:55But this comes at a cost.
22:57Stalin hates Tito and is out for blood.
22:59The Soviet leadership has orchestrated over 22 assassination attempts on Tito.
23:05So, he must be thinking it's only a matter of time until his time runs out.
23:11Tito believes a Soviet attack on Yugoslavia is imminent,
23:14which would trigger a global response.
23:17World War III could kick off in his backyard.
23:21Tito begins to prepare for the worst with a near impossible solution.
23:27He decides to build an impenetrable retreat that has to be strong enough to withstand a nuclear blast,
23:33but big enough to hold his entire government.
23:36The only way to meet Tito's demands is to tunnel under a mountain.
23:40Tito's engineers pick a site near the village of Konjic,
23:44and the reason is because it's remote and shielded by the mountains.
23:47Plus, its central location makes it pretty accessible for government ministers
23:51who are in a mad rush to take shelter.
23:54The question is, how do you hollow out a mountain in secret?
23:57To maintain total confidentiality, Tito enforces extraordinary security protocols.
24:03He does not employ locals.
24:05Instead, he brings in construction workers from other parts of the country
24:09who won't be able to recognize the location.
24:11As an extra measure, they travel in blindfolds or in blacked-out vehicles to the location.
24:17The site is cordoned off from the public, and an immense tunneling project begins.
24:26Workers are using explosives to slowly and methodically burrow within the mountain.
24:31It's brutal and dangerous work.
24:34In fact, later testimonies claim that barely a single shift passes without someone getting killed.
24:41As the deaths stack up, so does the cost.
24:45Tito pours the equivalent of $20 billion into the tunnel,
24:49and, meter by meter, his hidden fortress takes shape.
24:53The entrance to Tito's bunker admits you to a horseshoe-shaped 200-meter-long tunnel
24:59that's carved into the mountain.
25:02It has 100 dormitories that are capable of housing 350 of Yugoslavia's political and military elite.
25:10In every way, this facility is designed to provide for the continuity of government
25:15in the eventuality of a nuclear war.
25:17The base is fitted out with the latest Cold War tech.
25:20It contains five operational centers with a cryptography center
25:24and even a fully equipped hospital operating room.
25:27The most iconic gadget is straight out of a spy movie,
25:31the Red Telephone, which will ring when nuclear Armageddon kicks off.
25:37If that happens, Tito can sit out the end of the world in relative luxury.
25:42The rest of the survivors will have to slum it,
25:44but Tito gets a private residence in the heart of the mountain.
25:48It consists of five rooms, including an office and a bedroom,
25:51with the bunker's only double bed.
25:54The inside of the bunker is vast,
25:57but the entrance is hidden to the outside world by a stroke of genius.
26:01It's camouflaged behind the facade of three regular-looking houses.
26:07Tito's impossible dream is finally completed in 1979,
26:1226 years after construction began.
26:15But Tito never gets to take the grand tour.
26:18He dies in 1980.
26:20The secret bunker is fully operational,
26:22and the Yugoslav government keeps it on standby.
26:26Then, 40 years after construction began,
26:29an incredible order is given to blow this thing apart.
26:35In the early 1990s, Yugoslavia, as it used to be known,
26:39is torn apart as a result of a civil war.
26:42And Tito's bunker is right in the middle of the conflict.
26:45For the past 12 years, the bunker has been looked after
26:48by one of Tito's trusted servants,
26:50Colonel Garbovica, who's now with the Serbian army.
26:54Bosnian troops are advancing toward the complex,
26:57and Colonel Garbovica is given an order
27:00to demolish the entire facility with explosives.
27:03This is an agonizing order,
27:06because Garbovica has spent 12 years
27:09taking care of this complex.
27:11When his unit plants the explosives and prepares to leave,
27:14he makes a decision that could cost him his life for treason.
27:19He quietly cuts the cables connected to the explosives,
27:23and he saves Tito's bunker.
27:26The underground complex is taken by Bosnian troops,
27:30who retain it as a secret military installation
27:33until the end of the civil war.
27:36In 2011, it's finally decommissioned,
27:39and the government opens its doors as a museum and art space.
27:43Locals get to explore the secret labyrinth
27:46that's been hiding behind these houses for 60 years.
27:55A quiet neighborhood in Germany
27:57is the last place you'd expect to find a sinister CIA program.
28:01It's a site that brings together Soviet spies,
28:03LSD, and a Nazi scientist
28:06intent on mastering mind control.
28:13During the early years of the Cold War,
28:15the CIA is more and more obsessed
28:18with interrogation techniques.
28:20They want to be able to manipulate the enemy
28:22who falls into our hands,
28:23and then they also want to figure out ways
28:25to reinforce the will of our personnel
28:29who might fall into enemy hands,
28:30reinforce their ability to resist interrogation techniques
28:34that the enemy might expose them to.
28:36The only way to figure out how best to serve both of those masters
28:40is to conduct psychological experiments.
28:42The CIA sets up a top-secret program
28:45to explore methods of mind control.
28:47It's called Project Bluebird.
28:50These experiments can't be conducted
28:53in a regular laboratory.
28:54Obviously, they have to be done
28:56in a classified environment,
28:57a sort of black site
28:59that governments typically turn a blind eye to.
29:01So, Project Bluebird is taken out of the U.S.
29:05to battle-scarred West Germany.
29:07At this time, part of Germany
29:08is still under American occupation
29:10after World War II,
29:12and the U.S. military have a site
29:13in a quiet town just north of Frankfurt.
29:16It's called Camp King.
29:19Camp King has been in use since World War II.
29:21It was used for imprisoning
29:22and interrogating Nazi leaders.
29:24Camp King has the perfect infrastructure
29:27for psychological experiments.
29:30It has secure cells,
29:32housing for staff,
29:33and even a hospital.
29:35But its most vital asset,
29:37absolute privacy.
29:39The locals are used to seeing the Americans
29:42from Camp King around,
29:43and they don't ask questions
29:44about what they're doing inside.
29:45The project needs a lead scientist,
29:48someone willing to turn a blind eye
29:51to medical ethics.
29:53Turns out that the chief medical doctor
29:55at Camp King has quite the resume.
29:58Dr. Walter Schreiber
29:59is the former Surgeon General
30:01of the German Army.
30:02Walter Schreiber oversaw
30:04horrific medical experiments
30:06at Dachau and Auschwitz.
30:08Under his watch,
30:10concentration camp prisoners
30:11are frozen,
30:13injected with hallucinogens,
30:15and even dissected
30:17to track gangrene,
30:19experiments that end
30:21in slow and painful death.
30:23Schreiber was picked up
30:25by U.S. military intelligence
30:27after the war.
30:28Now his skills are put to use
30:30on Project Bluebird,
30:32running Camp King's experiments
30:34in mind control.
30:36This includes hallucinogenic drugs,
30:38that includes hypnosis.
30:40The idea is to break the prisoner
30:42from his own mind
30:44and do what the CIA wants.
30:47The secure facility
30:48has a ready supply
30:49of test subjects.
30:51Its current inmates
30:52are Soviet defectors,
30:55spies, and refugees,
30:57people who could be
30:58considered expendable.
31:00They could be treated inhumanely
31:02or die during trials,
31:04and who would know?
31:06The subjects are described
31:07as experienced professional-type agents,
31:11suspected of working
31:12for Soviet intelligence.
31:14In one case,
31:15doses of drugs and hypnosis
31:17induce a deep trance.
31:19One spy remains under for two hours
31:22and then completely forgets
31:24the experience.
31:25But mastering mind control
31:27proves elusive.
31:28So new instruments
31:30are brought in,
31:31and the facility
31:32expands its operations.
31:34They generate
31:35a new set of tests
31:36to try on their subjects,
31:38including
31:38exposure to gases,
31:40irradiation by infrared
31:42and ultraviolet light,
31:43pressure chambers,
31:44sonic torture,
31:45and dietary manipulation.
31:47Prisoners are often subjected
31:48to multiple combinations
31:49of these experiments
31:50until they can't take anymore.
31:56Experiments at Camp King
31:58continue for the rest
31:59of the decade,
32:00when they are quietly
32:01drawn to a close.
32:02But the CIA's obsession
32:04with drugs and hypnosis
32:06is far from over.
32:08The experiments
32:10with mind control
32:11inform the administration
32:12of the mother of all
32:15Cold War psychological projects.
32:19MKUltra.
32:20In 1993,
32:22the U.S. returns
32:23Camp King
32:24to the German government
32:25who build houses
32:26on the site.
32:27Families move in,
32:29oblivious to its
32:30gruesome history.
32:31Until 2002,
32:32when German researchers
32:34uncover the full details
32:36of Camp King's experiments.
32:39And the new residents
32:40learn the terrifying truth
32:42about the place
32:43they now call home.
32:48And in the 1940s,
32:49the U.S. sets up
32:50a weapons research lab
32:51in Los Alamos
32:52that covers a sprawling
32:5440 square miles.
32:55But the Soviets,
32:57they go bigger,
32:5875 times bigger,
33:00with a secret weapons facility
33:023,000 square miles in size.
33:04The question is,
33:05how do you keep that hidden?
33:11By the end of World War II,
33:12both the United States
33:14and the Soviet Union
33:15recognized that missiles
33:17will dominate
33:18the future battlefield.
33:20The Soviets
33:21have captured
33:22existing examples
33:23of the German V-2 rocket,
33:25the world's first
33:25ballistic missile.
33:26In addition to that,
33:28they have captured
33:29German scientists.
33:31The Soviets want to use
33:32the V-2 rockets
33:34to help them develop
33:35a new missile defense system.
33:37The problem is,
33:39they have nowhere
33:40to launch them.
33:41They want to test
33:41these bad boys out.
33:43The thing is,
33:43they've got to do this
33:44away from the eyes
33:45of the West.
33:46They need something private,
33:48something secure.
33:50In May 1946,
33:52Soviet command signs off
33:54the location
33:54of their new facility.
33:56And to ensure
33:57total secrecy,
33:58it's in one of the most
33:59isolated stretches
34:00of the country.
34:02The Soviets choose
34:03a remote location
34:04in the south,
34:05in the desert,
34:05very close to
34:06the Kazakh border,
34:07at a place called
34:08Kapustyan Yard.
34:10It's 600 miles
34:11from Moscow
34:11and 60 miles
34:12from the nearest town.
34:15The extreme isolation
34:16is its major selling point
34:18and biggest problem.
34:20There's no roads,
34:22no rail,
34:23no power.
34:24I mean,
34:24there's nothing out there
34:26but empty horizon,
34:27which is perfect
34:28for secrecy
34:29and volatile rocket tests,
34:30but it's terrible
34:31for a massive construction project
34:32on an ambitious deadline.
34:34It's also a horrendous
34:35place to work.
34:36In the summer,
34:37temperatures can get
34:38well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit,
34:39and in the winter,
34:40it plummets
34:41to below freezing.
34:42Stalin wants rockets
34:43in the sky
34:44as soon as possible,
34:45so he hands the project
34:46to one of his finest commanders,
34:49General Vasily Ivanovich Wozniak.
34:52Wozniak is a man
34:54who thrives on the impossible.
34:55He's legendary
34:56for his iron will
34:58and genius for logistics.
35:03Wozniak is sent
35:04to this remote site
35:05and he immediately
35:06gets to work.
35:07He builds a tent city
35:08to house all of the workers,
35:09and then builds roads
35:11and rail lines
35:12to bring in
35:12all of the construction material
35:14they're going to need
35:14to make this base a reality.
35:17Wozniak's team
35:18may be sleeping in tents
35:19on the desert floor,
35:20but in just two months,
35:21they built a launch pad
35:22and a command center.
35:24The new Soviet weapons program
35:26is ready for takeoff.
35:28In October of 1947,
35:30the secret base
35:31at Kapustin Yar
35:32launches its first ever rocket,
35:34a refurbished German V2
35:36that flies
35:37for almost 200 kilometers.
35:39After that,
35:40the Kapustin Yar base
35:41expands rapidly.
35:43A new town
35:44is completed
35:45and it becomes
35:46the cradle
35:46of Soviet missile development,
35:48all hidden
35:49from Western eyes.
35:51In the Cold War,
35:52nothing remains secret forever.
35:54Whispers of a Soviet missile base
35:56send Western government
35:58scrambling
35:58for photographic evidence.
36:00And in 1959,
36:02the British sneak
36:03across the Iron Curtain,
36:04or rather,
36:05above it.
36:08On December 6th, 1959,
36:11a British pilot
36:12sets off
36:12towards the Soviet desert.
36:14They're flying an aircraft
36:15that the world
36:16has never seen,
36:17the U-2.
36:18The U-2
36:19is the pinnacle
36:20in aerial espionage.
36:21It's designed
36:22to fly so high
36:23with such high-resolution cameras
36:25that it should be able
36:26to photograph
36:27this new site
36:28while staying clear
36:29out of the way
36:30of any possible
36:31Soviet missiles.
36:33He passes right over
36:35Soviet territory,
36:36and he comes back
36:37with the first
36:39high-quality photographs
36:40of Kaputsinyar
36:41to reach the West.
36:43The photos collected
36:44by the U-2
36:45are absolutely critical.
36:47They tell the Western allies
36:49exactly what type of technology
36:50the Soviets have developed,
36:52they tell them
36:52exactly what type of fuel
36:54that they're using.
36:55They tell them
36:55vital things
36:56that they need to know
36:57about Soviet missile technology
36:59and capability.
37:02Kapustinyar
37:03is no longer a secret,
37:05giving the West
37:06a vital window
37:07into the Soviet missile program.
37:10But U.S. surveillance
37:12doesn't slow down progress.
37:14The desert base
37:15continues its operation
37:16and remains
37:17the beating heart
37:18of Russian weapons
37:19innovations today.
37:24There's a facility in Utah
37:25that's bigger than the Pentagon
37:27with restricted access,
37:29no windows,
37:30and a secret objective,
37:32reportedly,
37:33to spy on us all.
37:38In the early 2010s,
37:39deep on the salt flats
37:41of Bluffdale, Utah,
37:42construction begins
37:43on a sprawling
37:44240-acre complex.
37:46Now,
37:46this is not a secret complex.
37:48It can't be a secret.
37:49The place is over 50 times
37:50the size of the U.S. Capitol.
37:51Officially,
37:53this complex is known
37:54as the Intelligence Community
37:56Comprehensive National
37:57Cybersecurity Initiative
37:58Data Center.
37:59Locals
38:00just call it
38:01the Utah Data Center.
38:02This giant complex
38:03is a national security agency
38:05site for cyber defense.
38:07Today,
38:07surveillance,
38:08sabotage,
38:09and even terrorist attacks
38:10can be carried out remotely.
38:12The NSA says
38:13the Utah Data Center
38:14is designed to protect
38:15everyday Americans
38:16from cyber attacks.
38:17The latest sprawling
38:18data facility
38:19barely makes the headlines.
38:21which might be just
38:22what the NSA wants
38:23until journalists
38:25begin to question
38:26the unprecedented scale
38:27of the site.
38:29At the heart
38:29of the construction,
38:30four vast data halls
38:32are being built,
38:33each 25,000 square feet.
38:36These will be filled
38:37with cutting-edge
38:37computer servers
38:38and hardware
38:39that will devour
38:4065 megawatts of power.
38:43It will come
38:44with an electricity bill
38:45of $40 million a year.
38:49and keeping those servers
38:50from overheating
38:51requires 1.7 million gallons
38:54of water
38:54every day.
38:56It's a technological marvel
38:58that you can't see
38:59without top-level clearance.
39:01Security is fortress-level,
39:03with biometric access,
39:0524-7 surveillance,
39:07and barriers
39:07that can stop
39:08a 15,000-pound truck
39:10moving at 50 miles per hour.
39:12So, why all the secrecy?
39:15When journalists crunched
39:16the numbers,
39:17they realized
39:18that the Utah Data Center
39:19can store
39:20an unimaginable amount
39:22of data.
39:23Some estimate
39:24it's yottabytes,
39:25a trillion terabytes.
39:27To put that into context,
39:29that's the equivalent
39:30of two trillion laptops.
39:32This site could hold
39:33more information
39:34than we ever thought possible
39:36and still have space
39:37for more.
39:38It begs the question,
39:40what exactly
39:41is the NSA going to store
39:43on those servers?
39:45In 2012,
39:46journalists for
39:47the New York Times
39:48pick up the trail
39:49when a retired NSA
39:51technical director
39:52named William Binney
39:53steps out of the shadows
39:55and blows the whistle.
39:57In the late 90s,
39:59Binney created a program
40:00called Thin Thread
40:01that searched everything
40:02on the internet
40:03for anything
40:04that was potentially harmful,
40:05like terrorist attacks
40:06or any other security attacks.
40:08His program protects
40:09the privacy
40:10of innocent civilians
40:11by encrypting anything
40:12that isn't suspicious
40:13while honing in
40:15on potential bad guys.
40:16Binney claims
40:17that after 9-11,
40:19the safeguards
40:20were removed
40:21and parts of Thin Thread
40:23were used
40:24in a sweeping
40:25surveillance program
40:26on all U.S. citizens.
40:29In August 2012,
40:31the New York Times
40:32publishes
40:32Binney's revelations.
40:35He contends
40:36that the Utah Data Center
40:38is part of a massive
40:40government effort
40:41to store troves of data
40:43collected on Americans
40:45without warrants
40:46and against the Constitution.
40:50According to Binney,
40:52every message you send
40:53is recorded,
40:55saved, and stored
40:56at places like
40:58the Utah Data Center.
41:00Allegedly,
41:01it's the last part
41:02of the NSA's mission
41:03to own every digital communication
41:05without oversight
41:06and be accessed
41:08by NSA analysts
41:09all over the country.
41:10The secret activity
41:12in those immense data halls
41:13remains highly controversial.
41:15To its supporters,
41:16it plays a vital role
41:18in keeping the country safe.
41:20To its detractors,
41:21it's the real-world embodiment
41:23of Big Brother.
41:26From impenetrable bunkers
41:29to high-security science labs,
41:31governments perform
41:32their most covert activities
41:34behind gates and fences
41:36in top-secret sites.
41:38But no door
41:39stays locked forever.
41:41And the truth
41:42gets out in the end.
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