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Secrets Declassified with David Duchovny - Season 2 Episode 2 - Top Secret Sites
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01:00In West Virginia, there's a luxury hotel for the rich and famous that boasts over 700 guest rooms, exclusive restaurants,
01:08an 18-hole golf course, and a secret underground bunker primed for Armageddon.
01:17Nuclear anxiety is peaking in the 1950s.
01:22And the U.S. president is concerned about the safety of the government in the case of nuclear attacks.
01:30The government has commissioned these bomb-proof havens for the president and his cabinet.
01:35But now they want a bunker for members of Congress.
01:39Somewhere big enough to house over 1,000 government officials and discreet enough to keep it secret.
01:46The answer? A five-star hotel.
01:48The Greenbrier is a luxury resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.
01:54This place is a slice of old-school luxury, where the rich and powerful come to do business and relax.
02:00You can find presidents or celebrities sipping drinks at the bar.
02:04It sounds like the perfect place to see out World War III.
02:08It's far enough from Washington, D.C. that hopefully it could escape the effects of a direct nuclear attack on
02:13the capital city,
02:14but also close enough that people would be able to escape to it in time.
02:18It's shielded by mountains for extra protection.
02:21Perhaps what swings it, literally, is the hotel's golfing facilities.
02:27Eisenhower is a regular on the Greenbrier course.
02:33The government discreetly approaches the hotel for their assistance,
02:37and the management of the Greenbrier are happy to oblige.
02:41The only problem is keeping it a secret.
02:44An immense construction project on the grounds of the Greenbrier is sure to get the VIP guests gossiping,
02:51so the bunker needs a cover story.
02:53The Greenbrier gets a brand-new extension, the West Virginia Wing.
02:59Underneath, a vast doomsday bunker, unlike any other, begins to take shape.
03:04The bunker underneath the Greenbrier Hotel hosts 153 rooms, spread out over 112,000 square feet.
03:13There are two chambers for the House and the Senate, and there's this vast hall for joint sessions.
03:19It's essentially a giant underground capital for the government to continue functioning in the event of a nuclear war.
03:26Beyond these chambers are the facilities you'd expect in a top-of-the-range government survival bunker,
03:32a high-pressure shower to rinse off nuclear fallout,
03:35over a thousand beds for congressmen and women,
03:37a hospital, a cafeteria, and a small arsenal of handguns.
03:43Perhaps the most impressive features are two enormous blast doors to seal Congress inside.
03:50Each door is 19 inches thick, weighs 28 tons,
03:55and they're strong enough to withstand a nuclear blast from only 2,000 feet away.
04:01If a bomb drops on the eighth hole of a golf course, anyone behind the blast doors will be okay.
04:07And these doors are hidden behind a false wall in the exhibition hall,
04:12just inches away from where guests are vaguely.
04:15For 30 years, the false wall stands firm, and the bunker remains secret.
04:21Until 1992, when rumors finally begin to leak out.
04:27Ted Gup is an investigative reporter for the Washington Post,
04:32and an anonymous source tips him off that the Greenbrier Resort might not be all that it seems.
04:40Ted Gup speaks to former employees,
04:42who confirm that something mysterious is hidden beneath the West Virginia wing.
04:47But for a genuine scoop, Gup needs hard evidence.
04:52So he decides to go stay at the Greenbrier himself,
04:54to see if he can get that final bit of proof.
04:59When Gup meets the manager, he goes straight to the point.
05:03He asks, is there a government nuclear fallout shelter under the hotel?
05:07Well, the manager immediately denies this.
05:13Gup doesn't get the answers he's hoping for,
05:15but he's determined not to leave the Greenbrier without his story.
05:20Gup visits the office of a maintenance company called Forsyth Associates,
05:25who are supposedly in charge of maintaining the Greenbrier TVs.
05:29When he gets to the offices, he sees something strange.
05:33He sees a wall covered with books on nuclear war in Armageddon.
05:39You don't need that if you're building TV antennas.
05:42When he digs deeper, he finds out that many of the people who work at Forsyth Associates
05:47are former U.S. military cryptographers and radio specialists.
05:51Turns out Forsyth Associates is just a front company.
05:55Their real job is maintaining the communication for the bunkers.
06:00The Washington Post runs Gup's story on May 31st, 1992.
06:07And the Greenbrier secret is finally unearthed.
06:11Within days, the government goes public about the Greenbrier bunker
06:16and announces its deactivation.
06:19Today, the bunker is a tourist attraction.
06:23For about $50, you can go tour the halls
06:26where the American government might have been reborn after Armageddon.
06:31A luxury hotel might be the perfect place to hide a government bunker.
06:35But in the 1950s, the CIA has to hide something much bigger.
06:41Vast college camp is set up to train the next generation of super spies.
06:51At the dawn of the Cold War, the CIA realizes that this is a conflict
06:55that's not going to be fought by traditional soldiers with bullets and bombs,
07:00but by covert agents stealing secrets from under the enemy's nose.
07:03When it comes to training spies, though, the Americans are on their back foot
07:08compared to their rivals at the KGB.
07:10The KGB has a decades-old infrastructure for training spies,
07:15and CIA is relatively new to the game.
07:18So they realize that if they're going to keep up with their KGB counterparts,
07:21they have to step up big.
07:22The spy craft skills that could save your life and maybe even your country
07:27isn't something that's taught in any college or university.
07:31The CIA brass realizes that their agents need training to prepare them for the real world,
07:37what they're going to face out there in the field.
07:39So in secret, they set up a new espionage university.
07:44The first step is finding the right place for a campus.
07:48They need a very large place, someplace secluded, someplace cut off,
07:52but someplace large enough with infrastructure enough
07:55to simulate the activities of a normal city.
07:59They find it at a former naval base called Camp Perry.
08:03It stretches for 9,000 acres, more than half the size of Manhattan.
08:09To the outside world, Camp Perry remains a regular naval base,
08:14but behind its fences, the site is transformed into an elite proving ground for spies.
08:20Trainees refer to it as the farm,
08:23and generations of spies are secretly schooled here,
08:27right up to the present day.
08:30Training begins when students leave CIA headquarters in Lagwey on a blacked-out bus.
08:36The men and women chosen for this are among the most elite.
08:41They've gone through rigorous testing, psychological testing, physical testing
08:44to prove that they are truly the best of the best.
08:48When a CIA trainee arrives at the farm,
08:51they leave their real identity at the door.
08:53They're given a new cover story that they must maintain throughout the training.
08:58They're leaving the real world to go into a fake world,
09:02a fake microstate that simulates life in a foreign country.
09:07And it's in this simulated country that their undercover training begins.
09:12The whole location of the farm is one giant set.
09:17There's a town square, a shady downtown neighborhood, suburbs, and then the countryside.
09:24Everyone on the site, from visiting diplomats to the local cafe owner,
09:28is a veteran CIA operative playing a role.
09:31There's even a cable news channel reporting on the region's fictional politics.
09:37The farm really is Disney World for adults.
09:41In this college, lessons aren't learned in the classroom.
09:45They're on the streets of its fake town.
09:48The foundation of undercover work is being able to recruit and handle foreign intelligence sources.
09:53They're looking for people who have access to secrets.
09:57The whole time, they're playing cat and mouse with their rivals and enemies.
10:03Other students and operatives who are trying to catch them out.
10:07Outfox and the enemy calls for some of the more advanced maneuvers that a wannabe James Bond must learn.
10:14The train had to clip a car during a car chase.
10:17It had to get in a firefight and not shoot an armed innocent civilians.
10:21It had to parachute out of aircraft and survive in the woods on, you know, no food.
10:27You learn all the kind of things that you would see in a spy movie.
10:31The recruits are pushed to the edge of their wits.
10:35After six months of intense blood, sweat, tears, stress, strain, anxiety,
10:42this siren blares out and signals that the simulation is over.
10:48And any trainees that are left have made the cut.
10:52The government has never officially admitted it exists at all.
10:56Graduates of the farm rarely go on the record about their experience.
11:00Until 2019.
11:02Former CIA intelligence officer Amaryllis Fox actually wrote about all of her experiences at the farm in her book, Life
11:08Undercover.
11:11The farm is truly a journey that's inspiring and pleasurable more than it is something that's scary and terrifying.
11:19The scary and terrifying part is when you have to use those skills in the real world.
11:27As the blitz hits London, Winston Churchill needs a bomb-proof shelter where he can lead his troops in secret.
11:34He's got 70 rooms, 500 staff, and the strangest thing about it, a private line to the president inside his
11:42restroom.
11:46By 1938, the British government know that war with Germany is on the horizon.
11:53And this war is going to be unlike anything in human history.
11:56For starters, the Germans have the aerial capability to rain bombs over Britain's towns and cities on an apocalyptic scale.
12:04To stand any chance of winning the war, the British government needs an emergency hideout.
12:10The safest place is underground.
12:14Halfway between the prime minister's residence in Downing Street and the British parliament sits the Treasury.
12:20Here they have a vast basement 10 feet below the ground, which is used to store thousands of Treasury documents.
12:27A top secret makeover begins.
12:30This underground space beneath the Treasury is divided into 70 hyper-secure rooms.
12:36Now, this included everything from the cabinet office, offices for secretaries and switchboard operators,
12:42and a dedicated bedroom for the prime minister himself.
12:47The war rooms are kept on standby for a year.
12:51Until London comes under attack.
12:54And Winston Churchill takes his cabinet underground.
13:00On September 7, 1940, the Luftwaffe dropped 1,000 bombs over the capital.
13:07Killing 430 civilians and injuring 1,600 people.
13:12It's called Black Saturday.
13:16Black Saturday is only the beginning.
13:1957 consecutive days of attacks follow, testing the resilience of both London and its leadership as never before.
13:29Despite the hammerings, the war rooms and Churchill survive.
13:33So, the Germans turn up the heat.
13:37By late 1940, the Germans are using parachute mines.
13:40And these weapons descend under an open parachute and they're fused such that they will explode at rooftop level and
13:47they'll create a pattern of destruction that's 300 feet in diameter that can flatten an entire city block.
13:53If a weapon like this were to explode over the cabinet war rooms, it could bury the prime minister and
14:00the entire war cabinet in one shot.
14:02That's a risk that simply cannot be taken.
14:05The underground compound is reinforced with a massive concrete roof, referred to as the slab.
14:12That means that the cabinet war rooms can sustain a direct hit from a 500-pound bomb.
14:19During the renovation, Churchill requests the expansion of the complex itself.
14:23It triples in size, making room for 500 personnel working underground 24-7.
14:30Such a bustling underground workspace brings one particular problem that Churchill hates above all others.
14:38Churchill is notoriously sensitive to excess noise.
14:43So, 500 people working in a busy, claustrophobic and echoey underground environment can cause quite a ruckus.
14:49To make the boss happy, several things are put in place.
14:52One of them is phones that don't ring, but instead light up whenever someone is calling.
14:59They also import noiseless typewriters from the United States to mitigate all the noise that will be created inside this
15:07underground bunker.
15:09The expansion of the cabinet war rooms brings a new problem.
15:12With so many people coming in and out, Churchill fears classified talks with the U.S. president may be compromised
15:19by spies working for the other side.
15:21So, he needs a secure line of communication with Franklin D. Roosevelt.
15:26So, he figures, where's the one place I'm not going to be interrupted or eavesdropped on?
15:32The bathroom.
15:34Churchill has a new private toilet installed for his personal use, and inside is actually a phone that connects to
15:42an encrypted line direct to the Pentagon in Washington.
15:45So, any spy will just assume that the prime minister is taking a bathroom break, when in reality, he's actually
15:51masterminding victory.
15:53Kind of goes back to that old adage of, your best ideas happen when you're on the toilet.
15:59The cabinet war rooms remained the beating heart of Britain's war effort for almost six years.
16:05Then, two days after Japan's surrender, on August 16, 1945, the war rooms and its secrets are locked for good.
16:16For 40 years, it lays beneath London, untouched and forgotten.
16:22Then, in 1984, the bunker secrets are finally revealed when the Imperial War Museum opens its doors to the public.
16:35Everything is restored to its original state, frozen at the precise moment when the Allies won the war.
16:44After World War II, the United States engages in a race to stockpile the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons.
16:51Building the most destructive warheads on Earth requires a new kind of top-secret factory.
16:56A place so dangerous, it comes with a chilling fail-safe.
17:00One wrong move, and it self-destructs.
17:07By the early 1950s, we're in the beginnings of the Cold War, and both the Americans and the Soviets have
17:14the bomb.
17:15So, in order to regain nuclear superiority, the U.S. goes all in on maximizing production.
17:21The attitude from American military leaders is this.
17:24If we can't have the only nuclear weapons, then we have to have the most.
17:30A few hundred warheads won't cut it.
17:33The U.S. wants thousands.
17:35You're creating these things in volume, in a factory packed full of volatile materials.
17:41One false move, and you'll have a nuclear fireball on home soil.
17:46A site this hazardous needs to be remote, secure, and secret.
17:51The Atomic Energy Commission, or the AEC, begins scouting for suitable sites.
17:56One facility that ticks all the boxes is an old World War II munitions plant in the Texas Panhandle, 25
18:03miles from Amarillo.
18:04It's called Pantex.
18:07During the war, thousands of workers, mostly women, packed munitions and shells here.
18:12But now, the factory is closed.
18:16The AEC spends $25 million renovating the old factory.
18:21And in 1951, the U.S. has itself a brand new nuclear weapons facility.
18:27Workers at Pantex quietly and efficiently assemble the world's most lethal product,
18:33while trying not to blow themselves up.
18:36Workers assembling the warheads must perform what's called the mating process.
18:41When the explosives and the nuclear materials are brought together inside the warhead.
18:46If there's one accident, it's going to set off a chain reaction that will produce a nuclear explosion.
18:53A single second of human error could wipe out a large portion of the Texas Panhandle.
18:58To avoid this nightmare scenario, Pantex builds six new bunkers for assembling these warheads, called Gravel Gerties.
19:07Each Gravel Gertie is a steel-reinforced concrete lab where the technicians work.
19:13And above them is what amounts to a mountain of gravel held in place by steel cables.
19:19Inside the lab, three workers assemble the nuke.
19:21And this process is so sensitive that one of the workers' jobs is just to read the instructions step by
19:29step
19:30as the other two workers carry out their direction.
19:34One false move from a tired technician, the whole facility goes out.
19:39Hence, the merciless fail-safe.
19:41If there's an accidental detonation, the explosion will snap the steel cables supporting the roof.
19:48The entire chamber is then buried under thousands of tons of gravel.
19:54The design traps the radioactive material, reducing fallout by 90%.
19:59However, it also entombs the three workers who triggered the explosion.
20:04It's a literal death trap.
20:06The possibility that each shift could be their last hangs over the heads of the Pantex workforce.
20:13And yet production rates rocket.
20:16Pantex is producing 2,000 nuclear warheads a year.
20:20The U.S. arsenal swells to 37,000.
20:24That's enough to destroy not only the Soviets, but every civilization on the face of Earth.
20:31For four decades, Pantex fuels the nuclear stockpile until the end of the Cold War forces a sudden U-turn.
20:38The slowdown in missile production makes the world safer.
20:42But for workers at Pantex, the danger levels skyrocket.
20:47Nuclear weapons that were manufactured in some cases decades previously have to come into a manufacturer for disassembly.
20:55I can't imagine something more stressful than trying to disassemble a thermonuclear warhead.
21:03Nuclear weapons aren't designed to be disassembled.
21:05And some of these have been sitting around for up to 40 years.
21:08They've degraded.
21:09And some of their explosives are not as stable as they once were.
21:13Now it's turned over to Pantex and go, here's the problem.
21:16You solve it.
21:16You take it apart.
21:18And try not to have an explosion.
21:22It's not just the nukes that are passed, they're used by a date.
21:26At this time, Pantex is over 50 years old, and it's in desperate need of an upgrade.
21:31But instead, they're rushing to complete the materials.
21:34The rush is so intense that in 1996, factory workers blow the whistle.
21:41The New York Times publishes some astonishing and disturbing claims that at Pantex, the equipment
21:48is faulty and safety measures are being ignored.
21:53For the first time, the public is alerted to a nuclear threat on their own doorstep.
22:01The site is still in operation, with as many as 2,000 warheads still waiting to be disassembled.
22:14If the Soviets send assassins to try and kill you, not once, but 22 times,
22:19it makes sense to build a secret underground hideout.
22:22But that doesn't mean it can't be comfortable.
22:25This is the story of how one European dictator commissions his own private super bunker
22:29to the tune of $20 billion.
22:36After World War II, Yugoslavia is led by a socialist dictator by the name of Josip Braz.
22:43He is better known to the world as Tito.
22:46Yugoslavia is independent from both Western Europe and the Soviet Union.
22:51But this comes at a cost.
22:53Stalin hates Tito and is out for blood.
22:56The Soviet leadership has orchestrated over 22 assassination attempts on Tito.
23:01So, he must be thinking it's only a matter of time, until this time runs out.
23:07Tito believes a Soviet attack on Yugoslavia is imminent, which would trigger a global response.
23:13World War III could kick off in his backyard.
23:17Tito begins to prepare for the worst with a near impossible solution.
23:23He decides to build an impenetrable retreat that has to be strong enough to withstand a nuclear blast,
23:29but big enough to hold his entire government.
23:32The only way to meet Tito's demands is to tunnel under a mountain.
23:36Tito's engineers pick a site near the village of Konyich.
23:40And the reason is because it's remote and shielded by the mountains.
23:43Plus, its central location makes it pretty accessible for government ministers who are in a mad rush to take shelter.
23:49The question is, how do you hollow out a mountain in secret?
23:54To maintain total confidentiality, Tito enforces extraordinary security protocols.
23:59He does not employ locals.
24:01Instead, he brings in construction workers from other parts of the country who won't be able to recognize the location.
24:07As an extra measure, they travel in blindfolds or in blacked-out vehicles to the location.
24:13The site is cordoned off from the public, and an immense tunneling project begins.
24:22Workers are using explosives to slowly and methodically burrow within the mountain.
24:27It's brutal and dangerous work.
24:30In fact, later testimonies claim that barely a single shift passes without someone getting killed.
24:37As the deaths stack up, so does the cost.
24:40Tito pours the equivalent of $20 billion into the tunnel.
24:45And, meter by meter, his hidden fortress takes shape.
24:49The entrance to Tito's bunker emits you to a horseshoe-shaped 200-meter-long tunnel that's carved into the mountain.
24:58It has 100 dormitories that are capable of housing 350 of Yugoslavia's political and military elite.
25:06In every way, this facility is designed to provide for the continuity of government and the eventuality of a nuclear
25:12war.
25:13The base is fitted out for the latest Cold War tech.
25:16It contains five operational centers with a cryptography center and even a fully equipped hospital operating room.
25:23The most iconic gadget is straight out of the spy movie, the red telephone, which will ring when nuclear Armageddon
25:31kicks off.
25:33If that happens, Tito can sit out the end of the world in relative luxury.
25:38The rest of the survivors will have to slum it, but Tito gets a private residence in the heart of
25:43the mountain.
25:44It consists of five rooms, including an office and a bedroom, with the bunker's only double bed.
25:50The inside of the bunker is vast, but the entrance is hidden to the outside world by stroke of genius.
25:57It's camouflaged behind the facade of three regular-looking houses.
26:03Tito's impossible dream is finally completed in 1979, 26 years after construction began.
26:11But Tito never gets to take the grand tour.
26:14He dies in 1980.
26:16The secret bunker is fully operational, and the Yugoslav government keeps it on standby.
26:22Then, 40 years after construction began, an incredible order is given.
26:27To blow this thing apart.
26:31In the early 1990s, Yugoslavia, as it used to be known, is torn apart as a result of a civil
26:37war.
26:38And Tito's bunker is right in the middle of the conflict.
26:41For the past 12 years, the bunker has been looked after by one of Tito's trusted servants, Colonel Garbovica, who's
26:48now with the Serbian army.
26:50Bosnia troops are advancing toward the complex.
26:52And Colonel Garbovica is given an order to demolish the entire facility with explosives.
26:59This is an agonizing order, because Garbovica has spent 12 years taking care of this complex.
27:07When his unit plants the explosives and prepares to leave, he makes a decision that could cost him his life
27:14for a trace of it.
27:15He quietly cuts the cables connected to the explosives, and he saves Tito's bunker.
27:22The underground complex is taken by Bosnian troops, who retain it as a secret military installation until the end of
27:30the civil war.
27:32In 2011, it's finally decommissioned, and the government opens its doors as a museum and art space.
27:39Locals get to explore the secret labyrinth that's been hiding behind these houses for 60 years.
27:51A quiet neighborhood in Germany is the last place you'd expect to find a sinister CIA program.
27:56It's a site that brings together Soviet spies, LSD, and a Nazi scientist intent on mastering mind control.
28:09During the early years of the Cold War, the CIA is more and more obsessed with interrogation techniques.
28:16They want to be able to manipulate the enemy who falls into our hands.
28:19And then they also want to figure out ways to reinforce the will of our personnel who might fall into
28:25enemy hands.
28:26Reinforce their ability to resist interrogation techniques that the enemy might expose them to.
28:32The only way to figure out how best to serve both of those masters is to conduct psychological experiments.
28:38The CIA sets up a top-secret program to explore methods of mind control.
28:43It's called Project Bluebird.
28:46These experiments can't be conducted in a regular laboratory.
28:50Obviously, they have to be done in a classified environment.
28:53A sort of black site that governments typically turn a blind eye to.
28:57So, Project Bluebird is taken out of the U.S. to battle-scarred West Germany.
29:03At this time, part of Germany is still under American occupation after World War II.
29:08The U.S. military have a site in a quiet town just north of Frankfurt.
29:13It's called Camp King.
29:15Camp King has been in use since World War II.
29:17It was used for imprisoning and interrogating Nazi leaders.
29:20Camp King has the perfect infrastructure for psychological experiments.
29:26It has secure cells, housing for staff, and even a hospital.
29:31But it's most vital asset.
29:33Absolute privacy.
29:35The locals are used to seeing the Americans from Camp King around.
29:39They don't ask questions about what they're doing inside.
29:41The project needs a lead scientist.
29:44Someone willing to turn a blind eye to medical ethics.
29:49Turns out that the chief medical doctor at Camp King has quite the resume.
29:54Dr. Walter Schreiber is the former surgeon general of the German army.
29:58Walter Schreiber oversaw horrific medical experiments at Dachau and Auschwitz.
30:04Under his watch, concentration camp prisoners are frozen, injected with hallucinogens, and even dissected to track gate green.
30:15Experiments that end in slow and painful death.
30:20Dr. Schreiber was picked up by U.S. military intelligence after the war.
30:24Now his skills are put to use on Project Bluebird, running Camp King's experiments in mind control.
30:31This includes hallucinogenic drugs.
30:34It includes hypnosis.
30:36The idea is to break the prisoner from his own mind and do what the CIA wants.
30:42The secure facility has a ready supply of test subjects.
30:47His current inmates are Soviet defectors, spies, and refugees.
30:52People who could be considered expendable.
30:55They could be treated inhumanely or die during trials, and who would know?
31:02The subjects are described as experienced professional type agents.
31:07Suspected of working for Soviet intelligence.
31:10In one case, doses of drugs and hypnosis induce a deep trance.
31:15One spy remains on it for two hours, and then completely forgets the experience.
31:20But mastering mind control proves elusive.
31:24So new instruments are brought in, and the facility expands its operations.
31:30They generate a new set of tests to try on their subjects, included exposure to gases,
31:36irradiation by infrared and ultraviolet light, pressure chambers, sonic torture, and dietary manipulation.
31:43Prisoners are often subjected to multiple combinations of these experiments until they can't take any more.
31:52Experiments at Camp King continue for the rest of the decade, when they are quietly drawn to a close.
31:58But the CIA's obsession with drugs and hypnosis is far from over.
32:05The experiments with mind control inform the administration of the mother of all Cold War psychological projects, M.K. Ultra.
32:16In 1993, the U.S. returns Camp King to the German government, who build houses on the site.
32:23Families move in, oblivious to its gruesome history.
32:27Until 2002, when German researchers uncover the full details of Camp King's experiments.
32:35And the new residents learn the terrifying truth about the place they now call home.
32:44In the 1940s, the U.S. sets up a weapons research lab in Los Alamos that covers a sprawling 40
32:50square miles.
32:51With the Soviets, they go bigger, 75 times bigger.
32:56With a secret weapons facility 3,000 square miles in size.
33:00The question is, how do you keep that hidden?
33:06By the end of World War II, both the United States and the Soviet Union recognize that missiles will dominate
33:14the future battlefield.
33:16The Soviets have captured existing examples of the German V-2 rocket, the world's first ballistic missile.
33:22In addition to that, they have captured German scientists.
33:27The Soviets want to use the V-2 rockets to help them develop a new missile defense system.
33:33The problem is, they have nowhere to launch them.
33:37They want to test these bad boys out.
33:39The thing is, they've got to do this away from the eyes of the West.
33:42They need something private, something secure.
33:45In May 1946, the Soviet command signs off the location of their new facility.
33:52And to ensure total secrecy, it's in one of the most isolated stretches of the country.
33:58The Soviets choose a remote location in the south, in the desert, very close to the Kazakh border, at a
34:04place called Kapustyan Yard.
34:06It's 600 miles from Moscow and 60 miles from the nearest town.
34:11The extreme isolation is its major selling point and biggest problem.
34:16There's no roads, no rail, no power.
34:20I mean, there's nothing out there but empty horizon, which is perfect for secrecy and volatile rocket tests.
34:26But it's terrible for a massive construction project on an ambitious deadline.
34:30It's also a horrendous place to work.
34:32In the summer, temperatures can get well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
34:35And in the winter, it plummets to below freezing.
34:37But Stalin wants rockets in the sky as soon as possible.
34:41So he hands the project to one of his finest commanders, General Vasily Ivanovich Vosniuk.
34:48Vosniuk is a man who thrives on the impossible.
34:51He's legendary for his iron will and genius for logistics.
34:59Vosniuk is sent to this remote site and he immediately gets to work.
35:03He builds a tent city to house all of the workers and then builds roads and rail lines to bring
35:08in all of the construction material they're going to need to make this base a reality.
35:13Vasily Ivanovich Vosniuk's team may be sleeping in tents on the desert floor, but in just two months they built
35:18a launch pad and a command center.
35:20The new Soviet weapons program is ready for takeoff.
35:23In October of 1947, the secret base at Kapustin Yar launches its first ever rocket, a refurbished German B-2
35:32that flies for almost 200 kilometers.
35:35After that, the Kapustin Yar base expands rapidly.
35:39A new town is completed and it becomes the cradle of Soviet missile development, all hidden from Western eyes.
35:47In the Cold War, nothing remains secret forever.
35:51Whispers of a Soviet missile base sent Western governments scrambling for photographic evidence.
35:56And in 1959, the British sneak across the Iron Curtain, or rather, above it.
36:04On December 6th, 1959, a British pilot sets off towards the Soviet desert.
36:10They're flying an aircraft that the world has never seen, the U-2.
36:14The U-2 is the pinnacle in aerial espionage.
36:17It's designed to fly so high with such high-resolution cameras that it should be able to photograph this new
36:23site while staying clear out of the way of any possible Soviet missiles.
36:29He passes right over Soviet territory, and he comes back with the first high-quality photographs of Kapustin Yar to
36:38reach the West.
36:39The photos collected by the U-2 are absolutely critical.
36:43They tell the Western allies exactly what type of technology the Soviets have developed.
36:48They tell them exactly what type of fuel they're using.
36:51They tell them vital things that they need to know about Soviet missile technology and capability.
36:58Kapustin Yar is no longer a secret, giving the West a vital window into the Soviet missile program.
37:06But U.S. surveillance doesn't slow down progress.
37:10The desert base continues its operation and remains the beating heart of Russian weapons innovations today.
37:20There's a facility in Utah that's bigger than the Pentagon, with restricted access, no windows, and a secret objective, reportedly
37:29to spy on us all.
37:34In the early 2010s, deep on the salt flats of Bluffdale, Utah, construction begins on a sprawling 240-acre complex.
37:42Now, this is not a secret complex. It can't be a secret. The place is over 50 times the size
37:46of the U.S. capital.
37:47Officially, this complex is known as the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center.
37:55Locals just call it the Utah Data Center.
37:58This giant complex is a national security agency site for cyber defense.
38:03Today, surveillance, sabotage, and even terrorist attacks can be carried out remotely.
38:07The NSA says the Utah Data Center is designed to protect everyday Americans from cyberattacks.
38:13The latest sprawling data facility barely makes the headlines, which might be just what the NSA wants,
38:20until journalists begin to question the unprecedented scale of the site.
38:24At the heart of the construction, four vast data halls are being built, each 25,000 square feet.
38:31These will be filled with cutting-edge computer servers and hardware that will devour 65 megawatts of power.
38:39It will come with an electricity bill of $40 million a year,
38:45and keeping those servers from overheating requires 1.7 million gallons of water every day.
38:52It's a technological marvel that you can't see without top-level clearance.
38:57Security is fortress-level, with biometric access, 24-7 surveillance, and barriers that can stop a 15,000-pound truck
39:06moving at 50 miles per hour.
39:08So, why all the secrecy?
39:11When journalists crunch the numbers, they realize that the Utah Data Center can store an unimaginable amount of data.
39:19Some estimate it's yottabytes, a trillion terabytes.
39:22To put that into context, that's the equivalent of two trillion laptops.
39:28This site could hold more information than we ever thought possible and still have space for more.
39:35It begs the question, what exactly is the NSA going to store on those servers?
39:41In 2012, journalists for the New York Times pick up the trail,
39:45when a retired NSA technical director named William Binney steps out of the shadows and blows the whistle.
39:53In the late 90s, Binney created a program called ThinThread that searched everything on the internet
39:59for anything that was potentially harmful, like terrorist attacks or any other security attacks.
40:04His program protects the privacy of innocent civilians by encrypting anything that isn't suspicious
40:09while honing in on potential bad guys.
40:12Binney claims that after 9-11, the safeguards were removed and parts of ThinThread were used
40:20in a sweeping surveillance program on all U.S. citizens.
40:24In August 2012, the New York Times publishes Binney's revelations.
40:31He contends that the Utah Data Center is part of a massive government effort
40:37to store troves of data collected on Americans without warrants and against the Constitution.
40:46According to Binney, every message you send is recorded, saved, and stored at places like
40:54the Utah Data Center.
40:56Allegedly, it's the last part of the NSA's mission to own every digital communication without
41:02oversight and be accessed by NSA analysts all over the country.
41:06The secret activity in those immense data halls remains highly controversial.
41:12To its supporters, it plays a vital role in keeping the country safe.
41:16To its detractors, it's the real-world embodiment of Big Brother.
41:22From impenetrable bunkers to high-security science labs, governments perform their most covert
41:30activities behind gates and fences in top-secret sites.
41:33But no door stays locked forever, and the truth gets out in the end.
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