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00:12Mysteries can be buried anywhere, under the earth, beneath the sea, or even right under
00:22our own feet. And when we stumble upon them, sometimes what we find can change history.
00:34Tonight, we're diving into discoveries that are big and bad. From a remote island, crawling
00:44with lethal predators. The venom can melt flesh in seconds. Within an hour, it triggers
00:51kidney film, brain hemorrhages, and even death. To a huge underground inferno. The fire keeps
01:00raging for hours, for days. The days become weeks. The weeks become months. The crew has
01:08unleashed something hellish. To a massive bomb. One wrong move, and the entire operation could
01:19turn into a crater. Join us now, because nothing stays in you forever.
01:33You know the saying, one man's trash is another man's treasure. Well, in this case, that trash
01:40is the key to a hundred-billion-dollar mystery.
01:45It's February 17, 2003. A retired grocer named August van Kamp is out hunting rabbits on his
01:54land in rural Belgium. It's a beautiful day. The only downside is his land is right next to
02:01a busy motorway. Drivers treat his land like a dump. All kinds of trash are tossed by motorists
02:09from their vehicles, and August is fed up. Sure enough, today he finds himself another mess. You've
02:16got an empty bottle of wine, half a sandwich, and these colorful rectangles with these crumpled up
02:23little white envelopes everywhere. And scattered around those white envelopes, gemstones. So August
02:31calls the cops. He gets their attention, because he mentions three words that are printed on those
02:36white envelopes. Antwerp Diamond Center. The city of Antwerp is just 20 miles away from August's property.
02:46Around 80% of the world's diamonds pass through Antwerp at some point. And the hub of it all is
02:53the
02:53Antwerp Diamond Center. Its vault is a fortress. It's two stories underground, sealed behind a three
03:00ton steel door. There's 10 layers of security. Guards everywhere, cameras, magnetic locks, sensors for
03:08motion, heat, light. The vault's final defense is a combination lock that has up to 100 million
03:16different coats. It is nearly impossible to get into this vault without the proper permission.
03:24But in the early morning hours of February 16, someone did get into that vault.
03:30And they vanished with around $100 million of diamonds, gold, and other valuables.
03:36It's the biggest diamond heist in history. And thanks to August's discovery, investigators now have
03:44their first official lead. Among the litter on August's land, police find a business card for an
03:49Italian electronics expert. Well, they pay him a visit, and they quickly have their first suspect in
03:56handcuffs. But that's not all they find on August's land. Hidden among all the other debris is a crumpled
04:04sandwich receipt. So police trace the receipt back to where the sandwich was purchased, look at a
04:09surveillance camera from the shop, find the person in question that they're looking for. Now they have
04:14their second suspect. Now the biggest break from the trash comes from an invoice for a video
04:19surveillance system with a name on it, Leonardo Nottomartolo. Police run his record, and they
04:26discover that he's an Italian national with a long rap sheet for robbery. His arrest marks a turning
04:32point. Authorities now see the operation for what it was, an inside job, carefully staged over months.
04:42Leonardo posed as a diamond dealer, renting space inside the Antwerp Diamond Center. There,
04:48he had a front row seat to the Diamond Center security operations. He even hid a tiny camera near the
04:56center's vault and was able to observe security guards punching in the code.
05:01The details investigators uncover reveal just how carefully the heist was planned. On the night of the
05:08heist, the crew sprayed hairspray on the heat sensors to disable them, and they covered the light and motion
05:14sensors in styrofoam. Then they drilled into 123 safe deposit boxes, and they took gold, cash, jewelry, and of
05:25course, diamonds. The job goes off without a hitch. But during the escape, things start to unravel.
05:32As they sped down the motorway, the getaway driver got spooked, and so he stopped to throw out some trash
05:38and some of the evidence. But along with those things, he also threw out some of the spoils.
05:43And the next day, August found the lost loot. So that pile of garbage led police straight to the
05:50three members of the crew, but it also exposed a fourth unknown accomplice who's never been caught.
05:57As for the loot, so far police have managed to recover only 17 diamonds that they can trace back to
06:03the heist. The rest, potentially millions of dollars worth of diamonds. The crew isn't talking, and so it's still
06:10out there. Somewhere.
06:14That last find brought down a big heist. This next one nearly brings down a major city.
06:23It's August of 2017, and a crew of construction workers is busy digging the foundation for a new faculty
06:30building at Goethe University, which is right in the heart of Frankfurt in Germany.
06:36Everything's going smoothly until an excavator lowers its bucket into the ground, and the bucket
06:42clangs against something, creating this very harsh metallic sound. Work stops immediately. The foreman
06:50comes over, looks down into the hole, and sees a large curved hunk of metal. He knows what this is.
06:58He doesn't hesitate, evacuates his crew, and calls the police.
07:03Soon the police bomb squad arrive on site, and they confirm, this is a bomb.
07:11Not just any bomb. It's a British HC-4000 from World War II, packing 4,000 pounds of high explosives.
07:22During World War II, Frankfurt is pounded by Allied bombing raids.
07:33The HC-4000 could level an entire city block in an instant. But this one, along with around 15%
07:42of
07:42the bombs dropped on Frankfurt during the war, failed to detonate.
07:47The scary thing with an unexploded bomb is it doesn't get safer over time. Decades underground make them
07:53unstable, unpredictable, and deadly.
07:58Over the years, unexploded World War II bombs have killed hundreds of people in Germany, including 11 bomb
08:05techs since the year 2000.
08:07That's why when construction workers find this bomb, officials move quickly, ordering what becomes
08:15the largest evacuation in Germany since the war. Police go door to door, checking every home and
08:23every apartment. Meanwhile, helicopters use thermal sensors to ensure that nobody is left behind.
08:30Nearly 70,000 people are evacuated. That's 10% of Frankfurt's population.
08:36Finally, officials clear nearly a one-mile radius around the bomb site. The evacuation includes the
08:43university and Germany's central bank, which holds half of the country's gold reserves.
08:50Then comes the most dangerous part.
08:53The bomb's outer casing is rusted and corroded, and its fuse is degraded and volatile. When you get a bomb
09:00in a condition like that, it cannot be exposed to heat, pressure, or friction.
09:06With steady hands and surgical precision, technicians remove the nose cap and slowly remove
09:16the aging fuse. One wrong move, and the entire operation could turn into a crater.
09:26Finally, after hours of work, the bomb is declared safe. The bombshell itself is carried away, and the
09:35entire city breathes a sigh of relief as residents return to their homes.
09:39The crisis in Frankfurt may be over, but across Germany, the danger still lurks, buried under the
09:46surface. Experts estimate that there could be as many as a quarter of a million bombs still hidden
09:53under streets and in backyards across the country. And they get more and more dangerous the older they get.
10:03Drilling for oil is always risky. You never know what you're going to hit, which is exactly what one
10:09Soviet crew learned, the hard oil.
10:15It's 1971 in the scorching Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan, an Asian country just north of Iran.
10:22A team of Soviet geologists are surveying the land looking for oil. They find a spot that they think is
10:29good. They move their equipment in, and they start drilling.
10:34Without warning, the ground begins to shake, and then a sinkhole opens, swallowing sand as well as
10:43some of their equipment. The workers scramble, and they barely make it out alive.
10:50When the dust settles, there is a crater 230 feet wide right there in the desert.
10:56But beneath that crater is something far more dangerous.
11:01Their drill had actually pierced an underground pocket of methane gas.
11:07This is an invisible gas, a deadly one, and a highly explosive one. And now it's hissing out of
11:14the ground.
11:17There's no easy way to seal it up. So ultimately, they decide that they're going to set it on fire.
11:24And I know it sounds crazy, but that is the common practice when there is an environmental geologic gas
11:33leak.
11:34The thinking is that the fire will burn off the methane within a few days.
11:38And so, allegedly, someone throws a hand grenade into the crater to ignite it.
11:47The crater erupts into flames. But instead of burning off quickly, the crew has unleashed something
11:57hellish.
11:58The fire keeps raging for hours, for days. The days become weeks. The weeks become months. The crew has
12:08created something much larger than they ever expected.
12:12They've uncovered one of the largest reserves of methane on the planet. And now they've started a fire
12:20they can't extinguish.
12:21The Soviets call it the shining of Karakum. But locals give it a different name. The gates of hell.
12:30Temperatures inside the pit can reach a scorching 1800 degrees Fahrenheit. The burning pit is so bright
12:40that it can be seen from space. This is one of the biggest man-made disasters of all time.
12:49And it keeps burning for decades.
12:52Slowly transforming a catastrophe into a curiosity.
12:58The government builds roads, some simple infrastructure around it. And soon,
13:03they're attracting something like 10,000 visitors a year.
13:06After years of treating it as a spectacle, Turkmenistan's government commissions a fresh task force
13:13in 2022 to try to extinguish the fire once and for all.
13:19They reopen old gas wells around the crater and use more recent technologies to try to divert the
13:26gas away from the site. By June 2025, they announced that the fire has been reduced by a third. So,
13:33for now, the gates of hell aren't quite shut yet. But at the very least, they're also not wide open.
13:42On the other side of the world, another accidental discovery brings a much older disaster back into focus.
13:52It's a sunny day in San Francisco in 2016, when David Silver, a vintage camera collector,
13:58is browsing a local flea market hoping to score some old gear.
14:02As he passes a stand with some 35mm cameras, he spots a guy holding up a vintage film reel to
14:08the sunlight
14:10while smoking a cigarette. David's alarm bells go off. It looks like an old nitrate film stock,
14:17which is extremely flammable. And the combination of the sun and a cigarette could send the whole
14:22thing up in flames. He rushes over and he warns the guy. And then, he takes a closer look at
14:29the film.
14:30He sees tiny street scenes with pictures of horses and carriages. And he knows nitrate film is pretty
14:38rare. So, he buys it. Back home, David doesn't have a projector that will play this old reel.
14:45So, he unspools the film down his hallway and breaks out a magnifying loop to inspect it.
14:53What he sees stops him dead in his tracks, destroyed buildings standing like skeletons,
15:00and rubble in massive mounds in the streets. David keeps looking through the film and eventually
15:07sees some intact buildings that look familiar. Suddenly, it all clicks for him. He realizes he's
15:15looking at the aftermath of one of America's worst natural disasters.
15:22The film reel captures the devastation caused by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
15:28On April 18, 1906, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake rocked San Francisco.
15:36The situation went from bad to worse when ruptured gas lines sparked fires that
15:41raged across the city for days. By the time it was over, over 80% of the city was gone,
15:48and over 3,000 people were dead. Back then, cameras were a rare luxury. Filmmaking was in its infancy,
15:56so hardly any footage exists showing what San Francisco looked like right after the quake,
16:01which makes David's find extraordinary. David shares the discovery in an online forum for history buffs,
16:09and almost immediately, someone's eager to get their hands on it. A film collector offers to buy the
16:16reel and restore it, and David agrees. The film's new owner spends eight drooling,
16:23excruciating months, restoring the whole nine-minute film frame by frame. All 8,655 of them.
16:35Tears are repaired, scratches are cleaned up, images are brought back in focus, and then it's all
16:43digitally pieced back together. When he finally hits play, something about the footage feels strangely
16:51familiar. The footage matches a 13-minute silent film called A Trip Down Market Street, shot by the
16:58local film studio called The Miles Brothers Studio, just four days before the earthquake. Turns out,
17:05two of the Miles Brothers had left for New York on a train the morning of the quake, carrying a
17:10fresh
17:11print of A Trip Down Market Street. When they heard about the disaster, they turned around, came back to
17:17San Francisco and brought their cameras back into the chaos. The Miles Brothers reportedly captured
17:23nearly two hours of post-quake footage. For much of it, they followed the same route from their previous
17:29shoot, now reduced to rubble. When you watch A Trip Down Market Street alongside this newly restored footage,
17:37it's jaw-dropping. On one side you see a city bustling and full of life and then rubble.
17:48A city that is a pusk of itself. Sadly, almost all of that footage was lost when the Miles Brothers
17:56studio burned just a few days later as post-quake fires continued to rage. David's reel is the longest and
18:04best preserved piece ever discovered. The films together, they form an unparalleled before and
18:11after time capsule of a city forever changed. And if not for David, a cigarette could have sent it all
18:20up in smoke. In the quiet countryside of Denmark, a simple dig takes a very dark turn.
18:33It's 1956 in the wetlands of the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark, where workers are digging out an
18:39irrigation canal. Now this is back-breaking work. You're six feet below ground, shoveling through thick
18:47peat. One worker stabs his shovel into the earth and picks up something solid.
18:55It's a human skull staring up at him from the peat. He drops down to clear away some of the
19:02peat and he
19:03soon discovers another skull and then another. The authorities are called in and soon a team of
19:10archaeologists is on site. As they begin to excavate, even more bones emerge. Ribs, femurs, spines,
19:19more skulls, all tangled together in a big chaotic mass. The experts launch an investigation to find
19:27out why these bodies are here and why are they in this crazy chaotic knot of death.
19:35Over the next 70 years, the site becomes one of Europe's most perplexing Iron Age discoveries
19:42as generations of researchers attempt to figure out what happened here.
19:48Carbon dating shows that these people all died around the same time, that is in the first century AD.
19:56But these people didn't all die of disease or old age.
20:00The bones themselves tell a story of an ugly and violent end. One femur is hacked completely in half.
20:10One skull has a deep puncture wound which is consistent with the spear thrust.
20:17These are injuries from battle and the participants aren't random. They're all males,
20:23mostly aged 20 to 40, but some as young as 13.
20:27Even more disturbing is that the violence didn't end with the fighting.
20:34Marks on the bones indicate that animals like wolves and foxes gnawed on the bodies,
20:41meaning that the dead lay exposed for months.
20:45As the investigation continues, researchers uncover a critical detail about the site itself.
20:522,000 years ago, this marsh wasn't a marsh. It was a lake.
20:57These people were killed somewhere else, and then they were brought here and thrown into a lake.
21:04As the evidence builds, experts think they weren't simply discarded, but placed here for a specific purpose.
21:12In northern Europe, during the first century AD, people believed that bogs and lakes were portals to the world of
21:20the gods.
21:20And very often weapons, and yes, sometimes animals or humans, were sacrificed at these very sites.
21:30So these bones might have been the ultimate offering.
21:35Fallen warriors given over as sacrifices to the gods as trophies of war.
21:42So far, archaeologists have only excavated a small portion of the bog, so there are potentially hundreds of more skeletons
21:49to be found.
21:53Next up, a different kind of watery grave, where something big went down and stayed down.
22:02In the mid-1970s, British Petroleum is planning a new underwater pipeline off the coast of Scotland.
22:10To prepare, their crew surveys the seafloor using sonar.
22:15Most of the readings come back as expected.
22:17Reefs, rocks, trenches.
22:20But about 12 miles southwest of Cruden Bay, Aberdeenshire, there's a loud ping from the sonar.
22:28The sonar picks up something big and solid, and it looks man-made.
22:33Maybe a ship or a downed plane.
22:36Whatever it is, the team's curiosity is piqued.
22:40Once they're back on land, the team check logbooks for shipwrecks in the area.
22:46And finally, they find a match.
22:49A lost German U-boat from World War II.
22:53U-1206.
22:55U-1206 was a Type 7 C submarine, one of the most advanced underwater military vessels of its time.
23:04Type 7 C subs were the pride of the Nazi fleet.
23:11They had state-of-the-art torpedoes, deeper diving capabilities.
23:17They were faster, deadlier, and built to stay submerged longer than any other submarine.
23:23But this sub barely made it out to sea, sinking just eight days into its first mission.
23:31So what went wrong?
23:34On April 14th, 1945, U-1206 was nine miles off the coast of Scotland.
23:41Commander Carl Adolph Schlitt was in charge when nature called.
23:45So he headed to the submarine's bathroom.
23:48Now, the U-1206 was the first U-boat outfitted with a flush toilet.
23:55Earlier, U-boats had to surface to dispose of waste, risking detection.
24:00The U-1206 new system allowed it to be expelled underwater.
24:04But it depended on a complex series of valves.
24:09On the morning of April 14th, Captain Schlitt decided to try to flush the toilet.
24:14But he turned one of the wrong valves.
24:18And suddenly, the bathroom began filling up with seawater.
24:24Things go from bad to worse when the water floods the compartment below, where the batteries are stored.
24:32The moment that the seawater hit the battery, it creates deadly chlorine gas.
24:38The boat started to fill with toxic fumes, so Schlitt had no other choice but to surface to get fresh
24:46air.
24:47Unfortunately, the sub surfaces directly below an Allied aircraft.
24:54Which immediately attacks.
25:00Faced with deadly gas and Allied bombardment, Schlitt orders the crew to abandon ship.
25:08Commander Schlitt and most of his crew made it onto life rafts, where they were eventually picked up and taken
25:13prisoner by Allied ships.
25:16Within four weeks, Hitler was dead, Germany surrendered, and the U-boat was forgotten at the bottom of the ocean.
25:24Decades later, when the BP team finds the wreck, they track down the commander himself.
25:30And he reveals the official report about the toilet mishap was actually just a cover story.
25:37Schlitt claims that he and the crew knew that the Germans were fighting a lost cause.
25:41So, they decided to surrender instead of continue to risk their lives.
25:46Commander Schlitt knew that if they openly surrendered and were taken to an Allied POW camp, they would have been
25:53labeled as traitors by their fellow Germans.
25:55So, to protect himself and his crew, Schlitt faked an accidental toilet malfunction.
26:02As a pretext to surrender.
26:05So far, no one has been able to enter the wreck of U-1206 to check whether the toilet is
26:10indeed broken.
26:11But hopefully, someday, someone will get to the bottom of it all.
26:18In 2013, a discovery in New York City brings the past crashing back to one of the darkest days in
26:27American history.
26:30It's April of 2013 in lower Manhattan.
26:33There's a team of surveyors that are inspecting a property that's scheduled to be demolished to make way for a
26:38brand new building.
26:39It's a routine job.
26:41They're mostly there to measure things.
26:43But then they peer into a gap between two old buildings.
26:48And they find that it's packed with trash.
26:53The space is only about 18 inches wide.
26:57It's the gap between two five-story tenement buildings.
27:00It's barely big enough to move around, let alone haul stuff out.
27:05As they start clearing debris, they see something that's a bit out of place.
27:12There's a large piece of metal wedged in between these two buildings.
27:16It's about three feet by five feet, silver, metallic, and with gears attached.
27:24They call 911 to report what they think is damaged machinery.
27:28And when the NYPD arrive on the scene, they recognize that this piece of metal is far too big to
27:33just pull out of the gap sideways.
27:35So they bring pulleys to the scene because they realize that the only way they're going to be able to
27:39get this piece of metal out in one piece is by pulling it straight up.
27:45Once it's clear, they inspect it closely and notice a serial number.
27:50It's clear, they run it into the system and then everything stops.
27:55It's a piece of a wing from a United Airlines airplane, and it's found just three blocks from ground zero.
28:05Eleven and a half years earlier, on September 11, 2001, two Boeing 767s were hijacked and flown into the World
28:15Trade Center.
28:18Almost 3,000 people lost their lives that day in the biggest terrorist attack ever carried out on American soil.
28:27In the months after the attack, ground zero was meticulously combed over.
28:33Debris was sorted, cataloged, and cleared.
28:37Any human remains that were found were painstakingly identified.
28:41Ground zero was treated with military precision.
28:45Finding something this big more than a decade later is unsettling.
28:49So investigators re-examine the site to make sure nothing else was overlooked.
28:55The NYPD locks down the site and forensic teams come in to search the area.
29:01After a thorough examination by the medical examiner, no human remains are found.
29:07Finally, the two tenement buildings were demolished and replaced with a glass high-rise.
29:15As for the piece of metal, it is now enshrined in the National September 11th Museum.
29:24While disaster often leaves devastation behind, sometimes they also reveal big secrets.
29:34In the coastal town of Mahabalipuram, India, a group of fishermen are starting their day as usual.
29:42They're fixing their nets and preparing to set out to sea.
29:46But today, they notice something alarming.
29:50The sea is beginning to pull away from the land.
29:54Water drains rapidly from the beach.
29:58Boats are left high and dry on the sand, and coral reefs emerge into the sunlight.
30:03Further out, the fishermen spot something even stranger.
30:07A perfectly straight line of massive stones rising from the exposed seafloor.
30:13Each one is the size of a refrigerator.
30:15It looks almost like the remnants of a wall.
30:18But the exposure of this eerie formation is actually the calm before a deadly storm.
30:26What they're witnessing is the ocean retreating ahead of a massive tsunami,
30:31triggered by a 9.1 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Indonesia.
30:40Moments after the massive stone formations appear,
30:44a 12-foot wall of water comes crashing into the coast,
30:49devastating the town of Mahabalipuram.
30:51It's actually part of what's the deadliest natural disaster of the 21st century.
30:57It kills nearly a quarter of a million people in India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia.
31:05In the aftermath, global attention turns to relief and recovery.
31:11But those fishermen by the shore can't forget what they saw before the waves crashed down.
31:17They tell local authorities about the strange rock formations revealed on the seafloor.
31:23Soon, scientists from the Archaeological Survey of India arrive on the site,
31:27accompanied by a dive team from the Indian Navy.
31:32Using sonar mapping, they locate underwater features that match the fishermen's descriptions.
31:38Rows of chiseled stone blocks, a short staircase,
31:42and a 33-foot-long stretch of 6-foot-tall structures.
31:47It looks like part of a large man-made complex.
31:50As researchers continue to investigate the underwater structure,
31:55they find an intriguing connection back on land.
31:59Mahabalipuram is famous for the Shore Temple,
32:03a five-story masterpiece dedicated to the gods Shiva and Vishnu,
32:08and built around the year 700 A.D.
32:11But local legends say that the Shore Temple was once one of seven grand sanctuaries
32:17that once lined the coast of the Bay of Bengal.
32:20If those legends are true,
32:22the Shore Temple may be the last visible remnant of a much larger religious complex,
32:28one that later disappeared beneath the sea.
32:33According to the story, the seven temples were so magnificent
32:37that the Hindu god Indra, who is the god of storms,
32:40was incredibly consumed by jealousy.
32:43And he orders a great storm to come down and destroy them.
32:48The legend says that six of the temples were swallowed by the sea,
32:52leaving only one standing above the waves.
32:55Now, thanks to the tsunami, nature reveals what time has hidden.
33:01The tsunami washed away layers of sand from around the Shore Temple
33:06and exposed precious statues and carved reliefs.
33:11Archaeologists find detailed carvings of a lion, a horse, an elephant,
33:16all dated to around 950 A.D.
33:19This was roughly the time that legend has it that the temples vanished beneath the waves.
33:25The evidence may never prove the full legend,
33:28but thanks to a tragic twist of fate,
33:30one of India's oldest stories may be closer to fact than fiction.
33:37In a world full of big, bad discoveries,
33:41few are as deadly as an island where every step could be your last.
33:47In the early 1800s, about 20 miles off Brazil's southern coast,
33:52a fisherman feels hunger gnawing at him.
33:55He spots a small island on the horizon,
33:57sees banana trees near the shore,
33:59and steers his canoe towards land.
34:03Hours pass.
34:04Then suddenly, his canoe is found drifting offshore.
34:09Inside, his lifeless body lies twisted in agony.
34:13His arms and legs covered in puncture wounds.
34:18What happened to him remains unclear
34:20until others return to the island and make a chilling discovery.
34:25Decades later, a budding entrepreneur
34:28wants to build a banana plantation on the island
34:32until he realizes
34:36this island is crawling with venomous snakes.
34:40This deadly slithering mass
34:42makes the island impossible to inhabit.
34:46His solution?
34:47Barn them out.
34:49He sets the forest ablaze.
34:51The fire scorches the trees,
34:53but not the snakes.
34:56They survive,
34:57and they multiply.
34:59From that day forward,
35:02locals refer to the terrifying landmass
35:04as Snake Island.
35:06At just 106 acres,
35:09this little island in the Atlantic Ocean
35:11is home to the highest concentration
35:14of venomous snakes on Earth.
35:16About one per every 10 square feet.
35:19The most dominant predator
35:21is the golden lancehead viper.
35:24It is one of the 10 deadliest snakes in the world.
35:28And this is the only place on the planet
35:31where they even exist.
35:32If a person is bitten by one,
35:35the venom acts fast.
35:36It can melt flesh in seconds.
35:38Within an hour,
35:39it triggers kidney failure,
35:41brain hemorrhages,
35:42intestinal bleeding,
35:44and even death.
35:47But how did these killer snakes
35:49get to the small island in the first place?
35:53There is a legend
35:54that the snakes were placed there
35:56by pirates to guard their treasure.
35:59But scientists have a different theory.
36:01They believe the island
36:03was once connected to the mainland
36:04by a natural land bridge.
36:06When the last ice age
36:08ended 11,000 years ago,
36:09the rising seas cut it off.
36:11And with no predators
36:13and no other competition,
36:15the snakes took over.
36:17They quickly wiped out
36:18most other animals on the island.
36:20In order to survive,
36:21they turned to eating migrating birds.
36:24To catch birds before they took flight,
36:26they needed speed and stronger venom.
36:31Over time,
36:32their venom evolved
36:33to be five times more potent
36:35than that of their mainland cousins.
36:37These snakes,
36:38they don't just strike from the ground.
36:40They also hunt from the trees.
36:42They coil themselves around tree branches
36:44and dangle while they wait.
36:46So anyone setting foot on Snake Island
36:48has to watch not only
36:50the ground under their feet,
36:51but the trees over their head.
36:55It's so dangerous,
36:56the Brazilian government
36:58restricts access
36:59to just a handful of expeditions
37:01each year.
37:02Scientists are allowed
37:04on Snake Island
37:04to collect venom,
37:06but it's not to test its deadliness.
37:08It's to test its healing potential.
37:11Researchers hope
37:12that proteins in the venom
37:13can unlock new treatments
37:15for blood disorders
37:16and even cancer.
37:18In fact,
37:19one life-saving blood pressure drug
37:20has already come from it.
37:22It's an irony
37:23that no one misses.
37:25The world's deadliest snakes
37:27could someday save lives
37:29around the world.
37:36Fear can drive people
37:37to make strange choices.
37:39One of the oddest
37:40was found right under
37:41New York's Brooklyn Bridge.
37:45It's 2006 in New York City
37:47and engineers are conducting
37:49a routine inspection
37:50of the Manhattan side
37:51of the Brooklyn Bridge,
37:53an iconic structure
37:54that represents the borough
37:56and that has stood
37:57for over 130 years.
38:00They're examining a row
38:01of old stone archways
38:03long ago sealed up.
38:05And behind one boarded-up arch,
38:08they find something strange.
38:11A padlocked door
38:12beneath layers of grime.
38:15No one remembers
38:16this being there,
38:17so out of curiosity,
38:19they cut the lock
38:21and open the door.
38:24The door creaks open,
38:26revealing a dark, narrow passage
38:28and something no one expected.
38:32Stacked inside are 140 boxes
38:35of crackers.
38:37Alongside them are crates
38:38filled with paper blankets,
38:41first aid kits,
38:41and these giant water barrels
38:43that also serve
38:44as emergency toilets.
38:46You can see that all the boxes
38:48very clearly mark
38:49Civil Defense All-Purpose
38:51Survival Crackers
38:52with a date stamp
38:53of October 1962.
38:55The crew calls in historians
38:57to figure out what this is
38:59and why it's hiding
39:01under one of America's
39:02most iconic bridges.
39:04Historians focus in
39:06on the fact that
39:07on all of this,
39:08there are two dates,
39:091957 and 1962.
39:13Well, 57 is the year
39:15that the Soviets
39:16launched Sputnik.
39:18And 1962 is the year
39:19of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
39:21This government
39:22has maintained
39:23the closest surveillance
39:24of the Soviet military buildup
39:27on the island of Cuba.
39:29These were key moments
39:30in the Cold War,
39:32an era when the U.S. government
39:34and its citizens
39:35were full of fear
39:36and paranoia
39:37about the space race
39:38and about the possibility
39:39of nuclear war
39:40with the Soviets.
39:41During those years
39:42of the Cold War,
39:43the fear of nuclear warfare
39:46was everywhere.
39:49Students practiced
39:51duck and cover drills
39:52in their schools.
39:53Families were encouraged
39:54by the government
39:55to dig underground bunkers
39:56in their backyards
39:57and nearly 200,000 citizens
39:59did that.
40:01But in New York,
40:02the plan was different.
40:04Residents were told
40:05to head for designated
40:07fallout shelters
40:08like this secret space
40:09under the Brooklyn Bridge.
40:11New York City
40:12was considered
40:13a prime target
40:13in the event
40:14of a nuclear exchange
40:15with the Soviet Union.
40:16And to be prepared
40:17for this,
40:18the city built
40:19over 17,000 fallout shelters
40:22filled with items
40:23to accommodate
40:24as many as 11 million people.
40:27While the supplies
40:28were real,
40:29the sense of security
40:30was mostly an illusion.
40:34Even with concrete walls,
40:36experts say that shelters
40:37like the one
40:38underneath the Brooklyn Bridge
40:39wouldn't have protected people
40:41from a nuclear blast.
40:43And even if it did,
40:45it certainly wouldn't
40:46have protected them
40:47from the radioactive fallout
40:48that would have followed
40:49in the months after.
40:50Fortunately for all of humanity,
40:53the Cold War never turned hot
40:55and bombs never fell.
40:57And as for the bomb shelters,
40:59they were largely boarded up
41:01and forgotten about.
41:03For decades,
41:04hundreds of thousands of people
41:06crossed the Brooklyn Bridge
41:07never knowing
41:08that there was a very
41:10dreary reminder
41:11just below their feet
41:13of just how close
41:15the world was
41:15to disaster.
41:20from ancient battlefields
41:22buried in bombs
41:23to bombshells
41:24beneath city streets
41:25and snakes so deadly
41:27they have their own island.
41:29These are the biggest
41:30and baddest discoveries
41:32that refuse to stay hidden.
41:34I'm Danny Trejo.
41:35Thanks for watching
41:36Mysteries on Earth.
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