World’s Largest Museum & a Curious Railway in China | Mystery Places | Free Documentary

[Music] so we are beginning our journey in guantanamo on the island of cuba in 1903 the americans lease a plot of land here from the cuban government in order to build a military base in 2002 the infamous internment camp is put into operation the reason the september the 11th terror attacks since 2002 mainly suspected taliban and al-qaeda members are detained the camp is very controversial the accusation the usa aren't adhering to the geneva convention this means that the prisoners have no rights at all each of our steps and of course what we film is watched everybody else that you talk to today in the camps can be but no shots of of guards especially trained public relations officers lead us through the camp first we visit the library we are not allowed to show the face of the soldier who runs it [Music] the prisoners can choose from over 35 000 different books dvds and magazines in all kinds of different languages they were all donated by humanitarian organizations we take them to them on a weekly basis and we'll take a couple hundred items we'll box up take over to them and they're allowed to tell us hey i'd like to get this item this week or we're looking for things that promote good order and discipline in the camps have positive themes and values positive this is how the soldiers want to present the camp to us time and time again they emphasize how well the prisoners are treated here we hope that we will be able to gather our own impressions about this a bus takes us across the compound we're not allowed to roam freely the camp seems to be huge during its peak times 700 prisoners were locked up in the cells we want to get an idea of the detention conditions ourselves at the time of our filming 79 people are imprisoned here most of them are in camp six this is where the soldiers take us next the filming restrictions become even stricter can we film during the drive uh no uh we'll tell you when you can start the opportunity here we meet colonel stephen gabis for the first time he is the commander of the prison really important that the world gets to see what we do here and how our great uh soldiers sailors airmen marine and coast guard do their mission on a daily basis to provide the safe secure humane and legal treatment to our detainees majority of our detainees are here in camp six roughly sixty percent interior democrats another approximately twenty percent are in camp five that means there is another twenty percent but they do not want to show us how these are housed at least we are allowed to take a look around camp six in an empty single cell the soldiers present to us the items that the prisoners are allowed to have these include clothing blankets headphones cosmetics the quran and writing utensils that are self-harm proof but the cells are empty in this part of the camp no more prisoners are detained then the officers take us to another part of the prison everything is darkened we may now only whisper behind mirrored glass we now see prisoners for the first time trying to get in contact with them or even speaking to them is strictly prohibited it is prayer time at the moment the detainees don't know that we are watching them these men are locked up without having been sentenced and nobody wants to tell us what they are charged with the only statement because of the war again and again ex-prisoners report of random arrests apparently the americans pay a premium to soldiers or the police in pakistan and afghanistan to hand over terror suspects to them the officers take us to neighbouring camp five again they present a single cell to us and the media run according to them the prisoners can watch television here for four hours per week in leg shackles time after time the officers and guards emphasize how well the prisoners are treated here they even say that it is better here than in the american prisons the officers keep stressing that guantanamo is not a prison the biggest difference is that a prison as we have like in the united states or elsewhere those are for people that have been convicted detainees were not arrested um detainees were detained on uh in relation to some world war aspect the soldiers stand behind this principle colonel gebe is too he has only worked in the prison camp for a couple of months i love it it's a great job the opportunity to be with uh to be with all these soldier sailors there in marine coast guard and everything it's fantastic just every day to be able to come out here and see what these great americans do is makes me feel good the day is coming to an end but there is no chance of sleep anytime soon until midnight we are sat in the media inspection center picture for picture the officers check our filmed material lots of it is deleted over 700 prisoners have been released from guantanamo by the americans in the last years does this mean that all of the detained people were innocent after all we asked the chief pr officer and once they're transferred from guantanamo and we the custody removes from us to some some other entity we've done our job and so it's it's not up to us to to talk about guilt or innocent it's our job to detain the the detainees and care for them safely and humanely while they're here due to torture accusations guantanamo keeps appearing in the headlines again and again it is rumored that soldiers even use illegal questioning techniques like waterboarding we want to know is this true at the final press conference the highlight of our trip we have the chance to ask the chief commander about the torture accusations there is no torture and when we do voluntary interviews that is exactly what they are they're voluntary you know i can't speak from what may have happened in other places or many many years ago here but for a long time now there has been nothing that could be considered by anybody as torture that we do voluntary interviews in 2009 the then u.s president promised to close guantanamo his time in office is now over but the prison camp still exists for how long all i can tell you is that right now we are following the directives that we are given and the intent right now from the president to close guantanamo bay we'll continue to do what we need to do to facilitate that unfortunately nobody can tell us exactly when this is going to happen our visit is now over what remains are the nightmarish pictures from one of the most secret places on earth with these impressions we leave guantanamo and travel on to chongqing in china at over 29 million inhabitants this city is more than three times the size of new york here we are looking for a mysterious house do the locals know the building in our picture the metro in chongqing carries 2.3 million passengers per day on its only four lines and there it is after the underground station new chaoto the metro tracks lead right through a house with its own stop the station liziba ten years ago the worldwide unique skyscraper was built through that during peak times a train passes every two minutes the megacity has an enormous space problem but we will find out later if this is the reason for this unusual building but what do the inhabitants of the house think about their unusual neighbor julen pun has been living here for 20 years is vegetables haven't grown here for years to be more specific since the metro was built through the [Music] house [Music] the last house that julen pun and his wife lived in was torn down because the government wanted to build a motorway there and they were made to resettle here but is it possible to ever get any sleep with this noise me all together over 500 families live in the metro skyscraper only one story above the tracks is the home of nikki what's with the teddy [Music] surrounded by the river and mountains the town planners thought it to be the best idea to build the tracks through the house yu chun fu is a former employee of the metro and was co-responsible for this bizarre building project but living in the metro house also has its benefits thanks to the good connection everything is only a stone's throw away julen pun loves the close vicinity to his metro the underground stops right inside the house and the government even pays the fares for them food two stops less than five minutes ride away he is already at the next biggest shopping center which fortunately is also right inside the underground station before the metro was built the supermarket was a 45 minute walk away for julen using line number two it now takes him less than 10 minutes back home right beneath the roof garden about four meters under the tracks the two-bedroom apartment is located here he lives with his wife hey by the way the rent in the metro house at 150 is four times cheaper than in the surrounding buildings so this means that the people in the residential metro community save a lot of money we leave the metro house in china and move on to washington dc the capital of the usa this is what a superstar looks like the biggest natural science museum in the world the most visited in the usa seven million people come to see the over dimensionally large preserved anatomical specimens the mysteriously shining minerals and the star of the exhibition the hope diamond today we get to see what no visitor may the huge archive that is full of secrets we learn why this preserved scorpion is still deadly what makes this unassuming piece of rock so valuable and why the huge collection of birds of the museum can save lives the museum is only a couple of hundred meters away from the white house the center of power of the united states [Music] we are excited to see what awaits us and which secrets the huge museum has in store for us the smithsonian is home to an impressive collection of dinosaurs although it is closed at the moment due to renovations we are allowed to see dinosaurs today and a lot more because a large proportion of the collection is not accessible to the public and stays hidden from the visitors [Music] after passing numerous security doors a huge labyrinth of halls and corridors it's a good thing that our companion knows where he is going [Music] the archive is three times the size of the museum itself over 90 000 square meters as large as 12 football fields then we have arrived in the paleo biologic department [Music] we are amazed at what is stored in the shelves here the skull of a triceratops next to it bones of a t-rex a priceless find [Music] some of these finds will be part of a new dinosaur exhibition but not all of it by far most of the things will stay here in the archive forever the reason there is only a limited amount of space available for exhibitions and therefore only the most spectacular things should be shown two stories above the dinosaur bones is the biggest and probably most feared department of the institute the insects floyd shockley is in charge of it people with arachnophobia need to take a deep breath now because in these jars are the collections of spiders millipedes and scorpions all conserved in alcohol [Music] many of the specimens that are stored here are extremely poisonous and this still after decades of being inside the museum drawers all of these even though they were collected in 1953 are still lethally toxic so you can't prick your finger when you're reaching into the vial because it's still lethal so there is no anti-venom for scorpions if you get stung by one of these you die that's it there's no you won't make it to the hospital you probably won't make it out the door thankfully most of the exhibits in floyd's collection are less toxic they are stored in three rooms full of ceiling high cabinets [Music] 35 million insects are preserved here inside ten thousand drawers but why who needs all of them it's important that we have many specimens of the same species and many different species so it allows us to ask questions about things like global climate change habitat fragmentation human mediated habitat destruction and we can only answer those kind of questions if we have a lot of specimens collected at the same time from lots of different places and so we build these kind of collections in order to serve as that reference for life on earth [Music] the collection remains hidden from the public for scientists on the other hand it is of incredible value with all specimens here the place of origin is noted this way biologists can determine how a certain kind of butterfly for example is changing in a certain area over the years this lets them draw conclusions from global developments for example how climate change is affecting the distribution of certain species a bit further on a new shipment is being examined these are fossilized marine animals that were found on the west coast of the usa by an amateur scientist he has kindly provided them to the museum free of charge what may look like a common piece of rock actually proves to be the jackpot a small whale skull about 30 million years old what may not look like much to the untrained eye provides a lot of information to the scientists as opposed to many other finds the skull is still three-dimensionally preserved and then it is time for the absolute highlight of the museum the department that the biggest natural history museum in the world is probably most famous for the bird collection [Music] it is not only huge but here the employees do incredibly important detective work that saves human lives head of department carla dove is in charge of 640 000 stuffed birds almost all of the 11 000 species of bird in existence in the world are represented here this is a very cool bird this bird is called a quetzal and it lives in central america so this one was collected in 1860 when these things are preserved properly they will last hundreds of years [Music] carla's drawers are like history books even specimens that were collected by charles darwin himself are stored here but in this department it is about a lot more than just the administration of the collection every day the so-called bird division receives 15 to 20 letters from all over the usa from airports inside the envelopes there are feathers this is the speciality subject of carla's employee jim we receive bird strikes from all over the world they contain samples from the remains from a bird aircraft collision people in on the airfield will collect these bird strikes and send them in to us so that they have an identification the so-called feather laboratory has existed since 1960 after the dramatic emergency landing of an aircraft on the hudson river in 2009 in new york the scientists identified the birds that got sucked up into the turbines they were canada geese we will now be able to witness exactly how this works due to the markings and the structure of the feathers that have been sent in he already has a suspicion owls but which one there are 200 different kinds of them the airport wants to know exactly which kind it is in order to decide if something needs to be done should there be incidents like this more regularly after 15 minutes jim has the answer we're right in the right size start to match up some of the barring and you can look at the the breast feather the streak looks about right the pattern's right so that's enough for us to identify this bird that hit the airplane in niagara falls new york as a short-eared owl this method can save lives when collisions with birds can therefore be avoided in the future it's it's really amazing because these collections were started back in the 1800s well before airplanes were even uh thought of so we're using these collections to identify birds that hit airplanes with birds that were collected before airplanes even existed so that's pretty amazing and once all the incidents with birds have been cleared up for the day the scientists start on their second important job for the day preserving their collection its biggest enemy are little bugs that eat away at the feathers insect repellent would be a solution but it could destroy the colours and nobody wants that to happen therefore there is only one solution checking all 640 000 specimens by hand multiple times a year our day behind the scenes of the biggest natural history museum in the world is coming to an end here in this huge archive we have learned how much useful information is hidden in all these dead animals and with this new information we leave the smithsonian and make our way to griffin oh in poland [Music] here there is supposed to be a crooked wood but why do all the trees here look like this we head out in search of the [Music] so the woods exist but nobody knows its exact location we are trying to find somebody responsible from the municipality we are sent to ask ranger daniel porcelais yes that is we follow him and the thick pipes along the side of the road they are heat conducting pipes from a close-by nuclear power plant some people say that the pipes are responsible for the crooked trees but we'll get to that later after about a four kilometer long drive ranger daniel stops his car in the middle of a forest without any crooked trees we follow him and really the slanting trees the crooked forest as it is gold it looks just like in the pictures mysterious almost spooky the woods could easily be the set for a fantasy movie but why is it this way the about 12 meters high pine trees look like upside down question marks and not only one of them we count them and there are 94. how odd that there are so many so [Music] one of them close by there is a power plant whose heat conducting pipes run by close to the woods the theory the combined heat and power station has poisoned the ground through incorrect storage of coal but the power plant was only built in 1974 and the crooked trees have been in the woods for much longer what we know for sure the pines were planted in 1934. scientists agree that six to ten years later a mysterious occurrence made the trees grow at a slanting angle so this event must have happened during the second world war another popular theory is that of the tanks two is this possible probably not because if the tanks had come through here there would be a big swathe of crooked trees and not a circular area that is enclosed by straight trees by now the mysterious forest has started to attract tourists as in a few years the trees will have died because this kind of pines doesn't get any older than 100 years people who want to see the trees need to hurry just like magdalena we think so too ranger daniel uses his local contacts and arranges a meeting with two scientists for us a cultural scientist and a specialist from the forestry commission office who both have very different [Music] the condition for this would be that the snow masses bent the trees for several months and really during the war the area was hit by multiple prolonged periods of extreme cold with lots of snow but would this not mean that the whole words would then have been affected productively a technique like this was used back then young trees were cut in two places and tied down this way this shape came about years later the trees were made into furniture or into sleds but because of the war they were probably forgotten here and weren't cut down this would be a possibility but then we receive a call a german professor is said to have a suspicion so we drive to germany at the college for sustainable development in ebersvalder we meet professor tobias cramer the tree and woodland scientist examines the mysterious phenomenon for us is that would support the furniture theory but this technique was only used until the 18th century so 200 years before the trees were planted in poland it is these inconspicuous looking holes that lead the scientists onto the right track they proved that the trees were cut when they were still small the explanation at the age of six to ten years the pine trees were cut back only the lowest branch remained it then grew towards the sunlight and eventually became the thick main stem as the loggers left the lowest branch on all the trees he probably knew the trees would continue to grow so this way the stranger created one of the most mysterious and fascinating woods about 70 years later we leave this mythical wood and find our next mysterious place not very far away in germany at four and a half kilometers it is the longest building complex in the world the monster by the sea as prora is also called built by the nazis used by the gdr regime today the longest youth hostel in the world is located here and is planned to become a holiday paradise due to the new luxury flats that are to be built here but how will this structure make the step into the future without forgetting all the things that happened here at the southern end of prora the old ruins have already turned into a 500 meter long building site architect ulrich stuka has taken on a mammoth project with broura his team has already removed 8 000 tons of debris from this tractor alone permission to turn the mystery place prura into a luxury resort here luxury roof terraces with a view of the sea will be built not an easy task as prora is a listed building highlight in the longest building in the world flats holiday homes and hotels will be built 56 kilometers of sandy beaches attract 1.5 million holidaymakers and nature lovers every year back then the nazis built the so-called coastal resort of the 20 000. it is concrete proof of the megalomania of the national socialist regime susanna misguyski wants to commemorate it with her association as behind the holiday resort was a perfidious plan started the individual was supposed to vanish in the masses in prora brainwashing included via loudspeakers the ns propaganda reached [Music] so from 1936 onwards eight blocks are built along the coast a gigantic festival hall was also planned but it was never built also no holiday makers ever came here because in 1939 the second world war broke out this meant that the building process was put on hold all that is left of the monster by the sea is the shell of the building what is remarkable is the so-called resting halls in which the holiday makers were supposed to have a lie down during certain times [Music] in block one the structure of the building was dilapidated so it had to be torn down connecting the past and the future this is the great task for the architects in program today foreign julian heydrich and her mother have also heard of the new life coming to praora they are interested in the apartments that are being built in block 3. investor michael jacoby shows them what the current state of things is the past is inseparably connected with the building for her even just through the incredible dimensions about 20 kilometers of corridors originally existed in peru yeah the corridors were connected to 10 000 identical rooms each with a sea view each 12 square meters large it is difficult for cornelia to imagine that stylish apartments will be built [Music] here [Music] showing the rundown part of the building first is part of jacoby's plan the surprise will be even bigger when he presents a finished apartment and about one-third of the 4.5 kilometer long colossus is already renovated and opposed to back in the day the holiday makers will be even closer to the sea on their very own balconies perfect and this view doesn't give cornelia the impression at all that she is in the longest building complex in the world but it is especially the size of the building that keeps attracting unwanted visitors therefore michael jacoby regularly checks the the problem especially the ramshackle buildings of broad magically attract adventurers and of course the owners cannot secure the whole 30 football field large complex [Music] foreign the roofs of the complex also become a risky playground after the end of the nazi rule the end had not come for prohora yet during the time of the gdr the national people's army continued to use the building uh [Music] attended the military academy in brora today the 46 year old is visiting the detention cells in the former entrance control building cells like these existed in every block without a trial soldiers were locked up here for up to 10 days became the biggest military facility in 1991 the last tanks left prora the building goes over into the possession of the federal republic of germany carol bersel has bought two apartments here they are located in the same block as the military school used to be he can enjoy the view others condemn the decision to turn the historically charged building into a holiday resort but what else could be done with a mega structure like this the state has by now sold four of the five blocks to investors in one of them the longest youth hostel in the world is located on about 200 meters in block five [Music] dennis brosseit has been the manager since it opened in 2011. or for the start of the season he has to prepare 96 rooms that offer space for over 420 guests something that many of them don't know the 840 windows are not all the same size and therefore had to be especially made but brosite sees the biggest challenge for this place somewhere else [Music] foreign [Music] and another chapter is about to begin we are leaving this unique place and are traveling on to new zealand close to the town of waimoto there are some very special grottos the waitomo caves also known as the firefly caves even hiriako love's ancestors came here i grew up around here my grandfather took me into the cave and i was only very small so you never forget that kind of experience totally amazing and so you want to come back all the time in order to get to the mysterious animals hereia has to walk a couple of kilometers on foot as they live deep down inside the caves near the river the cave developed due to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions the result cracks in the ground that filled up with water this hollowed them out and this way the underground world was created are you looking at at least over 30 million years old take a look over this side see different lines in the rock each layer is around ten thousand years old the cave remained undiscovered for a long time but in 1887 maori king tane tenerau heria's great great great grandfather was convinced to explore the cave so after returning many times my great great grandfather and fried mace they were totally blown away at how many glowworms and you can see so many glow rooms in the one spot they knew that they had to completely explore the whole cave but in reality these aren't actually glow worms they are mycitophilidai larvae and they don't fly the worms live as larvae for about six to twelve months in this state they produce sticky threads that hang from the ceiling of the cave like pearl necklaces their goal to catch as many insects in the threads as possible when something gets caught they are immediately pulled upwards and devoured by the way the more hungry the larvae are the brighter they glow in order to lure in their prey then the larvae pupate like butterflies eventually they emerge as an adult glowworm which it actually looks like the sun here and you can see that they kind of look like a mosquito unfortunately in this stage they do not have a mouth this means that they cannot eat and therefore die but the only aim of the insect is to reproduce and eat they hang directly at the entrance of the cave as here the most insects fly about every day up to 2 000 visitors come here to admire the stars on the rocks of the waitomo caves the next underground world is located in the french capital paris [Music] 30 meters under the megacity a completely different world still exists the catacombs also called the world of the dead over six million skulls and skeletons are stored here don't forget square here the official entrance to the underworld is located in the publicly accessible part the world of the dead is true to its name in the 18th century paris was haunted by the plague the graveyards are overflowing therefore the people of paris store all the remains in the catacombs in the closed off area there are often illegal parties and in order to prevent these from taking place there is a catacomb police and this woman is the boss of the troop sylvie gutron the catacombs originate from the 12th century when the population mined for limestone to build the city after the graveyard had been put into place the authorities closed the underworld due to the danger of the tunnels collapsing today very different dangers are lurking here [Music] lovers often leave traces behind also today the police find something somebody must have been here a very short while ago even the candle is still burning but the adventurers are gone they noticed the police [Music] our catacomb policewoman doesn't have much time the cataphiles have already [Music] gone but then suddenly a light and really today silvigo tron has caught a student this happens a lot as the parisian underworld keeps attracting more and more young people [Music] the illegal visitors of the underworld have to pay a fine but the thrill of coming back is simply too great madame is very sure about one thing and over one thousand kilometers away in slovenia we find the next underground world [Music] miran prost offers mountain biking underground tours in petsen some friends told me there's an underground biking in slovenia i couldn't believe it at all but now we are here to try it but before delving into the darkness the former worker miran makes every adventurer underground ready but how do you come up with the idea of biking underground so in 1994 the mines start closing and a lot of generation also my father and my grandfather work in the mines so then we start thinking what we do with a lot of place inside and um we suddenly the idea came out that we could do some biking crook in the mine now about 3 000 mountain bike fans come to the old mine the narrow shafts and the darkness are unusual and give us an uneasy feeling for the first 100 meters the group have to push their bikes their eyes first have to get used to the darkness then they make their way deeper into the mountain the bike track runs on the top shaft of the remaining mine system so from on now on we start biking and we're back into six kilometers of underground tunnel and we must stay in the group all the time because inside we have more than 1000 kilometers of empty places [Music] the small amount of light limits the spatial awareness low ceilings and tight tunnels make riding difficult even for the experienced bikers anesh and dixie [Music] so we have 20 floors in the mine there are one on top of each other so that's why i must transporting the material also down from higher to lower places and to use the holes like is this one we just draw material in and it's fall down by themselves in the lower places we open the doors like this one and the material fall back out and directly into the wagons and then we transport it out of the mine in the underground tunnels the temperature remains at a constant 10 degrees celsius throughout the year [Music] after an hour of mine biking it is time for the highlight of the tour the three don't need their bikes for this now as it is time to go down 500 meters to the deepest of the 20 tunnels here something very special awaits them [Music] the rule is life jackets on as now it's time to hit the water in these kayaks [Music] miners must pump with water out of the money if they have to work here in dry places so that's why they built here the eight kilometers of water channel where they pumped water out of the mine after the mine was discontinued the groundwater started to build up here this way the underground water canal developed by the way they will get their bikes back at the end of the tour i couldn't imagine that on the mountains where we bike under it there are tunnels and labyrinths like this where you can bike and kayak unbelievable you

Channel: Free Documentary

Views: 303,487

Rating: 4.6683841 out of 5

Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full documentary, HD documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), lost places, mystery places, Abandoned places, Abandoned, abandoned house, mysterious places, abandoned buildings, explore with us, World’s Largest Museum, curious railways, unique railway, mysterious forest, largest apartment building, Guantanamo, railway documentary

Id: sTI1QMU1zKY

Length: 51min 59sec (3119 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 19 2020