1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000 You know, I've been around for a while. 2 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:06,000 Met some interesting people. 3 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:08,000 Done some crazy things. 4 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:11,000 See, you just might think that there's not much 5 00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:14,000 that can take me by surprise. 6 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:17,000 You'd be wrong. 7 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:24,000 The world is full of stories, 8 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:27,000 science, and things that amaze you. 9 00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:30,000 Every single day, incredible mysteries 10 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:32,000 that keep me awake at night. 11 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:34,000 Some I can answer. 12 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:36,000 Oh, there's just... 13 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:38,000 Stify logic. 14 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:42,000 Is the end of the world upon us? 15 00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:45,000 In Wyoming, a deadly force is sleeping 16 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:48,000 underneath Yellowstone National Park. 17 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:51,000 Could it awake and destroy the planet? 18 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:54,000 It could happen today. It could happen tomorrow. 19 00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:56,000 It's a race against time. 20 00:00:56,000 --> 00:01:00,000 In Alabama, a NASA scientist makes a remarkable discovery. 21 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:04,000 Is it killer solar storm coming our way? 22 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:07,000 If we're hit today, it would knock us out, 23 00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:10,000 would knock civilization to its knees. 24 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:12,000 And across the world comes the threat 25 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:14,000 of an invasion by robots. 26 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:19,000 Could the Terminator be real? 27 00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:22,000 Yeah. 28 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:26,000 It's a weird world, and I love it. 29 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:52,000 You believe in prophecy. 30 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:54,000 Some of the biggest events in history 31 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:57,000 have been foreseen by some of the greatest minds. 32 00:01:57,000 --> 00:02:00,000 Master Damos predicted World War I, 33 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:04,000 Hitler and Napoleon, the election of US President Barack Obama, 34 00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:10,000 and the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 35 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:12,000 How did he do that? 36 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:14,000 And why can't I do that? 37 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:17,000 Were they simply lucky to be able to do that? 38 00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:20,000 Were they simply lucky guesses? 39 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:25,000 Can we somehow see with incredible accuracy 40 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:31,000 what will happen hundreds or perhaps thousands of years into the future? 41 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:37,000 And if we can, do we really want to know what's coming? 42 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:42,000 Patrick Gerald is an astronomer. 43 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:46,000 In 1996, he did something extraordinary. 44 00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:51,000 He devoted his life to studying the complex and mysterious texts 45 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:54,000 of the ancient Mayans. 46 00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:59,000 What he found is now the stuff of Hollywood. 47 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:04,000 The world is coming to an end, and soon. 48 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:08,000 What captivated me the most after reading the Mayan prophecies 49 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:13,000 was that they calculated this huge cataclysm at the end of 2012. 50 00:03:13,000 --> 00:03:17,000 This was very disturbing information for me. 51 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:22,000 I said, wow, gee, my whole future and the whole future of everybody 52 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:25,000 will be destroyed in a few years. 53 00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:29,000 What am I going to do? And that changed my whole life. 54 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:34,000 But knowing when the world would end wasn't enough. 55 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:38,000 Patrick had to know how it would happen. 56 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:43,000 For the next two years, using complex mathematical formulas, 57 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:47,000 he set out to decode the Mayan's hidden messages. 58 00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:53,000 I was immediately grasped by the fact that they had very high accuracy 59 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:59,000 and that they were able to calculate something very spectacular into the future. 60 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:02,000 And it took me several years to decode it, 61 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:06,000 but I found what will happen in 2012. 62 00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:10,000 What did Patrick find? 63 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:12,000 Is it an asteroid? 64 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:14,000 Nuclear war? 65 00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:17,000 How will the world end? 66 00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:21,000 Gerald leaves on December 12th, 2012. 67 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:25,000 A sleeping giant will awake here. 68 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:34,000 The super volcano will erupt and that will destroy completely our civilization. 69 00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:38,000 There are at least seven known super volcanoes on Earth. 70 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:44,000 They contain massive amounts of molten rock which is trapped inside them below the Earth's crust. 71 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:49,000 The pressure builds until finally it bursts, 72 00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:57,000 exploding in a catastrophic eruption thousands of times more powerful than a regular volcano. 73 00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:02,000 The last eruption occurred over 70,000 years ago. 74 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:06,000 Could one of these giants be a threat to us now? 75 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:10,000 Remarkably, the answer could be yes. 76 00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:14,000 And it's underneath Yellowstone National Park. 77 00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:18,000 Over two million tourists visit Yellowstone every year. 78 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:23,000 Little do they know that under the surface lies one of the deadliest forces on the planet. 79 00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:29,000 Incredibly, this sleeping super volcano may be coming to life. 80 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:35,000 In 2004, scientists detected the ground starting to bulge around Yellowstone. 81 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:40,000 Soon after, over 1,000 mini-Earthquakes occurred there in just a few months. 82 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:47,000 Some dismiss it, but others say it can only mean one thing. 83 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:53,000 The scientists that are saying that while the rumbling at Yellowstone Park is normal, well, 84 00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:56,000 they don't know what the Maya knew. 85 00:05:56,000 --> 00:05:59,000 The rotation from the Earth will change. 86 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:04,000 Once the inner core of the Earth starts moving on its head, 87 00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:11,000 then the lava that is around the inner core will be pushed also very sharply to the crust. 88 00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:17,000 We will have an eruption of the Yellowstone at the end of 2012. 89 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:21,000 Did Patrick Gerald unlock the Mayan secret? 90 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:25,000 Is the Yellowstone Supervolcano about to erupt? 91 00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:29,000 And could it mean the end of the world? 92 00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:33,000 Robert DeSino is an entrepreneur and survivalist. 93 00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:35,000 He's not waiting to find out. 94 00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:38,000 You thought Mount St. Helens was something to see. 95 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:41,000 Wait till you see Yellowstone go. 96 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:48,000 In 2003, Robert decided that there was only one way to survive the blast of a super volcano. 97 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:53,000 By building volcano-proof bunkers all over America. 98 00:06:53,000 --> 00:06:55,000 It's a race against time. 99 00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:59,000 To get our shelters built, you could say it isn't so. 100 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:02,000 And ignore the possibilities. 101 00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:05,000 But it's not going to make it go away. 102 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:11,000 Made of concrete and steel, these self-contained bunkers are buried underground. 103 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:17,000 They can house up to 1,000 people and store enough food for a year. 104 00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:20,000 But who is going to use them? 105 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:24,000 We have about 10,000 members currently signed up from all over the world. 106 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:27,000 When I first mentioned it to people, they thought it was crazy. 107 00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:33,000 I found that the reactions have changed in the last year and even more specifically this year, 2011. 108 00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:40,000 Now they're really wanting to know where is it and how big are they and how do we get in and how much does it cost? 109 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:43,000 Because I think people are starting to realize it's coming. 110 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:49,000 Could DeSino and his friends someday be the only surviving members of the human race? 111 00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:54,000 If Yellowstone blows, you're looking at a life extinction event. 112 00:07:54,000 --> 00:07:58,000 The only parties that are going to survive are those that are underground. 113 00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:01,000 It could happen today. It could happen tomorrow. 114 00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:04,000 I think the Mayans knew something. 115 00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:07,000 How they knew, I don't know. 116 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:12,000 Were they informed by some other culture? 117 00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:14,000 Did they know? Were they able to see into the future? 118 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:23,000 Were they able to calculate the patterns of the solar system in the heavens to know when the alignments are going to happen and when this happens, that'll happen? 119 00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:28,000 Did they exist in the last go around 3600 years ago? 120 00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:31,000 Or did somebody tell them? 121 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:35,000 Does this survivalist know something we don't? 122 00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:39,000 Whatever the truth is, he's taking no chances. 123 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:46,000 I don't know what inspired Noah, but I would imagine he was as passionate about what he was doing as I am. 124 00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:52,000 Are Robert DeSino and Patrick Gerald simply prophets of doom? 125 00:08:52,000 --> 00:08:55,000 Or could they be right? 126 00:08:55,000 --> 00:08:59,000 Will a supervolcano cause the end of the world? 127 00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:05,000 Crazy. 128 00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:14,000 If you listen to every doomsday prediction, prophecy or conspiracy theory, you'd never leave the house, right? 129 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:16,000 I mean, what is it with these people? 130 00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:22,000 Do they think that just because I say a giant volcano is going to rip through this planet and wipe us out, that we're going to believe it? 131 00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:26,000 I don't believe a word they say. I'm just being careful. 132 00:09:27,000 --> 00:09:35,000 A man decoding the texts of the ancient lions uncovers in the stung prophecy. 133 00:09:35,000 --> 00:09:39,000 Will a supervolcano with Yellowstone destroy our planet? 134 00:09:39,000 --> 00:09:48,000 Stanley Ambrose is an anthropologist. He thinks we have reason to believe it might. 135 00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:57,000 I suppose if you really wanted to stay around in a place that was struck by an apocalypse, that would be a good idea. I'd rather move. 136 00:09:57,000 --> 00:10:06,000 A lifetime spent studying supervolcanoes has convinced Ambrose. They are forced to be feared. 137 00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:16,000 If Yellowstone blows, it would eject a huge amount of dust and gases up to 50 kilometers into the stratosphere. 138 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:24,000 We have to fear global famine. We can imagine complete loss of crop production for decades to centuries. 139 00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:32,000 In 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted in Washington State, sending volcanic ash over 10 kilometers into the air. 140 00:10:34,000 --> 00:10:39,000 Ambrose thinks this massive eruption would be dwarfed by Yellowstone. 141 00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:49,000 Could humans survive this kind of catastrophic explosion? We may know the answer because it's already happened. 142 00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:56,000 The volcanic eruption of Toba stands among the most explosive and largest in Earth history. 143 00:10:57,000 --> 00:11:10,000 Around 70,000 years ago, a supervolcano exploded at Toba in Indonesia. It was so powerful, it left a crater 100 kilometers long, still visible today. 144 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:16,000 Volcanic ash rained down over an area larger than the size of the United States. That's big. 145 00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:26,000 The Earth was surrounded by this thick blanket of sulfuric acid haze. The sun weakened. Much solar energy was reflected back into outer space. 146 00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:43,000 The landscape around the world was basically de-vegetated. If you lived anywhere from Southeast Asia, across to India and Pakistan, the land would have been covered with a very, very fine white dust. 147 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:54,000 That's the volcanic ash. And it is really fine and it is really white. And like snow, it reflects sunlight off of the land surface. 148 00:11:54,000 --> 00:12:03,000 Unlike snow, it didn't melt. It had to be washed away by the rains whenever the rains occurred. And that doesn't seem to have been very often. 149 00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:09,000 It's a global shock to the world system, what I call an insta-dice age. 150 00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:21,000 Before the eruption at Toba, the Earth was home to a healthy population of humans. Ambrose believes we can judge our fate by looking at what happened to them. 151 00:12:21,000 --> 00:12:35,000 The volcanic eruption caused a population crash, unlike any that had been seen previously in human history. And during the next 10,000 years, there were very few archaeological traces of humans. 152 00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:44,000 Did a supervolcano take us to the brink of extinction? Could Yellowstone do the same now? 153 00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:51,000 Everything within the blast zone would be buried. There would probably be general infrastructure failure. 154 00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:58,000 Agricultural production would of course be hammered. The United States would lose its entire grain belt. 155 00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:07,000 And if the whole world got cold the way it did with Toba, then there would be few choices of where to go to get food. 156 00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:19,000 It's an alarming scenario. Should we heed the warning? Could Stanley Ambrose be right? Are billions of people in imminent danger of death by supervolcano? 157 00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:26,000 Jake Lowenstern is the chief scientist at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. 158 00:13:26,000 --> 00:13:30,000 It's my job to worry about whether Yellowstone's going to erupt. 159 00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:38,000 Jake studied the supervolcano's behavior. He believes it's not a monster, but a pussycat. 160 00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:43,000 People talk about the impending doom because they know there have been eruptions in Yellowstone's past. 161 00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:49,000 There have been very, very large eruptions at Yellowstone, the size eruptions that people will call super eruptions. 162 00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:54,000 One of the things that you'll hear about when people talk about Yellowstone is somehow that it's overdue. 163 00:13:54,000 --> 00:13:59,000 And they throw out this number of 600,000 years for an interval between these large eruptions. 164 00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:04,000 Well that number is pretty much taken out of nowhere. 165 00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:13,000 If you did the math on those three big eruptions at Yellowstone, the number for the interval would be about 730,000 years. 166 00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:21,000 Of course the last eruption was 640,000 years, so the number 600,000 is more appealing if you're trying to build the case that somehow it's overdue. 167 00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:30,000 But second of all, here you're doing statistics based on a sample population of two, the interval between the first and second, and the second and third, large eruptions at Yellowstone. 168 00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:38,000 Sample population of two, not very big, not really statistically meaningful to talk about how often big eruptions occur at Yellowstone. 169 00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:44,000 And finally, in terms of this, there's no guarantee that Yellowstone will have another one of these super eruptions. 170 00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:49,000 Volcanoes have life cycles. They are born, they live their lives, they die. 171 00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:55,000 There are very few places that we can point to around the world that have had more than three very large eruptions. 172 00:14:56,000 --> 00:15:03,000 Why is Jake so sure? He thinks there is something the prophets of doom have overlooked. 173 00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:18,000 Well, the way that Yellowstone has erupted most of the time is through these smaller lava flows, which are similar to those that happened in Hawaii, which as you can imagine would be locally very interesting, but not an international problem. 174 00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:27,000 In the last two million years, the Yellowstone Supervolcano has had three giant eruptions. 175 00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:32,000 Jake believes a crucial fact is preventing another one. 176 00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:40,000 Yellowstone erupts all the time, but on such a tiny scale, it produces nothing but harmless flows of lava. 177 00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:52,000 Lava flows can block roads, forest fires might start, but they sort of roll very slowly across the ground, and you can generally outrun them very easily so they're not very damaging events. 178 00:15:52,000 --> 00:16:00,000 Far from causing a disaster, Jake thinks these lava flows are keeping a lid on the sleeping giant. 179 00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:10,000 Any time that you're having a volcanic eruption, you're removing pressure on the magma chamber, it seems to be a relatively common place for Yellowstone to have this kind of activity. 180 00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:19,000 Are many eruptions at Yellowstone keeping us safe from the supervolcano? Do they explain its recent rumblings? 181 00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:30,000 Around 2009, 2010, we had a couple earthquake swarms. In a swarm, you have a number of medium sized earthquakes, and they have an all in one particular location. 182 00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:33,000 They were among the larger ones that we've had. 183 00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:36,000 But what caused the quakes? 184 00:16:36,000 --> 00:16:47,000 Scientists believe magma is flowing into the volcanic chamber, pushing up the crust. Is this a sign of an impending giant eruption? 185 00:16:47,000 --> 00:17:02,000 It rose about 25 centimeters or 10 inches, something like this, above Yellowstone, between 1925 and 1975. It rose about three times that amount, so that that uplift doesn't in particular seem very worrying to me. 186 00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:14,000 Were the ancient Mayans right? Will a supervolcano wipe out the human race and the greatest mass extinction since the Big Bang? 187 00:17:14,000 --> 00:17:24,000 Or is Yellowstone's sleeping giant nothing more than a harmless firecracker? Weird or what? 188 00:17:45,000 --> 00:17:50,000 Everywhere you look, our planet is turning with life. 189 00:17:50,000 --> 00:17:58,000 Whether a single-celled amoeba, a snail, or incredibly complex organisms and species like us. 190 00:17:58,000 --> 00:18:08,000 But all life forms, on Earth, have one thing in common. Our very existence depends upon, in fact, is at the mercy of just one thing. 191 00:18:09,000 --> 00:18:17,000 If it's in trouble, then there's trouble for all of us. 192 00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:22,000 They say you shouldn't stare directly into the sun. 193 00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:29,000 But for over three decades, NASA scientist David Hathaway has done exactly that. 194 00:18:29,000 --> 00:18:33,000 In 2005, you noticed something very strange. 195 00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:40,000 It was a little unexpected by many of us, myself included. 196 00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:48,000 Hathaway was tracking sunspots in giant regions of intense magnetic activity that occur on the surface of the sun. 197 00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:58,000 But the greatest danger to our planet is what explodes out of them. Solar flares. 198 00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:03,000 Solar flares can blast material off of the sun a million miles an hour. 199 00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:14,000 With a force of 10 billion atomic bombs, solar flares catapult billions of tons of red-hot plasma into space and sometimes directly at Earth. 200 00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:23,000 When it strikes the Earth, it can shape the Earth's magnetic field, does some spectacular things like produce aurora borealis, 201 00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:32,000 can also do things to our technology in particular. Solar flares and cosmic satellites that de-orbit and ultimately re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and burn-ups. 202 00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:34,000 You literally lose the satellite. 203 00:19:35,000 --> 00:19:43,000 Solar flares and sunspots occur in regular cycles, but in 2008, Hathaway discovered something remarkable. 204 00:19:44,000 --> 00:19:50,000 Suddenly, they appear to mysteriously stop. 205 00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:57,000 We're seeing the sunspot cycle the smallest we've seen in at least 100 years or perhaps 200 years. 206 00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:02,000 We didn't see sunspots for literally months at a time. That had us a little surprised. 207 00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:10,000 Some scientists believe the change in the sunspot cycles is the calm before an unprecedented solar star. 208 00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:16,000 A wave of solar flares so destructive, scientists call it space Katrina. 209 00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:27,000 But now, other ominous signs suggest the sun could be waking from its deep slumber. 210 00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:36,000 We've gone from those sunspots to 20 or 30 sunspots on the sun on a given day now. We've also seen the number of flares increase. 211 00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:41,000 Is there something wrong with a star that gives life to all things on Earth? 212 00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:49,000 Nassim Haramang is a scientist. He believes he has the answer. 213 00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:57,000 In 2009, he made a remarkable discovery when viewing images taken by a NASA satellite. 214 00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:05,000 What I notice is when I was looking at this, first of all, we see two objects appear. 215 00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:10,000 Those two objects seem to have moved together and have moved across the frame. 216 00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:24,000 What's strange about this particular sequence is that when you follow this object, they make almost a 90-degree angle turn and then entering the sun. 217 00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:30,000 NASA claimed the objects were simply comets or glitches. 218 00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:35,000 But when Nassim studied them more closely, he came to an amazing conclusion. 219 00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:41,000 And when I started to see these objects, I couldn't believe my eyes. They were immense. 220 00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:50,000 I mean, they only looked like little dots on the data, but a little dot beside the sun means that the object is almost the size of the Earth. 221 00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:56,000 Planet-size objects entering the sun. 222 00:21:57,000 --> 00:22:04,000 Had Nassim found something extraordinary that even NASA had missed? He thinks there's only one explanation. 223 00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:11,000 I believe these objects may be intergalactic ships from advanced civilization. 224 00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:25,000 They appear to be under intelligence control. They don't appear to act in a natural way that you would expect from cosmological objects like comets 225 00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:28,000 and meteorites and so on. 226 00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:38,000 It may sound completely outrageous, but imagine a civilization that's like thousands, if not millions of years ahead of us. 227 00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:43,000 Look at what we did in 150 years of advanced technology. 228 00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:54,000 We went from literally horse and buggy to having rockets that are going to the moon and space shuttle and space stations and all this in 150 years. 229 00:22:54,000 --> 00:23:01,000 Imagine if we had a thousand years of advancements in technology or a million years in advancements. 230 00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:06,000 What would our ships look like? Well, they might be the size of planets. 231 00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:15,000 Could this explain the sun's odd behavior? Are changes in its sunspot and solar flare activity being caused by alien ships? 232 00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:23,000 The solar flare appears to emanate right after the objects impact the sun. 233 00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:36,000 To me, clear that the two are absolutely related in the sun flare is most likely the shockwave resulting from the penetration of the objects through the surface of the sun. 234 00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:43,000 Is our sun part of an intergalactic highway being used by alien traffic? 235 00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:49,000 Are they responsible for disrupting its natural cycles and threatening the Earth? 236 00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:57,000 Now, we did some pretty strange things on the Enterprise, but this is weird or what. Let me see if I got this straight. 237 00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:08,000 NASA scientists say our sun's sunspot cycles are behaving weirdly and this could cause a giant killer solar flare to head towards Earth, right? 238 00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:18,000 While another guy, Nassim, thinks that there's something else causing these solar flares. He thinks aliens. 239 00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:28,000 In space ships the size of the Earth are crashing in and out of the sun, wreaking havoc. 240 00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:34,000 Nassim's theory seems crazy, right? Or is it? 241 00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:43,000 Our sun is acting like an oddball. Are its natural cycles being disrupted by giant UFOs? 242 00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:49,000 Is a fatal solar storm on its way to Earth? 243 00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:59,000 NASA researcher David Hathaway has an explanation that's far more down to Earth. He thinks we have nothing to worry about. 244 00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:07,000 This recent sunspot cycle has started later than expected and I think I understand it. 245 00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:12,000 The sunspot cycle is caused by magnetic fields. It's those magnetic fields that make the sunspots. 246 00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:21,000 And we've known for decades that it's the flows within the sun that take those magnetic fields, amplify them and produce sunspots every 11 years. 247 00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:28,000 But the devil is in the details. Exactly what flows are there inside the sun that do this? What are the structure of those flows? 248 00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:33,000 We're getting a better handle on that but we're still not quite there yet. 249 00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:40,000 We still really haven't got a model for how the sun does this where we can take the equations and march them forward in time. 250 00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:47,000 The way meteorologists might do with the equations for flows in the Earth's atmosphere. 251 00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:53,000 The sun's magnetic fields violently swirl around the surface like powerful ocean currents. 252 00:25:54,000 --> 00:26:00,000 They produce sunspots and solar flares until finally something bizarre happens. 253 00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:03,000 The sun's magnetic field flips. 254 00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:08,000 Every 11 years the sun's magnetic poles do a back flip. 255 00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:17,000 Scientists believe this causes a dramatic decrease in sunspot and solar flare activity. But does it threaten us now? 256 00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:23,000 We had weak magnetic fields produced on the surface of the sun during the last sunspot cycle. 257 00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:28,000 But because they were weak we'll survive this without any major inconvenience. 258 00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:33,000 The end of the worlders almost certainly have it wrong. The timing's just way off. 259 00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:39,000 We may say for the moment, but could Omega's solar storm hit us in the future? 260 00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:43,000 And what would happen if it did? 261 00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:48,000 Lawrence Joseph is a science journalist. 262 00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:55,000 If a solar storm hit today would knock us out, would knock civilization to its knees without any exaggeration. 263 00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:57,000 How? 264 00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:01,000 A historical event could provide the answer. 265 00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:12,000 On September 1st, 1859 British astronomer Richard Carrington was looking through his telescope when a giant solar flare 266 00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:15,000 exploded onto the earth. 267 00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:25,000 It caused the Northern Lights to dance down to the equator. You could read a book at midnight outside because of the incredible radiation. 268 00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:34,000 The Carrington event caused some fires in telegraph offices and caused some disruption. Basically it didn't inflict great damage. 269 00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:38,000 Why didn't this massive flare destroy us? 270 00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:45,000 There was no power grid holding society together. There was no telecom. None of the things that we've come to rely upon existed back then. 271 00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:54,000 Joseph believes that if a similar solar flare hit us today, our massive reliance on electricity would be our downfall. 272 00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:05,000 We're talking a blackout that could last months or years. We could cover half to two-thirds of the continent. 273 00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:12,000 After a month, I can't really see anything but anarchy at the beginning of it. 274 00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:19,000 It's in the paradox of progress, I call it. We have become more vulnerable to these storms and the storms are headed our way. 275 00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:22,000 The shields are down, Scotty. 276 00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:32,000 In 1989, a small solar flare knocked out the Quebec power grid and left six million people without power in the dead of winter. 277 00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:43,000 Joseph believes a giant flare would destroy every power grid on the planet. No electricity means no food. 278 00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:50,000 I'm damn concerned. People would really begin to die off in large numbers. So what are you going to do? We don't know. 279 00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:55,000 I mean, people would go ahead for the hills. What are you going to do to the hills? I don't know what to do in the hills. Most people don't. 280 00:28:56,000 --> 00:29:02,000 Have our advances in technology made us vulnerable to a super solar storm? 281 00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:13,000 Is the sun's mysterious behavior natural or are aliens to blame? Weird or what? 282 00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:35,000 A world-renowned inventor makes an astonishing prediction. 283 00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:39,000 Twenty years from now, computers will be operating fully at human levels. 284 00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:46,000 Are we facing an uprising of killer machines? Could the Terminator be real? 285 00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:56,000 It's incredible, isn't it? If we were to believe the ancient prophecies or our modern-day doomsday theorists or even some of our best scientists, 286 00:29:57,000 --> 00:30:07,000 then not only is the end of the world going to happen, but there's lots of ways that nature destroys. And none of them are nice. 287 00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:20,000 But what if they're all wrong? What if the thing that will wipe us out has nothing to do with volcanoes or solar storms? 288 00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:32,000 What if there's something, aside from nuclear weapons, of course, that we've created that's an even bigger threat? 289 00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:39,000 Weird or what? 290 00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:50,000 In 1984, Hollywood gave the world a futuristic science-fiction blockbuster. The story of a cyborg assassin sent back in time from 2029. 291 00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:57,000 The Terminator posed a remarkable question. Could robots take over and destroy us? 292 00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:02,000 Nearly three decades later, we may have the answer. 293 00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:13,000 Ray Kurzweil is a world-renowned inventor and futurist. He believes science-fiction will become reality sooner than we think. 294 00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:19,000 It's in the last 15 years we've seen millions-fold improvement in the power of computers. 295 00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:23,000 And this is not just an idle speculation about the future, that's what we've seen. 296 00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:27,000 Twenty years from now, computers will be operating fully at human levels. 297 00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:37,000 It's an extraordinary theory based on an extraordinary fact. Today's computers are 100 billion times more powerful than they were a century ago. 298 00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:44,000 And their power is growing. Kurzweil believes they are rapidly catching us. 299 00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:50,000 Computers already exceed humans at logical thinking like playing games. 300 00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:55,000 There are robotic cars without artificial intelligence that are driving without human drivers. 301 00:31:56,000 --> 00:32:00,000 Computers today can look at an electric cardiogram and diagnose it with the accuracy of doctors. 302 00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:05,000 And that's something that wasn't feasible even a couple of years ago. So things are moving more and more quickly. 303 00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:09,000 Are we experiencing the rise of the machines? 304 00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:15,000 Are our PCs more than simply harmless pieces of plastic and metal? 305 00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:21,000 We'll continue to grow exponentially in the basic hardware power more than doubling in power every year. 306 00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:27,000 We'll get to human levels of intelligence and machine by my estimates around 2029. 307 00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:29,000 Wait a minute, what did you say? 308 00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:30,000 There's no answer to the relevant mistakes. 309 00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:35,000 We'll get to human levels of intelligence and machine by my estimates around 2029. 310 00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:41,000 2029 is the year from which the terminator made its return. 311 00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:47,000 Will machines equal then surpass our brain power in just 20 years? 312 00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:51,000 Incredibly, Kurzweil believes it won't end there. 313 00:32:52,000 --> 00:33:01,000 By my calculations when we get to around 2045, we will have multiplied the intelligence of our human machine civilization a billion fold 314 00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:05,000 by merging with this intelligent technology we're creating. 315 00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:12,000 That will be such a profound singular transformation when we can actually vastly multiply our own intelligence. 316 00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:20,000 Will man and machine merge before the middle of the century? 317 00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:23,000 And if so, what does it mean for us? 318 00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:27,000 It's not an invasion, you know, from another planet. 319 00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:29,000 People say, oh, we'll lose our humanity. 320 00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:32,000 In my mind, that is our humanity. 321 00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:33,000 That's part of who we are. 322 00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:37,000 Our computers, our technology is part of the human civilization. 323 00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:41,000 So we will transcend our biology, not our humanity. 324 00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:45,000 I believe we will embody our human values in these machines. 325 00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:48,000 They're part of human civilization already. 326 00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:52,000 I don't like the term transhumanism because it implies they're going to transcend our humanity. 327 00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:58,000 I think the goal anyway is to keep our humanity and transcend the limitations of our biology. 328 00:33:58,000 --> 00:33:59,000 And that's not a new story. 329 00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:05,000 If we hadn't done that, human life expectancy would still be 23, which is what it was 1,000 years ago. 330 00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:13,000 Could our world end not by natural disaster, but with humankind simply becoming obsolete? 331 00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:19,000 John Leslie is a professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph in Canada. 332 00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:27,000 It could be in the next 20, 30 years we have computers which are more intelligent than humans 333 00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:31,000 and which take over control of our lives. 334 00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:35,000 And there's an obvious possibility that things could go badly wrong. 335 00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:38,000 John believes that far from advancing humanity, 336 00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:41,000 creating uber-intelligent robots and computers could backfire on all of us. 337 00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:48,000 Are the machines we've created going to turn on us and take over our planet? 338 00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:51,000 Is Hollywood right? 339 00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:57,000 You have to remember that the science fiction of today quite often turns out to be the science fact of tomorrow. 340 00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:01,000 Down there, sir, it's very clear that we're going to be the scientists. 341 00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:06,000 According to John, it's not only terminators that pose a very real threat to our survival. 342 00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:13,000 In fact, one of the dangers here is that it may be that computers are in charge of the system which controls new clip-ons. 343 00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:19,000 We simply don't know to what extent they are in charge of the destructive forces. 344 00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:24,000 The fact that computers are in charge of the systems which control new clip-ons, 345 00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:30,000 we simply don't know to what extent they are in charge of the destructive forces. 346 00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:35,000 Could a machine deliberately trigger a nuclear holocaust? 347 00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:41,000 It's a terrifying scenario, but Leslie has an even more frightening theory. 348 00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:47,000 The ultimate threat to the human race is already in our homes. 349 00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:54,000 You could argue that the Internet is at present a gigantic computer 350 00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:59,000 and that its intelligence so far exceeds the intelligence of any individual human. 351 00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:07,000 Certainly, the amount of knowledge you can get very, very rapidly on the Internet is much bigger than you could get by consulting the greatest memory experts. 352 00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:18,000 I believe that the future of the Internet is pretty certainly going to push it in the direction of more and more intelligence. 353 00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:21,000 Every day, over two billion people log on to the Internet. 354 00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:28,000 It connects most of the world's computers and databases, moving information around the planet. 355 00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:38,000 John believes the Internet could evolve into a central brain that leads a cybernetic revolt against mankind. 356 00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:45,000 It could become immensely intelligent and become therefore what takes over world governments 357 00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:50,000 and possibly then decides that humans are relevant and gets rid of them. 358 00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:55,000 That's just one way in which we could be annihilated almost immediately. 359 00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:59,000 Will robots blow us up with our own nuclear weapons? 360 00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:02,000 Is the Internet going to destroy us? 361 00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:07,000 Will man be enslaved by machines? 362 00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:14,000 You know, I never thought machines were that smart. 363 00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:20,000 I mean, most of the cats that I have are incapable of doing anything useful at all, let alone the sighting Shakespeare. 364 00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:28,000 But if we believe what some of the world's greatest minds are telling us, these things we've created are going to take us over, 365 00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:36,000 blow us up with our own weapons and enslave us for the rest of time, could that be possible? 366 00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:40,000 Not today, my friends. 367 00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:47,000 Leading scientists believe machines are becoming so intelligent that they will overtake humans by 2050. 368 00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:52,000 Will they become terminators and annihilate us? 369 00:37:56,000 --> 00:38:01,000 Noel Sharkey is a professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield, England. 370 00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:07,000 We're really a long way off at the moment of creating the kind of technology you see in the likes of the Terminator, 371 00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:12,000 with big humanoid robots armed with machine guns plodding across the battlefield. 372 00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:19,000 Some of the world's greatest minds disagree, but Sharkey believes they haven't asked one simple question. 373 00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:21,000 Why? 374 00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:30,000 As a scientist, I need evidence and there's no evidence of any kind of really smart intelligence or any kind of desire or robots would have a desire to take over the world 375 00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:33,000 any more than a washing machine would want to take over the world. 376 00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:40,000 Not only does Sharkey think that machines aren't a threat, but they're not nearly as smart as we make them out to be. 377 00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:47,000 A lot of people talk about artificial intelligence at the moment being at the level of the rat or the slug, 378 00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:50,000 and it's going to get so much smarter and be like the human later. 379 00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:58,000 But for me, I've studied animals all my life, really, and I would say that current robots weren't at the intelligence of a bacteria, 380 00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:01,000 because bacteria can feed themselves and they know how to survive. 381 00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:03,000 Robots don't. They're dependent on me. 382 00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:07,000 And essentially, they're not bright enough to be called stupid. 383 00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:20,000 But even if robots and computers are nothing more than digital dummies, couldn't someone use them for evil rather than good? 384 00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:25,000 Well, the problem is that robots are very limited in what they can do. 385 00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:29,000 You just program a robot, but it's all up to what the programmer puts in there. 386 00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:33,000 There's no reason why the robot themselves would do anything that we haven't told them to do, 387 00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:38,000 and I certainly wouldn't be programming a robot to tell it to take over the world, and I don't think anybody else would. 388 00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:44,000 Instead of creatures with a super intelligence that surpasses humans, 389 00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:53,000 Sharky thinks machines are our moronic slaves that lack the one essential ingredient for a robot-led Armageddon. 390 00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:55,000 Human emotion. 391 00:39:56,000 --> 00:40:01,000 We have consciousness, and we use that in our everyday lives, in our thought, in our desires, 392 00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:06,000 whereas robots have a really rigid, silicon intelligence. No desires, no wants. 393 00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:14,000 But if robots have neither the brains nor the drive for world domination, why do so many others believe it will happen? 394 00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:20,000 The whole idea of a robot takeover is quite odd, and it's really the subject of science fiction. 395 00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:29,000 Right back since the word was invented in 1921, all science fiction movies have been about robots killing humans and taking over the world. 396 00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:37,000 But it is, as it says, fiction. One of my big concerns at the minute is that there are 43 countries worldwide that are developing military robots. 397 00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:44,000 And one of the problems is the military seem to have this idea, science fiction idea of robots, that they could be that kind, have that kind of intelligence, 398 00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:50,000 but in actual fact they can't tell the difference between a soldier and a civilian, and so a lot of people will die. 399 00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:55,000 But it won't be through the intentions of robots, it'll be through the misuse by humans of a dangerous weapon. 400 00:40:56,000 --> 00:41:05,000 Are robots just mindless heaps of metal? Or will man and machine merge and destroy the human race? 401 00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:11,000 What does have to wait and find out? Weird or what? 402 00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:40,000 So here we have it. Doomsday stories from the Earth and beyond. 403 00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:45,000 In Wyoming, a deadly supervolcano lies dormant. 404 00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:51,000 It was explored in 2012 and fulfilled a Mayan prophecy. 405 00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:56,000 In Alabama, a NASA scientist discovers the unthinkable. 406 00:41:57,000 --> 00:42:02,000 A giant solar storm could be on its way to destroy the Earth. 407 00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:07,000 And one of the world's greatest minds makes a startling prediction. 408 00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:12,000 Man and machine will merge by 2050. 409 00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:17,000 Will robots take over? Are we facing a Terminator Armageddon? 410 00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:22,000 Are these stories evidence that the end of the world is nigh? 411 00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:27,000 Can we dismiss those who claim these things are true? 412 00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:30,000 You decide.