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Season 220 of 20 Episodes
- In the razor's-edge theater of global brinkmanship, the world has come closer to annihilation than most ever knew. A NATO war game once spooked the Soviets toward a potential nuclear strike, while a daring Cold War project produced a drone-bomber hybrid capable of carrying 16 nuclear weapons. From experimental war machines to the Presidential "Doomsday Plane" built to command America through apocalypse, these are the plans that reveal how near we've stood to the unthinkable.
- A French Resistance operative hides explosives in baguettes to cripple a Nazi factory, an American soldier parachutes behind enemy lines to destroy critical supply routes, and Ukrainian forces deploy AI-guided drones to strike a Russian bomber fleet; across generations, David Duchovny takes people behind these covert operations propelled by the courage and calculation meant to alter the course of history.
- Desperation breeds invention, and not all of it conventional; from a British scheme to launch airborne balloons against Nazi Germany, to American bats fitted with incendiary devices, to a covert effort to manipulate monsoon rains in Vietnam, newly unearthed documents reveal how far nations were willing to bend reality to their will; in the risky calculus of war, nothing is too strange to try.
- When secrecy can be the key to survival, codebreaking becomes a battlefield of its own; a stranded American pilot in Vietnam is rescued through a code built around familiar golf courses, while Navajo Code Talkers transmit messages that help turn the tide in the Pacific during World War II; David Duchovny breaks down every breakthrough where a strategist turned language into leverage.
- Behind official policy often stand unofficial actors; discover the operations of Red Cell, the covert Navy SEAL team that staged attacks on U.S. bases to expose deadly weaknesses; "The Shop", the CIA's clandestine cadre of expert thieves and lock pickers who stole secrets worldwide; and the Alamo Scouts, the elite World War II special forces whose exploits remained a hidden chapter of history for decades; these units thrived where denial was policy, kept in the dark.
- When science meets national security, the results can be staggering: the secretive flights of Project Argus sent nuclear warheads into space to test whether radiation could cripple Soviet weapons, while Operation LAC covertly released chemical agents over American communities to simulate biological warfare; inside Stalin's secretive laboratory, even human waste became intelligence, analyzed to decipher the minds of adversaries, proof that no angle was too extraordinary to explore.
- Some of history's boldest missions succeeded because the world was looking the wrong way; the CIA concealed covert missions behind Air America's civilian façade, British intelligence planted a falsified invasion plan on a corpse to mislead Hitler, and "Agent Sonya" blended into English suburbia while funneling atomic secrets to Moscow; David Duchovny takes us into the long-spun elaborate tales governments have employed to blanket their boldest missions, showing us how the illusion works.
- To outmaneuver the enemy, you have to sell the illusion; an FBI agent goes so deep undercover he's the best man at a Mafia wedding, while the Stasi deploys a covert network of charmers across borders to win trust and steal secrets; in Egypt, a German-born Jewish spy poses as a high-flying, champagne-soaked ex-Nazi to infiltrate its missile program for Israel.
- Some missions are so risky, they're denied before they even begin. From a covert Mossad operation to abduct a Nazi war criminal in Argentina-identified through the smallest detail, the shape of his ears-to a chilling CIA plot that used a jazz tour as cover for an assassination attempt in the Congo; to one resistance fighter volunteering to be captured and sent to Auschwitz to reveal the horrors within-these operations are proof that the most dangerous missions are often the most unthinkable.
- Sometimes when governments can't negotiate their way to victory, they steal it; when the KGB sets its sights on a NATO missile, they enlist a smooth-talking German playboy armed with only a wheelbarrow, a carpet and a postage stamp; an Israeli covert operation hijacks 200 tons of uranium on the high seas to fuel a secret nuclear arsenal, while during WWII, the Allies deploy a female agent to steal top-secret naval codes, solely with seductive charm.
- When conventional tactics fail, governments have been known to test the boundaries of reality; in the darkest days of World War II, Britain turns to an astrologer who claims he can alter the course of war using the power of the stars; in the jungles of Vietnam, U.S. forces turn to dowsing rods and ancient mystical practices to locate enemies hidden underground.
- Some deals are made to announce headlines, while others are steered in the shadows; when the CIA wants to take out the Iraqi Prime Minister, they turn to a 20-year-old law student named Saddam Hussein, while in Guatemala, a banana company colludes with the CIA to topple the country's leader to protect its profits; decades later in Ukraine, a top-secret unit of CIA operatives thwarts Russia's invasion plans, before the world even knows the battle has begun.
- A broadcast details secret military architecture and defense installations; the account examines a 112,000-square-foot government bunker built beneath a five-star hotel, a fake wartime town constructed to conceal a factory and a secluded CIA training facility in West Virginia; the documentation highlights the historical methods utilized by intelligence and defense agencies to ensure government continuity and operational security.
- A broadcast details historical espionage technology and covert surveillance operations; the account examines military tracking sensors used in Vietnam, a nuclear-powered surveillance device placed in the Himalayas and a Soviet listening device concealed within a gift presented to a U.S. ambassador; the documentation highlights how intelligence agencies use disguised tools to gather information during international conflicts.
- Before they become instruments of war, they sound like impossible ideas; an American medical student develops a closed-circuit rebreather that allows Allied frogmen to slip beneath enemy harbors without a single bubble, while U.S. Army engineers create a jeep-mounted nuclear launcher known as the "atomic watermelon"; across the Atlantic, an inventor pitches an aircraft carrier to hunt U-boats, carved from wood pulp and ice; because in war, today's absurdity can become tomorrow's secret weapon.
- Some targets are taken by force, others require a game of cat and mouse played out across continents and years of relentless chase; when the DEA fails to corner an international arms dealer, they turn not to a spy, but to a retired bush pilot to lure him out; the CIA hunts an insider from within its own headquarters, and across Europe, the world's most wanted warlord hides in plain sight as a reinvented mystic healer; while the prey changes, the pursuit never does.
- Some disguises hide an individual, others conceal an entire operation; a CIA vaccination campaign masks a global manhunt for the world's most wanted terrorist, while a luxury Red Sea resort operated by Mossad becomes the unlikely front for a mission to smuggle thousands of Sudanese Jews to safety; in wartime Philippines, an American singer uses charm, talent, and deception to outwit occupying forces and help rescue hundreds of POWs.
Record to Watch Later
7 episodes will be broadcast over the next two weeks
More about Secrets Declassified With David Duchovny
David Duchovny investigates some of the most secretive, disturbing or strangest government activities that have been declassified through history.
Starring
David Duchovny, Hakeem Oluseyi, Martin Morgan, Don Wildman, Nehemiah Mabry
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