10: Abandoned Toxic Base In Greenland, there is an abandoned World War 2
facility that not only serves as a grim reminder of the war, but is also leaking toxic waste.
Located on the remote island of Ikateq, it was first established back in 1941
as part of an agreement between the United States and Denmark. They called the base Bluie
East Two and the original agreement made the US exempt from responsibility in the cleanup.
But after the war, the Americans simply abandoned the place in 1947 and never looked back. All these
years later, the base is a ruin filled with countless barrels of leaded aviation fluid
dotting the landscape. There are buildings filled with asbestos, broken down trucks everywhere,
hundreds of cases of unused dynamite, and a lot of this stuff is actually leaking toxic waste.
According to National Geographic, even more disturbing is that Bluie East Two is only one
of over 30 bases that the United States military built in Greenland throughout both World War
Two and the Cold War. All of them are in similar situations, abandoned and left to simply spill
their toxic waste all over the ground. And for the people of Greenland, it’s not great. They didn't
even have a say in the matter, since Denmark technically owned the island until they gave
the people autonomy in 1979. Since most people in Greenland hunt or fish, knowing that there are
30 bases leaking pollutants into the ocean and into the land is a bitter reminder of the past.
More recently, a petition to clean up the mess reached the Danish Parliament, who promised to
pay around $25 million to clean up some of the old US military bases. Greenland has also requested
help from the US to clean up Camp Century, a former secret base in the ice that also contains
toxic waste that could be released at any moment. Only time will tell if the cleanup efforts are
enough to finish the job. 9: A Lost Attack Plane
A Soviet ground attack plane was recently discovered in Poland. It's a Petlyakov Pe-2,
a terrifically rare find. Local villagers came across the wreckage of the plane completely by
accident, with the original 2 crew members sadly still sitting inside the cockpit and
wearing their uniforms. They had all their personal items still on them,
though the crew members themselves weren’t much more than bones by the time they were rescued.
The two men have since been removed from the wreckage and sent to Russia to be buried.
The Polish villagers got stuck with the duty of dragging the wreckage out of the mucky swamp
where it was found. They even disassembled some of the larger, more intact pieces and sent them
to a nearby museum to be put on display. As for how the plane crashed here,
it was part of a defensive line during what is called the Wehrmacht retreat in January of 1945.
The pilots were participating in an offensive by the Soviets as they stormed across the Polish
landscape and chased the Germans completely out of Poland. It was the final push before the ultimate
capture of Berlin. This airplane was one of the victims of the chase. It apparently crashed and
was completely forgotten about for 75 years. And to be honest, it’s not the only piece of wreckage
still hidden in this part of Poland from WWII. 8: Roman Tower Fortress
A team of archaeologists working in the United Kingdom recently stumbled upon an ancient Roman
fortress that had been converted by the Nazis into a war bunker back during World War Two.
It happened when Germany was occupying the Channel Islands between France and England.
The fortress is known locally as the Alderney Nunnery. Archaeologists have found remains here
that go all the way back to the medieval period, though the fortress was also used in the Tudor era
and even by Napoleon. This place was popular! In total, it has been occupied for at least
2000 years. And interestingly enough, it was also the site of the only two concentration
camps to ever be constructed in British territory. Doctor Jason Monaghan, one of the archaeologists
involved with the dig, told local news that the fortress is an extremely complex site.
The original walls were damaged in the Middle Ages, a new part of the structure was built
in the 18th century, but in 1793 the British Army demolished the interior of the fortress.
In 1906, it was converted into a space to be used by military families. But it was the
Nazis who used it last, fortifying the structure with their very own bunkers and adding concrete
to the ancient walls to make them resistant to artillery. They eventually abandoned the fort at
the end of the war, relinquishing the only British property they had managed to conquer throughout
all the fighting. 7: The Nazi Eagle
A giant eagle, over 800 pounds and gripping a swastika in its talons,
was recently discovered by Uruguay. However, just weeks after finding the incredible World War Two
artifact, they were ordered to sell the giant bronze Nazi eagle and get it out of the country.
The eagle was originally mounted to the stern of a German battleship called the Admiral Graf Spee.
The ship sank off the coast of South America at the very beginning of World War Two.
It was discovered again back in 2006 by the private divers hired by the government of Uruguay.
They didn't manage to get the entire battleship out of the water,
but the eagle was quite a dramatic find. It was displayed briefly in Montevideo,
but they were forced to put it in storage when Germany started protesting against the exhibition
of Nazi paraphernalia. The Third Reich symbol has been the object of controversy for years
and the German government does not allow for things of this nature to be displayed
to the public or sold unless it was placed in proper historical context such as in a museum.
So to prevent an international conflict, the court of Uruguay ruled that the eagle must be
sold off within 90 days and the proceeds given to the salvage company who discovered the wreck.
The Admiral Graf Spee managed to sink several merchant ships belonging to the Allies in the
South Atlantic before a pair of British cruisers tracked it down, intercepted the vessel,
and destroyed it on December 13, 1939. The captain was brought to the harbor in Montevideo, where he
was forced to order the ship scuttled. The ship was sunk, then not seen again until just recently.
The captain of the ship actually ended up dying a few days after his capture in a
hotel in Buenos Aires. 6: A Lost Mortar
In a small British village, army technical officers were called in to carry out a controlled
explosion. Citizens in the sleepy village of Co Down in Rostrevor couldn't believe it when their
tranquil existence was disrupted for a handful of hours. And all because one of their neighbors
discovered a leftover mortar from World War Two! The rusty device, still active and highly
dangerous, stuffed with two pounds of high explosives, was found by a farmer named JohnRoss
MacMathuna. He had been using his metal detector in an old field when he came across the explosive,
which was probably leftover by the American army stationed here during the war.
Before D-Day, the American soldiers had set up a training range here and had placed all
kinds of bombs. It's no surprise that they accidentally left one behind.
Luckily, the farmer knew exactly what to do. He made a few calls, the technical officers arrived,
and before 10:00 o'clock in the morning, the bomb had been destroyed.
Citizens woke up to quite the bang, and the grim reminder that their countryside is still
riddled with unexploded ordnance that could go off at any minute. Metal detectorists beware!
5: Mystery of Flight 19 75 years after the disappearance of Flight 19,
the terrible tragedy still remains a mystery. It's actually no closer to being solved today
than it was back in 1945. The incident took place on December 5th, less than four months after World
War Two ended. Five Navy Avenger torpedo bombers left the Naval Air Station in Fort Lauderdale,
Florida, scheduled to perform military exercises between Florida and Puerto Rico,
in an area you might know as the Bermuda Triangle. Just after the exercises started, the weather
turned bad. Radio contact was lost and the planes just kind of fell off the radar.
The Navy scrambled a search and rescue team, but the aircrafts were never found. All 14 airmen
involved in the exercises were lost, and to make matters even more terrifying, so were all 13 of
the crew members who went out looking for them as part of the rescue effort. In total, 27 souls
were lost and never found. Even today, nobody has any clue where they went or what happened to them.
There are a lot of theories surrounding the disappearance of flight 19.
Some say it was aliens, while some say it was some other paranormal phenomenon.
The disappearance was actually one of the first things that gave the Bermuda
Triangle its reputation as a black hole that swallows aircrafts and sea vessels alike.
What do you think happened to Flight 19? Let me know your theories in the comments and don't
forget to subscribe for more videos like these!! 4: Amphibious Tank
A giant amphibious tank was recently pulled out of the dirt after being found buried 30 feet deep in
an English field. Excavators in England couldn't believe their luck when they uncovered the tank
74 years after it originally went missing. The story of the tank goes back to 1947,
when over a dozen Buffalo LVT machines were taken to Lincolnshire, where they were to help the
British Army with building their flood defenses. However, the flooding proved a bit too much
for the amphibious tanks and five of them were swept away. This particular one was never found.
The discovery of the amphibious tank wasn't a total accident. It was a group of local
military enthusiasts who set out to find it. It took them five days of digging, but they did
finally strike gold. The craft itself is about 26 feet long, designed to transport
supplies and troops across large bodies of water throughout Europe and in the Pacific region.
This type of vehicle saw loads of action in all the greatest battles of World War Two, including
during the fighting on D-Day and at the Battle of Iwo Jima. Before this Buffalo LVT was swept away
by the floods, it was used to transport soldiers across Germany’s Rhine River in March of 1945.
3: A Soldier’s Body The body of a German soldier was recently
found buried in the Netherlands by someone looking for treasure using a metal detector.
This guy had not expected to find a corpse when he went wandering out that morning.
After his metal detector started beeping, he was thrilled to find a few pieces of ammunition,
then even more excited when he uncovered dog tags- but they were still attached to the remains of a
fallen soldier. He was a little less excited when he realized he was standing on an unmarked grave.
An investigation ended up being carried out by officials in the Netherlands. They determined
that the body was that of a German man who died during Operation Market Garden in 1944.
The operation was carried out by the Allies, with the imperative of freeing the Netherlands from
thel occupying Germans. Thousands of paratroopers jumped out of the sky, captured key bridges, and
liberated the most important areas. It was a total success, and a lot of Germans were killed in the
fighting. This particular fellow must have been gunned down by the Allies while in his foxhole.
Then somebody simply filled the foxhole in with dirt, burying the soldier and all his military
equipment for the next 75 years. 2: Nazi Artifacts
A trove of Nazi artifacts has been discovered stashed inside the wall of a house in Germany.
The shocking discovery was made by a history teacher while cleaning out his aunt’s house
in the city of Hagen. The house had been ravaged by a series of brutal floods, which
had incidentally cracked open the wall where the artifacts were hiding. According to what Sebastian
Yurtseven told local news, he got goosebumps when he saw the artifacts hidden there in the wall.
They were stuffed into a small space and he could tell right away that they were old. Thanks to a
newspaper dated 1945, he knew exactly how old. Other than the newspaper, Sebastian found a
portrait of Adolf Hitler, an old revolver, a pair of gas masks, brass knuckles, badges from the Nazi
party, as well as some letters and documents. The stash was filled with objects that once belonged
to a Nazi. When Sebastian decided to do a bit of research, he learned that the building was
once the headquarters for the National Socialist People's Welfare Organization, also known as the
NSV. But when his aunt purchased property in the 1960s, she had no idea about its grim past.
Members of the organization probably hid their most important documents and their favorite pieces
of Nazi memorabilia in the wall back in April of 1945 when Allied troops stormed the city.
1: Bomb at a Picnic David and Karen Hibbert
were mortified when they found an unexploded bomb at their family picnic. They were at
Thoresby Park in Nottinghamshire with their two children Bethany and Jessica, when David came
across something interesting next to the river. At first, he thought it was a rusty old artifact. So,
he picked it up and brought it back to his wife, showing off his cool find. However, his wife
actually dismissed him, saying it was nothing but a piece of garbage. David was disheartened. He
tossed the piece of junk on the ground and kicked at it. He told his wife it sounded like metal.
Well, David and Karen were both embarrassed when they did some quick Internet research and figured
out it really was a bomb. In fact, the park authorities had already warned the public not
to touch any mysterious objects that they came across. It's because the area was used as an
army base during World War Two. Even though most of the bombs had been cleared already,
some were still suspected to be buried beneath the dirt. Clearly, David had stumbled on to one.
Quite frankly, he was lucky he didn't blow up his entire family by kicking at the unexploded bomb.
If the thing had gone off, it would have blown him, his wife, and their
two children to smithereens. Once the couple realized they were dealing with a real bomb,
they moved quickly away from the object, called the authorities, and had them come deal with it.
What would you do if you found a bomb on a picnic? Let me know in the comments and thank
you for watching. If you haven’t yet, hit the subscribe button for all the best discoveries!