corn snake hatchling

It was one of the strangest battles of WW2 in which a most unlikely team of soldiers came together in one of the most heroic stories of the war.
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Early in the afternoon on May 3, 1945, a Yugoslavian prisoner named Zvonimir Čučković left the gates of Austria’s Itter Castle, the looming fortress on a hill where he was being held by SS guards and bicycled into the thick forests beyond. He was supposed to be running an errand for the prison’s commander, Sebastian Wimmer - a not infrequent occurrence, as Čučković had earned the commander’s trust as a maintenance man and electrician who had helped convert the castle into a German prison.

But Čučković had an ulterior motive that afternoon. He was carrying a contraband note written by English-speaking prisoners inside. He had agreed to take the note out of prison and present it to the first group of American soldiers he encountered. And so, instead of running the errand and returning to the castle as he usually did, he continued riding.

Čučković considered making the short ride west to Wörgl, a small city close to the German/Austrian border. But the town was still densely occupied by German troops, and so instead he made the much longer trip to Innsbruck, riding over 40 miles along the Inn River valley. He reached the city that evening, where he succeeded in tracking down a group of Americans - the 409th Infantry Regiment of the American 103rd Infantry Division - and passed on his note. The unit did not have the authorization to move forward with a rescue attempt themselves, but they promised Čučković a definitive answer from their headquarters by the next morning.

What followed is one of the more extraordinary and unlikely stories of World War II; the story of an American Army commander working together with his enemy - an SS captain and a Wehrmacht major - to lead a mixed company of American and German troops to an Austrian castle and rescue a group of French political prisoners. What is now known as, the Battle for Castle Itter.

The desert can hold many secrets. The desert near Los Alamos in New Mexico just after World War 2 held perhaps the biggest secret of them all. Learn more about the Most Dangerous Science Experiment in the World with another Dark Docs presented by Dark5.

May 21st, 1946. A top-secret laboratory. A group of scientists look on as one of their colleagues, a Canadian named Louis Slotin, conducts a demonstration. Slotin hovers over a strange object, which sits on display on a small table in front of the crowd of onlookers. The object looks like a metal sphere, nested inside a more substantial metal hemisphere like an egg in a nest. But this metal device contains a terrifying potential. Why? Because it is nothing less than the exposed core of a nuclear bomb, and the egg at the center is an orb of pure plutonium. Imagine being in that room. You probably would have heard a pin drop, such was the intense atmosphere. Slotin’s demonstration was a risky one. The operation he was performing had an ominous nickname among the group – they dubbed it [quote] “tickling the dragon’s tail.”

How did the U.S. steal a sunken nuclear submarine? Right out from under the nose of the Soviet Union... Subscribe now: http://bit.ly/DarkDocs

Cool thumb details:
The Hughes Mining Barge, or HMB-1, is a submersible barge about 99 m (324 ft) long, 32 m (106 ft) wide, and more than 27 m (90 ft) tall. The HMB-1 was originally developed as part of Project Azorian (more widely, but erroneously, known as "Project Jennifer"), the top-secret effort mounted by the Central Intelligence Agency to salvage the remains of the Soviet submarine K-129 from the ocean floor.

The HMB-1 was designed to allow the device that would be used to grasp and lift the submarine to be constructed inside the barge and out of sight, and to be installed in the Glomar Explorer in secrecy. This was done by towing the HMB-1, with the capture device inside, to a location near Catalina Island (off the coast of California), and then submerging it onto stabilizing piers that had been installed on the seafloor. The Glomar Explorer was then maneuvered over the HMB-1, the retractable roof was opened, and the capture device lifted into the massive "moon pool" of the ship, all within clear sight of people on the beach

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DarkDocs is a new narrated documentary video from Dark5 taking an in-depth look at at some of the most mysterious stories on Earth. This week: Project Azorian, the Glomar Explorer, and the mysterious CIA to recover the lost Soviet submarine, K-129.

It’s March 1968. An unexplained event causes a Soviet Golf-II submarine known as the K-129 to sink to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean while enroute to its patrol station off the coast of Hawaii.

Publicly, no one in the world knew what happened, where the submarine was, or what secrets might be hidden on board. Behind the scenes, however, reporters caught wind of a classified US government operation to pry the wreckage from the floor with a giant claw and uncover whatever secret technology might be hidden within. The mission was codenamed Project Azorian, and it was launched from a covert ship named the Glomar Explorer.

Pressed for comment on the operation, a US government spokesman flatly replied, [quote] “We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of the information requested but, hypothetically, if such data were to exist, the subject matter would be classified, and could not be disclosed…"

Inside the Soviet submarine, the crew could feel the impact of explosions shaking the walls. They waited for hours, enduring the intense pressure of U.S. depth charges, desperate to receive some kind of signal or call to action. Meanwhile, the air conditioning had malfunctioned, and the men aboard were overheated, exhausted, fevered with worry and anticipation. They knew it was their responsibility was to fire their nuclear-tipped torpedo in the event of an attack on Russia, and in the intense chaos they debated how to act. Had the crisis between John F. Kennedy, the U.S. President, and Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Premier, finally boiled over? How close had the world come to witnessing the atomic apocalypse feared by so many over the course of the crisis?

What makes these cute, innocent, eager puppies so dangerous?

Watch 5 Dogs That Shouldn't Exist ► https://youtu.be/g4sDKYzGU0A

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They are among the roughly 900 strays who live in and around the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, where descendants of the pets live after being left behind in the hasty evacuation.

A recent study found the canines had accumulations of radioisotopes, and visitors are warned not to touch the dogs as their fur likely contains radioactive particles that are dangerous to human health. Researchers explain that most of the meat and water the dogs ingest every day is itself radioactive, and these particles accumulate to potentially dangerous levels in their bodies over time.

In addition, nearly every object or surface they touch in their habitat is contaminated with radiation. And as these particles attach themselves to the fur, the cuddly strays into cuddly, free-roaming radioactive potential pets to unsuspecting families. Fearing the growing population has already begun venturing outside of the exclusion area to come into contact with humans, an effort has begun to spay or neuter and release the radioactive pups to control their population.

Newly released Pentagon footage appears to show US Navy pilots in pursuit of a craft off the coast of California in 2004. The video comes to light as a highly secretive program to study military encounters with unidentified crafts is exposed. What is the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, is it related to Project Blue Book, and does its work continue today? Subscribe now: http://bit.ly/DarkDocs

In a groundbreaking investigative report published by The New York Times on December 16, 2017, the United States Defense Department acknowledged for the first time the existence of a highly classified program it began funding in 2007 to investigate military personnel reports of unidentified flying objects. The reporting is based on highly redacted government documents and interviews with dozens of Defense Department leaders. Official video footage, such as this one encountered by U.S. Navy pilots hovering over the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, also sheds light on the existence and operations of the highly secretive Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, or AATIP. It is the first publicly acknowledged government-funded research into unidentified flying targets since Project Blue Book concluded nearly 50 years ago...

A James Bond style mission to sneak in and steal a Russian science station from the middle of the Arctic ice. This is Skyhook: Operation Coldfeet. Subscribe now: http://bit.ly/DarkDocs

May 1961. A U.S. naval aircraft conducting an aeromagnetic survey over the Arctic Ocean spots a Soviet research station on the ice pack below. This was North Pole 9, one in a series of mysterious scientific colonies built by the Soviet government to further their exploration of the remote arctic. The purpose of these stations was unknown at the time, and the prospect of infiltrating one was immediately intriguing to U.S. intelligence.

The challenge would be how to access NP 9, as it was buried too far into the impenetrable Arctic ice to reach by boat or helicopter. Landing an airplane on the unstable icepack was out of the question. The CIA, however, was undeterred. It would take a year of planning and extreme training to launch one of the agency’s most daring missions of the Cold War. Skyhook: Operation Coldfeet.

The Somerton Man was found with no ID and a mysterious slip of paper that linked him to a book of secret codes. Who was he, what was he hiding, and will the mystery ever be solved? Subscribe now: http://bit.ly/DarkDocs

Just after dawn on December 1, 1948, a sunny summer morning, police were called to investigate reports of a man found on Somerton Beach in Southern Australia. The figure – who was fashionably dressed and clean shaven - was found in a relaxed position with his head resting against the seawall and his extended legs crossed, as if taking a nap.

Found with no identification, authorities have never been able to identify the man. The question of his real name, the mysterious circumstances of his discovery on the beach, and a link to a still unsolved secret code found in a hidden pocket have led the case to become one of Australia’s most profound mysteries. Just who was the Somerton Man and what was the meaning of the words “Tamam Shud” found on the scrap of paper he was hiding?

How close was Germany to developing an atomic bomb in World War 2? Learn the story of the secret commando raid to destroy Germany's Heavy Water facility. Subscribe now: bit.ly/DarkDocs

Just why was Germany so interested in the remote Vemork hydroelectric facility? Nestled in the southern mountains of Norway, and perched on a ledge overlooking a deep valley, the site harbored a dark secret. In the 1930’s and 40’s, it was the only plant commercially manufacturing heavy water, a key component in the production of nuclear weapons.

When Norway was invaded by Germany in 1940, concerns mounted that the Germans would seize the plant and its heavy water facilities and control most of the global supply. Tensions were high, as German scientists had already discovered nuclear fission two years earlier. Due to the extreme secrecy, no one knew how close the German weapons program was to successfully producing an atomic bomb, but the Allied Powers were not about to wait around to find out.