This Manhattan skyscraper has its own off-grid power supply, can withstand an atomic bomb blast and has exactly zero windows to the outside world. Can it really just be a harmless telecommunications hub or is it actually a covert NSA surveillance base named Titanpointe? Let’s head inside and find out… SECRET SUPERSTRUCTURES 8 x 60’ SECRET SUPERSTRUCTURES Hidden from general view, there’s a world of secret superstructures all over the globe. In this new series we’ll be teasing the audience about what might be going on in these mysterious places, and then we’ll take them right inside, unravelling those mysteries with stories of top-secret technological advances, massive feats of stealth-built engineering and occasionally unsavoury but thwarted plans for global domination. With three stories in each loosely themed episode, it’s a series with a format offering an almost limitless array of possibilities. We’ll uncover a 550-foot-tall windowless Manhattan skyscraper – revealing it as a spying hub for the NSA; a top-secret aircraft development complex in California, the ‘Skunk Works’; a secretive space facility in China, so large it displaced 6,000 people when it was built; the largest (Giga) factory in the world hidden in the Nevada desert; a top-secret car design plant covering 165,000 square metres; the biggest submarine-cruiser ever built - Russia’s Belgorod submarine, complete with its own James Bond style mini-sub; and North Korea’s top-secret nuclear testing site. The series will be constructed using the latest satellite images, little seen video and stills archive, and high quality GFX, together with newly shot material - including expert interviews on the ground and personal testimonies from those who know those secret facilities from the inside. Although the very nature of these superstructures is secretive, we will nonetheless ensure that within each episode there is a lead story where we have either secured full access or where there is existing high quality inside footage. For example, satellites equipped with high resolution cameras monitor North Korea’s nuclear missile sites (factories and testing facilities) on a daily basis – and it’s possible to use this footage to track preparations for tests or the movement of individual rockets. And we already have in principle access from Lockheed Martin to its Skunk Works. EXAMPLEEPISODE Lead Story - Skunk Works - Palmdale, California Kicking off the series we have access to one of the most secret military aircraft design facilities in the world, the ‘Skunk Works’. Hidden away in the Mojave desert, 60 miles north of downtown LA, is Air Force Plant 42. The sign at the gate says “Air Force Plant 42. Production. Flight Test. Installation”. What goes on here? We’ll discover that it’s where the US Air Force’s most secret aircraft are developed, built and tested by companies like Northrop Grumman, Rockwell and Boeing. On its edge lies an even more secret structure, Site 10, the home of the Lockheed Martin’s famous Skunk Works. It’s at Skunk Works that at the height of the Cold War the U-2 spy plane was developed, and then the SR-71 Blackbird, flying reconnaissance missions at Mach 3 and as high as 85,000 feet. Since then, behind closed doors, its engineers have designed prototypes of both the F- 22 and the F-35 fighter-bomber which is going to be the backbone of land-based and carrier-based squadrons for the US military and for many overseas air forces in the decades to come. Today the ‘Skunk Works’ is developing over 500 projects, from special anti-radar coatings, to compact fusion reactors, to a Mach 6 spy-plane. And they are currently working with NASA to develop the next generation of supersonic passenger jet. About 90% of all the work at the facility is classified. Most projects are so secret that employees can’t even tell one another. But with access to parts of Site 10, previously classified documents in the archives and to prototypes that never made it out of the factory, we’ll be able to reveal some of what goes on behind the walls of the mysterious Sci Fi-like Skunk Works. ADDITIONAL STORY Skyscraper, Project X Manhattan, New York At 33 Thomas Street in Tribeca, central Manhattan, is a windowless skyscraper, a vast 29 story grey tower of concrete and granite that soars 550 feet into the New York skyline. Completed in 1974 and known as the Long Lines Building, this is officially an innocent telecommunications hub owned by AT&T in central Manhattan. But its true purpose has long been a mystery – a subject of endless speculation by local New Yorkers. The construction plans show that it was built to withstand an atomic bomb, has 3 deep basement levels, has its own separate power and water supply and could keep 1,500 people alive for a 2-week stay in the event of a nuclear strike. What was so special about what was going on inside that merited these exacting specifications? With interviews with people like former telecoms engineer Thomas Saunders who worked in the building, and documents recently leaked by Edward Snowden, we’ll reveal its true secret identity - it is Titanpointe, one of the NSA’s primary surveillance sites, monitoring land and long-distance telephone lines and, via the four satellite dishes on its roof, mobile and internet communications. ADDITIONAL STORY Nuclear Testing Site Punggye- ri, North Korea 400 kms to the north east of Pyongyang in N. Korea lies a heavily guarded mountainous area full of mysterious structures. This is the top secret Punggye-ri nuclear weapons test site where the five most recent nuclear explosions have taken place, in tunnels deep underground. In October 2020 the site was partially flooded following the torrential rainstorms that hit North Korea. But daily satellite images to which we have access – including some video – show that the North Koreans have been working hard to repair the many superstructures that were severely damaged. This is just one of four key sites involved in the programme: a missile factory, a nuclear weapons assembly facility, an underground, nuclear weapons testing site and a launch facility. And there is a shipyard dedicated to the construction of nuclear-powered submarines capable of launching missiles while submerged. All these sites are photographed and filmed from space by international satellites on a daily basis. As a result, it is possible to see key changes and preparations taking place in fascinating detail. And there is even some footage from the ground. For example, in May 2018, to the surprise of the world, a select group of international journalists was invited to watch and film the dismantling of the only officially recognised nuclear testing site in the country. The visit took place just ahead of a summit with US President Donald Trump, experts have questioned whether it was symbolic rather than part of any co- ordinated withdrawal from their plans to become a fully functioning nuclear weapons power. With the up to the minute satellite footage of the sites, expert interviews – including with a scientist who’s been inside one of the nuclear sites - we’ll explore what advances Kim Jong-un has made to date. Have they already achieved long- range nuclear strike capabilities? OTHER POTENTIAL STORIES The World’s Largest Submarine Arctic Circle, Russia On 23rd April 2019, with President Putin secretly watching via satellite, deep inside Russia’s Arctic Circle the Russians launched a massive and top-secret ship, the largest submarine in the world. Rumours about the ship, called the Belgorod, had been circulating for some time and in the days after the launch, pictures started emerging. And it became clear just how enormous it is: at six- hundred-feet long it displaces more water than a World War I battleship and can dive to a depth of 1,700 feet. But its precise purpose is still a mystery. It doesn’t seem to be carrying underwater launched ICBM’s but it does carry a deep-diving nuclear powered midget submarine, the Losharik. Experts will tell us that it may be used to carry a new nuclear tipped torpedo being developed that can power itself through hundreds of miles of ocean to hit coastal ports and cities. And it might be deployed to secretly lay detectors on the seabed to track the movements of ‘enemy’ submarines and to potentially interfere with undersea communications cables. With imagery of its launch, footage of the build and GFX based on leaked plans, we’ll tell the story of this game-changing vessel. Boeing’s Starliner, SpaceshiP Kennedy Space Centre, Florida. Sitting alongside other innocuous looking buildings on NASA’s top-secret launch site in Florida, lies Boeing’s massive Spaceship facility. We’ll peek behind the imposing hanger doors, where scientists and spacemen are designing and building the next generation of space taxis, that will take crew to and from the International Space Station. With the grounding of the Space Shuttle in 2011, the only way American astronauts could get to the ISS was by hitching a ride on a Russian Soyuz. But all that’s changed and after a few false starts and some hefty competition from Space X, Boeing are set to launch an un-crewed test flight this March. We’ll meet Chris Ferguson who commanded the very last Shuttle flight and is one of Starliner’s key developers. And, with access to their secret build facility, we’ll explore this huge site and follow every moment of the next flight. OTHER POTENTIAL STORIES Germany’s Foreign Intelligence CompleX Berlin, GermanY In east Berlin, close to where the infamous Berlin wall was first breached is a brand-new complex of buildings, covering an area the size of 36 football pitches.