Episodes

• Tutankhamun's Mask?, Terror Balloon, Witch Bottle

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  Are tiny marks on Tutankhamun’s mask the erased hieroglyphics which reveal the name of the person it was originally made for? Was North America actually bombed in a WW2 terror campaign by incendiary balloons? Does an innocuous clay bottle found buried in East London really contain a defence against the dark arts?

• Tukuturi, Avrocar, Mesmer Tub

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  Easter Island’s famous tall stone moai are mostly similar in appearance. Why is only one kneeling and wearing a beard? The US military has developed plenty of top-secret gizmos, but did they really build a flying saucer in the 1950s? In the 1700s, did physician Franz Anton Mesmer really cure all ills, as he claimed, with a giant wooden bucket?

• Bog Body, Abrams Machine, Bust of Nefertiti

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  Is a body found perfectly preserved in a Danish bog a 2,400-year-old cold case? Or is this something else entirely? Can discoveries about the fundamental nature of the universe allow a strange machine to identify disease? The bust of Nefertiti reveals a woman with iconic beauty, but beneath the flawless surface, was she really quite so perfect?

• Roanoke, Acoustic Horn, Sphinx Beard

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  Could a rock covered with Elizabethan writing solve one of the great mysteries of colonial America or is it just a clever fake? Could a strange thing that looks like a set of giant metal ears really repel attacks from early warplanes? Is a large carved stone found near the Great Sphinx evidence that it once wore a false beard?

• Turin Shroud, Rocket Belt, Scythian Cups

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  Is the shroud of Turin the burial cloth of the Christian messiah or an elaborate fake? Why is it so hard to reach the truth of this enigmatic object? How does a strange backpack make a man fly, and why don’t we all have one? What is the true purpose of a pair of beautiful gold cups discovered in the burial of an ancient warrior civilization?

• Revenant Skeleton, Spy Cam, Shakespearean Mangle

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  Why is an ancient skeleton found in Poland with a blade across its stomach, a stone on its neck and a strange green color in its mouth? Did a beautiful golden capsule the size of a large beach ball really help prevent Armageddon? Can a bulky wooden device prove that Shakespeare didn’t really write his master works? If so, who did?

• Babe Flute, Casino Shoe, Cursed Amethyst

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  Does a fragment of a 50,000-year-old bear bone carefully carved with holes upend humanity’s place in evolution? Can a boring black shoe be a high-tech device created to beat a casino and walk off with millions? Is a beautiful gemstone in London’s Natural History Museum really cursed? What do the strange symbols on its setting mean?

• Crystal Skull, Dragon Chair, Assyrian Star Map

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  Is a crystal skull in the British Museum proof of an ancient supernatural power or is it a very beautiful fake? Why is an ancient Chinese chair covered in sword blades and spikes? Is it some sort of torture device, or something else entirely? What is carved in a strange circular tablet discovered in the ancient world’s greatest library?

• Mechanical Turk, Lindbergh Pump, Etruscan Mummy

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  Did a 200-year-old mechanical man really beat the world’s best chess players? Who made it, and how does it work? What connects a cutting-edge medical device with the most famous man in the world and the quest for immortality? How does an Egyptian mummy end up wrapped in the words of a lost civilization? And what does it say?

• Vulture Stone, Isolator, Armored Skeleton

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  An enormous carved stone is upending everything we thought we knew about the dawn of human civilization. What does its imagery convey? Was a bizarre helmet of felt and cork really created to cure its inventor of 20th-century commotion? What does a skeleton clothed in an exotic suit of armor have to do with a London railway station?