Underland (2025) Movie Script
1
[Gust of wind]
FEMALE VOICE:
A mile to the west of a hill
marked by nine burial mounds,
there stands an old ash tree.
[Haunting melodic music]
Her crown reaches skyward.
Her roots dive deep
into the land.
Many have been
this way before,
passing through the old ash
and into the world beneath.
[Music cont'd]
What is this strange song
that calls us below?
Why do we seek the void?
RADIO: ...southern areas of
the state and High Sierra.
Strong gusts and heavy rain
moving overhead.
Travel conditions poor
right through to morning.
Meanwhile, northern areas
continue to enjoy
milder conditions than usual.
[Tense music]
[Fence rattles]
[Tense music cont'd]
[Bird song]
[Dramatic music]
[Emergency services siren]
[Rope whirring]
[Metallic clank]
[Metallic clank]
[Tense music]
FEMALE VOICE:
Our journey begins.
Somewhere beneath
the skin of the Earth.
Where darkness thickens.
And sounds... stir.
[Prickling sound]
Yet, even here,
just inches below the surface,
this is a place so alien
to ours above.
- [Low pulsating sound]
- Where nothing is familiar.
[Faint crackle]
And all is strange.
[Haunting melodic music]
[Bird song]
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Bird song]
[Indistinguishable dialogue]
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Low haunting sound]
BRADLEY: As I descend,
the first thing that hits me
is the smell.
It's kind of a smell
of a cave in the making.
[Footsteps on water]
Wet concrete and trash,
maybe sewage.
[Faint street noises]
You know, after years,
decades exploring
the underground,
those smells now
I completely associate
with the feeling of freedom.
[Running water]
[Low tense music]
When you're in
the main system,
all of the smaller systems
dump into it.
You wouldn't necessarily know
if it was raining
on the surface
until all of those veins
start pumping.
It turns into a subterranean
flash flood in an instant.
[Water dripping]
Maybe the past 20 years
of my life
I've spent exploring
underground spaces.
[Old-school electronic music]
I actually began my career
in archaeology.
Eventually, I ran into
these urban explorers.
These incredible
groups of people
who were sneaking into
abandoned places
and photographing them.
And it seemed to me
like a kind
of archaeological practise.
I feel like I was really
pulled into the underground.
[Water flowing]
This is just now what I do.
I guess I've made
a whole career
out of writing about things
that I find underground.
As a species,
our presence on the Earth
extends further
into the ground
than our buildings do
into the sky.
One day, after we've gone,
I think this will be
all that's left.
So what I wanna know is:
what do these traces say
about us, about humanity?
What does it say about who
we actually are as a species?
[Electrical crackle]
[Violent whoosh]
[Violent whoosh]
[Violent whoosh]
[Metallic rattle]
MARIANGELA:
It's so dark in the cage.
You can't see much at all.
It just adds
to the sense of fear.
[Violent whoosh]
Even for people who go
underground a lot, I guess,
most of them never go
two kilometres down.
[Mechanism slowing down]
[Loud metallic clank]
[Heavy machinery operating]
MARIANGELA:
Even when I was a child,
I always was trying
to make sense
of the world around me.
My grandmother would call me
'Miss Why'.
I'd ask her things like
what are the stars in the sky?
Why are they there?
How was our universe born?
Why do we exist?
The answers just got
thinner and thinner until,
at the end, you realise
you've asked a question
that nobody in the world knows
the answer to.
[Hissing of gas]
[Ambient electronic music]
As scientists,
when we know we need to
try to look for hard things,
we are often pushed
to the extremes.
Extreme energies
or temperatures or distances.
In this particular case,
we're being pushed
to extreme depths.
That's because sometimes
the experiments
you want to conduct
are so sensitive
that you just can't do them
on the surface.
[Static]
There's too much interference
from all the radiation
that bombards the planet.
But when you're underground,
at the bottom of a deep mine,
you can pretty much filter
all that out.
That means that you can
look for things
that you just can't see
up there.
In my case,
the thing we're looking for,
if we can actually find it,
would go some way toward
answering the question
of how our universe developed
and why we're even here.
- [Ambient music cont'd]
- [Beeping]
The only problem is,
this thing we're looking for
has never been
directly detected.
Ever.
So, the question for me is:
How do you catch a ghost?
[Empty noise]
[Pulsations]
[Implosion]
[Haunting noises]
FEMALE VOICE:
Deeper we dream.
Far beneath the roots
of the old ash tree.
Down through
an ancient rift of stone.
Where living walls show
we have long been making
these journeys below.
Though those early
human eyes encountered
simply so much darkness.
Since they could not fill
that dark with light,
they filled it with story.
In some of these stories,
this world was
a perfect inversion
- [Loud splash]
- of the human realm.
Where the feet of the dead
walked soul to soul
with those of the living.
[Low haunting music]
In others,
it was a place from which
the roots of a giant
world tree drew its power.
[Intense brooding music]
One which linked
the heavens and the Earth
to this land of eternal night.
[Haunting rattle]
[builds to crescendo]
[Sound ends abruptly]
[Digital scanning sound]
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Low tense music]
[Faint crackle]
[Footsteps on water]
BRADLEY: To do what I do,
descending is not enough.
I need to find ways
to augment my vision.
That's when you really
start to see.
Sometimes in the drains,
you encounter
what looks like trash.
But then you look closer
and you see what it really is.
People live down here.
People who don't have homes
at the surface
and who need
to escape the heat
or the constant surveillance
by police.
In cities, they often say
that wealth rises up
into towers, into skyscrapers.
But it's also true
that poverty sinks.
And it sinks underground.
Unfortunately, that means
that when it rains,
people die.
[Pensive electronic music]
[Music increases in tempo]
[Film winds]
Part of what I do is
to document stories like these
to make them visible.
[Shutter clicks]
The underground is full
of secrets like this.
- [Loud static]
- [Intense electronic music]
BRADLEY: Documenting those
secrets is the preoccupation
of a global community
of people.
[Music cont'd]
[Male British voice] CMHQ.
There are no windows.
They'd be separated completely
from the outside world.
Canteen.
Looks like there's
some bits left.
1978-dated newspaper.
BRADLEY: But wherever we are,
the drive,
the obsession
of this community is about
a feeling that this stuff is
just too precious
to rot in the dark.
Unseen.
So we have to do everything
we can to figure out ways
to light it up,
and to bring that back
to the surface.
[Static]
[Pulsations]
[Sharp rip]
MARIANGELA: These labs have to
be kept incredibly clean.
Only the equivalent of
a teaspoon of dust is allowed
to pass through them over
the course of an entire year.
That's to protect
all the equipment
that we have down here.
Equipment that's helping
in the search for
what we call dark matter.
Dark matter is...
Well, we don't know
what dark matter is.
That's the issue.
MAN: Black as the midnight sky
on a moonless night.
MARIANGELA: We think it's
a substance or a material,
just one that we haven't
been able to detect directly.
It's never been seen,
heard or touched.
That's why some call it
'The Ghost'.
[Sharp haunting sound]
The only reason we know
The Ghost is there is because
we can see the
gravitational effect it has
on things like
the motion of galaxies.
[Sharp haunting sound]
Even the path of light.
That's how we've actually
been able to map
how dark matter
appears to be distributed
across the universe.
And from these maps,
we can see
it's pretty prevalent.
In fact,
it makes up around 85%
of the total mass
of the universe itself.
It's kind of the big flagship
sub-GV experiment...
MARIANGELA: That makes it
all the more frustrating
that we don't actually know
what it is.
[Sharp haunting sound]
The leading theory is that
it's actually made up
of particles.
[Beeping]
But just ones that mostly
pass through regular matter.
But if, even if only rarely,
one of those
dark matter particles
were to collide with say
the nucleus of an atom,
that could tell us a lot about
what dark matter actually is.
The challenge is,
how do you build something
that could catch one of those
events as it actually happens?
[Heavenly choral music]
[Music grows in intensity]
All around the world,
in deep underground labs,
we've built
these massive detectors.
Some of them are
more than 15 metres across
and they sit in flooded
caverns of ultra-pure water,
which filters out
any cosmic radiation
that might have made it
this far down.
Down here, only a ghost
would get through.
The hope is that
if we run the right experiment,
one of these detectors,
these giant eyes,
will see a collision
between a dark matter particle
and something in our world.
[Pulsating empty noise]
[Sharp haunting sound]
All the cabling down the sides
is connecting...
MARIANGELA: Asking why
is one of the most
powerful things we can do.
It's an act
of refusing to accept
a state of not knowing.
It's like having a load
of doors to choose from:
you go through one
and then you meet another.
Well, I think if we open
enough of these doors,
then we'll actually end up
finding dark matter,
and solve one of the biggest
mysteries there is.
The biggest 'whys'.
We worked out
all of the data analysis,
so we'll be good to go with
the unblinding when it's time.
MAN: It's not worth touching.
It's just so good.
MARIANGELA: Every time I get
to run one of our experiments,
I can't help but wonder,
is today gonna be the day?
And the pressure?
Great.
MARIANGELA:
Is this gonna be the door?
MAN: Ah, and... now we wait.
[Faint computing sounds]
MARIANGELA:
But it's a waiting game.
[Clock ticking]
[Ticking cont'd]
[Water dripping]
FEMALE VOICE: Time.
It flows differently
in the underland.
Down here there are
no minutes, or hours,
only epochs and aeons.
[Low haunting sounds]
Some call this deep time,
the dizzy expanse
of the Earth's history
that stretches away
from the present.
[Water drips]
[Haunting sounds cont'd]
FEMALE VOICE:
But for those who descend,
deep time is also another way
of seeing.
[Water dripping]
[Tense orchestral music]
One in which things
that seemed inert come alive.
Stone flows.
The Earth has tides.
And ice...
breathes.
[Music intensifies]
[Faint crackling]
Ice itself is a recorder
of deep time.
In the frozen underland
of the cryosphere,
matter has sealed it
into layers.
Layers containing
ancient bubbles of air
trapped at
the moment of snowfall
many millennia ago.
[Slow haunting music]
These deep time messengers
draw a curious view
from the world above,
into icy labyrinths
carved by meltwater.
FEMALE VOICE: Or down great
tunnels of time
drilled from the surface.
In search of air that is
more than a million years old.
[Low haunting echoes]
Yet, the deeper
and older we go,
the tighter
the Earth's grip...
and the greater
its power to hold.
[Intense ambient music]
[Music stops]
[Footsteps on rock]
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Heavy breathing]
[Low tense music]
MALE VOICE: A young man
by the name of Neil Moss
trapped in a narrow shaft
1,000ft below the surface.
Attempts to free the man
failed and he suffocated
in the foul air, his body now
permanently left in the cave
to avoid risking the lives...
FEMALE VOICE:
...in a flooded cave system.
That's the situation unfolding
in Thailand right now,
where a team of young
soccer players await rescue.
Amid the chaos,
handwritten notes passed
from the boys to the dive team
telling their parents
on the surface not to panic.
MALE VOICE: 33 men presumed
dead now found to be alive
two weeks
after the initial collapse.
Their survival is far
from certain
as this part of the mine is
more than 2,000ft underground.
[Gushing water]
BRADLEY:
[Grunts]
[In Spanish]:
[Gushing water]
[Tense music]
[Gushing water]
Ooh!
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Haunting melodic music]
MARIANGELA:
Being so far underground,
you don't see sunlight,
you don't see...
the day-to-day motions
going on outside the window.
And you go through all of that
to answer a question.
That answer might come...
or it might not.
[Faint computing sounds]
All this human effort,
all the theory,
the engineering,
the hours spent underground,
might it all be for nothing?
[Heavenly choral music]
[Music intensifies]
[Faint pulsations]
[Faint pulsations]
[Sharp rip]
[In Spanish]:
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Flowing water]
FEMALE VOICE:
Deep in the Earth,
the rift turns again.
We follow,
as ancient waters gather.
Starless rivers of myth
that mark a threshold
between the worlds
of the living and the dead.
Here in the underland
lie the remains
of some 60 billion humans.
Many adorned
with treasured objects
to aid their passage
through the nether.
[Soft haunting ambient music]
In once dry cave systems,
now flooded by rising seas,
there rest bones
that have not seen sunlight
for 10,000 years.
Though we cannot know if
these were tombs to worship
or ones to avoid.
For into the Earth,
we not only place
what we love and wish to save,
but also what we fear
and wish to lose.
[Music intensifies]
[Footsteps on gravel]
BRADLEY: These mines are
some of the eeriest places.
It's so quiet.
These voids,
these mineral voids.
[Footsteps on gravel]
Most people go underground
to search for things
that are special.
My journeys have always been
a little bit different.
When I go underground,
it's not...
It's not to find things
that are special necessarily,
but to find
what we've tried to forget.
[Running water]
Those things tell
just as much of a story.
Around the world, we've turned
so many of these old mines
into dumping grounds.
People come to these cracks
in the surface just above
and they chuck in their old
cars and broken fridges,
thinking, I guess,
that the Earth would forget.
But, of course,
the Earth doesn't forget.
As a species,
we've blasted our way
through the Periodic Table.
We've taken all of
these elements from the Earth,
we've taken treasure,
and we've thrown it back
as trash.
[Shutter clicks]
But the thing is, this isn't
even the worst of it.
There's one element
that we've mined
that haunts us
more than any other.
[High-pitched buzz]
Uranium.
It's actually
pretty hard to spot.
Until you shine
a black light on it.
[Click]
And then the uranium lights up
like crazy.
The base level of radiation
in some of these places
is six times higher than
the Chernobyl site is today.
That's why I use the drone.
This is what I mean when I say
the underground tells a story.
And this particular story is
about how we took something
from the Earth
and created a monster.
[High-pitched buzz]
And it's a monster
that we now have to contain.
[Loud explosion]
FEMALE VOICE:
From the violence
of celestial explosions
more than 6 billion years ago,
uranium was born.
[Static interference]
As common in the Earth's crust
as tin or tungsten,
but with a force
beyond imagination.
[Crackling]
One which can power
entire cities.
[Loud explosion]
Or destroy them.
But this astonishing element
we pulled from the Earth
leaves another,
deeper problem.
[Electronic ambient music]
A legacy of toxic waste
that must one day be returned
to the underland.
Into sealed tombs designed
to outlast their makers.
Burial sites for this,
the darkest material
our species has ever made.
[Static interference]
[Music intensifies]
[Footsteps on gravel]
FEMALE VOICE:
In this deep dark,
it can be hard to dream.
To remember why we're here.
[Indistinguishable dialogue]
[In Spanish]:
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Laughter]
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Haunting melodic music]
[Music intensifies]
[High-pitched intense music]
[Intense electronic
ambient beats]
[Ticking]
[Static interference]
- Oh.
- Oh!
- MAN: Ah... No hits.
- MARIANGELA: Ah, okay.
MAN:
MARIANGELA: When an experiment
doesn't end up finding
dark matter,
you know, it can be
really frustrating.
You sort of ask yourself
are we ever gonna find it?
The experiments can run
for months,
sometimes even years.
We keep tweaking
the parameters
for them to look in
as many ways as they can.
Open versus closed circles
on that.
MARIANGELA:
After a certain point,
if they continue to return
null results,
then it will be shut down.
Then, at that point,
as a community,
we need to decide
where to explore next.
- The ones using gas targets?
- MAN: Yeah.
Is it because
it's easier to identify
the beginning and end
of the track?
But there are plenty of other
experiments to run.
Many doors.
We just have to keep
opening them,
until there's nowhere
left to look.
[In Spanish]:
Wow!
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Inaudible dialogue]
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Intense emotional music]
[Ghostly whispers]
FEMALE VOICE:
Here, at our deepest point,
stone folds.
The rift ends.
We can go no further.
[Haunting melodic music]
Our oldest
and most treasured stories
are of descents made
into the Earth.
Of those who answered the call
of a strange song
that beckoned them downward.
To this place of secrets,
lost to the dark.
Though now,
it is the surface that sings.
That strange
and sunlit overworld.
MARIANGELA:
I've definitely thought about
what it would be like
if the answers never came
over the course
of my lifetime.
[Haunting music cont'd]
I've come to terms with that
as a very
realistic possibility.
The first person
to discover dark matter
might be someone
out there right now.
Maybe some little girl
looking up at the night sky,
bugging her grandma
by always asking why.
BRADLEY: Every time I venture
into the underground
and witness the things
that we've left down here,
I can't help but imagine
some future civilisation
exhuming this stuff,
studying this stuff,
and therefore studying us.
[Footsteps on gravel]
Sometimes I even
imagine myself
as this future archaeologist.
Thousands of years from now,
I imagine finding
a sign in the Earth warning me
of what's buried there,
telling me not to dig it up.
These signs are things
we're actually making now,
in the present.
WOMAN'S VOICE: This place is
not a place of honour...
[Indistinguishable voices]
BRADLEY: And, of course,
on one level it's horrific.
But the fact
that we're thinking about
the wellbeing of future
generations,
maybe even in 10,000 years,
gives me hope
that humanity has some care.
And you see there
a possibility of moving beyond
just thinking about ourselves
or the next generation,
we move into deep time.
A space where
we can imagine ourselves
as ancestors.
[Heavenly choral music]
[Music intensifies]
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[High-pitched pulsations]
[Intense ambient music]
[Violent whoosh]
[Music intensifies]
[Faint crackle]
[Music cont'd]
[Music intensifies]
[Music crescendo]
[Explosion]
[Bird song]
[Soft haunting melodic music]
[Click]
[Bird song]
[Leaves rustling]
["Ferryman" by Johnny Flynn plays]:
Ferryman, ferryman
Carry my memory on
Out to the island
On the horizon
Following the path
of the sun
Following the path
of the sun
Over the sand bar holding
the North Star
Steady between mast and spar
Creek of the oars
and turn of the hours
Keeping watch for the power
Watch for the waves' breath
Watch for the moon's death
Down in the waters of day
Ferryman, ferryman
Carry my memory on
Out to the island
On the horizon
Following the path
of the sun
Following the path
of the sun
For the stone ones
are broken
My sadness is woken
The sea roads are mistaken
So stand by the hail
With a shirt for a sail
We grow weak and frail
And with arms
made of granite
In a blaze of the gannets
We row off this planet
Ferryman, ferryman
Carry my memory on
Out to the island
On the horizon
Following the path
of the sun
Following the path
of the sun
Following the path
of the sun
Ferryman, ferryman
Carry my memory on
Out to the island
On the horizon
Following the path
of the sun
Following the path
of the sun
[Gust of wind]
FEMALE VOICE:
A mile to the west of a hill
marked by nine burial mounds,
there stands an old ash tree.
[Haunting melodic music]
Her crown reaches skyward.
Her roots dive deep
into the land.
Many have been
this way before,
passing through the old ash
and into the world beneath.
[Music cont'd]
What is this strange song
that calls us below?
Why do we seek the void?
RADIO: ...southern areas of
the state and High Sierra.
Strong gusts and heavy rain
moving overhead.
Travel conditions poor
right through to morning.
Meanwhile, northern areas
continue to enjoy
milder conditions than usual.
[Tense music]
[Fence rattles]
[Tense music cont'd]
[Bird song]
[Dramatic music]
[Emergency services siren]
[Rope whirring]
[Metallic clank]
[Metallic clank]
[Tense music]
FEMALE VOICE:
Our journey begins.
Somewhere beneath
the skin of the Earth.
Where darkness thickens.
And sounds... stir.
[Prickling sound]
Yet, even here,
just inches below the surface,
this is a place so alien
to ours above.
- [Low pulsating sound]
- Where nothing is familiar.
[Faint crackle]
And all is strange.
[Haunting melodic music]
[Bird song]
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Bird song]
[Indistinguishable dialogue]
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Low haunting sound]
BRADLEY: As I descend,
the first thing that hits me
is the smell.
It's kind of a smell
of a cave in the making.
[Footsteps on water]
Wet concrete and trash,
maybe sewage.
[Faint street noises]
You know, after years,
decades exploring
the underground,
those smells now
I completely associate
with the feeling of freedom.
[Running water]
[Low tense music]
When you're in
the main system,
all of the smaller systems
dump into it.
You wouldn't necessarily know
if it was raining
on the surface
until all of those veins
start pumping.
It turns into a subterranean
flash flood in an instant.
[Water dripping]
Maybe the past 20 years
of my life
I've spent exploring
underground spaces.
[Old-school electronic music]
I actually began my career
in archaeology.
Eventually, I ran into
these urban explorers.
These incredible
groups of people
who were sneaking into
abandoned places
and photographing them.
And it seemed to me
like a kind
of archaeological practise.
I feel like I was really
pulled into the underground.
[Water flowing]
This is just now what I do.
I guess I've made
a whole career
out of writing about things
that I find underground.
As a species,
our presence on the Earth
extends further
into the ground
than our buildings do
into the sky.
One day, after we've gone,
I think this will be
all that's left.
So what I wanna know is:
what do these traces say
about us, about humanity?
What does it say about who
we actually are as a species?
[Electrical crackle]
[Violent whoosh]
[Violent whoosh]
[Violent whoosh]
[Metallic rattle]
MARIANGELA:
It's so dark in the cage.
You can't see much at all.
It just adds
to the sense of fear.
[Violent whoosh]
Even for people who go
underground a lot, I guess,
most of them never go
two kilometres down.
[Mechanism slowing down]
[Loud metallic clank]
[Heavy machinery operating]
MARIANGELA:
Even when I was a child,
I always was trying
to make sense
of the world around me.
My grandmother would call me
'Miss Why'.
I'd ask her things like
what are the stars in the sky?
Why are they there?
How was our universe born?
Why do we exist?
The answers just got
thinner and thinner until,
at the end, you realise
you've asked a question
that nobody in the world knows
the answer to.
[Hissing of gas]
[Ambient electronic music]
As scientists,
when we know we need to
try to look for hard things,
we are often pushed
to the extremes.
Extreme energies
or temperatures or distances.
In this particular case,
we're being pushed
to extreme depths.
That's because sometimes
the experiments
you want to conduct
are so sensitive
that you just can't do them
on the surface.
[Static]
There's too much interference
from all the radiation
that bombards the planet.
But when you're underground,
at the bottom of a deep mine,
you can pretty much filter
all that out.
That means that you can
look for things
that you just can't see
up there.
In my case,
the thing we're looking for,
if we can actually find it,
would go some way toward
answering the question
of how our universe developed
and why we're even here.
- [Ambient music cont'd]
- [Beeping]
The only problem is,
this thing we're looking for
has never been
directly detected.
Ever.
So, the question for me is:
How do you catch a ghost?
[Empty noise]
[Pulsations]
[Implosion]
[Haunting noises]
FEMALE VOICE:
Deeper we dream.
Far beneath the roots
of the old ash tree.
Down through
an ancient rift of stone.
Where living walls show
we have long been making
these journeys below.
Though those early
human eyes encountered
simply so much darkness.
Since they could not fill
that dark with light,
they filled it with story.
In some of these stories,
this world was
a perfect inversion
- [Loud splash]
- of the human realm.
Where the feet of the dead
walked soul to soul
with those of the living.
[Low haunting music]
In others,
it was a place from which
the roots of a giant
world tree drew its power.
[Intense brooding music]
One which linked
the heavens and the Earth
to this land of eternal night.
[Haunting rattle]
[builds to crescendo]
[Sound ends abruptly]
[Digital scanning sound]
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Low tense music]
[Faint crackle]
[Footsteps on water]
BRADLEY: To do what I do,
descending is not enough.
I need to find ways
to augment my vision.
That's when you really
start to see.
Sometimes in the drains,
you encounter
what looks like trash.
But then you look closer
and you see what it really is.
People live down here.
People who don't have homes
at the surface
and who need
to escape the heat
or the constant surveillance
by police.
In cities, they often say
that wealth rises up
into towers, into skyscrapers.
But it's also true
that poverty sinks.
And it sinks underground.
Unfortunately, that means
that when it rains,
people die.
[Pensive electronic music]
[Music increases in tempo]
[Film winds]
Part of what I do is
to document stories like these
to make them visible.
[Shutter clicks]
The underground is full
of secrets like this.
- [Loud static]
- [Intense electronic music]
BRADLEY: Documenting those
secrets is the preoccupation
of a global community
of people.
[Music cont'd]
[Male British voice] CMHQ.
There are no windows.
They'd be separated completely
from the outside world.
Canteen.
Looks like there's
some bits left.
1978-dated newspaper.
BRADLEY: But wherever we are,
the drive,
the obsession
of this community is about
a feeling that this stuff is
just too precious
to rot in the dark.
Unseen.
So we have to do everything
we can to figure out ways
to light it up,
and to bring that back
to the surface.
[Static]
[Pulsations]
[Sharp rip]
MARIANGELA: These labs have to
be kept incredibly clean.
Only the equivalent of
a teaspoon of dust is allowed
to pass through them over
the course of an entire year.
That's to protect
all the equipment
that we have down here.
Equipment that's helping
in the search for
what we call dark matter.
Dark matter is...
Well, we don't know
what dark matter is.
That's the issue.
MAN: Black as the midnight sky
on a moonless night.
MARIANGELA: We think it's
a substance or a material,
just one that we haven't
been able to detect directly.
It's never been seen,
heard or touched.
That's why some call it
'The Ghost'.
[Sharp haunting sound]
The only reason we know
The Ghost is there is because
we can see the
gravitational effect it has
on things like
the motion of galaxies.
[Sharp haunting sound]
Even the path of light.
That's how we've actually
been able to map
how dark matter
appears to be distributed
across the universe.
And from these maps,
we can see
it's pretty prevalent.
In fact,
it makes up around 85%
of the total mass
of the universe itself.
It's kind of the big flagship
sub-GV experiment...
MARIANGELA: That makes it
all the more frustrating
that we don't actually know
what it is.
[Sharp haunting sound]
The leading theory is that
it's actually made up
of particles.
[Beeping]
But just ones that mostly
pass through regular matter.
But if, even if only rarely,
one of those
dark matter particles
were to collide with say
the nucleus of an atom,
that could tell us a lot about
what dark matter actually is.
The challenge is,
how do you build something
that could catch one of those
events as it actually happens?
[Heavenly choral music]
[Music grows in intensity]
All around the world,
in deep underground labs,
we've built
these massive detectors.
Some of them are
more than 15 metres across
and they sit in flooded
caverns of ultra-pure water,
which filters out
any cosmic radiation
that might have made it
this far down.
Down here, only a ghost
would get through.
The hope is that
if we run the right experiment,
one of these detectors,
these giant eyes,
will see a collision
between a dark matter particle
and something in our world.
[Pulsating empty noise]
[Sharp haunting sound]
All the cabling down the sides
is connecting...
MARIANGELA: Asking why
is one of the most
powerful things we can do.
It's an act
of refusing to accept
a state of not knowing.
It's like having a load
of doors to choose from:
you go through one
and then you meet another.
Well, I think if we open
enough of these doors,
then we'll actually end up
finding dark matter,
and solve one of the biggest
mysteries there is.
The biggest 'whys'.
We worked out
all of the data analysis,
so we'll be good to go with
the unblinding when it's time.
MAN: It's not worth touching.
It's just so good.
MARIANGELA: Every time I get
to run one of our experiments,
I can't help but wonder,
is today gonna be the day?
And the pressure?
Great.
MARIANGELA:
Is this gonna be the door?
MAN: Ah, and... now we wait.
[Faint computing sounds]
MARIANGELA:
But it's a waiting game.
[Clock ticking]
[Ticking cont'd]
[Water dripping]
FEMALE VOICE: Time.
It flows differently
in the underland.
Down here there are
no minutes, or hours,
only epochs and aeons.
[Low haunting sounds]
Some call this deep time,
the dizzy expanse
of the Earth's history
that stretches away
from the present.
[Water drips]
[Haunting sounds cont'd]
FEMALE VOICE:
But for those who descend,
deep time is also another way
of seeing.
[Water dripping]
[Tense orchestral music]
One in which things
that seemed inert come alive.
Stone flows.
The Earth has tides.
And ice...
breathes.
[Music intensifies]
[Faint crackling]
Ice itself is a recorder
of deep time.
In the frozen underland
of the cryosphere,
matter has sealed it
into layers.
Layers containing
ancient bubbles of air
trapped at
the moment of snowfall
many millennia ago.
[Slow haunting music]
These deep time messengers
draw a curious view
from the world above,
into icy labyrinths
carved by meltwater.
FEMALE VOICE: Or down great
tunnels of time
drilled from the surface.
In search of air that is
more than a million years old.
[Low haunting echoes]
Yet, the deeper
and older we go,
the tighter
the Earth's grip...
and the greater
its power to hold.
[Intense ambient music]
[Music stops]
[Footsteps on rock]
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Heavy breathing]
[Low tense music]
MALE VOICE: A young man
by the name of Neil Moss
trapped in a narrow shaft
1,000ft below the surface.
Attempts to free the man
failed and he suffocated
in the foul air, his body now
permanently left in the cave
to avoid risking the lives...
FEMALE VOICE:
...in a flooded cave system.
That's the situation unfolding
in Thailand right now,
where a team of young
soccer players await rescue.
Amid the chaos,
handwritten notes passed
from the boys to the dive team
telling their parents
on the surface not to panic.
MALE VOICE: 33 men presumed
dead now found to be alive
two weeks
after the initial collapse.
Their survival is far
from certain
as this part of the mine is
more than 2,000ft underground.
[Gushing water]
BRADLEY:
[Grunts]
[In Spanish]:
[Gushing water]
[Tense music]
[Gushing water]
Ooh!
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Haunting melodic music]
MARIANGELA:
Being so far underground,
you don't see sunlight,
you don't see...
the day-to-day motions
going on outside the window.
And you go through all of that
to answer a question.
That answer might come...
or it might not.
[Faint computing sounds]
All this human effort,
all the theory,
the engineering,
the hours spent underground,
might it all be for nothing?
[Heavenly choral music]
[Music intensifies]
[Faint pulsations]
[Faint pulsations]
[Sharp rip]
[In Spanish]:
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Flowing water]
FEMALE VOICE:
Deep in the Earth,
the rift turns again.
We follow,
as ancient waters gather.
Starless rivers of myth
that mark a threshold
between the worlds
of the living and the dead.
Here in the underland
lie the remains
of some 60 billion humans.
Many adorned
with treasured objects
to aid their passage
through the nether.
[Soft haunting ambient music]
In once dry cave systems,
now flooded by rising seas,
there rest bones
that have not seen sunlight
for 10,000 years.
Though we cannot know if
these were tombs to worship
or ones to avoid.
For into the Earth,
we not only place
what we love and wish to save,
but also what we fear
and wish to lose.
[Music intensifies]
[Footsteps on gravel]
BRADLEY: These mines are
some of the eeriest places.
It's so quiet.
These voids,
these mineral voids.
[Footsteps on gravel]
Most people go underground
to search for things
that are special.
My journeys have always been
a little bit different.
When I go underground,
it's not...
It's not to find things
that are special necessarily,
but to find
what we've tried to forget.
[Running water]
Those things tell
just as much of a story.
Around the world, we've turned
so many of these old mines
into dumping grounds.
People come to these cracks
in the surface just above
and they chuck in their old
cars and broken fridges,
thinking, I guess,
that the Earth would forget.
But, of course,
the Earth doesn't forget.
As a species,
we've blasted our way
through the Periodic Table.
We've taken all of
these elements from the Earth,
we've taken treasure,
and we've thrown it back
as trash.
[Shutter clicks]
But the thing is, this isn't
even the worst of it.
There's one element
that we've mined
that haunts us
more than any other.
[High-pitched buzz]
Uranium.
It's actually
pretty hard to spot.
Until you shine
a black light on it.
[Click]
And then the uranium lights up
like crazy.
The base level of radiation
in some of these places
is six times higher than
the Chernobyl site is today.
That's why I use the drone.
This is what I mean when I say
the underground tells a story.
And this particular story is
about how we took something
from the Earth
and created a monster.
[High-pitched buzz]
And it's a monster
that we now have to contain.
[Loud explosion]
FEMALE VOICE:
From the violence
of celestial explosions
more than 6 billion years ago,
uranium was born.
[Static interference]
As common in the Earth's crust
as tin or tungsten,
but with a force
beyond imagination.
[Crackling]
One which can power
entire cities.
[Loud explosion]
Or destroy them.
But this astonishing element
we pulled from the Earth
leaves another,
deeper problem.
[Electronic ambient music]
A legacy of toxic waste
that must one day be returned
to the underland.
Into sealed tombs designed
to outlast their makers.
Burial sites for this,
the darkest material
our species has ever made.
[Static interference]
[Music intensifies]
[Footsteps on gravel]
FEMALE VOICE:
In this deep dark,
it can be hard to dream.
To remember why we're here.
[Indistinguishable dialogue]
[In Spanish]:
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Laughter]
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Haunting melodic music]
[Music intensifies]
[High-pitched intense music]
[Intense electronic
ambient beats]
[Ticking]
[Static interference]
- Oh.
- Oh!
- MAN: Ah... No hits.
- MARIANGELA: Ah, okay.
MAN:
MARIANGELA: When an experiment
doesn't end up finding
dark matter,
you know, it can be
really frustrating.
You sort of ask yourself
are we ever gonna find it?
The experiments can run
for months,
sometimes even years.
We keep tweaking
the parameters
for them to look in
as many ways as they can.
Open versus closed circles
on that.
MARIANGELA:
After a certain point,
if they continue to return
null results,
then it will be shut down.
Then, at that point,
as a community,
we need to decide
where to explore next.
- The ones using gas targets?
- MAN: Yeah.
Is it because
it's easier to identify
the beginning and end
of the track?
But there are plenty of other
experiments to run.
Many doors.
We just have to keep
opening them,
until there's nowhere
left to look.
[In Spanish]:
Wow!
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Inaudible dialogue]
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[Intense emotional music]
[Ghostly whispers]
FEMALE VOICE:
Here, at our deepest point,
stone folds.
The rift ends.
We can go no further.
[Haunting melodic music]
Our oldest
and most treasured stories
are of descents made
into the Earth.
Of those who answered the call
of a strange song
that beckoned them downward.
To this place of secrets,
lost to the dark.
Though now,
it is the surface that sings.
That strange
and sunlit overworld.
MARIANGELA:
I've definitely thought about
what it would be like
if the answers never came
over the course
of my lifetime.
[Haunting music cont'd]
I've come to terms with that
as a very
realistic possibility.
The first person
to discover dark matter
might be someone
out there right now.
Maybe some little girl
looking up at the night sky,
bugging her grandma
by always asking why.
BRADLEY: Every time I venture
into the underground
and witness the things
that we've left down here,
I can't help but imagine
some future civilisation
exhuming this stuff,
studying this stuff,
and therefore studying us.
[Footsteps on gravel]
Sometimes I even
imagine myself
as this future archaeologist.
Thousands of years from now,
I imagine finding
a sign in the Earth warning me
of what's buried there,
telling me not to dig it up.
These signs are things
we're actually making now,
in the present.
WOMAN'S VOICE: This place is
not a place of honour...
[Indistinguishable voices]
BRADLEY: And, of course,
on one level it's horrific.
But the fact
that we're thinking about
the wellbeing of future
generations,
maybe even in 10,000 years,
gives me hope
that humanity has some care.
And you see there
a possibility of moving beyond
just thinking about ourselves
or the next generation,
we move into deep time.
A space where
we can imagine ourselves
as ancestors.
[Heavenly choral music]
[Music intensifies]
[FTIMA IN SPANISH]:
[High-pitched pulsations]
[Intense ambient music]
[Violent whoosh]
[Music intensifies]
[Faint crackle]
[Music cont'd]
[Music intensifies]
[Music crescendo]
[Explosion]
[Bird song]
[Soft haunting melodic music]
[Click]
[Bird song]
[Leaves rustling]
["Ferryman" by Johnny Flynn plays]:
Ferryman, ferryman
Carry my memory on
Out to the island
On the horizon
Following the path
of the sun
Following the path
of the sun
Over the sand bar holding
the North Star
Steady between mast and spar
Creek of the oars
and turn of the hours
Keeping watch for the power
Watch for the waves' breath
Watch for the moon's death
Down in the waters of day
Ferryman, ferryman
Carry my memory on
Out to the island
On the horizon
Following the path
of the sun
Following the path
of the sun
For the stone ones
are broken
My sadness is woken
The sea roads are mistaken
So stand by the hail
With a shirt for a sail
We grow weak and frail
And with arms
made of granite
In a blaze of the gannets
We row off this planet
Ferryman, ferryman
Carry my memory on
Out to the island
On the horizon
Following the path
of the sun
Following the path
of the sun
Following the path
of the sun
Ferryman, ferryman
Carry my memory on
Out to the island
On the horizon
Following the path
of the sun
Following the path
of the sun