The History Channel

Best-selling author Brad Meltzer and the team jump at the chance to take on one of the FBI's most puzzling unsolved crimes: the 1971 disappearance of airline skyjacker D.B. Cooper, who bailed out of a jetliner at ten thousand feet over Washington state with two parachutes and two hundred thousand dollars in ransom money strapped to his body. Working closely with the former FBI agent who headed up the unsuccessful search for Cooper, Brad and the team examine new evidence that points to a former airline employee named Kenny Christiansen, whose own brother suspects he was actually the skyjacker who called himself D.B. Cooper. This sets up a climactic meeting between the Decoded team and Christensen's possible accomplice, the man who may have helped D.B. Cooper and his two hundred thousand dollar ransom vanish into thin air.

In America, behind the public facade of nine of our most famed institutions and landmark structures, there is another world that is hidden from view. The special pierces the veil of secrecy which conceals forbidden histories and fascinating insider information from the public. Go behind the walls of the Washington Monument to reveal a series of secret symbols and codes, one which was put there by one of the world's most mysterious societies. Dig deep into the dark past of Governor's Island and unearth another possible motive for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. While in the heart of America, the Book of Secrets will uncover the shadowy past of the architect behind the St. Louis Gateway Arch and show how it relates to a theory that the Arch contains mystical powers which ultimately control the weather. Through exclusive channels of access and deep research, viewers will be taken behind the locked doors of seemingly familiar places, into worlds they weren't intended to see.

What if I told you there's a place in Alaska that claims more bodies than the Bermuda Triangle? The Alaska Triangle--the region between Anchorage, Juneau and Barrows--has a disappearance rate sixteen times the national average, and scientists are entirely incapable of explaining why. Is it Alaska's extreme geological activity that creates magnetic anomalies causing instruments--and humans--to act crazy? Or is it vortexes--swirling, turbulent flows of energy--that are causing entire ships, planes and people to disappear without a trace? Local tribesmen, Search and Rescue workers, and the families of the missing all have their theories as to what is causing people in Alaska to vanish off the face of the earth.

Best-selling author Brad Meltzer and his team dig into one of the Civil War's most enduring legends: that millions of dollars' worth of missing gold and silver from the Confederate treasury are still buried in secret hiding places across America. According the legend, the only way to find that buried treasure is to decode cryptic signs and symbols left behind by a shadowy Confederate group known as the Knights of the Golden Circle. Brad and the Decoded team join veteran treasure hunter Bob Brewer, whose lifetime effort to understand the KGC's secret code paid off when he uncovered a small fortune in buried Confederate coins. Bob soon shows just how well he understands those codes as he and the team follow KGC clues to the location of another possible treasure trove.

Best-selling author Brad Meltzer and the team jump at the chance to take on one of the FBI's most puzzling unsolved crimes: the 1971 disappearance of airline skyjacker D.B. Cooper, who bailed out of a jetliner at ten thousand feet over Washington state with two parachutes and two hundred thousand dollars in ransom money strapped to his body. Working closely with the former FBI agent who headed up the unsuccessful search for Cooper, Brad and the team examine new evidence that points to a former airline employee named Kenny Christiansen, whose own brother suspects he was actually the skyjacker who called himself D.B. Cooper. This sets up a climactic meeting between the Decoded team and Christensen's possible accomplice, the man who may have helped D.B. Cooper and his two hundred thousand dollar ransom vanish into thin air.

Could the human race become suddenly extinct? We count down seven ways in which the world as we know it could meet an abrupt and untimely end, from a mammoth asteroid strike to the eruption of a super volcano. What would happen as computers literally become trillions of times smarter than we are--would they program our mass murder? Scientists, experts, and witnesses describe these and other vividly pictured disaster scenarios, from super bugs created in secret labs to black holes that could suck earth into oblivion. Using state-of-the-art computer-generated graphics and interviews with the world's top scientists, we will leave viewers pondering humanity's place in the universe and will reveal the most terrifying truth of all--that our greatest enemy is ourselves.

It began like the common cold. Then fever, baseball-sized black swellings on the neck, coughing of blood. Few lived more than two days. The year--1347. It was history's worst biological disaster and almost half of Europe's population died within three years. Visit the plague ships' rat-infested holds, witness the terror that swept through the towns, and walk with the religious flagellants. Follow a princess as she travels into the center of the plague, a doctor who struggles to understand what is happening, and a Jewish merchant caught up in violent attacks. Hear the actual words of the victims, taken from diaries and journals. From the Pope's palace to the humble huts of medieval peasants, watch as people live and die in the unforgiving grip of fear and death, and wonder how we would act if such a terrible event happened today.

From the bizarre prophecies of Charles Manson to the desperate paranoia of Jim Jones, cult leaders draw us into worlds of power, paranoia, and death. Through interviews with world-renowned scholars and the survivors of cultic tragedy, we will unmask the mystery of cults. From Jim Jones' pursuit of a socialist paradise to Warren Jeffs' Yearning for Zion ranch, cult leaders have twisted the quest for purity into an obsession with madness and murder.

This special takes viewers deep inside America in the late 1960s--into a world of hate, fear, sex, and mind-control. It vividly details how Charles Manson transformed a harmless group of hippies--mostly young women from decent families--into a gang of brutal murderers. The two-hour drama-documentary weaves in rare archival footage and on-camera eyewitness testimony to present a spellbinding portrait of a true nightmare in U.S. history. At the center of the film is Linda Kasabian, the star witness for the prosecution, who has emerged from hiding to tell the full story of the murders for the first time in four decades.

In Russian prisons, tattoos tell all. From crimes committed to time served and even ranking within the strict hierarchy, these dark and detailed works of art are a secret language that contains all vital information and can mean the difference between power and subjugation. This episode goes deep inside the world of Russia's infamous prisons, revealing how these illegal images are controlled by the ruthless Thieves in Law, the notorious gang that rules the prisons with an iron fist. We'll decode the mysteries and meanings behind the ink through the accounts of violent ex-cons and career criminals who reveal their terrifying deeds and the brutal conditions inside Russian prisons.

Informational programming.

Informational programming.

Informational programming.

Informational programming.

It was one of the greatest cities ever depicted in biblical text. Hebrew prophets of the Bible all predicted its destruction--as many as 150 years before it happened. And, when in 539 BCE, Babylon fell to Cyrus the Great of Persia, the prophets were thought to have been proven correct. But scholars and academics have long debated the question of whether these ancient predictions were meant for the city of Babylon of more than 2,500 years ago, or whether they referred to a different Babylon, a future Babylon to be rebuilt where the old city once stood. Ancient Babylon is now known as modern-day Iraq, and eerily similar parallels exist between the prophecies of Babylon and the events of the late 20th and early 21st centuries--including both Gulf Wars and the downfall of Saddam Hussein. Is it possible that Biblical prophecies are playing out in modern times?

Could the human race become suddenly extinct? We count down seven ways in which the world as we know it could meet an abrupt and untimely end, from a mammoth asteroid strike to the eruption of a super volcano. What would happen as computers literally become trillions of times smarter than we are--would they program our mass murder? Scientists, experts, and witnesses describe these and other vividly pictured disaster scenarios, from super bugs created in secret labs to black holes that could suck earth into oblivion. Using state-of-the-art computer-generated graphics and interviews with the world's top scientists, we will leave viewers pondering humanity's place in the universe and will reveal the most terrifying truth of all--that our greatest enemy is ourselves.