America's Book of Secrets (2012) s03e10 Episode Script
America's Doomsday Plan
1 NARRATOR: An atomic attack TIM RALSTON: The American public had no idea we were two hours away from a nuclear holocaust.
NARRATOR: cyber warfare MICHAEL DOWNING: It could shut down our power grids so that we don't have transportation, water, food.
That would be very scary.
NARRATOR: .
.
a deadly, airborne virus.
ALEX JONES: They have control of biological weapons not just here in the United States, but worldwide.
NARRATOR: The list of doomsday scenarios facing America today is terrifying.
ERICH "MANCOW" MULLER: Doomsday, it's not a question of "if," it's "when.
" NARRATOR: But what is the government doing to protect the nation from the ultimate disaster? And why are their plans being kept so secret? MARC AMBINDER: The secrecy itself could hasten catastrophe.
NARRATOR: In the end, who will be saved and who will be left to die? MICHAEL RIVERO: The bunkers will be holding the political leadership.
We the American people, we're not gonna be allowed in.
"Get out; we have to save the important people.
" NARRATOR: There are those who believe in the existence of a book.
A book that contains the most highly guarded secrets of the United States of America.
A book whose very existence is known to only a select few.
But if such a book exists, what would it contain? Secret preparations? Secret bunkers? Secret strategies? Does there really exist America's Book of Secrets? The Doomsday Clock an iconic and universally recognized symbol representing the countdown to global catastrophe is set to just five minutes before midnight.
Maintained by the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the closer they set the clock to midnight, the closer they believe the world is to global disaster.
The latest recorded time is due to growing nuclear threats in China, Pakistan and India, the ongoing construction of nuclear plants and constant threats of severe climate change.
Some believe such calamities are imminent and the final countdown to doomsday has already begun.
MICHAEL RIVERO: I think it's inevitable there will be a doomsday.
But certainly that's a question of your definition, because doomsday means different things to different people.
To the military, it's nuclear weapons.
To a banker, it's the collapse of the Federal Reserve.
For other people, it's the epicyte gene breaking into the wild and sterilizing all of the human race.
ALEX JONES: When you look at all the different things that could happen, it is a reality we have to be ready for a major Armageddon like scenario.
Many civilizations have come and gone because they weren't prepared for a Krakatoa or a Pompeii volcano type explosion.
There's incredible evidence that we're hit by comets and asteroids every few hundred years.
So the question isn't if but when we're going to be struck by one of these extinction level events.
NARRATOR: According to insiders, the United States government is spending billions of dollars a year on doomsday preparations, not only guarding against natural disasters, but also a number of impending cataclysmic events, including nuclear war, chemical war, biological war and terrorist attacks.
Oh, my God! MARK ZAID: In the wake of 9/11, everyone saw President Bush down in Florida.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Today we've had a national tragedy, an apparent terrorist attack on our country.
ZAID: And then we saw reports of how he was being flown to different parts of the United States.
Dick Cheney, the vice president at the time, had spoken about being sent off into a bunker.
MARC AMBINDER: Cheney believed that al Qaeda had somehow ferreted a nuclear weapon inside the U.
S.
and that an explosion in an American city was imminent.
(people screaming) There was so much unknown about the scope of the threat.
And in an emergency we expect, as citizens, the government to be able to perform.
And so it made sense for the government to create a cadre of government workers who could perform these emergency functions.
NARRATOR: In March 2002, six months after 9/11, a Washington Post article revealed that President George W.
Bush had put into action a secret plan to hide and protect members of the United States government.
Known as the Continuity of Operations Plan, or COOP, the program dates back to the Cold War, when President Dwight D.
Eisenhower feared nuclear attack by the Soviets.
It is also a program that most Americans do not even know exists.
ZAID: The Continuity of Operations Plan is the U.
S.
government program to ensure that in the wake of a cataclysmic attack or disaster (man shouting) the government will continue to function and provide the services that it needs to its citizenry, to ensure the survival of the American people.
NARRATOR: But just how will the government protect the public against a cataclysmic event? And what will happen if high ranking officials do not survive? RONALD KESSLER: If the president is killed, we know the vice president takes over.
Who takes over if they're both killed? It's the Speaker of the House.
And it goes on through cabinet officers.
But what if they're all wiped out? Then these plans have further contingencies to appoint various Defense Department individuals or watch officers.
WILLIAM KRISTOL: It's very important to preserve continuity of government and continuity of command over the military, but also over civilian things.
Who decides whether an area is gonna be evacuated or not? They put a lot of thought and effort into trying to make sure that the U.
S.
can continue to function as a government and as a society.
ZAID: The government that will come into power during the doomsday scenario may not be the leaders that we know today, because we might not be able to get the president to safety.
So this shadow government comes into power to continue the function of the U.
S.
government.
JONES: And so, in the name of stopping or preparing for a doomsday threat, we've actually built a doomsday government: unaccountable, above the law, living off of trillions of dollars of taxpayer money.
NARRATOR: Is the shadow government set up to safeguard American citizens? Or could there really be another, more secret, reason behind its creation? President Jimmy Carter activates the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.
Its mission is simple: to assist the public after a disaster.
But what most people don't know is that a lot of what the agency does is considered classified information.
AMBINDER: FEMA is the primary coordinator of all emergency actions across the government.
So FEMA makes sure that every resource that the executive branch has is brought to bear on an emergency.
But during an emergency where these Continuity of Operations plans are put into effect, FEMA has quite a bit of power and quite a bit of central coordinating authority.
ERICH "MANCOW" MULLER: FEMA has a thing called "cable splicer," where, if there is a disruption of our government, they will then step forward and they become the government.
Many people believe FEMA is already the real government and everybody else we see, they're puppets.
And FEMA's pulling the strings.
AMBINDER: I once asked a FEMA administrator how much time he spent in the secret part of his job, the part not dealing with hurricanes.
He said 40% of his job is spent dealing with the preparations for doomsday, for making sure that these shelters, these bunkers, these alternate sites that the government has are functioning and operating.
NARRATOR: Since FEMA was first created, the federal government has been buying large tracts of land and stockpiling them with trailers and other supplies for survival.
But many have begun to question just how these so called "FEMA camps" will actually be used during a time of national crisis.
AMBINDER: The government, they spend about $5 billion a year on these plans.
But most of that stuff is secret and FEMA does do a lot of preparation that, when interpreted a certain way, can give rise to the idea that they are preparing for martial law.
JOE JOSEPH: There's been numerous stories that talk about "FEMA camps" and some of the nefarious purposes that they could fulfill.
Things like controlling the masses.
RIVERO: Most of these so called "FEMA camps," it is an issue that they could be "closed off" in a time of crisis and rapidly adapted to hold a population under control.
Simply because the government, when it feels it has an excuse, will do whatever it wants to and then say, "Hey, it was national emergency.
" MULLER: FEMA believes they're the good guy riding in on the white horse.
Some believe they're riding in on the white horse of the apocalypse.
If something goes wrong, FEMA plans to step up, take over and tell you and I what to do "for our own good.
" NARRATOR: Is FEMA really preparing to aid U.
S.
citizens in the event of a sudden calamity? Or might their efforts really be providing cover for another, more secret, objective? NARRATOR: A new visitor center built underneath the Capitol building opens three years behind schedule and more than $300 million over budget.
The 580,000 square foot, three level subterranean complex can accommodate 4,000 tourists at a time.
But curiously, the lowest level of the government facility is off limits to the public.
AMBINDER: The Capitol Visitor Center has been the object of much speculation and mystery.
And the fact that it was so over budget and years late in construction gave rise to the theory that what was actually happening was that all of that over budget and being late was a cover for Congress building itself a huge, new, secure bunker right underneath the Capitol.
MULLER: Should there be another 9/11 type attack on Washington D.
C.
, this is where they're going to go.
It's three stories underneath the Visitor Center.
They want to be so low that the radiation, the bombs, whatever, can't affect them.
ZAID: We know there are tunnels underneath the Capitol.
One would hope, in fact, that the members of Congress had a place to go for safety, to ensure the continuity of the government.
NARRATOR: The Visitor Center is fully equipped with bombproof skylights, thousands of feet of fiber optic cable for telecommunications and a tunnel large enough to accommodate semitrucks.
But the official blueprints have been withheld from the public.
Could the controversial structure really be doubling as a secret bunker? One built for the Capitol's political elite in case of emergency? According to some researchers, the government has been quietly building underground safe houses throughout the country since the early 1940s, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt started to guard against the threat of Nazi saboteurs.
ZAID: Throughout the United States, there are secret locations where the leaders of our country will be taken to in the event of a doomsday situation.
They're in mountains.
They're under fields.
But for the most part, we have no idea that they're even there.
We may even, in fact, be walking on top of them.
Most of these will remain secret, for the reasons being that we can't have them susceptible to attack by our enemies.
JONES: Within these structures, they have control of the entire arsenal: nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, biological weapons and systems of electronic control and surveillance, not just here in the United States, but worldwide.
KRISTOL: I became Vice President Quayle's chief of staff a few months into the administration, so it's about the summer of 1989, and I was "read into," as they say, briefed about these programs.
And at some point they wanted to take me to a certain location, where we would be taken in the case of an attack.
And I think even today I'm not supposed to discuss particulars of these secret locations, but there certainly were underground locations where senior government officials would've been taken in the case of a nuclear attack or the threat of a nuclear attack.
MULLER: The plan of the elite is to go underground in the event of a doomsday scenario and emerge to their brave new world.
NARRATOR: In 2007, the National Security Agency set up offices in a nuclear bunker 1/3 of a mile deep inside the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado.
Some believe this could be the government's secret base of operations during an enemy attack.
JOSEPH: Cheyenne Mountain is 5,000 or 6,000 feet high and it is at the bottom in in the middle of this mountain, virtually impenetrable, and all of the buildings inside Cheyenne Mountain are mounted on these giant springs, so if you have any sort of nuclear attack, the buildings just wobble a little bit and they go about their merry way.
NARRATOR: But what about the president of the United States? Are there, perhaps, even more sophisticated plans to keep the country's leader out of harm's way? KESSLER: In the event of a doomsday attack, the president, uh, now could go to an underground bunker at the White House.
But in addition, he could escape through secret tunnels under the White House grounds and hopefully get to the doomsday plane, where he could operate for an extensive period of time and control the nation's military facilities and launch counterattacks.
ZAID: "Night Watch" was the designation for the 747 airplane that he would be on.
It's essentially Air Force One with steroids.
This is the plane that would ensure the president can stay in a functional power for the U.
S.
government.
NARRATOR: The $223 million modified jumbo jet is protected against nuclear strikes by thermo radiation shields.
It is also equipped with telecommunications capabilities that allow the president access to any location in the world.
ZAID: It can stay up longer than most planes.
It is designed to just continually fly around and have communications capability and sophisticated defense mechanisms, so that no matter where the president is, he's still the president.
NARRATOR: Perhaps the most surprising secret about the nation's doomsday bunkers is that they're only built to accommodate an elite number of government officials.
So what does that say about the fate of the other more than 300 million U.
S.
citizens? RIVERO: We, the American people, are paying for protective systems that we, the American people, will not be allowed to avail ourselves of.
We're not gonna be allowed in.
"Thank you for all the money; get out; we have to save the important people.
" NARRATOR: But some Americans are taking matters into their own hands, "prepping" for the ultimate doomsday scenario.
And these extreme survivalists may unwillingly become the government's greatest asset.
Will they really be able to take cover? Or will their cover be blown? NARRATOR: Atchison, Kansas.
Hidden beneath these rolling hills overlooking the Missouri River lies a large complex of limestone caves.
Excavated more than 100 years ago and used as a storage facility for the Army, the site is being transformed into the largest private doomsday bunker in the country.
When finished, this $30 million shelter will measure 3/4 of a mile long by 1/2 a mile wide and more than 100 feet deep, and will be able to house as many as 5,000 people for an entire year.
It will also be the second of several such community shelters planned and built by the Vivos Group since 2008.
ROBERT VICINO: What we've done is design shelters to withstand everything.
I'm worried about an economic collapse.
I'm worried about martial law.
I'm worried about an asteroid.
I'm worried about Planet X.
And the preparation for each one of those things is a little bit different.
NARRATOR: According to a 2012 report, more than three million Americans consider themselves survivalists or "preppers" some going to extreme measures to prepare for a worst case scenario.
JONES: People that are prepping run the gamut.
Some are paranoid; some understand that our society is precariously unstable and it's important to be prepared.
I mean, my grandparents they all had canned food, extra gasoline in a tank out back.
They were all prepared, because they'd lived through the Depression and they knew that the system can't and won't protect you during a real crisis.
TIM RALSTON: Back in the '60s, the American public had no idea we were two hours away from a nuclear holocaust.
We didn't find out how close we really came to nuclear war till the past couple of years.
And them not telling us those secrets should make people say, "Well, I gotta take care of myself.
" NARRATOR: The community shelter option offers certain survivalists the opportunity to buy into a fully equipped doomsday bunker.
So far, Vivos claims over 25,000 applicants for their shelters.
Securing space in these bunkers costs between $7,000 and $50,000 per person.
And like the underground bunkers built by the government, these shelters will be capable of withstanding a nuclear blast.
They also will be equipped with comfortable living and dining areas and even medical facilities.
RALSTON: I like that concept, because it does have a community base to it and they're very big and well built.
But, personally, I don't know if I would go there.
I don't like having someone else have the key to, uh, my safety.
Um, because what if they wanted to change the password and didn't tell me? NARRATOR: Only members know the exact location of their shelter.
But just how will the company ensure that their bunkers will be completely safe in the "end times"? VICINO: You don't just walk into a Vivos shelter.
They're extremely secure.
We can tell whether you're a member or not from as far as a half mile to a mile away.
We're not out to have to put up offenses, and hopefully not defenses, even; we just want to be left alone.
NARRATOR: But not every survivalist trusts a privately owned and operated community shelter.
And others fear that the government may even have secret plans to swoop in and reclaim some of the old 1950s bomb shelters on doomsday.
So just what covert methods are private preppers using? A workshop just outside Phoenix, Arizona.
Tim Ralston, an extreme survivalist who creates tools for doomsday preppers, is making what he calls a "Nax" a combination of a knife, ax, machete and hatchet.
RALSTON: You gotta have an ax, you've got to have a machete and some type of camp knife that can do smaller work.
It still has two handed strike capability, so you can still really get a lot of power in it.
This is one of those tools that's just a must have.
NARRATOR: Some preppers believe the government won't be able to provide for the public in the event of doomsday, and that every citizen should be prepared at all times with enough food and water to last at least 72 hours.
STEPHEN O'LEARY: In the event of a major breakdown, it's not just food, but medicine, ammunition all these things can become in such short supply that people are willing to kill for them.
MULLER: For those that say, "Ah, what could happen? How bad could it get?" I give you Katrina.
Things happen.
We learned that this safety net of the government has big holes in it.
There is no safety net.
(chanting): We want help! We want help! MULLER: And these people saw that.
They had an awakening and now they're trying to prepare, just in case, so they can feed their family and keep their family warm.
NARRATOR: But some fear the government is targeting this seemingly harmless group of survivalists.
According to insider reports, the National Guard keeps a list of doomsday preppers and will give orders to its soldiers to treat them as terrorists in the event of a national emergency.
O'LEARY: And so you've got a bunker in the middle of the desert or of the mountains.
And you think that, uh, you're safe, because nobody knows where you're in where you're hiding.
But there are government agencies who are locating and making maps of where all the people are who have all the stuff that will become necessary in the event of a disaster.
RIVERO: The government probably is tracking preppers.
They want to know where the stored food is, where the stored ammunition is, where the materials are that might be grabbed at least by local jurisdictions, uh, and co opted for the government's purposes.
O'LEARY: For the original hard core preppers, the government is not just useless.
It's actually an enemy, planning to take away our guns or suppress civil liberties.
NARRATOR: Are doomsday preppers really being monitored by the federal government? A government who eyes them as a source for potential backup supplies in the wake of a cataclysmic attack? Perhaps.
But there are those who fear the United States government has another, even more shocking agenda, one which will allow not only for the confiscation of property and supplies, but for the complete control of every last American citizen.
NARRATOR: President Obama signs the National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order.
For many Americans, the directive goes virtually unnoticed.
But to some, the presidential decree was both disturbing and alarming.
MULLER: March of 2012, Obama signed, basically, martial law into effect.
And at any time, he can sign away all of our rights.
And I mean all of our rights.
There is no Constitution.
AMBINDER: The president issued an executive order that seems to allow the executive branch to seize pretty much whatever it wants in an emergency for use in protecting the defense assets of the United States.
In very broad terms, it applies to what's called the Defense Industrial Base, all of the private companies that do work with the government.
JONES: Since the beginning of the Cold War, presidents like Eisenhower, Kennedy, right through Reagan and George W.
Bush and Obama today, have all reissued executive orders allowing for the commandeering of telecommunications, water, food, highways, even the public, in forced labor, during a catastrophic event like a nuclear war or giant earthquakes.
And these executive orders are on the books to suspend the Constitution and basically bring in martial law, and not just the seizure of all infrastructure and energy, but the seizure of individuals as human resources.
JOSEPH: They can take you and tell you where you're gonna work and what you're gonna do and how you're gonna do it.
Down to that level, if it's all executed.
So then you take a look at, well, how are they gonna enforce that? You know, there's 314 million Americans here.
How do you enforce something like that? Well, it's simple.
You militarize the police force.
Now, all of a sudden, you have a standing army in the United States.
MULLER: Nothing happened in March of 2012 for this martial law to be declared by our president, but it happened.
This power, now, in the hands of any president, is frightening.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the U.
S.
government is secretly preparing to use the threat of a nuclear attack or a natural disaster in order to enact martial law? Could they really eliminate basic freedoms and take control of all guns, survival materials, equipment and food supplies? RIVERO: What this is saying is that if there is a declared state of war, the executive branch and the administration will have direct control over important sectors of the U.
S.
economy.
If you are a petroleum refinery and the government says, "We need the oil and gas for the war machine," then the gas pumps at the gas stations go dry.
AMBINDER: The wording of the executive order is pretty clear.
It gives the president the authority to use the resources of these companies in order to protect national security in an emergency.
NARRATOR: In all of United States history, martial law has rarely been formally declared.
Many believe, however, that in 2005, a version of it was employed during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when an alleged order was issued to police officers authorizing them to shoot looters.
But now, in today's technologically advanced world, the specter of an all powerful federal government declaring martial law takes on a whole new meaning, especially when considering the president's ability to flip a so called "Internet kill switch.
" RIVERO: The idea of an Internet kill switch has been talked about ever since the Internet broke wild back in the 1970s.
And it certainly can be done through powering off the backbone provider machines or simply by mounting massive distributed denial of service attacks on the major hubs of the Internet.
And for an agency like the NSA, which has the computer power to do it, they could shut off the Internet simply by jamming it to the point of unusability.
AMBINDER: In a classified document, which we've seen because of one of the Edward Snowden leaks, spells out very precisely under what criteria and how the executive branch will go about declaring that a certain node in the communications system, or a certain set of servers, are critically damaged and therefore, for a short period of time, will be under government control.
NARRATOR: But what could happen if the nation's computer network was suddenly compromised? Is the government prepared to overcome a digital disaster? Could an enemy really bring the American economy and infrastructure to its knees with just one keystroke? NARRATOR: "Cyber ShockWave" a simulated cyber attack on the United States starts assaulting the computers of key government officials.
By the end of the 12 hour war game, it is clear that if the attack had been real, the U.
S.
would have been virtually shut down.
KRISTOL: I recently spoke with a very senior military official who just left the government.
And I said, "What's the one thing that keeps you up at night? What do you worry about over the next five to ten years?" And he said, "Cyber.
" MICHAEL DOWNING: In this country, what we're really worried about and what we're probably not as prepared as we should be for is a cyber attack, something that shuts down our power grids, our sanitation systems, communications systems, things that run our transportation, train stations, the ability to fuel your cars.
KESSLER: All these things could lead to doomsday, because we wouldn't get food.
We wouldn't have refrigeration.
If that were to happen, we could be in a situation where millions of people starve to death because there's no food.
NARRATOR: So just how vulnerable is the United States to a digital attack? And how quickly could the government regain control of the nation's computer infrastructure? KRISTOL: Cyber is complicated because so many of the threats are against the private sector, not just the government.
AMBINDER: The Department of Homeland Security is technically in charge of protecting federal government computer systems from cyber attack.
And private corporations are in charge of protecting the Internet infrastructure, because 90% of the Internet doesn't belong to the government.
And this is one of the reasons why it's been so hard to come up with a coherent cyber security policy.
KRISTOL: The military thinks, "Gee, the whole electricity grid of the U.
S.
may be vulnerable to a cyber attack," but then they have to go see all the electricity companies and say, "We need you to spend this money or maybe we need the government to appropriate money that's going to a private company.
" So how does that work exactly? So I think cyber's, again, more complicated in that way.
NARRATOR: The federal government has reportedly spent billions of dollars to secretly prepare for cyber attacks.
In May 2010, the United States Cyber Command Center commenced operations at Fort Meade in Maryland.
Its leader? The director of the National Security Agency.
KESSLER: The Cyber Command Center is part of NSA, is tracking threats against U.
S.
government computers and systems as well as private systems.
And if China were to actually engage in an all out cyber attack on the United States, the Cyber Command Center could very well launch a counterattack, using the same kind of techniques, to take out China's communications and China's computer systems.
That would be equivalent of declaring war on China.
But that's the era that we live in.
NARRATOR: Is it really possible that doomsday will come in the form of cyberwarfare? Many believe that the answer is not a matter of if, but when.
And that even now, the nation's critical infrastructures are severely at risk.
AMBINDER: One of my biggest fears is that the compartmentalization of these plans within the executive branch, between the branches, is so great that if there were a catastrophe, an emergency, people wouldn't know whom to contact and what to do.
The secrecy itself would get in the way of smooth and efficient functioning.
The secrecy itself could hasten catastrophe.
NARRATOR: As the countdown to doomsday continues, many fear that Mother Nature may be mankind's biggest threat.
And some experts are warning that hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes are just child's play compared to other deadly disasters looming over the planet.
NARRATOR: Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich delivers an ominous speech, warning that perhaps the most dangerous threat to the planet is an electromagnetic pulse or EMP that could be triggered by a solar flare or a nuclear blast in outer space.
RALSTON: Basically, in laymen's terms, it's taking a, um, a nuclear bomb and then exploding it in our stratosphere.
It sends a radio wave of millions and millions of volts of energy throughout the atmosphere.
And it basically will fry out everything that you have that's electronic.
So everything that you have that makes your world go 'round, from your cell phones to your car, everything would cease in an instant.
JONES: If there was a giant EMP, either man made or by the sun, scientists are in agreement that it could knock out all the major power systems of the world.
And then over 400 nuclear reactors would start melting down in a matter of weeks without electrical power or diesel power.
That's one of the big threats.
VICINO: It's not just "flip the switch and it's all coming back on tomorrow.
" In fact, it'll be out for as much as ten years, because some of the transformers on the infrastructure will take that long to rebuild under normal conditions.
NARRATOR: Will an electromagnetic pulse really destroy the American society? Or will doomsday arrive in the form of something completely different? KESSLER: There are so many threats out there that would create a doomsday situation: nuclear threat, biological, radiological threat or an EMP attack.
These are all things that are possible.
I think the most likely attack would be, uh, radiological or biological, because it would be very, very easy for terrorists to bring in these weapons to a city like Washington or New York and just wipe out millions of people.
It's almost a miracle that this has not happened already.
RALSTON: There's other scenarios.
I mean you just spin a globe and point your finger and you're gonna find a disaster happening.
Mother Nature is never gonna show her cards, whether it's an earthquake tornados tsunami.
Things that you can't control.
Those are the things I most fear.
VICINO: Doomsday isn't really gonna be a day.
It's kind of a period of time.
And I think we're already in it.
MULLER: Doomsday, it's not a question of "if," it's a question of "when.
" And it's going to happen in the twinkling of an eye.
And when something happens, the government, they want to protect their own.
They are actively building deep underground bunkers so that they can survive.
It's about the continuity of government and that's what their agenda is.
And so you have to ask yourself: what do they know that we don't know? And I would say a lot.
RALSTON: I think the government doesn't tell us 1/10 of the information that they have.
And that's just to keep the people from panicking.
There's just nothing they can do to save everybody.
So I don't think that they would even tell us if there was something going on.
KRISTOL: I'm not privy to the secrets of the U.
S.
government, haven't been for 20 years, but I'll tell you this, it's very hard to keep up with the threats.
They think they are sort of on top of them, but they are not certain, and it's a case where, if you get surprised, the surprise could be very sudden and very nasty.
MULLER: We don't know what they know.
But I will tell you, from the outside looking in, what's coming for us must be horrific.
We're on the verge of the worst case scenario, because that's what they're preparing for.
NARRATOR: With so many threats facing our nation, is an enormous, cataclysmic event inevitable? And when the end comes, will we be prepared? One thing is certain: the Doomsday Clock is ticking, and it is only a matter of time before our time runs out.
A&E TELEVISION NETWORKS Captioned by
NARRATOR: cyber warfare MICHAEL DOWNING: It could shut down our power grids so that we don't have transportation, water, food.
That would be very scary.
NARRATOR: .
.
a deadly, airborne virus.
ALEX JONES: They have control of biological weapons not just here in the United States, but worldwide.
NARRATOR: The list of doomsday scenarios facing America today is terrifying.
ERICH "MANCOW" MULLER: Doomsday, it's not a question of "if," it's "when.
" NARRATOR: But what is the government doing to protect the nation from the ultimate disaster? And why are their plans being kept so secret? MARC AMBINDER: The secrecy itself could hasten catastrophe.
NARRATOR: In the end, who will be saved and who will be left to die? MICHAEL RIVERO: The bunkers will be holding the political leadership.
We the American people, we're not gonna be allowed in.
"Get out; we have to save the important people.
" NARRATOR: There are those who believe in the existence of a book.
A book that contains the most highly guarded secrets of the United States of America.
A book whose very existence is known to only a select few.
But if such a book exists, what would it contain? Secret preparations? Secret bunkers? Secret strategies? Does there really exist America's Book of Secrets? The Doomsday Clock an iconic and universally recognized symbol representing the countdown to global catastrophe is set to just five minutes before midnight.
Maintained by the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the closer they set the clock to midnight, the closer they believe the world is to global disaster.
The latest recorded time is due to growing nuclear threats in China, Pakistan and India, the ongoing construction of nuclear plants and constant threats of severe climate change.
Some believe such calamities are imminent and the final countdown to doomsday has already begun.
MICHAEL RIVERO: I think it's inevitable there will be a doomsday.
But certainly that's a question of your definition, because doomsday means different things to different people.
To the military, it's nuclear weapons.
To a banker, it's the collapse of the Federal Reserve.
For other people, it's the epicyte gene breaking into the wild and sterilizing all of the human race.
ALEX JONES: When you look at all the different things that could happen, it is a reality we have to be ready for a major Armageddon like scenario.
Many civilizations have come and gone because they weren't prepared for a Krakatoa or a Pompeii volcano type explosion.
There's incredible evidence that we're hit by comets and asteroids every few hundred years.
So the question isn't if but when we're going to be struck by one of these extinction level events.
NARRATOR: According to insiders, the United States government is spending billions of dollars a year on doomsday preparations, not only guarding against natural disasters, but also a number of impending cataclysmic events, including nuclear war, chemical war, biological war and terrorist attacks.
Oh, my God! MARK ZAID: In the wake of 9/11, everyone saw President Bush down in Florida.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Today we've had a national tragedy, an apparent terrorist attack on our country.
ZAID: And then we saw reports of how he was being flown to different parts of the United States.
Dick Cheney, the vice president at the time, had spoken about being sent off into a bunker.
MARC AMBINDER: Cheney believed that al Qaeda had somehow ferreted a nuclear weapon inside the U.
S.
and that an explosion in an American city was imminent.
(people screaming) There was so much unknown about the scope of the threat.
And in an emergency we expect, as citizens, the government to be able to perform.
And so it made sense for the government to create a cadre of government workers who could perform these emergency functions.
NARRATOR: In March 2002, six months after 9/11, a Washington Post article revealed that President George W.
Bush had put into action a secret plan to hide and protect members of the United States government.
Known as the Continuity of Operations Plan, or COOP, the program dates back to the Cold War, when President Dwight D.
Eisenhower feared nuclear attack by the Soviets.
It is also a program that most Americans do not even know exists.
ZAID: The Continuity of Operations Plan is the U.
S.
government program to ensure that in the wake of a cataclysmic attack or disaster (man shouting) the government will continue to function and provide the services that it needs to its citizenry, to ensure the survival of the American people.
NARRATOR: But just how will the government protect the public against a cataclysmic event? And what will happen if high ranking officials do not survive? RONALD KESSLER: If the president is killed, we know the vice president takes over.
Who takes over if they're both killed? It's the Speaker of the House.
And it goes on through cabinet officers.
But what if they're all wiped out? Then these plans have further contingencies to appoint various Defense Department individuals or watch officers.
WILLIAM KRISTOL: It's very important to preserve continuity of government and continuity of command over the military, but also over civilian things.
Who decides whether an area is gonna be evacuated or not? They put a lot of thought and effort into trying to make sure that the U.
S.
can continue to function as a government and as a society.
ZAID: The government that will come into power during the doomsday scenario may not be the leaders that we know today, because we might not be able to get the president to safety.
So this shadow government comes into power to continue the function of the U.
S.
government.
JONES: And so, in the name of stopping or preparing for a doomsday threat, we've actually built a doomsday government: unaccountable, above the law, living off of trillions of dollars of taxpayer money.
NARRATOR: Is the shadow government set up to safeguard American citizens? Or could there really be another, more secret, reason behind its creation? President Jimmy Carter activates the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.
Its mission is simple: to assist the public after a disaster.
But what most people don't know is that a lot of what the agency does is considered classified information.
AMBINDER: FEMA is the primary coordinator of all emergency actions across the government.
So FEMA makes sure that every resource that the executive branch has is brought to bear on an emergency.
But during an emergency where these Continuity of Operations plans are put into effect, FEMA has quite a bit of power and quite a bit of central coordinating authority.
ERICH "MANCOW" MULLER: FEMA has a thing called "cable splicer," where, if there is a disruption of our government, they will then step forward and they become the government.
Many people believe FEMA is already the real government and everybody else we see, they're puppets.
And FEMA's pulling the strings.
AMBINDER: I once asked a FEMA administrator how much time he spent in the secret part of his job, the part not dealing with hurricanes.
He said 40% of his job is spent dealing with the preparations for doomsday, for making sure that these shelters, these bunkers, these alternate sites that the government has are functioning and operating.
NARRATOR: Since FEMA was first created, the federal government has been buying large tracts of land and stockpiling them with trailers and other supplies for survival.
But many have begun to question just how these so called "FEMA camps" will actually be used during a time of national crisis.
AMBINDER: The government, they spend about $5 billion a year on these plans.
But most of that stuff is secret and FEMA does do a lot of preparation that, when interpreted a certain way, can give rise to the idea that they are preparing for martial law.
JOE JOSEPH: There's been numerous stories that talk about "FEMA camps" and some of the nefarious purposes that they could fulfill.
Things like controlling the masses.
RIVERO: Most of these so called "FEMA camps," it is an issue that they could be "closed off" in a time of crisis and rapidly adapted to hold a population under control.
Simply because the government, when it feels it has an excuse, will do whatever it wants to and then say, "Hey, it was national emergency.
" MULLER: FEMA believes they're the good guy riding in on the white horse.
Some believe they're riding in on the white horse of the apocalypse.
If something goes wrong, FEMA plans to step up, take over and tell you and I what to do "for our own good.
" NARRATOR: Is FEMA really preparing to aid U.
S.
citizens in the event of a sudden calamity? Or might their efforts really be providing cover for another, more secret, objective? NARRATOR: A new visitor center built underneath the Capitol building opens three years behind schedule and more than $300 million over budget.
The 580,000 square foot, three level subterranean complex can accommodate 4,000 tourists at a time.
But curiously, the lowest level of the government facility is off limits to the public.
AMBINDER: The Capitol Visitor Center has been the object of much speculation and mystery.
And the fact that it was so over budget and years late in construction gave rise to the theory that what was actually happening was that all of that over budget and being late was a cover for Congress building itself a huge, new, secure bunker right underneath the Capitol.
MULLER: Should there be another 9/11 type attack on Washington D.
C.
, this is where they're going to go.
It's three stories underneath the Visitor Center.
They want to be so low that the radiation, the bombs, whatever, can't affect them.
ZAID: We know there are tunnels underneath the Capitol.
One would hope, in fact, that the members of Congress had a place to go for safety, to ensure the continuity of the government.
NARRATOR: The Visitor Center is fully equipped with bombproof skylights, thousands of feet of fiber optic cable for telecommunications and a tunnel large enough to accommodate semitrucks.
But the official blueprints have been withheld from the public.
Could the controversial structure really be doubling as a secret bunker? One built for the Capitol's political elite in case of emergency? According to some researchers, the government has been quietly building underground safe houses throughout the country since the early 1940s, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt started to guard against the threat of Nazi saboteurs.
ZAID: Throughout the United States, there are secret locations where the leaders of our country will be taken to in the event of a doomsday situation.
They're in mountains.
They're under fields.
But for the most part, we have no idea that they're even there.
We may even, in fact, be walking on top of them.
Most of these will remain secret, for the reasons being that we can't have them susceptible to attack by our enemies.
JONES: Within these structures, they have control of the entire arsenal: nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, biological weapons and systems of electronic control and surveillance, not just here in the United States, but worldwide.
KRISTOL: I became Vice President Quayle's chief of staff a few months into the administration, so it's about the summer of 1989, and I was "read into," as they say, briefed about these programs.
And at some point they wanted to take me to a certain location, where we would be taken in the case of an attack.
And I think even today I'm not supposed to discuss particulars of these secret locations, but there certainly were underground locations where senior government officials would've been taken in the case of a nuclear attack or the threat of a nuclear attack.
MULLER: The plan of the elite is to go underground in the event of a doomsday scenario and emerge to their brave new world.
NARRATOR: In 2007, the National Security Agency set up offices in a nuclear bunker 1/3 of a mile deep inside the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado.
Some believe this could be the government's secret base of operations during an enemy attack.
JOSEPH: Cheyenne Mountain is 5,000 or 6,000 feet high and it is at the bottom in in the middle of this mountain, virtually impenetrable, and all of the buildings inside Cheyenne Mountain are mounted on these giant springs, so if you have any sort of nuclear attack, the buildings just wobble a little bit and they go about their merry way.
NARRATOR: But what about the president of the United States? Are there, perhaps, even more sophisticated plans to keep the country's leader out of harm's way? KESSLER: In the event of a doomsday attack, the president, uh, now could go to an underground bunker at the White House.
But in addition, he could escape through secret tunnels under the White House grounds and hopefully get to the doomsday plane, where he could operate for an extensive period of time and control the nation's military facilities and launch counterattacks.
ZAID: "Night Watch" was the designation for the 747 airplane that he would be on.
It's essentially Air Force One with steroids.
This is the plane that would ensure the president can stay in a functional power for the U.
S.
government.
NARRATOR: The $223 million modified jumbo jet is protected against nuclear strikes by thermo radiation shields.
It is also equipped with telecommunications capabilities that allow the president access to any location in the world.
ZAID: It can stay up longer than most planes.
It is designed to just continually fly around and have communications capability and sophisticated defense mechanisms, so that no matter where the president is, he's still the president.
NARRATOR: Perhaps the most surprising secret about the nation's doomsday bunkers is that they're only built to accommodate an elite number of government officials.
So what does that say about the fate of the other more than 300 million U.
S.
citizens? RIVERO: We, the American people, are paying for protective systems that we, the American people, will not be allowed to avail ourselves of.
We're not gonna be allowed in.
"Thank you for all the money; get out; we have to save the important people.
" NARRATOR: But some Americans are taking matters into their own hands, "prepping" for the ultimate doomsday scenario.
And these extreme survivalists may unwillingly become the government's greatest asset.
Will they really be able to take cover? Or will their cover be blown? NARRATOR: Atchison, Kansas.
Hidden beneath these rolling hills overlooking the Missouri River lies a large complex of limestone caves.
Excavated more than 100 years ago and used as a storage facility for the Army, the site is being transformed into the largest private doomsday bunker in the country.
When finished, this $30 million shelter will measure 3/4 of a mile long by 1/2 a mile wide and more than 100 feet deep, and will be able to house as many as 5,000 people for an entire year.
It will also be the second of several such community shelters planned and built by the Vivos Group since 2008.
ROBERT VICINO: What we've done is design shelters to withstand everything.
I'm worried about an economic collapse.
I'm worried about martial law.
I'm worried about an asteroid.
I'm worried about Planet X.
And the preparation for each one of those things is a little bit different.
NARRATOR: According to a 2012 report, more than three million Americans consider themselves survivalists or "preppers" some going to extreme measures to prepare for a worst case scenario.
JONES: People that are prepping run the gamut.
Some are paranoid; some understand that our society is precariously unstable and it's important to be prepared.
I mean, my grandparents they all had canned food, extra gasoline in a tank out back.
They were all prepared, because they'd lived through the Depression and they knew that the system can't and won't protect you during a real crisis.
TIM RALSTON: Back in the '60s, the American public had no idea we were two hours away from a nuclear holocaust.
We didn't find out how close we really came to nuclear war till the past couple of years.
And them not telling us those secrets should make people say, "Well, I gotta take care of myself.
" NARRATOR: The community shelter option offers certain survivalists the opportunity to buy into a fully equipped doomsday bunker.
So far, Vivos claims over 25,000 applicants for their shelters.
Securing space in these bunkers costs between $7,000 and $50,000 per person.
And like the underground bunkers built by the government, these shelters will be capable of withstanding a nuclear blast.
They also will be equipped with comfortable living and dining areas and even medical facilities.
RALSTON: I like that concept, because it does have a community base to it and they're very big and well built.
But, personally, I don't know if I would go there.
I don't like having someone else have the key to, uh, my safety.
Um, because what if they wanted to change the password and didn't tell me? NARRATOR: Only members know the exact location of their shelter.
But just how will the company ensure that their bunkers will be completely safe in the "end times"? VICINO: You don't just walk into a Vivos shelter.
They're extremely secure.
We can tell whether you're a member or not from as far as a half mile to a mile away.
We're not out to have to put up offenses, and hopefully not defenses, even; we just want to be left alone.
NARRATOR: But not every survivalist trusts a privately owned and operated community shelter.
And others fear that the government may even have secret plans to swoop in and reclaim some of the old 1950s bomb shelters on doomsday.
So just what covert methods are private preppers using? A workshop just outside Phoenix, Arizona.
Tim Ralston, an extreme survivalist who creates tools for doomsday preppers, is making what he calls a "Nax" a combination of a knife, ax, machete and hatchet.
RALSTON: You gotta have an ax, you've got to have a machete and some type of camp knife that can do smaller work.
It still has two handed strike capability, so you can still really get a lot of power in it.
This is one of those tools that's just a must have.
NARRATOR: Some preppers believe the government won't be able to provide for the public in the event of doomsday, and that every citizen should be prepared at all times with enough food and water to last at least 72 hours.
STEPHEN O'LEARY: In the event of a major breakdown, it's not just food, but medicine, ammunition all these things can become in such short supply that people are willing to kill for them.
MULLER: For those that say, "Ah, what could happen? How bad could it get?" I give you Katrina.
Things happen.
We learned that this safety net of the government has big holes in it.
There is no safety net.
(chanting): We want help! We want help! MULLER: And these people saw that.
They had an awakening and now they're trying to prepare, just in case, so they can feed their family and keep their family warm.
NARRATOR: But some fear the government is targeting this seemingly harmless group of survivalists.
According to insider reports, the National Guard keeps a list of doomsday preppers and will give orders to its soldiers to treat them as terrorists in the event of a national emergency.
O'LEARY: And so you've got a bunker in the middle of the desert or of the mountains.
And you think that, uh, you're safe, because nobody knows where you're in where you're hiding.
But there are government agencies who are locating and making maps of where all the people are who have all the stuff that will become necessary in the event of a disaster.
RIVERO: The government probably is tracking preppers.
They want to know where the stored food is, where the stored ammunition is, where the materials are that might be grabbed at least by local jurisdictions, uh, and co opted for the government's purposes.
O'LEARY: For the original hard core preppers, the government is not just useless.
It's actually an enemy, planning to take away our guns or suppress civil liberties.
NARRATOR: Are doomsday preppers really being monitored by the federal government? A government who eyes them as a source for potential backup supplies in the wake of a cataclysmic attack? Perhaps.
But there are those who fear the United States government has another, even more shocking agenda, one which will allow not only for the confiscation of property and supplies, but for the complete control of every last American citizen.
NARRATOR: President Obama signs the National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order.
For many Americans, the directive goes virtually unnoticed.
But to some, the presidential decree was both disturbing and alarming.
MULLER: March of 2012, Obama signed, basically, martial law into effect.
And at any time, he can sign away all of our rights.
And I mean all of our rights.
There is no Constitution.
AMBINDER: The president issued an executive order that seems to allow the executive branch to seize pretty much whatever it wants in an emergency for use in protecting the defense assets of the United States.
In very broad terms, it applies to what's called the Defense Industrial Base, all of the private companies that do work with the government.
JONES: Since the beginning of the Cold War, presidents like Eisenhower, Kennedy, right through Reagan and George W.
Bush and Obama today, have all reissued executive orders allowing for the commandeering of telecommunications, water, food, highways, even the public, in forced labor, during a catastrophic event like a nuclear war or giant earthquakes.
And these executive orders are on the books to suspend the Constitution and basically bring in martial law, and not just the seizure of all infrastructure and energy, but the seizure of individuals as human resources.
JOSEPH: They can take you and tell you where you're gonna work and what you're gonna do and how you're gonna do it.
Down to that level, if it's all executed.
So then you take a look at, well, how are they gonna enforce that? You know, there's 314 million Americans here.
How do you enforce something like that? Well, it's simple.
You militarize the police force.
Now, all of a sudden, you have a standing army in the United States.
MULLER: Nothing happened in March of 2012 for this martial law to be declared by our president, but it happened.
This power, now, in the hands of any president, is frightening.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the U.
S.
government is secretly preparing to use the threat of a nuclear attack or a natural disaster in order to enact martial law? Could they really eliminate basic freedoms and take control of all guns, survival materials, equipment and food supplies? RIVERO: What this is saying is that if there is a declared state of war, the executive branch and the administration will have direct control over important sectors of the U.
S.
economy.
If you are a petroleum refinery and the government says, "We need the oil and gas for the war machine," then the gas pumps at the gas stations go dry.
AMBINDER: The wording of the executive order is pretty clear.
It gives the president the authority to use the resources of these companies in order to protect national security in an emergency.
NARRATOR: In all of United States history, martial law has rarely been formally declared.
Many believe, however, that in 2005, a version of it was employed during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when an alleged order was issued to police officers authorizing them to shoot looters.
But now, in today's technologically advanced world, the specter of an all powerful federal government declaring martial law takes on a whole new meaning, especially when considering the president's ability to flip a so called "Internet kill switch.
" RIVERO: The idea of an Internet kill switch has been talked about ever since the Internet broke wild back in the 1970s.
And it certainly can be done through powering off the backbone provider machines or simply by mounting massive distributed denial of service attacks on the major hubs of the Internet.
And for an agency like the NSA, which has the computer power to do it, they could shut off the Internet simply by jamming it to the point of unusability.
AMBINDER: In a classified document, which we've seen because of one of the Edward Snowden leaks, spells out very precisely under what criteria and how the executive branch will go about declaring that a certain node in the communications system, or a certain set of servers, are critically damaged and therefore, for a short period of time, will be under government control.
NARRATOR: But what could happen if the nation's computer network was suddenly compromised? Is the government prepared to overcome a digital disaster? Could an enemy really bring the American economy and infrastructure to its knees with just one keystroke? NARRATOR: "Cyber ShockWave" a simulated cyber attack on the United States starts assaulting the computers of key government officials.
By the end of the 12 hour war game, it is clear that if the attack had been real, the U.
S.
would have been virtually shut down.
KRISTOL: I recently spoke with a very senior military official who just left the government.
And I said, "What's the one thing that keeps you up at night? What do you worry about over the next five to ten years?" And he said, "Cyber.
" MICHAEL DOWNING: In this country, what we're really worried about and what we're probably not as prepared as we should be for is a cyber attack, something that shuts down our power grids, our sanitation systems, communications systems, things that run our transportation, train stations, the ability to fuel your cars.
KESSLER: All these things could lead to doomsday, because we wouldn't get food.
We wouldn't have refrigeration.
If that were to happen, we could be in a situation where millions of people starve to death because there's no food.
NARRATOR: So just how vulnerable is the United States to a digital attack? And how quickly could the government regain control of the nation's computer infrastructure? KRISTOL: Cyber is complicated because so many of the threats are against the private sector, not just the government.
AMBINDER: The Department of Homeland Security is technically in charge of protecting federal government computer systems from cyber attack.
And private corporations are in charge of protecting the Internet infrastructure, because 90% of the Internet doesn't belong to the government.
And this is one of the reasons why it's been so hard to come up with a coherent cyber security policy.
KRISTOL: The military thinks, "Gee, the whole electricity grid of the U.
S.
may be vulnerable to a cyber attack," but then they have to go see all the electricity companies and say, "We need you to spend this money or maybe we need the government to appropriate money that's going to a private company.
" So how does that work exactly? So I think cyber's, again, more complicated in that way.
NARRATOR: The federal government has reportedly spent billions of dollars to secretly prepare for cyber attacks.
In May 2010, the United States Cyber Command Center commenced operations at Fort Meade in Maryland.
Its leader? The director of the National Security Agency.
KESSLER: The Cyber Command Center is part of NSA, is tracking threats against U.
S.
government computers and systems as well as private systems.
And if China were to actually engage in an all out cyber attack on the United States, the Cyber Command Center could very well launch a counterattack, using the same kind of techniques, to take out China's communications and China's computer systems.
That would be equivalent of declaring war on China.
But that's the era that we live in.
NARRATOR: Is it really possible that doomsday will come in the form of cyberwarfare? Many believe that the answer is not a matter of if, but when.
And that even now, the nation's critical infrastructures are severely at risk.
AMBINDER: One of my biggest fears is that the compartmentalization of these plans within the executive branch, between the branches, is so great that if there were a catastrophe, an emergency, people wouldn't know whom to contact and what to do.
The secrecy itself would get in the way of smooth and efficient functioning.
The secrecy itself could hasten catastrophe.
NARRATOR: As the countdown to doomsday continues, many fear that Mother Nature may be mankind's biggest threat.
And some experts are warning that hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes are just child's play compared to other deadly disasters looming over the planet.
NARRATOR: Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich delivers an ominous speech, warning that perhaps the most dangerous threat to the planet is an electromagnetic pulse or EMP that could be triggered by a solar flare or a nuclear blast in outer space.
RALSTON: Basically, in laymen's terms, it's taking a, um, a nuclear bomb and then exploding it in our stratosphere.
It sends a radio wave of millions and millions of volts of energy throughout the atmosphere.
And it basically will fry out everything that you have that's electronic.
So everything that you have that makes your world go 'round, from your cell phones to your car, everything would cease in an instant.
JONES: If there was a giant EMP, either man made or by the sun, scientists are in agreement that it could knock out all the major power systems of the world.
And then over 400 nuclear reactors would start melting down in a matter of weeks without electrical power or diesel power.
That's one of the big threats.
VICINO: It's not just "flip the switch and it's all coming back on tomorrow.
" In fact, it'll be out for as much as ten years, because some of the transformers on the infrastructure will take that long to rebuild under normal conditions.
NARRATOR: Will an electromagnetic pulse really destroy the American society? Or will doomsday arrive in the form of something completely different? KESSLER: There are so many threats out there that would create a doomsday situation: nuclear threat, biological, radiological threat or an EMP attack.
These are all things that are possible.
I think the most likely attack would be, uh, radiological or biological, because it would be very, very easy for terrorists to bring in these weapons to a city like Washington or New York and just wipe out millions of people.
It's almost a miracle that this has not happened already.
RALSTON: There's other scenarios.
I mean you just spin a globe and point your finger and you're gonna find a disaster happening.
Mother Nature is never gonna show her cards, whether it's an earthquake tornados tsunami.
Things that you can't control.
Those are the things I most fear.
VICINO: Doomsday isn't really gonna be a day.
It's kind of a period of time.
And I think we're already in it.
MULLER: Doomsday, it's not a question of "if," it's a question of "when.
" And it's going to happen in the twinkling of an eye.
And when something happens, the government, they want to protect their own.
They are actively building deep underground bunkers so that they can survive.
It's about the continuity of government and that's what their agenda is.
And so you have to ask yourself: what do they know that we don't know? And I would say a lot.
RALSTON: I think the government doesn't tell us 1/10 of the information that they have.
And that's just to keep the people from panicking.
There's just nothing they can do to save everybody.
So I don't think that they would even tell us if there was something going on.
KRISTOL: I'm not privy to the secrets of the U.
S.
government, haven't been for 20 years, but I'll tell you this, it's very hard to keep up with the threats.
They think they are sort of on top of them, but they are not certain, and it's a case where, if you get surprised, the surprise could be very sudden and very nasty.
MULLER: We don't know what they know.
But I will tell you, from the outside looking in, what's coming for us must be horrific.
We're on the verge of the worst case scenario, because that's what they're preparing for.
NARRATOR: With so many threats facing our nation, is an enormous, cataclysmic event inevitable? And when the end comes, will we be prepared? One thing is certain: the Doomsday Clock is ticking, and it is only a matter of time before our time runs out.
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