Underland (2025)

[bunniefuu]

[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 expl*si*n]

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 expl*si*n]

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]

[expl*si*n]

[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