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Who made these markings in the Iranian desert? — Transcript

by Christophe · 2,382 words · 355 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00a while ago I got an email from a
0:01geographer named Dale he was browsing
0:04Google Earth when he found something
0:06strange patterns deep in the deserts of
0:09Iran he didn't know what they were he
0:11suspected they were recent but thought
0:13their purpose and origin were baffling
0:16he'd asked several friends and
0:18colleagues for help but everyone was
0:20stumped so I took a
0:25[Music]
0:27look this place was fascinating a across
0:30the stretch of desert were hundreds
0:32maybe thousands of identical shapes tons
0:35of tiny arcs almost like fish scales
0:38etched into the
0:39ground Dale thought maybe I could find
0:42an answer so I tried and over the course
0:45of a few weeks I worked to figure out
0:47what these markings were and why this
0:49desert in Iran was full of
0:56them for a while at first I wasn't sure
0:59what to make of these I had some of my
1:02own guesses and I asked other people for
1:04theirs but I wanted to start by learning
1:07everything that I could about this
1:09region of Iran just from satellite
1:13imagery the markings showed up on
1:16multiple satellite imagery sites each
1:18marking was about 20 M wide and they
1:20covered an area of about 7 km east to
1:23west 4 kmet north to south looking back
1:26through historical imagery these
1:27patterns had been there for a long time
1:29from 202 24 to 2019 to 2005 to well
1:33maybe they were there in 1985 but today
1:36next to the markings there was a
1:37cemetery a mosque an ostrich farm and a
1:40Waterworks equipment supplier the source
1:43of water supply in pcav pcav or pascu is
1:48the closest town it's part of the
1:49province of sistan and baluchistan other
1:52nearby towns were covered in shapes that
1:54looked kind of more like dots pascu was
1:56the only town around that had curved
1:58markings like this
2:02okay really quick this is actually the
2:04very first episode of tunnel vision that
2:06we made start to finish and now there
2:07are two other episodes that you can go
2:09ahead and watch on the channel now but
2:11for this episode we were able to do this
2:12whole investigation on the internet with
2:14a lot of phone calls and video calls and
2:16messaging stuff that's easy to do when
2:18you're at home in your home country and
2:19a lot harder to do when you're not the
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3:13back to the markings in
3:15pasu I wanted to see what this town
3:17looked like on the
3:19ground on Google Maps the town just had
3:21one location on street view inside the
3:23ruins of a historic castle and just
3:26three pictures one was this
3:31[Music]
3:33and two were of a mountain both posted
3:35by the same
3:37[Music]
3:39person this part was weird pesu was
3:42surrounded on both sides by mountain
3:44ranges but nothing quite matched this
3:46mountain so I reversed image searched it
3:50most of these matches weren't quite
3:51right but there was one that was garash
3:54Kan Mountain also called Face Mountain
3:57because well
4:00it's 400 m tall it's a hot spot for rock
4:02climbing and it's also over 130 km away
4:06from
4:07pascu so this town is labeled with a
4:10picture of a landmark over an hour
4:15away I think this might be a completely
4:17useless Rabbit
4:19Hole I decided to try to get in touch
4:21with somebody there directly by looking
4:23at social media content that had been
4:25geotagged around this area on Twitter a
4:28lot of the posts were autogenerated
4:29tweets of satellite imagery but there
4:32was one video actually taken on the
4:33ground of someone pouring water from a
4:36plastic bottle onto dry cracked dirt on
4:40Instagram pcu's geotag showed pictures
4:42of people and families and green farms
4:45and sweeping landscapes in 2021 a news
4:48report about cooling off at a local
4:50waterfall a year later clips of serious
4:53flooding it was kind of like a peak into
4:55Everyday Life In This Place through
4:57images and behind those images
4:59presumably were people people who could
5:02answer questions so I wrote up some
5:05questions I translated them into Persian
5:07and I started sending DMS one after
5:11another after
5:12another and I waited most people did not
5:16respond but then I got a message from an
5:18account named photographer chemist who
5:20finally told me something that my
5:22research hadn't
5:25[Music]
5:32Rings collecting water for aqueduct
5:35that's what these markings
5:36were photographer chemist didn't know
5:39how old the markings were or who made
5:41them but it was an answer so I wrote
5:44Dale back I told him everything that I'd
5:46learned and he said thank you he was
5:49satisfied mystery solved but I still
5:52needed to know
5:54more I still didn't really understand if
5:57these were a common practice or why they
5:59were were here specifically so I went
6:02looking for experts and I found Fame
6:04Aman a senior fellow at the Middle East
6:06Institute who focuses on Iran s and
6:09Balan is the second largest province in
6:12Iran most deprived yeah the water is
6:17less and less they have to distribute
6:20water in tentures the province has
6:23suffered from a Water Crisis for over
6:25two decades that's partly due to climate
6:27change the province gets half as much
6:29rain as it did 40 years ago and
6:30experiences scorching heat and
6:32sandstorms for much of the year in the
6:34northeast corner of the province the hon
6:37Wetlands which were once 2,000 square km
6:39of Fish and Game and fresh water for
6:42farming have now almost completely dried
6:45up but fat explained that that crisis is
6:47also due to political reasons this river
6:50which supplies water to the province
6:52flows from Afghanistan into Iran and
6:55water rights have been at the center of
6:56a growing dispute between the two
6:58countries Iranians accused Afghans of
7:02preventing water from flowing into Iran
7:05and Afghans believe that Iran is getting
7:08more than its actual share of water in
7:11reality there is no way to measure these
7:14things this crisis has sparked protests
7:16all over the
7:20province learning all of this it felt
7:22like the stakes for a water collection
7:25system in the desert in this region in
7:27the world couldn't be higher I asked fat
7:30if she knew how something like this
7:32would work do you I also don't know I
7:35really don't know what that is really no
7:38unfortunately I'm not expert in you know
7:41in the images and explaining what that
7:44could be so next I turned to
7:48Academia on Google Scholar I tried
7:50keyword after keyword about water
7:53irrigation aquifer agriculture
7:55vegetation the city of pascu the
7:57province of sistan and baluchistan and
7:59then I found a paper with a picture that
8:03caught my eye face
8:06Mountain the paper was about something
8:08called semicircular buns they're a
8:10rainwater harvesting technology also
8:12called half Moons they're made by
8:15digging a shallow hole and pushing the
8:17soil into a curved Mound on one side
8:20with the open side facing uphill they
8:22can catch water as it runs downhill
8:24trapping runoff that would otherwise be
8:26lost in hot dry places formations like
8:28this do two things they increase the
8:30moisture of the soil and they keep that
8:32soil from
8:34eroding this sounded like a promising
8:36answer the markings in pesu mostly faced
8:39West which looking at a topographic map
8:41meant that they faced uphill so they
8:43would catch water flowing downhill I
8:45emailed the author of this paper and a
8:47lot of other Iranian Water Systems
8:49experts and didn't hear back from
8:51anybody but just reading the paper told
8:53me something important if this study on
8:56half Moons had been done near Face
8:58Mountain that meant that somewhere
9:00nearby there would be a huge test plot
9:02of Half Moon markings so I started
9:07looking and it didn't take me long to
9:09find
9:09[Music]
9:12something tiny dots stretching on and on
9:15for 6 km they look just like the dots
9:18I'd found in the towns next to pascu but
9:20very different from the fish scale
9:22patterns in pascu so I zoomed into the
9:25dots and they were definitely half Moons
9:28if half moons showed up in satellite
9:30imagery as dots that meant that the
9:32markings in pascu were something else
9:35something
9:37bigger so if our markings in pascu were
9:40not half Moons what could they
9:43be I looked for someone who could help
9:45me figure that out when you Google
9:47semicircular buns the first site that
9:49comes up is the United Nations
9:51convention to combat
9:53desertification desertification is the
9:55process by which fertile land degrades
9:58into desert and have moons are a tool
10:00for reversing that process they can take
10:02an area like this one in Kenya from this
10:05to this in less than a year and when you
10:08look for more information on the United
10:10Nations site the first person they point
10:12you to is this guy Sani mamadu Abdu he
10:15spent the last 11 years monitoring the
10:17impact of Half Moon projects in ner I
10:20showed him the markings in pasu to see
10:22what he thought they could be
10:46I had measured the ones in pasu and they
10:48were about 20 to 30 m wide on
10:55average
10:57exact Contour B
10:59Sun explained to me that they basically
11:01do the same thing as a half moon just on
11:04a way bigger scale they're much more
11:07difficult to build because of their size
11:08but they also last much longer he told
11:11me that where a half moon can last
11:12between 2 to 5 years before it's eroded
11:15a Bund if it's properly maintained can
11:17last 40 or 50 years he showed me a place
11:20in ner where both Technologies were
11:22being used right next to each other each
11:25of these markings is a half moon and
11:27each of these large brackets is a
11:29contour Bond because of how big the
11:31markings in pascu were they had to be
11:34Contour buns not half moons in places
11:37affected by desertification these kinds
11:39of Technologies make sure that more
11:40water absorbs into the ground and stays
11:43there which isn't just important when
11:45there's not enough water but also when
11:47there's too much
12:02I called up Dale the geographer that
12:04asked me about this in the first place
12:06to tell him what I'd found so you know
12:09for fact or at least it seems to be fact
12:12because you heard it from someone who
12:13lives there that they they're used for
12:16water retention that their Contour buns
12:19they're amazingly dense and unique in
12:22that regard it mindboggling in terms of
12:24the time and effort to build them we
12:25don't know how long ago they were built
12:28uh nobody you talked to least has any
12:30knowledge when they were built but
12:31they've been there at least 20 years if
12:33not longer and they're
12:36still haing the the retention of water
12:40and recharge to the aquifer for their
12:42Aqueduct today we know that much that's
12:44about all we know does it does it feel
12:46like a satisfying answer is there more
12:48that you wish we I mean it's a satis
12:50it's a satisfying answer it's still
12:52remarkable just the the the density and
12:56the coverage of those in that particular
12:58area they because you don't find that
13:00elsewhere and that's what really struck
13:02me about these features how mindboggling
13:05it is just the the time and effort and
13:07labor to create you know a dozen of
13:09those and then you multiply that by
13:11hundreds and hundreds across a landscape
13:14you know densely covering like that it
13:15was just one of these
13:17mindboggling Enterprises that really
13:19catches your
13:20[Music]
13:24attention talking to Fatima and S and
13:26Dale made me Marvel at these markings in
13:29in a whole new way as a massive feat of
13:32human engineering and labor that had
13:34served a community for at least two
13:36decades and Counting two decades of
13:38extreme water insecurity the Contour
13:41buns in pascu are part of the solution
13:43to that insecurity and so are the half
13:46moons in the town's next door and so are
13:48the half moons from that study near Face
13:50Mountain which according to that study
13:53are working increasing vegetation
13:55richness and soil
13:57fertility the frequency and severity of
14:00both droughts and floods are expected to
14:02rise in a changing climate it is and
14:04will continue to be a big big problem
14:07but sometimes solving big problems can
14:10start with really really small Solutions
14:13even if all they take is some people
14:16some planning and a
14:24shovel thank you so much for watching
14:26this has been episode three of tunnel
14:28vision a show that we're making about
14:30diving deep down internet rabbit holes
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14:33you should subscribe we're going to keep
14:35trying to publish a video about every
14:36month or so in the meantime I want to
14:39hear any and all ideas that you have any
14:40Mysteries that you want to see solved or
14:42conundrums you want to see explained
14:44please drop them in the comments or send
14:45them our way we're just getting started
14:47so I'll see you next time

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