History's Secrets

As world famous aviator Amelia Earhart closed in on her record-setting attempt to fly around the world in July 1937, she disappeared somewhere over the Pacific Ocean- vanishing without a trace. Did she run out of fuel and crash into the sea? Or could she have survived? Investigators have built the case that Amelia Earhart was a pawn in an espionage plot for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, while eyewitnesses testified that she was captured by the Japanese military. Examining facts and evidence, National Geographic explores one of the most fiercely debated mysteries of all time.

On July 8, 1947 the U.S. Army issued a press statement claiming to have recovered a "flying saucer" on a ranch outside Roswell, New Mexico. But within hours they retracted the statement saying that they had found only the remains of a weather balloon. Sixty years later the debate still rages and Roswell has become the UFO capital of the world. Did the military really recover dead aliens and their spaceship, as some people claim?

Scattered across the island of Sicily, beneath picturesque churches, are thousands of mummified bodies. And most mysterious of all is one of the last to be enshrined: she's known as the "sleeping beauty"- Rosalia Lombardo. A child barely two years old when she died nearly a century ago, Rosalia's corpse remains flawlessly preserved. Now, for the first time, a scientific team of mummy hunters is on the case, unearthing hundreds of Sicily's miraculous dead, exploring how this baffling culture of mummification could operate within the Catholic Church itself, and finally, revealing the secret formula behind Rosalia's perfect preservation.

Did Romanov Princess Anastasia survive a Bolshevik firing squad or did she and her brother Crown Prince Alexis perish with their father, Tsar Nicholas II, before another firing squad in 1918? The chance find of human remains in a Siberian forest brings forensic anthropologist Dr. Anthony Falsetti to in search of the truth. Marshalling DNA, ballistics and the very latest forensic analysis, an international team works to dispel the greatest myth of the 20th century and tell a real story more remarkable than any fiction.

For the first time, the Catholic Church is allowing scientific experts and historians to openly test the veracity of the remains of reported saints. National Geographic has exclusive access to the forensic investigation. Deep in the crypt below the Cathedral of Reggio Emilia lie a set of bones believed to be those of two ancient saints, Chrysanthus and Daria. For more than 1,500 years they've been hidden away ... until now. Can science prove that these are a man and woman who were brutally executed by the Romans in the fight against a growing Christian faith?