A dark past explains why the Pölitz Synthetic Fuel Plant in Northern Poland is now a derelict industrial site littered with tunnels, bunkers and huge crumbling concrete structures lost in dense forest. The site was built in 1937 as part of Nazi Germany's drive to become self-sufficient on fuel, but it was no ordinary refinery. It used the latest technology at the time, at great expense, to turn coal into oil. In 1945 an Allied air raid pulverised the plant, severely wounding the German war machine and leaving the site in ruins.

Other structures examined in the first episode include the incredible vertical Phoenix Shot Tower in Baltimore, which was built to provide America's own ammunition, the former American spy instillation called Teufelsberg (or "Devil's Mountain") in Berlin which waged the Cold War against the Soviet Union, and the now derelict Rubjerg Knude Lighthouse which was built on Europe's second-fastest moving sand dune in Denmark.

An abandoned concrete wall... five strange deserted structures. A lost escape route from nuclear Armageddon... A submerged link to D-day... Once they were at the cutting edge of design and construction, now they lie disused, contaminated and dangerous. But who built them? And why were they abandoned?

Learn about the strange-looking, derelict military facilities in Farnborough, which were once wind tunnels that played a vital role in WWII.

The Canfranc Railway Station is an elaborate abandoned Nazi railway station built near a town of only 500 people in the Pyrenees in Spain. But why was it built there and what secrets does it hold?

Also examined in this episode is the Salton Sea Navy Base in California - a military post in the middle of the desert in the American west, the Kola Superdeep borehole - a wrecked record-holding Arctic facility in Russia that goes deep, deep underground, and a huge tower looming over an industrial area in Belgium. All of these extraordinary places and objects were at the cutting edge of design and construction, but now they stand disused, sometimes contaminated and sometimes dangerous.

The Georg Thiele was a technological masterpiece, but it is a shipwreck, lost to the sea in a Norwegian Fjord after running aground during a naval battle in WWII.

Also in this episode, a mysterious concrete giant which echoes the Communist era atop a mountain peak in Bulgaria, a fantastical structure built in the middle of an American river, and one of the world's first and finest Artic feats of engineering, The Miles Glacier Bridge in Alaska, which, when it was first built in the early 1900s, was known as the Million Dollar Bridge.

The programme looks at a mysterious group of rusting ships stranded in an arid desert, a monstrous defensive line on the snow-covered peaks of the Italian Alps, a ghostly collection of buildings, and the sunken remains of a unique vessel.

An abandoned prison beneath the water, a tunnel in the heart of a mountain, concrete towers hidden in the woods and a rusting coastal relic.

A devastated cliff-top ruin, an extraordinarily tall tower, a concrete structure stranded at sea and a heavy metal monster in a field all feature.

Hidden tunnels that saw a city prosper, a sunken wreck with a remarkable past, a concrete wartime dome and a mysterious Cold War building.

An eerie, empty country village which hides a sad secret, a mysterious tower battered by the elements and a disused railway deep beneath the streets of a city.

A settlement in Argentina destroyed by floods, a town in the US that has been erased, and a Soviet dream-town that turned into a nuclear nightmare.

A seemingly endless concrete line stretching through the French countryside, which sits as a monument to a discarded engineering advancement.

A little-known dark past explains the vast monolithic structures that dominate the small British island of Guernsey.

Projects include a maze of tunnels filled with haunting remains beneath the streets of Paris and a strange formation of domed structures hovering over the waters off Florida.

A town in West Virginia that fell victim to the pace of change when steam trains became obsolete and an underground complex in Italy that had been abandoned for nearly 2,000 years.

Features a ruined compound in Colombia which was once home to Pablo Escobar and alien-looking structures with no apparent purpose, isolated in an empty English marshland in Denge, near Dungeness in Kent. But how and why were they ever built at all, and why are they now left abandoned?

A formerly luxurious and strategic mountain-top villa on the island of Rhodes in the Mediterranean that's been ravaged by acts of revenge by locals since 1955.

A strange-looking deserted town with an almost supernatural atmosphere on a remote Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean was in fact an ambitious Soviet mining outpost with a tragic history. Also, a collection of imposing buildings on the southern tip of Australia, the remains of curious-looking basins emerging from the waves in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge and the ruins of a monumental construction project in southern Germany that was a ruthless regime's deadly prototype.

A sprawling Wild West ghost town sits peaceful and abandoned in Montana, USA, but is still haunted by tales of murder, corruption and buried treasure. Also, a cold, dark, underground mountain network that cost the lives of thousands... the crumbling ruins of an English industry that turned poison into profit... a peaceful village that was shattered by the terrors of war.

The underground base with the power to destroy a nation, the site linked with an attempt to kill a dictator, and an ancient world discovered in the American wilderness.

Claustrophobic prison cells that contain a story worthy of international acclaim, and a vast mountainside complex that held the power to change the world.

A secretive underground base that concealed the power to destroy nations, and a sprawling industrial relic clinging to the edge of an unforgiving waterfall.

What happened to an infamous pirate city in Jamaica? Also, a grim gulag in Croatia and a Louisiana plantation caught up in the aftermath of the American Civil War.

Examining a ghost island once belonging to a secretive country on the fringes of Europe. Also, a haunting site in the UK with evidence of strange burial practices.

A complex of stone buildings near Hadrian's Wall that were built to keep Northern hoards at bay. Also, a top secret military facility in the American Midwest.

An extended special featuring a deserted Caribbean city, an American ghost town still burning and an Arctic settlement facing a terrifying future.

In North Wales a secret facility which once manufactured mustard gas and enriched uranium lies in ruins. In Malta is a luxurious quarantine facility, that hides a dark secret.

Ruins of a vast industrial ghost town in the United States, a windswept Scottish island and the remains of a resort in Japan that watched a city burn.

An engineering masterpiece carved into the cliff-face, and a long-range beacon that transmitted one of the most infamous messages in American history.

An American desert canyon where fortunes were made and lives were lost, and an island fortress in Scotland with an Achilles heel.

An iron monster lost in the Alaskan tundra, a Crusader fort thrown into a modern conflict, and a prison built to house a mafia kingpin.

A fairy-tale castle that staged one of the strangest stories of the Second World War and a haunting complex on an old American Frontier.

Bizarrely-shaped huts in India, once home to global superstars, are now eerily quiet and neglected, and a shattered compound in Colombia linked to a criminal mastermind.

Exploring a ghost town in Colorado, the remnants of an industrial enterprise in Puerto Rico, and a remote village on Cyprus.

Exploring a beachside resort with ties to the Russian mafia, a windswept base hiding lifesaving technology, and a site in Iowa plagued by its past.

Exploring a bizarre block in Taiwan resembling a giant speaker, a pioneering venture in Alaska, and an alpine village that masks a military beast.

An ominous tower in the forests of Croatia, a New York City complex that broke the mould, and a grand facility guarding the London riverbanks.

Exploring a desert island with an infected past adrift from the US mainland, the brutalist palace of a mad Bulgarian dictator, and a doomed top-secret Nazi project.

Featuring Italian ruins immortalised by Hollywood, a crumbling Chilean city with two lives and a brutalist Scottish relic whose prayers went unanswered.

Exploring a luxury resort that conceals a top-secret facility, a mysterious complex in Bali struck by disaster, and a relic of hope near Jerusalem.

Exploring a dystopian powerhouse in Pennsylvania, USA, a fairy-tale castle in Poland and AngloSaxon religious ruins across vast plains of Scotland.

Exploring a bloody battleground on the Pacific Island of Peleliu and an ominous military stronghold in Russia.

Exploring the remains of a pioneering industry town in Ohio, a once beautiful Croatian resort bombarded by enemy fire, and an otherworldly garden of Eden in Mexico.

The graffitied remains of a correctional facility in Atlanta, USA with a controversial and unexpected past, forgotten remnants of fraud and fusion on the Western border of Argentina and a mysterious ancient complex built by a devoted Khmer King in the jungles of Cambodia.

Exploring a ruined castle above a German village, a rural town in Idaho, a futuristic skyscraper in Johannesburg and a fantasy world outside of Buenos Aires.

Exploring a British fort that became a bizzare zoo, a brutalist school for Communist top brass and a lost world hides secrets of a vanished people.

Exploring Hartwood, a haunting facility in Scotland, ruins of an ancient city in Iraq and a scandal hit town in New Mexico.

Exploring a royal retreat caught in a web of corruption, an engineering marvel hidden behind the Niagara Falls in Canada, and a subterranean treasure.

Exploring Air Studios, on the Island of Montserrat, that became a mecca for rock legends. Also Tskaltubo, in Georgia, built to host a fearsome dictator.

Exploring Haludovo Palace Hotel in Croatia, Wolf's Lair, a German military complex and Herouni Mirror Radio Telescope - a pioneering facility in Armenia.

Exploring Dover Commando Fortress in South East England, where traces of a top-secret Commando raid are still visible.

Exploring Old Byron Hot Springs in the Californian desert - a once glittering Hollywood hotspot, converted into a top-secret interrogation centre.

Exploring Chateau Aubery on the island of Martinique, where a criminal kingpin wiped out the opposition.