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The Bodies Left Behind is the first episode of season one of Life After People: The Series. It originally aired on April 21, 2009.

Synopsis[]

This episode looks at the future of the cities of Boston and Houston where humans first began achieving immortality in freedom and space and the fate of their static structures after the disappearance of man from Boston's Old North Church to Houston's Astrodome, and what will happen to the human bodies that are buriedembalmed, cryonically frozen, and mummified, as well as the fate of the Immortality Drive inside the International Space Station. This episode also explores human achieved immortality like the Sistine Chapel & the Statue of Liberty. The episode explores Hashima Island in Nagasaki, Japan, which was abandoned by people in 1974.

Plot[]

1 Day After People[]

Power plants around the world begins to shut down. Mummies of the many of Egypt's pharaohs lie in the plexiglass of modern museums instead of the tombs deep inside the pyramids. Without power, the electric temperature and humidity controls shut down. Dr. Howard Oliver stated that the bodies have been left in the tombs in Egypt have lasted 3,000 years or more and if the conditions are perfect, he can't see why it couldn't last another 3,000 years. He continues that if the conditions at the museum fail, the body start to decay immediately by high humidity and mold spores in the air at all times, making mold and bacteria the first attackers.

1 Month After People[]

FrozenCryonics

A cryonic begins to melt.

One month after people, more than 100 bodies are kept in a suspended animation in deep freeze at cryonic facilities. According to experts, these cryonic can't be thaw even a month long blackout, and these cryonic are kept at a temperature of -320 degrees Fahrenheit by liquid nitrogen. But there's a problem, the liquid nitrogen boils off slowly, which is a reason why in the time of humans, the supply had to be replenished every few weeks. Dr. Howard Oliver suggest that enzymes and fluid can break down quickly, suggesting that the enzymes can break down the cell wall, and can accelerate the decomposition. But just a few months, the bodies begins to heat up, and once they reach -184 degrees Fahrenheit, the chemical reactions resume and the decomposition takes over. Dr. Howard Oliver stated that enzymes and fluids break down cells quickly and once temperature rise, it would accelerate the decompose process. There are 400,000 human embryos currently frozen in clinics in the United States alone, but without man in the laboratories, they along with all the egg and sperms quickly decay, as their liquid nitrogen supplies run out.

However, DNA still has a chance of survival, just 200 miles above the Earth, the Immortality Drive sits in the International Space Station. It was first delivered in October of 2008, and it contains the DNA of highly eclectic group, this include Stephen Hawking, Stephen Colbert, and Jo Garcia. Richard Garriott thinks that alien beings may one day use the DNA of the Immortality Drive to reconstruct the extinct human species.

3 Months After People[]

3 months after people, Art has achieved immortality but many of them required protection from the controlled environment. The most famous is the frescoes of the Vatican Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, it was protected by 20 miles of pumps and wiring. Air humidity was kept at 50% to 60% to prevent the frescoes to absorbed by water from air, all of it controlled by the computer. Since power went out long ago, these protective system are useless. But without people, it actually helps preserve the frescoes. Without the annual 2 million tourists, there is no ascending current of body heat, the paintings are at least safe for now.

6 Months After People[]

Nature can also preserve some of mankind structures, like the infamous Ross Island Huts in Antarctica. First built by the explorers Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton in the 20th century. An average temperature in the island just only 3 below 0, and decay is drastically slow, it is in frozen in time. John Anderson stated that insects, fungus, and mold doesn't exist in Antarctica due to the severe cold and the cans of beef from 1917 can survive 2 or 3 centuries easily. The meat has been hanging for a century, and some last for a thousand years like the frozen mastodon. Raymond Coppinger tells the story of the explorers meeting club in Paris in 1928 when they cooked up the mastodon from ice. Raymond Coppinger has a friend and asked him how it taste to a respond from him: Taste like rotten meat but it still edible due to being buried in ice for 10,000 years.

Cities of Boston and Houston are facing a much harsher fate. In Boston, sitting in the Boston Harbour is one of the most famous ships in American history, the USS Constitution. It was first launched in 1797 and it is the world's oldest commissioned warship that still afloat. It gained a nickname "Old Ironsides" when cannonballs were seen bouncing off the ship's 25 inch thick wooden hull during the War of 1812. But without humans, the USS Constitution is defenseless in the race of survival without human care.

9 Months After People[]

USSCONSTITUTION

The USS Constitution during the Boston Winter.

Boston is being ravaged by a winter storm just 9 months after people, and the USS Constitution is losing in a battle. Robert Allison stated that wooden ships leak and will always start leak immediately till it shrink, expand, and rot. In the time of humans, 900 gallons of water a day was drained from the ship made by the automatic bilge pumps. But the pumps have already stopped months ago, even though the flooding is not enough to drag the ship underwater, until it was partnered with the Boston Winter itself. Waves wash over the deck, forcing it further under, till it takes for the entire warship to sinks unlike most enemy warships that never could.

3 Years After People[]

The International Space Station still orbits the Earth after 3 years, but without constant re-calibration or boosts from space shuttles, it loses 2 miles of altitude each month. Without people to begin the emergency, the Space Station drop below 160 miles, causing the orbital decline accelerates. It re-enter the Earth atmosphere where air and friction meets gravity. The Space Station incinerated, and crashes into a nearby city, destroying the Immortality Drive in the process.

5 Years After People[]

Weeds have transformed Boston, including its historic streets. Steven Ross stated that without maintenance on rain spouts and gutters, plant root takes over the cracks of brick and mortar. Boston's Old North Church is under attack by nature, this is the location where Paul Revere warned the British Invasion in 1775. Robert Allison stated that pigeons will enter the interior, and signs of vines starts to grow, and maple trees sprout up in the rotting wood.

20 Years After People[]

JPMorganChaseTowerTemplate

Houston after 20 years.

Houston is being conquered by nature. The JPMorgan Chase Tower looms over the city which is slowly reverting into the swamp. Houston Astrodome, once kept at 72 degrees, are now swelter to 125 degrees in the Summer, turning into a bat cave. The artificial grass is swallowed up by seeds and muck, and bats contribute to the environment by guano. Volker Rudolf stated that guano has a lot of nutrients, and once they start to grow, insects begins to feast in inside the Astrodome, thus bringing in the predators.

25 Years After People[]

Without people to regulate the heat and humidity, the Egyptian mummies are about to be struck by mold then insects. Dr. Howard Oliver stated that mites will be the first insects to decay the body, once it decay, it breaks down the fiber till it start to turn dust. The bodies of Ramesses II and Tutankhamun, which their bodies have lasted for thousands of years under the pyramids, have been reduced to just their skeletons.

At Lenin's Mausoleum, the body of Vladimir Lenin also shares the same fate, but on a different history. When Lenin died on 1924, his body was given in the hands of skilled embalmers. The process involved of using repeated bathes formaldehyde, ethanol and methanol and caretakers were always on duty to protect the body. Dr. Howard Oliver stated that although his body were treated with makeup to look like he used to appears, the process of decay doesn't stop and only to slow it down. Without people to tend the body, Vladimir Lenin is finally skeletonised like the pharaohs.

35 Years After People[]

OldNorthCollapse

The steeple of Old North Church collapse.

In the historic district of Boston, the wooden steeple of the 18th century Old North Church is on the verge of collapse. Robert Allison stated that the steeple is more susceptible than the rest of the building in a big storm making it to fall sooner. A storm slashes in, and the guiding light of the American Revolution collapsed into the streets below.

35 years after people have let homes, offices, and factories to crack and subsiding as nature takes over. Its already a future that already happen in one remote corner of the world, Hashima Island.

Hashima Island[]

HashimaIslandabandon

Hashima Island, abandoned for 35 years.

Visiting Hashima Island, 35 years after people is the future where nature takes over Hashima. Brian Burke-Gaffney, along with Akihisa Murata, and former resident Doutoku Sakamoto visits the island and explains the history and how nature took over. It's history started all the way back in 1890 when the Japanese company Mitsubishi began mining coal from the seafloor beneath Hashima and became the highest population density recorded on Earth in 1959. It was abandoned in 1974 when Japan began favouring petroleum instead of coal forcing Mitsubishi to closed down the mine and relocated the entire population to mainland Japan.

Brian Burke-Gaffney showcase the ruins of buildings in Hashima Island and details how nature expand and corrode materials such as the wooden shutters along the empty row of stores, the metal netting in the ground, and fallen concrete walling. The show explains that corrosion came from saltwater from every typhoon season. Akihisa Murata explains the damage effect of the combination of saltwater, rain, and wind with the front damage while the back doesn't. It was called Battleship Island, Brian Burke-Gaffney stated that its history in the nickname comes when it look like a battleship from far away and actually torpedoed by the American submarines during World War II. Doutoku Sakamoto shows his old apartment home, and Brain Burke-Gaffney explains the Jigokudani, named due to the steps being steep before stating that once a bare rock turned into human community till reality when the bare rock is still a bare rock but lifeless.

50 Years After People[]

Domestic parrots that escaped into the wilds still retain the words and phrases taught to them by their former owners. Mark Stafford stated that parrots are considered the smartest creatures in the wilds with apes and dolphins. For some parrots have learnt several hundred words and will keep the vocabulary even without humans. Mark Stafford stated that parrots have a lifespan of 60 years, and it is still plausible to be heard just 50 years in the wild.

75 Years After People[]

In Boston, the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge is wearing away by time and nature. It was held up by 116 cables, strung from 2 towers, and was built in steel and concrete span. Helmut Ernst stated that in painting the steel, sweeping debris, and cleaning the drainage structures are ways to maintain and prevent corrosion, he also stated that the concrete is sealed with moisture-preventing sealer. Even though cables are coated in plastic piping, they are also keeps them safe from another source of corrosion, bird droppings. Steven S. Ross stated that bird droppings are extremely corrosive and wasn't recognized till 20 to 30 years ago. Bird droppings were created by pigeons and starlings which contain high levels of ammonia and salt, but mixing it with rainwater triggers a lethal electrochemical reaction. It contribute the collapse of the steel eight-lane I-35W bridge in Minneapolis.

100 Years After People[]

BunkerHillBridgeSurfaceCollapse

The Bunker Hill Bridge starts to collapse.

After just a century, the protective plastic coatings of the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge have been cracked by weather. Storm water mixed with acidic pigeon dropping has penetrated to corrode the steel, causing the cables to snap. When half of the cables are gone, those that remain cannot support the weight of the roadway.

In New York City, the Statue of Liberty is still holding her torch high. It was gifted by the French as friendship to the people of America more than 200 years ago, and it was original replaced in the 1980's. After 100 years, the copper skin which only a few millimeters thick is beginning to disintegrate. Steven S. Ross stated that steel straps holding the copper to the steel framework would pull apart and the rivets would pull away in 100 to 200 years.

In Houston, the Astrodome have spent the last century as a sub-tropical paradise. But the stadium is being neglected, as the entire structure is cracking and crumbling, thus in the time of humans, it cost an estimated half a million dollars a year to maintain the Astrodome, the world first dome-based stadium. Without maintenance, the Astrodome crumbles down in great chunks of 9000 tonne of steel and lucite materials, and raining down into the interior below.

150 Years After People[]

Boston is now an overgrown urban jungle. The John Hancock Tower, the tallest building in Massachusetts and New England, is losing its battle with nature. Its outer skin have been destroyed by the weather, but it wont last for long. The steel columns have been corroding for many years, thus causing the John Hancock Tower to collapse in a pancake effect.

Meanwhile, the parrots have never interacted with humans, but their ancestors did and some remnants of human speech have been passed down. However, the language is not immortal after all. While parrots can passed down the words to their predecessors, this does not contribute and value to the survival of the parrots. Mark Stafford stated that the drop off would be more than 90% per generation and it would unlikely to hear human vocalization in the wild.

200 Years After People[]

Over a period of 200 years, the windows of the JPMorgan Chase Tower have been blown out by hurricanes, and the interior is being corroded by rain. Steven S. Ross stated that hurricanes can be expected to hit Houston every 4 to 5 years and can cause significant damage to the buildings. But nature has turned most of the structure into its steel bones. Even the steel frame being exposed to the environment, it will eventually corrode causing the building to lean and collapse.

300 Years After People[]

LibertyTorch

The torch of the Statue of Liberty falls.

In Liberty Island, the Statue of Liberty suffers from galvanic corrosion. The weight of the torch bearing right arm became the first to fall. Other parts of the statue quickly follows, including its face. The shattered pieces lies on the ocean floor, becoming the fossils of the future. Jan A. Zalasiewicz stated that the hand with the torch would imbed itself by 1/2 a meter into a mud and may stay well like footprints being preserved in mud and sand.

500 Years After People[]

SistineChapelceilingfall

The Sistine Chapel crumbles.

In the Vatican, the frescoes created by Michelangelo is still looking down from the Sistine ceiling. While all the frescoes have faded and cracked from the changing temperature and humidity, "The Last Judgement" faded faster than most others. It was painted from Lapis Lazuli located in Tunisia and it is the most precious and the most delicate colour in the Renaissance Art. Without people, high humidity breaks apart the atomic structure, allowing sulfur to mix with oxygen turning the blue to a yellowish-grey. While people tried to clean the frescoes and the maintain the chapel itself, nature is causing the Sistine Chapel to crack. Steven S. Ross stated that the walls will weaken and the vault of the walls would pull the walls apart. This cause the exterior bracing buttresses to fail, initiating a chain reaction around the chapel. The ceiling crack and crumbles in a chain reaction, causing the entire Sistine Chapel to collapse.

10,000 Years After People[]

Almost all traces of humanity and it's culture are buried beneath by vegetation and sand. Steven S. Ross stated that some things like the Pyramids of Egypt would still standing but little existence will be recognizable without people.

The planet is becoming warmer, including in Antarctica. John Anderson analyzed that plant life starts to increase in Ross Island, insects and organism will starts to live and begin to decay anything that left in Antarctica. The huts in Ross Island, including Scott's and Shackleton's Hut, decayed and disappeared without a trace, even in the coldest area in the world.

100 Million Years After People[]

The dreams of immortality that man tried to make his mark on the world have been erased. In the end, it is not what people made, but the simple mineral compounds that made people: bones. Jan A. Zalasiewicsz stated that humans possess robust bones made out of calcium phosphate and it is durable as the bones of the dinosaurs. He also stated that teeth is more durable due to the dentine and the enamel are hard to break down and would likely to survive.

Epilogue[]

Bones are the final fate of human bodies. Bridges that stretched across rivers and buildings that piled up to the sky, art and architecture, aspiration and achievement, are all just fragments into vegetation.

Transcript[]

Life After People Wiki has a transcript for this episode. To see it, click here.

Credits[]

Flight 33 Productions, LLC[]

  • Executive Producers
    • Louis C. Tarantino
    • Douglas J. Cohen
  • Director
    • James Grant Goblin
  • Producer
    • James Grant Goblin
  • Writers
    • Louis C. Tarantino
    • Douglas J. Cohen
    • Jim Hense
  • Editors
    • Kyle Yaskin
    • Dion Labriola
    • Motoshi Wakabayashi
    • Kevin Browne
  • Original Music
    • Eric Amdahl
  • Narrators
    • James Lurie (United States)
    • Timothy Watson (United Kingdom)
  • Associate Producer
    • Mindy Pomper Johnson
  • Researcher
    • Emmanuel Martinez
  • Production Coordinator
    • Joel Franklin
  • Additional Field Producing
    • Jim Hense
  • Directors of Photography
    • Tom Collins
    • Chris McCafferty
    • Chris Laine
    • Jason Newfield
    • Eric Fisher
  • Production Audio
    • Shane Bronson
    • Mike Lile
    • Rory Nix
    • Koutaro Oishi
  • Post Producer
    • Kelly Davis
  • Post Production Supervisor
    • Emily Campbell
  • Online Editor
    • Rod Decker
  • Avid Assistants Editor
    • Lilly Posner
    • Jnani Butler
    • Steve Kwant
    • Chris Hicks
  • Post Production Mixer
    • Dan Luna
  • Vault Manager
    • Heidi Putallaz
  • Post Production Assistant
    • Irit Lockspeiser
  • Visual FX Producer
    • Steffen Schlachtenhaufen
  • Visual FX Coordinator & Storyboard Artist
    • Andy Schlachtenhaufen
  • Visual Effects
    • 1080 Entertainment
    • House of the Future
    • CosFX
    • EdenFX
    • Mojo Media
    • Dilated Pixels
  • Controller
    • Anit Chan
  • Production Accountant
    • P.J. Limonciello
  • Production Assistants
    • Kevin Ercoline
    • Andy Kastler
    • Arno Stemmar
    • Luis Tinajero

Japan Coordination[]

  • Plug In Productions & Field Producer
    • Deborah DeSnoo
  • Research Assistant
    • Ami Suga
  • Production Assistant
    • Noriko Uchida

History Channel[]

TBA

Errors[]

  • The show stated that bird dropping is a contributor to the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, however NTSB stated that the likely cause is a design flaw of the gusset plates at the U10 nodes with the combination of "substantial increases in the weight of the bridge causing previous bridge modifications and the traffic and concentrated construction loads on the bridge on the day of the collapse".[1]
  • Noticeable errors can be seen when comparing Houston in 20 years after people and 200 years after people. As one example, the trees have reverted back to their original positions when moving between the segments.[2]
  • The birds view during the collapse of Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge shows the span of the bridge to only warp/wiggle instead of the collapse as seen in the street view. It is possible it is a visual error or forgot to create/synch an actual collapse in the forward view.

Trivia[]

  • It is the first episode to feature a timeline beyond millions.
  • At the time when the episode first premiered, the Astrodome is already closed and abandoned.
  • Coincidentally, Hashima Island was reopened for tourists a day later, or in Japan Standard Time, the day the episode premieres.[3]
  • The Youtube title for The Bodies Left Behind uploaded by History is The Last Human Left on Earth.[4]
  • In 2016, it was revealed that the mastodon meat eaten in the Explorer's Club meeting are actually Megatherium, an extinct ground sloth. The DNA used came from the 1951 Explorer's Club dinner in New York City.[5][6]

Gallery[]

References[]

Navigation[]

LIFE AFTER PEOPLE-titleletters-darker (vde)
Franchise Documentary | The Series | Behind The Scenes | Extinctions | Latinoamerica sin Humanos | Italian Commercial
The Series Season 1 The Bodies Left Behind | Outbreak | The Capital Threat | Heavy Metal | The Invaders | Bound and Buried | Sin City Meltdown | Armed & Defenseless | Roads to Nowhere | Waters of Death
Season 2 Wrath of God | Toxic Revenge | Crypt of Civilization | The Last Supper | Home Wrecked Home | Holiday Hell | Waves of Devastation | Sky's the Limit | Depths of Destruction | Take Me to Your Leader
Miscellaneous History HISTORY-Logo | Flight 33 Productions | Timeline Puzzles | iPhone App | Quizzes
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