The True Story - Season 6 / Year 2009

The Hunt for Red October, starring Sir Sean Connery, tells the seemingly-incredible story of a Russian submarine captain who attempts to defect to the West. In fact, the Tom Clancy blockbuster on which the film is based, was inspired by an extraordinary real-life incident during the Cold War.

The True Story recreates that thrilling real story, in which idealistic political officer Valery Sablin started a 1975 mutiny on The Storozhevoy, or Sentry, one of the Soviet Union's state of the art Krivak class destroyers. He and his crew headed out into the Baltic Sea in a bid to start a second people's revolution. Terrified that Sablin was defecting to the West with a ship full of secrets, the Brezhnev regime mobilized Air Force bombers and Navy warships to try to stop it in.

Using interviews with sailors and officers on the ship and her Soviet military pursuers, we investigate this amazing high-stakes chase across the Baltic, culminating in an air attack. We also reveal the actual radar footage of the incident, which was recorded on Swedish radar but kept secret for many years. 

Explore the real-life battle between the Law and the Mob for control of Las Vegas that inspired Martin Scorsese's classic movie Casino.

In the Seventies, the Mob illegally controlled nearly all the major Las Vegas casinos, making the city one of their largest sources of cash.

Now, we tell the true story of the most crucial chapter in the city's history, when the authorities set out to end the criminal reign of terror by Mob enforcer Tony Spilotro - played by Joe Pesci in the film - and to close down the Mob's Vegas operation. Members of the crack FBI team, some speaking for the first time, describe how they were sent in undercover to find evidence that the Mob was skimming a million dollars a month from the famous Stardust casino. 

We reveal the wiretaps, the operation to catch Spilotro's gang red-handed in a jewellery heist, and the unorthodox task one FBI agent was given - to lose thousands of US taxpayer dollars on the gaming tables…

The Exorcist was one of the most successful horror movies of all time, grossing almost half a billion dollars at the box office. It was based on a real-life exorcism in 1949 in Maryland, USA, in which a priest claimed to have exorcised a demon from a thirteen-year-old boy whose family reported poltergeist activity. The ordeal lasted almost four months, with various priests reporting that the boy spoke in Latin, claimed to be a demon, and displayed ‘superhuman' strength. 

Using the diary kept by one of the priests, we investigate the disturbing ordeal the young boy went through.

The documentary also explores the increase in exorcisms following the film's release, using actual footage of a modern day exorcism, and explores the work of a leading neuroscientist who has used magnetic field technology to reproduce the sensation of ‘possession' in normal people.

Jason Bourne is the ultimate CIA operative, brainwashed into performing assassinations for a secret cell within the Agency. As far-fetched as it sounds, in this episode of The True Story, we reveal that many aspects of Robert Ludlum's original books, and the subsequent Bourne movie franchise, are rooted in fact. 

In a rare interview, Bourne Identity director Doug Liman describes how the Iran-Contra case, in which his father was the Chief Prosecutor, provided the real-life inspiration for the fictional secret cell ‘Treadstone'. He also reveals how his incredible meetings with a real assassin helped to create Bourne's on-screen persona. 

We also explore the bizarre, secret mind control programme called MK Ultra, aimed at creating a brainwashed ‘Manchurian Candidate', and reveal the tragic story of a woman who claims she was drugged and given electric shock treatments in unsanctioned MK Ultra experiments. Finally, we explore the training in weapons, combat and advanced driving that the real-life Bournes of the Special Activities Division undergo today.