Welcome to Earth

It might seem humans have mapped every inch of our planet’s surface, but look closer and you’ll discover that there is still so much more to uncover — the age of exploration is far from over! 'Welcome to Earth,' a Disney+ original series from National Geographic, follows two-time Academy Award® nominee Will Smith on an extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime adventure around the world to explore Earth’s greatest wonders and reveal its most hidden secrets. Throughout the six-part limited series produced by visionary Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, Protozoa Pictures, Jane Root’s Nutopia, and Westbrook Studios, Will is guided by elite explorers on an awe-inspiring journey, getting up close and personal with some of the most thrilling spectacles on the planet — from volcanoes that roar in silence to deserts that move beyond our perception to animal swarms with minds of their own. Combining breathtaking cinematography with Will's boundless curiosity and enthusiasm, the blockbuster series is an exciting, multisensory ride through Earth’s most mind-bending portals.

On a remote island in the Pacific, Will Smith descends into the heart of an active volcano to investigate sounds beyond human hearing. Will discovers that everything on our planet creates its own unique sound—even if we can’t always hear it. With the help of technology, we can tune into the hidden sounds of our planet, from the pull of the moon on our mountains and cities to a silent rumble so deep and powerful, it can move the earth around it.

In a deep-water submersible, Will Smith descends 3,300 feet to the bottom of the ocean, where even fewer people have gone than outer space. Along the way down, Will and explorer Diva Amon investigate how color is used in the natural world. He discovers some animals creating their own vibrant, mind-bending light displays in pitch-black darkness. Rarely seen by humans, these displays are one of the most common forms of communication on the planet.

Thirty years ago, Will Smith was mesmerized by a photo of the incredible wildebeest migration across the Serengeti in a National Geographic magazine. Now he visits those same wildebeests and discovers an amazing survival strategy. Individually, wildebeests are animals with low intelligence, but when threatened, they group together and behave as if they have a single, super-intelligent brain. Will discovers that without this superpower, thousands of wildebeests could never survive the 150-mile gauntlet of the most blood-thirsty predators on the planet.

On the trail of tiger sharks in the Pacific, Will explores the power of smell. For humans, the sense of smell triggers deep memories and emotions, but it has an even more vital function in the animal world. Will discovers that scents link ecosystems around the world and are so powerful for some animals that they can mean the difference between life and death.

Will explores the Namibia Desert, where both the landscape and time seem to have stood still for over 50 million years. Will discovers that humans can only see a small sliver of what’s moving around us because everything on the planet is happening either too fast or too slow for us to perceive. With the help of Albert Lin’s incredible technology, Will finds everything is on the move: life, the earth and even the cosmos.

For Will’s final journey, an ultimate challenge. He and polar explorer Dwayne Fields are dropped by helicopter in the middle of an Icelandic glacier. Will’s mission is to draw on everything he’s learned from the five previous expeditions about what it means to be an explorer to overcome his fear and anxieties of the wilderness. By learning how to read nature’s clues, Will slowly gains an understanding of the environment around him, allowing him to embrace his fear and take the reins on a powerful and unpredictable stretch of white-water rapids. Will discovers that uncertainty and confusion are not obstacles to exploration but rather a vital part of every explorer’s experience when throwing themselves into the unknown.