The series uses the found footage format and follows a group of individuals sent to the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard to investigate a remote outpost gone radio silent after sending a distress signal.

The award-winning show features an international cast and crew,[2] with notable members including David Ault and Peter Joseph Lewis of The NoSleep Podcast, Beth Eyre of Wooden Overcoats, Lani Minella, and Eric Nelsen.

[4] The first five seasons of The White Vault are presented in a found footage format by a character known only as The Documentarian (Hem Brewster),[Note 2] a British woman who gathered audio, video, and written material of the depicted events.

Several weeks later, a rescue team of five is sent by Sidja Grúp, the Scandinavian company owning the station, consisting of: Mexican physician Dr. Rosa De La Torre (Lani Minella), sent in case of medical help needed by the station crew or the team, English technology specialist Walter Heath (David Ault), tasked with inspecting and possibly repairing the station's transmitter, Icelandic Sidja Grúp representative Jónas Þórirsson (Eyþór Viðarsson), here to document the events for the company, German geologist Dr. Karina Schumacher-Weiß (Kessi Riliniki), hired to examine the outpost's data, and Russian-Canadian survival expert Graham Casner (Peter Joseph Lewis), tasked with the group's safety against the Arctic cold and other potential dangers.

[7][8] The team arrives safely, finding the station deserted but in good shape overall, being fairly easy to fix for Heath; a heavy blizzard follows and fails to subside, making it impossible to leave for the foreseeable future.

Exploring more of the station, the crew finds a hatch leading to a cave system containing an ancient village trapped underneath a glacier, where Schumacher-Weiß, after encountering a "tall, black and skinny" creature, jumps from a ledge to save herself; although she only suffers limited physical damage, she grows increasingly mentally unstable.

A paranoid Schumacher-Weiß is eventually abducted in the middle of the night, and the team finds a new box with a still beating heart, which they believe to be hers; they also hear her outside the bunker asking them to open the door, but conclude that the being who took her is using her voice.

Out of options, they explore the cave system in an attempt to find a way out; however, the creatures, which the team realizes are more than a single entity, chase them, and both Casner and De La Torre are taken.

The third season is set shortly after the first two, on the Cerro Torre mountain in the Patagonian Andes, where an archaeological site of unknown origins featuring petroglyphs was recently discovered.

As the site on Cerro Torre, named Base Camp Piedra, belongs to both Argentina and Chile, an international archaeological team of six is sent to study, consisting of: Argentinian archaeology professor Dr. Carito Ureta (Alli Smalley) of the National University of La Plata, her Colombian-American student and doctoral candidate Eva Olivia Moreno (Diane Casanova), Chilean archaeology professor Dr. Josefa Guerrero (Carla García) of Chile's University of Chile and United States' University of Pittsburgh, her American assistant and graduate student Simon Hall (Eric Nelsen), Chinese epigrapher Dr. Zhou Liu[Note 4] (Sophie Yang), included due to having previously investigated similar glyphs in the Greater Khingan, and the Brazilian field guide who led the tourist group that coincidentally discovered the site, Lucas Criado (Danilo Battistini), now acting as helicopter pilot for the team's ascension and eventual descent of Cerro Torre.

[11] The archaeological team starts their work studying the petroglyphs on the mountain's cliff face, until Moreno discovers a cave containing statues, an anatomical theatre with a floor made of stone boxes, and evidence of early human occupation.

While the group's excitement grows, this also marks the start of inexplicable events, such as the statues being moved while no one is present, doppelgänger sightings, and both Ureta and Criado losing their grips on sanity; the latter acts increasingly suspicious, refusing to take the team down the mountain, leading the others to conclude that he knew what they would find at the site.

After a rockfall traps Guerrero, Hall and Liu within the cave, Moreno, left with no other option, descends the mountain by herself, miraculously achieving the descent despite noticing the presence of the monsters around her.

The rescue team assembles, consisting of Casner, his old Serbian friend and fellow survival expert Dragana Vuković (Tanja Milojevic),[Note 5] The Documentarian's trusted Lebanese associate Maheer Issa (Haytham Alwan), and a returning Moreno, injured but determined to help; upon arriving in Pantagonia, they are joined by Hall's American boyfriend Raimy Armstead (L. Jeffrey Moore), looking for Hall after losing contact with him, and start climbing up Cerro Torre.

Moreno, who realizes that she is turning into one of the creatures (likely the reason why she was not attacked during her earlier descent of the mountain), detonates explosives while the others undergo their escape, killing herself, destroying the site and buying them time.

Meanwhile, Casner and Guerrero, who are attempting to reach Outpost Fristed with Vuković, both confess to their sanity increasingly worsening, suffering frequent visual and auditive hallucinations.

Having recovered all of the available footage related to the events at Outpost Fristed, Base Camp Piedra, and her own investigations into her family, The Documentarian, whose name is revealed to be Linnea, starts recording a presentation, in case she later fails to break the cycle and the burden falls onto her next of kin; this leads to the opening words of the series' first episode, revealing that The Documentarian's presentation was addressed to her future child.

Olivieri) and "Iffy" Talno (Lauren Tucker), come back from a photography shoot to find that their campsite has been raided for winter essentials; despite the worsening weather, they split up to seek the raiders, whom they assume need rescue.

Iffy finds the raiders, Canadian cousins and adoptive sisters Adele (Marcy Edwards) and Mika Fathers Tsįą (Denise Halfyard), who were kidnapped from their home in the Northwest Territories as bargaining chips in a land dispute between their family and a corporation, and are currently on the run from their two abductors, Sam "Es" Gallo (Dayn Leonardson) and Lewis Moulin (Michael DelGaudio).

[14] The story is told through the recovered pages of journals and writings, with each passage read in the original languages (Italian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Manchu) before shifting to English.

Dr Amelia Murray sits down with a representative of Sidja Grúp to review recordings and documents of the events that took place on board the shifting oceanic research vessel Iluka.

The Iluka, working in the Southern Ocean to collect deep-sea sediment cores and water samples using a vibrocorer, unexpectedly pulls up a large stone statue from the sea floor, tangled up in the equipment.

As Franco's condition continues to deteriorate, Dr Murray returns to the deck to discover that released deep-sea gasses are causing the sea to bubble, and that a number of petrels are falling out of the sky, dead.

Dr Murray questions why none of the reviewed recordings and documents raised any concerns about her actions, and ascertains that none of the events that took place – the deaths, the statues, what happened to Franco – are new to Sidja's representative.

Taking place a decade after the end of the fifth season, a businessman named Thomas Burg goes to Beppu, Japan to investigate a property owned by Ikumi Matsuoka's family.

In December 2017, The White Vault announced that they would perform a live version of their show in New York City as a part of The NoSleep Podcast's 2018 Sleepless Tour.