Mysteries of the Deep (2020–…): Season 1, Episode 10 - Escobar's Treasure Sub - full transcript

Can an incredible

underwater discovery
in the arctic

tell us what happened to the
ill-fated franklin expedition?

You feel like
somebody or something

is over your shoulder.

Who knows
what we're gonna find inside?

What is the secret
behind the mystery craft

speeding towards the u.S. Coast?

And is there a new killer
lurking in the depths?

It's not something
that you can hear.

It's not something
that you can see.



It's not something
that you can smell.

Just like, "oh, my god.

I'm not getting in the water."

the underwater realm
is another dimension.

It's a physically hostile place,

where dreams of promise
can sink into darkness.

I'm jeremy wade.

I'm searching the world
to bring you the most iconic

and baffling underwater
mysteries known to science.

Shipwrecks can't just disappear.

Or can they?

It's a dangerous,
unexplored frontier

that swallows evidence...

We know more
about the face of mars



than we do our deepest oceans.

...Where unknown is normal,
and understanding is rare.

captions paid for by
discovery communications

In my years of investigating
underwater mysteries,

I've been to some
pretty hostile places

and the frozen
waters of the arctic

are some of the toughest
I've ever experienced.

It's a place where the
mind can play tricks on you.

Now, reports are surfacing

of locals claiming to have
seen ghosts from the deep.

Could a dramatic new discovery

solve one of the greatest
arctic mysteries of all time?

2014. The canadian arctic.

A team of marine
archeologists find a warship

resting on the sea floor
of king william island.

Finding it was extraordinary.

You could see this ghostly ship.

Then, a second ship is located.

It's as if the crew
has just stepped out.

You could see shells inside
and things still stacked up.

It's very exciting,
but it's also a bit unnerving.

These are no
ordinary shipwrecks.

They all the hms
erebus and hms terror,

two ships from the
ill-fated franklin expedition.

They've been missing
for over 170 years.

They were not where
anybody expected them to be.

Finding the ships
is a remarkable discovery.

But what happened
to their missing crew?

Out of the 129 crew members

that set out on the
franklin expedition,

no one came back.

When the
expedition sets out in 1845,

expectations are huge.

Sir john franklin and his crew

are on a mission through
uncharted arctic waters

to find a navigable passage

between the atlantic
and the pacific.

The northwest passage
is a kind of a shortcut,

the holy grail of its time,
in terms of exploration.

It's kind of like the
space race of the 1960s...

Which nation will
have pride of place?

Franklin is one
of the most celebrated

naval commanders of the day.

Sir john franklin... He was
an honored naval veteran.

He had fought with
nelson at trafalgar.

He's referred to as king
arthur in the british press.

That's the kind of
reputation he had.

Franklin's team

has the most advanced
technology available.

They had enough
provisions to survive

a very long time out at
sea without resupplying.

They actually even had
heating systems within the ship

to keep the crew
and the boat inside

warm enough during the
expected arctic winters.

It was a very
well-equipped expedition,

with very experienced men,

so there's no reason
for them to expect to fail.

But they do fail.

And, for almost two centuries,

the fate of the expedition has
remained a famous mystery.

The arctic waters have
revealed very little evidence

of what happened.

In 1850,
another expedition is sent to find them.

They located
franklin's first winter camp

and, a few days later,
walking along the beach,

they saw three graves
of franklin's sailors.

Franklin's crew
were not alone on the ice.

The canadian arctic is
home to the netsilik inuit.

A group of inuit are later found

with items
belonging to the crew.

Spoons; knives; forks;
broken chronometers;

franklin's medal
of knighthood itself,

which is seen in the
photographs before he sailed.

It's not something
you would just give

to the local people as a gift.

Then,
14 years after the expedition set off,

there's a breakthrough.

An official document is found,

with a handwritten explanation

of how the ships became
locked in the frozen waters

for 19 months.

It indicated that they
had abandoned the ships,

there were 105 survivors,

that franklin himself had
died the summer before.

With franklin dead,
on April 22, 1848,

the crew abandoned their
ships and set out on foot.

Why did they decide to
leave the ships when they did?

To leave the one spot
that you know that is warm,

that has food and shelter,
to set out on the ice,

you have to be
extremely desperate.

Or maybe even
a little bit crazy.

105 men leave the ships.

None are known to have survived

and fewer than 40 skeletons
have ever been found.

Over the years, there have been

many different theories
about what happened to them.

Scurvy, of course,
would've been a factor.

The inuit encountered them.

They talked about
men with black gums,

from frostbite and scurvy,
probably.

You start out with scurvy.

Then, you've got tuberculosis.

These are the two
big killers of the era.

The extreme conditions
would have been physically tough

and long periods
trapped in the arctic sea

can also cause
something psychological

called winter-over syndrome.

Just nothing but ice,
nothing but snow.

For months and months,
you can see nothing.

You know nothing about
what's going off around you.

You become very isolated.

You become very disorientated

and you start behaving
in a very bizarre way.

This could explain
one mysterious account.

An intuit group report trying
to help some of the crew

by building an igloo
and supplying seal meat.

But, later,
they find the igloo abandoned

and the meat untouched.

The inuit tribes out
there were equipped

to survive in these
kind of conditions.

They offered help and the
crew rejected it completely,

which is quite strange,
when you're so desperate.

That they would reject
food is even more surprising,

in the light of a troubling
story that emerges,

suggesting that the
crew turn on each other

in order to survive.

The inuit accounts of
bones that had been sawed

or broken open to
get at the marrow.

Similarly,
skulls that had been broken open.

There is hard archeological
evidence of cannibalism.

When they started
analyzing these bones,

they had cut marks.

Not scratches from wounds,
but butchering marks.

That indicates
that there could be

some kind of
cannibalism taking place.

What would've
caused this well-supplied crew

to resort to cannibalism?

For almost 200 years,

any evidence discovered
about the franklin expedition

has raised more
questions than answers.

Can we use new science
and technological tools

to help us answer that question?

Bodies from the three
graves found at the first winter camp

are exhumed.

They are eerily
well-preserved by the ice

and analysis reveals
something unusual.

They were subjected to on-site autopsies,
x-rays,

chemical tests, and so forth,

and a conclusion was that lead might,
in fact,

have been the overall
culprit of the expedition.

Lead poisoning in the
middle of an arctic wilderness

sounds unlikely,

but could it have come from
something on their ships?

One of the new technologies
the expedition carried

was tinned food.

Over 8,000 cans of it.

We knew that the ships
were supplied with tinned food

and it was shown
also that the tinned food

was prepared in a great hurry.

And tins had a very
thick layer of lead inside.

They would use
lead to seal the tops.

High concentrations
of lead can be deadly.

It can lead to a
debilitating mental state.

It decreases
brain functionality.

Lead poisoning
seems to stack up,

but the evidence
is not conclusive.

Could an innovative
type of x-ray technology

tell us more?

X-ray fluoroscopy
shoots x-rays at things

and looks at their fluorescence.

This allows scientists

to look at the micro structure
of the skeletal remains.

We're trying to just really
get a much more detailed map

of lead in the bone
and that's the technology

that has given us that
high-resolution image.

Unlike a conventional x-ray,
fluoroscopy can tell us

how much land is in the bones
and exactly when it got there.

Can separate new
growth from old growth.

We can color-code that
growth by lead levels

and we can see what's the
difference in the new growth,

as opposed to the old
growth within the bone.

High lead levels
in new bone would mean

the men were exposed
to it just before they died.

Could this finally
solve a mystery

that's remain trapped in these
frozen waters for centuries?

The franklin expedition is one

of the most baffling mysteries
I've ever come across.

129 experienced men armed
with the latest technology

and three years worth of food
set out across the arctic sea

to discover the fabled
northwest passage.

None of them come back

and no one knows
what happened to them.

To find out,
scientists are testing

the well-preserved
bodies of three of the crew.

Were franklin's men
poisoned by the tinned food

that was meant to
keep them alive?

This new analysis suggests not.

The shocking discovery is

that what we had thought
was the explanation

is not really the
explanation anymore.

There weren't
higher levels of lead

in people who had been
presumably exposed to it longer

and, indeed,
that the lead probably did not come

from exposure experienced
during the expedition.

X-ray fluoroscopy reveals
that the high lead levels were

in older bone growth,

suggesting the men
were exposed to it

via industrial pollution
before they left home.

It doesn't look like lead
poisoning is the smoking gun.

So, if it wasn't lead
that killed them, what was it?

For almost two centuries,
there's been little to go on.

We wonder how,
given the diligence of the search

over more than a
century and a half,

we've found so little.

Why isn't there more?

But the
recent discovery of franklin's ships,

preserved beneath the ice,

should prove a
major breakthrough.

Many of us who've been
studying this for years

thought the odds of
actually finding one

of these ships are low.

We imagined they
were probably just

smashed to pieces in the ice.

Surely, now,
all the questions can be answered.

No one has set eyes on these
ships in almost two centuries.

Now, a team of marine
archeologists is surveying them.

The terror is eerily intact.

Who knows what
we're gonna find inside?

The conditions for
preservation are very good

because you have depth
and you have less light

than you would at
shallower depths

and the cold temperature
of the water really helps.

But not everyone is happy

about the underwater
investigation.

Within two weeks of the
team diving on the wrecks,

six people in the
local inuit town die.

In a small community,
that's a lot of deaths

to happen in a
short period of time,

so, some people began to
speak of a curse of franklin.

Some believe
the spirits of franklin's men

have been released
from their watery grave.

The local tribes
even speak of shadowy figure

walking the beaches and the
ice where the ships once were.

I think there is still a kind of

a spectral feeling
to the arctic.

Local superstition
is not the only factor

making investigation difficult.

The freezing underwater
conditions and the location

limit the divers' season
to just three weeks a year.

Remote cameras have to be
used to explore inside the ships,

so investigators can see,
but they can't touch.

But could these submerged
ships finally unlock the mystery

of what happened to
franklin's expedition?

It may well be that
there'll be records,

of some way, shape,
or form that have survived on the ship,

which will give us some insight.

Drawers, they're dark.

There's no oxygen
content in there.

There's no marine life
and there is every chance

that we'll actually get written
records of what happened.

There's captain crozier's desk,

still sitting there,
a bit of silt on top of it,

looking as though you could
just open one of the drawers

and find the answer
to all of the mysteries.

It could still take years,
but, hopefully, one day,

we can open that drawer
and finally discover the truth.

July 4th weekend, 2019.

A man goes into the ocean
off a popular tourist beach

on florida's emerald coast
and comes out feeling fine.

48 hours later, he's dead.

Was it something in the water

and, if so, can forensic science

help us track down
this killer on the coast?

Our beaches are where
we go to relax and have fun,

but what if there's an invisible
killer lurking just offshore?

There's something out there

that people don't
even know is out there.

You can't smell it.

You can't see it.

You can't taste it.

It's terrifying.

Doctors are initially mystified

by the death of the florida man.

But laboratory tests finally
reveal the killer's identity.

Not a stealthy new predator,

but a microscopic,
deadly bacteria.

Once inside,

this starts devouring
and eating human tissue.

If it's not stopped in time,

the only course of
action is amputation.

If we can't get it out,
it can also lead to death.

The idea of contracting
a flesh-eating bacteria

in water that you swim in
is the stuff of horror movies.

Where did this
flesh-eater come from,

has it risen from the
hidden depths of the ocean,

and can we stop it
before it's too late?

Evidence suggests there could be

a new killer lurking
in our oceans,

a deadly bacteria
that eats its way

through flesh and
internal organs.

What can be done
to stop it spreading?

Can this new
bacteria be stopped?

Are we gonna end up
shutting down our beaches?

Science has some of the answers.

This particular bacteria
likes low salinity,

warm bodies of water,

often found near coastal
regions where humans frequent.

A deadly waterborne bacteria

that hangs out in the
same place as we do

is a frightening thought.

And this one has a name...

Vibrio vulnificus.

Research suggests it's
transmitted to humans

through open wounds
or by eating shellfish,

and it's particularly dangerous

to those with a
compromised immune system.

The problem is is that,
when it mutates

and becomes harmful
or active to humans,

it can cause sepsis.

Sepsis is when
the body's immune system

overreacts to an infection

and starts to attack its
own tissues and organs.

It can quickly prove
life-threatening.

The centers for disease control

estimates that about
80,000 people per year

are stricken with this illness.

People get out of the water

and they feel
fine for a few days

and then, all of a sudden,
your leg starts to swell up

and, within hours or days,
it's cut off.

And it may not just
be affecting all beaches.

In June 2019,

there's a new case reported.

An experienced
water sports guide

is paddling across
an inland florida lake.

And, later on in the day,
he noticed

that his arm had
swelled up significantly

and, as the day went on,
it got even worse.

He's not immersed in the water.

It's not in his eyes.

It's not in his ears.

Could it now be possible

to get infected by the bacteria

without even
getting in the water?

Scientists are now
more concerned with it

because it seems to be mutating

and it seems to actually
be more common.

It's finding new ways to infect.

Significantly,
the paddleboarder had been on the lake

many times before
without any problems.

The worrisome thing is
that people are starting

to get infected where we
haven't had cases of this before.

It's out there.

It's spreading.

Is this a result
of global warming?

Is it issues with
pollution in the water?

What are the issues
that are creating it?

New infection sites are
being discovered all the time.

Rising sea temperatures mean
more and more coastal regions

are now potential breeding
grounds for the bacteria.

The warmer the ocean,

the better the
conditions for bacteria.

Most bacteria don't
travel across large bodies of water

because colder
currents kill them off,

but a new insight suggests

human activity
could be responsible

for transporting this
underwater killer worldwide.

Over 90% of everything in
our homes comes to us by sea

and vast cargo ships don't
just transport our global goods.

They may also carry
flesh-eating bacteria.

Large ships now take
on water as ballast.

They suck up water in this port

and then,
when they get to another port,

they empty the ballast
tanks whilst they're offloading.

So this means there is
a constant flow of water

being carried around the world
on our global shipping network.

A never-ending flow of ships

carrying tons of water
from country to country.

If this is how the vibrio
bacteria is being spread,

it may already be too late.

This invasive bacteria
has the potential

to become a
global health crisis.

The vibrio bacteria can
be treated with antibiotics,

if administered quickly,

so medical teams need
to be alerted and prepared.

But with 70% of the
world covered by water,

it's almost impossible to know

where this invisible
killer will strike next.

Perhaps we can use
the tools of science and technology

to better predict where
these outbreaks might occur.

There is one
pioneering technology

that could help us
stay a step ahead.

Computer modeling can
be used to create simulations

of where the vibrio
bacteria might appear next.

Scientists are using
satellite technology

to track salinity,

ocean currents, and temperature.

To try and map global
trade and global currents

and see where
they're gonna come,

so they can move the
resources to be there.

Will these new,
predictive techniques be enough

to help us defeat
an invisible killer

or are we heading
towards a world

where it's no longer
safe to go into the water?

In pirate stories of old,
finding buried treasure

is always about a map
where x marks the spot.

In the deep water realm,
however,

things are rarely that simple.

But could new
underwater technology

do away with treasure
charts and help to locate

what's possibly the greatest
pirate's haul in history?

Could the treasure have
been right under our noses

the whole time?

The mystery starts

with an infamous
caribbean pirate

called captain henry morgan.

Captain morgan is
not just a rum bottle.

He is actually a real person

and he's a real living legend,
in his own time.

In 1671,

morgan sets out with 36 ships

to raid the spanish-controlled
city of panama

and steal its gold.

Panama was one
of the richest cities

in south america at that time.

It's the biggest
heist of the age.

He carried off 134
horse-loads of gold and silver.

But then,
something unusual happens.

According to one account,

morgan,
unbeknownst to most of his men,

sneaks back onboard

and leaves panama
with just three ships.

It is possible that he may
have beat a hasty retreat

because he had a
ship full of treasure

that he wanted to
keep for himself.

When morgan arrives back home,
in port royal, jamaica,

he has only one ship,

and a fraction of the loot.

What happened to
the rest of the treasure?

Did captain morgan
make away with a lotta loot

and, if he did,
where did he stash it?

There were all sorts of
rumors about where the treasure

had been placed,
what he'd done with it.

For over 300 years,
people have put forward theories

for the possible location of
morgan's missing treasure.

But, now,
a team of underwater archeologists

have discovered a
shipwreck near panama,

and it's on the route
morgan would have sailed.

It was associated with
morgan's adventure

because the material on
the ship dated to that period.

Could this mystery shipwreck
be the underwater hiding place

for captain morgan's
missing treasure?

Infamous pirate captain
morgan makes off

with a fortune in
silver and gold.

But when he
arrives back in port,

most of the loot has
mysteriously disappeared.

Where is captain
morgan's missing treasure?

New underwater
investigation techniques

could finally uncover
its hiding place.

The question is,
did captain morgan

make away with a lot of loot?

And if he did,
where did he stash it?

Some archeologists believe
that a shipwreck found near panama

could be one of morgan's fleet.

They found cannons and chests.

But after further analysis,
they actually figured out

that this was more
likely a spanish ship.

So, while these new ships

and new evidence comes to light,

really all it's doing is it's
furthering the mystery.

So if the treasure's
not on this shipwreck,

where could it be?

An interesting detail
and accounts all the time

could give us a new lead.

Captain morgan
takes several weeks

to get from panama
city back to port royal,

much longer than expected.

Could morgan have
stopped on his way back

to port royal?

Because he's a pirate,
he doesn't have access

to normal ports,
so he would have to be

very careful where he's
gonna make his stops.

There is one possible location.

On the route back
from panama city to port royal,

you have this island
called san andrés.

San andrés is a
small coral island in the middle

of the caribbean sea,

reputed to be a
favorite of morgan's,

speculated that he might have
unloaded some of his cargo

and spoils there.

Given the strength of the winds,

they may have had time
to stop and unload a ship.

San andrés is
strewn with sea caves,

making it an ideal
place to hide treasure.

There are all sorts of
rumors that he managed

to find a very deep cave

and stored all the
gold down in there.

And that has been a site
of many treasure hunts

for many years ever since.

Despite many
searches over the years,

no sign of morgan's missing
treasure has ever been found.

Perhaps the solution
lies closer to home.

Another theory that
has always been present

is that actually captain morgan
kept the treasure with him,

and it came back
to port royal with him.

If you lived in jamaica

and you wanted to
spend your money,

you'd keep it somewhere nearby.

You know,
you don't want to have your closest atm

1,000 miles away.

It just doesn't make sense.

Port royal was really
the pirate haven of the caribbean.

And really,
it's the setting for the modern-day view.

We have of what
pirate life was like.

Morgan lived out the
rest of his days in port royal,

where he was buried,

taking the secret of the
missing treasure to his grave.

Then, four years later,
a natural disaster

engulfed the city.

It actually sunk into the sea

after an earthquake and
a tsunami hit the region.

Did morgan's
treasure end up under the sea?

The potential
could be that morgan hid it

somewhere around the city.

And once that disappeared
beneath the waves,

so too did the treasure.

Now a team of marine
archeologists has begun to map

the underwater remains
of the sunken city.

There more or less intact
is an archeological site

to be investigated properly.

Perhaps this
new research will finally

locate captain morgan's
hidden treasure.

One of the techniques
being used is photographer.

Photogrammetry is
a survey technique,

a remote-sensing technique.

You go and take
photos of an area or an object

and you kind of go around it.

And it's an
algorithm essentially

that meshes all
these photos together

and creates a 3-d object.

It's only
recently been developed

to map underwater sites.

The team can
create a 3-d picture

of what the city looked like

when it disappeared
under the waves

three centuries ago.

It lets you reach out
and touch history.

It's pretty cool.

If we can
accurately create a map

of captain morgan's period,

then that gives us an idea
of where such treasures

might have been hidden.

It's early days,
but when the map is finished,

it should be possible to
pinpoint where morgan lived.

Could the hiding place of
his famous missing treasure

be uncovered at last?

In the underwater
ruins of port royal?

This isn't like
finding a pirate ship.

It's finding a
whole pirate city.

So who knows what you can find?

The pacific ocean

is the largest and
deepest ocean on earth.

It's a place I've come
back to time and again

to investigate the
mysteries beneath our waters

because it's the
perfect place to hide.

June 18th, 2019,

the u.S. Coast guard are
in pursuit of a mystery craft

heading north off
the coast of ecuador.

It's sitting low in the water,

barely visible above the waves,
and moving fast.

The coast guard has
been tracking it for 12 hours.

Could it be a new
military prototype?

But whose?

And why is it here
in the pacific ocean?

The sub's crew
don't seem to realize

that they're being chased.

The operator of
this vessel is looking forward.

He can only see one
100 yards in front of him.

He's not even aware
that the u.S. Coast guard

has surrounded him.

It's gonna be hard to get on.

To solve this minisub mystery,

they're going to have to
jump onto the moving craft.

June, 2019.

The u.S. Coast guard is
tracking an unidentified vessel

traveling at speed
through the pacific ocean.

It looks to be heading
for the u.S. Coast.

Could it be some
kind of secret weapon

or something else?

Coast guard officers have
been trying to stop the craft

with no success.

So finally,
two marines jump on board.

As well as its
frightened crew of five,

the vessel contains
cocaine with a street value

of $232 million.

The mystery craft is what's
known as a narco sub.

Narco sub is a pretty
rudimentary submarine

built by drug cartels

to smuggle drugs from south
america to north america.

The business of
trafficking billions of dollars

of illegal drugs to the
u.S. Has gone underwater.

The coast guard
have stopped this one.

But how many more of
these homemade subs

could be making their way
undetected to u.S. Shores?

The ocean is lawless.

There are no borders at sea.

It's so vast,
it's just impossible to police.

And these subs are designed

to be incredibly hard
to spot in open water.

It's a mostly submerged
craft that sits just at the waterline,

so it's very difficult to detect
along the horizon of the water.

On conventional radar,
it might not show up

as anything other than
another wave on the ocean.

So really, you have to have
a visual on it to identify it.

Few of these vessels
have been caught in the act

because many
have a built-in failsafe

that helps them
disappear without trace.

The idea behind the submarines

is that they're pretty
easy to dispose of.

If you're about to get caught,

you can scuttle the ship
really quickly and get off.

Yeah, it sinks, it's lost.

Where's the evidence?

We don't know how many of
these might be lying on the bottom

full of drugs, cash, guns.

Put where are
these subs coming from?

One possibility is
the rivers of colombia,

a country that, as I know well,

has many areas that are
remote and almost impenetrable.

We have no idea in terms of how
many narco subs there have been.

We don't know how many
have been successful.

The estimates still run
to as much as 1/3 or even 1/2

of all the drugs which
gets to united states

come via these submarines.

That means it's still a
hell of a lot getting through.

And could the narco
sub phenomenon be behind

one of the great unsolved
mysteries of the drug world?

It was one of the most
infamous drug lords of all time

who first took the narcotics
battle under water in the 1990s.

Pablo escobar helped
to invent this new method

of delivering
cocaine to america.

He was the first
one to try to use these narco subs

to transport narcotics
in a whole new way.

Escobar was
killed in a shootout in 1993,

but many believe some of
his fortune is still hidden away.

Could his missing millions
be under the ocean?

I've heard that some of
the vast escobar fortune

lies at the bottom
in a narco sub.

It's quite possible.

It probably would've
been in the form of money

wrapped in plastic.

Drug cartels have been
getting away with it for decades.

But state-of-the-art technology
is changing the game.

To catch this sub,
the coast guard used

surveillance gear
developed for the u.S. Military.

The aircraft which had
been most affective so far

is the p-3 orion,

which has a magnetic
anomaly detector on its tail.

The aircraft's
magnetic anomaly detector

works in a similar
way to a metal detector.

Its sensor can pick
out minute variations

in the earth's magnetic
field caused by metal objects.

They can detect a magnetic
anomaly in the ocean.

That's working on the
subs that are built of steel.

So if there's something like a
submersible near the surface,

these planes can
zero in on them.

Magnetic detection
technology has given the authorities

an edge for now,

but this high-stakes
game of hide and seek

is changing all the time.

You move to fiberglass or
other non-magnetic materials,

and you can defeat
the magnetometers

that may be able to find.

A fiberglass narco sub

would be almost
impossible to detect

with the coast guard's
current technology.

It's like a game of
underwater cat and mouse.

It's going to be a
constant battle of technology,

and it's gonna be a constant
war of one-upmanship

of who has the most tech.

We've only discovered a fraction

of what's beneath our oceans.

They hold secrets of
our present and our past,

and they rarely give
up those secrets easily.

But every now and then,

we stumble upon
something truly mystifying.

In 1980,
the remnants of an ancient vessel

are discovered beneath the
shallow waters of the java sea.

Its timbers
are completely rotted away.

This is a seriously
old shipwreck.

Inside are over a 100,000 pieces

of priceless ceramics,
many still intact.

Divers have
discovered an ancient shipwreck

full of thousands of
pieces of priceless pottery

which have lain
undiscovered for centuries.

But where did this
ship come from?

And how did it end up at
the bottom of the java sea?

This shipwreck was special.

It was an old asian design,

and it is full of pottery.

We're talking huge
quantities of pottery.

With no ship left,
with the wood all gone,

it's really difficult
to identify its age.

But from the size
of the debris field,

we can estimate that the
ship was about 90 feet long

and 25 feet wide.

Perhaps forensic
analysis can tell us more

about this mystery ship.

It's been underwater so long,
there's barely anything left.

But the research team
catch a lucky break.

You sometimes
find organic material,

some of the original cargo,
still in them,

which is unbelievable.

In this case,
they found a piece of resin

that they use to
radiocarbon date the wreck.

Carbon dating allows
us to put a time clock

on artifacts that
contain carbon.

It turns out that
carbon has this isotope

that has a specific
decay rate on it,

and if we use that decay rate,
we can backtrack time

for how old a specific
artifact might be.

Initial analysis
has shown that it might've been

a chinese trading vessel
from the 13th century.

It's a huge step forward,

but if anything,
it only deepens the mystery

because the ship's
design and contents

connect it to one of the great
mysteries of the ancient world.

For over 4,000 years,

our seas have played a
vital role in how we trade.

The oceans have always
been the original superhighway,

the original internet.

But unlike land routes,

they leave very few
traces of our trading past.

We know a very small portion

of what was happening on
the seas even 800 years ago.

Understanding
how the trade flows

and seeing where the
trade flows is honestly a way

of charting
development of humanity

and how we've grown.

Can the precious cargo
that sat for centuries on the seabed

give us more
pieces of the puzzle?

Pottery is actually a very
useful tool in dating shipwrecks

because once clay is fired,

it becomes nearly
indestructible.

One of the ceramic
pieces carries a maker's mark...

The ancient equivalent of
a "made in china" stamp...

And this one is from
a chinese province

which only used that name
for a short period of time,

which gives them a date range

that could even be
in the 12th century.

We're talking about
a shipwreck here

that is not long after
the age of the vikings.

This is an immense find

in the condition that it was in.

It's a remarkably rare find.

But can a new kind of radiation
technology tell us more?

Scientists developed
this x-ray gun

that can use x-ray beams

to detect the chemical
composition of the ceramics.

We can look at the
composition of the materials

that makes up the pot itself,

and we can date that
against a database

of soils and clays
from around the world

and be able to get an idea of
where the pottery was made.

X-ray analysis of the pottery
reveals something remarkable.

The ceramics had come
from different places in china,

hundreds of miles apart.

So what these
x-ray signatures have told us

is that this ship first
loaded and porcelain

in fuzhou and then
made its way to quanzhou

and loaded another load

before heading down
towards indonesia.

This is a very
big economic undertaking.

This is not a ship doing
a single port to single port

because there'd be no way
it would carry such a cargo

focused on just one thing

because it wouldn't
be economically viable.

And this tells us
the trade network

wasn't a series of small bombs

but actually was big

and constant voyages.

It's the equivalent
of a modern cargo ship,

but 800 years ago,

and it had a traveled
an incredible distance

when it went down.

The ship sank 2,000 miles

from where it originally
unloaded cargo.

In the 12th century,
that is a huge distance.

That's like going
across the atlantic.

It showed us something
we didn't know existed,

which is this long-range
trading network from china.

This is a huge breakthrough,

something that we
didn't know before.

But the more we discover
about this mysterious ship,

the more we realize how much
there is still to learn about it

and the world it came from.

Who were these
traders in southeast asia

putting these networks together?

We may know the age
and where this cargo was made.

We don't necessarily
know where it was headed

or even where it was loaded,

so there are a lot of
questions yet to be answered.

Some people say never look back,

but I believe it's
only by understanding

where we've come from

that we can truly look forward.

There's still so
much we don't know

about what lies
beneath our vast oceans.

But perhaps the
technology of the future

will finally answer some
of our remaining questions

about the past.