Mysteries of the Deep (2020–…): Season 1, Episode 8 - NASA's Lost Treasure - full transcript

What was responsible
for the loss of

a nasa space capsule
deep in the mid-atlantic?

It's not losing a needle
in the haystack.

It's like losing the head of
the needle in the haystack.

What is the underwater secret

behind ship disappearances
in the devil's sea?

It is the bermuda
triangle of the pacific,

and, in many ways,
it is just as deadly.

And is a ticking
time bomb at the bottom

of the baltic sea
about to go off?

One can only imagine how
horrifying that would be



to be confronted with
the spectacle of

your impending doom.

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.

At the dawn of the space race,

a pioneering sub-orbital
flight is about to put the usa

in pole position,

boy that's some sight.

But things go
horribly wrong when

the capsule splashes
down into the atlantic.

American dreams,
along with years of research

and development,

sink to the ocean floor.

Exactly what happened on that
fateful day remains a mystery.

But can a fresh investigation
by an amateur sleuth

succeed where officials
have failed

and finally reveal the answer?

July 21, 1961.

Returning to earth
after his pioneering

sub-orbital flight,
commander gus grissom

splashes down into
the atlantic ocean

in the liberty bell 7 capsule.

A recovery helicopter
arrives to secure

the capsule
and take it back to base.

But suddenly, without warning,
the spacecraft's emergency hatch

blows off,

leaving a gaping hole
in its side.

Gus grissom is in the capsule,
and water's now flooding in.

The astronaut hauls
himself out through

the narrow hatch
and into the sea,

but his ordeal is only
just beginning.

The man's in outer space
one minute,

and the next minute, he's on
the surface of the earth,

and this is where he has the
highest possibility of dying.

The retrieval helicopter
focuses on the capsule,

but it struggles
to maintain control.

Liberty bell 7 is taking
on water and getting heavier

by the second.

The helicopter is
dragged downwards.

Inside, emergency lights
come on.

The engine is close to failing.

As the chopper's
propeller creates

a churning wash
of air and water,

grissom, beneath,
struggles to stay afloat.

And there's, you know, all this
prop wash coming down on gus.

They're not paying
any attention to him.

They're concentrating
on getting the spacecraft.

He's in his spacesuit,
in his spacesuit

starts filling up with water.

He's taking on water,

and he's losing buoyancy.

With the capsule now
weighing 1,000 pounds more

than the retrieval helicopter
can handle,

the pilot is forced to make
a tough, split-second decision.

He cuts the cord.

Liberty bell 7 sinks
to the bottom of the ocean.

Nearby, gus grissom
is facing a similar fate.

He's fighting to keep
his nose above the water,

literally, until
the backup recovery helicopter

comes in.

And then there is
the iconic picture that

everybody remembers

about liberty bell 7 of
gus like a dead fish

being hauled up into
the backup recovery helicopter.

Why the mission goes
so badly wrong

is one of nasa's greatest
unsolved mysteries,

and, for some, a blemish
on its reputation.

To lose liberty bell 7
in the moment was horrible.

It represented

the high point of
nasa's space program.

It was an emblem of
america itself.

So to have it in one's grasp

and to lose it,

it was seen as a real loss

of pride in the american
space program.

The public want answers.

What went wrong,
and who was to blame?

With the physical evidence
lost deep under the atlantic,

people look to grissom
for answers,

but the astronaut can shed
little light

on those fateful moments.

Nasa's initial
investigation finds no fault

in grissom's actions,
but some are skeptical.

Pilot error is,
of course, a potential.

There's always the potential.

It's very easy to blame the
organic matter in the cockpit.

Gus grissom's reputation
as a flyer with

the right stuff is
called into question.

An astronaut hero
falls to earth.

Grissom's mission was part of
project mercury,

the united states' manned
spaceflight program.

The space race with the soviet
union is in full flow.

Expectations are great,
and the stakes are high.

Rockets are exploding
left and right,

and these guys
have to figure out how to

fix them and ride them
and not get killed.

The race to the moon is on,

so every mission needs
to drive progress.

Grissom's flight tests
several innovations,

including, significantly,

a quick-release emergency hatch.

The hatch is sealed
with 70 titanium bolts

embedded in an enclosed
explosive casing.

A push button plunger detonates

the charge and releases
the hatch.

For safety reasons,

detonation is
a multi-step process.

The hatch must first be
armed before pressure

is applied to the plunger
to detonate the charge.

Although grissom's memory of
the splashdown disaster

is hazy,

there is one thing
he remembers with clarity.

Grissom claims that he armed

the explosive bolts
but that he didn't, in fact,

detonate them.

But not everybody is convinced.

There are rumors
immediately after this happened

that grissom panicked

and that he prematurely
detonated the hatch.

Later, astronauts
who detonate the plunger

suffer bruises...
One even suffers a laceration.

Grissom didn't have
those bruises.

But the damage to
grissom's reputation is done.

Grissom was victimized
because of the loss of

liberty bell 7 and was
really almost shamed

as a result of it,

and he really never
recovered from that.

And it was the defining moment
of his... of his career,

to lose that spacecraft
really hurt.

He was dogged
for the rest of his life

over what he referred to
as the "hatch crap."

In 1967, gus grissom is killed

in the apollo 1 launch fire

with the mystery
of what happened

in the liberty bell capsule
still unsolved.

It's now 1999.

Salvage expert curt newport
is armed with

cutting-edge technology

and an unerring desire to
find liberty bell 7

and bring her home.

The mission to recover liberty
bell 7 brought together

the best marine recovery
people in the world

at the time.

Newport gets all of
the tracking data,

all of the telemetry
he can find about

the flight of liberty bell 7,

and he begins to sort of zero
in on an area where he thinks

it might be.

Operating at depths
of up to three miles,

the team's submersible uses
sonar to locate objects

on the seabed,

but can it spot a nine-foot-high
capsule in a search area

which covers 24 square miles?

These capsules are
unbelievably tiny.

To lose a space capsule
in the middle of the ocean,

it's not losing a needle
in the haystack.

It's like losing the head of
the needle in the haystack.

But they're very systematic.

They call it mowing the lawn.

Go back and forth in grids,

and you look for your best
possible targets.

And he decides to start
with target 71.

The controllers send their
submersible towards it.

They point their video cameras
at it.

Curt says, "that thing's
got some height to it."

and as they slowly move in
through the darkness,

the words united states appear
on the side of this object.

I don't believe it.

And he has found liberty bell
7 after 38 years.

But will the capsule
provide the key to

the mystery of what happened
and restore the reputation

of astronaut gus grissom?

The loss of the liberty bell
7 capsule deals

a severe blow

to the american space program
and leaves her commander's

reputation in tatters.

Finally, in 1999,
the lost capsule

is raised from the ocean floor.

But can she help solve
the mystery of what went wrong?

It was an opportunity
to finally look at

the physical hard evidence

of the condition of
the capsule and to understand

what happened.

However, crucially,
the hatch door is not found,

and despite
extensive investigation,

the capsule does not provide
definitive answers to the many

questions that remain.

The investigations are wound up,

but some people are still
determined to find answers.

Years pass before nasa
agrees to open up

its archive to writer
and grissom biographer,

george leopold.

They think that the loss of
liberty bell 7

is... is probably one of
the great mysteries.

With the passage of time,

he's hoping that
a cold, objective eye

will unearth some fresh clues.

One piece of eyewitness
testimony stands out.

Lieutenant john reinhart,
one of the retrieval team,

is first on the scene.

His job is to remove
the capsule's antenna

before attaching the winch
hook from the helicopter.

He was in the helicopter
opening with a hook

and a snipper,

and he said that when he touched

this ungrounded spacecraft,

he saw an arc.

A powerful
electrostatic discharge.

You've got a helicopter
hovering over a spacecraft

and this vortex that's got
a lot of energy in it,

and the metal touches metal,
some of that energy is probably

gonna get transferred,

and that's what john reinhart
thought he saw.

He was the closest person to
the spacecraft when he sees

this arc,

and at that moment,
the hatch blows.

So that leaves us with,
you know,

the possibility that maybe it
was the electrostatic discharge

that blew the hatch.

Upon further investigation,

leopold learns that in
sea helicopter rescues,

static electricity discharge
is a common phenomenon between

surface water
and hoisting devices.

What's more, he finds evidence
that nasa was aware of this.

The procedure that
the coastguard of the u.S. Navy

uses is that you would
never touch something

in the water with a helicopter
over it until it's grounded.

Over the years, other
theories have been put forward

for the premature detonation of
the liberty bell 7's

hatch bolts

and the subsequent loss
of the capsule,

but nasa didn't reach
a definitive conclusion.

They were in a hurry,
they wanted to get on

to the next flight,

so they basically reproduce
as many scenarios as they could

think of,
and then they moved on.

So in the end,

you really don't know
exactly what happened.

But with the final piece
of evidence,

the hatch door itself,
still under the sea,

the mystery endures.

But one thing seems clear...
With what we now know,

surely it's safe to conclude
that astronaut

gus grissom had the right
stuff all along.

Conflicts fought out
on our seas leave behind

a potentially lethal legacy,

discarded mines and all kinds
of other dumped hardware

and unexploded ordinance often
hidden deep beneath the waves.

Can new technology find a way
of locating

and defusing this underwater
time bomb before it's too late?

2005, the baltic sea.

A dutch fishing vessel
is trawling

the relatively shallow waters
of this semi-enclosed,

brackish body of water
between scandinavia and europe.

They're basically scouring
the sea floor, and they're

pulling up...
In addition to fish,

they're also pulling up anything
that's on the sea floor.

The trawler's crew are
hauling in their catch

when they notice something
strange in the nets.

Their nets were arrayed
on the seabed,

catching fish as normal,
but they caught something

very unusual.

The details of what
happens in the next few minutes

remain unknown,

but the conclusion is clear.

An explosion rips through
the boat, killing three men.

Elsewhere on the baltic coast,

beachcombers find
what they think

are pieces of amber in the sand.

They're picking them up and
putting them in their pockets,

and the heat of their body
is warming these up,

and it's causing people to
have very serious

chemical burns.

Around the same time,
scientists studying fish in

the baltic find some specimens
containing cancerous tumors.

Multiple mysterious
incidents in the same

body of water are
cause for alarm.

But are they linked,

and if so, what's going on under

the cold surface
of the baltic sea?

Surrounded by nine
different countries

and a historical boundary
between east

and west europe,
the baltic sea has been

the front line in conflicts

from the crimean
to the cold war.

But it was world war ii that
really set fire to this region.

There was a nonstop
mine warfare going on.

Millions of mines were laid
in these waters.

But they were not
the only munitions

dropped into the baltic.

At the end of the war,

an estimated 300,000 tons of
ordnance... bombs,

shells, and ammunition... were
dumped into the depths.

The immensity is...

Is really unthinkable...
We don't have accurate maps

as to where this was dumped
or by who,

so, really, it's anybody's guess

as to the extent
of this problem.

Now,

75 years later, this explosive
underwater legacy is thought to

be responsible for dozens of
deaths and serious injuries

every year.

And new evidence reveals
that there's an even

greater danger at the bottom
of the baltic.

Hidden in the depths of
the baltic sea are

hundreds of thousands of tons
of world war ii munitions

with a combined explosive
force capable,

it is estimated,
of flattening a city.

We know these ticking time
bombs are there on the seabed.

There's a high risk of
fishermen bringing

up this unexploded ordnance
from the sea floor.

This, it turns out,
is exactly what

the unlucky dutch crew
hauled up in their nets.

One can only imagine how
horrifying that would be

to be confronted with
the spectacle of

your impending doom.

But in addition to
this obvious, volatile danger,

there's something more
insidious going on.

Some describe
these unexploded ordinances,

or uxos, as weapons that wait.

In the ocean,

these metal canisters
can degrade over time.

That leads to the potential
for toxic materials

to leak into the environment.

The beachcombers who
suffered serious burns

unwittingly picked up

pieces of phosphorous used
in incendiary devices.

And the baltic marine life
displaying abnormalities

tested positive for
the chemical compound, tnt.

Tnt is one the most
common explosives used in

the world today and certainly
was used in the 20th century

in the context of
the first world war

and the second world war

As well as
being highly explosive,

tnt is poisonous.

It's toxic to life...
It can cause cancer.

It can bioaccumulate
in the environment,

meaning small organisms
take it in,

larger organisms eat those.

These materials can then
be transmitted up

the food chain to the animals
above them.

And so this is how
it's ending up in fish.

We're talking about
the potential

for a biological catastrophe.

The massive quantities of
world war ii munitions

hidden on the bottom

of the baltic sea
now pose a multifaceted threat.

The extent of
the problem is phenomenal.

Wait, where is this stuff?

It's everywhere, but nowhere.

How do we find them?

How do we neutralize them?

How do we keep them from

causing any kind of
environmental damage?

Specialist divers
are normally at

the heart of such
cleanup operations.

They're bomb disposal experts,
but they're also divers.

They combine these two very,
very high skillsets.

Their work is complex
and hazardous.

The traditional method was
that once a mine was found,

it would either be hoisted
aboard a ship

if it was considered safe
and disarmed on the ship,

or it would be
disarmed in the water.

That's very complicated.

It's very expensive.

It's also very dangerous.

Over the years,
dozens of military divers

have bean killed in mine
clearing operations.

So a different approach
is needed.

Operation open spirit
is an international

maritime mission
to clear the baltic

led by the navies of
lithuania, latvia, and estonia.

It's using the latest
technology like the remus

autonomous underwater vehicle,

specially developed
to search out mines.

The remus 600 is one of
the most advanced of

the auvs available.

It has great imaging
sort of equipment.

It has great sensory equipment
to find mines,

and it's very, very moveable.

But what they do mainly is they
keep divers out of the water.

The self-piloting mini submarine

uses sonar to locate mines.

They can literally survey
miles and miles

of seabed per day.

Once a mine is found,
the remus auv

can destroy it using
a directed explosive charge.

It's a significant advance
on using divers,

but with hundreds of
thousands of pieces

of dangerous munitions
on the sea floor,

even with the latest tech,
this deadly task

could take years.

The latest underwater
technology is being used

to find and destroy

world war ii weaponry
on the baltic sea floor.

This painstaking process
could take years,

but recently, a team of
scientists at keele university

in germany has made
a remarkable breakthrough.

They have come up with
an ingenious way of neutralizing

tnt, the most abundant
explosive in the baltic

and one that is starting to
poison the environment

by employing the services of

a mysterious
microscopic organism.

There are microorganisms that

can take energy
or metabolize tnt.

They exist,
scientists have found them.

The bacteria essentially
consume the tnt,

breaking it down into
its component elements.

We call it biotransformation,
because it's taking

energy and it's transforming
it into something else.

Basically, the idea is that
you enclose the munitions with

some sort of membrane

that has this bacteria,
and the bacteria will transform

the tnt into nontoxic materials.

So far,
the microorganism has only

been tried out
in the laboratory.

How it will work in the sea
itself is still unknown.

It's super hard, like,
this is not easy science.

We have to redesign
the experiment and figure out

what this looks like in
the field.

There's a lot of unknowns,
but the potential is there.

Introducing a new bacteria
into the sea has risks.

So whether this turns out to
be the silver bullet

for a dangerous wartime legacy

or another environmental
time bomb,

we wait and see.

The reputation of
history's most famous pirate,

blackbeard,
has long been debated.

For some, he is a brilliant
leader of man,

a generous captain
who commanded great loyalty.

For others,

he's a ruthless brute
who exploited his crew

and stole their share of
the treasure.

Can the latest research into
the wreck of his flagship shed

light on the mystery of
the true character

of this ultimate pirate?

June 1718.

For months, blackbeard
and his pirate fleet have been

terrorizing the caribbean

and the east coast of
the american colonies.

With his famous flagship,
the queen anne's revenge,

in need of maintenance,

blackbeard sails his flotilla
north up the coast

from charleston in search
of a place to lie low.

Blackbeard had just mounted

a highly successful raid
on charleston.

So his fleet, which includes
the queen anne's revenge,

is fully loaded with
all the things he's captured.

At the end of
18 months of raiding,

his ships are probably in need
of repairs, refitting,

and they're looking for
a place to, uh,

dock up their ships.

Led by the fleet's

smaller ships,
the queen anne's revenge heads

for the secluded port of
fish town.

The flotilla sails in
through a series of

narrow channels known today
as the beaufort inlet.

Blackbeard's fleet enters
beaufort inlet,

and they're going at full speed,
full sail.

As the pirates navigate
the tight waterway,

something happens
to blackbeard's flagship.

The 100-foot
fighting ship crashes

at speed into a shallow sandbar.

The main mast cracks, and some
of the ship's timbers rupture,

so from that point onwards
on the sandbar,

the ship is not seaworthy,
but it is still

fully laden
with all his plunder.

The treasure on board
is transferred

to smaller vessels
in the pirate flotilla.

But there's no room for
the majority of the crew,

so blackbeard selects a few
essential personnel and leaves

the rest on a nearby island.

The basic facts of what
happened to blackbeard's ship

and his crew have never
been in dispute.

But the same can't be said of
the pirate captain's motives.

There is no debate
that what happened

is the queen anne's revenge
runs aground.

The debate is on whether or not

it was intentional or whether
it was unintentional.

So was this an accident?

Or part of a plan?

One rare eyewitness account
strongly suggests

a pirate plot.

David harriet is a guy
who was captured by blackbeard

and later became a very
important member of his crew.

He says that blackbeard
deliberately ran

his ship aground, and this is
in the historical record.

Putting his flagship out
of action would have given

blackbeard the excuse to leave
behind many of his crew.

But to what purpose?

In a pirate crew as in any crew,

there's shares
that get divided up.

If a captain cuts his crew
in half,

that all the sudden means
more spoils for

the captain and the people
that he chooses to share

the spoils with.

But what blackbeard
gained in treasure,

he would surely lose by
leaving behind his famous ship.

Or would he?

One thing to bear in mind here
is that this ship was very,

very recognizable up and down
the eastern seaboard of what is

now the united states

and the various navies,
they were coming for him.

The question for blackbeard
was always how long

would the queen anne's revenge
continue to be an advantage?

How long before she attracted
so much attention

that the royal navy

was forced to send out
larger ships to fight him?

For almost 300 years,

blackbeard's flagship
and the pirate captain's

true intentions
are lost to history.

But then, in 1996,

underwater archeologists
exploring the beaufort inlet

make an astounding discovery.

The queen anne's revenge
was found.

The really interesting thing
is what will this site tell us?

Will it really tell us what
happened on that fateful day?

Did he mean to destroy
his ship, or was it an accident?

Did the notorious pirate,
blackbeard,

deliberately run
his ship aground

in a ruthless bid to

downsize his crew and make off
with a larger share of the loot?

Off the coast of north carolina,

the scattered remains of
the queen anne's revenge

could hold the answer.

The queen anne's revenge is
the only pirate ship that

we've ever found that has been
archaeologically identified

as a pirate ship.

The site of the wreck has

been studied continuously
since it was found,

and it turns out to be
an absolutely extensive site.

It's absolutely huge.

The discovery of
the ship's anchors proves

particularly significant
and could help

unravel the mystery of
what happened to

blackbeard's flagship.

One of the key things we're
looking for is the positioning

of the anchors,
where they used them

to try and pull the ship off,
to try and pull the ship

away from the banks.

The largest anchor was found
directly astern and in

a position where you could
literally pull the ship

back on it.

The location of
the anchors on the seabed

suggests that the sailors

mounted a complex mission to
heave the queen anne's revenge

off the sandbar.

That does beg the question,

why did they take so much
trouble to try

and get the ship hard aground
off the sandbar?

Why would you do this

if you were actually purposely
trying to destroy your ship.

And it's not just the anchors.

Experts think that
the positioning of the ship's

heaviest cargo

is further evidence of
an attempt to save

the stricken vessel.

The evidence on the sea floor
shows that the crew might have

been actually moving
the goods and cargo

and cannon within the boat to
try to move the weight around

to refloat
the queen anne's revenge.

If blackbeard was trying
so hard to save his flagship,

surely he had no intention
of running her aground.

But how else did she end up
on the sandbar?

To my mind, what we have here

is an absolutely massive
maritime screwup.

You have to remember
in this period,

they don't have the charts
we have these days.

They don't have
the understanding of the depths

and moving of sandbanks,

which we have regularly
charted by

oceanographic vessels.

Sandbars in this area shift,

which means that depths change
and that you really kind of

have to be on a constant,
vigilant lookout.

More likely,
he was navigating blind.

Unfamiliarity with the inlet's

dangerous shallows might not
have been the only factor.

Blackbeard's flagship was
also in poor condition.

The queen anne's revenge
has been at sea for a year.

She's got a lot
of barnacles on her.

This is not a ship
you want to be

taking this close in shore
at this speed.

If the running aground
was accidental,

it's likely that the decision
to maroon the crew wasn't

a selfish act
but an unavoidable one.

He's faced with a situation
where he knows

now he can't remove
the ship from the sandbar.

He's also not got the space on

the sloops and brigs left
to remove all

the crew from
the queen anne's revenge.

Perhaps blackbeard
had no choice,

but leaving the crew did mean
keeping the gold.

The odds are it
was unintentional,

but he certainly did turn it
to his advantage.

It's a tantalizing theory,

but what other evidence
could still be found?

For many, the site holds
more secrets.

Through modern archaeology,

the hope is we can find out
the answers

to all these questions.

The hope is we can discover
the information that's

necessary to tell us
what happened

to the queen anne's revenge
and what blackbeard was thinking

when his ship went down.

Fire-breathing sea dragons are
the stuff of ancient legends,

but where do
these myths originate?

Stories from an area of ocean
south of japan renowned for

the disappearance of many ships

suggest a dramatic
new interpretation of

this age-old mystery.

August 1944.

The philippine sea
in the western pacific ocean.

A japanese fighter aircraft is

returning from
a routine mission.

The japanese pilot
saw what looked like

some sort of large
dragon-like creature,

fire-breathing creature

swimming in the water.

Could there be some kind of
sea dragon out there?

And could it be linked

to multiple ship disappearances?

An area of the western pacific
known as the devil's sea

or dragon's triangle is

notorious for ship
disappearances, and in 1944

an eyewitness account describes
something strange in the water.

The pilot's official report
describes a serpent-like

monster navigating through
wildly churning waters

emitting huge flames.

It's a part of the ocean
that we don't

have a clear understanding of
what's going on there.

The extraordinary sighting
takes place in

an infamous section
of the pacific.

The devil's sea is located
to the south of japan,

skirting the coast of taiwan
and extending into

the philippine sea.

For 1,000 years,

it has been notorious.

This is an area where ships
have gone missing for a very,

very long time.

The devil's sea has
been swallowing ships

since at least the 13th century.

During the reign of kubla
khan, who was the grandson of

genghis khan,

the chinese embarked on
a period of exploration.

Kubla khan's navy was...
Was lost in this area,

and potentially as many as
40,000 sailors drowned

as a result.

Across the region,
scholars attempted to come up

with explanations for
this unfathomable tragedy.

One of the founding theories

was that they were
being swallowed by

a sea dragon,

and that's early chinese
mythology, of course.

These ancient cultures,
uh, when they see things,

you know, how do
they explain them?

What is it?

It's a sea monster.

Over the centuries,
the devil's sea's lethal

reputation has grown as

the number of ships that have
been lost in its waters

has increased.

It is the bermuda triangle
of the pacific,

and, in many ways,
it is just as deadly.

Some cases have involved
enormous vessels,

including the largest british
ship ever lost at sea,

the mv derbyshire.

Huge ships like the derbyshire,

twice the size of the titanic,
being lost...

How in the world is
that possible

in any part of the world?

Many argue that high numbers of

disappearances simply reflect
high volumes of traffic.

It's a very active part
of the ocean.

There's a lot of transit that
occurs in that particular part.

And when historic cases
have been investigated,

the culprit for many vanished
ships in the region turns out

to be one thing.

It's an area
that's prone to typhoons,

and some shipwrecks are known
to have been the victim of

severe typhoons.

But these tropical
cyclones can't explain

away all the disappearances
in the devil's sea.

In 1953,
a japanese research vessel

is sent to study the area.

She's equipped with
the latest in oceanic

surveillance technology,

and expectations are high that
she might shed light on

the devil's sea phenomenon.

But she, too, vanishes.

I guess that's a little
irony there.

It's sent out to look
for lost ships...

Itself is lost.

The research ship disappears

in good weather conditions.

But a crew member on one of

the vessels sent to search
for her reports

something remarkable.

He states that a section of
sea in the area where

the research ship is thought
to have vanished appeared to

boil and spew smoke.

An incident over 30 years later

and nearly 6,000 miles away off
tahiti could hold the key to

this mystery.

The oceanographic research
vessel, melville, is

studying atmospheric nuclear
testing in the pacific.

The scientists on board
have already

noted some unknown intermittent

underwater rumblings.

Then, all of a sudden,
the ship starts to

shake violently.

The sea around the ship

becomes a boiling soup,

spitting and churning.

The crew are
absolutely terrified.

Speculation is that what it may

have been observing was
actually volcanic activity.

They may have been
floating above

the epicenter of a new
volcano forming.

Miraculously,

the underwater volcano
does not sink the melville,

and her crew
live to tell the tale.

But could what they
experienced shed light on some

of the mysterious ship
disappearances elsewhere

in the pacific?

The devil's sea straddles
four major tectonic plates

and, it turns out, is dotted
with underwater volcanoes.

This entire region is part of
the pacific rim of fire.

So there's this very active
system that exists

right beneath the waters
where these events occurred.

So in geologic terms,
the edges of the devil's

triangle, at least the eastern
edge of the devil's triangle,

is an area
that is very seismically

and volcanically active.

So could underwater volcanoes be

the real phenomenon behind
the sea dragon legend,

which started with the loss of
kubla khan's navy

and which was still inspiring
reports centuries later during

world war ii?

If you're a pilot, and you see
an underwater volcano,

you might call it
a fire-breathing dragon,

especially if lava is being
spit into the air.

Underwater volcanoes
could be the culprit,

but catching them in the act
is an elusive science.

So whether subsea eruptions
are a factor in all

the disappearances
in the devil's sea

may never be known.

As more and more research is
done in the coming years,

we will start to understand
what is going on in that

particular part of the pacific.

In my experience, there is
often a real phenomenon

behind even the most
extraordinary legend

and maybe underwater volcanoes

do play a part in
the sea dragon myth,

but there's rarely a single
answer to a complex mystery.

So in the case of the devil's
sea, we keep on looking.