All language subtitles for West Papua 1989--

This is Monster Week.

Only on Animal Planet.

As a scientist, I was never a
believer of conspiracy theories.

I believe al-Qaeda was responsible
for the 9/11 attacks.

I believe we've landed on the moon.

And I believe Oswald shot JFK.

Okay.

Yeah, to believe our government covered
up these events requires proof.

A conspiracy theory,
like any theory, needs proof.

So that's the first question I�d ask me.
"Where�s your proof?"

In 1997, scientists from NOAA
recorded a sound in the deep pacific.

It's thought to be organic in nature
and has never been identified.

It's called the bloop.

In the early 2000s, it
was proved that the navy...

beached whales while
testing sonar weapons.

For years, the navy denied that they...

were responsible
for these beachings.

These are facts.

And in some of the incidents,
there were reports of...

something else washing
up with the whales.

In 2004, two boys were
the first to arrive...

on a mass whale beaching
in Washington state.

They captured it on a cellphone.

The boys claim they
saw something that day.

They, they claim
they saw a body.

And they went on record claiming
that they saw a body.

That official record was later changed,

and the navy took the remains
of what the boys found.

I know this because I was part
of the team investigating...

that beaching and what
the navy did that day,

and I believe I know
what it is that they took.

Moclips beach, Washington state,
April 4, 2004.

The site of the largest mass whale
beaching in united states history.

A Seattle-based research
team from the National...

Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration...

is quickly on the scene to investigate
the cause of the mass beaching.

Heading the research was respected
Marine Biologist Dr. Brian McCormick.

In 2000, McCormick had published
a landmark study that linked...

mass whale beachings to experimental
navy sonar-weapons testing.

It led to the program's
suspension that same year.

Dr. McCormick and his team
suspected that the navy...

had begun operating
their sonar once more.

Now two members of
that team have agreed...

to speak on camera for the first time...

about what they claim the navy
discovered but has never disclosed.

I remember looking out over the dunes,
and the scale was incredible.

I'd never seen anything like it.

My name's Paul Robertson. I was a
research assistant with Dr. McCormick,

working at NOAA for
several years by then.

By the time we got there,
the wind was so bad...

that it had driven
everyone else off the beach,

and a storm was coming in, so
it was just us and the navy.

They'd cordoned off a section of beach,
and there were guys in hazmat suits.

It could have been
biologists or medical staff.

We weren't sure,
but that got our attention.

Brian was one of the first
scientists to draw a connection...

between the mass beachings
and navy sonar use.

He was the most
experienced in these events,

but even he had never seen
anything like this before.

I'm Rebecca Davis.
I was a field biologist at NOAA.

I was working in the
marine-mammals division...

before I joined Dr.
McCormick�s lab in 1999.

Blood was visible coming
from the ears of the whales.

We had never seen that before,

where every whale was
bleeding from the ears.

This meant that they had all suffered
some kind of major internal trauma.

We took multiple organ tissue
samples and we were going...

to study those under the microscope
to determine cause of death.

We packed up as quickly as we could.
but Brian wouldn't leave.

He wanted to get as many
samples as he could because...

he wanted to know what the
Navy was doing out there.

After the Navy left, we went
down to where they'd been working,

and none of the animals
had been cut open.

They hadn't been autopsied.

We had no idea what they
would be doing down there.

In prior beachings where
the navy was implicated,

the NOAA team found whales that
had died from suffocation injuries.

It is believed the loud
sound of the navy's...

sonar scared the whales
into the shallows,

where they stranded themselves.

Without water to support
their massive weight,

the whales' internal organs
collapsed, slowly suffocating them.

That's what the NOAA team expected
to find in the autopsy remains.

Signs of internal-organ collapse.

They found something else instead.

When we looked at the samples,
We expected to see evidence of trauma.

The bleeding from the
ears indicated as much.

What we were not prepared
for was the extent.

The internal organs hadn't collapsed.

What we were seeing was consistent
with blunt force trauma.

There were circular
lesions on the samples.

Clear evidence of damage.

And these were in every
sample that we'd taken.

Brian had an immediate
theory... infrasound.

Very powerful ultra-low-frequency
sound waves that could...

theoretically be weaponized and
potentially be used to devastating effect.

They would slam into living tissue
with incredible speed and incredible force.

Those slides showed evidence
of catastrophic impact injury.

Impact injury that we believed was
caused by a new kind of navy sonar,

a sonic blast that did more than
just scare whales into the shallows.

This sonar seemed to kill them.

Well, Brian realized that we didn't
need the tissue to test our theory.

We have... NOAA has... these
arrays that record audio,

marine life, seismic activity.

And one of these buoys
was very close by.

So we know it was likely that we
had recorded the whole event.

The sonar blast, the whale
reactions, everything.

Well, first there was the sound
of the whale vocalizations,

which we expected.

And then there was what
we now understand...

to be the priming
of the sonar weapon.

And then there was
a moment of silence.

And this proved to be
the calm before the storm,

because then it was "bam!"

It was pretty awful to listen to.

Brian was so preoccupied
with cataloging this sonic...

blast that he almost
missed what else was there.

There was another sound on
the recording, an animal call,

and we realized that this
was a bloop signature,

the same creature that NOAA
had recorded back in 1997.

But in this case, our recording
was much longer.

It was the most complex,
intricate animal call I�d ever heard.

And we had no idea what
had made the sound.

All we knew was that a
creature that had only been...

Heard once in human history
had just resurfaced.

I've seen the footage that was
supposedly taken in Beaufort.

I don't know if that particular
video is real or not.

It doesn't really matter.

The navy keeps a tight grip
on all classified information.

But even they've come to realize that
no matter what they do to prevent it,

there will be occasional leaks.

And when there is a leak,
they've learned how to control it.

It's no surprise that the Beaufort
video was immediately branded a fake.

The navy tells us it's not real,
so it's not real.

Whenever a leak happens, the military
has a way of using its influence...

to make the general public believe
what they want them to believe.

What I can tell you is that I�ve seen
a creature in the navy's possession.

We took it after the first
test in Washington state.

I was on the beach that day,
but we weren't the first ones there.

In the months following the
stranding in Washington state,

the NOAA team responded
to a sharp increase...

in mass beachings along
both American coasts.

Similar mass-beaching events were
being reported all over the globe.

Rescuers are racing against the
clock, trying to save nearly...

200 pilot whales that beached
themselves in southern Australia Monday.

(Speaking Japanese)

Six bottlenose dolphins
also beached themselves,

something scientists
say is very uncommon.

This is the fourth incident of its
kind in recent months in the same...

part of southern Australia, and scientists
really don't know why it's happening.

This was happening all over the world.

So now we're following
beachings elsewhere.

We alerted marine agencies to what
we discovered with the sonar blasts.

And we begin hearing
about other things...

reports of bodies washing
up with the whales,

rumors of something else
washing up with them.

And in every case, there was always
authorities on hand to control the scene.

But at the time, we just wanted to stop
the beachings from ever happening again.

In some of these events, not
only were there...

reports of bodies being
found, but something else.

These had been reported before.

Not bodies... but spears.

For years, deep-sea fishermen all
over the world have found them.

Found them in fish.
Caught in the open ocean.

German news archives contain an
interview with a fisherman�

who had his own experience with
this strange phenomenon.

We petitioned the department
of defense for information,

and we sought injunctions against the navy,
but it didn't get us anywhere.

The navy claimed that they were
merely studying the anomalies,

that they weren't the cause of them.

We continued to build
profiles of these events,

and we went over the one thing we
did have, which was the recording.

We listened to and analyzed this recording
i don't know how many times.

And we made comparisons
with whales and dolphins.

But this thing, to our ears,

sounded much more intricate,
much more advanced.

And we thought we had a reasonable
chance to crack the code.

But it was still beyond us.
We needed help.

My name is Dr. Rodney Webster.

I�m currently at the
university of south Florida.

I specialize in animal communications.

I focus mainly on the field of cetacean
vocalizations... dolphins and whales.

A lot of what i do in my work
is I search for signifiers,

which are, you know, particular sounds to
which you can attach meaning or a mood.

You and I would refer to them as words.

So they're words for dolphins.

What�s so interesting about the 2004
recording is that I could identify�

literally hundreds of signifiers and
arrange these into recognizable patterns.

We had not gathered this
kind of information in the...

previous 30 years of
studying dolphins and whales.

But that wasn't all that Dr. Webster
found in their recording.

I noticed that there
were some pitch changes...

in the bloop at certain
parts of the recording,

so I ran a spectrogram analysis
of the data and in...

the frequencies that were above
the range of human hearing...

and this is what I found.

This is it at original speed
with the whale sounds removed.

I then slowed the recording down
into the range of human hearing.

Here it is at 1/3 of its original speed.

Multiple individuals, literally
thousands of different signifiers.

At least a half-dozen
individual voice prints.

So...what you see here is language.

They're talking to one another.

What animal could possibly have a
language so complex, so sophisticated?

Our theory was this was
a new species of dolphin.

But there's another theory we
should have considered sooner�

the aquatic ape theory.

It�s a theory about us, really,
about where we come from.

And I know it's always
been controversial,

but now I think there's
really something to it.

Why are we so different from
other terrestrial animals?

According to the theory,
it's because there was a time�

when early humans spent much
of their lives in the sea.

And the traits that make
us so different from...

other land animals are a
legacy from this period.

We can control our breathing,
like marine mammals,

and hold our breath longer
than any other land animal.

The human record for breath
holding is nearly 20 minutes.

That�s almost as long
as a dolphin can dive.

Compared to our closest relatives, the apes,
we have a much more flexible spine.

And we have partial webbing between our
fingers and toes that they don't have.

These are features for
an aquatic environment.

Why have them
unless to help us swim?

And human babies hold their breath
underwater automatically.

They instinctively know how to swim,
whereas a baby chimp or gorilla would drown.

And unlike other apes, we shed our hair.

Hair creates drag in water.

And we have a thick layer of insulating fat
that keeps us warm in water.

The only other animals
born with as thick...

a fat layer are
exclusively marine mammals.

Some humans are so well-adapted
for life underwater...

that they still hunt at
the bottom of the sea,

walking across the ocean floor.

The Moken people of Southeast Asia...

can contract their pupils at will
to control for water distortion.

They actually see underwater
as clearly as if they were wearing a mask.

And in some places in the world,

humans are still so
proficient in the water.

That they can catch fish
without hooks or nets.

All these adaptations
for life in the water,

but we lack adaptations that are
commonplace in other land animals.

We shed salty tears and sweat.

Salt and water are valuable resources.

Other land animals have
efficient ways of conserving them.

We don't. Why?

Because part of our evolution
took place in the sea.

Now, this is all theoretical,

but the land-to-sea
transition has happened before.

It�s documented science.

Orcas have evolved from a wolf-like
ancestor millions of years ago,

and there are more recent examples.

150,000 years ago, a fractional
amount of evolutionary time,

a group of brown bears split from
the rest of their line.

They evolved into a new species.

They became polar bears.

Polar bears are capable
of holding their breath...

for minutes at a time underwater.

They've even developed webbing in their
front paws to help them swim.

They are currently, before our eyes,
evolving into marine mammals.

And if this is happening to polar bears now,

why couldn't this have
happened to the human...

line at some point in our evolution?

Could we be descended
from a group of apes...

that were once becoming
marine mammals?

Some scientists believe our ancestors
left the forest for the sea.

But what pulled them here?

What drew them to the water's edge?

It was food.

It is even thought our ability to walk
fully upright first evolved here,

wading in the shallows
where food was easily found.

The trees had been our cradle,
but now we would be shaped by the sea.

Over time, more human ancestors
collected along the shoreline.

It is even thought that this is where our
advanced intelligence began to develop.

Brain-building nutrients
like iodine and fatty acids...

were abundant in the crustaceans and
shellfish that could be gathered here.

We were beginning to change,
and so was the environment.

Earthquakes, volcanic
activity along the coast.

The east African coast would soon
be flooded over by a rising sea.

Some of our ancestors pulled inland,

retaining some of the
features they'd adapted...

during this aquatic
period of their evolution.

Others went in a different direction.

If our distant ancestors
spent time living in the sea,

is it possible that one
group split off from the rest?

And rather than
retreating from the water,

did they go deeper in?

We detailed every stranding that
followed the Washington state event,

trying to establish a
pattern of naval involvement.

If we could prove that this was
a new species being affected,

we figured that this
might give us leverage,

that we could compel the navy to divulge
what they're doing and possibly stop it.

We had strong circumstantial evidence,
but we would need more.

And that's what the South
African beaching gave us.

What made this beaching
stand out was that our...

South African colleagues had
made a recording of their own.

Well, we, of course, had heard
of the work of Dr. McCormick.

we'd heard the reports linking
large-scale beachings to sonic events.

And we'd also heard the rumors
that such an event...

may have affected a species as
yet unidentified to science.

And, of course, we heard
of the bloop recording.

My name is Dr. Gavin Dittmar.

I am the head of acoustic research
at the marine biology�

Research Center at the
University of Cape Town.

We had an underwater array just about
a kilometer off the tip of Cape Town.

And this was part of a research program...

to monitor whale populations
at certain times of the year.

That's why we contacted Dr. McCormick.

We now believed that we had
found the same thing.

When we heard that recording,
we immediately...

accepted an invitation
to make a research visit.

We arrived about 40 hours after the event.
And, again, we weren't the first.

Other... official investigators
had already come and gone.

The South African beaching was the biggest
since the Washington state event.

And here again, we were seeing the
exact same patterns of sonic trauma.

What was different in South Africa
was the recording itself.

Here we had another bloop signature,

the same mystery creature
that we recorded.

We had the same low-frequency
sonic blast.

But here, it was what happened
before the blast that was revealing.

Here was a bloop call similar
to the one we recorded.

It was obviously the
same kind of creature.

And this time, there was
dolphin chatter on the recording.

Not surprising� dolphins
are in these waters,

and they get stranded
in these events as well.

But here, there was communication,
back-and-forth communication

between our bloop creatures
and the dolphins,

which made us think, is it a dolphin?

Is it some new species of dolphin?

And from that point on, that's what
we thought we were looking for.

To that point, we only
had acoustic evidence.

But physical evidence.

That was the breakthrough
that Dr. Dittmar gave us.

It's a great white shark.

It's not the shark.
It's what's in the shark.

It� It was a mess.

And it smelled pretty terrible.

There were parts that looked
like they might have been from a dolphin,

parts that looked like
they're from a seal,

but no seal or dolphin
we'd ever encountered.

And there were other body parts, too.

We had no idea what we were looking at,
but we thought, right away, "jackpot."

This was something new.
This was a new species.

There were puncture marks
around the shark's gills and mouth.

And I initially thought these
might have been injuries...

sustained when it was gaffed to
the side of the boat.

but I probed one of them,

and I found a stingray barb inside.

Now, this could have come from
a stingray defending itself.

Sharks eat stingrays.
Hammerheads do. Tigers do.

But not great whites.

So I kept the barb.

I thought it might be something
I could publish in a journal or something.

I just thought it was interesting.

A million years after entering the sea,

the aquatic apes would now be better
adapted to their new world.

They�ve lost most of
their hair and can...

hold their breath
for minutes at a time.

They are still learning how to hunt.

They're learning by observation.

Unexpectedly, the dolphins scatter.

For now, the aquatic apes must hide,

but eventually, they will learn
to defend themselves

against the dangers present
in their new world.

You're watching Monster Week.

Only on Animal Planet.

The first time the weapon was tested off
the coast of Washington, it was a disaster.

We were caught off guard completely
by the aftermath.

The beach hadn't been secured.

It was left wide open to anyone
who passed by that morning.

Those boys happened to be in the
right place at the wrong time.

At first, it looked like they
were going to be a problem.

They refused to recant their initial
statement about what they saw.

Finally we convinced one
of the boys' mothers...

that they hadn't seen what
they thought they'd seen.

People usually don't want any trouble
when the military is involved.

The mother was smart enough
to make the boys change their statements.

We kept surveillance on the boys,

but they weren't telling
their story to anyone.

They kept quiet about the entire event.

After that first test, we didn't
leave any beaches unsecured again.

We weren't going to let
anyone else find anything.

We got the body back to the lab,
and the condition of the remains was poor.

We recovered about 30% of the body.

So it was gonna be difficult
to piece together.

The first thing we did
was to take DNA samples...

to try and establish
the genetic makeup.

We started by looking at the rib cage,
and it appeared to be hinged.

A collapsible rib cage
is a feature...

of marine mammals who
have evolved to dive.

The tail fluke was the best preserved.

And it looked a lot like a manatee's.

We wondered if maybe
that's what this could be,

some relic population or undiscovered
relative of this animal.

We took an x-ray.

There were bones in the tail fluke.

Manatees don't have that.

So we're thinking,
"what on earth is this?"

The skull was severely damaged.

Half of it was missing.

But one important piece that we did
have was a partial forehead plate.

This contained a hole that was
not part of the damage.

We presumed it was a blowhole.

We made resin casts of the skull fragments
and sent them to a forensic expert.

Then we looked at the pelvis.

There were remains of leg bones.

Seals have leg bones, but
their thigh bones are short.

We could tell that the ones in
our specimen were long.

So, this thing is not a seal.
It�s not a manatee.

And although it talks to dolphins,

It�s not a dolphin, at least not
from what we were seeing.

So, what else on earth would be smart
enough to communicate with dolphins?

What else is out there?

A creature that once hid in shadows
now swims in open sea.

They are not alone here.

They are bonded with
another intelligent being.

It is a bond of friendship.

For now, they play together.

In time, they will hunt together.

Their ancestors slept in trees.

They now swim through them.

Soon their transition
would be complete.

Like the dolphins,
they would belong to the sea.

Brian and I tried to make sense
of the rest of the parts.

we had found a bone that wasn't
part of this animal.

It had markings along it,

and at the top, it had
a little notch carved out.

we had no idea what to make of this,
so we set it aside for further study.

So, I started working on the phalanges.

Those are the bones
that support the fin or...

flipper structure
in a seal or dolphin.

It was clear that these
bones couldn't be...

configured into either
of those arrangements.

We found something else.

This animal had been affected
by the naval sonar.

The NOAA team was now certain the navy was
not only affecting whales with their tests,

They were also affecting a new species.

The creature's physiology
gave deeper insights into its behavior.

Although it was damaged in the shark attack,
they discovered a large spleen.

Large spleens are common features
to marine mammals.

It stores oxygen during deep dives.

It�s like having a built-in
scuba tank inside them.

The only reason to have this
adaptation is to dive deep,

to hunt for food.

Every time we found something new,
a dozen more questions would pop up.

Dr. McCormick invited
someone else to take a look.

The South Africans were taking so long
getting the permitting to get the�

material out of the country
that Brian flew him in.

My specialty is in biomechanics,

how animals have adapted
different means of locomotion.

My name is Dr. Stephen Pearsall.

But when I got there, I thought,

"Well, what the heck am I doing here,
because this is clearly a marine mammal?"

The tail looked like the tail on an animal
that you find in the ocean.

And it was only when we got the
remains under the scanners.

That I realized that this was like
no tail we had ever seen before.

Looking at the hip structure,

Dr. Pearsall recognizes something
strikingly familiar.

With humans, if you look at the
top of your hips here,

they have this high ridge.

and these are called the iliac crests,
and they're designed to support weight.

I looked at this creature,
and it had similar crests on its hips,

and that didn't make any
sense, until I realized...

that we were looking at
the scans the wrong way.

We were looking at them this way,

when, in fact, what we
had to do is rotate them.

That is when it became clear
that this creature once walked on two legs.

and there is only one animal that
walks upright on two legs,

that walks on two feet.

And if this thing once stood
on two feet, we realized.

Hands!

They were hands.

Becky�s discovery that
this creature had hands,

the discovery that this creature...

once walked upright on land like us,

because it was one of us
that changed everything.

That bone had been worked on.

It had been carved by hand.

At the top, where the notch was,
that was meant to hold something,

and we found fibrous plant
material wrapped around it,

which would have been
designed to hold it in place.

And then I remembered.

The stingray barb.

This thing fit perfectly
in the top of the bone.

This was a tool.

All those tales of fish
found with spears in them,

all the fishermen stories of
spears found in the open ocean,

this is what made them.

We have something that makes tools.

This thing has figured out
how to disarm a stingray,

use its spine to kill fish.

So they are intelligent hunters,
but are they hunted?

How would these creatures have
evolved to survive alongside�

the most formidable
predators in the ocean?

Land covered in glaciers.

Land must seem a cold and
foreign place to them now.

A lone scout swims ahead of his pod
before they make an open-water crossing.

The drop-offs that chasm down into
dark water are feeding grounds.

Whales gather here.

And so does the shark
that preys on them.

Megalodon, a shark as big as a whale,
a shark that ate whales.

A million and a half years ago,

the creatures would have confronted the
greatest monster to ever rule the seas.

The pod travels with young.

They must be protected at all costs.

The body was one of the most
important anthropological finds,

possibly one of the most important
scientific discoveries in human history.

This was an intelligent toolmaker
with grasping hands...

evolved from a primate ancestor,
one that walked upright on land like us.

If this creature is part of the human
family tree, how human is it?

I remember on the drive out to see
the complete skull mold,

I remember thinking how perfect it was.

Here we were, driving
through some of the very land...

where our oldest ancestors
had been discovered.

And now we were about
to meet a new one,

only this wasn't an ancestor.

This was somebody still out there.

My name is Dr. Leanne Visser.

I�m a forensic anthropologist

in the department of human evolution.

I reconstruct the appearance
of an individual...

based on fragments of
skull and other bones.

A few characteristics immediately stood out.

The skull had very large orbits,

bigger than any fossil or modern
human that I�d ever reconstructed.

The eyes would be quite big.

And large eyes are found in
animals operating in low light.

The next thing I noticed was
evidence of a skull ridge.

Such skull crests are found
in some of our relatives,

but not in modern humans.

Apes have them.

And they are also found in
some of our early ancestors.

Scanning the reconstructed
skull enabled Dr. Visser...

to map the inside of the brain cavity.

She discovered that the parts
which in humans correspond to...

sound interpretation were greatly enlarged.

The opening on the frontal skull fragment

Was connected to an extensive
series of sinus cavities.

The shape and features of the skull...

revealed to us just how elaborate...

the creature's acoustic
capacities really were.

The concave shape in the front of the skull
indicated that it had a melon.

The specialized mass
of fatty tissue that...

enables dolphins and
other whales to echolocate.

It wasn't a blowhole.

This wasn't used for breathing.
It was used to channel sound.

The skull reconstruction
proved it could do this,

that this creature could echolocate.

This was the creature
that had made the sound.

The calls that had
never been identified.

Echolocation, a form of bio sonar.

The ability to emit
high-frequency sounds...

that bounce off objects
and give the animal...

a mental map of its environment.

Sound used to locate food,
sound used to...

communicate in the deep
blue of the vast ocean.

We now had no doubt that this was
the animal that had made the bloop.

This was the same animal that
was on the 1997 bloop recording.

This was the same animal that was on
the 2004 Washington state recording.

And it was the same animal that
was on the south African recording,

the one that talked to the dolphins.

The creatures and the dolphins
call to one another,

call one another to the hunt,
the sardine run.

Almost every predator in
the ocean will converge...

in a miles-long caravan
of migrating fish.

But only two will work together.

We had... we had just
found a creature of fable.

That's what we were looking at.

All of us had been wanting to
say it for days, probably weeks.

but it...

scientists aren't supposed
to believe in fairy tales.

And what we were looking at...

was a mermaid.

Monster Week
continuous next.

Only on Animal Planet.

If the Beaufort footage is real,

then it's not the one we took
off the beach in Washington.

That one was in no condition
to be transported.

I saw what those boys saw.

I know what they reported
to the navy was accurate.

How do you think
people would respond...

if they knew we were killing
an unknown species that...

was most likely the only
surviving relative to humans?

Look at how they continue
to react to beached whales.

If the public ever saw this creature,
there would be an uproar.

So I asked myself, how could
this thing stay hidden so long?

Then you realize that
the surface of the moon...

has been explored more
than the deep oceans.

And you look at the fact
that even to this day,

there are still large
animals being discovered.

There have been two new species of
whales discovered in just the past decade.

These are 30-foot,
40-foot-long animals.

That have never been seen
before, never been recorded.

Giant animals found for the first time ever
in just the past 10 years.

So, yeah, it's possible.
It�s still possible to stay hidden.

But, of course, this animal we
found had been recorded before.

We have no record.
We have no scientific record of them.

But there's another record.

We know them.

We�ve known them all along.

The accounts have been told
by sailors the world over.

The seafaring Greeks described them,

as did the Vikings,

as did the Chinese during their great
period of maritime exploration.

They were recorded in medieval manuscripts
and even into the 19th century...

when captains of whaling vessels spotted
them swimming with pods of whales.

Cultures from different continents, people
that had no contact with one another,

but all of them have stories
describing the same mythic creature.

Could it be these stories
are more than myth?

They were recorded in
the logs of the voyages...

of both Christopher
Columbus and henry Hudson,

who witnessed humanoid creatures
with pale, speckled bellies,

dark-blue backs, and
paddle-shaped tails.

Could these be accurate
descriptions of what they saw?

Could other historical
evidence provide new insight,

like these 16th-century
Italian drawings.

Once thought to be depictions
of a human medical anomaly?

These sketches may now
tell a very different story.

Even today, accounts still emerge,

like this hastily shot video captured
in 2005 off the Adriatic coast.

This most recent sighting
comes from deep-sea fishermen.

The most ancient can be found...

in a desert left behind
by a departed sea.

These sandstone caves once looked out
over a tidal bay some 30,000 years ago.

The water has receded,

but the memory of the people
who lived there remains,

recorded in ancient paintings
that cover the cave walls.

Archeologists believe
these may be among...

the oldest mythic
images ever made by man.

Are they the projected
dreams of early fishermen,

imagining themselves with tails,

swimming out to catch fish
with spears and nets?

Or are they something else?

Early humans fought savagely
over hunting and fishing grounds.

Force was used against rival
tribes and against any...

other competitive threat
to a valuable food source.

Could that be what
these paintings depict?

Could these paintings be a
record of mankind's conflict

with creatures that are
now relegated to myth?

Did we drive them into extinction?

Or did we drive them into hiding?

If they persisted...
if they survived...

they must have
hidden somewhere.

But where?

We knew what they had.

We knew what they had before
they knew what they had.

We'd been trailing McCormick's
NOAA team since 2004.

We followed them to South Africa.

We knew what they found was the same
species we'd taken off that beach.

They had evidence that would
bring down the operation.

They had physical evidence
that could stop us.

Do you think we were
gonna let that happen?

But they were advancing our research,

so we let them continue...

for a while.

By that point, we had. We
had concluded in South Africa,

and we were preparing the evidence
to travel back to the states.

But the permitting...

once again, the South Africans
were being difficult about...

getting permits to get the
evidence out of the country.

We should have known, at that point,
what was gonna happen.

It�s hard to remember it all now.

It�s hard to remember
how excited we were.

But the reason I've agreed to do this
is because I think It'll help.

Becky and I believe that.

Brian, however,
is a bit more cynical.

I think he doesn't
have that kind of faith.

And I don't blame him, certainly
not after what happened.

What the hell's going on here?

Where did you get this from?

Get your hands off me!
You can't do this!

I tried to restrain Brian.

Then after that,
I tried to pick him up for weeks.

But he was just devastated.

We all were.

The police confiscated everything.

All the lab tests, all of the files.

The skull reconstruction
we'd brought back,

and they took the body.

Well, I�ve certainly never
seen anything like it before,

and I�ve worked here for 20 years.

This was unprecedented.

This was not some
normal police raid.

This was a slick operation.

They came early in the morning,
when I knew no one would be around.

They had all the rights documentation.

"Confiscation of a discovery...

of national importance".

I mean, I've never
heard of that before.

We knew who did it.

I mean, we all know who
was really behind it.

The tests, the sonar tests.

We prove this, and they
have to stop the testing.

They have to acknowledge that
they have a sonar weapon.

And who knows what else
they'd have to acknowledge?

All that we had left,

the only thing that we
had left that they...

hadn't seized were
the bloop recordings.

They couldn't take those.

Those were already a
matter of public record.

We were so focused on
everything that we'd lost,

that the government had
taken, that we didn't realize...

that everything we needed
was in those recordings.

The recordings would
prove to be everything.

A shallow coastal lagoon
in the southern hemisphere,

where the creatures retreat
to warm, protected waters,

Where a species in
decline still clings on.

When we got back to the states,
we were in shock.

We couldn't stay in South Africa.

We had our visas revoked.

And when we got back to Washington,

we lodged several protests with the
American and South African governments.

The South Africans
eventually did respond.

The DNA samples that
they had confiscated...

from the university lab
where they were being processed.

They shared those with us.

Because the DNA readings that came
back were so close to human DNA,

the lab that did the tests claimed that...

they had been contaminated
with human DNA.

"How else," they said,

"could the genetic profiles
have been so similar?"

They discredited the results...
and they destroyed the samples.

The feeling was like
something out of Orwell.

This was big brother.

They were rewriting history,

Basically writing this
creature out of existence.

And the question I ask myself is why?

Are they protecting their testing?

Are they... are they keeping the
creatures for themselves?

Are they testing the creatures?

We don't know.
We still don't know.

All we had now was time.
We just kept poring over it.

The beachings with reports of
bodies washing up on shore...

where local officials
had closed off areas,

and in some cases, reportedly,

with the help of American
officers in civilian clothes.

We kept thinking back to
the beaching that happened...

right here in Washington,
that naval medical team.

We had thought they were
analyzing their tests on whales,

but now we had a
slightly different theory.

We tracked down the kids that
had made the original report,

and the navy had spent a
lot of time with these kids.

They had even visited them at home.
and they had convinced the kids...

that what they had seen
was actually a seal,

a seal that had decomposed, and
that's why it looked strange.

The boy had drawn a
picture of what he saw.

Now, nobody outside of the
scientists we work with or the...

government officials that
had confiscated our materials...

could have known what the
skull reconstruction looked like.

But this kid had a drawing
of what he had seen.

And it was a match.

He had seen the same thing.

And that's not all we saw.

The boys' mom agreed
to show it to us.

They hadn't shown it to anybody.

The navy had not thought to
check the kid's camera phone.

Now, that's not
the first time the...

military's gotten
caught by a camera phone,

but back then, most people
didn't even have them.

I doubt the investigating officer
even bothered to check it.

This kid had kept it.
He'd kept it all that time.

The first time I watched the video,
I remember feeling a chill,

and not from the shock
of seeing it alive,

But I remember thinking about the
moments before the sonar blast,

that this creature
didn't stand a chance.

The mermaids travel with whales.

They migrate from warm southern waters,

where, like the whales, they
give birth to their young.

Now they make their way to
the northern feeding grounds.

Whales offer protection from
orcas and open-ocean sharks,

and females with young
can draft off them,

Conserving energy as they swim
up the long length of the pacific coast.

The deep ocean has been
their last hiding place,

but now, even here,
there's no refuge.

And whales cannot protect them
from the new threats that are gathering.

They swim through a stretch of
water in the Pacific Northwest.

U.S. navy ships were also there that day.

What happened to them next,
was captured on NOAA audio recordings.

We never found another living one�

at least, not during
my tenure with the navy.

When I resigned, we weren't even sure
if there were any left to be found.

The creature we pulled off the beach
in Washington state died in 2007.

We kept it alive as long as we could.

I know what I did was wrong.

I knew it was wrong
while I was doing it,

and I have to live with that.

My only hope now is
that, by coming forward,

it might help protect any of
them that are still out there.

We knew that they were
washing up with the whales.

What we found was that the beachings
were happening along migratory routes.

They didn't just associate
with the whales.

They migrated with them.

We were gonna try to make contact.

We knew we were in the right
vicinity when we saw the whales.

And we started the recording,

and we waited to see if
there was anything out there.

There was something out there.

Brian was certain
he saw something.

And I�m pretty sure
I saw something, too.

We... our activities were being observed.

I mean, this was big brother.

And anything we would
have recorded that day...

we weren't gonna be able to keep.

We were not gonna get
the story out that way.

Brian was the first to leave the Agency.

Paul and I left NOAA
not long after that.

I haven't spoken to
Brian since he left.

I believe he thinks that the only
way to save them is to find them.

But I don't think that anymore.
And I don't think Paul does, either.

Brian had become
consumed, and he'll...

follow that call to
the ends of the earth.

And he may very well find them.
I know he's still looking.

After that day, for me,
I�m not sure I can help.

And I�m not even so
sure we should try.

I started thinking of
them as fellow beings.

And the last time
We lived alongside a...

fellow human species
was Neanderthals.

We displaced them.

Some scientists think
we actively hunted them,

that we devoured
their very existence.

It�s the same thing.

What we did on land
to one of our own,

We�ll do in the sea.

We�re not so good at coexistence.

Sometimes other responsibilities
supersede science.

My only goal is that the
Navy stop their sonar testing,

that court inquiries
open into their activities...

that then lead to
court orders to stop it.

Mermaids have persisted
only because they can hide.

And I hope they stay that way.
I hope they stay hidden.

I don't want to hunt
them anymore because...

they don't want to be found.

Well, forget what we're claiming,
forget the recordings that remain,

forget the sworn affidavits
from other scientists,

and forget our own cultural
references of mermaids.

There is another culture
that remembers them.

Nature doesn't lie,
so look to nature.

There are a few places
left on earth where...

wild dolphins will
hunt with fishermen.

They�ll actually help humans
catch fish. This happens...

in Brazil, in coastal west
Africa, in Southeast Asia.

Fishermen go down to the edge of
the water and into the shallows.

They�re calling them.

They call in the dolphins,
wild dolphins from the sea.

And the dolphins answer the call...

by driving in schools
of fish towards shore.

Then the fishermen
encircle the fish schools...

and all the dolphins
with their nets.

The dolphins don't panic.
They stay entirely calm.

They know that the
fishermen will let them out...

as they pull the nets tight.

They let the dolphins out before
they pull the fish ashore.

And then the dolphins
wait in the shallows,

bobbing with anticipation in the water
as the fishermen give them their share.

They toss fish to the dolphins to eat.

They divide the catch, essentially.

Dolphins and people split the spoils.

They share the fish they caught together.

Cooperation between two animals
of two different environments.

There is nothing else
like this on earth.

And nobody knows how it began,
how this partnership started.

It�s one of the great
mysteries of the oceans.

How this partnership between
people and dolphins evolved.

How could people teach
dolphins to do this?

Well, We didn't.

We didn't teach dolphins to do this.
They taught us.

And I think that they learned
it from someone else.

We are not the only culture with
a memory of mermaids.

- West Papua.

Nowhere else does the sea
pulse with so much life.

- In West Papua,

a unique boat
visits many islands,

bringing something
wonderful to each.

The Kalabia is a
floating school,

where children of the
islands learn about the reefs

they all depend on.

A 13-year-old boy,
Jawi, has been chosen

to spend the summer
on this boat.

- Tomorrow we'll
start classes on the Kalabia.

But today we sing.

- Jawi, welcome back.

- My uncle Menas is
a teacher on the Kalabia.

- Everywhere we go,
the children get so excited.

We use songs and games to teach
students about the oceans.

- My dad brings
the old days back to life.

He makes it fun.

When he runs out of
paint he uses toothpaste.

- Jawi's father
died when he was two,

so we took him in.

He's a foster child, but
I love him like my own.

I teach him about our heritage.

The past seems strange
to kids like me.

But my dad says there's
wisdom in the old ways.

- In our village
we all depend on each other.

We belong together.

Just like these villagers.

- Jawi's uncle Menas
takes the Kalabia students

on field trips.

He tries to teach these
children of the reef

something new about
their own back yard.

There's a great diversity
of healthy corals here.

But Menas shows the
class that the big fish

they depend on for
food are almost gone.

- Corals eat
tiny plants and animals

called plankton.

They're like an
upside-down octopus,

grabbing food as it passes by.

- I love this game.

It shows my friends
how corals eat.

They reach out like coral
polyps and get peanuts.

Plankton peanuts.

Tomorrow I'll be leaving
on a long journey.

But I want one last day
with my two best friends.

We plan our day around
the tides and currents

because we can only get
through here at low tide,

like right now.

Sometimes this cave
fills up with water.

I don't say this to anyone,

but maybe I'm just a little
bit afraid to leave home.

I'm the oldest, and
kind of the leader.

The youngest is Jacob.

He's not afraid of anything.

And Gibson?

Everything we do
makes him laugh.

Clams and snails live
here in the mangroves.

That's what we're after.

We roast the clams and
snails inside a bamboo stick.

It's good.

- Fishing
keeps us alive,

but the big fish are
disappearing fast.

Outsiders are sneaking in
and poaching our reefs.

And development is coming.

So Jawi needs to find new
ways to protect our reefs.

- I've never been
away from home before.

Two months is a long time.

- The
Kalabia will take Jawi

to nine islands in West Papua.

This island chain
forms a narrow funnel

between the Indian
and Pacific Oceans.

Tidal currents sweep
back and forth,

bearing a rich source of food.

- In the old days,
a boy went on a long voyage

to become a man.

I hope this trip will teach
Jawi to think for himself.

Poachers once used the
Kalabia to fish illegally.

It was impounded and repainted,

and now helps young islanders

understand how to
care for their reefs.

- My dad says,
dive every reef,

because each one is different.

A seahorse.

My first.

- The last
time I dove this reef

there were more fish.

In all the oceans the number
of big fish has dropped 90%.

And it's almost as
bad for sea turtles.

So we were lucky to see one.

- Like any village,

a coral reef has its
fair share of characters.

This hawksbill turtle
is just passing through

on her way to the
island of Kalimantan,

a thousand miles away.

All her life she
remains a nomad.

A hungry nomad,
who avoids crowds.

Certain other characters,
like the lined sweetlips,

prefer company.

Hawksbill turtles have no teeth,

just a horny beak.

But they will eat
almost anything.

They never stop.

- Sea turtles
are disappearing,

but I told Jawi there are
things we can do to save them.

- The
scientist on board,

Ferdiel Ballamu, is an
expert on sea turtles.

Even though turtles
bury their eggs in sand,

wild animals dig
them up and eat them.

- Sometimes,
the only way

to protect the turtle eggs

is to move them to a safe place.

- The
next island, Arborek,

is vulnerable to
storms and high tides.

Its highest point is only
six feet above sea level.

The people here
love their island,

and don't want to
live anywhere else.

Mangroves protect
beaches from storms.

That's why the Islanders
plant saplings.

But even mangroves
cannot protect Arborek

against rising sea levels.

- The mangrove
roots clean the waters.

Young fish hide here
so they can grow.

The more mangroves,
the more fish.

- The currents
that nourish the mangroves

also attract
extraordinary creatures

from many miles around.

Manta rays hang in the
currents like gliders

so the cleaner fish
can groom them.

The rays get rid of
parasites on their skin

and the fish get a tasty snack.

This ray has a big chunk
missing, from a shark bite.

She lets her groomers
clean the wound.

One helper even nibbles
on the manta's eyeball.

In West Papua the rhythm of life

is driven by the currents.

In tight spots
between the islands

the sea flows
fast, like a river.

And at full moon,

that's when the
currents run strongest.

These strong currents turn the
seawater into plankton soup.

A real feast for the mantas.

Here, at the convergence
of two great oceans,

schools of anchovies grow in
size when it's time to spawn.

Attracting hungry predators.

Scientists are mapping the many
deep canyons of West Papua,

where upwelling currents carry
vast quantities of plankton.

All these nutrients

sustain an amazing
diversity of sea life.

Over 500 different
kinds of corals

and nearly 2,000
species of fish.

More than anywhere
else on earth.

- I'm seeing some
animals I've never seen before.

Like an orangutan crab.

It makes me laugh.

The seahorse is tiny.

There's a second seahorse,

which I almost didn't spot.

Not all sharks are dangerous.

The wobbegong shark
just wants to hide.

This one's pregnant, and
she is as gentle as a puppy.

- The Kalabia
sets course for Wermon,

a nesting ground
for sea turtles.

- I showed
Jawi one turtle,

but now he'll see some big ones.

20 times bigger.

- Because of his
success saving sea turtles,

Ferdiel has been invited to
Wermon to share his know-how.

- The turtles
that nest here are huge.

So it takes a large
scale to weigh them.

And it takes a large
man to test the scale.

- Scientists
call this beach

the last stand of the
Pacific leatherback turtle.

This mother swam all the
way from North America,

6,000 miles, to the
beach where she was born.

She will not nest anywhere else.

- Red lights
don't disturb her.

She can't see red.

In the past four years
she has really grown,

and now weighs 500 pounds.

The mother digs a
hole two feet deep,

and lays about a hundred eggs.

The newborns can walk
as soon as they hatch.

They somehow imprint
on this exact beach,

like setting their internal GPS.

Then they begin a
dangerous journey.

Only one in 10
makes it to the sea.

- Birds and lizards
eat almost every baby turtle.

But sometimes you get lucky.

- Despite
their struggles,

sea turtles still have a chance.

New fishing equipment,
like the circle hook,

is saving them by the thousands.

- The Kalabia
moves to the island of Misool.

Years ago, when Andy
and Merit Miners

came here for the first time,

they saw big reefs all around.

But where were the fish?

The villagers were overfishing,

and the outsiders were getting
their catch the easy way.

With dynamite.

To bring the big fish back,

Andy and Merit made the
fisherman an offer of help.

Get the outsiders
to stop dynamiting.

Limit your fishing.

And establish a permanent
marine protected area.

If you work with us,
your reefs will thrive.

And so will your families.

The villagers
agreed, and steadily,

over the next five years,
the big fish came back.

- Here there
are plenty of big fish.

I saw that this no-take
zone was working so well

because they patrol it.

- Here, the fishermen
who once broke the rules

now enforce them
in patrol boats.

They put a stop to
illegal fishing.

And on the very spot
that the poachers

once pitched their camp,

Andy and Merit
build their dream.

A resort to sustain both
the reefs and the islanders.

The villagers now
make a better living

working with tourists
who come here

to dive these revitalized reefs.

- I saw how a marine
protected area works,

and how to guard it.

I understood why the big
fish were disappearing

from our reef at home.

And I finally knew what
we could do about it.

My dad says there's
wisdom in the old ways.

And a wise fisherman

always leaves some
fish for another day.

That's the old way.

The stone fish.

You don't want to
touch one of those.

His venom can kill you.

I learned this: protect the
reef and it'll sing to you.

- This colorful
chorus has shown Jawi

how a well-managed
reef can thrive.

- Just before
we left Misool,

I got a letter from home.

- Learn all you
can, never hold back.

We all miss you.

Love, your father.

- The final stop
will be Cenderawasih Bay,

where the whale sharks gather.

In all the oceans, these
are the biggest sharks.

Well over 40 feet long.

There are even
reports of 60-footers.

- Here I'll
have the chance

to dive with whale sharks.

I've never seen one.

I think they must be scary.

The harder I try not to
think about whale sharks,

the more I think
about whale sharks.

Uncle Menas says whale
sharks won't hurt me.

I don't know.

- The commercial
fishermen feed the whale sharks

some of their catch to
keep them hanging around.

They're considered good luck.

- I wonder if they
could swallow me by mistake.

Now I wonder why I was ever
afraid of whale sharks.

- Jawi's
journey is nearly over.

But the Kalabia's
work continues.

Inspiring a
generation of children

to care for the ocean.

In just two months Jawi has seen

how a revitalized
reef sustains itself.

And he has learned that the
more you understand a reef

the better you can protect it.

- We have concerns,
but scientists tell us

there's no other place like
this anywhere on earth.

I'm thankful that the
future of our islands

belongs to the
children of the reef.

- pretty soon
it will be up to me,

and Gibson, and Jacob.

And that's why my dad
sent me on this journey.