Original subtitles

On this episode of "expedition files..."

The infamous Franklin expedition

charts a path through the punishing arctic,

leading to the disappearance of 129 men.

Now, for the first time, we reveal a shocking new theory

behind their grisly end.

And a young woman travels to Hollywood,

chasing her silver screen dreams.

But it's her gruesome death that lands her the moniker

of the "black Dahlia."

Then, an adventure to find the legendary lost city of z,

hidden deep in the Amazon, ends in tragedy.

But we discover there's so much more to this story

than just a myth.

In the corridors of time

are mysteries that defy explanation.

Now, I'm traveling through history itself

on a search for the truth.

New evidence.

Shocking answers.

I'm Josh gates.

And these

are my "expedition files."

My travels have taken me to 114 countries and counting.

And I've had amazing adventures along the way.

There's nothing quite like the thrill of setting foot

in a foreign land on an expedition into the unknown.

And I'm not alone.

Humans have long been searching for what's just

beyond the horizon, relentlessly adventuring with

exciting and sometimes deadly consequences.

In this episode, we chart the courses of three

of history's most mysterious adventures,

or perhaps that should be misadventures.

For each file, the same question

guides our compass.

What really happened to these brave mavericks?

We begin here on the frigid deck

of the British royal Navy's hms erebus.

Not far behind is her sister ship, the hms terror.

Our position?

Somewhere above the arctic circle in baffin bay,

west of Greenland.

And the temperature is dropping.

It is June of 1845, and the erebus' captain,

sir John Franklin, has just spotted ice.

He's leading an expedition to discover the northwest passage,

a route through the Canadian arctic linking the Atlantic

and pacific oceans that, if found,

would revolutionize global trade.

But they won't find it.

Instead, these two ships will soon be trapped in the ice.

And after reports of bizarre behavior,

all 129 men aboard will vanish in what will become known

as "Franklin's lost expedition."

But now, the cold truth about their fate

may finally be thawing out.

This is captain Franklin's third attempt

to chart the arctic.

He's really hoping third time's the charm

haunted by what happened on his first expedition

to these frigid waters.

During that trip, ignoring native inuit warnings

about scarce game, Franklin lost 11 crew members

to starvation, with the rest surviving on deer bones

and boiled boot leather.

Now known as "the man who ate his boots,"

this time he's come prepared.

With a wealth of food on board,

Franklin is driven to upgrade his nickname

to "the man who found the northwest passage."

Since the end of the 15th century, European explorers

have tried and failed to find the fabled passage,

turned back by a maze of hull-crushing ice

and deadly cold.

John Franklin commands the hms erebus.

In Greek mythology, erebus is the personification of darkness.

The second vessel, the hms terror,

is overseen by second-in-command captain Francis Crozier.

Decades earlier, both vessels served as British warships,

hence their threatening monikers.

Subsequently, they're retrofitted for

polar exploration.

The ships have been outfitted with iron-plated hulls,

reinforced decking, and even central heating.

For emergencies, each has a propeller powered by

a locomotive engine.

But perhaps the greatest innovation of all is this

canned food.

Both ships are stocked with enough canned rations

to help ward off hunger and scurvy for up to three years.

The 129 men aboard know they may need it because.

Franklin's last arctic adventure took exactly that,

three long, torturous years.

After setting sail from the United Kingdom

in may of 1846, no one is alarmed when the summer of 1847

passes without any news from the expedition.

It isn't until the spring of 1848, two years after

the expedition set sail, that British search parties

finally venture into the arctic over land and by sea.

But they find nothing, no trace of Franklin or his men.

Desperate, the admiralty offers a reward

equivalent to nearly $4 million today

to anyone who can find the lost expedition.

Soon, more than a dozen ships join the search.

Finally, in the summer of 1850, a chilling discovery.

On an island deep in the arctic,

searchers uncover the remnants of a winter camp,

with hundreds of empty food cans,

as well as some still unopened, left behind.

But the most haunting find is yet to come.

Three well-marked graves. Two for crewmen of the erebus,

one for a sailor from the terror.

The graves raise big questions.

Why had the men abandoned the warmth and safety

of their ships?

Where were they heading when these three died?

And biggest of all, could the rest of

their comrades still be alive out here somewhere?

With renewed optimism,

a surge of explorers join the search.

But sadly, the trail yet again goes ice cold.

Then in 1854, eight years after the Franklin expedition

first set sail, arctic explorer John rae meets

with inuit people on king William island,

who claim to have seen "kabloonas,"

their word for "white men."

The inuit recount that four winters earlier,

they had seen 40 men towing a lifeboat over the ice,

their leader matching the description of.

Franklin's deputy Francis Crozier.

But this wasn't the end of the inuits' tale.

They also claimed to have found the remains of a camp.

It contained dozens of rotting bodies,

some showing signs of cannibalism,

and no one was still alive.

As proof of their story, the inuit present items

recovered from the camp,

including a medal that belonged to Franklin.

When these reports reach London, the public refuses to believe

the men of the royal Navy would ever commit

the barbaric act of cannibalism.

Instead, opinion turns against the inuit.

They are accused of murdering the sailors

and then lying to hide their crimes.

And so further inuit reports are largely ignored,

even though they may provide the key to unlocking the truth.

Because an inuit family contends

they met Franklin's crew while they were still alive.

They claim a small group of white men staggered

into their camp.

The starving sailors seemed incapable of speech,

staring blankly, clutching worthless possessions.

Fearful of provoking them, the inuit invited

the zombie-like men into their home, offering seal meat.

But the men refused to eat,

even though they were clearly hungry.

The terrified family waited for the cover of night

before slipping away,

leaving behind a supply of food for the men.

But months later, the inuit returned to find

the food uneaten and the white men dead.

And just like in the other inuit report,

the bodies were cannibalized.

Once again, the authorities dismiss

the inuits' accounts of cannibalism.

Meanwhile, John Franklin's widow, Jane,

funds a new mission to save her husband,

or at least his legacy.

For two grueling years, this new crew,

equipped with sleds and dogs,

fight their way through the arctic,

where they make the most crucial discovery

since Franklin vanished.

On the northwest coast of king William island,

the expedition discovers a cairn,

a marker made of stacked stones,

and hidden among these stones, a note.

Sir John Franklin died on the 11th of June, 1847.

Total loss by deaths

nine officers and 15 men,

under the command of captain Francis Crozier.

The news is shocking.

The erebus and the terror have been abandoned after being

trapped by ice for 19 months.

The architect of their journey, sir John Franklin, is dead,

confirmed in writing by his deputy, Francis Crozier.

In total, 24 members of the expedition have perished.

For the next century and a half,

more grisly clues will be found to the south,

where more than two dozen bodies from the Franklin expedition

are found scattered across king William island,

some in shallow graves,

many frozen where they fell.

But nothing explains the expedition's sudden deaths,

divided crews, strange zombie-like behavior,

and why some would travel back to the north

directly away from their only chance of survival.

Had the entire crew gone mad?

Over the years, many theories have been put forward

to explain the crew's deaths, including scurvy,

pneumonia, and tuberculosis.

To explain the crew's bizarre behavior,

many contend that lead poisoning from the sailors' canned food

was to blame.

But then again, many ate canned food in the mid-19th century,

and it didn't cause them to lose their minds

or their lives.

Perhaps the answers to the mystery lie with

the missing ships themselves, hms erebus and terror.

Where exactly did they vanish, and what secrets do they hide?

Recent discoveries may finally reveal all.

In 1845, English ships erebus and terror,

along with 129 men aboard, vanished during

their arctic adventure to find the northwest passage.

But now a recent discovery is changing the course

of this truly chilling mystery.

In 2014, nearly 170 years after it left england,

the erebus is found.

Searchers finally turned to the source they'd been ignoring,

the oral histories of the inuit,

notably one concerning, spoiler alert,

a giant ship trapped in ice.

In the shallow waters off the Canadian mainland,

south of the original search area,

the erebus is finally discovered.

And it wasn't long until researchers had a matching set.

Author Ken mcgoogan has spent over 25 years researching

the Franklin expedition.

Now, with the shipwrecks found exactly

where inuit stories said,

Ken is reexamining these tales as key evidence

of the expedition's final days.

Going right back to the earliest reports,

the inuit described the men trekking along the coast of

king William island

delirious and not making very much sense.

So why were they stumbling and delirious?

I was trying to piece it together,

looking for the root cause.

Ken examined the popular theory that canned supplies had killed

the crew, though perhaps not from the lead lining on

the tins, but rather poisoning of the food itself,

specifically a deadly bacterial toxin called "botulism."

But botulism alone wouldn't explain

the crew's strange behavior.

Ken suspects another culprit altogether.

One native to the arctic.

I think they were killed by polar bears.

Not that they fell victim to an attack

but rather that they ate the polar bears.

They ate the polar bears that were infected with trichinella

and they contracted it themselves.

Gentlemen, a toast,

to the thawing of the ice.

Trichinella, a parasite found in undercooked meat,

causes a deadly disease called trichinosis.

Symptoms can take several weeks to appear as the parasite

incubates, with severe cases leading to delirium

confusion, and even hallucinations.

And without treatment, it can be fatal.

The larvae get into the muscles,

and that's how it begins.

And then they spread, and ultimately,

they do affect the brain

and that to me is the sole explanation.

This could explain how captain Franklin and his men

fell into a terrifying mental state.

What I think happened is that

they panicked because all these men are dying.

So they start trekking along king William island but many of

them are falling more and more sick and dropping down dead,

as a matter of fact.

And at that point, they reached desperation eventually,

and they do resort to cannibalism.

Ken's theory is compelling.

As the crew trek south, unknowingly,

the trichinella parasite is already incubating within them.

Its disease then suddenly flourishes and many become

too weak to continue, while others are driven insane.

Each year, authorities continue their archaeological excavation

of hms erebus and terror,

both still submerged in unforgiving arctic waters.

Perhaps they'll find definitive answers as to the true fate of

John Franklin and his men.

Although they never managed to find the northwest passage,

the courage and sacrifice of their expedition

inspired others to follow in their wake.

And 60 years later, in 1906,

Norwegian explorer, roald amundsen

became the first to successfully navigate a ship

through the northwest passage.

Today, due to the changing climate, these waters

have become ice-free for several months a year,

allowing commercial vessels

and even the occasional cruise ship to pass through.

Franklin would be thrilled.

From an expedition lost in the arctic wilderness

to a tragic crime in the city of dreams.

It is January 9th, 1947,

and I'm here in the shadows of downtown Los Angeles.

22-year-old Elizabeth short has come here on a very different

type of adventure,

an adventure to reinvent herself as a Hollywood star.

That's her in front of the biltmore hotel with

her boyfriend, Robert manley.

She'll become famous, all right, world famous,

but in the most horrifying way imaginable, because six days

from now, Elizabeth will be known by another name,

the "black Dahlia."

This ghastly murder has confounded investigators

for over 75 years.

Now, new evidence may finally reveal the identity

of the depraved killer

and explain how they stayed one step ahead of justice.

Betty bersinger is pushing her three-year-old daughter

down the sidewalk in L.A.'s leimert park when the mother

spots what she believes is a mannequin lying on the grass.

But it is no mannequin.

It is the dismembered body of a woman.

When police detectives arrive,

they discover a crime scene unlike any they've seen before.

A nude woman cut in half

and a smile has been carved into her face,

stretching from ear to ear.

Police have no idea who this woman is

or who's behind her brutal murder.

Analyzing her wounds, the coroner believes the cuts

to the victim's body are so precise, so surgical,

they were likely performed by a doctor.

When detectives send the woman's fingerprints to the FBI

for analysis, they find a match, Elizabeth short.

With Elizabeth's dark hair and propensity for

dark clothing, reporters nickname her the "black Dahlia"

in local newspapers.

And she was seen for the final time with a young salesman

she'd been dating named Robert manley.

Manley tells investigators he has no idea

what happened to Elizabeth.

He says he last saw her when he dropped her off at

the biltmore hotel.

Manley is given several polygraph tests

to verify his story.

He passes all of them and is dropped as a suspect.

Questioning people around the biltmore,

detectives get their first lead in the case.

Good evening, detective brown, LAPD.

Have you seen this lady?

Yeah, yeah, sure I have. Couple nights ago.

She came and used the phone.

They locate a hotel employee who claims he saw Elizabeth

using a lobby phone before exiting the hotel

around 10 P.M.

Thank you, sir.

Another witness then spotted short walking down the street

with a gentleman.

When detectives press the witness about the man seen

with Elizabeth, they can't remember any specific details.

A shame since police believe this mystery man

may have been her killer.

The brutal murder was already among the most disturbing

that law enforcement had ever encountered

but things were about to get even more surreal.

A week after the discovery of short's body

a phone call from someone claiming to be the killer

is placed to the offices of the Los Angeles examiner

newspaper congratulating them on their coverage of the murder.

A few days later a mysterious package will arrive,

and the contents could crack the case wide open.

A note on the package reads, "here is Dahlia's belongings,

letter to follow."

Inside, reporters find short's birth certificate,

photographs, and an address book with the name

Mark Hansen on the cover.

For the police, this is a gold mine of potential evidence.

Detectives are confident the letter was sent

by short's killer.

They dust the package for fingerprints,

but nothing usable is recovered.

Police believe this Mark Hansen character

could be the key to solving the case.

Investigators question Elizabeth's roommate,

Ann toth, about Mark Hansen.

He owns the nightclub at the biltmore.

They discover he is a wealthy Hollywood nightclub owner.

Toth reveals short stayed with Hansen for a few nights

in the months leading up to her killing.

She also informs detectives that Elizabeth had rejected.

Hansen's romantic advances.

Detectives question Hansen about his relationship

with Elizabeth.

Mark denies he was attracted to short

and claims to have offered her a room in his home

simply because she needed a place to stay.

Mark also claims short stole the address book

from his residence.

I got nothing to do with it.

In time, detectives clear Mark Hansen

as a potential suspect.

Over the next 52 years, hundreds of individuals

would confess to killing Elizabeth short.

But the LAPD decides none of these confessions are credible.

Then, in 1999, a former Los Angeles police detective

discovers something that turns this case

and his world upside down.

For over 50 years, the savage killer behind

the notorious 1947 black Dahlia murder eluded police.

But in 1999, retired LAPD detective Steve hodel

is sifting through his father's belongings

when he uncovers something unusual, a photograph of a woman

who looks like the black Dahlia herself, Elizabeth short.

Steve hodel's father is George hodel,

a prominent Los Angeles physician.

When Steve was a boy, the hodels lived

in the sowden house in the hills above Hollywood,

designed by frank Lloyd Wright to resemble a Maya temple.

At this stage in his life, his father was on his third

marriage and had five children.

His first wife had been common law,

and his second wife had never officially divorced him.

George was not one to follow the constraints of

conventional society.

Steve's early childhood was filled with memories of

his parents' wild parties,

attended by Hollywood actors and actresses.

And why would his father have a photograph of L.A.'s most

notorious murder victim?

Relying on his decades as a detective,

Steve digs deeper into his father's past

to see if George had any connection to the black Dahlia.

He becomes intrigued when he reads that the police

theorized short's vicious injuries

likely came at the hands of a doctor.

Steve's father, George, was a doctor

who had performed numerous surgeries

during his early career.

And hodel's medical office was in downtown L.A.,

close to the biltmore hotel,

where Elizabeth short was last seen alive.

When Steve compares the letters sent to the press

by the supposed murderer in 1947

with a sample of his father's handwriting,

his blood runs cold.

The similarities are alarming.

He even hires a handwriting expert to analyze

the two samples. The expert confirms it.

The same person wrote both letters.

Steve pulls some favors and gets access to the original

black Dahlia case file,

and his darkest suspicions are confirmed.

George hodel was one of the prime suspects

in the black Dahlia murder.

Witnesses identified Elizabeth short

as one of George's girlfriends.

Steve even discovers the LAPD installed a wiretap

inside his father's house.

This revelation has been closely followed by journalists

Anne and David vasquez, who have become the foremost

experts on short's unsolved murder.

So the LAPD ends up wiretapping George hodel's home

for some 40 days,

and they capture some incredible evidence,

including a conversation in which George tells a friend,

"supposing I did kill black Dahlia.

They can't prove it now."

Even after these conversations were recorded

during the wiretapping, LAPD still didn't feel confident

that they had enough evidence to make an arrest of George hodel.

But it confirmed what Steve hodel had spent already

years building a case about connecting the dots

between his father and the black Dahlia murder.

As unconscionable as it is,

Steve firmly believes the unthinkable.

His own father was responsible for one of the most

disturbing murders in history.

As a retired cop, Steve's confident the LAPD had

enough evidence to arrest his father

for the black Dahlia murder.

So why didn't they?

For years, Steve was left wondering

until a rediscovered letter from the 1940s

offered critical clues.

The letter was penned in 1949 by w. Glenn Martin,

then a paid informant working for the LAPD.

And it makes stunning allegations

about the black Dahlia case.

That letter is filled with references to someone known

as g.H., and it connects g.H. To the murder of black Dahlia.

And g.H. Was using his influence with the L.A. district attorney,

with LAPD, to either confuse or disrupt the investigation

into the black Dahlia murder.

Steve hodel sees the initials g.H.

Throughout this letter. He knows instantly that g.H.

Stands for George hodel and that his dad is yet again

connected and tied to the black Dahlia murder.

Steve's sister, tamar, who had experienced her own troubled

past with their father warned him that George had deep roots

within the police community.

He had been rumored to have treated venereal disease

and terminated unwanted pregnancies

on behalf of city officials

who in turn might have protected him from being arrested.

After analyzing all of the evidence for over a decade,

Steve hodel has developed a strong theory

of what he believes happened in the case of the black Dahlia.

On the fateful night of January 9th,

George meets Elizabeth short at the biltmore hotel.

Steve believes that what began as a charming date

spiraled into disaster.

George becomes enraged when he discovers Elizabeth

is romantically involved with someone else.

George then forces her back to his house against her will.

Steve suspects his insanely jealous and humiliated father

punishes Elizabeth for her betrayal by torturing short

for days in his basement.

Steve's half-sister claimed to have witnessed their father's

dark proclivity for sexual orgies and sadomasochism.

So there is a chance that this dark obsession turned deadly.

Amidst the punishment she dies, and Steve believes his father

surgically dismembers her.

Then, George drives Elizabeth's mangled body to leimert park,

where he stages her remains to shock the world.

In a recent interview, Steve hodel said,

"I couldn't believe the great man I knew

"could ever do something like this

I was very wrong."

George hodel though, was never arrested

for the death of Elizabeth short and he never will be.

He died in 1999.

And to date, the LAPD has never charged anyone

with the black Dahlia murder.

But for George hodel's son, at least,

this horrifying case is closed.

From the concrete jungle to the actual jungle,

it's may 30th, 1925,

and I am deep in the south American Amazon.

That right there is Percy fawcett,

a veteran explorer on his seventh expedition

into this unforgiving wilderness.

Alongside is his son, Jack, and friend, Raleigh.

Together, they're searching for a fabled lost city

rumored to be dripping in gold and jewels.

It's a place hidden deep in the vast mato grosso jungles

in the interior of Brazil.

This city has no name, but fawcett calls it "z."

Far from solving this mystery, Percy and his companions

will only add to it because all of them

are about to disappear without a trace.

In his early career, fawcett goes to work for

the royal geographical society

to survey and map the jungles near Bolivia.

With accounts of his daring jungle exploits published in

newspapers back in england, fawcett's fame grows,

and he embraces his celebrity status.

He reports encountering exotic animals unknown to science,

including an almost certainly exaggerated account of shooting

a 62-foot-long anaconda.

But he does accomplish something few other westerners

are able to,

navigating dense jungles and maintaining

friendly relationships with indigenous tribes,

many of whom are known to be hostile to outsiders.

Some of these natives whisper stories to fawcett

about a sprawling, ruined city hidden deep in the jungle,

and soon an obsession begins to take root.

Fawcett isn't the first to follow the siren's call

into the Amazon.

Centuries earlier, Spanish conquistadors had also

pursued rumors of glittering, abandoned ruins.

Their expeditions to find them ended in failure and death.

Fawcett's own search leads him to the national library

of Brazil, where he discovers a weathered parchment.

Known as manuscript 512,

it appears to have been written in 1753

and describes a Portuguese expedition

into the Brazilian interior,

which claimed to discover ruins

resembling a classical Roman city with stone arches,

opulent statues, and enigmatic carved symbols.

This, coupled with the native accounts,

convinces fawcett that a majestic lost civilization

is hidden in the depths of the Amazon,

waiting to be rediscovered.

His research has led him to believe the lost city hides

somewhere in the Brazilian state of mato grosso,

nearly 350,000 square miles of wilderness.

His team heads into the jungle on April 20th, 1925.

Fawcett decides to travel light

and to make the expedition a family affair,

bringing his 21-year-old son, Jack,

and Jack's best friend, Raleigh rimmell.

The public is fascinated with the quest,

but experts are less than enthusiastic.

The overwhelming majority think that z is just a fantasy,

but fawcett is undeterred.

After a month trekking through the jungle,

fawcett's team arrives at a place known as dead horse camp.

Here, he sends a native runner back to civilization with

a letter he's written to his wife, Nina.

He gives the coordinates of the camp

and notes that his group has plenty of provisions

and remain in good spirits.

He signs off, "you need have no fear of any failure."

These are the last written words of Percy fawcett.

After he departs dead horse camp,

he will never be heard from again.

Los Angeles is known for its traffic, its movie stars,

and surprisingly, its underground tunnels.

Originally built in the early 1900's for streetcars,

these tunnels soon found themselves repurposed

for far more exciting and possibly illegal activities.

During prohibition, they became secret highways for

smuggling booze, allowing city officials and mobsters

to both enjoy a drink.

Some believe they were the pathway by which

the notorious black Dahlia murderer was able to dump

Elizabeth short's body without detection.

Later, the tunnels were used for more official purposes,

like moving prisoners to the county jail,

proving that L.A. has always had a flair for dramatic entrances.

Today, these tunnels have been mostly sealed,

a stomping ground for conspiracy theorists

who swear they connect to secret government facilities,

or at least some really creepy basements.

Amazon explorer, Percy fawcett, is convinced that the ruins of

an advanced civilization nicknamed "z"

lay hidden in the jungles of Brazil.

In may 1925, while searching with his son, Jack,

and their friend, Raleigh,

the three men venture out to find the city,

but never return.

They leave behind two mysteries

what was their ultimate fate?

And does the lost city of z really exist?

In January 1927, after 18 months

with no communication from the expedition,

the royal geographical society declares the men lost,

presumed dead.

But fawcett's skill in the wilderness is almost

unmatched, and many of his friends and admirers

refuse to believe he's missing,

and instead think he may have found the city and stayed.

In 1928, a rescue mission led by British aviator g.M. Dyott

retraces fawcett's route through the Amazon.

Although he's unable to find the men,

he does discover a small brass plate bearing fawcett's name

in the possession of a native tribe.

Unfortunately, it's later confirmed that the object was

from fawcett's previous mission five years earlier.

Later, a compass of fawcett's is also found in the jungle,

but it was one he left behind before his final expedition.

One persistent theory is that fawcett and his companions

were killed by a local tribe.

In 1951, the kalapalo Indians revealed they were in

the possession of bones that they claimed were the remains

of Percy fawcett after he was killed by the tribe's chief.

Please, please, no, no, no, no.

For the next 50 years,

that's the story that is largely and falsely believed.

But in 2005, the kalapalo tribes people

tell a different story.

They claim the bones are not fawcett's after all,

but belong to one of their elders.

They say they lied in 1951 to prevent more outsiders

from coming into their territory to search for the explorer.

The kalapalos say they did encounter fawcett and his party,

but just gave them food

and cautioned them not to venture further.

But the men ignored their warnings.

Rumors have long swirled that fawcett

and his companions encountered less hospitable tribes

who riddled them with arrows or clubbed them to death.

Other stories emerged that they died of fever

or starvation deep in the labyrinth of the Amazon.

One thing is clear, somewhere along the way,

like those who searched before them,

their obsession with z led to their demise.

For 100 years after Percy fawcett and his team

vanished, experts remained highly skeptical

that a jungle Metropolis existed in the Amazon.

But then, a remarkable scientific discovery in 2022

using helicopter-mounted lidar technology may prove fawcett

was right after all.

Lidar, which stands for light detection and ranging,

uses lasers to map terrain and reveal long-hidden features.

Archaeologist Dr. Andrew kinkella has analyzed

the latest lidar results,

and what he's found could rewrite the history

of the fawcett expedition.

Using lidar across some of these areas,

we have started to find what we term "garden cities."

What you have there is you have homes,

you have kind of farmsteads,

you have plazas where the homes are situated around,

and you even have roads connecting these things.

There have been guesses at population in this area that it

might have been as high as 50,000.

So the lidar gives us irrefutable data that many,

many more people were living in the jungle at this time.

About a thousand years ago,

things were really happening in the Amazon.

Percy fawcett disappears in the mato grosso area

of the Amazon, in 1925.

And that turns out to be one of the areas where we're finding

these garden cities.

So while looking for z, Percy fawcett was probably

literally walking over these cities.

But if you're cutting a trail in the jungle,

your world is about a 10-foot circle.

So there could be a huge pyramid right there.

You will not see it.

We don't know how Percy, his son, Jack,

and their friend, Raleigh, met their end.

Their remains and the artifacts of their bold adventure

are out there somewhere in the endless jungles of the Amazon.

But we do know that z wasn't a towering city made of stone,

but rather a vast network of native communities

that once thrived in the Amazon.

And fawcett's expedition, though fatal,

wasn't as foolish as many of his peers believed.

I'm Josh gates, and I'll see you on the next expedition.