Original subtitles

[Dan voiceover]

[upbeat music]

Imagine a time when parents sent their kids in the mail.

- Once it's found out that kids can be mailed.

- At least seven other families mail their children.

One girl was mailed from Florida to Virginia.

- Or a journey so daunting,

it requires courage no man can muster.

- Nobody really knows how a human body would react

to being launched into orbit.

So, you can't send a man,

well, you send his best friend.

- How about traveling deep behind enemy lines

using only your mind?

- The US military is using one man's mind

to spy on America's enemies.

- Some people believe these programs continue to this day.

- These are the journeys so extraordinary,

they are truly unbelievable.

[upbeat music]

Anybody who's ever taken a brutal red eye next to a

screaming infant knows traveling with babies is no picnic.

But at the dawn of the 20th century,

penny-pinching parents discovered a novel way

to farm out sending your kids to grandma's,

thanks to a bizarre loophole.

- In 1913, the US Postal Service starts accepting packages

that weigh over four pounds.

So, naturally, people start testing the system.

What can I mail now that there's no real weight limit?

- People start shipping the most random things,

bricks, eggs, chickens, just to see if it could be done.

- In January of that year,

a family from Ohio named the Beauges decide to stick

a 15 cent postage stamp on their son

and mail him to his grandma about a mile away.

And here's the thing, it works.

And so, once it's found out that kids can be mailed,

essentially, you start to see this very small uprising

of parents just slapping stamps on their kids

and mailing them.

- Between 1913 and 1915,

at least seven other families mailed their children.

The longest was one girl was mailed

from Florida to Virginia, 720 miles.

- [Dan] But this trend quickly gets stamped

"Return to sender."

- The US postmaster general

does not find this practice adorable.

So, he finally does what I think a lot of people

didn't expect would be necessary,

and he outlaws mailing your children in 1915.

- Sending your toddler through the mail may be a strange way

to save a few bucks,

but few cheapskates compare to the frugal jet setter

who risks it all just to make

a three-year-old's birthday party.

- It's England in 1964, a javelin thrower,

an Australian named Reg Spiers is in England

to qualify for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics.

Reg is up for his very last throw.

This is gonna make or break his Olympic dreams.

- He hurls the javelin just short of the mark he needs

to qualify for the Olympic team.

- So, he's obviously super disappointed.

He just wants to go home

and he's got a daughter who's got a birthday coming up,

but he's got an issue.

- [Dan] Return tickets are expensive

and Reg is short on cash, but he has a plan.

- Reg gets a job at Heathrow Airport

where he's loading cargo onto planes.

He's starting to save up a bit of money,

the flight is nearly within his reach,

and then his wallet gets stolen.

Talk about bad luck.

- [Dan] While desperation might defeat some of us

for a select few like Reg, it breeds innovation.

- Since he's worked in the cargo area at the airport,

he's now an expert on how cargo is shipped around the world.

So, Reg's scheme is to build this large shipping crate,

pack himself inside,

and ship himself back to Australia as cargo.

- [Dan] If you're wondering about the math here,

it will, in fact,

cost more to ship the container across the globe

than buy a passenger ticket,

but Reg has already thought this through.

- So, his plan is to ship himself cash on delivery,

which means that the airline doesn't get paid

until someone shows up to sign for the shipment.

His plan is to escape the crate right after they land

and never actually get stuck paying the bill.

- Reg is not much of a carpenter,

so he recruits another athlete to help him,

a guy named John McSorley.

- McSorley and Reg account for everything.

There's straps on the inside that he can hold onto

when the crate is getting carted around,

there's a removable lid so he can get a breath of fresh air

or stretch himself during transit.

- [Dan] Reg even loads the box with canned food,

a flashlight, and two bottles,

one for water and one for urine.

Let's assume the flashlight helps tell them apart.

- All of this is dangerous and sketchy,

so right before takeoff, he does one last thing.

He tells John he will let him know that he made it

to Australia safely,

assuming he survives the journey, that is.

- He booked shipping on an Air India plane

that's ultimately destined to land in Perth, Australia.

- This is going to be a three-day voyage

with multiple stopovers,

but if it all goes to plan,

reg will be back in Australia just in time

for his daughter's birthday.

- Reg's first stop on this three-day journey is Mumbai.

They take the crate off the plane,

and there's Reg stuck in the crate on the tarmac

and punishing heat.

- He's basically in an oven at this point.

He's stalled there for hours,

and eventually that heat just becomes unbearable

and he strips down inside the crate.

- He's praying that they put him back in the plane

before he passes out or dies of heat exhaustion.

- [Dan] Luckily, Reg survives this near fatal layover

from hell and is loaded on a plane to his final destination.

- Hours upon hours later,

he hears voices complaining about how cumbersome

the box full of Reg is, but he smiles to himself,

'cause he hears the voices, those are Australian accents.

He's made it.

- [Dan] Reg manages to escape his crate

and hitchhike home in time for his daughter's birthday,

all without paying a dime,

but he has forgotten one critical detail.

- Remember his athlete buddy John McSorley back in England?

Reg forgets to call him to tell him

that he made it back safely,

so John is freaking out on the other end.

"Did he die in transit? Did I just kill my friend?"

So, John contacts the authorities.

They start looking and of course,

Reg is found safe and sound at home.

- [Dan] But rather than being prosecuted,

reg becomes a national celebrity

when newspapers across Australia pick up the story.

- The airline doesn't even charge him for shipping

- Reg's perilous journey in a box may seem like

an incredible undertaking,

but it's nothing compared to the brutal sea voyage

of a legendary Navy captain.

[gentle music]

- It's April, 1789 in the South Pacific.

William Bligh, captain of HMS Bounty,

is disheveled and shaken.

He's bound by coarse sailors' rope.

He's a prisoner in his own captain's quarters

with a blunder bus pointed at his head

and the hammer cocked.

- Outside of his cabin,

he can hear the screams of his junior officers

as they're being attacked.

- [Dan] These outlaws aren't pirates,

it's his own crew.

So, why did they turn on him?

- Bligh's mission as captain of the HMS Bounty

is to go to Tahiti and to collect breadfruit trees.

But what happens when they're in Tahiti

is that his crew really likes living in paradise.

A lot of the men fall in love

with some of the women of Tahiti,

and so when Bligh's tells them they have to leave paradise

and their wives, for lack of a better word, behind,

they don't wanna do it.

- Bligh's and 18 loyalists are rounded up,

they're placed on one of Bounty launches,

which is a small skiff.

They're given some food, they're given some water,

they're given some bladed weapons,

but they're not given any firearms.

- [Dan] They're also missing something else important,

charts.

- Bligh and the rest of his crew escape with their lives,

but they realize now that there will be no safe haven

for them until they reach a proper Dutch colony,

which is over 4,000 miles away on the island of Kupang.

So, their odds of survival on this trip are very, very low.

- From brutal storms to dead calm,

Bligh tries his best to keep the crew's minds sharp

by assigning tasks.

- Break down this piece of bread

and the limited rations,

another person helps the captain with navigation.

Keeping your mind on the task

is the difference between life and death.

- [Dan] Miraculously,

with some careful island hopping, on June 14th, 1789,

they reached the island of Kupang.

- Bligh arrives looking like a dead man.

His face is blistered and burnt.

His lips are peeling off.

He can barely stand.

- As the details of this journey become clear to the Dutch,

they are absolutely astonished to learn

that William Bligh has just navigated a small boat

across 4,100 miles of open ocean.

It might be the greatest accomplishment

of seamanship in maritime history.

- [Dan] Bligh's impossible achievement

would spawn two Hollywood blockbusters and a musical.

- Throughout history, explorers have traveled

into the unknown in hopes of pushing mankind forward,

but sometimes it takes man's best friend

to get the job done.

[rocket engine rumbling]

- It's October 4th, 1957

and the Russians have just launched Sputnik.

They are officially winning the space race.

After Sputnik's launch, Nikita Khrushchev,

the leader of the USSR at the time,

decides that Russia needs to stay ahead.

- He wants to send up another satellite, Sputnik 2,

that can also show that it can sustain life.

- Nobody really knows how a human body would react

to being launched into orbit,

and so they come up with the next best thing.

You can't send a man, well, you send his best friend.

- They look for candidates among stray dogs

and they reason that a stray dog

is already used to extreme conditions of cold and hunger.

- They find an adorable stray Husky Spitz mix

that they name Laika.

She's about the right size

and the right demeanor for this type of mission.

- With the clock ticking,

the scientists and engineers put Laika through

a rigorous training program.

- Laika is actually fit

with these surgically implanted sensors

that are gonna collect data on her stress levels

and her vitals so we can really know

and figure out what happens to a living creature

when it's shot into space.

- On the day of the launch,

Laika is put into this tiny little capsule

and fitted to the top of this rocket.

- The countdown starts and at zero the rockets fire

[rocket engine rumbling]

and she's blasted off into space.

- The first few minutes are harrowing.

Her heart rate soars into the danger area

as she's experiencing G-forces

that no living creature has ever experienced.

- On top of this,

there's a malfunction with the heat shield

and the temperatures in the cabin become unbearable.

So, in just five hours,

with the combination of the extreme heat

and the intense pressure of the launch,

Laika becomes the first living creature to enter orbit,

but also the first creature to die in orbit.

- Even though Laika was lost, Laika was first,

so Laika has the fame and the gravitas

that comes from being a pioneer

and giving all for the betterment

and advancement of humanity.

- Even if Laika's mission doesn't have a happy ending,

it is still considered a huge win for Mother Russia.

The same cannot be said for another cursed Russian journey.

- With the turn of the 20th century,

the Japanese empire is becoming an oceanic power

that can rival the established powers of Europe

and the new world.

And in 1904, the Japanese lay siege

to the Russian Harbor at Port Arthur.

If the Japanese take Port Arthur,

it will be a major blow to where Russia stands

as an imperial power,

and it will also be a major blow to prestige.

- In a desperate effort to save face,

Tsar Nicholas decides to send the Russian fleet

to Port Arthur to battle the Japanese Navy.

- The journey to Port Arthur is 18,000 miles down

the west coast of Africa,

up the east coast of Africa into Asia.

- This is a rescue mission that's going to take six months.

Port Arthur is already under siege.

Who know what it's gonna look like in six months?

- Tsar Nicholas appoints Zinovy Rozhestvensky,

a trusted and seasoned naval admiral to lead the charge.

They begin their journey in October, 1904.

- The voyage encounters trouble from the very start.

No sooner have they left port

than two of the ships run aground.

[suspenseful music]

- [Dan] After narrowly escaping this blunder,

the fleet has another close call.

- Despite being halfway around the world from Japan,

the admiral warns the Baltic fleet

that they need to be on high alert

for Japanese torpedo boats,

which spawns this state of paranoia amongst

the entire fleet.

- They're less than a week out of port

in an area that's known as Dogger Bank

when lookouts report the Japanese torpedo boats

are out there and they open fire.

- The fleet manages to sink one of its targets.

The problem is it's a British fishing vessel.

Some of the fishermen are actually killed

and the British are pretty angry about it.

So, now they've run aground.

They've sank a British fishing boat

and almost started a war with the English,

and the fleet still has 17,000 more miles to go.

- After rounding Cape Horn,

the fleet goes into port at Madagascar,

and during that time,

the men make some regrettable decisions

to bring native wild animals aboard the ship,

like crocodiles and venomous snakes.

These animals ultimately break out of confinement

and run amok on board these ships,

causing more problems that the fleet did not need.

- Six months after leaving St. Petersburg,

the Russian Navy finally arrives at Port Arthur

with 38 ships.

However, Port Arthur has already fallen.

Nevertheless, the admiral is determined to prove the metal

of the Russian Navy by engaging the Japanese fleet.

- The admiral of the Japanese Imperial Navy dispatches

120 imperial naval vessels against the Russians' 38.

What follows is a bloodbath.

21 Russian vessels are sunk, others are captured.

The entire Baltic fleet has traveled 18,000 miles

to be annihilated.

It's not only the end to the Russo-Japanese war,

but it's also one of the final nails in the coffin

of the Russian empire.

It will fall.

- In case you think an arduous trip plagued by friendly fire

and escaped wild animals is as awful as it can get,

you better think again.

- Even today, with advanced technology GPS

and insulated clothing,

a journey on foot across Antarctica

is one of the most grueling expeditions

a person can attempt.

You can imagine a hundred years ago it was much worse.

- Exploration is a big thing among aristocrats

in the early 20th century.

It's a way for men to show their manliness

and their adventurous nature

without doing something like having to work for a living.

In 1912, three such explorers land in Antarctica

and they are the Far Eastern Shore Party

led by geologists Douglas Mawson.

- Their goal is to map the mountains

and the coasts of Antarctica

on the side that faces Australia.

And Mawson, of course,

wants to bring a couple of his BFFs along.

Lieutenant Belgrave Ninnis,

a British officer who is essentially

a sled dog whisperer.

- And Xavier Mertz, a Swedish lawyer

and accomplished cross country skier.

This mission is gonna be difficult.

We're talking about super cold temperatures

of negative 70 degrees Fahrenheit,

super fast winds of 200 miles per hour,

and snow-covered crevasses that are basically pits of death.

- [Dan] As the men set out on their journey,

strange things start happening right away.

- Mawson, he has a dream that his dad dies,

and unbeknownst to him, his dad dies.

Soon after that, one of the pregnant huskies gives birth

and devours her puppies.

- Then a seabird comes along and dive bombs into their sled

and kills itself.

- Even worse, the men start hearing this cracking sound

that they describe as cannon fire.

It's actually the ground below them threatening

to crack open at any time.

That'll keep you up at night.

- [Dan] Despite these ominous signs,

the men are able to cross over 300 miles

within the first 30 days of their expedition.

- On a mission like this,

conserving energy is vitally important.

They've already run through a lot of their supplies,

so they think,

"How about we just get rid of one of the sleds?"

So they redistribute the items.

On Ninnis' sled,

they put their food and shelter supplies.

On Mawson's sled, they put their sleeping bags, their books,

and a few other items,

and Mertz is going to ski the rest of the way.

- As the group continues their journey,

Mertz raises a ski pole,

which means he has detected some sort of potential danger.

Mawson is the second man in the formation,

so as he sees this signal from Mertz,

he turns around to relay it to Ninnis

and he notices Ninnis isn't there.

- Mertz and Mawson decide to go back and look for Ninnis

and what they find is a huge, gaping hole in the ice,

and all they see is a ledge

with a couple of suffering dogs on it,

but Ninnis the sled, the other dogs,

they're nowhere to be found.

- In addition to losing Ninnis,

they have lost a lot of dogs, they have lost their shelter,

they have lost their food and supplies.

- And it gets worse from there.

In less than three months,

their ride home is gonna be leaving for six months.

So, now they have a deadline that they have to meet,

or they're not going home from Antarctica.

The number one priority for Mawson

and Mertz now is nutrition.

- So, the decision is made to kill the weakest dog.

They eat the meat,

focusing on the liver because it's nutritionally dense.

It has a lot of vitamins and minerals,

specifically a lot of iron and a lot of vitamin A.

- Now, they're moving along,

but Mertz is starting to lose it, literally.

His skin is starting to peel off his legs in sheets.

Is it frostbite? Are his organs failing?

Is it contagious?

Before long, he dies.

- [Dan] with no time to grieve,

Mawson must trudge on,

but as he gathers himself and prepares to make way,

he removes his boots to find that his skin

is also peeling off in sheets.

- What Mawson doesn't know

is that because of the fact livers are so incredibly full

of vitamin A,

focusing on the liver is not something that is used

for long-term survival situations.

So, what Mawson actually is suffering from

is vitamin A poisoning.

- Mawson can't really have any emotional reaction to this.

He has to put those boots back on

and try to get back to the base camp

before the ship leaves without him.

- Finally, Mawson makes it back to the edge of base camp,

and as he peers out,

he sees that the resupply ship is sailing away.

He made it to base camp just in time to see the ship leave.

- This has to have felt incredibly heartbreaking,

but there is actually a little bit

of light in this tunnel of darkness.

Mawson goes onto the base camp

and he finds a rescue party that is there.

They're about to send out a search party,

and instead they all over winter together there at base camp

and they actually all make it off of Antarctica alive.

Even today, a trek across Antarctica

is considered one of the hardest things you

could possibly undertake.

This is an extraordinary achievement.

- Mawson's crew may have given their lives

to map the Antarctic tundra,

but they never dared explore

what was buried deep beneath it.

- Former President John Quincy Adams

had a lot going for him.

He spoke seven languages,

served on the Supreme Court after being president,

and his IQ has been estimated at 175,

even higher than Einstein's.

So, it might surprise you to hear he funded one

of the strangest missions in American history.

- It's the 1820s, we're in Washington, DC,

and President John Quincy Adams

is ready to approve a pretty shocking expedition.

Is it a new passageway west for expansion?

No.

Is it to explore new trade routes through South

or Central America?

Not even close.

Quincy Adams is being asked to fund an expedition

to send search parties deep beneath the earth's surface,

hoping to discover subterranean worlds and conduct trade

with a race of people who maybe live there.

According to some,

Quincy Adams is a believer in what's called

the hollow earth theory.

- The idea that the earth may be hollow

and hide hidden worlds is actually a theory

that goes back all the way to the ancient Greeks,

but in the 1700s and in the 1800s

is when it really picks up steam in Europe and the Americas.

There's one man in particular,

a guy by the name of John Cleves Symmes, who, in 1818,

writes a piece known as "Circular No. 1."

- Symmes postulates that there's two pathways

to the hollow center of the earth,

one on the North Pole and one on the South Pole.

And then if we dig deep enough,

we can find those pathways and get to this new world.

- Symmes is ready to make this happen,

and so he calls out from 100 brave souls

to help him dig into the earth

and to try to find these hidden worlds

that lie just beneath our feet.

- As an enticement,

he tells these would-be volunteers

they're gonna find worlds full of men, full of riches,

and full of this great phrase, "Thrifty vegetables."

I guess this is what a world looks like

before the discovery of gold,

that the chance for riches comes in the form

of thrifty vegetables.

- Now, most people would obviously think

that an idea like this is crazy,

but it's not that farfetched to the president

of the United States.

- There's some debate about whether Adams was all in

on the hollow earth theory,

or if he just wanted to do some exploration

of the North and South Poles.

- Sadly, for Symmes and Quincy Adams, and the Mole People,

Adams is voted out in favor of Andrew Jackson,

who was far too busy with above ground natives

to bother with any subterranean natives.

With government funding gone,

Symmes would die a few years later,

never realizing his dream of meeting the Mole People

and eating their thrifty vegetables.

- Quincy Adams' Hollow Earth expedition might not be

the most unbelievable expedition funded by a president.

Imagine millions of military dollars spent

on a voyage of the mind.

- Conventional espionage is,

although a very successful way

of gathering intelligence about a potential foe,

it's also very difficult.

So, during the decades of the Cold War,

the government comes up with a plan.

The US military establishes operations Stargate.

This is a program by which 10 or 15 men are trained

at Fort Mead in Maryland

in a psychological exercise that's called remote viewing.

- What is remote viewing?

Well, simply put, it is psychic spying.

The principle of psychic spying is that people use the power

of their mind to locate all the usual intelligence targets,

missile silos, military bases, ballistic missile submarines,

that sort of thing.

- The advantage offered by remote viewing

is that you get all of the successes associated

with conventional espionage without taking on the hazards

and the risks of sending somebody behind the lines

of a potentially hostile country.

- We know through declassified documents

that the United States government is interested

in phenomena like extrasensory perception since the 1950s,

but it doesn't really take off until the late '60s

and early '70s where there's whispers

that the Russians might also be dabbling

in this psychic ability.

- [Dan] But does psychic spying actually work?

- Turns out the results are way better

than chance alone should allow.

Some of the estimates about the success rate

of this program put the figure at 70, 80%.

- From these experiments,

the Army identifies six, quote, "Star performers."

One of these star performers is named Joseph McMoneagle.

- During his remote viewing session,

he begins to sketch out what he's seeing.

- McMoneagle claims that he's capable of seeing deep

into the Soviet Union and he observes the construction

of a large submarine,

and what McMoneagle describes ends up being

the typhoon class of Soviet ballistic missile submarines

six months before their existence is made public.

- But while McMoneagle is seen as a star performer,

he's not even the best one of the group,

that would be his colleague Pat Price,

who is deemed a psychic treasure.

Pat Price is supposedly successful in being able

to infiltrate an underground Soviet nuclear research site.

- Price claims to remote view the development

of a particle beam weapon that the Soviets are going to use

to shoot down satellites.

- [Dan] Despite its promise,

operation Stargate never really takes off.

- Eventually, the CIA decides that it's time

to revisit remote viewing,

and in 1995 decides it's time to scuttle the program.

- But there's a suspicion that it's only in public

that the plug has been pulled.

Some people believe these programs continue to this day.

There is a theory that this is a classic black op.

It's still going on,

but it's buried somewhere in the private sector perhaps.

- Brings a whole new meaning to the idea

of working from home.

- When it comes to horrific

cannibalistic voyages gone wrong,

many say the tragic story of the Donner Party stands

at the top of the heap,

but some historians think there's another brutal tale

that makes the Donner Party look like a luxury vacation.

- In The Louvre hangs a massive haunting painting depicting

a huge wooden raft loaded with desperate people

being tossed around in a horrific storm.

Their starving faces registers such pain,

it's known to make people who see it in person weep.

It's called "The Raft of the Medusa,"

and the most chilling thing about it is it really happened.

- It's 1816 and the French frigate, "The Medusa,"

is sailing to Senegal to reclaim the Senegal colony

from the British as part of a peace treaty.

- The Medusa's captain is a member

of the French nobility named Hugues Duroy de Chaumareys.

He is assigned captain,

not so much because of merit, but because of his title.

He's a mariner, but he hasn't been to sea in over 20 years.

And because of this gap in his career,

he wants to show everyone that he's still got it.

- [Dan] As the captain sets sail,

he's hell bent on making the trip in record time,

even if that means cutting corners.

- Captain Hugues decides to hug the African coast

rather than going further afield into a calmer

and more open seas.

- Here's the problem,

the coast of Senegal is literally a ship's graveyard.

- By hugging the coast,

the captain has made the decision

that he's willing to accept that risk of an unseen hazard

that could destroy his vessel

in an attempt to complete the journey as fast as possible.

- Sure enough, on July 2nd,

the Medusa collides with a reef and comes to a brutal stop.

- The captain and crew have one opportunity

to perhaps free themselves from this dilemma.

They need to give the ship more buoyancy,

and the idea is to jettison as much weight as possible

in order to hopefully lift the ship so it can sail free.

- Usually, at this point in time,

what you would throw overboard

is that what you did not need to survive,

cannons, powder, cannon balls.

But instead, Captain Hugues decides to order the crew

to throw away the things that you might need,

water, food, critical supplies.

He insists on keeping the cannons

in case they're attacked.

- Eventually the situation sets in there's the realization

that Medusa is not going to be freed.

The ship is hopelessly aground.

The problem that they face then is what to do next,

because they're 30 miles from shore, too far to swim,

but close enough for them to think

that they could come up with a plan

to get everyone safely ashore just 30 miles away.

- Since they don't have nearly enough lifeboats

for all on board,

the decision is made to abandon the Medusa

and create a massive raft

by tying together timber from the masts

and other pieces of the ship.

The idea is that the captain and senior crew

will get in the lifeboats and tow the raft towards shore.

- The officers enter into the lifeboats,

the crew starts getting onto the raft,

and they realize the raft

is actually not keeping them above the water.

- There is one measly patch of dry raft,

but it's quickly grabbed by the Navy officers

who put themselves in charge.

- Before even starting the 30-mile journey to shore,

the naval personnel in the dry area,

and the infantry personnel fighting

to get onto the dry area,

they're literally throwing each other off of the raft.

- To make matters worse,

the captain and his crew who are rowing realize

they're barely making a dent

in terms of moving this raft towards shore,

and the captain makes the decision

that the best course of action is to actually cut the raft

so that the lifeboats can move forward

and hopefully get help and bring it back.

- [Dan] Set adrift and unable to navigate to shore

without a captain,

the situation rapidly descends into chaos.

- There are 150 people.

On their raft, they are completely exposed

to the elements.

The sunlight during the daytime just piercing down on them.

They have barrels of wine

and a few biscuits to sustain themselves.

- Things are so bad that people start eating their shoes,

their belts, their clothing,

anything that they think would be of sustenance.

- By day four, only 67 people are still alive on the raft.

The others killed either by starvation,

drowning, or fighting.

- As the fourth day turns to the fifth day,

they begin to look at the bodies of the dead

and think the unthinkable.

The survivors on the raft

of the Medusa begin eating the dead.

As they're deciding who to eat,

they look off to the distant horizon

and something catches their eyes.

- It's a ship, which turns out to be the Argus,

not only French, but a part of their original convoy

that's now been sent for rescue.

- Of the original 150 on the raft of the Medusa,

only 15 are rescued.

Captain Hugues is charged with dereliction of duty

and reckless navigation.

Because of his noble status,

he skirts the death penalty and gets three years in prison,

plus a lifetime of shame

as perhaps the worst captain in French naval history.

- It seems the term,

"The captain goes down with the ship,"

doesn't translate to French very well.

- We've talked about extraordinary journeys

on boats and planes, even voyages of the mind,

but what about the ultimate trip through time?

Some claim it's possible

and that the evidence has been captured on film.

- There's a weird phenomenon that we have online

where photos from the 1800s

or the early 1900s pop up every once in a while,

but there's something kind of weird about them,

an object or a person is standing in this photo

and it's anachronistic in time.

They shouldn't be there.

- One of the most famous is taken in the '40s.

There's a crowd of people on the street and at first glance,

nothing seems that outta place,

but then you look a little bit more closely.

Your eyes are drawn to this one figure and it's like,

"Wait a minute,

this guy's got Brooklyn hipster vibes.

- [Dan] In fact, he's known as

the Time Traveling Hipster.

- The sunglasses,

they resemble sort of sunglasses people wear today,

as if they came out of a 21st century surfer shop.

His hair is not sort of slicked back

in the traditional 1940s style.

It's got that kind of messy, hipstery kind of look.

He's wearing a shirt with a M logo,

and he's holding an object

that looks almost like a portable camera

or a small phone even.

So, for time travel aficionados,

this individual really stands out.

- [Dan] This hipster isn't the only person

who appears to be out of place in time.

- Another great example is the silent Charlie Chaplin film,

"The Circus," in 1928.

We have this video of a woman walking through the street

and she's carrying what looks to be a cell phone.

She's holding up to her ear as if she's speaking to someone

or checking her voicemail.

- This is 60 years before cell phones really become popular.

Skeptics say this is far more likely

to be some sort of ear trumpet.

But wait, ear trumpets are used up close and personal

where you're sitting next to somebody

and you want to hear the conversation.

You don't use them walking down the street.

So, there's still a mystery here.

- Not every time traveler visits the past.

Witness one bewildered pilot's shocking glimpse

of a war yet to come.

- It's 1935 in Scotland and Air Marshal Victor Goddard,

who's a well-decorated RAF pilot,

is flying his biplane over an airfield near Drem.

- He pays attention to it long enough to notice

that it is in derelict condition, it is run down.

He can see that there's grass growing up through cracks

in the runway.

The entire place appears neglected and abandoned.

He even sees cows chewing on the grass

in the middle of the runway

- As he flies forward,

Goddard is engulfed in this sudden storm,

wind, rain, lightning, thunder.

Oddly enough, he's swallowed by this yellow strange cloud.

- He turns around and starts to head

in the opposite direction.

And when he does, the airfield he just flew over,

it's no longer in disarray.

There's airmen working on it,

there's planes on the landing strip,

it's totally not what he just saw seconds ago

when he flew over Drem.

- It appears to be in operational use.

- [Dan] Confused, Goddard takes note

of some other odd details.

- He looks down and he sees that the RAF training aircraft

that are parked along the field are not silver

as they were in 1935,

but they're painted yellow

and one of the aircraft stands out as unusual to him

because it's a low wing monoplane

of a type that he had never seen before.

- And the airmen who work on those planes, typically,

in his time, wear kind of a beige khaki color,

but now they're all wearing blue.

- Suddenly, Goddard's right back in the storm.

It's not sunny, it's raining, lightning, thunder,

and here comes the mysterious yellow cloud

swallowing Goddard's biplane again.

- [Dan] Goddard makes it back to his own base

and files an official report of this strange sighting,

despite the risk to his career.

It's not unheard of

that people would report something out of the ordinary,

but if you were to return home

and report something like this, this level of detail,

more than likely your next appointment

is gonna be with a psychiatrist.

- The story sort of just goes nowhere

and gets lost to history,

but something strange happens a few years later in 1939.

England is now fighting a war against Nazi Germany

and the airfield and Drem becomes repurposed.

- [Dan] The recommissioned airfield of Drem

has some eerie but familiar characteristics.

- By 1939, the RAF decides

to start painting training planes yellow,

just as Goddard had seen four years ago.

- The British also developed new aircraft technology

to compete with the Germans,

Spitfire, a Monoplaned fighter,

similar to what Goddard says he saw back in '35.

- And there's a third coincidence,

RAF mechanics have switched their uniforms from tan to blue,

just as Goddard had seen four years earlier

when he was engulfed by the strange yellow cloud.

- So, did this decorated RAF commander have a hallucination?

Did he imagine all of this,

or did he encounter what is called a time slip?

- Now, Goddard wins medals, he fights with honor.

I mean, he is considered a hero

of the Second World War for the British,

but he never backs down from his story

that in 1935 he saw the future.

- Whether you're uncovering secrets at the core of the earth

or up in space, by a wooden crate, or through your mind,

these are the voyages so astonishing,

they are truly unbelievable.