All language subtitles for the_unxplained_s07e07_tales_from_antarctica

Legendary explorers braving a deadly
frozen world.

A massive government expedition shrouded
in secrecy. And strange

new life forms buried beneath miles of
solid ice.

Antarctica.

This frozen continent at the bottom of
Earth is a massive polar desert.

This desolate yet beautiful place has
captivated brave explorers for

And while its natural wonders are
undeniable, Antarctica is also steeped

myth, legend, and strange phenomena.

What secrets lie hidden within the
world's most mysterious continent?

Well, that is what we'll try and find
out.

Antarctica, Earth's southernmost
continent.

This vast frozen world covers five and a
half million square miles and is nearly

the size of the United States and Mexico
combined.

Only 1 ,000 to 5 ,000 humans are on
Antarctica at any given time.

And most of these temporary residents
are small groups of scientists from

the world who work...

and live in research outposts that dot
the landscape.

Those who are willing to endure the
extreme conditions of the White

find themselves in a world like no
other.

My first visit to Antarctica was almost
20 years ago now. I've always found

Antarctica to be fascinating because it
is enigmatic.

When you get there, you're in awe of the
sights that you see.

Antarctica is essentially covered in a
huge slab of ice that can be up to three

miles thick in places.

And it has the coldest temperatures in
the world, but also is the highest

continent, the driest continent, the
windiest continent, and the least

place on the planet.

And it feels like nowhere else on Earth.

My first time getting to the ice, it's
otherworldly.

There's not a tree in sight. Depending
when you get there, You're often either

in 24 -hour daylight or 24 -hour
darkness.

The threshold between being perfectly
safe and, oh my God, we're in trouble,

very thin.

Humans aren't built to survive in
Antarctica.

It's mysterious and wondrous because so
few people get a chance to go. The

scientists visit it, the explorers visit
it, but we all leave.

The things that catch your eye, like the
penguins and whales and things, that's

all in the coastal regions.

Once you go into the interior, there's
nothing that lives there that we know

So it's got an allure already.

There's so many questions to be
answered.

Everything's unexplained about
Antarctica.

While those who have ventured to
Antarctica have experienced freezing

temperatures, blinding storms, and
endless snow -covered terrain.

Scientists have recently discovered
geological evidence that millions of

ago, the continent looked very different
than it does today.

Antarctica hasn't always been covered in
ice. Just by fossils found in

Antarctica, we know that Antarctica was
once covered in jungle, that it was once

covered in forest.

There are some people who theorize that
there could have been ancient men in

Antarctica.

and then all that was covered in ice. So
we know that there's a lot there, but

we don't know what's going to be found.

It's fascinating to think that 90
million years ago, the South Pole was

lush forest filled with plants, trees,
and animals.

It would take a dramatic climate shift
around 56 million years later to create

the frozen landscape we know today.

And while explorers would not lay eyes
on Antarctica until the 1800s, great

thinkers like Aristotle had proposed the
existence of a land at the bottom of

Earth thousands of years before it was
discovered.

In ancient times, Antarctica captured
our imaginations. People suspected that

Antarctica existed because it seemed
right.

But it was an undiscovered land.

It seemed like there should be a land in
the southern regions of the planet.

It was suspected to be there, but there
was no proof.

Istanbul, Turkey, 1929.

While cataloging antiquities at the
Topkapi Palace Library, German scholar

Gustav Adolf Deismann finds an unusual
map printed on gazelle skin parchment.

The remarkable 16th century document is
quickly recognized as the work of the

distinguished cartographer, Piri Reis,
and becomes an object of great

and heated controversy.

Piri Reis was an Ottoman admiral and
cartographer.

In 1513, he produced an extraordinary
map.

Only about a third of the map survives,
but that third offers something that's

really surprising.

and looks like it is showing a coastline
of a southern continent.

And some argue that that coastline looks
very much like the coastline of part of

modern Antarctica.

And that leads you to wonder, how did he
possibly know the coastline of a

continent that we didn't even know
existed yet?

So it presumes that some civilization
either lived there or was close enough

it in order to map it, and somehow that
information made it back to Pierre Reif.

It's certainly not proven, and we don't
know.

Did Piri Reis create a map of the
Antarctic coast based on lost knowledge

mysterious ancient civilization?

And if so, how did the famous mapmaker
come to learn about it?

Some experts think the answer can be
found in the folklore of a great

people who came not from the frozen
desert, but instead from a tropical

paradise.

The Polynesian peoples of the Pacific
have many culture heroes and these were

great navigators that would journey for
many thousands of miles from one end of

the ocean to the other.

And these legends tell us that they also
went to a southern continent

that was naturally very, very cold.

They say that it's a place that's...

beneath the earth itself.

It's a place of darkness, but it's also
a place of light in that the sun shines

all the time there.

And it's a place where rocks grow out of
the sea and strange animals and what

appears to be what we describe as Noah
and I. And it seems very obvious that

they were reaching Antarctica.

It's intriguing to think that the
ancient world may have discovered

centuries before explorers would catch a
glimpse of it.

And while the belief in an unknown
southern land was well established in

15th and 16th centuries, the ability to
actually set foot on this mysterious

continent would finally be possible in
the late 1800s, in an era known as

the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

At the time of the Age of Exploration in
Antarctica, the South Pole, no one had

ever been there. Much like the highest
point on Earth or the lowest trench in

the ocean, getting to that point would
be an historic achievement.

The two powers that were pushing to get
to the South Pole first were Great

Britain and Norway.

Ernest Shackleton was a British polar
explorer in the early 1900s.

And he made the record at the time of
reaching the closest location to the

Pole, getting within nearly 100 miles
before having to turn around.

In 1911, Roald Munson, the great
Norwegian explorer, becomes the first to

the South Pole.

So Norway steals the glory.

These early explorers of Antarctica,
they're going into kind of almost like a

black hole.

From 1897 to 1922, ten countries were
involved in launching 17

major Antarctic expeditions in the
pursuit of scientific and geographical

exploration. Polar exploration is
complicated.

At its core is the sense of national
pride.

These early explorers were carrying the
flag of their country.

But it was also an effort to understand
the world. No one had been...

to Antarctica.

Was it one continent? Was it several
large islands?

I mean, geographic knowledge was being
gathered during that time.

It was also scientific learning about
animal species.

They were kind of early field
researchers.

It was this willingness to go forward
and explore and learn and advance human

knowledge that was one of the driving
factors.

And whether they would come out or not
was the question.

Despite the inherent dangers of
Antarctic exploration, brave adventurers

everything to reach the White Continent.

But once there, survival would require
strong ships, adequate supplies, trusted

crewmates, and at times, help from an
otherworldly source.

Queen Maud Land, Antarctica.

November 13th, the year 2000.

Famous polar explorers Anne Bancroft and
Liev Arneson set out on a truly

extraordinary expedition.

Their formidable goal is to become the
first women in history to ski across the

most dangerous continent on Earth.

For our expedition, the goal was to pull
sleds all the way across Antarctica.

And it's incredibly...

People do fall into crevasses.

Mishaps happen.

If you got injured, it's very hard to
get out.

It's sort of do it or die.

The trip was 97 days across Antarctica.

It was about 1 ,700 miles. We went from
tip to tail, basically, with the South

Pole in the middle.

Liev and I became the first women to
cross the continent of Antarctica.

Anne Bancroft and Lee Varnison made
history on Antarctica.

But something strange happened on their
quest across the continent that's not

easily explained.

In the first half of the journey, it was
very steep up into the interior, and it

was just blizzards all the time. So
we're getting stuck all the time. And

the continent is ahead of us.

And so the dilemma for us was how do we
overcome what was before us? Because

we're going into a place of despair.

It was so incredibly cold and hard, and
you're so scared.

And you're thinking, we're never going
to do it. We're never going to get

This is just too formidable.

And suddenly I felt like I was getting
help.

I felt like they were people in my life
who had passed on.

My grandmother, for one. And you have a
dialogue.

And I had a dialogue.

There is a presence that you can get.
But what is that? What is that

Could the spirit of a loved one have
been the unseen force that helped Anne

during her expedition?

Or might it have been something else?

Remarkably, there have been other polar
explorers.

who have experienced a very similar
phenomenon called Third Man Syndrome.

Third Man Syndrome, also called Third
Man Factor, is a sense of

being in the company of an unseen
friend, a presence who guides

you, who encourages you, and is a key
factor in an

individual's survival during extreme
stress.

So it often happens in mountaintops, it
happens at sea, it happens in

Antarctica, extreme environments, and
it's a sense of guidance and help and

support, almost, if you will, an angel.

There are countless examples like that
where people have had the very same

experience.

Could there really be an angelic
presence that guides those in need of

during extreme conditions?

It's a comforting thought, and perhaps
best illustrated in what's considered to

be the most remarkable Antarctic
survival story in history.

Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 26,
1914.

The British vessel, the Endurance, sets
sail with 28 men on a historic adventure

known as the Imperial Trans -Antarctic
Expedition.

The ship's owner and captain is Sir
Ernest Shackleton, a seasoned explorer

led an expedition to the South Pole
seven years earlier.

Shackleton's plan for the endurance
expedition is to be the first to

land crossing of Antarctica.

In 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton set out
in what would become one of the most

fateful expeditions in Antarctic
history.

He was tasked with crossing the
continent from west to east.

via the South Pole.

But their ship, the Endurance, got
locked in sea ice, leaving them

they had to give up on the South Pole
expedition.

This was now an expedition of survival
for hundreds of miles.

In 1915, the Endurance got stuck in the
Weddell Sea, which is a very icy sea in

Antarctica. So then, having spent
almost, you know, more than a year

this frozen ship, it was quite clear the
ship was going to sink.

They had to take the lifeboats, take
everything that they could off the ship,

and push those across the ice and went
to search for help.

Twenty -eight -man shipwreck marooned in
Antarctica.

It's an incredibly horrific effort to
get out of that situation.

Crossing the rotting ice, eating their
sled dogs.

They were at one point covered in ice
from the sea spray, and they all looked

like kind of ghosts.

And then they finally reach this place
called Elephant Island.

Shackleton and his crew of 27 men reach
Elephant Island on April 16, 1916,

nearly 15 months after getting stuck in
the ice.

But their journey is far from over.

On Elephant Island, it was clear that
they wouldn't be rescued from there.

And so Shackleton...

And other men take one of these boats,
which has been dragged all the way

the ice, and they decide to go to South
Georgia Island in order to get to a

whaling post to search for help.

It's 800 miles across the ocean to get
there.

If they miss the island, it's over. It's
an open boat, and they're on the ocean

in these waves. They're wet all the
time.

There's nothing left in the tank.

If you were a betting person, you would
not bet for them.

And yet they achieved it.

Against all odds, the men land safely on
South Georgia Island.

But still ahead of them is a treacherous
climb over an uncharted mountain, where

on the other side, there's a whaling
station and their last hope for getting

help.

With barely any strength left to survive
Shackleton and two of his men begin the

long, dangerous trek through the
mountains.

And it is then that all three men begin
to sense that they are not alone.

It was during that final leg over the
mountains in South Georgia that he and

other two men who were with him had the
sense of a force.

having joined their party, and
Shackleton described it as the divine

In his book South, he wrote of this
presence experience that he had had on

Georgia Island.

It was a spiritual, a religious
experience that they felt they had had.

They felt they were in the company of an
unseen friend.

The other two guys he's traveling with
feel the same, I call it a spirit, you

know, the same.

Essence, it is a benevolent presence. It
kind of rides on your shoulder, it

appears. Oftentimes when you need it, it
feels like there is a person, a being

with them, aiding them, helping them.

They somehow managed to get over this
mountain range to the whaling station.

It's just unbelievable.

They were absolutely, totally
malnourished.

Their clothing was in tatters.

They were not...

recognizable, really, as a civilized man
when they arrived.

And Shackleton was so changed by what he
had gone through. It was a horrific,

horrific experience.

And yet he survived, and they went back
to Elton Island and collected the other

men.

On August 30, 1916, more than a year and
a half after the Endurance became

trapped in ice, the stranded crew on
Elton Island are finally rescued.

Miraculously, all 28 men that set out on
the journey survive.

Perhaps with the help of an otherworldly
presence that no one can explain.

Third man syndrome always comes back to
the question, what is it?

Is it purely a psychological coping
mechanism or is it some sort of

entity?

Neurologists continue to study the
phenomenon.

psychologists continue to study the
phenomenon, but I don't think any of

have solved the mystery.

I think it remains very much
unexplained.

Could Shackleton and Bancroft have
really been guided to safety by

supernatural? Or was it simply a
hallucination?

The answer remains a mystery.

Just like the case of an American
military hero who stopped secret polar

adventure has led to controversial
theories about what may lie deep beneath

the ice.

The Bay of Wales, Antarctica.

January 15th, 1947.

A fleet of 13 ships, 33 aircraft, and
almost 5 ,000 troops

arrived under the command of Rear
Admiral Richard E. Byrd, famed naval

and Polar Explorer, who in 1929, along
with his crew, was the first to fly an

airplane over the South Pole.

Now, he is leading a massive classified
operation for the United States

government known as Operation High Jump.

Operation High Jump was by far the
largest expedition on the Antarctic

continent. At this point in history, it
was right after World War II.

And High Jump's stated missions were
about exploration and scientific

They explored new places, they set up
bases, and they took thousands of

photographs. They took measurements that
nobody had ever taken over a vast swath

of the Antarctic continent.

Operation High Jump was a massive
operation.

It's like a World War II invasion, but
it also gives rise to some various

theories, because why would we send an
entire fleet?

to Antarctica just to do scientific
research.

Do we really care that much about
science, or is there some secret

goal down there that we don't know
about?

For over 70 years, the question has
persisted.

What was the true mission of Operation
High Jump?

One of the prevailing theories is that
High Jump's secret objective may have

been to locate a hidden Nazi base.

Starting in 1938 and arriving there in
January 1939, Adolf Hitler had sent a

Nazi research expedition to Antarctica.

They established a presence there.

Now, one of the purposes of this was to
establish a whaling industry there.

However, a lot of people believe that
they were also storing weapons there.

So this opens up the question, was
Operation High Jump looking for...

a hidden Nazi base there in the ice that
could contain secrets and weapons that

the Third Reich may have left behind.

The possibility that Operation High Jump
was searching for a secret Nazi base

remains an unproven theory.

But over the decades, others have
proposed that Admiral Richard E. Byrd's

objective in Antarctica was to find
something even more shocking.

The entrance.

to a secret world hidden below the ice.

Richard Byrd was probably one of the
last of the great explorers. He was the

first man to fly over the North and
South Pole, and he was determined

to uncover the secrets of the land
beyond the poles.

When Byrd said the secrets of the land
beyond the poles, he was probably using

that as a romantic metaphor. So it's
been taken over the years that Byrd was

referring to possibly entranceways into
the inner earth.

The concept of an inner earth is that we
live on a shell

and that beneath that shell is a realm.

another world, the parallel existence,
that has its own atmosphere, its

own sun, its own land, its own
fertility, its own animals, and perhaps

own inhabitants.

Could Admiral Byrd have been searching
for a mysterious land beneath

It's an incredible story, if it's true.

And what's even more remarkable is that,
according to legend, Admiral Byrd.

may have found it.

The story goes that when Admiral Byrd
flew over the South Pole, he could see

that there was an opening.

He directed a squadron to fly into the
opening, and underneath the ice, it

wasn't frozen.

It was temperate.

There were valleys there. There was
flowing water there.

The rumors had it that he had discovered
areas of Antarctica that were free of

ice and snow.

Allegations that he discovered the inner
earth circulated in various books and

publications, and it was alleged that at
one point they observed a number

of flying disks, UFOs.

and received radio communications
ordering them to land near an enormous

where they met the leaders of this
underground kingdom.

There's been all kinds of allegations,
but we don't know if these stories are

true or not.

Did Admiral Byrd discover a highly
advanced civilization hiding deep below

Antarctica? It all sounds too incredible
to be true.

But some experts are convinced that
something very strange did indeed happen

during Operation High Jump.

Because this massive military
undertaking in 1947 was suddenly

cut short.

Operation High Jump was supposed to stay
for the entire Antarctic summer of

1947.

But they were there less than two months
and came back to the United States.

It would be nice to know why did they
leave so early, what happened to a lot

the photographs that were allegedly
taken at the time, and did everybody

back safely?

Now, I suspect that the crazy stories
about flying saucers and men from the

hollow earth was part of a
disinformation campaign to hide what was

on.

So the question remains,

what actually happens with Operation
High Jump.

The true purpose of Operation High Jump
is still shrouded in mystery.

But it is possible the mission did find
something incredible beneath the eyes

because scientists have since discovered
an absolutely massive

object buried a mile below Antarctica's
surface. And they don't know what it

is.

Antarctica 2024.

Across the icy continent, 55 countries
have established research stations where

scientists come to study topics like
marine biology, geologic mapping, ice

cores, and objects from space.

Like the 50 ,000 meteorites that have
landed on the snowy surface of

And many believe...

There are hundreds of thousands more
meteorites waiting to be found there.

The magnitude of some of these
discoveries is amazing.

We've actually found more meteorites on
the ice in Antarctica than anywhere else

on the planet combined.

Roughly 60 % of all the meteorites found
on Earth have been found in Antarctica.

So all the time we're finding meteorites
that we didn't even know existed there.

The weather conditions and uncluttered
setting of Antarctica are said to be

helpful when spotting and collecting
space rocks.

But a discovery in 2006, deep
underground in the Wilkes Land region,

the potential to rewrite Earth's
history.

Wilkes Land is one of the most remote
regions of East Antarctica.

Gravity satellites run by NASA
discovered that...

There's a dense segment of rock
underneath the ice that's heavier than

everything else around it. And one of
the things that could cause an anomaly

like this is an impact crater. But it's
impossible to say for sure.

Scientists believe what they discovered
was a massive 300 -mile -wide

crater that has been suggested was
caused by an

asteroid.

that struck the Earth maybe as far back
as 250 million years in the past.

And I don't think scientists know what
else it could be.

Unfortunately, we'll probably never know
because it's buried under almost a mile

of ice.

So what we know is that there's
something there. What we don't know for

what it is, but many scientists think
that possibly under the ice in

Antarctica... is the largest impact
crater that is known ever to have

Earth.

It's intriguing to think that a
prehistoric 300 -mile -wide meteor

lie hidden below 5 ,000 feet of ice.

And if so, could it be the source of a
mega impact event that transformed

the planet?

If we look back into geological history,

We find out that around the same time
that the Wilkes Land anomaly was

there was a severe shift in the fossil
record that

unquestionably involved a massive
cataclysm that must have changed the

of Earth itself.

There are people that believe the timing
of the Wilkes Land impact at

about 250 million years ago, could be
the cause of the Permian Triassic

extinction event, which would have wiped
out about 90 % of all life on Earth.

So this potential impact could
absolutely be indicative of a mass

event in our Earth's history.

Could the anomaly buried below
Antarctica have been responsible for

nearly all life on the planet?

Perhaps. But what's even more incredible
is that some experts suggest an

asteroid strike of this magnitude may
have been powerful enough to reshape the

Earth itself.

Antarctica has not always been covered
in ice.

It used to be a very different place
than it is today.

It didn't even used to be at the South
Pole. It broke off from the Pangean

supercontinent millions of years ago and
drifted southward.

This crater that is still preserved
under the ice in Antarctica might have

with the breakup of the supercontinent.

This massive meteor strike could have
hit so hard that it literally caused

volcanoes to erupt on the other side of
the Earth.

It might be the event that helped to
break Antarctica off from Africa.

and break Australia off from Antarctica.

The massive anomaly buried deep below
Antarctica may one day reshape our

understanding of planet Earth.

But for now, the evidence remains beyond
our reach.

Unfortunately, whilst this idea is
plausible, because it's under miles of

nobody can physically collect a rock
specimen.

to find out if what they think may have
happened is what has happened.

So it's very difficult to know if
there's anything else potentially going

there, because we haven't got enough
data yet.

But it does give an example of one of
the many, many things about Antarctica

that we're currently unable to answer,
because Antarctica is dominated by this

huge amount of ice.

Is there a giant asteroid buried deep
below eastern Antarctica?

Or could it be something even more
shocking?

Based on the depth of this object, the
answer for now is too hard to come by.

But even deeper, below the surface, a
recent discovery may have uncovered an

entire lost world of strange and unusual
creatures.

Vostok Station, Antarctica, February
5th, 2012.

After 20 years of drilling, scientists
make a remarkable discovery.

Locked deep beneath the ice for what
some estimate to be 20 million years,

scientists reach an extraordinary body
of water known as Lake Vostok.

Lake Vostok is the largest subglacial
lake in Antarctica and sits about 13

feet below the surface of the ice sheet
above.

A subglacial lake is one that's formed
underneath ice.

Subglacial lakes are a real mystery.

We've only explored a handful of them
and it's very difficult to explore these

hidden environments.

They represent a natural laboratory.

What happens to life if you cut it off
from the rest of the world for millions

of years?

When they pulled up water from Lake
Vostok, they found microbes in there

had evolved completely independently
from nearly all other life on Earth.

Lake Vostok is so remote, so isolated
from the rest of the planet.

If life could evolve here, it could
evolve nearly anywhere.

It was the closest thing we've ever
found to life on another planet.

While Lake Vostok is a tremendous
discovery, it is just one.

of many pristine places in Antarctica,
where scientists have found not just

microbial life forms, but creatures of
all sizes that have never been seen

before.

One of the amazing things about working
in Antarctica as a marine biologist is

we get to discover new species.

If we go to unexplored areas or places
that are much deeper, 80 or 90 % of the

species we pull up from the sea are new
to science.

And that includes some really strange
-looking organisms.

We have the strawberry feather star.

Its central part of its body resembles a
strawberry.

I even have two species of sea cucumber
named after me because they were

starting to run out of things to name
the new species we'd found.

And so it's not a question of will we
find new species, it's a question of how

many new species will we find every time
we go.

Every time we look at a new pocket of
seawater underneath the ice in

we find something we'd never seen
before.

Just a few years ago, they found sea
spider crabs that have legs up to 20

They found two -foot -wide sea stars.

They found jellyfish with 12 -foot -long
tentacles.

Many of these reach sizes that are
incomparable to anywhere else on Earth.

The cold, undisturbed waters around
Antarctica make an excellent breeding

for... massive creatures.

Blue whales, the largest animals to ever
live on our planet, roam these waters.

And even the mysterious and elusive
colossal squid can be found here.

Colossal squids are enormous creatures
that are at least 33 feet long, and they

have the largest eyeballs of any
creature on the planet.

We've only seen a few of these organisms
in real life.

But it opened so many questions about
how large animals can be found in some

the most inhospitable parts of
Antarctica.

Seymour Island, 2017.

The Argentina Antarctic Institute
completes their excavation of one of the

extraordinary and massive fossils ever
discovered.

It is the skeleton of a sea creature
that swam in Antarctic waters 66 million

years ago, called Elasmosaurus.

Elasmosaurus was a real sea monster
swimming around the Antarctic.

It's the heaviest marine reptile fossil
that's been found around Antarctica.

It was up to 40 feet long and possibly
15 tons worth of animal.

It was thought to have lived right up to
the extinction event that killed

dinosaurs. But it was the largest
swimming reptile in the oceans around

Antarctica. When the story hit the news,
people started saying, doesn't this

resemble the Loch Ness Monster?

Doesn't this resemble other sea monsters
and lake monsters around the world?

Begging the question of whether
creatures like the Elasmosaurus,

still exist out there in the sea coast
of Antarctica to this day.

We know this massive critter lived
there, right?

So things that you might call a monster,
could they live under those ice

shelves? Of course they could.

98 % of the ocean bottom underneath
these huge ice sheets off of Antarctica

completely unexplored.

There's absolutely going to be stuff
that we've never seen before that

us and that tells us more about life on
our planet.

McMurdo Station, Ross Island,
Antarctica.

This American research station is the
largest scientific facility on the

continent and serves as a key hub to
resupplying scientists working all over

region.

McMurdo is just one of about 70 research
stations that support scientific

expeditions from 29 countries around the
world.

Part of the reason we fund so much
research in Antarctica

Because what happens in Antarctica does
not stay in Antarctica.

Antarctica by itself holds enough ice to
raise sea levels around the world by

hundreds of feet if it all melted.

We've had glaciers that are thinning and
losing literally billions of tons of

ice to the ocean.

And how fast these glaciers can melt is
an open question.

Antarctica affects the rest of the
planet right now.

and in the future.

While it's fascinating to think that
Antarctica may help us predict what lies

ahead for planet Earth, surprisingly,
the white continent may also offer clues

to what life might be like on other
planets.

At NASA, they talk a lot about
Antarctica. It is the closest thing that

to an approximation to an alien
environment that might resemble places

hope to visit in space.

There are frozen moons, even in our own
solar system, where there's a huge ocean

of water beneath and then a frozen crust
on the outside. Very similar to ice

shelves or the sea ice in Antarctica.

And the fact that life can live under
the ice in Antarctica might hold the

secrets of life in other places in the
universe.

Could the most remote, hostile, and
mysterious place on Earth really be that

similar to an alien world?

It's an intriguing thought, but the
truth is, after 200 years of

exploration and research, when it comes
to understanding the mystery of

Antarctica, we've barely scratched the
frozen surface.

We might learn about the universe from
Antarctica. We might learn about the

origins of life from Antarctica. We
might find species that we've never seen

before from Antarctica.

We just don't know what's under all that
ice.

I think what's exciting is that we don't
have all the answers.

In fact, we have so very few.

Antarctica is already presenting
mysteries that we never thought we would

to. Even today, things are emerging,
critters and...

objects, and bodies of water.

And if you're a scientist, it's very
much like being an explorer. You just

to keep putting one foot in front of the
other and keep asking the questions and

keep looking.

It's exciting to think that there are
great discoveries yet to be uncovered in

one of the most inhospitable
environments imaginable.

And perhaps the fact that Antarctica is
the world's highest, driest, coldest,

and windiest continent on Earth is
exactly what attracts explorers of all

kinds who risk their lives in the
pursuit of understanding this

place. But, as often happens with every
revelation, more questions seem to

rise to the icy surface, and the mystery
of Antarctica remains

unexplained.