Original subtitles

Fabien: Tonight on "legends of the deep"...

I think it was October 4, 1967.

This is one of the most famous ufo sightings

On this entire planet.

There were over 60 witnesses.

Whatever it was, it went down. It landed in the water.

♪

We did a big survey off this region,

And we found these unusual features.

You've gone diving on these circles underwater.

There are four of them.

You could just see in our masks, you know,

Like, "what is this?"

Right now, we're in a serious situation.

You're about to see something few people really see --

A genuine x-file.

He said, "you know, I could make one phone call.

There wouldn't be enough of you to wipe up with a cloth."

-Wow. -Wow.

Fabien: For generations,

The name cousteau has been associated

With a spirit of adventure and discovery.

Our grandfather pioneered

The earliest efforts in scuba technology,

Giving the world its first glimpse

At the vast underwater universe.

♪

Céline: Our grandfather devoted his life to ocean exploration,

And now we are picking up where he left off.

Using brand-new technologies,

We are continuing our grandfather's mission

To uncover the secrets

Of some of the world's greatest ocean mysteries.

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by discovery communications

♪

♪

Shag harbour, nova scotia --

A quiet fishing community of barely 500 people,

Just east of maine.

On October 4, 1967,

The switchboard of this unassuming town

Was lit up by phone calls

Reporting a strange phenomena in the sky above.

♪

[ ringing, click ]

♪

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The events that night left the community forever changed

And ever since searching for information

About what it was that fell from the sky.

[ ringing, click ]

[ telephones ringing ]

There were dozens of credible witnesses,

Including three police officers.

All reports stated whatever it was

Impacted the surface of the water.

Some bystanders even claimed to have seen it submerge

And travel elsewhere.

Exactly what happened that night remains unclear.

Its effects have defined this community

And fascinated believers and skeptics alike ever since.

♪

Fabien: What is all this?

There is a staggering amount of information

On this ufo sighting.

There were dozens of witnesses who reported

Seeing something unusual in the sky very close to shore.

Bright lights.

This is a photograph that was taken at that time.

Air traffic control says there were no planes in the sky.

People that were on the water corroborated the story

Of those on land, that it looked like

This landed on the water but then went underwater.

But here's the wild thing. To the best of my knowledge,

Nobody has gone diving on this site since it happened.

♪

Let's go diving.

♪

Fabien and I are very different in a lot of ways.

I have a curiosity about human beings

And the functioning of the human mind.

I'm a bit more of a science geek,

A bit more of a technology junkie.

Céline: But that dynamic doesn't create conflict.

We're able to, as a duo, explain certain things

In different realms and different ways.

We're almost yin and yang.

One of the wonderful things that we can offer,

After over 50 years, is bringing in new technology

Such as this handheld sonar, so that hopefully

We'll be able to gather a little more evidence.

What happens if you stick it to your head?

[ laughs ]

A full erase? [ laughs ]

Céline: Our grandfather jacques cousteau gave the world

A glimpse into the mysteries of the underwater realm.

His work gave people hope

That their questions would be answered,

That solutions would be found.

That is our goal today.

Capkin: Hey, guys, let me give you a quick dive briefing.

Looking at the possibility that we may hit 80 feet.

I will be shadowing you both.

In any case, no deeper than 80 feet.

Céline: Capkin is here as our chief diver.

He wants to make sure that,

Under all conditions, we are safe.

Fabien: Capkin and I have known each other since we were 17.

We've been diving on many expeditions,

Starting with my grandfather's boats.

Capkin: I take care of things like environmental conditions,

Make sure that their gear is working

And will not fail them on their dive.

Basically, I give them the opportunity

To go and do what they want with full focus.

Let's have a good dive.

♪

Céline: We're about to explore the site where 50 years ago,

Something traveled down from the sky and struck the water.

Our mission is to look for signs of impact,

A disturbance in the topography, or any remaining evidence

Or clue to determine whether whatever it was sank

Or moved elsewhere.

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Dive team, roger that.

Receiving loud and clear on this end. Five to five.

♪

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Fabien: The visibility is really low.

Céline: If there were something here,

I'm not even sure we'd be able to see it.

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[ sonar pinging ]

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Here you go. How are you? You okay?

Yeah, good. Okay.

Thank you.

Fabien: The visibility was unfortunately not good,

Was not on our side.

It's been over five decades,

So if there is something down there,

It very well may have been overgrown

With natural kelp or seaweed.

If we had really wanted to check to see

If it was something from perhaps a crash

Or a vessel or whatever it would be,

We'd have to sit in one place

And actually work our way through the algae

To see what's below.

So it's really hard to determine

That any of the surface down there

Comes from anything but what's natural.

Since we didn't uncover any new evidence

At the point of interest, our next step

Is to look into claims

That the craft moved on after impact.

I'm hoping if we speak to some witnesses,

Someone might be able to point us in the direction

That whatever it was may have traveled.

And what better place to find firsthand testimonials

Than at the shag harbour ufo festival.

♪

[ applause ]

My name's norman smith.

I was 17 years old.

And we were on our way home.

Whatever it was, it went down. It landed in the water.

My uncle lawrence had a boat, fishing boat,

And we went out and checked harbour sound.

We watched, and we steamed all around

Where we thought that this light went down.

We went through this patch of orange foam.

And we thought that night we was gonna find bodies

And parts and pieces of plane,

But we didn't find anything.

[ voice breaking ] I'm a little, tiny bit emotional.

♪

Still bothers me --

Still bothers me a little bit.

I go to tim horton's pretty near every night.

When I go home, I'm looking at the sky,

Looking and hoping that I can see the same thing.

Laurie: Me and a friend of mine, we was going up through shag harbour.

We see four lights, and they was going

In a westerly direction, same as we were.

And as we was going past the school up the hill,

The lights went from going flat like this,

To they went to a 45-degree angle and started coming down.

When we made the top of the hill,

You could see the light in the water.

We went directly to the phone booth

And reported a plane crash.

First thing he asked me, "what you been drinking?"

[ laughter ]

Céline: Of all the speakers on the witness panel,

Laurie wickens seems to have the most information

About where the ufo might have traveled after it submerged.

We've asked him to take us on a drive to retrace his steps.

♪

That night, laurie was driving home along this road

With his friends when all five passengers

Witnessed lights traveling in the sky above.

The lights traveled with them as they drove

Until whatever it was turned downwards

And made contact with the water here.

Laurie and his friends joined a group of other witnesses

Along the shore.

They continued to observe the lights,

Which by then appeared to be submerged

And slowly drifting away from the site of impact.

Céline: So essentially, it traveled from where you showed us,

The crash site, over here?

Yeah, this is where we see the light last,

Probably right off here, roughly 300 yards from shore.

End of story.

Can you take us back to the spot

Where you first saw it in the sky?

Because I have an idea that I'd like to share with you.

♪

It's a fact that many ufo sightings

End up being easily explained away --

Weather balloons, planets, cloud formations,

Everyday objects that appear mysterious

Under nighttime conditions.

Marine flares are commonly seen over bodies of water

And can look similar to what laurie described seeing

On the night of the incident.

So right now, we're going to do bit of an experiment

That'll hopefully get us some answers.

Céline: So, laurie, the night you saw the lights over the water,

Can you tell me a bit what that night was like?

Well, then we have the perfect conditions

For a little experiment.

I've sent fabien out on a boat.

We're gonna send a couple flares up in the air,

Because I want to see if it looks anything like

What you saw that night.

Fair enough, no problem. Great.

This could be a crucial moment in our investigation.

If we can disprove the possibility of marine flares,

It means whatever people witnessed that night

Was something unusual, something unexplained.

So, does that look anything like what you saw that night?

♪

Céline: Considering a good number of ufo sightings

End up being the result

Of easily explained everyday occurrences,

We're doing an experiment

To make sure that laurie's eyes were not deceiving him

On the night of the incident in 1967.

[ flare pops ]

♪

Céline: So, does that look anything like what you saw that night?

Laurie: It definitely did not look like that.

What's the difference between flares and what you saw?

What I saw traveled 5 mile, coming up the road,

And I watched it, and a flare goes up and comes down.

Laurie is convinced that what he saw that night

Was not marine flares.

♪

His certainty of this means that whatever he did see

Was something uncommon, something highly unusual.

♪

[ cellphone ringing ]

♪

Hello? Céline: Word has gotten around

That the cousteaus are in town investigating,

And we've been getting a lot of calls

From people wanting to share their opinions of the incident.

Well, that's really interesting.

Oh, wow! Okay.

Céline: ...Everything from extra-terrestrials

To missile tests to soviet torpedoes.

Thanks so much.

[ cellphone ringing ]

Hello?

Céline: But then we got a call from a local marine geologist

Named gordon fader.

Fabien: Hello, there.

Hi, fabien. How are you?

You must be gordon. Yes. Pleased to meet you.

He did a scan of the seabed floor

In the mid-'80s and uncovered something unusual

In the area in which the ufo was said to have moved

After submerging.

We did a big survey off this region,

And we found these unusual features,

And these are extremely different

Than anything else we found out here.

Yes, that's them there.

There's four of them in this pattern.

The regularity of that pattern,

It smacks of a jacked-up oil rig

Or maybe a barge,

But we know of no activity this far offshore.

The markings on gordon's scan

Seem to suggest the base of some kind of craft

Or a non-natural structure

Located downstream from the point of impact.

This leads us to think that they could be related

And are worth investigating.

Now, these are from 1988, correct?

Yes, that's correct.

Did you ever go back and re-scan with newer technology?

No, we didn't. We never really went back and look at them.

But it certainly is unusual,

And I think it should be investigated further.

♪

Gordon knows a local diver named david cvet

Who claims to have witnessed these circles firsthand

And is an expert on local tides.

He has agreed to return to the site

And dive the anomalies with us

At the first available tide window.

Timing is essential

If we want to see the anomalies up close.

[ engine starts ]

♪

David: So, the reason that we got you out here

Very early in the morning, this ungodly hour,

Is because there's only two opportunities to dive,

And the windows for diving is 45 minutes.

45-minute window is called slack tide.

Slack tide is the period between high and low tide

When the current is at its most benign.

It's the calmest time to dive,

And it doesn't last for very long,

So we need to time our dive with precision.

While the crew sets up our gear and inputs the coordinates,

It's important that we get a download from david.

This will allow us to narrow down our mission

And give us the best chance of maximizing our dive results.

Why is this site so important to you?

The interest in these anomalies

Is that it's inconsistent with the seabed bottom.

And when we did the dive,

It was rather like diving through a forest.

We've got kelp. There's rocks. There's flora. There's fauna.

And then we came across the first depression.

So, it really stood out.

You could just see in our masks, you know,

Like, "what is this?"

It kind of gave a sense of a clearing in the woods.

It didn't belong.

It was very inconsistent with the rest of the environment

And clearly, it was something

That may have been made artificially.

And how big are these depressions?

Roughly 21 feet.

Have you seen this kind of phenomena anywhere else?

Never. I don't like loose ends,

And this is a loose end

With respect to the entire shag harbour story.

♪

♪

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David: The reason that it's so dangerous is because

When the tide changes, the current speeds up

And could carry us out to sea.

Capkin: I'm gonna work with a 100-foot contingency.

We're almost hitting 90 feet here.

So we're gonna call it a 24-minute bottom time.

Cold water, deeper water, slack tide,

Shorter time, fog.

The list is there. [ chuckles ]

Fabien: Right now, we're right over the exact coordinates

That were on the scan,

Bearing in mind that those are never 100% accurate.

We might have to search for a while,

Especially with the low vis, maybe take some photos,

See how deep it is, get some evidence.

Our mission is to get down to the sea bed

Within our narrow dive window

And see these circle anomalies up close.

♪

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Capkin: Is everybody registering this current?

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Topside. Diver, go ahead.

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Roger that. Divers surfacing.

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This is capkin. Can you hear me?

Céline, céline, can you hear me?

[ indistinct radio chatter ]

♪

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Hey, garrett, keep an eye out for their bubbles.

Make a big, wide circle, nice and slow

To see if you can see any bubbles of stray divers.

♪

Right now, we're in a mildly serious situation.

In this fog where it's so dense,

We have to be very mindful of where every diver is

By locating their bubbles,

Because we can only see 30, 40 meters away from the boat.

And once a diver gets lost in the fog,

It's quite a challenge.

Your hear rate starts to go up.

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Céline: I see your light, capkin.

Fabien: I see it, too.

Capkin: There you are.

Here we all are.

♪

Go ahead, capkin.

Let's go up.

♪

♪

The current seemed okay as we were going down the line,

And then the moment we got a bit deeper --

It started cranking up.

Well, you're just seeing all this algae fly by you.

You're burning air just trying to crawl your way...

Forward. ...Up the current.

The current was way too strong.

Well, because we weren't really able to do much

On this dive because of the current,

We're going to have to do another dive.

Now we've missed the slack window slot, if you want,

And our next slot, we need to really hit that right on.

Yeah, about six hours for the next slack tide.

Yes. The biggest difference

Between what we experienced in 2009 and today

Is that the bottom was very sandy,

Very little rock and gravel.

And so that kind of makes me think

That we were in the wrong place.

Céline: If david is unsure

About whether we're in the right location

To see these anomalies,

We need a new plan.

And 20-year-old scan just isn't going to cut it.

We need to figure out how to pinpoint

Exactly where the circle anomalies are located.

Because the scan that we've been working with

Is decades old, it is possible

That the coordinates for the circle anomalies

Are off by a few hundred feet.

So david is calling in a local sonar team

That uses cutting edge multi-beam technology.

If we can get a new scan done, it'll allow us

To determine exactly where those circles are

Before we go looking for them again.

♪

How's the multi-beam sonar?

Are we making any progress?

So, what we've been doing here today

Is essentially mowing the lawn.

Going back and forth,

Surrounding the target.

♪

There's nothing at first review

That would seem out of the ordinary.

There's some areas here where it gets a little bit fuzzy

On top of these bedrock features which is kelp and weeds.

We don't see that very well defined

'cause it's even moving in the water

As we sonifying it.

Within the target zone

Surrounding the original coordinates,

The sonar team's high-tech scan turned up one specific area

That cannot be accurately mapped,

Like a patch of trees in the middle of a field.

That's the only place left to look.

And we've decided that's where the features

Have to be hiding.

♪

David: So, on this dive, there's four depressions,

And we have 10 minutes to be ready, in the water,

And ready to go down.

Once again, 30 minutes.

80-foot max, please.

Anybody hits 80, that's the deepest person.

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Fabien: We're looking for any signs of depressions,

Like something heavy came to rest.

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Céline: We dove the site of impact, scanned the area

Where markings were left on the seabed,

And can now conclude that whatever it was

Must have kept moving.

The cousteaus are known for their ability

To think outside the box.

Whatever it was that people saw over shag harbour

That night in 1967,

It must have come from somewhere.

There had to be someone outside of this tiny community

Who saw something.

I managed to track down a commercial pilot

And an airline mechanic who were flying together

Over nova scotia the night before the incident

And saw something highly usual in the sky

Beside their plane.

Can you give me a little bit of your own eyewitness account

From the view of the cockpit in the plane?

Okay, well, we were flying from new york to london.

And as we approached the south shore of nova scotia,

It was a beautiful, clear night,

And we were just having a chat.

It was pretty quiet up there and not much traffic.

I observed about five lights in formation.

It was immense in size.

It was probably as big as a cruise ship.

Well, I spoke to boston center,

And I said, "do you still have us on radar?"

And he said, "yes."

I said, "who is this guy out here at 11:00?"

And he -- there was a pause

And then he said, "nobody there."

And I said, "well, we're looking at somebody."

Another pause, and then he said,

"want to file a ufo report?"

And I looked over at kurt, and he waved

And indicated, "no more paperwork."

So I said, "negative. Thank you."

And very rapidly, it accelerated,

And it disappeared in a flash of light

Somewhere high in the atmosphere.

That was the fastest thing I ever saw in my life.

Can I ask you why, when you were on the radio,

You chose not to cite that it was a ufo?

I think we should have,

And I think it would've been better if we had,

But the opportunity was gone.

But I have spoken to other pilots

Who have told me some amazing stories,

And in most cases, they --

I know in the most recent case,

The man never said anything to anybody,

Because they were afraid to report.

And this was a young -- he was a young copilot at the time

And was told to keep his mouth shut,

That there would be consequences.

It's pretty alarming to hear

Almost 24 hours before what people saw in shag harbour,

Two seasoned flight crew say they saw very clearly

A craft they say was 10 times bigger than their airplane.

Now I'm starting to wonder.

Maybe someone never wanted the mystery

Of what happened in shag harbour to be solved.

♪

But for what reason?

Fabien: Hey, chris. You made it.

We made it.

Céline: We've agreed to meet with chris styles,

A local historian who claims to have

Some classified evidence that he wants to show us.

I think I have something special, something sensitive.

Although so much was going on in shag harbour,

This is the real story,

Right here in shelburne, not from where we stand.

Why in shelburne? Up this road a ways

Was a u.S. Top-secret military base.

It was the coordination center for submarine detection

For the whole atlantic ocean.

♪

It was a listening post for soviet subs.

Remember, it's the height of the cold war.

Merely 1/2 mile offshore, if that,

You had a flotilla

Of at least six destroyer escorts,

Mostly u.S., I believe.

There may have been one canadian ship.

Fabien: What were they doing?

You're about to see something few people really see --

A genuine x-file.

"x" means this thing doesn't even exist.

[ chuckles ] why did it get the "x" status?

Here it is.

And I will direct you down here

To the statement of the witness here.

A captain with 18 men aboard says,

"I had never seen anything like that before.

But it sounds like the thing they're looking for

Down off barrington passage or shelburne,"

That the public never knew about --

A second simultaneous ufo mission,

And a big one.

Céline: While the public's attention

Was focused on the sightings in shag harbour,

Chris' x-file reveals that unexplained activity

Possibly related to the shag harbour phenomena

Was taking place 30 miles away

Off the coast of shelburne.

Chris: The government knew that those ufos

Were no longer near shag harbour.

They were here.

Six destroyer escorts sitting there.

They were holding station

Supposedly over two ufos that were setting down on the seabed.

And one was lending assistance to the other,

Giving it repairs.

These ships were sent there

With the intention of an attempt at recovery.

But once the divers went in the water, and they looked down

And saw there was still activity going on,

The decision was quickly made by the brass --

Observation only.

Céline: So, these are the divers

That told you this? Yes.

Has this been actually corroborated by the military?

When I found one of the high-ranking officials here,

One of the c.O.S, I got him on the phone.

And he said, "you know, I could make one phone call.

There wouldn't be enough of you to wipe up with a cloth."

-Wow. -Wow.

Chris, has anybody gone searching there since then?

I'm not aware of any other civilian effort

Since back in the day.

What I'm hoping is that you guys feel as I do,

That you would like to be perhaps the first.

♪

Céline: Following the sightings in '67,

Newspapers reported that the coast guard and canadian navy

Dove off shag harbour but found nothing.

No official reports exist of the u.S. Naval operation

Or its dives off the coast of shelburne.

One newspaper reported,

"referring to rumors that united states navy units

Are conducting exercises off the coast,

The spokesman said the nearest operation

Was off portland, maine."

So secrecy was clearly pursued.

This is the actual spot

Where the secret military operation was happening.

And I don't know what to anticipate, what to look for.

But at first, the military divers

Didn't want to talk to chris.

I mean, people have been threatened.

Their lives have been threatened.

I mean, there's a saying, losing lips sink ships.

So nobody wanted to talk --

Means there was something to talk about.

Once again, still the same thing --

30-minute dive, 80-foot max.

I think we're gonna be getting low on air

Around that time anyway.

And I think it's time to get in the water.

Chris: The idea that we're sitting in the very location

Where navy divers dove over two ufos on the bottom,

It doesn't get any better than that.

♪

Céline: We are anchored off the cost of nova scotia,

About to dive the site of a top-secret u.S. Naval operation

That took place in 1967.

♪

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Capkin: Visibility looks a lot better

Than what we've had in the past.

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[ static ]

Fabien: Do you hear that?

[ static ]

I have a strange frequency in my comms.

♪

Céline: Mine seems clear.

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[ static ]

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Fabien: Céline, céline, can you hear me?

Testing, testing, one, two, one, two.

Testing.

♪

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[ static ]

♪

♪

[ static, clicking ]

♪

I can hear you again.

That's really weird.

♪

♪

Just one second.

[ céline laughs ] thank you.

You're welcome. Walking down.

Wonderful. Let's get this off you.

Chris: What do you got?

Here, just one sec.

-I can tell you -- -yes?

It's really cold. [ both laugh ]

But essentially, the surface down there,

It's relatively flat.

Not a lot of life.

No kind of bottom trauma? No old, rusting equipment?

No? Not anything in the area

In which we looked.

I suppose they cleaned up pretty good after themselves.

Of course, they had every motivation to.

Fabien: Now, I've got to say

That some of the things that happened down there

Were a little strange.

For example, I don't know what went on with the comms.

The comms were working just fine. My comms went out.

Coming back up, I was hearing chatter,

But it wasn't our chatter.

It was very far off, like a...Radio signal

From far, far, far away.

And then finally, at our safety stop,

The comms started working again.

When you were hearing that chatter,

Was it like a "tack, tack, tack, tack, tack, tack, tack, tack"?

There was definitely -- I heard something

Along those lines.

It almost sounded like a radio was trying to turn on.

Yeah, so, there's definitely a little bit of that,

And I could actually hear discernible voices,

But I couldn't hear what they were saying.

I mean, what could that be?

Are they transmitting underwater?

I have no idea. I have no idea.

"they" who?

Aha.

[ laughter ]

Aha.

[ laughter ]

Céline: So, fabien, what do you make of all of this?

Fabien: You know, I have a lot of thoughts.

First of all, I think that if you take

A scientific approach to the universe,

There's no way you can discount

That there must be some intelligent life

Somewhere out there in those billions of stars.

But I just don't really think

I can walk away thinking this is a ufo,

Just like I can't really equate it to being anything else.

And the people we talked to

Aren't necessarily defining it as life from another planet.

They're just wanting to understand what it was.

Perhaps we're walking away not knowing exactly what it was.

Doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Céline: Perhaps the tides have disguised

Any remaining underwater evidence that holds the answer.

But the truth may surface one day.

♪

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