All language subtitles for history-s-greatest-mysteries-s06e02-vidomon

Tonight, a historic expedition sets sail
into a labyrinth of ice.

This is without a doubt the best planned
and best equipped expedition ever to

try to find the Northwest Passage. Lots
of provisions, technically advanced

ships, and it all just vanishes. That
disappearance sparks a search for clues

spanning nearly two centuries.

For the British...

It was unthinkable these two exploration
ships could be lost.

It's just pure luck that there were
enough Inuit eyewitnesses to even piece

together a rough idea of what happened
to these poor men.

Now, we'll investigate the top theories
surrounding this legendary

disappearance. Something happened before
the crews abandoned those ships.

Nobody wants to believe men of the Royal
Navy would resort to cannibalism.

If the men believed the ships were
cursed and decided to leave, their fates

already sealed.

What really happened to the men of the
Franklin Expedition?

On a spring morning in 1845,

Two British Royal Navy ships, the HMS
Terror and the HMS Erebus, depart

England under the command of Sir John
Franklin.

Their quest, the elusive Northwest
Passage.

At this time, for ships traveling from
England in order to get to Asia, you

really just two options.

You can either travel around the tip of
South America and up into the Pacific

Ocean, or you can travel down the tip of
South Africa and then work your way up

to the Indian Ocean.

They both take a really long time. It
was speculated there had to be some sea

route by which ships could travel up
around Greenland and then across from

Atlantic all the way to the Pacific.

The quest for a Northwest Passage is
huge because it would cut travel time

considerably. What the British do is
they send out continual expeditions.

From the west, they've come almost to
the middle, and from the east, they've

come almost to the middle.

And that little middle, maybe 300
nautical miles, that's a blank on the

still. All the other routes were known,
so if you could get through that middle

part, you would get to the other side.

The big problem, of course, is it
freezes every year.

Shipping is going to come to a
standstill, so there were only certain

the year where it could be traveled.

By 1845, explorers have charted enough
of the Canadian Arctic to make the Royal

Navy confident that the Northwest
Passage is finally within reach.

To complete the final push, the British
Admiralty selects 59 -year -old Captain

Sir John Franklin to lead the
expedition.

He isn't their first choice.

The British Admiralty had approached a
number of known Arctic explorers.

Sir William Perry was too old by that
time. He declined.

The Rosses were involved with other
expeditions.

So they actually considered delaying.

But at the last moment, under pressure
from Lady Jane Franklin, Sir John was

chosen.

John Franklin, for one thing, was kind
of old. He was 59 years old, which for a

Royal Navy officer is pretty up there.

And although he had... led two former
expeditions, they weren't particularly

successful.

In fact, in his first one, half of his
crew had died.

They ran out of food and they were
reduced to eating boots.

Despite his age and despite the fact he
hadn't commanded a ship in some years, I

imagine he wanted to redeem himself
after his prior failures.

To help in Franklin's Arctic mission,
the British Admiralty spare no expense,

starting with the two ships he'll set
off in, the HMS Terror and the HMS

For the day, the Erebus and Terror are
the best ships that the British Navy

could use for maritime exploration.

They're converted bomb ships, which
means they're heavy, they're robust.

were refitted, especially for this
expedition.

They both had iron reinforced hulls to
withstand and be able to maneuver

ice. One new technological advancement
that they also had was a propeller,

could actually maneuver up and down as
needed.

They were very, very big.

They had powerful engines. They were
good for carrying a whole lot of heavy

cargo.

Thousands of cans of food, thousands of
barrels of pickled, preserved

vegetables, flour to be made into bread.

It is hoped that the whole trip will
take maybe about a year, maybe a little

more. Nevertheless, the ship can carry
three years' worth of provisions, and

those three years could be stretched out
to five years through rationing. This

is by far the best planned and best
supplied expedition ever to try to find

Northwest Passage.

The morale, according to all reports,
among the crew and the officers is

extremely high.

They think this is the voyage that's
going to find the Northwest Passage.

The expedition gets off to a good start,
reaching Greenland by mid -July. The

letters that the sailors and officers
send home are full of confident

predictions about this being a huge
success.

In July 1845, a group of whaling vessels
in Baffin Bay spot the

HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror heading
west toward Lancaster Sound.

The Royal Navy had set a plan for Sir
John Franklin and his crew to navigate

through Lancaster Sound into the
archipelago and find a calm area where

be able to shelter down during the
winter.

Because they're already anticipating
that they're going to be trapped in sea

for quite some time.

Once the ice melts that spring, they're
supposed to continue on their voyage,

maneuver through this archipelago of
islands.

They're supposed to send a message as
soon as they get through. But no letter

comes, no ships in the Pacific report
ever having seen the Erebus and the

Terror.

1845 passes, 1846 passes, 1847 passes.

Jane Franklin, Franklin's wife, is
concerned.

So both her and the British Parliament,
they are putting pressure on the British

Admiralty to do something.

From the British Admiralty's
perspective, they don't want to say

there being a problem with this
expedition.

So they're really going to wait as long
as they can.

By 1848, there's enough pressure on the
British Admiralty that they issue a

reward of 20 ,000 pounds.

By today's standards, that's $2 million.

1848, three years after the expedition
set sail, the Admiralty launches the

first of a number of search parties,
traveling both over land and by sea.

two years, many others have joined the
search.

In 1850, the first major clue is found
on a tiny island just past Lancaster

Sound. At Beachy Island, they find the
first camp where they overwintered, and

they find three graves.

Those belong to John Hartnell, John
Torrington, and William Brain, three

members who had died during that first
winter. And so they have...

actual sort of physical evidence that
the Franklin expedition had been there.

The timing of the deaths of the three
men indicates that something had

and they're not sure what, but it's not
a good sign.

The other thing is that the ship doesn't
find any record, any message left

by the Franklin expedition.

In 1854, nine years after this
expedition first set sail and six years

first search crew was sent, the British
Royal Navy completely drops this search

and declares this expedition as
officially lost.

Lady Jane Franklin was quite outspoken
for a woman around that time, and she

also had a lot of influential friends.

And so she decided she was going to
raise her own money and have a private

expedition to find out what happened.

Sita wants to know what's happened to
her husband. She raises enough money to

buy a ship called the Fox and to pay a
crew and a captain to try

to find the Erebus and the Terror.

In 1857, 12 years after the expedition
first set sail, the Fox departs

England on the trail of Franklin's lost
ships.

Two years into the voyage, Leopold
McClintock, who is commander of the

Fox, finds evidence that might explain
what happened to the ships.

February of 1859, the Fox crew is on an
overland search on King William Island.

Leopold McClintock comes across one of
these Inuit field hunters, and they have

some knickknacks and some buttons that
are part of the Royal Navy.

The Inuit, after being questioned about
this, point the crew in the direction of

a place called Victory Point.

Victory Point had been established back
in 1830 in an earlier expedition. They

erected what's called a cairn. It's just
a mound of stones.

McClintock and his crew find nestled
within these stones a tin canister,

and within that canister, a letter.

The Victory Point note is a pre -printed
official Royal Navy document.

It also contains two very different
handwritten messages.

The first message is very positive. It's
dated May 1847,

a report that all is well.

Franklin is still in command and really
doesn't indicate anything to worry them

other than the fact that they have been
stuck in ice for a long time.

The second message is written on the
same sheet of paper, but is scribbled

around the margins.

It's written nearly a year later and
tells a far bleaker tale. The second

message is from April 1848.

It says, the ice never melted, which
means they have been

stuck there for 19 months.

So the area in which they got stuck is
called the Back of Beyond, and not even

the hunters will go there. It's very
barren, and unfortunately, that's

where they got stuck.

According to this note at the time, 24
crew members had already passed away,

including, unfortunately, Sir John
Franklin himself, who had perished just

weeks after the first note was written.

The idea that an entire summer could
pass without the ice melting enough for

ships to move, it's unheard of. There
have been multiple expeditions through

this area. That's never happened before.

So once this information is seen in the
letter, the reaction is, how can this

possibly be true?

In 1859, search parties looking for the
lost Franklin Expedition find their most

telling bit of evidence yet, the so
-called Victory Point Note.

The second message on the note, written
on the 25th of April, 1848, almost three

years after the expedition first leaves
England, provides a clue to their fate.

The second victory point message is
actually signed by the two commanding

officers of the HMS Terror and the HMS
Erebus.

This is James Fitzjames and Francis
Crozier.

The second message makes clear that ICE
never thought that the two ships just

remained imprisoned by the icy
conditions, and it had now been 19

There's a postscript that says, And
start on tomorrow, the 26th, for Bax

Fish River.

Bax Fish River is 200 miles away from
the ship. This is a heck of a trek

going to have to take across a
completely desolate area.

By this time, Bax Fish River has already
been searched in 1858, and nothing was

turned up. So the reaction to this
message is disbelief.

But in 2005, climate scientists make a
discovery in the Arctic ice that could

provide fresh insights.

A team of climate researchers headed up
by a scientist named Roy Kerner drills

out core samples of the ice going down
about 300 feet. Upon studying these ice

cores, they discover why it is that the
Erebus and the Terror were not able to

escape from the ice.

You have different layers in each ice
core.

And that gives you a glimpse into
environmental and climate factors going

to when that layer was formed, all the
way back to the 1840s. It was the

freeze since the last ice age.

People in the mid -19th century don't
have the kind of understanding of

atmospheric warming and cooling that we
have today.

John Franklin had literally picked the
worst time. We're talking a 1 in 10 ,000

-year winter to go through the Northwest
Passage.

To face the perils of winter, Franklin
is sailing in ships that are state -of

-the -art at the time.

One of the reasons why there was so much
faith in this voyage was that the

Erebus and the Terror had these state
-of -the -art engines.

These engines generate 25 horsepower,
which, whoa, that's amazing.

Well, modern icebreakers have 75 ,000
horsepower to cut through the thickest

ice. The Erebus and the Terror with only
25 horsepower, they don't stand a

chance. Yet, despite the freak weather
the expedition is unwittingly sailing

into, the victory point note offers
another clue to what doomed the

Not only is he running into this weather
phenomenon, but he's also made some

choices for the expedition that was
going to carry the Erebus and the Terror

into some dangerous uncharted waters.

Lancaster Sound is the entrance to the
passage. That is already known. So the

idea was to go through there until he
came to a spot where the map was no

filled in.

After his first winter at Beachy Island,
Franklin then heads south through Peel

Sound, where he faces a crucial
decision.

He had come to what turned out to be the
northern tip of King William Island,

but what he didn't know, of course, was
what was beyond it. So he did have a

choice to make there whether to head
east or west in his route. The

recorded in the victory point note make
clear that Franklin chooses the western

route. Franklin is going to take the
ships west of King William Island. The

uncharted waters that Franklin enters is
an area where water from different

sources is flowing in, and it acts as a
funnel.

So you've got ice flowing and meeting in
the middle, and this is where Franklin

and his ships were, and it was the worst
place in the Arctic to be.

And what they don't realize is right
behind them, the water is freezing. As

these ships are moving in, so they're
locked into place.

That's where the expedition is stuck,
and there's no way out.

Had he sailed down the east side and
then past King William Island and then

the west, had Franklin done that, we
don't know what would have happened.

Maybe he would have made it.

Fifty years later, Norwegian explorer
Roald Amundsen takes the eastern route.

and successfully navigates the Northwest
Passage for the first time.

But for Franklin and his men, after 19
months trapped in the ice, they are

desperate enough to abandon ship.

There is very little daylight because
they're so far north.

24 people had died. Maybe they're afraid
they're going to be stuck there for

another year, but there could be
something else.

There's something that could be
terrifying these men enough to leave the

relative safety of the ships to go
through this desolate area.

1848, three years after setting sail,
the Franklin expedition abandoned their

ships off King William Island.

Meanwhile... The first British search
team is setting off to rescue them over

land. Led by explorer John Ray, for the
next six years, they scour the Arctic.

John Ray is a Scottish explorer.

He got his start as a surgeon with the
Hudson Bay Company.

Unlike Franklin and his men, Ray has
learnt from the local indigenous people,

the Inuits.

And so he's wearing fur instead of wool.

He's using sleds and snowshoes. He's
able to survive in that harsh

Arctic environment just like the Inuit.

And he covers, by 1854, more than 5 ,000
square miles.

In May of 1854, at a place about 150
miles east of King

William's Island, they encounter a group
of Inuit who want to trade with them.

And he noticed on the wrist of one of
the Inuit hunters, his sealskin parka, a

gold band.

And Ray immediately recognizes it for
what it is. It's a cap band.

It's an officer's cap band.

And he knows the chances of an Inuit
being given that are very, very

So he starts a dialogue with this hunter
and asks, where did you get that?

The Inuit tell Ray...

that four winters previously, they had
encountered a group of about 40 white

dragging a boat south through this area.
The Inuit described the leader of this

group as a tall, stout man with a
telescope. Their description matches a

description of Francis Crozier, who had
been Franklin's second -in -command.

The Inuit stated that the white man
communicated using gestures, saying that

their ships had actually been shot in
ice and they had fled to land in order

hunt deer.

Obviously, Ray is excited by this news,
and he immediately wants to figure out

where they've gone.

The Inuit explain all of these men are
now dead, and they believe that they

why.

The Inuit provide further information
about this group of men as well.

The Inuit say that they actually
encountered their camp several months

discovered 30 corpses on site.

They were quite sure that Franklin's
men, or at least some group of them, had

resorted to what Ray called the last
resource, cannibalism.

So the Inuit tell Ray that they had seen
pots in which human flesh had been

cooked.

People with their arms or limbs cut off,
severed, signs of the flesh being

removed from the bones.

When the Inuit discovered this camp, not
only do they have this shocking news,

but they actually have physical
artifacts to buttress their claim.

There was a silver plate that actually
belonged to Franklin.

So for Ray,

Both what the Inuit tell him and the
artifacts that they've brought him, it's

enough to convince him that he knows
what happened to Franklin and his men.

But he writes a written report of his
employers to Hudson's Bay Company,

detailing what he has found, and the
report, as it turns out, gets to London

before Ray does.

Ray is satisfied that he's finally
solved the riddle of the missing

but his report isn't well received.

Nobody wants to believe that men of the
Royal Navy

would resort to cannibalism.

Cannibalism is something that savages
engage in, not civilized men of the

greatest empire in the world.

Charles Dickens gets involved in this
because he's a friend of the Franklins,

and Lady Franklin apparently urges him,
to attack Ray and the

Inuit who make these claims.

Dickens implies that the Inuits actually
killed Franklin's men, and then they

took these artifacts, which was totally
not true.

Ray collects the reward money, but his
reputation is pretty well shot, and he

does not make a return trip.

It turns out, much, much later, he was
right.

1981. On King William Island, a team of
scientists, led by Owen Beatty, recover

bones belonging to members of the
Franklin Expedition.

After forensic analysis, these bones
reveal that the Inuit's claim may have

true. Bones that were retrieved show...

cut marks on them from knives, and they
also show that they were indeed cooked

and that they were boiled to draw the
bone marrow out.

Despite this compelling forensic
evidence, questions remain about how the

the Franklin expedition could have
starved to death.

They were equipped with over 8 ,000 tins
of food and vegetable, so they should

have had enough provisions to have
survived.

Ray also reported... that the Inuit told
them that they found many cans that

were unopened.

So why were men resorting to cannibalism
if they weren't eating the food

that they had brought with them?

In 1845, the ill -fated Franklin
Expedition set sail from England,

a route to the Far East through the
Arctic Circle only to mysteriously

and die.

Then in 1981, researchers start to
ponder a new cause.

Could what doomed the men be something
else entirely?

So on King William Island, a team led by
Dr. Owen Beattie find bones that

show evidence of cut marks.

And this clearly indicates cannibalism.

Something else they find when studying
these bone fragments is that they

crazy high levels of lead in them.

Lead is incredibly toxic to humans.

It can lead to a number of
complications, including stomach aches,

seizures, and ultimately even death.

The results of Beatty's analysis suggest
that these bone fragments have 10 times

the normal amount of lead. That is
shockingly high.

The amount of lead in a person's body
accumulates over their lifetime, so it

doesn't speak to a particular time or
period. It just speaks to the overall

amount of lead in the person.

A more useful way of determining lead
content that would not only tell you how

much lead there is, but when it was
introduced to the system, can come from

analysis of hair, fingernails, and
toenails.

Unlike bone, it's harder for nails and
for hair to be found. So really you need

a body.

And of course, most of the Franklin
remains are only bone.

Yet Beattie and his team realize there's
one site that could provide the

material they need to test their theory.

So in 1984, Owen Beattie is given
permission to dig up, to exhume the

graves on Beach Island.

The first grave that they exhume is the
grave of John Torrington.

His body is so well preserved in the ice
that you'd think if you touched him, he

would wake up.

The lead levels found in Torrington's
body were so high, he would have been

suffering from a whole host of mental
and physical problems.

The question is, how does that level of
lead enter their bodies?

The answer may be found not far from
Torrington's body. About a half a mile

those graves, his team find a garbage
dump that include a whole bunch of

tin cans.

Cans that would have held the food that
supplied the men of the Erebus and the

Terror. They find evidence that they
have been soldered shut very shoddily.

what was used for the solder?

Lead.

In preparation for this expedition, Sir
John Franklin makes the deal with a food

supplier by the name of Stephen Goldner.

He's commissioned to make these tin cans
to be able to supply the crew with

provisions that they would need for
their long expedition.

The contract calls for him to provide
about 34 ,000 pounds of preserved canned

meat, which is about 8 ,000 cans.

The whole process of canning meat is
very new at this point. This is a full

years before there's any understanding
of how to sterilize food to begin with.

So any kind of canned food in the mid
-19th century is going to be kind of

dicey.

Goldner is informed that Franklin needs
34 ,000 pounds of canned meat

in seven weeks. That is a really short
period of time.

By all accounts, with this expedition on
the horizon, Goldner and his team are

completely overwhelmed in order to be
able to produce these 8 ,000 cans.

An analysis of the cans suggests that
they're cutting corners on soldering

cans shut. The soldering job was so
shoddy that it's easy to see how lead

could have contaminated the meat inside.

To make matters worse.

Expedition records suggest the tinned
food might not be the only source of

poisoning.

Each ship was equipped with a locomotive
engine, and this allowed them to travel

slowly, say when there wasn't wind, and
it also provided heat throughout the

ship. But those steam engines do other
important things.

They allow for the distillation of salt
water.

The only problem is this fresh water is
passing through lead pipes, and it's

easy to see how lead could have
contaminated that water.

Franklin's men were subjected to this
for two years.

Could the amount of lead that they
consumed in their drinking water, that

consumed in the atmosphere, could it
have contributed to their decline in

their mental and their physical health?

Maybe they irrationally believed that it
made sense to leave the safety of the

ships and risk death on the frozen
tundra.

The disappearance of the Franklin
Expedition in 1845 while en route to

the fabled Northwest Passage.

has baffled the world for generations
and sparked one of history's longest

rescue searches.

In addition to Lady Jane Franklin, a
number of independent researchers

that they would try to find out what
happened to the Franklin Expedition.

Some people are still convinced that
there's a chance that some survivors

be alive.

And one of them is an American named
Charles Francis Hall of Cincinnati.

Charles Francis Hall, an American
newspaper publisher in 1857, decides

just going to head up on his own and
launch his own search to find out what

happened to the Franklin Expedition.

He figures his best lead are the Inuit
who interacted with these people. So he

spends a long period interviewing any
Inuit that he can find who would have

encountered these men.

1869. After nine years searching and
countless interviews with the Inuit,

ends his Arctic expedition.

A decade later, U .S. Army Lieutenant
Frederick Schwatka picks up the trail.

In 1879, He's exploring King William
Island with a dog sled team, and he

encounters an Inuit woman who does
remember the time of Franklin and has a

about what the men look like.

What she observed was a group of white
men moving very slowly, sort of

their feet across the ice.

They looked thin, and their mouths were
dry, hard, and black.

Swatka finds this odd.

Why would their mouths be black and hard
and dry? He doesn't know what to make

of it, so he just kind of files it away.

But 50 years later, the story about the
starving sailors with black mouths draws

renewed interest.

In the mid -1930s, an English doctor
named Richard Cyriax is doing research

new book about the Franklin Expedition.
When he reads the account from Schwatka

about the sailors having black mouths,
he realizes he's seen that symptom

before.

Scurvy is basically a disease that
prevents the body from keeping its blood

vessels, skin, bones, and muscles
healthy.

People suffering from scurvy often have
blackness around their mouth because

they bruise very easily, and also their
gums bleed. So that could explain those

symptoms. Other symptoms of scurvy,
fever, seizures, personality changes,

and if it's allowed to progress far
enough, death.

The root cause of scurvy is vitamin C
deficiency.

Most animals are actually able to
produce vitamin C themselves, but humans

cannot. So we're required to get all of
our vitamin C from foods, such as fresh

fruits and vegetables.

Scurvy had been the scourge of navies
around the world because on voyages of

exploration particularly, you're going
so far from your original supplies, so

you're getting mostly dried and
preserved food that's lost all of its

After three or four months, it's almost
inevitable that people are going to

start to fall victim to the first
symptoms.

Between the 16th and 18th century,
approximately 2 million sailors lose

life to the conditions of scurvy.

The disease kills more sailors in the
18th century than died from enemy

In 1747, a British naval surgeon, James
Lind, he discovers that

there's a very effective way to prevent
scurvy, and that is to consume citrus,

things like limes, oranges, and lemons.

According to Navy records, the Franklin
expedition set sail with a three -year

supply of lemon juice.

But the Royal Navy may not have taken
into account the effects of such a long

journey on the ship's reserves.

The problem could have arose because
after three years they may have run out,

as Cyriax points out, after a year the
lemons may have started to ferment.

And so it's believed that they probably
smelled it and it smelled rotten. It had

fermented and they tried to boil it. But
unfortunately, you're getting rid of

all the vitamin C by doing that. And so
that could have led to them getting

scurvy. Once scurvy takes hold, the
symptoms begin to progress incredibly

So by the time the Franklin crew
realizes that their lemon juice is no

effective, it's ultimately just too
late.

So the scurvy may not have been enough
to actually kill everyone off, but it

could have set things in motion.

You're talking about people getting
sick. They're now thinking maybe this

is cursed, and so they want to go and
seek resources elsewhere.

So then they get off of the boat.

There's no going back from that
decision.

While the Erebus and Terror were locked
in snow and ice, it's likely the men

would venture out of the ships to hunt
for any game they could find.

Fresh meat would have made all the
difference to these men because they

have acquired vitamin C and then, of
course, protein from eating the meat

itself. Polar historian Ken McGugan puts
out a book that suggests that one

particular type of game in the Arctic
could have possibly doomed the crew.

McGugan learns about an expedition that
took place in 1619.

65 men on this expedition, led by a
Danish -Norwegian explorer named Jens

They're hunting beluga whales up in
northern Hudson Bay, and they're not

any luck.

And so they shoot a polar bear, and they
eat it.

The Inuit have always known that in
order to get enough vitamin C, you eat

raw. So the Inuit, for example, they
hunt seals, whales, caribou, but they

hunt polar bear.

Raw polar bear meat is often infected
with a microscopic parasite called

trichinella. And for a human that
consumes it, you can actually come down

disease called trichinosis.

Eating the flesh of an animal with
trichinella means that the parasites go

inside of you.

Eventually, the parasites make their way
to the muscles.

and induce fever and seizures,
inflammation, ultimately death.

And it would be an agonizing death that
takes place over a period of weeks.

One of the things McGugan reveals is
that after eating this polar bear flesh,

the entire group, with the exception of
Monk and two others, end up dying.

McGugan speculates that a similar thing
occurs to the Franklin Expedition while

the Terror and Erebus are stuck in the
ice.

And this is an area with heavy polar sea
ice. This stuff is impenetrable. You

couldn't drill a hole in it and fish
through it. It doesn't have an edge, and

the ice edge would be where you would
hunt sea mammals.

You're stuck hunting what's available on
land.

And certainly a polar bear would be a
very tempting target.

Enough food for everybody in the whole
party.

In the Royal Navy, it's tradition that
the first officers would be the ones

would hunt, but they would also get
first dibs on the meat. The rest of the

would get the reserves the next day.

According to that second victory point
note, 24 men have died, 15 crew and 9

officers, despite far fewer officers on
the expedition.

This means these officers have died at
twice the rate of the rest of the crew.

If they're eating contaminated polar
bears, it's the officers who are going

suffer disproportionately as a result of
this.

The message found doesn't indicate when
these men died or how these men died,

but the fact that so many officers seem
to be dying might help us to understand

why the rest of the crew would become
spooked and decide to get away from the

ships.

Even stuck in the ice, these ships
provided the best protection from the

elements. But if the men believed the
ships were cursed or spreading disease

decided to leave, at the time of the
abandoned ship, their fates were already

sealed.

September 7, 2014.

A team of Canadian marine archaeologists
finally discover the remains of the HMS

Erebus.

Two years later, the wreck of the HMS
Terror is also found.

Yet for some unknown reason, both
shipwrecks are many miles away from the

coordinates where the victory point note
tells us they were abandoned.

The team studying the ships happened to
notice that the propeller of the terror

is down. So this raises a fascinating
possibility.

that maybe the old assumption that those
ships got stuck in the ice and never

moved again under their own power, maybe
that's wrong.

Maybe crew members found their way back
to the ship and once the ice had freed

them, had managed to move them.

Historians hope that ongoing analysis of
the Erebus and Terror Rex will help

explain what ultimately doomed the crew
and forced them to flee on foot.

It's just pure luck that there were
enough Inuit eyewitnesses to even piece

together a rough idea of what happened
to these poor men.

It's certainly possible to survive being
stranded somewhere over months if you

have adequate provisions, if you have
adequate nutrition, if you have adequate

medical care. But if you find yourself
in the wilderness...

starving so dramatically that you're
willing to engage in cannibalism chances

are not just one thing has gone wrong
but everything has gone wrong when we

about the mystery and the expedition i
think we tend to forget that these are

real people you can imagine fear hunger
the horrific effects of scurvy

you can easily imagine people going mad
in those circumstances

Nearly 180 years after the vessels
carrying explorer John Franklin and his

vanished, while navigating the Northwest
Passage, the expedition's demise is

still generating new theories. Maybe
another clue will one day emerge from

ice to finally solve the mystery of the
Franklin Expedition. I'm Lawrence

Fishburne. Thank you for watching
History's Greatest Mysteries.