Original subtitles

On this episode of "Expedition Files,"

in 1953, climbers Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay

are the first to summit Everest.

Or are they?

Now, climbers find a long-lost corpse

that may unlock the truth

behind who conquered the roof of the world.

Then, in 1897, one of the most extraordinary murder trials

in history, as crucial testimony is delivered by a ghost.

We explore the true story of this supernatural case.

And Mata Hari was one of the most famous women

in the world before she was executed as a spy

during World War I.

Was this iconic femme fatale really a double agent?

In the corridors of time

are mysteries that defy explanation.

Now I'm traveling through history itself

on a search for the truth.

New evidence.

Shocking answers.

I'm Josh Gates.

And these

are my "Expedition Files."

When I was a little kid, one of my favorite games to play

with my friends was telephone. You know how it goes.

You'd whisper a sentence like Mrs. Lawrence teaches math

and blah blah blah, and by the time it gets

whispered around in a circle and gets back to you,

well, let's just say that Mrs. Lawrence

would not be happy.

And that's the thing with some mysteries,

they tend to take on a life of their own.

Tonight, we look at three such tales.

All of them appear extraordinary,

but we have to ask ourselves

a very important question.

What's true and what's been lost in translation?

We begin on June 8, 1924,

here at almost the highest point on Earth.

This is Everest in the heart of the Himalayas.

And these two men are striving to become the first people

to ever reach the summit, British mountaineers

George Mallory and Sandy Irvine.

But just hours from now, they will both vanish.

Three decades later, Everest will finally be

officially conquered by another duo,

Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.

But is it possible that the history books

will get it wrong?

Could these two men, Mallory and Irvine, have died

not before, but after reaching the world's tallest peak?

A chilling new discovery at the roof of the world

may unlock the truth behind the mystery.

By the early 20th century, many of the world's

highest peaks have already been summited,

but Everest remains out of reach.

The tallest mountain on Earth towers at 29,031 feet,

or 20 Empire State Buildings.

Located along the border of Nepal and Tibet

in the Himalayas, a 1,500-mile stretch

of rugged mountain range spanning from India to Pakistan,

the peak's remoteness only adds to its allure.

In 1921, no one has dared a serious attempt,

but that's about to change.

After the horrors of World War I,

Britain is looking for a symbolic achievement

to reclaim national pride.

Climbing Everest becomes a kind of noble quest,

especially for a generation traumatized by trench warfare.

Enter British veteran Lieutenant George Mallory.

Born in 1886, this son of a clergyman is

introduced to climbing by a schoolmaster

at Winchester College and quickly becomes obsessed.

During World War I, he survives the Battle of the Somme,

one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history,

where over a million men were killed or wounded.

Forward!

When the fighting stops, Mallory's drive to climb

only increases, a way to rise, quite literally,

from the chaos of war.

Mallory turns his attention to Everest,

joining the 1921 reconnaissance expedition

to chart a path up the mountain's northern face.

In 1922, he returns and takes part in two

bold summit attempts.

On the second trek, an avalanche kills

seven of the team's porters, Sherpa guides

indigenous to the region.

It's the first ever recorded deaths on Everest,

and a tragedy Mallory never forgets.

But his dream to summit the mountain remains resolute.

In 1924, the 37-year-old Mallory

gets another shot at Everest.

This time his team includes 22-year-old Oxford student

Andrew Sandy Irvine, a star athlete

and rowing champion with a mind for machines

and a taste for adventure.

What Irvine lacked in mountaineering experience,

he more than makes up for in engineering genius.

He gets the expedition's temperamental oxygen systems

to work effectively.

That's vital for survival above 26,000 feet,

where the air holds just a third of the oxygen

found at sea level.

At those heights, Everest doesn't just challenge you,

it actively tries to kill you, earning this unforgiving

elevation its grim nickname, the Death Zone.

The team of eight British climbers, their support staff,

and a network of more than 100 local porters

establish base camp at the Rongbuk Glacier

around 16,500 feet.

From there, they ascend the north face

of Everest in stages.

Camps one, two, three, four, each one perched higher.

The air thinner, the stakes deadlier.

They push upward to camp five, just above 25,000 feet,

4,000 feet from the summit.

No other climbers have ever reached this spot.

Now suffering the effects of extreme altitude,

every step feels like a marathon.

Then comes camp six, a tiny ledge perched at 27,000 feet.

This is the last stop before their hardest obstacle,

three sections known as Step One, Step Two,

and Step Three,

a series of sheer rock faces

that lead directly to the summit.

On June 8th, 1924, Mallory and Irvine begin

their fateful final climb less than a half a mile

from the peak.

They suit up, each carrying oxygen canisters that add

30 pounds of additional weight to their already

cumbersome load.

They're now each hauling around 80 pounds of gear.

Amongst that equipment is a Kodak vest pocket camera.

It's crucial for documenting the summit.

Now, it's up to Mallory and Irvine to bring back

the first photographic view from the top of the world.

Mallory also carries a photograph of his wife, Ruth.

He's promised to leave it at the summit,

a romantic tribute where the earth and heavens meet.

And so they climb.

At 12:50 PM, Noel Odell, stationed near Camp Five,

scans the upper ridge.

He sees two black specks moving together,

ascending the second step, a prominent rock feature

on the northeast ridge at approximately 28,200 feet,

less than 1,000 feet from the summit.

But then the clouds close in and the view vanishes,

and with it, so do the climbers.

Hours pass with no sign of Mallory or Irvine.

The team launches an all-out rescue mission.

After two days of searching, the rapidly worsening weather

forces the expedition to turn back.

Mallory and Irvine are declared dead on the mountain.

Back in England, the grief is overwhelming.

Britain is in mourning for their fallen heroes.

Mallory had become a symbol of post-war resilience,

of everything the nation hoped to be again.

At the Mallory home, the loss cuts deep.

Ruth is left to raise their three children alone.

At Sandy Irvine's house, the family leaves a light on

and the door unlocked, just in case he finds his way home.

But an Everest-sized question looms like a storm cloud.

Before they died, did Mallory and Irvine succeed

in their quest and summit Mount Everest?

The one thing that could prove it is the remains

of the climbers themselves, not least because those remains

should include the Kodak camera the pair was carrying.

If they summited, it may contain a photo

of them at the peak.

This film could settle one of the greatest questions

in the history of exploration, but Everest fiercely

guards its secrets.

For the next decade, no sign of the climbers is found,

but then, in 1933, there's a breakthrough.

A British expedition stumbles across an ice axe in the snow

at 27,700 feet, just below the first step.

It's later identified as belonging to Irvine.

The discovery offers a glimmer of hope,

yet no other trace of the duo is uncovered.

And the 1933 expedition also fails to summit,

a feat that will remain out of reach

for another two decades.

It isn't until 1953, 29 years after Mallory

and Irvine disappeared, that Tenzing Norgay,

a Sherpa climber from Nepal, and Edmund Hillary, a beekeeper

turned mountaineer from New Zealand,

become the first to officially stand on the summit of Everest.

35 miles from Kathmandu, capital of Nepal,

Hillary and Tenzing were welcomed and congratulated

by their fellow members of the expedition.

Two unassuming men had climbed the 29,000-foot monarch

of the Himalayas.

It is heralded as one of the greatest

human accomplishments of all time.

To pull it off, Norgay and Hillary scaled

Everest from the mountain's south face in Nepal.

Mallory and Irvine had attempted their ascent

decades earlier from the much more exposed

north face on the Tibetan side.

Did Mallory and Irvine reach the top first and do it

via an even more challenging route?

There's still no proof.

Then, in 1991, a startling new lead emerges.

An oxygen canister with the markings of Mallory

and Irvine's expedition is found close to 28,000 feet,

near where the ice axe was previously discovered.

In 1999, an American expedition led by legendary mountaineer

Conrad Anker sets out to find

Mallory and Irvine's bodies at last.

On the Tibetan side below the mountain's north face,

they discover a body preserved by decades of cold and ice.

They reach inside the frozen clothing

and find something jaw-dropping, a name tag reading

George Mallory.

After 75 years, one of history's greatest

missing explorers had been found.

But did this man summit Everest first?

And will his remains provide the answer?

Near Mount Everest's unforgiving peak,

a staggering discovery is made, the body of George Mallory,

face down at 26,760 feet, 2,000 feet from the summit.

Seventy-five years after Mallory went missing,

he is finally found.

Historian Matt Breen has spent years analyzing the discovery.

The body of George Mallory had injuries consistent

with him attempting to stop himself

from falling down the mountain.

He had many broken bones, including an absolutely

shattered leg, which would have been consistent

with falling a long distance.

Also, he had an injury to his forehead

believed to be caused by his own ax.

And what happens with that is a person starts to go

down a slope, and they take their ax, they try to grab it

into the mountain, sort of get a bite to keep them

from going down.

The problem is, is if it falls, the axe can rebound,

and it can hit you right back in the forehead.

So the condition of Mallory's body

gave us a lot of answers.

There's no sign of climbing partner Sandy Irvine,

and there's no sign of the Kodak camera that

could hold proof they summited, though some experts believe

Irvine would have been the one to carry it.

But there are other clues.

Mallory's dark snow goggles were found in his pocket,

a possible indication that the fall could have occurred

at night after the two had summited

and were descending down.

And the photo of Mallory's wife, Ruth,

the one he promised to leave at the top,

is nowhere to be found.

Was the photo left at the summit?

Then, in 2024, a full century after Mallory and Irvine

vanished into the clouds, Everest offers up more answers.

A team led by acclaimed climber and filmmaker Jimmy Chin

uncovers a haunting clue.

A single boot, still laced, containing a human foot

in a woolen sock.

Faded but legible, the name stitched

into the fabric reads A.C. Irvine.

After 100 years, Mallory's climbing partner

has been found, or at least part of him.

What's believed to have happened is that they fell together,

the rope snapping, and both of them

going down the mountain.

Mallory's body ended up lodged not that far

from where they had fallen.

But Irvine's went down the mountain further,

and it landed at the Rongbuk Glacier.

A glacier is a living, breathing entity.

It moves all the time, very slowly, and it is like

a meat grinder.

Things go into it, and they just get churned

and churned, so his body was transported further and further

down the mountain, getting chewed up

and probably ripped apart along the way.

With the discovery of Irvine's body so far from the summit,

Breen and other experts argue Mallory and Irvine must have

aborted their attempt, turning back somewhere

around the Second step,

the penultimate sheer rock face below the summit.

The Second Step is the most difficult part of the climb

to the summit, and that is because it is a sheer

vertical climb.

It is really, really hard.

It's so difficult that it was not actually climbed until 1960.

In 1924, the gear was rudimentary at best.

Could they have done that part of the climb?

It's possible, but probably unlikely.

It is really at the edge of George Mallory's ability

as a climber.

In my opinion, I don't think they reached

the summit of Everest.

It's a tragedy, without question,

but what these men did is an inspiration.

It is the willingness to try to do great things.

To many, the position of both bodies closes the case.

But others continue to argue that the men may have

achieved their goal, falling on their way

back from the summit.

After all, Mallory's daytime goggles were discovered

tucked in his pocket.

And there's that missing photo of his wife that he intended

to leave at the top.

And speaking of photos, there's also whatever images

were snapped on their missing camera.

The Kodak company has even issued special instructions

for processing the film in case it's ever found,

which means that somewhere near Everest's icy peak,

a definitive answer to the world's

coldest cliffhanger is just waiting to be developed.

We descend from the heights of Mount Everest

to the valleys of Appalachia to discover a somehow

even more haunting mystery.

It's 1897, and I'm in a small country farmhouse

in Greenbrier County, West Virginia.

It's a day of sorrow, a wake for a young woman gone

much too soon.

Zona Shue, just 23 years old, died suddenly.

Heart failure, they say.

At the coffin stands Zona's husband, Trout,

refusing to leave her side.

But not everyone is convinced his sorrow is sincere.

And soon, a chilling accusation surfaces, not from a witness,

but from beyond the grave.

What follows is arguably the most sensational

murder trial in America's history,

because the prosecution's star witness will be none other

than a ghost.

Is this really a case of supernatural justice,

or is there a much more earthly explanation?

This story of the Greenbrier ghost,

as it will come to be known, begins three months earlier

in October, 1896.

Zona Heaster is a beautiful young woman with dreams

of getting married and starting a family.

Enter 35-year-old Erasmus "Trout" Shue.

A blacksmith by trade,

the ruggedly handsome Trout is hard to miss.

Zona falls for him fast, and the feeling is mutual.

Despite her mother's objections, Zona and Trout elope

after a whirlwind courtship.

For Zona, her new life feels like a dream come true.

The newlyweds settle into a house not far

from the blacksmith shop.

From the outside, everything appears to be perfect,

until tragedy strikes.

On January 22, 1897,

three months into their marriage,

Zona has apparently fallen ill.

Trout must go to work and asks a neighbor, Andy Jones,

to check in on Zona and see if she anything from the market.

But upon approaching the house,

Andy spots a trail of blood on the steps.

Inside, sprawled on the floor, is Zona Shue, dead.

Please, help!

By the time the town doctor, George Knapp,

arrives at the Shue house, Trout has already rushed home.

The doctor finds Trout on the bed,

cradling his dead wife's head.

Knapp examines Zona as closely as the grieving husband

will allow,

determining the cause of death to be heart failure,

or what he terms an everlasting faint.

At the wake, Trout appears grief-stricken,

but people notice something strange.

He refuses to leave the coffin unattended and keeps propping

Zona's head up with a folded bedsheet.

Trout also prevents Zona's own mother, Mary Jane,

from getting too close to the coffin.

From the start, Mary Jane felt uneasy

about her daughter's relationship to Trout.

Not only had they eloped, but even after,

she had never been invited into the newlyweds' home.

And now her daughter is dead, and the only thing

this grieving mother can do is pray for answers.

And after a few nights of intense pleading

with the heavens, Mary Jane apparently gets her wish.

She claims a darkened figure appears to her,

a figure that turns out to be her daughter, Zona,

a vision from beyond the grave.

But there's something even more shocking

than the appearance of Zona's ghost.

Mary Jane says Zona reveals the unthinkable,

that she was killed by her husband, Trout,

in a violent fit of rage.

So, Mary Jane contacts Greenbrier County Prosecutor

John Preston and asks him to open an investigation

into the potential murder of her daughter.

Preston pays a visit to Dr. George Knapp,

hoping to get clarity on Zona's mysterious death.

Though the official record lists natural causes,

Dr. Knapp reveals a troubling detail.

Trout had refused to let him fully examine the body.

Concerned, the prosecutor orders Zona's body

exhumed for an autopsy.

When Dr. Knapp carries it out, he uncovers a chilling truth.

Zona's neck was broken. She had been strangled.

Trout is swiftly arrested and charged

with murdering his wife.

Five months later, on June 30th, 1897, the case goes to trial.

The judge hears the evidence against Trout, how he prevented

the original examination of the body,

potentially covering up injuries he was responsible for.

Witnesses follow, telling suspicious stories

about Trout's controlling, erratic behavior.

Then, the prosecutor drops a bombshell.

Not only has Trout been married twice before,

but his second wife also died under suspicious circumstances.

It turns out that when Trout was fixing the roof

of their home, a brick slipped from his hand and fell

right on top of his second wife's head.

What are the chances?

And with that, the stage is set for the dramatic arrival

of Zona's mother, Mary Jane.

I know who the killer is, and he is in this room

right now.

She does something totally unprecedented

in an American court of law, testifying her daughter's ghost

convinced her of Trout's guilt.

Trout takes the stand in his own defense,

denying everything and swearing his innocence.

It doesn't work.

After only an hour and 10 minutes of deliberation,

the jury finds Trout guilty of first-degree murder.

He is sentenced to life in prison,

where he dies three years later.

Today, over a century on, the story of the Greenbrier

ghost remains the only case in U.S. history

where testimony from a supposed spirit

helped secure a murder conviction.

Now we can reveal the true story

behind this so-called paranormal witness.

According to legend, a young woman's spirit returns

from beyond the grave to name her killer,

leading to one of the most unforgettable convictions

in criminal history.

But what's the truth behind the ghost story?

During the trial, Mary Jane insisted that this ghost

was in front of her and it was talking to her,

and it was telling her all the details about the murder.

Well, as it happens, the day that the Greenbrier

Independent Newspaper published Zona's obituary,

there was also a story right there on the front page

about an Australian man who had solved a murder

with the help of a ghost.

A man in New South Wales told authorities

he claimed to see the ghost of a missing man,

which led police to the location of the body.

In reality, he may have been an accomplice to the crime

and used the ghost story to avoid implicating himself.

Mary Jane, Zona's mother, quite possibly saw that story,

and it just became part of her subconscious.

And it probably planted the seed of this idea

of Zona's ghost coming to her.

She had to know something terrible had happened.

And when she put it all together,

Trout's suspicious behavior at the funeral,

his unwillingness to let the doctor examine her body...

Moms know.

They know when something's wrong, and they have

to protect their children.

Even if it's too late to save her life,

she had to protect her memory.

Was this a true case of ghostly confession,

a grief-induced hallucination, or perhaps something

even more intentional?

A grieving mother who would do anything for her daughter,

including spinning a mesmerizing ghost story

to see justice served.

Today, a historical marker in West Virginia

commemorates the ordeal,

affirming the spectral evidence, which ensures that the legend

of the Greenbrier ghost will live on forever.

It's dawn, October 15th, 1917, just east of Paris,

and a woman is being led before a firing squad.

She stands tall, facing her fate with a dignity

few could summon, because this is Mata Hari,

and she is nothing short of a global sensation.

She is famous for being an exotic dancer

and a courtesan, catering to some of the most influential

and wealthy men in Europe.

But she's also something else, a spy.

Branded a double agent, the French say she passed

secrets to the Germans, an act which has

sealed her fate.

A soldier offers her a blindfold,

but she refuses.

In moments, she will die for her crimes.

But is she actually guilty?

A century later, new information will finally

unveil the truth behind the woman

who seduced the world.

Born on August 7th, 1876, in the Dutch city of Leeuwarden,

Margaretha Geertruida Zelle was born

into a life of privilege.

Her father, a wealthy hat maker, enrolls his daughter

in the finest schools, where she learns multiple languages

and spoils her with lavish gifts.

But in 1891, when Margaretha is 15,

the fairy tale is shattered.

Her mother suddenly dies from tuberculosis.

Her father goes bankrupt and abandons the family.

By the age of 18, she finds herself

alone in the world.

She answers a newspaper ad from a wealthy army officer

named Rudolf MacLeod.

Yes, back then, instead of swiping right,

you could simply flip through these spouse-wanted ads.

They quickly marry, move to the Dutch East Indies,

and have two children, Norman and Louise.

But her husband turns out to be a violent drunk and unfaithful.

And when their young son tragically dies in 1899,

he takes their daughter and refuses to give Margaretha

a cent of his money.

But showing a strength that will define the rest of her life,

she uses her charm and beauty to begin again.

It's March 13th, 1905.

And the who's-who of Paris have packed into the prestigious

Art Institute, the Musée Guimet, for a very exotic performance.

The museum's library has been adorned with flowers

to give the appearance of a Hindu temple.

And, as the lights dim, the crowd is transfixed

by the reinvented Margaretha, who takes the stage.

Inspired by her time in the Dutch East Indies,

she calls herself Mata Hari,

meaning, "Eye of the day" in Indonesian.

She transfixes audiences with her exotic dancing,

uniquely incorporating elements of Southeast Asian

and Indian traditions.

Barefoot, with bejeweled transparent costumes

that reveal more than they conceal,

she becomes an instant sensation.

Within the next few years, Mata Hari graces

all the iconic European stages and associates with some

of the most powerful men of her day,

including an alleged entanglement

with German Crown Prince Wilhelm.

At the height of her fame, Mata Hari is what we'd today

consider a pop star influencer, her name appearing

on everything from cigarettes and liquors to luxury products.

Mata lives large.

She stays at the most exclusive hotels,

dines at the finest restaurants,

and dresses in the trendiest fashions.

But this lavish lifestyle takes a toll on her finances,

and she's in constant need of money.

Wealthy suitors, especially high-ranking officers

and noblemen, practically line up

for a chance to support her in exchange for, well,

let's just say some quality alone time.

In the summer of 1914, however,

the world completely unravels.

On August 3rd, Germany declares war on France

and World War I begins.

Mata Hari flees to a neutral country,

her native Netherlands.

One night, she receives

an unexpected visitor,

Karl Kroemer, the German consul in Amsterdam.

He offers her 20,000 francs, about 60 grand today.

But he doesn't want companionship.

Recognizing Mata Hari's unique skills,

her fluency in several languages,

her ability to charm powerful men,

and her access to high-ranking officers,

he wants Mata Hari to use her connections and sex appeal

to spy on the French for Germany.

And he reportedly provides her with invisible ink

to pass messages undetected.

A secret pact is made, one that will ultimately lead

to her death.

But whether Mata Hari truly aided the Germans

or played both sides in a deadly game of espionage

remains one of history's most tantalizing mysteries.

Until now.

With World War I raging and her funds running low,

renowned beauty Mata Hari is at a crossroads.

She's offered a tempting deal to spy for Germany

in exchange for a fat payday.

She allegedly accepts, but according to her,

never intends to do any actual spying.

Eventually, Mata Hari leaves Amsterdam

and returns to France.

She meets Captain Vladimir De Masloff,

a handsome Russian pilot with whom she falls in love.

Their relationship deepens, and in the summer of 1916,

when Masloff is wounded near the front,

Mata Hari requests permission to visit him.

But she needs special clearance from France to travel there.

Enter Captain Georges Ladoux, head of French intelligence.

He makes Mata Hari an unexpected offer...

become a spy for France, and he will grant her

the clearance she needs to visit her Russian lover.

She agrees, but only for a massive payout,

one million francs, or more than $3 million today.

Ladoux accepts and tells her she'll get the money

once she delivers valuable intelligence.

And of course, all the while, she keeps her lips sealed

about her similar agreement to spy for Germany.

So Mata Hari reportedly embarks on a mission to spy

on the Germans for the French,

all the while, according to Mata Hari,

not spying on the French for the Germans.

Confusing.

She heads to Madrid, where she seduces

a high-ranking German official named Arnold Kalle.

Kalle divulges information which Mata Hari immediately

sends back to Captain Ladoux in France.

Mission accomplished, or so she thinks.

She returns to Paris expecting a hero's welcome,

but receives quite the opposite.

On February 13th, 1917, she is arrested by the French

and charged as a German spy.

But how did the French find out about her previous agreement?

Well, after his rendezvous with Mata Hari in Madrid,

Major Arnold Kalle fires off

a series of coded telegrams to Germany.

The French intercept and decipher these messages,

in which Kalle names a female agent known as H21,

praising her for delivering French military secrets.

The French believe H21 is the code name for Mata Hari.

Her house of cards has come tumbling down.

On July 24th, five months after her arrest,

Mata Hari's trial begins.

Under examination, she admits to taking German money

in a deal to spy for them, but swears she never shared

anything of value.

She's also accused of having been given bottles

of invisible ink by the Germans to write secret messages,

but she denies it, claiming the liquid was a beauty product

from her cosmetics kit.

Prosecutors blame her for causing the deaths

of 50,000 French soldiers, but never name a single battle,

secret, or shred of proof to justify the accusation.

The trial lasts only two days, and a verdict is reached.

Mata Hari is found guilty of espionage as a German spy

and sentenced to death.

Which brings us to October 15th.

Mata Hari is about to be executed by firing squad.

But was she truly a treacherous double-agent

responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands,

or simply a scapegoat caught in the crossfire

of politics and war?

An incredible discovery of long-lost

historical documents may finally answer the question.

As we have seen tonight, many great stories live

at the crossroads of fact and folklore.

For centuries, Napoleon Bonaparte has been

mocked as the archetype of the short man with a big ego.

But it turns out history got it wrong.

Napoleon stood about 5'2".

Sounds small, but here's the thing.

Historically, a French foot is 13, not 12 inches,

translating to roughly 5'6", in English measurements,

average height for men in the early 1800s.

When you combine this measurement confusion

with British propaganda, particularly that

of cartoonist James Gillray, Napoleon was cut down to size.

Well, less than size, to be exact.

And thus, the Napoleon complex was born,

with Bonaparte himself saying of the caricatures

about his height, quote, "They did more

than all the armies of Europe to bring me down."

After Mata Hari was executed by the French

for allegedly being a German spy,

some argued the trial was a sham.

And for over a century, many have defended her innocence,

saying she never actually spied for the Germans,

even if she did take their money.

Now, Dr. Julie Wheelwright, journalist and author,

has uncovered a bombshell hidden in formerly top-secret

British Army files.

There's been new evidence that has come out

of Great Britain, including a telegram

with information which was sent in December 1916,

which I don't believe the French had,

because it doesn't show up during Mata Hari's trial.

And they have been sitting in the archives,

but they weren't indexed until recently.

I got a tip from a German historian in Spain,

and he said, "Can you go and look at these?"

The British files contained the secret messages

of German Major Kalle.

These were the same messages that apparently outed

Mata Hari to the French as German agent H21.

Defenders of Mata Hari have long claimed

that Major Kalle knew that messages would be

intercepted and so he set her up as a false spy as revenge

for her working for the French.

They say he purposefully used a code that he already knew

the Allies had cracked so that Mata Hari

would be discovered and made a scapegoat.

But actually it turns out that that's not true

because if you look at the deciphered telegrams

at the National Archives here in the UK,

it's quite clear that Kalle continued using that same code

before and after he was sending the telegrams

that relate to Agent H21.

So that theory is kind of out of the window.

According to this version of events,

the telegrams weren't a frame job.

They were genuine attempts to funnel French secrets

straight to Germany, meaning despite her denials,

Mata Hari actually was a German spy after all.

If so, what secrets did she actually

share with the Germans?

On the 14th of December, 1916, Kalle sends a telegram

to Berlin, which is to the German

intelligence services headquarters.

And in it, he conveys the information

that Mata Hari had given him about these two double agents.

When I first started looking into this story,

I believed that Mata Hari was innocent.

But what you finally have is really concrete,

definitive proof that Mata Hari was not only working

for the Germans, but it suggests that there's a real intention

for her to pass on hard evidence to the Germans.

And that really kind of blows out of the water

this idea of her innocence.

After years of debate, Dr. Wheelwright is now

convinced Mata Hari really was guilty of being a double agent.

But consider this.

The French never had this crucial evidence

we have today, meaning they condemned her

without knowing the full truth.

So, why did they do it?

She's the antithesis of what French women should be

at that time. She's divorced.

She also, you know, performed naked on the stage.

There's no way that a French court is going

to show her any mercy.

And this trial also takes place at a time when things are

going very badly for the French on the Western Front.

So to be able to point the finger at this German spy,

caught red-handed, I mean, it was that kind of mentality

with which they were able to convict her.

Even though they didn't have the proof, she was

an absolute ideal scapegoat, and no one was gonna

step forward to defend her, and indeed they didn't.

To a war-weary France, Mata Hari was

the perfect villain, exotic, seductive, and mysterious.

In the end, it wasn't just her mixed loyalties

that doomed her as much as what she symbolized,

a scandalous woman playing by her own rules.

And while the verdict that she was a double agent

now appears more certain, it only adds to her mystique

and her hypnotic hold on our imagination,

just as she would have wanted.

I'm Josh Gates.

I'll see you on the next expedition.