All language subtitles for Mysteries.Unearthed.with.Danny.Trejo.S02E14.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[dramatic music]

- [Danny] Mysteries can be
buried anywhere,

under the earth,

[deep explosion]

[engine whirrs]

beneath the sea,

[plane whooshes]

or even right
under our own feet.

[coins jingle]

[dramatic music]

And when we stumble upon them,

sometimes what we find
can change history.

[dramatic music]

Tonight,

the discoveries get wild.

[explosion banging]

From a secret cave.

- [Paul] They find
40-foot crystals,

ghost white and razor sharp.

- The caves are a death trap.

- [Jenn] I mean, if
one breaks loose,

you don't stand a chance.

- [Danny] To a
frozen underworld.

- [ Kavitha] Researchers
expected a complete dead zone.

Instead, they found
an entire ecosystem.

- [Danny] To a loyal pup
who helps crack a cold case.

- [Adam] People are feverishly
looking for the trophy.

And he thinks his dog Pickles
may have just found it.

- Join us now because
nothing stays hidden forever.

[dramatic music]

Grocery stores aren't
usually a place

for jaw-dropping finds,

but this one held a surprise
no one was prepared for.

- [Andrew] It's 1996 and a
biologist named Robert Timmins

is doing field work in Laos.

He takes a break for lunch

and he goes to an
open air market.

As he's checking out the
meat and the produce,

he notices something
unusual for sale.

[dramatic music]

It's a long-whiskered rodent.

[dramatic music]

- [Sami] These rodents
are unlike anything

Timmins has ever seen before.

They're about 10 inches long,

they've got very short
limbs, unusual-looking teeth.

Timmins takes a look
at these rodents

and actually thinks that they
kind of look like a cross

between a rat and a squirrel.

Now the locals call

this particular type
of rodent kha-nyou

and they also say that
they're pretty tasty.

[dramatic music]

- [Hakeem] They're cheap, so

he spends about six cents

to buy two of them,
but not for dinner,

because he's convinced

that there's something
unusual about them.

He starts calling them

Laotian rock rats

and he sends them to the
Natural History Museum in London

so they can take a closer look.

- [Danny] When scientists
examine them, they're stunned.

It's something they've
never seen before.

- [Andrew] DNA tests reveal
that they do not match up

to any other animal
on the planet.

This isn't just a new species,

this is entirely new
family of animals.

- [Hakeem] This kind of find is
unheard of these days.

The Laotian rock rat is
given an official name,

Laonastes aenigmamus,
which translates to

inhabitant of
stone, enigmatic mouse.

And the findings are published

in the Journal of
Systematics and Biodiversity.

[dramatic music]

- [Danny] But when researchers

at the Carnegie Museum
of Natural History

come across the new study,

something about this strange
creature looks very familiar.

- [Sami] Photos of the rodent
look very similar to a skull

that the museum has
in their collection

from an animal that's been
extinct for 11 million years.

[dramatic music]

- [Andrew] They do a
side-by-side comparison

of the living rodent's skull

with the extinct skull
in their collection.

And when they look

at them side by side,

they find a perfect match.

Other things like the tooth
enamel and molars, also a match.

- So it turns out
that Robert Timmins

didn't discover a
brand new species,

he just stumbled upon one
that we thought was long gone.

- [Danny] It's what
scientists refer to

as a Lazarus species.

- Probably the most famous
example of a Lazarus species

is the coelacanth.

This is a fish that
is weird looking,

and most researchers
thought it went extinct

back with the dinosaurs.

- [Andrew] Then in 1938,
a fishing boat

off the coast of South Africa

pulls one out of the water,

very much alive, flopping
around in their boat.

So the rodent in this
meat market in Laos

is kind of like the
coelacanth of rats.

- [Danny] But if this
coelacanth of rats

has been around all this time,

how did it manage to stay
hidden for millions of years?

- The truth is that this
particular species of rat

wasn't even on the radar
of scientists at all

until Timmins comes across
it in the open air market.

But to the locals in Laos,

they've known about this
rat for quite some time.

They just have a
different name for them.

- [Andrew] The locals even
share their traditional recipe

for cooking the rock
rat with Timmins,

roast it whole,

chew the small bones,

spit out the large ones.

[dramatic music]

- Some discoveries
change science.

This next one
changes three lives.

- [Paul] In the fall of 1980,
19-year-old Bobby Shafran

is excited to
start his first day

at the Sullivan County
Community College

in the Catskills
region of New York.

He's ready to start a
new chapter in his life.

But almost immediately,

things feel off.

- [Andrew] Students he
has never met before

start greeting him
like an old friend.

They hug him, kiss him,

and most disconcertingly, call
him by the wrong name, Eddy.

- [Hakeem] Even one of
Bobby's dorm mates

makes the same mistake.

In fact, this
person is so shocked

at how close Bobby looks to
his friend, Eddy Galland,

he has to get them together.

So he pulls Bobby into a
payphone and they call Eddy.

[phone ringing]

And when Bobby hears Eddy

through the other
end of the phone,

it's like he's listening
to his own voice.

- [Danny] During
that conversation,

the two men make
a wild connection.

- [Andrew] Bobby asks
Eddy if he was adopted.

He says yes.

Then Bobby asks
Eddy his birthday.

July 12th, 1961.

This is when Bobby knows

that this isn't just
some coincidence.

He has found his twin.

[dramatic music]

- [Hakeem] The
two meet in person,

and the similarities
are uncanny,

the same face, the same laugh,

even the same birthmarks.

They bond instantly.

- [Paul] Word of their
heartwarming story spreads fast,

with newspapers
publishing pictures

of the two new found
identical twins side by side,

grinning ear to ear.

- [Danny] Then the story
gets even more outrageous.

- A third teenager,

David Kellman,
reads these stories,

and to him it's like
looking in a mirror,

or really two mirrors.

And when the three
boys finally meet,

it becomes clear
they're not twins,

they're triplets.

- [Danny] But the deeper
they look into their history,

the stranger it gets.

The triplets soon learn they
weren't placed apart by chance.

The boys were intentionally
separated at birth.

- [Jenn] The boys were
part of a secret study

led by psychiatrist
Peter Neubauer.

The experiment hoped to observe

how genetically
identical siblings

might develop differently
if raised apart.

- [Paul] It was
the ultimate test

of the nature versus
nurture debate.

Between the early
1960s and 1980s,

11 sets of twins,
plus the triplets,

were sent to different homes,

but none of the parents
and none of the children

were told that they were

part of an experiment.

- [Hakeem] The boys
grew up under

the watchful
eyes of researchers,

who visited regularly,

under the guise of normal
developmental check-ins

for adoptive children.

But in reality, they were
administering IQ tests,

personality assessments,

and filming it all.

- [Danny] The study was
supposed to remain secret,

but the triplets'
unplanned reunion

forces it into the light.

- Once the truth comes out,
the backlash is immediate.

The families are outraged,
the public is horrified,

and the scientific
community is shaken.

The idea that people's lives

were being manipulated in
this way without their consent

is a significant ethical, moral,

and legal problem.

And in 1980, this
study is still ongoing.

- [Danny] As the
controversy swells,

Dr. Neubauer is forced to
finally shut down the study.

- [Paul] The triplets and
the other test subjects

fight for years

to keep their personal
files out of the public eye.

Eventually, under
threat of a lawsuit,

the scientists
decide not to publish

any of their findings at all.

- [Andrew] In 1990,
these scientists agree

to seal all of their files

and essentially lock them in
a vault at Yale University.

They can't be legally
opened until 2065,

when both the scientists
and the subjects

are likely to be long dead.

- [Hakeem] Whatever those
files end up revealing

around the question of
nature versus nurture,

the story of Bobby,
Eddy, and David

shows you how a simple
chance encounter

can shine a spotlight on
the shadowy side of science.

[dramatic music]

- Most dog walks are uneventful,

but for one man and his pup,

their evening stroll becomes
the start of a wild mystery.

[dramatic music]
[light music]

- [Austin] It's March 27th, 1966
on a cool South London night

and Dave Corbett's dog,
Pickles, is begging to go out,

so he grabs the leash,

and he gets ready,

and he heads off
down the street.

- [Andrew] They're
not far from home

when Pickles yanks
on his owner's leash

and pulls him over to
the side of the street.

Corbett assumes that the dog

is simply chasing
some strange smell,

but as he gets closer, he
sees something unusual.

[thunder rumbles]

- [Jenn] It's this little bundle
wrapped up in newspaper

and tied with a string.

Dave peels back a
little bit of the paper.

He spots a base, and
then there's these words

it says Brazil, West
Germany, and Uruguay.

So he peels back a
little more paper

and he sees a
small golden statue

of this woman holding
a bowl above her head.

[dramatic music]

- He has seen this before
in newspaper articles

that are all about the recently
stolen World Cup trophy.

And he thinks his dog Pickles
may have just found it.

- [Danny] So how did one of the
most famous prizes in sports

end up on a street in London?

- [Austin] A week earlier, this
trophy, the Jules Rimet Trophy,

was on display at Methodist
Central Hall in Westminster.

England is about to
host the World Cup

and they wanna show
their trophy off.

- [Adam] On March 20th,
somehow, in broad daylight,

a thief, or thieves,

stole the World Cup
in front of everyone.

- At about 11 o'clock to
12 o'clock this morning,

the thieves got in by forcing
one of the inner doors.

- [Adam] Everyone in England
from every walk of life

is offering rewards

for the safe return of
the World Cup trophy

and a nationwide manhunt is on.

The uproar is global.

Scotland Yard is involved and

people are feverishly looking

for the famous trophy.

- [Andrew] When Dave walks into
his local police station

and places the missing trophy
down on the sergeant's desk,

he thinks he'll get a thank
you, maybe even a reward,

but that's not what happens.

- Instead of a hero's
welcome, they haul him in.

They throw him in a car,

they drive him down
to Scotland Yard,

and they grill him.

Good Samaritan Dave is now

the prime suspect in the theft.

- We can appreciate how

from the police perspective,

Dave's story might
seem farfetched.

The entire law enforcement
apparatus of the nation

has been mobilized to
find this missing trophy,

and this man's dog just
happened to sniff it out

one night on a walk?

But Dave knows he's
done nothing wrong.

He sticks to his story

and eventually the
police let him go.

- [Jenn] The police speculate
the real thief got scared

with all of the media attention,

panicked, and then
ditched the trophy

where he thought
nobody would find it,

except he wasn't
counting on Pickles.

- [Danny] Overnight,
Pickles becomes

an international celebrity.

- [Austin] He's awarded a medal

from the National
Canine Defence League.

He gets dog food endorsements.

He presides over the
opening of restaurants.

He even gets a film
made out of him,

"The Spy with a Cold Nose."

- [Andrew] But the biggest
reward comes five months later.

After England defeats West
Germany in the World Cup final,

Dave and Pickles are invited
to the victory banquet.

And when the trophy is raised,

everybody knows who the
true hero is, Pickles,

the little dog who just
wanted to go for a walk.

[dramatic music]

- Next up, an even
more outrageous find

beneath our nation's capital.

- [Hakeem] September 26th, 1924,

a truck driver is
making a delivery

near Dupont Circle
in Washington DC

when something strange happens.

As he drives through
a back alley,

the rear of his truck
suddenly drops beneath him.

[truck banging]
[wheels screeching]

- The driver slams on
the brakes, jumps out,

and sees that the rear
wheels of his truck

have sunk into the pavement,
into a large sinkhole.

- A crew shows up to
help pull out the truck,

but when they look at

the hole more closely,

they find something
more than a sinkhole.

- [Hakeem] Beneath the alley
lies a manmade tunnel.

It is hundreds of feet long,
stretching under the city.

There is no records
of its construction

and no one can explain
why it's there.

- [Kavitha] Now this isn't some
rough put together tunnel.

This is really well built.

It's six feet tall
and four feet wide,

and it's even wired
with electric lights.

- [Danny] When newspapers
catch wind of the story,

it explodes, and
so do the theories.

- Some claim to have seen

old German newspapers

on the walls of the tunnel,

which sparks rumors that
what they've discovered

is some kind of hideout for
German spies during World War I.

Still others think it was
built to smuggle alcohol,

this being during Prohibition.

- There's even a
claim that the tunnel

dates back to the Civil War

and was used by
Confederate soldiers

hiding in Union territory.

- Reporters start digging
into the property's past.

The current owners know nothing,

so they look into
the previous owner,

who was a Smithsonian
entomologist,

an insect scientist,

named Harrison Dyar.

- [Hakeem] Dyar is
brilliant and passionate,

with an obsessive streak

that drove his work to
extraordinary lengths.

- [Kavitha] Over the
course of his career,

he would name 3,000 species

of butterflies and moths.

Over 600 species of mosquitoes

and 70 species are
named after him.

- [Andrew] In 1917 alone,

he donates 44,000 insect
specimens to the Smithsonian.

So in the field
of entomology,

Dyar is a giant.

[dramatic music]

- [Danny] But that same year,

Dyar's carefully curated
life starts to crack

when his wife files for divorce.

- She found out that Dyar
was living a double life

and had a secret family

with a school teacher
named Wellesca Pollock.

Together they had
three children,

none of whom were known
to his legal wife.

- [Danny] Investigators
initially believe

the tunnel may be connected
to Dyar's hidden activities,

but the explanation they
get is far stranger.

- [Andrew] When questioned,

Dyar admits to having dug
the tunnel himself by hand

over the course of a decade.

Why?

He says it was a hobby
and a form of exercise.

- [Kavitha] Some wonder if the
tunnel was a way for Dyar

to move between the two
families without being noticed.

Others think it was just
his ultimate man cave.

[dramatic music]

[dramatic music]

- Deep underground,

two miners are hunting
for precious metals,

but what they break open instead

is something far more dangerous

than anything they
ever imagined.

- [Hakeem] In April 2000,

two brothers, Eloy
and Javier Delgado,

are working in the
Naica Mine in Mexico.

They're prospecting
for zinc and silver,

so they're setting
charges in a tunnel

in order to open up new rock.

- After they set the explosives,

they retreat to a safe distance

and then hit the trigger.

[explosion banging]

The explosion rips
through the tunnel,

sending rocks and
debris everywhere.

After everything settles,
the brothers approach

to see what they found.

- Unfortunately they don't
find any zinc or silver,

but they do find
something unusual,

a small hole in a
portion of the rock wall.

- [Danny] As Eloy
squeezes through,

he's hit with overwhelming
heat and humidity.

- He wipes the
sweat from his eyes

and shines his light

into the cavern,

and he is stunned.

He has just opened
up a gigantic cavity.

And filling this cavity

are these monstrous,

ghost white crystals.

Some are as big as tree trunks,

up to 40 feet tall
and 6 feet wide.

It's like he walked into
Superman's Fortress of Solitude.

- [Jenn] The Delgado Brothers
report their remarkable find

to their bosses at
the mining company,

who then call in
geologists to research it.

- [Danny] As experts descend

into the newly
named Crystal Cave,

they quickly learn its beauty

hides conditions unlike
anything they've ever faced.

- It's so hot it feels like
you're entering a blast furnace.

It's over a thousand
feet underground,

and down there the temperatures
are as high as 140 degrees

and the humidity reaches
a hundred percent.

At those temperatures and
that level of humidity,

your body's sweating mechanism
can't keep you cool enough.

- [Paul] It's so humid
that when you inhale,

the hot, humid air
enters your lungs

and then condenses the
same way it condenses

on a cold glass of water.

But this is happening
inside your lungs,

so it ends up drowning
you from the inside out.

- These caves are
literally a death trap.

Researchers, in order to
go in and safely work,

they have to wear
special ice-cooled suits

with breathing systems that
bring them cool, dry air

in order to survive.

- [Jenn] Then there are the
crystals themselves.

I mean, they are
razor sharp, slippery,

and some weigh as
much as 55 tons.

So, I mean, if one breaks loose,

you don't stand a chance.

- [Danny] What
shaped these crystals

and makes them so dangerous
comes from far below the cave.

- The researchers eventually
discover that the cavern

sits above a fault line
and magma reservoir.

Around 26 million years ago,

the magma squeezed
out of its reservoir

and forced scalding hot water

up into the porous limestone,

which carved out this cavity.

- The water contained gypsum.

And when the temperature
of the water dropped,

the gypsum began to crystallize.

- [Danny] But crystals
weren't the only things

forming in the cave's
harsh conditions.

- In 2017, the cave reveals
another of its mysteries

when NASA scientists
find ancient bacteria,

tens of thousands of years old,

trapped within these crystals.

They retrieve samples

and bring them back
to life in the lab.

[dramatic music]

- [Danny] The bacteria
are called extremophiles,

microbes that evolved to
survive where nothing else can.

And scientists believe
they could provide insight

into how life might
exist on other planets.

[dramatic music]

- [Hakeem] The Crystal Cave
is a natural wonder,

and if life can survive there,

maybe we're not as
alone as we think.

[dramatic music]

- If you thought surviving
that kind of heat was crazy,

wait till you see what's
living under Antarctic ice.

- [Paul] On January 13th, 2025,

an international team
of oceanographers

are working off of the
coast of Antarctica

in the Bellingshausen Sea.

[ice shelves cracking]

Their mission is to study
the shrinking ice shelves

and how that's impacting climate

and sea levels around the world.

- [Kavitha] Midway through
their expedition,

the team receives breaking news.

An iceberg the size of Chicago

has broken off the
George VI Ice Shelf.

[ice shelf rumbling]

It exposes more than 200
square miles of sea floor,

and by sheer luck, they're
only 57 miles away.

- This is a rare opportunity

to study part of the sea floor

that has been hidden for
centuries under 500 feet of ice.

So the team deploys

a remote-operated underwater
vehicle with cameras

[water splashing]
[air bubbling]

to go down 4,000
feet and investigate.

- [Danny] As the submersible

sweeps across the newly
exposed sea floor,

the first images stream
back to the ship,

revealing something the
crew never expected to see.

- [Austin] This should be a
barren wasteland,

but almost immediately
the camera reveals a crab

walking over a sponge.

[dramatic music]

As the sub sends more pictures,

more and more life
comes into view.

- [Kavitha] The ocean floor is
covered with sponges and corals.

The scientists have discovered

a thriving underwater ecosystem,

which is baffling to them
because this isn't the tropics.

This is thousands of feet
below the coast of Antarctica.

- [Andrew] There are sea
spiders, ice fish, octopuses.

They even see an extremely
rare phantom jellyfish,

three feet wide, with tentacles
trailing 30 feet behind it.

- [Kavitha] Based on how big and
developed these creatures are,

the scientists realized

that they didn't just
show up recently.

They've been chilling under
the ice for centuries.

- [Danny] But if this
place has been sealed off

for hundreds of years,

how is anything still
alive down here?

- [Paul] All of these organisms
need food to survive.

That food system is
based on plant and algae

on the surface of the ocean

getting energy from sunlight,

and then other animals eat
those organisms and then die,

and then all of that material,

all of that organic
matter and food,

drift down to the
bottom of the ocean,

where they supply
a source of energy

for everything
living at the bottom.

But this region has been cut off

from the usual
food chain systems

that exist in oceans throughout
the rest of the world.

- [Austin] Some scientists
theorize that

deeper ocean currents

are carrying that organic
material from somewhere else,

while other scientists feel

that the surface
contact ice is melting

and ancient organic material
trapped there for centuries

is trickling down.

- [Danny] Either way,
food is still reaching

this hidden ecosystem just
enough to keep it alive.

- This site alone is
home to over 60 species,

some of which were unknown
to science previously.

So who knows what's
hiding under the ice

in other regions of the world?

There's certainly a
lot more to discover.

[dramatic music]

[dramatic music]

- Cutting the grass
is just another chore,

until the mower
turns up something

that hasn't seen
daylight in 70,000 years.

[dramatic music]

- [Andrew] In the fall of 2024,

a homeowner in
Scotchtown, New York

is doing some last
minute landscaping

before winter sets in.

As he tends to his flower beds,

and rakes leaves,
and mows the lawn,

he notices something
sticking out of the dirt.

[dramatic music]

- [Don] At first he thinks it
might be an old baseball,

but when he digs it out,

it looks like two
strange fossilized bones.

They're both oval-shaped,

about seven inches long,

and each has a serrated
edge on one side.

- [Austin] Curious, he digs
deeper and he uncovers two more.

They don't look like any
animal he's ever seen,

so he calls the local
college for help.

- [Danny] Professor Cory Harris,

an anthropologist at SUNY
Orange, takes the lead.

And when he sees
the bones in person,

he knows exactly
what he's looking at.

- They're not bones,

they're massive teeth,

molars that once
belonged to mastodons.

[mastodons roaring]

Mastodons are long-
extinct cousins

to mammoths and
modern elephants.

And between 10,000
and 14,500 years ago,

they roamed the ancient forests

of what is now New York state.

- [Metin] They are built like
tanks at 10 feet tall

and over six tons, and

they've got these long tusks

that can reach a length
of over 16 feet long.

- [Andrew] Now that 16 feet
is pretty remarkable.

It would've made mastodons
a fearsome sight.

[mastodons roaring]

And the mastodon's molars
were just as unique.

They are cone-shaped,

which is perfect for
this large herbivore

to crush leaves, and
twigs, and branches.

[dramatic music]

- [Danny] Over the
next few weeks,

Harris and a team
of archaeologists

conduct a full dig.

By the end of it, they've
recovered a full jaw,

part of a rib, and a toe.

- A find like this
is always exciting,

but believe it or not,

backyard mastodons
are not unique

in this part of the country.

Orange County, New York

is known as a mastodon
fossil hotspot.

[dramatic music]

- [Don] They've been turning
up here since 1705.

When locals found huge bones,

they attributed to
a race of human giants

described in the Bible.

Over the years,
over 150 specimens

have been uncovered
in Upstate New York

and half of them from
the region around Orange.

- [Danny] It's not
just a coincidence,

there's a scientific
explanation behind this.

- [Andrew] Some scientists
think that the prevalence

of the mastodon in this area

came down to the
mastodons' behavior

and especially its diet.

Around 14,500 years ago,

the end of the last ice age,

this area of Upstate New York

would've been a kind of
prehistoric vegetarian buffet,

rich with pine, and spruce,
and dense underbrush,

all things that
mastodons love to eat.

- [Don] Lured here by the
ample food on offer,

when an animal died,

they sank into the
oxygen-poor peat bogs

that were created by
the retreating glaciers.

And those conditions

preserved their remains
almost perfectly.

- [Andrew] Every discovery
brings us closer

to understanding these
prehistoric giants

who once called New
York State home.

[mastodon roaring]
[dramatic music]

- [Danny] Over 5,000 miles away,

another Ice Age
discovery resurfaces,

only this one looks
a lot friendlier.

[dramatic music]

- [Don] It's the summer of 2018

near the Indigirka
River in Siberia.

Locals are out in the forest,

combing through the ground

looking for mammoth tusks.

- [Andrew] This is the time of
year when the permafrost

softens up just
enough to reveal bones

that have been locked
in the frozen ground

for thousands of years.

And this includes mammoth ivory,

which is incredibly valuable.

- One day, a local stumbles
upon something unexpected.

[dramatic music]

It's not a mammoth tusk.

It's small, it's furry,

and it looks like a puppy.

[dramatic music]

- [Don] The animal is
surprisingly well-preserved.

The fur is still there.

You can still see
its little paws.

Even the whiskers on
the nose are intact.

It looks less like a fossil

and more like a
dog frozen in time.

But the locals think
it might be ancient,

so they contact a nearby
university to take a look.

[dramatic music]

- [Danny] Scientists
collect the remains

and start running tests.

When the results come
back, they're stunned.

- Whatever this specimen
is, it's not a dog.

And tests seem to reveal that
it's not a wild wolf either.

It's somewhere right in between.

- [Don] Scientists have known
for decades that the modern dog

evolved from the wild wolf,

but exactly when and where
that split actually happened

is one of animal evolution's
biggest mysteries.

So these DNA results from
the prehistoric Siberian pup

are a very big deal.

- Researchers name
the specimen Dogor,

which is a local Yakut
language word for friend.

- [Danny] But the
biggest revelation comes

when Dogor is carbon dated.

- Tests reveal that this dog
is about 18,000 years old.

Scientists had placed
the window of time

when the wild wolf was
domesticated into the modern dog

somewhere between 15,000
and 40,000 years ago.

So at 18,000 years,

we know that we're dealing
with something closer

to the modern end
of that spectrum.

- [Danny] While this discovery

helps us to further understand

the evolutionary
timeline between the wolf

[wolf howling]

and the modern day dog,

how that transformation occurred

is still up for debate.

- [Don] One theory is
that early humans

took in wolf pups
and raised them.

Another idea suggests that
some less aggressive wolves

just started lingering around
the camps, scavenging scraps,

and over generations, the
tamest of them all adapted,

changing from
predators to partners.

- In Dogor's short
life, no one is sure

if he lived with humans or
he lived in that fringe world

between domestication
and wildness.

- [Don] Scientists are
still studying him.

And as the permafrost melts

and more and more of
the prehistoric world

rises to the surface,

this may be just the beginning.

And the actual first dog ever
could be somewhere close by.

[dramatic music]

[dramatic music]

- During the Cold War, every
sound could mean danger,

but one mysterious noise

is something far
stranger than enemy fire.

- [Andrew] June 8th, 1982, it's
the height of the Cold War

and tensions are rising along
the east coast of Sweden.

The year before, a Soviet
submarine had wrecked,

just off the coast.

And now a civilian
reports seeing

what they think is a periscope

just off the coast
in the Baltic Sea.

- [Austin] The Swedes fear

it could be another
Soviet submarine,

so they dispatch patrol
boats to take a look.

- [Sami] Sure enough,
once they make it out

to a certain portion
of the water,

about 32 miles off
the coast of Sweden,

they start to pick up this

sound from underwater.

It kind of sounds a little
bit like sizzling bacon,

except significantly louder.

So these patrol boats
radio back to the mainland,

and within a few minutes,

helicopters are
flying to the location

and hovering over that spot.

- [Austin] The Swedes aren't
sure if this is espionage

or an act of aggression,

but they're not
taking any chances.

The helicopter
drops depth charges,

in essence, high explosives
that go underwater

to blow up a submarine.

[explosion booming]

If they hit or
sink a Soviet sub,

the Cold War is going
to get a lot hotter.

[explosion banging]
[dramatic music]

- [Andrew] Nearby, the
Swedes are waiting

in anticipation of retaliation,

but there isn't any.

And the sound?

It's gone.

- [Sami] The helicopter is
searching feverishly,

but they see no
signs of wreckage.

They see no debris.

There's no oil slick.

So whatever was producing
that sizzling bacon sound

has now disappeared
without a trace.

- [Danny] But the
silence doesn't last.

Just three days later,
the noise is back.

- [Austin] Once again, a Swedish
navy patrol hears the signal,

drops depth charges,

[explosion]
and then it stops.

It disappears.

A few days after that,
it happens again.

- [Danny] Despite repeated
efforts to trace the source,

the sounds continue on
and off for over a decade.

- [Andrew] Then in 1996,

the Swedish government
calls in a civilian

to get to the bottom of things.

- [Danny] Professor
Magnus Wahlberg

from the University
of Southern Denmark

analyzes the signals for a month

and what he finds is even
stranger than they imagined.

- [Austin] The sound from
the top-secret Soviet sub

turns out to be

a school of fish,

herring to be exact.

And the strange
sizzling, crackling sound

is herring passing gas.

- [Andrew] Herring
are modest fish,

shiny, silver, only
about 14 inches long,

but they have a remarkable
ability that most fish do not.

They can fart.

And when they do, it is loud.

[crackling sound]

- [Sami] Now, most fish have
something called a swim bladder,

which, in essence, is sort of
like this internal balloon

that helps them to
control their buoyancy.

Herring have this as well,

except it's connected
to their anus.

So when pressure builds
up in this swim bladder,

it's got to go somewhere and
it's released through the anus.

[bladder spewing]

You see where I'm
going with this.

- [Andrew] Another thing that
herring do, or don't do rather,

is travel solo.

They school in massive groups,
sometimes in the millions.

And when a school
senses a predator,

they form into a tight
ball called a bait ball

and they let it rip all at once.

- [Sami] In lab tests,

researchers have
recorded the sounds

of herring passing gas sometimes
as high as 73 decibels.

That's about the equivalent
of an alarm clock

or a vacuum cleaner.

So now imagine the sound
of a vacuum cleaner

amplified by a million
times underwater.

That's a pretty deafening sound.

- [Andrew] It is a good thing
that the Swedes figured this out

before fish flatulence
caused World War III.

[dramatic music]

- When a big hurricane hits
Florida, the damage is massive,

but what washes up afterwards
is the real shocker.

[dramatic music]

- [Hakeem] In the fall of 2019,

Hurricane Dorian tears
through Florida's Cocoa Beach,

leaving a trail of destruction.

In addition to ruined
houses and flooded roads,

debris starts washing up.

There are broken
docks, fishing boats,

even huge 55-gallon oil drums.

[dramatic music]

- [Paul] One day a local
resident is walking

along the beach

when they see a lone duffle bag

along with all the other debris.

The duffle bag is covered
in seaweed and sand,

and they go to brush
it off and unzip it.

And then they freeze.

- Inside the duffle bag,

they find a series of
brick-shaped packages.

[dramatic music]

It looks just like a
scene out of "Miami Vice."

And if these are what
they look like they are,

they're also illegal,

and so they immediately
call the police.

- [Danny] Authorities
confirm this duffle bag

is holding 15 bricks of cocaine,

with a street value of nearly
half a million dollars.

- A few days later,
a married couple

is walking along the
beach around 20 miles away

when they come upon a
plastic-wrapped bundle.

This time it's stamped
with the word diamante,

which is Spanish for diamond.

They alert another officer,

and sure enough, it's
another package of cocaine.

[dramatic music]

- [Danny] Why is so much cocaine

suddenly washing up
across Florida's shores?

- It's no secret that smugglers

are often using the
water to ship cocaine.

They're using boats, they're
using even submarines.

- [Coast Guard Officer]
All right, go, go, go!

[fist banging]

- [Micah] Between late
2024 and early 2025,

the US Coast Guard intercepts
almost 24 tons of cocaine

from smugglers at sea.

And that's only what they
actually managed to catch.

They're unsure of how much more

might slip through the cracks.

- [Danny] These
seaside discoveries

are evidence of drug
traffickers risking their supply

to save themselves.

- When storms are on the way,

Coast Guard patrols ramp up.

This puts the heat on smugglers,

who sometimes panic and
dump their cargo overboard

to avoid getting caught.

- [Hakeem] Offshore
fishermen have a name

for these floating drug bundles.

They call them square groupers.

They often see them floating
just beneath the surface,

and most of them
eventually sink.

- [Paul] When a massive Category
5 storm hits, like Dorian,

which had 185-mile-
per-hour winds,

those groupers get swept along

with everything else
in the storm surge

and end up on the coast.

- [Danny] A few years
later, another storm blows

the Hurricane Dorian
discoveries out of the water.

- In 2024, as Hurricane
Debby slams South Florida,

US Customs and border patrol

find about 25 more
bricks of cocaine

that have washed ashore
80 miles from Key West.

Altogether, this haul
that they've discovered

weighs close to 70 pounds,

with an estimated street
value of more than $1 million.

[dramatic music]

- [Hakeem] I mean, these are
massive illegal fortunes

just sitting there on the sand.

And technically,

under salvage law,
it is finders keepers.

But if you happen
to find a duffel bag

full of Schedule II narcotics
just sitting around,

finders keepers is not
gonna hold up in court.

[dramatic music]

- A resurrected
rat, a killer cave,

and life in the
most unlikely place,

these are not just your
average discoveries.

They're examples of some of
the world's wildest wonders.

I'm Danny Trejo.

Thanks for watching
"Mysteries Unearthed."