All language subtitles for Expedition Files S04E02 Deadly Forecast 720p AMZN WEB-DL DDP2 0 H 264-RAWR[EZTVx.to]

On this episode of "expedition files"...

In 1846, a courageous
group of settlers known as

the "donner party" travel
halfway across the country

in search of a new
life, but find only death.

Starving, they cross the
ultimate line... cannibalism.

Now, we reveal shocking new details

about their horrifying final days.

Then, at the height of
the cold war, the U.S.

Builds a top-secret nuclear missile base

deep under the arctic...

before abandoning it years later.

Today, as the ice melts,

a ticking time bomb is revealed.

And in 1872, the Mary
Celeste is discovered drifting

in the Atlantic.

The ship is intact,
but the entire crew has

vanished into thin air.

Now, a shocking new theory
may uncover the truth behind

history's most haunting ghost ship.

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."

My mom's British, and
like all brits, she loves to talk

about the weather.

"It was sunny for a couple
of hours, then it was rainy

for a minute, then it was sunny again."

It's a real roller coaster.

But, you know, she might
actually be onto something,

because powerful weather
often leads to powerful stories.

And tonight, we brave
the toughest conditions

imaginable to discover the secrets

of three historic mysteries that unfold

where man and mother nature meet.

We begin on the 19th of July, 1846.

I'm at little Sandy river in Wyoming.

A caravan of roughly 20
wagons and 87 hopeful men,

women, and children are
crossing the country to realize

their dreams in California.

But here, at a fork in the
trail, that dream will turn

into a nightmare, all
because of a single choice,

left or right.

Weeks from now, this group will
become trapped in the snows of

the Sierra Nevada mountains,
culminating in starvation,

madness, and cannibalism.

The traumatized survivors
will speak of a place called

the camp of death, where
the unthinkable choice to

eat their own was first made.

But for nearly two centuries,
the location will be lost

to time until a new four-legged
search team reveals what may be

the true location of the
demise of the donner party.

Leading the donner party is
60-year-old George donner.

He, his wife tamsen,
and their children have left

their farm in Illinois in
search of a better life

on the California coast.

Sharing leadership duties
with donner is James Reed

and his family.

He's hoping California's
climate will improve his wife.

Margaret's poor health.

Joined by more than 80
other pioneers, the group

at first sets out along the
tried-and-true path west,

the Oregon and California trails.

But George and James
have a detour in mind,

something called the Hastings cutoff

that's said to take a
more direct route and trim

300 miles and a whole
month off the journey.

This supposedly faster route is
publicized by real estate mogul

lansford Hastings, mostly
to lure people to California,

where Hastings
conveniently has land to sell.

Hastings has promotional
letters distributed

along the trail.

George donner received one
just a week before his expedition

was set to begin.

Hastings' letter claims
the cutoff is not only

passable, but preferable.

His encouragement
fills the donner party with

confidence as they
set out on their journey.

There's just one problem.

Hastings had never fully traveled

the specific route he recommended.

Unaware that the
route is largely untested,

George, James, and the rest
of the party forge ahead from

little Sandy toward fort Bridger.

Just days into their
journey along the cutoff,

the supposedly easier
terrain turns out to be

a brutal slog through
Utah's mountainous terrain,

with boulders and fallen
trees blocking their path.

And after a month of
this, they're faced with

an even worse challenge,

an 80-mile crossing over
the great salt lake desert,

a barren, waterless expanse.

They run out of water.

Their wagons break,
and many of their livestock

escape or perish.

The pioneers are close
to their breaking point,

but remarkably, no
one in the party dies...

At least not yet.

Finally, on September
26th, the party is able to rejoin

the traditional trail.

This shortcut has left them

more than a month behind schedule.

They are now on winter's doorstep.

In fact, they're the last group
of settlers to attempt the trip

to California this year,

and their toughest challenge lies ahead.

They must climb 7,000 feet
and cross the Sierra nevadas

ahead of the coming snow.

Over the next four
weeks, the donner party

continues to unravel.

With food dwindling and
the conditions only getting

colder, several members
succumb to sickness and exhaustion.

As desperation sets in, tensions explode.

Co-leader James Reed stabs
another man during a dispute

and is banished from the group...

leaving his wife, Margaret,

alone to care for their children.

It's the beginning of a rift
between the expedition's

two leading families, the
donners and the reeds,

one that will have catastrophic results.

Eventually, the pioneers reach
the Sierra Nevada mountains,

the gateway to California.

But it is now early November,
and five members of the once

87-strong party are already dead.

As the expedition climbs
the eastern slopes of

the sierras, they reach alder creek,

where disaster strikes again.

George donner's wagon axle snaps,

forcing his family to stop.

It is here that the group fully splinters.

The party is officially over.

George and tamsen donner
decide to remain at alder creek,

along with their three
children and 16 others.

Meanwhile, Margaret Reed,
the wife of the banished

expedition leader James Reed,
continues toward a place called

truckee lake with the surviving
60 members of other families.

Margaret's group wants to
push through the mountain pass

before winter takes hold,

but mother nature has other plans.

Attempts to cross the
mountain pass are futile.

The snow is already falling,
and the trail is socked in.

The exhausted families
have no choice but to wait out

the winter here near truckee lake.

But sadly, many of them
will never see spring.

Margaret, her family,
and the rest of her group

desperately seek safety in
a series of rickety shelters

they build at truckee lake.

And their former companions
aren't faring any better.

Six miles back down the trail
at alder creek, George donner's

group are also weathering
the snowstorm, trying to forge

a permanent camp in the icy wilderness.

The donner party is forever fractured,

but united in suffering.

And conditions only
go from bad to worse.

A series of 100-year storms
roll in one after another,

and 25-foot-high snowbanks
wall them in like prisoners.

Their makeshift cabins
and lean-tos are no match

for the punishing snowfall.

The pioneers barely cling
to life, and with their animals

either dead or eaten,
they desperately turn

to gnawing the ox-hide
rugs they usually sleep on.

Back at truckee lake,
in a last-ditch bid for

survival, five women, nine
men, and a 12-year-old boy

make the harrowing choice to leave

their comrades behind and strike out

across the sierras on crude,
homemade snowshoes.

Their only hope is reaching
sutter's fort near Sacramento,

a well-known supply
station about 100 miles away.

This courageous band of pioneers

will later be known as the "forlorn hope."

A week into their grueling
journey, the forlorn hope's

progress grinds to a halt.

Snowed in and completely out of food,

they contemplate the horrifying
reality that their only chance

of survival means
resorting to cannibalism.

They draw straws to
decide the first person

who should die and be eaten.

A man named Patrick Dolan draws
the short straw, but nobody can

bear to kill him.

That night, temperatures continue to

plummet, and the next day,
Dolan dies, not at the hands of

the others, but because of hypothermia.

The members of forlorn hope
make the nearly impossible

decision to eat Patrick's remains.

This place deep in the
mountain wilderness will come

to be known as the camp of death...

The place where the
donner party are first

forced to eat their own.

No record tells us exactly
how many are eaten.

What is certain is Patrick
Dolan was not the only one.

Eventually, the weather clears,
and those remaining are finally

able to leave the camp of
death and its horrors behind.

Finally, on January
17th, 33 days after leaving

the others behind at truckee lake

in a desperate search for
help, the remaining members

of the forlorn hope are saved
by native American guides

who lead them to shelter.

The cost of their bravery is staggering.

Of the 15 who set
out, only seven survive.

Eventually, reaching the
remote frontier settlement of.

Johnson's ranch, the
survivors alert the outside world

and trigger rescue
efforts for the two groups

still stranded at truckee
lake and alder creek.

Rescue teams are dispatched
to reach the settlers before

it's too late, but what they discover will

expose the true cost of survival

and a mystery that
endures for 180 years.

It's 1847.

The rescue of the forlorn
hope marks a turning point,

triggering coordinated efforts
to reach the remaining members

of the donner party
snowed in at remote camps.

The first rescue team sets
out to find the stranded pioneers

at truckee lake, and
amazingly, they manage to

evacuate 23 survivors,
including Margaret Reed.

But heartbreak shadows the mission.

James and Margaret's two
youngest children are too weak

to travel and must be left behind.

At nearby alder creek,
the outlook is just as grim.

George donner is deathly
ill and his wife, tamsen,

refuses to leave with the rescuers.

Those rescuers can only promise
to send more help when they can

and hope it will arrive in time.

Two weeks later, a
second rescue team arrives,

but this time they're met
with a nightmarish reality.

At truckee lake, the remaining pioneers

had turned to cannibalism,

just like the forlorn
hope party had done first

at the camp of death weeks earlier.

Still, the team rescues
17 more people, including

the two Reed children
their mother was forced

to leave behind.

But George donner can't be saved.

He dies of infection.

And tamsen donner's body
is later found near the camp,

alongside chilling evidence
that George's brother Jacob

may have been their final meal.

Of the 87 who set out in
the donner party, 48 survived,

39 were lost.

Also lost was the exact
location where much

of the tragedy played out, the
place where the group known

as forlorn hope first
turned to cannibalism.

So, in 2022, I joined
historical researchers

Bob crowley and Tim twietmeyer
on a trek into the sierras for

the seemingly impossible task
of finding the camp of death.

By following the route of
the forlorn hope through

the Sierra nevadas and using
clues to the terrain they left

behind in diary entries, we
identify an area of interest

in what is today, California's
Tahoe national forest,

and fan out with metal detectors.

One survivor wrote in his diary
that they had left many items

behind, including his hand ax.

We knew we were hunting
for a needle, or a hand ax,

in a haystack.

But then it happened.

Hold on.

- You got something?
- Yeah, I got a hit.

Something here for sure.

That sounds like metal.

What did you find?

My word.

My word, look at that!

That's what we were looking for.

Unbelievable. Greg, what do you think?

- Wow, fantastic.
- Amazing.

Yeah, that is.

- That is... a hand-forged ax.
- This is wild.

I mean, could this really be?

And if this is that ax,
then we're standing in

- the camp of death.
- No doubt about that.

Amazing.

Unearthing the ax head was astonishing.

Finally, a tangible link to the lost camp

of the donner party.

But we found no trace of
the bodies of those that died

at the camp of death.

Recently, Bob and Tim
returned to the site we found,

and this time, they
brought cadaver dogs.

Canine forensics is a way of
training the dog to search out

and find human remains that
have been buried for decades,

if not centuries.

When we decided we
wanted to try to do a search at

the camp of death, we contacted

the institute for canine forensics.

And they connected us
with John grebenkemper

and his dog kayle, and
the forensics search began.

As the dog searches in a
pattern where it's directed,

it's kind of saying, "here's
an area I need you to search."

Kayle's wandering around, sniffing,

and sitting and wandering,
and John's marking these spots

with his GPS.

In the end, when they
searched for an hour or two,

she had like 25 alerts.

And then when you map that
at a high level, you can see

the concentration of where each
of the finds was made scattered

around in some of the
edges of the search pattern.

There's definitely something out there

that we wouldn't see somewhere else.

And we just kind of looked at
each other and went, "wow."

It became very clear to us
that this was the location that

we were looking for.

A subsequent search
with a different cadaver dog

confirmed the findings.

There were human remains
at the site, and it turns out

it's less than 30 feet
from where we discovered

the ax head.

The place known as the camp
of death had at last been found,

deep in a remote area

in the north fork American river canyon

of Tahoe national forest.

The courage and sacrifice
that took place at this long-lost

location is what saved
the rest of the donner party.

We did the calculation,
and that saved 25 additional

lives, which when we
did the actuarial table of

descendants, is 25,000
people that were born

because of the bravery
of what they'd done.

A lot of people have asked us,
what are we going to do next at

the camp of death?

And we have been in touch
with many of the descendants

of those in the forlorn hope,
and I think they were joyful to

learn that we believe we
found the camp of death,

and for those that were
descendants of those that

perished there, it gave
them closure, peace of mind.

We're gonna leave it at that.

The real story of the donner party

is not just a tale of macabre horror,

but a raw human saga.

Parents making unthinkable
sacrifices, strangers risking

everything for each other,
and pioneers braving it all

for a better life.

Their legacy is one of
exceptional resilience.

And now, for the first
time, we have another place

we can honor that legacy

with a hope that's not so forlorn after all.

Welcome to Greenland,
a frozen island in

the north Atlantic, roughly
three times the size of Texas.

It's 1966, and nearly 100 feet
below me lies camp century,

a cold war base with
a top-secret purpose.

Unfortunately, the ice beneath
me is shifting dramatically.

And so the U.S. soldiers

stationed here are abandoning
the base and sealing it up,

never to return.

But over 50 years later,
the relentless arctic elements

will expose the dirty
secrets of a forgotten outpost

of america, frozen in time.

Today, on the island of Greenland,

as part of man's
continuing efforts to master

the secrets of survival in the arctic,

the United States army has established

an unprecedented nuclear-powered

arctic research center.

This sounds like something
out of a cold war comic book,

but it's entirely real.

That smooth-voiced narrator
you just heard is from an old.

United States army film
strip, introducing what was

then hailed as a marvel
of military engineering,

camp century.

Nicknamed "the city under ice,"

camp century is a stunning
example of American ingenuity,

or so the army says.

Officially, the mission is to
improve glaciological research

and arctic survival strategies.

Construction kicks off in June, 1959,

but building a subterranean
base 100 feet beneath shifting

glacial ice requires solving
an avalanche of problems.

They have to dig massive
trenches in the ice and use

huge steel arches to keep the structure

from being crushed.

And temperature is a constant enemy.

Too much heat and the base
will melt from the inside out.

Too little, and the soldiers
will become human popsicles.

The final hurdle, getting
power to this underground city.

Meet the pm-2A, no relation to r2-d2.

This is the world's first
portable nuclear power plant.

If you define portable as a
330-ton behemoth, that has

to be shipped in pieces
and assembled like

radioactive Ikea furniture.

But once operational,
it delivers a whopping

two megawatts of electricity,

enough to power over 1,500 homes.

In October 1960, camp
century opens for business.

Twenty-one underground
tunnels stretching approximately

two miles under the ice,
complete with dormitories,

a mess hall, chapel,
hospital, even a theater.

The base can house over
200 people, which is exactly

what causes outsiders
to start asking questions.

Like, why is such a large facility needed

for "glacial research"?

Why do they require a nuclear reactor?

Why is the U.S. army calling the shots?

The answer?

This is no ordinary science base.

This is project iceworm, a
cold war weapon hidden behind

a scientific snowstorm.

The plan?

To secretly install hundreds of
nuclear missiles under the ice,

poised to strike the Soviet union

at a moment's notice.

Because at the dawn of the
'60s, many believe the world is

inching toward nuclear annihilation.

Why is Greenland so
perfect to house U.S. nukes?

Simple. It's close to Russia.

In 1957, the Soviet
union launches sputnik,

the first artificial satellite,
which sends shock waves

through the west.

More than a breakthrough, it's a warning.

If the Soviets can reach orbit,

they can strike across the globe.

Panic spreads, shelters
are built in backyards,

and kids practice duck-and-cover.

The cold war has arrived in everyday life.

So the U.S. responds
with stealth and scale.

The plan is for project
iceworm to sprawl beneath

52,000 square miles of ice,

hiding up to 600 nuclear
missiles, which will be

able to Pierce through
the ice upon launch.

But serious firepower
needs serious secrecy.

So the cover story of camp
century and its so-called

"glacial research" is born.

And the ruse works
until nature has its say.

It turns out the Greenland
ice sheet is anything but stable.

Tunnels warp, walls crack,
water seeps and pools.

The base is constantly soaked,
not to mention foul-smelling.

By 1964, the operation
is collapsing, literally.

Project iceworm is scrapped,
thankfully, before any missiles

arrive on the island.

And in 1966, the army begins
dismantling camp century.

The nuclear reactor is removed.

But in what will prove
to be a fateful decision,

everything else is left behind.

For decades, the details
of the base stayed buried

in heavily classified
files until January of 1995,

when the Danish foreign
policy institute launched

an inquiry into the history of
nuclear weapons in Greenland.

That's when project iceworm
was exposed to the public

for the very first time.

But the real shock came
after further research.

Hidden beneath the ice
wasn't just a ghost base.

It was a toxic hell.

53,000 gallons of leaking
diesel fuel, 63,000 gallons

of sewage-laced waste water,
and unknown amounts

of radioactive coolant.

The army assumed it would
all remain frozen forever.

What they didn't count
on was rising temperatures.

And now a shocking
catastrophe is coming,

a ticking time bomb under the ice.

When the Danish government
discovers the U.S. army

secretly hid highly toxic
waste in Greenland as part

of an abandoned nuclear weapons base,

there is widespread outrage.

Professor of ecology, Steven Allison,

has studied the site,
and what he's discovered

is deeply disturbing.

One of the materials present
at camp century is called pcb

or polychlorinated biphenyls.

They're carcinogens,
which could then have

human health impacts like
causing cancers or causing other

neurological problems,
reproductive issues, etc.

They bioaccumulate in the food chain.

What that means is that when
a predator eats a prey fish,

for example, then the predator
gets all the toxin that was in

that prey and so on and
so forth up the food chain.

That becomes a problem if
people are eating marine life

anywhere in the food chain.

So, those are some pretty
substantial negative impacts

that could arise from the legacy of toxins

at camp century.

In 2016, a team of
international scientists

applied the latest climate
models to the region.

The results show that
steadily warming conditions

make camp century a ticking time bomb.

What they found was that
by 2090, the ice would stop

building up, and after
2090, within 50 or 60 years,

the ice surface would
actually begin melting down,

exposing all of that nuclear
waste and other toxic material

to the environment.

Ok, so the U.S. army

made a mess and
now they just have to go

clean it up, right?

Well, first they have to go find it.

After all, nobody has stepped
foot inside camp century

for over 50 years.

In April 2024, a team of
NASA scientists took off on

a mission from the air force
base in northern Greenland.

On their jet plane,
they had a sophisticated

new radar system that would
allow them to map, in detail,

the structure of the
ice sheet and its depth.

And on this radar system,

they were able to find camp century,

buried below the ice
surface by about 200 feet.

As for the looming ecological disaster,

it's locked deep in ice, but it
isn't exactly easy to extract.

Right now, that toxic material
is buried underneath many

hundreds of feet of ice,
so it's not like we can just go

in there with a drill or
a shovel and take it out

and remove it.

We're gonna have to wait for
it to start moving and melting

out of the ice.

While we might not be
able to dig up the waste

before it's exposed,
scientists believe there may be

another way to clean up these
pollutants using nature itself.

One option might be to rely
on our natural ecosystems,

and the good news is
that we may be able to use

microorganisms like bacteria
to help clean up these pollutants.

I study microbes in the environment,

and there's potential that they
could break down compounds

like pcbs and the sewage
material that's coming out

of camp century, potentially in the future.

We have some examples
of this from oil spills

that have happened.

And there were actually
communities of microbes that

blossomed in that water
and chewed up and ate much

of the pollution.

We're still a long way from
being able to deploy microbes

on an industrial scale to
tackle the severe pollution

that remains at camp century.

But hopefully, through science, ingenuity,

and most importantly, our own sense of

responsibility, we will one
day be able to ensure that

the poisons of the past
don't define our future.

It's December 5th, 1872.

I'm standing on the deck of a
Canadian merchant ship called

the dei gratia.

We're 400 miles off
the coast of Portugal,

and captain David Reed more house

has just spotted something alarming,

a large ship that's seemingly
adrift in the open sea.

Moments from now,
morehouse's men will

board the vessel, and
what they discover will

chill them to their bones,
because this is the most

infamous ghost ship in history,
whose entire crew has vanished

without a trace.

It's a maritime mystery that
will endure for 150 years.

What happened to the
sailors of the Mary Celeste?

November 7, 1872, a
month before being found

adrift, the Mary Celeste sets
sail from New York harbor.

She's bound for genoa
to deliver 1,700 barrels

of denatured alcohol, used
as a cheap solvent and fuel.

The 37-year-old captain,
Benjamin spooner Briggs,

is an experienced sailor
commanding a crew of seven.

A devoted family man,
Briggs brings along his beloved

wife, Sarah, and their
young daughter, Sophia.

He doesn't want to be
separated from them

during the two-month round trip.

But little does captain Briggs
or anyone on board know,

the Mary Celeste will
never reach its destination.

Three weeks later, another
ship sailing the Atlantic, known as

the dei gratia, will stumble
upon the unhelmed Mary Celeste

in the 1,000-mile Gulf

between the azores islands and Portugal.

Pulling the dei gratia alongside her,

captain more house,
first mate Oliver deveau,

and several crew members
board the Celeste to investigate.

They find it deathly silent.

Ahoy!

Is anybody there?

No reply.

Eerily, there's also no
sign of struggle or violence.

But the sailors do notice
that the Celeste's sails are only

partially set, with ropes
and rigging hanging loose

and disorganized, as
if abruptly abandoned.

Captain more house
then heads below deck.

What he finds there will
only deepen the mystery of

what happened on
board the Mary Celeste.

Captain more house and
his men have stumbled upon

the Mary Celeste,
drifting at sea, abandoned.

As they search the vessel,
there are no signs of the crew

or the captain, Benjamin Briggs.

On the lower deck,
they find the galley tidy,

with the food stores intact.

Down in the cargo hold,
first mate deveau finds that

several of the barrels
of the denatured alcohol

the Celeste is transporting
are busted open.

But they are all accounted
for. None are lost or stolen.

The crew's quarters are
all in order, but there is

one curious thing.

The sailors have all
left their pipes behind.

Unusual.

That's something 19th-century sailors

would seldom be without.

As they explore the ship
further, deveau notices

something even stranger.

Many of the hatches,
doorways, and windows aboard

the Mary Celeste are open,

even here in the captain's quarters,

where the floor and the
furniture are soaking wet.

Whatever happened here,
everyone seems to have left

in a hurry.

And then, deveau zeroes in
on something that could reveal

everything, the captain's log.

Its pages run steadily until
November 25th, ten days prior.

The last note is routine,
just a navigational position.

After that, nothing.

Finally, morehouse's
men discover perhaps

the most compelling clue.

The Mary Celeste lifeboat
is missing, and oddly,

the ship's sail line is being
dragged behind the vessel

and appears to have snapped.

The ship's main navigational
instruments are also

not on board.

Based on these details,
plus the state of the captain's

quarters and the disarray on
deck, it appears Briggs ordered

everyone to quickly abandon ship.

But why?

Unable to solve the mystery
himself, captain more house has

the Mary Celeste
sailed to port in Gibraltar.

There, a formal inquest
commences on December 17, 1872.

The investigation focuses
on something curious.

It turns out that captain more house

of the dei gratia and captain Briggs

of the Mary Celeste
knew each other well.

It's even reported the two
captains were dining together

a few nights before the
Mary Celeste departure.

People begin to wonder if
the Celeste crew didn't go

missing at all, but
that the two old buddies

simply cooked up a mystery
to commit insurance fraud.

In spite of this intriguing
theory, the formal inquest

reveals no evidence of criminal activity.

After all, there wasn't enough
damage to the Mary Celeste

to warrant any claim to
the insurance company.

The three-month official
investigation concludes without

determining any credible cause
for the crew's disappearance.

Over the years,
countless theories surface.

One of the most enduring
is the waterspout theory,

a sudden violent tornado at sea
that whipped up towering waves

and drove the crew to
abandon ship in the lifeboat.

It sounds plausible until
you remember two things.

First, the Mary Celeste
showed no serious damage.

And second, fleeing
into a small lifeboat during

a waterspout would have
been suicide, not salvation.

In the decades that follow,
the mystery of the Mary Celeste

will seize the world's imagination.

From sea monsters rising out
of the deep to alien abductions,

to the more earthly
idea of a pirate attack.

Yet piracy was virtually
unheard of in those waters.

And with no signs of
violence or missing cargo,

that explanation never held.

But now a credible scientific
explanation has surfaced,

one that may finally unravel
the enigma of history's

most infamous ghost ship.

In 1846, the donner
party became trapped

in the deep snows of the
Sierra Nevada mountains,

resorting to cannibalism to survive.

More than a century later,
in 1972, Uruguayan charter

flight 571 crashed in the frigid andes,

with 45 aboard... rugby
players, friends, and family.

Twelve died instantly and more
followed over 10 hellish weeks

in the frozen wilderness.

Two young men finally
hiked 10 brutal days for help,

saving the other survivors.

Like the donner party,
they faced the unthinkable,

consuming the dead to live.

Today, survivor Eduardo
strauch leads private tours to

the crash site, sharing lessons
of perseverance and bravery.

The incident is a reminder,
just like the donner party,

of the unbreakable will to survive

when all hope seems lost.

For a century and a half,
the question of what happened

aboard the ghost ship
known as the Mary Celeste has

remained a mystery.

Now, historian Brian Hicks
proposes a bold new theory.

The crew wasn't undone
by pirates or sea monsters,

but by something within the vessel itself.

The investigation of the Mary Celeste,

when it was brought into port in Gibraltar,

found that nine barrels of
alcohol had busted open.

That was 450 gallons.

Denatured alcohol is kind
of industrial alcohol, the sort

of thing used in solvents
as a fuel additive.

The fumes from it can cause
serious medical damage

to a person and not
only knocking you out,

but making you hallucinate
and making you physically ill,

- vomiting, what have you.
- Don't worry.

When the Mary Celeste left
New York City in the middle

of storms, for three weeks,
the storms were so bad,

they couldn't open the cargo
hold because the rainwater

and the storms would have
flooded the ship and sank it.

On the morning of November
25th, they had the first chance

since they'd left New
York to open the hold.

And I think that after
three weeks of sailing,

the fumes overtook them immediately.

According to Hicks' research,
the massive amount of fumes

from that 450 gallons
of industrial-strength,

denatured alcohol would
have quickly filled the entire ship

with noxious gas, causing panic

and impairment for everyone on board.

The biggest thing that this
explains is, why was every

hatch, why was every window,
why was every door, why was

the skylight over the captain's
bed and his baby's bed left

open on a ship? They
were letting it air out.

They also realized
that the least little spark

could blow up the entire ship.

One of the things that scared
Oliver deveau more than anything

is when he was going
through the crew cabin,

he noticed there were pipes.
There was a pipe for every man.

Left lying there.

Sailors never went
anywhere without their pipes.

And there's only one reason
those guys would not have had

their pipes, and that was
that they couldn't light a match.

When you're in the middle
of the ocean and your ship is

spewing fumes out of the
hold, what would you want to do?

You would want to get away.

They didn't take the
time to tie up the sails,

furl the sails.

They didn't have time to rope
off the wheel, where the ship

would sail in a circle. They just got off,

but they expected to come back.

They simply got a lifeboat,
grabbed the longest rope that

they could find, which was
the main sail line, tied it to

the lifeboat and backed away.

And that way they could get
as far from the ship as they could

and still remain tethered to it.

Hicks believes the crew
retreated in panic, wanting to

stay close, but not too
close to their vessel,

which they feared might
explode at any moment.

But what happened next?

Why didn't they return
to the Mary Celeste

once the fumes died down?

I checked the weather
reports for the azores that day.

And that afternoon, the
weather went from calm,

sunny, no wind, to this huge storm.

And it was just enough
of a storm to make

the Mary Celeste take
off, towing that lifeboat.

And at some point, the Mary
Celeste would have gone

a lot faster than that lifeboat could travel.

And whether the lifeboat
capsized first or the towline

snapped first, the end
result was Benjamin Briggs,

his wife, his baby daughter,
and those crewmen in the water

watching their ship sail
away without a soul on board.

If you've got 10 people in a
small lifeboat in the middle

of the Atlantic ocean,
no sails, no provisions,

there is no good outcome.

They are either gonna die of exposure,

starvation, or the boat's
gonna capsize and they're all

gonna drown. There is no way out.

Hicks' theory is compelling.

The crew of the Mary Celeste,
in a confused and terrified

state, take to their lifeboat
only to have the weather

suddenly change,
tragically sealing their fate.

Still, there are lingering questions.

Why take navigational
tools into the lifeboat if

they intended to return
once the fumes cleared?

And why wasn't the lifeboat

or remains of the crew ever found?

Without definitive evidence,
the mystery of the Mary Celeste

will sail on, eternally drifting through

the mists of time.

I'm Josh gates.

I'll see you on the next expedition.