All language subtitles for Atlas.of.Cursed.Places.S01E01.The.Curse.of.the.Bermuda.Triangle.720p.WEBRip.x264-CAFFEiNE.eng

Sam: When I was a kid I drew
all over the wall with a marker,

I'm sure I had a good reason,

Although it escapes me now,
but I did realize that I was

Going to get in a ton
of trouble and so I hit on

The perfect alibi,
the easter bunny did it.

That was airtight, you
can't poke holes in that.

No one knows where
the easter bunny is.

Problem was my parents didn't
believe in the easter bunny anymore,

I was busted.

I learned a hard lesson that
day about the nature of magic.

Now sadly I'm an adult
and I envy my younger self,

The one who believed in magic.

Did the wrinkles and
gray hair grow an adverse

Relationship to wonder.

So what does the easter bunny
have to do with the bermuda triangle?

We miss that wonder,
we long for a world with magic in it.

So here I am on the edge of
a boat in the bermuda triangle

And I'm hosting a tv
show about curses,

So maybe all hope isn't lost.

There's a desire to believe in
something beyond our understanding,

Can a science minded skeptic,
like myself,

Reignite the spark of magic?

Is there an intersection point
between science and myth?

Wait, what was that?

Dude,
that was a (bleep) shark, man.

Oh there he goes.

There goes the genius.

Sam: I used to be a
professional sailor and at

Some point I've crossed
most of the world's oceans on

Various sail boats,
and I've seen some

Pretty strange things.

Cheers guys. Nobody knows.

If you wanna hear some stories
just mix sailors and alcohol

And you'll turn on a spigot
you wish you could stop.

Who's got like a good
bermuda triangle story?

Advertise your product or brand here
contact www.OpenSubtitles.org today

Sam: Deep underneath it? Man:
Yeah. Sam: It's probably godzilla.

Man: Yeah. Sam:
What's the vortex?

Neal: It's a spot where all
the instruments go crazy and

It's like a portal to another
dimension or something.

Sam: Have you guys seen
anything like that around

Here, like, weird stuff?

Neal: I mean, there's no way.

Neal: I mean,
you guys all know steve nolands, right,

Like his story about they're
were like 40 knots or so,

You got three or
four guys on the boat.

One green light came
screaming up behind the boat and

Then it came around
to the side of the boat,

They're still doing 40 knots,
lit up the whole side of the

Boat and then they say it took
off like a rocket in front of them.

Man: (bleep)...

Sam: That's crazy,
man. Neal: Yeah.

Sam: What do you guys
think happened to flight 19?

Sam: Right.

Sam: Right.

Sam: The story of the bermuda
triangle really has three chapters,

Plane crashes,
ship wrecks and the

Mysterious disappearances
of entire crews.

We call those ghost ships.

But are any of these
chapters truly anomalist?

Is the bermuda triangle
more dangerous than the rest

Of the world's oceans?

We'll analyze the planet's
most infamous curse with a

Skeptical forensic mind.

So here it is, this is it,
this is the bermuda triangle.

You know, florida,
bermuda to puerto rico.

You know,
it's about 500,000 square miles.

The fact is there have
been countless incidents,

Millions on the world's
oceans since the first

Seafaring people set out
nearly 50,000 years ago.

Most of these are easy to explain,
you know,

Bad weather, human error,
faulty equipment.

The ocean's a big bad place,

But I'm interested in the
events here that have some

Mystery surrounding them,

Where it's harder to put
your finger on the cause.

So I've hand selected some
of the most cryptic occurrences

And created incident maps
of the areas surrounding the

Bermuda triangle.

You can see there's hundreds
and hundreds of ship wrecks

And plane crashes.

This cluster here
has gotta be flight 19.

The disappearance of flight
19 is the foundation of the

Bermuda triangle legend.

In early December in 1945,
five navy planes took off from

Florida on a training
mission with 14 men on board.

Those planes,
the infamous flight 19,

Disappeared without a trace,

But then one of the rescue
planes that goes looking for them

Also completely vanishes

And now you have
the seeds for a mystery.

300 boats and planes
searched the water for five days,

Not one shred of
wreckage was ever found.

This concrete shipwreck
off the coast of bimini is the

Last witness to
the missing planes.

While it can't tell
its story in words,

I'd love to find some shrapnel
of evidence of what happened

To flight 19,
something to ease my skeptic mind and keep

The hope for a
magical world alive.

Sam: As lovely
as this location is,

As lucid and clean the water,
I can't help but think that of

The 27 young men who flew
over this stretch of unforgiving

Ocean and vanished forever in
the darkness of the coming night,

All those families ripped apart,

Children left behind without
ever knowing what happened,

Without closure,
without understanding.

Did those young men
fall victim to a mysterious

Geo-physical curse?

What happened out
there in the darkness?

Terry: This is actually
the lead ship of flight 19.

Sam: Wow,
the exact same plane as this as flight 19?

Terry: Yes.

Sam: The final words of the
men on flight 19 have been

Studied and poured over.

Every sentence and word
analyzed in depth by the

Navy's after-action report.

And then, of course,
reanalyzed by armchair

Historians and hacky
cursed tv shows.

Walk me through it, what
happened to flight 19, what's the deal?

Terry: It was a training
flight for navigation

Training, believe it or not.

Sam: So we just back from the sapona,
which we dove on.

That was their target.

So we know they dropped
their bombs on the sapona.

What was their path after that?

Terry: Due east. Sam: Due east.

Terry: For another
60-70 miles. Sam: Okay.

Terry: Then make a turn to the north,
northwest.

Sam: What happened? Terry:
It's a big mystery to this day.

Nobody knows exactly
what happened to them.

Sam: Nobody knows,
but there are theories.

Colleen stirling is the
lebron james of aviation

Probability analysis.

You maybe didn't know there
was a lebron james of that.

After two years of searching
for air France flight 447,

Colleen was brought in as part of
a small team to reanalyze the data,

They found the wreckage
in less than five days.

Colleen: Well the first
thing we did is looked at the

500-page navy
report that came out.

The communications,
all the radar hits that they had,

And we wrote a chronology.

The key transmissions.

Everything is mapped based,
right.

So I'll put like where they
launched from and the time,

And then I'll draw the line
where they were supposed to go

And then I can calculate with
the wind and their heading how

Long it should have
taken them to get to their

First turn point.

I thought about that first
turn point and then I said,

Well,
where could they have gone from there?

They were trying to go
back to the northwest,

But the wind was blowing them
and they may have not made the

Turn sharp enough and might
have got significantly blown

To a different heading.

Man (over radio): Powers.

What is your compass reading,
powers?

Powers (over radio): I
don't know where we are.

Must have gotten
lost after that last turn.

Man (over radio): Mt-28,
this is ft-74,

What is your trouble?

Powers (over radio): Ah,
both my compasses are out and

I'm trying to find fort lauderdale,
florida.

Sam: So this is
the compass here.

Terry: That's the magnetic compass.
Sam: That's the magnet compass.

So he would be looking at this,
what else would he be looking at?

Terry: He would look at
that and then hit down on

His instrument panel.

He'd have what's called the
gyrocompass here that you set

This with this knob
to agree with this.

Sam: To agree to that.
Terry: This bounces around.

Sam: Sure. Terry:
That one is very stable.

Colleen: Taylor,
who's the flight lead was talking about

The compass didn't look right.

He was starting to get confused.

Sam: Don't they know
they have to get back?

Colleen: Taylor thought
that they needed to fly to the

Northeast because he
thought they were over

The florida keys.

Sam: How did he think he was?

Colleen: It's very hard to
imagine him getting that lost.

He doesn't seem to have his
wits about him on this flight.

Then you hear them
arguing on the radio,

It's really sad.

Sam: I bet.

Taylor (over radio):
We've just passed over a

Small island and we
have no other land in sight.

Man (over radio): Turn on
your emergency iff gear or

Do you have it on?

Taylor (over radio):
Iff gear was off,

I'm turning it on now.

Sam: What's iff gear?

Terry: Iff is an acronym for
identification friend or foe.

Sam: Okay.

Terry: Right here, for example,
see this says 1,200.

In an iff they would have
given them a code to squawk.

Sam: To put as friend.

Terry: Put in there and they
would be picked up on their radar.

Sam: He didn't have it on.
Terry: He didn't have it on.

Sam: Should he have had it on?

Terry: Especially if I want
help in finding out where I am.

Sam: Right.

Taylor (over radio):
Ft-28 to (inaudible) three,

One of the planes in the flight
thinks if we went 270 degrees

We could hit land.

Terry: 270, that's due west.

Sam: So that's somebody with a
descent compass or somebody else is like,

Hey we just go 270
we're gonna hit land.

Terry: 'cause to get to
their bombing target they

Flew due east.

Sam: Right.

Terry: Well just fly due west and it
will take you back where you came from.

Sam: Right,
we'll hit land some point.

Terry: Yeah.

Man (over radio): Ft-28,
all planes in flight

Change course to
0-90 for one minute.

Sam: So now they're going...

Terry: Back east again.
Sam: Back eat again.

Powers (over radio):
Dammit if we just fly west we

Would get home.

Hold it, head west. Dammit

Colleen: Powers,
who was the ranking guy on the flight,

He kept saying
we need to go west.

And then it gets
corroborated with a radar track

That came from the
solomon's aircraft carrier.

Sam: And where
did that see them?

Colleen: The radar track
showed aircraft going south,

Sam: Hm colleen: Over land.

There's a good chance
that it could be somewhere in

This mid peninsular,
east coast of florida region.

Sam: So that wouldn't
surprise you at all?

Colleen: No,
the model supports that.

Sam: Wow.

Taylor (over radio): We
are now flying 2-70 degrees.

We will fly 2-70 degrees
until we hit the beach or

Run out of gas.

Sam: And now they know
they're in trouble cause it's like...

Terry: They're out of time.

Sam: They're
gonna run out of gas.

Terry: And they just don't
have a clue where they are.

Taylor (over radio):
When the first plane drops

Below ten gallons we
all go down together.

Everyone understand that?

Five planes flown by navy
pilots vanished into the night.

Then one of the rescue
planes that went after

Suffered the same fate.

Collectively the strange
event is known as flight 19.

Taylor (over radio): We have
just passed over a small island and

We have no other land in sight.

Sam: It's the single biggest
event that gave the cursed

Triangle its name.

But here's a question,
what if the planes didn't

Really go down inside
the bermuda triangle?

Does the curse
dissolve into thin air?

Taylor (over radio):
When the first plane drops

Below ten gallons,
we all go down together,

Does everyone understand that?

Colleen: There's a good chance
that it could be somewhere

In this mid peninsular,
east coast of florida region.

They actually could have
made it back and started heading

South in the time that
they had before they

Ran out of fuel.

Sam: Wow.

For 70 years this
disappearance gripped the

Imagination and people
assumed they crashed at sea,

And what this model is showing
me is that there is this whole

Other search area that
no one's even looked at.

Colleen: There are still
corners of florida that

Nobody's been in
because it's inaccessible for

One reason or another.

Sam: I don't usually follow
up on leads when they involve,

Like, some dude who heard
something from another guy

Who may or may not
have seen something.

But colleen's identified a
search zone near a turtle

Preserve in central florida,
and there just happens to be a

Guy with a story about
a crashed airplane.

How do you know that this
is the plane we're looking for,

Flight 19?

Nate: Well john myhre,

One of the leading
researchers for flight 19,

His theory was that the
five airplanes separated

At some point in time off the
eastern coast of florida when

They were trying to find land.

Sam: Right,
when they got real low on fuel.

Nate: Right,
john thought the ft-81 actually made it

Back over land.

Sam: Right.

Nate: And the diagram that he drew,
based on his theory,

Put ft-81 in this particular
area of florida at about the

Time it ran out of gas.

Sam: Really?

Nate: So, we've been out
here looking for this particular

Wreck site for a while because
we've been out here choppering

Around in basically
everglades type of conditions.

Sam: As horrific
and sad as it sounds,

Planes crash all the time.

If we find out where any part
of flight 19 actually went down,

Well,
then the planes didn't disappear at all,

And definitely not in
the bermuda triangle.

And they're just part of a
tragic list with thousands and

Thousands of other entries.

Nate: When john passed away,
we're not really sure what

Happened to his notes
and we had hurricane dorian

This fall and it really
flooded the area.

Without john's notes we're
looking for the proverbial

Needle in the haystack,
but we're not even sure which

Haystack to look in.

Sam: With colleen stirling
confirming this area as the

Most likely location
that flight 19 went down,

We decided to bring
in some technology to

Speed up the search.

So, this is a lidar drone,
what does that mean?

John: So it is a multirotor
quadcopter and it has a lidar unit on it.

Sam: Right.

John: Basically the same principle
as a police man with a speed gun,

Shoots out a laser,
hits something solid,

The return comes back
and then it highly accurately

Marks those points.

It's millions of
points of rotation,

Thousands of rotations a second.

And when it's all said and
done mike he'll filter it out

So we can actually get
the vegetation away and

Look for the impressions.

Sam: Great,
well let's get it done.

John: Arming the props.

Alright taking off.

Michael: Since we have
that high level of accuracy,

All of those like bottom points,

We're going to be really
highly confident that those

Are actually ground.

That's what's gonna, you know,
allow us to give you guys some

Awesome representation of
this landscape as if we had just,

You know,
burned all the vegetation down.

So,
basically what we're looking for is

Artificial features.

Right down in here
is a nice little cross,

You see this impression
here that creates this line?

It's pretty darn straight,
and then you have another one

Right here.

It's very unusual for a
natural feature to have such

Pretty geometry, right?

I think this is the best
place to look for this wreck.

Sam: Alright.

Nate: Straight ahead here.

Just head a little bit left.

We should be
getting pretty close.

There's a break in
the weeds right there.

Sam: There's something
there. Nate: What you got?

Sam: Something burned up. Oh yeah,
that's it man.

Nate: There we go. Sam:
Right that's gotta be it.

Nate: That's,
that's gotta be it. Look.

That would have been
attached to a back of an engine.

There's the tire.

Sam: Cool.

Nate: It came in pretty steep.

There's all kinds
of debris in here.

That would have
been the iff unit.

The friend or foe unit.

Sam: Okay, yeah.

Taylor (over radio):
Iff gear was off.

I'm turning it on now.

Sam: What would be
the next step for you?

Nate: The rest of the
airplane is probably buried.

What we're looking for is a data
plate on the front on the engine,

But to dig in the wildlife
management area,

We have to have a
separate permit to do that,

But it is something that
we can come back and do.

Sam: While we need a serial
number to say if this wwii era

Wreck is one of the
plants from flight 19,

There's a chance that at
least one of them is not lost

In the bermuda triangle at all.

Nate: You know,
this could be ft-81.

Sam: Which would mean some of them,
at least,

Made it back to land.

Nate: Right.

Sam: The truth is the
psychological grip of the

Bermuda triangle's curse
extends well beyond six

Missing planes.

So while nate works on
digging out the engine block.

Sam: My investigation moves to phase two,
ghost ships.

Yourself sitting in a
dark room at 3:00 am,

Half eaten turkey sandwich,
typing bermuda triangle

Mysteries into
the search engine.

What you tend to find are
long lists of disappearances,

Ships and planes vanishing
and there's a list of theories

That goes along with it.

Magnetic fields, mermaids,
gigantic undersea methane bubbles,

But it goes way out to alien
wormholes and time vortices,

Atlantis,
were they sucked under by the kraken?

Now some of these
theories are fairly bonkers,

But others, you know,
they seem pretty plausible.

And then sometimes you find
something that does seem real

And fascinating and
truly inexplicable,

Something that on the surface
defies any rational explanation.

Here's maybe the most
interesting incident map.

This is ghost ships.

So ghost ships were
ships that are just floating,

Drifting in the ocean
with nobody on them.

And this is from the
us hydrographic survey.

They documented
1,600 ghost ships.

Yeah, there's something
very sort of eerie and terrifying

In this idea of 1,600 ships out here and,
you know,

You don't know what
happened to the crew.

I mean, where did everybody go?

Or where are the bodies?

How this is happening?

During a seven year
survey starting in 1887,

The us hydrographic
office found the existence of

1,600 ships floating
a sea without a single

Soul on board.

1,600 floating ships
and zero sailors.

That math seems off.

Now,
I'm not saying that it's not aliens,

Cause it could be,

But let's see how a
scientist who studies the

World's oceans explains it.

Arthur: They call this
area the doldrums.

Sam: The doldrums.

Arthur: The atmospheric
circulation starts with a lot of

Warm moist air rising from
the pacific in the tropical area,

And once it reaches high
altitudes it starts heading

Towards the poles,
and at a certain latitude,

Which is in this area,
the air starts sinking.

Sam: Yeah.

Arthur: And associated
with them is very little wind.

So pre-19th century
all the ships were sails.

Sam: Right.

Arthur: So these sail boats
required wind to move.

Sam: Right,
so it just sort of sits there.

Arthur: And it just sits there,

But other things like large
mats of sargassum weed,

Which are less buoyant than water,
they float.

You had these mats of
sargassum weed that you just

Literally got stuck in,

Big mats,

100 yards wide and
almost a mile long.

Sam: Wow.

Arthur: You're stuck.

Sam: Yeah, you imagine six
weeks of it or seven weeks of it,

Running out of water.

Arthur: And you're
hoping for some wind,

You're hoping to
find some current.

Yeah.

Sam: You're hoping for something to blow,
right?

Well I can't imagine anything
creepier than running into a ship

Arthur: In the
middle of nowhere.

Sam: With nobody on
it. What's your theory?

Why would all these
boats end up empty?

Arthur: There are some people out
there that believe aliens are involved.

Sam: Sure.

Arthur: But you know,
I'm a scientist,

I'm waiting to see the first true
documented case of the alien abduction.

Sam: Right.

Arthur: But they do have
these ocean vortices.

If you got caught in those,
you go, oh great...

Sam: I'm going somewhere.

Arthur: I'm finally in
some decent curent

Arthur: But they spin around
and in the order of nine,

Ten days, they basically bring
you back to the same location.

Sam: Which would be tough
if you're running out of water.

Arthur: And as you know,
if you drink salt water,

Over time it makes
you a little crazy if

You're getting dehydrated.

Sam: You can hallucinate
and things like that. Yeah.

Arthur: And that,
it helps to add to all the great legends...

Sam: Right.

Arthur: About mermaids and
monsters and maelstroms and...

Sam: The bermuda triangle,
right.

Arthur: And the
bermuda triangle.

Sam: You can sort of imagine
the mariners out here during

The age of sail being stuck,
but I think that's why sailors

Get so superstitious cause
they have so little control

Over the weather
and so many things.

So you never sail on a Friday,
you gotta be careful whistling

On a boat cause you
can whistle up a breeze.

You know, there's a trillion
sailor superstitions and it

Probably comes from a
sense of powerlessness

And being trapped.

We were at hamilton harbor
in bermuda and I was anchored

There in an 85 foot steel ketch.

A tail end of a hurricane
came through and we heard

On the radio six vessels,
you know, calling for help,

Abandoning ship.

These were inexperienced
sailors and to them it felt

Like the world was ending
and water's coming in,

And you know it's intense.

You could hear on the
radio fear just warping their

Perception and putting them
in a bad spot where, you know,

If they had been
through it one time,

If they had lived through it one
time they would have known,

They're gonna survive
it and that their other

Options are worse.

So many times, you know,
these vessels turn up floating and

The crew died and
they could have stayed,

And they would have
been wet and miserable,

But they would have lived.

Sam: Listen,
inexperienced sailors make mistakes,

But for that to be
replicated 1,600 times,

Come on, that's a mystery.

Humans are a complex animal
and there's a lot of variation

Within our species.

If you walk down the street and
go into a bar or a grocery store,

Everybody acts different.

Some people are loud,
some are quiet, some walk fast,

Some walk slow.

But if something scary happens,

Then boom in the face fear,

Instincts kick in and
we all move in unison.

But is that enough to
explain how 1,600 crews

Of stranded sailors all
repeated the exact same

Behavior time after time,
after time?

Dr. George everly wrote the
book on the human stress response

And you know what's super stressful,
abandoning ship.

George: What would cause a seasoned
professional, a professional sailor...

Sam: Right.

George: To lose rationality
and abandon the ship?

Now we do know extreme
stress does allow a part of

The brain to hijack your
more rational centers.

There's a part of the
brain called the amygdala.

And the amygdala is the home of what we
sometimes call the fight or flight response.

Sam: Right.

George: And every once and
a while the amygdala can hijack

Executive functions,
it overrides it if you will.

Sam: Okay.

George: So we begin to
do irrational things and it

Begins mildly irrational.

If I can drink some salt water
maybe it will buy me enough

Time for maybe a miracle.

The brain is concerned
about survival.

It could lead one
to do anything in a

Moment of desperation.

I'm dry, that's wet,
I'll try it out.

So going overboard
seems like a really good idea

Until you go overboard
and find out it's not.

Sam: Your kidneys can only
handle so much salt in your

Diet and salt water
from the ocean has

Four times that amount.

So drinking salt water
basically starts a doomsday

Clock in your body.

The minute you take your
first sip you start dying.

The marine core came
up with condition black,

Catastrophic failure of
your cognitive abilities

Because of stress.

You know the classic line from
the rhyme of the ancient mariner is,

"water,
water everywhere and not a drop to drink."

It was a real thing.

I think dehydration plays a
bigger role as dehydration

Gets into people they
start drinking salt water and

Eventually they start
getting off the boat.

To me the ghost ships
aren't some sort of symptom

Of a cursed bermuda triangle,

It's a weather pattern
that causes ships

To get stuck and then
human instinct causes people

To make bad decisions.

It's the perfect storm
repeating over and over.

Maybe the real mystery
isn't some dark external force,

But something inside
of our own minds.

Maybe we're a species of
mammal that was never meant to

Be on the ocean at all.

Tuff has been happening in the

Bermuda triangle
for a long time,

Some people think it
goes all the way back

To christopher columbus who
saw strange lights in the sky,

And he later lost his flag ship,
the santa maria.

In the five centuries since
countless other ships have

Vanished in this 500,000
square mile stretch of ocean,

But is there really something
supernatural happening here or

Is the open ocean just a
dangerous place to be?

I'd really like to get into
some of these ship wrecks.

I'm curious as to whether we can find,
you know,

Some kind of root cause
for this pattern of ship wrecks.

You know, it could be currents,

It could be shallow
water in here,

This is all the bahamas and
there's a ton of huge sections

Of 1 foot,
2 foot sand banks and all kinds of reefs

That aren't even marked today.

And some of that
might be the explanation,

But I think we need
to dig a little deeper.

An estimated three million ship
wrecks litter the ocean bottom

And less than 1% have
ever been explored.

There are logical explanations
for the wrecks around bermuda,

The knife edge reefs,

The high traffic,
even hurricanes.

But most armchair bermuda
triangle experts will point to

The more mysterious
events like the disappearance

Of the uss cyclops.

The cyclops is to ship wrecks,

What flight 19 is
to plane crashes.

In March of 1918,

The last transmission
the ship sent on its way

Through the triangle gave the
impression of bright sunny skies,

Fair weather and then she
disappeared without a trace.

No distress call.

No sign of wreckage.

309 men vanished.

Sam: What do the conditions
down there look like?

Neal: They're good, I mean,
you can definitely see it's

Snapped in half.

There's half of a wreck
sitting on the bottom.

It's the stern portion of it.

It was a shipping boat that
went down in the early 90s.

Sam: It's not the cyclops,

But neal found a much
more recent wreck

That may offer a clue.

A ship that appears
to be snapped in half.

You said it was the tail
end of hurricane andrew?

Neal: It was shortly after the
hurricane. They were bringing supplies.

Sam: They didn't
hit anything out here?

Neal: There's
nothing to hit out here.

Sam: Who knows what happened. Neal: Yep,
who knows.

It took a little while
for us to find it,

But we fixed a mooring
on it and there's a

Temporary chain and
line that we'll follow down.

Sam: So if I don't make it back,
tell my mom I love her,

Okay you guys? Thanks.

Sam: Yes. No. Man: No come on.

Sam: No. None of
you get my vuarnets.

Sam: I can understand how
bad weather can make a ship

Capsize or a torpedo or boiler
room explosion could knock a

Hole in the side,
but to crack so cleanly in half,

How would that happen?

And could this be a clue as to
how the cyclops and so many

Other ships have been lost?

Tim janssen is a physical
oceanographer and he has a

Scientific theory that might explain
all these sudden disappearances.

It's something I heard rumors
about when I was sailing

Around the world in my 20s,
the terrifying rogue wave.

What's your definition
of a rogue wave?

Tim: The general definition
that everybody understands,

It's a very,
very big wave and then there's the sort of

Scientific version of that,
which doesn't like big or

Large because
it's not very precise.

Sam: Okay.

Tim: So you measure for a while,

You pick the highest
one third of the waves,

You average that number and
that's the significant wave height.

A wave that is twice as big as that,
that's formally called a rogue wave.

Sam: Right.

Tim: So the draupner wave
was the first time that we

Actually measured a wave
that was qualifying as a literal

Rogue wave, like, you know,
two times the significant wave

Height in an already
very large wave field.

Sam: Where was it? What was it?

Tim: This was off the coast of norway,
the north sea.

Sam: When was that?

Tim: This was in 1995.

Sam: So pretty recently.

Like,
they've only had a real scientific proof of

Any of this in '95.

For centuries the scientific
community wrote off the

Concept of rogue waves as just
tall tales told by drunken sailors,

Exaggerations
that are unreliable.

Then in the mid 90s the
draupner oil platform was

Being battered by some
run of the mill 40 foot waves

When a monster
came out of nowhere,

Nearly 90 feet tall,

A rogue wave smashed
into the draupner oil platform.

Recently a nasa study
determined that any given time

There are as many as ten
rogue waves happening in

The world's oceans.

Tim: Most people were
sort of like discarding that

As sort of like, you know,
mermaid type stories.

Sam: Right.

Tim: A rogue wave is rare,
but it's not impossible.

Like, you know, three in 10,000.

Sam: Right.

Tim: You know, a 100 foot wave,

We see them all the time.

Sam: Really?

I didn't have a plan,
but then an old family friend

Offered me a job fixing up
a yacht and then sailing it

Around the world.

I mean, he was gonna pay me.

Well, I knew that opportunity
could never come again,

So I kept my mouth shut
and he never realized how

Clueless I was,
and I took the job.

Three and a half years on
the ocean will teach you a lot,

But luckily during
all that time we never

Hit one of these.

Tim: A rogue wave is rare,
but it's not impossible.

Like, you know, three in 10,000.

Sam: Right.

Tim: You know, a 100 foot wave,

We see them all the time.

Sam: Really?

Now I've never (bleep)
myself as an adult,

But if I was sailing along
and I looked up into the

Shadow of an eight
story high wave,

That might be the time.

Tim: If you have a significant
wave height of say 17-18 meters,

That means that in that
wave field there's going

To be waves that are going
to be way bigger than that.

They have to be.

Sam: There has to be a
wave twice that at some point.

Tim: Absolutely otherwise
you wouldn't get the

Average of 17 meters, yeah.

Sam: Right, wow.

That's a lot of water, man.

Tim: It is.

Sam: Okay,
here's where we get to the good part.

You're on your freighter
and you're in a storm and a

100 foot wave is coming at you
from some unknown direction.

What kind of things
might happen?

Tim: A single large wave
could put stresses on a

Vessel that you
normally wouldn't have.

You would have like just one very wave,
say,

In the middle of the vessel
lifting it up and you have two

Sides that aren't supported,

Putting a lot of
stress in the middle.

Sam: And that's how a 550
foot long steel ship snaps in half

Just like a baseball bat
over bo jackson's knee.

How cool was bo jackson,
by the way?

Tim: Whether or not boats
disappear because of rogue waves,

Undoubtedly yes. How often,
we don't know.

Sam: Sure

Tim: And whether or not all these
vessels are due to rogue waves?

I think that question is open.

Sam: Yeah.

No, I mean,
it's like the mystery of the sea, right.

There's a lot of
unknowns out there still.

A curse can be a powerful
weapon for those who lack power.

A supernatural vow to take
revenge beyond the plane we

Exist in,
but the bermuda triangle isn't a singular

Event brought on by magic
or an angry voodoo priest.

It's something in the
collective consciousness,

An agreement made by
millions of strangers as a way to

Explain the inexplicable.

There are plausible scientific
explanations for all these

Events that have given the bermuda
triangle its mythical cursed status,

And I know I'm not smarter
than those who believe.

I mean,
my ask my sixth-grade teacher,

Miss sadowski
and she'll tell you.

So why do so many people
believe that it's cursed when

Science says there's nothing
special about this area?

So michael, I've been doing
some investigation and I know

You've written about this.

So the bermuda triangle,
what do you think?

Shermer: Our brains are not well
wired to understand randomness.

Our brains are wired to
find patterns and meaning,

Hidden forces at work,
conspiracies,

Somebody is behind the
scenes pulling the strings.

Sam: Right

Shermer: And reproductive
success is the key to evolution.

So we are the descendants
of those who are most likely to

Find meaningful
patterns and infuse those

Patterns with agency.

You know,
let's look at some of these examples here.

Sam: When you set out
to make a documentary,

You're filled with hope
that all this cool stuff

Is gonna happen.

You're going to find
out that magic is real and

Then you're forced
to confront reality.

The world caged your b, bro.

And you run into that
one guy at the bar and

He ruins everything.

Shermer: We're looking at,
you know,

Regional shipwreck data since
2007 and of course you would expect,

You know,
in the pacific ocean, and,

You know,
the indian ocean and so on,

But here's our triangle.

There doesn't seem to be
a lot going on there, right.

In other words,

The number of accidents
here in the bermuda triangle

Doesn't even reach this
level of the bay of bengal.

And you know who
knows this statistic?

Insurance companies...

Sam: Right.

Shermer: People who have to pay out if there's
a crash or some kind of financial loss.

Sam: And they don't charge
anymore to travel through the

Bermuda triangle.

Shermer: Right.

Sam: If there was something
happening the insurance

Companies would hundred
billion trillion percent make

You pay more.

They're not gonna lose money,
like, that's not happening,

There's no way.

Shermer: That's right, yeah.

Sam: So the reality is
crossing the atlantic anywhere

Would be just as
dangerous as going through

The bermuda triangle.

And yet the name,
the bermuda triangle has

Terrified generations of non-sailors,
but why?

So where does the term
bermuda triangle come from?

Shermer: The origin myth
begins in the early 1960s with

An article by a guy
named vincent gaddis

In the magazine, argosy.

Argosy was one of
the largest pulp fiction

Magazines ever published.

Fiction. Okay,
that's it. Fiction, right.

Sam: Right, right...

Shermer: So that's your first clue,
right.

And he was basing it on a
fake magazine article that

Referenced this area around bermuda,
might be triangular.

So he coined,
the bermuda triangle...

Sam: Oh, okay

Shermer: And that
meme really stuck.

And that's where the fantasy
and imagination jumps in,

Especially fantasy writers,
charles berlitz, for example.

He was very popular writer.

He wrote books on roswell.

He jumped right in with
the bermuda triangle,

And that's what kind
of put it on the map.

Some writers go,
it all goes back to columbus.

Sam: Columbus
saw all kinds of crazy.

You know, those guys
crossing the ocean they saw lots.

Shermer: Totally, of course,
and what did they know?

Sam: Exactly.

Ask any bermuda triangle
enthusiast and they'll tell

You that christopher columbus
was the first person to write

About mysterious forces in the triangle,
apparently,

He see saw a serious of
lights dancing in the sky.

This could be the
genesis of the triangle's

Larger than life reputation.

Sam: Every curse, every myth,

Every mystery has a
moment where it began,

A singular point in the
space time continuum

From which
everything else follows.

Was the bermuda triangle's
moment in the place just like

This, 528 years ago?

Columbus, he was coming into the
caribbean and possibly san salvador,

And he recounted seeing
lights hovering in the sky.

You know, in some ways the
bermuda triangle goes back to that story,

That's the first
mysterious incident.

Armchair bermuda triangle
theorists often point to this

Sighting as evidence of
something supernatural,

But is there something
else going on here?

San salvador's got
indigenous people,

The taíno people that might
have had fires on a hillside,

And it's possible that
columbus mistook fires on a

Hillside for something else.

So I think I'm gonna go
up there and build a fire and

We'll pull out and
see what it looks like.

It's not exactly hard science,

But my time machine
only goes back to 1493

And this is the best we can do.

So people when they see
something they don't understand,

They make up a myth,
mythology, superstition

And curses are ways of
dealing with uncertainty.

The bermuda triangle,
weird stuff happens here,

But it could be that columbus just
saw something as simple as this,

You know, a fire on a hillside.

So we'll take a boat out
and look back at this and say,

Would you have been fooled?

So we're not exactly sure
where columbus was when he saw

Lights in the sky and
anyone says that they knew

For sure is full of it.

In a sample of ten articles
about columbus's sighting

Will give you ten
different interpretations

Of what happened.

But that's irrelevant because
even though that event is

Pointed to as the origin of the
bermuda triangle's supernatural power,

The point isn't to
perfectly recreate a

Well-documented
historical event,

It's to see if columbus's
mysterious light could be have

Been caused by something
extremely un-mysterious,

That's a word by the way.

That's the fire I set
earlier on the hill.

Columbus has
done the unthinkable,

He's crossed the ocean,
he's been at sea for months,

He was all the way in
the caribbean even though,

You know,
he thought he was in indonesia.

And he sees lights
floating in the sky.

One man's sighting of lights
in the sky is another man's

Proof of the supernatural,
but this happened 500 years ago

So it's probably worth
asking the question,

What did columbus actually see?

Well his journal says it
looked like candlelight rising

Up and down, look familiar.

When we run out of
rational understanding,

When we can't explain
something to ourselves,

We look for causation,

Quite possibly columbus
was just so fried,

And it had been so
long that he couldn't

See what was there.

He might have seen what
is behind me right now.

For a lot of people that is
where the bermuda triangle

Myth starts,
all the way back to columbus.

He was lost and something
as simple as some indigenous

People starting a fire
on a hill could be the

Origin of the bermuda triangle.

Columbus jotted it in a
journal and then people played

The telephone game
for five centuries.

The lights in the sky,
the promise of land in the

Distance turned into
indisputable evidence of the

Supernatural for those
who wanted to believe.

Occam's razor says that
the simplest explanation is

Usually correct and yet when it
comes to catastrophe or death,

The terrifying unknown,

We rarely accept
the low hanging fruit.

If ships disappear,
well maybe it's aliens.

When planes disappear,
obviously there's a vortex

To another dimension.

Sam: Alright,
so we didn't solve a 75 year old mystery in

The two weeks we
had to film this show,

But still when it comes
to the bermuda triangle,

There is no curse.

If there was some statistical
measurable impact then we

Would see it in insurance
rates and maritime practice

And in government orders.

Believing in a supernatural
stretch of ocean is a little

Like believing in the easter
bunny and we want magic

In the world, we need it.

If some older kid tells your
toddler the truth about a

Certain magical holiday
you get enraged because

The world is a better
place with magic in it.

The curse of the bermuda
triangle is a sociological construct,

Not a marine confluence
and in some ways it

Speaks to man's need
for myth, for gods, for devils

And for the unknown
to remain unknowable.

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