All language subtitles for Mysteries of the Deep Series 1 Part 9 The Loch Ness Conspiracy 1080p

Wade: Can a revolutionary
new scientific

technique identify
the loch ness monster?

There's a whole range
of animals now

that we're finding out
are not extinct.

Wade: How did a man survive
for over two days,

trapped in a shipwreck
at the bottom of the ocean?

The longer he survived,
the closer he was to death.

Wade:
And what explains a succession
of gruesome discoveries

washing up on the shores
of british columbia?

These feet could be coming
from almost anywhere.

Wade:
The underwater realm

is another dimension.

It's a physically hostile
place where dreams of promise

can sink into darkness.

I'm jeremy wade.

I'm searching the world
to bring you

the most iconic and baffling
underwater mysteries

known to science.

Shipwrecks can't just
disappear...Or can they?

Wade: It's a dangerous,
unexplored frontier that

swallows evidence.

We know more about the face
of mars than we do

our deepest oceans.

Wade:
Where unknown is normal
and understanding is rare.

♪♪

♪♪

I've investigated monster
myths all over the world,

but one,
the loch ness monster

remains the ultimate unsolved
underwater mystery.

What creature of the deep is
behind the endless stream of

rumors and reports,
the hysteria and the headlines.

Now, new sightings
and state-of-the-art science

promise to finally unmask

the most famous
monster of them all.

April 2019.

Local businessman,
36-year-old rory cameron is

on his way home
from a friend's house.

He's driving alongside
loch ness,

as he's done countless
times before,

when he sees something
extraordinary

moving in the water.

He grabs his phone and films
a huge, mysterious object,

traveling at speed across
the lake's surface.

Experts are baffled.

It's the 18th
unexplained sighting

in just 12 months.

The legend of scotland's
loch ness monster

has gripped the imagination of
people all over the world.

I mean, we've all seen
the picture of the --

the arm coming
out of the water

like that that looks
like the head of

the loch ness monster.

Wade: Since the first report
nearly 1,500 years ago,

there have been
more than 1,000 sightings.

Every few years,

it would seem, some new picture
would come to light.

It would be almost clear
enough to make the mystery

a reality.

Wade: Now, a team of
scientists led by neil gemmell

think they might finally have
what it takes

to unmask the beast,

a groundbreaking technology
known as environmental dna.

Environmental dna is
a revolutionary technology

this is a scientific approach
to understanding

what's in loch ness.

It's extremely powerful.

Wade: As an animal
moves through its environment,

it naturally sheds cells
and excretes waste,

leaving a trail
of its own dna.

Gemmell: Loch ness is filled
with cells,

dna -- it's a giant
cauldron of organic soup.

Wade:
By sequencing the dna,

gemmell should be able to
figure out what it belongs to.

The results could
astonish scientists

and monster hunters alike.

Gemmell: We're looking for
something unusual.

We're looking
for things that

don't fit with their
current expectations.

Wade: There are countless
theories about what

the creature might be.

Gemmell: There's this notion
of the water horse,

which is part of celtic
ancient mythology.

And then there's
another idea that

perhaps nessie is
a time-traveling creature.

There's a wormhole in space
and time somewhere in the loch.

Wade:
These stories seem far-fetched,

but loch ness is 750 feet deep.

Could dna reveal that

it's concealing a creature
new to science?

There's a whole range of
animals now that we thought

were extinct that we're
finding out actually are

not extinct
and that they do exist.

Is it possible that
something is out there?

You know,
I would like to think that

it's probable that
something is out there.

Wade: The loch ness monster
hits the headlines in 1933

when a couple
witness a strange,

legless creature drag itself
across a road

adjacent to the loch.

After that, sightings
come thick and fast,

adding to the monster mania.

Man #1:
I have seen the monster.

Man #2: The head rose
right out of the water.

Man #3: The creature appeared
to be 20 feet long.

Wade: An image of the beast
is taking shape.

But what is it?

Without dna evidence,
it's hard to pin down.

Campbell: Most sightings
describe a creature with

a large body and long neck,

which fits with
what we know of dinosaurs,

aquatic dinosaurs.

Wade: Many people believe
that the loch ness monster

is a reptile called
a plesiosaur.

Plesiosaurs obviously went
extinct a long time ago,

so we haven't got
any contemporary

plesiosaur dna
to compare it to,

but we can make a pretty good
assumption about what that dna

might look like.

Plesiosaurs and many
of the other dinosaurs were

closely related to the modern
birds and crocodiles,

so it sits somewhere between
those in the tree of life.

Wade:
This will be the first time
ever that environmental dna

has bean used in the search
for the loch ness monster.

But there have been many
attempts over the years

to track it down

using the cutting edge
technology of the day.

The loch ness monster --
it really is one of

the best investigated
monster stories out there.

Gemmell:
People come to loch ness,

they have brought
the latest science

and the latest technology
to try to investigate.

Wade: In the 1970s,

underwater cameras are
deployed throughout the lake,

but it's like searching
for a needle in a haystack.

It's a difficult environment
to work in and to survey.

Wade: The loch contains
more water than all

the lakes of England
and wales combined.

And what's more,
below 30 feet,

there's no light at all.

There's what they call colloid
particles in the water,

and these effectively act like
a pair of sunglasses,

layers and layers
of sunglasses,

if you like, that are
blocking the light.

Goodman: Even if you have really
high-quality cameras,

you're going to get
backscatter.

You're going to have issues
with actually

getting a good image.

Wade: But in the 1980s,

breakthroughs in sonar
technology bring new hope,

and the biggest, most audacious
search ever begins.

In 1987, project deepscan
took 24 boats,

and they spread out across
the surface of loch ness

and went from one end
to the other.

Wade: Deepscan investigators
hope that sonar

will produce answers
where cameras have failed.

They send out sound,
the sound bounces on an object,

and they can measure
the time that it takes for that

sound to bounce back
to figure out what's there.

Wade: As they pass
urquhart castle on

the northwestern shore
of the loch,

the sonar picks up
three huge shapes

nearly 600 feet
beneath the surface.

Gemmell:
They found three soundings
that they didn't quite explain,

bigger than a shark,
but smaller than a whale

was roughly how
they described it.

Wade: But when the team
returns the next day to take

a closer look,
they're gone.

The images are tantalizing,
but frustratingly inconclusive.

Sonar in that time period
was very limited,

and so the imagery that was
produced is not nearly

as sophisticated
as the equipment we have today.

Wade:
The monster remains at large,

but with environmental dna,
we can go when no science has

ever gone before.

It doesn't need sonic
or visual evidence.

And the recent spate of
sightings is exactly

what lead scientist neil
gemmell has been waiting for,

but he doesn't have much time.

Dna degrades
relatively quickly.

There are two sightings just
off of urquhart castle.

So we sampled there within
the first of arrival.

Wade: Across
22 square miles of loch ness,

gemmell takes
250 water samples.

He sends them
for double blind testing

to independent labs
across europe.

There are something like 3,000
unique dna sequences

that we have found
in loch ness,

ascribed to known
biological lifeforms.

Wade: The results
also reveal something

completely unexpected.

When we've looked
at our samples,

there's this large signal
of one species.

It was like,
what the heck is that?

Have we found dna

that will finally identify
the loch ness monster?

Over 1,500 years

since it first surfaced,
the loch ness monster

remains on enigma
of the deep.

Now, a new
scientific technique,

the analysis off environmental
dna, could finally

expose the real identity
of the infamous monster.

It's now the 21st century,

and we're still asking
that same question --

is there a loch ness monster?

Wade:
According to popular belief,

the beast is a fantastical
creature unlike anything

ever seen before.

But is it possible that
instead, loch ness

could be harboring a real
flesh and blood giant?

In the right conditions,

some fish have
the capacity to grow

exceptionally large.

The giant catfish might be
present in loch ness.

We know that in europe

there are giant catfish
called wels catfish.

There's some suggestion that
they were released into

loch ness by the victorians
in the 1800s.

Wade: The biggest
wels catfish I've ever caught

was seven feet long,

but they wouldn't grow to this
size in scotland's icy waters.

So what other giant creatures
could be patrolling the loch?

Gemmell: So loch ness is
connected to the north sea

via the moray firth,

which creates the possibility
that some of the sightings

people have had have actually

been of marine creatures that
have managed to make their way

into the loch.

Wade:
Creatures like sturgeon.

I've brought in a sturgeon
nine feet long,

and some species

can grow to
twice this length.

They're not resident
in the loch.

They might be coming
in and out of it

as part of their migration.

Wade: But I'm not
convinced that

a sturgeon inspired
the ancient legend.

No species near the british
isles grows large enough.

So what else could it be?

Wade: Can environmental dna
put an end to centuries

of speculation?

Kind of blows your mind,

thinking that you can just
leave a little bit of dna

somewhere, and a scientist could
figure out what was going on.

Wade:
By extracting environmental
dna from water samples,

researchers can find out
exactly what is hiding

beneath the surface.

We had five labs
around the world

that were analyzing
the dna sequence data.

Wade: Early results start
eliminating the usual suspects

one by one.

So as for a plesiosaur
in loch ness...

Not that we can detect.

Is there a giant catfish?

Not that we can detect.

Wade:
But as the data racks up,

the sheer quantity of dna
from just one creature

shocks researchers.

So what we find in our data

is actually quite a large
number of hits

against eel dna.

Wade: Could the loch ness
monster be a giant eel?

It's a surprising result that
researchers did not expect.

But there's no doubt that

some intriguing loch ness
monster sightings

are distinctly eel-shaped.

In 2008, lab technician
gordon holmes detects

an unexplained entity moving
beneath the hull of his boat.

Just one year earlier,
he caused a sensation

when he released
this footage of a long,

thin creature around
45 feet in length,

gliding across the water.

There are 800 species of eel

found worldwide,
and some can grow huge,

but the european eel grows
to little more than

four feet long.

So how could they possibly
account for sightings of

a monster?

Scientists believe that
the answer might lie

in their biology.

The life cycle
of the european eel

has been shrouded in mystery
for centuries,

but we now know that once
they reach sexual maturity,

they leave their freshwater
homes and embark on a 3,000-mile

migration to the sargasso sea.

Normally, eels would migrate
to the sea to spawn,

and then they die.

Wade: But it's possible
that in rare instances,

some eels may not
develop sexually.

Instead of migrating,
they stay put,

potentially living longer
and growing

into monsters.

Could dna results
have exposed

mutant eels hiding
in plain sight?

There are mutations that result
in very large body size.

I think it's possible there
may be a very large eel

in loch ness.

Wade:
Supersized eels are within
the realms of possibility,

but for me, 45 feet long
is too much of a stretch.

So for now, at least,
the search for

the true identity of
the loch ness monster continues.

I've spent a lot of
time underwater,

but I'm totally reliant on
my scuba gear to keep me alive.

Without it, I wouldn't last
for more than a few minutes.

So how did one man survive
on the ocean floor

for three days
without any diving

equipment whatsoever?

New scientific analysis of
his unbelievable underwater

ordeal challenges everything
I thought I knew.

May 26, 2013.

20 miles off the coast
of nigeria,

a tugboat called the jascon 4
is caught in a fierce storm.

A big wave hit
the side of the tug,

which broke the tow wire
and turned the tug upside down.

Wade:
By the time the rescue team
arrives at the scene,

the vessel and all 12 crewman

have disappeared.

Tuttle: The tugboat sank in
about 100 feet of water,

so they needed a specialist
dive crew to go down there

and do the recovery.

Wade: It takes hours
to assemble the divers

and transport them to the site
of the disaster,

by which time they believe
there's little

to no hope of finding
any survivors.

They were working at depth
in low visibility

in this upturned vessel.

Wade: The divers recover
the bodies of four crewmen

who went down
with the ship.

They're continuing
the grizzly task

of locating the other eight

when the impossible happens.

There's somebody
down there!

Man: He's alive, he's alive.

Okay, keep him there,
keep him there.

Imagine a hand grabbing you
underwater when you expect

that nobody is alive
in this shipwreck.

Incredibly, the ship's cook,
29-year-old harrison okene,

has survived underwater
for nearly three days.

Man: All right,
just keep him there

and keep him calm, okay?

It's a once-in-a-lifetime
miracle.

It's -- it's beyond belief.

Tuttle: How'd this guy
survive for

60 hours under underwater?

Can science unravel
the mystery

of this unparalleled
underwater survival story?

60 hours after
the sinking of a tugboat

off the coast of nigeria,

a team of divers are searching
for bodies inside the stricken

vessel on the sea floor when
they come face to face

with a living,
breathing survivor

there's somebody
down there!

Man: He's alive. He's alive.

Wade: It's the ship's cook,
29-year-old harrison okene.

How okene is still alive

is one of the most intriguing

and mind-boggling ocean
mysteries of modern times.

A man survived
for multiple days

while trapped
in a sunken ship.

How is this even possible?

Wade: In an effort to get

to the bottom of this
unbelievable survival story,

scientists examine okene's
three-day ordeal

piece by piece,

starting with the moment when
his ship suddenly capsizes.

It's gotta be the most
terrifying thing in the world.

All of a sudden, your world
turns upside down,

and water starts rushing in.

You must think
that you're dead.

Wade: Scrabbling around in
the dark, upturned vessel,

okene makes
an incredible discovery.

A pocket of trapped air.

It is incredibly improbable.

That an air pocket could
form on a wreck like this

is against all odds.

That tugboat must have gone
down near enough straight.

If it starts to tip either way,
the air can seep out.

Wade: But as the doomed ship
descends to the seabed,

the air bubble, okene's
only hope of survival,

begins to shrink.

For every 33 feet
you go down,

your pressure doubles,
and air is condensed.

The pressure of the water is

making that air bubble
smaller and smaller.

The water is rising,
and you're

essentially counting
the minutes until you're dead.

Wade: Luckily,
the tug hits the bottom

before the bubble
compresses too much.

If the ship had gone
any deeper,

then the water pressure would
have condensed that area more.

But the air bubble is now
a mere four feet high.

Okene's chances of
survival are slim to none.

For him to survive 60 hours
on the sea floor in

pitch black, breathing
just a small air pocket --

it really is a mystery
how he was able to survive.

Wade: After trying to escape
via a passageway,

he resigns himself to staying
in his tiny dark bubble.

Why

okene chose to stay in
the bubble that he was in

is beyond me.

Clarke: Either he's accepting
he's going to die,

or he has complete
and utter faith that he's going

to be rescued.

Wade: Perhaps he knows
that attempting to

get out now will spell
certain death.

Even if he had managed to
navigate the pitch black

of the wreck,

find an opening, and escape up
to the surface,

he still would not have
survived, because the nitrogen

in his bloodstream will expand,
and air bubbles will pop.

Wade:
But staying in the air bubble
is also fraught with danger,

and the biggest threat
to okene right now

is his own breath.

Over the course of time,

he's obviously breathing in
oxygen and exhaling

carbon dioxide,
and the levels of

carbon dioxide
in that bubble are rising.

Tuttle: Once carbon dioxide
gets about four

or five percent,
it starts to become toxic.

The longer he survived,
the closer he was to death.

Wade: By the time
rescuers arrive, okene

should have succumbed to deep
sea carbon dioxide toxicity.

It's a little weird that
he wasn't suffering any

symptoms of carbon dioxide
toxicity after so much

time underwater.

Wade:
Experts believe the icy
temperatures may have been

his savior.

Lower body temperature would
slow your respiration,

which may, you know,
increase your longevity.

Wade: As well as slowing
down okene's metabolism,

the frigid water surrounding
the air bubble might have

played a second important
role in his survival.

Gas is more soluble
in cold water.

If the concentration of co2
is increasing in the airspace,

and we have cold water,
that co2

can go into the water.

Perhaps that made
the air breathable

for a longer amount of time.

Wade: There are many theories,
but science still

can't fully explain
how okene pulled through.

How did he survive
the, you know, carbon dioxide,

the hypothermia, the, you know,
the mental stress.

I mean, multiple reasons
that guy should be dead,

and he's alive.

Wade: But okene is not
home and dry yet.

After three days underwater,

his blood is super saturated
with nitrogen.

The slightest mistake now
will kill him.

29-year-old harrison okene
has endured

an unbelievable 60 hours
alone in a sunken ship.

His survival
on the sea floor

seems to defy
the rules of science.

But as all divers know,

the greatest challenge can be
the very last stage --

the journey out of the darkness
and back up to the light.

Man: Yeah, tighten those
a bit more. Is that okay?

All right.

The nitrogen that's in the air
actually also squeezes

from the pressure,

and it gets smaller,
and those air bubbles

can enter into
your blood system.

He has to undergo a complex
process of depressurizing him.

Wade: The rescuers need to get
okene safely

to their diving bell

before they him gradually
bring him to the surface.

Man: Hello, my friend.
Can you hear me?

Okay.
Listen to me, all right?

Now you mustn't panic, eh?

We're gonna bring you
home, okay?

♪♪

♪♪

[ speaking indistinctly ]

man: Okay, we're
bringing you home.

Take your mask
and steady, okay?

♪♪

all right,
he's in the bell.

Good job, my friend.
Well done.

You're a survivor!

This case right here
shows us that there's

a lot still to learn
about human physiology

under the ocean.

Wade: Incredibly, okene's
story has a happy ending.

But what if he's not
the only person

who survived for days
underwater?

What if it's happened before,

and we just didn't know it?

Looking back at all the ships
which have sunk over the years,

we've often thought that those
people must have died

pretty much near
instantaneously.

This, of course, gives us
a whole new concept,

and it makes it very haunting
when you start to think,

well,
if this one person survived,

how many others might have?

♪♪

♪♪

in my travels
around the globe,

I've seen all sorts of
discarded garments washed up

on shorelines,
from jackets and shirts,

to gloves and sandals.

But what would it be like to
be walking along a lonely beach

and to come across an item of
clothing with the body parts

still inside?

September 2018.

British columbia, canada.

A sneaker is found
washed up on a beach.

Its owner's foot

is still in it.

I can't imagine walking along
the beach looking for seashells

and other things and finding
a human foot sitting there.

Wade: This is not
an isolated incident.

The gruesome find
is the 15th foot

to be discovered on beaches
in this region

in 12 years.

When you hear of human feet
lining a beach,

you think of a serial killer.

Rondeau: The police and a lot
of people in the public

thought that somebody had been
murdered, part of a mafia

situation where they had
dumped the body somewhere.

Wade: Investigators
face some difficult

and perplexing
unanswered questions.

Nobody knew who
these feet belonged to

or where they had
come from.

Wade: Now, new advances in
the specialist field of

marine forensics

are allowing us to shine some
light on this dark mystery.

Experts carefully examine each
bone looking for tool marks

and other signs of violence
that would indicate foul play.

But there are none.

It's not some
strange serial killer

who just likes
to cut off feet

and throw 'em in the ocean
and create this mystery.

Wade: Instead, the findings
tell a very different tale.

They reveal how the dead are
dismantled by underwater forces.

When a human body decomposes,

two of the parts of the body
that release first

at the joints are the hands
and the feet.

Wade: It's known
as disarticulation.

Over time, the foot separates
from the leg

at the ankle joint,

releasing the foot to become
a castaway in the ocean.

But why are most of these feet
wearing sneakers?

Modern trainers are made
of foam plastics.

Some soles of running shoes,
for example,

even have
an air pocket in them.

They're floating
and keeping these feet

on the surface --
that allows them

to then be moved by currents
and winds into the beach.

Wade: Disarticulation,
coupled with buoyant footwear,

might explain the presence of
floating feet.

But the big question is,
where are they coming from?

Are there any areas of,
you know,

high suicide in
british columbia?

Do they use that place --
is it somewhere along

the currents that would wash
body parts to the shore?

Can revolutionary scientific
techniques get us

any closer to unraveling this
macabre mystery of the deep?

Human feet washing ashore
along the coast of

british columbia

have terrified locals
and baffled investigators

for a dozen years.

Where are they coming from?

And why are they ending
up here?

Wade: 15 human feet
have bean found

washed up on
the british columbia shore.

In search of clues about
who these feet belong to,

forensic experts
attempt to extract

dna from
the decomposing tissue.

And the footwear itself
can provide vital information.

In some cases,
they were actually

able to determine
who the people were

based on the trainers.

I believe there were a few
of them that were distinct.

Wade: Of the 15 feet found,

13 have now been traced back
to people who have

gone missing from british
columbia and washington state.

It turns out most of them were
either accidental deaths

or, in some cases,

they were suspected suicides.

Police are still trying
to match the final two

with a body.

It's a monumental task.

Some of these shoes
have been lost at sea

for decades.

So these shoes are not all
necessarily from victims

from the same year
but spread over many years.

Wade: In one case,

the dna matches up with a man
who has been missing

for a quarter of a century

tuttle: In colder waters,

there's greater preservation,
but to have genetic material

lasting 25 years in itself
is pretty phenomenal.

Wade: But one part of this
mystery remains impenetrable.

Why do so many feet end up

on this one particular part
of british columbia?

You would think that if it were
a world epidemic,

you'd find them all over.

So what is it specifically
about this part

of the world that attracts
feet in running shoes?

Wade:
Nobody knows for sure,

but experts agree
that it must have

something to do with
the ocean currents.

The thing that's interesting
about vancouver island

in relation to the mainland

is you have a series
of circulating currents,

sort of one on top
of the other.

Wade: Trapped in
these churning waters,

floating feet could circle
around for days on end

before being spat out
on the coast.

But this doesn't fully explain
why some beaches get

more than their fair share
of this grisly flotsam.

Figueroa: Although we have ocean
currents that we can predict,

there's many things
we can't predict in terms of

ocean circulation.

Wade:
But what if ocean currents
are just part of the answer?

British columbia is home to
around five million people.

It's a grim fact, but the more
densely populated a place is,

the more likely it is
that bodies will end up

in the water.

And as the population rises,

I'm left in no doubt that
the latest gruesome find

will not be the last.

I've reeled in some
mighty monsters,

some of them big enough
and toothy enough

to devour a person.

Despite this, I've always
found the biblical story of

jonah being eaten by a whale
hard to swallow.

But a recent bizarre real-life
incident has made me wonder

for the first time,

whether an extraordinary truth
could lie behind

that famous tale.

March 2019.

25 miles off port elizabeth,
south africa,

photographer rainer schimpf is
filming a school of sardines

being attacked by a feeding
frenzy of predators

when out of nowhere,
his world plunges into darkness.

All of a sudden,

this whale comes up behind
and sort of

scoops him up
into his mouth.

Basically half in and half
outside a whale's mouth,

being -- looks like
he's being eaten.

Wade: Strange stories
of man-eating whales

have existed
for centuries,

including the famous
biblical tale of jonah,

who is said to have spent three
whole days in a whale's stomach

before it let him go.

But there have been
no confirmed cases of

anything like this actually
happening in real life...

Until now.

Experts are eager to find out

what could have triggered
this unprecedented behavior.

How can this
possibly happen?

A very large sea creature
seems to be

taking a man from the sea.

That's huge -- I mean,
that's -- that's fiction.

Will rainer schimpf suffer

the same unimaginable fate

as jonah?

It's March 2019 off the coast
of south africa.

Photographer rainer schimpf
appears to be in danger

of becoming
a modern-day jonah.

A case of divine retribution,

or has the whale bitten off
more than it can chew?

Mckay: Humans typically aren't
on the menu for whale,

so why -- why would this whale
scoop up a snorkeler?

Wade: When scientists
identify the species,

the mystery deepens
even further.

It's a bryde's whale.

The bryde's whale is a very,

very large marine mammal
with a very large mouth.

But bryde's are
baleen whales,

which means that
instead of teeth,

they use bristle-like filters
to trap their food.

It's evolved to strain water
and get

these little fish out,
or the krill

or -- or, you know,

mackerel or herring
or sardines.

They're not constructed
to, you know,

eat large pieces of meat.

So purely
biologically speaking,

the whale's not able to
physically swallow the man.

If the whale isn't trying
to eat schimpf,

what is its motive?

Was this a rogue whale
behaving badly,

or was this
a complete accident?

Wade:
Perhaps there are clues to be
found just beneath the surface.

Mckay: At the time that rainer
was filming these sardines,

they were all
schooled up into this,

uh, tight ball of fish.

Footage taken by rainer schimpf
just before the incident

shows the sardines huddling
together for safety.

You probably would not be able
to see a human being

on another side of
a ball of fish.

Wade: And the position
of the whale's eyes

would make it difficult,

if not impossible,
for it to spot

schimpf floating
amongst its food.

Whales have their eyes
on the side of their heads.

They usually have a little bit
of a blind spot out front.

Wade: But recent research
suggests that schimpf's whale

may not have been relying
on its eyes at all.

Scientists believe they may
have found evidence of baleen

whales using echo location
to help them find food.

Mckay: The echo signature
may have just

looked like one big
ball of fish.

I think it would be
difficult for

the whale to know
the difference between

the two separate things.

Wade:
It's feasible that the whale
grabbed schimpf accidentally,

but there's one vital clue
that has been overlooked --

the presence of sharks.

This opens up a whole new
possible theory.

The possibility exists
that this whale,

seeing the human in the water,
seeing the sharks around,

went up and scooped him up,
to protect him.

Wade:
This might seem far-fetched,

but scientists have recently
documented hundreds

of instances

of wales intervening to
protect other creatures

from harm.

There's been a lot of cases
where people seem to see

the empathy of whales,

where they'll be a shark
nearby or something like that,

and the whale was sort of push

a snorkeler to the other
side of their body,

in almost defense of animals
to keep them in a safe area.

Wade:
The sardine run notoriously
lures in all sorts of sharks,

including the world's
most feared --

the great white.

But even they are no match
for a fully grown,

30-ton bryde's whale

if it was acting
as his bodyguard,

rainer schimpf owes his whale
a huge debt of gratitude.

But could there be something
more menacing at play here?

Animals are not robots.

Their behavior is not
always predictable.

And, you know, just like humans,
they could potentially have

a -- a brain tumor or some other
affliction that would cause

them to act
in an unusual way.

Wade: Diseases such as
rabies can hijack the brain,

making animals
abnormally aggressive.

Perhaps this was the act
of a creature

not in its right mind.

Whatever triggered
the whale to grab schimpf,

one thing is for certain.

Locked within
its vice-like grip,

the photographer
is in grave danger.

They have incredible mass
and very strong jaws,

so you have to be
concerned about

broken bones
or being crushed to death

when in the mouth of
one of these beasts.

Wade: And that's not all
he has to worry about.

Tuttle: Whales have been known
to dive literally hundreds,

if not thousands
of meters deep.

What's more,
bryde's whales can hold

their breath
for up to 20 minutes --

the average human,
less than one minute.

You've got no reserve air
except for what you've got

in your lungs, and he would
not have lasted that long.

If the whale had decided
to dive, for example,

even to 30 meters, that in
itself could have killed him.

Wade: But before it dives
into the depths,

the while releases
schimpf, unharmed.

Schimpf had
an incredibly lucky escape.

Whether the whale grabbed him
by accident, to save him

from a shark, or in a fit of
psychotic rage,

we'll never know.

Like so many mysteries of
the deep, the secret

is now submerged
beneath the surface

and swimming away
1,000 feet

under the waves.