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William Shatner:
You know what?

I've been around
for a while.

I've travelled the world,
met some interesting people,

done some crazy things.

So, you might just think

there's not much
that could take me by surprise.

You'd be wrong.

The world is full
of stories and science

and things that
amaze and confound me

every single day,

incredible mysteries
that keep me awake at night.

Some I can answer.

Others just defy logic.

A man beats
incredible odds

and cheats death.

He's struck
by lightning six times,

yet lives.

Is he a human
lightning rod?

A small child freezes solid

in sub-zero temperatures,
clinically dead for two hours.

She amazingly survives.

How is this possible?

Beneath the Pacific Ocean,

a mysterious discovery threatens

everything we believe
about our nation's history.

Did Chinese explorers
reach American shores

years before Columbus?

Yup,
it's a weird world.

And I love it.

For this next weird tale...

I've been compelled
to write a little poem.

Here it goes.

Lightning strikes
fear in the heart

with its silver-forked skies,
all peeling with thunder.

Well, actually,

lightning doesn't
strike fear into my heart,

given the fact that I live
here in the United States,

that my odds of
being hit by lightning

are about 1 in 750,000.

So, I'd have to be
really unlucky to get beat

by those odds, right?

(Thundering)

46-year-old
Carl Mize may be

the unluckiest
person on earth.

The Oklahoma resident
has been struck by lightning

more than once...

the first time in 1978.

Carl Mize:
You know, a storm came up,

and there was
lightning and thundering,

and I'd run to the truck.

And about the time
that I grabbed the door handle,

you know,
lightning struck.

Just a flash of light,
and it knocked me back.

William Shatner:
Then, a few years later,
lightning struck again.

Lightning struck,

hit the transformer
on the pole above us.

And it just
knocked the whey out of me.

It felt like somebody
had hit me with a club

or some baseball bat.

And I was
laying on the ground,

and whenever I got up,
this plumber came up, and said,

you know,
"Are you all right?"

And I said,
"Man, somebody hit me."

He said, "No, you know,
you got struck by lightning."

William Shatner:
In 1996,

Carl is watching a tornado

from what he thinks
is a safe distance.

Carl Mize:
So, I'm standing under a tree,

and, about that time,
lightning strikes the tree...

comes down that and knocks me
over against the house.

And I'm thinking,
you know,

"This surely
couldn't be happening again,"

you know,
but it did.

William Shatner:
Carl was hit for
a fourth time in 1999.

Again in 2005.

A year later,

Carl entered
the record books

as the only
living person

struck by lightning
six times.

Carl Mize:
A little storm popped up,

and I was
sitting in the house.

All I remember
is a bright light

and noise.

And I woke up
on the ground.

That time,
I was laying on my stomach,

on the ground,
working on this wiring,

and it burnt my chest,

you know,
on the other side of my--

on the left side
of my chest.

William Shatner:
A man struck by lightning

six times in 30 years,

a series of events
so bizarre

and so improbable,
it defies logic.

But what are the chances?

Mathematician
Jeffrey Rosenthal

has calculated
the extraordinary odds

of Carl Mize's
run of doomed luck.

The chance that
somebody would be struck

six different times

over the course of 30 years
is extremely unlikely.

It's like once chance in
a trillion, trillion, trillion,

if you just consider
everyone to be equal,

that someone would be struck
six times in a 30-year period.

Carl Mize:
I have more
of a sense and feeling,

if it happens again,
you know, it could kill me.

You know, and I don't know
why I feel that way.

So, that's why
I'm pretty careful

about going outside.

William Shatner:
So, why does this
keep happening to Carl?

Rosenthal suspects
the answer has something to do

with where in America
Carl lives.

Well, there's actually
more lightning strikes

in Oklahoma
than on average.

So, your chance of being
struck or killed or injured

by lightning are higher
if you live in Oklahoma

than they are,
just for an average person,

over the course
of the whole United States.

William Shatner:
Oklahoma --

the heart of
America's tornado alley

and the State
that gets hit

with the third highest numbers
of lightning strikes in the US

every year --

around one million.

Man:
Oh, my god!

If we compare that,

for example,
to California,

then California,

the same rate,

is about 0.02.

So, you're about
34 times more likely

to be killed by lightning
if you live in Oklahoma,

compared to
if you live in California.

William Shatner:
Rosenthal theorizes

that Carl's increased
probability of being struck

is due to
another important factor.

He lives on a farm,

and his job
as a maintenance worker

at the University of Oklahoma

keeps him
frequently outdoors.

Jeffrey Rosenthal:
So, for an average person

in Oklahoma,

there's about
one chance in 147,000

that they'd be struck
by lightning in a given year.

But Mr. Mize, well,

he apparently
worked outside a lot

and maybe spent
about 80 times as much outside,

in his work life,
as the average person.

So, if we think
about it that way,

then we can say
that this works out

to his chance of being struck
by lightning in a given year

is about
one chance in 1,800.

So, what are the chances
Carl will be struck again?

Let's do the math.

The probability of an Oklahoman
being hit by lightning is--

Let's see, now.

The population,

divided by
average number of strikes,

giving the US

a 1 in 470,000 chance.

And then we
divide this again by the fact

that Carl Mize
is approximately

49 years old.

And the average US male
lives to 76,

giving Carl 27 years left.

And we factor in
his job and lifestyle,

and we discover
the chances of Carl being hit

is 1 in 5,450,

or pretty low.

So, I feel Carl can relax.

But then again...

the dude was
hit by lightning six times.

So, maybe, Carl,
from now on...

please stay indoors.

Combining factors,

including lifestyle
and location,

reveal Carl
is many times more likely

to be struck by lightning
than your average person.

But can probability alone
really explain

why Carl has been
struck six times?

Or could there be
something special

about Carl
that makes him attract

this deadly natural force?

♪

William Shatner:
Defying incredible odds,

Carl Mize has been
struck by lightning

more than any other person
in recorded history --

an amazing six times.

But why?

Could a clearer understanding

of this violent
and deadly force of nature

help find an answer
to this mystery?

A huge electrical discharge

between a thundercloud
and the ground,

lightning
is a massive version

of the electrostatic spark

given off
when you touch a door handle.

Each lightning bolt
has as much energy

as a tonne of TNT.

Even if you could avoid being
struck directly by a bolt,

lightning can radiate
across the ground,

and anyone, like Carl,

can be affected indirectly

through physical contact
with a struck object...

suffering third degree burns,
ruptured ear drums

and even death,

caused by a disruption
of the nervous system

and stopping the heart.

Now...

let's have ourselves

a little Ben Franklin moment.

When a lightning bolt
bursts out of a thundercloud,

it releases a massive amount

of electrical energy
into the air.

Metal objects act like
an antenna for this electricity,

basically pulling in the
excess energy that's in the air,

and that's why,

if you're holding metal
or just near metal,

you're directing
the charge of the lightning bolt

straight to you,

causing you to be electrocuted,

even if you're never
directly struck by lightning.

Lightning researcher
Don MacGorman

thinks the indirect nature
of the majority

of Carl's lightning hits
can explain his misfortune.

Every time he was struck,

Carl was touching something

that conducts electricity.

The fact that
he was touching metal

caused him to be injured
in those situations.

He was touching
long pieces of metal,

which is even worse,
or large pieces of metal.

He was touching a wire,

and the lightning
struck a nearby pole.

The current surge came
through the wire and hit him.

He was touching a crowbar,

and so, even if the crowbar
wasn't hit directly,

it would still pick up
the electrical energy

from a lightning flash
and really seriously injure him.

And so,
if there's one thing

I would urge Carl to do,

it would be --

if he's got to stay outside,
go ahead and stay outside,

but get away from metal.

Don't be touching metal

or standing
in pools of water, okay?

William Shatner:
Carl Mize puts
himself in harm's way

far more often
than most people.

But that alone
cannot explain his 30 years

of living in fear.

Electrical expert
David Stetzer

wants to test
a more bizarre theory.

Is there something
about Carl himself

that makes him more susceptible
to lightning strikes?

The current will take the path
of least resistance.

Now, that's Ohm's Law.

Electrical resistance
is measured in Ohms.

If you knew where
lightning was going to strike,

and we went out
on a golf course,

and somebody was
200 Ohms of resistance,

and somebody was
500 Ohms of resistance,

and lightning hits,

more current would flow
through the person

that has 200 Ohms
of resistance

than the person that had
500 Ohms of resistance.

If the person
has less resistance,

they're a better conductor.

And going back to, uh,

what do you want
to conduct electricity?

Uh, do you want
to use a ceramic rod,

or do you want to use a copper,
uh, wire, for example?

So, copper wire
has one valence electron,

or it's more conductive.

William Shatner:
People's resistance to
electrical currents vary.

Some scientists believe
levels of body fat

and sweat can be a factor.

Stetzer's experiment
will determine

if Carl has less
resistance that could explain

why lightning
is striking him

more than other people.

Dave Stetzer:
And so, we're going
to connect that to you,

and we're going to measure

the voltage drop
between here and here.

The more voltage that it drops,
the more conductive you are.

William Shatner:
First, Stetzer
is going to test

Carl's friends,
Joe and Steve.

Dave Stetzer:
And he's reading 2.3 volts...

2.4.

Almost four volts.

William Shatner:
But what about Carl's readings?

Here we go.

And you can see,

the number drops
down to 1.9 volts.

William Shatner: Amazingly,
Dave's test has revealed

that Carl does indeed

have greater
conductivity than normal.

But Don MacGorman,

one of the world's
leading experts on lightning,

is skeptical
about the findings.

There's very little
about a person

that could make them
more likely to be struck.

Even if they're
a little more conducting,

that's a really,
really small influence

on where a lightning flash is,

because a lightning flash
is coming down

from miles up
in the atmosphere,

and it's finding
its way down to the ground.

And why it hits a particular
patch of ground is really

a statistical process.

The chance of any one
piece of ground being hit,

if you look at
that probability ahead of time,

is really, really small.

William Shatner:
It seems the reason
Carl's been repeatedly

struck by lightning can be
traced to several factors --

where in America he lives,

his outdoor lifestyle,

his proximity
to conductive materials,

and sheer bad luck.

But one question remains
shrouded in mystery --

how has Carl survived,

almost completely unscathed?

Mathematician Jeffrey Rosenthal
continues to grasp at a simple,

logical answer in a story
that seemingly defies reason.

Jeffrey Rosenthal:
You actually have
even a little better

than a 50/50
chance of surviving

even if you did
get struck six times.

So, by comparison,
if you flip a coin,

you have
a 50% chance of heads.

So, the chance of
getting heads six times in a row

would then be a half
multiplied by itself six times,

which is one chance in 64,

or just about
one and a half percent.

So, it's much less likely that
you'll get six heads in a row

than that you'll survive

six major
lightning strikes in a row.

William Shatner:
According to Rosenthal,
the odds of Carl's survival

are around 1 in 5,000.

But the fact remains --

this is a man
struck by lightning

a world-beating six times.

Is that weird, or what?

In the dead of night,
a toddler wanders,

lost and alone
in the eye of a winter storm.

She quickly succumbs to the cold
and is frozen almost solid,

like a block of ice.

Within minutes,
she is clinically dead,

until something happens
that can only be described

as weird, or what?

♪

William Shatner:
Edmonton, Alberta.

Leyla Nordby
and her two daughters,

Erika and Elyse,

were having a sleepover
at a friend's house.

But when the kids
went to sleep,

the fun night
turned into a waking nightmare.

Leyla Nordby:
Erika was next to the wall,

and sometime through the night,
she shimmied down the wall

and, basically,
got out of bed,

and went exploring.

William Shatner:
Leyla woke at 2:00 a.m.

When she saw
her little girl had vanished,

she panicked.

Leyla Nordby:
I went all around the room.

I went downstairs;
I went into the playroom.

I went everywhere,
and Erika was gone.

Then I saw
the back door flapping.

And that's when I realized,
something's wrong.

And then,
that's when I started panicking.

William Shatner:
Erika had managed
to get into the backyard

wearing only
a T-shirt and a diaper.

The temperature was -11 F
with a vicious wind-chill.

When I went outside
and I looked over to the left,

you could see
these little footprints,

and you could see a trail.

So, I followed
that little trail.

It was only about 12', 13',
but it felt like it was longer.

And at the end there,
I found Erika.

William Shatner:
Succumbing to hypothermia,

Erika's heart
had stopped beating.

She had been clinically dead
for over two hours

with no visible signs

of breathing
or blood circulation.

In this state,

permanent brain damage can occur
within a matter of minutes.

So, I had no idea
what I was in for.

I didn't even know that
there was a way to help her.

I didn't know that.

There was nothing.

William Shatner:
When paramedics arrived,

they found
a distraught mother,

with her child
almost frozen solid.

Leyla Nordby:
When the paramedics
took her from my arms

and they made
a big clunking sound

when they
put her on the table...

I really thought my daughter
was not going to make it.

William Shatner:
But remarkably,

they detected
faint signs of life.

All I can remember
is one paramedic saying,

"We've got a pulse.

"Let's move her."

And they moved her, quick.

William Shatner:
Arriving at the hospital,

Erika's internal
body temperature was 60 F...

nearly 40 degrees
lower than normal

and far colder than any
previous patient had survived.

Dr. Allen De Caen:
We're talking about
at least an hour and a half.

So, by that point in time,

I think we still knew
that there was a chance,

but our fear was
that the chance of either

her pulling through alive,

or the chance of pulling through
without significant brain injury

was getting
smaller and smaller.

So, um, not so small,
not that it wasn't worth trying,

but, uh, clearly,

by the time we were hitting
the intensive care unit,

we were getting very worried,
as to if we got her back,

how badly injured
she was going to be.

William Shatner:
Dr. Allen De Caen

battled to get Erika's
core temperature back to 98.6 F.

Dr. Allen De Caen:
You throw everything
at that child,

use all of your expertise,
all the equipment,

all the personnel
that you have.

It's long odds,
but you do what you can

to hopefully get that
one in a thousand through.

William Shatner:
Incredibly, the team was able to
get the toddler's heart beating

and her lungs working again.

Despite suffering
severe frostbite

on her fingers and toes,

requiring skin graphs,

Erika was saved,

brought back
from the dead.

But this is not the first time
a human has recovered

from extreme-cold
core temperatures.

In October 2006,
a Japanese rock climber got lost

for 23 days
on Mount Rokko, Japan.

When found by rescuers,

his organs had failed,

his core temperature was 71 F.

But he made a full recovery.

How could this be possible?

Leyla Nordby:
The doctors told me
that it was like an animal

going into hibernation,

you know,
and basically going unconscious.

You know,

and it kind of helped me

to deal with it,
that, subconsciously,

we're all like
some kind of animal.

Did Erika's body
somehow do the impossible

and go into some form
of life-saving hibernation?

Dr. Giesbrecht
has spent over 20 years

studying the effect
of cold on the human body.

Hibernation is an intentional
decreasing of temperature

and metabolic rate
and oxygen consumption.

Everything still works,

just at a slower rate,
at a lower temperature.

Humans are not
designed to do that.

We are designed
that throughout our entire life,

all year round,

we operate
at a normal core temperature.

The only reason
that we ever get low temperature

is not because we allow it,
which is what hibernation is.

We get to a low temperature
only because we're accidentally,

uh, cold stressed,

to the point that
we can't defend against it,

and we are in
a clinically bad situation.

William Shatner:
Animals hibernate
to survive the long,

cold winter months,
when food is scarce.

Can humans pull
the same biological trick

in extreme circumstances?

Dr. Gord Giesbrecht:
Bears, for instance,

are made to,
in the winter,

go to sleep,
slow down their metabolism

and lower
their core temperature

to a very,
very low degree.

But their heart
is still working,

and they're still breathing

throughout
the whole winter period.

William Shatner:
But unlike a hibernating bear,

Erika was found in a state
of near cardiac arrest.

We are made to live
our whole lives

at a core temperature
around 98.6 C or 37 C.

When a human becomes
severely hypothermic

and they become clinically dead,

their heart's not working;
they're not breathing.

That is not hibernation.

That's clinical death.

William Shatner:
So, was Erika's
hypothermic state

mistaken for hibernation?

Hypothermia occurs
when the body's core temperature

drops below normal.

A drop of a mere three degrees

causes shivering and lethargy,

blood flow becomes restricted
to the hands and feet.

A drop of five degrees can lead
to a loss of coordination,

slurred speech,
and violent shivering.

At this point,
people become irrational,

and their pulse rate decreases.

By the time
the body drops to 86 F,

severe hypothermia has set in.

The person looks dead,
and cellular processes cease.

Before long,

major organs begin to fail,

causing clinical death.

But how did Erika survive

with a core temperature
of just 60 degrees?

Ironically,
doctors believe

the fact that
Erika was so young,

tiny and fragile,
might have been what saved her.

♪

William Shatner:
A toddler freezes solid
in temperatures of -4 F.

Clinically dead for two hours,
the child, amazingly,

makes a full recovery.

Incredibly,
the fact Erika

was just a toddler
may have been what saved her.

If your heart's going to stop,

you want your heart
to be stopping

when the organs are still full
of enough oxygen and energy

so that they're going to be
able to work for a long time

at a low metabolic rate,

while you're
trying to restart the heart.

Because all tissue requires
less oxygen when it's cold,

when you become clinically dead
because of severe hypothermia,

your tissue is actually
preserved for a while.

Small children and babies,

because of their
body surface area,

because of how large
their skin is,

relative to their
overall weight and overall size,

they are
exquisitely sensitive

to losing heat
and developing a very low

body temperature very quickly.

William Shatner:
Did Erika's tiny size

help save her life?

Dr. Allen De Caen:
If you cool down fast enough,

what happens
is that your organs,

the function of them,
it slows down.

The metabolic activity,
how much oxygen,

how much energy
they end up needing to survive,

goes down to just a trickle
of what the normal amount

of energy and oxygen
would be usually necessary

to keep you alive.

So, what happened is that
because she rapidly cooled down,

it allowed her--

Even though her heart
had stopped contracting

and her heart wasn't
pushing blood around her body,

she had a much,
much longer period of time

where her organs were
going to be able to survive

without the heart pumping
oxygen and nutrients.

William Shatner:
In normal conditions,

the brain can be deprived
of oxygenated blood

for around five minutes before
suffering irreversible damage.

After around
10 minutes without oxygen,

death is almost certain.

Because extreme cold reduces
the body's metabolic activity,

the brain can survive, unharmed,
for hours or even days,

on the reserves
of oxygen and energy present

when the body
is rapidly cooled.

This condition is called
metabolic icebox and occurs

when the core temperature
drops below 86 degrees.

We often have the question
"how cold is too cold?"

And it's people like Erika

who make the answer to that
question very difficult.

Uh, 20 years ago,

we would have said
that Erika could not survive.

But then, somebody treated her,
and she lived.

So, it's very,
very difficult to say.

We don't know the lowest limit.

William Shatner:
Erika's core temperature

was 60 F, or 15 C.

Dr. Allen De Caen:
It used to be, you know,

limits of temperature
at 20 degrees,

body temperatures
of 19 degrees,

body temperatures
of 18 degrees.

It does keep on getting lower.

William Shatner:
18 C is 64 F.

Until recently,

doctors didn't attempt

to resuscitate people
with core temperatures

below 68 F.

Luckily for Erika,

today, doctors work
on a different principle.

Dr. Gord Giesbrecht:
We basically tell physicians

and anyone else
who finds someone cold,

you must try to revive a person
almost no matter what.

That's why we say,

"You're never cold and dead
until you're warm and dead."

We end up trying
to re-warm people if we think,

by the circumstances of where
they had their cardiac arrest,

we think that there is
a significant chance

that we're going to be
able to resuscitate them.

Basically, if someone is found
cold and clinically dead,

unless they have
an obvious fatal injury,

or they're literally
like a block of ice

and cannot be moved at all,

we say,
because of people like Erika,

try to revive them,
because you never know.

William Shatner:
Usually, doctors have to
warm up hypothermia victims

by filling their lungs
with warmed air,

injecting warm fluids,

or by warming the blood
through an external heater.

Dr. Allen De Caen:
Her temperature,
when she arrived,

was about 16 degrees.

Her heart started working again
at about 17 degrees.

But Erika had
one last surprise in store.

A mysterious
biological response

the medical team
simply cannot explain.

Dr. Allen De Caen:
The wonderful thing
about what happened with Erika

is once
her heart rhythm fixed itself

and her heart started pumping,

basically,
she regulated her re-warming

by herself.

Her heart
pushing blood around her body,

and us just providing
warm air blowing over her skin,

she was able to regulate

how quickly her
body temperature needed to rise.

For some reason,

Erika,
with that body temperature,

um, Gods were on her side.

William Shatner:
Erika survived her ordeal

without suffering
any form of brain damage.

She spent six weeks in hospital

but made a full recovery.

My health is pretty good.

When I grow up, at night,
I'm going to be a wrestler,

and during the day,
I'm going to be a teacher,

because sometimes
teachers can be, actually,

good role models.

Uh, I think I'm a lucky kid.

William Shatner:
For Erika's family

and the doctors
who brought her back to life,

Erika's survival
isn't just lucky;

it's miraculous.

This remarkable story raises
as many questions

as it answers.

But whatever the truth,

Erika now has
a second chance

to enjoy a long life.

Weird, or what?

Who were the first foreigners

to lay claim to
what is now the USA?

Well, most people would answer,
thanks to Christopher Columbus,

it was these guys,
the Spanish.

There's some
evidence to suggest

it was even these guys,

the Vikings.

But what if
intrepid explorers

from somewhere
completely unexpected

had really discovered America

a hundred years
earlier than anyone else?

Dr. Siu-Leung Lee:
The ships they had

at the time,
were much bigger

than Columbus'.

Some of the ships
are five times the Santa María.

William Shatner:
Mysterious carved stones

found off the coast
of California

threaten to
turn history on its head.

I'd never seen
anything like this.

William Shatner:
These stones could be proof

that the Chinese
beat Columbus to the New World.

♪

William Shatner:
Bob Meistrell was scuba diving

off of Palos Verdes
in Southern California

when he made
a strange discovery.

Bob Meistrell:
I love to dive.

It's a lot of intrigue.

Every time you go,

you don't know
what you're going to see.

Out here,
you may even see a turtle.

Every once in a while,
you do see them.

You might see
a shark out here.

We'll be
cruising along on scooters,

and this seven-gill shark

comes right up
and swims alongside of you.

You think that's my bu--

No, that isn't my buddy.

And it's just a lot of fun.

I used to collect

sea shells
for an old man that I knew,

and as I did it,

I found two round balls
down there with a hole in them.

Now, how did
that hole get there?

I've never seen
anything like this.

Had no idea
what this thing is.

Nobody else did.

William Shatner:
The stone is unlike

any natural object
Bob has ever seen.

Suspecting it
must be man-made,

Bob takes a picture
of the stone,

and sends it to experts
in underwater archaeology.

They suggest
it might be a boat anchor.

Stone was used as boat anchors
for over 3,000 years.

The ancient Egyptians,

Greeks and Romans
all used stones with grooves

or holes cut into them
to secure their ships.

Stone anchors
were only replaced

when iron and steel
became widely available.

And Europeans,

who reached the coast
of California in 1542,

would have used metal.

So, where could stone anchors
have come from?

Well, let's see.

I've been studying
those Palos Verdes stones,

off and on, for,

gosh, 35, 40 years.

William Shatner:
Larry J. Pierson

is an expert
in nautical archaeology.

Larry J. Pierson:
The stone anchor style

represented by the
collection from Palos Verdes

is a traditional anchor shape,

or group of anchor shapes,

that have been
used continuously

since very early times,
in China.

The Chinese began switching
from stone to metal anchors

around 600 years ago.

If Bob's anchors
are at least that old,

it could change everything
we know about American history.

It could mean the Chinese
beat Columbus by over 100 years.

It's a controversial theory.

There's a huge fringe--

Uh, fringe element out there

that would like to
believe in the tooth fairy

and everything, you know.

William Shatner:
Larry Pierson has another,
less sensational theory.

He thinks the rocks
are from modern times.

The most logical explanation

for the presence
of that assemblage

at that location

has to be
19th-century Chinese fishing.

William Shatner:
Larry's argument
is that modern fisherman

used an old technology
because stone is cheap

and readily available.

Larry J. Pierson:
Chinese fisherman

in 19th-century California

were using stone anchors
of a style that had been used

for thousands
of years in China.

William Shatner:
Bob Meistrell isn't
convinced that his stone anchors

belong to 19th-century
immigrant fisherman.

He claims that some
as yet unrecovered anchors

weigh thousands of pounds --

way too big
for the immigrant fishing boats

to even carry.

I think there's
a couple out there

that are 3,000 lb.
or 4,000 lb.

And I think the real big ones
out in 60' of water,

they've got to be
4,000 lb. or 5,000 lb.

William Shatner:
He assembles a team

to recover a giant anchor
to prove his point.

Man:
All the way.

Everybody, be careful.

William Shatner:
Bob and his team

pull up
a huge stone anchor.

Bob Meistrell:
The original one weighs 280 lb.

Uh, the biggest one
we've brought out of the water

weighed 1,031 lb.

William Shatner:
Could a small,
19th-century fishing boat

have really used an anchor
weighing around 1,000 lb.?

Amateur historian
Dr. Siu-Leung Lee

has spent years
studying the stones.

And he believes
a far more incredible theory --

that the anchors
are from a massive fleet

of ocean-going ships

under the command
of 15th-century Chinese

admiral and explorer

Zheng He.

Dr. Siu-Leung Lee:
I can tell you this much --

Chinese knew
more about the world

in Zheng He's time

than all the
European cartographers did.

In fact,

the European world maps

drawn 100 years later

probably were all based

on some of
the fragmented information

collected by Zheng He
during his trips.

William Shatner:
Zheng He's fleet
is known to have reached India,

the Middle East
and East Africa.

Some scholars believe
he rounded the bottom of Africa

and made it to the Atlantic.

But Dr. Lee believes Zheng He
got even further than that.

Dr. Siu-Leung Lee:
What Zheng He did
was actually going West,

from China,
through the Indian Ocean,

Atlantic Ocean,

Pacific and then head home.

That's the route he picked.

William Shatner:
Lee believes the Chinese
landed in the Carolinas,

making contact with

local Native American tribes.

It's controversial,
but if it's true,

Lee's theory would mean

the Chinese circumnavigated
the globe before the Spanish

and beat
Christopher Columbus to America.

Can such an
incredible idea be real?

One piece of evidence
supports this --

the so-called Zheng He map.

It is said to be
a copy of a 15th-century

Chinese sailing map,
which contains

detailed descriptions
of Native Americans.

Does the history of America
need to be rewritten?

Historian
Professor Jennifer Purtle

doesn't believe it.

Chinese sailors had almost
no experience in open water.

Uh, we know, of course,
that they have the astrolabe.

They get this from the Persians,
um, during the time

of Mongol rule.

We know that they know
about latitude and longitude,

because, under Mongol rule,

there's a globe that's made
by a Persian astronomer in 1267,

which is grated
with latitude and longitude.

So, they know
the world is round.

But what they
don't really know how to do

is sail across
empty blue water.

William Shatner:
Dr. Purtle doesn't think

the Chinese were capable
of crossing oceans

in the 15th century.

Dr. Jennifer Purtle:
They're used to sailing

from one coastal landmark
to the next one,

and they also
don't really know

how to ride currents
and wind patterns.

So, it's hard to imagine
that the Chinese,

without that experience
of open water sailing,

um, would actually be able
to make that crossing easily.

William Shatner:
But Dr. Lee claims

he has
more evidence that Zheng He

managed to
cross the Atlantic --

a mysterious brass medallion,

found buried
in North Carolina,

along the route
Lee believes

the Chinese
would have taken.

I think one of the
major pieces of evidence

is my brass medallion.

The main thing that caught
my eye was the inscription.

It says, "Great Ming, Xuande."

Xuande is the emperor

who sent out Zheng He,

the Ming admiral,
for the last time,

of his seventh trip,

to, uh,
visit other foreign countries.

William Shatner:
No one knows for sure

how old the medallion is
or where it came from.

But to Dr. Lee,
the exposure to

Chinese culture
and technology

left other
indelible echoes

on the Native Americans'
way of life, language

and even the way
they wore their hair.

It is interesting,

but Dr. Lee's theory
is not supported

by most experts
in the field.

Dr. Purtle
thinks it's strange

that there are
no Chinese records

of Zheng He's
alleged discovery.

Dr. Jennifer Purtle:
In a culture that was so good

at documenting, recording,
not only text but pictures,

one would think

that if the Ming had managed
to reach North America,

we would have
some kind of textual record

and that that record
would have been transmitted,

either in manuscript copies
or in print.

Uh, one also might think
we have an extraordinarily

strong tradition,
in China, also,

of printing
not only text but images.

So, one would expect to find,
perhaps, printed maps.

William Shatner:
So, perhaps it wasn't
the medieval Chinese

who came to our shores and left
these great stone anchors.

New evidence
from scientific dating

done on a stone similar
to that found by Bob Meistrell

suggests the answer
to this mystery

may be even more incredible

than anyone
could ever have imagined.

♪

William Shatner:
On America's Pacific coast,

a series of
mysterious discoveries

hint at something extraordinary.

Huge, round pieces of stone,

shaped by human hands,
that are believed

to be ship anchors.

But to whom did they belong?

There are multiple theories.

Diver Bob Meistrell
discovered the stones,

and,
as he's found out,

this is a mystery

that gets ever deeper.

Down in San Diego,

they brought up
a stone anchor,

a round stone
with a hole in it,

up from
a very deep depth.

It had magnesium nodules
growing on it,

so they dated
those magnesium nodules,

and it was
4,000 years ago.

William Shatner:
The implications are enormous --

an ancient civilization,

reaching America's West coast

four millennia ago.

Dr. Siu-Leung Lee:
People in Europe

didn't even know the existence
of the Pacific Ocean.

So, this has to
come from Asia,

and most likely from China.

So, that's my conclusion.

Well, that's amazing.

I think it's really,
really fantastic.

We discovered these stones,

were inquisitive about it.

I've always been
that way in my life,

and I want to find out
what they are before I pass on.

We've got to hurry!

William Shatner:
The origins of the huge,
sunken stones remain a mystery.

Are they discarded anchors?

Did they belong
to 19th-century fisherman,

or did a medieval
Chinese admiral

set foot
on American soil

generations before
the Europeans?

Weird, or what?

So, three
bizarre mysteries,

yet many
possible explanations.

A man struck by lightning
a world-record six times...

is he just the world's
unluckiest man?

Can mathematics
explain his run of doomed luck?

Or is there something
special about his body

that might
actually attract lightning?

A child freezes almost solid

on a harsh
Canadian winter night.

She's clinically dead for hours,

yet survives.

Did her body go into

some form
of human hibernation?

Did the fact
she was just a tiny toddler

actually help save her?

And in America's coastal waters,

huge sunken stone objects
suggest the extraordinary.

Are these anchors left by a
fleet of medieval Chinese ships?

Is this proof another
civilization reached California

before the Spanish?

You decide.

Join me next time
for more stories

that will undoubtedly be

weird, or what?