Original subtitles

WILDMAN: A television legend uncovers a sinister spy ring.

BARRETT JACKSON: Lucille Ball had a bizarre medical emergency

that brought down one of the biggest wartime threats.

WILDMAN: A fisherman terrorized by a 20‐foot‐long river monster.

[ Snarling ]

ESPINOSA: He was scared.

He thought, "What is this? I’ve never seen this before."

[ Snarling ]

WILDMAN: And a glowing secret rocks a small town.

VADNEY: People thought, "Maybe the aliens are coming down.

Maybe this is the first contact."

WILDMAN: But first, this strange device

recalls a puzzling tale of a curious farmer

and a seemingly sinister military cover‐up.

The artifact is connected to one family’s pursuit of the truth

in the face of government conspiracy.

♪

WILDMAN: Amazing mysteries,

bizarre phenomena,

and chilling secrets.

I’m Don Wildman.

Join me on a journey beyond the unknown.

♪

It’s 1962.

David McPherson lives with his wife and son

on a remote farm in the Canadian province of New Brunswick.

REIDY: McPherson lived a quiet life with his family.

He lived off the land. He knew it like the back of his hand.

♪

WILDMAN: One day, McPherson is gathering timber in the woods

when he spots something unusual.

Tangled in a tree is a strange swath of billowing fabric

with long ropes that dangle down to the ground.

It appears to be a parachute.

Beneath it, on the ground,

McPherson finds a large white box.

But it’s unlike any kind of box he’s seen before.

It was made of some hard metallic substance.

The front and the bottom of the object

had two small glass panes,

but he couldn’t quite see through them.

WILDMAN: The box has no identifying words or markings.

McPherson is intrigued and begins to wonder what it is

and where it could have come from.

He had to get to the bottom of it.

He was totally captivated.

♪

WILDMAN: So the farmer drags the heavy box back to his barn,

where he begins searching for clues

about its contents or purpose.

But try as he might, he fails.

REIDY: He tried his hardest to open the box,

but whatever tools he used, it wouldn’t budge.

It was sealed shut no matter what he did.

WILDMAN: McPherson gives the enigmatic box a simple nickname.

He started referring to this as "The thing in the woods."

♪

WILDMAN: Then, just days after his extraordinary discovery,

McPherson is visited by two men.

They claim to be members of the Canadian military,

and they tell McPherson that they have come for the box.

REIDY: At that moment, he knew this was serious

and much bigger than him.

WILDMAN: With little explanation,

the soldiers confiscate the strange object,

put it in the back of a truck, and haul it away.

REIDY: It was very frustrating to McPherson

to watch this happen.

Now he might never discover the truth

behind the thing in the woods.

♪

WILDMAN: McPherson petitions the Canadian government

to release information about the curious cube.

[ Typewriter clicking ]

And even though he never gets a reply,

he keeps making requests for decades.

He was desperate to figure out what that thing was

and why they showed up at his house that day.

WILDMAN: In 2015, McPherson passes away without learning the truth.

But his son, David Jr., takes up the cause.

REIDY: The mystery of the thing in the woods

was almost like a family heirloom.

He wanted to get the answers that his father never could.

WILDMAN: So can he crack the case of the thing in the woods?

♪

For years, David Jr. continues to pressure the government

for information.

Then in 2017,

the CIA declassifies a trove of Cold War‐related documents.

Among them is a report that could crack the case wide open.

It details a long‐defunct U.S. military intelligence program ‐‐

Project Genetrix.

REIDY: Project Genetrix was enacted by President Eisenhower

in the 1950s to secretly spy on the Soviet Union

and Communist China.

WILDMAN: To gather information on America’s enemies,

the military affixed cameras to special weather balloons.

Riding the jet stream,

these balloons would glide into enemy territory

[ Beeping ] at altitudes that made them nearly undetectable.

The cameras took pictures of infrastructure,

military installations, and missile silos below.

♪

According to CIA records,

the camera equipment was housed in a sealed white box,

just like the one found by David McPherson on his property.

REIDY: When David McPherson Jr. learned all of this,

he was totally floored.

It was so much more elaborate

than anything he or his father thought of.

♪

WILDMAN: David Jr. believes his father found

one of these camera housings that had blown off course

and crash‐landed near the family farm.

This question that had hung over his family for decades

was finally answered.

♪

WILDMAN: Today, this Project Genetrix spy camera

is on permanent display at

the Anderson Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum

in New Mexico.

It provides an intriguing snapshot

into one family’s quest to uncover the truth.

♪

This piece of jewelry was once worn by actress Lucille Ball.

And it recalls how the television titan

may have helped win the Second World War.

Her bizarre medical emergency brought down a foreign enemy.

♪

WILDMAN: It’s March 1942 in Los Angeles.

Lucille Ball is a 30‐year‐old up‐and‐coming actress

with supporting roles in the Marx Brothers’ "Room Service"

and "Follow the Fleet" with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

She’s just starting to hone the skills

that will make her a star.

BARRETT JACKSON: She had this magnetism on screen.

She had this grace. She had amazing comedic timing.

And it was just a matter of time until she got her big break

to become just what she wanted to be.

♪

WILDMAN: But her burgeoning career is about to be imperiled.

♪

Late one night, Ball is driving home from a film shoot.

As the starlet is rounding a curve,

she’s suddenly jolted by the sound of loud music...

[ Electrical buzzing, music plays ]

...ringing in her ears.

At first, she assumes it’s coming from the radio.

[ Static ] But the device is turned off.

BARRETT JACKSON: The music just gets louder and louder,

and she doesn’t understand what’s happening

or where it’s coming from.

WILDMAN: Ball frantically searches for the origin

of the tormenting tones...

[ Music intensifies ] ...but she has no luck.

BARRETT JACKSON: It wasn’t from outside.

It wasn’t from the radio.

WILDMAN: Suddenly, the actress comes to a stunning realization.

♪

It was actually coming from within her own mouth.

♪

WILDMAN: For several agonizing minutes,

the music blares inside her head.

BARRETT JACKSON: She clutched her face.

She’d never had anything like this happen before.

WILDMAN: Then, just as suddenly as they started,

the sounds stop.

Ball writes the episode off as a fluke.

♪

But a few days later,

she’s driving through an area called Coldwater Canyon...

[ Electrical buzzing ]

...when it happens again.

[ Static ]

But this time, it was different.

It wasn’t a song she recognized.

It was this beat, this tapping, this "dut‐dut‐dut" ‐‐

the sound that was just recurring and recurring.

[ Tires screech ]

WILDMAN: Terrified, Ball pulls the car over.

For several minutes, she endures the throbbing in her ears.

Then, just as before, the tones abruptly end.

BARRETT JACKSON: Now she’s gone from just a one‐time event

to this recurring thing that she can’t explain.

Ball was becoming convinced that she was going insane,

and she was desperate for an answer.

WILDMAN: So what’s causing the infernal racket in Lucy’s head?

[ Electrical buzzing, beeping ]

One day, Ball is on the set of her latest film,

entitled "Du Barry Was a Lady,"

when she runs into fellow actor Buster Keaton.

The former silent‐film icon

has become something of a mentor to the young actress.

And now she decides to tell him

about the strange noises in her head.

Incredibly, Keaton solves the mystery right away.

He actually knew of someone that had experienced

something quite similar, to which he inquired,

when was the last time she’d been to the dentist?

WILDMAN: Ball says that she had, in fact,

recently received several temporary fillings.

Keaton tells her that the metal is known to act

as a conductor for radio waves.

The actress then recalls that during her first episode,

she was driving past a radio station.

BARRETT JACKSON: The fillings in her mouth were picking up the radio signals,

and they were actually being amplified by her mouth.

It was literally a speaker.

♪

WILDMAN: But what of the second incident?

It didn’t seem like anything you’d hear

transmitted on your local radio station.

Now that she was thinking about the idea of it not being music,

she had to think about, "What could it be?"

And that’s when it dawned on her

that she was probably hearing Morse code.

[ Beeping ]

♪

WILDMAN: Just months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,

Ball wonders if it could have been

some sort of secret military signal.

BARRETT JACKSON: The United States had just entered into World War II.

She got this hunch

that perhaps she’d heard something she shouldn’t have.

♪

WILDMAN: Lucille Ball alerts the authorities.

They search the area of Coldwater Canyon,

where the actress said she picked up the Morse code sounds.

Hidden underneath a house is a 50,000‐watt radio station,

and the operators are soon revealed

to be members of a Japanese spy ring.

The Japanese had been using the bunker as a secret facility

where they were sending out messages.

WILDMAN: Within weeks, the enemy network is broken up.

BARRETT JACKSON: Ball had unwittingly helped win the war.

This wild and amazing story was stranger than fiction.

♪

WILDMAN: Fittingly, just a few years later,

it’s radio that gives Lucille Ball her first break.

In 1948, she lands a job performing comic routines

on the CBS Radio show "My Favorite Husband."

On the program, she plays the zany housewife.

The show eventually propels the actress into her iconic role

on the 1951 television sitcom "I Love Lucy."

♪

Today, costume jewelry worn by Lucille Ball

during her budding film career is on display

at the Hollywood Museum in Los Angeles, California.

It recalls the moment when a soon‐to‐be comedy legend

got the last laugh on the enemy.

♪

This gruesome device called a fleam

is linked to a mystery surrounding the sudden demise

of the United States’ first president, George Washington.

LOMBARDI: This is the story of the search

for what caused the death of an American legend.

♪

WILDMAN: December 14, 1799 ‐‐

Mt. Vernon, Virginia.

According to the history books,

former first lady Martha Washington

is woken in the middle of the night

by the sounds of her 67‐year‐old husband, George,

[ Coughing ] coughing and gasping for breath.

LOMBARDI: She found him clutching at his chest and throat.

He was struggling to catch his breath.

WILDMAN: Washington had spent the previous day outside

in cold and rainy winter weather.

Martha concludes that her husband

has become ill as a result.

[ Coughing, gasping ]

Martha must have been very, very concerned.

She told him that she wanted to go and fetch his physician,

but George refused.

WILDMAN: Martha urges her husband to take medication,

but the former general insists on toughing it out.

He told her that he never medicated a cold.

And stubbornly, George went back to sleep.

WILDMAN: But a few hours later,

Washington’s condition has gotten worse.

George was now running a fever.

He was complaining that his throat was swollen and raw.

He was unable to swallow.

He was having great difficulty inhaling.

WILDMAN: Martha finally summons the doctors.

One by one, they try a series of treatments

commonly used at the time ‐‐

drawing blood, administering potions,

and even applying a topical preparation of dried beetles

that is thought to draw out toxins.

But all is in vain.

And as the day wears on,

a helpless Martha watches as her beloved husband deteriorates.

LOMBARDI: It must have been frightening for her

to watch this man who had been her rock

and the rock that our country had been built on

suddenly decline so fast.

WILDMAN: Despite the doctors’ valiant efforts

at battling this short and violent illness,

at just past 10:00 p. m.,

George Washington takes his final breath.

♪

LOMBARDI: Martha was devastated.

This was the realization of all of her worst fears.

WILDMAN: The tragic news is speedily conveyed

to President John Adams.

The nation mourns their founding father for a period of 69 days,

until February 22, 1800 ‐‐

Washington’s birthday.

The cause of death is given as an infection of the upper throat

called epiglottitis.

And this diagnosis remains the official version

for more than 200 years.

But is this what really happened?

A shocking twist on history is about to be revealed.

LOMBARDI: An intriguing discovery brought new information to light

of what truly killed America’s founding father.

♪

WILDMAN: It’s December 14, 1799.

America’s first president, George Washington, is dead.

His doctors proclaim the cause of his demise

is an infection in his throat.

But more than 200 years later, new information is uncovered

that could turn history on its head.

2004 ‐‐ Los Angeles, California.

Dr. Vimal Vatican is an expert in hematology,

the science of blood.

He believes that Washington wasn’t killed

by a throat infection,

but by his own doctors.

The reason why?

A bizarre medical practice that was common at the time

known as bloodletting.

♪

LOMBARDI: It was commonly held medical belief

that bleeding a patient could induce a cure

or alleviate symptoms of disease.

WILDMAN: Bloodletting was often performed

using an instrument called a fleam,

which was similar to a pocket knife

with different‐sized blades,

just like this one within the collection

of the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum in Louisiana.

And Vatican learns that the president

personally requested his doctors to do the procedure.

He believed that bloodletting had helped him in the past,

and he was hopeful it would do so again.

♪

WILDMAN: Dr. Vatican then concludes that the president underwent

at least four rounds of this treatment

over the course of his last day.

He believes it could have done him more harm than good.

LOMBARDI: Because individual doctors were coming in and out

and each one taking turns working on Washington,

it was possible that no one was keeping track

of how much blood the president had lost.

WILDMAN: Dr. Vatican estimates that the president,

who was a large man,

had started the day with approximately 15 pints of blood.

He calculates that Washington lost nearly 8 pints of blood

within a span of only 9 to 10 hours.

That’s an incredible amount of blood

to lose in a short period of time.

WILDMAN: As a result of this new information,

Dr. Vatican proposes a surprising new theory.

It might not have been a throat infection

that killed the president.

Instead, he may have been brought down

by severe low blood pressure and shock

as a consequence of blood loss.

LOMBARDI: Losing that much blood is potentially fatal.

It’s possible that in the doctors’ attempts

to cure Washington,

they actually killed Washington.

♪

WILDMAN: This mysterious hunk of metal recalls a spectacular tale

that’s truly out of this world.

VADNEY: This is the type of story that seems like it was lifted

straight out of a 1960s comic book.

♪

WILDMAN: It’s just before dawn on September 6, 1962,

in northeast Wisconsin.

[ Telephone rings ]

Local police receive a call from a terrified dairy farmer.

The farmer says that he was headed out to milk his cows

when he heard a thunderous noise coming from above.

[ Boom ]

He says that when he looked up,

he saw dozens of large, bright objects

streaking across the sky.

He’d never seen anything like this before.

♪

WILDMAN: At first, the police are skeptical of the farmer’s story.

[ Telephones ring ]

But when they receive a string of other calls,

all reporting similar incidents from around the area,

they start to take the matter seriously.

You had a lot of calls coming in

reporting strange streaks of light

and sounds that were coming from the sky.

WILDMAN: With the nation in the grip of UFO mania,

some believe this is proof positive

of a real‐life close encounter.

VADNEY: A lot of people would have thought,

"Maybe the aliens are coming down.

Maybe this is the first contact."

♪

WILDMAN: Police fan out across the region to investigate the sightings.

[ Siren wailing ]

And in the town of Manitowoc,

two officers are patrolling a residential neighborhood

when they make a startling discovery.

[ Radio chatter ]

There in the middle of the street,

they see something embedded in the asphalt.

And it’s glowing.

VADNEY: When the officers came upon this,

it’s smoking‐hot.

It’s almost liquefied metal.

They had never seen anything like this before.

♪

WILDMAN: The officers are faced with a chilling question ‐‐

did this glowing mass come from outer space?

♪

WILDMAN: It’s 1962.

After a string of UFO sightings in the area,

a strange, glowing mass crash‐lands

in the small town of Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

♪

After a few hours, the strange, glowing object cools down,

allowing the police officers to examine it further.

They determine that it looks like some kind of metal disk.

The officers bring it back to the station

and call in local metal experts to help identify the artifact.

This metal just didn’t fit the description

that you would normally find.

This was a legitimate mystery.

WILDMAN: Then, the Manitowoc authorities get a break.

[ Telephone rings ]

A man named Ed Holbeck, a member of a local astronomy group,

comes forward.

Holbeck explains that his group was recruited

by the U. S. government to be part of a secret program

called Operation Moon Watch.

And according to Holbeck,

the strange object isn’t from an alien spaceship.

It’s part of a Soviet satellite named Sputnik 4.

Many Americans would have remembered the news

of the first Sputnik spacecraft being launched.

This was a modified version of that

that was much larger.

WILDMAN: Sputnik 4 was launched by the Soviets in 1960,

but after two years circling the Earth,

it had fallen out of orbit.

Holbeck had tracked the doomed satellite

as its remnants slammed into northern Wisconsin ‐‐

on the same night that the farmer reported

hearing the loud boom and seeing the strange lights.

This was a startling revelation.

A piece of a Soviet spacecraft

had landed in the middle of Wisconsin.

Sputnik 4 was never intended to land in North America

and certainly was not intended to land where people live.

♪

WILDMAN: Eventually, the metal disk is returned to the Russians,

but not before an exact replica is made.

Today, this replica of the satellite is on display

at the town’s Rahr‐West Art Museum.

It recalls the unidentified visitor

that fell from space to drop in on a small Midwestern town.

♪

Sandwiched between the megacities

of Los Angeles and San Francisco is a unique environment

seemingly untouched by modern society.

COOPER: It’s host to rare ecosystems and endangered animals,

all kinds of plant life.

And it’s gained its recognition as a national natural landmark.

WILDMAN: This is the magnificent Guadalupe‐Nipomo Dunes Preserve.

Peaking at 500 feet,

these are the highest sand dunes in the Western United States.

This natural wonderland has become legendary ‐‐

not only for the height of these massive drifts,

but also for the secrets that hide beneath them.

COOPER: There’s a rumor that a lost relic from another time

still survives buried under the sand.

WILDMAN: What strange, seemingly ancient wonder

may rest below these fragile dunes?

1923 ‐‐ Los Angeles, California.

Hollywood is the world’s leading producer of silent films,

churning out over 800 movies each year.

And at the forefront of this boom

is one of Tinseltown’s most acclaimed directors,

Cecil B. DeMille.

COOPER: DeMille was a showman.

Everything he touched turned to gold,

and he really ruled the roost

as far as the directors of that time.

WILDMAN: But DeMille wants to expand his horizons,

so he embarks on his biggest project to date ‐‐

an unprecedented biblical odyssey

called "The Ten Commandments."

COOPER: $750,000 is going to go towards this production.

It’s one of the largest‐budget films of that time.

WILDMAN: But this epic story of Moses leading the Israelites

to the Promised Land

is set in the sweltering Egyptian desert.

In Los Angeles, there isn’t anything

that’s going to look like an Egyptian desert.

But the dunes in Guadalupe gave DeMille the look that he needed.

WILDMAN: While DeMille has the perfect location,

he still needs to create an Egyptian city.

COOPER: These are the days before CGI.

You didn’t computer‐generate anything.

You built it from the ground up.

So roughly 1,500 workers spend six weeks building this city.

It includes four 35‐foot‐tall Ramses statues

and 21 Sphinxes

and a grand avenue leading up to the city’s entrance.

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

WILDMAN: Over the two months of filming,

3,000 actors and 5,000 animals

bring DeMille’s epic vision to life.

It is Paramount Pictures’ most expensive movie to date.

And when it’s released, it also becomes its most profitable.

But while the movie wows audiences

throughout North America,

the story of its elaborate set is just beginning.

COOPER: It was common in those days for sets to be reused

by another production for a lower‐budget film.

WILDMAN: But any filmmakers hoping to make a quick buck

off the back of DeMille’s masterpiece set

are soon disappointed.

At that point, the set mysteriously vanished.

WILDMAN: So how did DeMille’s massive Egyptian set

simply disappear overnight?

♪

WILDMAN: 1923 ‐‐ Central California.

Cecil B. DeMille has just finished

shooting his blockbuster "The Ten Commandments"

on a massive set built on the Guadalupe‐Nipomo Dunes.

But when the movie opens

to sold‐out theaters across America,

the giant construction mysteriously vanishes.

For decades, the fate of the lost set remains a mystery.

COOPER: But then over the years,

people began searching around for clues.

WILDMAN: 1982 ‐‐ Los Angeles.

[ Indistinct conversation ]

Film school graduate Peter Brosnan and a friend

are discussing the mystery of the lost set

when Brosnan’s friend announces

that he has the answer to the riddle.

He buried it. He said, "You know ‐‐"

What? Bull! No, no, no! Listen!

COOPER: Brosnan doesn’t believe him, and he wants proof.

So his friend whips out DeMille’s autobiography.

WILDMAN: Brosnan’s friend points out a passage in DeMille’s book

stating that if archeologists dug

beneath the sands of Guadalupe a thousand years later,

DeMille hoped they wouldn’t jump to the conclusion

that the Egyptian civilization once expanded

to the Pacific Coast of North America.

Enthralled by the text,

Brosnan immediately makes the connection

to DeMille’s "The Ten Commandments."

COOPER: Brosnan knows that if this set does in fact exist,

it would be one of the last remaining sets

from a 1920s film.

WILDMAN: For Brosnan, finding Hollywood’s Egyptian palace

would be a chance to save

a rare and invaluable piece of movie history.

So in June 1983, with hopes that DeMille’s creation

may exist somewhere at Guadalupe‐Nipomo,

Brosnan ventures out to the massive dunes.

He finds a local who agrees to show him the location

where they think the film was shot.

WILDMAN: Brosnan searches the desert‐like landscape for hours.

And finally, he sees sticking out of the sand

what looks to be a piece of the set from 1923.

He realizes at this time that the rumors are true ‐‐

this lost set survives.

WILDMAN: But something doesn’t make sense.

How did DeMille’s mammoth construction

just disappear in 1923

and end up hidden under the dunes?

Film historians conclude that DeMille’s ego

had everything to do with it.

COOPER: There were fears in DeMille’s mind

that another production would repurpose his set.

He didn’t want that to happen.

He wanted the first time that people see this set

on the big screen in his movie "The Ten Commandments."

♪

WILDMAN: So to protect the unique aura that surrounded the film,

DeMille secretly ordered the crew

to dynamite the Egyptian city

and bury it under the very sands on which it stood.

[ Explosion ]

[ Crashing ]

♪

And in October 2012, with the help of archeologists,

Brosnan excavates the dunes

and recovers several undamaged pieces

of DeMille’s wondrous set.

Today, many of the treasured artifacts

of "The Ten Commandments"

still remain under a blanket of sand

here at the Guadalupe‐Nipomo Dunes,

forever preserving an epic reminder

of Tinseltown’s golden age of silent film.

♪

This skull recalls a frightening monster

that terrorized a tiny community.

ESPINOSA: This is a story of a small town, a scientist,

and a mythical beast that lurked in the darkness.

♪

WILDMAN: It’s June 1971 in the small town of Newport, Arkansas.

A fisherman named Cloyce Warren

is out on his boat on the White River...

♪

...when he spots something unusual in the murky depths.

♪

Swimming beneath the water

is what appears to be a massive creature.

The beast is more than 20 feet long,

has strange grayish skin,

and appears to have a horn on its head.

[ Snarling ]

ESPINOSA: He was scared.

He thought, "What is this? I’ve never seen this before."

[ Snarling ]

WILDMAN: Warren grabs his camera

and takes a picture of the leviathan before it disappears.

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

Later, he shows the image to his friends in town.

ESPINOSA: The photo was blurry, but people could still tell

it was not something that should be in that river.

People were shocked.

WILDMAN: Warren concludes that he’s had a brush with a legendary beast

that’s been seen in the region many times before ‐‐

the White River Monster.

The strange creature is said to have a large horn on its head

and is known to make a terrifying sound.

[ Snarling ] People had heard this creature.

It had this low, bellowing roar.

[ Roaring ]

It gave them chills.

♪

WILDMAN: As word of Warren’s sighting spreads,

many residents go hunting for the monster,

hoping to capture it dead or alive.

One group even requests a permit to use dynamite

to blast the beast out of the river.

But "Whitey," as it’s come to be known, evades capture.

♪

Over the next two years,

the search takes on such a frenzy

that even the state government gets involved.

In 1973, Arkansas legislators

pass the White River Monster Refuge Act.

The law makes it illegal to kill,

harass, or harm the massive animal

in its designated sanctuary area.

But the government involvement

only fans the flames of speculation and fear.

ESPINOSA: Even people who were skeptical now had reason to believe

there was some validity to this

’cause the local government had passed a law.

♪

WILDMAN: So, what’s the truth behind the White River Monster?

♪

WILDMAN: It’s 1973 in Arkansas.

A strange beast has been spotted in the White River.

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

The massive creature is gray in color,

sports a menacing horn, and has a terrifying roar.

As the latest reports of the White River Monster

swirl around the country,

they eventually reach a biologist

at the University of Chicago.

His name is Roy P. Mackal.

ESPINOSA: He was an accomplished biologist,

but he was also a leading mind of cryptozoology,

which is the study of unsubstantiated animals.

♪

WILDMAN: Mackal makes it his mission

to identify the monster once and for all.

He first considers the possibility

that it is not a living creature,

but an inanimate object, like a sunken boat or a boulder.

But he immediately rules the idea out.

ESPINOSA: Many of the people that told of seeing this creature

said that it was darting back and forth.

Well, if it’s a huge boulder,

it’s not going to dart back and forth.

WILDMAN: Some locals believe

the monster is an unusually large snapping turtle,

but Mackal doubts this could be the case.

He knew snapping turtles do not grow to the size of a car.

♪

WILDMAN: Based on decades’ worth of eyewitness accounts,

Mackal compiles a comprehensive description

of the White River Monster.

It’s then that he comes to a stunning realization ‐‐

the beast is not a previously unknown species

or a mythical monster,

but a northern elephant seal.

As proof, Mackal points to the creature’s size and color.

ESPINOSA: The northern elephant seal could grow as long as 15 feet

and weigh up to 5,000 pounds,

and the coloring is gray.

WILDMAN: These marine creatures have been spotted in the Gulf of Mexico

and are known to migrate up to 13,000 miles.

Mackal suspects one or more of them

mistakenly swam up the Mississippi River

and into a tributary ‐‐ the White River.

It made perfect sense that no one would recognize this thing

because a northern elephant seal is not native to this area.

♪

WILDMAN: Male northern elephant seals

get their name from a large proboscis,

which resembles an elephant’s trunk.

This physical characteristic might account for the horn

that some say they saw on the beast’s head.

[ Croaking ]

Finally, these creatures are known to exhibit

a particularly noisy trait.

To attract a mate,

male elephant seals make a deep, bellowing roar.

[ Roars ]

ESPINOSA: Mackal was thrilled.

He had cracked the case. He knew what this thing was.

♪

WILDMAN: Today, this northern elephant seal skull is on display

at the San Diego Natural History Museum in California.

It tells the surprising story of one man’s search for answers

and the murky truth behind a legendary creature of the deep.

♪

This object recalls one of the greatest deep‐sea mysteries

the military has ever known.

This is an epic tale of tragic loss and an amazing discovery.

♪

WILDMAN: April 26, 1921 ‐‐ Honolulu.

U. S. Navy officials at the Pearl Harbor Naval Station

are in a panic.

[ Rapid beeping ]

A tugboat named the USS Conestoga has vanished.

♪

The 170‐foot‐long steel vessel,

armed with a distinctive .50‐caliber gun,

was en route from San Francisco to Hawaii with a crew of 56 men.

HANNIGAN: The journey to Pearl Harbor was a routine voyage,

and the expectation was that everyone would arrive

safe and sound.

♪

WILDMAN: Navy officials have not received a distress call

from the Conestoga, and there are no other indications

that anything has gone awry.

It was very strange. The boat had just disappeared.

♪

WILDMAN: The Navy launches a massive search‐and‐rescue mission.

They dispatch more than 60 vessels and dozens of aircraft

to cover an area of over 300,000 square miles.

♪

For weeks, the Navy searches for the Conestoga,

but the effort fails.

The men of the Navy came up absolutely empty‐handed.

♪

WILDMAN: Finally, after two months, on June 30th,

the Navy officially declares the tugboat lost at sea

and calls off the search.

All 56 members of the Conestoga’s crew

are pronounced dead.

HANNIGAN: After months and months of hoping

that their brothers, fathers, sons, husbands would be found,

many families had to come to terms with the fact

that they just weren’t going to get any answers.

♪

WILDMAN: And in the years that follow,

questions about the USS Conestoga’s fate

remain unanswered.

Some people theorize that the crew,

unhappy with their working conditions,

mutinied and sold the tugboat to dishonest merchants.

Others believe that the Conestoga

had been overtaken by pirates

who seized control of the ship for their own use.

And a few speculate

that the Conestoga ran aground on a deserted island.

They didn’t know what happened to these men.

WILDMAN: As the years pass,

the disappearance of the USS Conestoga

becomes one of the biggest mysteries in naval history.

So, what’s the secret of this lost vessel?

♪

♪

WILDMAN: It’s 1921.

A tugboat named the USS Conestoga has disappeared

while making a routine voyage from San Francisco to Hawaii.

In the aftermath,

the Navy launches a massive search‐and‐rescue effort,

but no trace of the ship is ever found.

♪

2009 ‐‐ Monterey, California.

Scientists James Delgado and Robert Schwemmer are researchers

at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

They have long been obsessed

by the mystery of the USS Conestoga.

HANNIGAN: Both Schwemmer and Delgado

are not afraid to explore the unknown,

and they are willing to go all the way

to the bottom of the ocean to figure out this mystery.

♪

WILDMAN: In August, they receive an intriguing report.

One of their research vessels was doing a routine survey

of the ocean floor 30 miles off the coast of California

when the crew captured an unusual image on its sonar.

HANNIGAN: Something that was the shape of an oval

really stuck out to them.

♪

WILDMAN: Intrigued, Delgado and Schwemmer send a remotely operated vehicle

to explore the site and send up live video images.

♪

And there, 200 feet beneath the surface,

are the remains of a 170‐foot‐long vessel.

HANNIGAN: Once they send the cameras down,

this was, in fact, a shipwreck.

That would have been so exciting for Delgado and Schwemmer.

WILDMAN: The ship appears to be made of steel.

And as they watch the video feed,

Delgado and Schwemmer spot a vital clue on the deck.

♪

HANNIGAN: They could see a large gun mounted to the deck of the ship.

That was the "Aha" moment.

WILDMAN: The size of the steel ship and the large cannon

point the investigators toward one conclusion ‐‐

it’s the long‐lost USS Conestoga.

♪

So, what happened on that fateful voyage?

Examining the wreckage,

Delgado and Schwemmer uncover structural damage to the ship

that most likely occurred during a heavy storm.

It seems that after taking on water,

the Conestoga sank only 30 miles from her point of departure.

HANNIGAN: Schwemmer and Delgado were incredibly relieved

that they had solved the mystery of the long‐lost Conestoga.

♪

WILDMAN: In 2016,

relatives of the crew members of the USS Conestoga

are invited to the United States Navy Memorial

in Washington, D. C.

In a solemn ceremony,

a naval bell is rung 56 times to honor the long‐lost sailors.

[ Bell rings ]

♪

Today, that bell is on display in the Memorial’s auditorium.

It’s a testament to the shipwrecked secret

that refused to stay hidden beneath the waves.

♪