Original subtitles

narrator: Tonight on

"The Bermuda Triangle: Into Cursed Waters."

- It's been down for a while.

Probably a 100 years or more.

narrator: What happened to the largest ship

to ever go missing in the Bermuda Triangle?

- Could this potentially be the "Cyclops"?

- Ship departs, never to be seen again.

Sails off into oblivion.

narrator: Did the "Cyclops" fall prey

to a rare and dangerous phenomenon?

- That were seen as fables, seen as fisherman's tales.

- You're talking a catastrophic event...

- Yes.

narrator: A challenging dive into the darkness,

in search of a lost giant.

- All under the umbrella of the Bermuda Triangle.

[dramatic music]

[waves crashing]

narrator: There is a place

that evokes fear and fascination.

Bounded by Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico,

the Bermuda Triangle has swallowed

countless ships, planes, and people.

But why?

Now an elite team dives in.

- These are dangerous dives.

- Any sane person would not be doing this.

narrator: Their secret weapon, a map decades in the making,

which pinpoints unidentified wrecks.

- There's all these shipwrecks out there

in the Bermuda Triangle that there's no names to.

- Dive, dive, dive.

♪ ♪

narrator: Their mission,

solve the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle

one wreck at a time.

- Mother nature is going to take these wrecks away,

and these mysteries are never going to be solved.

The clock is ticking.

♪ ♪

- Ones without regs on it go in the far end.

Ones with regs go right here.

narrator: Diver Mike Barnette is preparing to investigate

the mystery of another unidentified wreck

in the Bermuda Triangle.

Barnette has turned decades of leads

into our closely guarded map.

The secret location of hundreds of wrecks

in or near the Bermuda Triangle,

including today's target,

50 miles northeast of Miami,

known to locals as Cal's Wreck.

- I've known about Cal's Wreck probably about 15 years,

but it's taken me this long to actually get to it.

The name comes from the fishermen

that originally found it.

Sometimes, they name it after themselves.

Sometimes, they'll name it after their boat,

their girlfriend, an event that happened

that day, something notable, and a lot of times,

we don't know the origin of the name.

Just 'cause it's been-- happened 50, 60 years ago

when they first found the wreck.

- How far off the bottom do you think it is?

Is it tall? - It's probably...

narrator: Barnett's best source for mystery wrecks

are local fisherman. - There's a wreck right here.

- OK.

- And I'll get you the exact numbers.

- It's neat to actually know in this case,

with Cal Owens the fisherman, it was named after himself.

He's the first one, that we know of,

that was fishing it.

These guys know where the wrecks are.

They don't know what the wrecks are,

but they know there's something on the bottom.

♪ ♪

narrator: The fishermen who snag their nets

on Cal's Wreck claim whatever's down there is big,

which has the team thinking it could be the wreck

behind the Bermuda Triangle's deadliest mystery,

the USS "Cyclops".

[waves crashing]

On March 3, 1918, at the height of World War I,

the "Cyclops", a Navy ship as long as two city blocks,

sails out of Barbados with 309 men aboard,

bristling with heavy cranes and thousands of tons of cargo

in her hold.

She travels north towards Puerto Rico,

crosses into the Bermuda Triangle,

and suddenly vanishes.

No SOS. No lifeboats.

- There's so many questions.

I mean, this ship just vanished.

Not a piece of wreckage was found.

narrator: To this day, it remains

the largest noncombat loss of life in U.S. Navy history.

- It is still one of the greatest

Bermuda Triangle mysteries just because what happened?

I think the legend and lore of the "Cyclops"--

I mean, that's an iconic

Bermuda Triangle story, obviously.

To really explain what happened to the "Cyclops",

the wreck needs to be found first.

♪ ♪

narrator: Could Cal's Wreck be

the "Cyclops"' final resting place?

To find out, the team is headed

into the Bermuda Triangle,

determined to be the first to reach a wreck

that has eluded divers for decades.

- This is a site that's resting in 385 feet of water.

We're on the western edge of the Gulf Stream.

narrator: Blocking access to the wreck

is the Gulf Stream,

a massive underwater river winding along the U.S. coast

pushing nearly 8 billion gallons

of water per minute,

more than all of the Earth's rivers combined.

♪ ♪

Divers who attempt to cross this aquatic superhighway

risk being dragged out into the open ocean.

- We know we have high current,

so this is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill dive.

narrator: But mother nature has given the dive team

a break they've been waiting 15 years for.

- We had a tropical storm go right over our head.

As the tropical storm moves offshore,

it pulls the Gulf Stream out with it.

And that, hopefully, would give us

an opportunity to dive this wreck

without any strong current.

Anything that makes a dive easier

increases your odds of success.

narrator: Accompanying Barnette on this mission

is his right-hand man,

technical diver Jimmy Gadomski,

along with a support team of dive specialists.

- There is a certain level of danger

that goes into the dives that we're doing.

♪ ♪

narrator: 40 miles offshore,

the team arrives at the coordinates

of Cal's Wreck.

- Well, that's the top of the wreck.

369, right? - We're sitting on top of it.

- Oh, sweet. - Any current so--

narrator: Jimmy checks for a current.

narrator:He needs to precisely position the boat.

The team will use the 4-mile-an-hour current

to hit the wreck.

- We're basically what you call hot dropping

and drifting into the wreck.

Yeah, go ahead and give us a good spot.

I'll set the shot line up.

Throwing!

♪ ♪

narrator: Mike drops an anchor

tied to a rope called the shot line.

The 400-foot cable will guide him, Jimmy,

and underwater photography specialist Evan Kovacs

through the Gulf Stream

to the seafloor near Cal's Wreck.

♪ ♪

- It's really hard to describe diving a total unknown wreck

Knowing that no one's been on this wreck before.

You're going to be the first eyeballs

to see what's on the bottom.

It pulls at you stronger.

narrator: They will have only 15 minutes on the bottom.

At that depth, they'll be prone

to a condition called nitrogen narcosis.

- At 360 feet of water,

you can't use normal compressed air,

what we breathe every day

because at depth, at these extreme pressures,

nitrogen is narcotic, and it can be debilitating.

- So narcosis makes you feel a little bit loopy underwater,

kind of like semi drunk.

- Your situational awareness is impaired.

Your responsiveness is impaired,

and it's just not a good thing.

♪ ♪

- Right at about 200 feet or so,

it started getting dark,

and by the time we got past 300,

it was very dark.

♪ ♪

narrator: At 385 feet,

the team reaches the sea floor.

♪ ♪

Their dive clocks begin a 15-minute countdown.

♪ ♪

At this depth, water pressure exerts

ten times the force of gravity on the human body.

♪ ♪

- You know you're close,

but is the wreck 10 feet that way,

or is it 10 feet that way? You just don't know.

You're struggling, looking through the gloom,

Waiting for something to appear.

♪ ♪

narrator: Then debris.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Narrator: It's Cal's Wreck.

♪ ♪

But as the team moves in to study the wreck,

there's a problem.

The water pressure is affecting

their most basic gear, their lights.

- Everything seemed to not go right on the bottom.

Equipment is usually rated for 100 meters,

and we're going well beyond that,

so certain things could stop working on the bottom.

♪ ♪

We're pushing the limits.

We're pushing a lot of this equipment

past its rating, especially the lights.

♪ ♪

Narrator: At 380 feet down, losing their lights

won't just end their dive.

The divers will be dangerously disoriented,

a situation that could be deadly.

♪ ♪

- It was just pitch black on the bottom.

♪ ♪

- Coming up port side, Aaron.

narrator: At the surface, the support team stays alert.

They'll keep an eye on the red dive buoys,

which track the divers' location.

♪ ♪

But then trouble.

♪ ♪

The topside team spots a solitary green inflatable.

Green means bad.

It's a signal that the dive team

is having some kind of problem.

♪ ♪

Derek, the safety diver, retrieves the buoy.

He sees no signs of what's happening below.

♪ ♪

He preps his scuba gear and waits.

- So I'm going to gear up, if they have any more problems

while they're underwater, in case

they have equipment failure.

♪ ♪

narrator: 380 feet down, the malfunctioning lights

are not the divers' only issue.

The 4-mile-per-hour current is still a monster.

- With the intense current we have from the Gulf Stream,

it's pulling us away.

♪ ♪

narrator: The team is losing precious minutes on the wreck.

- And obviously on a dive this deep,

your time is extremely limited.

You're racing the clock to get information.

- And we still had a little bit

of narcosis on the bottom as well.

[grunting]

♪ ♪

So it takes a little bit of extra time

to do simple tasks on the bottom.

♪ ♪

narrator: After a delay, the lights seem to be working.

♪ ♪

But now they have less than five minutes.

♪ ♪

Narrator: In places,

sections of a steel hull and railing

are visible, but nothing that could definitively

link it to the "Cyclops".

♪ ♪

- We need to figure out what we're actually dealing with.

What kind of vessel?

Are we dealing with the whole vessel

or a half a vessel? I mean, we don't know.

♪ ♪

narrator: Then they see it.

narrator: A coral-encrusted metal post

nearly 10 feet long.

♪ ♪

Could this be the first image of the "Cyclops" in 100 years?

♪ ♪

Confirmation will have to wait.

If they don't retreat to the surface soon,

pressure at depth will become dangerously debilitating.

[dramatic music]

narrator: 380 feet below the Bermuda Triangle,

Mike Barnette and Jimmy Gadomski

have run out of time.

♪ ♪

After extensive delays, due to gear malfunctions,

they've barely scratched the surface

of the giant ship they've discovered at the site

nicknamed Cal's Wreck.

Now, they have a choice.

Push the envelope and keep exploring,

or pull back.

♪ ♪

Meanwhile, on the surface,

the support team is still trying to determine

the meaning of the green balloon

the divers sent to the surface.

Green means bad,

but when the divers are at depth,

there's nothing they can do, even if lives are in danger.

♪ ♪

Then red inflatables.

It means, whatever the issue was,

the divers are safe and heading to the surface.

- Part of me was a little frustrated

because we were so close.

We were right here on the wreck,

and there's more data to be gathered,

but you have to make the most of it.

♪ ♪

For me, personally, it wasn't a great dive.

Just it was frustrating, but we got down.

Obviously that passing storm

has turned the water over majorly.

Visibility was low, but there was a wreck there.

It's really broken down.

It's hiding its secrets very well.

♪ ♪

We've got a lot of footage to work through with the team.

In this case, in Cal's Wreck,

we just got into the tip of the iceberg.

I mean, there's so much more underneath the surface

waiting to be discovered.

♪ ♪

narrator: They return to land

and join up with members of their team.

Historian David O'Keefe

and investigator Wayne Abbott

are the team's research muscle,

chasing down leads into the Bermuda Triangle's

famously dark corners.

♪ ♪

- This is a wreck that's never been explored before.

You guys are the first ones to set eyes on it?

- Yes.

It's definitely old. It's broken down.

Narrator: Barnette and the team are looking for clues

that connect the wreck to the "Cyclops,"

and they see a big one blanketing

the ship's steel posts.

- Based on the amount of biological--

the coral growth is a pretty good indicator

it's been down for a while... - OK.

- Probably 100 years or more.

narrator: A century of coral growth

fits the timeline of the "Cyclops".

It disappeared in 1918.

♪ ♪

Then they zero in on the steel beams.

- There's some things on there that are very strange

from what I could see. - What's that?

♪ ♪

narrator: The "Cyclops" had an extensive structure

on its deck designed to aid in the loading

and unloading of its cargo.

The team can't determine if these beams

are in the right place to match the "Cyclops,"

but the sheer size of the wreck

gives them hope they're onto something.

- We don't know if we're looking at the whole wreck

or a broken half of the wreck.

Again-- - Interesting.

- Because we only saw maybe, what,

probably 25 meters of the wreck.

We don't really have an idea of the length

or anything really definitive on it.

♪ ♪

- Jimmy and Mike found a big-sized wreck.

- With a big mystery attached.

♪ ♪

narrator: It's a major lead,

but the team is cautious about jumping to conclusions.

♪ ♪

The "Cyclops" is far from the only ship

lost in this stretch of the Bermuda Triangle.

Barnette has dug up information

about another large ship lost in these same waters.

- I've been looking over the files.

There's obviously some historical wrecks

that have gone missing in this area,

the Bermuda Triangle.

I think we have a really, really good second suspect.

The "General Whitney," which was a steamship

that was lost in 1899.

♪ ♪

narrator: April 23, 1899.

At New Orleans, the "General Whitney"

fills her cargo holds with copper and molasses.

The vessel is one of hundreds of steamships

in the bustling port.

Fueled by the revolutionary triple expansion steam engine,

the workhorses of a booming American economy.

♪ ♪

The "General Whitney" departs and rounds

the tip of Florida and crosses into the Bermuda Triangle.

♪ ♪

She is suddenly overtaken by heavy seas.

♪ ♪

Survivor accounts suggest a powerful rogue wave hit

and cracked a bulkhead.

The "Whitney" starts taking on water

and begins to sink.

A lifeboat escapes with half the crew,

but 12 men go down with the Whitney.

- So, geographically speaking, it kind of fits.

♪ ♪

narrator: The team splits up.

Since the "Cyclops" still remains a prime suspect,

Wayne and David will start by meeting

a leading authority on the ship.

- My great uncle was a fireman on the board of the ship.

He was one of the guys shoveling coal in the boilers.

narrator: In 1918, Marvin Barrash's great-uncle

went down with the "Cyclops".

This family tragedy inspired Barrash

to research everything about "Cyclops",

including details that might help Barnette ID her.

- So he was one of the 300-plus men

that lost their lives out there.

- 309, right.

- Plus the entire ship just disappears.

- She was 542 feet long by 65 feet.

A lot of steel. She was a fuel ship.

The trade journals when she first came out

called her a floating coal mine.

- But of course, I understand

you have brought something

that no one has ever seen before.

- Yes.

narrator: Barrash has uncovered

a forgotten newsreel.

♪ ♪

- So this hasn't been seen for over 100 years?

- Yes.

narrator: These never before seen images

are valuable clues.

- Wow.

- And our divers need to get as much visual material,

right, because they're going to be underwater.

- Yes.

- They have to go back to do a proper identification.

narrator: They zero in on several identifying features.

- There's a lot of signature things here

that only this kind of ship would have.

- That's correct. These winches were unique.

narrator: A detail the divers will definitely look for,

"Cyclops" had been outfitted with two dozen cranes,

each one capable of lifting two tons of coal at a time.

♪ ♪

- So as we can see in the film footage here,

they're working on coal operations.

- Correct.

- What was she carrying when she disappeared?

- A completely different sort of cargo.

It was manganese ore.

♪ ♪

narrator: Manganese, another important clue.

On its last voyage,

it's long been assumed the "Cyclops"

was carrying coal as usual.

Manganese was used to harden the steel

the U.S. was producing for World War I.

If the dive team can find evidence

of manganese at Cal's Wreck,

it could link it to the "Cyclops"

and help explain why it sank.

- Now, this has weight to it. - Oh, my.

- That additional weight.

She was built for coal and oil, not for manganese.

♪ ♪

narrator: Barrash believes that this increased load

made "Cyclops" susceptible to tipping.

♪ ♪

- Next morning, ship departs, never to be seen again.

Sails off into oblivion.

♪ ♪

Narrator: Barrash suspects that after the "Cyclops"

entered the Bermuda Triangle,

she was hit by a rare and deadly ocean phenomenon

that took her down in a matter of seconds.

♪ ♪

- We're talking almost half a century

before the myth of the Bermuda Triangle

came into existence.

narrator: Investigators Wayne Abbott and David O'Keefe

have uncovered valuable clues

that may help prove Cal's Wreck

is actually the USS "Cyclops",

a U.S. Navy fuel ship that vanished

with all hands in 1918.

Marvin Barrash says the "Cyclops"

was already overloaded with cargo

when she may have encountered

something called a rogue wave.

[dramatic music]

- Rogue waves,

they can come out of nowhere.

I suspect, at night, would have probably

easily succumbed to such a disaster.

♪ ♪

- Mariners have long told tales of rogue waves...

♪ ♪

70-foot walls of water that rise from nowhere

to swallow ships whole.

♪ ♪

Famed explorer Ernest Shackleton

even claimed to have survived a wave so gigantic,

he mistook it for the skies clearing.

But for centuries, lacking hard proof,

rogue waves were dismissed as fantasy.

- I think it's the most likely suspect.

- So you're talking a catastrophic event...

- Yes.

- Compromised engineering and a rogue wave.

- And all under the umbrella of the Bermuda Triangle.

narrator: If Marvin is right, the "Cyclops"

was sunk by a rogue wave.

The team's second suspect, the "General Whitney",

was also potentially the victim

of a powerful rogue wave.

The team will need to know what type of damage

to look for on the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle.

♪ ♪

But for the last week, weather has moved

over the suspected "Cyclops" wreck,

and the team can't get to it.

So Barnette turns to a target closer

to shore that he added to his map two decades ago,

the SS "Peconic,"

another vessel that was allegedly sunk

by a rogue wave.

- Is the wreck itself fully intact?

- It's fairly intact.

I mean, it's obviously been down

for over 100 years in shallow water.

narrator: Wayne Abbott joins the team for the search.

It's a potential crash course for their return

to Cal's Wreck.

- I have a shallow wreck

called the "Peconic" that we identified

about 20 years ago, which was a victim

of a rogue wave, which is a phenomenon associated

with the Bermuda Triangle.

Came out of the darkness

and just swallowed up the ship.

- Sure. narrator: August 28, 1905.

The steamship "Peconic" sets sail,

traveling along the Florida coast,

when a rogue wave estimated at 70 feet

appears out of the darkness.

Only two sailors managed to escape in a lifeboat,

as the "Peconic" is swallowed by the sea.

♪ ♪

- So I think we go down, dive the wreck,

and try to see if there's something

that exhibits some kind of damage

from the rogue wave sinking.

♪ ♪

narrator: Unlike the 380-foot-deep Cal's Wreck,

the "Peconic" rests in just 70 feet of water.

It's a more accessible wreck, and easier to study,

but every dive comes with challenges.

- Diving these wrecks, even if they're difficult

due to depth or conditions,

your time is extremely limited.

If you have a target, on subsequent dives,

you can focus in on areas

that need to be scrutinized more.

narrator: To find traces of a rogue wave hit,

the team is deploying a technique known

as photogrammetry, using a camera

designed to generate a 3D image

of the entire wreck site.

- With photogrammetry, you can see the whole thing

as it sits on the bottom.

We can model it in three dimensions

to get a better idea because sometimes

you can only see this wreck a couple of meters at a time.

♪ ♪

This technology, we didn't have this 15, 20 years ago,

but now, we have these resources,

and it's an incredibly powerful tool

to help give you a better perspective of a wreck site.

♪ ♪

narrator: On the ocean floor, they find carnage.

♪ ♪

The sides of the "Peconic" are split open,

spilling coal from the ship's holds onto the sea floor.

♪ ♪

Metal booms that once held lifeboats

are ripped from the deck and cast aside.

♪ ♪

Like a crime scene photographer,

Jimmy begins making laps.

Taking hundreds of photographs of the crushed vessel

with every pass.

♪ ♪

Each image logs data about the wreckage in extreme detail

right down to the rivets.

♪ ♪

After an hour of painstaking work,

the dive team resurfaces.

♪ ♪

- It's a big wreck.

I mean, you can see all the coal

just strewn out in the sand,

probably when she rolled over.

You know something catastrophic hit her

to cause her to sink that quickly.

♪ ♪

narrator: After a computer algorithm

stitches the photos together,

the investigation team reviews the results.

- Wow. - Look what we got for you.

- Oh, look at that. - Yeah.

- That's phenomenal.

- So this is the wreck of the "Peconic"

in all its glory.

Basically, thousands of pictures

all stitched together to give you

one model of the ship that we can now manipulate,

zoom in, and rotate.

I've been on the "Peconic" dozens and dozens of times

over the past 20 years.

In my mind, I've made a picture of what I think

the wreck site looks like.

narrator: After returning to the wreck of the SS "Peconic",

seeking evidence of a rogue wave encounter,

the team reviews a 3D model of the wreck site

and makes a stunning discovery.

♪ ♪

- Whatever happened happened very quickly.

Something that just grabbed it,

rolled it, and put it on the bottom like that.

♪ ♪

narrator: The scan reveals

the "Peconic" is resting on its side,

as if it had been knocked over and slammed

into the sea floor.

♪ ♪

The team will look for that kind of damage

on their next dive on Cal's Wreck.

♪ ♪

Meanwhile, Wayne and David

want to know how common these waves are

in the Triangle,

and they've found someone who knows.

- The Bermuda Triangle.

We don't know exactly why

there are so many shipwrecks there.

Rogue waves could be part of it.

narrator: Laura Azevedo is a Florida-based oceanographer

who's built a career hunting down

rogue waves in the Bermuda Triangle

and beyond.

♪ ♪

- January 1995,

there was an oil platform in the North Sea,

and it was the first actual measurement of rogue wave.

narrator: New Year's Day, 1995,

workers on an oil rig in the North Sea

take shelter as a storm moves in.

High above them, a laser-based sensor

keeps watch on the waves churning below.

♪ ♪

When the storm passes, officials reviewing

weather logs are shocked at what they find...

♪ ♪

A spike in the data.

Amid seas with 20 to 30-foot swells,

a wall of water nearly 75-feet-high.

While not photographed,

it was detected by the laser sensor.

But how common are they in the Bermuda Triangle?

- This is a waverider.

It's a small buoy that can measure waves,

and it's small on purpose.

It's supposed to surf the waves.

And we know the wave height, the wave period,

the wave direction,

every frame from this accelerometer

inside of that small buoy.

narrator: This buoy is part of a vast network

constantly monitoring wave activity

in the Bermuda Triangle.

In this one spot, Laura has detected dozens of rogue waves

over a period of six years,

and they've been big.

- We consider a rogue wave a wave

that's at least twice the size of the other waves

in the ocean.

Now, it could be twice, or it could be much more.

We sometimes see three times the size.

Narrator: So while rare,

they happen with some frequency

in the Bermuda Triangle. But why?

One theory is that when big waves generated by a storm

hit an underwater current going the opposite way,

they sometimes stack up and form a rogue wave.

In the Bermuda Triangle, storms are a way of life,

while just below the surface churns the powerful

Gulf Stream, which means this area

is a tinderbox for rogue waves.

- So, really, when it comes down to it,

"Cyclops" could have been hit by a rogue wave.

- Well, put it this way, there's more of a chance

than I ever thought before.

narrator: But the only way to be certain

is to find evidence on the wreck...

♪ ♪

So Mike Barnette and his divers

must suit up once again.

- We still have more questions.

And knowing there's something substantial there

just gives you more motivation to get back to it.

And we have some intelligence now

where we need to refocus our efforts.

Looking for clues, looking for artifacts,

that smoking gun.

♪ ♪

narrator: The divers' primary mission

will be to seek out unique features

in this wreck's construction they can match

to the "Cyclops" or "General Whitney".

- We want to get down on the wreck,

be as efficient as possible,

and get basic diagnostic features.

We want to, obviously, circumnavigate it

to make sure it's a whole wreck.

We want to get an idea of the machinery.

Is it twin screw? Is it single screw?

Triple expansion engine?

As much information as possible.

We have a lot more work to do,

and I'm confident another dive is going

to yield more information.

narrator: Mike Barnette and the dive team

are headed back into the Bermuda Triangle,

returning to the target known as Cal's Wreck.

♪ ♪

- On the first dive to this mystery wreck,

to Cal's Wreck, we confirm that there's

a lot of debris down there, a lot of structure,

but we had very limited time,

so we knew we have to go back to the wreck.

Narrator: Their goal, seek out unique features

in the wreck's construction that would link it

to one of two potential suspects...

♪ ♪

The "General Whitney", a steamship

that sank in rough seas in 1899 as it passed through

the Bermuda Triangle

and the largest ship to ever go missing in these waters,

the USS "Cyclops", a Navy fuel ship

that vanished in 1918 with 309 souls aboard.

♪ ♪

- We don't know where it actually sank,

and that's always the wild card

when you're diving these wrecks.

Being familiar with the layout

and what we think the wreck is,

we have a better idea of where to look,

where to focus our efforts.

♪ ♪

narrator: The evidence suggests both

the "General Whitney" and the "Cyclops"

were victims of a rogue wave,

so divers will be alert for any signs

of a rogue wave impact,

but they are limited to just 15 minutes

at the bottom.

The conditions are, once again,

working against them.

- As we're descending, we're fighting a current,

so that eats into a very finite time limit.

We're basically racing the clock.

Every minute lost, that's a huge setback.

♪ ♪

narrator: Equipped with dive propellers

to cut through the current,

it takes the team just minutes to reach the sea floor.

♪ ♪

As they reach the bottom, their dive clocks

begin a 15-minute countdown.

♪ ♪

- Took us a minute to find it on the bottom

because I got separated, and also the visibility

was not the greatest.

♪ ♪

- By the time we actually got on the wreck,

we knew we had no time to waste.

♪ ♪

narrator: The divers immediately

observed new details.

♪ ♪

A row of six rounded portholes stands out

along one side of the ship.

♪ ♪

- [grunting]

narrator: In a canyon of debris,

Jimmy finds a series of planks exposed among the coral.

♪ ♪

- We want to get clues that, in its totality,

will help to support your theory

of what this wreck may or may not be.

♪ ♪

narrator: This second dive

has already proven much more productive

than the first, and the team

has five minutes of bottom time remaining.

♪ ♪

- You're bird dogging, looking for clues,

looking for artifacts.

Maybe find it has a shipping line on it.

You're up on the bow looking at the general layout

of the vessel.

Maybe looking for the bell or that smoking gun.

♪ ♪

narrator: With just minutes remaining,

off to one side of the wreck site,

an unusual feature stands out.

♪ ♪

A distinctly spiral-shaped metal shaft.

♪ ♪

Could this be part of the coal loading system

from the USS "Cyclops"?

♪ ♪

As their dive clock hits zero, the team again retreats

to the decompression line,

beginning their long journey back to the surface.

♪ ♪

Back on land, the team's first move

is to take the new footage to the man who knows more

about the "Cyclops" than anyone, Marvin Barrash,

to see if he can make a positive ID.

- Take a look at these.

We just want to kind of get your immediate response.

♪ ♪

- I'm trying to think within the ship itself,

not just the surface pieces. - Yeah.

narrator: He's waited decades for a chance

to find the missing Navy ship and the 309 men,

including his great-uncle, who vanished with her.

- Well, look at the angle. Right?

We've got something coming up this way,

and then we've got something with the angle.

narrator: Wayne and David have brought

new images of the mystery ship at Cal's Wreck

to Marvin Barrash, an authority

on the USS "Cyclops".

For decades, Marvin has poured over every detail

of the ship's construction.

- I'm trying to think within the ship itself,

not just the surface pieces.

narrator: His great-uncle was one of 309 men

who went down with her.

♪ ♪

- That's the interesting piece right there.

- That looks like a shield from a piece.

- Anything, though, say from "Cyclops"?

- Not apparent, no.

No, it's the wrong shape.

- And they were a little thicker

than what we're seeing, right? - Yes.

Definitely thicker.

narrator: But none of the images from Cal's Wreck

match known features from the long-lost Naval fuel ship.

Cal's Wreck is not the USS "Cyclops".

The final resting place of Marvin's great-uncle

will continue to remain unknown for now.

♪ ♪

- Hugely disappointed that Marvin said

that Cal's Wreck is not the USS "Cyclops".

The "Cyclops" is still out there,

and I think, one day, we'll find her.

♪ ♪

narrator: With the "Cyclops" still a mystery,

the team has at least one lead left.

- So the "Whitney" is a large ship.

We have a big debris field.

It went down in the same area, mysterious circumstances.

narrator: On April 21, 1899,

the "General Whitney" passes through the Bermuda Triangle,

sea conditions deteriorate, and she's

pummeled by powerful waves that breach her hull,

and she starts to sink.

The captain and 11 sailors from the "General Whitney"

were lost at sea.

♪ ♪

Mike and Jimmy have been comparing the images

from Cal's Wreck to see if it really is a match

for the "General Whitney".

- We pulled out some really important features.

narrator: Along with the massive post the team saw

on their first dive, they observed a metal railing

running along the side of the ship,

and a series of portholes.

♪ ♪

It all matches one of the few surviving lithographs

of the "General Whitney".

- A lot of this lines up.

We have two masts that are actually broken

and off to the port side that are just laying straight out.

♪ ♪

- There was an anchor in other pictures

There's an anchor that lies to the port side.

narrator: The second dive also turned up

a key detail that may prove the smoking gun.

- What do we have over here?

Narrator: After a closer look, Mike Barnette

thinks he can ID this feature.

- But we do see a triple expansion engine.

We see a single screw.

narrator: This screw would have been turned

by the ship's engine to drive its propeller.

♪ ♪

The screw design is a distinguishing feature

on any ship.

- It's a single-screw vessel - OK.

- Machinery midship.

- I guess the million-dollar question

is have you narrowed it down and identified it?

- Based on the size, dimensions, the machinery,

this is probably a steamer.

And just the taper of the stern

and the bow, the way the anchor

is rigged up in the bow, and everything else

is just giving off that vibe of the era, the layout.

- I think we're about 85%, 90% sure

that this is the "General Whitney".

narrator: The portholes match the design

of the "General Whitney".

The single screw, triple expansion engine

midship is also a match.

And the broken masts are similar

to what would have been on the Whitney.

It's all adding up to make a strong case that Cal's Wreck

is the SS "General Whitney".

- Well, she was on a journey and she ran into foul weather

and started leaking, and I think they actually detected

where the leak was coming from, but at that point,

it was beyond repair.

- It's an amazing story and an amazing find.

♪ ♪

Narrator: The team has solved a mystery

over a century in the making,

and for Mike, it's the culmination

of a 15-year effort to reach one of

the most elusive wrecks on his map.

♪ ♪

- Once you can identify, give it its real name,

then you'll get the real story.

You'll know the final chapter of this vessel.

We didn't find anything that was a smoking gun.

We didn't find any artifacts or anything with a name

"General Whitney", but I'm certain

this is the "General Whitney".

♪ ♪

For me, that's the chase.

I'm always trying to dive on unidentified wrecks,

and trying to put a name on that wreck,

and that's my mission.

And so to be able to do that, I mean, that's the goal.

♪ ♪