All language subtitles for The.UnXplained.S07E03.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_tr111ack3_[eng]

WILLIAM SHATNER:
A world-famous aviator
disappears

on her flight around the world.

A ghost ship is discovered
sailing the open seas

with no sign
of its missing crew.

And a legendary expedition
whose fate...

is as chilling
as the Arctic itself.

The world is a very big place.

It's covered in swaths
of seemingly endless wilderness,

vast open oceans

and a multitude of locations
where one can go missing.

Even with modern technology
and advanced search techniques,

there are countless individuals

whose whereabouts
remain a mystery.

Their stories instill
both fascination and fear,

leaving us to wonder
how someone could get lost

without a trace.

Well, that is what
we'll try and find out.

♪ ♪

34-year-old aviator
Amelia Earhart takes off

for a daring attempt

to become
the first woman to fly solo

over the Atlantic Ocean.

It was a perilous journey

that had already
claimed many lives.

Despite the inherent risks,

14 hours and 56 minutes

after embarking
on this death-defying feat,

Earhart touches down
in a field in Northern Ireland.

And in that moment,
a true icon is born.

JOHN NANCE:
The transatlantic flight had not
become routine.

A lot of people have
died trying.

She did a good job
of piloting it.

And her navigation was
pretty much dead reckoning,

which we used to joke
in the Air Force,

you reckon wrong,
you're dead. (chuckles)

Amelia Earhart was
a deserved superstar.

She had a voracious nature

for wanting
to publicize aviation

and how fascinating it was.

And to do so
by pushing the limits

and to prove

that there was
no reason to say that,

"Oh, because you're a woman,
you can't do something."

She was way ahead of her time.

LANCE GEIGER:
Amelia Earhart was
just a trailblazer

at a time when women didn't fly.

And so when she decided
in 1937 that she was gonna

fly around the world,

which was an ambitious thing
to do in 1937,

the world watched
with bated breath.

This was exciting.

SHATNER: With years
of experience under her belt,

Amelia Earhart
and her navigator, Fred Noonan,

take off in a twin-engine
Lockheed Electra

for their next great adventure:

a 29,000-mile trip
around the Earth.

On July 2,
a month and 22,000 miles

into their journey,
Earhart and Noonan begin

the longest and most
dangerous leg of their flight,

to a tiny,
mile-long speck of land

in the middle of the Pacific
called Howland Island.

As Earhart and Noonan near
Howland Island,

they radio a Coast Guard vessel,

the Itasca, that's been
positioned near their target.

The Itasca's only objective

is to guide Earhart
in to safely.

ANTHONY ROMEO:
So as Amelia is
approaching Howland Island,

she tries on the radio
to reach the Itasca.

She calls and she says,

"We must be on you,
but cannot see you

flying at a thousand feet,
low on gas."

So they start sending her
Morse code signals.

She says,

"I'm hearing
your Morse code signals,

but we can't get you on voice,
we can't hear your voice."

And then about 30 minutes later,
we hear her final message.

She said, "We're on the line,

157 337,
flying north and south."

We never hear from her again.

She's been gone 87 years,
and we still

don't have a definitive answer

as to,
as to what happened to her.

SHATNER:
Amelia Earhart's failed flight

around the world
could be considered

the most famous disappearance
in American history.

And for decades,
it's sparked endless speculation

about just what happened
to the beloved aviator.

One of the most
compelling theories comes

from Ric Gillespie,
the founder of

The International Group
for Historic Aircraft Recovery,

or TIGHAR.

RICHARD GILLESPIE:
At TIGHAR, we've done

35 years of investigation

on people who disappeared
in airplanes.

After we started our Historical
Investigation Foundation,

one of our members...

We're a membership
organization...

Called me and said,

"Hey, we got a theory
about Amelia Earhart."

These were two guys who were
retired aerial navigators

from the military
in World War II.

And what they told me is that

if she did
what she said she was doing,

she should have made it
to another island.

SHATNER:
The most valuable clue Earhart
gave before she disappeared

was that she was flying
on line 157 337,

a northwest to southwest
navigational line

that cuts
through Howland Island.

To the northwest of Howland

is nothing but thousands
of miles of open ocean.

But to the southwest is a tiny,

uninhabited island
called Nikumaroro.

GILLESPIE:
We think Amelia Earhart landed

and died as a castaway
on this island.

On Nikumaroro.

So we did some archeological
excavations on the island.

And we have found
a campsite there.

We have found things

that speak of an American
woman of the 1930s...

GILLESPIE:
things that Amelia Earhart

would logically have with her.

GILLESPIE:
In 2010, at the site,
I was doing metal detecting.

And the first thing

I pulled up out
of the ground was this loop.

And I knew immediately

that it came from an easy open,

double-bladed,
bone-handled jackknife.

There is an inventory
of Earhart's airplane

that was taken by the U.S. Army,

and one of the items
they inventoried was

a bone-handled,
double-bladed jackknife.

We have found a great deal
of archeological evidence.

But it's circumstantial.

You can't get around that.

There is no DNA,

it's just been too long.

Believe me, we've tried.

There's more to learn.
There's always more to learn.

SHATNER:
Did Amelia Earhart die

as a castaway
on Nikumaroro Island?

While it's extremely compelling,
without actual DNA evidence,

it's far from conclusive.

And there are
many experts who believe

another theory entirely:

that Earhart ran out of gas

and crashed near Howland Island.

ROMEO:
She was very close
to the island.

She tells us
she-she's low on gas.

And, uh,
everything points to a very

near miss to Howland Island.

She was right there.
She was very close.

SHATNER:
Tony Romeo is
the founder and CEO

of Deep Sea Vision,

an underwater
exploration company.

In September 2023,
Tony and his team

mounted an expedition
to search for Earhart's plane

near Howland Island.

They painstakingly
scanned the seafloor

with an autonomous
underwater vehicle

equipped with the latest
sonar technology.

Incredibly, nearing
the end of their expedition,

they capture
a curious sonar image

from the bottom of the ocean

less than 100 miles away
from Howland Island.

ROMEO:
This is an image of...

what we believe to be
Amelia Earhart's plane.

And then what you're seeing
is a reflection,

the white areas,
which is a reflection

of an object
on the bottom of the seabed.

What you're seeing
fits very close

to the dimensions
of Amelia's plane.

Holy smokes,
this thing actually exists.

SHATNER:
In early 2024,

this remarkable sonar image made

major headlines
around the world.

Has Amelia Earhart's plane
been found?

It's a tantalizing possibility,

but as of now, Tony's suspicions
have yet to be confirmed,

because the object is
at the bottom of the ocean...

15,000 feet below.

What we have right now are
sonar images.

The next thing we want are
color pictures of the aircraft.

Then we move to the next step,
which I think would be

engineering a solution
to bring it to the surface.

SHATNER:
Could 21st-century technology be

the key to finding
Earhart's missing aircraft?

For now, this remarkable
sonar image provides

new hope that the fate
of America's legendary

lady of the sky
may finally be revealed.

Even today,
Amelia Earhart still has

this hold on
the nation's consciousness.

She is still seen as this hero.

The mystery is still important.

We're still wondering
what happened

to this one person in 1937.

It is just this mystery

that we can't let go of
until it's answered.

SHATNER:
Two British Royal Navy ships...

The HMS Erebus
and the HMS Terror...

Departed England
under the command

of veteran polar explorer
Sir John Franklin.

Their mission was to be
the first to find and navigate

the fabled Northwest Passage.

The long-rumored sea route
linking Europe and Asia

that would revolutionize
trade between the continents.

But this ever-changing
maze of ice

was considered
virtually impassable.

With enough rations to support
the crew for up to three years,

made possible
by innovations like canned food,

the historic expedition was

unlike anything ever attempted.

It was a voyage known
as the Franklin Expedition.

The Franklin Expedition was
the best equipped

polar expedition
that had ever been mounted.

You know, the two ships:
HMS Erebus, HMS Terror.

Ice-reinforced and all
the geographical knowledge

was in their library
that they carried aboard ship.

Um, so they, they, they were

as well prepared as possible.

ADRIAN SIMONOVSKI:
The Erebus and the Terror

were equipped
with the latest technology.

They had heating systems
so that you had

ducting to heat
different compartments.

There was a steam engine to help

in propulsion
when there was no wind.

So a lot of innovation was done

that was leading at the time.

SHATNER:
Despite the innovations employed
by Franklin and his men,

in just a few years,
it became clear to colleagues

and loved ones back in England

that the Erebus
and the Terror were in trouble.

Ultimately, they would become

one of the most famous
lost expeditions

in human history.

ROGER MARSTERS:
By 1847, as people

in Europe hadn't heard
from the Franklin Expedition,

it became increasingly evident
that something had gone wrong.

The fact that two ships,
129 men,

disappeared
with very few traces,

has presented a blank canvas

on which we can project
our fears and our concerns.

SHATNER: To this day, no one
can say for sure what happened

to the majority of the people
on this ill-fated expedition.

But in 1850,
a fleet of search ships

were shocked to discover

the first grim clues.

A small cemetery

with three gravestones

on Beechey Island.

GEIGER:
There had been three members

of the Franklin Exhibition
who died

very early on in the expedition.

And they were buried
on Beechey Island,

the first winter site
for the expedition.

It's like a polar desert.

And when they realized

that the Franklin Expedition
were lost,

the question was:

okay, what happened to them?

It became truly a global effort

to kind of answer some of these

enduring questions
about the expedition.

SHATNER:
Dozens of exhaustive searches

continued
in this frozen wasteland.

It appears
the expedition turned south

after burying
three men on Beechey Island.

In 1859, a sled team searching
near King William Island...

discovered an abandoned lifeboat

containing two human skeletons.

Remains of a third sailor
were also found,

preserved in the ice.

But the most valuable clue
was a hand-written note

discovered nearby
at a location ironically named

Victory Point.

MARSTERS:
The Victory Point Note was found

near King William Island.

And it gave two status updates

on the expedition.

One in the spring of 1847,

which stated that all was well.

And another
from the spring of 1848,

which indicated
that John Franklin

had died in the previous year.

And that two dozen members
of the expedition

had similarly died
of malnutrition,

scurvy, tuberculosis.

And the remaining members
of the expedition

would be heading out overland
in an attempt at,

uh, self-rescue
on the Canadian mainland.

SHATNER:
This single letter,

written over 170 years ago,

offers the only known record

of the expedition's
last-ditch effort at survival

after being stuck in the ice

for over two years.

And then, the true story
of the Franklin Expedition

becomes largely unknown.

Only around 30 of the 129 men
have been found.

And the question remains: what
happened to the rest of them?

Well, intriguing clues
would come

from the oral history
of the local Inuit people,

the only known inhabitants
of the Canadian Arctic.

The white men that the Inuit
described interacting with

inspired true terror
in these local inhabitants.

In fact, they believed
they were no longer men

but monsters.

LANCE:
In 1854, a man named John Ray,

who was a Hudson Bay employee
and a trapper,

he had gone
searching for evidence

of the Franklin Expedition.

And he had talked
to some local Inuits.

And they had an oral tradition

that they had encountered
what they called snow zombies.

The Inuit tried
to give them food.

They seemed to be unable
to even accept help.

They were blue-skinned,
they were talking irrationally.

They don't look like a person,
they don't act like a person.

They found them in camps
where the men were just

on the ground starving.

And they were eating
the corpses.

They were engaging
in cannibalism.

SHATNER: Did the men of
the Franklin Expedition become

real-life zombies,
as the Inuit stories suggest?

Or were they driven to madness

from starvation and disease
in this deadly environment?

Well, some believe
the real answer

came over a century later
in the 1980s,

from a team of field researchers

led by anthropologist
Owen Beattie.

A colleague of mine,
Owen Beattie, who's a professor

of anthropology
at the University of Alberta,

led several expeditions
to collect human remains

related
to the Franklin Exhibition.

The idea was to go
and exhume those graves

on Beechey Island to see
if there was preserved tissue.

What was discovered
was that the three sailors

were incredibly well preserved
in the permafrost.

And so autopsies were conducted,

and the tissue showed that there
was extremely high levels

of lead found in the remains
that were collected.

One of the most common
explanations for what might have

happened to the Franklin
Expedition was lead poisoning.

And the reason was because of
this new technology of canning,

because while the cans were tin,
they were sealed with lead.

And so the assumption was
that maybe because lead

had leached into the food,
it would make you more

vulnerable
to things like pneumonia.

And it also could have mental
effects, especially paranoia.

And that might explain
some of the very strange things

that seemed to happen
with the Franklin Expedition.

That they weren't even
behaving like men anymore.

SHATNER: Nearly 170 years
after the Franklin Expedition

left the safety of England,

two major discoveries
would reveal the ships' fate.

In 2014 and 2016,

both the HMS Erebus
and the HMS Terror

were found
on the Arctic Ocean floor,

renewing hope that the fate
of the lost Franklin men

might be revealed.

Unfortunately, researchers have
found nothing on board

that explains
what actually happened.

So the question is,

what became of nearly 100 men

that remain lost
and unaccounted for?

LANCE:
We found the two ships, and yet

the vast majority of the remains

have never been discovered.

And what's really missing
are the logbooks

that might really explain
what's going on.

There might be something
that tells us the whole story.

We just haven't found it yet.

And that gives us
a reason to keep searching.

Whether the lost crew
of the Franklin Expedition

were driven mad from starvation,

illness,

or even something supernatural,

the answer remains a mystery.

And such is the case
of the strange disappearance

of one of the most famous people

of the 20th century.

Just how did
an American musical icon

simply vanish...

never to be seen again?

A small,
single-engine plane departs

from Twinwood Farm Airbase
en route to Paris.

As it takes off
across the English Channel,

the plane disappears

into the dense winter fog.

And is never seen again.

On board this lost flight

is the most famous musical icon
of the day,

legendary big band leader

Glenn Miller.

It was said that in 1940,
two out of every three

records in a jukebox was
a Glenn Miller record.

From the end of October of 1941

until the end of April in 1942,

every single number one record

on the Billboard Top Ten
was Miller.

The number one
in his all-time greatest hit

was "Chattanooga Choo Choo,"

which actually was
the first gold record

ever awarded to an artist.

Glenn Miller was the original

big-time superstar.

SHATNER:
Like many
of his fellow artists,

in 1942, Miller gave
up his lucrative music career

to enlist in the U.S. Army.

For nearly two years,
Major Glenn Miller

lead the Miller's
Army Air Force Band,

giving more
than 350 performances.

It would be
an upcoming holiday event

that would change
Miller's life forever.

The Miller Army Air Force
Orchestra was going to have

a huge performance on
Christmas of 1944 in Paris

for all of these soldiers
who had been fighting

since D-Day in June.

And Glenn Miller was
in the United Kingdom,

but he was anxious to get
to Paris to set this up.

So he found out that an officer
in the Eighth Air Force,

name of Norman Bassell,

was going to be flying to Paris.

And Miller managed
to wrangle an invite to fly

in a very small plane
called a Norseman.

One slight problem.

Miller doesn't inform his chain
of command of his intentions.

Miller and Bassel
get on the plane,

and at 1:55 p.m., that airplane
takes off from Twinwood.

No one ever saw it again.

SHATNER:
Glenn Miller's plane
has never been found.

Even surveys
of the English Channel

have not found a single trace.

This clear lack of evidence
has fueled sensational theories

to explain the icon's
mysterious disappearance.

And one of the most intriguing
of all the claims

is that perhaps his plane
didn't go down at all.

LANCE:
One of the more
fanciful theories

was that Glenn Miller
was actually a spy,

that he was engaged
in espionage.

So the theory is that Miller
landed in Paris secretly,

and that they smuggled him
into Germany

to negotiate with
high-level German generals

about assassinating Hitler
to put an end to the war.

And that, at some point,
he was betrayed

and that he was killed by the
Germans on this secret mission.

And it wouldn't be unbelievable
that if it went south

that they would lie about that

and say
that his plane went down.

SHATNER:
Was Glenn Miller

really an international
superstar turned spy?

While it's an intriguing idea,
there's no hard evidence

to prove Miller actually
was conducting espionage.

But there is some evidence
that suggests

there may have been a cover-up
surrounding his death.

A cover-up meant to hide
a terrible mistake

made by his own allies.

The most popular explanation

for what happened
to Glenn Miller

was that he was shot down,

knocked down by friendly fire.

The story goes that,
in trying to get to Paris,

flying over the Channel,

Miller's airplane strayed

into a bomb dispersal area.

At that time,
if bombers got to their target

and couldn't see
the target well enough

to drop their bombs,
they would jettison the bombs

over the Channel
in approved dispersal areas.

In the 1980s, a British veteran,

who'd been a navigator on
a Lancaster bomber that day,

reported that we had hit
Glenn Miller with friendly fire

from a bomb jettison
from a Lancaster.

As it turned out,
with a modicum of investigation,

you will find that there was
an RAF bomb jettison that day.

SHATNER:
Was the plane carrying
Glenn Miller accidentally bombed

by his own allies?

It's certainly possible.

However,
there are others who believe

that the circumstances
of Miller's disappearance

was triggered by a very
different kind of accident:

mechanical failure.

SPRAGG:
The carburetor heater
in Miller's plane

had been recalled
by the Army Air Forces

six months earlier.

So at 1500 feet,
if the carburetor heater fails,

then the engine stops,

the nose goes down immediately.

And hitting the English Channel,

it's like hitting a brick wall.

(water splashes)

It disintegrates,
and no one survives.

SHATNER:
Despite circumstantial evidence

to support the notion
of mechanical failure,

answers are far from definitive.

To this day,
the plane remains lost,

along with the truth

of what really happened
to Glenn Miller.

SPRAGG:
I think when a celebrity
and famous person vanishes,

we have the ultimate mystery,
don't we?

What happened to Glenn Miller?

Where is the debris
of the airplane?

It's always open to speculation,

but most importantly
in the minds of all of us,

because he captured
our imagination,

he remains in our imagination.

Did fame play a role
in Glenn Miller's disappearance,

or was it simply
a plane malfunction

that caused
the band leader to be lost?

Questions also remain
about another mysterious case

involving ten people
who vanished

and were the possible victims
of a deadly curse.

SHATNER:
An American brigantine ship
known as the Mary Celeste

sets sail
from this bustling port

transporting goods
to Genoa, Italy.

On board is American
Captain Benjamin S. Briggs,

his wife Sarah, their
two-year-old daughter Sophia

and an crew of seven sailors

from the U.S.,
Denmark, and Germany.

But on December 4, 1872,

just under a month
after these ten people

set sail on the Mary Celeste,

the vessel is discovered
aimless and adrift

in the middle
of the Atlantic Ocean.

On December 4th,
David Reed Morehouse,

captain of the Dei Gratia,
a Canadian cargo ship,

spies this ship in the distance

about halfway between
the Azores and Portugal,

400 miles from each.

It's bucking,
doesn't look right.

And so they sail over,
and they find the Mary Celeste.

They go aboard

and everything's kind of creepy.

The ship's wheel
is spinning uncontrollably,

so he doesn't understand
what's going on.

The Mary Celeste was sailing
without its crew.

SHATNER:
According to the crew
of the Dei Gratia,

finding this abandoned vessel

along a major trade route
defied explanation.

The Mary Celeste had become

a ghost ship.

A ghost ship was
a mariner's term for any ship

found sailing without its crew.

In the 19th century,
dozens of ships were found

sailing without
their crews every year.

But usually there
was a very plausible

and obvious reason for that.

And it's possible

they could've been
swept overboard in a storm.

They could have abandoned ship

because they thought
it was sinking.

Those are usually things
that you can tell.

The difference was,

nothing seemed to fit
the Mary Celeste story.

The Mary Celeste is just
the quintessential story

of people being lost,

of vanishing without a trace.

It was the strangest thing.

Everything on this ship
was intact, including the cargo.

And that's when you
have to ask, what happened?

If there was everything stolen,
you'd say,

well, pirates,
pirates must have done this.

If there was mutiny,
there'd be blood,

and the mutineers
would've taken the ship.

There's no bodies.

Why would ten people abandon

a perfectly good seaworthy ship?

People wanted
to know what happened,

what could've happened?

HICKS:
This was a story
that went viral,

and every week there was a story

and newspaper reporters
found something.

And one week,
it's insurance fraud.

This week, it's murder.

Next week, it's mutiny.

And it just gave this story
a life of its own.

MARSTERS:
Some people have put forward
the theory a giant squid

somehow dragged them
into the watery depths as well.

There have also
been explanations

based on psychic phenomena,

in ways analogous
to the Bermuda Triangle.

There have also been people
who have attributed

the abandonment
of the Mary Celeste

to alien abduction,

but there is no way

of conclusively
demonstrating any one theory.

SHATNER:
This famous
maritime disappearance

has puzzled researchers
for over 150 years.

In addition to the passengers,
the only thing that appeared

to be missing
from the Mary Celeste

was a single lifeboat.

Even Captain Briggs' logbook
provides no clues

as to what may have happened.

But some believe
that the answer may be found

in a letter written
by the captain's wife, Sarah,

two days before the Mary Celeste
departed New York Harbor.

Sarah wrote a letter
to her mother-in-law,

who was watching their son.

And she had mentioned
that the ship is making

all kinds of popping
and hissing sounds.

Now, that would be the alcohol
down below deck.

They had left with 1,701 barrels
of alcohol in their cargo.

It made her nervous.

HICKS:
The U.S. routinely sold
solvents and fuel

and that kind of alcohol.

If you had 450 gallons
of methanol or formaldehyde

that had been bottled up inside
a ship's hold for three weeks,

the effects could be serious
for the crew.

Nausea, dizziness.

It could even cause
hallucinations.

This is serious
physiological effects

from exposure
to these kind of fumes.

And I think that's what's at the
at the heart of what happened.

SHATNER:
Could hallucinations explain

why the crew abandoned ship

without any supplies
to survive the open ocean?

While it's possible,
others believe

the ship itself was cursed.

The Mary Celeste had
long been associated

with curious superstition,

ever since it was built
in Nova Scotia in 1861.

Back then, the ship went by
a different name, the Amazon.

The Amazon had more than
its share of misfortune.

We do know that
the first captain of the ship

died within a day
of setting foot on board her.

Someone had renamed it
Mary Celeste,

which is a no-no for ships.

It was maritime folklore
that renaming a ship

would anger Poseidon
or King Neptune.

And if he had to relearn
the name,

the punishment for that
was shipwreck or death.

Whether you want to believe
that that is supernatural,

paranormal, bad luck, or what,

people died around it,
cargo went bad,

nobody ever made money with it.

It was just a horrible,
bad luck ship.

Could the crew
of the Mary Celeste

have succumbed to the power
of a deadly curse

or even the ravages
of a giant squid?

Hmm...

It all sounds otherworldly.

Just like the case
of a lost airplane pilot

whose last words sounded
eerily like a close encounter

with an unidentified
flying object.

SHATNER:
Since the 1800s,

this 190 mile-wide
stretch of water

separating Australia
and Tasmania

has earned a reputation
where ships,

and even planes,
mysteriously go missing.

It's sometimes called
the Bass Strait Triangle.

But something
truly baffling happens

over this notorious
stretch of water

when 20 year-old pilot
Frederick Valentich

flies the Strait
in a Cessna 182L

and encounters something
in the sky.

So, the 20th of October, 1978,
Frederick Valentich drives

right across Melbourne to
Moorrabbin Airport for a flight.

Which, presumably, he's doing
to get his hours up, because

he's a pilot who wants to become

a commercial airline pilot.

And he heads southwest
out of Melbourne

and along the coast
towards Cape Otway.

His flight plan has him flying
from Moorabbin Airport

down to Cape Otway
at the lighthouse,

which pilots like to use
for navigation,

and then turning to the
southeast towards King Island.

RUTKOWSKI:
When he was flying
towards King Island,

he had some
very strange transmissions

and-and radio calls
to the tower back in Melbourne.

He asked the Melbourne tower

if there were any aircraft
in his vicinity,

because he had said
there was another object

about 1,000 feet higher
than him...

and it had very bright lights,

and there shouldn't
have been anything there.

SHATNER:
What strange craft
did Frederick Valentich

see flying over
Australia's Bass Strait?

The only clues available today
is the transcript

of a six-minute transmission
between Valentich

and air traffic controller
Steve Roby

from Melbourne Flight Service.

SIMPSON:
Fred says, "This is
Delta Sierra Juliet.

Is there any known traffic
below 5,000?"

And then Steve Roby says,
"No known traffic."

And Frederick replies, "Seems
to be a large aircraft below.

"It seems to me that he's
playing some sort of game.

"He's flying over me
two to three times at a time

at speeds I cannot identify."

So then, Steve Roby replies,

"Can you describe the aircraft?"

And Frederick says,
"It's got a green light

"and sort of metallic-like.

It's all shiny on the outside."

SHATNER:
What was the strange,
metallic object

Frederick Valentich
reported in real time?

We may never know for sure

because, tragically,
this 20-year-old pilot

has never been seen
or heard from again.

He says, "That strange aircraft
is hovering on top of me again.

It is hovering,
and it's not an aircraft."

Within about 15 or 20 minutes
of the loss of radio contact...

a search and rescue, uh,
operation was begun,

and that lasted
for a number of weeks.

But no wreckage
was ever recovered.

Frederick Valentich has been
missing now

for 46 years, and yet,
we are still talking about him.

SHATNER:
An official investigation
presumed the event

to be some kind of accident.

But many, including
Valentich's own father,

offer another explanation:

UFO abduction.

SIMPSON:
His father,
he was looking for answers

but nobody knows
what actually happened.

He came up with this theory
that they might be these people

from another world
that captured Fred.

The foundation of that story
was what Fred actually said.

He had to believe
what his son said.

This unidentified object
was flying around him,

and now he's disappeared.

A lot of aircraft have
disappeared all over the place,

but very few of them report
seeing a UFO

and then disappear.

But that's the case here.

RUTKOWSKI:
The Valentich incident
really has all these elements

of the entire
UFO abduction milieu

and makes us really wonder
what was going on in the sky.

Aircraft don't just disappear.

People just don't disappear.

We are used to stories

that have nice beginnings
and nice endings.

We know the beginnings, but
the endings sometimes elude us.

SHATNER: Located in the heart of
this frigid Canadian territory

is a remote lake
197 square miles in size.

It's a place that,
according to legend,

was once home to the
lost village of Lake Angikuni.

Lake Angikuni is incredibly
isolated from civilization.

It's incredibly dangerous.

It's minus-50 degrees Fahrenheit
during the day sometimes.

You can absolutely believe that
anyone living on the tundra,

that something
could happen to them

and you wouldn't know
what happened.

SHATNER:
According to legends,
the small Inuit village

of Lake Angikuni was well-known
to fur trappers

who passed through on occasion
during hunting expeditions.

In 1930, one of these trappers,
Joe Labelle,

reportedly arrived
at the village

and made a disturbing discovery.

LANCE:
Joe Labelle, he goes and looks,
and there's nobody there.

The village
is completely abandoned.

The way he describes it is it
looks as if they just went out,

expecting to come back,
and never did.

RUTKOWSKI:
There was food that
had been apparently taken

and prepared, but never eaten.

He said that he encountered
seven sled dogs.

Five of them had already died
of malnutrition.

Two were just barely hanging on.

The villagers wouldn't have left
the sled dogs behind

because they were their lifeline
to the outside world.

So why did these people
disappear?

SHATNER:
It is said the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police

conducted an investigation
of the site,

but the villagers
were never found.

And this was not
the only report made to police

of unusual occurrences
at Lake Angikuni.

About the same time
that Joe Labelle had found

the abandoned village,
there was a story circulating

that another trapper,
named Arnold Laronde,

and his sons had seen a very
strange object in the sky.

It was described as
a bullet-shaped metallic object

moving through the heavens,

and they had no explanation
for what they had seen.

This has been suggested by some
to be a UFO connection

to the vanishing village.

SHATNER:
Although we may never know
for certain what happened

to the village of Lake Angikuni,

it remains one of
the many lost stories

that continue to fuel our
collective curiosity and fear.

STOKES:
Every so often something happens

that reminds us
that the world is a big place

and that we can be swallowed up
into it without a trace.

And I think we're very much
haunted by the thought

that people can
simply vanish without trace,

and that we may never know
where they've gone.

LANCE:
We have these mysteries.

They're more than
100 years old, some of them,

and they still
captivate our minds.

And the interesting part is

the evidence
might still be there.

Maybe we will find
Glenn Miller's Norseman.

Maybe we will find
Amelia Earhart's Electra.

Who knows what's still out there
to find that might solve

some of the great mysteries
that still captivate the public?

Learning that someone
has suddenly disappeared

from the face of Earth, and
that there's very little hope

of them ever being rescued,
well, it's...

it's very unsettling, isn't it?

And when we hear stories
that involve

the likes of Amelia Earhart
and Glenn Miller,

you have to wonder,
is it possible that

any one of us could get lost
and never be found?

Well, let's hope not.

But in any case,
we can safely consider that

just what caused
these infamous vanishings

lies in a chain of events
that, for now,

remains unexplained.

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