Original subtitles

-This part of the lagoon is about 160 feet deep.

-What caused this crater?

[Narrator] A macabre discovery is made on a

barren Australian atoll.

-They find a headless skeleton.

-They were clearly attacked, but by who?

[Narrator] The eerie inhabitants of a Mexican island

reveal a dark past...

-Dolls...

...hundreds, even thousands of them.

They're on walls, they're on pikes,

they're hanging from trees.

[Narrator] Isolated.

Scarce on resources.

Islands are worlds unto themselves.

Bizarre creatures.

Ancient gods and haunting ruins.

Baffling murders and deadly spirits.

What will be discovered on Earth's mysterious islands?

Far out in the Central Pacific sits a

collection of islands that define paradise.

Coconut palms fringing white beaches look out

over lagoons with impossibly clear water.

-The Marshall Islands consist of a series of 29 atolls and

five islands scattered across a 180,000 square mile

stretch of the Pacific...

And its people, the Marshallese,

number around 41,000,

living mainly on the atolls of Majuro and Kwajalein.

-Atolls are essentially circular reefs that are

made up of coral.

They're home to a wide variety of marine

flora and fauna,

all of which are even more beautiful than the paradise

they call home.

[Narrator] In 2017, a group of American biologists

seeking to learn more about this marine environment

head out to Bikini Atoll,

lying at the westernmost part of the Marshall Islands.

-Bikini Atoll is yet another piece of

the tropical landscape...

...a narrow, semicircular spit of land

that rises about six feet out of the ocean,

forming the edges of a deep lagoon that stretches

for 25 miles.

-But as they sail into the lagoon their GPS instruments

send out a warning signal, alerting the crew that their

vessel is in danger of running aground.

But this makes no sense because this part of the

Bikini lagoon is about 160 feet deep!

-Their navigation system is showing an island

at the exact coordinates where their vessel is sailing.

This is all taking place in the 21st century.

Cartographers have mapped the world pretty

extensively and accurately,

what is going on here?

[Narrator] The scientists decide to investigate.

They send dive teams down into the depths of the Bikini lagoon.

-At the bottom, you can see that beautiful coral

covers large tracts of the sea floor.

The coral appears to be thriving.

Part of an ecosystem that is as complex as it is beautiful.

-However, all this beautiful coral suddenly drops off

into a deeper area, essentially forming a depression

of a circular shape.

[Narrator] The scientists decide to take samples

of the coral,

hoping that they can reveal more information about

its age and the crater that it grows around.

But before they bring their samples back to the lab,

they decide to investigate the uninhabited islands

of the atoll.

They come across an enormous steel chain lying

on the beach.

-It looks like it was something that just washed ashore...

[Amma Wakefield] This is the kind of chain you could

see having an anchor attached to one end...

But there are neither ships in the lagoon,

nor any anchors around the underwater crater.

-It all adds up to a kind of unsettling feeling.

You’ve got obvious signs of humans,

but no humans.

The scientists say even the fish and birds seem

like they’re less afraid here than the

animals on other islands.

-It's as if the animals themselves don't know

what we're capable of...

That we could cause them harm.

So there must not have been much human activity

here for many, many years.

[Narrator] The scientists decide to make another dive

at the opposite end of the lagoon.

They observe a ghostly shape rising up

from the ocean floor.

-It doesn't take long before something truly remarkable

comes into view.

At a depth of about 40 feet, a bridge of an enormous ship

appears before them.

-And then, 40 feet below that,

a huge, flat deck reveals itself.

The deck is littered with debris,

but its size and its shape indicates that it can

only be one thing.

A flight deck, and this vessel is an aircraft carrier.

But how did it end up at the bottom of the lagoon?

-This is truly remarkable.

The ship seems frozen in time,

its guns pointed to the sky.

Ammunition lies strewn about.

You can see the radio in what would have been the

Command Information Center.

There's even a sink and a mirror...

-If you look at the instruments in the wheelhouse,

you can tell that this is an old vessel,

it was probably built anywhere from the 1930s

to the 1950s.

But is that when it sank?

[Narrator] The scientists continue their dive and

come across a diving helmet covered in silt.

[James Ellis] This is actually a US Navy

Mark V diving helmet,

so this is definitely an American aircraft carrier,

dating to the time of the Second World War.

[Narrator] During the Second World War,

America and her Allies fought the Japanese Empire.

Extensive and brutal battles were waged at sea

and on land,

resulting in the eventual capitulation of the Japanese in

August of 1945,

following the American decision to detonate two

nuclear weapons over Japan.

-There were amphibious invasions by US Marines on

the Marshallese atolls of Enewetak and Kwajalein.

But although the Marines suffered casualties,

no aircraft carrier was sunk...

...so this ship can't have been a victim of those battles.

-So if it wasn't sunk in battle,

then how did it end up at the bottom of the sea,

stocked with all sorts of supplies,

in the middle of a lagoon that has a gargantuan crater?

[Narrator] Meanwhile, the results from the coral samples

taken from the rim of the crater have revealed high

levels of radioactive isotopes.

-With the Cold War in its infancy,

the Americans embarked on what now seems a

completely ludicrous nuclear testing program.

These radiation levels are actually the result of

12 years of nuclear testing carried out by

the United States in the Marshall Islands alone.

-Starting in 1946 with a project called Operation Crossroads,

they began detonating nuclear bombs over some

of the Marshall Islands on a terribly regular basis.

[Amma Wakefield] They didn’t just want

to test the bomb itself,

but also the explosion’s impact on naval vessels.

So they brought a whole bunch of them to the area

surrounding the Bikini Atoll.

And one of those was the USS Saratoga.

[Narrator] During World War II,

The USS Saratoga had seen action throughout

the Pacific campaign,

but in 1946 it was deemed surplus to requirements.

So, along with other vessels,

it was loaded with war materiel,

and subjected to nuclear explosions.

-The first blast damaged the Saratoga but didn’t sink it.

The second blast lifted the stern more than

40 feet above the ocean...

And then sent it smashing back down,

with huge waves washing over it.

After a few days, it sank.

The poor animals that were aboard the other ships either

died immediately or were eventually killed

by radiation poisoning.

[Narrator] Even though the Americans succeeded

in sinking the Saratoga with their second atomic blast,

they were not yet finished with their nuclear testing.

-But if the Americans were detonating so many

nuclear weapons here, which one created this

ridiculously huge crater?

[Narrator] On March 1, 1954,

the Americans decided to carry out a test of a

thermonuclear device that could be delivered by airplane.

At 06:45 local time, the bomb,

known as Castle Bravo, detonated.

[Anthony Cantor] The scientists seemed to have

miscalculated its force,

and it turned out to be two and a half times

more powerful than anticipated...

A total of 15 megatons!

1,000 times more powerful than the bomb

dropped on Hiroshima.

To this day, this remains the largest nuclear bomb

ever set off by the United States.

-Within seconds of the explosion,

a four-and-a-half-mile high mushroom cloud formed.

Eventually it rose up to 130,000 feet and then winds

helped scatter radioactive debris across

7,000 square miles.

And of course, it left this enormous crater we

still see today at Bikini Atoll.

-This is why the scientists' navigation device was

sounding off because there is or was supposed

to be land there.

But the nuclear explosion blasted all that land away,

leaving this huge crater!

[Narrator] The evidence remains of the worst

radiological disaster in the history of American-led

nuclear arms testing.

It caused a severe backlash in terms of the wisdom and

predictability that existed in testing nuclear weapons.

-There's a story of a scientist who forgot his safety goggles,

and so therefore had to watch his colleagues as

they watched the detonation of the bomb.

And in his recollection,

he tells how he saw his colleagues' faces go

from shock to fear.

And the reason for that is the explosion was so big,

and so many times bigger than they were all expecting

that for a moment they thought that they had set

the earth's atmosphere on fire.

For the Americans,

the Marshall Islands were far off,

out of sight and out of mind.

But not so for those Marshallese who

called Bikini Atoll home.

Prior to the first tests,

the Americans told all 167 residents they would

have to relocate but could come back within

a relatively short period of time.

A bald-faced lie.

[Anthony Cantor] From what we can see today,

this has not come to pass.

Bikini Atoll remains contaminated

by radiation poisoning.

And to make matters worse,

665 Marshallese were overexposed to radiation

in the years following the tests.

[Dan Riskin] The metal chain and a radioactive environment

are all part of the legacy of the early stages

of the Cold War,

when the struggle for technological supremacy took

precedence over life itself.

[Dan Riskin] Today, although the area is still poisoned,

you can see life rebounding.

It's remarkable.

[Narrator] Even though no island was discovered where

the biologist's navigation system indicated,

they did find signs of a recovering ecosystem,

despite all the devastation.

In total, 23 nuclear weapons were detonated

over the territory of the Marshall Islands,

causing unbelievable amounts of damage,

leaving parts of the country poisoned and

uninhabitable for decades,

and indeed, into the foreseeable future.

Nestled within the boundaries of Mexico City,

just 17 miles from downtown is Xochimilco,

a suburb known as the Venice of Mexico.

-You probably picture canals when you think of Venice.

But I'm pretty sure that most of us don't imagine canals when

we hear "Mexico City".

The truth is, this suburb has 110 miles of them,

and has had them for hundreds of years,

possibly thousands of years!

[Narrator] Xochimilco lies in the valley of Mexico,

historically a marshy region.

Faced with the area’s limited agricultural capacity,

the Aztecs had a brilliant solution...

...artificial islands that function as large planting beds.

-These islands are called chinampas,

which means flower field.

The mud and silt mixture is extremely nutrient-rich rich

and the surrounding waters help regulate temperature,

which allows for year-round cultivation.

[Narrator] After the Aztecs were defeated by the

Conquistadors in the 1500s,

most of the area was filled in thus creating

modern day Mexico City.

-Luckily, there are a lot of these islands remaining in

Xochimilco which has led to the area being quite

the tourist attraction.

You can actually take trips through the canals on trajinera

which are essentially large and very colorful gondolas,

it's a pretty lively atmosphere filled with food,

culture and even mariachis playing on board!

-But if your trajinera makes a turn into the

Laguna de Tequila you might see something a

little less festive.

Dolls.

Hundreds, even thousands of them.

They're on walls, they're on pikes,

they're hanging from trees,

with their artificial skin blistering under the hot sun.

[horror scream]

[Narrator] This is "Isla de las Muñecas"

which translates to "the Island of the Dolls."

-The reason for the name is obvious,

what isn't obvious is why are the dolls here?

Maybe there's a simple reason.

If you go into any marketplace in Mexico...

...you're likely to find handmade dolls on offer,

like Lele dolls, an ancient tradition of the Otomi people.

[Narrator] The Otomi are an indigenous people

of central Mexico.

There are almost 700,000 of them today.

-Lele, which means "baby" in the Otomi language,

is intended to protect dead children from evil spirits

on their journey into the afterlife.

They’re also placed on adults who have died,

in order to safeguard them in the spirit realm.

[Anthea Nardi] If this were a burial site,

there'd likely be visible graves and markers,

something with a little pageantry.

There's one big white cross planted on the island,

but that's it...

and there are thousands of dolls.

[Narrator] While it’s clear that these

aren’t Lele dolls,

it’s possible that they still serve

some ritual purpose.

[Alison Leonard] While this country is primarily Catholic,

the Pre-colonial faiths of the indigenous people

do sometimes creep into the brand of

Catholicism practiced here.

[Anthony Cantor] When these kinds of mixes occur,

it’s called syncretism.

Voodoo is probably the most well-known syncretic religion.

It combines indigenous beliefs with West African

spiritual practices and French Catholicism.

Maybe the dolls are some kind of syncretic artifact,

like a voodoo doll.

[Narrator] During the US occupation of Haiti

from 1915 to 1934,

tales of Voodoo flooded American pop culture and

Voodoo dolls were one of the most visible

emblems of this.

-We've all seen horror movies with

raggedy-looking dolls that are stuck with pins,

an act intended to inflict pain and injury on their target.

-But the image of the voodoo doll as we know it

is a racist trope used to the US occupation and

it's just plain wrong.

They have nothing to do with Haiti or the religion of Voodoo.

[Sarah Klassen] And besides, the dolls on this island are

not the homemade effigies we would associate with voodoo,

these dolls are mass-produced and made

of plastic or porcelain.

So they're not Voodoo dolls.

[Narrator] Certainly, this isn’t the only place

in the world filled with eerie dolls.

Nagoro is a village in Japan that’s famous for its

unsettling collection of life-sized dolls.

These are the work of local artist Ayano Tsukimi

who began making them to replace the village’s

declining human population.

They actually outnumber the living residents 10-1

[Anthea Nardi] These Japanese dolls are staged in tableaux

that replicate real life in the village,

with dolls shown farming, in the market,

or celebrating seasonal festivals.

They're beautiful and pristine...

...which these island dolls are decidedly not.

-In 2001, Don Julian Barrera,

the island's sole resident, dies.

And with his death, two things happen.

The first is that the island becomes a featured stop

on tours of the canals.

The second is that the story behind the island

is finally revealed.

-The story goes that sometime around 1950,

Don Julian moves to this small island,

which at the time, had nothing on it.

No buildings, no plumbing, no electricity,

and certainly, no dolls.

[Narrator] No one is clear on why he moves there.

Perhaps it’s for some monastic spiritual reasons,

as Don Julian is a deeply devout man,

one who feels compelled to share the word of God,

as he understands it.

-Don Julian is also known as a devout drinker,

and between his drunkenness and his preaching,

he faced a lot of blowback and physical aggression,

which makes him even more reclusive,

retreating to what is essentially a hermitage

on the island.

-Apparently, not long after Don Julian had

come to the island a young girl falls into the nearby water

and quickly becomes tangled in the water lilies.

[Narrator] Reports about what transpires next are varied.

Some say that Don Julian just happens upon her dead body.

Other people say that he actually sees her fall into

the water and jumps in hoping to save her.

-It's all a bit hazy.

No one seems to have a first-hand account of seeing

this happen and there is no official report about

the girl's death.

All we do know is that Don Julian's psyche is

gravely impacted by whatever happened that day,

real or imagined.

[Narrator] He sets up a white cross near where she drowned,

as a way to honor her memory.

But according to local legend,

soon after Don Julian plants the cross,

mysterious things begin to happen.

-At this point,

you have to remember that he’s a deeply religious man.

But one who’s been shunned by the Catholic faithful.

That experience, along with the death of a child and

the presence of unexplained noises,

well you can see that his faith might have gone

in a more dark and a more mystical direction.

-So Don Julian fears that the noises are from the

lost spirit of the girl or, worse,

dark spirits tormenting her.

Either way, he feels he has to do something.

[Sarah Klassen] So he hung a doll on a tree.

Some say he found the doll;

others believe it actually belonged to

the young girl that drowned.

[Narrator] His intention is equally unclear,

perhaps he places the doll in the tree to appease

the girl’s spirit,

or maybe to ward off dark energies.

Whatever the rationale,

one of the trees soon has a doll hanging from it.

-After a few years,

the whole island is covered in dolls of various shapes

and sizes, and in various stages of decay.

The dolls are there so long that nature takes over.

If you didn’t have Pediophobia a fear of dolls

before seeing Doll Island, you probably will after.

[Narrator] In 2001, Don Julian is found floating face down in

the very place he claims to have found the girl’s body,

some 50 years before.

He may be gone, but the story of the island persists.

[Anthony Cantor] To this day locals will tell you that

the dolls can open and close their eyes and

move their limbs.

Some swear that if you pass by the island,

you can hear the dolls whispering,

trying to lure you in.

[Narrator] The island has become a major

tourist attraction, summoning visitors from

all around the world.

And what do many of them bring?

More dolls...

...guaranteeing that this island will remain creepy for

many years to come.

Just 40 miles off the coast of

Western Australia lies a stretch of

122 islands and reefs.

Rugged, with limited vegetation,

and largely uninhabited,

they're known as the Houtman Abrolhos.

-Abrolhos is a Dutch corruption of the Portuguese

"Abri Vossos Olhos!" which roughly translates to

"Keep your Eyes Open"

a pretty good heads up given the amount of ships

this area has claimed over the years.

[Narrator] This archipelago lies a tiny land mass,

Beacon Island.

[Anthony Cantor] Calling it an island almost seems

like an overstatement.

It’s not much more than a stretch of sand with

some slabs of coral, with no fresh water.

Look, there are lots of beautiful islands in

the Indian Ocean, this ain’t one of them.

[Narrator] Although it’s a threat to large ships,

rock lobster fishers have long used the island

as a seasonal outpost,

building shacks for shelter from the area’s

often brutal weather.

[James Ellis] In 2014, the Western Australian government

negotiates a deal to relocate the fishers

from the island.

And as the shacks are demolished,

a grim discovery is made.

[Anthea Nardi] They find a headless skeleton,

one that had been buried with one arm extended horizontally

from its shoulders,

suggesting it was dragged to its grave.

Nothing about this suggests this was a respectful burial.

[Narrator] In early 2015,

a research team heads to the island to further

excavate and investigate.

[Anthony Cantor] They end up getting more than

they bargained for;

when they dig around they unearth more skeletons,

three more skeletons.

That’s a lot of old bones in such a tiny place!

-And it’s not just bones they find.

They also unearth some musket balls.

One is found with the headless skeleton,

two others in another grave.

[James Ellis] At first glance,

you might think these people had been shot.

But there’s no evidence of ballistic trauma [James Ellis] At first glance,

to any of the bones.

Beyond that, the musket balls don't appear to have striations

so it looks like they were never fired.

-So that's three musket balls and four bodies on a

remote and undeveloped island in the middle of nowhere.

What could have happened here?

[Narrator] Shockingly, these grim discoveries are

not the first ones made on the island.

Half-a-century before,

a fisherman named Pop Marten,

stumbled across human remains near

a neighbor's shack.

-He found femurs, tibias, a patella,

a whole range of bones.

There was some speculation that the bones might have

been the remains of a fisherman,

Maybe they’d had a dispute over use of a shack

or fishing rights.

But there’s no flesh left on the body,

so it couldn’t have been recent.

[Narrator] The fishermen wondered if the bones could be

those of an explorer, maybe one who'd been caught

in a squall or lost their ship to the reefs

-But the explorer theory may not hold water,

the skeleton's frame is slight,

suggesting that the person was either not fully grown,

or that it was a woman.

Either way, this person was not likely to have been

an explorer of old.

So where did these bones come from?

[Narrator] The island tells no tales,

not till three years later when more grim

clues are unearthed.

-It's not just the discovery of the remains that's shocking.

This skull has deep indentations in the bone with

fractures that radiate out.

And there was a piece missing.

All of this is consistent with sharp trauma,

like you might see from an attack with a

heavy-bladed weapon.

[Narrator] There is a 90-degree angle

to these indentations.

To have left a mark that deep,

the weapon must have come down with great force,

which would be difficult if the victim was standing up.

[Anthony Cantor] It seems likely that the person was

in a vulnerable position when this happened,

maybe sitting or kneeling.

There is similar trauma seen in the skeleton found nearby.

They were clearly attacked, but by who?

[Narrator] In 1963, along the nearby Morning Reef,

a fisherman notices what appears to be the

remains of a ship,

just 20 feet below the surface.

As local divers descend on the site,

they spy something shimmering in the water.

-Once underwater they can see that the ocean floor is

strewn with the wreckage, including a broken hull.

It's clear that this wasn't a tiny ship,

it must have been huge!

-It's not just the ship itself that they find.

There are anchors and dozens of canons.

Bronze ones, iron ones,

there are cannons called minions named after the

French word for cute,

these are smaller cannons that were in use

in the 17th century.

But whose ship is this?

-One of the foundational stories of Australia is about

a Dutch merchant ship that sank in the area

in the 17th century.

Could these remains actually be the legendary Batavia?

[Narrator] The VOC was an early multinational,

who made their money from forced slave labor and

the lucrative spice trade.

Led by Commander Franscisco Pelsaert,

the Batavia had well over 300 people aboard,

including soldiers, VOC officers,

some of their wives and children, and deckhands.

-They started out in Holland,

and came down around Europe and the west coast of Africa.

And the journey was as difficult as it was long.

[Anthea Nardi] The Batavia was a trade ship,

so it was loaded with $15 million worth of

valuables to trade for spices, silks and porcelain.

[James Ellis] Given the value of the cargo,

it comes as no surprise that there were those onboard

who wanted to get their hands on it.

[Narrator] Unbeknownst to Pelsaert,

his skipper Adrian Jacobsz and his third in command

Jeronimus Cornelisz were plotting a mutiny.,

[Anthony Cantor] So when Pelsaert fell ill and

sequestered himself in his cabin,

it presented a golden opportunity for these fledgling

mutineers to get their plan rolling,

and they began by recruiting other members of the crew.

[Alison Leonard] It's unclear if what happened next

was part of the plan or an unhappy accident,

but the Batavia sailed far off course and headed

straight into the deadly reefs of the Abrolhos.

[Franscisco Pelsaert] I was lying in my bunk feeling ill

and felt suddenly, with a rough terrible movement,

the bumping of the ship's rudder

Shortly after that, heard the sea

breaking hard roundabout.

I said, "Skipper, what have you done that through

your reckless carelessness,

you have run this noose round our necks?"

[James Ellis] The crew and passengers were

quickly ferried to nearby Beacon Island,

which seemed like a godsend at first but they soon

found out that it had no fresh water and

almost no options for food.

-Pelsaert realized that he'd have to go look for help.

He, Jacobz, and 46 men

took a 30-ft longboat and headed off on a harrowing

1800-mile journey to Jakarta.

[Narrator] With Pelsaert and Jacobz off on what was

likely a suicide mission,

there was only one senior officer left on Beacon Island,

the mutinous Cornelisz.

-This was the perfect scenario for Cornelisz and his followers.

He dispatched all the soldiers off to nearby Islands

to find water assuming they would die of thirst

in the process.

With them gone, he was totally unopposed.

-Things on the island descended into a

Lord of the Flies situation pretty fast.

They killed off the strongest men in the night as they slept.

They slaughtered whole families.

They raped women.

They strangled a baby.

They were, in a word, monsters.

[Narrator] When Pelsaert returned he was horrified

to discover that over half of the Batavia’s

original party are dead,

and Cornelisz had been captured by the very soldiers

he’d sent off to die.

-Once the truth emerges,

the lead mutineers, including Cornelisz,

are hanged on a nearby island.

As was customary,

the condemned men all have one hand cut off.

But as the leader,

Cornelius received special treatment and

lost both hands.

[James Ellis] The lesser villains of the mutiny are

taken back to Jakarta, tried and executed.

Two are intentionally marooned on the coast of Australia,

likely the first two European settlers there.

Unsurprisingly, they were never heard from again.

[Narrator] In 1963,

as divers continue to investigate the shipwreck

found near Beacon Island,

they become convinced that these are the remains

of the infamous Batavia.

-The finds kept piling up.

The hinges of a box,

some shards from an apothecary jar,

coins, a crest...

...all things consistent with a 17th-century

Dutch merchant vessel.

[Narrator] Another clue found on the island is a

coral structure with four,

eight-foot walls and a door in one corner.

An examination of the area around the

structure yields brass sheeting,

a small piece of fabric, and iron fragments.

-It's impossible to know for sure what this building

was but according to Pelseart's logbook,

the survivors of the shipwreck slept in tents.

So we know that this structure wasn't a shelter

for the survivors.

So what was it for?

-Now remember that when Pelseart returned to

Beacon Island he found Cornelisz being held

as a prisoner.

Could this coral structure be the remains of a jail?

[Narrator] As excavations continue,

the skeletal remains of at least two adults and

one child are found.

But loose bones suggest the grave may hold even more bodies.

[Anthea Nardi] Only one body in the mass grave shows

signs of trauma.

Which could simply mean that the others were killed

in ways that would leave no long-term evidence,

like throat slitting.

Or it might mean that they died in the early days after

the shipwreck, before the massacre commenced.

-According to Pelsaert's logbook,

many people died of dehydration not long after

the ship sank.

This might also explain the bodies found with musket balls.

-Back then, sucking or chewing lead was

a thing that people did to diminish thirst.

So maybe the musket balls were being used to

ease their thirst as they were dying from dehydration.

It makes sense,

as there are no signs of any trauma.

But no one really knows.

[Narrator] To date, a total of 21 skeletons have been

found and after more than five decades of

investigating Beacon Island,

researchers continue to unearth grim evidence

of the massacre...

And with each bone and tooth,

some questions are answered,

yet many still remain.

Chapelle Dom Hue is a small tidal islet

about 1,000 feet off the west coast of Guernsey,

which is an island between England and France.

-Chapelle Dom Hue is tiny, about 50 feet across,

and very rugged,

it's basically just low rock formations and patches of grass

pounded by English Channel surf.

[Narrator] For the past few hundred years,

Chapelle Dom Hue has had a quiet,

unremarkable history.

But that all changes in September 2017,

when archaeologists begin to excavate the ruins of a

structure that are just barely protruding out of

the island's surface.

[Dan Riskin] Shards of a type of medieval pottery called

Normandy Gritty Ware had been here previously,

and that dates the ruins to between

the 14th and 15th centuries.

So, the goal of this 2017 dig is to determine

the origin of the structure.

-The outlines of three of the structure's walls,

the main one measuring nearly 15 feet long

and 4 feet wide, begin to emerge.

[Narrator] But after ten days of digging,

the team of archaeologists make a startling discovery.

-There is an area a short distance from the

structure's wall where the soil's makeup changes

and is disturbed.

The shape of this area resembles a grave.

[Dan Riskin] And the disturbed area is about

the size of a human body.

But who could be buried here?

[Narrator] Chapelle Dom Hue is generally thought to

be related to Lihou Priory,

a Benedictine monastery on Lihou Island,

one mile away.

Founded in the 12th century,

some of the Lihou Priory buildings were modified

in the 14th and 15th centuries,

the same date as the pottery found on

Chapelle Dom Hue.

-When Chapelle Dom Hue is translated to English,

Dom means "monk",

and Hue is the presumed monk's name.

So it's believed these ruins on the islet are from

a retreat built by these same Benedictine monks.

Is it possible this is the grave of Dom Hue himself?

[Narrator] The archaeologists start to excavate the

grave-shaped area and are stunned by a grotesque find.

-It’s a skull.

Now that’s not a big surprise because when a body is buried

-It’s a skull. in a grave without a casket,

most of the bones collapse down,

the skull stays up so it’s the highest point,

it’s the first thing that’s found.

But what is unexpected about this skeleton,

is that that skull isn’t human.

-The excavated skull is very strangely shaped.

Instead of being round, it’s long and more extended.

Plus, it has what looks like an animal’s snout or beak.

But there’s no evidence of wildlife on the island aside

from birds and rodents.

So, what is this animal and why is it buried here?

[Narrator] As the archaeologists dig the grave

to a deeper level,

they uncover what appears to be parts of the

animal’s vertebrae and ribs.

-When they fully excavate the skull,

they see two holes one inch in diameter.

This is very common with unprotected graves.

The holes are usually caused by rats gnawing into

the skull to feed on the subject’s brain tissue.

-Two smaller holes are also visible near the

skull’s elongated section.

These appear to be the subject’s nasal cavities and

could be key to identifying it.

-With no larger wildlife on the islet,

and no other remains visible in the grave,

the skull gets compared to the skulls of marine life

in the region, and guess what?

It’s a porpoise.

[Alison Leonard] It’s the last thing you’d expect to find

in a grave on this tiny islet.

I mean, a Benedictine monk would have

been strange enough.

But a porpoise?

It defies logic.

Why would a porpoise be buried on Chapelle Dom Hue?

[Narrator] As the grave cut is fully excavated,

the porpoise remains are carefully removed and

sent to the lab for analysis.

The archaeologists’ first priority is confirming

the date of the skeleton.

-At the lab,

they use carbon dating to figure the age of the

porpoise skeleton,

and they find a date range somewhere between

1416 and 1490.

That exactly matches the age of the medieval pottery

that's also from there.

-But it also raises questions.

Why did someone go out of their way to bury

the porpoise here?

Did it hold some honored position in local culture in

the 15th century?

[Narrator] Historical records reveal that porpoises

were a common part of the Medieval diet.

Although technically a marine mammal,

porpoises were considered fish by Christians.

This meant they could be eaten on Fridays when

meat was forbidden.

-These Christian rituals made the porpoise

an attractive food.

Large banquets and social gatherings served porpoise

as well as dolphin, seal, and whale.

-So the porpoise may have been a highly regarded food source by

whoever was living on the island.

But how did they catch it?

[Narrat A study of Chapelle Dom Hue’s

tidal patterns reveals a fascinating clue.

At low tide,

a lagoon is formed on the islet’s eastern side

where the water never drains completely.

[Amma Wakefield] This would act as a natural trap

for many fish and marine mammals like the porpoise.

There it could be easily caught and killed.

-But once it was eaten,

why weren’t the remains just thrown in the ocean a few steps

away or left on the rocks for seagulls or other scavengers?

-The dolphin, the porpoise’s close cousin,

was considered “the king of the fishes”

by early Christians.

In the church’s art back then,

dolphins represented Christ’s love,

and by extension, the light of the world.

-Dolphins also appear on early Christian rings

and funeral monuments and they’re sometimes pictured

wrapped around an anchor to symbolize Christ on the cross.

[James Ellis] Considering the porpoise’s resemblance

to the dolphin,

is it possible that its burial on Chapelle Dom Hue

was a sacred ceremonial veneration?

[Narrator] A closer examination of the skeleton’s

placement in the grave may offer some clues.

[Amma Wakefield] It’s a little frustrating because some bones

found next to the skull,

and many throughout the grave,

can’t be identified because of decay.

But the recovered bones, mostly rib and vertebra,

were in several pieces.

So the body wasn’t buried intact.

-That’s important because it’s not how you'd

expect to find a skeleton that was buried

in a religious ceremony.

And there is also none of the Christian jewelry or

artifacts that you'd expect to find.

-While the burial wasn’t religious,

the grave itself was painstakingly dug.

But what if it isn’t actually a grave?

What if the porpoise was buried just to hide it?

But if so, from whom?

[Narrator] Medieval records show that in 1324 England

passed a law stating that any sturgeon or

whale near its shores,

and later any dolphin or porpoise,

was the King’s property.

This guaranteed that there was enough fish for

the country’s royals during Christianity’s fasting days.

-These fish became known as “Fishes Royal."

And while largely symbolic and loosely applied,

the statute still exists.

When caught, sturgeons are still

offered to Buckingham Palace,

and the King can either accept or decline the catch.

The last sturgeon oaccepted by the monarchy was

in 1969 by Queen Elizabeth.

[Amma Wakefield] On the island of Guernsey,

a stone’s throw from Chapelle Dom Hue,

there are reports of monks being disciplined by British

authorities for taking porpoises without showing them

to the King’s Officers first for inspection.

[Narrator] The archaeologists wonder if

the “Fishes Royal” law

played an integral role in the porpoise’s

placement in the grave.

-If a monk from Chapelle Dom Hue caught a porpoise,

he should have told his Abbot and followed procedure.

But porpoises were scarce and considered a bit

of a delicacy back then.

What if a hungry monk secretly ate it and then hid

the bones in the grave?

[Alison Leonard] It's possible, but again,

why not just throw the remains in the ocean,

never to be seen again?

It's quicker, easier, and more efficient.

The burial only really makes sense if the person

was going to return.

But until more testing can be done,

or other evidence is unearthed,

we just can't know for sure.

[Narrator] The mystique and curiosity around this

tiny islet off the coast of Guernsey multiplies.

Who knows what other grisly discoveries lie

under its surf-beaten rocks?