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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 3 00:01:15,109 --> 00:01:19,679 WERNER HERZOG: These images taken under the ice of the Ross Sea in Antarctica 4 00:01:19,813 --> 00:01:23,316 were the reason I wanted to go to this continent. 5 00:01:26,153 --> 00:01:31,357 The pictures were taken by a friend of mine, one of these expert divers. 6 00:02:33,086 --> 00:02:37,156 The best connection is on military planes out of New Zealand, 7 00:02:37,324 --> 00:02:41,127 loaded with chained-down parts of polar stations. 8 00:02:47,100 --> 00:02:52,471 Most of the passengers had tucked into their laptops and their books, 9 00:02:52,573 --> 00:02:54,774 and many of them were sleeping. 10 00:02:59,012 --> 00:03:05,418 Who were the people I was going to meet in Antarctica at the end of the world? 11 00:03:05,519 --> 00:03:07,420 What were their dreams? 12 00:03:14,361 --> 00:03:18,898 We flew into the unknown, a seemingly endless void. 13 00:03:20,534 --> 00:03:24,837 I was surprised that I was even on this plane. 14 00:03:24,938 --> 00:03:28,875 The National Science Foundation had invited me to Antarctica, 15 00:03:28,976 --> 00:03:32,445 even though I left no doubt that I would not come up 16 00:03:32,546 --> 00:03:34,947 with another film about penguins. 17 00:03:36,617 --> 00:03:41,053 My questions about nature, I let them know, were different. 18 00:03:43,423 --> 00:03:45,758 I told them I kept wondering 19 00:03:45,859 --> 00:03:52,198 why is it that human beings put on masks or feathers to conceal their identity? 20 00:03:53,500 --> 00:03:58,938 And why do they saddle horses and feel the urge to chase the bad guy? 21 00:04:01,642 --> 00:04:03,476 Hi-yo, Silver! 22 00:04:06,013 --> 00:04:12,985 HERZOG: And why is it that certain species of ants keep flocks of plant lice as slaves 23 00:04:13,086 --> 00:04:15,588 to milk them for droplets of sugar? 24 00:04:17,624 --> 00:04:22,361 I asked them why is it that a sophisticated animal like a chimp 25 00:04:22,462 --> 00:04:25,031 does not utilize inferior creatures? 26 00:04:26,967 --> 00:04:30,770 He could straddle a goat and ride off into the sunset. 27 00:04:41,715 --> 00:04:47,954 Despite my odd questions, I found myself landing on the ice runway at McMurdo. 28 00:04:52,292 --> 00:04:57,763 For most of the austral spring and summer, which lasts from October through February, 29 00:04:57,898 --> 00:05:01,801 planes can land on the 8-foot thick ice of the Ross Sea. 30 00:05:03,971 --> 00:05:07,673 In the distance, the mountains of the Transantarctic range. 31 00:05:09,509 --> 00:05:12,578 McMurdo itself is situated on an island. 32 00:05:14,581 --> 00:05:18,651 The Ross Sea is the largest bay in the continent. 33 00:05:18,752 --> 00:05:22,288 This bay alone covers the size of the state of Texas. 34 00:05:35,702 --> 00:05:38,371 On this very same frozen ocean, 35 00:05:38,472 --> 00:05:43,242 the early explorer's ship got wedged into moving ice flows. 36 00:05:44,578 --> 00:05:48,547 Here, Shackleton's expedition evacuates their vessel, 37 00:05:48,648 --> 00:05:52,618 which would later come to ruin, leaving them stranded there. 38 00:06:04,765 --> 00:06:07,800 Everything in this expedition was doomed, 39 00:06:07,901 --> 00:06:11,804 including the first ancestor of the snowmobile. 40 00:06:11,905 --> 00:06:17,276 The idea was too big for the technical possibilities 100 years ago. 41 00:06:18,845 --> 00:06:22,882 At that time, every step meant incredible hardship. 42 00:06:41,435 --> 00:06:44,637 The first thing that caught my eye upon landing 43 00:06:44,738 --> 00:06:47,473 was the humongous bus and its driver. 44 00:06:57,417 --> 00:07:02,188 -We're clearing the apron now, thank you. -MAN: Hey, you're welcome. 45 00:07:07,761 --> 00:07:11,797 This is Ivan the Terra Bus. It's one of seven in the world, 46 00:07:11,898 --> 00:07:15,534 weighs 67,000 pounds and is the largest vehicle on the continent. 47 00:07:16,970 --> 00:07:19,939 HERZOG: What do you do when you are back home? Are you a taxi driver? 48 00:07:20,040 --> 00:07:22,208 I am not a taxi driver at home. 49 00:07:22,309 --> 00:07:25,945 Before I came to Antarctica, I was actually a banker in Colorado. 50 00:07:26,046 --> 00:07:29,448 And after two years there, I changed my pace a little bit 51 00:07:29,616 --> 00:07:32,384 and decided to help the people of Guatemala, 52 00:07:32,486 --> 00:07:37,923 so I joined the Peace Corps, and there I worked in small business development. 53 00:07:38,091 --> 00:07:41,060 Just realized that the world's not all about money. 54 00:07:41,228 --> 00:07:43,496 ROWLAND: Where I lived in Guatemala was in the northern part. 55 00:07:43,597 --> 00:07:50,269 It's a Kekchรญ Mayan village, 99% Mayan, and therefore nobody spoke Spanish. 56 00:07:50,604 --> 00:07:53,439 I had to learn the Mayan dialect, Kekchรญ. 57 00:07:55,142 --> 00:07:59,912 When I first moved to Chisec, I was just out on a normal walk, and before I knew it 58 00:08:00,013 --> 00:08:03,983 I had six people with machetes chasing me down, wanting to talk to me. 59 00:08:04,151 --> 00:08:08,053 Turns out the little brother told them I was there to steal children. 60 00:08:08,155 --> 00:08:10,422 I was, however, not there to steal children. 61 00:08:11,391 --> 00:08:15,961 They took me back to my... My judge and jury was the 14-year-old boy in the town 62 00:08:16,062 --> 00:08:19,365 who could speak both Spanish and Kekchรญ. 63 00:08:19,466 --> 00:08:21,300 Luckily, they let me go, 64 00:08:21,401 --> 00:08:24,870 and we ended up being great friends over the two years. 65 00:08:25,238 --> 00:08:29,208 -HERZOG: The jury acquitted you. -I was acquitted. I made it out of there. 66 00:08:30,343 --> 00:08:31,677 But it could have been dangerous. 67 00:08:31,778 --> 00:08:35,648 It is, it is. And, you know, a story not too long ago is, 68 00:08:35,749 --> 00:08:37,816 a lady was just taking a picture of a child, 69 00:08:37,918 --> 00:08:42,221 you know, the same type of group of people with machetes, and she wasn't so fortunate. 70 00:08:42,722 --> 00:08:45,291 -She didn't make it out. -What happened to her? 71 00:08:45,392 --> 00:08:48,360 She was killed, by a machete. 72 00:08:51,364 --> 00:08:55,601 HERZOG: Approaching McMurdo Station, the largest American base, 73 00:08:55,702 --> 00:08:58,704 in fact the largest settlement in Antarctica. 74 00:08:59,639 --> 00:09:02,908 Right there is Captain Scott's hut, built in 1902. 75 00:09:04,678 --> 00:09:06,145 HERZOG: During the austral summer, 76 00:09:06,246 --> 00:09:10,649 about 1,000 people live here experiencing a strange state, 77 00:09:11,751 --> 00:09:14,153 five months of no nighttime. 78 00:09:17,257 --> 00:09:20,092 McMurdo serves as a logistical hub 79 00:09:20,260 --> 00:09:24,196 and provides fixed laboratory facilities for research. 80 00:09:25,532 --> 00:09:28,334 All the decisions about scientific projects 81 00:09:28,435 --> 00:09:32,304 are the domain of my host, the National Science Foundation. 82 00:09:33,773 --> 00:09:37,776 Day to day logistics are run by a defense contractor. 83 00:09:39,212 --> 00:09:42,915 I had been told by some disgruntled former inhabitants 84 00:09:43,016 --> 00:09:46,852 that they ran things in the spirit of a correctional facility. 85 00:09:50,123 --> 00:09:56,128 Actually, they were decent people, just too concerned for my personal safety. 86 00:09:58,865 --> 00:10:02,768 Of course, I did not expect pristine landscapes 87 00:10:02,869 --> 00:10:07,072 and men living in blissful harmony with fluffy penguins, 88 00:10:07,173 --> 00:10:12,411 but I was still surprised to find McMurdo looking like an ugly mining town 89 00:10:12,512 --> 00:10:16,548 filled with Caterpillars and noisy construction sites. 90 00:10:52,852 --> 00:10:56,021 Who are the people who drive the heavy machinery, 91 00:10:56,156 --> 00:10:58,824 and what brought them to Antarctica? 92 00:11:00,160 --> 00:11:06,965 (LAUGHING) It's a long story. I've explored many different 93 00:11:08,368 --> 00:11:12,971 lands of the mind and many worlds of ideas, 94 00:11:14,174 --> 00:11:17,910 and I started before I even knew how to read and write. 95 00:11:18,011 --> 00:11:21,413 My grandmother was reading The Odyssey and The Iliad to me, 96 00:11:21,514 --> 00:11:25,851 so I started my journey in my fantasy, 97 00:11:25,952 --> 00:11:28,821 before I even knew the means 98 00:11:28,922 --> 00:11:32,825 of accomplishing it, but my mind and my psyche was ready for it. 99 00:11:32,926 --> 00:11:37,730 I was already traveling with Odysseus and with the Argonauts 100 00:11:37,831 --> 00:11:42,735 and to those strange and amazing lands, and that always stayed with me, 101 00:11:42,836 --> 00:11:47,740 that fascination of the world, and that I fell in love with the world. 102 00:11:47,841 --> 00:11:53,479 And it's been very powerful and has been with me this whole time. 103 00:11:54,614 --> 00:11:58,217 HERZOG: And how does it happen that we are encountering each other here 104 00:11:58,318 --> 00:12:00,652 at the end of the world? 105 00:12:00,754 --> 00:12:05,791 I think that it's a logical place to find each other because this place works 106 00:12:05,892 --> 00:12:10,529 almost as a natural selection for people that 107 00:12:11,398 --> 00:12:14,433 have this intention to jump off the margin of the map, 108 00:12:14,534 --> 00:12:18,470 and we all meet here where all the lines of the map converge. 109 00:12:19,639 --> 00:12:23,208 PASHOV: There is no point that is south of the South Pole. 110 00:12:25,578 --> 00:12:29,782 And I think there is a fair amount of the population here 111 00:12:29,883 --> 00:12:34,253 which are full-time travelers and part-time workers. 112 00:12:34,354 --> 00:12:36,188 So yes, those are the professional dreamers. 113 00:12:36,289 --> 00:12:40,692 They dream all the time, and, I think, through them 114 00:12:41,428 --> 00:12:45,497 the great cosmic dreams come into fruition, 115 00:12:45,598 --> 00:12:49,468 because the universe dreams through our dreams, 116 00:12:49,569 --> 00:12:53,839 and I think that there is 117 00:12:53,940 --> 00:12:56,742 many different ways for the reality 118 00:12:56,843 --> 00:13:01,146 to bring itself forward, and dreaming is definitely one of those ways. 119 00:14:00,440 --> 00:14:03,308 HERZOG: As banal as McMurdo appears, 120 00:14:03,409 --> 00:14:07,112 it turns out it is filled with these professional dreamers. 121 00:14:09,582 --> 00:14:12,784 At night, I was laying in my bed here in McMurdo. 122 00:14:13,319 --> 00:14:18,724 I am again walking across the top of B-15. 123 00:14:18,825 --> 00:14:21,360 Might as well be on a piece of the South Pole, 124 00:14:21,461 --> 00:14:24,396 but yet I'm actually adrift in the ocean, 125 00:14:25,331 --> 00:14:29,935 a vagabond floating in the ocean, and below my feet 126 00:14:30,036 --> 00:14:32,738 I can feel the rumble of the iceberg. 127 00:14:32,839 --> 00:14:36,308 I can feel the change, the cry of the iceberg 128 00:14:36,409 --> 00:14:39,945 as it's screeching and as it's bouncing off the seabed, 129 00:14:40,046 --> 00:14:43,982 as it's steering the ocean currents, as it's beginning to move north. 130 00:14:44,083 --> 00:14:48,921 I can feel that sound coming up through the bottoms of my feet 131 00:14:49,022 --> 00:14:53,559 and telling me that this iceberg is coming north. That's my dream. 132 00:15:06,439 --> 00:15:11,910 So here I'm sitting in this lovely warm lab and just outside is the environment 133 00:15:12,011 --> 00:15:16,281 that Scott and Shackleton first faced when they came here about 100 years ago. 134 00:15:17,283 --> 00:15:22,788 Unlike Scott and Shackleton, who viewed the ice as this sort of static monster 135 00:15:22,889 --> 00:15:25,891 that had to be crossed to get to the South Pole, 136 00:15:26,025 --> 00:15:30,796 we scientists now are able to see the ice as a dynamic living entity 137 00:15:30,897 --> 00:15:35,400 that is sort of producing change, like the icebergs that I study. 138 00:15:37,236 --> 00:15:39,404 For me, it's been a wild ride. 139 00:15:39,505 --> 00:15:43,909 First of all, I found out that the iceberg that I came down to study 140 00:15:44,010 --> 00:15:48,080 not only was larger than the iceberg that sank the Titanic, 141 00:15:48,281 --> 00:15:51,717 it was not only larger than the Titanic itself, 142 00:15:51,818 --> 00:15:55,320 but it was larger than the country that built the Titanic. 143 00:15:55,421 --> 00:15:56,521 That's pretty big. 144 00:15:57,624 --> 00:16:04,363 This is B-15. So what we see here is the white cliff. It's about 150 feet tall, 145 00:16:04,464 --> 00:16:09,735 so that means that there's over 1, 000 feet of ice below the water line. 146 00:16:09,836 --> 00:16:14,039 This iceberg is so big that the water that it contains 147 00:16:14,140 --> 00:16:19,611 would run the flow of the river Jordan for 1,000 years. 148 00:16:19,712 --> 00:16:25,851 It's so big that the water that is inside of it would run the river Nile for 75 years. 149 00:16:30,156 --> 00:16:32,190 MacAYEAL: This is a little bit of video that we shot 150 00:16:32,291 --> 00:16:34,526 when we were flying up to the iceberg. 151 00:16:34,627 --> 00:16:38,263 It looks big and it looms above us, even if we're on an aircraft 152 00:16:38,364 --> 00:16:42,601 flying above the iceberg, the iceberg is always above us. 153 00:16:42,702 --> 00:16:46,538 It's above us because it's a mystery that we don't understand. 154 00:16:47,740 --> 00:16:52,144 Here's a picture of what it looked like once we had arrived in the center of the iceberg. 155 00:16:52,245 --> 00:16:53,979 We put out our instruments. 156 00:16:54,080 --> 00:16:58,684 Now we're gonna have an opportunity to monitor how the iceberg drifts north. 157 00:16:59,786 --> 00:17:03,288 They're so big, there's an element of fear. 158 00:17:03,389 --> 00:17:05,724 We don't know, really, what's going to come ahead 159 00:17:05,825 --> 00:17:09,895 when they eventually begin to melt in the ocean beyond Antarctica. 160 00:17:12,098 --> 00:17:17,536 What we're seeing now here is a time-lapse sort of animation 161 00:17:17,637 --> 00:17:22,107 of satellite imagery of the sea ice and of the continent of Antarctica. 162 00:17:22,208 --> 00:17:24,810 And what you see are three shades of gray. 163 00:17:24,911 --> 00:17:27,913 This sort of lighter shade of gray is the sea ice, 164 00:17:28,014 --> 00:17:32,184 and these little bits and pieces here, these are titanic icebergs. 165 00:17:32,719 --> 00:17:37,656 This little fellow right here, he's not a very big iceberg compared to these other ones, 166 00:17:37,857 --> 00:17:42,994 but that guy there might be the size of the island of Sicily in the Mediterranean. 167 00:17:43,096 --> 00:17:46,665 It's like a little tiny bumblebee zipping around in a circle, 168 00:17:46,766 --> 00:17:50,135 happy to be in the warm waters as it's drifting north. 169 00:17:51,804 --> 00:17:58,143 I'd be happy to see Antarctica as a static, monolithic environment, 170 00:17:58,244 --> 00:18:03,815 a cold monolith of ice, sort of the way the people back in the past used to see it, 171 00:18:03,916 --> 00:18:08,420 but now our comfortable thought about Antarctica is over. 172 00:18:08,521 --> 00:18:12,124 Now we're seeing it as a living being that's dynamic, 173 00:18:12,258 --> 00:18:18,230 that's producing change, change that it's broadcasting to the rest of the world, 174 00:18:18,331 --> 00:18:23,368 possibly in response to what the world is broadcasting down to Antarctica. 175 00:18:23,469 --> 00:18:27,205 Certainly on a gut level it's going to be frightening 176 00:18:27,306 --> 00:18:30,976 to watch what happens to these babies once they get north. 177 00:18:44,190 --> 00:18:48,493 HERZOG: What environment would the men of Shackleton's expedition encounter 178 00:18:48,594 --> 00:18:51,029 if they returned in a next life? 179 00:18:55,568 --> 00:18:59,404 Shackleton, seen here, would finally make it to the Pole, 180 00:18:59,505 --> 00:19:03,208 a quest he had to abandon a mere 100 miles short of it. 181 00:19:05,611 --> 00:19:08,180 Would there be any ice left? 182 00:19:08,281 --> 00:19:12,484 Would he have to construct an artificial Antarctica in a studio 183 00:19:12,585 --> 00:19:16,421 and try to find his route through papier-mรขchรฉ icebergs? 184 00:19:27,500 --> 00:19:32,304 Would our only modern recourse be to create ice with machines? 185 00:19:33,139 --> 00:19:35,807 This is Frosty Boy, here in McMurdo. 186 00:19:35,908 --> 00:19:39,544 It's the equivalent of ice cream in the States, and it's a really big hit. 187 00:19:39,645 --> 00:19:44,749 Everybody loves it. It's what they go for three or four times a day. 188 00:19:44,851 --> 00:19:48,687 And it has the texture of ice cream, but it's not quite ice cream. 189 00:19:49,956 --> 00:19:54,726 There's a lot of crises that happen in McMurdo when the Frosty Boy runs out. 190 00:19:56,362 --> 00:19:57,629 It's bad news. 191 00:19:57,730 --> 00:20:04,002 Words circulate everywhere throughout McMurdo when Frosty Boy goes down. 192 00:20:04,103 --> 00:20:06,004 It's really good stuff. 193 00:20:07,740 --> 00:20:11,843 HERZOG: From the very first day, we just wanted to get out of this place. 194 00:20:13,579 --> 00:20:19,284 McMurdo has climate-controlled housing facilities, its own radio station, 195 00:20:19,385 --> 00:20:26,224 a bowling alley and abominations such as an aerobic studio and yoga classes. 196 00:20:27,860 --> 00:20:29,961 It even has an ATM machine. 197 00:20:32,164 --> 00:20:37,769 For all these reasons, I wanted to get out into the field as soon as possible. 198 00:20:41,908 --> 00:20:47,045 But before we could do that, it is mandatory that every inhabitant of McMurdo 199 00:20:47,146 --> 00:20:51,416 attend survival school before being allowed to leave. 200 00:20:56,188 --> 00:20:59,991 This two-day exercise is called Happy Camper. 201 00:21:10,536 --> 00:21:15,340 Students learn to build survival trenches and igloos. 202 00:21:15,441 --> 00:21:20,445 The bad news is, that night you have to sleep in your own construction. 203 00:21:20,579 --> 00:21:24,616 As long as I end up with 10 fingers and 10 toes at the end, it's all good. 204 00:21:39,298 --> 00:21:40,765 Oh, God, sorry! 205 00:21:40,866 --> 00:21:43,902 We just need to break ourselves into two different groups now. 206 00:21:44,070 --> 00:21:49,541 We're gonna brief this group over here for the burning vehicle scenario first, 207 00:21:49,642 --> 00:21:52,277 then we're gonna come back over and we're gonna brief 208 00:21:52,378 --> 00:21:55,780 the bucket head white-out scenario for everybody else. 209 00:21:55,881 --> 00:22:00,585 Essentially, we're trying to create conditions where we wouldn't be able to see. 210 00:22:00,686 --> 00:22:06,191 The wind is so severe, the snow is blowing so severely. Very, very cold. 211 00:22:06,292 --> 00:22:11,529 Exposed skin might actually create frostbite instantaneously. 212 00:22:11,630 --> 00:22:15,300 The winds are so severe you could be blown off of your stance 213 00:22:15,401 --> 00:22:20,138 of just simply standing out, and visibility is pretty much none. 214 00:22:20,306 --> 00:22:21,873 You can't see flag to flag. 215 00:22:21,974 --> 00:22:25,410 You might not be able to see your hand in front of your own face. 216 00:22:25,511 --> 00:22:29,147 Therefore, what we're gonna do as a simulator 217 00:22:29,248 --> 00:22:35,020 is incorporate a bucket to simulate a white-out condition 218 00:22:35,121 --> 00:22:38,289 to a point where I can barely hear myself. 219 00:22:38,391 --> 00:22:44,763 You can't necessarily even hear me, and I certainly can't see any of you right now. 220 00:22:47,700 --> 00:22:49,901 So that's the whole idea behind the bucket head 221 00:22:50,002 --> 00:22:54,372 is to actually be a white-out simulator, and it works really quite well. 222 00:22:55,474 --> 00:22:58,710 So, some of the parameters for this are gonna be, 223 00:22:58,811 --> 00:23:01,246 we're gonna start inside the sea-ice hut. 224 00:23:01,347 --> 00:23:03,415 I said I was gonna go to the bathroom, and in fact I did. 225 00:23:03,516 --> 00:23:07,118 I needed to go to the bathroom, right. So, I've gone out. 226 00:23:07,219 --> 00:23:09,554 I've been gone for quite some time now though, 227 00:23:09,655 --> 00:23:13,358 you know, like 10, 15. All of a sudden 20 minutes, you're like, 228 00:23:13,459 --> 00:23:16,694 "First off, where's the chocolate, second off, where's Kevin?" 229 00:23:17,229 --> 00:23:19,497 -EMERY: Are you with us, Number One? -Number One is out. 230 00:23:20,232 --> 00:23:25,170 HERZOG: The goal is clear, to find the instructor next to the outhouse. 231 00:23:25,271 --> 00:23:27,639 Number Two is out. 232 00:23:27,740 --> 00:23:30,608 Number Three out. Number Three out. 233 00:23:30,709 --> 00:23:33,878 EMERY: All right, Number One, you're gonna have to walk in one simple direction, 234 00:23:33,979 --> 00:23:36,714 and I'm gonna keep the... Pull on one rope for me. 235 00:23:36,782 --> 00:23:38,049 Four out. 236 00:23:38,517 --> 00:23:42,754 HERZOG: It looks pretty good. They seem to be heading in the right direction. 237 00:23:42,922 --> 00:23:44,122 Five out. 238 00:23:44,957 --> 00:23:46,191 Six out. 239 00:23:46,692 --> 00:23:52,263 But very soon the front man veers off-course, pulling everyone else with him. 240 00:24:14,687 --> 00:24:17,555 -Pull the rope, somebody... -THREE: Hey, anybody out there? 241 00:24:17,656 --> 00:24:19,324 Out here. Number Three is here. 242 00:24:21,660 --> 00:24:24,662 -Where you at, Number Two? -Find him? 243 00:24:55,127 --> 00:24:58,229 -Did we find the guy? -No. 244 00:25:03,402 --> 00:25:04,536 ONE: Okay, I think we're gonna go this way. 245 00:25:04,637 --> 00:25:07,906 Follow me this way, guys. This way, guys. 246 00:25:09,375 --> 00:25:11,376 Hold on, hold on. 247 00:25:12,478 --> 00:25:15,079 So part of what we want to do here as an educational opportunity 248 00:25:15,181 --> 00:25:17,282 is see if they realize what they've done, 249 00:25:17,383 --> 00:25:20,051 come back to a hut and come up with a new game plan, 250 00:25:20,152 --> 00:25:24,289 or if they just keep going down that cascading error phenomenon, 251 00:25:24,390 --> 00:25:26,457 where one mistake leads into another mistake 252 00:25:26,559 --> 00:25:29,260 which leads into a third, and it just gets really bad. 253 00:25:29,929 --> 00:25:31,696 Who's pulling on this line? 254 00:25:31,797 --> 00:25:33,131 -Me. -Number One. 255 00:25:33,232 --> 00:25:36,267 Number One, don't pull on that. That's the line going back to the hut. 256 00:25:36,368 --> 00:25:39,037 -I got the end. -Okay, back to the hut? 257 00:25:39,171 --> 00:25:40,672 -Back to the hut. -Back to the hut. 258 00:25:40,739 --> 00:25:42,273 Back to the hut. 259 00:25:43,609 --> 00:25:46,177 HERZOG: But rather than pulling everyone in, 260 00:25:46,278 --> 00:25:48,479 last man first along the rope, 261 00:25:48,581 --> 00:25:51,516 they drift completely off-course. 262 00:25:52,117 --> 00:25:55,787 -Number Two is here. Is Number Three here? -Number Three is here. 263 00:25:55,854 --> 00:25:57,155 Number Four? 264 00:25:58,490 --> 00:26:02,026 -Towards the sun. -No, not towards the sun. 265 00:26:02,261 --> 00:26:04,229 -Left. -We need to go left. 266 00:26:04,430 --> 00:26:06,297 Left, stay left. 267 00:26:06,398 --> 00:26:09,467 We don't know where he's standing though, so left might be different for him. 268 00:26:09,568 --> 00:26:11,536 -Correct. -Number Two. 269 00:26:11,937 --> 00:26:13,838 -Okay, Number One. -I'm here. 270 00:26:13,939 --> 00:26:18,977 HERZOG: For most of our time here, we had postcard-pretty weather conditions. 271 00:26:20,646 --> 00:26:26,284 This was frustrating because I loathe the sun both on my celluloid and my skin. 272 00:26:29,154 --> 00:26:35,260 So it almost came as a relief when a few days later, the weather suddenly changed. 273 00:26:48,007 --> 00:26:53,478 The storm soon broke and we were allowed to venture out of McMurdo for the first time. 274 00:26:56,515 --> 00:27:02,520 We set out on snowmobiles, in front of us miles and miles of frozen ocean. 275 00:27:04,790 --> 00:27:09,560 We were heading toward a field camp of scientists who study seals. 276 00:27:13,699 --> 00:27:15,633 It was amazing to consider 277 00:27:15,734 --> 00:27:20,204 that a mere six feet under us was the expanse of the Ross Sea. 278 00:28:17,930 --> 00:28:21,432 These scientists here are particularly interested 279 00:28:21,533 --> 00:28:24,369 in the feeding cycle of the Weddell seal. 280 00:28:25,304 --> 00:28:27,338 In just a few short weeks, 281 00:28:27,539 --> 00:28:32,777 pups grow rapidly, while mothers lose some 40% of their body weight. 282 00:28:45,424 --> 00:28:52,330 Bagging the seal's head keeps the animal calm as the scientists extract a milk sample. 283 00:28:52,531 --> 00:28:53,998 (SEAL WAILING) 284 00:29:07,045 --> 00:29:10,581 OFTEDAL: Well, this really is quite a wonderful group of animals to work on. 285 00:29:10,816 --> 00:29:13,985 Weddell seals in particular, you can see they're very big. 286 00:29:14,086 --> 00:29:17,622 They're very strong, and yet they allow us to work with them. 287 00:29:17,723 --> 00:29:20,658 They're not very aggressive, nor are they very timid. 288 00:29:20,759 --> 00:29:25,163 Even though they struggle somewhat when you have them in a bag or in a net, 289 00:29:25,264 --> 00:29:27,365 when you release them, they lie down. 290 00:29:27,466 --> 00:29:30,368 There's the mother behind us who we just worked on, 291 00:29:30,469 --> 00:29:32,170 and she's just lying quietly with her pup. 292 00:29:32,271 --> 00:29:35,239 We've had pups start to nurse within a couple of minutes of releasing them. 293 00:29:35,340 --> 00:29:40,311 So even though they are a bit perturbed at being handled, 294 00:29:40,412 --> 00:29:44,015 they recover very quickly from it and seem to behave normally after that, 295 00:29:44,116 --> 00:29:49,320 and really that's the ideal for us is to have an animal species that we can work on 296 00:29:49,421 --> 00:29:54,192 that will not be so disturbed by the work that's being done on them 297 00:29:54,293 --> 00:29:55,493 that they behave abnormally, 298 00:29:55,594 --> 00:30:00,131 'cause we want to know how these animals survive, under these conditions. 299 00:30:03,936 --> 00:30:07,472 HERZOG: In a field laboratory adjacent to the colony, 300 00:30:07,573 --> 00:30:09,674 they prepare the milk samples 301 00:30:09,775 --> 00:30:13,978 that may ultimately provide insight into human weight loss. 302 00:30:14,112 --> 00:30:18,683 This was just collected. It's still warm from the animal. So if you see that... 303 00:30:19,551 --> 00:30:21,519 See, it's like, you know, it's almost like pouring wax. 304 00:30:21,620 --> 00:30:26,757 It's really something else. And if I let this cool down, it would get pretty pasty. 305 00:30:26,859 --> 00:30:30,895 I wouldn't be able to pour it like that at all. It's at body temperature right now. 306 00:30:32,231 --> 00:30:35,500 The milk of the Weddell seal is about 45% fat. 307 00:30:35,601 --> 00:30:40,805 It's about 60% dry matter, 65% dry matter. 308 00:30:40,906 --> 00:30:42,139 It's very, very high in protein. 309 00:30:42,241 --> 00:30:46,010 It's about 10 to 12% protein and contains no lactose at all, 310 00:30:46,211 --> 00:30:47,411 which is very unusual. 311 00:30:48,614 --> 00:30:50,948 And there's many things about this place that are very unusual, 312 00:30:51,049 --> 00:30:56,554 and one of the things that I find very fascinating is how quiet it gets. 313 00:30:56,655 --> 00:30:57,855 It's the quietest place. 314 00:30:57,956 --> 00:31:00,825 When the wind is down, when there's no wind, 315 00:31:00,926 --> 00:31:03,461 it wakes you up in the middle of the night because there's no wind, 316 00:31:03,562 --> 00:31:04,896 and there's no sound at all, 317 00:31:04,997 --> 00:31:07,865 and if you walk out on the ice, you can hear your own heartbeat, 318 00:31:07,966 --> 00:31:09,000 that's how still it is. 319 00:31:09,101 --> 00:31:11,569 And you can hear the... You can hear the ice crack, 320 00:31:11,670 --> 00:31:14,772 and it sounds like there's somebody walking behind you, but it's just the ice. 321 00:31:14,873 --> 00:31:18,643 It's sort of, you know, these little stress cracks moving all the time, 322 00:31:18,777 --> 00:31:20,678 because we're actually, right here we're on ocean. 323 00:31:20,779 --> 00:31:24,949 We're not on solid ground, so... And you can hear the seals. 324 00:31:25,050 --> 00:31:27,685 You can hear the seals call, and it's the most amazing sound. 325 00:31:27,786 --> 00:31:30,388 They make these really inorganic sounds. 326 00:31:30,489 --> 00:31:31,956 (SEAL CALLING) 327 00:31:32,791 --> 00:31:35,293 They sound like, I don't know, Pink Floyd or something. 328 00:31:35,394 --> 00:31:38,496 They don't sound like mammals, and they definitely don't sound like animals. 329 00:31:39,932 --> 00:31:42,934 It's really out of this world, I can say that. 330 00:31:51,310 --> 00:31:53,544 OFTEDAL: You get used to a surface being solid, 331 00:31:53,645 --> 00:31:57,348 and you sort of think in your mind that you're on land, and then all of a sudden 332 00:31:57,449 --> 00:31:59,450 you'll hear the sound coming up through the floor. 333 00:31:59,551 --> 00:32:03,187 -You'll hear the chucks and the whistles... -And the booms. 334 00:32:03,288 --> 00:32:04,822 And the booms that come which are the... 335 00:32:04,923 --> 00:32:07,491 You realize there's a whole world underneath you, 336 00:32:07,593 --> 00:32:11,395 that seals are moving and competing and fighting beneath you under the ice 337 00:32:11,496 --> 00:32:15,366 while you're here sleeping in a tent or working in a lab hut. 338 00:32:16,501 --> 00:32:18,803 (SEALS CALLING) 339 00:33:28,974 --> 00:33:33,511 HERZOG: We soon returned to the prosaic world of today's McMurdo. 340 00:33:35,047 --> 00:33:40,351 David Pacheco works in maintenance and construction as a journeyman plumber. 341 00:33:41,186 --> 00:33:43,821 He prides himself on his heritage. 342 00:33:43,922 --> 00:33:48,159 He is part Apache but has claims to yet another lineage. 343 00:33:48,860 --> 00:33:55,433 It's funny, but I'm revealing my hands and they are very distinct, 344 00:33:57,002 --> 00:33:59,837 and I was told by my doctor who operated me that 345 00:33:59,938 --> 00:34:04,275 it is from the Aztec and the Inca's royal family. 346 00:34:04,376 --> 00:34:10,781 An anthropologist told me that, and one of our daughters is very similar, 347 00:34:10,882 --> 00:34:13,184 but everywhere I go, I try to find somebody. See? 348 00:34:13,285 --> 00:34:15,686 And I can turn it around too, if you wanna see it this way. 349 00:34:15,787 --> 00:34:18,923 It's very distinct, the line here, 350 00:34:19,024 --> 00:34:25,229 and I was at awe when they told me it was from the royal family of the Indians. 351 00:34:25,330 --> 00:34:30,367 HERZOG: When you work, with which fingers do you work best or point best? 352 00:34:30,469 --> 00:34:32,169 I don't know if I should say this. It's funny, 353 00:34:32,270 --> 00:34:36,373 but in school I used to not reach the chalkboard with this, 354 00:34:36,475 --> 00:34:39,443 so I used to point with this, and they called my father in 355 00:34:39,544 --> 00:34:40,945 and said that I was being a bad boy, 356 00:34:41,046 --> 00:34:43,714 but I still have the habit of pointing like that. 357 00:34:43,815 --> 00:34:47,017 I have a long ribcage. He could not find the gallbladder. 358 00:34:47,119 --> 00:34:52,890 I have a long ribcage like the Aztecs used to have, I guess, and... 359 00:34:55,060 --> 00:35:01,632 If you can come to Antarctica, please do. Plus, be aware of global warming. It's real. 360 00:35:01,733 --> 00:35:08,472 I'm a green person. I'm as green as I can be. I build adobe homes, solar homes. 361 00:35:08,573 --> 00:35:15,579 I'm a contractor back home, too, but it's so hard for a small minority to make it, but... 362 00:35:20,418 --> 00:35:23,754 (SPEAKING SPANISH) 363 00:35:57,122 --> 00:36:00,524 Spirit, the fire of my ancestors. 364 00:36:02,527 --> 00:36:03,627 (WHOOPS) 365 00:36:03,995 --> 00:36:05,196 (WHISTLES) 366 00:36:15,273 --> 00:36:19,877 HERZOG: Our next journey took us 85 kilometers over frozen ocean. 367 00:36:26,985 --> 00:36:31,355 We were heading from Ross Island in the direction of mainland Antarctica. 368 00:36:33,258 --> 00:36:36,193 The empty interior beyond these mountains 369 00:36:36,294 --> 00:36:40,130 is larger in size than continental North America. 370 00:36:41,266 --> 00:36:47,004 The vast majority of it is covered in a layer of ice 9,000 feet thick. 371 00:36:48,974 --> 00:36:50,774 We were heading for New Harbor, 372 00:36:50,876 --> 00:36:55,913 a diving camp which lies on the coastline of the ocean. 373 00:36:56,014 --> 00:36:59,049 To the right is the frozen sea where they dive. 374 00:36:59,150 --> 00:37:02,253 The camp itself is built on firm ground. 375 00:37:10,996 --> 00:37:16,200 We were welcomed by my friend Henry Kaiser, a musician and expert diver, 376 00:37:16,301 --> 00:37:20,504 whose underwater footage it was that brought me to this place. 377 00:37:21,806 --> 00:37:25,976 We had arrived at an opportune time and went straight to this shelter 378 00:37:26,077 --> 00:37:30,547 which protects a primary diving hole next to New Harbor camp. 379 00:37:32,717 --> 00:37:36,954 Sam Bowser is the head of the scientific field team. 380 00:37:37,555 --> 00:37:40,257 We found him in a pensive mood. 381 00:37:40,358 --> 00:37:43,193 HERZOG: Sam Bowser, this is a special day for you? 382 00:37:46,264 --> 00:37:48,432 Well, I think... 383 00:37:48,533 --> 00:37:52,069 I think everyone should stop when they've reached a point 384 00:37:52,170 --> 00:37:55,572 where they've done what they've wanted to do, 385 00:37:55,674 --> 00:37:59,043 and today is probably gonna be my last Antarctic dive, I think. 386 00:37:59,144 --> 00:38:00,244 I think we've accomplished what... 387 00:38:00,345 --> 00:38:03,981 At least, I've accomplished what I've set out to do here, 388 00:38:04,082 --> 00:38:09,887 and it's time to pass the ball off to the next generation of biologists, I think. 389 00:38:09,988 --> 00:38:12,189 So, it is a bit of a special day. 390 00:38:13,291 --> 00:38:17,094 HERZOG: I had heard that he was also a great science fiction fan. 391 00:38:17,195 --> 00:38:20,764 The creatures that are down there that are like science-fiction creatures, 392 00:38:20,865 --> 00:38:26,203 they range in the way that they would gobble you up from slime-type blobs, 393 00:38:27,072 --> 00:38:30,708 but creepier than classic science-fiction blobs. 394 00:38:30,809 --> 00:38:32,910 These would have long tendrils that would ensnare you, 395 00:38:33,011 --> 00:38:35,245 and as you tried to get away from them 396 00:38:35,347 --> 00:38:38,716 you'd just become more and more ensnared by your own actions. 397 00:38:38,817 --> 00:38:42,486 And then after you would be frustrated and exhausted, 398 00:38:42,887 --> 00:38:47,358 then this creature would start to move in and take you apart. 399 00:38:47,459 --> 00:38:49,393 So that's one example of one of the creatures. 400 00:38:49,494 --> 00:38:53,030 Then there are other types of worm-type things with horrible mandibles 401 00:38:53,732 --> 00:38:57,601 and jaws and just bits to rend your flesh. 402 00:38:58,703 --> 00:39:03,140 It really is a violent, horribly violent world that 403 00:39:03,241 --> 00:39:08,012 is obscure to us because we're encased in neoprene, 404 00:39:08,113 --> 00:39:10,681 you know, and we're much larger than that world. 405 00:39:10,882 --> 00:39:13,550 So it doesn't really affect us, but if you were to shrink down, 406 00:39:13,651 --> 00:39:18,288 miniaturize into that world, it'd be a horrible place to be. Just horrible. 407 00:39:18,857 --> 00:39:21,458 HERZOG: And this is a world earlier than human beings. 408 00:39:21,559 --> 00:39:25,195 Do you think that the human race and other mammals 409 00:39:25,296 --> 00:39:30,567 fled in panic from the oceans and crawled on solid land to get out of this? 410 00:39:30,668 --> 00:39:34,204 Yeah, I think undoubtedly that's exactly the driving force 411 00:39:34,305 --> 00:39:37,274 that caused us to leave the horrors behind. 412 00:39:37,409 --> 00:39:40,711 To grow and evolve into larger creatures to escape 413 00:39:40,812 --> 00:39:44,948 what's horribly violent at the miniature scale, miniaturized scale. 414 00:39:47,619 --> 00:39:48,752 Yeah. 415 00:39:55,994 --> 00:39:59,930 HERZOG: The water under the ice is minus 2 degrees Celsius. 416 00:40:03,735 --> 00:40:07,137 That keeps us insulated from the cold. 417 00:40:17,382 --> 00:40:18,415 Want me to open it up? 418 00:40:18,516 --> 00:40:19,950 -Yeah. Ready? -Yeah. 419 00:40:37,102 --> 00:40:40,204 Dive operation. Time right now is... 420 00:40:41,172 --> 00:40:44,108 I'll give you a call back at about 2:30. 421 00:40:53,284 --> 00:40:58,155 To me, the divers look like astronauts floating in space. 422 00:40:59,290 --> 00:41:02,860 But their work is extremely dangerous. 423 00:41:02,961 --> 00:41:06,864 They are diving without tethers to give them more free range. 424 00:41:09,467 --> 00:41:11,902 But here you can't trust a compass. 425 00:41:12,003 --> 00:41:17,407 So close to the magnetic pole, the needle would point straight up or straight down. 426 00:41:19,377 --> 00:41:23,814 Somehow you have to find your way back to the exit hole 427 00:41:23,915 --> 00:41:26,850 or you are trapped under the ceiling of ice. 428 00:43:39,050 --> 00:43:42,986 So I selected some areas that have the tree foraminifera, 429 00:43:43,087 --> 00:43:46,890 and they're the ones we're interested in right now, to find out if they're carnivores, 430 00:43:46,991 --> 00:43:51,428 whether or not they eat shrimp-like creatures, multi-cellular creatures. 431 00:43:51,996 --> 00:43:56,300 And also I found a few of the urchins that have, I think, 432 00:43:56,401 --> 00:44:00,737 they're the ones that have a parasitic worm that lives in their anus. 433 00:44:00,838 --> 00:44:03,507 It's a pretty beautiful scarlet worm, 434 00:44:03,608 --> 00:44:07,344 but it must be a horrible way to make a life, I would think. 435 00:44:13,384 --> 00:44:15,852 ANNOUNCER ON TV: I tell you, gentlemen, science has agreed 436 00:44:15,953 --> 00:44:18,655 that unless something is done, and done quickly, 437 00:44:18,756 --> 00:44:24,094 man as the dominant species of life on Earth will be extinct within a year. 438 00:44:26,898 --> 00:44:28,932 HERZOG: Sam Bowser likes to show 439 00:44:29,033 --> 00:44:32,703 doomsday science fiction films to the researchers. 440 00:44:34,706 --> 00:44:40,377 Many of them express grave doubts about our long-ranging presence on this planet. 441 00:44:41,713 --> 00:44:45,182 Nature, they predict, will regulate us. 442 00:44:45,283 --> 00:44:49,086 ANNOUNCER: Stay in your homes. I repeat, stay in your homes. 443 00:44:49,187 --> 00:44:51,488 Your personal safety, the safety of the entire city 444 00:44:51,589 --> 00:44:55,959 depends upon your full cooperation with the military authorities. 445 00:44:56,060 --> 00:45:02,032 Yes! Cities, nations, even civilization itself threatened with annihilation. 446 00:45:02,600 --> 00:45:05,268 Because in one moment of history-making violence, 447 00:45:05,937 --> 00:45:10,040 nature, mad, rampant, wrought its most awesome creation. 448 00:45:10,141 --> 00:45:13,243 For born in that swirling inferno of radioactive dust 449 00:45:13,478 --> 00:45:18,548 were things so horrible, so terrifying, so hideous 450 00:45:18,716 --> 00:45:21,952 there is no word to describe them. 451 00:45:28,826 --> 00:45:32,329 We may be witnesses to a biblical prophecy come true. 452 00:45:32,463 --> 00:45:36,032 And there shall be destruction and darkness come upon creation, 453 00:45:36,501 --> 00:45:39,269 and the beasts shall reign over the Earth. 454 00:45:39,370 --> 00:45:41,738 ANNOUNCER: Yes, the Earth, infested by swarms... 455 00:45:41,839 --> 00:45:45,809 BOWSER: This is just the flower part. The body is somewhere in the dirt over there. 456 00:45:45,910 --> 00:45:49,413 HERZOG: All that the divers had brought back from the ocean floor 457 00:45:49,514 --> 00:45:55,018 were a few spoonfuls of sand containing the strange single-celled creatures 458 00:45:55,119 --> 00:45:57,521 the scientists are studying here. 459 00:45:58,756 --> 00:46:04,161 They are known as tree foraminifera, primordial single-celled organisms. 460 00:46:05,563 --> 00:46:08,698 They branch out in the shape of trees. 461 00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:13,336 The branches give off pseudopodia, microscopic false feet 462 00:46:13,438 --> 00:46:19,209 that gather and assemble grains of sand into a protective shell around the twigs. 463 00:46:21,579 --> 00:46:25,182 BOWSER: These are the pseudopodia that are secreted by foraminifera. 464 00:46:25,283 --> 00:46:28,718 They're long, thin, tendril-like projections. 465 00:46:30,221 --> 00:46:31,855 What the foram does is it wakes up, 466 00:46:31,956 --> 00:46:35,725 sends out the pseudopods and then just grabs every particle in its environment 467 00:46:35,827 --> 00:46:38,261 and pulls them in toward its body. 468 00:46:39,630 --> 00:46:43,166 There's a certain pattern to the way that they sort the particles. 469 00:46:43,267 --> 00:46:46,369 They can select particular grains out of everything in the environment 470 00:46:46,471 --> 00:46:50,073 and just end up with them. They're beautiful masons. 471 00:46:50,741 --> 00:46:54,311 HERZOG: Could that be a very early appearance of intelligence? 472 00:46:54,412 --> 00:46:58,081 -I say it with great care. -Yeah, I have to say it with great care, too, 473 00:46:58,182 --> 00:47:01,518 because there are stories about 474 00:47:01,619 --> 00:47:05,188 how these particular organisms have fit into that debate. 475 00:47:05,289 --> 00:47:07,424 Turn of the last century, for example, 476 00:47:07,525 --> 00:47:11,161 there was a scientist, a British scientist named Heron-Allen 477 00:47:11,262 --> 00:47:14,698 who, apparently, during one of the debates 478 00:47:14,799 --> 00:47:17,534 in one of the British societies was 479 00:47:17,635 --> 00:47:20,971 pointing out the fact that every definition of intelligence 480 00:47:21,072 --> 00:47:26,142 that was being formulated could be fulfilled by these single-celled creatures. 481 00:47:28,179 --> 00:47:31,915 Borderline intelligence, yeah, at the single-celled level. 482 00:47:32,083 --> 00:47:35,685 I mean, it is a manifestation of the best of our abilities, really, 483 00:47:35,820 --> 00:47:39,689 the way that they build their shells. It's almost art. 484 00:47:52,036 --> 00:47:54,204 (DRILLING) 485 00:49:26,530 --> 00:49:31,267 HERZOG: I noticed that the divers, in their routine, were not speaking at all. 486 00:49:34,872 --> 00:49:38,508 To me, they were like priests preparing for mass. 487 00:50:02,967 --> 00:50:08,138 Under the ice, the divers find themselves in a separate reality, 488 00:50:08,472 --> 00:50:13,343 where space and time acquire a strange new dimension. 489 00:50:13,444 --> 00:50:17,747 Those few who have experienced the world under the frozen sky 490 00:50:18,215 --> 00:50:21,818 often speak of it as going down into the cathedral. 491 00:54:45,349 --> 00:54:50,653 HERZOG: Back from the strange world underwater, scientists study the samples. 492 00:54:51,989 --> 00:54:56,859 One of the foremost scholars in the world in his field, Dr. Pawlowski, 493 00:54:56,961 --> 00:55:00,797 studies the DNA sequences of foraminifera. 494 00:55:00,898 --> 00:55:07,070 What looks esoteric is in fact one of the fundamental questions about life on Earth. 495 00:55:08,906 --> 00:55:13,576 In the same way that cosmologists search for the origins of the universe, 496 00:55:13,877 --> 00:55:20,183 the scientists here are tracing back the evolution of life to its earliest stages. 497 00:55:23,654 --> 00:55:28,191 Sometimes the building blocks of the sequences all seem to fit. 498 00:55:30,828 --> 00:55:34,864 Jan, what have you found today so far on the sample that we found? 499 00:55:34,965 --> 00:55:36,833 -Three new species. -Three new species. 500 00:55:36,934 --> 00:55:39,435 Three new species on the dish. That's fantastic. 501 00:55:39,536 --> 00:55:43,506 -This is from the ROMEO site. -Yeah, from the ROMEO site. 502 00:55:43,607 --> 00:55:49,078 It's one small silver and two elongated ones. I don't know what it is. 503 00:55:49,179 --> 00:55:51,114 We have to do the DNA, too. We don't know... 504 00:55:51,215 --> 00:55:53,416 HERZOG: Is this a great moment? 505 00:55:54,151 --> 00:55:57,153 -Yeah, yeah, this is. -Yeah, any time you increase 506 00:55:57,254 --> 00:56:00,723 the known diversity of these types of creatures, it's pretty exciting. 507 00:56:00,824 --> 00:56:03,826 Yeah. That is very special. 508 00:56:04,294 --> 00:56:05,995 (BOWSER PLAYING GUITAR) 509 00:56:12,770 --> 00:56:15,471 Apologies to rock musicians everywhere. 510 00:56:15,539 --> 00:56:16,873 (LAUGHING) 511 00:56:18,675 --> 00:56:22,145 HERZOG: Once the importance of the discovery has sunk in, 512 00:56:22,246 --> 00:56:27,450 Sam Bowser and his group plan to celebrate the event in their own way. 513 00:56:27,551 --> 00:56:29,685 (GUITARS PLAYING) 514 00:56:30,621 --> 00:56:34,457 They are rehearsing for a late-night outdoor concert. 515 00:56:45,869 --> 00:56:48,104 (PLAYING ROCK MUSIC) 516 00:57:31,615 --> 00:57:36,452 After the helicopter had dropped us off back at McMurdo, 517 00:57:36,887 --> 00:57:43,526 nobody was around. The sundial showed that it was close to 1:00 a.m. 518 00:57:58,408 --> 00:58:03,546 It did not feel like night, so we had a look around. 519 00:58:03,647 --> 00:58:09,485 This unobtrusive building had raised my curiosity for quite a while. 520 00:58:46,523 --> 00:58:51,561 Here amongst unripe tomatoes, we ran into this young man. 521 00:58:52,262 --> 00:58:54,597 How did he end up in this place? 522 00:58:54,865 --> 00:58:58,201 Oh, yeah, well, you know, I like to say, 523 00:58:58,302 --> 00:59:01,070 if you take everybody who's not tied down, they all sort of 524 00:59:01,171 --> 00:59:03,306 fall down to the bottom of the planet, so, 525 00:59:03,407 --> 00:59:06,375 you know, I haven't been... That's how we got here, you know. 526 00:59:06,476 --> 00:59:08,711 We're all at loose ends and here we are together. 527 00:59:08,812 --> 00:59:11,314 I remember when I first got down here I sort of 528 00:59:11,415 --> 00:59:14,584 enjoyed the sensation of recognizing people with my tribal markings. 529 00:59:14,685 --> 00:59:17,787 You know, I was like, "Hey, these are my people." 530 00:59:17,888 --> 00:59:23,526 PhDs washing dishes and, you know, linguists on a continent with no languages 531 00:59:23,627 --> 00:59:25,661 and that sort of thing, yeah. It's great. 532 00:59:25,762 --> 00:59:29,298 Yeah, specifically I was in a graduate program, and we had lined up 533 00:59:29,399 --> 00:59:33,903 to do some work with one of the people who was 534 00:59:34,004 --> 00:59:38,241 identified as a native speaker and a competent native speaker of 535 00:59:38,342 --> 00:59:41,310 one of the languages of the Winnebago people, the Ho-Chunk, 536 00:59:41,411 --> 00:59:43,446 I think is how they pronounced it, and... 537 00:59:43,847 --> 00:59:46,415 HERZOG: To make a complicated story short, 538 00:59:46,516 --> 00:59:52,521 he ran into New Age ideologues who made insipid claims about black and white magic 539 00:59:52,623 --> 00:59:54,991 embedded in the grammar of this language. 540 00:59:55,092 --> 00:59:57,293 Some of the oral tradition that had been passed along... 541 00:59:57,394 --> 01:00:00,496 Hence, in this stupid trend of academia, 542 01:00:00,597 --> 01:00:03,833 it would be better to let the language die than preserve it. 543 01:00:03,934 --> 01:00:05,568 ...you know, I could document a language... 544 01:00:05,669 --> 01:00:09,005 He had to destroy his entire PhD research. 545 01:00:09,473 --> 01:00:12,842 So just imagine, you know, 90% 546 01:00:12,943 --> 01:00:16,279 of languages will be extinct probably in my lifetime. 547 01:00:16,413 --> 01:00:18,314 It's a catastrophic impact 548 01:00:18,649 --> 01:00:21,951 to an ecosystem to talk about that kind of extinction. 549 01:00:22,052 --> 01:00:25,221 Culturally, we're talking about the same thing. I mean, 550 01:00:25,322 --> 01:00:28,524 you know, what if you lost all of 551 01:00:28,725 --> 01:00:32,295 Russian literature, or something like that, or Russian, you know? If you took all of the 552 01:00:32,396 --> 01:00:36,799 Slavic languages and just they went away, you know, and no more Tolstoy. 553 01:00:37,834 --> 01:00:42,038 It occurred to me that in the time we spent with him in the greenhouse, 554 01:00:42,139 --> 01:00:45,441 possibly three or four languages had died. 555 01:00:46,677 --> 01:00:50,146 In our efforts to preserve endangered species, 556 01:00:50,247 --> 01:00:53,282 we seem to overlook something equally important. 557 01:00:55,018 --> 01:00:59,288 To me, it is a sign of a deeply disturbed civilization 558 01:00:59,389 --> 01:01:04,360 where tree huggers and whale huggers in their weirdness are acceptable, 559 01:01:04,461 --> 01:01:08,264 while no one embraces the last speakers of a language. 560 01:01:17,240 --> 01:01:21,277 McMurdo is full of characters like our linguist. 561 01:01:21,812 --> 01:01:26,182 The bleak Motel 6-drabness of the corridors is misleading. 562 01:01:27,951 --> 01:01:32,922 Behind every door there is someone with a special story to tell. 563 01:01:36,259 --> 01:01:42,431 JOYCE: Back in the '80s, I took a garbage truck across Africa from London to Nairobi. 564 01:01:42,866 --> 01:01:46,635 That was a trip. Four months in a garbage truck. It was horrible. 565 01:01:46,737 --> 01:01:51,040 On numerous occasions we came pretty close to, I don't know about dying, 566 01:01:51,141 --> 01:01:53,275 but pretty close to being in some straits where 567 01:01:53,377 --> 01:01:56,779 we didn't know if we were gonna get back out of it, you know. 568 01:01:56,880 --> 01:01:59,849 We got taken over by the military in Uganda, 569 01:01:59,950 --> 01:02:03,686 and we were kidnapped, basically. Truck was turned around 570 01:02:03,787 --> 01:02:07,289 and we were going back to Entebbe. We got out of that one. 571 01:02:07,391 --> 01:02:13,095 We were trying to wait for this ferry in Wadi Halfa, 572 01:02:13,463 --> 01:02:16,065 the one that blew up and 800 people died. 573 01:02:16,166 --> 01:02:18,868 Well, we didn't get on that one. We took off across a desert, 574 01:02:18,969 --> 01:02:22,772 and we got stuck. We got stuck for five days 575 01:02:23,173 --> 01:02:29,845 of absolute agony, of clawing this truck with... We were using plates, 576 01:02:29,946 --> 01:02:34,350 just the dinner plates that we were using for dinner, clawing at the tires. 577 01:02:34,951 --> 01:02:38,788 We had no water. He had used all the water tanks for gasoline, 578 01:02:38,889 --> 01:02:42,091 so basically we had a cup of water a day or two cups. 579 01:02:42,325 --> 01:02:44,960 HERZOG: Her story goes on forever. 580 01:02:45,061 --> 01:02:47,496 She dealt with a bout of malaria, 581 01:02:47,631 --> 01:02:53,269 with a herd of angry elephants pursuing her through tsetse fly-invested swamps. 582 01:02:53,370 --> 01:02:57,673 Got caught in a civil war, spent a night in a bombed-out airport, 583 01:02:57,774 --> 01:03:00,743 with rebels fighting and shooting in a barroom brawl, 584 01:03:00,844 --> 01:03:04,213 and was finally rescued by drunk Russian pilots, 585 01:03:04,314 --> 01:03:07,383 slaloming around crater holes in the runway. 586 01:03:07,551 --> 01:03:11,353 This is how you get yourself to any place in Antarctica. 587 01:03:13,356 --> 01:03:18,027 HERZOG: At the so-called Freak Train event at one of McMurdo's bars, 588 01:03:18,361 --> 01:03:23,632 Karen is, not surprisingly, one of the most popular performers. 589 01:03:26,603 --> 01:03:30,473 This is her famous "Travel as hand luggage" act. 590 01:03:35,479 --> 01:03:37,379 WOMAN: Yeah, take her home. 591 01:03:37,481 --> 01:03:39,281 (ALL CHEERING) 592 01:03:47,824 --> 01:03:49,358 -Thought of another one. -Yeah. 593 01:03:49,459 --> 01:03:53,762 I traveled from Ecuador to Lima, Peru in a sewer pipe. 594 01:03:55,832 --> 01:04:00,703 (LAUGHS) Forgot to mention that. I hitchhiked once from Denver to Bolivia 595 01:04:01,004 --> 01:04:05,174 and back up, and we got a ride from a truck in... 596 01:04:05,275 --> 01:04:11,046 It was a flatbed truck with three huge sewer pipes on the back, so I spent... It was days 597 01:04:11,448 --> 01:04:16,585 in the back of this truck, in a sewer pipe, watching the world go by just like that. 598 01:04:16,686 --> 01:04:19,121 That's all you could see. 599 01:04:21,224 --> 01:04:25,394 HERZOG: Travel for those who have been deprived of freedom means even more. 600 01:04:26,129 --> 01:04:29,465 These are the ones you'll find in Antarctica. 601 01:04:29,566 --> 01:04:32,935 Libor Zicha works as a utility mechanic. 602 01:04:33,036 --> 01:04:36,238 He lived like a prisoner behind the Iron Curtain. 603 01:04:36,439 --> 01:04:39,174 HERZOG: You escaped. And how big a drama was that? 604 01:04:39,276 --> 01:04:44,747 Oh, it was, wasn't a drama, but... 605 01:04:44,848 --> 01:04:49,118 The tragic events surrounding his escape haunt him to this day. 606 01:04:49,519 --> 01:04:51,820 If we can... 607 01:04:54,391 --> 01:04:58,127 -You do not have to talk about it. -Okay. Thank you. 608 01:04:59,062 --> 01:05:03,866 For me, the best description of hunger is a description of bread. 609 01:05:04,968 --> 01:05:07,937 A poet said that once, I think, 610 01:05:09,306 --> 01:05:12,975 and for me the best description of freedom is what you have in front of you. 611 01:05:13,076 --> 01:05:14,410 You are traveling a lot. 612 01:05:14,511 --> 01:05:15,711 -That's right, yeah. -Show us. 613 01:05:15,812 --> 01:05:20,749 That's my freedom, and I will be glad to show you. 614 01:05:23,453 --> 01:05:27,990 HERZOG: He keeps a rucksack packed and ready to go at all times. 615 01:05:28,091 --> 01:05:33,362 Inside is everything he needs to set out in a moment's notice: 616 01:05:33,463 --> 01:05:39,568 a sleeping bag, a tent, clothes, cooking utensils. 617 01:05:42,272 --> 01:05:43,973 How much weight is this all? 618 01:05:44,074 --> 01:05:49,812 It's... I usually don't go over 20 kilos. That's my limit, 619 01:05:49,913 --> 01:05:53,148 and it's a limit also for airlines. 620 01:05:57,520 --> 01:06:01,890 Some of the contents of his backpack are quite surprising. 621 01:06:17,374 --> 01:06:20,242 That's about the size of the raft. 622 01:06:20,343 --> 01:06:23,746 -How quickly can you leave? -Oh, I am always ready. 623 01:06:23,847 --> 01:06:30,753 My bag is always prepared, and I am always ready for adventure 624 01:06:32,122 --> 01:06:34,623 and exploring new horizons. 625 01:06:41,564 --> 01:06:44,833 HERZOG: Back in the days of Amundsen, Scott and Shackleton, 626 01:06:45,101 --> 01:06:48,671 scientific exploration of Antarctica began, 627 01:06:48,772 --> 01:06:53,509 and this opening of the unknown continent is their great achievement. 628 01:06:56,513 --> 01:07:01,083 But one thing about the early explorers does not feel right. 629 01:07:03,153 --> 01:07:07,756 The obsession to be the first one to set his foot on the South Pole. 630 01:07:10,627 --> 01:07:14,697 It was for personal fame and the glory of the British Empire. 631 01:07:16,266 --> 01:07:21,704 This is Shackleton's original hut, preserved unchanged for 100 years. 632 01:07:26,042 --> 01:07:28,844 But, in a way, from the South Pole onwards 633 01:07:28,945 --> 01:07:31,747 there was no further expansion possible, 634 01:07:31,848 --> 01:07:36,618 and the Empire started to fade into the abyss of history. 635 01:07:39,022 --> 01:07:42,825 It all looks now like an extinct supermarket. 636 01:07:51,000 --> 01:07:54,670 On a cultural level, it meant the end of adventure. 637 01:07:56,272 --> 01:08:01,176 Exposing the last unknown spots of this Earth was irreversible, 638 01:08:01,544 --> 01:08:05,614 but it feels sad that the South Pole or Mount Everest 639 01:08:05,715 --> 01:08:08,817 were not left in peace in their dignity. 640 01:08:12,455 --> 01:08:16,959 It may be a futile wish to keep a few white spots on our maps, 641 01:08:17,160 --> 01:08:22,097 but human adventure, in its original sense, lost its meaning, 642 01:08:22,198 --> 01:08:26,135 became an issue for the Guinness Book of World Records. 643 01:08:30,774 --> 01:08:34,910 Scott and Amundsen were clearly early protagonists, 644 01:08:35,211 --> 01:08:39,448 and from there on it degenerated into absurd quests. 645 01:08:39,916 --> 01:08:44,953 A Frenchman crossed the Sahara Desert in his car set in reverse gear, 646 01:08:45,388 --> 01:08:49,625 and I am waiting for the first barefoot runner on the summit of Everest 647 01:08:49,726 --> 01:08:54,329 or the first one hopping into the South Pole on a pogo stick. 648 01:08:56,065 --> 01:09:01,236 FURMAN: Well, I had this idea of breaking a Guinness record in every continent, 649 01:09:01,871 --> 01:09:03,539 and Antarctica would be the sixth, 650 01:09:03,973 --> 01:09:07,743 so, now I'm trying to think of a way to get to Antarctica. 651 01:09:07,844 --> 01:09:11,346 Ashrita Furman did not want to travel this way, 652 01:09:11,447 --> 01:09:15,484 because he already holds a Guinness record in this discipline. 653 01:09:16,486 --> 01:09:18,253 And also in this one. 654 01:09:18,354 --> 01:09:23,425 So, he decided upon the more prosaic approach and took an airplane. 655 01:09:23,693 --> 01:09:25,294 We flew down to Antarctica. 656 01:09:25,395 --> 01:09:27,496 Anyway, it was thrilling because I'm in Antarctica, 657 01:09:27,597 --> 01:09:29,498 and I'm trying to break a Guinness record. 658 01:09:29,599 --> 01:09:31,934 Being in Antarctica is like being on the moon. 659 01:09:32,035 --> 01:09:36,138 It's so... I mean, it's so peaceful. It's so pure. 660 01:09:36,239 --> 01:09:39,741 It's so desolate. I mean, it's just a great place. 661 01:09:44,881 --> 01:09:49,651 HERZOG: Antarctica is not the moon, even though sometimes it feels like it. 662 01:09:51,988 --> 01:09:53,522 Yet, on this planet, 663 01:09:53,623 --> 01:09:58,627 McMurdo comes closest to what a future space settlement would look like. 664 01:10:05,335 --> 01:10:06,935 (PENGUINS CAWING) 665 01:10:08,671 --> 01:10:12,841 We left McMurdo for the penguin colony at Cape Royds. 666 01:10:13,309 --> 01:10:15,844 Everyone spoke about penguins, 667 01:10:15,945 --> 01:10:20,883 however, the questions I had were not so easily answered. 668 01:10:23,386 --> 01:10:26,321 I was referred to a penguin expert out there 669 01:10:26,589 --> 01:10:29,391 who had studied them for almost 20 years. 670 01:10:31,327 --> 01:10:34,196 I was told that he was a taciturn man, 671 01:10:34,297 --> 01:10:39,635 who, in his solitude, was not much into conversation with humans anymore. 672 01:10:40,270 --> 01:10:43,805 But Dr. Ainley gave his best effort. 673 01:10:43,907 --> 01:10:46,508 Well, here we are at Cape Royds. 674 01:10:47,577 --> 01:10:52,814 This is 2006, and it's just about the 100th anniversary 675 01:10:52,916 --> 01:10:57,219 of the first penguin study that was ever done, 676 01:10:57,453 --> 01:11:00,355 which was done here at Cape Royds by 677 01:11:00,456 --> 01:11:03,458 a person that was part of the Shackleton expedition. 678 01:11:07,030 --> 01:11:11,033 They all had a good winter, and they're very fat. 679 01:11:11,901 --> 01:11:13,368 They've 680 01:11:14,504 --> 01:11:19,174 claimed their territories and eggs have been laid and females have left, 681 01:11:19,275 --> 01:11:23,545 and now there's just males that are sitting on eggs, 682 01:11:24,714 --> 01:11:28,951 using their fat reserves and waiting for females to return 683 01:11:29,052 --> 01:11:31,954 to relieve them and then go to sea. 684 01:11:34,290 --> 01:11:37,125 I tried to keep the conversation going. 685 01:11:37,560 --> 01:11:42,064 Dr. Ainley, I read somewhere that there are gay penguins. 686 01:11:42,598 --> 01:11:44,633 What are your observations? 687 01:11:48,871 --> 01:11:50,839 I've never... 688 01:11:52,275 --> 01:11:55,377 Or strange sexual behavior. Can you talk about... 689 01:11:55,478 --> 01:12:00,949 Yeah, there has been... I've seen triangular relationships where there's 690 01:12:02,018 --> 01:12:06,455 one female and two males, and the female lays the egg, 691 01:12:07,924 --> 01:12:13,128 or eggs, and the males and the female trade off over the season. 692 01:12:15,832 --> 01:12:22,738 There are mis-identities, initially, of the sex of penguins. 693 01:12:25,141 --> 01:12:29,444 Somebody recently described what they call prostitution where 694 01:12:30,880 --> 01:12:35,751 a female, who is out collecting rocks for her nest, 695 01:12:35,852 --> 01:12:38,220 and, of course, some penguins are... 696 01:12:38,321 --> 01:12:40,756 The only way they collect rocks is to steal them from others. 697 01:12:40,857 --> 01:12:44,026 So, in order to do that, they have to be very submissive 698 01:12:44,327 --> 01:12:49,398 in order to get close to a male, who's maybe advertising for a mate, 699 01:12:49,499 --> 01:12:56,171 and so she'll come in, sit in his nest, and sometimes they'll copulate. 700 01:12:56,406 --> 01:12:59,574 But, really, her idea is to get a rock, 701 01:12:59,675 --> 01:13:03,478 and so, as soon as she can, she escapes with a rock. 702 01:13:06,716 --> 01:13:12,487 Dr. Ainley, is there such thing as insanity among penguins? 703 01:13:13,289 --> 01:13:17,392 I try to avoid the definition of insanity or derangement. 704 01:13:17,493 --> 01:13:22,831 I don't mean that a penguin might believe he or she is Lenin 705 01:13:22,932 --> 01:13:27,402 or Napoleon Bonaparte, but could they just go crazy 706 01:13:27,503 --> 01:13:30,639 because they've had enough of their colony? 707 01:13:34,877 --> 01:13:39,114 Well, I've never seen a penguin bashing its head against a rock. 708 01:13:40,883 --> 01:13:43,718 They do get disoriented. 709 01:13:43,820 --> 01:13:48,090 They end up in places they shouldn't be, a long way from the ocean. 710 01:13:52,662 --> 01:13:57,399 HERZOG: These penguins are all heading to the open water to the right. 711 01:14:01,604 --> 01:14:05,740 But one of them caught our eye, the one in the center. 712 01:14:06,909 --> 01:14:11,413 He would neither go towards the feeding grounds at the edge of the ice, 713 01:14:11,514 --> 01:14:13,815 nor return to the colony. 714 01:14:15,785 --> 01:14:20,489 Shortly afterwards, we saw him heading straight towards the mountains, 715 01:14:20,590 --> 01:14:22,657 some 70 kilometers away. 716 01:14:25,394 --> 01:14:29,097 Dr. Ainley explained that even if he caught him 717 01:14:29,198 --> 01:14:31,366 and brought him back to the colony, 718 01:14:31,467 --> 01:14:35,670 he would immediately head right back for the mountains. 719 01:14:38,040 --> 01:14:39,474 But why? 720 01:14:50,353 --> 01:14:54,055 One of these disoriented, or deranged, penguins 721 01:14:54,357 --> 01:14:57,092 showed up at the New Harbor diving camp, 722 01:14:57,193 --> 01:15:00,996 already some 80 kilometers away from where it should be. 723 01:15:05,801 --> 01:15:10,739 The rules for the humans are do not disturb or hold up the penguin. 724 01:15:10,840 --> 01:15:14,809 Stand still and let him go on his way. 725 01:15:18,347 --> 01:15:23,451 And here, he's heading off into the interior of the vast continent. 726 01:15:24,453 --> 01:15:29,758 With 5,000 kilometers ahead of him, he's heading towards certain death. 727 01:15:42,205 --> 01:15:46,308 The last field camp we visited was at Mount Erebus. 728 01:15:47,376 --> 01:15:51,313 This active volcano is 12,500 feet high. 729 01:15:52,582 --> 01:15:58,053 It is of particular importance, as inside the crater the magma of the inner earth 730 01:15:58,221 --> 01:16:00,288 is directly exposed. 731 01:16:01,958 --> 01:16:05,293 There are only two other such volcanoes in the world, 732 01:16:05,728 --> 01:16:09,731 one in the Congo and the other in Ethiopia. 733 01:16:10,266 --> 01:16:13,301 Because of political strife in those places, 734 01:16:13,402 --> 01:16:18,240 it is actually easier to conduct field studies here in Antarctica. 735 01:16:20,109 --> 01:16:25,146 First thing, we were instructed in the etiquette of dealing with this volcano. 736 01:16:26,048 --> 01:16:30,151 One very important thing to keep in mind when you're on the crater 737 01:16:30,253 --> 01:16:34,556 is that the lava lake could explode at any time, 738 01:16:34,657 --> 01:16:40,495 and if it does, it's vital to keep your attention faced toward the lava lake 739 01:16:41,030 --> 01:16:44,866 and watch for bombs that are tracking up into the air 740 01:16:44,967 --> 01:16:50,071 and try to pick out the ones that might be coming toward you and step out of the way. 741 01:16:50,673 --> 01:16:55,977 The last thing you wanna do is turn away from the crater or run or crouch down. 742 01:16:56,078 --> 01:17:00,582 Keep your attention toward the lava lake, look up and move out of the way. 743 01:17:02,485 --> 01:17:07,522 HERZOG: We were fortunate that the lava lake was not enshrouded in mist this day. 744 01:17:08,858 --> 01:17:11,893 This here is the new observation camera. 745 01:17:13,496 --> 01:17:17,932 William McIntosh is the leader of the team of volcanologists here. 746 01:17:19,001 --> 01:17:23,038 This camera is designed for prison riots or to be explosion proof, 747 01:17:23,472 --> 01:17:27,042 and it's coated with this thick Teflon housing. 748 01:17:27,677 --> 01:17:31,146 Here's the lens here. This is a camera. 749 01:17:31,547 --> 01:17:37,285 The camera inside is made by a small company in Canada, Extreme CCTV. 750 01:17:37,720 --> 01:17:41,056 The inside housing is specifically designed for explosion... 751 01:17:41,157 --> 01:17:42,390 (EXPLOSION) 752 01:17:42,491 --> 01:17:43,491 ...to be explosion-proof. 753 01:17:43,592 --> 01:17:47,762 There's a bang from the lava lake right now. No bombs, though. 754 01:17:55,604 --> 01:17:58,940 HERZOG: This is the magma lake filmed 30 years ago. 755 01:18:01,844 --> 01:18:06,481 At that time, there was a bold attempt to descend into the crater. 756 01:18:15,725 --> 01:18:18,460 Halfway down there is a plateau. 757 01:18:18,728 --> 01:18:23,064 From there, it is a gaping hole straight down into the magma. 758 01:18:43,319 --> 01:18:46,154 They were in for near disaster. 759 01:18:56,298 --> 01:19:02,670 The magma exploded, striking one of the climbers, who got away with minor injuries. 760 01:19:10,846 --> 01:19:15,583 Today, the lava is monitored by Dr. Mclntosh's camera. 761 01:19:47,650 --> 01:19:52,587 Dr. Clive Oppenheimer, a true Englishman from Cambridge University, 762 01:19:52,688 --> 01:19:58,560 surprised us with his tweed outfit, which he wears as a tribute to the explorers of old. 763 01:19:59,662 --> 01:20:04,199 He analyzes gas emissions from volcanoes all over the world. 764 01:20:04,767 --> 01:20:07,836 If this were one of those active volcanoes in Indonesia, 765 01:20:07,937 --> 01:20:11,339 I'd be far more circumspect about standing on the crater rim. 766 01:20:11,440 --> 01:20:14,375 This is a very benign form of volcanism, 767 01:20:14,710 --> 01:20:20,548 and even the eruptions we've seen in the historic period are relatively minor affairs. 768 01:20:20,983 --> 01:20:23,751 If we go back into the geological record, 769 01:20:23,853 --> 01:20:25,653 we see that there are huge 770 01:20:26,789 --> 01:20:30,892 volcanic eruptions, massive, explosive eruptions that produced 771 01:20:31,393 --> 01:20:33,361 thousands of cubic miles of pumice, 772 01:20:33,462 --> 01:20:37,298 showering large parts of the Earth with fine ash, 773 01:20:37,733 --> 01:20:41,769 and these have been demonstrated to have had a strong impact on climate, 774 01:20:42,204 --> 01:20:45,740 and one of the biggest of these events, 74,000 years ago, 775 01:20:46,108 --> 01:20:49,210 has been argued even to have affected our human ancestors 776 01:20:49,311 --> 01:20:51,246 and may have played an important role in 777 01:20:51,580 --> 01:20:55,049 the origins and dispersal of early humans. 778 01:20:58,354 --> 01:21:02,557 So these events will recur, and I think the more we understand about them, 779 01:21:02,658 --> 01:21:07,228 the better we can prepare for their eventuality. 780 01:21:12,101 --> 01:21:17,138 HERZOG: For this and many other reasons, our presence on this planet 781 01:21:17,339 --> 01:21:20,174 does not seem to be sustainable. 782 01:21:20,276 --> 01:21:25,313 Our technological civilization makes us particularly vulnerable. 783 01:21:26,749 --> 01:21:31,319 There is talk all over the scientific community about climate change. 784 01:21:32,655 --> 01:21:37,525 Many of them agree the end of human life on this Earth is assured. 785 01:21:40,563 --> 01:21:44,365 Human life is part of an endless chain of catastrophes, 786 01:21:44,800 --> 01:21:49,037 the demise of the dinosaurs being just one of these events. 787 01:21:50,673 --> 01:21:52,941 We seem to be next. 788 01:21:59,048 --> 01:22:04,352 And when we are gone, what will happen thousands of years from now in the future? 789 01:22:07,756 --> 01:22:11,225 Will there be alien archeologists from another planet 790 01:22:11,527 --> 01:22:15,797 trying to find out what we were doing at the South Pole? 791 01:22:18,100 --> 01:22:22,971 They will descend into the tunnels that we had dug deep under the pole. 792 01:22:25,107 --> 01:22:30,912 It is still minus 70 degrees here, and that's why this place has outlived 793 01:22:31,013 --> 01:22:33,581 all the large cities in the world. 794 01:22:37,219 --> 01:22:39,153 They walk on and on. 795 01:22:58,807 --> 01:23:00,375 And then this. 796 01:23:00,909 --> 01:23:05,847 As if we had wanted to leave one remnant of our presence on this planet, 797 01:23:06,415 --> 01:23:10,852 they would find a frozen sturgeon, mysteriously hidden away 798 01:23:11,320 --> 01:23:15,390 beneath the mathematically precise true South Pole. 799 01:23:36,245 --> 01:23:41,215 They stash it back away into its frozen shrine for another eternity. 800 01:23:44,453 --> 01:23:48,589 And then they find more, memories of a world once green. 801 01:23:52,161 --> 01:23:57,465 As if the human race wanted to preserve at least some lost beauty of this Earth, 802 01:23:57,900 --> 01:24:02,336 they left this, framed in a garland of frozen popcorn. 803 01:24:12,681 --> 01:24:15,316 Back at the base camp of Mount Erebus, 804 01:24:20,089 --> 01:24:22,724 due to the considerable altitude, 805 01:24:23,025 --> 01:24:26,961 once in a while the volcanologists need medical care. 806 01:24:31,033 --> 01:24:33,668 But soon we find them back at work. 807 01:25:41,837 --> 01:25:43,871 My face is frozen. 808 01:26:23,512 --> 01:26:25,513 Quite cold up here today. 809 01:26:31,620 --> 01:26:36,490 Just by having that fantastic lava lake down there with all that energy, 810 01:26:36,725 --> 01:26:41,662 we still have to bring old petrol generators up to the crater rim. 811 01:26:53,442 --> 01:26:59,180 Man versus Machine, Chapter 53. Professor Clive Oppenheimer on Erebus. 812 01:27:01,250 --> 01:27:05,486 Hands in pockets, waiting for it to start spontaneously. 813 01:27:06,855 --> 01:27:09,223 He could be waiting a long time. 814 01:27:10,626 --> 01:27:14,495 Have you ever seen two men kiss on the top of Erebus before? 815 01:27:14,596 --> 01:27:16,364 (BOTH LAUGHING) 816 01:27:16,465 --> 01:27:18,032 OPPENHEIMER: Pushing back the frontiers. 817 01:27:18,133 --> 01:27:19,800 It's R-18, okay? 818 01:27:22,337 --> 01:27:24,372 I like working with Harry. 819 01:27:29,444 --> 01:27:31,846 HERZOG: Along the slopes of the volcano 820 01:27:32,047 --> 01:27:38,219 there are vents where steam creates so-called fumaroles, bizarre chimneys of ice, 821 01:27:38,520 --> 01:27:41,489 sometimes reaching two stories in height. 822 01:27:49,331 --> 01:27:52,433 It is possible to descend into some of them. 823 01:27:54,336 --> 01:27:59,707 You only have to be careful to avoid the ones containing toxic gasses. 824 01:31:11,500 --> 01:31:14,902 At the foot of Erebus, out on the sea ice, 825 01:31:15,003 --> 01:31:18,906 the two tallest buildings on this continent are located. 826 01:31:19,608 --> 01:31:23,511 In these hangars, scientific payloads are being readied 827 01:31:23,612 --> 01:31:26,680 for their balloon launch into the stratosphere. 828 01:31:40,562 --> 01:31:44,298 We were interested in the neutrino detection project. 829 01:31:44,399 --> 01:31:48,068 Scientists are planning to lift an observation instrument 830 01:31:48,170 --> 01:31:51,438 40 kilometers up into the stratosphere 831 01:31:51,540 --> 01:31:55,643 in search of almost undetectable subatomic particles. 832 01:31:58,847 --> 01:32:00,314 (ALL CHEERING) 833 01:32:02,050 --> 01:32:07,154 As it rises, this small-looking bubble of helium will expand 834 01:32:07,289 --> 01:32:11,825 to fill the entire skin, which here still looks like a white rope. 835 01:32:12,827 --> 01:32:18,532 It will eventually form a gigantic globe more than 300 feet in diameter. 836 01:32:20,702 --> 01:32:22,803 When it reaches the stratosphere, 837 01:32:22,904 --> 01:32:26,907 the detector will scan thousands of square miles of ice 838 01:32:27,008 --> 01:32:31,812 without encountering electrical disturbances from the inhabited world. 839 01:32:32,948 --> 01:32:37,284 Prior to the launch, we were inside the hangar. 840 01:32:37,385 --> 01:32:42,323 The neutrino project is led by Dr. Gorham of the University of Hawaii. 841 01:32:42,524 --> 01:32:48,095 So, what we're trying to do with this instrument is to be the first 842 01:32:48,196 --> 01:32:53,300 scientific group to detect the highest energy neutrinos in the universe, we hope. 843 01:32:53,768 --> 01:32:57,605 HERZOG: Yeah, but, Dr. Gorham, what exactly is a neutrino? 844 01:32:58,240 --> 01:33:03,043 The neutrino is... It's the most ridiculous particle you could imagine. 845 01:33:03,245 --> 01:33:07,381 A billion neutrinos went through my nose as we were talking. 846 01:33:07,616 --> 01:33:11,018 A trillion, a trillion of them went through my nose just now, 847 01:33:11,119 --> 01:33:12,886 and they did nothing to me. 848 01:33:12,988 --> 01:33:16,724 They pass through all of the matter around us continuously, 849 01:33:16,958 --> 01:33:22,162 in a huge, huge blast of particles that does nothing at all. 850 01:33:22,430 --> 01:33:26,300 They're like... They almost exist in a separate universe, 851 01:33:26,401 --> 01:33:28,502 but we know, as physicists, we can measure them, 852 01:33:28,603 --> 01:33:32,973 we can make precision predictions and measurements. They exist, 853 01:33:33,074 --> 01:33:35,743 but we can't get our hands on them, 854 01:33:35,844 --> 01:33:38,712 because they seem to just exist in another place, 855 01:33:39,114 --> 01:33:44,118 and yet without neutrinos, the beginning of the universe would not have worked. 856 01:33:44,319 --> 01:33:46,854 We would not have the matter that we have today, 857 01:33:46,955 --> 01:33:49,890 because you couldn't create the elements without the neutrinos. 858 01:33:49,991 --> 01:33:53,560 In the very, very earliest few seconds of the big bang, 859 01:33:53,662 --> 01:33:57,231 the neutrinos were the dominant particle, and they actually determined 860 01:33:57,332 --> 01:34:01,835 much of the kinetics of the production of the elements we know. 861 01:34:01,936 --> 01:34:05,005 So, the universe can't exist the way it is without the neutrinos, 862 01:34:05,106 --> 01:34:08,676 but they seem to be in their own separate universe, 863 01:34:08,777 --> 01:34:11,745 and we're trying to actually make contact with that 864 01:34:11,846 --> 01:34:14,481 otherworldly universe of neutrinos. 865 01:34:15,617 --> 01:34:19,153 And as a physicist, even though 866 01:34:20,088 --> 01:34:24,191 I understand it mathematically and I understand it intellectually, 867 01:34:24,292 --> 01:34:26,427 it still hits me in the gut 868 01:34:26,961 --> 01:34:30,364 that there is something here around 869 01:34:30,465 --> 01:34:34,268 surrounding me almost like some kind of spirit or god 870 01:34:34,369 --> 01:34:36,236 that I can't touch, 871 01:34:36,538 --> 01:34:39,106 but I can measure it. 872 01:34:39,207 --> 01:34:40,341 I can make a measurement. 873 01:34:40,442 --> 01:34:43,711 It's like measuring the spirit world or something like that. 874 01:34:43,812 --> 01:34:46,413 You can go out and touch these things. 875 01:34:47,882 --> 01:34:52,386 HERZOG: Not surprisingly, we found this incantation in Hawaiian language 876 01:34:52,487 --> 01:34:54,455 on the side of his detector. 877 01:34:55,156 --> 01:34:58,525 It was as if spirits had to be invoked. 878 01:35:00,562 --> 01:35:04,531 What would we see if we could film the impact of a neutrino? 879 01:35:05,500 --> 01:35:10,671 What you would see is, you would see a lightning bolt about 10 meters long, 880 01:35:10,939 --> 01:35:12,873 about that thick, 881 01:35:12,974 --> 01:35:17,277 and it would blast at the speed of light over this 10 meter distance, 882 01:35:17,379 --> 01:35:21,215 and you would see the most beautiful blue light your eyes have ever seen. 883 01:35:21,349 --> 01:35:23,450 It happens in about... 884 01:35:25,754 --> 01:35:28,522 The entire impulse of radio waves 885 01:35:28,623 --> 01:35:32,192 is up and down in probably 886 01:35:32,293 --> 01:35:35,829 one one-hundred billionth of a second. 887 01:35:36,564 --> 01:35:41,001 It just goes bang and it's gone, and that's what we're looking for. 888 01:36:09,164 --> 01:36:13,267 There is a beautiful saying by an American, 889 01:36:14,502 --> 01:36:20,441 a philosopher, Alan Watts, and he used to say that through our eyes, 890 01:36:20,675 --> 01:36:23,143 the universe is perceiving itself, 891 01:36:23,578 --> 01:36:28,248 and through our ears, the universe is listening to its cosmic harmonies, 892 01:36:28,650 --> 01:36:33,086 and we are the witness through which the universe 893 01:36:34,122 --> 01:36:37,658 becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence. 79412

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