All language subtitles for Ancient Mysteries

(narrator) The Bermuda Triangle,
an ocean full of secrets.

It's something which even in this world
of science, we cannot fully explain.

Ships disappear without trace.

There's a shipwreck there, and there,
and there. That's just strange.

Airplanes mysteriously go missing.

(man over radio) Mayday, Mayday.
We can see a strange object in our course.

(narrator) Stories of sea monsters
and strange sightings.

When I entered the tunnel
these strange lines instantly formed.

The Bermuda Triangle.
What's really going on there?

The great myths of mankind.

Mysteries passed on
over thousands of years.

Inexplicable events,

places shrouded in legend,
and superhuman heroes:

even scientists are fascinated.

Is there any truth
to these ancient legends?

Researchers across the globe
are working hard to solve

the greatest mysteries of our time.

(mysterious melody)

Bruce Gernon contributed a lot
to the myth of the Bermuda Triangle.

To this day he cannot explain

what happened to the US pilot
almost 50 years ago.

On December 4, 1970,

my father and I were
in Andros Island in the Bahamas.

We were leaving in the morning to return
to Palm Beach International Airport.

Bruce, who was 29 at the time,
and his father often take this route.

(engine starts)

Perfect visibility. No wind.

The two men don't have
any idea of what's to come.

(Gernon) When I lifted off, I looked at
my watch and I remember the second hand

actually struck 12
and it was exactly three o'clock.

In his Beechcraft Bonanza A36,
Bruce takes off from Andros,

the largest archipelago in the Bahamas,

where he is headed northwest
via Bimini to Palm Beach.

The flight is supposed to take 80 minutes.
ETA: 4.20pm.

(Gernon) I reached the shoreline
of Andros in ten minutes.

And I could see that the storms weren't
over the ocean of the Great Bahama Bank,

so that looked good.

A sense of deception.

Then we noticed this strange cloud
right in front of our flightpath.

(man over radio)
What is that in front of us?

It was about a mile long,

half mile wide,
and about a thousand feet thick.

Clouds like this are extremely
unusual at such low altitudes.

Bruce pulls back
the control wheel to veer.

So, we went ahead and climbed up over it.

150 meters above the clouds, they lull
themselves into a sense of security.

I didn't realize that

this small, lenticular-shaped cloud

had expanded tremendously
and it was right below our airplane.

I kept climbing.
I'm on a direct flight to Bimini now.

I'm at, say, 5,000.

I'm inside the cloud
and then I break free.

And I get maybe 200 feet above it

and then the airplane wasn't climbing
fast enough and I go back inside it.

Bruce climbs higher to escape
the surprising weather conditions.

When we got to 10,000 feet, that's about
five times I'd gone in and out of it...

and my dad said to me,

"We better turn around
and go back to Andros."

With over 600 flight hours under his belt,

Bruce had never experienced
anything like this: a force of nature.

(Gernon) Visibility inside
the storm was only maybe 50 feet.

We thought maybe we could keep going
until these flashes start to appear.

The deeper we went,
the more intense these flashes became

and it almost got
to the point where it was... pure black.

My dad was the expert navigator,
so I asked him for a position fix.

-(Dad) Something's up.
-(Gernon) He goes, "Somethings up."

-(Dad) I don't know where we are.
-He didn't know where we were.

Then I noticed the magnetic compass
was slowly spinning all by itself.

What happened to Bruce Gernon that day?

What forces are at play
in the Bermuda Triangle?

The Bermuda Triangle myth is special
because it's a modern myth,

which even in this world of science

cannot be explained
and therefore we are curious about it.

It's is not the first report of this kind.

Charles Lindbergh,
the legendary transatlantic aviator,

experienced something similar.

On February 13, 1928,
he takes off on a non-stop flight

from Havana, Cuba,
to his home, St. Louis, Missouri.

In his logbook, Lindbergh notes:

"Both compasses
malfunctioned over Florida Strait.

"The liquid compass card
rotated without stopping.

"Could recognize no stars
through heavy haze.

"Liquid compass card kept rotating
until the Spirit of St. Louis

"reached the Florida coast."

So we know the compass
spun around uncontrollably.

He wasn't able
to navigate by the stars

and when he finally found out
where he was, he was 300 miles off course

near Bahama Island.

It's the same mysterious phenomenon
Gernon would describe 40 years later.

The waters between Florida, Puerto Rico,
and the Bermuda Islands

have been shrouded
in legend for centuries.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus was
the first European to cross this sea area

with a surface of 1.3 million
square kilometers.

He reports of strange natural occurrences,
and unusual light phenomena.

Christopher Columbus
certainly saw a strange light.

With our understanding of science,
we can say perhaps it was a meteorite,

perhaps bioluminescence from fish.

But Columbus didn't have that knowledge.

To him, it certainly was a mystery.

In the following centuries,
many Spanish and Portuguese ships,

often laden with gold, go missing.

In the 19th century, the number of reports
about ships disappearing skyrockets.

Later, these reports
also include airplanes.

Sailors call the region the Devil's
Triangle or the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

It was not until
the second half of the 20th century

that the waters north of the Caribbean,

between Miami, Puerto Rico,
and the Bermuda archipelago

were famously dubbed the Bermuda Triangle.

Over the last 100 years,
more than 50 ships and 20 airplanes

are said to have vanished here
without a trace.

The exact numbers are a matter of debate.

The Bermuda Triangle
is a mystery,

because of the scale of
the stories associated with it.

A thousand lives have vanished
in mysterious circumstances,

and many questions remain unanswered.

The Bermuda Islands.

This is where the myth begins.

Philippe Rouja knows
the underwater world like no other.

The archaeologist is in charge
of the observation and conservation

of historic shipwreck sites
surrounding the islands.

(Rouja) We think
of shipwrecks romantically today,

but a shipwreck is a tragedy.

Some of which we know
a lot about, some very little.

And there are still many more to discover.

Finding shipwrecks, mapping sites,
and analyzing remains:

For over 16 years, Philippe Rouja
has been studying sunken ships.

(Rouja) Every shipwreck is a mystery.

For all the ones we know about in Bermuda,
there's another hundred we haven't found.

Along busy sea routes, it's not uncommon
to have areas with many shipwrecks.

Oftentimes dozens of wrecks
are found next to each other.

But there's no place in the world

with as many shipwrecks per
square kilometer as the Bermuda region.

Experts know of more than
100 sunken ships that have been plotted,

but believe there could be more than 300.

You can see
we're in the middle of nowhere.

There's a shipwreck there.
There's one there.

There's another one there.
And that's just kind of strange.

Today, Philippe Rouja and his team
are exploring two well-known wrecks.

You never really get
a full picture of what's down there.

And when you dive on a day like this,

when the water is clear and calm,
that's special.

About eight kilometers off the coast,
Philippe prepares for his dive.

His research helps scientists
gain insights

into the causes of the naval accidents.

Ten meters down: the Montana,
a wreck dating back to the Civil War era.

The ship carried weapons
for the Confederates.

(Rouja) There is
a concentration of ships here.

That speaks to something
about Bermuda that's quite curious.

Directly nearby are the remains
of the Constellation, a 1940s cargo ship,

transporting cement bags.

Today, they serve as an artificial reef,
and are a breeding place for fish.

(Rouja) If there is a mystery, it's why
does everything happen in the same spots?

The large coral reef
surrounding the archipelago

provides a very natural explanation.

It's easy to make out from
the air, but not from the water.

Since the 17th century, a busy trade route
has brought thousands of ships to Bermuda.

During this time, seafarers
saw the island as a landmark,

or used it as a stop-over
on their way to the New World.

A dangerous waterway.

(Rouja) What makes Bermuda's reef
dangerous is what we call breakers.

They come up to the surface, but on a day
like this, they sit just below.

By the time you see it,
you're hitting the reef.

Hundreds of ships were likely doomed
by the razor-sharp reefs.

But this doesn't explain why there are
also ships that sank far off the reef.

(Rouja) The main question
about the triangle is what is the mystery?

The mystery here is solved.
We know what happened.

But there are many others where we don't.

The USS Cyclops
is one of the unresolved cases.

March 3, 1918.
World War I continues to rage on.

It's the last time
the large US Navy supply vessel is seen:

in the harbor
of the Caribbean island of Barbados.

The collier is carrying
10,000 tons of manganese ore

to be used in munition manufactories
along the US east coast.

More than
300 crew and passengers are on board.

In the evening hours, the Cyclops weighs
anchor and disappears into the night.

She will never reach her port
of destination, Baltimore.

To this day, there is still no trace

of what was once
the US Navy's largest ship and crew.

No radio messages.

No distress signals.

No signs of life.

The USS Cyclops became important,

because she was such a big ship
and she was also a new ship.

Because of this
the real mystery was: where did she go?

Over 100 years later,
author Marvin Barrash

is still intrigued by the disaster,
not least for personal reasons.

I remember when I was a young boy

my father used to tell me about his uncle

who was lost
on a Navy ship in the First World War.

So I began to get
into family history research.

I started peeling back
the layers of the onion

and started finding a lot more
then I ever thought I would.

What happened to the USS Cyclops?

Construction plans,
freight reports, pictures.

Marvin Barrash collects
any piece of information he can find.

Following the war,
the US Navy published a document

listing all the ships that were lost.

The Cyclops was the only ship
that right across the page

was listed as "mysteriously disappeared."

In their official report,
the US Navy concludes:

"There has been no more baffling mystery
in the annals of the Navy

than the disappearance of the USS Cyclops.

It seems unlikely that the ship
was sunk by German submarines.

The disappearance of
the USS Cyclops makes headlines.

How can a ship this massive
simply vanish into thin air?

Part of the fame to do with the event
was also associated with the war.

There was a great deal

of fear over what the Germans
might be doing with their U-boats.

The Cyclops was not in waters
that should have been fought over,

but perhaps the Germans
were operating U-boats there.

There's fear associated with the war
which made this myth powerful.

Suddenly, everyone starts talking
about the insidious waters.

Rumors linked German saboteurs,
supernatural forces,

and even giant sea monsters
to its disappearance.

Marvin Barrash is convinced
there's a much simpler explanation

for the fate of the Cyclops.

The main business
of the USS Cyclops was this: coal.

Tons of this coal.

On the final voyage the business
was a lot heavier: manganese.

Lifting the two side by side,

this is like a feather, this is business.

10,000 tons of manganese ore in the hold

and the freight report reveals they had
exceeded this amount by over 85 tons.

The ship was well documented
as having a stability issue.

You have a lot of cargo on board

that nobody had experience with.

And was it loaded correctly?

Did the people that loaded the cargo
take into consideration the balance?

It's just like a formula for a disaster.
They're just waiting for the right time.

The ship's structural engineering
was probably not the only problem.

Marvin Barrash has discovered
another lead in the documents.

(Barrash) The USS Cyclops had two engines,
a port and starboard engine.

The starboard engine broke.

This is probably a significant factor
as to why the ship was lost.

Not having the power maybe to fight off
storms or other sea conditions.

(thunderclap)

During hurricane season,
the Bermuda Triangle is often subject

to major weather changes, dangerous
for even the most experienced seafarers.

There is this US Weather Bureau chart
that indicates

that there is a large weather system
on the east coast of the United States

that could have indeed traveled
with this large low system

into the area
where the Cyclops was on her way home.

So, weather was probably
a major factor in her disappearance.

But if the Cyclops were in distress,
why didn't she call for help?

And why has no wreckage been found?

I suspect a rogue wave.

The type of thing
that would not have been anticipated.

Without warning, no time to prepare.

And I suspect likely at night.

Could one single, huge wave
really swallow a mighty cargo vessel?

For centuries, sailors spoke
about waves as high as mountains,

coming out of nowhere,
dragging ships under.

For a long time,
their reports were dismissed

as being nothing
more than a sailor's yarn.

But today's scientists
are sure they exist.

Waves up to 30 meters high, known to
seafarers as rogue or monster waves.

Big fish and big wave myths have been told
for as long as humans have been at sea.

Scientists have long wanted to dismiss
the possibility of these gargantuan waves

that are talked about at fishing ports.

But recent science has confirmed
the existence of these rogue waves.

The Coastal Research Center
in Hannover, Germany.

Here, scientists take a closer look at
the destructive power of the rogue waves

from inside a wave channel,
310 meters long, the largest of its kind.

(in German)

(dubbed in English) I wanted to see
which one's the right wave length

when placing the boat in the water.

Can one single wave sink
a large ship like the USS Cyclops,

or even a modern container ship?

When you make short waves,
the boat would respond similarly:

plunge into the trough of the wave.

Stefan hopes an experiment
will lead to answers.

(in German)

(dubbed in English) Our wave machine
can produce any wave,

like single waves to simulate tsunamis,

or rogue waves, as in this case.

Monster waves develop when several swells
of different lengths overlap.

Long waves travel faster
and can overtake shorter waves.

As the wave heights combine,
they become a rogue wave.

Rogue waves can occur very suddenly.

This means they can basically form
at any place, at any time, by pure chance.

And they vanish
just as rapidly as they came.

Using a model ship, the researchers
demonstrate the impact of a rogue wave.

The team simulates rough sea conditions,
using the hydraulic wave machine.

While the waves cause the ship to bob
up and down, it's not in any danger yet.

The waves were 40cm high.

In nature, this would equal
a wave height of 12 meters.

That's quite a storm.

Now, they will conduct
the rogue wave test.

Monster waves are defined
as being extremely high

and extremely short at the same time.

Matthias, you can start the wave now.

OK, wave coming up.

Within seconds,
a deadly wall of water has built up.

By the time the ship's crew have spotted
the wave, it's already too late.

What we could see here was how the ship

first got sucked into that deep trough
preceding the wave...

and then it got pushed up...

after essentially being capsized
by the wave crashing down.

The crew had no chance
to send out a distress signal.

If this had happened in real life,

there probably
wouldn't have been any survivors.

Did the USS Cyclops fall victim
to a similar rogue wave?

The sunken ship falls into oblivion.

But in 1941, during World War II,

the sister ships of the USS Cyclops,
Proteus and Nereus, disappear.

Both were carrying ore.

Wild speculations are spreading.
Newspapers talk about the "sea of doom."

Experts disagree on what
happened to the two sister ships.

One thing is certain:

The freighters' design made them
potentially dangerous

for the crew at rough sea anywhere,
not just in the Bermuda Triangle.

Just four years later,

yet another tragedy draws
public attention to the mysterious waters.

An entire squadron disappears,
for no apparent reason.

Around noon on December 5, 1945...

five US torpedo bombers
take off from their base in Florida.

The weather is good.

It's a routine training flight.

Targeted bombing and navigating
above open water.

Halfway into it, the flight leader
reports difficulties with his compass.

(radio crackles)

The pilots lose orientation.

Soon after, their radio transmissions end.

(radio crackles drown out voices)

To this day, all 14 crew members
and their bombers have yet to be found.

Flight 19 became so famous,

because it wasn't just one plane or ship,

it was five planes.

It was an entire squadron
who were never found.

Sylvia Wrigley, pilot and author,

investigates
the mysterious disappearance of Flight 19.

Back in the 1940s, navigating a plane was
much more of a challenge than it is today.

We can see all the instruments here
that they were looking at.

You got the compass up top.

You've then got the directional indicator,
which you set in line with your compass.

You've got a clock there
that you use to time each leg.

You can see
your indicated air speed,

so you are using
the time that you're flying

and the speed
that you're flying

and you multiply them to get the distance.

and that's how you work out your location.

Berlin. Sylvia Wrigley sets out to
re-enact the military training operation

using a flight simulator.

Foxtrot Tango 28 departing.

We are now departing from Fort Lauderdale,
heading straight to the east.

We'll just take-off

and start climbing.

Flaps up.

Now we are heading
straight out over the Atlantic.

Because we're in an Airbus A320,

I'm able to set the power
to go automatically

and the autopilot on and the autopilot
is now doing almost everything for me.

If you were in a 1940s plane,
you would have none of this.

You are flying by dead reckoning.

Wrigley turns off
the electronic instruments

to simulate the squadron's
flight conditions 75 years ago.

There's all these alarms going off
and tones and I have lost my map.

OK, the pilots of the flight
also didn't have a map

or the different gadgets
that we've turned off here.

So this is similar
to the situation they were in,

but they were probably
better than I am at it.

Flight 19 got in trouble
when the compass stopped working,

and then the weather deteriorated, too.

Wrigley simulates the situation.

The wind is worsening, so a magnetic
compass bounces around.

It's not easy to use.

Even with that still working,

it would be hard to know whether
I was going due north or not.

If I'm worried my compass
isn't working it's nerve-wracking.

At this point,
I have no idea where we are.

The brewing storm makes it impossible
for the pilots of Flight 19

to know where they're going.

The sun is setting,
so I'm hoping that that is west,

but because of this weather it's difficult
to really feel confident about that

and it's just impossible
to really know where I am.

The machines have been up for four hours.

They're running out of fuel.
There's no land in sight.

Sylvia Wrigley ends up
in the same situation.

-(beeping)
-I'm out of fuel. I can't climb.

All I can do is try to come down gently,

but there are high waves
and a thunderstorm.

There's no way I'll land on this water.
I'd freeze to death.

I crashed.

That was so realistic, it was frightening.

I am so relieved
that this is a simulation.

I never want to have to go
through that in real life.

This was such a high stress situation,

using every bit of my mental power
just to try and keep a plane in the air.

How much worse,
when you know not only your life,

but the life of 14 people are dependent on
you making the right decision right now.

Navy flying boats try
to localize the missing squadron.

After searching for hours, they give up.

One of the machines calls
in a radio message.

Moments later,
it disappears without a trace.

The 14 young men of Flight 19
and their bombers are missing to this day.

Sylvia Wrigley has a theory
on what exactly happened.

A fateful decision by flight leader
Charles Taylor may have caused the men

to fly further and further out to sea.

(Wrigley)
The Navy investigation is very useful.

So, we've got
the original transcript here.

We have exactly what Foxtrot Tango 28

said whilst in the air
to his other pilots.

He is continuously modifying
the instructions for the squadron

to head towards the east,

when the entire time
they needed to go west.

As they run out of fuel,
the pilots are left with one option:

an emergency landing on the water.

At rough sea, this is a death sentence.

No wreckage from Flight 19
has ever been found.

(in German)

(dubbed in English) Even today we don't
always find plane wreckages.

There are explanations for this,
such as they've sunk down to the sea bed

and been covered by sand,

or they have broken to small pieces that
can no longer be identified as wreckage.

But there are
unanswered questions to this day.

Why did the flight leader
become so disoriented?

And why didn't his compass work?

There are only a few true mysteries that
are connected to the Bermuda Triangle.

Flight 19 is absolutely one of them.

I find it amazing that with so many
people interested with the...

the mystery that started
the Bermuda Triangle

and from which so many
of our Bermuda Triangle myths are created

that we don't know what happened,
and there's no way to find out.

And I find that bewildering,
but also fascinating.

The report from the Navy's
final investigation states:

"The disappearance of Flight 19
is one of the greatest mysteries

of the Bermuda Triangle."

A legend is born.

Flight 19 is a powerful part of the myth,

partly because it was
the loss of a group of young men,

who mythically become heroes.

They are the main characters in this saga.

As a consequence, they have huge power.

Hollywood capitalizes on the story.

Author Charles Berlitz
writes a bestseller.

The whole world is captivated
by the enigmatic events

taking place in the "sea of doom."

The Bermuda Triangle
first became popular

when American Charles Berlitz
wrote a book in the 1970s.

Some 20 million copies were sold.
It was translated into 30 languages.

He identified
a number of alleged incidents

which happened in the Bermuda Triangle.

The problem was, however, that a lot
of Charles Berlitz's evidence was wrong.

And indeed, many of
Charles Berlitz's examples are fake news.

Statistics show there are
as many accidents in the Bermuda Triangle

as in any other
highly frequented maritime area.

But the myth takes on a life of its own.

Soon, rumors spread, saying aliens

or the crystal energy
from the lost city of Atlantis

are responsible for
the sinking of countless planes and ships.

Many people don't want to believe
in a world without miracles,

because this means that it's a world
without soul or free will.

And so we project our desire
for there to be a soul or free will

onto a desire for there to be
miracles and odd events.

If this strange stuff can't happen there,
maybe it can't happen anywhere.

But the compass anomalies experienced
in the Bermuda Triangle are not a myth.

They're real.

But what causes these interferences?

For decades, scientists were
in the dark about this.

Today, they've found
a plausible explanation

at the bottom of the sea.

The Bermuda Islands are
the remnants of an ancient volcano

that formed more than
30 million years ago.

Witnesses of an apocalyptic moment
in the history of our planet.

Nick Hutchings explores this region.

If we were standing at this exact spot
33 million years ago,

we would be under
3,000 feet of lava.

This was a big
volcanic island then.

Over millions of years, the volcanic rock
is eroded by wind and weather

and washed into the sea.

It probably took 19 million years
to erode away down to nothing,

down to sea level.

Most of that
is now spread out around Bermuda.

Today, a layer of lava sand
150 meters thick

covers the ocean floor around the islands.

Hutchings believes the volcanic floor
could explain some of the phenomena

observed in the Bermuda Triangle.

You can see clearly here, this black sand.

This is the volcanic remains
of the old volcanic island.

This is really the only place
we can see this up on dry land.

The rest is washed
into the sea and is in a big layer.

And in that layer is
about 500 billion tons of magnetite.

And magnetite is the most magnetic
naturally-occurring mineral on Earth.

With the magnetite
in these heavy minerals here,

this is enough to affect a compass.

Just this little bit here.

And as you can see,
as we move the compass over here...

it moves.

It's not a lot, three or four degrees,

but enough
to cause a disaster.

You can imagine what
500 billion tons might do.

Official nautical charts warn seafarers
of compass anomalies

with deviations of up to 14 degrees.

Essentially Bermuda is a huge magnet
sitting in the middle of the ocean.

Conventional compasses have been known

to suddenly point
in a different direction.

This can cause ships and planes to go
off course or accidently fly into storms.

This likely explains many disasters.

Yet the myth
of the Bermuda Triangle lives on.

For some, it's more
about believing than knowing.

The Bermuda Triangle myth persists partly
because scientists haven't explained

what happens in the triangle,

so it's fulfilling
the function of all myths

and that is to explain the inexplicable.

Like the experience
of Bruce Gernon and his dad,

on their flight from the Bahamas
to Palm Beach on December 4, 1970.

At 3,500 meters altitude, the aircraft is
suddenly surrounded by a mysterious cloud.

And then I see this horizontal tunnel.

I thought it would
be the only way

to escape the inside
of the storm.

When I entered the tunnel
these strange lines instantly formed.

And then I noticed the lines were slowly
rotating counterclockwise

and went all the way
to the other end of the tunnel.

The navigational instruments
weren't working.

Even the compass
was slowly spinning all by itself.

The plane disappears
from air traffic control radars.

Miami Radio couldn't find our location,
so my dad got on the radio and he said:

"What do you mean
you can't find our location?"

He started cussing the guy,
something he's never done before.

Trying to get out of the tunnel, Bruce
pushes the 300 HP machine to its limits.

When I looked back
after we got out of the tunnel...

I watched it collapse right behind us

And at the same time,

I felt this incredible sensation
of zero gravity...

combined with the feeling of hydroplaning,

like skidding forward at zero gravity.

The air traffic controller comes back
on the radio and he's really excited.

And he says he's got an airplane
directly over Miami Beach.

I look at my watch and I've been
flying just over 33 minutes.

I told him, "No, that's not us."

Then my eyes started to focus.

I look below and there's Miami Beach
right below us and we're at 10,000 feet.

Once Gernon reaches Palm Beach
as planned and checks the time,

he realizes that only 47 minutes
have passed since take-off.

I'd made that identical flight
at least a dozen times on a direct course.

It took an hour and 20 minutes.

This was an indirect course,
maybe 50 miles longer,

and it took only 47 minutes.

I didn't understand what had happened,

but I realized
that something amazing had happened.

Bruce Gernon believes he got
sucked into a time tunnel.

To this day, there is still no evidence
corroborating his theory.

But he's not the only one who believes
in mysterious, unknown forces.

Gian Quasar has investigated
mysterious events in the Bermuda Triangle

for over 30 years.

He was the first to systematically study
the accident reports

of the US Transportation Safety Board.

This is the entire
computer database printout

at the National Transportation
Safety Board from 30 years ago

when I made a request for them
to give me a database search

of all aircraft listed
as missing or not recovered.

Nowadays, the records are
available in digital form.

The database lists every incident that
took place in US air space since 1964.

What's important is to compare cases

and data over
a long period of time,

instead of just one incident
and speculating on it.

I discovered aircraft that had vanished
while coming in for landing on radar,

that had eyewitnesses
and vanished close to shore,

that vanished over
shallow water and left no wreckage.

Quasar claims he has identified
75 mysterious events in the database

that happened in the Bermuda Triangle.

It's not subjective,
like sighting Big Foot

or flying saucers or the Lochness Monster.

These were real aircraft and real ships.

They're in the records. People were
aboard them, and they vanished.

Like Flight NH3808, a light-sport aircraft
flown by Maldonado Torres

and his friend José Pagán Santos.

One of the most interesting cases
is the documented case

of the encounter with a UFO.

This one was on June 28, 1980.

This was an Ercoupe,
a twin engine, small light aircraft

owned by the passenger's father.

That's the passenger.

The aircraft is presumed ditched
at sea and both occupants deceased.

And the transcript
was completely preserved.

And here it is.

Quasar has the radio messages.

(man) Mayday, Mayday.

We can see a strange object in our course.

We are lost, Mayday, Mayday.

This is José Maldonado Torres
and Pagán Santos' last words

as they transposed into mystery.

This is the mayday
he sent off Puerto Rico.

(radio crackles)

June 28, 1980. The two men are on
their way from Santo Domingo to San Juan

in a small sports aircraft

when they suddenly see
an unidentified flying object.

(man on radio)

The pilot tries repeatedly to get away
from the object, but to no avail.

(man on radio) Mayday, mayday,
this is Ercoupe three eight zero.

You're listening
to a man die basically....

Or rather transpose into mystery.

(man on radio)

(narrator) It's the last time
anyone heard from the men.

After that message,
their aircraft vanishes from the radar.

Nobody knows what the two men encountered.

The ultimate fate of flight NH3808
remains unknown to this day.

Time and again,
reports and videos surface,

allegedly documenting
similar encounters with UFOs.

An amateur video, taken on a cruise ship
in the Bermuda Triangle in 2009.

(man on recording) Two UFOs on the...
Damn, what ship are we on?

-(woman on recording) Carnival Sensation.
-(man) What's the date?

-(woman) Today is October 1.
-(man) October 1, 2009.

Two UFOs, one of them
moving to the left. Look, come here.

The left one is moving. Are you watching?

(inaudible)

There is a helicopter, there is
an airplane in the cloud up to the right.

For perspective, to see how low they are.

Look at the right one. It disappeared.

It's very commonplace
what they are reporting.

Lights floating on the horizon.

He mentions that they're pacing the ship.

(man on video) Look at the one
on the right moving. It disappeared.

The one on the left is still here.

(woman on video) Oh my God.

It's impossible to prove
the authenticity of the footage,

just as it remains unclear
what it really shows.

But to Quasar, online findings
like this support his theories.

They put this up on YouTube,

and so it, er, seems authentic.

It's reporting things
that are commonly known.

It's reported
since the earliest UFO investigations

that when aircraft approach these,
they'll wink out or zip away.

That's the case here.

An aircraft is approaching
on the right of the screen

and then the one closest to it zips out.

Ufologists like Quasar can now even
refer to official US government releases.

(man on recording) Echo, six, one...

(pilot) Oh golly!

(narrator) The US Navy has declassified
footage supposedly documenting encounters

between UFOs and their fighter jets.

(pilot on video) Oh my gosh, dude.
Wow, what is that, man?

Look at it fly. (he laughs)

Remarkably, the Pentagon
released the footage of all this.

Another sighting that the Pentagon
is refreshingly admitting to.

People have tried to explain
UFO sightings like these.

Theories range from
weather balloons, to hang gliders,

and secret weapon systems.

Gian Quasar doesn't have a logical
explanation for the events either.

But he doesn't believe
in "little green men."

Ships and planes do vanish
and that obviously has a cause.

So if you uncover real mystery,
it should be considered more unnerving,

because there's a real cause
behind it to deal with.

A dark cloud, malfunctioning instruments,

and a mysterious time tunnel.

Now, Bruce Gernon thinks
he knows what happened to him

50 years ago above the Bermuda Triangle.

It took me 30 years of researching this

thinking about it every day

before I finally came up with the theory:

that this fog, and I call it
electronic fog, connects to the aircraft.

If it attaches to you, you can...

become disorientated and it can induce
spatial disorientation into your mind.

A theory without evidence.

But Gernon is convinced
it will be proven one day.

It's been tough sometimes
when people try to debunk me.

But I'm always willing to talk to anybody
that wants to challenge me about it,

because I know exactly what happened.

So this is an incredible
event that happened.

It's going
to take incredible proof to prove it.

I know it'll be proven in the future.

It may be another 50 years or so.

The Bermuda Triangle,
a place for speculation of every kind.

The Bermuda Triangle doesn't stand out
statistically, but in our imaginations.

It becomes a place
where we project whatever our myth is.

If you're myth is
everything's explainable,

you project that on the Bermuda Triangle.

If your myth is aliens or Atlantis,

that also will be what you project
onto the Bermuda Triangle.

Whether it's a dark force,
or a force of nature,

paranormal activity, or physical forces,

people won't stop trying to solve
the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle,

and the myth is sure to be the subject

of wild speculations
and extraordinary theories

in the years to come.

(narrator) The most prosperous city
of all time.

Suddenly destroyed
by an enormous catastrophe.

Atlantis.
The lost paradise of the antiquity?

Atlantis is like an end-of-the-world story
that happened at the beginning.

Researchers are looking for
the legendary city.

(dramatic music)

I do think that Atlantis existed.

Where was this mythical island located?

Are there any traces of the Atlanteans?

Will Atlantis ever be found?

(bubbles)

(suspenseful music)

The great myths of mankind.

Mysteries passed on
over thousands of years.

Inexplicable events,
places shrouded in legend,

and superhuman heroes.

Even scientists are fascinated.

Is there any truth
to these ancient legends?

Researchers across the globe

are working hard to solve
the greatest mysteries of our time.

(mysterious melody)

Greece. The island of Santorini.

Some researchers believe

this is the former site of Atlantis.

Geologist Evi Nomikou

first heard about Atlantis
when she was a child.

But how to tell truth from legend?

(Gulls mewing)

When I was a child,
the grandfathers were always

telling us stories
about the myth of Atlantis.

They told us about a brilliant city

that was decorated with high buildings

and all the people were very rich.

And that city was just
in the middle of a volcano.

Santorini is an island
in the southern Aegean Sea.

Its ring-like structure
points to a volcanic inferno.

The crater island Nea Kameni at its heart,

the caldera is surrounded
by land emerging from the sea.

The legendary city of Atlantis
is said to have consisted of three aquatic

and two terrestrial rings
encircling the main island.

That's why many believe
that Santorini must be where Atlantis was.

(atmospheric music)

Could Atlantis be buried underneath
the rugged volcanic landscape?

(suspenseful music)

(drumming music)

Geologist Evi Nomikou
specialises in volcanos.

She grew up here.

Could the city of Atlantis
that her grandfathers told her about

really be on this volcanic island?

Before three thousand six hundred years

at this place,
there was a small island

with the same geometry,
with the same lava composition.

And at the top of this volcano,
a city was built.

Was it truly Atlantis?

Had it been annihilated
by a massive eruption?

The Santorini volcano
has erupted several times

over the past 3,000 years.

But the first lead points us
200 kilometres northwest.

(suspenseful music)

To Athens.

In 360 BC,

philosopher Plato describes
Atlantis as a splendid island nation,

which had ruled over the entire
Mediterranean region 9,000 years earlier,

with a commanding fleet,
untold wealth and unparalleled power.

The capital has a large commercial port.

The Atlantean battleships are even said
to have defied the Athenian naval power.

Navigable canals run
through the entire city.

In the centre there's an acropolis with a
temple for Poseidon, the god of the seas.

The buildings and streets
are embellished with gold,

silver and a fiery-toned metal,

bearing testimony
of their once glamourous population.

According to the Greek myths
the gods divided up the world,

and appropriately for Poseidon,

as god of the sea, he was given an island.

He then had many children,
five sets of twins,

and he gave the most
beautiful part of his island

to his first-born son, Atlas.

And in Greek,
Atlantis literally means Atlas's island.

According to Plato,
the land is particularly fertile

and home to a rich flora and fauna,
including exotic elephants.

But one day, the thriving metropolis
falls victim to a natural catastrophe.

(thunder claps)

According to Plato,

the earthquakes and floods
are the gods' way

of punishing the Atlanteans
for their sinful lifestyle.

(screams of panic)

The myth of Atlantis
is important to us today,

because it's the story
of a once highly developed culture

which was lost,
which has utterly disappeared.

It's a story of hubris. It's a story
of punishment. And in the modern world,

in which we think we know so much,
we celebrate our achievements.

Well, it serves as
a pretty powerful warning.

But is Atlantis completely buried?

Or can we still find traces
of the legendary city today?

Sunken cities are not rare.

Baiae, off the Neapolitan coast,
is a paradise for divers.

Places like this keep the hope alive
that Atlantis will also be discovered,

one day.

(scuba breathing)

The extent of the volcano's destruction
is visible on Santorini to this day.

The volcanic sediments reach high
into the sky in this former quarry.

A 30-metre layer of pumice
has buried all traces of life.

So we are the central part
of Santorini volcano in an old quarry.

For us, it is a geological monument.

And you can admire the soil,

the landscape before
the Minoan eruption.

So you need to imagine that
the people were walking on this landscape.

(dramatic music)

According to Plato, the Atlanteans
are progressive and hungry for knowledge,

but also arrogant,
autocratic and bellicose.

The gods punish them
for their insolence and lifestyle.

We can see the thin layer
of the precursory explosion.

Only 10 centimetres or less.

We don't know the exact time,

but lots of earthquakes
occur during this first explosion.

(sound of explosion)

Then the main eruption started,

and the first phase is the Plinian column,

with ash up to 39 kilometres in the air.

(roaring sound)

Commercial aircraft only fly
at 10 km altitude, for comparison.

The ash column that Santorini volcano
shot into the air in 1600 BC

was 39 km high.

Plato could have been inspired

by all sorts of natural events.
Tsunamis and floods.

One of them might have been
the Minoan eruption.

It was a cataclysmic event and we know
it was felt right across the Mediterranean

from Greece to Egypt.

(dramatic music)

(cries of distress)

The volcano buries the entire island,
wreaking havoc.

Temples, roads and ships are torn up,

destroyed and swallowed by the lava.

(cries of panic)

The eruption was extremely powerful.

This is because the mass of rocks
didn't melt and move.

The crater just became clogged
with boulders, and eventually it exploded.

(sound of explosion)

In 1980, Mount St. Helens
in Washington, USA, faced the same fate.

The volcano erupted
with destructive power.

(deep rumbling)

Was Atlantis wiped out
by a volcanic catastrophe?

One thing we know for sure
is that the legend of pride and fall

has impressed generations worldwide.

(bubbling sound)

The myth of Atlantis enthrals many.

Pondering about what the legendary empire
might have looked like

has led to countless books,
films and computer games.

Many people
are not only looking for the location,

but also to experience the superhuman
force that Atlantis is said to emit.

(piano music)

In Germany,
the search for Atlantis has been popular

since as early as the 1920s.

In Bremen, an entire new building
was dedicated, exploring the past.

The "Atlantis House"
is home to a heritage centre

meant to bring light into
the alleged history of Germanic peoples,

as the descendants of Atlantis.

On its facade: the tree of life,

a prominent feature in Nordic mythology.

The modern use of forms
in the Art Deco staircase

and the "sky room"
are meant to give the viewer a glimpse

into the myth of Atlantis.

(German dubbed into English)

In the 19th century,
many people searched for Atlantis.

Spiritists, occultists and psychics

believed they could find Atlantis,
or it would re-emerge.

Later, the Nazis evidently
put a great deal of effort

into pursuing anything
that fit into their ideology,

which also included finding Atlantis.

(echoing tone)

Atlantis House was built
by an SS patron member

who shared SS chief
Heinrich Himmler's firm belief

in the supremacy of the Nordic race.

Himmler invests large sums trying to prove

that the Teutons descend
from the Atlanteans.

He hopes archaeologists will find evidence
of ancient Aryans in Atlantis.

Their search took them as far as Tibet.

Ernst Schäfer was the head
of the expedition.

He believed the survivors of Atlantis
found shelter on the Tibetan Plateau.

He left empty-handed.

The belief in Atlantis
is also fuelled by the discovery

of another city shrouded in legend.

For centuries,

Troy was thought to be a myth described
in the Iliad by the Greek poet, Homer.

In 1870, Heinrich Schliemann finds the
ancient city of Troy in today's Turkey.

The myth becomes a reality.

Can Atlantis be found too?

We have so many stories about Atlantis.
It is a magical undersea world.

If you were the archaeologist
to discover that,

like the discovery of Troy,
you'd go down in history.

US researcher Richard Freund

is convinced
that he'll be able to unearth Atlantis.

He's an expert
on the archaeology of mythical cities

and firmly believes
that Atlantis did exist.

He is basing his search on descriptions
by Greek philosopher Plato.

But Richard Freund
isn't looking in Greece.

He's got his eyes set on southern Spain,

not far from the Straits of Gibraltar.

(rhythmic music)

He believes the remains of Atlantis
are hidden in the sand dunes

of the Doñana National Park.

(car engine starting)

(rhythmic music)

We are at ground zero for Atlantis.

Freund has a theory.

He believes the stretches of land
now covered in sand

were once a thriving island state.

Until Atlantis was destroyed

by a devastating tsunami.

Plato says in one fateful night,

the entire city sunk

and was located
in impassable mud

and disappeared.

Meaning it's not something that happened
over a long period of time.

He's talking about a cataclysmic,
catastrophic end to the city.

To Freund, it's just a matter of time

until he finds the first piece of evidence
here in southern Spain.

(breaking waves)

And indeed,
the location of Doñana National Park

matches Plato's description
astonishingly well.

Plato says it's located
by the Pillars of Hercules.

The Pillars of Hercules
were known by ancient mariners

as being a very specific spot.

So it's not located in Africa

or India or Asia.

It's located
by the Pillars of Hercules, which today

we call the Strait of Gibraltar.

Doñana National Park
is about 80 km northwest of Gibraltar.

During the antiquity, the prominent rocks
on the European and African side

mark the end of the known world.

In the antiquity,
this whole area of the Doñana

was an open bay.

You had this big, massive,

open bay, where ships could come in

and ships could go out to the Atlantic

and into the Mediterranean.

This was the
end of the earth

for almost every single
ancient mariner.

Freund believes
that ships used to be able to navigate

through what we know today as marshland.

If you imagine it
with canals and ring-shaped islands,

it looks just like
Plato's descriptions of Atlantis.

So this really is the place.

You're looking at ground zero
in these dunes,

the ocean, the dunes
and the location of the city.

Atlantis could be very real, in fact,

there could be multiple Atlantises.

Plato places it where the Atlantic
opens out into the Mediterranean

and typically huge cities
with lots of wealth grow up in places

that controlled this kind of strait.
We think of Troy or Constantinople.

So in some ways, it's hard to imagine

there wouldn't have been
a great city there.

Plato claims he received his information

from an ancestor
who described the Atlanteans

as a superior civilisation
with vast expertise

in weapons technology and metal work.

Not far from the national park

there's a place that could reveal
more about Atlantis.

(suspenseful music)

A building, 5,000 years old,
made of massive stones.

(reverberating tone)

The unusual monument
is discovered and excavated

during construction works in the 1920s.

It's a Neolithic tomb site
and provides a glimpse

into a fascinating culture.

Archaeologist Claudio Lozano
is keen on finding out more

about the people who once lived here.

(electronic music)

The finds from the dolmen
bring up many questions.

In the stone there are
engravings and incisions.

Could these maybe be star maps
like the ones used by seafarers?

How the weapons were depicted,
which were most likely made of metal,

is even more intriguing.

(Spanish dubbed into English)

What makes this dolmen special
is that most of the stone pillars

were decorated with pictograms.

And here we see they depict weapons.

Metal weapons.

(reverberating tones)

Do these pictures date back to the time

when the burial site was built?

Or were they added
to the stones at a later date?

Plato did mention
a rare metal in Atlantis.

Is the dolmen the Atlantean survivors'
claim to immortality?

The dolmen is proof of a highly functional

and progressive settlement
in southern Spain

dating back more than 5,000 years.

Early civilisations
almost exclusively settled near water.

Archaeological finds are particularly
common along coastlines and rivers.

Water is the source of life.
Humans need water to drink.

They need water to cook, to farm,
and water also provides transport.

It's why water really is
the cradle of civilisation.

And most successful civilisations
sprang up near sources of water.

To find traces of ancient civilisations,

you have to know where rivers used to run.

(echoing tones)

(piano music)

Huelva port, early morning.

A research catamaran is waiting
for Claudio Lozano and his team.

They want to have a closer look

at the sea floor
in front of the Doñana National Park.

Over thousands of years,
the coastline has changed dramatically.

Water covers what once was land
with rivers running through it.

Is this the location of Plato's Atlantis,

the city beyond the Pillars of Hercules?

(drumming music)

(Spanish dubbed into English)

We're now following the coastline

towards a stretch of sea across
from Rio Piedras.

The place we're headed to
used to be the estuary of this river,

somewhere between 9,000 and 10,000 BC.

10,000 years ago, the coastline
was about 125 metres further west.

Claudio Lozano hopes his search
for old river channels

will help him find former settlements,

or ideally the ruins of Atlantis.

We've been here a couple of times,

but we want to take a closer look
at this particular spot.

And this time,
we're using a high-precision sonar.

This spot is perpendicular
to the coastline

and is exactly where the estuary was.

(pulsing electro music)

Maritime archaeologist Claudio Lozano and
soil investigation expert Miguel Gonzales

hope to finally come up
with solid evidence.

Their sensitive sonar device

picks up even the slightest elevations
on the ocean floor.

This also allows them to find river
channels that are thousands of years old.

This is where we choose the frequency.

(speaks in Spanish)

If they find proof
of these former estuaries,

it could point to an ancient civilisation.

Advanced civilisations like Atlantis
always built their cities close to water.

(speaks in Spanish)

This broad perspective on the sea floor

shows us exactly what it looks like,

and where there are shapes
pointing to a former estuary.

This case is a perfect example.

It's obvious that
this used to be a riverbed.

Now it's covered by ocean floor.
It's filled with sediments,

but the sonar allows us to
detect the riverbed below the ocean floor.

Examining these riverbeds is key.

Getting closer to the riverbeds

means we're getting closer
to where people built their settlements.

(speaks in Spanish)

(device beeps)

(rhythmic music)

The site they're looking for

is almost two kilometres off the coast.

Does the sea floor
have something to show us?

Diving is the only way to find out.

They're looking for an ancient riverbed,

hoping to maybe even find
the remains of a settlement.

(dramatic music)

(hissing air)

(diver splashes)

The researchers look for geological clues.

Nature leaves its marks,
even after 10,000 years.

(beeping sound)

(underwater bubbling)

The divers find pebbles on the ocean floor
that were clearly brought there by rivers.

(strings music)

Showing that this floor
wasn't always covered by the sea.

A success for Claudio Lozano and his team.

They've found the estuary
of a long-forgotten river,

and therefore maybe also a first glimpse
into a human settlement.

But they're still a long way
from finding actual proof

that Atlantis existed in southern Spain.

The searchers won't give up.

(pulsing music)

Richard Freund's hypothesis that Atlantis
was a powerful harbour city near Gibraltar

remains one of several possibilities.

Atlantis has become a repository
in our imagination

for all these lost lands that
were before a flood

or some ancient,
forgotten place.

And there are very real cities
that were lost

to coastlines
and the flooding that happened there.

It's possible that Atlantis is
a kind of combination of real lost places

and some mythical notion
of a time before time.

Santorini, an island in the Aegean Sea,

has been of interest to those
looking for Atlantis for a while now.

Over 3,600 years ago,

a devastating eruption shook the island.

Nea Kameni
is in the centre of the caldera.

To geologist Evi Nomikou,
this is the epicentre of the catastrophe

that sealed the fate of
all living beings for kilometres around,

an event that left its traces on history.

Nea Kameni has been created

due to the fact that it has

many different volcanic centres

that give lava.

(explosion)

We don't know of any other eruption
more destructive

than the one in the 16th century BC.

It affected all civilisations
across the eastern Mediterranean

and even destroyed
the Minoan culture on Crete,

some 200 km away.

Some believe that Atlantis
actually is Crete.

Two great civilisations existed around
the Greek islands of Crete and Santorini,

the Cycladic and the Minoan cultures.

They were related to each other

and they shared some similarities
with the Atlanteans,

as described by Plato.

So there's every chance that they were
actually related to those people.

The volcanic eruption on Santorini
triggers a tsunami,

wiping out all inhabited coastal regions
in the eastern Mediterranean.

The northern hemisphere
faces several years of winter.

The Minoan empire on Crete
ceases to exist.

An actual natural catastrophe.

Is this the origin
of the legend of Atlantis?

Evi Nomikou is looking for traces of a
lost, advanced civilisation on Santorini.

She's heading
to the Akrotiri excavation site.

Together with Joannis Bitis, an architect,

Evi visits the remains of a settlement

once covered by volcanic ash.

These cultural artefacts
were hidden for thousands of years,

and weren't discovered until 1967.

Archaeologists are staggered
by what they find here:

buildings, several stories high,

with sophisticated details.

This level of advancement
can only be attributed to the Atlanteans,

according to Plato.

The special thing is that
we have the chance to have

a very good preservation
of the artefacts

and of the architecture
of a pre-historic city.

The ash that covered all the entire city

helped all the materials
and the buildings to survive

until our times.

The architectural style in Akrotiri
is not typical for antiquity.

Large windows
and up to three stories high.

Toilets inside buildings.

These must have been the homes
of affluent people.

The lavatory is quite...
a surprise for the archaeologist,

because usually we found these kind of...

places outside of the houses.

Instead, here we have already,
3,000 years ago,

the mentality of placing the lavatory
inside the building.

They also find beautiful murals

showing women with precious jewels.

What happened to these people?

Were the residents of Akrotiri
able to escape on boats?

By the time the eruption hits the city,
everyone has already gone.

Here we can see a building,
only one floor,

that has been covered completely
by the huge volume of pumice.

So just in front of us,

at the bottom, you can distinguish
the first layer of the Minoan eruption.

Up to now we didn't find any bodies,
so we do believe

that the people escaped

before the last phase, before the main
eruption started to be very destructive.

(blasting sound)

No dead bodies and no signs of survivors.

Just impressive evidence
of a lost civilisation.

The finds are preserved
in the pre-historic museum

in the island's capital Fira.

Kostas Sakavaras might be the greatest
expert when it comes to these artefacts

and their history.
Proudly he presents a table.

So this is the plaster cast
of a very elaborate piece of furniture.

It shows us the sophistication level
of this ancient society,

because it's a piece that very much
reminds us also of modern pieces.

(dramatic drumming)

The wood of the table
burned in the heat of the eruption.

All that remains is a detailed cast.

Thousands of objects tell the story

of an incredibly rich city
that disappeared.

(Kostas) This is foreign pottery
found in Akrotiri.

-(Evi) Okay.
-So we have Aegina, we have...

Greek mainland. We have also islands,
nearby islands like Kea or Naxos.

-Okay.
-Or even a bit farther islands, Kos.

-Dodecanese region.
-Yeah.

And definitely Crete,
which was a superpower of its time.

The collection even contains objects
from the Middle East and Egypt.

Little boxes for perfumes,
jewellery and artistic vases.

It tells us that
this is an affluent society

that had covered
its very basic survival needs,

and had an appetite also
for some luxury-ware,

exotic stuff
that was brought from other places.

So it seems to be that the place
in Akrotiri or the Atladic City,

was the centre of that civilisation.

So it seems to be a commercial centre
of the eastern Mediterranean.

A fresco that was well preserved
also points to the importance of trade.

The image has scientists' heads turning.

Does it depict Atlantis?

Many details match: a large fleet,

the capital surrounded by water
and red rocks, just as Plato describes it.

Red rocks can be seen
on Santorini to this day.

Are they leading us to Atlantis?

All these rocks are very old rocks,
and they

have not been covered
by the Minoan deposits.

You can see that the red
is the red scoria, full of iron. Okay?

And from the frescoes, you can imagine

that the port, a separate port,
was also located in this area.

(suspenseful music)

Astonishing parallels.

Did the heart of the story of Atlantis
take place here on Santorini?

A port from which residents escaped
when the volcano erupted?

I do think that Atlantis existed.

Yes, it's a very good story.
But all great stories

do have an element of truth
deep down inside them.

But one thing doesn't add up
in the Santorini theory.

According to Plato, Atlantis is located

beyond the Pillars of Hercules,
behind Gibraltar.

Researchers and explorers are looking for
Atlantis almost everywhere in the world.

In the Bahamas, in Brazil,
in the Canary Islands,

in the North Sea, or on Sri Lanka.

Central America
is among the top candidates.

The founding myth of the Aztecs
is said to contain clues.

It refers to a mythical place
called Aztlán.

And it's not just the name that bears
a striking resemblance to Atlantis.

Aztlán is also said
to have been located on an island.

In the 14th century, the Aztecs build

their huge capital, Tenochtitlan,
in a lake in Mexico.

Are they reminiscing about
their sunken hometown of Atlantis?

But how would Greek philosopher Plato
have come to hear about a story

from Central America
almost 2,000 years before Columbus?

One of the reasons why Atlantis
is so curious and fascinating

has to do with the way it may or may not
play into ancient civilizations.

If it does play a role,
it's probably as this

seafaring culture that's extended across
a kind of nodal network.

The other thing about Atlantis
is that it represents a time

before the flood, just like Eden.

So it's kind of this mythic memory
of an ancient past.

Michael Oettel thinks he knows
where Atlantis is located.

On his YouTube channel, he spends his time
investigating great myths.

Oettel believes Atlantis
was discovered a long time ago,

in a place that's now
far away from the sea.

(German dubbed into English) Hello and
welcome to a new episode on my channel.

Today, we're looking into
the theory of Atlantis

and whether this city really existed.

Or is it just a legend?

Today we're going to get to
the bottom of this question.

It's been investigated many times,
and some believe this ancient civilisation

was based in Santorini,
or somewhere along the Spanish coast.

But today we want to talk about
a structure first discovered in 1965

during the Gemini 4 mission.

It can only really be seen from space

and is located in western Africa.

It is called the "Eye of the Sahara",
or the "Richat Structure".

There's a rock formation in Mauritania,
in western Africa,

that really looks like an eye.

Or like the island city of Atlantis?

In the beginning, experts believed
this structure was a crater from a meteor.

But nothing points to an impact.

Michael Oettel sees
another parallel to Atlantis.

In his works, Plato writes that
Atlantis consisted of three rings of water

and two rings of land,
and we can actually see this here.

The central island,
the first and second rings of land,

separated by rings of water.

So in total there are three aquatic rings
and two terrestrial rings.

Of course, we're still left wondering

whether this is a natural structure,
or one that is man-made.

An island city without any water?

But this area wasn't always a desert.

In the last ice age, there were rivers
and freshwater lakes in northern Africa.

Oettel shows us footage from
an expedition to the Eye of the Sahara.

If you're standing inside the rings,
they look like mountain ranges.

Only once you're far away

are you able to imagine
this area was once inhabited.

An important discovery: a well.

To this day, caravans take a break
in the Eye of the Sahara

to fill up on their water supply.

Could a well like this also have been
the Atlanteans' freshwater source?

And how is it possible
that this structure in the Sahara

points to the home
of a once-great naval power?

Michael Oettel subscribes to the theory

that the sea level
was much higher 10,000 years ago

and only dropped after the last ice age.

Simulating the sea level over time,
Oettel notices something.

If you raise the sea level to 425 metres,

you can see clearly that this structure,
as Plato described,

has a natural opening in the south,
so boats could go in and out.

Atlantis in the Sahara?
Geologists debunk the theory.

The ring-shaped mountains
were caused by volcanic forces.

They were not man-made.

There are a lot of supernatural theories
out there that you have to locate.

Atlantis serves
as a kind of blank screen

onto which we can project
these ideas, these stories

of fallen civilizations,
aliens, you name it.

Atlantis fuels people's imagination
and ambition.

If someone were to find Plato's city,

they would be famous around the world.

Dieter Bremer is captivated
by a completely new theory.

If you read Plato's
original text correctly,

he says,
you shouldn't look for Atlantis on Earth.

(German dubbed into English)

Well, I would look
for Atlantis where Plato said it was.

(speaks in German)

One often wonders,
what is the Atlantean Sea?

It reminds me of the titan Atlas
who carried the sky.

So following this logic,

the Atlantean Sea could also be considered
the celestial sea.

(speaks in German)

The former chemical engineer
is looking for Atlantis

from the perspective of technology.

He believes that the Atlanteans

were far more progressive
than any other ancient civilisation.

Literally supernatural.

(German dubbed into English)

Based on my findings, Atlantis
was a concentric ring system in the sky

revolving around itself.

This means
it was a generational space craft,

a mother ship, a huge space station
that was home to a civilisation.

(speaks in German)

And these people visited Earth,

astronauts that were
so technologically advanced

that they must have seemed like gods
to the Stone Age humans on Earth.

(speaks in German)

(orchestra plays Beethoven Symphony No. 9)

Atlantis...
a circular space station in orbit?

(orchestra plays Beethoven Symphony No. 9)

Bremer's hypothesis builds on the idea
of ancient astronauts,

which was made famous
by writer Erich von Däniken.

According to this theory,
there were astronaut gods

who gave knowledge
and technology to humanity,

namely in the form of crystal energy.

(mysterious tones)

Some believe that this also explains
the Egyptian pyramids and hieroglyphs.

(mysterious tones)

(German dubbed into English)

The theory involving ancient astronauts
is popular among esoterics.

This is where Atlantis fits in.

These people claim that Atlantis,
just like the pyramids or the Nazca Lines,

has been created by extraterrestrials,

as they simply cannot fathom
that ancient people

were able to create such advanced things.

(mysterious tones)

Dieter Bremer thinks

he's found evidence corroborating his
theory in various ancient civilisations.

Are they depicting space stations?

(German dubbed into English)

I can see elements of Atlantis
in many concentric ring systems,

or systems consisting
of a ring and a cross.

You can find similar traditions
everywhere in the world.

Atlantis in space?

We likely won't find
any artefacts out there.

A critical interpretation
of Plato's text could also be worthwhile.

Is the author even trying
to describe a real place?

He's writing about a war
between Atlantis and Athens.

Plato creates Atlantis

as the arrogant, overconfident monarchy
which threatens the survival

of his ideal state,
represented by ancient Athens.

It's an allegory which contrasts

the arrogance and
overbearing state of the monarchy

with the ideal nation-state,
democracy as described by Plato.

In a way, Plato's asking us to think about
our ideas about power and government.

(dramatic music)

That means Atlantis is only an allegory

used to illustrate the victory
of democracy over monarchy.

(German dubbed into English)

If the battles between
Athens and Atlantis did take place,

there would be more testimonies
than just Plato's,

because unlike Troy and Delphi, Atlantis
is not featured in any recorded history.

(blasting sound)

Could it be
that Atlantis is just pure fiction?

A tale from ancient Greece?

Many researchers think

Plato's descriptions are too realistic
for that to be true.

Richard Freund believes

in the existence of an ancient superpower
destroyed by a natural catastrophe.

He says a tsunami in Doñana National Park
in southern Spain

put an end
to the capital's brilliant presence.

According to his theory,
the tsunami washed away the city.

A picture taken from space
reinforces his theory.

Satellite images
seem to show strange patterns.

Do they point to Atlantis?

Plato describes a harbour city
with three circular basins,

even providing exact measurements.

Do they match the structures
in the satellite images?

Is the rectangular shape in the centre the
foundation of Poseidon's Atlantean temple?

(pulsing music)

A local inspection in the
mostly uninhabited Doñana National Park.

At the very highest point,
the Cerro del Trigo,

Richard Freund describes how
the search for Atlantis here in Spain

became his mission in life.

Now what's interesting about
all the years we did this work

is that it all started with this...

space photography, from the 1980s.

You could see rectangles,
circles, straight lines.

And all these don't occur in nature.

(dramatic music)

We need evidence of massive building

inside the park.

Then together with
the textual information,

together with the photography,

maybe we could say
that this is the best location.

Excavations started in the middle of
the park in 1920, but were never finished.

Today the area is protected.

New excavations... impossible.

(engine turns off)

(suspenseful music)

The site looks just as
archaeologists left it 100 years ago.

Richard Freund
and his son, Ethan, are looking for clues.

A rock is sticking out of the ground.

Or is it a piece of masonry,

maybe dating back to the Bronze Age?

It would be the first real
piece of evidence

Richard Freund can use
to support his Atlantis theory.

Will years of work finally pay off?

(rhythmic music)

We're going to measure this this edge.

Then I want to measure this edge.

This is a right angle.
There are no right angles in nature.

This is something that was man-made.

Five metres long.

Almost a perfect right angle.

Freund hopes to have found the outer walls

of a large building.

So we have one clear section of the wall.

What's very specific about this

is this stone looks like it's been cut.

It reflects human activity
because it has right angles.

Right angles only appear
in human activity, not in nature.

(dramatic music)

A stone that looks like a wall.

A single, but valuable piece of evidence?

Freund wants to believe it.

So you can see the same kinds of shells

that we saw out on the beach.

And they're embedded in this marl
that's attached to the rock,

which is not indigenous to this area.

So this was all brought in
and you could see that it's all...

part of a massive rock,

that, with the marl on top,

that was embedded in the earth right here.

Atlantis, buried beneath
the Spanish swamp.

To Freund this is more than a theory.

This is the last piece of the puzzle.

You look at that and you say to yourself,
what is it?

Well, sometimes
big things come in small packages.

And this is a massive wall

that is embedded in the sand.

It's unlike anything else.
And for all intents and purposes,

there should be no major stone like that

in this entire area, and yet it's there.

Spain or Santorini?

Evi Nomikou is able to provide
solid evidence of a big city

on the island during antiquity.

And that a volcanic explosion
destroyed everything.

Using a glove, she demonstrates
how the explosion went down.

So imagine that this is
the magmatic chamber of Santorini.

It's full of magma
and it's beneath Santorini volcano.

So what we are going to do,
we will show how Atlantis...

disappeared.

Hundreds of metres underneath the surface,

the pressure inside the magma chamber
continues to rise.

So this is Atlantis, just at the top
of the volcanic cone

of the Pre-Kameni island.

(dramatic music)

The eruption empties the chamber.

It collapses
and brings everything down with it.

There's a huge caldera.
But Atlantis has disappeared

under the very many layers of sediments.

Is the ancient city on Santorini
really Atlantis?

The evidence is still too scant.

(rhythmic music)

Evi Nomikou
and her colleague, Othonas Vlasopoulos,

want to take a closer look
at the mega-crater.

The volcano is largely
immersed in the sea.

(sound of swells)

(rhythmic music)

So this is a small robot.

This is a small ROV. We call it Jason.

And we will explore the sea floor

very close to Nea Kameni
just to see the morphology of the lava

that is cooling down on the sea floor.

Eight engines and three cameras.

You cannot... I'm doing it slowly, slowly.

The robot takes over for the divers

and provides high-resolution images.

(indistinct radio chatter)

Jason passes by lava
solidified quite some time ago.

The sea floor has been shaped
by a powerful volcanic event.

(indistinct comments)

(strings music)

And at last!

-A discovery.
-Evi! Evi, come. Come and see something.

(Evi) Okay.

-Be extra-careful. Okay, show me.
-Look at this.

Wow! What are these?

-It feels like steps.
-Yes, definitely. These are steps.

(Evi) But can you move towards this side?

Underwater stairs?

Could they belong to a former harbour?

To Evi Nomikou, these images are another
step on the way to finding Atlantis.

But they will need to conduct more dives

to find out whether
these steps are man-made

or a product of nature.

I believe that

there was a magic city
just in the middle of the caldera,

and that city
has been destroyed completely.

But we need to search more
and explore more.

And when we find
some evidence from the sea floor,

not something that we will find on land,

then I will be completely sure
that Santorini was Atlantis.

(dramatic music)

Was Plato describing a real city

and an actual catastrophe after all?

Is there at least some truth to his story?

If there is, there must be traces.

No culture, no civilisation
the size of Atlantis

could ever be totally destroyed.

So we question
what happened to the survivors.

Are the descendants of the Atlanteans
still living among us?

Will we ever find real proof?

One thing is certain.

So advanced is modern historical research
and modern archaeology

that if it did exist,
we'd definitely be able to find it.

So we just need
to keep looking and to keep digging.

Or does it turn out
that Atlantis is nothing but a myth?

A message from Plato warning us
not to be too greedy and arrogant?

We are still fascinated
by the myth of Atlantis

because it's about the destruction
of an advanced civilisation.

Today we think
we're at the peak of civilisation,

but what Atlantis shows us
is that even we are vulnerable.

It's a terrifying story,
but one that we are actually attracted to.

An allegory for a downfall...

or an echo of a real civilisation?

Atlantis remains an unsolved mystery.

(Narrator)
Pharaohs - rulers of ancient Egypt.

And one of them has long been forgotten.

His tomb holds countless secrets:
Tutankhamun.

The discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb

unleashed the curse.

After the tomb was opened,
17 people who were either directly

or indirectly involved die.

Has a deadly curse
been placed upon this grave?

What is behind these mysterious deaths?

We give curses such great power
simply because we cannot control them.

Are all these incidents linked to something
that happened more than 3,000 years ago?

Does the mummy provide any clues?

(German dubbed in English)

Howard Carter cut off its entire head,

damaging it in the process.

The curse of the pharaoh.
Can this be backed up by science?

(dramatic music)

The great myths of mankind.

Mysteries passed on
over thousands of years.

Inexplicable events,
places shrouded in legend,

and superhuman heroes.

Even scientists are fascinated.

Is there any truth
to these ancient legends?

Researchers across the globe
are working hard

to solve the greatest mysteries
of our time.

Egypt.

The oldest advanced civilization
in history.

Superpower of the ancient world.

Powerful pharaohs ruled the country
for over 3,000 years.

Feared by their enemies
and worshipped as gods

by their loyal subjects.

All trying to expand their power

while also solidifying their legacy

for future generations.

The key to making their mark on history:

unique structures like temples,
tombs and the pyramids.

Structures made
to immortalize the pharaohs,

shrouded in mystery to this very day.

Thebes, in southern Egypt.
Home to the Valley of the Kings.

Unlike the famous pyramids, the tombs in
this region remain hidden at first glance.

The idea is to make it harder
for tomb raiders to find the treasures.

Ali Reda is Inspector of Antiquities
of Upper Egypt.

He knows everything
about all the tombs and their stories.

(Arabic dubbed in English)

What makes the Valley of the Kings special
is that it's an arid region.

Everything the ancient Egyptians
placed in their tombs

was able to stay intact
and in good shape.

In 1922, the valley is the scene
of a global sensation.

Archaeologist Howard Carter
conducts large excavation works.

He wants to find treasures, gold,
grave offerings, mummies.

Ten years on,
his financier, Lord Carnarvon,

no longer believes
that anything great will be found

and signals his desire
to cut off funding.

Carter convinces him
to give him one last chance.

The explorer sets off on his last dig
in the Valley of the Kings.

And he's lucky.

One of his workers comes across
a secret opening with a stairway.

On November 4th, 1922,
Carter sends a telegram to England:

"At last have made wonderful discovery
in Valley. Stop.

A magnificent tomb with seals intact.
Stop.

Recovered same for your arrival. Stop.

Carter."

Two weeks later, Lord Carnarvon travels
to the Valley of the Kings.

It would be his last journey.

On this occasion, the men find
Tutankhamun's tomb by pure chance.

Other tombs were actually built over the
top of Tutankhamun's tomb

and the rubble from that construction fell
down in front of the entrance,

which means that his grave was
perfectly preserved and perfectly hidden

until Carter came along and created
a real Egyptian hype with his discovery.

Howard Carter breaks open the first door
and lets Lord Carnarvon go first.

The men have to clear the way
leading down an 8-metre-long hallway.

The find was such a big sensation
because the grave was untouched,

and that was very rare indeed.

Most Egyptian graves
had long been robbed by grave robbers.

But this one was absolutely perfect

and it created a wave of interest
in all things Egyptian.

The news about the untouched tomb
belonging to a pharaoh

makes international headlines.

Egyptomania swept the globe in the 1920s.

The nobility liked to collect Egyptian
treasures and have Egyptian-themed parties

where they would wear extravagant tunics
and be fanned with palm fronds.

And at the end of the party
they would unwrap a mummy.

(piano music)

Since the beginning of the 19th century,
mummies were unwrapped for fun

and sometimes ground for
their questionable medicinal properties.

The Egyptian theme is picked up
in theatres, literature and cinemas.

Howard Carter's spectacular find
adds to the hysteria.

Films often feature tombs, living mummies,
explorers and purported curses.

In the Valley of the Kings,

Carter uncovers hieroglyphs

revealing the name of the deceased:

Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

Up until then, he was
just a completely anonymous Egyptian king.

The objects Lord Carnarvon and
Howard Carter find behind a stone wall

exceed all expectations.

Treasures, gold,
furniture, grave offerings

all piled on top of each other
in a seemingly careless heap.

Pots full of food,
chariots, god figurines.

Carnarvon and Carter are looking at one
of the greatest archaeological finds ever.

But soon,
inexplicable events start to unfold.

With every piece they take
out of the pharaoh's vault,

the ire of the golden king seems to grow.

A first casualty sends shockwaves
through the excavation team.

Lord Carnarvon, the financier, dies.

His son, the 6th Earl of Carnarvon,

recalls the strange events
of the night of his father's death.

The lights went out in the hotel.

I didn't know they'd gone out
all over Cairo, but they did,

in point of fact. Every light went out.

(mysterious tones)

Was the lord sentenced to death because
he entered the pharaoh's tomb first?

Some people thought he died of the curse.

Well, I can tell you a great deal about
that, as I was there at the time.

He happened to be bitten by a mosquito,
and what did he do?

He cut the pimple off his face
in the night,

or in the morning when he shaved,

and he said at lunch, "I feel awful."

Supposedly,
at the very hour of Carnarvon's death,

his dog Susie dropped dead
in faraway England.

After the death of Lord Carnarvon,

the story of the pharaoh's curse
really gained international momentum,

also because of various other bizarre
events associated with it,

the death of his dog and also
the power cut at the time of his death.

But at the time power cuts really were
very common in Cairo

and it did have nothing to do
with his death.

Yet another sensation
making global headlines:

First the discovery of the tomb

and now the deadly curse of the pharaoh.

The curse gave the press a juicy story.
It led to serious mystery,

which excited not just the journalists,
but their audiences.

Now if you want a story to be well-known,
make it a secret.

17 people die,
allegedly from the curse of the pharaoh.

Among the dead include X-ray expert
Archibald Douglas Reid,

Lord Carnarvon's half-brother
Aubrey Herbert,

Arthur Mace, Carter's right hand,

Lady Almina, Carnarvon's wife,

and Prince Ali Fahmy Bey,

who claims to be
a descendant of Tutankhamun.

Is the tomb really the cause
of all these deaths?

Ali Reda,
Inspector of Antiquities of Upper Egypt,

enters KV62.

That's the official name
of the legendary vault.

The treasures have been removed
from the tomb,

but the original mummy of King Tutankhamun
is on display.

Does the ancient corpse have sinister
powers that haunt us in the present?

(Arabic dubbed in English)

The discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb
unleashed the curse.

The facts surrounding the tomb
are somewhat obscure.

The young king was very mysterious.

He took the throne when he was eight
or nine years old, and died at 18 or 19.

A child really.

Who was this mysterious pharaoh?

Why do people live in fear of his curse
to this day?

Young Tutankhamun grew up
in the royal palace.

He was the son of Akhenaton,
a revolutionary pharaoh.

(suspenseful music)

When Akhenaton ascended to the throne,
he ordered all temples to be closed

and banned the old gods.

The people were
only allowed to worship the sun.

He and his spouse,
the beautiful Nefertiti,

were also to be treated like gods.

After Akhenaton's death,

his young son Tutankhamun succeeded him.

Ten years later, he too died

Tutankhamun completely disappeared
from the history books after his death.

So without finding his tomb,

we'd probably still not know
about this pharaoh to this very day.

This is what makes Carter's excavations
so spectacular.

His team uncovers almost 6,000 objects
in the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun,

a king previously unknown
to the modern world.

Gold, furniture, everyday objects

all helping to expand our knowledge
about the ancient Egyptians.

The Egyptians believe that life
did not end with death.

In fact, that a better life followed.

So Egyptians were buried with
everything they could possibly need,

with drinks, with food, with games,
with furniture, even with servants.

The world is amazed
by the splendor of the pharaoh's tomb.

Carter empties the grave.

Meanwhile, a growing number of people
close to him die.

Is the pharaoh taking revenge
for the desecration his grave?

(suspenseful music)

Excavations are still being carried out
in the Valley of the Kings to this day.

Just 200 meters away
from Tutankhamun's tomb,

a Dutch team is examining layers of rock.

(pulsating music)

Egyptologist Carina van den Hoven
is heading the mission.

She and her team
recently found this skull.

Time and again,
the rocks reveal human remains.

Van den Hoven hopes to learn more about
the tomb and those who were buried there.

The mysterious deaths that occurred

following Carter's excavation
don't bother her.

(Dutch dubbed in English)

People sometimes ask me
about the curse of the pharaoh,

and if those working with these human
remains could be haunted by the curse.

But I think the man buried here

would be quite pleased if he knew
what we were doing in this tomb.

Still, the alleged curse of the pharaoh

continues to strike fear
into the hearts of many.

We give curses such great power
simply because we cannot control them.

They can introduce such uncertainty
and devastation into our lives

that we cannot control.

But we want to try
and protect ourselves from that.

The idea that someone can actually
impact our lives in a negative sense

from beyond the grave is disturbing.

Carter is unfazed by the headlines
about the curse.

He wants to get a hold of the last and
greatest treasure: the pharaoh's mummy.

And so he sets out to access
the coffin's secret chamber,

knocking down ancient walls in his path.

(mysterious tones)

At long last, he arrives.

He finds himself
in a small room with murals.

Carter has reached his goal.

The Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Objects of great value
taken from Tutankhamun's tomb

have found a new home here,
including these large wooden shrines.

(Arabic dubbed in English)

This shrine was located within the three
other shrines, behind a wall in the tomb.

Inside, they found four sarcophagi,
placed one inside the other,

just like the Russian Matryoshka dolls,
placed one inside another.

The same principle was applied here.
Four large rooms, one built into the next,

home to those four sarcophagi.
The last one contained the four coffins,

and was in the shrine back there.
Come on, I'll show you!

This shrine was inside this one,

which was inside that one.

And this last shrine is the largest.
It contained all the others.

Attila, king of the Huns, is said to
have been buried in three coffins,

the outer one made of iron, the next
made of silver, and the last one gold.

Napoleon,
whose Egyptian expedition paved the way

that led to the deciphering of the
hieroglyphs, is buried in four coffins.

(Arabic dubbed in English)

Why four shrines and four coffins?

According to ancient Egyptian teachings,
four pillars held up the firmament.

Burying the king between four pillars

meant his body would contain
the four corners of the universe,

over which he'd rule from the afterlife.

For Howard Carter, the days following
the opening of the final chamber

are agonizingly long.

The wooden shrines need to be disassembled
and removed from the site.

Rumor has it that Carter's actions only
served to strengthen the curse's grip.

Did ancient Egyptians really
put a curse on their tombs?

One trace leads us to
the Egyptian Museum in Berlin.

Here, thousands of texts bear witness
to the mysterious knowledge

of times long past.

Egyptologist Verena Lepper
is researching the curses

from the time of the pharaohs.

Magic played a prominent role in ancient
Egyptian religious tradition.

They believed in higher beings,
in a higher power,

which is why they worshipped nature.

Magic and spells were an integral part
of ancient Egyptian life.

It was also popular
to make predictions about the future.

Many of the spells
were meant to help their love lives.

Others, however, were intended
to hurt or kill their enemies.

(German dubbed in English)

This one is about punishing
an unfaithful wife.

They threw a wax crocodile
into some water,

and the crocodile came to life.

It turned into a large, real crocodile

that snatched the adulterer
as a punishment.

There's magic for every sphere of life
and every budget.

Professional magicians and priests
offer it as a service.

(mysterious melody)

Even graves are cursed.

Grave robbers beware. If they continue,
they will die an agonizing death.

(Lepper speaks German)

The ancient Egyptians would write spells
on pottery or pieces of it.

And then they destroyed them,

threw them onto the ground,

releasing the spell.

Did Howard Carter destroy such a piece
of pottery when he entered the tomb,

essentially pulling the trigger
on the curse without ever realizing it?

A pottery tablet engraved with the words,

"Death shall come on swift wings to him
that touched the tomb of the pharaoh",

was reportedly found inside the tomb.

But it has since disappeared,
never to be found again.

More than 3,300 years
after the pharaoh died,

Carter and his crew made their way
to Tutankhamun's tomb.

It was the beginning of
a mysterious series of deaths.

Why did they not listen
to the warnings about the curse?

(Arabic dubbed in English)

The tomb is surrounded
by four patron goddesses.

They're said to protect the coffin
and mummy of King Tutankhamun to this day.

All treasures have been retrieved
from the grave

and are now in museums
and private collections across the world.

Only the massive stone sarcophagus
is still exactly where it was placed.

(in Arabic)

There was a general warning regarding
all tombs in the Valley of Kings:

(in Arabic)

All those who get near them
will be punished.

(in Arabic))

To the pharaohs, tomb raiders
presented the greatest threat

to their eternal life in the afterworld.

Is that why they cursed their graves?

(suspenseful music)

In the tomb of Ramses VI, the warning
to the tomb robbers is very clear.

(Reda speaks Arabic)

Decapitated people,
bound at their hands behind their back.

That's a warning.

Anyone who dares enter
the King's burial chamber

will have their head cut off
and will be bound from behind.

They will have to spend the rest
of their lives that way.

(in Arabic)

We know all of the finds were
meticulously recorded and photographed,

and there's no mention of it
in Howard Carter's notes.

However, there's every chance
it was actually not spoken of

for fear of arousing superstition
from the local workers,

and also, Carter was rumored
to be embezzling finds.

So perhaps he made
that tablet disappear.

(suspenseful music)

An ancient curse
causing deaths in the 20th century?

For decades, this mystery
keeps scientists on their toes,

until one day, disturbing reports
from Krakow, Poland, make headlines,

events with striking resemblance to series
of deaths in the Valley of the Kings.

On Friday the 13th April 1973,

researchers opened the grave
of King Casimir IV.

Shortly thereafter, five of them die.

Whispers about the "curse of the king"
are quick to circulate.

Wiesław Barabasz was there in Krakow
when the tomb was opened.

The former microbiology professor,
who was then a young research assistant,

was allowed to assist
in the exhumation of the king.

(Polish dubbed in English)

Five people died within two years.

That's when the case
took a really fascinating turn.

(in Polish)

People suddenly remembered
all the warnings about opening tombs

and letting the kings rest in peace.

(in Polish)

Casimir IV ruled over Poland for 45 years

in the 15th century.

The economy and
the culture of the country flourished.

It was a golden era.

To this day,
Casimir is highly respected in Poland.

But that's not why
the opening of his tomb makes headlines.

Ten of the workers and
researchers involved die within years.

A parallel to the curse of the pharaoh?

They die of heart attacks,
strokes and pneumonia.

Could these causes
all be linked to the grave

that they opened in Krakow?

Casimir's burial chamber had been sealed
for centuries, like the pharaoh's tomb,

and with equally dangerous consequences.

(speaks Polish)

We grew the different bacteria
and fungi in petri dishes.

And then we saw it:

Aspergillus flavus fungus.

It turns out it's one of the most
dangerous and toxic fungi.

(mysterious melody)

If the spores of the toxic mycelium
are inhaled,

secretions and blood cells
from the blood vessels enter the alveoli,

leaving behind protein deposits.

As a result, the oxygen intake capacity
of the lungs is reduced.

This can be life-threatening, especially
for people with pre-existing conditions.

The researchers in Krakow didn't wear
protective masks in the centuries-old tomb

which, unlike the Valley of the Kings,
was quite humid.

The perfect environment
for the Aspergillus flavus fungus.

Its spores kill the scientists.

But could the highly toxic fungus also be
behind the so-called curse of the pharaoh?

Lord Carnarvon was first to enter the
recently opened tomb of the pharaoh

and the first to die.

Protective gear like masks or gloves?
None.

To make matters worse, Carnarvon
also suffered from lung problems.

Eventually researchers give the all-clear.

The Aspergillus mycelium cannot thrive
in the dry Egyptian air.

The Krakow lead is a dead end.

The curse of the pharaoh
remains a mystery.

The Zurich Institute
of Evolutionary Medicine.

Professor Rühli knows mummies
have to be handled with much care.

He's examined Tutankhamun various times.
He's not too fond of Howard Carter

(German dubbed in English)

When Howard Carter and his team
discovered the grave in 1922,

and examined the mummy in 1925,

his team had little to no
background in medicine.

Evidently the main focus
was on the artefacts, and you can tell.

They didn't handle the mummy the way
we would today from a medical perspective.

I'm not judging. It was a different time,

a different question,
a different approach.

(drumming music)

What did Howard Carter do to the mummy
to get his hands on the gold?

(drumming continues)

For days, his team was trying to open
the huge stone sarcophagus.

Inside, they found coffin

after coffin

after coffin.

All tightly placed one in the other,
with barely an inch of wiggle room.

Carter needed to build special tools

so they wouldn't destroy
the wooden coffins or the intarsia.

Eventually they discovered
the golden mask.

Howard Carter is overwhelmed
by what he's found

and wants to present the golden mask
as soon as possible.

He desperately tries to lift the mummy
from the sarcophagus.

But due to the resin used to embalm
the mummy, it sticks to the coffin.

Carter ends up putting the wooden
coffin in the blistering sun for two days.

He hopes the resin will soften so he can
finally be able to see the pharaoh's face.

Howard Carter cut off its entire head,
damaging it in the process.

Howard Carter disassembles the mummy
into individual parts.

He thinks this is the best way
to display the treasures.

Only later does Carter realize
that he has gone too far.

(Rühli) Some of the parts that were severed
have been put back together,

so the damage is only visible
to a certain extent.

They wanted to make it look like
they left the body more or less intact

to future generations.

Professor Rühli has not only examined
Tutankhamun, but also Ötzi,

the most famous and
oldest natural mummy in the world.

The Iceman was found in 1991 by
mountaineers in an alpine glacier.

His body has been mummified over thousands
of years by the frigid temperatures

and is amazingly well preserved.

But once again, some of those involved
in the excavation of Ötzi

died within years.

The case was soon labeled "Ötzi's curse",

and maybe the way the mummy was handled
was the reason behind it once again.

Like Tutankhamun, people touched and
examined the mummy with their bare hands.

The only difference: gold and treasures

don't play a role in Ötzi's case,

researchers are only after the insights
the mummy can provide.

To better control these factors
in the future,

the Swiss researcher wants to
examine mummies directly on site.

(indistinct voices)

With his colleague Patrick Eppenberger,

Prof. Rühli is currently working on
a 3,000-year-old foot.

It is crucial that their DNA

not be mixed with the mummy's.

It can't be touched without gloves.

The special thing about this technique is

we have the option of using 3D imaging.

We obtain an image that isn't like X-ray
but rather a CT,

allowing us to view the object in 3D form.

Modern technology could have saved
Tutankhamun's mummy a lot of trouble.

But after more than 3,300 years, and
despite state-of-the-art research methods,

the mummy of the pharaoh
still keeps its secret.

(indistinct voices)

(German dubbed in English)

This machine is still a prototype.
We developed it ourselves.

It can be taken apart completely,
and it actually fits into two small boxes,

so it can be transported on a plane.

It allows us to examine the individual
layers of mummies' body parts very well.

Ötzi's cause of death is clear.

It also reveals a lot of information about
the life of Europe's most famous mummy.

From a medical perspective,
we always try to make diagnoses

when examining ancient Egyptian mummies.

The same applies to mummies like Ötzi.

We want to see if things have changed

as a result of the different lifestyle we
live today, or because of other pathogens.

We're always trying to learn
something about these dynamics

and how we interact with our environment.

Every mummy can contribute to this quest.

While Ötzi was murdered, the researchers

and alpinists who died
after his find were not cursed,

but rather died of old age,

had a lifestyle prone to risk,

or pre-existing conditions.

We really want to understand this new
knowledge excavating the tomb can give us.

But in our minds,
even possibly unconsciously,

we know it's wrong to disturb the dead,

to not respect them.

And because of this
we undergo this ethical dilemma,

which results in a curse.

Thus the key to the Tutankhamun case does
not lie in parallels to other famous cases.

But what makes the pharaoh so unique?

Does his short life hold any clues?

Why did the Egyptian king die?

Was he killed?

X-rays from 1969 show
splintered bones on the mummy's skull.

Again, some are quick to bring up
the curse of the pharaoh.

The Valley of the Kings, 2005.

Zahi Hawass
was chief Egyptologist at the time

and wanted to examine the pharaoh on-site,

using state-of-the-art technology.

The scientists don't believe in a curse
and simply want

to retrieve information from the mummy.

Today a team of Egyptian archeologists
and technicians

examine the mummy for the
first time by CT scanning.

And the purpose of this examination
is really to look inside King Tut.

To find out the cause of his death.

Once more, the Golden King
is not left to rest in peace.

Once more, strange things start to happen.

While examining the mummy,
the technological equipment goes haywire.

The computer starts malfunctioning.

But eventually the scan works

and the researchers receive
1,700 images of the mummy. The verdict:

Tutankhamun wasn't killed.

But still,
there's something odd about the mummy.

The puzzling thing about Tutankhamun's
body is that it appears burned.

Now that's a very strange thing to do to a
body if you want it to last for centuries.

But maybe it was the natural result of the
embalming process the body went through.

In ancient Egypt,
pharaohs were embalmed before the funeral

in an elaborate process
lasting up to 70 days.

This was meant to make sure the soul would
recognize the body in the otherworld.

The body was thoroughly cleansed.

The inner organs
and the brain were removed.

The body was covered in sodium
bicarbonate, dehydrating it completely

to prevent decomposition.

(mysterious tones)

Back in Zurich at the
Institute for Evolutionary Medicine,

Professor Rühli is using animal organs

to conduct research
on historical mummification techniques.

The mummification process in ancient Egypt
likely lasted several weeks.

It's hard to reconstruct because
we've only got limited knowledge

about how the Egyptians carried out
this sacred process.

We're trying to simulate the process

using substances similar to those
available in Egypt at the time.

We're using fresh pig organs
from the slaughterhouse.

We used them to reconstruct the different
steps of the mummification process.

The art of mummification was
only passed on orally, from father to son,

or from master to apprentice.

Professor Rühli can only guess
the exact details.

But the researcher has an explanation

as to why
Tutankhamun's mummy is dark-colored.

(Rühli speaks German)

Tutankhamun's mummy is quite dark,
black-tinted.

Some think the mummy also looks burnt.
But I'm rather skeptical about that.

I think it has more to do with the fact
that the embalming fluids had properties

that caused the skin to change color.

Similar to the embalmed pig's liver
that has almost turned black.

(Rühli speaks German)

We're looking at a pig's liver

which has already changed
after several weeks.

We first dried it in sodium bicarbonate,

treated it in oils and beeswax,
and at the end,

we covered it with bitumen,
this tar-like substance.

The liver has flattened. It's become thin.

But it's got the typical look and texture
of mummified organs

that one could also find
in an ancient Egyptian mummy.

(speaks German)

(mysterious tones)

At the end of the procedure, the mummified
heart is placed back into the body.

Usually.

But Tutankhamun's heart
is missing from his mummy. Why?

Without a heart, the Egyptians believe
a pharaoh cannot live on in the afterlife.

(traditional music)

Eternal life after death plays
a pivotal role for ancient Egyptians.

The soul has to live on.

But certain steps need to be taken.

And this is where magic
comes into play once again,

because the dead pharaoh
has to face the judgment of the deceased.

(mysterious tones)

In this scene of the Book of the Dead,

the principles of justice and truth
are weighed against the heart,

the person's life achievements,
so to speak.

You can see the hieroglyph for heart here,

and this one is ma'at: justice, truth.

If they're in balance, the person
is allowed to pass into the afterlife

for eternity.

The heart mustn't lie.

The monster is this primordial creature,
which will devour the deceased

if the trial doesn't end
with a ruling in their favor.

(speaks German)

Is the heartless mummy cursed?

Or did the sudden death,
fast mummification

and hasty funeral
lead to some embalming errors?

It remains unclear
when Tutankhamun's heart was lost.

Based on their research, scientists agree

that Tutankhamun died when he was 19,

and apparently wasn't killed.

So what did kill the pharaoh?

(Rühli) There are various theories

saying he was run over by a chariot

and got injured in the process.

Based on current findings, however,
I believe most of these injuries

are unfortunately the result of handling
that took place in the 1920s.

But we're unable to prove that.

Many of the deaths in Carter's team
are just as mysterious

as the pharaoh's fate.

Carter's assistant, Arthur Mace,
dies at 53 for some inexplicable reason.

Unlike Howard Carter,

he's said to have believed in the curse
of the pharaoh and even feared it.

Can curses really bring about bad luck?

(dramatic music)

At least to those who believe in them.

(creepy tones)

Görres Holst claims to be a magician.

He is convinced about
the power that thoughts have

over the purely physical world.

Holst wants to demonstrate this
in an experiment.

(speaks German)

A curse can also have a long-lasting
effect if you design it that way.

You also have to keep in mind
that curses aren't just for the living.

They also exist in the spiritual world
where time ceases to exist as we know it.

Personally, I would assume a curse
could still be in place after 1,000 years

if that was how it was intended to be.

Görres Holst sets the scene for a curse.

He asks invisible forces for assistance,

forces that exist only for those
who believe in them.

I myself worship demons
and underworld gods.

They allow me to access my powers.

The magician wants to place a curse

on the arrows of the archers.

The aim of the experiment is
to make the cursed arrows less accurate.

Our three archers don't know what's
coming.

They are simply told
to prepare and warm up

as they would for a competition,

while the magician's task

is to curse the arrows
to affect the archers' accuracy.

(dramatic music)

(arrows being fired and striking target)

I will once again center the arrows using
my energy, so they don't hit the target.

Magician Görres Holst
tries to cast a spell on the arrows

in order to alter
the accuracy of our shooters.

(creepy tones)

(synth music)

Nicole Engel is a psychologist
and behavioral therapist.

She's monitoring the experiment

and gets a first impression
of the participants' mental strength.

Does the archers' psyche factor in

once they learn about the cursed arrows?

At this distance, hitting the target
with this equipment shouldn't be an issue.

It's going to be fun.

First, the participants shoot
three regular arrows.

This way can be determined
how well the archers perform

without pressure or competition stress.

(arrows firing)

(arrows striking target)

(speaks German)

If I have seen that a curse or magic
has worked for someone,

whether it's really true or not,

it might be more likely
that I'm experiencing a nocebo effect,

meaning I believe a curse or cursed arrows
could negatively affect my performance.

(speaks German)

Marek has a harder time than the others,

even with arrows that haven't been cursed.

Next, we start our experiment
with the cursed arrows.

The archers have only been informed
that the arrows have been manipulated,

and nothing more.

There you go.

There you go.

(speaks German)

Is there a noticeable difference?

(Camilo in German dubbed into English)

I tried to see if they're heavier
and I checked the stiffness,

but I don't notice any differences.

(ominous tones)

Does the alleged curse
affect the accuracy of the archers?

Does it really have an effect
on the arrows,

or rather on the confidence
of the archers?

(suspenseful music)

(arrows flying and striking target)

Olympian athlete Oleksander has

full control over the cursed arrows.

His performance is unaltered:
he shoots accurately, as always.

It's a bit worse, but I would expect it
to be in the range of variance.

It's typical for my shooting.

(Camilo)
I had as many hits as in the first round.

Of course, in my mind, I was like,

"What has changed?" I don't know.

While Camilo thinks he feels something

but still hits the target,
Marek struggles more.

I didn't notice anything unusual
or different about the arrows,

so it was definitely more of
a mental challenge for me.

I noticed I got nervous.
That affected my technique a bit.

Mindset or real magic?

Did the curse work?

(Engel in German dubbed in English)

Two of the participants are able
to control their mindsets rather well.

One of the pros, the one who's
also been to the Olympic Games, said

"Of course I thought about it."
But still, he managed to shoot well.

The other participant wasn't able to do
that, because he let it get into his head.

Thoughts, feelings and our physiology or
physical reactions are always connected.

If I can't get my thoughts under control,

things don't seem to work
the way they usually do.

This is known as the nocebo effect.

Suggestion can affect our mind and body.

The nocebo effect is the bad big brother
of the placebo effect.

Where the placebo effect
suggests in your brain

there are positive outcomes
to a particular sham treatment

and therefore you feel positive effects
in your body or in your mind,

the nocebo effect
does the exact opposite.

So by believing
you'll have a negative outcome,

that manifests itself in you.

Subconscious processes in our brain.
The power of imagination?

It was a test, but I think
I had some influence on the outcome.

And please remember,
I didn't want to harm them.

If I had crammed in more, if I had
placed a real curse on these arrows,

it could've swept the guys off their feet

and it would have been irresponsible
to send them out there.

I only cursed the arrows, nothing more.

The effect is different for each archer.

Those who believe in curses
can feel the nocebo effect.

To scientists, there is only facts.

Also when it comes to the pharaoh.

DNA analysis
and other examinations have shown

The beautiful golden mask hides
a deformed face, marked by disease.

Tutankhamun's body
shows clear signs of incest.

The young pharaoh
was probably ill from birth.

He had a club foot.

This explains why there were
about 130 canes in his tomb.

He also had an acute case of malaria.

His premature death
might have been the result of disease,

incest, and a potential accident.

No murder took place.

But what was behind all those deaths,
in Poland,

and after Ötzi's discovery,
or in the Valley of the Kings?

It was no fungus
and it was no curse.

These were explicable,
natural causes of death.

Most of the deceased were old
and had pre-existing conditions.

But again, the power
of suggestion plays a role.

It was only after journalists
linked the cases

that the myth of the curse
of the pharaoh emerged.

The pharaoh died unexpectedly,

so his funeral in the Valley of the Kings
had to be organized in haste.

The tomb required for his burial

hadn't been made yet,

so the young king had to make do with
a tomb that didn't reflect his status.

Usually pharaohs had their tombs built
while they were still alive.

Today, science has shown
that Egyptian graves

were often used more than once.

Dr. Carina van den Hoven and her team

are currently looking into this topic
in the Valley of the Kings.

(Hoven in Dutch dubbed n English)

This tomb was built for its owner
in 1,400 BC.

His name was Djehuty and he's depicted
here alongside his mother.

(speaks Dutch)

(speaks Dutch)

A couple of hundred years later,

the tomb was used by another
family member, who we can also see here.

(speaks Dutch)

Scientists will continue conducting
research on this grave for many years.

Whether their takeaways can be transferred
to the young pharaoh Tutankhamun

is impossible to tell.

Even more so since scientists also have to
go back and correct previous hypotheses.

We previously thought
they re-used the tombs

out of convenience, for economic reasons,

because it was cheaper
to use someone else's tomb.

But that's not true.
Our research has shown

the act of re-using a tomb
meant so much more.

(speaks Dutch)

The two deceased people had a lot
in common. They were both called Djehuty.

They had the same profession,
managing the Karnak Temple.

That indicates that the tomb
wasn't re-used for practical purposes,

but rather for deeper reasons.

People were actually trying
to reconnect with the past.

(mysterious tones)

Tutankhamun was a modest pharaoh.

Tutankhamun's story is so fascinating
to us for several reasons,

partly because he was such an incredibly
young king who died as a very young age,

but also because
we are fascinated by Egyptian life,

by this amazing civilization
that existed thousands of years ago

and has practically
disappeared into the dust.

We love to hear these magical stories
of kings and their adventures.

Associate that with the curse,

and you have an amazing story
to hand down the generations.

Tutankhamun's death

marks the end
of the 18th dynasty of pharaohs.

New dynasties take over.

The curse of the pharaoh remains a myth,

a media phenomenon,

a story that many just want to believe in.

And yet many mysteries about Tutankhamun
himself remain, about his missing heart

or whether his unusual tomb

can also be explained
by the theory that he,

like his father Akhenaton,

was to be erased
from the history of the Pharaonic Empire.