Is our vital undersea cable network at risk
from forces beyond our control?
It could literally cripple
modern society as we know it.
Can new discoveries on the sea floor finally confirm
an explosive theory about the atlantic's most notorious
expanse of water?
Could this explain some of the stories
that we've heard about the bermuda triangle?
And how have a fortunate few gone over the world's
most famous waterfall and lived to tell the tale?
It's very, very unlikely that you
would survive going over the niagara falls.
The underwater realm
is another dimension.
It's a physically hostile place where dreams of promise
can sink into darkness.
I'm jeremy wade.
I'm searching the world to bring you
the most iconic and baffling underwater mysteries
known to science.
Shipwrecks can't just disappear... Or can they?
It's a dangerous, unexplored frontier that
swallows evidence.
We know more about the face of mars than we do
our deepest oceans.
Where unknown is normal and understanding
is rare.
Over the years, the bermuda triangle has been the scene of
the disappearance of dozens of ships and aircraft
and hundreds of people.
What is it about this area of ocean
that has made it so notorious?
Now, scientists are making big discoveries at the bottom of
our oceans that promise
to shed new light on some of the bermuda triangle's
most mysterious incidents.
On a calm spring day, a tugboat is sailing
from puerto rico to fort lauderdale,
florida, through the southern section of
the bermuda triangle.
Her experienced captain is resting below deck
when he receives a sudden call to come to the bridge.
The compass was spinning like mad,
and he'd never seen anything like that before.
A strange darkness descends on the vessel,
and without warning, all the tugboat's
electronic systems shut down.
Nothing electric was working.
The communications were all out.
The captain heads out on deck and is shocked
by what he sees.
The crew become aware that the sea around the ship
is boiling.
The currents on the sea
are going wildly in different directions.
The crew are absolutely terrified.
The fog is just so thick that he can't
distinguish between where the sky stops and the sea starts.
Fearing the worst,
the captain orders full speed ahead
to escape the churning waters.
Eventually, the tugboat breaks through the fog into
calmer seas and sails away from the danger.
The crew are at a loss
to explain what they have just experienced.
What could have caused this to happen?
We want to know what it is, and we want to know more.
One natural phenomenon that can have a dramatic effect
on the state of the sea is underwater seismic activity.
Volcanoes and marine systems
vary quite a bit, just like they do on land.
It can cause disturbances that can
affect the surface of the water.
In that case, what you actually have is heat.
They emit a huge amount of... Of gases,
and all of those create bubbles.
Underwater volcanoes have bean blamed for sea
disturbances and ship disappearances
elsewhere in the world.
But no volcanic activity was reported
in the vicinity of the tugboat incident.
So what else might be responsible?
There are also underwater rock shifts that will release
unexpected waves,
unexpected currents.
But generally, those currents are not
associated with bubbling or boiling.
For the ocean to be as volatile
as the waters that surrounded the besieged tugboat,
it is thought that some other natural force
must have been at play,
and there is one prime suspect...
The highly combustible gas,
methane.
Methane deposits are mixtures of ice
and gas that are found in sediments
in the world's oceans, and we're finding more and more
of them.
Kept in an icy state by the immense pressure
and low temperatures at the bottom of the ocean,
methane, often in the form of solid compounds
called hydrates,
only needs a small disturbance to be unleashed.
You go to the bottom of the ocean, and you shake up
and you disturb the areas where the hydrates are,
and literally bubbles of gas
erupt from the bottom of the ocean
and start going up the water column.
So could releases of methane from the sea floor
have caused the appearance of a boiling sea around the tugboat
traveling through the bermuda triangle?
By the time methane gas reaches the top surface,
it is going very rapidly.
That motion generates turbulence,
seemingly random motion in all directions.
But a boiling sea was not
the only phenomenon witnessed by the tugboat crew.
Their navigational instruments also malfunctioned.
When gas is followed close to a conductive surface,
they build up an electric charge.
It's known as the streaming potential.
It's an electric kinetic phenomenon.
This charge could have overloaded the tugboat's
electrical systems,
sending its instruments haywire.
The tugboat was then sailing blind, trying to get through
the dense fog,
possibly another effect of methane.
Those small bubbles,
they've had the opportunity to hit
100% relative humidity, and they will release a fog
when those bubbles have burst.
It's a fog that should be fairly dense.
A methane burst seems the most likely cause
of the mysterious event experienced by the tugboat crew.
But could methane be responsible for
more deadly incidents in these notorious waters?
Could this potentially explain some of
the narratives and the stories that we've heard
about the bermuda triangle?
Terrifying a tugboat crew is one thing,
but causing the disappearance of whole ships
with all passengers and crew is quite another.
This would require an enormous force.
October 1985.
In the norwegian oil fields of the north sea,
a helicopter captures this extraordinary footage.
Routine drilling beneath a rig has
accidentally unlocked
a large pocket of natural gases, predominantly methane.
Huge quantities of gas roar up from the sea floor
with a force that threatens the stability of
the platform itself.
This phenomenon, known by oil workers as the burp of death,
is not uncommon in oil fields,
but could there be dangerous methane deposits elsewhere,
including in the bermuda triangle,
with the power to take down ships?
Methane gas escaping from the sea floor is
responsible for a number of disturbing incidents at sea.
But could it be behind
mystery disappearances in the bermuda triangle?
The 1985 gas release that threatened an oil platform
in the north sea showed devastating force.
The incident was not a natural occurrence, however.
It was caused by intrusive human activity,
drilling for oil.
But could massive methane discharges like this occur
naturally and on a scale that could endanger shipping?
In 2017, researchers at the arctic university
of norway report a remarkable new discovery...
Huge craters at the bottom of the ocean up to
half a mile wide and almost 100 feet deep.
The norwegian research indicates that you could have
large bubble bursts from the sea floor.
The giant craters found at the bottom of the barents sea
reveal what could be evidence of massive,
naturally-occurring deep ocean methane bursts.
These large methane craters were
the result of significant methane explosions.
The methane built up
in large amounts and then was released all at once.
Instead of a gradual release of bubbles
that causes the surface water to churn,
these craters suggest methane blowouts on a massive scale.
A single eruption can throw vast quantities
of methane to sea.
We're talking millions of tons.
A ship caught in such an event could be doomed.
The water would suddenly become much less dense due to
the sheer quantity of gas, sinking the vessel in a matter
of moments.
If a bubble occurred while a ship was directly above it,
it could be submerged into this pocket
of gas that is less dense than the water
that the rest of the ship is... Is on.
But this deadly gas from the bottom
of the ocean doesn't stop at the surface.
It continues to rise.
So if you have a crater that's half a mile wide,
releasing a burst of methane,
and what would it do to the air-sea interface
and the turbulence of the air above?
You know, what... what would that look like?
Momentum doesn't just stop
when this plume hits the top surface.
It carries on into the atmosphere.
If your aircraft is above that, it will knock out the controls,
the communications, and, of course, the navigation.
And there's a further potentially
fatal threat to over-flying planes.
Methane is explosive, and if you have a huge pocket of it,
and an aircraft goes through it...
You know, we have all that static electricity
around 'em, as well, and if...
You just need a spark, methane, and it's surrounded by oxygen.
Faced with shocking evidence of the dangers
to shipping and aircraft,
scientists are racing to try and identify where large
reserves of methane may be located,
either in the form of gas pockets or solid hydrates.
Currently, researchers at the woods hole oceanographic
institute are using spectroscopy to identify
methane hydrates.
They've been using gas collection techniques
to actually measure
the amount of natural gas that's found on the sea floor
in different locations,
and they're measuring those gases to see what
their components are.
And the results for methane are startling.
Recent discoveries show that methane is incredibly
superabundant in the... In the world's oceans.
Some estimate that it's as much as 70% of
the world's supply of methane is actually stored
under the oceans.
These undersea reservoirs are being discovered all over
the world,
including off the east coast of the united states,
but are there any in the seabed
under the bermuda triangle?
We currently don't have any evidence that large methane
buildups are happening
in the area of the triangle... That's yet to be discovered.
Massive methane discoveries under our oceans add weight
to the theory that this gas
could be responsible for disappearances
in the bermuda triangle.
But with reserves being uncovered worldwide,
could methane be behind the mystery of missing ships
in other parts of the world, too?
Hidden on the bottom of our oceans
is a massive network of undersea cables.
These carry 99% of all internet traffic
and trillions of dollars of financial transfers every day.
They are the arteries that keep the modern world alive.
But an alarming incident in the early 1970s
suggest this network could be vulnerable to
mysterious forces.
August 1972.
A military aircraft from u.S. Task force 77 is
flying over southeast asia on a routine flight.
As it banks over the south china sea,
the crew sees a disturbance in the water below... a large,
mysterious explosion bursting from the ocean.
This is a real mystery.
No one actually really knew what happened there.
The vietnam war is at a critical stage,
but there are no major combat operations in the area
at this time.
So what is exploding and why?
In an attempt to bring the war to a swift conclusion,
the u.S. Military has initiated a blockade of
north vietnamese ports.
All entrances to north vietnamese ports will be mined.
Huge numbers of powerful sea mines are deployed.
This was a huge operation done by the united states navy.
The sea was literally seeded with over 11,000 mines.
Floating on or just under the surface,
these mines lie in wait for any unsuspecting enemy vessel.
Any ships attempting to leave or enter
these ports will do so at their own risk.
But on August 4th, near the north vietnamese port
of haiphong,
something strange starts to happen.
These mines just start exploding.
The u.S. Navy has no idea why.
The over-flying u.S. Aircrew
observe 25 explosions in about 30 seconds.
But it's just the tip of the iceberg.
Elsewhere along the coast,
many hundreds of mines spontaneously explode.
When your weapons start going off,
that is a, you know, mystery that you want to get
to the bottom of.
What's behind this synchronized
undersea salvo?
Enemy action, a new superweapon,
or something from out of this world?
Our vital undersea cable network is under threat,
and with it, the very future of the modern world.
And the key to understanding why lies
in a mysterious incident 50 years ago.
In August 1972, up to 4,000 u.S. Navy
mines mysteriously explode
in the seas around northern vietnam.
The question is what caused all of
these sea mines to self detonate for
apparently no reason?
The initial assumption of u.S. Investigators
is that the enemy must be responsible.
There is speculation that it may be the north vietnamese,
that somehow they've been able
to alter these mines autonomously.
But few believe that the vietnamese have
the technological means to pull off such
a coordinated feat.
It's not as though the vietnamese are sending out
underwater demolition teams and blowing these things up.
The naval officers in charge,
they have no idea why these mines were self-detonating.
With a north vietnamese plot unlikely,
the americans investigate further
and discover something intriguing.
Among the different mines deployed by the u.S. Navy,
only one specific type has blown up in large numbers...
Magnetic mines.
These are mines which go off when they feel
a large disturbance in the magnetic field
of the earth.
As a ship passes through this, it affects the field.
It's a big lump of metal,
and it affects the magnetic field around it.
If it's a big enough effect, the mine goes off.
But no ships were spotted
in the vicinity of the explosions,
so there must have bean some other kind of trigger.
U.S. Navy investigators now strongly suspect
some sort of secret enemy weapon,
and for this, there is a precedent.
During world war two, british engineers were able to
trip magnetic mines by using huge electromagnets
attached to aircraft.
If you have a mine sitting here
in the earth's magnetic field, then all of a sudden, this other
artificial magnetic field comes through,
it will basically trip off the mine.
The vietnamese are not thought to have such means
at their disposal, but their cold war backers,
the soviet union, could, the americans suspect,
be using such aerial technology.
The first investigations were all focused on sabotage
and a secret soviet weapon,
which caused probably the cia to spend a lot of time
chasing its own tail.
Having found no evidence of an electromagnetic
superweapon, the u.S. Navy investigators are left
scratching their heads.
But then, in a strange twist,
reports emerge from further afield indicating that they've
been looking in the wrong place all along.
Elsewhere in the world,
other unexplained phenomena have been occurring.
We know that this kind of thing was happening not just
with these mines, but with other things.
At the same time as the mines went off in vietnam,
there were actually reports of electromagnetic disturbances in
the philippines, brazil, japan.
In america itself, power companies were
reporting failures.
The power systems went completely haywire.
There's only one thing known to meddle
with the earth's magnetic field
with such force...
The sun.
The magnetic mines are set off by
a magnetic anomaly, by a solar flare.
A solar flare is an explosion of energy
on the surface of the sun.
It can trigger what's known as a coronal mass ejection,
which blasts an immense cloud of magnetized particles out
from the sun at over a million miles per hour.
If the earth happens to be in its path,
strange things start to happen.
It can cause alterations in the earth's magnetic field.
If the magnetic flux caused by the sun
matched that of a large metal ship
passing near the sea mines,
it could have triggered the underwater explosions.
For researchers, this was sort of a smoking gun.
The explosive events of 1972 were shocking enough,
but a similar solar event today
could have a far more wide-ranging impact,
devastating our vital underwater communications.
If we had a massive solar flare, it could literally
cripple modern society as we know it.
Explosive events in 1972 showed conclusively that
solar storms can have a dramatic impact here on earth.
But new evidence suggests that their effects can penetrate to
the very bottom of our oceans with potentially
devastating consequences.
Electromagnetic radiation from a solar flare can have
implications for radar and communications at sea,
but it also has the potential to affect undersea cables.
Hidden along the bottom
of the world's oceans and connecting the continents
lies a network of submarine cables.
All this data that we're sharing
and transferring doesn't get thrown up through satellites.
It all goes through subsea cable systems.
Those are really the conduits of the modern information age.
21st century life
on earth relies on 3/4 of
a million miles of undersea cables... every day,
these carry $10 trillion worth of
financial transfers and 99% of internet traffic.
Data doesn't move through the cloud,
it moves under the ocean.
We sometimes think that they are, since they're so deep in
the water, that they're not affected by these solar storms,
electromagnetic kind of disturbances.
But what we're finding now is that
they are actually being affected by these things.
Many experts now agree that a large-scale solar event
could cripple our essential underwater cable network,
causing unimaginable disruption to our daily life.
We cannot rely upon
the sea to protect our communication systems.
If we have another solar flare,
if there is another event similar to that of 1972,
then that could wipe out global communications for days,
if not weeks, causing untold trouble for millions.
The question is not if,
but when the next solar storm will hit us.
It's turned from a mystery into a nightmare.
The world's great waterfalls combine
awe-inspiring beauty with
terrifying power and the dizzying prospect
of certain death.
On rare occasions, however,
people do survive such chance-in-a-million cascades.
But how does anyone overcome the most
feared and famous falls on the planet?
How does anyone survive niagara?
May 21, 2012.
A man in his early forties climbs
a railing near the top of niagara falls
and jumps in.
He disappears into the torrent and is swept over the top.
Emergency services are scrambled to recover
what is assumed will be his dead body,
but when they arrive at the foot of the falls,
they are amazed to discover him alive.
The survivor is hauled back up the cliff
on a stretcher and airlifted to the hospital.
There, doctors treat him for broken ribs
and a collapsed lung,
but he lives.
Of the estimated 5,000 people who have gone over
niagara falls,
the middle-aged man is one of just 13 who have survived.
Statistically speaking, it's a very,
very unlikely event that you would survive going over
the niagara falls.
Is it luck? Is it a miracle?
Or can science help us understand how
a fortunate few have survived this deadly drop?
Astonishingly, some people have, for whatever reason,
gone over these falls and survived.
Niagara falls is a thunderous cliff on the american-canadian
border that sends an icy torrent
plunging 188 feet down into a churning mass
of frothy water and jagged rocks.
This natural wonder is thought to be the fastest flowing falls
in the world,
with over six million cubic feet of water rushing
over the edge every minute.
Niagara falls is absolutely spectacular,
hundreds of thousands of tons
of water crashing over the escarpment.
It's powerful, it's fast.
There's a lot of force.
It's cold... it's one of those amazing places on earth.
Despite the obvious dangers,
there is a long history of people throwing themselves over
the great falls at niagara to see if they can survive.
People get mesmerized, and they're curious.
Can I survive it?
How could I survive it?
Is it even possible to survive it?
The first known successful attempt was made by a woman
called annie edson taylor,
a 63-year-old teacher from auburn, new york.
Annie taylor decides that she is
going to be the first to survive
going over the niagara falls purposely in a barrel.
She had a mattress wrapped on
the inside of the barrel for cushioning,
went over the falls, survived it, and was therefore
the first person to successfully go over the falls.
Annie taylor survived with just a cut and bruises,
but her first words when she surfaced
after the death-defying feat
were a warning to others...
"no one ought to ever do that again."
but they did.
People started to go over the falls in barrels.
People come up with inventive ways
to go over niagara falls... Metal boats.
One guy used inner tubes.
I guess it's the same reason
why people want to climb mountains.
The falls was there,
and he just wanted to conquer it.
Some people go over because they want to be daredevils.
Some people go over just 'cause they're crazy.
Daredevil attempts carried out using some form of safety
equipment like barrels make up the majority of
niagara survivals.
But even more remarkable are the handful of survivors who
have made the great leap without any form of protection.
How could anybody survive such a fall?
As far as we know, only 13 people have survived
a leap over niagara falls,
the majority in protective barrels,
but a handful have gone over without any form
of protection and lived to tell the tale.
It's kind of a mystery why
those people survive while other people don't.
There are a number of factors to bear in mind here.
So firstly, there's the sheer height.
At 188 feet, niagara is higher
than the leaning tower of pisa.
188 feet, icy drop to the bottom...
No, thank you.
But remarkably, unprotected jumps into water
from an even greater height
have been survived.
In 2015, laso schaller jumped into a lagoon
in switzerland from a height of 192 feet.
He came out unscathed.
But schaller had carefully selected his jump point
and could control exactly where and when
he hit the water.
A jump into the mighty torrent
of niagara is far less predictable.
At the bottom of the falls,
there are some areas that are rockier
and some areas that are less rocky.
And there are other odds stacked against
a niagara jumper.
There's the shock of the hitting the water.
The water is cold, it's freezing.
How long do you have before you're at risk for hypothermia?
There are so many things working against you here.
But certain things are as applicable to successful
niagara jumpers
as they are to any other high divers.
Body position on water entry is critical.
It seems as though many of them enter the water feet first,
perhaps on the tips of their toes,
which is protecting their brain from a brain injury,
and therefore, they go much more easily into the water.
And high divers have another trick to survive
hitting the water.
They will tighten up their muscles really, really tight,
and this will help them avoid
any sort of injury to their organs
or their other muscles by going...
Entering the water in super-tight form.
The maelstrom of water at the bottom of
the falls could also offer an initial advantage.
There is a giant
washing machine creating air bubbles down there.
Hitting static water at speed
is like hitting a solid object,
but aerated water provides far less resistance,
and because of this, high divers often rig
air tanks into their dive pools to soften their entry.
But there is a downside to this aerated water.
You are not going to be able to swim in that
low density, almost, water.
You can't get to the service, you try to breathe,
you're gonna breathe in water and air.
You're gonna drown.
In addition, the water thundering down from the falls
creates lethal eddies and whirlpools,
making the freezing water completely unpredictable
and whipping debris around at up to 30 miles per hour.
There's a dynamic movement of water when
you get to the bottom of the falls.
We're talking whirlpools and currents,
so it's not like you can even physically swim.
The water beneath 'em churns, and it will push you under,
and most people want to come to the surface immediately.
What people need to do is actually swim down
below to be able to get kicked out.
Most people who go over the falls don't know that,
and, you know, if you're stuck, you drown.
But against all the odds,
somehow, it is possible to survive this lethal descent.
It might be a combination of luck, um,
and chance and physics.
You just kind of never know.
A lot of things have to play together.
We'll probably never really understand how a small number
of men and women have endured
one of the most powerful forces on the planet
and lived to tell the tale.
But for me, the best way to survive niagara
is to never even consider jumping in the first place.
Although statistically safe, the history of sea travel is
awash with mysterious dangers,
sudden storms,
pillaging pirates, even sea monsters.
But could there be a new danger out there
on the high seas?
A secretive force that arrives without warning,
causes huge destruction, and disappears without trace
back into the deep?
June 13, 2019.
The norwegian-owned oil tanker, front altair, is
sailing in international waters near
the strait of hormuz
on a routine voyage from the united arab emirates
to taiwan
when suddenly the ship is shaken by a powerful impact.
The ship is smothered in smoke.
Clearly, something dramatic has happened.
The ship's crew have no time to launch any lifeboats.
Smoke is so thick that the crews decide
to radio for help and abandon ship as quickly as they can,
avoiding normal procedure and just getting to sea
to get away from their ship.
The tanker is carrying 75,000 tons of
naphtha, a flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture.
It could be an accident, so something's exploded
on the ship accidentally.
The front altair's crew are still in the water when
the nearby u.S. Fifth fleet
receives a second distress signal from
a different ship.
It soon emerges that another attack has taken place
on a similar vessel
of another nation in the region,
raising the specter of a concerted campaign being
carried out against shipping
that is vital to the world economy.
Can this be a coincidence? Probably not.
When you see these kind of attacks that are very similar,
they're very close in time,
you have to start asking questions.
Are they related?
Are they coordinated?
Fortunately, no one is seriously harmed.
But these multiple explosions are no accident.
Soon, it becomes apparent a major incident has occurred.
Who or what is behind this coordinated series of attacks?
A military assault on a large ship
would normally utilize missiles or torpedoes.
The moment they see smoke, the moment they see a ship
belch fire, they think it's been hit by a missile.
But this is not a conventional military attack.
The damage bears the hallmarks of magnetic mines.
Explosive devices attached to the hull,
the outside of the ships, which had been set off by...
Either via timer or remotely.
The damage at the blast hole
is consistent with a limpet mine attack.
A limpet mine is a portable small explosive
that can be stuck to, in this case,
a hull of a ship.
Which means this deadly military hardware
was placed in position.
So who put it there?
Mysterious coordinated attacks on two tankers in
the strait of hormuz have investigators baffled,
and it turns out this is not the first time it's happened.
A month earlier to the day, four other
huge supertankers had sustained similar damage
in other similar attacks.
The theory about coordination becomes even more likely.
Billions of dollars worth of oil are shipped through
the strait of hormuz every year,
and as a result, this is one of the most closely monitored
sea areas on the planet.
So if the perpetrators of the attacks were using boats,
they would have been spotted.
But could they have been using remote underwater vehicles?
Was there some kind of submersible or some kind of
underwater mechanism that is being used
to attack these ships?
Underwater vehicles are usually operated
via a control line,
which makes clandestine use over distance
difficult to impossible.
Only one other obvious option remains that can operate
above and below water with such stealth and precision...
Specially trained divers.
These are very highly skilled frogmen,
highly trained military individuals.
These are elite warriors.
The identity and true motives of
the attackers remains shrouded in mystery.
You cannot prove who they are.
The equipment will be internationally sourced.
They will all disappear.
No nation will acknowledge who they are.
You actually have to physically catch them
to be able to prove who they belong to.
This is a region absolutely rife with tension.
The blame game begins. Who did it?
Iran does have a track record of
causing trouble in the straits of hormuz,
however, they cannot be ruled as the only potential actor.
There are terrorist organizations around the world,
some of whom have developed marine wings
which are specializing in this sort of operation.
Could an unknown terrorist network
be responsible for these maritime attacks?
We're used to seeing terrorist acts on land.
We're not used to seeing terrorist acts at sea,
and especially in the stealthy undersea environment.
This could be a really scary new development.
As airports have become more secure,
are terrorists turning to ports and shipping as the new
targets of choice?
The theories with frogmen, especially with the growth in
diving as a hobby
and as an industry, is that these skills are actually
becoming more and more available,
and terrorist organizations developing marine wings
with these capabilities.
The world is now waking up to this new threat.
But how do you stop an underwater terrorist?
The only really way that they're gonna be able to
protect themselves is getting
a full picture of what's happening under the water.
So now, with technology like sonar, electro-optics, radar,
we're actually able to see a real-time view of
the underwater environment.
But while port defenses can be stepped up
relatively easily, the risk of terrorist attack
out on the open ocean remains.
Are we heading to a future where
these are gonna get more frequent,
where there's gonna be more and more incidents in
the maritime sphere that impact upon global trade?
Terrorism worldwide is constantly adapting
and evolving,
finding new ways of wreaking havoc in new
and unexpected places.
The 9-11 terrorists turned civilian airliners into
lethally effective missiles,
killing thousands.
So if the threat of deepwater terrorists isn't countered,
what might they do in the future with, say,
a supertanker full of oil?
Subtitles Diego Moraes(oakislandtk) www.opensubtitles.org