[Jeremy] In the Peruvian jungle,
could there really be a boiling river
that kills on contact?
I'm sitting here thinking, holy cow,
this thing is massive!
[Jeremy] Will the identification of an unknown sailor
reveal what happened in Australia's biggest naval disaster?
This is the only body to be recovered from the tragedy.
[explosion]
[Jeremy] And has a dark secret being concealed from the world
on this Caribbean wreck.
It's highly probable that the owners of this wreck did not want it to be found.
[Jeremy] The underwater realm is another dimension.
It's a physically hostile place
where dreams of promise can sink into darkness.
[Jeremy] I'm Jeremy Wade,
and I'm searching the world
to bring you the most iconic and baffling underwater mysteries
known to science.
The vast majority of our ocean
is unobserved, unmapped, and unexplored.
[Jeremy] It's a dangerous frontier that swallows evidence.
You have nowhere to run.
[Jeremy] Where unknown is normal.
And understanding is rare.
In the Gulf of Mexico, an estimated 4,000 ship wrecks litter the sea floor.
And tuned inside are countless secrets
from America's past.
The remains of a 19th century ship
found near the Mexican coast,
are rumored to have a sinister history.
And if true, this will shock the world.
[Jeremy] 2017, in the small coastal town of Sisal, Mexico,
a local fisherman leads a team of archeologists
to a mysterious wreck two miles offshore.
[Helen] As with much of maritime archaeology,
we're often guided by local knowledge.
And that's absolutely the case here.
[Jeremy] Some fisherman in Sisal,
have known about this wreck for generations.
And rumor suggests the ship has a shady past.
There were rumors that this ship was conducting some sort of illegal activity.
Perhaps transporting the most heinous of cargos.
[Jeremy] To uncover the truth,
archeologists from Mexico's Institute of Anthropology and History,
start looking for clues.
When they were first examining it,
they didn't know what they were looking at.
The remains were scattered over an area of half a mile squared.
[Jeremy] The team use a portable magnetometer
that can detect metal from nearly 1,500 feet away.
This ship had a wooden hull.
It's got paddle wheel and a boiler.
The archeologists find elements of the propulsion system,
including the rocker arm that helps power the paddle wheel.
[Jeremy] These specific features reveal
that this is a vessel from a narrow slice of maritime history.
A side paddle steamer.
Steamers transported mail and cargo
across the Atlantic to the Caribbean
from the 1840s until the 1870s.
[Dr. Ruben] All the original components were found,
but that only tells us the type of ship.
That doesn't tell us which ship.
[Jeremy] Then the divers get a lucky break.
Hidden in the sand, they uncover several pieces of cutlery.
And they're stamped with a name.
Zangroniz Brothers and Company.
Slowly, the pieces of the story come together.
[Dr. Alexander] This is a really critical find,
as it's a key emblem of who it was owned by.
[Jeremy] The Zangroniz family operated side paddle steamers
across the Atlantic from Europe
and around the Caribbean,
trading in commodities like sugar and natural fibers.
They were give literally carte blanche
to do a lot of trade.
Their reputation was relatively stellar.
[Jeremy] Searching for more clues about the wreck,
the team delved deeper into the Zangroniz family.
Once you began looking into the commerce and the company,
then the documents literally begin to come out of the woodwork.
[Dr. Lisa] Through detailed analysis,
investigators were able to determine
that this was the wreck of La Union.
[Jeremy] La Union was one of two side paddle steamers
owned by the Zangroniz family.
It sunk in 1861.
But the team's investigations reveals
much more about this merchant ship
which has been hidden for more than 150 years.
It's highly probable that the owners of this wreck,
did not want it to be found.
[Jeremy] The Zangroniz family had free reign on the high seas.
Their trade unchecked and inhumane.
La Union stopped on one of its voyages
just a year before it sank in 1860
and it had a slave labor cargo onboard.
[Dr. Lisa] There were at least 30 slaves on this ship including children.
One was as young as 12 months old.
[Dr. Ruben] The documentation is clear.
The Zangroniz brothers were engaged in human trafficking.
[Jeremy] La Union was a slave ship.
But slavery had been illegal in Mexico since the 1820's.
32 years before the sinking of La Union.
So what was a slave ship doing sailing from Mexico?
And we have evidence of ship wrecks
which were part of the Atlantic slave trade.
But this is a different kind of network.
We're seeing something new.
[Jeremy] Further investigations of historical records
reveals something startling.
The enslaved people aboard were Maya,
indigenous Mexicans.
This is the first Mayan slave ship ever discovered.
So, where was this human cargo being taken
when slavery was illegal in their homeland?
The answer may lay in the Mexico's troubled past.
The War of the Castes
was one that basically persisted from about 1847 till 1901.
[Jeremy] This caste war pitted the wealthy European Mexicans,
the Yucatecos,
against the more modest and traditional Maya.
[Dr. Ruben] Those are Maya in the northern Yucatan,
found themselves being dispossessed of their land,
they were engaged in a rebellion,
they were seen as enemy combatants.
[Jeremy] Did this war provide the Yucatecos with a convenient excuse
to banish their Maya enemy?
Slavery might have been illegal in Mexico in the 1860s,
but elsewhere in the Caribbean it was still thriving.
Slavery isn't illegal in Cuba.
[Jeremy] With their ship, La Union,
the Zangroniz family could take advantage of the demand for slaves
on the Cuban sugar plantations.
It was a marriage made in hell.
[Jeremy] The suffering would have began
onboard La Union.
[Dr. Ruben] The Maya were literally being placed in a cargo hold
and these were right next to the actual boiler.
So, they were literally put in harm's way
every time they were loaded into these very tight
and confined quarters.
[Jeremy] The discovery of this wreck has for the first time,
revealed a missing chapter for Mexico's past.
So, why is this immoral trade
omitted from the history books?
We really don't know very much at all about the Mayan slave trade.
[Dr. Ruben] The Yucatecos, who were in charge,
would have wanted this minimized.
So, it remained a dirty secret
in one that went in the bottom of the sea.
[Jeremy] Archeologists now know,
that people were trafficked onboard La Union,
the year before it sank.
But they still don't know exactly what happened to the ship
on that fated last journey,
until the team exploring the wreck
uncover new critical pieces of evidence.
[Alexander] Fireboxes being found in fragments,
the chimneys being found in fragments
and there is large chunks of the wreck
which have been exposed to intense heat.
[Jeremy] The charred evidence on the sea floor,
matches records on land.
Minutes after leaving port, the boiler dramatically explodes.
[explosion]
It caused the total destruction of the ship instantaneously.
[Jeremy] What's still unanswered though
is whether human cargo is onboard the ship
when it explodes.
A Mayan slave ship has been identified off the coast of Mexico.
The only one ever discovered in the world.
Evidence on the wreck shows that it exploded.
But one question remains,
were the Maya captives onboard when it sank?
[explosion]
[Jeremy] Records indicate that roughly
half of the 80 crew and the 60 passengers
lost their lives in the explosion.
We have no idea what the real death toll was.
It was not customary for customs agents
and Mexican officials
to document this infernal trafficking in human lives.
[Jeremy] The divers find no human remains.
So, does this mean this fated journey was without a slave cargo?
The ocean may have hidden the true scale of this tragedy.
[Dr. Ruben] Once you enter the dimension
of a very shallow settling of human remains,
you're going to see an accelerated decomposition
because you'll still have sunlight entering the freight.
You'll have oxygen and other factors to contend with.
[Jeremy] So, there's still the possibility that the trafficked Maya
were on La Union when it sank.
And it has since been revealed
that up to 20,000 Maya were transported to Cuba
on the ships of the Zangroniz family.
[Dr. Ruben] The Maya have always been a proud
and noble people.
To be enslaved would have been the worst condition for them.
This was not the Maya way.
[Jeremy] The true scale of this industry of terror,
is yet to be fully uncovered.
We're only beginning to understand
the extent to which indigenous people
from Central America were enslaved.
[Jeremy] But the secrets that La Union has revealed
from this watery grave,
brings us one step closer to the truth.
As I know from my own explorations,
the jungle rivers of South America,
can embody a deadly mix of mystery and danger.
And there's one stretch of water
that has captured my imagination.
A mythical boiling river in Peru.
Legend has it, the water flows so hot
it can kill in seconds.
Now, could one man using the latest science
finally separate myth from reality?
[Jeremy] As an eight year old boy in Peru,
Andres Ruzo is told by his grandfather
about the legend of a mysterious boiling river
in the heart of the Amazon.
[Andres] My grand father told me this crazy story
about the Spanish conquest of Peru.
We're talking about giant anacondas,
fierce warriors with poison arrows,
piranhas that will strip your flesh to the bone,
and a lost city of gold.
The boiling river was one of the details
in this legend.
[Jeremy] Years later, the little boy is a geo scientist
investigating the waters of Peru.
When a clue to the existence of boiling river
comes from somewhere close to home.
I tell my aunt this thing about the boiling river and that starts to come out
and she goes, "Andres, it's real, I've been there."
[Jeremy] A skeptical Andres is persuaded to follow his aunt
into the depths of the rain forest.
The boiling river is a place that sounds like it's straight out of folklore.
It was a one hour flight from Lima,
on a truck on a dirt road for like about two hours.
Then we take a Peke Peke, a motorized canoe.
And then boom.
You've entered into another universe.
[Jeremy] Andres starts to hear a low rumble.
It sounded like an ocean wave that was crashing constantly.
And you'd see these wisps of white cloud,
It's vapor, high up in the canopy of these trees.
[Jeremy] What greets him is astonishing.
A river running boiling hot for four miles.
What was your reaction?
I'm sitting here thinking, holy cow, this thing is massive!
The boiling river is real.
So as you know, Jeremy, the great thing about myths and legends is,
sometimes they do come true.
[Jeremy] A river running at more than 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
Reaching 80 feet at its widest,
and 20 feet at its deepest.
[Alexander] It's hot enough that you can boil food in it.
It gives humans third degree burns in second.
Any animals which are unfortunate to fall into the river are boiled alive.
[Dr. Dijanna] Where is this heat coming from?
What's causing the water to have an increased temperature?
[Jeremy] The Peruvian Amazon,
and a boiling river thought to be no more than a legend,
is very real.
But how this watery inferno came to be,
remains a mystery.
Can an answer to this bizarre phenomenon,
be hidden in the science of geothermal waters?
They exist across the world.
Water rising up through areas of scorching geology.
Especially near volcanoes.
But they're in particular locations.
I mean, we know where to find these things.
What is strange in the case of this river is it is, A, so hot,
and B, so far away from volcanoes.
[Jeremy] Most of Peru, sits in what's known as a geo gap.
But there has been no volcanic activity near the boiling river,
for over 2 million years,
and the nearest volcanic area, is more than 430 miles away.
So what could be powering this scorching hot river?
[Dr. Dijanna] The volcanoes are not the only type of geothermal activity.
There's hydrothermal flows, underground geothermal rivers.
We have them, but it's really cool and unusual,
when we see them in places that are not necessarily coupled,
to geothermal activity.
[Dr. Helen] This river seems to go for so long and so hot,
that it looks to be something else.
[Jeremy] Could it be caused by something outside our scientific understanding?
Indigenous communities have,
attached the river tremendous spiritual power.
It's become incredibly sacred.
[Jeremy] The river is known by its ancient name, Shanay-Timpishka.
Meaning 'Boiled with heat of the Sun.'
But nowhere on Earth, can the Sun do this.
Digging deeper, local folklore suggests an alternative explanation.
[Dr. Helen] At the head of the river, the waters actually cold.
[Dr. Helen] And as it starts flowing down,
it reaches the place where there's the first warm water injection.
And that's where there's this giant stone.
[Jeremy] The stone bears a striking resemblance to the head of a constrictor.
Traditionally, this is believed to be the home of Yacumama.
And in indigenous traditions, Yacumama gives birth
to the waters of the Amazon.
[Jeremy] For a decade, Andres and his team have been trying to find out the truth.
Boiling water is an inhospitable environment,
for any kind of technology.
And of course, also for scientists.
[Jeremy] Thermal drone cameras help the teams study the boiling water.
You wanna get a good grasp on the temperature at various locations.
Are there any chemical signatures that might indicate
what has happened to this body of water?
What clues do those components give us about origins?
[Jeremy] There are only a few scientific laboratories in the world,
that can help reveal the rivers unseen power.
So have you discovered the secret behind the immense heat of this river?
I'm in the middle of analyzing more data right now.
But in basic terms,
what we are seeing thus far is that this is a hot spring on steroids.
Waters could be falling to Earth,
as far away as the Andes.
Seeping down into the Earth.
[Jeremy] Rainwater could have traveled underground for 60 miles,
from the East Andes, and it may not be the only source of the water,
which is somehow, heated underground before being driven to the surface,
in this one particular place in the Peruvian jungle.
In this hot water in the subsurface is hidden an area,
a fault zone, a unique geologic setting,
that allows a mass of hot water,
to get up to the surface quickly.
[Jeremy] The boiling river, seems to be part of an enormous hydrothermal system.
One of the worlds largest and most extreme.
The exact nature of that system however, is still being worked out.
As far as a large tropical non-volcanic thermal river,
we have still not found anything quite like this one.
[Jeremy] While we still can't fully explain the extreme heat of the river,
the life that's found within it,
opens up a whole new area of study.
On planet Earth, we have organisms that thrive in extreme environments.
We call those organisms extremophiles.
They're microbial organisms that have the ability
to withstand extremes in temperature, chemistry and sometimes pressure.
[Jeremy] Do these microscopic survivors in the boiling river
have the potential to transform the future of humanity?
Better understanding of these adaptations might give us clues
to how life might be adapted elsewhere.
[Jeremy] So this mysterious stretch of river,
could be an ecosystem with untold capability.
[Dr. Beverly] These are the kind of places where
we're gonna make discoveries about pharmaceuticals.
[Andres] Could the boiling river's jungle, specifically,
hold the keys to solving a humanitarian crisis?
Or to helping us fix the next pandemic?
At this point we don't know, but we're definitely looking into it,
because that is a real possibility.
[Jeremy] So the discovery of the boiling river was just the beginning of a bigger story.
One potentially full of promise.
Even after ten years,
I mean, we really have barely begun to scratch the surface of what we can do.
Conflicts at sea are usually won by the bigger more powerful vessel,
they have the size and weaponry to prevail.
So, when the grand Australian warship, HMAS Sydney
is destroyed by an inferior Nazi vessel in World War II,
it shocks the world.
How did the Germans win such an improbable victory against a far superior ship?
What compels the mystery, is that there were no Australian survivors to ask.
Of the 645 crew on board the Sydney, not one person survived.
What happened?
November 19th, 1941,
state of the art Australian warship, HMAS Sydney,
is traveling south off the coast of Western Australia,
when she spots what appears to be a small merchant ship.
[Dr. Simon] The Sydney signals it using one of its signal lamps,
to try and get it to identify itself.
The ship responds by hoisting the call sign of a Dutch freighter.
[Jeremy] The Sydney replies with a secret signal,
that the apparent merchant ship should know.
But when the unidentified ship realized that it can't answer correctly,
it opens fire on the Sydney.
The merchant ship, is in fact, the German surface raider, HSK Kormoran.
[Jeremy] After just half an hour of battle, both ships are crippled and sinking.
While a fifth of Kormoran's crew lose their lives,
there are no survivors from the Sydney.
645 Australian souls are lost.
This is the greatest naval tragedy in Australia's history.
[Jeremy] How could the Kormoran possibly sink,
such a superior Australian warship?
This is one of the leading warship in Australian navy,
if not the leading warship.
HMAS Sydney has eight 6 inch guns, eight torpedoes,
and a plethora of smaller weapons.
Weighs over 7000 tons.
So she's a very capable ship, for taking the Kormoran.
[Jeremy] So what caused the Sydney to lose every single on its crew?
This is incredibly rare and almost impossible to replicate.
Australia is desperate to solve the mystery of what happened
in the last moments of its finest warship.
[Jeremy] However, the only surviving witness... is the enemy.
318 of the nearly 400 Nazi sailors,
are picked up by allied ships and brought to Australia.
Will they yield under the pressure and reveal,
how they pulled off the impossible.
[Rob] The German captain of the Kormoran,
indicated that, in ship, was approximately 2000 yards away from the Sydney,
when they engaged.
[Dr. Simon] Which is very very unusual.
[Jeremy] Why does the Sydney come so close,
when it has superior long range guns?
One theory, suggest that the Kormoran,
was very close, and raised its white flag
indicating that it was surrendering,
when in actual fact, it wasn't.
[Jeremy] By luring in the bigger warship,
Hitler's Kormoran can unleash it's weapons, at the last minute.
Hidden from view behind steel plates.
[Rob] These can be retracted to reveal behind it a deck gun,
and in some cases, even a torpedo tube that had been mounted on the main deck.
[Jeremy] Another theory is that the captain of the nearly 8000 ton Sydney,
moves in close, deliberately.
[Alexander] The captain of HMAS Sydney, knew exactly what he was likely to be facing.
Kormoran is a nice sized merchant ship. She's a valuable prize.
[Jeremy] Finding the Sydney will surely help solve the mystery.
But where is it?
Seventy of the German prisoners of war,
give accounts of where the ship went down.
They're are all different.
[Rob] This was quite typical because,
they viewed the sinking location of an enemy ship,
as sensitive strategic military information.
[Jeremy] The ocean around the battle site is scoured for clues.
But it's not until three months later, in February 1942,
that a potential piece of evidence turns up in the area.
Floating off Christmas Island,
is a decomposing corpse,
in an Australian navy life raft.
[Alexander] The corpse was very difficult to try and examine,
much of it had been torn off by sea birds.
It's found to have no dog tags whatsoever, so there's no means at all,
of identifying who this person is.
[Jeremy] The corpse is wearing a boiler suit,
bleached by the sun.
And eyewitnesses report the raft is damaged from bullet or shrapnel.
[Dr. Michael] The evidence indicates that this body belonged to a sailor.
The life raft itself show signs of damage,
that could have happened during a battle.
[Jeremy] This is the only body to be recovered from the tragedy.
Could it's identification hold a vital clue,
to what happened in the final moments of the battle.
In 1942, because the body has not been identified,
it's buried in an unmarked grave.
[Jeremy] It's not until 2008,
66 years later,
that there's finally a breakthrough.
A 100 miles off Australia's most westerly point,
8000 feet below the surface,
is the Kormoran.
and nearby,
the Sydney.
But it's still another seven years,
before advances in technology,
Finally give scientists another shot at solving the mystery
of how this bizarre defeat happened.
In 2016, an expedition is led by Curtin University,
Western Australian Museum, and DOF Subsea.
[Dr. Alexander] This included the most complex
lighting and imaging systems
ever used underwater
in Australian history.
[Jeremy] One and a half miles down,
the powerful lights of the underwater vehicles
turn the bowels of the ocean from night to day.
ROV's mounted with special cameras
record images every five seconds.
[Dr. Lisa] Photogrammetry is an incredibly important technique
in underwater archaeology.
And, through computer programs
we're able to stitch together
these thousands of still images
to create a three dimensional model of the sea floor,
and what we discover on it.
[Jeremy] What will they uncover on this wreck
that's been hidden from view for more than 80 years.
Will the truth of how this rare defeat happened, finally, be revealed?
The wreck of HMAS Sydney has been surveyed using ground breaking technology.
8000 feet underwater, 100 miles off Australia's most western point,
at long last, the ship is about to surrender the secret
of how it succumbed to such a crushing defeat.
The ROV's powerful lights reveal the answer.
[Rob] The results of the underwater footage
shows a hole in the bridge of the ship.
[Jeremy] The Kormoran had struck a decisive blow
at the heart of the Sydney's control systems.
A lucky shot or first class tactics from the Kormoran,
the result is the same.
Annihilation of, not only, crucial technology but key personnel.
If you take out the senior officers on the bridge
you, literally, take out the nervous system, the brain of the ship.
[Jeremy] We now know what caused the Sydney to sink,
but, the lack of any survivors is unusual.
One suggestion involves a gruesome end for the Australian sailors.
One of the theories is that the Germans, actually, before the Kormoran sunk,
opened fire with machine guns on the Australian sailors in the water.
[Jeremy] Did the Nazi's fire on the surviving sailors?
Eye witness accounts of the Christmas Island body in 1942
report the damage to the raft as being wither from bullets or shrapnel.
It's inconclusive.
64 years later,
does the body of the mysterious sailor
show signs of foul play?
[Dr. Simon] The body was exhumed and was examined in detail.
And, in the autopsy they found that the individual had died
from a shrapnel fragment to the brain,
not a machine gun bullet.
[Jeremy] We now know this man was not killed by Nazi gunfire.
What happened to the rest of the crew we may never know.
Yet, could breakthroughs in DNA analysis,
at last, reveal the identity of this lone sailor?
[Dr. Lisa] DNA technology is rapidly developing.
We can now take a sample from a deceased individual
and determine their ancestry,
their eye color, their hair color,
and a variety of other things.
[Jeremy] Experts determine he has European ancestry.
Red hair, blue eyes, and, pale skin.
Then, strontium isotope testing on the sailor's teeth
pinpoint where he is from.
[Dr. Lisa] Strontium is an element
that exists in mineral deposits all over the world.
[Jeremy] As ground water runs over sediment
it picks up tiny amounts of strontium
which is, then, present in drinking water.
[Dr. Lisa] When humans or animals drink local water
they put into their bones a local strontium signal.
so, when these scientists examined the human remains
that were found after this tragedy
they established that this individual grew up on the east coast of Australia.
[Jeremy] And what the sailor was wearing when found
holds another vital clue.
Samples of the fabric from the uniform were tested.
[Jeremy] Blue boiler suits were worn by those working in the engine room.
And, in 2019, investigators finally believe
they have found who this one belonged to.
A man named Norman Foster.
Could the search for the identity
of the mysterious sailor, at last, be over?
They tested a relative and it wasn't Norman.
So, the question is, who could it be?
[Jeremy] Deeply disappointed but determined to uncover the truth,
investigators are continuing their quest.
And they have narrowed the search down to about 50 sailors.
There's hope that the newest developments in DNA testing
will allow them to trace the unknown sailor through the male side of the family
improving chances of a match.
All they need to find is that vital relative
for this piece of the puzzle to finally be solved.
Lightening is one of the strongest forces of nature.
Little can be done to predict where it will strike.
But, when it does, it can be catastrophic.
In 2014 a day at the beach turns to disaster
when an immensely bright bolt of lightening strikes the water.
Killing one and injuring 13.
Did it somehow have a deadly attraction to the ocean?
And, if so, how?
And, could an accidental scientific discovery
finally explain what happened on that day?
July 27, 2014,
and Venice beach is full of people,
when something inexplicable happens.
There was a tremendous glare
as if someone had suddenly turned on
all the lights in a very dark room.
Followed by a tremendous boom.
[Jeremy] An unusually bright lightning bolt has hit the water
killing a 20 year old man and injuring many more.
This giant bolt up in the sky,
I've never seen anything like that, and I'm from the mid-west,
so, we see lots of lightening.
[man] The loudest clap of thunder I've ever heard in my life.
Thought it was like a bomb, almost.
[Jeremy] Then, in 2019, another explosive strike in South Boston
is caught on camera.
The lightening incinerates the boat in a fraction of a second.
Is there some deadly connection in these tragedies
between the lightening and the waters below to create such mayhem?
In 2014, a man dies and 13 are injured
a giant lightning bolt hits the water off Venice beach.
Five years later on the opposite coast
a single explosive bolt destroys a boat floating in Boston Harbor.
Lightning strike at sea is every sailors worst nightmare,
and boats offer no protection.
[Dr. Michael] You can actually see the clouds light up like Christmas trees.
You're stuck on your boat, the waves are hitting you.
The rain's coming down.
It's the lightening that's cracking
You have nowhere to run.
[Jeremy] I've witnessed, first hand, lightening over water.
In Suriname, north of Brazil,
it releases its might in the middle of filming.
A member of my crew taking a strike.
Our sound recordist has been hit.
Was actually struck on the head by that bolt of lightning.
Luckily he survives.
Elsewhere, when lightening and water mix
it can be a different story.
To try and understand what can make lightning strikes on the US coast so devastating
we turn to clues from the past.
The 1970's, an American Vela satellite
are patrolling the planet from space
looking for signs of rogue nuclear tests.
They had x-ray senses, the later ones had optical senses.
Although they were designed to detect nuclear tests,
they were able to see things as well.
And, in 1977, they start picking up unusual blazes of light.
These are so powerful, they're releasing as much energy
as a small nuclear weapon.
What could these explosions be?
Could they be unregulated nuclear tests?
[Jeremy] Further investigation shows that these flashes
are releasing a completely different signature
to that of a nuclear explosion.
Something never seen before.
Lightening reaches temperatures of 30,000 degrees.
Five times hotter than the surface of the sun.
But, these are even more powerful.
The flashes are named Superbolts.
They were named the superbolts because they were much, much more intense.
Something which is ten times the power of an ordinary bolt.
Sometimes a hundred, potentially even a thousand times.
[Jeremy] The satellite data then gives another revelation.
You can draw a map just by plotting the lightening on the planet.
It, basically, sticks very nicely to the continent,
and, as soon as you move over the oceans
you've a dramatic decrease in the amount of lighting.
[Jeremy] But, when it comes to superbolts
it's the ocean they hit most often.
Is it because out at sea the thunder storms can developed more energy?
It's a mystery to me.
[Jeremy] Finding out what's going on when lightning strikes over water
is crucial for the safety of those out at sea and in the shallows.
Since the 1970's thousands more superbolts have been recorded
across the planets oceans.
[Colin] The better the data gets, the more we see that this
really is a clear signal
that there's more intense lightening
whether you're looking optically, or, whether you're looking with radio waves.
[Jeremy] So what causes these massively powerful oceanic superbolts
up to a thousand times brighter than anything seen on land?
Can the answer help our understanding
of those shocking incidents on the US coast?
In 2020, at Tel Aviv University in Israel,
a scientific breakthrough, finally, sheds new light on this mysterious phenomenon.
Initially we were interested in how lightening may impact the chemistry of sea water.
During the experiment, when they changed from tap water to sea water
they notice the flash becomes dramatically brighter.
Everything was the same, only difference was the type of water.
Something about the water
was actually impacting the lightening above the water.
Why should the water actually impact how bright it was?
[Jeremy] They then take samples from a fresh water lake,
Lake Tiberias.
And, from the Dead Sea,
whose water is ten times saltier than normal sea water.
Amazingly they discover the discharges over Dead Sea water
are nearly 40 times brighter than over lake water.
When you have salt in water, the salt breaks up into its ions.
And, this results in a change in the conductivity of the water.
As the water becomes more conductive,
the electricity from the lightening
can drain off much quicker into the water.
And this is what heats up the air faster,
and will give us the brighter lightening.
[Jeremy] Colin and his team have proved for the first time
the importance of salinity in the brightness of superbolts.
Science has been looking in the wrong direction.
[Jeremy] So, it's not what's in the clouds that may hold the answer.
it's what lies in the water.
But, there's a big difference between a lab
and the vast watery expanses of our planet.
There is a very interesting step
to add an extra layer of complexity into the problem,
but, that, by itself, can't explain everything in the patterns we see.
[Jeremy] The scientists at Tel Aviv are continuing their investigations.
So, were the lightening strikes at Venice Beach and Boston Harbor...
superbolts?
The more recent distribution of superbolts
show that they're not uniformly distributed over the oceans.
[Jeremy] The latest research has discovered
that where superbolts tend to hit the most
is not along the US coastline,
but in the north east Atlantic and Mediterranean.
We may never know for certain whether the lightning strikes
in Venice Beach and Boston Harbor,
although deadly and destructive, were superbolts.
And, why they hit certain areas more than others
is another enigma to crack.
As soon as you discover something, then, again
it gives you another ten, 15 questions to answer.
[Jeremy] Science has revealed an intense connection
between the salty oceans and the immense power of the skies,
but, there is still a lot left to understand
about this highly complex relationship.