I'm jeremy wade —
Explorer, biologist, and underwater detective.
Whatever's on the end is about to break the surface.
For decades, my investigations
Have centered on freshwater mysteries,
Searching for monsters
Who existence in reality was doubted...
They do exist. My gosh, they do exist.
And seeking out the real creatures
Behind the folklore,
Including the most famous mythical beast of them all —
The loch ness monster.
I've seen this thing myself. I know it exists.
Now i'm turning my attention to the oceans
To solve the mystery
Behind the most enduring legendary sea monster
Of them all —
The sea serpent.
This epic quest will take me from the u.K.
To the waters of the far east,
Culminating in one of the most astounding encounters
Of my life.
If it is true, this could open things up
In quite an unbelievable fashion.
I've have to push myself to my absolute limit.
How far do you read me?
Water coming in the mask.
But will this be enough to tackle
This monster of the deep?
There it is! There it is!
— captions by vitac — www.Vitac.Com
Captions paid for by discovery communications
Aah!
Since humans first ventured into the water,
We have been fearful of what lurks beneath.
And the most pervasive of all mythical sea creatures
Is the sea serpent.
Early explorers told tales of huge snakelike beasts
Rising from the sea
To sink ships and swallow sailors whole.
These horror stories were widespread
Throughout the ancient world,
And unexplained sightings are still being reported.
Nearly every culture and every ocean across the globe
Has its own sea serpent legend.
And what's interesting is that the reported features
Are surprisingly similar —
A very long body, big eyes,
A huge head, and the presence of fins
Or what is sometimes described as a mane.
And some depictions show the mouth
Full of teeth.
The thread of commonality in these descriptions
Leads me to believe that they must be based,
At least partially, on fact.
My mission is to find out
If there is a real animal
Behind the giant sea serpent legend
And if they still exist in our oceans today.
The obviously contender is some kind of snake.
Now i've seen how some aquatic snakes
Can grow to extraordinary sizes
Thanks to the water supporting their body.
Look at the size of this!
And the venom of some sea snakes is lethal to humans.
But sea snakes are not giants.
And their small heads and lack of fins
Are not consistent
With the historic eye witness accounts.
So i'm intrigued when i come across a recent case,
Where a man says he came face-To-Face
With an underwater snakelike creature,
Which was apparently so large,
He couldn't even get his hands around it.
Now this wasn't somewhere remote and exotic.
This was right in my backyard.
I head to the south coast of england to investigate.
I'm on my way to meet a man
Who was diving off the coast of ireland
When he says that something long and serpentlike
Attacked him.
- Good morning. - Yes.
While diving at a depth of 100 feet
In the murky water of killary harbor,
Jimmy griffin was struck by a large creature
That shot out of the darkness.
It latched onto his face with its teeth,
Knocking the air supply out of his mouth.
The pain was unimaginable.
Um, it was like the whole side of my face had exploded.
Unable to breathe, he was being thrown around underwater.
The creature was serpentlike
And was thrashing from side to side.
He eventually managed to wrestle free of its jaws.
What exactly could you see and feel?
At length, i could see its gray outline, uh,
Extending out as — as far as i could see.
I couldn't actually get my hand around it
As i tried to wrestle it off.
The attack left him permanently scared,
But this was not a snake bite.
If you were somebody with no knowledge,
You would see the creature from hell
Coming straight for you, and you would panic.
But jimmy did manage to identify his attacker.
It was a 7-Foot-Long conger eel,
A carnivorous fish that can be found in these waters.
Its movement, its features, everything, it —
It conjures up the image of a sea serpent straight away.
It certainly fits the legendary descriptions.
And after such a vicious and unprovoked attack,
The conger eel has to be
My first suspect in this search.
I've never fished for congers before,
But i've heard they have a reputation
For putting up a strong fight when hooked,
So i'm eager to witness their aggression for myself.
I'm in the town of plymouth, and i've arranged to meet a man
Who's been fishing for conger for 35 years.
So if anybody knows where to find them, he does.
According to fisherman malcolm jones,
Conger eels haunt
The shipwrecks and rocky ground of the deep sea,
So he takes me out into the english channel.
It's already getting noticeably more bumpy
As we come out
Past the breakwater into the open sea.
This is gonna make fishing pretty challenging.
On the way out, we stop to catch some mackerel for bait.
Oh, here we go.
Here we go.
Malcolm prepares a special rig
To entice the congers out from their lairs.
So the idea is that the current sort of just moves that around.
That's going to give us a nice scent trail, isn't it?
Pound and a half of lead going on.
This is my first time fishing for conger eels,
And i'm not sure what to expect.
But detecting and reacting to a bite
In these bumpy conditions
Is going to take concentration and precision timing.
Yeah, i think it might be.
Oh, no.
That was definitely some attention from something
Because, um...
I don't have the bait and i don't have no bait,
I have half a bait.
Ah, again, the bait's been mutilated. Pfft.
Oh, shoot.
Ah!
Came off.
That was on about halfway out to the boat.
And then... Then it was off.
Came off the hook.
Malcolm says it is congers that are biting.
But so far, they're outwitting me.
They are going for the bait,
But they continue to leave me empty-Handed.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. We got one.
See if this one stays on the line.
My search for a real creature
Behind the legend of the sea serpent
Has brought me to the south coast of england,
Where i'm hoping to bring in my first contender —
A conger eel.
- There we go. That's conger. - You've got one.
Yeah, you got one. - Fantastic!
I just wanna calm it down a little bit
And have a look at it.
I'm just being careful, though,
Because i don't want my hands anywhere near the mouth,
Having spoken to jimmy,
Seen what one of these did to his face.
This is a fish to be treated with respect,
Even though this, as conger eels go, is not a big one.
The thing is, though, they...
They grow a lot heavier than this,
Much, much heavier than this.
But in terms of length,
It's something like twice the length of this.
All right.
Seeing this live conger eel in the flesh,
I'm struck by how much it does resemble
Some of the drawings i've seen of alleged sea serpents.
But even the biggest conger eels
Don't get close to sea serpent territory
In terms of size.
Well, having caught my first conger,
I have to say that it is an incredibly serpentlike fish.
But the thing is, they're actually quite localized.
They only live around the british isles and europe.
So what is giving rise to these sea serpents stories
In other parts of the world?
And i'm wondering, maybe the conger
Has a bigger, uglier relative
Somewhere else out in the oceans.
There are 800 species of eel found worldwide,
From the giant mottled eel
That i caught in the indo-Pacific...
But it's got lots of teeth — very, very sharp teeth.
And the longfin eel in new zealand...
Ah! Look at that!
Look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that! Ah!
To the ghoulish-Looking green moray.
All of them are equipped to inflict a devastating bite.
I've been told about a cluster
Of particularly vicious incidents
That took place in thailand,
A country i've visited many times,
But never to fish in its oceans.
And there's something else.
In thailand's rich mythology,
Aquatic serpents are prominent.
Coincidence?
I need to find out more.
In 2000, a tourist was snorkeling with his friends
In a renowned dive site off the coast of thailand...
When he was brutally attacked.
The bites to his leg severed an artery,
And blood flooded into the water.
By the time he struggled back to the shore,
His life was ebbing away.
Despite forensic examination of the teeth marks,
The official identity of his attacker remains unknown.
But the locals have their own theory.
They know of an aggressive serpentine animal
In these waters
Whose teeth make light work of human flesh —
The giant moray eel.
Could this be my next suspect?
I travel to the island of phuket,
Off thailand's west coast,
To meet diving instructor matt butcher,
Who knows firsthand the damage a giant moray can inflict.
And his story from the nearby similan islands
Was caught on camera.
I was working on a similan report,
Um, a diver's report.
And there was a famous moray eel that all the instructors
That used to work on the boats there used feed her.
She lived under a table coral.
And every time divers approached her,
She would swim out and investigate.
How — how big was this eel?
I would say at least 6 foot in length.
And she had a very big head as well.
She had several names.
She was called "emma" by some boats,
"scarface" by another boat.
That morning, she swam out as normal,
And she played with us for a bit.
And then i decided to get the food out.
As i was concentrating on getting the food out,
Emma, she swam behind my back.
And she could smell the food.
Before i knew what had happened,
She'd kind of latched onto my thumb.
I tried to open her mouth with my other hand,
But i just couldn't get her mouth open.
Um, she shook her head, came off with a loud pop.
I looked down, and i could see the knuckle
Where my thumb used to be.
You appear to have a-A thumb now.
So what's the story there?
When i arrived at the hospital in phuket,
The doctor there who was dressing my wounds,
He mentioned that he had a colleague in bangkok.
And he could possibly perform, um, a procedure
Where could take off one of my toes
And graft it onto my hand to replace my missing thumb.
Within about 5 months, i guess, it was great.
I could move it a lot.
And i think i have about 80% mobility now.
It's great. It's just like i have my — my old thumb back.
I-I don't even notice i've got a toe.
Matt's encounter had a positive ending.
But if it were a giant moray that killed the tourist,
That would fit with tales of sea serpents
Devouring helpless sailors.
As night falls, i explore the fish market,
Looking for a moray to examine.
No, no — no sale here? No?
I look for, uh...
- Oh. - Mx rey. Mx rey.
The — the long one.
I'm told to head to the end of the market
To talk to the sea gypsies.
Yeah, you can look over there.
The sea gypsies, or chawle,
Meaning "people from the sea,"
No longer live entirely on the water
But still practice a hunter-Gatherer existence.
The nomadic rawai tribe are
Some of the original inhabitants of phuket.
People tell me that you sometimes catch, uh, mx rey.
You — you catch sometimes?
He tells we that the rawai only catch the morays
To eat and not to sell,
So he doesn't have any in the market.
But if i want to see one, he has a team
Of half a dozen people who sometimes catch morays,
And i'm welcome to join them tomorrow.
I want to see if this fish's jaws
Have enough power to kill a human.
So the following morning, i join the rawai
And head out on their boat.
For generations,
The rawai lived, died, and gave birth on the water,
Living solely off the bounty that the ocean provided.
These seas are their true ancestral home.
And their knowledge of what lies below the surface
Is exceptional.
As sustainable hunters,
They only take enough to satisfy their own needs.
And the moray eel is a staple food for them.
Although i normally have the luxury
Of being able to catch and release,
I'm happy to leave them to spear the fish
Using their traditional technique.
Everyone's going in the water now.
The divers...
No fins. Um, just shoes.
Their basically walking on the bottom.
Uh, weight belts... The air hose
Actually tied on around the waist.
And then the — the air is just supplied through a mask.
And all fed by...
The big ol' compressor in the back there,
Which we're just about to fire up.
So this is the weaponry here.
Um, it's just a sharpened piece of rod,
A piece of strong elastic
Attached to one end of it and... Like this.
So that's gonna go very fast through the water,
Pretty accurate.
So very low-Tech but, um...
Potentially quite effective.
Compressor diving,
A low-Cost alternative to self-Contained scuba tanks,
Is fraught with danger.
The compressors themselves
Often have a very basic filtration system,
Meaning diesel fumes
And other deadly contaminants, such as carbon monoxide,
Can poison the air inside the hose.
But this method allows them much more time underwater
Than traditional breath-Hold diving.
Thing about morays is they — they're not free-Living.
They're living, uh, in cracks in —
In coral, in cracks in rock.
Now the men have to find a giant eel
Before it finds them.
I've taken my search for monsters into the oceans,
Where i'm on a quest to solve the mystery
Behind the myth of the sea serpent.
I've come to thailand,
Where i'm with the rawai sea gypsies,
Fishing for giant moray eels.
I want to find out if this could be the fish
That spawned one of the world's monster legends.
Oh, they're coming up.
Oh!
Got four here.
I'm guessing they're...
Sort of 3, 4-Foot long, something like that.
These are just half the length
Of the one that ate matt's thumb.
But the giant moray eel can grow to 12 feet long.
So this is a moray eel.
And just looking at those teeth and jaws,
They are pretty ferocious.
I wanna have a closer look at those.
Going to put it down for a moment.
The front ones are very long.
They're slightly curved.
And the thing about them is that they're pointing back.
So if you actually pull, all your going to do
Is make those points penetrate even deeper.
The thing is what happens then,
Um, the moray eel
Is actually unique in this respect,
In — in terms of how it transfers its prey
From the point of the jaws back into the throat.
It's actually got this secondary set of jaws
In the back of the throat.
It's almost, like, alien.
They will come forward, grab hold of the prey,
Pull it back into the throat.
Morays have few natural predators,
Are known cannibals,
And are not afraid to take on prey equal to their own size.
Their science fiction-Designed jaws give them the ability
To swallow their quarry whole,
Much like the sea serpent reports
I've read.
But i can't see how even the biggest morays
Could swallow a person.
And the fact that these ambush predators
Hide away in cracks and crevices on the ocean floor
Doesn't fit with ancient tales
Of sea serpents attacking boats at the surface.
But i'm not prepared to discount them yet.
I need to do some investigating back on land.
Here in thailand,
Nearly every temple features a carving or painting
Of a classic sea serpent-Type creature.
I head north to nong khai,
On the boarder with laos
And right on the banks of the mekong river.
Far eastern mythology features a serpentine creature
Known as the naga,
Which many believe lives in the water here.
According to buddhist scriptures,
Lord buddha made the naga
A fearsome guardian of the temples
To provide protection for the rest of eternity.
And certainly, its likeness is intimidating.
These things are all over the place, uh,
Particularly on stairways like this.
And they're not all identical.
But they are variations on a common theme.
And one of the consistent features
Is this long, fishlike body.
Uh, it's not really like a snake.
And this particular one has a dorsal fin,
Or what looks like a dorsal fin here
And another fin on the lower surface.
And then they've all got this, uh,
Very characteristic sort of crest on the head.
It's that crest that i find most intriguing.
Certainly no eel has anything like that,
Nor do eels have visible scales.
What are you?
I find it hard to believe
That such distinctive and consistent traits
Arise purely from the imagination.
I've also been assuming that the naga is a sea monster.
But i've been told it lives here
In the mekong river.
It's getting confusing.
Could it be something
That moves between rivers and oceans?
I know from experience
That many myths start with one foot in reality.
And in thailand, i've landed some huge
And almost supernatural-Looking river monsters
That many people wouldn't otherwise believe existed.
It's squashing my fingers! It's squashing my fingers!
The numbers of these giants have drastically declined
In recent years due to development and overfishing.
So maybe the same is true of the legendary naga.
Maybe it was once a real creature
But now exists only in paintings and temple carvings.
Local knowledge is often a vital source of information.
So i speak to khun yi tong,
Who, at 80 years of age,
Is one of the oldest residents in the village.
I've seen lots of big carvings in the temples
Of this creature that's a bit like a-A-A giant snake.
What is that creature exactly?
Payana...
- Payana. Payana.
"payana" is the local name for the serpent.
Is this something that people are afraid of?
So you say people are scared of them,
But they're not dangerous. Um, um...
Why — why are people scared of them?
She tells me about a young man
Who angered the naga by being wasteful.
The next time he went to bathe in the river,
He disappeared.
It's believed it was a vengeful serpent
That took him,
Never to be seen again.
Have you ever seen one?
When asked if she's seen it, she says, no, she hasn't.
And — and people generally don't see it.
Then she tells me a startling piece of information.
A photograph?
Despite never having seen the naga herself,
She tells me there's a photograph of one
At a nearby monastery.
I've seen many drawings and depictions
Of sea monsters both old and new,
But a photograph...
If it's real, it changes everything.
I head straight to the monastery
And meet a monk simply named "o,"
Who agrees to show me the alleged photo of the naga.
The monster is unmasked.
This is an extraordinary picture.
I'm in northern thailand,
Home of the naga,
A buddhist deity in the form of a fearsome serpent
Who's said to snatch people
From the surface of the mekong river.
Despite being told
That no one has ever seen this mythical beast,
I've just been handed a photograph of one.
This is an extraordinary picture.
Thank you very much.
It's very, very similar
To the — the carvings on the temple as well.
It is a real photo and a real fish.
The caption here in english as well —
"queen of nagas seized
"by american army at mekong river,
"laos military base, june 27, 1973,
Length of 7.8 meters."
That's got us about 25 feet, very big.
But incredible picture. Thank you very much.
A long-Lost memory surfaces
Of seeing this picture before in a newspaper.
It was taken in the u.S. Near san diego,
But i don't want to cause offense by saying this.
It's a fish called the oarfish
And it is found throughout the world,
But it's only found in very deep sea water.
It doesn't come into rivers,
Which means that that caption is incorrect.
But i can see why the monks believe it to be the naga...
With its long, thin body,
Red dorsal fin,
And that distinctive crest.
So the oarfish may not be the naga,
But it does absolutely fit the description
Of the sea serpent.
It's so rarely seen, however,
That it wasn't even on my radar until now.
In a time when people were terrified of the unknown,
You can easily imagine how this freakish-Looking animal
Could have struck fear into those who encountered it.
But in recent times, these fish have only ever been seen alive
On just a handful of occasions.
Although i might have identified the real creature
Behind the myth of the sea serpent,
My investigations are all about
Seeing the real-Life, flesh-And-Blood creature
At the end of the road.
And this is one occasion,
Possibly uniquely in my career,
When my chances of actually doing that
Are absolutely zero.
It's a crushing realization.
As far as i know, more people have been to the moon
Than have seen a live, healthy specimen of this fish.
But traveling back to bangkok on my way home,
I decide i'm not ready to give up
Unraveling the mystery of the sea serpent.
The oarfish is so tantalizingly close to the beast of legend.
I just have to figure out how to find the real thing.
The challenge with oarfish is that although
They live in nearly all the world's oceans,
They remain one of the most rarely seen of all fish.
And that's because they live at depths
Ranging from 600 to 3,000 feet.
They usually are only ever seen at the surface
When they're dying
Or when they get washed up on the shore already dead,
Like the one found in 2015
On santa catalina island in california.
It's estimated that they can grow to 50 feet in length.
Back in 1860,
When a dead specimen was discovered in bermuda,
It was officially described by biologists
As being "the great sea-Serpent."
So little is known about oarfish
That i'm struggling to find
Any useful information about them at all,
Anything about their behavior and whereabouts.
How do i get myself in the right place
At the right time to see a live one?
I put the word out to my international network
Of contacts, desperate for intelligence,
Any tip-Offs about this mysterious fish.
What comes back is some startling news.
I've just heard something which...
It is sounds so unlikely,
I'm tempted to dismiss it on hand.
But if it is true,
This could open things up
In quite an unbelievable fashion.
So i've got to get to somewhere
Where i can talk to somebody in france.
There's a french guy called david
Who i need to talk to.
I hurry back to the hotel to make a skype call.
I've been told to contact
A frenchman named david luquet,
A professional deep sea diver
Who collects data for an oceanographic organization.
He claims to have seen a live oarfish,
Or regalec, as they are known in french.
What is the beginning of the story for you?
The diving, is it difficult in this place?
But if going underwater is the only way
To see this creature alive, then that's what i'll do.
Huh. Okay. All right.
Well, you know, thank you — thank you for that.
I'll let you get back to work now.
Uh, thanks. - Okay.
- Thanks very much indeed. Okay. - Thank you.
- Bye, david. Bye. - See you.
Right. Um...
Of course, i'm just trying to process that.
Uh, this was something that i thought was impossible.
But i've just spoken to somebody
Who has seen an oarfish close up, uh, alive.
But not an easy thing to do. Challenging conditions.
And he's just seen them a handful of times.
But i think this is something i can't pass up.
I thought my investigation had actually come to an end.
But maybe it hasn't.
Um, maybe i've got to get myself to france.
The answer after this.
I asked you why the oarfish is a bad omen in japan.
My quest to finally resolve the sea serpent mystery
Started in bustling plymouth harbor, close to home,
Then moved to thailand, and now to
The billionaires' playground of antibes, near nice,
In the south of france.
I've been told that 31/2 hours from this unlikely location,
I may be able to dive with a real-Life sea serpent.
It's very common to think
That when you are looking for exotic, outlandish creatures,
You're gonna have to go to some remote, far-Flung,
Sparsely populated part of the world.
You certainly don't think about coming to a place like this —
The french riviera.
We finally reach our destination —
A buoy in the middle of the mediterranean.
David was collecting data from this buoy
When he encountered the oarfish.
The water here is about a mile and a half deep.
And this marker is anchored to the sea bed
By a seemingly endless chain tether.
For some reason — nobody knows exactly why —
The oarfish swim up the line
To within... 30 feet of the surface,
Sometimes even closer.
Uh, nobody can say exactly when they're gonna do that.
But i'm just hoping that, um, there will be one occasion
When the fish is there, and i am also in the water.
I only have a small window of opportunity when
The weather and sea conditions are favorable
And when there is the right amount of plankton
To attract the fish,
But the water is still clear.
I've been told i might only have 24 hours
Before the moment has passed.
David has warned me that because of the depths
And sometimes strong currents,
Diving here can be very dangerous.
So i'll have an experienced dive team with me in the water
And communication with the boat in case of any problems.
This is an extreme form
Of diving known as blue water diving,
Where the sea floor is out of sight.
And with no frame of reference,
Even professional divers can get disoriented.
I'm also using a rebreather device,
Which allows me to stay underwater
For longer than simple air tanks.
But this makes it a very technical dive.
I only learned to use this equipment recently,
And i'm hoping my skills are up to the job.
This is not the kind of diving i've ever done before.
Nothing to really orient yourself by
Apart from this thin line going down into the depths.
We are prepared and trained.
Um, but you just don't want anything to go wrong.
This big blue is another world.
It's like nothing i've ever seen before.
The jellyfish and sea salps
Look like they come from another planet.
At a depth of about 80 feet,
I feel like i'm floating in outer space.
I can't see the bottom,
And the chain holding the buoy is the only stationary object
For miles around.
This is my life line.
I wait and wait for the myth to become reality,
But there's no oarfish in sight.
But i'm struggling to control my buoyancy
In the strong swell.
And the effort i'm having to expend
Is making me tired and increasingly uncomfortable.
I'm beginning to feel disoriented.
I want to return to the surface,
But i have to keep calm and take my time
Because a rapid change in pressure
Can cause potentially fatal decompression illness.
I'm diving off the south of france,
Looking for an oarfish,
The fish that i now believe is the real creature
Behind the sea serpent myth.
But my chances of actually seeing
This incredibly rare fish are diminishing fast,
And i'm finding the dive extremely difficult.
I need to fight my instinct to surface immediately.
I have to ascend slowly to avoid getting the bends.
I'm relieved to be back on the boat,
But physically exhausted.
Ooh.
I just got tired.
I really struggled on that last dive.
And the thing is, i don't know if it's going to get any better.
I am operating, i feel,
Right at the edge of the capability here.
Um, this is a very challenging underwater environment.
You've got no bottom to refer to.
That's a mile and a half away.
What i'm really trying to cultivate underwater
Is exactly what i do when i'm fishing.
It's — it's achieving a sense of — of calm and control.
But with all the things that
I have to keep in my mind underwater,
I, you know, i am just not achieving that,
To the extent that i don't even know
That i'm gonna get in the water again.
I-I-I don't know
If it is advisable to get in the water again.
So here we are.
The conditions are great.
Um...
But i don't know if i'm actually capable of it.
I face a huge dilemma.
I'm so close to potentially solving this mystery.
But i'm also concerned
That getting back in the water could end badly.
I've spent my life fishing
In dangerous and treacherous situations.
But this is a whole different kettle of fish,
And one that i'm not sure i'm able to cope with.
And my time is ticking away fast.
Now my only remaining chance of seeing this fish
Is to dive at night.
The thing about going in at night is, for me,
It's very much cranking things up another notch,
Or actually several notches.
It's much easier to be disoriented.
No real points of reference.
I need to set my fears aside
If i'm going to solve this mystery.
The water is full of plankton,
Which i'm hoping will summon a sea serpent
Up from the murky depths.
I wait again for it to appear,
This time in the eerie, silent darkness.
Even so close, it's hard to judge its length.
But i estimate it's about two and a half times my height.
Oarfish don't have swim bladders,
So they can move very rapidly up and down the water column.
I feel so privileged to be in the presence
Of one of the most elusive creatures on the planet.
And just as i think it can't get any better...
Against all the odds,
I believe i finally solved the mystery of the sea serpent.
It's this extraordinary and exceptionally rare fish,
The oarfish,
That is the true origin behind the enduring legend.
Too fast for me to follow. It's — it's gone. Gone.