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Documentary, River Monsters S09E01 Killers From The Abyss
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🐳
AnimalsTranscript
00:00:00I'm Jeremy Wade. I'm an explorer and biologist.
00:00:07Fishing is my passion.
00:00:11One of the most extraordinary catches of my life.
00:00:14Time and again, this passion has helped me solve both fresh water and marine mysteries.
00:00:20This thing really is a river monster.
00:00:24Now, I'm taking on the biggest and maybe most complex investigation of my career.
00:00:30This is an absolute beast.
00:00:32A dramatic story of untold deaths.
00:00:37Of 2,500 souls shipwrecked in the mid-Atlantic.
00:00:43And the horrific fate of over a thousand who never made it.
00:00:48The screaming. The screams were just terrible.
00:00:52A story that's never been fully told.
00:00:56Right here, fin on the surface.
00:00:58This investigation will lead me on a global journey to uncover what really happened in the water that night.
00:01:04It will take me deeper than I've ever been before.
00:01:07Down into the abyss.
00:01:09To confront sea monsters in their own domain.
00:01:13I feel like an astronaut landing on the moon.
00:01:16The sinking of the British passenger steamer, RMS Laconia, has haunted me since I first heard about it.
00:01:39It's one of the most famous stories of the Second World War.
00:01:43I've learned about dramatic new evidence that suggests there's far more to this story than first meets the eye.
00:01:51On September the 12th, 1942, the RMS Laconia was sailing in the mid-Atlantic bound for England.
00:02:05She was carrying civilians and soldiers returning home.
00:02:08And hundreds of Italian prisoners of war bound for internment camps in the UK.
00:02:14Several days from safety and hundreds of miles from land, she was attacked by a German U-boat.
00:02:21Two torpedoes struck her starboard side in quick succession.
00:02:26The Laconia started to take in water fast.
00:02:30Accounts talk of stunned passengers and crew scrambling to escape.
00:02:36Italian POWs broke out of their holding cells and tried to force their way off the stricken ship.
00:02:43Some attempted to board the already overloaded lifeboats, but were fought off by Allied soldiers.
00:02:52The scene turned into a bloodbath.
00:02:58At first glance, this is an open and shut case.
00:03:03For decades, it has been assumed that most of the passengers and POWs drowned.
00:03:08And those who didn't were taken by sharks.
00:03:13But I've always wondered whether that was the whole story.
00:03:17My previous investigations have often shown that the answer is seldom what is first assumed.
00:03:24And now I have a chance to find the true culprits.
00:03:28Because buried deep inside this archive, I've discovered a forgotten cache of eyewitness accounts.
00:03:35Full of clues that could turn this story on its head.
00:03:39Many hundreds of people ended up in the water where some mysteriously just disappeared.
00:03:47Dragged beneath the surface with only their life jackets ever re-emerging.
00:03:54Bodies found by rescuers days later had been attacked by creatures in the water.
00:03:59And of those, a number showed bite marks that still don't point to any obvious perpetrator.
00:04:10This new evidence suggests multiple mystery attackers.
00:04:14But what were they?
00:04:18With over a thousand victims, this will be a huge and complex case.
00:04:24But using the accounts of those who lived through it, I'm going to find out what happened to those who didn't.
00:04:35The people who wrote those eyewitness accounts are long gone.
00:04:39But there is one survivor who I have managed to find.
00:04:42I'm on my way to meet a woman who was actually on the Lacomia that night.
00:04:49She is one of only a handful of survivors who are still alive today.
00:04:56At the time, she was just a 14-year-old girl.
00:05:00And she was fleeing the war in Singapore.
00:05:03And she was travelling with her mother, her father and her brother.
00:05:10What happened when suddenly it was no longer normality on the boat at that point?
00:05:36It was eight o'clock, and the first torpedo struck.
00:05:40It was awful.
00:05:41But by the time you gathered your senses, the second one hit.
00:05:46Josephine and her family only had minutes to get up on deck.
00:05:51My father threw the life jackets at us.
00:05:55And he said, come on, lifeboat stations.
00:05:59We dropped everything.
00:06:00We rushed out of the cabin.
00:06:05The screaming, the screams were just terrible.
00:06:09It was total, total chaos.
00:06:15They lowered our lifeboat to the sea.
00:06:18And the minute it hit the water, people were trying to climb into it as well.
00:06:25They were having to be pushed away.
00:06:27We couldn't take anymore.
00:06:31I witnessed an Italian person of war being shot by a man in our lifeboat.
00:06:38He was trying to get on.
00:06:41And he was shot.
00:06:44That was war.
00:06:46War at its worst.
00:06:47So the men rode, and they rode, and they rode, and we managed to get quite away from the ship.
00:06:56And when we looked, the stern came up, and then it went down, and then everywhere was pitch black.
00:07:04The next day, I realized the water was pink, because there was so much blood.
00:07:14And that was when I realized that there were sharks.
00:07:19Because you could see the tips of the fins at one stage, and then, you know, now and again you'd get one a bit nearer.
00:07:26Because they'd been circling the boat.
00:07:29It was awful.
00:07:34I'm not surprised that Josephine saw sharks.
00:07:37I know they are part of this story.
00:07:39But tellingly, she says that she didn't see them until the next day.
00:07:43I know that in the immediate aftermath, people were attacked by something.
00:07:49But if it wasn't sharks, then what was it?
00:07:54This is the biggest case I have looked into by far.
00:07:59When you're looking at something that happened in the middle of 75 million square miles of ocean,
00:08:05where on earth do you start?
00:08:06The Laconia's last recorded position was 5 degrees south and 11 degrees west, in around 12,000 feet of water,
00:08:20700 miles from mainland Africa.
00:08:27Trying to operate at the site of the sinking would be a logistical impossibility.
00:08:31But I get lucky.
00:08:35I receive permission to travel to a military base.
00:08:39A tiny speck of land, just 250 miles from where the Laconia went down, known as Ascension Island.
00:08:49Ascension is one of the most remote islands anywhere on earth.
00:08:55It's right slap bang in the middle of the Atlantic, sort of halfway between Africa and South America.
00:09:00But most importantly for me, it's the closest I can get to the scene of the incident.
00:09:09Ascension is a British and U.S. military base, and travel to the island is heavily controlled.
00:09:16Evening.
00:09:18Good evening.
00:09:20Got to Ascension?
00:09:22Gaining access to Ascension is one thing, but now my whole investigation hinges on what fish I find
00:09:28when I get there.
00:09:29I've managed to gain permission to travel to one of the most remote and secretive islands on earth.
00:09:30Ascension Island.
00:09:31Ascension is one thing for me, I only get there.
00:09:35I've managed to gain permission to travel to one of the most remote and secretive islands on earth.
00:09:52We've managed to gain permission to travel to one of the most remote and secretive islands on Earth, Ascension Island.
00:10:01No one lives here permanently.
00:10:04The vast majority of the 800 or so personnel are on military contracts.
00:10:10What they do is not public knowledge.
00:10:15And some areas of the island are strictly off limits.
00:10:20But it's the vast expanse of water around this speck of land that interests me.
00:10:25Very few people get to fish here, either recreationally or commercially,
00:10:30which means that the species that are here now are going to be the same ones that were here in 1942.
00:10:41There's a 200-mile exclusion zone around the island.
00:10:45So although these waters are fished by a handful of locals, they've been protected from large-scale commercial fishing for decades.
00:10:54To help me assemble a suspect list for the Laconia disaster, I've brought with me the eyewitness accounts from the archive.
00:11:09But they are proving as frustrating as they are useful, tantalizingly hinting at a number of underwater attackers without providing the detail that could lead me to a positive ID.
00:11:24But one thing does come across clearly, and it flies in the face of conventional wisdom in such cases.
00:11:37The accounts are unanimous in stating that sharks were not the first attackers on the scene.
00:11:42So what was?
00:11:45One thing I'm coming across again and again is that a lot of the people in the water that night speak of being attacked by schools of large, aggressive silvery fish.
00:11:55Take this from Ian Peel, who was one of the many people who was in the water who hadn't been able to get a place in a lifeboat.
00:12:03Immediately I heard cries of shark.
00:12:14But it wasn't shark I saw, but huge numbers of large silvery fish slicing and attacking at will.
00:12:22Even more formidable than a shark.
00:12:26The obvious culprit is the Barracuda.
00:12:32A fish I've encountered before.
00:12:35But I can eliminate them from the suspect list because, ferocious as they are, they tend to school and hunt around coastal reefs, not in deep open ocean.
00:12:55So what exactly was Ian Peel describing?
00:12:59The mid-Atlantic is new territory for me, and I'm working with limited information.
00:13:12But somewhere out there, there's the silvery predator that was first on the laconia scene, and I've got to work out a way to find it.
00:13:22The best way to cover a large search area is to use a technique called trolling.
00:13:38Whenever you're fishing, the biggest question is, where are you going to put your bait?
00:13:43And in this immensity of water, that's a very big question.
00:13:46But with the island here, there's a plateau where it gradually gets deeper, out to a couple of hundred feet.
00:13:54And then in a very short space, it plunges down to a couple of thousand and then keeps on going.
00:13:59And what we're going to do is fish on the move and just go along the drop-off with lures out the back.
00:14:09The survivors' accounts describe the fish that drew first blood as being medium-sized and fast.
00:14:16So that's what I'm going for.
00:14:19On the big rod, we're going to put this.
00:14:21You can see that mimics a fish in the water.
00:14:24This is quite significant because what happens, the water catches that as we're moving and it pushes it down.
00:14:29It makes it dive and it gets a good wiggle on.
00:14:32Cirrus hooks on here.
00:14:34Thick wire because quite likely if anything hits this, it's going to have teeth.
00:14:38In fact, you can see it's been hit a few times by some toothy creatures.
00:14:43So off we go.
00:14:50We work our way along the drop-off.
00:14:53To increase my chances of a take in the vast mid-Atlantic, I have two different lures working at the surface and two deeper down.
00:15:01The lures have definitely got the attention of the birds, so they've got to look fairly convincing.
00:15:06What it is, it's something happening on the surface here, which just gets, triggers the attention.
00:15:11And we're hoping the same will happen beneath the surface as well, getting fish to come up and investigate.
00:15:16As first on the Laconia scene, my silvery suspect was clearly curious and quick.
00:15:22So who's going to be first to hit?
00:15:29This is steaming away, steaming away.
00:15:36I'm in the mid-Atlantic, on the trail of a mystery silvery predator that was said to be first on the scene of a major maritime disaster.
00:15:51Screaming's ache!
00:15:53After trying different lures, I finally have a hit.
00:16:04Is that off, or is it just coming towards me?
00:16:06Yeah.
00:16:07That was hooked up for 20 seconds or so, but it came off.
00:16:22Sometimes happens.
00:16:23It's interesting.
00:16:24You're just covering water, covering water.
00:16:26Nothing's happening, nothing's happening.
00:16:27And then just out of nowhere, suddenly, the reel is screaming.
00:16:31But in this case, just as quickly, it's gone.
00:16:34It's gone.
00:16:50Dolphins beside the boat.
00:16:51This is a really good sign. The rod tip's really banging away there, and that's indicative of the lure down there really pushing out some vibrations.
00:17:08It's like the dinagon going off, and I've got a good feeling about that.
00:17:13Out here in the middle of the ocean, there's no significant land mass to stop the huge Atlantic swells.
00:17:31Then, another take on the same rod.
00:17:33This time, I'm hoping it will stay hooked.
00:17:40This is steaming away, steaming away.
00:17:43Yes.
00:17:49Haven't seen it yet at all.
00:17:56It's quite a rapid kick.
00:17:58Whatever it is.
00:18:02I think I've got a bit of color.
00:18:03I can see something down there.
00:18:06Oh, there it is, there it is.
00:18:13OK.
00:18:14Yeah, there we go.
00:18:15I've landed a silvery fish, and an energetic one.
00:18:18But is this the fish that drew first blood?
00:18:24Skipjack.
00:18:26It's almost like a bit of metal, isn't it?
00:18:28Amazing the energy it's got.
00:18:30It's actually very mirror-like, and actually in open water.
00:18:32That's very effective for camouflage, if you're about the same kind of depth as that.
00:18:37It's just going to bounce the light off, and it's almost going to disappear into the background.
00:18:41But then if you're looking down on it, it's dark.
00:18:44So it's perfect for countershading.
00:18:48I don't think this skipjack is the silvery predator that the eyewitnesses talk about.
00:18:53These fish just don't have the hardware to inflict the sort of wounds described.
00:18:57Off it goes.
00:19:01I'm going to try a different approach, by using to my advantage the strong currents that swirl around the island.
00:19:09Maybe it was scent rather than sight that brought in the predators that night.
00:19:14There's a whole sardine on the end here, and the boat is drifting, so we're just going to slowly drift.
00:19:22We'll keep some chum going in the water, just to bring the small stuff in, get some activity going,
00:19:34and hopefully bring in the bigger predators.
00:19:45Oils from these pieces of fish leave scent trails in the water.
00:19:49And the predators here quickly find my bait.
00:19:58Something fast almost empties my reel.
00:20:01That fish took it right next to the boat.
00:20:04Look at that thing go, leaping in the air.
00:20:19The fish is desperately trying to throw the hook.
00:20:38Then...
00:20:40Oops.
00:20:42My line goes slack.
00:20:43What? Oh, it's still there. It's just running towards me.
00:20:52I don't have any doubt about these waters being rich.
00:20:55Uh, there's a bit of confirmation there.
00:21:00Oh, this is a good-sized Dorado one.
00:21:02This clearly isn't a silvery assailant, but it is a powerful predator in its own right, and worth a closer look.
00:21:18Beautiful fish. Look at that.
00:21:20Dorado means gold, but look at all the blue on there.
00:21:22Also known as mahi-mahi dolphin fish.
00:21:26Those acrobatic leaps are totally in character for a hunter that takes out flying fish.
00:21:32It's still got a lot of strength, actually. I can feel it flexing.
00:21:36But despite their obvious strength and agility, Dorados have never been known to pose a threat to humans.
00:21:43Off it goes.
00:21:44Ooh, strong fish.
00:21:50These waters are teeming with predators, but so far my catches don't match the descriptions in the eyewitness reports.
00:22:01Doubts are creeping into my mind.
00:22:04The information I have is just too scant.
00:22:07My search parameters are too wide.
00:22:08Given the richness of these waters and the sheer scale of the search area, I need to somehow narrow my focus to stand any chance of catching this elusive killer.
00:22:27I go back to the eyewitness accounts and come across one with an interesting clue.
00:22:32Jim McLaughlin was deep inside the ship when the first torpedo hit.
00:22:38He writes that the noise was crushing, that it felt like he'd been punched in the head by a powerful fist of sound, turning his head to putty.
00:22:50He goes on to say that inside the laconia, pandemonium had erupted.
00:22:54People screaming, everyone pushing and shoving, clutching at his legs.
00:23:00Some of them falling back into the darkness of the hold below.
00:23:07Jim made it off the stricken laconia to the relative safety of an emergency raft.
00:23:13But it's in the water where his problems really began.
00:23:15He writes that he was resting on the raft, alone in the pitch dark of the night, when suddenly he felt the most excruciating pain in his left calf.
00:23:32He drew his legs onto the raft in a blind panic, and his first thought was that he'd been bitten by a shark.
00:23:37But when he looked down at his calf, he saw gruesome, fang-like puncture marks.
00:23:48There are any number of predatory schooling fish like the two I've already found in these waters.
00:23:54But this new evidence narrows my search.
00:23:57Jim's description of fangs is striking, and could be a breakthrough lead.
00:24:02There is one schooling predator that might fit the bill, with silvery flanks and vicious fangs.
00:24:12It's a member of the snake mackerel family, and it inhabits a vast range throughout the Atlantic.
00:24:19It's called the snook.
00:24:22At this time of year, though, they aren't in open ocean, but in vast breeding schools along the coast of South Africa.
00:24:29So that's where I'm headed.
00:24:33The snook could be the fish that drew first blood the night the Laconia went down.
00:24:38But to be sure, I need to catch one.
00:24:46I'm fishing out of Cape Town, the port that the Laconia sailed from on its fateful final voyage.
00:24:52It was a month north-west of here that she went down, leaving hundreds floundering in the mid-Atlantic waters.
00:25:00Now, the snook are normally out in the open ocean, middle of the Atlantic, but at certain times of year they do come in close to land.
00:25:15And I'm told that right now, this time of year, if I go fishing in the water here, I stand a chance of catching one and having a good look at one.
00:25:22Before I can get one on my line, I have to find out where the snook are schooling.
00:25:33And in such a huge expanse of water, I'm going to need a little help.
00:25:38Now, sometimes the birds give a bit of a clue because they'll be, you know, they've got that bird's eye view and they can see bait fish being chased.
00:25:47But we're using technology as well.
00:25:49We're basically keeping an eye on the sonar screen because that doesn't just tell you where the bottom is, how far away that is.
00:25:57It will show up fish as well.
00:25:59But time might be against me. This is Cape Point at the southerly tip of Africa, known here as the Cape of Storms.
00:26:14It's three hours before we get the first sign of fish.
00:26:18Are they still there?
00:26:19He's right here. He's right under us.
00:26:22According to the sonar, we're right above a school of fish.
00:26:25There could be anything between a couple of hundreds to a thousand fish down there.
00:26:30So what I'm using is this. This is actually, it's lead with a bit of coloration on it.
00:26:35And I'm just dropping that down to the bottom and that's what they go for.
00:26:40These Cape fur seals sense that there might be an opportunity for easy prey.
00:26:45Let's see what happens when a small bait fish imitation runs the gauntlet.
00:26:56The sonar only tells me so much. I know there's fish down there.
00:27:01But are they snook?
00:27:07Here we go.
00:27:08Whatever I catch, I'll need to get it in the boat fast to avoid it being snatched off the line.
00:27:15Just retrieving it a bit erratically. Here we go. There's one. There's one.
00:27:18I'm off the coast of South Africa, attempting to find out what happened to passengers of the doomed RMS Laconia.
00:27:38Here we go.
00:27:39I'm chasing down a fanged open ocean predator. The probable match for what some eyewitnesses described seen in the water that night.
00:27:49Just retrieving it a bit erratically. Here we go. There's one. There's one.
00:27:59This feels like a good size.
00:28:01This is taking light.
00:28:06This fish is stronger than I anticipated.
00:28:09I'm trying to bring it in quickly because there's seals around. That's the problem.
00:28:17There it is. There it is. There it is.
00:28:24It is a sleek silvery predator, but is it the culprit?
00:28:31Here we go.
00:28:34Right. I'm being very careful actually not to get too close to this because not only has it got very sharp teeth,
00:28:41but also apparently if one of these does bite you, if it draws blood, there's anticoagulant there,
00:28:47you just won't stop bleeding for hours.
00:28:49So I'm looking as close as I dare, but not too close.
00:28:54But this is what I came here all this way for.
00:28:57Open ocean, schooling fish, they're fast, predatory.
00:29:00Was this the silvery fish that they were talking about, the survivors of the Laconia?
00:29:06And in terms of puncture marks, well, that is going to cause a puncture mark.
00:29:11What I'm seeing now does indeed point to snook being the first fish on the scene the night the Laconia went down.
00:29:17Whether it was just chance or the commotion of hundreds of people thrashing on the surface that brought them in, we'll never know.
00:29:25But it appears that the people in the water encountered a score of these fanged, ferocious fish.
00:29:32Snook aren't going to kill you, but perhaps their activity helped to call in other predators.
00:29:42I've landed one suspect, but I've got unfinished business back at Ascension Island, because the more I dig into the eyewitness accounts, the more they reveal.
00:29:51The thing is, normally I don't have very much to go on, but in this particular case, the sheer quantity of information is starting to make things quite complicated.
00:30:05Some of the injuries described by eyewitnesses were clearly not caused by any of the usual suspects, so it's these unusual wounds that I now want to turn my attention to.
00:30:22One account is particularly interesting.
00:30:24Five days after the Laconia was sunk, a French rescue vessel arrived at the scene to search for survivors.
00:30:38Some of the bodies they pulled out were covered in highly unusual bite marks.
00:30:45In the words of the account, these were neat round holes, as if made by a punch.
00:30:54But then I see something matching this description with my own eyes.
00:31:00And fishermen here tell me that this is not uncommon.
00:31:07Look at these marks on this Dorado.
00:31:09Circular wound here, another one here.
00:31:13The beginnings of one there, and on the other side.
00:31:18These are all fresh.
00:31:19These are caused by something called a cookie-cutter shark, which is a small species of shark.
00:31:24It lives fairly deep down during the daytime.
00:31:26But what it does, it comes up at night, and it's a sort of a sneak, stealth attacker.
00:31:31I mean, you think of a Dorado, this is a fast fish.
00:31:34You know, normally you're not going to catch one of these things.
00:31:36But the cookie cutter comes in very quickly, and it bites a very clean plug of flesh out of it.
00:31:43I want to learn more about this elusive and unusual creature.
00:31:46Looking through pictures of other bites strengthens the case against the cookie cutter.
00:32:03These wounds are significantly bigger.
00:32:10Although this unusual predator may be small, less than two feet long, its bite can cause serious damage.
00:32:18And yet that signature bite mark is just about the only evidence that cookie cutters even exist.
00:32:29One thing that is known about them is that they rise towards the surface at night to feed.
00:32:35So in the evening, I head out to try and find signs of one for myself.
00:32:39As far as I'm aware, the cookie cutter has never been caught on a line.
00:32:44So this is a very long shot.
00:32:48But at the very least, I might see what else is feeding in these waters after dark.
00:32:53At the time the laconia went down.
00:32:59We're just trying to get into position on the drop-off.
00:33:02About 300 foot of water is what we're looking for.
00:33:05And then we're going to drop down the anchor and we're going to stay here into the night.
00:33:20The laconia was hit at around 8pm and sank by 9.30, leaving its stranded passengers with a full night of horror ahead.
00:33:29Here on the equator you don't get long evenings.
00:33:31It gets dark very quickly, sort of 7 o'clock-ish, something like that.
00:33:36And now 9.30, pitch dark, has been for a couple of hours.
00:33:47I'm using pieces of tuna that I'm going to send down to the bottom.
00:33:50I'm hoping this might at least bring evidence of a cookie cutter.
00:34:00The Atlantic at night is eerily quiet.
00:34:03And apart from the small pool of light from our boat, pitch black.
00:34:07I can't help but make the connection between this boat and the laconia, and also this time of night.
00:34:19This is about the time of night that the boat went down and those hundreds of people ended up in this water.
00:34:25Now it's just about keeping alert and feeling for a movement on my line.
00:34:40The movement, when it comes, almost pulls me in.
00:34:48That's quite a rapid tail beat right now.
00:35:05Yeah, this feels quite heavy. It's contrasting. It's actually coming up quite quickly.
00:35:10So...
00:35:19Here we go.
00:35:22Wow.
00:35:26This is a horse-eyed jack.
00:35:28Took down there in about 300 foot of water.
00:35:32These are sometimes known as big-eyed jacks.
00:35:34They see well in the dark and at depths.
00:35:36They probably share nighttime territory with the cookie cutter.
00:35:40But there are no bite marks to suggest that this one has had an encounter.
00:35:45OK, I'm going to put this back.
00:35:50I load the hook again.
00:35:52And it's not long before something else takes the bait.
00:36:06After its initial pull, it suddenly develops an extraordinary burst of power.
00:36:10It's going.
00:36:12Right.
00:36:14Oh, it's just going. It's just going. It's just going. It's going. It's going.
00:36:18It's going.
00:36:20It takes everything I've got to stop it.
00:36:22This was something that took right on the bottom.
00:36:39Oh, here we go. Here it is. Here it is.
00:36:40What's that?
00:36:44What's that?
00:36:59I'm fishing in the Atlantic Ocean, in the same waters where the RMS Laconia went down.
00:37:05Here we go. Here it is. Here it is.
00:37:06I've just brought up a hefty amberjack from the deep.
00:37:10But I'm not the only hunter out tonight.
00:37:13Half an amberjack.
00:37:15Sharks put it already.
00:37:17When I hooked it, it ran off, stopped.
00:37:20And then it went a second time.
00:37:21And actually, now that I think about it, that second time was more powerful.
00:37:26And what that was was actually a shark hanging on to this.
00:37:28I think moving on, what I've got to do, I've got to fish heavier line, bigger reel to hold that line.
00:37:35Heavy wire on the end.
00:37:39Possibly a bigger boat.
00:37:40Possibly a bigger boat.
00:37:43So I didn't find any evidence of the elusive cookie cutters.
00:37:47But from what the fishermen showed me, I know they're in these waters.
00:37:51The question facing me now is what's down there that can bite a 25 pound fish clean in half.
00:38:07Perhaps now is the time to find out what bigger sharks are hunting in these waters.
00:38:11And this time, I'm well prepared.
00:38:26Just getting some chum cut up to go in the water.
00:38:32Just small bits of fish which will just keep trickling in there at intervals.
00:38:37This creates a certain amount of scent in the water.
00:38:41But the other thing it does, it will bring in small fish.
00:38:44And then the activity of those will bring in larger fish.
00:38:48So we're creating a sort of an event here.
00:38:52We're creating something to make this bit of ocean stand out from all the other space out there.
00:39:02I know that sharks have an extraordinary ability to pick up scent.
00:39:05But in such an immensity of water, chumming almost seems futile.
00:39:20But I keep the chum going in, which keeps the bait fish feeding near the boat.
00:39:27Then I get a faint movement on the line.
00:39:29Oh, there's a knock, there's a knock.
00:39:37Whatever has taken the bait speeds off.
00:39:45What ensues is a battle that's still in progress an hour later.
00:39:49An hour later.
00:39:57I winch it in, turn by painful turn.
00:40:01Sudden slackening then, it could be the fish trying to roll up the line.
00:40:14The thing is when it does that is to basically not give it that slack that it needs.
00:40:18Not give it that slack that it needs.
00:40:23Taking one again.
00:40:25Which way is it going?
00:40:26I think it's still here.
00:40:27Yeah, we're close, we're close.
00:40:29That's the leader knot.
00:40:34You can see the fish down there.
00:40:35You can see the fish down there.
00:40:53This is a tiger shark.
00:40:55Oh God, watch out.
00:40:57OK.
00:40:59Is that under the boat?
00:41:01This tiger shark is not giving in.
00:41:04Definitely not coming quite a bit, this fish.
00:41:10It thrashes and rolls as it attempts to free itself.
00:41:14And it's all I can do to hold it.
00:41:16Oh!
00:41:20That's gone.
00:41:21That's gone.
00:41:23We've got the whole bait back.
00:41:26But the hook, it was just somewhere inside the mouth and it hadn't completely penetrated.
00:41:31The thing is, what they do is they roll up the leader.
00:41:35So you haven't got, very often, that direct pressure on the hook.
00:41:39The hook is, you know, the line goes around the body.
00:41:43I mean, you'd think looking at the bend in that rod and the amount of general strain on everything that that hook would have gone in.
00:41:49But, no, it was still a lot of energy when it came to the surface and basically it just moved around enough to just work that hook free.
00:41:58So, yeah, there's more sharks here than we thought.
00:42:03I've now encountered big sharks on two successive nights.
00:42:07These waters are clearly teeming with active hunting predators.
00:42:10Although last night's catch got away, I've encountered the tiger shark's ferocity before.
00:42:24This is tiger shark and this is a big one.
00:42:27I have little doubt that the Laconia victims would have had to contend with this powerful predator.
00:42:31But tiger sharks in the open ocean usually hunt alone, so they are unlikely to have gathered in sufficient numbers to be solely responsible.
00:42:49So what else was there?
00:42:55For a complete picture, I need to figure out what sharks were roaming these waters in 1942.
00:43:01Searching the historical records throws up useful information that might help to give me the answer.
00:43:06In 1942, the Laconia was far from an isolated incident.
00:43:16The Battle of the Atlantic was reaching its peak.
00:43:20In that year alone, over 1,600 vessels were sunk, resulting in the loss of thousands of lives.
00:43:26Going through the reports of these disasters, I start to see a pattern emerging.
00:43:36Account after account describes the same shark species attacking the people in the water.
00:43:41A shark I have little experience with.
00:43:45The oceanic white tip.
00:43:48But this shark, which patrolled the Atlantic in large numbers in 1942,
00:43:52is now on the endangered list and can only be found in a handful of marine reserves dotted around the world.
00:44:00The reason for this shark's rapid decline is simple.
00:44:05Basically not long after the end of the war, from about the 1950s or so,
00:44:09commercial fishing on an industrial scale started in the open oceans and sharks are particularly vulnerable
00:44:14and it turns out oceanic white tips are one of the most vulnerable species.
00:44:18And it's very hard to come by any definite numbers, but people are saying they've been almost wiped out worldwide.
00:44:28So the fact that they're not here now doesn't necessarily mean that they weren't here in 1942.
00:44:34But if I'm to study these now endangered creatures, it's clear I'm going to have to spread my search a little further.
00:44:41This is the Bahamas and this is one of the few places left on Earth where there is still a relatively healthy population of oceanic white tips.
00:45:05Although it's clear that sharks are a big part of this investigation, and I think there's enough historic evidence to place oceanic white tips in the dock,
00:45:17there's still one question about their involvement that needs answering.
00:45:21According to the Laconia eyewitness accounts, sharks didn't show up until many hours after the sinking.
00:45:32The question I want to answer is why?
00:45:38The Laconia sank in a huge expanse of open ocean where there would undoubtedly have been lone hunting oceanic white tips.
00:45:45But the chances of a large number of sharks being in the exact location where the Laconia sank at that exact time are slim.
00:45:57So what was it that called in these lone sharks in the vastness of the mid-Atlantic?
00:46:03I think there's a clue in the eyewitness accounts.
00:46:06Take this from squadron leader LJ Peters, who along with hundreds of others was fighting for his life in the water that night.
00:46:18He'd swam some distance away from the stricken vessel.
00:46:23By the time he stopped and looked back, the Laconia was almost gone,
00:46:27and he found himself surrounded by debris and burning oil on the surface.
00:46:31Then beneath him, he goes on to write, he heard two huge, booming explosions.
00:46:46Now this booming sound is when the boilers, which are under, you know, intense pressure,
00:46:53superheated metal, as soon as that hits the water, you get a crack and the whole thing just goes.
00:46:56And this sound would have carried over an enormous distance, much further than the sound of anybody splashing in the water, any shouts, this kind of thing.
00:47:07And I'm just wondering if this might have been what called sharks in, possibly, from a very big area of ocean.
00:47:16Now, I don't have the wherewithal to duplicate that scenario to create a huge explosion underwater.
00:47:22But maybe there is a way that I can investigate the effect that sound has on sharks.
00:47:31And maybe this is going to help me. This is a waterproof underwater speaker.
00:47:36And if the weather's okay tomorrow, if I can get out on the water, this might just give me some answers.
00:47:42I want to investigate whether the sound of the Laconia's boilers exploding underwater could have brought in sharks from a distance.
00:47:53My plan is to do this using an underwater speaker.
00:47:56Once we're far enough away from the island reef, we'll stop the boat's engines and I'll continue silently by kayak.
00:48:05I've heard that there have been white tips spotted in this area.
00:48:19And what I want to do, I want to just put some pure sound in the water.
00:48:36I don't want any scent, I don't want any visual stimulus, just sound.
00:48:40And see if anything actually responds to that.
00:48:43I've got all the equipment on board and I'll just leave the main boat a little bit further behind.
00:48:49Then I'll get the speaker in the water.
00:48:51As the name suggests, oceanic white tips are true open ocean predators.
00:49:07They are able to travel huge distances between feeding when prey is scarce.
00:49:13In the vast expanses of water they travel through, they are constantly on the alert for any unusual occurrence.
00:49:21I'm going to test whether sound in the water can bring sharks in to investigate the source.
00:49:42I'm putting a low frequency tone through the speaker.
00:49:45A shark's hearing is adapted to very low frequency vibrations, such as those made by struggling prey.
00:49:52The sound from this speaker has an underwater range of around 800 feet, spreading out in three dimensions.
00:50:06That equates to over 80 million cubic feet of water.
00:50:10Now all I have to do is wait.
00:50:13Now all I have to do is wait.
00:50:15Let's wait.
00:50:16Let's wait.
00:50:17Let's wait.
00:50:18Let's wait.
00:50:22The fin just broke the surface right here, right here, right here.
00:50:47Right here, right here.
00:51:00I'm investigating what happened to hundreds of people who ended up in the water after their ship sank in the middle of the Atlantic in 1942.
00:51:08I want to find out whether sharks could have been brought to the scene by the sound of the ship's boilers exploding underwater.
00:51:15Finn just broke the surface right there.
00:51:19To test this theory, I'm not using bait or blood to attract sharks, just sound.
00:51:27There's one right here heading this way. I'm guessing about six foot under the water.
00:51:35It's a lone oceanic white tip.
00:51:38And it's coming in.
00:51:44And it's just feet away from the speaker. It's actually just within three feet of the speaker.
00:51:52But one lone shark doesn't prove my theory.
00:51:55One here.
00:52:01Finn out of the water.
00:52:07Right, there was just one. I think, you know, there's at least two now.
00:52:11Ah, right by the speaker. Just two, three feet away.
00:52:23I think if I was actually in the water, that would be very ominous to see that.
00:52:31I mean, I'm safely or relatively safely clear of the water at the moment.
00:52:35But these sharks are definitely interested.
00:52:39They've come in from, I don't know where they were, but they've come in to check out this situation.
00:52:45And the sharks aren't leaving. They're sticking close to the speaker.
00:52:59The sharks are circling. They're just hearing the sound and they are, they're circling me.
00:53:03I'm encouraged that this experiment appears to be working, but I'm now surrounded by sharks longer than my tiny kayak.
00:53:21I'm a little worried they're becoming too interested in me.
00:53:25Right here, fin on the surface, going down.
00:53:32I get the feeling that I'm being followed.
00:53:35I think one of the creepiest things is actually the fact that, you know, when you're diving, you've got a mask you can actually see clearly.
00:53:41When you're above the surface, the surface is broken like this.
00:53:44You just see that very ghostly grey shape.
00:53:47Oh, here's one right here, right here, right here.
00:53:55And it's coming back.
00:54:00I've drawn in oceanic white-tipped sharks from a distance.
00:54:05But without an obvious food source, they've started to turn their attention to the kayak.
00:54:11It's time to turn the speaker off.
00:54:18Eventually, the sharks lose interest in both the speaker and my kayak.
00:54:25Well, I definitely got the impression that the sharks were interested in the speaker.
00:54:35For me, the evidence seems to suggest that the night the Laconia went down, the sound of the boilers exploding brought these sharks in from a large distance.
00:54:45Once at closer range, they detected the melee at the surface.
00:54:48But this case isn't solved yet.
00:54:49I'm uncovering evidence that suggests that, as well as oceanic white tips, a bigger and more elusive predator came to investigate that night.
00:55:02Ah, this is an absolute beast. An absolute beast.
00:55:09I'm investigating what happened to the passengers of the RMS Laconia, torpedoed at the height of the Second World War in the Mid-Atlantic.
00:55:15My investigation has so far ID'd three hunters that could have been present in numbers at the scene of the disaster.
00:55:24The snook.
00:55:25The snook.
00:55:26The cookie-cutter shark.
00:55:27The snook.
00:55:28The cookie-cutter shark.
00:55:29And the oceanic white tip.
00:55:30But I'm uncovering evidence that a much bigger predator may have been there that night.
00:55:31The snook.
00:55:32The cookie-cutter shark.
00:55:33The snook.
00:55:34The cookie-cutter shark.
00:55:55I'm back in the area where the Laconia sank, because this investigation has one last twist.
00:56:05I've unearthed something puzzling buried in the eyewitness reports that doesn't seem to match anything I've heard of before.
00:56:12One man says that he saw somebody dragged, in his words, vertically downwards.
00:56:17Moments later, just his empty lifejacket re-emerged.
00:56:27What could have done this?
00:56:31Accounts of oceanic white-tip attacks on people seem to follow a pattern.
00:56:37Cautious circling, followed by the strike.
00:56:40And this is similar to some other shark attacks I've investigated.
00:56:43But this description just doesn't seem to fit.
00:56:49The Laconia sank in 12,000 feet of water.
00:56:53I've looked far and wide for suspects, but so far, I haven't looked down.
00:57:05A memory surfaces.
00:57:07I've seen photographs of monster sharks snagged in the nets of Atlantic deep-sea trawlers.
00:57:13Huge, bizarre creatures that belong to another world.
00:57:17Are these the creatures I'm now looking for?
00:57:24Were the victims of the Laconia dragged down by a leviathan of the deep?
00:57:28My plan is to head out to deep ocean, off the coast of Ascension Island, as close as I can to where the Laconia sank.
00:57:41And fish as deep as my line will allow, to see what will take my bait.
00:57:46This will be a journey into the unknown.
00:57:58I don't know what we will pull up from below.
00:58:01We know more about the surface of Mars than we do about the deep ocean.
00:58:06A fishing expedition of this nature is highly unusual.
00:58:10And whatever I haul up could be of huge scientific interest.
00:58:15So I've invited shark specialist Dr. Tristan Gutteridge to join me on the boat.
00:58:23Whatever I catch, he will document and tag to record its movements.
00:58:27He talks me through the system he's devised.
00:58:33So we've got two components, the transmitter to basically relocate the tag,
00:58:39and then the logger that takes the information, the environmental information,
00:58:43the depth and the temperature that the shark is at.
00:58:45Fishing the depths of the Atlantic won't be easy.
00:58:55And catching a real-life sea monster takes big gear.
00:59:00Big circle hook on the end.
00:59:02Attached to about 30 foot of nylon-coated steel wire.
00:59:08And then the petrol line is 130 pounds.
00:59:14And on full drag.
00:59:19So that's pretty well locked up.
00:59:24So all we've got to do now, get the bait on, big lump of rock on that,
00:59:28send it down to the bottom,
00:59:29and I'm hoping fairly soon we will find out what's down there.
00:59:32All around me, the pitch black of the mid-Atlantic adds to my sense of unease.
00:59:42I've no way of gauging the horizon,
00:59:45and I have the unnerving sense that we're floating in space.
00:59:53Out of the darkness, something flies onto the deck of the boat.
00:59:58Look at this.
00:59:59This just flew into the boat.
01:00:03Oh, it's a flying fish.
01:00:06Oh, amazing.
01:00:07Flying fish have evolved their remarkable ability to evade predators.
01:00:11It's achieved by gaining huge speed underwater
01:00:14before they propel themselves into the air.
01:00:19Never seen that before.
01:00:29We rig underwater cameras to record anything on its way up to the boat.
01:00:45The bait is down on the bottom,
01:00:48and yet anything that happens down there will be transmitted up.
01:00:53The rod-top will move,
01:00:55and I could also feel it through my fingertips.
01:00:58It's almost like being a spider in the middle of a web.
01:01:02So now I'm just waiting for a knock on the line.
01:01:11In preparation for something huge,
01:01:13I put on a fishing harness,
01:01:15but if I'm honest,
01:01:16I don't really know what monsters will be lurking at these depths.
01:01:19Oh, there's a knock, there's a knock.
01:01:28Then I feel the gentlest of knocks on the line
01:01:31before the reel, on full drag, screams off.
01:01:35It's going, oh, that is going up to speed.
01:01:37That is going very fast.
01:01:47Whatever has taken the bait down on the bottom
01:01:49has really taken off.
01:01:53Oh, here we go.
01:01:54Got something like a tail banging the line.
01:01:57It doesn't feel like anything I've ever hooked before.
01:02:01Mystery beast.
01:02:03But it's been really steaming off, taking line.
01:02:07It's a very strong fish.
01:02:09I mean, that is a very strong animal.
01:02:11Very strong animal.
01:02:17It feels like a massive,
01:02:19I was going to say dead weight.
01:02:21It's not dead.
01:02:23It's definitely alive.
01:02:25But it's a weight.
01:02:27I'm breaking quite a sweat here.
01:02:30It's not really gaining anything at the moment.
01:02:46Oh, there we go.
01:02:47It's a little bit of gain there.
01:02:49Whatever I've hooked is truly enormous
01:02:51and it has no intention of coming anywhere near the boat.
01:03:03After nearly an hour of struggle,
01:03:05I might finally see my opponent.
01:03:07Whatever it is,
01:03:12is now close to the surface.
01:03:15You can see something down there.
01:03:17A very indistinct outline.
01:03:19But nothing prepares me
01:03:21for what is revealed on the end of my line.
01:03:24What is that?
01:03:35I'm in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean,
01:03:38fishing for a monster
01:03:39that could be the missing link
01:03:40in a Second World War marine disaster.
01:03:42I'm fishing in very deep water
01:03:44and something huge has taken my bait.
01:03:47One way or another,
01:03:48this is sort of endgame.
01:03:49But nothing prepares me
01:03:54for what is on the end of my line.
01:03:57That's the fish.
01:03:58There it is.
01:04:00What I've raised from the deep
01:04:01twists and turns on the line.
01:04:06It's like nothing I've ever seen before.
01:04:09What is that?
01:04:13It's easily longer than the width of our boat.
01:04:16I estimate around 12 to 14.
01:04:19That's a big old fish.
01:04:22Well hooked.
01:04:23Woo!
01:04:24All right.
01:04:26Shark scientist Tristan
01:04:27identifies it as a six-gill shark.
01:04:31A primitive creature
01:04:33that inhabits the deep ocean.
01:04:40Here we go.
01:04:41Here we go.
01:04:43This animal has more fossil relatives
01:04:46than living ones.
01:04:49Oh, this is an absolute beast.
01:05:04An absolute beast.
01:05:06It's an incredible opportunity for Tristan.
01:05:09A deep-sea giant like this
01:05:11has never been tagged here before.
01:05:12And the information we might gain
01:05:15could be vital to my investigation.
01:05:17But we only have a short time
01:05:19to get a tag in.
01:05:21Perfect.
01:05:21Quick, quick.
01:05:23Yes.
01:05:24Do that?
01:05:25Fantastic.
01:05:26Tristan has to rope the tail
01:05:28to get some degree of control.
01:05:31Then he can insert the tag
01:05:33into its dorsal fin.
01:05:35Do you want those?
01:05:37Yeah, that's it.
01:05:38So this is 48 hours,
01:05:39then it'll pop off.
01:05:40Is that the idea?
01:05:40Yeah, this is 48 hours.
01:05:42And this will log temperature,
01:05:43depth, and light.
01:05:44And then pop off.
01:05:49That's in?
01:05:50Yeah.
01:05:51Fantastic.
01:05:58Right, we've got the tag in,
01:05:59and I think we've had as good a look
01:06:00as we're going to get.
01:06:01All right.
01:06:01Take the rope off.
01:06:02We're now releasing the fish.
01:06:03Massive, massive fish,
01:06:14and a creature of the abyss.
01:06:18With the shark released,
01:06:20it begins its long journey
01:06:21back to the depths,
01:06:23taking with it the tag
01:06:24that we hope will give us
01:06:25a unique insight
01:06:26into its movements.
01:06:29Is this the first time
01:06:30that tags of that kind
01:06:32have been used here,
01:06:32as far as you know?
01:06:33First time anyone's ever
01:06:34put a satellite tag
01:06:35on a six-gill in a century land.
01:06:37So it'll be very exciting
01:06:38to see what this animal does.
01:06:40We have a reliable estimate
01:06:42of well over 1,000 pounds,
01:06:43you know,
01:06:44something like 1,100 pounds.
01:06:45That is actually the biggest fish
01:06:46that I've ever caught.
01:06:47It's a very special place,
01:06:48very special catch.
01:06:51But thrilling as this catch was,
01:06:53I still can't place
01:06:55these leviathans
01:06:56at the scene
01:06:56of the laconeus sinking.
01:06:58These are creatures of the deep.
01:07:01What would they have been doing
01:07:02near the surface?
01:07:03Yes.
01:07:13Later,
01:07:14after Tristan has retrieved
01:07:15the data from the tag,
01:07:17he calls me
01:07:19with what might be
01:07:20the glimmer
01:07:20of an answer.
01:07:23Hello, Tristan.
01:07:24Hello.
01:07:25So you got something
01:07:26from the tag?
01:07:27It popped up?
01:07:28Yeah, so what's pretty exciting
01:07:30is we now know
01:07:31kind of what the six gill
01:07:32was doing across that period.
01:07:34And what's cool
01:07:35is that they make this
01:07:37what's called
01:07:38a dial vertical migration.
01:07:40So they travel
01:07:42down to the depths
01:07:43during the day
01:07:44and up in the water column
01:07:46during the night.
01:07:47It seems to be the light.
01:07:48So when it hits dusk and dawn,
01:07:50that's when they make
01:07:50these migrations
01:07:51up and down.
01:07:52And they're all probably
01:07:53just tracking prey,
01:07:54squid and things like that.
01:07:56But horizontally,
01:07:57we saw no movement
01:07:57whatsoever.
01:07:58So they're moving a lot,
01:08:00but it's moving
01:08:01purely in the
01:08:02up and down direction.
01:08:05Yeah.
01:08:05What might be the point
01:08:06of coming up?
01:08:07Are you thinking
01:08:07that they are doing
01:08:08the feeding
01:08:09when they come up shallow?
01:08:11Yeah.
01:08:11They probably scavenge
01:08:12from carcasses
01:08:13and things like that.
01:08:14I mean, who'd have thought
01:08:15that little thing
01:08:16that we attach to that fish
01:08:17that it can give
01:08:18this information.
01:08:20It's just such an insight,
01:08:21isn't it,
01:08:21to what's going on down there?
01:08:23Yeah, exactly.
01:08:24All right.
01:08:24Bye-bye.
01:08:25Take care.
01:08:25Cheers.
01:08:26Bye-bye.
01:08:27Right.
01:08:27Although there are
01:08:28many questions
01:08:30about six-gill sharks
01:08:31still to be answered,
01:08:32this experiment
01:08:34demonstrates very,
01:08:35very clearly
01:08:35this up and down migration
01:08:37that synchronises
01:08:38absolutely with
01:08:39the passage of night and day.
01:08:42You know,
01:08:42they're down deep
01:08:43during the day,
01:08:45then they rise up at night.
01:08:46And given the fact
01:08:46that the Laconia
01:08:47went down
01:08:48during the hours of darkness,
01:08:50this could be
01:08:51very significant.
01:08:52The only thing is,
01:08:53despite all this
01:08:54amazing technology
01:08:55we've been using,
01:08:56the one thing
01:08:56that it can't tell us
01:08:57is whether
01:08:58six-gill sharks
01:09:00would actually
01:09:01feed on humans.
01:09:06I have been known
01:09:07to use myself
01:09:08as human bait.
01:09:10This time,
01:09:11I think I'll pass.
01:09:13But I think
01:09:14I've found a way
01:09:14to do the next best thing.
01:09:16I haven't come here
01:09:26to top up my tan.
01:09:27The reason I'm here
01:09:28in Honduras
01:09:28is because there's
01:09:29a guy living here
01:09:30who has built
01:09:31this extraordinary vehicle
01:09:32that is able to
01:09:33penetrate right down
01:09:34to the depths of the ocean,
01:09:35the so-called
01:09:36bathyplagic zone.
01:09:37This is where
01:09:38no light ever reaches.
01:09:40I've arranged to meet
01:09:53Carl Stanley,
01:09:55owner, builder
01:09:56and captain
01:09:57of the Ida Bell,
01:09:58a two-man submarine
01:09:59capable of descending
01:10:00to over 2,500 feet.
01:10:03We're going to attach
01:10:05a dead pig
01:10:05to the front
01:10:06of the sub as bait.
01:10:07As I learned
01:10:09from a former cannibal tribe
01:10:10in the South Pacific,
01:10:11pig meat tastes a lot
01:10:13like human flesh.
01:10:15I want to find out
01:10:16if this will bring in
01:10:17the six gills.
01:10:18This is a slightly different
01:10:20type of baiting up
01:10:21operation for me.
01:10:22I'm used to putting things
01:10:23on big hooks,
01:10:25but I've never actually
01:10:27strapped a dead pig
01:10:29on the front
01:10:29of a submarine before.
01:10:31Normally when I'm fishing,
01:10:33I'm a long way away
01:10:34from the bait
01:10:34and I just get a tactile
01:10:36or maybe an audible
01:10:37indication that something's
01:10:38down there
01:10:38and at that point
01:10:39I generally don't know
01:10:40what it is,
01:10:40but I'm going to be
01:10:41sitting literally
01:10:41a few feet away
01:10:42from this.
01:10:43So if something comes
01:10:44along and shows
01:10:45an interest in this,
01:10:46I'm going to have
01:10:46a ringside seat.
01:10:47I'm just a couple
01:10:48of feet away.
01:10:50This is the pressure
01:10:51hull.
01:10:52Yeah.
01:10:52And that's made out
01:10:53of three high-strength
01:10:54steel spheres.
01:10:56Right, so I take it
01:10:57I'm in that bit there
01:10:58and is that where
01:10:59you're driving it from?
01:11:00Yes.
01:11:00I'm not ashamed
01:11:06to admit that mixed
01:11:07with my excitement
01:11:08is mounting apprehension.
01:11:12That's where I'm going.
01:11:16It's a wee bit
01:11:17claustrophobic
01:11:17and under 2,000 feet
01:11:19of water
01:11:19it's going to be
01:11:21a whole new level
01:11:23of that.
01:11:24The curved walls
01:11:32make it almost impossible
01:11:34to sit up straight
01:11:35and I could be spending
01:11:36up to nine hours
01:11:37cooped up inside here.
01:11:54I'm positioned up front
01:12:02at Carl's feet
01:12:03in what he has dubbed
01:12:05the passenger sphere
01:12:06which is a cramped
01:12:0754 inches wide.
01:12:12The plan is to travel
01:12:13vertically down
01:12:14to 2,000 feet
01:12:16or maybe more
01:12:16then wait and hope
01:12:18that the bait
01:12:18will attract the sharks
01:12:20on their nightly migration
01:12:21up from even deeper.
01:12:23We're going down
01:12:24into the Cayman Trench
01:12:25which at its deepest
01:12:26is about 25,000 feet.
01:12:29We're not going
01:12:29quite that deep
01:12:30but probably a couple
01:12:31of thousand
01:12:31and I've been told
01:12:32to expect a vertical
01:12:33journey of about
01:12:3445 minutes.
01:12:53As we descend
01:12:55the temperature plummets
01:12:57from 84 degrees Fahrenheit
01:12:58to a chilly 50.
01:13:01We're just coming up
01:13:02to 500 feet
01:13:03and as we're descending
01:13:06I sort of can't help
01:13:09thinking about
01:13:09when the Laconia went down
01:13:10there were people
01:13:11who jumped in the water
01:13:11but there were almost
01:13:12definitely going to be
01:13:13people trapped
01:13:15inside the structure
01:13:16as well as it sunk
01:13:17and that is definitely
01:13:20a one-way trip.
01:13:23I sort of don't want
01:13:24to think about that
01:13:24too much.
01:13:27That's 1,000 feet.
01:13:30The pressure on the
01:13:31outside of the hull
01:13:32increases as the weight
01:13:33of all that water
01:13:34above us bears down
01:13:36on the sub.
01:13:37At this depth
01:13:38that equates to 430 pounds
01:13:40on every square inch.
01:13:53We've got lights
01:13:54on the sub
01:13:54so the water here
01:13:55is illuminated
01:13:56but looking up
01:13:57I mean the surface
01:13:59is long past
01:14:01being visible
01:14:02and where we're
01:14:03actually going
01:14:04it's where we're
01:14:04going to the edge
01:14:05of the bathypelagic zone
01:14:07this is where
01:14:07even
01:14:08during the daytime
01:14:10no light reaches
01:14:12down here
01:14:13the water basically
01:14:15swallows up the light
01:14:16so it's a very
01:14:16it's a very unfamiliar
01:14:19type of space
01:14:21it's not like
01:14:21the rest of the world.
01:14:29That dark emptiness
01:14:30out there
01:14:31is actually
01:14:33what most of the earth
01:14:34is like
01:14:34what we see
01:14:35is
01:14:35a tiny
01:14:38fraction
01:14:39of our planet
01:14:39We cautiously
01:14:42approach the sea floor
01:14:44if we were to get
01:14:45stuck on anything
01:14:46there would be
01:14:46no hope of rescue
01:14:48We have enough oxygen
01:14:53for three days
01:14:55but there's no
01:14:56communication
01:14:56with the surface
01:14:57and no vessel
01:14:58within a thousand miles
01:15:00capable of
01:15:00descending this deep
01:15:02but in this complex
01:15:04underwater landscape
01:15:05it's doubtful
01:15:06anyone could find us
01:15:07anyway
01:15:07I almost feel like
01:15:10an astronaut
01:15:11just
01:15:13minutes away
01:15:14from
01:15:14landing on the moon
01:15:16my first glimpse
01:15:26of life down here
01:15:27a sculptured lobster
01:15:29this really does feel
01:15:36like the surface
01:15:37of another planet
01:15:38no footprints
01:15:40this is a place
01:15:41where no human being
01:15:42has probably
01:15:44touched down before
01:15:46the depth gauge
01:15:48the depth gauge
01:15:48now reads
01:15:492,000 feet
01:15:50we are precariously
01:15:52positioned on a tiny ledge
01:15:53to my right
01:15:55a sheer cliff face
01:15:56drops away
01:15:57towards the bottom
01:15:58of the trench
01:15:58another 5 miles down
01:16:00the pressure
01:16:02on the outside
01:16:02of the hull
01:16:03now
01:16:03is more than
01:16:05900 pounds
01:16:06per square inch
01:16:07a crack
01:16:08would mean
01:16:09instant death
01:16:10so
01:16:12white light
01:16:13at the moment
01:16:14and we are now
01:16:15going to switch
01:16:15to red light
01:16:16which the sharks
01:16:17won't be aware of
01:16:19so we are about
01:16:19to go into
01:16:20stealth mode
01:16:21this means
01:16:24that although
01:16:24we can see
01:16:25what is going on
01:16:26the shark
01:16:27can't see us
01:16:28so what we do
01:16:40now is we wait
01:16:41hagfish
01:16:45coming right
01:16:46in front of us
01:16:47so we've got
01:16:53a hagfish
01:16:54that's come in here
01:16:55and that's starting
01:16:56to feed
01:16:58quite actively
01:16:59what that's doing
01:17:00that's stirring up
01:17:02a cloud of
01:17:03scent in the water
01:17:04there's giant
01:17:05isopods scuttling
01:17:07around as well
01:17:07which have obviously
01:17:08got wind of something
01:17:09happening here
01:17:09so there will be
01:17:10a cloud
01:17:11of scent
01:17:12slowly spreading
01:17:14out in the water
01:17:14and what we're hoping
01:17:15is that that's going
01:17:16to call in
01:17:18the sharks
01:17:19isopods have been
01:17:21observed going
01:17:21five years
01:17:22between meals
01:17:23and in this
01:17:24environment
01:17:25they live in a
01:17:25perpetual state
01:17:26of semi-hibernation
01:17:28they typically
01:17:37scavenge
01:17:37whatever food
01:17:38drifts down
01:17:39from the surface
01:17:40shark
01:17:44shark
01:17:49I got a shark
01:17:50I'm 2,000 feet down
01:18:04in the Cayman trench
01:18:05trying to lure in
01:18:06a leviathan of the deep
01:18:07the six-gill shark
01:18:09I want to find out
01:18:10if this creature
01:18:11could have been involved
01:18:12in the aftermath
01:18:13of the wartime sinking
01:18:14of the RMS Laconia
01:18:16shark
01:18:17shark
01:18:17shark
01:18:18shark
01:18:18we've got a shark
01:18:19and the scent
01:18:20from my bait
01:18:21a dead pig
01:18:22strapped to the front
01:18:23of my submarine
01:18:23has just brought one in
01:18:26a very faint
01:18:29almost ghost-like
01:18:30just drifting
01:18:31left to right
01:18:33just on the edge
01:18:33of visibility
01:18:34but I'm guessing
01:18:38that wasn't just
01:18:40a sort of
01:18:40a coincidental
01:18:42drift by
01:18:43I think it's probably
01:18:44picking up the scent
01:18:47it's turning around
01:18:51it's turning around
01:18:521, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
01:19:00six-gill shark
01:19:02wow
01:19:04that's a big animal
01:19:10big, big, big, big animal
01:19:12I have to remind myself
01:19:15that although I can see it
01:19:17the shark can't register
01:19:18red light
01:19:19so it cannot see me
01:19:21or the bait
01:19:22oh, here it comes
01:19:24right over my head
01:19:25and since we're not
01:19:27making any sound
01:19:28it has found us
01:19:29using its sense of scent
01:19:31it's now coming towards us
01:19:35and it seems to be
01:19:38very slowly zeroing
01:19:39is it going to feed?
01:19:47is it going to feed?
01:19:48where's it going to be?
01:20:01where's it going now?
01:20:02There it is, it's coming around again, it's coming into the base, it's coming in, this
01:20:18looks quite purposeful, look at that, wow.
01:20:32That is a feeding shark, that's what a feeding shark looks like.
01:20:52It's moving the whole side, but it's actually moving the whole side.
01:21:02That shark is bigger than the whole sub in terms of length and I'm literally inches away,
01:21:11inches away.
01:21:14Well, I think it's fair to say it's got the taste for the bait.
01:21:33That's amazing, that's amazing.
01:21:40The bait has been obliterated by the shark's serrated teeth.
01:21:44Like a ghost, it vanishes into the darkness.
01:22:03Every time you put a bait in the water you're asking a question and in this particular instance
01:22:18my question was, is there life down below the surface layers that might come up?
01:22:23Absolutely there is and some very large and very impressive life.
01:22:27And I have to say that I'm even less comfortable about being down here, so I think it's high
01:22:31time now to get back to the surface.
01:22:38So what does this tell me about the victims of the Laconia disaster?
01:22:45Could the Sixgill have been involved?
01:22:48What I do know is that these rarely observed giants inhabit the same waters where the Laconia sank.
01:22:54They rise towards the surface at night, the time when many hundreds of people were flailing in the water.
01:23:00And from what I've just witnessed, they tear into flesh with gusto.
01:23:10The sinking of the Laconia sent 2,500 people into the vast Atlantic.
01:23:15And this horrifying event must have attracted a multitude of predators.
01:23:20A marauding school of fanged snook which ripped through in a first wave.
01:23:25Then bloodthirsty parasitic cookie cutter sharks that cut precision bites.
01:23:31And later tiger sharks and oceanic white tips drawn in first by the sound of the ship's exploding boilers.
01:23:38And then by the blood in the water.
01:23:41And maybe they were joined by this prehistoric leviathan, the Sixgill shark.
01:23:47A true sea monster as terrifying as anything from the depths of our imagination.
01:23:52The full story will never be known.
01:23:54But I now understand in a way that I didn't before.
01:23:58Why so many of the Laconia's passengers never made it home.
01:24:02So many of the Laconia***a
01:24:21But our linkages will go to unturn video.
01:24:24They also need to be met.
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