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Expedition Files - Season 4 - Episode 02: Deadly Forecast
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00:00On this episode of Expedition Files.
00:04In 1846, a courageous group of settlers known as the Donner Party
00:09travel halfway across the country in search of a new life, but find only death.
00:17Starving, they cross the ultimate line, cannibalism.
00:22Now we reveal shocking new details about their horrifying final days.
00:29Then, at the height of the Cold War, the US builds a top-secret nuclear missile base
00:35deep under the Arctic, before abandoning it years later.
00:40Today, as the ice melts, a ticking time bomb is revealed.
00:46And in 1872, the Mary Celeste is discovered drifting in the Atlantic.
00:53The ship is intact, but the entire crew has vanished into thin air.
00:58Now, a shocking new theory may uncover the truth behind history's most haunting ghost ship.
01:09In the corridors of time
01:13are mysteries that defy explanation.
01:17Now, I'm traveling through history itself
01:23on a search for the truth.
01:27New evidence.
01:31Shocking answers.
01:34I'm Josh Gates.
01:36And these
01:39are my Expedition Files.
01:46My mom's British, and like all Brits, she loves to talk about the weather.
01:51It was sunny for a couple of hours, then it was rainy for a minute, then it was sunny again.
01:55It's a real roller coaster. But you know, she might actually be onto something,
01:59because powerful weather often leads to powerful stories. And tonight, we brave the toughest
02:05conditions imaginable to discover the secrets of three historic mysteries that unfold where man
02:11and mother nature meet. We begin on the 19th of July, 1846. I'm at Little Sandy River in Wyoming.
02:20A caravan of roughly 20 wagons and 87 hopeful men, women, and children are crossing the country
02:27to realize their dreams in California. But here, at a fork in the trail, that dream will turn into a
02:34nightmare, all because of a single choice, left or right. Weeks from now, this group will become
02:40trapped in the snows of the Sierra Nevada mountains, culminating in starvation, madness, and cannibalism.
02:47The traumatized survivors will speak of a place called the Camp of Death, where the unthinkable
02:52choice to eat their own was first made. But for nearly two centuries, the location will be lost to time,
02:58until a new four-legged search team reveals what may be the true location of the demise of the Donner
03:06Party.
03:15Leading the Donner Party is 60-year-old George Donner.
03:20He, his wife Tamsen, and their children have left their farm in Illinois in search of a better life on
03:27California coast. Sharing leadership duties with Donner is James Reid and his family.
03:32He's hoping California's climate will improve his wife Margaret's poor health.
03:41Joined by more than 80 other pioneers, the group at first sets out along the tried and true path west,
03:48the Oregon and California trails. But George and James have a detour in mind.
03:55Something called the Hastings Cut-Off, that's said to take a more direct route and trim 300 miles
04:01and a whole month off the journey. This supposedly faster route is publicized by real estate mogul
04:09Langford Hastings, mostly to lure people to California, where Hastings conveniently has land to sell.
04:21Hastings has promotional letters distributed along the trail. George Donner received one just a week
04:27before his expedition was set to begin. Hastings' letter claims the cut-off is not only passable,
04:33but preferable. His encouragement fills the Donner Party with confidence as they set out on their journey.
04:40There's just one problem. Hastings had never fully traveled the specific route he recommended.
04:50Unaware that the route is largely untested, George,
04:54James, and the rest of the party forge ahead from Little Sandy toward Fort Bridger.
05:07Just days into their journey along the cut-off, the supposedly easier terrain turns out to be a brutal
05:14slog through Utah's mountainous terrain, with boulders and fallen trees blocking their path.
05:22And after a month of this, they're faced with an even worse challenge,
05:27an 80-mile crossing over the Great Salt Lake Desert, a barren, waterless expanse.
05:40They run out of water, their wagons break, and many of their livestock escape or perish.
05:47The pioneers are close to their breaking point, but remarkably, no one in the party dies.
05:54At least, not yet.
05:57Finally, on September 26th, the party is able to rejoin the traditional trail.
06:03This shortcut has left them more than a month behind schedule. They are now on winter's doorstep.
06:10In fact, they're the last group of settlers to attempt the trip to California this year,
06:14and their toughest challenge lies ahead.
06:17They must climb 7,000 feet and cross the Sierra Nevadas ahead of the coming snow.
06:24Over the next four weeks, the Donner party continues to unravel.
06:29With food dwindling and the conditions only getting colder, several members succumb to sickness and exhaustion.
06:38As desperation sets in, tensions explode.
06:42Co-leader James Reed stabs another man during a dispute and is banished from the group,
06:49leaving his wife, Margaret, alone to care for their children.
06:53It's the beginning of a rift between the expedition's two leading families,
06:58the Donners and the Reeds, one that will have catastrophic results.
07:04Eventually, the pioneers reach the Sierra Nevada mountains, the gateway to California.
07:10But it is now early November, and five members of the once 87-strong party are already dead.
07:18As the expedition climbs the eastern slopes of the Sierras, they reach Alder Creek,
07:24where disaster strikes again. George Donner's wagon axle snaps, forcing his family to stop.
07:31It is here that the group fully splinters. The party is officially over.
07:37George and Tamsendonner decide to remain at Alder Creek, along with their three children and 16 others.
07:46Meanwhile, Margaret Reed, the wife of the banished expedition leader James Reed,
07:51continues toward a place called Truckee Lake, with the surviving 60 members of other families.
07:58Margaret's group wants to push through the mountain pass before winter takes hold,
08:02but Mother Nature has other plans.
08:07Attempts to cross the mountain pass are futile. The snow is already falling, and the trail is socked in.
08:13The exhausted families have no choice but to wait out the winter here, near Truckee Lake.
08:18But sadly, many of them will never see spring.
08:24Margaret, her family, and the rest of her group desperately seek safety in a series of rickety
08:30shelters they build at Truckee Lake. And their former companions aren't faring any better. Six miles
08:36back down the trail at Alder Creek, George Donner's group are also weathering the snowstorm,
08:42trying to forge a permanent camp in the icy wilderness. The Donner party is forever fractured,
08:48but united in suffering. And conditions only go from bad to worse. A series of hundred-year storms roll in
08:59one after another.
09:00And 25-foot-foot-high snow banks wall them in like prisoners. Their makeshift cabins and lean-tos are no
09:09match for the punishing snowfall.
09:12The pioneers barely cling to life, and with their animals either dead or eaten,
09:17they desperately turn to gnawing the ox-hide rugs they usually sleep on.
09:24Back at Truckee Lake, in a last-ditch bid for survival, five women, nine men, and a 12-year-old
09:31boy
09:31make the harrowing choice to leave their comrades behind and strike out across the Sierras on crude,
09:38homemade snowshoes. Their only hope is reaching Sutter's Fort near Sacramento,
09:44a well-known supply station about 100 miles away.
09:50This courageous band of pioneers will later be known as the Forlorn Hope.
09:57A week into their grueling journey, the Forlorn Hope's progress grinds to a halt.
10:03Snowed in and completely out of food, they contemplate the horrifying
10:07reality that their only chance of survival means resorting to cannibalism.
10:14They draw straws to decide the first person who should die and be eaten.
10:19A man named Patrick Dolan draws the short straw, but nobody can bear to kill him.
10:26That night, temperatures continue to plummet, and the next day, Dolan dies,
10:32not at the hands of the others, but because of hypothermia.
10:37The members of Forlorn Hope make the nearly impossible decision to eat Patrick's remains.
10:45This place, deep in the mountain wilderness, will come to be known as the Camp of Death.
10:53The place where the Donner Party are first forced to eat their own.
10:57No record tells us exactly how many are eaten. What is certain is Patrick Dolan was not the only one.
11:07Eventually, the weather clears, and those remaining are finally able to leave the Camp of Death,
11:13and its horrors behind.
11:21Finally, on January 17th, 33 days after leaving the others behind at Truckee Lake in a desperate
11:29search for help, the remaining members of the Forlorn Hope are saved by Native American guides
11:35who lead them to shelter. The cost of their bravery is staggering. Of the 15 who set out, only 7
11:43survive.
11:45Eventually reaching the remote frontier settlement of Johnson's Ranch, the survivors alert the outside
11:51world and trigger rescue efforts for the two groups still stranded at Truckee Lake and Alder Creek.
11:59Rescue teams are dispatched to reach the settlers before it's too late,
12:03but what they discover will expose the true cost of survival and a mystery that endures for 180 years.
12:18It's 1847. The rescue of the Forlorn Hope marks a turning point, triggering coordinated efforts to
12:26reach the remaining members of the Donner Party snowed in at remote camps.
12:31The first rescue team sets out to find the stranded pioneers at Truckee Lake, and amazingly,
12:38they manage to evacuate 23 survivors, including Margaret Reid. But heartbreak shadows the mission.
12:46James and Margaret's two youngest children are too weak to travel and must be left behind.
12:52At nearby Alder Creek, the outlook is just as grim.
12:56George Donner is deathly ill, and his wife Tamsen refuses to leave with the rescuers.
13:04Those rescuers can only promise to send more help when they can, and hope it will arrive in time.
13:13Two weeks later, a second rescue team arrives, but this time they're met with a nightmarish reality.
13:21At Truckee Lake, the remaining pioneers had turned to cannibalism, just like the Forlorn Hope Party had done first at
13:29the Camp of Death weeks earlier.
13:32Still, the team rescues 17 more people, including the two Reid children their mother was forced to leave behind.
13:41But George Donner can't be saved. He dies of infection. And Tamsen Donner's body is later found near the camp,
13:49alongside chilling evidence that George's brother Jacob may have been their final meal.
13:56Of the 87 who set out in the Donner Party, 48 survived, 39 were lost.
14:02Also lost was the exact location where much of the tragedy played out, the place where the group known as
14:08Forlorn Hope first turned to cannibalism.
14:11So in 2022, I joined historical researchers Bob Crowley and Tim Tweetmeyer on a trek into the Sierras for the
14:19seemingly impossible task of finding the Camp of Death.
14:23By following the route of the Forlorn Hope through the Sierra Nevadas and using clues to the terrain they left
14:29behind in diary entries,
14:31we identify an area of interest in what is today California's Tahoe National Forest and fan out with metal detectors.
14:40One survivor wrote in his diary that they had left many items behind, including his hand axe.
14:47We knew we were hunting for a needle or a hand axe in a haystack. But then it happened.
14:56Oh, hold on.
14:58You got something?
14:59Yeah, I got a hit. Something here for sure.
15:02That sounds like metal.
15:05What did you find?
15:10Oh, my word. Oh, my word. Oh, my word. Look at that.
15:13That's what we were looking for.
15:15Unbelievable.
15:17Greg, what do you think?
15:17Wow, fantastic.
15:18Amazing.
15:19Yeah, that is, that is a hand-forged axe.
15:24This is wild. I mean, could this really be?
15:29And if this is that axe, then we're standing in the Camp of Death.
15:32No doubt about that.
15:35Amazing.
15:37Unearthing the axe head was astonishing. Finally, a tangible link to the lost camp of the Donner Party.
15:44But we found no trace of the bodies of those that died at the Camp of Death. Recently,
15:50Bob and Tim returned to the site we found. And this time, they brought cadaver dogs.
15:58Canine forensics is a way of training the dog to search out and find human remains that have been
16:04buried for decades, if not centuries. When we decided we wanted to try to do a search at the
16:09Camp of Death, we contacted the Institute for Canine Forensics.
16:12And they connected us with John Griebenkemper and his dog, Kaylee, and the forensics search began.
16:18As the dog searches in a pattern where it's directed, it's kind of said, here's an area I need you
16:23to search.
16:24Kaylee's wandering around sniffing and sitting and wandering, and John's marking these spots with his GPS.
16:30In the end, when they searched for an hour or two, she had like 25 alerts. And then when you
16:35map that
16:36at a high level, you can see the concentration of where each of the finds was made scattered around
16:41in some of the edges of the search pattern. There's definitely something out there that we wouldn't see
16:46somewhere else. And we just kind of looked at each other and went, oh, wow. It became very clear to
16:50us
16:51that this was the location that we were looking for. A subsequent search with a different cadaver dog
16:56confirmed the findings. There were human remains at the site. And it turns out it's less than 30 feet
17:03from where we discovered the axe head. The place known as the Camp of Death had at last been found,
17:09deep in a remote area in the North Fork American River Canyon of Tahoe National Forest. The courage and
17:17sacrifice that took place at this long lost location is what saved the rest of the Donner Party.
17:23We did the calculation and that saved 25 additional lives, which when we did the actuarial table of
17:30descendants is 25,000 people that were born because of the bravery of what they've done. A lot of people
17:38have asked us, what are we going to do next at the Camp of Death? And we have been in
17:43touch with many of
17:44the descendants of those in the Forlorn Hope. And I think they were joyful to learn that we believe
17:50we found the Camp of Death. And for those that were descendants of those that perished there,
17:56it gave them closure, peace of mind. We're going to leave it at that.
18:01The real story of the Donner Party is not just a tale of macabre horror, but a raw human saga.
18:08Parents making unthinkable sacrifices, strangers risking everything for each other, and pioneers
18:14braving it all for a better life. Their legacy is one of exceptional resilience. And now, for the first
18:21time, we have another place we can honor that legacy, with a hope that's not so forlorn after all.
18:33Welcome to Greenland, a frozen island in the North Atlantic, roughly three times the size of Texas.
18:39It's 1966, and nearly 100 feet below me lies Camp Century, a Cold War base with a top secret purpose.
18:48Unfortunately, the ice beneath me is shifting dramatically. And so the US soldiers stationed
18:54here are abandoning the base and sealing it up, never to return. But over 50 years later,
19:01the relentless Arctic elements will expose the dirty secrets of a forgotten outpost of America, frozen in time.
19:16Today on the island of Greenland, as part of man's continuing efforts to master the secrets of
19:22survival in the Arctic, the United States Army has established an unprecedented nuclear-powered
19:28Arctic research center. This sounds like something out of a Cold War comic book,
19:33but it's entirely real. That smooth-voiced narrator you just heard is from an old United States Army
19:40film strip, introducing what was then hailed as a marvel of military engineering, Camp Century.
19:48Nicknamed the City Under Ice, Camp Century is a stunning example of American ingenuity,
19:54or so the Army says. Officially, the mission is to improve glaciological research and Arctic
20:01survival strategies. Construction kicks off in June 1959, but building a subterranean base 100 feet
20:10beneath shifting glacial ice requires solving an avalanche of problems.
20:15They have to dig massive trenches in the ice, and use huge steel arches to keep the structure from
20:22being crushed. And temperature is a constant enemy. Too much heat, and the base will melt from the
20:27inside out. Too little, and the soldiers will become human popsicles.
20:33The final hurdle? Getting power to this underground city. Meet the PM2A, no relation to R2D2. This is the
20:41world's first portable nuclear power plant, if you define portable as a 330-ton behemoth that has to be
20:48shipped in pieces and assembled like radioactive IKEA furniture. But once operational, it delivers a
20:54whopping 2 megawatts of electricity, enough to power over 1,500 homes. In October 1960, Camp Century opens for
21:04business. 21 underground tunnels stretching approximately 2 miles under the ice, complete with dormitories,
21:11a mess hall, chapel, hospital, even a theater. The base can house over 200 people, which is exactly what
21:19causes outsiders to start asking questions. Like, why is such a large facility needed for glacial research?
21:27Why do they require a nuclear reactor? Why is the US Army calling the shots? The answer? This is no
21:35ordinary
21:36science base. This is Project Ice Worm, a Cold War weapon hidden behind a scientific snowstorm. The plan?
21:45To secretly install hundreds of nuclear missiles under the ice, poised to strike the Soviet Union at a moment's
21:53notice. Because at the dawn of the 60s, many believe the world is inching toward nuclear annihilation.
22:00Why is Greenland so perfect to house US nukes? Simple. It's close to Russia.
22:08In 1957, the Soviet Union launches Sputnik, the first artificial satellite which sends shockwaves
22:16through the West. More than a breakthrough, it's a warning. If the Soviets can reach orbit,
22:23they can strike across the globe. Panic spreads, shelters are built in backyards, and kids practice
22:30duck and cover. The Cold War has arrived in everyday life. So the US responds with stealth and scale.
22:38The plan is for Project Ice Worm to sprawl beneath 52,000 square miles of ice, hiding up to 600
22:45nuclear
22:45missiles, which will be able to pierce through the ice upon launch. But serious firepower needs
22:52serious secrecy. So the cover story of Camp Century and its so-called glacial research is born.
22:59And the ruse works, until nature has its say. It turns out the Greenland ice sheet is anything but stable.
23:07Tunnels warp. Walls crack. Water seeps and pools. The base is constantly soaked. Not to mention,
23:14foul-smelling. By 1964, the operation is collapsing. Literally. Project Ice Worm is scrapped, thankfully,
23:23before any missiles arrive on the island. And in 1966, the army begins dismantling Camp Century.
23:29The nuclear reactor is removed. But in what will prove to be a fateful decision, everything else is
23:35left behind. For decades, the details of the base stayed buried in heavily classified files, until January of
23:441995, when the Danish Foreign Policy Institute launched an inquiry into the history of nuclear weapons
23:51in Greenland. That's when Project Ice Worm was exposed to the public for the very first time.
23:59But the real shock came after further research. Hidden beneath the ice wasn't just a ghost base,
24:05it was a toxic hell. 53,000 gallons of leaking diesel fuel, 63,000 gallons of sewage-laced wastewater,
24:14and unknown amounts of radioactive coolant. The army assumed it would all remain frozen forever.
24:20What they didn't count on was rising temperatures. And now, a shocking catastrophe is coming. A ticking time
24:27bomb under the ice. When the Danish government discovers the U.S. Army secretly hid highly toxic
24:39waste in Greenland as part of an abandoned nuclear weapons base, there is widespread outrage. Professor
24:46of Ecology Steven Allison has studied the site, and what he's discovered is deeply disturbing.
24:51One of the materials present at Camp Century is called PCB, or polychlorinated biphenyls. They're
24:59carcinogens, which could then have human health impacts like causing cancers or causing other
25:04neurological problems, reproductive issues, etc. They bioaccumulate in the food chain. What that means
25:12is that when a predator eats a prey fish, for example, then the predator gets all the toxin that was
25:18in that
25:18prey, and so on and so forth, up the food chain. That becomes a problem if people are eating marine
25:24life anywhere in the food chain. So those are some pretty substantial negative impacts that could arise
25:30from the legacy of toxins at Camp Century. In 2016, a team of international scientists applied the latest
25:38climate models to the region. The results show that steadily warming conditions make Camp Century
25:44a ticking time bomb. What they found was that by 2090, the ice would stop building up, and after
25:532090, within 50 or 60 years, the ice surface would actually begin melting down, exposing all of that nuclear
26:02waste and other toxic material to the environment. Okay, so the U.S. Army made a mess, and now they
26:11just have to go
26:11clean it up, right? Well, first they have to go find it. After all, nobody has stepped foot inside Camp
26:17Century
26:17for over 50 years. In April 2024, a team of NASA scientists took off on a mission from the Air
26:26Force Base in northern Greenland. On their jet plane, they had a sophisticated new radar system that would
26:33allow them to map in detail the structure of the ice sheet and its depth. And on this radar system,
26:40they were able to find Camp Century buried below the ice surface by about 200 feet.
26:48As for the looming ecological disaster, it's locked deep in ice, but it isn't exactly easy to extract.
26:55Right now, that toxic material is buried underneath, you know, many hundreds of feet of ice. So it's not
27:02like we can just go in there with a drill or a shovel and take it out and remove it.
27:07We're going to have to
27:08wait for it to start moving and melting out of the ice. While we might not be able to dig
27:15up the waste
27:15before it's exposed, scientists believe there may be another way to clean up these pollutants using nature
27:22itself. One option might be to rely on our natural ecosystems. And the good news is that we may be
27:30able
27:30to use microorganisms like bacteria to help clean up these pollutants. I study microbes in the environment
27:38and there's potential that they could break down compounds like PCBs and then sewage material that's
27:45coming out of Camp Century potentially in the future. We have some examples of this from oil spills that have
27:50happened. And there were actually communities of microbes that blossomed in that water and chewed up and
27:58ate much of the pollution. We're still a long way from being able to deploy microbes on an industrial
28:04scale to tackle the severe pollution that remains at Camp Century. But hopefully, through science, ingenuity,
28:11and most importantly, our own sense of responsibility, we will one day be able to ensure that the poisons of
28:17the past don't define our future.
28:24It's December 5th, 1872. I'm standing on the deck of a Canadian merchant ship called the Dei Gratia.
28:32We're 400 miles off the coast of Portugal and Captain David Reed Morehouse has just spotted something
28:39alarming. A large ship that's seemingly adrift in the open sea. Moments from now, Morehouse's men
28:46will board the vessel and what they discover will chill them to their bones. Because this is the most
28:53infamous ghost ship in history, whose entire crew has vanished without a trace. It's a maritime mystery that
29:00will endure for 150 years. What happened to the sailors of the Mary Celeste?
29:18November 7th, 1872. A month before being found adrift, the Mary Celeste sets sail from New York Harbor.
29:28She's bound for Genoa to deliver 1,700 barrels of denatured alcohol, used as a cheap solvent and fuel.
29:38The 37-year-old captain, Benjamin Spooner Briggs, is an experienced sailor commanding a crew of seven.
29:46A devoted family man, Briggs brings along his beloved wife, Sarah, and their young daughter,
29:52Sophia. He doesn't want to be separated from them during the two-month round trip.
29:58But little does Captain Briggs or anyone on board know, the Mary Celeste will never reach its destination.
30:10Three weeks later, another ship sailing the Atlantic, known as the Dei Gratia, will stumble upon the
30:16unhelmed Mary Celeste in the Thousand Mile Gulf between the Azores Islands and Portugal.
30:25Pulling the Dei Gratia alongside her, Captain Morehouse, first mate Oliver DeVoe,
30:31and several crew members board the Celeste to investigate. They find it deathly silent.
30:41Ahoy! Is anybody there?
30:48No reply. Eerily, there's also no sign of struggle or violence. But the sailors do notice that the
30:55Celeste's sails are only partially set, with ropes and rigging hanging loose and disorganized,
31:01as if abruptly abandoned. Captain Morehouse then heads below deck. What he finds there will only
31:12deepen the mystery of what happened on board the Mary Celeste.
31:24Captain Morehouse and his men have stumbled upon the Mary Celeste, drifting at sea, abandoned. As they
31:30search the vessel, there are no signs of the crew or the Captain Benjamin Briggs. On the lower deck,
31:38they find the galley tidy, with the food stores intact. Down in the cargo hold, first mate DeVoe finds
31:47that several of the barrels of the denatured alcohol the Celeste is transporting are busted open.
31:54But they are all accounted for. None are lost or stolen. The crew's quarters are all in order. But
32:01there is one curious thing. The sailors have all left their pipes behind. Unusual. That's something
32:0719th century sailors would seldom be without. As they explore the ship further, DeVoe notices something
32:14even stranger.
32:18Many of the hatches, doorways and windows aboard the Mary Celeste are open. Even here in the Captain's
32:25quarters, where the floor and the furniture are soaking wet. Whatever happened here, everyone
32:30seems to have left in a hurry. And then, DeVoe zeroes in on something that could reveal everything.
32:36The Captain's log.
32:39Its pages run steadily until November 25th, 10 days prior. The last note is routine,
32:47just a navigational position. After that, nothing.
32:52Finally, Morehouse's men discover perhaps the most compelling clue. The Mary Celeste lifeboat is missing,
32:59and oddly, the ship's sail line is being dragged behind the vessel and appears to have snapped.
33:05The ship's main navigational instruments are also not on board. Based on these details,
33:11plus the state of the Captain's quarters and the disarray on deck, it appears Briggs ordered everyone
33:16to quickly abandon ship. But why? Unable to solve the mystery himself, Captain Morehouse has the Mary
33:26Celeste sailed to port in Gibraltar. There, a formal inquest commences on December 17th, 1872.
33:36The investigation focuses on something curious. It turns out that Captain Morehouse of the Dei
33:42Gratia and Captain Briggs of the Mary Celeste knew each other well. It's even reported the two captains
33:48were dining together a few nights before the Mary Celeste departure. People begin to wonder if the
33:54Celeste's crew didn't go missing at all, but that the two old buddies simply cooked up a mystery to commit
33:59insurance fraud. In spite of this intriguing theory, the formal inquest reveals no evidence of criminal
34:05activity. After all, there wasn't enough damage to the Mary Celeste to warrant any claim to the
34:11insurance company. The three-month official investigation concludes without determining
34:18any credible cause for the crew's disappearance. Over the years, countless theories surface.
34:26One of the most enduring is the waterspout theory, a sudden violent tornado at sea that whipped up
34:33towering waves and drove the crew to abandon ship in the lifeboat. It sounds plausible until you remember
34:40two things. First, the Mary Celeste showed no serious damage. And second, fleeing into a small lifeboat
34:48during a water spout would have been suicide, not salvation. In the decades that follow, the mystery
34:54of the Mary Celeste will seize the world's imagination. From sea monsters rising out of the deep, to alien
35:01abductions, to the more earthly idea of a pirate attack. Yet piracy was virtually unheard of in those waters.
35:09And with no signs of violence or missing cargo, that explanation never held. But now, a credible scientific
35:17explanation has surfaced. One that may finally unravel the enigma of history's most infamous ghost ship.
35:29In 1846, the Donner party became trapped in the deep snows of the Sierra Nevada mountains,
35:36resorting to cannibalism to survive. More than a century later, in 1972, Uruguayan charter flight 571
35:44crashed in the frigid Andes with 45 aboard. Rugby players, friends and family. Twelve died instantly,
35:51and more followed over 10 hellish weeks in the frozen wilderness. Two young men finally hiked 10 brutal
35:58days for help, saving the other survivors. Like the Donner party, they faced the unthinkable, consuming the dead to live.
36:08Today, survivor Eduardo Strauch leads private tours to the crash site, sharing lessons of perseverance and bravery.
36:15The incident is a reminder, just like the Donner party, of the unbreakable will to survive when all hope seems
36:22lost.
36:30For a century and a half, the question of what happened aboard the ghost ship known as the Mary
36:35Celeste has remained a mystery. Now, historian Brian Hicks proposes a bold new theory. The crew wasn't
36:42undone by pirates or sea monsters, but by something within the vessel itself.
36:47The investigation of the Mary Celeste when it was brought into port in Gibraltar found
36:53that nine barrels of alcohol had busted open. That was 450 gallons. Denatured alcohol is kind of
37:03industrial alcohol, the sort of thing used in solvents as a fuel additive. The fumes from it can cause
37:10serious medical damage to a person and not only knocking you out, but making you hallucinate and
37:18making you physically ill and vomiting, what have you. When the Mary Celeste left New York City in the
37:26middle of storms, for three weeks the storms were so bad they couldn't open the cargo hold because the
37:35rainwater and the storms would have flooded the ship and sank it. On the morning of November 25th,
37:42they had the first chance since they'd left New York to open the hold. And I think that after three
37:49weeks of sailing, the fumes overtook them immediately. According to Hicks' research, the massive amount of
37:57fumes from that 450 gallons of industrial strength denatured alcohol would have quickly filled the
38:04entire ship with noxious gas, causing panic and impairment for everyone on board.
38:11The biggest thing that this explains is why was every hatch, why was every window, why was every door,
38:19why was the skylight over the captain's bed and his baby's bed left open on a ship?
38:26They were letting an air out. They also realized that the least little spark could blow up the entire ship.
38:34One of the things that scared Oliver DeVoe more than anything is when he was going through the
38:40crew cabin, he noticed their pipes. There was a pipe for every man left lying there. Sailors never went
38:49anywhere without their pipes. And there's only one reason those guys would not have had their pipes.
38:56And that was that they couldn't light a match. When you're in the middle of the ocean and your ship
39:03is spewing fumes out of the hold, what would you want to do? You would want to get away. They
39:09didn't
39:09take the time to tie up the sails, furl the sails. They didn't have time to rope off the wheel
39:17where the
39:17ship would sail in a circle. They just got off, but they expected to come back. They simply got in
39:24a
39:24lifeboat, grabbed the longest rope that they could find, which was the mainsail line, tied it to the
39:30lifeboat and backed away. And that way they could get as far from the ship as they could and still
39:37remain
39:38tethered to it. Hicks believes the crew retreated in panic, wanting to stay close but not too close to
39:46their vessel, which they feared might explode at any moment. But what happened next? Why didn't they
39:52return to the Mary Celeste once the fumes died down?
39:57I checked the weather reports for the Azores that day. And that afternoon, the weather went from
40:05calm, sunny, no wind, to this huge storm. And it was just enough of a storm to make the Mary
40:12Celeste
40:12take off, towing that lifeboat. And at some point, the Mary Celeste would have gone a lot faster than
40:18that lifeboat could travel. And whether the lifeboat capsized first or the tow line snapped
40:25first, the end result was Benjamin Briggs, his wife, his baby daughter, and those crewmen in the water
40:35watching their ship sail away without a soul on board. If you've got 10 people in a small lifeboat in
40:43the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, no sails, no provisions, there is no good outcome. They are either
40:50going to die of exposure, starvation, or the boat's going to capsize and they're all going to drown.
40:57There is no way out.
41:00Hicks's theory is compelling. The crew of the Mary Celeste in a confused and terrified state
41:06take to their lifeboat only to have the weather suddenly change, tragically sealing their fate.
41:12Still, there are lingering questions. Why take navigational tools into the lifeboat if they
41:17intended to return once the fumes cleared? And why wasn't the lifeboat or remains of the crew
41:23ever found? Without definitive evidence, the mystery of the Mary Celeste will sail on,
41:29eternally drifting through the mists of time. I'm Josh Gates. I'll see you on the next Expedition.
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