All language subtitles for Mysteries of the Deep Series 1 Part 10 Escobars Treasure Sub 1080p

[ suspenseful music plays ]
wade: Can an incredible

underwater discovery
in the arctic

tell us what happened to the
ill-fated franklin expedition?

Potter:
You feel like somebody
or something

is over your shoulder.

Polakowski:
Who knows what we're
gonna find inside?

What is the secret
behind the mystery craft

speeding towards
the u.S. Coast?

And is there a new killer
lurking in the depths?

It's not something
that you can hear.

It's not something that
you can see.

It's not something
that you can smell.

Just like, "oh, my god.

I'm not getting
in the water."

[ thunder rumbles ]

the underwater realm
is another dimension.

It's a physically
hostile place,

where dreams of promise
can sink into darkness.

I'm jeremy wade.

I'm searching the world
to bring you the most iconic

and baffling underwater
mysteries known to science.

Shipwrecks can't
just disappear.

Or can they?

Wade: It's a dangerous,
unexplored frontier

that swallows evidence...

We know more
about the face of mars

than we do
our deepest oceans.

Wade:
...Where unknown is normal,
and understanding is rare.

[ sonar pinging ]

-- captions by vitac --
www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by
discovery communications

♪♪

in my years of investigating
underwater mysteries,

I've been to some
pretty hostile places

and the frozen waters
of the arctic

are some of the toughest
I've ever experienced.

It's a place where the mind
can play tricks on you.

Now, reports are surfacing

of locals claiming to have
seen ghosts from the deep.

Could a dramatic new discovery

solve one of the greatest
arctic mysteries of all time?

♪♪

2014.
The canadian arctic.

A team of marine archeologists
find a warship

resting on the sea floor
of king william island.

Potter:
Finding it was extraordinary.

You could see
this ghostly ship.

Wade:
Then, a second ship
is located.

It's as if the crew
has just stepped out.

You could see shells inside
and things still stacked up.

It's very exciting,
but it's also a bit unnerving.

Wade:
These are no
ordinary shipwrecks.

They all the hms erebus
and hms terror,

two ships from the ill-fated
franklin expedition.

They've been missing
for over 170 years.

They were not where anybody
expected them to be.

Wade:
Finding the ships
is a remarkable discovery.

But what happened
to their missing crew?

Out of the 129 crew members

that set out on the
franklin expedition,

no one came back.

♪♪

wade:
When the expedition
sets out in 1845,

expectations are huge.

Sir john franklin
and his crew

are on a mission
through uncharted arctic waters

to find a navigable passage

between the atlantic
and the pacific.

♪♪

the northwest passage
is a kind of a shortcut,

the holy grail of its time,
in terms of exploration.

It's kind of like the
space race of the 1960s --

which nation will have
pride of place?

Wade:
Franklin is one
of the most celebrated

naval commanders of the day.

Sir john franklin --
he was an honored naval veteran.

He had fought
with nelson at trafalgar.

He's referred to as king arthur
in the british press.

That's the kind
of reputation he had.

Wade:
Franklin's team

has the most advanced
technology available.

They had enough provisions
to survive

a very long time out at sea
without resupplying.

They actually even had
heating systems within the ship

to keep the crew
and the boat inside

warm enough during the
expected arctic winters.

It was a very
well-equipped expedition,

with very experienced men,

so there's no reason for them
to expect to fail.

Wade:
But they do fail.

And, for almost two centuries,

the fate of the expedition
has remained a famous mystery.

The arctic waters have revealed
very little evidence

of what happened.

In 1850, another expedition
is sent to find them.

Potter:
They located franklin's
first winter camp

and, a few days later,
walking along the beach,

they saw three graves
of franklin's sailors.

Wade:
Franklin's crew were not
alone on the ice.

The canadian arctic is home
to the netsilik inuit.

A group of inuit
are later found

with items belonging
to the crew.

Spoons; knives; forks;
broken chronometers;

franklin's medal
of knighthood itself,

which is seen in the photographs
before he sailed.

It's not something
you would just give

to the local people as a gift.

Wade:
Then, 14 years after the
expedition set off,

there's a breakthrough.

An official document
is found,

with a handwritten explanation

of how the ships became locked
in the frozen waters

for 19 months.

It indicated that they had
abandoned the ships,

there were 105 survivors,

that franklin himself
had died the summer before.

Wade:
With franklin dead,
on April 22, 1848,

the crew abandoned their ships
and set out on foot.

Why did they decide to leave
the ships when they did?

To leave the one spot
that you know that is warm,

that has food and shelter,
to set out on the ice,

you have to be
extremely desperate.

Or maybe even
a little bit crazy.

Wade:
105 men leave the ships.

None are known
to have survived

and fewer than 40 skeletons
have ever been found.

Over the years,
there have been

many different theories
about what happened to them.

Scurvy, of course,
would've been a factor.

The inuit encountered them.

They talked about men
with black gums,

from frostbite and scurvy,
probably.

You start out with scurvy.

Then, you've got
tuberculosis.

These are the two
big killers of the era.

Wade:
The extreme conditions
would have been physically tough

and long periods trapped
in the arctic sea

can also cause
something psychological

called winter-over syndrome.

Elliott:
Just nothing but ice,
nothing but snow.

For months and months,
you can see nothing.

You know nothing about what's
going off around you.

You become very isolated.

You become
very disorientated

and you start behaving
in a very bizarre way.

Wade:
This could explain
one mysterious account.

An intuit group report trying
to help some of the crew

by building an igloo
and supplying seal meat.

But, later, they find
the igloo abandoned

and the meat untouched.

The inuit tribes out there
were equipped

to survive in these kind
of conditions.

They offered help and the crew
rejected it completely,

which is quite strange,
when you're so desperate.

Wade:
That they would reject food
is even more surprising,

in the light of a troubling
story that emerges,

suggesting that the crew
turn on each other

in order to survive.

The inuit accounts of bones
that had been sawed

or broken open
to get at the marrow.

Similarly, skulls
that had been broken open.

There is hard archeological
evidence of cannibalism.

When they started analyzing
these bones,

they had cut marks.

Not scratches from wounds,
but butchering marks.

That indicates
that there could be

some kind of cannibalism
taking place.

Wade:
What would've caused
this well-supplied crew

to resort to cannibalism?

♪♪

for almost 200 years,

any evidence discovered
about the franklin expedition

has raised more questions
than answers.

Can we use new science
and technological tools

to help us answer
that question?

Wade:
Bodies from the three graves
found at the first winter camp

are exhumed.

They are eerily
well-preserved by the ice

and analysis reveals
something unusual.

They were subjected to on-site
autopsies, x-rays,

chemical tests,
and so forth,

and a conclusion was
that lead might, in fact,

have been the overall culprit
of the expedition.

Wade:
Lead poisoning in the middle
of an arctic wilderness

sounds unlikely,

but could it have come
from something on their ships?

One of the new technologies
the expedition carried

was tinned food.

Over 8,000 cans of it.

We knew that the ships
were supplied with tinned food

and it was shown also
that the tinned food

was prepared
in a great hurry.

And tins had a very thick
layer of lead inside.

They would use lead
to seal the tops.

High concentrations of lead
can be deadly.

It can lead to a debilitating
mental state.

It decreases
brain functionality.

Wade:
Lead poisoning seems
to stack up,

but the evidence
is not conclusive.

♪♪

could an innovative type
of x-ray technology

tell us more?

X-ray fluoroscopy
shoots x-rays at things

and looks
at their fluorescence.

This allows scientists

to look at the micro structure
of the skeletal remains.

We're trying to just really
get a much more detailed map

of lead in the bone
and that's the technology

that has given us that
high-resolution image.

Wade:
Unlike a conventional x-ray,
fluoroscopy can tell us

how much land is in the bones
and exactly when it got there.

Can separate new growth
from old growth.

We can color-code that growth
by lead levels

and we can see what's the
difference in the new growth,

as opposed to the old growth
within the bone.

Wade:
High lead levels in new bone
would mean

the men were exposed to it
just before they died.

Could this finally
solve a mystery

that's remain trapped in these
frozen waters for centuries?

[ sonar pinging ]

[ sonar pinging ]

the franklin expedition is one

of the most baffling mysteries
I've ever come across.

129 experienced men armed
with the latest technology

and three years worth of food
set out across the arctic sea

to discover the fabled
northwest passage.

None of them come back

and no one knows
what happened to them.

To find out,
scientists are testing

the well-preserved bodies
of three of the crew.

Were franklin's men poisoned
by the tinned food

that was meant
to keep them alive?

This new analysis
suggests not.

The shocking discovery is

that what we had thought
was the explanation

is not really
the explanation anymore.

There weren't
higher levels of lead

in people who had been
presumably exposed to it longer

and, indeed, that the lead
probably did not come

from exposure experienced
during the expedition.

Wade:
X-ray fluoroscopy reveals
that the high lead levels were

in older bone growth,

suggesting the men
were exposed to it

via industrial pollution
before they left home.

It doesn't look like lead
poisoning is the smoking gun.

Wade:
So, if it wasn't lead
that killed them, what was it?

For almost two centuries,
there's been little to go on.

We wonder how, given the
diligence of the search

over more than a century
and a half,

we've found so little.

Why isn't there more?

[ static crackles ]
wade: But the recent discovery
of franklin's ships,

preserved beneath the ice,

should prove
a major breakthrough.

Many of us who've been
studying this for years

thought the odds
of actually finding one

of these ships are low.

We imagined they were
probably just

smashed to pieces in the ice.

Wade:
Surely, now, all the questions
can be answered.

No one has set eyes on these
ships in almost two centuries.

Now, a team of marine
archeologists is surveying them.

Polakowski:
The terror is eerily intact.

Who knows what we're
gonna find inside?

Mckay:
The conditions for preservation
are very good

because you have depth
and you have less light

than you would
at shallower depths

and the cold temperature
of the water really helps.

Wade:
But not everyone is happy

about the underwater
investigation.

Within two weeks of the team
diving on the wrecks,

six people in the local
inuit town die.

In a small community,
that's a lot of deaths

to happen in a short
period of time,

so, some people began to speak
of a curse of franklin.

Wade:
Some believe the spirits
of franklin's men

have been released
from their watery grave.

Polakowski:
The local tribes even speak
of shadowy figure

walking the beaches and the ice
where the ships once were.

I think there is still
a kind of

a spectral feeling
to the arctic.

♪♪

wade:
Local superstition
is not the only factor

making investigation difficult.

The freezing underwater
conditions and the location

limit the divers' season
to just three weeks a year.

♪♪

remote cameras have to be used
to explore inside the ships,

so investigators can see,
but they can't touch.

But could these submerged ships
finally unlock the mystery

of what happened
to franklin's expedition?

It may well be
that there'll be records,

of some way, shape, or form
that have survived on the ship,

which will give us
some insight.

Potter:
Drawers, they're dark.

There's no oxygen content
in there.

There's no marine life
and there is every chance

that we'll actually get written
records of what happened.

There's
captain crozier's desk,

still sitting there,
a bit of silt on top of it,

looking as though you could
just open one of the drawers

and find the answer
to all of the mysteries.

Wade:
It could still take years,
but, hopefully, one day,

we can open that drawer
and finally discover the truth.

♪♪

[ sonar pings ]

July 4th weekend, 2019.

A man goes into the ocean
off a popular tourist beach

on florida's emerald coast
and comes out feeling fine.

48 hours later, he's dead.

Was it something
in the water

and, if so,
can forensic science

help us track down
this killer on the coast?

♪♪

our beaches are where we go
to relax and have fun,

but what if there's an invisible
killer lurking just offshore?

There's something out there

that people don't even know
is out there.

You can't smell it.

You can't see it.

You can't taste it.

It's terrifying.

Wade:
Doctors are
initially mystified

by the death
of the florida man.

But laboratory tests finally
reveal the killer's identity.

Not a stealthy new predator,

but a microscopic,
deadly bacteria.

Figueroa:
Once inside,

this starts devouring
and eating human tissue.

If it's not stopped in time,

the only course of action
is amputation.

If we can't get it out,
it can also lead to death.

The idea of contracting
a flesh-eating bacteria

in water that you swim in
is the stuff of horror movies.

Wade:
Where did this
flesh-eater come from,

has it risen from the
hidden depths of the ocean,

and can we stop it
before it's too late?

[ sonar pinging ]

[ sonar pinging ]

evidence suggests
there could be

a new killer
lurking in our oceans,

a deadly bacteria
that eats its way

through flesh
and internal organs.

What can be done
to stop it spreading?

♪♪

can this new bacteria
be stopped?

Are we gonna end up
shutting down our beaches?

Wade:
Science has some
of the answers.

♪♪

this particular bacteria
likes low salinity,

warm bodies of water,

often found near coastal
regions where humans frequent.

Wade:
A deadly waterborne bacteria

that hangs out
in the same place as we do

is a frightening thought.

And this one has a name --

vibrio vulnificus.

Research suggests
it's transmitted to humans

through open wounds
or by eating shellfish,

and it's particularly dangerous

to those with a compromised
immune system.

The problem is
is that, when it mutates

and becomes harmful
or active to humans,

it can cause sepsis.

Wade:
Sepsis is when
the body's immune system

[ monitor beeping ]
overreacts to an infection

and starts to attack
its own tissues and organs.

It can quickly prove
life-threatening.

The centers
for disease control

estimates that about 80,000
people per year

are stricken
with this illness.

People get out of the water

and they feel fine
for a few days

and then, all of a sudden,
your leg starts to swell up

and, within hours or days,
it's cut off.

Wade:
And it may not just be
affecting all beaches.

♪♪

in June 2019,

there's a new case reported.

An experienced
water sports guide

is paddling across
an inland florida lake.

And, later on in the day,
he noticed

that his arm had swelled up
significantly

and, as the day went on,
it got even worse.

He's not immersed
in the water.

It's not in his eyes.

It's not in his ears.

Wade:
Could it now be possible

to get infected
by the bacteria

without even getting
in the water?

Scientists are now more
concerned with it

because it seems to be mutating

and it seems to actually
be more common.

It's finding new ways
to infect.

Wade:
Significantly, the paddleboarder
had been on the lake

many times before
without any problems.

The worrisome thing is
that people are starting

to get infected where we haven't
had cases of this before.

Tuttle:
It's out there.

It's spreading.

Tuttle:
Is this a result
of global warming?

Is it issues with pollution
in the water?

What are the issues
that are creating it?

Wade:
New infection sites are being
discovered all the time.

♪♪

rising sea temperatures mean
more and more coastal regions

are now potential breeding
grounds for the bacteria.

The warmer the ocean,

the better the conditions
for bacteria.

Wade:
Most bacteria don't travel
across large bodies of water

because colder currents
kill them off,

but a new insight suggests

human activity
could be responsible

for transporting this
underwater killer worldwide.

Over 90% of everything
in our homes comes to us by sea

and vast cargo ships don't just
transport our global goods.

They may also carry
flesh-eating bacteria.

Large ships now take on
water as ballast.

They suck up water
in this port

and then, when they get
to another port,

they empty the ballast tanks
whilst they're offloading.

So this means there is
a constant flow of water

being carried around the world
on our global shipping network.

Wade:
A never-ending flow of ships

carrying tons of water
from country to country.

If this is how the vibrio
bacteria is being spread,

it may already be too late.

This invasive bacteria
has the potential

to become
a global health crisis.

The vibrio bacteria can be
treated with antibiotics,

[ monitor beeping ]
if administered quickly,

so medical teams need to be
alerted and prepared.

But with 70% of the world
covered by water,

it's almost impossible to know

where this invisible killer
will strike next.

Figueroa:
Perhaps we can use the tools
of science and technology

to better predict where
these outbreaks might occur.

Wade:
There is one
pioneering technology

that could help us
stay a step ahead.

Computer modeling can be used
to create simulations

of where the vibrio bacteria
might appear next.

Scientists are using
satellite technology

to track salinity,

ocean currents, and temperature.

To try and map global trade
and global currents

and see where
they're gonna come,

so they can move
the resources to be there.

Will these new,
predictive techniques be enough

to help us defeat
an invisible killer

or are we heading
towards a world

where it's no longer safe
to go into the water?

♪♪

[ sonar pings ]

in pirate stories of old,
finding buried treasure

is always about a map
where x marks the spot.

In the deep water realm,
however,

things are rarely
that simple.

But could new
underwater technology

do away with treasure charts
and help to locate

what's possibly the greatest
pirate's haul in history?

Could the treasure have been
right under our noses

the whole time?

♪♪

wade:
The mystery starts

with an infamous
caribbean pirate

called captain henry morgan.

Captain morgan is not
just a rum bottle.

He is actually a real person

and he's a real living legend,
in his own time.

In 1671,

morgan sets out
with 36 ships

to raid the spanish-controlled
city of panama

and steal its gold.

Panama was one
of the richest cities

in south america
at that time.

Wade:
It's the biggest heist
of the age.

He carried off 134 horse-loads
of gold and silver.

Wade:
But then, something
unusual happens.

According to one account,

morgan, unbeknownst
to most of his men,

sneaks back onboard

and leaves panama
with just three ships.

It is possible that he
may have beat a hasty retreat

because he had a ship
full of treasure

that he wanted
to keep for himself.

Wade:
When morgan arrives back home,
in port royal, jamaica,

he has only one ship,

and a fraction of the loot.

What happened to the rest
of the treasure?

Did captain morgan make away
with a lotta loot

and, if he did,
where did he stash it?

Clarke:
There were all sorts of rumors
about where the treasure

had been placed,
what he'd done with it.

Wade:
For over 300 years,
people have put forward theories

for the possible location
of morgan's missing treasure.

But, now, a team
of underwater archeologists

have discovered
a shipwreck near panama,

and it's on the route
morgan would have sailed.

It was associated
with morgan's adventure

because the material on the ship
dated to that period.

Could this mystery shipwreck
be the underwater hiding place

for captain morgan's
missing treasure?

[ sonar pinging ]

infamous pirate
captain morgan makes off

with a fortune
in silver and gold.

But when he arrives
back in port,

most of the loot
has mysteriously disappeared.

Where is captain morgan's
missing treasure?

New underwater
investigation techniques

could finally uncover
its hiding place.

Polakowski: The question is,
did captain morgan

make away with a lot of loot?

And if he did,
where did he stash it?

Wade:
Some archeologists believe that
a shipwreck found near panama

could be one of morgan's fleet.

Polakowski:
They found cannons and chests.

But after further analysis,
they actually figured out

that this was more likely
a spanish ship.

So, while these new ships

and new evidence comes to light,

really all it's doing is
it's furthering the mystery.

Wade: So if the treasure's
not on this shipwreck,

where could it be?

An interesting detail
and accounts all the time

could give us a new lead.

Captain morgan
takes several weeks

to get from panama city
back to port royal,

much longer than expected.

Elliot: Could morgan have
stopped on his way back

to port royal?

Polakowski: Because he's
a pirate, he doesn't have access

to normal ports,
so he would have to be

very careful where
he's gonna make his stops.

Wade: There is one
possible location.

Elliot: On the route back from
panama city to port royal,

you have this island
called san andrés.

Wade: San andrés is a small
coral island in the middle

of the caribbean sea,

reputed to be a favorite
of morgan's,

speculated that he might have
unloaded some of his cargo

and spoils there.

Mckay: Given the strength
of the winds,

they may have had time to stop
and unload a ship.

Wade: San andrés is strewn
with sea caves,

making it an ideal place
to hide treasure.

There are all sorts of rumors
that he managed

to find a very deep cave

and stored all the gold
down in there.

And that has been a site
of many treasure hunts

for many years ever since.

Wade: Despite many searches
over the years,

no sign of morgan's missing
treasure has ever been found.

Perhaps the solution
lies closer to home.

Another theory that has always
been present

is that actually captain morgan
kept the treasure with him,

and it came back
to port royal with him.

Mckay: If you lived in jamaica

and you wanted to spend
your money,

you'd keep it somewhere nearby.

You know, you don't want to have
your closest atm

1,000 miles away.

It just doesn't make sense.

Rondeau:
Port royal was really the pirate
haven of the caribbean.

And really, it's the setting
for the modern-day view.

We have of what
pirate life was like.

Wade: Morgan lived out the rest
of his days in port royal,

where he was buried,

taking the secret of the missing
treasure to his grave.

Then, four years later,
a natural disaster

engulfed the city.

It actually sunk into the sea

after an earthquake
and a tsunami hit the region.

Wade: Did morgan's treasure
end up under the sea?

Mckay: The potential could be
that morgan hid it

somewhere around the city.

And once that disappeared
beneath the waves,

so too did the treasure.

Wade: Now a team of marine
archeologists has begun to map

the underwater remains
of the sunken city.

There more or less intact
is an archeological site

to be investigated properly.

Wade: Perhaps this new research
will finally

locate captain morgan's
hidden treasure.

One of the techniques being used
is photographer.

Photogrammetry
is a survey technique,

a remote-sensing technique.

Polakowski:
You go and take photos
of an area or an object

and you kind of go around it.

And it's an algorithm
essentially

that meshes all these photos
together

and creates a 3-d object.

Wade: It's only recently
been developed

to map underwater sites.

The team can create a 3-d
picture

of what the city looked like

when it disappeared
under the waves

three centuries ago.

It lets you reach out
and touch history.

It's pretty cool.

Clarke: If we can accurately
create a map

of captain morgan's period,

then that gives us an idea
of where such treasures

might have been hidden.

Wade: It's early days,
but when the map is finished,

it should be possible
to pinpoint where morgan lived.

Could the hiding place
of his famous missing treasure

be uncovered at last?

In the underwater ruins
of port royal?

This isn't like finding
a pirate ship.

It's finding a whole
pirate city.

So who knows what you can find?

♪♪

wade: The pacific ocean

is the largest
and deepest ocean on earth.

It's a place I've come back
to time and again

to investigate the mysteries
beneath our waters

because it's the perfect place
to hide.

June 18th, 2019,

the u.S. Coast guard are in
pursuit of a mystery craft

heading north
off the coast of ecuador.

It's sitting low in the water,

barely visible above the waves,
and moving fast.

The coast guard has been
tracking it for 12 hours.

Could it be
a new military prototype?

But whose?

And why is it here
in the pacific ocean?

The sub's crew don't seem
to realize

that they're being chased.

Rondeau: The operator of this
vessel is looking forward.

He can only see one
100 yards in front of him.

He's not even aware
that the u.S. Coast guard

has surrounded him.

It's gonna be hard
to get on.

Wade:
To solve this minisub mystery,

they're going to have to jump
onto the moving craft.

Wade: June, 2019.

The u.S. Coast guard is tracking
an unidentified vessel

traveling at speed
through the pacific ocean.

It looks to be heading
for the u.S. Coast.

Could it be some kind of
secret weapon

or something else?

Coast guard officers have been
trying to stop the craft

with no success.

So finally,
two marines jump on board.

[ indistinct shouting ]

as well as its frightened crew
of five,

the vessel contains cocaine
with a street value

of $232 million.

The mystery craft
is what's known as a narco sub.

Narco sub is a pretty
rudimentary submarine

built by drug cartels

to smuggle drugs from
south america to north america.

Wade:
The business of trafficking
billions of dollars

of illegal drugs
to the u.S. Has gone underwater.

The coast guard
have stopped this one.

But how many more
of these homemade subs

could be making their way
undetected to u.S. Shores?

The ocean is lawless.

There are no borders at sea.

It's so vast,
it's just impossible to police.

Wade: And these subs
are designed

to be incredibly
hard to spot in open water.

Polakowski:
It's a mostly submerged craft
that sits just at the waterline,

so it's very difficult to detect
along the horizon of the water.

Mckay: On conventional radar,
it might not show up

as anything other
than another wave on the ocean.

So really, you have to have
a visual on it to identify it.

Wade: Few of these vessels have
been caught in the act

because many have a built-in
failsafe

that helps them
disappear without trace.

Mckay:
The idea behind the submarines

is that they're
pretty easy to dispose of.

If you're about to get caught,

you can scuttle the ship really
quickly and get off.

Yeah, it sinks, it's lost.

Where's the evidence?

We don't know how many of these
might be lying on the bottom

full of drugs, cash, guns.

Wade: Put where are these subs
coming from?

One possibility is the rivers
of colombia,

a country that, as I know well,

has many areas that are remote
and almost impenetrable.

We have no idea in terms of how
many narco subs there have been.

We don't know how many
have been successful.

Clarke:
The estimates still run to
as much as 1/3 or even 1/2

of all the drugs
which gets to united states

come via these submarines.

That means it's still a hell
of a lot getting through.

Wade: And could the narco
sub phenomenon be behind

one of the great unsolved
mysteries of the drug world?

It was one of the most infamous
drug lords of all time

who first took the narcotics
battle under water in the 1990s.

Tuttle: Pablo escobar helped
to invent this new method

of delivering cocaine
to america.

Polakowski:
He was the first one to try
to use these narco subs

to transport narcotics
in a whole new way.

Wade: Escobar was killed
in a shootout in 1993,

but many believe some of his
fortune is still hidden away.

Could his missing
millions be under the ocean?

I've heard that some of the vast
escobar fortune

lies at the bottom
in a narco sub.

It's quite possible.

It probably would've been
in the form of money

wrapped in plastic.

Wade:
Drug cartels have been getting
away with it for decades.

But state-of-the-art technology
is changing the game.

To catch this sub,
the coast guard used

surveillance gear
developed for the u.S. Military.

The aircraft which had been
most affective so far

is the p-3 orion,

which has a magnetic
anomaly detector on its tail.

Wade: The aircraft's
magnetic anomaly detector

works in a similar way
to a metal detector.

Its sensor can pick out
minute variations

in the earth's magnetic field
caused by metal objects.

They can detect a magnetic
anomaly in the ocean.

That's working on the subs
that are built of steel.

So if there's something like
a submersible near the surface,

these planes can zero in
on them.

Wade:
Magnetic detection technology
has given the authorities

an edge for now,

but this high-stakes game
of hide and seek

is changing all the time.

You move to fiberglass or other
non-magnetic materials,

and you can defeat
the magnetometers

that may be able to find.

Wade: A fiberglass narco sub

would be almost impossible
to detect

with the coast guard's
current technology.

It's like a game of underwater
cat and mouse.

Clarke: It's going to be a
constant battle of technology,

and it's gonna be a constant war
of one-upmanship

of who has the most tech.

♪♪

♪♪

wade: We've only discovered
a fraction

of what's beneath our oceans.

They hold secrets
of our present and our past,

and they rarely give up
those secrets easily.

But every now and then,

we stumble upon something
truly mystifying.

In 1980, the remnants
of an ancient vessel

are discovered beneath the
shallow waters of the java sea.

Polakowski: Its timbers are
completely rotted away.

This is a seriously
old shipwreck.

Wade:
Inside are over a 100,000 pieces

of priceless ceramics,
many still intact.

Wade: Divers have discovered
an ancient shipwreck

full of thousands of pieces
of priceless pottery

which have lain
undiscovered for centuries.

But where did this ship
come from?

And how did it end up
at the bottom of the java sea?

Clarke:
This shipwreck was special.

It was an old asian design,

and it is full of pottery.

We're talking huge quantities
of pottery.

With no ship left,
with the wood all gone,

it's really difficult
to identify its age.

But from the size
of the debris field,

we can estimate that the ship
was about 90 feet long

and 25 feet wide.

Wade: Perhaps forensic analysis
can tell us more

about this mystery ship.

It's been underwater so long,
there's barely anything left.

But the research team
catch a lucky break.

You sometimes find
organic material,

some of the original cargo,
still in them,

which is unbelievable.

In this case,
they found a piece of resin

that they use
to radiocarbon date the wreck.

Carbon dating allows us
to put a time clock

on artifacts
that contain carbon.

It turns out that carbon
has this isotope

that has a specific
decay rate on it,

and if we use that decay rate,
we can backtrack time

for how old
a specific artifact might be.

Polakowski:
Initial analysis has shown
that it might've been

a chinese trading vessel
from the 13th century.

It's a huge step forward,

but if anything,
it only deepens the mystery

because the ship's design
and contents

connect it to one of the great
mysteries of the ancient world.

For over 4,000 years,

our seas have played
a vital role in how we trade.

The oceans have always been
the original superhighway,

the original internet.

Wade: But unlike land routes,

they leave very few traces
of our trading past.

We know a very small portion

of what was happening
on the seas even 800 years ago.

Understanding
how the trade flows

and seeing where the trade flows
is honestly a way

of charting
development of humanity

and how we've grown.

Wade:
Can the precious cargo that sat
for centuries on the seabed

give us more pieces
of the puzzle?

Pottery is actually a very
useful tool in dating shipwrecks

because once clay is fired,

it becomes
nearly indestructible.

Wade: One of the ceramic pieces
carries a maker's mark --

the ancient equivalent
of a "made in china" stamp --

and this one is from a chinese
province

which only used that name
for a short period of time,

which gives them a date range

that could even be
in the 12th century.

We're talking about
a shipwreck here

that is not long
after the age of the vikings.

This is an immense find

in the condition that it was in.

Wade:
It's a remarkably rare find.

But can a new kind of radiation
technology tell us more?

Scientists developed
this x-ray gun

that can use x-ray beams

to detect the chemical
composition of the ceramics.

We can look at the composition
of the materials

that makes up the pot itself,

and we can date that
against a database

of soils and clays
from around the world

and be able to get an idea
of where the pottery was made.

Wade:
X-ray analysis of the pottery
reveals something remarkable.

The ceramics had come
from different places in china,

hundreds of miles apart.

Mckay: So what these x-ray
signatures have told us

is that this ship first loaded
and porcelain

in fuzhou and then made its way
to quanzhou

and loaded another load

before heading down towards
indonesia.

Clarke: This is a very big
economic undertaking.

This is not a ship doing
a single port to single port

because there'd be no way
it would carry such a cargo

focused on just one thing

because it wouldn't be
economically viable.

And this tells us
the trade network

wasn't a series of small bombs

but actually was big

and constant voyages.

Wade: It's the equivalent
of a modern cargo ship,

but 800 years ago,

and it had a traveled
an incredible distance

when it went down.

The ship sank 2,000 miles

from where it originally
unloaded cargo.

In the 12th century,
that is a huge distance.

That's like going
across the atlantic.

Elliot: It showed us something
we didn't know existed,

which is this long-range
trading network from china.

This is a huge breakthrough,

something
that we didn't know before.

Wade: But the more we discover
about this mysterious ship,

the more we realize how much
there is still to learn about it

and the world it came from.

Who were these traders
in southeast asia

putting these networks together?

Mckay: We may know the age
and where this cargo was made.

We don't necessarily know
where it was headed

or even where it was loaded,

so there are a lot of questions
yet to be answered.

Wade: Some people say
never look back,

but I believe it's only
by understanding

where we've come from

that we can truly look forward.

There's still so much
we don't know

about what lies
beneath our vast oceans.

But perhaps the technology
of the future

will finally answer
some of our remaining questions

about the past.