All language subtitles for The.Lost.City.Of.The.Monkey.God.2018.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

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Narrator: Have we
really seen everything

Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

on the surface of the earth?

Sometimes it seems
like the world

keeps getting smaller
and smaller.

We've walked every place
there is to walk.

We've trod every square
inch of the globe.

We've photographed everything...

and we've posted it and we've
shared it and we've liked it.

It can seem as if there's
no place left on earth

whose mystery
we haven't stolen...

but that's not actually true.

We don't know everything.

There are still places on earth
that are unknown to us,

indifferent to us...

And even hostile to us.

♪

♪

♪

♪

Matheson: We're a very
experienced group.

I don't think there's anybody
here that really needs

to be reminded, but I'm
gonna do it anyway.

It's very easy in open
areas, on the phone,

talking among ourselves, to
disclose what we're here doing.

Just try and refrain from it,
because what we don't want to do

is raise our profile any
more than we are right now.

♪

Preston: Every Honduran knows
about the lost white city

hidden deep in the jungle.

The legend is that you
can't find the white city,

but if you do find it,
you never come back.

Elkins: We've caravanned from
Tegucigalpa to Catacamas.

I think it's about 120 miles.

What's most impressive
is, the government

provided us with a full-on
military escort.

We had to cart some fuel
with us for the helicopters.

We had soldiers in front,
soldiers in the back,

undercover soldiers, everything,

and we're finally here
at what will be headquarters.

Is that okay for the colonel?

[ Speaking in Spanish ]

Wood: Colonel, thank you.
It was a great move today.

Very safe move.
Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

♪

♪

Elkins:
We're trying to find something

that people have been looking
for for over 500 years.

♪

Wood: Wow.

Elkins: That's amazing. You cannot
see anything through this canopy.

Yeah. You have no clue
what's down there.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

Mabel: Whoever goes in, they
cannot make it out alive,

so maybe that's why he
has been so secretly safe.

Elkins: Like all legends
of this nature,

there's always a curse involved.

Probably some plant
that's deadly,

and if you mess with it,
you get a bad reaction.

You eat it, you die.

Or get bit by a fer-de-Lance
or something else,

or maybe there's
a deadly disease.

There's probably some
reason why it started.

Preston: Up to this point, this
whole lost city had been theoretical.

Elkins:
Does it exist or does it not?

♪

♪

I was doing a story

about some lost temples
in Cambodia,

and I was at the
jet propulsion laboratory

and I met this guy
named Ron blom,

who had been doing some work on

finding these lost temples
using remote sensing.

They flew a DC-10 with
a synthetic aperture radar

over the jungles of Cambodia,

and they found some temples that
had never been known to exist.

So I asked him, I said,

"well, Ron, what other lost
cities are you looking for?"

And he got very nervous.

You know, scientists
are terrible liars.

He was like, "oh, well,
uh, nothing really."

And I said, "no, wait a
minute. Wait a minute.

You must be must be
looking for something, right?"

"Well, I am, but I
can't talk about it.

I've signed a
non-disclosure agreement."

So I pressed him,
and finally, he said,

well, he would ask the guy
who had hired him

and see if the guy would
be willing to contact me.

So that's when I got a
call from Steve Elkins.

He said, "what are you doing

asking Ron blom all
these questions?

What's going on here?

And I said, "well, look,
I understand

that you're looking for a lost
city somewhere in the world,

and I want to write about it."

Elkins: I had this image made
up utilizing satellites.

This is the area
of the mosquitia

that we think the lost city
might be located in.

I had asked the government
of Honduras to give me a map

showing me all the places
that they know

have been surveyed
archeologically in the mosquitia.

The reason being is I don't
really want to go places

that have been surveyed already.

There's no point in doing that.

I need to know what places
are truly unexplored.

So on this map,
they penciled out

in little rectangles
of general areas

that have been surveyed
and they know about,

and they know
they have found sites.

They're almost all
on river systems,

which makes sense,
because first of all,

that's where people usually
made their settlements.

And secondly, it's a
heck of a lot easier

to get to a site along a river

as opposed to something deep in
the interior, in the mountains.

The area where I believe
is totally unexplored

is this big, blank spot
on the map right here.

Somewhere in this area here.

Elkins: The first evidence of
there being some fabulous lost city

in the jungles of
eastern Honduras

dates back to 1526.
[ Bells ringing ]

The conquistador hernan cortes
wrote in his letters

to the king of Spain,
and he says,

"I have received news of a very
large and wealthy province

with powerful lords,

and such wonderful news
has been received of it

that I marvel at what is said.

For even if two thirds
of it proved false,

it must succeed
Mexico in riches."

This is the first
written record of it,

and it seems to have inspired
everybody to try and find out,

does it exist or does it not?

As I delved into the mystery,
I found accounts

of all the people
who claim to have gone

from as far back as the 1920s,
but I could never verify

if they actually
found the place.

As time went on,

many of them were found
to be exaggerators or liars,

and their claims were refuted.

When I was a kid,
I loved the idea of

discovering something no one
had ever seen before.

Many of my friends would
get irritated with me.

They called me
"over-the-Ridge Elkins,"

because we'd be hiking
and I'd say,

"oh, we just kind of go
over the next Ridge

and see what's there."

So there's an innate
curiosity and a drive

that some of us have
and some of us don't.

Hello, my name is Steve Morgan,

and I'm your host
for this program.

The film that you're
about to see

will take you into the uncharted
jungles of Central America,

where mysterious ruins
and ancient legends

lie hidden by a jungle veil.

Elkins: Steve Morgan used
to be a treasure hunter.

I call him an adventurer now,
because it's no longer good

to be treasure hunters
in the modern world.

I met him in early '94, when I
was in the television business.

Morgan: Ever since man first
crawled out of his cave,

he wanted to know what was on
the other side of the hill.

Well, I like getting out
there and knowing what's on --

What's in the jungles
of Honduras or South America.

I have his book right here --

"captain Morgan's guide
to documentary adventures."

This is the very book that I
read in late '93 or early '94,

and got me really fascinated.

One of the stories,
"Ciudad blanca -- lost city."

I read this story and I went,

"wow, this is great.
I love this kind of stuff."

Steve told me it
was really inexpensive

to do productions in Honduras.

He said, "oh, I have
a friend named Bruce,

a childhood buddy,
Bruce heinicke,

and we used to go looking for
civil war artifacts as kids,

growing up in St. Louis,

and we worked on
shipwrecks together.

We had all kinds of adventures."

We just never grew up.

Steve still wants
to be a pirate,

and I just never made up my mind

what I'm gonna be
when I grow up, so...

Elkins: Bruce was
the ultimate old-school

central American fixer.

He was a rather large man.

He had a gold chain,
a big pinkie ring,

and was the kind of guy

that you didn't want
to have angry with you.

Steve told me, Bruce
lives in Honduras.

He knows his way around.

When we first got to Tegucigalpa

on the beginning
of the expedition,

Bruce met us at the airport

and he made sure that we had
no problems, that we were safe,

and he had a whole army
of local people.

God knows what he was doing.

Steve had an idea where to go,

and he recruited
an indigenous local

to guide us through the jungle,
and we wound up going.

[ Indistinct chatter ]

[ Speaking in native language ]

One, two, three.

Elkins: This went on for
a couple of days.

Finally, we got to
the point to where

we couldn't go by canoe anymore.

We have to put everything
on our backs and start walking.

How we all did it, I don't know.

[ Speaking in native language ]

♪

Then eventually, we're going up
further up into the highlands,

and there's this big Boulder.

[ Speaking in native language ]

So the archeologist from the
government who was with us

outlined the carving in
chalk, so we could see it.

[ Speaking in native language ]

Morgan: He has a mask
over his face.

[ Speaking in native language ]

He has something like
a sack full of corn.

Elkins: I remember seeing
that and going,

"why would this carving
be in the middle of nowhere,

up in the highlands,
in this mountain stream,

if there was nothing
going on here in the past?"

Just doesn't make sense.

That, to me, was
a moment of epiphany.

I said, "there is something
to this legend,"

and it inspired
me to go further.

Something told me that
there's more to the story

than meets the eye.

One of the stories,
"Ciudad blanca -- lost city."

I read this story and I went,

"wow, this is great.
I love this kind of stuff,"

and we wound up going.

All throughout the mid-'90s,

myself, as well as one of
my friends and associates,

Tom weinberg, and Steve Morgan
and some other people,

we didn't want to give up.

Preston: Steve said, "look,
all we have to do is organize

an expedition to go in there
and verify it on the ground."

He had the expedition
all organized.

It was ready to go, and then

hurricane Mitch literally
destroyed Honduras in 1998.

Narrator: By the evening
of the 29th of October,

Mitch had already reached
the northern coast.

The water racing down
from the mountains

was funneled into the valleys
at terrifying speeds,

wiping out anything in its path.

[ Water roars ]

Residents watched in horror

as friends and neighbors
were swept away.

[ Screaming ]

Mitch was the most lethal
storm in modern history --

Elkins: I give up, at least for
the time being.

We did our lives --

Our professional lives,
our personal lives --

And the lost city was just
kind of one little speck

somewhere in our consciousness.

Preston: At a certain
point, I'm thinking,

"well, this is
never gonna happen."

You know, it was a brave effort,

but it's just never
gonna happen.

Until 2009.

It's had to have
divine intervention.

There was a reason that
Mabel was in Honduras

and got to talk
to the president.

I believe that. I believe
it with all my heart.

Still to today, I don't
know how I got there.

I don't know -- I don't
know what got into me

that make me go, and --

I mean, "you know, I could have
got killed," I say to him,

and he said, "yes, I know."

So many policemen,

so many people with
machine guns, bodyguards.

And he say, "I love it.
I love the whole thing.

I heard about the story,

and I want this to happen
in my time as a president."

Man: At the same time,
I had just read an article

in archeology magazine
in the New York times

about an evolution
of lidar technology,

which is a method of scanning
terrestrial features

using laser beams
from an airplane

that was successfully
used in Belize

at the Maya site of caracol.

I looked at the pictures
and I went,

"holy cow, this
changes the game."

Narrator: Lidar is a remote-sensing
method similar to radar.

It uses laser pulses to
measure variable distances

from the lidar scanner to
the surface it's measuring.

As the laser pulses bounce back,

they generate data
known as a point cloud

that can then be used to create
3-d maps of the scanned areas.

All of this happens
in just seconds.

♪

Elkins: Now we have two elements
-- the backing of a new government,

and we've got a technology
that makes it possible

to see what's in a large area

without really a whole lot
of physical effort.

Lidar, as it's used today,
is an amazing tool

for finding highly detailed
information about structures

and features underneath
a very heavy forest cover.

Lidar really has revolutionized
the way that archeology is done.

Preston: Lidar is much
more well-known now

because of its use in
driverless cars and video games,

but back then, it was
an evolving technology,

and we really didn't
know much about it.

Now, lidar lasers fire at over
a million times a second,

but back then, it
wasn't that advanced yet,

and it had never been
used in this way before,

and it might not work.

There might not be enough
laser pulses reaching the ground

in order to scan the terrain.

Well, Steve said, "look,
we've got all our permits,

and we're all set to go.

We're going to roatán island,

and we got the plane
all lined up,

and we're gonna find
the lost city."

Elkins: To provide additional
protection for the lidar plane,

we based our operation
on roatán,

an island about 40 miles off
the northern coast of Honduras.

Preston: Well, lidar technology
is just totally cutting-edge here.

It's sophisticated,
extremely expensive,

and also used by the military.

It was very difficult for
the team to get the permits

to even get it to
leave the country

and bring it down here.

Gross: The lidar system
has some important

electronic security
issues on it,

that in the wrong hands,
could be used the wrong way.

Okay.

Okay.

Preston: There's certain parts
of this technology that are

actually classified and used
in U.S. guided missiles.

All I know is we've
always kept it quiet.

Preston: It has to be
guarded by soldiers 24/7

to make sure that our enemies
don't get their hands on it.

I mean, that's cool.
I like that.

Preston:
The main question we faced was,

is lidar going to work
at all in the jungle?

This was the first time
lidar had ever been used

as a tool of pure exploration.

Previously, they were
lidaring archeological sites

known to be sites,

and they knew they were
gonna find something,

but this was using
lidar in a new way.

What we are doing is genuine
discovery, modern-day discovery.

Fernandez-Diaz: It was kind
of a shot in the dark,

but I was hoping that we
were going to get lucky.

Preston: I really thought,

"well, they're not gonna
find anything."

♪

♪

Juan Carlos had
a laptop computer

that he jacked into
the lidar unit,

and that was the controller,

and he had mapped their
route on this laptop

which was connected
to the lidar machine,

and that was connected to
the plane's navigational system.

So we're shooting 100,000
laser pulses per second

out of the bottom of the plane,
scanning the jungle below us

and creating an enormous
amount of data,

a point cloud that we can turn
into a 3-d map of the area.

Theoretically, if something
is there, we'll see it.

♪

Whatever's down there, the data
that's being collected right now

is of unbelievably
important value to science.

♪

♪

Sartori: The plane needs
to spend around three days

flying over the target area

to collect enough
data to analyze.

So, for the moment, we were
all in a holding pattern.

Preston: We weren't really
sure when the images

would be fully processed.

There were a lot of problems
getting the data

and then uploading
it for analysis.

So we're walking back
from breakfast,

and this very
skeptical engineer --

He was running,
and he's shouting,

"there's something
in the valley!

There's something
in the valley!"

And of course, we're like,
"what is it? What is it?"

And then he stops. He says,
"I'm not gonna tell you.

I can't even describe it.

You just have to come see
for yourselves."

[ Indistinct chatter ]

Elkins: Okay, man. I'm here.

Alright.

Well, I looked at it for
only a few moments myself.

I zoomed in to about this level,
and I just went, "holy crap."

What looks like
a rectangular structure.

Yeah, look at this.
Look at that.

I mean, there's two
perfectly linear lines,

and that's the right angle,
and other stuff inside there.

It's not just one right angle.
It is a whole square.

Well, it's open on one side,
you can't tell --

But these are two perfect
right angles.

Come on. That does
not look natural.

I mean, I suppose
it could happen, but...

It's a site.

You can see that
there's extensive

landscape modification,
as, you know --

Here, and it's been
leveled out here.

This has been leveled out.
There is a repetition.

This feature is similar to that
feature, this wall to that wall.

These are, you know,
two similar structures.

Right. Here's another --
Looks like another wall here,

and there's another remnants of
a square-type situation there.

And then, look, there's --
It seems to me

there's terracing on here.
Those are ruins.

Doug Preston went on record
saying it's ruins.

I've had to deal with
too many scientists

and I've had too
many disappointments,

so I will just say the odds
are extremely high

that this is some of
what we're looking for.

Fernandez-Diaz:
I have a 3-d model.

Preston: An average
person looking at it

would see that it
was not normal,

but they wouldn't see
all the details.

The way these ridges
have been flattened.

You see these ridges and these
ridges have been flattened,

and that's a very unusual
feature in this landscape.

Benenson: I'm kind of...
Elkins: Blown away?

Yeah, that's
the word. Blown away.

I think we have opportunities
that didn't exist 24 hours ago,

and we, it's up to us
and others to figure out

how to make the best of this
very interesting discovery.

I was thinking, "this is gonna
be a very funny article.

I can write a hilarious story

about this totally failed
search for this lost city.

I can turn this around,
as a journalist.

I can make this something
worth writing about."

But then when they really
found the lost city --

God, I was sending an email
to the new yorker the next day.

♪

♪

Well, I looked at it for
only a few moments myself.

I zoomed in to about this level,
and I just went, "holy crap."

What looks like
a rectangular structure.

Yeah, those are ruins.

♪

Elkins: Shortly after we
returned from the lidar mission,

Doug Preston published
an extensive article

in new yorker magazine about it.

And even though we knew that
the lidar definitely showed

the remnants of an ancient city,
there was a backlash.

Honestly, I don't think that
any archeologists were concerned

about the lidar
expedition, specifically.

I think the use of lidar for
exploration is a wonderful idea.

The concern became about how
it was presented in the media.

The creation of a narrative
is very, very important --

But by simply giving the article

the title
"the El dorado machine,"

it invoked El dorado,
the lost city of gold,

and implied that this
high technology

was being used to discover gold,

when in fact that
was not the case, I hope.

Anyone can write
an adventure story.

We have no objection to that.

But it's being portrayed
as archeology, and it's not.

Preston: Rosemary Joyce of the
university of California at Berkeley,

who is a very distinguished
Honduran expert,

immediately condemned
the expedition

on her blog and everywhere else.

She seemed to think that
the expedition had claimed

that they had found
Ciudad blanca,

and they really hadn't
made that claim.

But the Honduran press all said,

"oh, Ciudad Blanca's
been found."

[ Speaking in Spanish ]

So I called her up, and
she was absolutely furious.

I mean, she was not
soft-spoken on the phone.

And she says, you know,
"this is an outrage.

These people are adventurers.

There's no archeologist
involved."

I said, "well, let me send
you an image from t1."

And she said, "well,
you can send it to me,

but I may not call you back."

Well, I sent it to her, and she
called me back immediately,

and she was --
You know, she said,

"this is quite an archeological
site. It's not a small one.

I can see, you know,
a public space par excellence.

I can see, you know, potential
Mesoamerican ball court

and all this and that --
House mounds."

But then she ended
the phone call

with another blast
at the expedition.

We don't go out looking
for treasure anymore.

We go out looking for knowledge.

We didn't have any archeologists
on the lidar mission at all,

'cause we never went on
the ground. We didn't need them.

I think explorers do
run the risk of

being identified
as treasure hunters.

And what is treasure hunting?

Well, it's finding something
for financial gain

rather than for advancing
scientific knowledge.

Oh, just a plain old filmmaker?
How can they make a discovery?

Hate to say it,
but that's really,

in my opinion, what it was.

♪

Preston: Honduras is a
country that's had

a long and troubled history,

from the banana republic,
time up to the present day.

♪

In the late 1990s,
anti-drug policies in Colombia

shifted the major cocaine
trafficking routes

through Honduras, and
specifically through mosquitia.

Could be another reason why
he listen to me and trust me,

because I am from Honduras, and
I want the best for my country,

and it will give
a huge help to the country.

♪

Preston: After a considerable
period of time

analyzing the lidar data
we'd collected,

we knew we needed
to go in on the ground

to verify what was there.

Archeologists call
this "ground truthing,"

and it took three years
to organize

this next phase
of the expedition.

Woody, what I
I need to understand

is how you're going to be
handling both the camp

and us getting in and out.

We've heard that
the military helicopters

don't want to carry us in.

The question is,
in an emergency,

if they can carry Americans out.

Elkins: So now we just needed
to fly a helicopter 2,000 miles

from Albuquerque to Honduras.

Shier: Here we are in cold
and windy Albuquerque.

Myles, the pilot, and
Jeff, the mechanic,

heading down to participate

in this amazing project
in the jungles of Honduras.

♪

Bringing people
in and out to the site --

The safety of that
is our concern.

That's the direction we're
heading. That's southeast.

Elsing: We've allowed for
between 5 and 6 days to get down.

They'll land,
their gear will come in,

and then they'll
pick a site for me,

and that'll be our helipad,
our landing site.

Then we hover over the spot,

and the men repel
down one at a time.

A big exploration involving
a lot of people dedicated to it,

assistance from government...

When Steve talked about
this project, you know --

You give it a maybe 1 in 10
chance of working out,

and here he is, 20 years later,
and the guy's making it happen.

♪

Preston: After a considerable
period of time

analyzing the lidar data
we'd collected,

we knew we needed
to go in on the ground

to verify what was there.

Archeologists call
this "ground truthing,"

and it took three years
to organize

this next phase
of the expedition.

Elkins: After securing
the team and the financing,

we have 10 days
to find something

before the money runs out.

♪

Sadly, my longtime friend
and fixer, Bruce heinicke,

passed away
before our 2015 trip,

but I knew he was
there in spirit.

♪

♪

[ Car horns honk ]

Matheson: I think I've pretty
much got 'round to everybody

to introduce myself -- spud.

Obviously, I'm working
alongside Stevie,

or "Sully," as he's known.

We've got Woody sat next
to him, from the task team.

The risk is very minimal
here right now, okay?

It's more the fact that we are
exposed to the environment,

as opposed to anything
else right now,

purely because of what
we're here to do --

Because when a big
group of us turn up,

straight away, we are sort
of under the spotlight.

"Who are these guys?
What are they here for?"

Et cetera, et cetera.

So right now, guys, it's just
keeping it in the shadows.

♪

Preston:
We're headed to Catacamas,

which was to be our
base of operations,

which is kind of halfway
across the country

through very dangerous
areas, actually,

including areas
controlled by drug cartels.

The crew includes
anthropologists, archeologists,

filmmakers, journalists,

so there are a lot of logistics
involved in our mission,

not to mention ensuring
our personal safety.

Elkins: It's amazing.
We got helicopters.

We got armed soldiers.

We got the whole -- it's just --

It's like a dream.

♪

Preston: Most Hondurans believe
that the white city,

Ciudad blanca, is a place
of great riches and treasure,

so we would have been marked
as treasure hunters,

maybe coming to steal
Honduras's cultural patrimony.

Who knows what kind of ideas

it might have caused
in people's minds?

I was talking to a
businessman in Catacamas

who said that the cost of a hit,

a professional killing,
in Catacamas, is $25.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

Elsing: Even though the site is
only 60 miles from civilization,

you can't get to it by land.

You need to fly in,
because the terrain

is extraordinarily difficult.

It is really tough -- it's one
of the toughest there is.

It's just too damn
hard to go in there on foot.

There's actually one
potential landing zone

right in the middle of
the place you want to go,

but I'm not sure that the trees
are spaced far enough apart

from the helicopter.

It could be rather dicey.

Preston:
We're headed to Catacamas,

which was to be our
base of operations,

which is kind of halfway
across the country

through very dangerous
areas, actually,

including areas
controlled by drug cartels.

The crew includes
anthropologists, archeologists,

filmmakers, journalists,

so there are a lot of logistics
involved in our mission,

not to mention ensuring
our personal safety.

Preston: While Steve was
doing a flyover

to find a safe landing site,

our head archeologist
Chris Fisher met with

his Honduran counterpart,
Oscar Cruz, to make a plan.

Fisher: What I'm showing
Oscar are hill shapes

that we've generated
that accentuates mounds

and other human features.

And it's the basic way
of illustrating lidar data,

visualizing it and examining it.

It basically shows us
house foundations,

pyramids, plazas, man-made
features on the ground

that we can investigate.

♪

♪

9 times out of 10, when you
go into these environments,

you'll see nothing, because
when you do go in there,

we are not on the menu, alright?

It thinks it's on the menu,

and when you go into the place,
everything just goes -- [gasps].

You won't see things
initially, but it is there.

If you go looking for
it, however,

you will find it at
the most inopportune times.

The snakes -- the biggest
snake of concern

out there is the fer-de-Lance.

He is a nasty thing.

They're predominantly nocturnal
and they tend to hunt

around streams and rivers
and what have you.

You've got to tune in
mentally right now

what you're about to do,
'cause it's not gonna be easy,

and it's not a walk in the park
to see this business.

It's not a day trip.
It's a serious job, guys.

Yeah, things go wrong when
people don't listen.

There are no guidebooks.

There's no one you can ask
"what's it like?"

This completely unknown valley

that human beings have not
seen in 500 years, probably.

And what were we
going to find there?

And to me, that was both
frightening and very exciting,

to be the first.

♪

The landing zone, which
had just been cleared

hours before
by this s.A.S. Team --

♪

Elkins: I'm actually
standing on this ground

that I've been looking
at from satellites

and from aerial photographs
and from lidar for years.

It was almost overwhelming.

♪

[ Insects chirping ]

♪

[ Birds chirping ]

[ Water sploshing ]

[ Chopping ]

[ Monkey hooting ]

Start making it up
towards that area

where Sully and Woody
are working right now.

They're basically preparing,
like, a base camp area for us.

So let's just slowly
hump and dump, guys.

[ Rustling ]

Elkins: I would like
to go to the mound --

What we think is the pyramid,
the two things together --

As soon as possible, to see.

Fisher: That's down that way.

Isn't it on the other
side of the river?

Other side of the river
are all the big plazas.

Yeah.

Two mounds together
is down that way.

Yeah, but that was
just what you saw.

We're talking about --

Preston: Steve's instincts
have gotten us this far,

but now we have 10
Ph.D. scientists

with a certain way
of doing things,

and that's a big adjustment.

I just want to walk down
the entire thing,

because I don't want
to be in a situation

where we immediately go there,
focus all our work down there,

and all of a sudden
we get right down there --

Which is less than
a kilometer away --

And all of a sudden
we're like, "holy [bleep]."

Preston: Do we want to
do that today, then?

I'd love to do it today, but
don't think it's going to happen

because I know these guys
have a lot of stuff to do,

setting things up and
helicopter rides coming in.

I don't think it's
gonna happen today.

[ Thunder rumbles ]

Preston: We were very eager
when we arrived,

but we were totally exhausted.

And we had to get everything
prepped before nightfall,

because the jungle at night
turns into a very different

and far more dangerous place.

The animals come out.

We could hear them purring
as they wandered

among our tents at night,
and the bugs start to bite.

So we're sitting in camp,
and Woody is telling stories

and I'm thinking to
myself, "oh, my god,

I got to write some
of these stories down."

And I had to go back
through the jungle

in the darkness to my camp
to get my notebook.

♪

And I'm coming back and I
somehow got off the trail...

a moment of panic,

and finally I found
Juan Carlos' hammock,

and I'm thinking,
"thank god I didn't get lost."

And my flashlight,
I'm sweeping it around,

and all of a sudden,
there's this gigantic snake.

So I backed up, and I said,

"hey, guys, there is
a really big snake over here."

And Woody said, "keep your
light on it. We're coming."

And their flashlights --

Woody says, "okay, everyone,
put your lights on the snake.

I'm gonna move it."

He pins the snake like this,
the body of the snake,

and it unfurls,

and it is huge, and it
is striking everywhere,

and it is spraying venom.

He seizes the head
with his hand,

took out his knife
and cut off its head.

And I'm coming back and I
somehow got off the trail...

a moment of panic,

and finally I found
Juan Carlos' hammock,

and I'm thinking,
"thank god I didn't get lost."

And my flashlight,
I'm sweeping it around,

and all of a sudden,
there's this gigantic snake.

So I backed up, and I said,

"hey, guys, there is
a really big snake over here."

And Woody said, "keep your
light on it. We're coming."

And their flashlights --

Woody says, "okay, everyone,
put your lights on the snake.

I'm gonna move it."

He pins the snake like this,
the body of the snake,

and it unfurls,

and it is huge, and it
is striking everywhere,

and it is spraying venom.

He seizes the head
with his hand,

took out his knife
and cut off its head.

Man: I think he's listening.

This snake has fangs that
are over an inch long.

I felt, "oh, god,
what do we do?"

We human beings come
into this virgin area,

this totally perfect area,

and the first thing we do
is kill that snake.

It was self-defense,

but it feels like
such a violation.

♪

♪

Em? Hey, listen, don't dispatch
anybody to this location

until I call you back
to let me know

that the mist has cleared.

Everybody, and I mean everybody,
must bring their snake gaiters.

Elkins: I have nerve damage
in my left leg,

and it's difficult for
me to get around,

so I'm kind of disappointed
that I couldn't join

this first walk, 'cause
I'd slow everybody up.

♪

Cruz: We'll find something
right here.

♪

♪

♪

♪

Preston: Chris had a very
sophisticated GPS unit

which had downloaded
the lidar maps,

and it showed where he
was on those lidar maps.

Fisher: Trimble geo 7x.

They're top-of-the-line
handheld survey instruments.

So it shows you in real time

where you are
and what's on there.

You can also trace and digitize
your features on here.

You can collect points.
You can plot artifacts.

So let's go up on top
of this one

and work our way
back down that way.

So it shows you in
real time where you are.

It has the GPS receiver antenna.

It has a built-in, very
sophisticated barometer,

corrective satellites,
and a really nice math engine.

All of that stuff together
means that once we're out here

and we get a signal,

you can walk for,
I think, over a kilometer.

[ Device blips ]
Right now, I'm getting accuracy

of 70 centimeters or so.

Alright, let me look
over this edge here.

♪

[ Device blipping ]

♪

This whole thing was paved.

It's all covered in sediment.

That whole surface you're
walking on was paved, Doug.

Preston: Oh, I see, yeah.
I see it. I see them.

Preston: Standing at
the base of the pyramid

and being utterly unable to tell
that there was a pyramid there,

or that you were anywhere but

in the densest jungle --
It was weird.

I was thinking, "god, is this
all we're gonna be able to see?"

♪

I mean, there was
clearly stuff there,

but you really had
to seek it out

and then you could only
see a tiny piece of it.

Fisher: There's no other
rock up here, right?

It's been shaped
into a square pattern,

so it's basically like
a block or a brick.

And it was hauled up
here and then placed

on top of this,
on top of this earth.

They're delimiting the edges
of plazas and structures,

and they're basically
like foundations

or construction stone.

I think it's pretty awesome.

We have to check all of them for
petroglyphs or anything else.

It's really nice
to find these here.

It's amazing
confirmation of what

we've been thinking
and talking about.

♪

♪

Preston:
Where the canyon cut through,

you could see where it would
have been paved the stone.

It's really hard to --

These are covered up.
We've got to cut it away.

They're completely covered.

Here's another stone, but
they have to be uncovered,

and then Chris is gonna GPS
each one of them to Mark them

and then map them
onto the lidar map,

and then we'll see
where they are.

These are the stones.
They're big. They're shaped.

You can see packing --
Can you zoom in?

Did you go to the top?

'Cause in the lidar, it showed

what looked like
a rectangle on the top.

Well, maybe if we clear
the brush, we could see it.

What about the Plaza itself?

We only got to one Plaza,
Steve, we didn't even --

Did you go to the one
next to the pyramid?

The big one?
Mm-hmm.

But we didn't find
any ceramics at all,

so who the hell knows?

And we're not gonna see
any in that cover.

So on a scale of
your expectations,

how would you rate it?

It feels bigger in person.

I think we've only seen
one tenth of it so far,

so I have to reserve
my expectations

until we see the rest of it.

My confidence level's
at 80 percent.

I guess we'll see.

♪

[ Groaning ]

♪

That'll warm you up.

[ Chuckles ]
I'm awake now.

Fisher: That's the pyramid,
right there in front of you.

Where is the pyramid?

Right there.
You're looking at it.

A big lump.

Can't say I see a
whole lot from here.

That's what it is.
That's a pyramid.

It's made out of earth.

Well, that's probably the base.

I mean, how many years
has this been in decay,

and all this debris
is piled up on top?

Preston: You want to have that
big moment where you suddenly

see the city through the trees,

but visually, it's
very anticlimactic.

Without the lidar data,
we would have had no idea

that we were standing
on a temple site,

but the lidar could see
the contours of the city

extending deep into the jungle,

so it becomes easier to imagine
what might have once been here.

That these mounds of earth
are covering crumbled walls

where houses and
majestic temples once stood.

It's all hidden by
centuries of overgrowth.

Excavating this area is
at least a 20-year project.

♪

Fisher: We're standing
right here.

We're on that
mountain. Okay, so...

We're looking down this way,

so you have a sunken
Plaza, sunken Plaza.

I don't know what that is,
that connection.

Preston: Steve, what do you want
to do? Where do you want to go?

What I would like to do,
before you go wandering off,

I'd like to go back
up there and go down

to what looks like that
little promenade or something.

Yeah. I'd like to just
follow that for a little bit.

Fisher: Okay. Remember, we have
the ball court area over here

which has not been explored.

We could look in there
for a marker as well.

Okay, we haven't done that yet.

How far is that?

It's over there. Right
there. You can see it.

"Over there" is how far?
10 meters.

Let's go do that first, then.

Okay.

♪

Elkins: So after a while, you
go, "okay, this all there is?"

I'm starting to fear that after

all this time
and money and effort,

we'd have nothing
to show for it.

And we're mapping everything
we saw on the lidar.

Problem is, they're pretty
much invisible to your eye,

unless you're
a trained archeologist.

♪

This is definitely hard stone,
and this has been cut.

Look how smooth this is, here.

Maybe the other side
has the monkey god.

[ Chuckling ]

Everything is covered in dirt
and trees and vegetation.

I didn't think we were gonna
have anything we could

actually show
that would be exciting.

Can't exactly take back

a foundation of
a pyramid with you.

♪

Elkins: Chris Fisher!

Fisher: Look at these rocks!

I mean, it's unbelievable.

Those big, quartz rocks
supporting it.

This is like a table.

It's got this really cool vein
of quartz or something.

Cruz: Can we scan a
little bit more here?

What did I tell you?

Elkins: No, it didn't
fall in this position.

If you look underneath,
there's quartz stones

that are supporting this.

Fisher: I don't know if the
speculation about the quartz

and the orientation and stuff,

is something I'm that
comfortable with.

We don't know.
We have no idea about it.

Elkins: Well, that's the whole
point. We're all guessing.

We're going, "alright.
This is an idea."

No one knows for sure.

There's been other examples

of these kind of
astronomical orientations.

Possibly it is and
possibly it isn't.

But why wouldn't you
want to discuss it?

Why you want to
say flat out, "no."

Because it's not in place.

It's just guessing.

And by having a lot
of multiple eyes look at it

with reasonable expectations,
you might find the answer.

Okay.

We're not gonna be able
to get a lot of answers

in the short time we're here,

who knows?

♪

Cohen: Okay.

♪

Elkins: Well, we're walking
back and forth

in the same area several times,
and we're heading back to camp

towards the end
of the afternoon,

then all of a sudden...

Fisher: See this?

Gonzalez: There's a heap.

There are inscriptions
right here.

There are?
Yes.

On the edge here,
at least decorations, anyway.

Elkins: Well, we're walking
back and forth

in the same area several times,
and we're heading back to camp

towards the end
of the afternoon,

then all of a sudden...

Fisher: See this?

Gonzalez: There's a heap.

There are inscriptions
right here.

There are?
Yes.

On the edge here,
at least decorations, anyway.

Yep, that's it.

Cruz: Wow, wow, wow!
Look at that!

[ Indistinct exclamations ]

Pay dirt. Look at this!

Whoa, whoa! Everybody
stop! Back off.

Don't touch anything.
Don't clear anything, please.

Yeah. See that.
Here's a monkey.

Elkins:
We got a monkey?

Yeah, that's...

Excuse me.
Gonzalez: Oh, my goodness.

Fisher: Okay, guys.
I need --

No, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
Nobody walk on this!

Nobody walk on this stuff.
Everybody back up.

Yep. I know.

I'm standing right
here for a reason.

Whoa -- Steve!

I'm putting my stick
there. Cool it, man.

This is great.
This is the real thing.

Wow. That's our monkey god.

Gonzalez: There's
our monkey.

Cuidad blanca, the lost city of
the monkey god.

You can't touch it, carve it,
scrape anything off,

because he needs to register
where this is, as a site.

Elkins: One of the first things
that I saw was the head

of what I thought
was a monkey effigy

sticking out of the ground.

Somebody said, "yeah,
it looks like a monkey,

except the ears
are on top of its head."

As much as I didn't want to
admit it, this was not a monkey.

It was a more
feline-looking character.

Preston: I have never --
I've been to many

archeological sites
in my life --

I've never seen anything

so pristine, so untouched
as this.

This is what I dreamed
about, you know?

We really found something.
This is just the beginning.

When that cache was found,
that changed everything.

52 sculptures poking
up out of the ground,

and they're all in one spot,
in a very small area

of maybe 200-300 square feet.

Elkins: This is
the big thing here, guys.

Chris, we can step where there's
no obvious thing. Come on.

Fisher: There's stuff
under all of this.

Well, the whole place
is full of stuff!

We're not crushing
anything. Come on.

We're just taking pictures.

Preston: What are we gonna
do with this stuff?

We'd love to just dig it up.

I don't know if we have
to do rescue archeology

to get some of this stuff out
or they can take their time.

I don't know. I mean,
this is a political call now.

You know, in a way,
we've opened up pandora's box

yeah, because a lot of people
now know exactly where this is.

Right.

♪

I mean, this to me --
This is the vindication.

I've never seen
anything like that.

This is museum stuff.

I'm glad I've lived
to see this day.

♪

♪

There's some concern if we
leave stuff totally undisturbed,

will it be here
when someone comes back?

There's a narco lord
with an airstrip close by,

with unlimited amounts of money,

and the cat's out of the bag,
in terms of what's here.

It's sort of
very difficult to control,

so dilemma is, what do we do?

You know, do we try and save
a couple of these items

that will exemplify
what it is we've found,

and maybe create more interest
around the world

to hurry up and
generate more money

so people can get
in here quicker?

Or do we leave it in Situ,

and with the hopes that
in some time in the future

there will be the money,
and people will come out here

and that stuff won't
be stolen by then.

It stays.

Can't remove any of the pieces.

If it's gone, it's gone.
That's on the Hondurans.

It's a giant, three-dimensional
jigsaw puzzle,

and you can't take out
one piece like that.

It just doesn't -- that
kind of situation

just doesn't work like that.

Benenson: But what about
if we leave here,

the next time
someone comes back in --

You come back in a year or two
from now, there's nothing left.

That's fine?

That absolutely sucks,

but we can't just take one
or two pieces out like that,

because we'll lose --
Besides just saying "you can't,"

explain to me
the logic behind that.

By pulling out pieces
Willy nilly,

we lose a lot of information.

We lose the complete
context for the piece.

But if we record its position,

we photograph with
your lidar scan,

everything in its position.

The lidar scanner
will not record it

in the kind of detail
that you're thinking.

But what information are we
losing, other than its position

relative to other objects?

And the objects below it.

That's the most
important information.

The context of the bowl
is what's important,

and the undisturbed context

of the entire cache
is what's unique.

Cohen: I'm afraid I would
have to agree with Chris.

I feel incredibly
uncomfortable excavating

something out of context.

Learning about the architecture
around that cache --

What does that mean?

If you just take out
a bowl or a seat,

or whatever those artifacts are,

we don't know what
their function was.

We don't know what
they were used for.

It makes me uncomfortable
just to think

about excavating it right now.

I won't do it.

Okay.

It really puts me in a
precarious position,

professionally.

If you're talking about
sending a team up here

to spend a month
excavating the cache,

that's a different thing,

if the president wants to give
a permit for that to happen,

that's great.

An academic expedition
in here might take years,

and then what happens if --

Let's say my view is correct,
that it's been looted?

Has that protected the site?

The value of pulling a single
stone bowl out of there is,

there is no value to it.

Well, I know what makes
people excited,

and makes them want
to give up their money

and invest in -- to put money
up to do these things.

So if they see something,
and they can touch it,

then they get excited about it,

and then they go,
"yes, we'll contribute.

Yeah, let's get a team
there right away."

So are we talking about taking
a bowl out to demonstrate

that there's something there?

Or are we talking
about taking a bowl out

because we're afraid
it's going to get looted?

So we're talking about

taking a bowl out of there
for a marketing idea.

It's both. It's
two sides of the coin.

Taking a single bowl out --

Then they're just gonna
come up and get the other 50.

No academic archeologist

will touch this project
after that happens.

And I absolutely --
I cannot condone it.

You will lose all
academic credibility,

probably, within the
archeological community,

if you pull something
out like that.

You will be seen
as treasure hunters.

♪

♪

Elkins: We made the difficult
decision to leave the site as-is

and simply record
the location of the objects

with terrestrial lidar.

Our fears of looting
were put to rest

when the president
ordered the soldiers

to stay on and guard the site.

♪

[ Note playing ]

♪

Fisher: Lidar is the ultimate
conservation tool.

Archeological sites
are disappearing

at a really rapid rate, and
that's one of the great things

about these lidar records,

is all of a sudden
we have this big data

that we've never had before --

But then we open up
a pandora's box.

Once we find this stuff
and it sort of gets publicized,

we have to work to protect it.

♪

♪

Elkins: As I'm getting
on the helicopter,

I obviously had a great
feeling of satisfaction

that we accomplished so much,

and was almost a fulfillment
of this multi-decade dream.

♪

As soon as we got
out of the jungle,

the president of Honduras
expressed an interest

that this discovery be reported

as quickly as possible,

so I wrote a little
800-word piece,

and the publication
of that little news piece

caused quite a stir, actually --

I guess the word "furor"
is not inaccurate --

Among scholars, who put
together a letter of protest

about what we were doing,
which became public

and was signed by a number
of archeologists and students

who were working in Honduras.

Maggie: They have sufficiently
tweaked you,

but there's no way to win in
a [bleep] match with [bleep]

Benenson: Maggie, you've
made your point very well.

Chris, where are you?

What are you thinking
you want to do?

Elkins: All of a sudden,
there's a group of academics --

Many of the same ones that had

chastised us
several years before --

Claiming what we did
was really a bunch of b.S.,

and we didn't have
the right people.

One of my concerns,

and the concerns of my
colleagues is that,

because it was initiated
by people

who weren't
archeologists themselves,

there's been a disregard

for what archeology
actually knows.

Preston: In reading the letter,

one criticism is failure
to acknowledge local knowledge.

Archeology has long
had a problem

with talking about
discoveries of things

that were well-known
to indigenous people.

Fact of the matter is, there is
no local presence in that area.

It is a wilderness, in the true
sense of of that word --

A place without roads,
electricity,

permanent human settlement.

Indigenous knowledge is a very
important part of this story,

and it's complicated,
because when

the Rio platano biosphere
reserve was created,

indigenous settlements
were actually relocated,

and the access of people
to this area was restricted.

The reason why it's important

is because generations
of American schoolchildren

have been taught that
Columbus discovered america.

The idea that indigenous people,

their territories,
their sacred sites,

their artifacts, their culture,
are discovered

by white Europeans is very
offensive to indigenous people.

They've known about
these things all along.

They may be new to the
Europeans who've just arrived,

but they're very resentful
of being "discovered."

Almost every significant
archeological discovery

made at mosquitia was
because indigenous people

brought the archeologists
to that site

and showed them the site.

However, this site
is almost unique

in not having been
discovered that way.

We knew this place was virgin,
and there's no refuting it.

The narrative of discovery has
been an essential part of this

from the very beginning.

Preston: The next point was,
the expedition had engaged

in exaggerated
claims of discovery --

That it was no bigger than
any other ruin in mosquitia,

and that we were

sensationalizing
archeological research.

My feeling as a journalist
was, it is sensational.

Amazing to think that
in the 21st century,

a lost city could
actually be discovered.

Archeology actually is
a very difficult thing to do.

It often takes years of work
with local communities

to have permission to go
into a particular area,

and I think it's probably
fair to say

that indigenous communities
are still mostly dissatisfied

with how that information
is being used

and still feel that they're not
having much come back to them,

in terms of what
they would like to have.

♪

♪

♪

Elkins: By this point,
we had gained the support

of a second presidential
administration.

[ Indistinct chatter ]

[ Speaking on mic in Spanish ]

[ Applause ]

[ Speaking in Spanish ]

[ Helicopter blades whirring ]

♪

Man: So, El presidente.

We are here with the president
and many government officials

to facilitate the planning
of the excavation.

Fisher: They certainly had
contact with the Maya.

They would have traded,

maybe exchanged people
and information,

but they were a completely
separate people,

and they were a people
that were centered

here in la mosquitia.

There are all of these
descriptions of these objects.

Nobody has ever systematically
excavated a cache like this.

It's -- I've never seen anything
like it, and I've worked in --

Maybe. [ Chuckles ]

Who is afraid of the curse
of the lost city?

Certainly not the explorers

who've been reliving their
adventures and misadventures.

Elkins: Maybe some press reports
may have blown it up

more than what it was,

but we never officially
said anything,

I think, that anybody could
really [bleep] about.

My feeling is that
the issue of urbanism

remains undemonstrated.

They will sell many, many
more articles and stories

and documentaries if it's
"the search for the lost city."

If the title had been

"the search for
the abandoned village,"

probably not so much.

♪

Elkins: About a month
after the expedition,

and we had thought that
everybody came through

everything without any injuries,
or so on and so forth --

In fact, we're congratulating
ourselves about that.

Some people's bug bites
didn't go away.

It starts off
as a little, hard cyst,

and then it developed
into kind of what

looked like sort of
a really bad bug bite --

But one of the characteristics
of it is that

it doesn't itch
and it doesn't hurt.

It's like, it doesn't
bother you at all.

You don't even feel it.

And that, I guess, is because
the tissue is necrotizing.

You know, you're not
feeling anything

because everything's dying.

The parasite's
killing everything.

So at a certain point,
it developed into a scab,

and then at one point,

the scab just crumbled
and fell off,

and that's when it turned
into an open sore.

Preston: There it is.

That's a pretty
bad looking lesion.

Elkins: Oh [bleep].
Holy [bleep].

That is classic leishmaniasis
crater.

That's a pretty, pretty
bad looking lesion.

Elkins: Between the Honduran
soldiers, the members of our team,

50 percent of those
that went on the expedition

got leishmaniasis infections.

There's so many bug bites
that it took a month for us

to see that that the one bite

that wasn't going away
was the leish bite.

And then I looked it up,
and that was pretty shocking.

Elkins: When you see images of
people who have leishmaniasis,

it's not the disease
that's doing the damage.

It's the body attacking itself
from reaction to the parasite.

Preston: The treatment is
very toxic, and there's a question

as to whether my body will
be able to tolerate it.

The n.I.H. Is the unquestionably
largest supporter

of neglected tropical
disease research

of any organization
or entity in the world.

Nash: Leishmaniasis is a one-celled
animal, which we call protozoa,

and it's a particular
type of protozoa.

It has a lifecycle, involves
a fly and a reservoir host,

and it's found in
many areas of the world.

But they're -- depending
on the species

and the fly and the population,

the manifestations
are somewhat different.

Our interest in that
stems from the fact

that there's
growing appreciation

of the importance
of these diseases,

particularly, as you
think in terms of,

we live in a global community,
and economically and otherwise,

the interactions
with different countries,

that it has gone
from kind of neglected --

In the sense of not only
neglected with resources,

but neglected
on the radar screen --

To now, people paying
much more attention.

You know, we weren't there
very long -- 8, 9 days --

And then, boom,
everyone gets it.

Even the Hondurans got it.

Nash: You know, we don't
usually see epidemics.

You know, this would be
defined as an epidemic.

I probably wouldn't
have been surprised

if all 22 had come down with it,
given the frequency of bites.

You were clearly in a habitat

where there were reservoir
animals, other animals,

I presume, mammals that were
the source of infection

for these flies that were
then biting these strangers.

Fauci: If you look at the
diseases that afflict man,

a substantial proportion of them
relate to animal reservoirs.

In fact, if you look at many
of the important diseases,

they are called
zoonotic diseases,

or diseases that have
a reservoir in animals.

One of the difficulties
with diseases

that have reservoirs in animals,

it makes it that
much more difficult

to completely eradicate
the disease.

If a disease weakens
the population

and weakens their productivity,

the effect on economy can
be much, much more profound

than a disease that might
acutely kill someone,

get them out of the cycle
of productivity,

and someone else who's healthy
will take their place.

Whereas, when you're
dealing with the fact that

you have a substantial
proportion of people

are impeded in
their productivity --

Then the economic consequences
are almost unmeasurable.

I mean, they're extraordinary.

There's very few places
on the planet

where you really have these
pristine ecological niches

that really have been
just doing what they do

in some sort of
equilibrium for centuries.

So, you've brought back a window
into what's happening

in an area where,
really, there's no people.

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Fisher: That's good.
Right there.

♪

[ Indistinct chatter ]

Gonzalez: To have a grouping
of several hundred pieces

is a phenomenon we
don't yet understand,

but we do know
that there is a center,

and the placement
is thought out.

I think t1, basically,
we're at the superfice.

We're at the very top levels.

We'll probably go down
eight more levels

and find some
extraordinary things.

The sophistication of the pieces
that we found there

on the surface really tells us
that we had an artisan class

that was very well-developed.

Everything depicted in the cache
is also what surrounds us.

The macaws, the vultures,
the felines

were visibly designed into these
very sophisticated sculptures

that were used for ceremony.

Fisher: The cache of ground
stone objects had lain undisturbed,

as far as we can tell,

since, probably,
the city was abandoned.

What happened to these people
and when is something that

we still don't
understand very well.

There appear to have been
many sites that were abandoned

between about 1300 and 1500,

which is when
the Spanish arrived.

Fisher: The working hypothesis
is that it was abandoned

as the result
of European conquest.

That is, the introduction
of old world diseases

and other perturbations ravaged
native American populations

in the Americas, decimated
those populations.

Gonzalez:
If people had to leave,

why would they have left
what they have left?

Because there was not
enough food anymore?

Because they had invaders
that were coming?

Would they, as in other
cultures, would they

purposely destroy some of their
most precious elements?

Yes, that's a possibility.

We just barely
scratched the surface.

It's fabulous to use lidar,

but the frustration is that
we still have to take time

to study each thing
very carefully

before we come
to any conclusions.

♪

♪

♪

♪

Elkins: I understand what
they do here at the club

is they ask different people

who have done
explorations or projects

to come up with a drink
that they can serve at the bar.

So I think I have
to come up with

a monkey god
or a lost city drink.

I'm not exactly sure
what it's gonna be yet.

Now, if I had gone into
the mosquitia 75, 80 years ago,

this is the hat
I would have worn.

Thank god I didn't have to.

Matthew a. Henson.

Same hairdo as me. [ Chuckles ]

Man: It is my great pleasure
and honor tonight

to introduce you
to Mr. Steve Elkins.

[ Applause ]

♪

It's a real honor
for me to be here

in New York at
the explorers club.

As a child, I had heard
about the explorers club.

I really didn't know
what it was about,

and I thought, "one day would
really be cool to go there."

Well, now I'm a fellow
in the explorers club

and I'm talking here.

It's really -- to me,
it's amazing.

It's almost as amazing
as finding the lost city.

Not only did we prove
that airborne lidar

was a viable option

for archeological survey
in the jungle,

we've also created
and left a legacy

which I hope will last
for many years.

For example, there
is now a sustainable

conservation movement
in the country.

The current president
is a young guy --

And I don't think he wants to
be leader of a failed state --

Is taking a lot of actions
to try and save the rainforest.

We decided to work with
conservation international,

which is a big ngo
in conservation,

and put together a team of 12
biologists from Central America

to try and find out,
is this place really special?

Well, they went and
they found out it was.

I'm gonna show you
two quick clips.

We had 22 wildlife
cameras out there,

and we just were able
to retrieve them last fall

at great peril to the biologist.

[ Crowd exclaims ]

[ Gasps ]

And that is why the first city
we found in t1,

we're not calling it
Ciudad blanca

or lost city of the monkey god,

we're calling it
Ciudad del Jaguar,

because it's full of jaguars,

and that's the head we saw,
the sculpture.

People often say the days
of exploration are over --

We've climbed the mountains.

We're going to
the bottom of the sea,

even though we've barely
seen any of it,

and we've crossed the Sahara,

the gobi desert, Mongolia,
whatever.

We are entering a new
period of exploration,

and what I believe
is the greatest

period of exploration
in human history,

and why? Because of
remote-sensing technology.

It's improving so rapidly
that we are gonna be able to

discover things on this planet
and all over the universe

that we couldn't even imagine
10 or 20 years ago.

We're gonna be able to
see things from our past

that we had no idea

that we'd be able to
decipher millennia later.

So for the young people,
this is a brave new world,

in a good way.

[ Applause ]

Thank you for listening.

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