All language subtitles for The.UnBelievable.with.Dan.Aykroyd.S02E14.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[compelling music]

Imagine finding a tiny
skeleton so strange,

it may be from another world.

- It's got this sort of
conical, bulbous head,

these oversized eyes, and the
skin seems sort of scaly.

- It literally looks like
nothing of this Earth.

- Or a beachcombing adventure

that uncovers a
horrific surprise.

- She looks inside the sneaker,

and finds a foot.

- So this is a second
person, a second victim.

- You now have a pattern.

- What about finding
the strange sound

that almost caused a war?

- They see bubbles coming up.

There is something down there

that could ignite World War III.

[bomb exploding]

- These are the discoveries

so weird they are
truly unbelievable.

[dramatic music]

Of all the amazing
discoveries man has found

beneath the Earth's surface,

from the tombs of the
Pharaohs in Egypt,

to the first T. rex in Montana,

none are quite as baffling
as one pocket-size mystery

found buried in a Chilean
desert 20 years ago.

[tense music]

- It's 2003.

In the ghost town of La
Noria in the Chilean desert,

local collector Oscar Muñoz

is digging up artifacts
from the local landscape.

Coins and bottles,

things that don't really
have a lot of value.

- Oscar spots an object

that is wrapped
in a white cloth.

Opening it, Oscar finds
something unthinkable.

- It is a little skeleton.

It's about six inches long.

It's got this sort of
conical, bulbous head,

these oversized
eyes, and the skin,

the whole covering on the
body seems sort of hard

and almost even scaly.

- It literally looks like
nothing of this Earth.

- [Dan] Muñoz wonders,
who or what could this be?

- The next thing you know,

there's a national magazine
claiming that Mr. Muñoz

has discovered a dwarf
extraterrestrial.

- It fits the image
in the popular mind

of a being from another planet,

what is sometimes
called a gray.

- It looks like what we might
be seeing is alien life,

an actual example, right?

Not hidden away in Area 51
or something like that.

On the other hand,
scientists suggest,

look, this might be a kind
of human with some mutations,

or genetic abnormalities,

or some changes that we
just haven't seen before.

- In media coverage,

the tiny skeleton
is nicknamed Ata,

for the Atacama Desert
where the body was found.

- [Dan] Hoping to cash
in on the "E.T." hype,

Muñoz sells his incredible
find to a local businessman

for 30,000 pesos,

which nets out to a
whopping 64 bucks.

Then, the skeleton
disappears for a while.

- In 2013,

immunologist and genetics
expert from Stanford University,

Dr. Garry Nolan, gets his
hands on the skeleton,

and this is when the
firestorm really begins.

- So Dr. Nolan does a
visual basic survey,

and a few things jump out.

First, most humans
have 12 sets of ribs.

Ata only has 10.

And second is that
the hand bones in Ata

reflect about a five
or six-year-old,

but Ata's size, it's
about six inches.

That's the size of sort
of a late-term fetus.

One of the specialists,
a pediatric radiologist,

said he'd never seen anything
that looked like this.

- [Dan] Is this proof
these peculiar bones

could belong to some type
of otherworldly being?

- Dr. Nolan realizes
the only way

to really get these answers

is to get a DNA sample and
examine the entire genome.

- When the DNA is
compared, right,

to a bunch of different
kinds of human samples,

what we see is that there's
a 90% identical match.

- [Dan] But what
about the other 10%?

- Scientists usually think

probably related to the
degraded specimen sample,

and that probably accounts
for the difference.

But the diehard UFO enthusiasts
think something else.

- First, could be
that aliens came down

and actually mated with humans,

and so it's 10% alien DNA.

Or it could be that maybe
aliens came here before

and they have 90% human DNA,

and that 10% is the alien part
of them that still remains.

In the end, the Ata case
is really interesting

because you get something

that happens in
science all the time,

you get a
less-than-perfect answer.

- It's not just the desert
that hides buried mysteries.

The dank wetlands of Denmark

also hold disturbing
secrets from the past.

[tense music]

- It's 1951, around
Silkeborg, Denmark,

and two brothers, Viggo
and Emil Hojgaard,

and Viggo's wife,
Grethe Hojgaard,

are traipsing through
a cold, wet bog,

harvesting peat for
fuel to heat the home.

- As the Hojgaards
reach into the cold muck

to harvest their peat,

something stops them
dead in their tracks.

- This head bobs to the
surface, a human head.

They see there's an
entire body there.

- Most of the body is naked.

The head is covered
in some kind of cap.

The most eerie thing of all

is this expression
on this corpse.

It's this calm, almost
serene, expression.

[pensive music]

- There had been
recent news stories

of a boy in Copenhagen
who'd gone missing,

so perhaps they stumbled
upon his body, they thought.

They immediately
called the police.

- [Dan] The first
thing cops must do

when they find a dead body

is to establish
the time of death.

But in this case,
that proves tricky.

- The forensics
examiners realize,

this can't be the
kid from Copenhagen

because the corpse is too old.

By about 2,000 years.

- [Dan] That means
this man lived

some 500 years before Christ.

- The body is
impeccably preserved,

down to facial wrinkles
and whiskers on his chin.

They're even able to establish
his age at the time of death

to be about 30 to 40 years old.

- [Dan] He becomes known
as the Tollund Man.

Perfectly preserved by the
bog's unusual chemistry.

- Bog water, it turns out,

is pretty acidic and
it's very low in oxygen.

And furthermore, it
contains tannins,

which are exactly what we
use to preserve leather.

Its environment perfectly
preserved the skin of this guy

over 2,000 years.

- We even know what he ate

because his last meal
was still in his gut,

and it consisted of a
porridge, of barley,

and about 40 different
seeds, and some fish.

- [Dan] But there's
much more to uncover

about this mystery man.

- He has a rope around his neck,

suggesting that he was hanged.

He also has a broken nose

and the bones of his face look
like they've been crushed.

His body and his torso

are covered in stab
wounds and knife wounds

as if he was cut up
pretty violently.

He's some sort of murder victim.

- The Tollund Bog Man
is not the only body

that's been
recovered from a bog.

Thousands of them have
actually been discovered

since the 1700s,

and they all seem to
have met a violent end.

This seems like more
than a coincidence.

- [Dan] Researchers don't think

these were just
ordinary murders,

but something more unbelievable.

- There are many
archeologists who think

that these bogs are
actually a place

of some sort of ritualistic
or spiritual importance,

because a lot of Europe during
the Iron Age and Bronze Age

was very heavily forested,

and the bogs are one place

where you can actually
see the heavens.

- Having a full glimpse of
the sky with all the stars,

it would be as if you were able

to communicate with the gods.

- Decaying plants also
give off swamp gas,

which can result in a
eerie, otherworldly glow,

which might've been seen
as spirits or fairies

to these Iron Age people.

- [Dan] Making bogs
the perfect place

to get your god's attention,

through human sacrifice.

- The best theory of
the Tollund Man's death

is that he was sacrificed
as an offering for fertility

or a better crop harvest.

But if not for the fact

that these people were
sacrificed in bogs,

science wouldn't have this
glimpse into Iron Age life.

- After years of dissection
across many labs,

parts of this incredible find

have unfortunately gone missing.

The museum where the Bog Man
is displayed has a request.

If you happen to have the
jar containing his intestine,

please, send it back.

- New York, the city
that never sleeps,

is a well-known hive
of nonstop activity.

Less well-known are its
strange, hidden treasures,

like one discovered

in New York City's
Financial District in 2010.

[tense music]

- After the tragedy of 9/11,

it takes years to clear
out all of that debris

from Lower Manhattan.

- We're talking about a million
and a half tons of concrete

and crumpled steel
that has to be removed,

so they excavate
all the way down

to the foundation
of the buildings.

- And whenever there's
a construction operation

of this magnitude, especially
in such a historic site,

there are always
archeologists to make sure

that if anything is
discovered of historic value,

they can recover it.

- [Dan] One of the
archeologists is Molly McDonald.

As demolition continues,
something catches her eye.

- She notices a piece
of wood sticking out

amidst the steel and
concrete, and other debris.

- She goes down
and grabs a team.

Starts to dig by
hand, basically,

and what she finds
is one rib, two ribs,

three ribs that are
expertly spaced apart,

and they look just like
the ribs of a ship.

And it's really old.

- Dendrochronologists
are able to estimate

the age of the wood to 1773,

which means that this is a ship

dating to before the
American Revolution.

- Now, what's really amazing
about finding a ship like this

is that every piece of
timber tells a story.

This particular lumber
is riddled with wormholes

from a species that only
exists in the Caribbean.

- This provides some
very compelling proof

that this old Hudson
River 30-footer

sails the entire eastern
seaboard of the United States

all the way down
to the Caribbean.

- [Dan] But how did it
make its way from the sea

to the foundation
of the Twin Towers?

- So in 1773,

what would become
Lower Manhattan

was actually likely underwater.

- All of the soil
excavated for construction

is moved down to Lower Manhattan

to expand the overall
profile of the city.

- But dirt settles, they
need things to stabilize it.

So carriages,
frames from houses,

scrap wood would be placed in
there to stabilize the dirt.

- You even have wooden
boats that are moved down

and used to shore up areas

that were, at one
time, underwater.

And it provides us a fascinating
insight into what the era

of the pre-colonial United
States of America looked like.

- It takes a sharp eye to spot
a treasure among the trash,

but what about a sharp ear?

Meet the heroic marine biologist

who helped pull the West and
Russia from the brink of war

by making a very
strange discovery.

[tense music]

- It's 1981, at the
height of the Cold War.

It's difficult to
communicate the intensity

of tensions between the
West and the Soviet Union.

[missile whooshing]

- [Dan] The Soviets have
invaded Afghanistan,

and new US President
Ronald Reagan

has vowed to stamp out any
communist threat worldwide.

[plane roaring]

- Earlier that year,

a Soviet nuclear
submarine runs aground

in Swedish territorial waters.

Tensions get even worse
than when the Swedes

confirm the presence of
nuclear weapons onboard it.

- This is a powder keg.

One spark could
ignite World War III.

[bomb exploding]

So of course, the Swedish
Navy are on high alert,

trying to detect any evidence

that Soviet submarines might
be intruding into their waters.

- A Swedish naval officer is
listening to underwater sounds,

but what he's hearing doesn't
sound like what he expected,

and it's a little troubling.

- But also, the sailors on deck

see bubbles coming up.

It reinforces the theory that
there is something down there

and it's probably another
nuclear submarine.

This is bad news.

- So the panic is,

have the Soviets developed
some new propulsion system

that defies our
ability to detect it?

In one example, the Swedes
chase one of these bogies

around the North
Atlantic for months

without ever having
visual contact with it.

[water bubbling]

- This cat-and-mouse game

between this strange
sound and the Swedes

goes on for over a decade.

[tense music]

- Finally, the Swedish
Prime Minister has had it.

He sends a letter
to Boris Yeltsin,

demanding to know what the
source of this phenomenon is.

- And the reply comes
back from Boris Yeltsin.

"I don't know what
you're talking about."

- [Dan] Desperate,
the Swedes hire

Danish marine biologist,
Magnus Wahlberg,

to help interpret the
mysterious acoustic signals.

- Magnus expects to hear
what sounds like propellers,

or mechanics, or a sonar ping.

But instead, he hears what
sounds like frying bacon.

- Magnus is perplexed by this,

but they're looking at it

not through the lens
of military concerns.

They're looking at this matter

through the lens of
marine biologists.

- [Dan] So what was thought
to be rumblings of war

are actually something else.

- What Magnus finds is that
when herring are being hunted,

they form something
called a bait ball

as a deterrent to predators.

- In order to maintain the
coordination of their bait ball,

they actually communicate
with each other.

They expel air from their
swim bladders out their anus.

[water bubbling]

- It's fish flatulence.

- Now, if you have
thousands of herrings

doing this all at once,

it makes a lot of noise.

- For the Swedish officer

who has to deliver the
report on what happened,

it's not such good news.

But at least he can console
himself with the fact

that they didn't
start World War III.

- This is most likely
the first and last time

fish flatulence
nearly started a war.

- Kids are natural explorers,

and what better place
to explore than a beach?

Digging up clams, collecting
seashells and driftwood,

all wonderful childhood fun,

except for one very
strange find in Canada

that could turn a kid
off beachcombing forever.

[tense music]

- It's 2007.

A little girl is out on the
beach of Jedediah Island

in British Columbia,

and she sees this large,
size 12 men's sneaker

washed up on the beach.

- So she runs over, she sort
of looks inside the sneaker.

[suspenseful music]

And finds a foot.

[child screaming]

Was this a murder victim?

Did someone fall off their boat

and get chopped up
by the propeller?

Who knows? But it's
pretty disconcerting.

- [Dan] The only
comfort locals take

is that this horrific discovery

seems to be an
isolated incident.

That is, until it's not.

- Less than a week later,
on nearby Gabriola Island,

another sneaker washes up
with another foot inside.

At first, you might think,

okay, well, feet
do come in pairs.

It would be expected
that if you find one,

you'd eventually find another.

- But, the sneakers don't match,

and both feet are right feet.

So this is a second
person, a second victim.

- You now have a pattern.

- 2008, a size 11 Nike
washes up on Valdes Island,

also with a severed foot.

- In November 2008,

a woman's New Balance shoe
washes up on Kirkland Island,

also with a severed foot inside.

- November 2011, men's size
11 hiking boot, foot inside.

- 2016, New Balance
shoe, foot inside.

- [Dan] Over the next 14 years,
more than 20 severed feet,

complete with late
model athletic footwear,

wash up on nearby beaches.

- This is causing
terror along the coast,

and to make matters worse,

now pranksters are putting
chicken bones inside sneakers

and sending them afloat.

[tense music]

- [Dan] Investigators
are flummoxed.

Could all of these
victims be connected?

- One thing that links
all of these severed feet

is that none of them
show any evidence

of having been hacked
off, or sawed off,

or chopped off
through human action.

All of them are severed
through the ankle joint

by decomposition.

- [Dan] Eager to
calm the public,

forensic investigators
start performing experiments

in deep water decomposition
with an unusual test dummy.

- Investigators take
some pig cadavers

and sink them to the
bottom of the Salish Sea,

the area where all these
feet are washing up,

and what they note
during these experiments

is that the scavengers,
crabs, lobsters,

things that are down there

immediately start to
disarticulate the body.

- [Dan] Disarticulating
is a fancy way

of saying, pulling the
body apart at the joints.

You know, just like humans
do to crabs and lobsters

when we eat them.

Apparently, the feet are
often the first to go.

- All good athletic
footwear today

has air pockets inside of it,

so as soon as those feet

sort of disarticulated
from the body,

they floated to the surface,

and that's how the feet
kept showing up on beaches.

- [Dan] But why are
they only showing up

in this one particular area?

- Turns out the Salish Sea

has these sort of
rotational currents.

As they're circling around,

western and eastern winds
blow them back and forth,

and so rather than
stuff out to sea,

it sort of circles in
a particular region

to push them up
onto these beaches.

- The cause of all these severed
feet is actually natural,

and it's not the signature move
of some crazed serial killer.

[pensive music]

- Authorities in
British Columbia

are so happy with
this explanation

that they actually tell
the public not to worry

if more dismembered
feet wash up,

because, and I quote, "This
is no cause for alarm."

Maybe we'll reach the day

where severed limbs
don't freak us out,

but we certainly
weren't there in 1935,

when family crowds at
an Australian aquarium

witness a feeding time
they'll never forget.

[tense music]

- It's 1935

and this Australian
businessman named Bert Hobson

owns the Coogee Aquarium
in Sydney, Australia.

This summer, business
has been slow,

so he's looking for something
to increase his profits.

- [Dan] Lucky for Bert, he's
got a new star attraction.

- Bert has a 14-foot tiger
shark, which amazingly,

he and his son managed to catch

and wrangle into their
tank in this aquarium.

- Bert is cashing in on
a current shark panic.

That summer, there had been
several bad shark attacks,

so bad that local authorities

have actually deputized
local fishermen

to find, hunt, and
kill the sharks.

- [Dan] At first, Bert's
tiger shark is a big hit.

Crowds flock in to
see it up close.

But soon, there's a problem.

- The shark becomes lethargic,

it just hangs out, it
doesn't eat anymore,

and that is not what
people are coming to see.

They want their shark
alive and dangerous,

not sick at the
bottom of the tank.

- Then, this lethargic shark
suddenly gives onlookers a show

beyond what they could
have anticipated.

It throws up a rat, and
then it throws up a bird,

and then it throws up
a severed human arm.

The smell is horrific.

- Hobson calls the
police, they come,

they take the decomposing
arm out of the water,

and take it back to their
lab for examination.

- One of the things they
notice is that it has a tattoo

of two boxers sparring.

- [Dan] But it's the way
the arm is dismembered

that really piques
their interest.

- The arm clearly
was severed cleanly

with a blade structure,

which is impossible for
shark's teeth to do so cleanly,

so it appears that actually,

the arm was eaten by
this shark postmortem.

- [Dan] Police now
assume the victim

was murdered and dismembered,

and his body was
dumped into the ocean

where the tiger
shark snagged it.

But who did this
arm once belong to?

- They put out an ad in the
local newspaper, Sydney's Truth,

and they describe the
tattoo in that ad.

- A man contacts them,

indicating that his
brother, James Smith,

who went missing a few weeks
prior, was an amateur boxer,

and he definitely had a tattoo
that matches their description.

They pull fingerprints off of
the hand from the severed arm,

and lo and behold, it's
positive for James Smith.

- Investigation reveals
that James Smith

is wrapped up in the
Sydney underworld.

He's running cocaine, he's
involved in insurance fraud,

and most importantly, a
confidential informant.

- So it's not
terribly surprising

that somebody might
want him dead.

- This case has
never been solved,

no one's ever come forward
with new information,

and so it remains a
cold case until today.

[tense music]

- Like Smith, the shark
has an unhappy ending.

It's killed and autopsied in
a hunt for more body parts.

As it turns out, there are none.

- We've seen weird discoveries
that are dug up, washed up,

and even thrown up,

but what we haven't seen yet
is one that is dreamed up

in a psychic vision.

- It's 1938 in Virginia Beach,

and there is this renowned
psychic named Edgar Cayce.

He's predicted all
sorts of things.

It's alleged that he predicted
the 1929 stock market crash,

World War II,
[artillery firing]

and even the deaths
of JFK and Roosevelt.

- [Dan] In 1938, from a trance
in his Virginia Beach home,

Cayce predicts the discovery
of underwater ruins

from the legendary
lost city of Atlantis.

- He says a portion of the
temples may yet be discovered

under the slime of ages
and seawater near Bimini.

He even gives it a timeline,

expected in '68 or
'69, not so far away.

- [Dan] Flash forward to 1968.

Dr. Joseph Valentine,
an amateur archeologist,

flies over Bimini when he
spots a strange collection

of large stones underwater.

- The stones extend
for about a half mile

in what looks like a
large cobblestone path.

- It's 1968, just
like Cayce predicted,

and these stones
are near Bimini,

and they're also under the
slime of ages and seawater.

Just like Cayce predicted.

- [Dan] They call the
structure the Bimini Road,

and Cayce devotees
immediately insist

it's a highway to
Atlantis itself,

though skeptics are quick
to pump the brakes.

- Legend has it that Atlantis

existed about 10 to
12,000 years ago.

- When scientists use Carbon-14
dating to test these rocks,

there is a bit of a discrepancy.

They're only about
2,000 years old.

- Another huge question is,

why would Atlantis, if it's
there, be near Bimini?

Plato said that Atlantis was
off the coast of Gibraltar.

Bimini is 4,000
miles from Gibraltar.

It's off the coast of Florida,
for crying out loud.

- Even though Atlantis
hasn't been found,

the discovery of the
so-called Bimini Road

is still pretty amazing,

especially when you
take into account

that Cayce darn near exactly
predicted it decades earlier.

[water splashing]

- Many of his
followers still believe

and they still do fund dives
off the coast of Bimini

to find this lost
city of Atlantis.

- Not all deep sea mysteries
remain hidden forever,

but finding an ancient treasure

and unlocking the
secrets behind it

are two very different things.

In the summer of 1900,

a team of Greek divers is
busy harvesting sea sponges

off the island of Antikythera.

As the men on deck
dutifully pump air

to the divers working below,

suddenly, one of the lifelines
begins to frantically jerk.

- What this means is the diver

is signaling to the men on
board that he has an emergency.

So they pull him up from
about 150 feet down.

- They get him up,
take off the helmet,

and he's talking, almost
hysterically, about dead bodies.

- The ship's captain,
Dimitrios Kontos,

wants to see for himself.

So he suits up and he goes
down to the sea floor.

- What he's found
is not dead bodies.

These are statues,

ancient Greek statues.

[dramatic music]

Priceless relics.

It sparks one of the biggest
archeological digs ever.

I mean, this is a treasure
trove of antiquities.

- They also find coins that
help them date the shipwreck,

and they figured it had to
have been around 60 or 70 BCE,

over 2,000 years old.

- [Dan] But the most
astounding discovery

of this ancient shipwreck

is something that is almost
completely overlooked.

- Along with all
these amazing statues,

they find this weird, like,
decaying lump of stuff.

But the green makes them think

maybe there's some bronze there
and it's a bronze artifact,

and so they bring
it to the surface.

- When they get
the lump of metal

back into the lab in Athens,

they begin to peel
away the crud,

and what they find
is astonishing.

There's a set of bronze gears,

and they fit together precisely
like a fine Swiss watch.

- This is incredible,

because this technology
seems way ahead of its time.

This is more like
something you'd see

in the 15th or 16th century,
the times of da Vinci.

- [Dan] The mysterious device

is named the
Antikythera mechanism

after the island
where it's found.

- For decades, historians

and archeologists
study this device

trying to figure out what it is.

- It's 1959.

There's a Princeton historian,
Derek J. de Solla Price,

and he's the one who
cracks the mystery.

- He figures out that
there's a main gear

which you turn to set
to the calendar date,

and then there are all
these little gears,

which are connected to it,

which predict the
positions of the planets,

the Sun, the Moon.

The thing can even
predict solar eclipses.

- [Dan] Others
speculate the technology

is so unbelievably advanced

that it must have come from the
future, or even from aliens.

- Was it some sort of device
for celestial navigation?

Were they doing
astrological predictions?

The problem is that this
machine is such an outlier.

It's the only one we know of.

So figuring out its true purpose

is made even more difficult.

- Scientists are now using

what they've discovered about
the Antikythera mechanism

to help them reconstruct a
fully-functioning duplicate,

hoping to unlock the
rest of its secrets.

- Guam, January 24th, 1972.

Two friends, Jesus M. Duenas
and Manuel D. Garcia,

are hunting and fishing
deep in the jungle.

As they approach
the Talofofo River,

they spot an unusual,
unkempt figure

checking a bamboo fish trap.

[tense music]

- They're miles from anywhere,
deep in the jungle.

They see this bizarre
shadow figure.

He's wearing this strange
outfit that's stitched together.

I mean, he looks like
some kind of hermit.

- To their surprise, the
old man lunges toward them.

He tries to take
their gun from them,

but he's so weak that he
can't carry out the threat.

The man collapses
on the riverbank,

and as he lays there,

he pleads with the two
of them to kill him,

rather than take him prisoner.

But his pleas are in
the Japanese language.

- They don't kill him.

Instead, they take him
to the local authorities.

That's when they find out this
man's name is Shoichi Yokoi.

- It turns out, Shoichi came
to Guam as a Japanese soldier

in the middle of
World War II in 1943,

and he's been there ever
since the US took the island

in '44.

He's been hiding in the
jungle for 28 years.

- His struggle is over,

but Shoichi Yokoi is
overcome with guilt,

ashamed of the fact that
he has finally surrendered,

even after almost three decades.

- [Dan] To understand
how we got here,

it's important to know

what was really expected
of Shoichi Yokoi

as a young soldier
in the Imperial Army.

[tense music]

- Guam has been a US territory
since the Spanish-American War.

In 1941, the Japanese invaded

because of its
strategic importance

as a resupply point
for their war ships.

- [Roosevelt] With the
unbounding determination

of our people...

- The Japanese put 20,000
infantry troops there

to defend it.

- We will gain triumph,

so help us God.

- When the US Marines
invade to retake the island

in the summer of 1944,

it is an absolute bloodbath.

- [Reporter] No longer were the
Japanese undisputed masters

of the sea and air.

- To surrender is to dishonor
your family and the emperor.

So those who are
not killed in combat

flee into the jungle in the
southern part of the island

and go into hiding.

- Shoichi and the
number of comrades

are thinking, "Maybe
we can regroup."

For them, the war is still on.

- They're living in caves

and underground
tunnels and shelters.

They eat rats to survive.

Some die of disease,

but the holdouts stay
hidden for years.

- [Dan] Deep in the jungle,
news of the world escapes them,

especially major events
like the atomic bombs

or Japan's surrender
to the US in 1945.

- So sometime in the mid-'60s,

the rest of his
comrades die in a flood.

He's living off the land,

and he manages to do this for
another eight years or so.

- The main objective
driving him to survive

is to avoid capture
at all costs.

- [Dan] But that
struggle is over now

as he sits in custody
before a magistrate in Guam.

[mellow music]

- And they decide,

"What the heck are we
gonna do with this guy?"

Well, there's only one answer.

"We'll repatriate him to Japan."

- Although he is
ashamed of the fact

that he has finally surrendered,

he is nevertheless greeted
by an adoring crowd of 5,000

upon his arrival.

[Shoichi speaking in Japanese]

Shoichi says, "I
returned with the rifle

that the emperor gave me.

[Shoichi speaking in Japanese]

And I'm sorry that I did not
serve him to my satisfaction."

- Shoichi lives to 82 years old

before dying of a
heart attack in 1997,

25 years after being discovered
checking his eel traps

on Guam.

- Most big-time discoveries

are made by
professional explorers,

after long, expensive years

of dedicated
research and digging.

Archeologist Howard Carter
spent five years and a fortune

to find King Tut's tomb.

But sometimes, the most
valuable discoveries

are stumbled upon by accident,

and in a weird and
unexpected place.

[pensive music]

- Wesley "Uncle Sam" Basham

is a hardworking laborer
in Arkansas in 1924.

He uses a high-powered hose

to remove mud from some
rocks where he works,

the Arkansas Diamond Company.

- Diamonds were found
in Arkansas in 1906,

and that creates a
huge rush of people

who are trying to
get rich quick.

But unfortunately,

most of the diamond claims
pinch out very quickly,

and a lot of these claims don't
really produce enough money

to even cover the
cost of the equipment.

- So Wesley's firm
is in trouble.

They're hundreds of
thousands of dollars in debt,

and Wesley is all
but out of a job.

- [Dan] Suddenly, as Wesley
sprays down the rock pile,

a flash of light
grabs his attention.

- He's been around
diamonds enough

to know a raw diamond
when he sees one.

He's getting excited,
he starts to holler,

"Oh, boy, this could
be the big one!"

But he has no idea

how big this discovery
is actually gonna be.

- [Dan] Wesley
"Uncle Sam" Basham

has just discovered the
largest diamond in America,

over 40 carats.

- [Kavitha] This is
obviously a gigantic find.

- Historically, we
hear a lot of stories

about these huge
diamonds being cursed,

but this diamond turns
out to be a lifesaver.

It saves the firm, it
saves Wesley's job.

He is basically a hero
for finding this diamond.

- [Dan] True heroes get
cool stuff named after them,

and Wesley's 40-carat beast is
dubbed the Uncle Sam Diamond.

And it's a beauty.

- They take this massive,
raw, 40-carat diamond

and craft it into a perfect
emerald-cut diamond.

It's still enormous
at over 12 carats.

- The Uncle Sam Diamond is
bounced around for decades.

It's eventually sold
for 1.75 million,

and it is now in the
Smithsonian Gem Collection.

It is still one of the
largest diamonds in the world

and the largest diamond
ever discovered in America.

- It's not often you get to save
your whole town from bankruptcy

with a hose, but rarer still,

is tripping over treasure
in your own backyard.

- It's 2013,

and you've got this
Northern California couple

that are just chasing
their dog around the yard,

having a good time playing
around, what you will,

when they start to
notice that their dog

comes across one specific spot

and starts just
furiously digging.

- And that's when they
see a rusty old canister

protruding from the dirt.

They're intrigued,

and they start to dig around
the can with a stick,

but when they try to lift it,
it's really, really heavy.

- They pop it open,
and lo and behold,

there are golden coins
inside this canister.

[dramatic music]

It is truly buried treasure.

- [Dan] What could be better

than finding one dirty
canister of gold coins

on the outskirts of
your herb garden?

How about eight?

- 1,500 gold coins in all, all
minted around the mid-1800s.

So you're talking prime
California gold rush time.

- Who leaves behind eight
canisters with 1,500 gold coins?

That's not something
you forget about.

- [Dan] Even more surprising

is these coins seem
to be uncirculated,

and in mint condition.

- So the fact that these
coins haven't been circulated

kind of screams lifted, stolen.

- Uncirculated coins
were issued by a bank

for deposit into another bank.

So the fact that these were
found buried in a backyard

means that, at some point,

they were intercepted, probably
from a stagecoach on transit.

Around the time that
these coins are minted,

there are some very
famous stagecoach robbers,

and one is a guy
named Black Bart.

From 1875 to 1883,

Black Bart robs 28 stagecoaches
in Northern California.

- [Dan] Charles Boles,
AKA Black Bart,

was called the Gentleman Bandit.

He never cursed,

and sometimes left poems
behind after his robberies.

The other prime suspect

has a reputation that's
slightly saltier.

- Jesse James is a
notorious robber,

one of the most
famous in the country.

And in fact in 1864, Jesse
James is in the area,

just 10 miles away from where
these gold coins are found.

He hits a stagecoach.

So, it's very plausible

that he is the man
behind these coins.

- [Dan] Since Black
Bart and Jesse James

are both long dead,

this loot is pretty
much finder's keepers.

- So this couple who decide
to keep their names anonymous

and just go by John and Mary,

they take their
coins to an expert

who tells them that
these coins collectively,

all 1,500 of them, add
up to about $10 million.

Not bad for just hanging
out with your dog

in your backyard one day.

- Not every weird discovery

is a $10 million
solid gold payday.

Sometimes, it's a sneaker
with a severed foot inside,

or a 2,000-year-old
mummified Bog Man.

But whatever strange
surprises we stumble on,

it's important to stop

and celebrate the ones that
are truly unbelievable.