Original subtitles

Gates: Coming up...

Gates: And then...

This map literally has on it smuggler's anchorage.

Jean lafitte was one of the wealthiest men in america.

[ metal detector beeping ]

wait, that's not junk. Ah! Look at that!

-You got something? -Yeah.

Y'all come over here.

I want to know what that is.

It's around 100 feet in length.

Holy [muted], this thing works.

Ho-ho. Oh, wait a minute. That could be from a ship.

♪♪

my name is josh gates.

Whoa!

With a degree in archeology and a passion for exploration,

I have a tendency to end up in some very strange situations.

It's just straight down!

Unbelievable!

My travels have taken me to the ends of the earth...

Oh, god!

...As I investigate the greatest legends in history.

We're good to fly. Let's go.

This is "expedition unknown."

♪♪

when most people hear the name captain morgan,

it conjures up the image of a drunken, amiable pirate

with a leg up on a cask of his namesake rum.

But sir henry morgan was all too real.

He was, in short, the most successful pirate in history.

But in 1671, morgan steers his flagship, the satisfaction,

onto a razor-sharp reef off the coast of panama,

where it sinks and is lost for centuries.

But now there are reports that it may have been found.

Recently a team from texas state university,

led by underwater archeologist fritz hanselmann,

located and raised six cannons that may be from morgan's ship.

Then they made a truly shocking find --

the remains of an entire 17th-century vessel.

But is it morgan's?

Inside the hull are nearly 100 unopened chests

just waiting to be brought to the surface.

Well, I'd be lying if I said

I didn't have visions of pirate treasure dancing in my head.

I'm also hopeful to understand the man behind the rum label.

Who was morgan?

Does he deserve to be remembered as a daring privateer

or reviled as a bloodthirsty pirate?

The answers, and perhaps his pirate ship,

are waiting in the caribbean.

[ woman singing in native language ]

panama.

A sun-soaked sliver of land

dividing the atlantic and pacific oceans.

I touch down in the city of colon

and pick up a used, but heavily modified jeep

to begin my journey in search of captain morgan's flagship.

Gates: It's like 30 feet off the ground.

I'm literally gonna need,

like, a running start to get into this thing.

I have not one, but two cbs for some reason.

Check, check, check.

Hello? Hello?

[ alarm chirps ]

[ alarm blares ]

this is the greatest car I've ever been in.

[ engine turns over ]

gates: Even though this is a 340-year-old cold case,

I'm still putting out an apb for my lead suspect.

I'm looking for captain morgan's flagship.

Has anybody seen the satisfaction?

A minor programming note

for those of you watching with young children.

Be advised that tonight's program is rated "argh."

come on!

A little pirate humor.

Gates: Okay, now that I've got that out of my system,

we can move on.

As I make my way outside of town,

I soon pass by the haunting remains of spanish forts.

To understand why they're here, we need to step back in time.

Welcome to the 17th century.

Spain is the most powerful country in the region,

controlling nearly all of central and upper south america,

florida, cuba,

and the dominican republic and haiti.

Spain's power is due in large measure

to the seemingly limitless supplies of gold and silver,

which conquistadors are hauling

out of peru and bolivia in south america.

But in order to get these riches back to Spain,

they need to get them into the atlantic.

Using slaves to March their riches to panama,

they establish a new world capital on the pacific coast -

panama city.

Then mules bring the loot

52 miles from the pacific to the atlantic side,

where it's loaded onto galleons in the town of portobelo,

bound for Spain.

Gates: This is portobelo.

It was actually named by columbus,

who sailed in the bay here

hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

It's a little tumbledown today,

but during the 17th century,

this was one of the most critical cities for the spanish,

and it was the very first place

that captain morgan decided to attack in panama.

[ whistle blowing ]

[ up-tempo music plays ]

gates: Panama is a washing machine of cultures.

The congo dancers in the streets

are the descendants of the cimarrónes,

runaway slaves who won hard-fought freedom

from their spanish captors.

It's part afro-panamanian religious revival

and part village people reunion.

A guy in a life preserver, dancing in the streets.

Why not?

[ whistle blows ]

gates: But it's at the edge of town

where portobelo reveals its once powerful defenses.

So why did this sleepy port need to be armed to the teeth?

One word -- pirates.

The 17th century is the golden age of pirates,

and no man is more notorious than captain henry morgan,

flying under the flag of the english royal navy.

Spain has a stranglehold on the caribbean,

but other european empires are hiring privateers like morgan

to weaken the spanish through plunder and havoc.

Captain morgan's first attack on panama

took place here in portobelo.

Historian juan david morgan

has his own take on the legendary pirate.

What's your impression of morgan, the man -- the real man?

And the difference between a privateer and a pirate

is simply that

someone is commissioning you to do this, right?

Just to be clear, privateers like captain morgan

were awarded hefty commissions from the crown

for their life-risking work.

A single seized enemy ship

could earn each crew member a year's wages or much, much more.

Right.

It's amazing.

We think of morgan as this swashbuckling pirate out at sea,

but, really, he wasn't much of a navigator.

Morgan's assault on portobelo was successful

because the spanish never saw him coming.

In July of 1666, he and his men landed three miles away

and attacked portobelo on foot from behind.

Morgan's next move

was unexpected, brazen, and incredibly risky.

He held the entire city hostage and threatened to burn it

if the spanish didn't pay him to leave.

Infuriated but helpless,

the governor of panama city agreed to pay up,

and in return,

morgan sailed out of the harbor a free and rich man.

Morgan's attack on portobelo was audacious,

but he was just getting warmed up.

He didn't just want to aggravate the spanish.

He wanted to destroy them.

To do that, he set his sights just down the coast

on another spanish fortress, known as san lorenzo,

and it's here

that morgan's ship might be lying in its watery grave.

If I'm gonna learn the truth about morgan's flagship,

I have to go find

the people that are actively engaged in looking for it.

I'm meeting with fritz hanselmann

and his team from texas state,

who are on the cutting edge of trying to find the satisfaction.

So, 17th century.

What's going on here? Why does this fort exist here?

Well, this fort here is what protected the gold and silver

that were coming from south america and the pacific...

Gates: Right.

...Over to this side of the caribbean

and then later on to Spain.

So, for the spanish -- pretty critical fort.

Absolutely, and this is what was constructed

to keep out guys like henry morgan.

So, when morgan shows up here, what's his move?

How does he get into this place?

He sends three ships with 470 men

to launch a terrestrial assault,

so they cross this peninsula to the fort,

and they attack from the rear.

A flaming arrow

went into the munitions stockpile inside the fort

and exploded it.

So he got lucky. Yeah, I mean, true to the story of morgan,

he gets lucky in all sorts of circumstances.

Right, right.

But his luck didn't last forever.

That's when disaster strikes.

And so morgan ran his flagship, the satisfaction, aground,

and then four other ships followed suit.

So they just kind of had a pile-up on these rocks. Gates: Wow.

Five of morgan's vessels strike the lajas reef,

and while he manages to escape, the ships all sink.

You can see the reef right here.

Right down here where those white caps are.

Exactly. That's the reef where morgan's ships ran aground.

So the big question is, where did they end up?

They already recovered a wooden chest and a sword blade.

Their recent discovery of several cannons

was a turning point in recent investigations.

And what's the general hypothesis now of the cannon?

We believe that they're henry morgan's.

We've got three that look to be english.

There are markings on them

that indicate they are mid to late 17th century.

Near the cannons,

the archeologists also noticed wooden timbers.

And we realize

it looks like what we have is a piece of ship hull,

and there's chests in the ship hull,

and so, you know, of course we're ecstatic.

Ecstatic is an understatement.

His team found dozens of possible treasure chests,

but they're fragile, badly overgrown,

and have yet to be analyzed.

And with so many wrecks in the bay,

they can't be sure they have the right boat.

I'm thrilled that fritz has invited me to join his convoy

through the rainforest and down to the beach

to continue their search.

But before we can get there, we hit a roadblock, literally.

Gates: That's a big tree.

Gates: I'm in panama,

where I've joined a team of archeologists on the search

for the sunken flagship of legendary pirate captain morgan.

We're about to dive in the waters where the ship went down,

but before we can get there, we run into a minor roadblock.

Gates: That's a big tree.

Okay, major roadblock.

There's not exactly an alternate route,

so the only thing we can do

is dismantle this enormous tree one hack at a time.

Gates: This happens a lot here, apparently.

The trees are already really saturated.

It's really humid. It rained.

Part of the jungle just falls on the road.

It may take a little while to clear.

Gates: Unfortunately, we don't exactly have the best tools for the job.

We'll have this thing done in no time.

Gates: Finally, some reinforcements arrive on the scene.

Ah! [bleep]

ants. [bleep]

a lot of very bite-y ants in here, as well.

What am I doing?

I have a huge jeep with giant tires.

Gates: Once we've cleared the road,

it's a short drive

to the chagres river just below fort san lorenzo.

[ engine turns over ]

I'm hoping to explore the intriguing wreck

where the cannons were recovered,

but first I want to see

where captain morgan's ship ran aground.

So he was coming in toward the fort

and just smashed it right up on the reef. Hanselmann: Yeah.

Okay, what's our first move, fritz?

First thing we ought to do is survey the seafloor.

That's the reef where morgan lost the ships.

There's got to be something down there.

Unfortunately, scores of ships have wrecked here,

and the swirling currents could have carried the satisfaction

nearly anywhere along the coast.

But the team has a high-tech tool

to narrow down their search.

Ho: This is a magnetometer.

It detects the ambient magnetic field of the earth,

and anything that would cause any deviations to that,

anything ferrous, anything iron, it will detect.

Unfortunately, I'm only semi-fluent in nerd speak.

All right, I'm following about 10% of what you're saying,

but, basically, I think what we're saying here is,

we throw this torpedo in the water...

And it will detect iron.

So, in other words, a great way to detect shipwrecks. Yes.

That I can follow. Now you're talking my language.

And then back through this cable,

it feeds to a laptop here?

Yep. This thing is just collecting the raw data,

and we'll just go back and forth

and get the coverage in the entire reef area,

and hopefully those iron objects will pop up.

[ sighs ] am I, like, never gonna have kids right now?

It's right on my crotch.

[ laughter ] let's get this thing in the water.

High levels of iron on the seafloor

can indicate debris from a wrecked ship.

While fritz's team has already discovered one wreck,

it may not be the satisfaction,

and they're still looking for other promising leads.

With the real-time gps,

it is tracking where we're moving. Right.

We're that little bird right there. Right.

We're just gonna mow the lawn on these grid lines.

Back and forth, back and forth. Yep.

And where's the reef on here?

The reef is right here, right in front of us.

And we're gonna try to not smash into that. Exactly.

That's the most important part of the survey.

Pretty much, yes. Okay.

Are there other boats that you know of that have sank here?

Yeah, absolutely.

We have between 20 and 30 wrecks that we know of

that have been recorded having wrecked in this area.

That makes it a lot more complicated.

It does, especially with all the modern debris and whatnot.

It's like looking for a needle in a haystack sometimes.

After dozens of passes with the magnetometer,

and only discreet readings on the receiver,

we're on the verge of calling it quits.

We've decided to make

one last pass along the edge of the reef before moving on.

Whoa. What's that?

Fritz, what is that right there?

Oh, that's a big hit.

Ho: That's a pretty good spike.

That's probably well over 1,000 gammas.

Some serious iron objects down there.

So we need to go check that out. All right, great.

Let's go dive.

Gates: A reading of this size could signify a shipwreck.

Fritz and I quickly throw on our diving gear to investigate.

Diving in murky conditions

in an area with a history of shark attacks

is slightly unsettling.

But it turns out that visions of lost pirate treasure

are a pretty decent motivator.

We've reached the bottom,

but haven't found the source of the hit on the magnetometer.

Fritz and I fan out and continue looking.

We canvass the area

and are about to abort the dive operation when...

...Finally, the source of the hit on the magnetometer,

and it's exactly what we're looking for --

a massive shipwreck.

Seeing this wreck is a huge rush.

But now we need to determine

if this is a boat from captain morgan's fleet

or some other historic shipwreck.

This type of modern boiler wasn't in use

until hundreds of years after morgan sailed the high seas.

With our tanks running low,

we ascend to the surface to replenish our air.

[ breathes heavily ]

wow. That is amazing.

A ton of debris down there, stuff all over the place,

and eventually led us to a huge wreck,

but definitely not a pirate ship, so the search continues.

Gates: Fritz's team recently discovered another wreck

that could be captain morgan's ship.

As the seas get rougher, we hurry to the site,

and I'm beginning to understand

why so many boats have sunk here.

We cautiously move forward in the haze

when suddenly an amazing sight comes into view.

Nestled on the bottom

is an honest-to-god 17th-century wooden chest,

and nearby, there are more -- lots more.

Over time, the wooden containers have become encrusted

and are impossible to open without destroying them.

Fritz's team has already moved one chest to panama city,

where it awaits analysis.

Until this boat is identified,

the rest must remain on the bottom to be preserved.

So we've got to comb the wreck for other artifacts.

Gates: I've traveled to panama

on a mission to find the satisfaction,

the sunken flagship of legendary pirate captain morgan.

Gates: Whoa. Fritz, what is that right there?

Oh, that's a big hit.

I've joined a team of archeologists

who found a wreck that might just fit the bill.

And I think we've made another discovery.

Alongside the muleshoe,

we've also found a heavily encrusted metal fragment

that we can't yet identify.

Along with these finds,

I'm stunned to see actual planks of wood

from the hull of the ship.

That this is still so well-preserved

after more than 300 years

is nothing short of astonishing.

I'm also getting a crash course

in doing fieldwork on the ocean floor.

We deploy underwater metal detectors to scan the area,

and I even try my hand at mapping the wreck.

Ceramic shards like this

are often key to decoding archeological wrecks.

Despite the challenging conditions,

it was a successful dive.

The muleshoe, ceramic shard, and the metal fragment

could provide valuable information

on dating the shipwreck and determining its origin.

Gates: That was great.

Nice sight, huh? Oh. Amazing.

Fritz and his team will transport

the incredibly fragile relics to their lab in panama city.

We'll analyze them, along with their other recent finds.

Meanwhile, I'm continuing my quest to understand morgan.

Having survived his shipwreck,

he carried on up the chagres river toward panama city,

and I'm following his route.

I'm headed to meet a group of emberá indians,

a tribe native to this region.

So this is the chagres river.

This is kind of the original panama canal.

If you were trying to get goods

either from panama city out to the coast

or trying to get inland,

this is the river that you used.

So morgan, after he loses his ship,

puts together the largest pirate army ever assembled --

1,500 men --

and he goes down this river toward panama city.

Along the banks, just these impenetrable rainforests,

howler monkeys, and native tribes,

small groups of spanish attacking them.

This would have been

a really intense and difficult journey for him.

While Spain methodically exploited

and enslaved the native people in the americas,

there are very few reports

as to how captain morgan fared against them.

According to accounts of the journey,

morgan ordered his men to make the trip

with very view supplies,

believing he could steal

whatever food or water they needed along the way.

Over 300 years later, I'm curious to learn

if captain morgan's legacy lives on in native lore.

These are the emberá, one of several indigenous tribes

that have roamed central america since time immemorial.

Hola. Hola.

Nice to meet you.

Hola.

Claudio, josh. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you. Look at this. Wow.

[ up-tempo music plays ]

what a welcome. Thank you very much.

As the welcome party turns into a full-blown dance party,

perhaps I'm getting more than I bargained for.

And what does the dance signify?

Marriage. Am I getting married right now?

Yes.

All right. Well...

It's a nice spot, I guess. Settle down.

Got it.

Hola.

Hi.

I guess this is my family now.

If this were three centuries ago,

it's likely that

I wouldn't have survived getting out of the boat.

Considering the atrocities

committed to panama's indigenous peoples,

the emberá's hospitality is overwhelming.

In a nearby hut, I sit down with a village elder and his son.

Thank you very much for having me here today.

I really appreciate your hospitality.

After he wrecked his ship,

captain morgan passed through here

on the chagres river to panama city.

How do you look back on morgan?

[ speaking native language ]

they is like the enemy.

As an enemy. Yes.

No different than the spanish.

No different to the spanish.

Gates: Captain morgan's plan

of stealing supplies from the native indians backfired.

Not only were they able to flee their villages

before the pirates arrived,

they bettered them in combat.

Between the natives and small garrisons of spanish soldiers,

more than 100 of morgan's men died en route to panama city.

Today I'm thrilled to see

that long after the spanish empire is gone,

tribes like the emberá endure.

They even have a tattoo parlor.

Before leaving,

they insist on giving me something to remember my visit.

I'm hoping this guy does lower-back tattoos, as well.

I'm thinking about getting maybe a dolphin back there.

Back on the chagres river,

I continue retracing morgan's path to panama city.

In 1671, it took his crew more than 10 days

to cross from the atlantic to the pacific side.

While I'd like to stay true to the captain's journey,

I need to pick up the pace a bit.

[ train whistle blows ]

after all,

I've got a pirate treasure chest and other artifacts

waiting to be analyzed in panama city.

The results could prove, once and for all,

if captain morgan's lost ship has finally been found.

Gates: I'm in panama, retracing captain morgan's journey

across the country on his mission to ransack panama city.

I was following his trail by canoe up the chagres river,

but I think it's time to pick up the pace

in a slightly faster vehicle that covers the same route.

[ train whistle blows ]

welcome aboard the famed panama canal railway.

While the chagres river

may have been the original transportation system,

this historic rail line was the backbone

that helped build modern panama.

The train basically slices across the isthmus of panama.

It's pretty incredible.

You start in the caribbean on the atlantic side.

This takes us all the way across

over to panama city and the pacific.

Gates: It's a breathtaking ride

and a great place to pick up a little part-time work.

I'm now the bartender.

Get my tip jar out here.

Hot coffee, folks. Hot coffee.

Is there any booze back here?

Gates: Having retraced captain morgan's route across the isthmus,

panama city comes into view.

And it's absolutely stunning.

Man: ♪ da-da-da, da-da, da-da ♪

♪ da-da-da-da-da ♪

♪ da-da-da-da-da ♪

♪ I say, welcome to panama ♪

♪ welcome to panama ♪

gates: Forget whatever image you have

of the so-called developing world.

Panama city is the shining star of central america.

This steamy, tropical boomtown

is crawling with foreign investors,

expat fortune seekers, and cranes,

reshaping a futuristic skyline

that seems to grow before your eyes.

♪ da-da-da-da ♪

welcome to panama.

Gracías.

Sir, are you available to travel with me all the time? Huh?

How is it that panama is richer

than every other central american nation put together?

Simple.

They have a canal.

[ ship horn blows ]

okay, let's see if I can steer this thing through.

Hello? Come in.

I think I may have just broken the panama canal.

Gates: Thankfully, I'm only maneuvering a cargo ship

through a simulator.

We're -- we're all fine here. We're all fine.

How are you?

Gates: Welcome to the miraflores locks of the panama canal.

This modern marvel

is a jaw-dropping testament to human spirit and ingenuity.

This is the pacific ocean.

Over there is the atlantic ocean.

As ships come into these locks, they get closed in.

They flood the locks, raising the ships up more than 50 feet.

This gate that we're standing on then opens,

ship passes into the next lock and into the next ocean.

[ ship horn blows ] crazy.

Gates: In 1902, the u.S. Began construction

on the most audacious engineering project

in human history.

20,000 french and 6,000 american workers died

trying to rejoin the two great oceans of the world,

forever changing international trade.

Boats that once had to sail

around the treacherous tip of south america

in the era of captain morgan

could suddenly take an 8,000 mile shortcut

through the heart of two continents.

Trophy case, obviously.

This thing wins best canal every year.

Gates: From the miraflores locks, it's a short trip to panama city.

The nation's capital is booming thanks to the canal.

In the shadow of opulent, modern skyscrapers sits casco viejo,

the historic district of panama city.

It's a tumbledown maze

of colonial facades and cobblestone streets

that's still brimming with activity.

Kid's got stuff to do, places to be.

Gates: Street vendors

peddle regional crafts and surprising hidden treasures.

Found it. It was right here the whole time.

A lot smaller than I thought.

Episode over.

Gates: When visiting panama, it's an obligation to pick up

one of the country's signature panama hats.

However, finding the right fit can take a little time.

I'm realizing I have a huge head.

Hola. ¿cómo estás?

Oh, there we go.

700?

This is a $700 hat.

Why is it -- is it made out of unicorn hair?

Since my salary won't cover

a hat that costs as much as a flat-screen tv,

I opt for a more affordable choice.

Oh, yeah. That's it right there.

That's the one. I can pull this off, I think.

I look like hannibal lecter, but...

Gates: Walking through town, it's hard to not be struck

by the intersection of panama's past and future.

Though casco viejo looks ancient,

it's actually new compared to the original city

of which there is almost nothing left.

This is the final chapter of morgan's brazen raid on panama.

When he reached the metropolis in 1670,

his dwindling, half-starved army

actually managed to overrun the spanish on their home turf.

In the aftermath, the entire city burned to the ground.

Some accounts blame morgan for setting the city ablaze,

while others believe

the retreating spanish were accountable.

Either way, this is all that's left.

One lone church tower

is the last building standing from the original panama city.

Here I'm meeting with tomas mendizabal,

director of panama's anthropology museum,

to hear the brutal truth about

captain morgan's final raid on panama

and his lasting legacy for panamanians.

So, this is the original panama city.

Yeah. Exactly.

Not a lot left.

No, no.

What you see is what morgan left after -- after the attack.

We have this image of him as this kind of mythic figure,

this larger-than-life kind of swashbuckling guy.

His image in the u.S. Is so ridiculous.

Yeah! They're so cool! They're awesome!

They're so cool, and he's, like, such a player,

and he's like this good-time frat boy. [ laughing ] yeah.

What's the local viewpoint on him here?

In panama, everybody knows morgan.

[ speaking spanish ] yeah.

He's everywhere. But a villain.

For sure, yeah. I mean...

His attack caused a lot of death and destruction,

so, yeah, for sure he's a villain.

Between 3,000 and 4,000 people actually died.

They tortured a ton of people, asking them for their gold,

squeezing somebody's head till their eyes popped out

because he wouldn't say where his treasure was.

If you were a woman, that was even worse.

If that kind of detail were widely known,

I think his image would be less that of a rock star.

The spanish despised morgan for the destruction of panama.

But even though his success

was born through extreme terror and violence,

to the english, he was a hero.

They even knighted him

and made him lieutenant governor of jamaica,

where he died fat, rich, and in his own bed --

almost unheard of for a pirate.

With a better understanding of morgan's controversial legacy,

I head to the national institute of culture back in the city

to reunite with archeologist fritz hanselmann.

His team has been working

to prepare the artifacts from the shipwreck for analysis.

Hanselmann: Jacinto!

[ conversing in spanish ]

jacinto is essentially

the godfather of archeological artifacts here in this country.

Mucho gusto. [ speaking spanish ]

let's take a look at all the other stuff we've got.

Gates: Along with the items we pulled up from the wreck,

he's got some amazing evidence to share with me.

This is really cool.

Look at that! Whoa.

That's amazing!

Gates: I'm at the national institute of culture in panama city

to examine the wealth of relics found by fritz and his team.

Hanselmann: This is really cool.

Look at that! Whoa.

That's amazing!

That's a pirate cannon right there.

This is one of the guns that we recovered

from the reef where morgan ran his ships aground.

We have six guns all together.

Some look to be english and some look to be french,

but if these were in the same spot,

most likely they came from the same vessel or vessels.

So these are the first tangible evidence

of morgan's attack on panama in 1671. It's amazing.

Along with the cannons, fritz's team has been preparing

the items recovered during our dive.

Hanselmann: These are the artifacts

that we recovered the other day from the shipwreck.

So here we have our muleshoe, and here we have

the ceramic shard with the neck rim of the jar.

And this, we don't quite know what it is yet.

This concretion could be a spike,

it could be some sort of weird conglomerate of metal.

Gates: Along with these incredible pieces

is the locked chest salvaged during an earlier dive.

This I recognize 'cause we saw a whole bunch of them

down on the ocean floor the other day.

I wanted to scoop them up.

There are how many of them left on the boat, you think?

We have over 100 chests still on that ship.

And this has never been scanned.

We don't know what's in this.

We don't know what's in this,

and we want to see

if we can tell what's in it without causing any damage.

Gates: With an x-ray machine lined up,

all we have to do is figure out

how to get our backbreakingly heavy 300-year-old cargo

to the facility.

Easier said than done.

Whew, man. That is funky.

It smells like pirates for sure.

Whew.

[ banging ] whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

After years at the bottom of the sea,

these relics have become incredibly fragile.

Slow, slow, slow, slow. Okay.

Exposure to air or drying out

can irreparably damage these priceless artifacts. Good.

Gates: Nothing to see here.

Just a couple guys with a 300-year-old treasure chest.

Wait till I try to check this thing with united airlines.

Good. Stop, stop, stop.

[ grunts ]

gates: Oh, my god. Somebody get me a beer.

With our booty in tow,

we're on our way with our unusual payload.

Gates: All right, so, the plan now?

Hanselmann: Well... Straight to the airport...

[ laughs ] ...Crack the chest open, to the bahamas.

I wish.

What will you say to the police officer

if we get pulled over and he looks in the back?

"would you like a cut?"

[ laughs ] spoken like a true pirate.

Okay, here we go.

Gates: Having never attempted this procedure before,

the archeological team has no idea what to expect.

[ machine beeps ]

hanselmann: What we're trying to do

is take the x-ray that works for the human body and adapt it

and make it work for archeological artifacts. Right.

Gates: First, we'll analyze the items we found on our dive --

the muleshoe and the strange, encrusted item.

I feel like we're having a baby, fritz.

[ laughter ]

please be a pirate. Please be a pirate.

[ laughter ]

[ machine beeps ]

eureka.

The x-ray proves effective in cutting through

hundreds of years of built-up coral and corrosion.

You can see the holes where they nailed into the hoof.

Gates: That's amazing.

Ho: It looks like they're countersunk.

Gates: Countersinking is a process where precut holes

allow nails and screws to sit flush with the surface.

In this case,

the technique might help identify who made the artifact.

How do you tell if they're countersunk? Well, you kind of see

a little bit of shadowing around the edges of the square

for each of the various holes,

which is typical of the spanish muleshoes or horseshoes.

British tend not to be countersunk.

The encrusted fragment also reveals its identity.

Hanselmann: This could be a piece of a sword in a scabbard

or wrapped up in something.

It's really cool, though. I mean, you cut through all those concretions,

and there's just, like, a blade under there.

Chest time?

I want to get at that chest. Yeah. [ laughs ]

hanselmann: Gently.

This thing's too heavy

to not have some part of something in it.

Gates: Finally, it's time to scan

the chest the team salvaged from the shipwreck.

The contents of this container could reveal, once and for all,

if we found the satisfaction.

As we place the chest on the x-ray, my mind is racing,

thinking about the mysteries that could be revealed.

[ machine beeping ]

hanselmann: Gently.

This thing's too heavy

to not have some part of something in it.

[ machine beeping ]

gates: Not much.

We see the outline of it,

but it doesn't really penetrate the chest at all.

No, that's disappointing.

What does he think the problem is?

It's too thick.

It's the density of the material.

Hmm. Well.

It's too dense.

Gates: Frustratingly, the chest and its contents

are too dense for the x-ray to penetrate.

These are the breaks

when it comes to the slow and careful process

of archeological preservation.

But at least the other artifacts,

we were able to get a really good look at.

Absolutely. I mean, we got a lot of data here.

Next step is to take that info

and try and figure out how to make sense of it.

Finding the well-preserved cargo from a 17th-century vessel

is nothing short of amazing,

but have we gathered enough information from these artifacts

to determine whether or not they're from the satisfaction?

After careful examination,

I've asked fritz to give me his expert analysis.

The satisfaction was a french ship.

Mm-hmm.

So in looking at this wreck,

what do the photos, the artifacts, the x-rays --

what do they tell us about the origin of this vessel?

Looking at that neck shard,

basically we're looking at a spanish olive jar.

Basically the tupperware or the water bottle

of 16th-to-18th-century spanish.

So we're in the right time period,

but a spanish type of ceramic, not french. Exactly.

Artifact number 2 is the muleshoe

that we recovered when we were on our dive. Right.

These are countersunk,

and that's a technique that only the spanish used.

The english didn't use it, french didn't use it,

and so, again, we have another artifact

that we've recovered from the wreck that's spanish in origin.

Okay.

Also significant as what we are seeing is what we aren't seeing.

We know the satisfaction was 120 tons,

and it also carried 22 guns,

and, honestly,

we aren't seeing any guns anywhere on this shipwreck.

The only weapon we have are a few sword blades.

Because the cannons, which were recovered,

were taken from the reef, but not found near the wreck.

Exactly.

The million-dollar question, then.

Is this the satisfaction?

I can answer that in one word -- no.

But that's not the end of the story.

In looking over all the evidence,

we have made what is an extremely exciting discovery.

That's actually the manifest

of a ship called nuestra señora encarnación.

A lot of the chests match up

to what we're seeing in the document,

and it sank just off of the chagres river

in the general area of where the shipwreck is.

The encarnación was the same kind of vessel

that christopher columbus used

when he first sailed over to the western hemisphere.

That's amazing.

Fritz's analysis

is that this shipwreck appears to be the encarnación

and not part of morgan's fleet.

However, that does little

to diminish the significance of this incredible find.

This pristine 17th-century shipwreck

may be the single best-preserved vessel of its kind ever found.

In addition,

it offers a glimpse into the world of captain morgan.

But the question remains.

Where is the satisfaction?

We know the reef that the boat wrecked on.

There's a record of the boat wrecking.

It has to be there. Yeah, absolutely.

It just feels like it is so within reach.

The ships are out there.

I'm sure we're gonna find it eventually.

Thanks, fritz.

Yeah, thank you, josh. Appreciate it.

Morgan was a complex man living in an unforgiving age.

To some, he's a hero,

a rum-guzzling renegade who lived by his own terms.

To others, he is an unrepentant killer

motivated by insatiable bloodlust and greed.

Perhaps he was both.

The stage for his exploits

is a country with its own mysterious duality

at the crossroads of oceans and continents

and at the forefront of a brilliant economic future.

Speaking of the future,

fritz hanselmann and his team

have over 100 other potential wrecks

to investigate off the coast,

and it's only a matter of time before morgan's ship is found,

and perhaps it's fitting that the boat has remained elusive.

The satisfaction is, after all, its own buried treasure.

It will take determination, daring,

and more than a little luck

to find a boat belonging to someone as shrouded in mystery

as the pirate captain henry morgan.

Coming up...

I'd like to introduce you to someone.

He's got a family business in new orleans.

He trades in hard to acquire goods.

Does a little sailing on the weekends.

And, oh, I should mention, he's also a ruthless pirate.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet jean lafitte.

In the early 1800s, lafitte makes a fortune in treasure

by raiding ships in the gulf of mexico

and smuggling stolen goods through the outlaw city

of new orleans.

He is, in short, an untamable criminal.

But when war comes to america's shores,

many contend that for one brief moment in time

he'd become something else--

an american hero.

His final act is to vanish from the history books,

leaving behind rumors of a horde of treasure worth millions.

Now, 200 years later, one researcher

believes that he's pinpointed lafitte's secret safe house.

And a team of treasure hunters has unearthed

documents suggesting his gold-laden flagship

might be hiding in a very unlikely place.

So get ready to set sail on a journey

into a strange chapter of american history

and to search for the lost pirate treasure

of jean lafitte.

♪♪

♪♪

my investigation begins in new orleans, louisiana.

To understand the pirate jean lafitte,

you first have to understand the city he called home.

If you've been here, then you already know this.

There is no city in the world like new orleans.

It's a one-off, an uncontrolled experiment made from a recipe

you could never repeat.

Its ingredients are french, spanish, african, creole,

caribbean, and native american, all simmering together

since 1718 and seasoned with equal parts

pain, joy, and determination, until the whole thing

bubbled up into something totally

and beautifully original.

And nothing tells the story of this city

and the gumbo of cultures that make up

its dna better than the food--

from po' boys, to king cake, to alligator.

And of course, a required stop at a cornerstone

of the french quarter.

Cafe du monde is, of course, famous for the beignet,

which is fried dough with just the faintest

dusting of powdered sugar.

[coughing]

it's delicious. I got just a little on my shirt.

I brush my shoulders off and belly up to the bar

at one of the city's iconic oyster houses.

Bottoms up.

-Damn, that's good. -That's good.

So keep shucking them, I'm going to keep eating them,

all right? -All right, sounds like a plan.

♪♪

my contact doesn't arrive until later tonight,

so I've got some time to kill in the big easy,

where the locals live by one rule--

let the good times roll.

Shark attack!

Shark attack!

New orleans practically invented cocktail culture,

from tujague's signature grasshopper,

to bourbon street party favorite the hand grenade,

to pat o'brien's classic hurricane.

This just in.

I'm drunk-- pretty seriously.

I'll admit the rest of the evening is a bit of a blur.

My camera crew assures me I didn't

do anything embarrassing.

Ladies. Ladies.

No?

It's not me, it's other--

they're other guys in there.

No?

And if you can't make it as an exotic dance promoter,

don't worry.

There's always a last resort-- court jester.

♪♪

what's happening?

[crowd cheering]

♪♪

♪♪

I grab a few strong cups of coffee and March

on past the french quarter's festive facade to explore

its much darker history.

Acquired by the united states as part of the louisiana purchase

in 1803, new orleans was a gateway to caribbean trade

and a notorious pirate port of call.

And perhaps no street in new orleans

better personifies its character than this one, pirates alley.

A cathedral on one side and a colonial jail

on the other, and in between, a den of crime.

In its early years, this city was

a bustling black market where notorious criminals became

enterprising businessmen.

Buyers would pass money through the fence,

giving rise to the expression fencing stolen goods.

Today, locals are more apt to trade mardi gras beads

than contraband, but if you look closely,

new orleans is still a city of pirates.

And no pirate made a bigger mark here than jean lafitte.

I'm meeting treasure hunter captain bradley williamson

at lafitte's original blacksmith shop, what is now

considered to be the oldest and perhaps darkest bar

in all of america.

-Brad. -It's good to see you buddy!

-How you been? -Been well, been well.

Last time I saw you, we were hunting

for captain kidd's treasure.

Yes, out on mona island.

That's buried treasure!

Congratulations, buddy. Join the club.

-Join the club, buddy. -Oh, man!

But now we're looking for a pirate here.

Yes.

Jean lafitte, a pirate right here in the united states.

So where does he come from?

He seems to just kind of appear on the pages of history.

No one's really sure. There's lots of legends.

The first 20 years of his life is kind of a mystery.

Yeah.

Jean lafitte seems to have emerged fully formed.

No record of his birth exists.

He was likely either born in France or the french colony

of saint-domingue.

What is known is that he arrived in new orleans

in the early 1800s and set up a warehouse

and blacksmith shop with his brother, pierre,

in this very spot on bourbon street.

So this blacksmith shop, I take it, was not on the up and up.

No. This is more kind of a front.

A little off the beaten path for the real business,

which was the smuggling and the privateering.

Why is smuggling such a big business?

This place was pretty much the gateway to the caribbean.

In 1807, thomas jefferson enacted

the us embargo act, which prohibited

trading with any foreign ports.

So no ships from new orleans can go to any foreign port.

Correct.

So when this happens, I assume a guy like lafitte,

who's already dabbling in smuggling--this is like,

he sees dollar signs. -Oh, he's making a fortune.

And what sort of stuff are we talking about here?

-What are they smuggling? -Anything from sugar, tobacco.

Anything where he can make some money off it, he would do it.

And it seems like this makes him,

actually, a pretty popular guy.

Yeah, almost like a robin hood figure.

Gates: And just like robin hood, lafitte runs afoul of the law.

The governor, william claiborne,

is said to have put up signs all over the city placing

a $500 bounty on lafitte head.

However, legend says that lafitte

covers over the warrants with his own offer--

$1,500 for capturing the governor.

I love this.

This guy is now turning into what sounds like a gangster.

This probably was the first organized

crime syndicate here in the us.

Of course, he wanted more money.

And the way to get more money was if he had his own ships

and became a privateer.

Now he's getting the full pay from the cargo.

So he's expanding the family business.

Yes.

[explosions]

gates: Privateering is basically legal piracy.

Lafitte is given official license

to attack spanish ships.

And his gang proceeds to terrorize the gulf of mexico,

bringing in millions in cash and treasure,

much of which lafitte keeps and hides for himself.

So here's the problem.

Right now he's got the law breathing down his neck.

His operation is getting so large that he needs

to take his operation offshore. Let me show you.

Look at this.

Ok, so this is a central map of louisiana and west florida.

-We're right here, new orleans. -Ok, so we're in new orleans.

And where does he take this operation?

He takes it over here to barataria.

So this is basically a bay out in the gulf.

Why is he over here?

Because you can see he has the whole coastline here,

which he can access.

But he can also take his goods through the bayou

up these canals, approaching new orleans from the back door.

And this map literally has on it smuggler's anchorage.

Yeah.

It almost has an x marks the spot, which is great.

Any question in your mind that lafitte left treasure behind?

There is definitely treasure.

Because he was reputed to be one of the wealthiest

men in america at that time. -Wow.

If you really want to find his treasure,

you gotta go to where it started--

his base camp right here, barataria.

Barataria. Ok.

[music playing]

the next morning, captain brad and I leave the city and head

to meet swamp guide j. Boutte.

-How y'all doing? -Good.

-I'm josh. -J. How you doing?

Nice to meet you.

He'll take us through the bayous to jean lafitte's former pirate

colony in barataria.

Ok, let's rock and roll. Let's do it.

Whoo!

We chart a course 90 miles south of new orleans

into barataria bay and lafitte's base camp

on grand terre island.

♪ born... Reaching for the stars ♪

♪ made in louisiana ♪

♪ new orleans, the city of my dreams ♪

♪ I can feel the death... ♪

woo-hoo! Yeah!

Hell yeah.

It's a good day at the office.

As we slip into the narrow channels of the swamps,

it feels like entering a land lost in time.

It's beautiful, but it has a really kind of mysterious vibe

to it, this whole place.

I can see how these winding waterways

provided the perfect hiding place for lafitte's smugglers.

Gates: After an hour on the water,

the bayou dumps out into the gulf of mexico,

and we see a lonely island on the horizon.

This is grand terre, the heart of lafitte's operation.

We tie up to an old dock and set foot

on the now abandoned island.

But in the past, this place was a pirate kingdom that could

be hiding a vast treasure.

Oh, my god. Look at this place!

♪♪

gates: I'm 90 miles south

of new orleans with captain bradley williamson,

searching for the lost treasure of jean lafitte

on the abandoned shores of his pirate colony,

grand terre island.

Oh my god, look at this place!

This is crazy! What is this?

Williamson: This is fort livingston.

Gates: This fort is outrageous.

Williamson: This was built

on the grounds of jean lafitte's fort

when he ran the island here.

Gates: Built in 1841, more than two decades

after lafitte left the island, fort livingston

was constructed when the us government

figured out what the pirates had known for years--

whoever controls grand terre controls access from the gulf

to new orleans.

Looking out, you can really see the strategic value

of this island.

Williamson: That's why they made the fort here,

because you could prey on any ship

in the gulf of mexico.

Let me show you this map.

So this is a map of grand terre.

Williamson: Yes.

Gates: So this is actually a plan of the fort

before it was built. -Williamson: Exactly.

We're, what, at this end of the island?

Williamson: We're right there.

Where it says "encampment,"

that's where many of the pirates lived, right there.

Gates: Uh-huh.

This was, in some ways, like a pirate kingdom out here.

Exactly.

Gates: Lafitte's pirate kingdom was the stuff of legend.

Hundreds of pirates lived out here,

and lafitte built a lavish home,

walls stuccoed with oyster shells.

The island's warehouses were filled with stolen

goods and even slaves.

Make no mistake, lafitte was, above all else,

motivated entirely by making money.

So does anything remain here from lafitte's time?

No. There's really nothing left.

Everything that was here originally

has been taken away by the sea.

But it's a great strategic location.

Gates: But in 1815, authorities cracked down,

and lafitte and his pirates fled, taking all of their gold

and treasure with them.

And so in terms of the treasure hunt, where do we go from here?

At this point, I think we need to follow

the trail of the smugglers.

Because they would have been taking

the treasure up the canal here, deeper into the bayou.

Ok, great. I'm all in.

Back on the airboat, we follow lafitte's smuggling route.

Soon, the channel narrows and branches

out in every direction.

It's near here that lafitte allegedly established

a way station at a place called fleming plantation, where he

would transfer stolen goods to canoes for the final run

into new orleans.

Legend says he also buried some of his loot here

for safe-keeping.

♪♪

do you think this plantation's promising?

There have been several reports of lafitte

being sighted on the property.

And when you hear enough stories,

there has to be some truth behind it.

And also, joshua, there's many legends

of treasure being buried there.

It's definitely a place worth spending some time looking.

All right, let's check it out.

♪♪

williamson: Ok, josh.

Welcome to the fleming plantation.

I mean, I don't think I've seen

a spookier building in my life.

Today, fleming plantation is just

a shadow of the grand estate it once was.

Draped in spanish moss and fog, this place would

give anne rice the creeps.

Williamson: This place has been here since the 1700s.

It looks like it's been here since the 1700s.

-And are we ok to go in? -Yes.

I have spoken to the owner. He said we can.

Ok. Well, after you.

Oh, thanks.

So I get to go in first in the scary house.

Yeah. Absolutely.

[spooky music]

this place is crazy.

[bang]

oh!

It's ok. Just debris.

Whoa.

Williamson: That scared the hell out of me.

Gates: It's an old panel.

Good lord.

Gates: But beneath the decay and neglect,

you can still imagine jean lafitte walking these halls.

Williamson: This was a place where they

had a lot of balls and parties.

It was definitely high society.

Right.

Williamson: There's even a legend that jean lafitte was

having an affair with governor claiborne's wife,

and they would meet right here at this very plantation.

A true pirate, messing with the governor's wife.

[laughs]

ok, so should we get away from the lead paint

and get out there? -Definitely. Let's do it.

Gates: We fan out and begin

searching the old plantation grounds

for lafitte's legendary loot.

I'd like to start with some of these big trees

on the property.

Some of these look old enough that they might have been

here during lafitte's time.

Williamson: I guarantee you that tree was definitely

here during lafitte's time. They would make great markers.

Gates: Ok, so why don't we split up, look around the tree,

see if we get lucky here.

-Sounds like a plan. -Ok. Let's do it.

Gates: We sweep the area,

working our way from the water's edge to the old oak tree.

[metal detector beeping]

brad, I've got something here.

On the eastern side of the tree, I get the first hit.

Williamson: What have you got?

Gates: I don't know, what do you think?

It's metal for sure.

Piece of plating or something?

Williamson: No, it's lead. See how it's bending so softly?

-Oh yeah, it is lead. -That would be lead sheeting.

Wow.

They would use that a lot of times

on vessels, because the teredo worms

would eat at the wood.

This could have a one time been--

-part of a ship. -Williamson: Yeah.

We're finding shipwrecked material on land.

-We're finding something. -Look at that.

Lead sheeting.

Gates: We cover a lot of ground and get a lot more hits.

Big hit here, brad.

Let's see what we got.

Every few minutes our metal detectors sound off.

Josh, I got something right over here.

Gates: We find lots of rusty old metal objects.

It looks like a buckle, actually.

This could be part of a saddle.

This could really be hundreds of years old.

Definitely.

Gates: I'm beginning to wonder, are we sitting on a goldmine?

[beeping]

or a garbage dump?

[beeping]

wait, that's not junk.

Hey, brad? Brad!

-Come here! -Ok, hold on.

-Josh: Brad! -I'm coming, I'm coming.

I got something, man!

I don't know what it is, but I think it's silver.

Williamson: It's definitely silver.

Wait, look at that plate. Look at that.

Ah! Look at that!

Gates: I'm hunting for the pirate

jean lafitte's buried treasure at fleming plantation,

deep in the louisiana bayou.

According to local lore, he used this property as a way station

to transfer smuggled goods...

[beeping]

hey, brad?

...And stash some of his treasure.

Brad! -I'm coming.

-I'm coming. -I got something, man!

Brad: That's definitely silver.

Wait. Look at that.

-Look at that. -Ah!

Look at that!

It's a pendant. It's like a medallion.

-It's, like, a saint. -Wow.

-That's crazy! -[laughs]

-look at that! -I like that.

Definitely silver. Definitely silver.

You can see the patina on it from the silver

from the oxidation on it.

This is something somebody would have treasured.

Somebody would have worn this, right?

So you know, this has a story that we're never going to know.

It's like this link back in time.

That's the thing that's so great about personal items.

Because it kind of connects you to the past.

Could this have been some piece of contraband

that lafitte and his men were moving through here?

Who knows?

Incredible. So cool.

We found a silver artifact that may be

from the era of jean lafitte, but no chest

laden with treasure.

Brad will continue searching for lafitte's riches

on the grounds of this historic plantation

and will keep me posted.

Meanwhile, I'm forging a new path.

To find lafitte's gold, I'm following his story

to a sleepy town south of new orleans

that has turned this pirate smuggler into a folk hero.

And you might ask yourself, why would

anyone name a town after a smuggler and a criminal?

Well jean lafitte may have been a pirate,

but as it turns out, for that brief moment,

he might also have been something else--

an american hero.

Lafitte may not have a statue in his honor,

but he does have the next best thing--

his own museum, complete with an animatronic puppet show.

All right, so the war of 1812 is raging,

and the british are looking for a backdoor

into the united states.

And they realize that lafitte could be really handy.

If he can help them get past grande terre island

and through the bayou to new orleans,

they might be able to take the city.

And they offer lafitte a pretty sweet deal--

a bunch of money, a full pardon, and even british citizenship.

But lafitte is no puppet.

I mean, here he is.

But you know, you get the idea.

And so instead, he stalls for time.

And he sets up his own meeting with us general andrew jackson.

Jackson rejects lafitte's overtures.

And adding insult to injury, the us navy

attacks his pirate colony on grande terre.

[cannons booming]

but when the british arrive at the doorstep of new orleans,

jackson has a change of heart and strikes a deal

with lafitte, who provides strategic advice, trained men,

and a crucial stockpile of musket flints.

And so when the british finally attack new orleans

on January 8, 1815, it's lafitte and his band

of pirates that turn the tide.

[gunfire]

[screaming]

without lafitte's support, we may have lost the battle

and, perhaps, even the war.

But the pirates come through.

New orleans is saved.

And the war ends.

However, the display ends here.

So what happens next?

Well, initially, things are pretty good for lafitte.

Him and his men get a pardon, and the slate

is pretty much wiped clean.

But the us government isn't giving

back grande terre island.

And his smuggling operations in new orleans,

well, those are pretty much over.

So lafitte heads west into the frontier,

and many believe his treasure went with him.

And so I'm following the pirate's trail west,

where lafitte found a frontier big enough

for his grand ambitions, a place where everything is bigger--

texas.

Specifically, galveston island.

Today, it's a spring break mecca and a beachfront getaway.

But when jean lafitte arrives in galveston in 1817,

it's still a spanish colony.

He goes right back to work raiding ships in the gulf,

and builds a huge mansion in the center of town.

Eventually, though, he bites off more than he can chew

when he attacks an american ship.

When the us government sends a war boat after him,

lafitte torches the entire town and, according to legend,

sails away in his flagship, the pride, a vessel

bursting with treasure.

But lafitte didn't just sail out of galveston in 1821.

He vanished.

Now, a team of local researchers believes that they've

found documents that might complete lafitte's last chapter

and lead to his missing treasure.

[bell ringing]

that is, if I can find their headquarters in the back

of this antique store.

Hello?

-Man: Come on in. -Gates: Hey.

-How are you? -Man: Hey, josh.

You guys are hard to find. I'm josh.

-Cody. -Cody.

-Chuck. -Chuck.

-Jay. -Jay.

-How are you? -Hey.

-Good, man. -Come on in.

-Let's sit down. -Yeah, for sure.

Jay, cody, and chuck are a bunch of hix.

No, really. That's their name.

They're brothers.

Ok, so question number one I have to ask--

what got the three of you into investigating lafitte?

We were told as kids that we were

directly related to lafitte.

Descendants of one of the world's most famous pirates.

-Yes. -Absolutely.

Gates: In the back of an antique store in galveston,

texas, three brothers are planning a treasure hunt

for what they claim is their family legacy, the lost fortune

of the pirate jean lafitte.

We were told as kids that we were

directly related to lafitte.

Descendants of one of the world's most famous pirates?

Yes.

And is that true?

What we have is a distant relative by the name of

jean baptiste ottoman born

in 1782. -Gates: 1782.

Chuck: Martinique, France.

So we believe this guy is jean lafitte.

So you think jean ottoman is jean lafitte?

Yes.

Here's a list of parallels that we've

been able to draw between ottoman's life

and lafitte's life.

Both born in the late 1700s.

They both have brothers.

Both appear to be sea captains.

Both arrived in new orleans around 1804.

No confirmed record of either of their deaths.

They both own shops in new orleans.

And then in terms of their signatures,

which is really the only piece of writing

we have from lafitte, -jay: Correct.

There are similarities in their signature styles.

Jay: Absolutely.

-It's a good case. -Yeah.

There do seem to be these kind of remarkable similarities

between these two guys. -Yeah.

You guys might be pirates.

Well, we feel like pirates.

Yeah. You look like a pirate.

Well, thank you. Thank you.

I was going for that.

Gates: The evidence may be circumstantial,

but if lafitte is in fact an alias for ottoman,

the hicks brothers aren't just hunting treasure.

They're trying to fill in their family tree.

Kind of seems like poof, he vanishes.

-Right. -Where does he go?

Well, there's several theories out there.

A lot of theories.

Some say he was wounded in battle, buried at sea.

Others say that he is buried in an unmarked grave

in the yucatan.

Ok, so what's the right theory?

-Our theory. -[laughter]

I like your confidence. So what's your theory?

Lafitte was on a ship called the pride.

And it was rumored to be a three-masted schooner,

approximately 75 feet long and 35 feet wide.

And this ship of his is pretty laden with treasure, right?

-Yes. -He's on the run.

Our theory is that he went right outside of galveston,

scuttled a ship, and that's where his ship

and treasure is buried today.

Gates: The hicks brothers believe

that when the us navy raided galveston and cut off access

to the gulf, lafitte had no choice but to abandon ship,

and his treasure, to slip away.

And what's the evidence for that?

A lady named josephine joseph was picnicking with her family

on the shore of the lake in 1856 when her father noticed

what appeared to be the ship just

below the surface of the lake.

There's another eyewitness account about in 1890s.

They actually walked on top of the deck.

Gates: Working with a combination of eyewitness

testimony and family stories passed down

through generations, the hicks brothers

believe they've located the area where the pride sank.

That's where the pirate ship is.

[dramatic music playing]

gates: So for family and fortune,

we set out in search of lafitte's flagship.

The brothers have arranged for a support crew

to give us a high-tech leg up.

Josh, this is seth and jake.

Seth, how are you? Jake.

-Nice to meet you. -Pleasure.

They are a survey team, and they're

going to be bringing some new technology to the game.

All right, great. Let's do it, guys.

Come on.

Gates: The team splits up into two boats for the trip.

It will require us to cross the bayou

and navigate into what's now a lake, where the brothers

believe the pride was scuttled.

♪ everybody's looking for somethin' ♪

♪ what are you looking for (looking for) ♪

how fast does this boat go, by the way?

We can pick it up. You ready?

Let's open it up a little bit, come on.

♪ you, you seek the truth ♪

♪ wear out your shoes searching for new directions ♪

♪ you, your back to the wind ♪

♪ drawing us in, you'd never settle for the real thing ♪

gates: The swampy river opens up

into a huge body of water,

and we navigate to the far shore where the hicks

brothers want to search.

But we're not going diving for the flagship.

Instead, we're getting towed to land.

If you could just pull me right up onto shore, I'd appreciate it.

♪♪

all right, so this is the spot.

This is it.

Why?

Let's take a look at these maps.

Ok.

This is the current map of the lake.

-Ok. -And this border here is 1862.

-We're standing in the water -correct.

If it's 1862. -We are under water, yes.

Got it.

Here we are again, just at a close up.

From our eyewitness reports and our family stories,

the ship should be within these borders

right here, somewhere in here.

Gates: Under our feet, on land.

Yeah, we brought a terrestrial magnetometer

that we're going to walk around with and see

if we can find something.

How far down can that look?

It will detect something that ship

size at 30 or 40 meters easily.

Ok, great. All right, let's break it out.

Come on. -All right.

-Let's do it. -Let's go.

Gates: Seth sets up a magnetometer,

a device that can detect iron objects like nails,

cannons, and anchors.

Find those, and we might be on top of a legendary treasure.

All right, so walk me through this.

This is a pool cleaner.

-Exactly. -Right.

It's a pool cleaner, but it also has a cesium

magnetometer on the end.

Ok.

The pole keeps it away from magnetic things

we may have on our bodies. -Right.

So my credit card just got wiped.

-Exactly. -Great. I'll stand down here.

We'll break out our metal detectors,

just in the off chance we got something

closer to the surface. -Sounds good.

All right, just scream when you

find a pirate ship, all right? -Right.

All right. Go for it.

Gates: We walk a grid sweeping the area that

used to be part of the lake.

♪♪

♪♪

nothing.

Hey guys, I got a good hit right here.

-You got something? -Yeah. You all come over here.

[dramatic music playing]

coming up...

It's definitely lots of organic material.

-What's that? -Wait a minute.

Oh-ho-ho, wait a minute!

What is that? Is that wood?

-That's wood. -That's wood!

-Absolutely. -That's charred, too.

-That's burned wood. -That's it.

-That could be from a ship. -Yeah.

Ha!

Gates: I'm near galveston, texas,

with the hix brothers using a magnetometer

to search for the pirate jean lafitte's

lost flagship and treasure.

And our readings just spiked.

Hey, guys, I got a good hit right here!

-You got something? -Yeah!

Y'all come over here.

Ok. Talk to me.

-What do you got? -I've got strong mag hits.

There's something sizable and magnetic there.

There's scattered debris here, some of it large and some of it small.

There's a lot of stuff down there.

-Man: Yeah! -Gates: Look at that.

Man: Oh, wow. Oh, wow.

Gates: That's pretty cool, right?

-Man: It's sizable. -How big is this thing?

It's around 100 feet in length.

-Gates: Ship length? -Man: Wow.

Gates: And I don't want to get too crazy here,

but it kind of looks like a ship.

It's ship-shaped.

Lafitte's ship was supposed to be 75 feet long.

-I want some. -I like that.

-Wow. -I like that.

Ok. Good.

Whatever it is is running this way, perpendicular to the lake.

The same direction the ship would have been scuttled.

So--

and we're in the area where these stories have come from.

Can you tell how far down it is? -No, I can't.

We can do something about that.

We have a probe that can actually

reach down about 15 feet. -Gates: Yes!

All right, let's see what's underneath our feet.

-Come on. -Let's go.

Gates: The hix boys have engineered a souped-up probe--

a pipe that sprays a high pressure jet of water

to break through the sand and mud.

This will hopefully allow us to reach whatever lies below.

Ok, I think I understand what you've done here.

You've got a generator hooked up to a sump pump that's sitting

in a milk crate that's pumping water to a pressure

washer that is then pushing that water

through the end of a pipe. -Correct.

This is crazy. Who designed this?

-I designed this. -Frankenstein.

-Yes. -Dr. Frankenstein.

It is.

And so we can keep adding extensions to that pipe

and keep probing down. -Absolutely, yes.

Our goal is to get down to the wreck.

Then we have another pipe that may

be able to bring up samples.

Awesome. Let's fire it up. Come on.

[motor running]

she's alive!

Ok. We got water coming out.

Cody: Come on, baby. Blast her up.

Look at that!

Holy [muted], this thing works!

You see all these little shells and pieces

of rock that are coming up.

The probe easily pierces through the top layer

of muddy sediment.

Bam!

Ok, we're going to need another pipe attachment to this.

Six feet of probe just went straight down.

That's incredible.

-Next section. -You want to try it?

Yeah, let's give it a whirl.

All right. Six feet and beyond.

It's really amazing.

You know how long it take to dig a hole this deep?

Oh, yeah.

-Ok, I'm down. -All right.

All right. Another section going on.

Whoa. We've got something.

It's solid, whatever it is, but it doesn't feel like rock.

It doesn't feel crunchy.

So what are we at here?

-15 feet deep right now. -All right.

Well, we're hitting something. Why don't we put a flag in it

and see if we can make some more of these probes and yeah.

Figure out if it's consistent at that depth.

If the hits are at a consistent depth

down the full length of the find,

it increases the odds of it being a single large object--

for example, a boat.

There, I'm hitting something again, right around 15 feet.

Feel that. Same thing--spongy, yeah?

Man: Yep, absolutely.

Cody: I think that's wood.

When we hit something the pipe can't bust through,

we plant a flag.

I mean, it's definitely consistent.

So we'll mark the depth and keep on at it.

And as the hits and misses add up,

whatever lies below begins to take shape.

-It's going down. -That's it.

Going, going, going, going, going, gone.

-Ah, that's it. -Ok, so there's nothing there.

Because that might mean we've found the very edge

or whatever this is. -Right.

Something is down there--

a field of debris spanning nearly 100 feet.

But is it lafitte's flagship?

The only way to find out for sure is to take samples.

You can kind of punch into it a little.

-Yeah. -I want to know what that is.

It's not rock. How do we pull something up?

Put a hose down in there and vacuum it out with a sump pump.

Well, let's do it.

Cody assembles his device, which looks

like a cross between something from "ghostbusters"

and something that explodes.

We are going to suck up our debris.

It's going to get trapped in this chamber,

and we'll be able to pull it out, in theory.

What do you mean "in theory?"

it hasn't been tested yet.

Oh, my god. This is going to blow up.

I'm going to be right over here. Here we go.

We insert a large diameter pipe and root around

with a metal rod, break up whatever

we were hitting with the probe.

Then, despite my better judgment,

I stick around as cody fires up his machine.

Whoa! Hold on!

Leak!

I'll just keep my finger on this.

It's sucking for sure.

-Yeah. -Ok, so--

ok, let's see what it sucked up, yeah?

Yeah, let's see.

Gates: We open the collection chamber...

All right.

...And it's filled with debris.

There we go. All right.

So what do we got?

It's definitely lots of organic material.

Nothing in there that looks like it's

been sitting there for 200 years.

Definitely heavier material, too.

Look at all this sand-- sand and shells.

This is from way down.

-What's that? -Wait a minute.

Oh, wait a minute. What is that?

Is that wood? -That's wood.

Gates: That's charred, too.

That's burned wood. -Yeah!

That could be from a ship!

-Yeah. -Gates: Ha!

Gates: This could be a fragment

from jean lafitte's flagship, the pride.

That's awesome.

It's incredible to think that a pirate ship may be resting

directly below our feet, covered in nearly

two centuries of mud and sediment.

I'm finding something here. What is this?

What is it? Wood?

No, no, this is something else.

That's metal. That's a nail!

-That is a nail. -Gates: That's a nail!

And not modern. For sure not modern.

-Wow. -Gates: It's a square nail.

It's handmade. The fact that we're finding these

together might mean that we're looking at a piece

of decking or planking here.

And look at that, right there. You see that?

In the wood we actually have what looks like it could be--

cody: Where the nail might have been.

Gates: Part of where the nail-- look at that.

Look at that!

That might have been where that nail popped right out of there!

Cody: Absolutely!

Now there's no question. There's something down there.

-There's something there. -Yep.

That doesn't necessarily mean that it's lafitte's ship.

We can't say that.

But I think you guys are really onto something here.

-Yeah. -You guys keep at it, for sure.

-Oh, yeah. Absolutely. -Keep at it.

You guys, I'm serious. This is historic.

The mag is hitting something that is manmade,

has nails in it, and is the dimensions

of what you're looking for in the place

that you're looking for. -Absolutely.

This could be the very first puzzle piece

in an enormous discovery.

-Awesome. -Nice work, boys.

-Seriously. -Thank you, bro.

Great job. Awesome.

Gates: But as much as I want

to run this gizmo another 1,000 times

and suck up every piece of evidence we can,

today was just the beginning.

Lab tests and dating, gathering more samples,

and eventually a full-scale excavation await.

But for now, we can cruise off into the sunset knowing

we're one step closer to solving the mystery

of jean lafitte's ship.

♪ meet me at the last flame ♪

♪ from the shipwreck ♪

since he might be part of your family,

I want to hear your thoughts on lafitte the man.

He just seems like the ultimate survivor.

Yeah, totally.

Gates: Keeps reinventing himself.

So how do you think he deserves to be remembered, really?

-Villain or hero? -Hero.

Little bit of both.

Gates: Little bit of both.

You want the good, you've got to take the bad.

But you can't defend his business.

I mean, he's a smuggler, he's a criminal.

He's moving all sorts of contraband,

but also helped turn the tide of war to save the united states.

That's right.

♪ the last flame from the shipwreck ♪

gates: The passage of time

has turned the exploits of jean lafitte,

smuggler, pirate, and one-time patriot,

into the stuff of legend.

Equally famous are reports of his treasure,

tales of pillaged booty buried in the louisiana bayou,

and reports of a sunken ship scuttled off of galveston bay.

We found compelling artifacts from the early 1800s,

but no definitive proof of lafitte's treasure,

or of his flagship-- at least not yet.

Treasure hunters operate on the hazy border

where history and legend meet.

One day, one of the rumors of the buccaneer's hidden riches

will pan out, and the lost loot of lafitte

will finally be found.

♪♪