Original subtitles

‐ Narrator: ..."Lost Gold of World War II"...

‐ I'm not really sure what I have here.

‐ This is actually French marble.

‐ How in the world did it ever get

in the bottom of a hole in the Philippines?

‐ John: These guys just showed up out of nowhere.

You know, it's a little disconcerting.

Maybe they're thinking we're getting close.

We know we punched into this void space.

We want to send a camera all the way down there

and see what that anomaly is.

‐ Rick: What is that?

‐ John: Oh, my God.

That is definitely a piece of wood.

‐ Rick: That's a timber.

Keep it coming.

‐ John Casey and Rick Hurt

are back in the Philippines

with a new team,

continuing their search for Yamashita's gold.

‐ We're gonna find a way to get to this treasure.

‐ Like many others, John believes

Japanese general Tomoyuki Yamashita

took billions of dollars in treasure

looted by Japan during World War II,

and buried it in the Philippines,

including somewhere in this mountain.

Following a series of mysterious symbols

they believe were left by Yamashita,

the team is investigating three sites‐‐

a waterfall...

‐ John: This waterfall is hiding something.

‐ ...a crater known as Breach 6...

‐ I've never seen anything like this.

‐ ...and a camouflaged tunnel they uncovered last year.

‐ We are in the mountain, boys!

‐ Can they finally discover the...

In the Philippine mountains,

at the bore hole site...

‐ You seeing that?

‐ Yeah. ‐ Mm‐hmm.

‐ ...John and his brother Rob

are investigating a mysterious void

the horizontal drill hit

on its way towards the waterfall.

‐ Hold on. What is that?

It's a timber. It's definitely a timber.

There's a nail sticking out of it.

That's friggin' awesome.

Look at that right there. That's definitely a nail.

‐ Absolutely.

‐ There's another nail. There's another one

and a timber.

At first I thought this was a natural void space.

‐ No. That straight edge there,

that's definitely manmade. There's no doubt about that.

That timber looks like the ones

that Levi and George are working on

in their tunnel up there.

I wonder if these two connect.

‐ Close to 200 feet underground.

‐ You know, it could be on a 45‐degree angle,

for all we know, going right to the treasure.

‐ I'm gonna get this camera out of here.

‐ All right, well, let's get this tape

over to Rick and the boys.

‐ For John, the discovery of a possible tunnel

suggests maybe there's an easier way

to get under the waterfall.

‐ If it was just a void in the rock

that naturally Mother Nature made,

you wouldn't be seeing pieces of wood in there.

You wouldn't be seeing things

that look like timbers in there

and stuff that just doesn't belong

in a natural void space,

so somehow that stuff got in there.

‐ Later, at basecamp,

John gets the rest of the team up to speed.

‐ This isn't just a natural occurrence

where a void space in the rock.

‐ Somebody put that there. There's no doubt about it.

‐ Exactly. And I'm thinking,

if they put it there, we can get to it.

We got to figure out a way to get in there.

Now we're trying to drill 900 feet

to the room that's underneath the waterfall 300 feet down.

Seeing all that wood and nails

and seeing that it's an actual tunnel,

does this tunnel go to the room underneath the waterfall?

So maybe we won't have to expend so much energy

going the rest of the way.

Maybe we can just get to that tunnel

and then walk right in.

My gut feeling is that this tunnel leads

right to the waterfall.

‐ I think you need to take a better look

at these pictures. ‐ Mm‐hmm.

‐ Because you're opening a can of worms.

You got a little void right there,

and I can already tell you of a giant collapse here.

I'm not trying to be the bearer of bad news, man,

but the reality is

this is probably an air pocket

that you hit in that drift.

It's probably caved in on both sides of it.

There's not even anything here.

What are we gonna recover from this

if we drive out there, a piece of wood and a nail?

‐ No, I was just thinking, once we get into that tunnel,

that we can just kind of mark it out

and kind of go right towards the waterfall.

‐ Well, we have a tunnel that we're already in,

and it's in a lot better shape than this.

You have a void, and you have some wood

with a nail in it.

‐ You guys are overlooking the big issue here.

You're talking 200 feet down.

You're talking a 200‐foot shaft.

You're talking a year and a half of work.

I mean, it's a major... ‐ Especially...

‐ ...undertaking.

‐ Especially with the resources we have here.

It's not clamdigger and hoist.

It's a shovel and a dude.

We're running on what‐ifs.

All we have here is timber and nails.

My opinion‐‐ I think you keep drilling

and see what you're gonna hit out there.

We get out to 1,000 feet and you hit the treasure room,

then we make a new plan.

By then, we'll be around the collapses,

and we might already be there.

‐ As dawn breaks over Breach 6,

excavation continues towards metal deposits

detected over 20 feet below the surface.

After the major discovery of red marble...

‐ I'm not really sure what I have here.

‐ ...determined to be quarried from France...

‐ King Louis XIV used this

in the Palace at Versailles,

so this is a very famous marble.

‐ Narrator: ..with further confirmation

from their treasure hunting partner Chuck...

‐ It was already in the maps

that they built the marble fortifications

before bringing in the treasure.

‐ ...and the Robert Curtis tapes...

‐ Marble.

‐ ...at 25 feet and still no sign of treasure,

Rick's getting impatient.

‐ We're making good progress at Breach 6,

but I would have thought

we'd reach something by now.

We're down there quite a ways.

We've run into timbers...

‐ Oh, yeah. Ooh. ‐ Oh.

Oh, it's hollow.

‐ I can't really think of another reason

that there'd be wood down there.

We've made it through the marble layer,

and based on what we've seen with the Bob Curtis tapes,

that's usually the last indicator

before you get to whatever it is,

whether that's a treasure vault

or whether that's a tunnel.

We are expecting to hit something very soon.

‐ It has some paint on it,

but I can't really tell what it's saying.

That is a double block I just found down here.

And that's what you would use

to raise or lower something out of the shaft like this

if you didn't have a winch.

Hey, Johnny!

‐ Brett.

‐ It's a big old double block, dude.

It's old. I don't know how old it is.

It's pretty good shape. ‐ Keep digging, buddy.

‐ Yeah, dude. Keep digging, man.

‐ Look at this. I just‐‐

Short chunk of rope.

I think I cut it with the fin hoe.

I'll, uh, I'm gonna throw this in the can

if you want to get it up and out

and I'll keep digging.

We found some blocks. We found some rope.

We found all kinds of interesting things,

but right now we're not finding anything else.

‐ I don't know, man.

We got to‐‐ We got to figure this out.

I mean, we're down there. We're in the right spot.

We're there.

‐ Dude.

It's a pick head.

There's no handle at all in it,

so if the handle's rotted out of it,

then it might be old.

‐ We were expecting to hit a void space

or a tunnel.

We've had plenty of evidence

to let us know we're in the right spot.

After we got through the marble layer

at the bottom of Breach 6,

what we're actually running into now are tools.

There's got to be an access to a tunnel.

There's got to be something.

‐ Got some more stuff.

Bunch of rope.

‐ As I unwind it,

they wouldn't have had this in World War II.

‐ Here you have this sudden opportunity.

The Americans are running the Tokyo Trials.

People were looking for ways

to save themselves and their families,

um, so deals were being made left and right.

Many Japanese would give intelligence

about treasure,

a massive treasure.

‐ No, I... ‐ Oh, man.

‐ What are you seeing, man?

‐ [ coughing ] It's just a timbered‐up

toothpick caved‐in mess.

‐ Deep in the Philippine jungle,

father and son miners Levi and Geo

are making steady progress with their demolition robot.

‐ We're trying to get around the collapse

in the tunnel. We've been in there chipping away

‐ They're building a parallel passageway

to bypass the cave‐in.

‐ We've come a little over 40 feet right now.

We should have been broke through already.

There's a possibility that we could have missed our mark.

You know, I hope we didn't.

You know, looks can be deceiving.

I think we're close.

But we have no idea what that drift is doing

on the other side of us.

There we go.

[ grunts ]

I'm hoping, if we break through into the tunnel,

that it's open and it's not collapsed,

that it's in good shape

or we can just get in there and start bolting

and make some headroom.

When you go into an old tunnel like this,

there's a lot of different stuff

you have to worry about.

We've already dealt with booby traps.

We're gonna deal with bad ground.

There's bad gases you can get into.

We're gonna have to use due diligence.

We're gonna have to take our gas detectors,

make sure we're checking them.

It's just hard saying.

You get into those old tunnels,

a lot of gases that you get will hang at knee‐high.

As soon as you start to walk through them,

you'll start stirring them up.

‐ Ahh.

‐ We're hoping we find a network of tunnels

that may lead us up below the waterfall

where maybe there's gold.

Ultimately, at the end of the day,

we want to find some sort of treasure here.

‐ Down the mountain,

John and Rick sift through the latest discoveries

found at Breach 6.

‐ How far down below the marble

did you find this?

‐ Probably at about 5 feet.

‐ How far down are you?

‐ Oh, gosh, man, we're 25 feet.

‐ You should be right at it.

‐ We've been looking.

‐ Got some more stuff.

Bunch of rope.

Dude.

Hey, guys.

Check this stuff out.

I got a little baby hammer.

‐ Wow.

‐ A bunch more rope.

I keep finding the rope.

I think I'm chopping it up as I'm digging.

I just keep getting it out in little pieces, but...

‐ Yeah, it's probably so rotten.

‐ Yeah. ‐ Been down there forever.

Send that bucket of stuff up here. Let's examine it.

You seeing this, Rick?

Lots of digging tools.

Just a steel...

‐ Yeah, an old pick, a little piton hammer.

‐ If this stuff was in one spot,

then I could see how the mag would pick it up.

‐ John's concerned

the tools could be the metal hits

detected by the magnetometer scan

the tech team conducted weeks ago.

‐ Anything more down there?

‐ Nothing left down there at all.

I scraped the whole thing.

‐ It's not concrete cap? ‐ It's just rock.

‐ You know, let's see what we really got here.

We got this giant bar, this hammer.

‐ Looks like a digging tool.

This pick handle, you know, it's a little off center.

It's not very worn.

Even this bar.

It's a little gnarled over on the edge.

But the point on it's almost pristine.

‐ Yeah.

‐ I mean, you could have, like, even used this

to pry crates open with.

This rope is pretty curious.

You know, look at this.

As I unwind it...

You know, this is, like, almost like blue nylon rope.

I mean, I know it's old and dirty‐looking, but...

they wouldn't have had this in World War II.

No, this is kind of concerning to me, guys.

I'm thinking somebody was here before us.

I mean, I know it's old‐looking, but...

there wasn't nylon rope around.

‐ Yeah. ‐ Back in World War II.

‐ Nylon is a synthetic fiber

developed by the DuPont Chemical Company in 1938.

Considered stronger than silk,

nylon was first used to make women's stockings

before drafted to create parachutes and flak jackets

for Allied forces during World War II.

Because DuPont was working exclusively

with the U. S. military,

historians believe

nylon technology did not reach Japan

until after the war.

‐ How in the world would they get in there?

‐ I'm pretty sure I would have seen something

if there had been any other way in that hole.

‐ I mean, you had that hard layer,

and the everything underneath, it was kind of loose,

just like dirt, like this, like rocks?

‐ It is solid.

I mean, it's just solid rock.

This is all modern stuff.

‐ Over the past few weeks...

‐ What is that?

‐ What does this look like to you?

Does it look like a big hard rock

or a big hard chunk of concrete?

‐ ...the team has found undisturbed layers

of concrete, charcoal, and marble.

‐ So they didn't come up from the bottom.

They didn't come down from the top.

‐ These modern tools suggest someone found another way

to get to the bottom of Breach 6.

‐ The only thing I can figure to do

would be to go down there, fire up a jack leg,

and start rattling on the walls

and just see if we can find a soft spot

or a narrow shell.

‐ It wouldn't have to be big.

I know you guys are thinking, like, mine shaft‐like size,

but, you know, if you go, like, to Vietnam

or even in Japan, you know,

a lot of little tunnels are in there.

I mean, we're talking, like, a tunnel, like, this wide,

just enough for a little guy to squeeze through.

It didn't have to be huge.

‐ If Brent and Farrell find a tunnel,

it could confirm John's suspicion

that another treasure hunter beat them to the punch.

‐ No, it... ‐ Oh, man.

‐ Dude, it is... ‐ What are you seeing, man?

‐ [ coughing ] It is caved in.

It's just a timbered‐up toothpick caved‐in mess.

‐ [ bleep ]

‐ So you're seeing timbers.

‐ Yeah, guys, there's definitely a tunnel

going this way, man.

‐ Can you get all the way through it, do you think,

or what?

‐ I'm not even gonna go into it, man.

It's‐‐ It's completely caved in.

I mean, I'll poke my head in, but...

‐ Look how blown out it is, dude.

Blown out all the way back there.

‐ All the timber's broke,

so, I mean, it...

‐ Totally collapsed?

‐ Oh, yeah. It's caved completely tight.

Every timber in there is snapped or rotten.

It's‐‐It's no go.

We can't get into it.

‐ Whoever got in there took what they could,

and they got out.

‐ This is not the way I wanted this story to end.

‐ These vast amount of money

attract people who are willing to torture,

uh, and maybe worse.

‐ Because we've been warned in the past.

That concern is just very real.

‐ If I were you, uh,

I would be very, very careful.

‐ After hitting a dead end at Breach 6,

John and Rick turn their attention

to the Golden Lily map given to them

by famed treasure hunter Chuck McDougald.

‐ I'm not trying to be greedy.

1% of the gross proceeds would be enough.

‐ After negotiating a partnership,

McDougald helped decode a map

that looked similar to their mountain.

‐ Those four dark‐colored ellipses,

my theory is that they are access points

to the main tunnel.

‐ Narrator: Based on his intel,

John and Rob scan the mountain

to look for entrances identified by Chuck,

including an old site from last year.

‐ You came out of the bend,

yeah, and you hit it right here,

and that's almost right where the Back Door is,

and on this map is right where this circle is.

Now that we have kind of delineated

a couple other spots,

based on flying the drone over it,

you know, there are more possibilities on this map.

You know, so we have Breach 6 here,

and we have this diagram saying, you know,

tunnel going that way.

You know, maybe it's possible

that these two tunnels running off of here

is really like a tunnel

that ran through the middle of Breach 6,

like we always thought.

Last year we thought that,

from the Back Door to Breach 6,

it ran in a straight line.

And maybe this diagram is saying that, too.

‐ According to Chuck McDougald,

these symbols indicate three boxes of gold

buried on this mountain.

Although recent evidence suggests

the treasure from Breach 6

may have already been recovered,

there still could be two boxes left.

‐ At the Back Door last year, I mean,

we did punch in to the bottom half

of the back side of a void space.

We just couldn't do anything with it.

‐ There's got to be another access

into this Back Door somewhere.

Maybe Max and Colin, with a little more scan work,

they can find an access over there that's shallower.

That might be our Hail Mary.

‐ Well, if there's an easier way

to get into this tunnel system...

I think it's a good shot.

‐ In the U. S.,

head researcher Bingo Minerva is trying to figure out

who else might be after Yamashita's treasure.

Recent suspicious encounters on the mountain...

‐ You seeing that?

‐ ...along with dire warnings from Chuck

has the team spooked.

‐ When they think you've found a treasure,

they might step in

and either steal it from you

or just kill you right then and there.

So Bingo wants to know

if their safety is truly in jeopardy

and how deep the treasure conspiracy goes.

To get answers,

Bingo's meeting with author

and New York Times contributor Roland Kelts...

‐ Hey, Roland. ‐ Nice to meet you.

‐ Pleasure to finally meet you, sir.

‐ ...who's uncovered covert operations

by the United States government

involving Yamashita's treasure.

‐ On our mountain, we're getting a lot of attention,

and a lot of it could be just paranoia,

but I'm really wondering who historically

would have been interested in this treasure

and who may have benefitted from it,

who might be after us if we do find something.

‐ You know, to really understand

the story of this treasure,

uh, and how deep and how distant it goes,

uh, you have to go back to what I would call

a key point or pivotal point in‐‐in history,

which is when the man

who oversaw the American occupation of Japan

and was arguably the most powerful person in Japan

at the time, the ruler of Japan,

when he learns about this massive treasure,

uh, hidden in the Philippines,

and that man is General Douglas McArthur.

‐ After Japan's official surrender

on September 2, 1945,

Allied occupation of Japan began,

led by the supreme commander of the Allied powers,

U. S. General Douglas McArthur.

‐ Well, McArthur, he was the king of the roost.

‐ A five‐star general,

McArthur commanded successful military campaigns

from World War I through the Korean War.

After World War II,

McArthur ordered the Tokyo Trials,

a military tribunal

to prosecute the leaders of Japan for war crimes,

with the exception of General Yamashita,

who was tried separately

and sentenced to death beforehand.

‐ The Tokyo Trials were meant to be

a rough equivalent of Nuremberg Trials in Germany.

However, as we know, in Germany,

there were several parties at the table.

In Japan, largely, it was the Americans.

‐ Allegedly,

McArthur led an effort during the Trials

to extract intelligence from the Japanese defendants

in exchange for reduced charges

or in some cases even complete exoneration.

‐ So here you have this sudden opportunity.

The Americans are running the Tokyo Trials.

People were looking for ways

to save themselves sand their families,

uh, so deals were being made left and right.

Many Japanese who would give intelligence‐‐

intelligence about military campaigns in Asia,

about communist China, about Soviet Russia,

and intelligence about treasure,

a massive treasure.

That's how someone like McArthur

got access to all this information.

‐ According to Roland,

McArthur alerted President Truman

to the war loot hidden in the Philippines,

effectively launching a covert American operation

to extract the treasure.

‐ You saying General McArthur

all the way to President Truman?

I mean, those are some really bold claims.

Is there any actual evidence to back this up?

‐ Well, you know, actually,

it's kind of extraordinary

how much evidence there is.

Here was a treasure chest

you could dip into without regulation,

without Congressional approval...

‐ Seeing anything?

[ gas detector beeping ]

‐ In the U. S.,

Bingo is learning

that knowledge of Yamashita's treasure

could have reached as far as the Oval Office.

‐ I have here material that quite explicitly shows

that General McArthur was knowingly involved

in capitalizing on this loot that the Japanese had stolen,

uh, but also that he knew how it could be used.

‐ While researching connections

between the U. S. government and Yamashita's treasure,

Roland uncovered recently declassified documents

drafted by General McArthur to President Harry Truman.

‐ This is a report from McArthur.

Now, these documents were not publicly available at the time.

‐ Okay. So declassified‐‐

‐ What we have is declassified information,

and the fact that he has actually found,

uh, this treasure...

and has declared

that, uh, he can keep it.

These are McArthur's words right here‐‐

"We have legal right

"to access all of these valuables,

"precious metals and stones

"belonging to the Japanese government,

and valuables belonging to designated individuals."

So anyone scheduled by SCAP‐‐

Supreme Commander, who is McArthur himself...

‐ Now, he's saying he can legally do that.

‐ Exactly.

If you're the Supreme Commander

of your occupation,

you can declare what the law is.

‐ What did they do with this information?

I mean, they know treasure's out there.

They know there's a great amount of wealth there.

I mean, why was he even interested in this?

‐ World War II may be over,

but America is on the verge of the Cold War.

The USSR and the United States

are building up their nuclear arms,

and it certainly costs money to do the intelligence.

‐ In order to gather this intelligence research,

Truman created the CIA in 1947.

Some speculate

McArthur and Truman pursued Yamashita's treasure

to build a war chest

to finance covert operations against the Soviets.

‐ A fund was developed.

It's a‐‐It's a fund of many names, actually.

Probably the most common are Black Eagle Trust

and also the M Fund.

‐ It's alleged that, for decades,

gold recovered from Yamashita's treasure

launched the Black Eagle Trust Fund

or M Fund,

to finance the most daring covert operations

during the Cold War.

Laundered through 172 banks in 42 countries,

this money was all hidden from Congressional oversight.

‐ Here was a treasure chest

you could dip into without regulation,

without Congressional approval,

without even a vote.

You can decide what you want to do

because you have access to all of this wealth,

and it's off the books.

‐ Is there any evidence to support

how much was in this fund?

‐ [ chuckles ] Yeah. Well, uh,

here was have hard numbers, bank records...

‐ In addition to secret reports from McArthur,

Roland also uncovered declassified bank statements

connecting key members of the general's staff

to large amounts of gold.

‐ And the amount is 20,000 metric tons.

‐ 20,000 metric tons. ‐ Of gold bullion.

These are photos of Marquardt,

who was one of General McArthur's men

and who was the one, uh, whose name

is on what is known as the M Fund,

uh, otherwise known as the Black Eagle Trust.

‐ Mm‐hmm. ‐ The "M" in M Fund

is not McArthur‐‐

uh, obviously, McArthur didn't want his name on it‐‐

uh, but Marquardt,

who was one of McArthur's, uh, lackeys.

‐ Brigadier General William Marquardt

headed up McArthur's Economic and Science Division

during the occupation of Japan after World War II.

It's alleged Marquardt used his position

as a cover to set up these accounts around the world.

‐ McArthur and his cronies, um, they were willing

to do whatever it took to get access,

really, to this buried treasure,

so it means obtaining maps, obtaining information.

Uh, and they would go so far, allegedly,

uh, as to resorting to torture,

uh, in one case,

torturing General Yamashita's limo driver

in order to get information they wanted and needed

to find this buried treasure.

‐ You know, it's interesting you say that

because we've been warned in the past.

I think again, as we get closer,

that concern is just very real.

‐ Well, we know that these guys have done in the past,

uh, from this evidence, um,

these vast amount of money,

uh, attract people who are willing to torture,

uh, and maybe worse,

in order to get their hands on it

or to protect it or to keep it to themselves.

So honestly, if I were you,

uh, I would be very, very careful.

‐ Many believe the Black Eagle Trust Fund

is still used to this day

to finance covert CIA operations,

meaning efforts by the U. S. government

to uncover Yamashita's treasure

may still be going on.

‐ It's a dangerous situation.

‐ Back in the Philippines,

miners Levi and Geo continue digging

around the tunnel collapse.

‐ It's going good.

It's back‐breaking work,

but we've definitely made a lot of progress.

I really hope we're getting close to breaking in,

so once we get inside of there,

I'm excited to see where this tunnel goes.

My greater hope for this tunnel

is that we can get in here, safely catch it all up,

and that it connects to a network

of tunnels inside the mountain

and potentially have treasure in it.

Look at that, Geo.

‐ It fell through!

Oh, yeah. She's open, man!

Nice, dude.

‐ I'm gonna open this hole up a little bigger.

I'll get it to where we can get in there and take a look,

and I'll probably crawl through there

and see how bad of shape it is.

When you go in an old tunnel like this,

there's a lot of different stuff you have to worry about.

We've already dealt with booby traps,

and this is something that we can be dealing with in here.

I'm really hoping, now that we're broke through,

we can find a clear passage up to the waterfall.

‐ Go slow. ‐ Yeah.

[ grunts ]

Ooh.

‐ You seeing anything?

‐ I see some timbers.

‐ Can you tell how far it goes?

‐ No, I can't.

It looks like it's turning a corner.

[ beeping ]

Get out of here!

[ coughing ]

‐ We got into high carbon dioxide in there, man.

Wasn't hardly any oxygen at all back in there.

‐ It's hard to breathe.

‐ The carbon dioxide will overtake.

Overtakes oxygen, you know.

I know from different mines I've worked in

that you will get these pockets of carbon dioxide.

They can be caused by volcanic formations,

and what'll happen is that carbon dioxide is

1 1/2 times heavier than oxygen,

so what it'll do is,

when you get into an area that's confined like this,

it'll actually overtake the oxygen,

and it'll hang about knee height.

You're gonna take one breath,

and you're gonna hit the floor, and you're dead.

‐ After allowing oxygen to cycle into the tunnel,

Levi and Geo go back in

to check the carbon dioxide level.

‐ Keep an eye on that.

I'll let you in front of us.

If you start getting a high gas rating,

we'll shut down.

You can't be complacent when it comes to these gases.

If you don't have a gas detector,

a lot of these gases that'll get you,

like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide,

all these, they're senseless, colorless, odorless.

You won't even know

that they build up in your bloodstream.

They'll slowly build up

to where you're sicker than a dog

and you can't work. Worst case scenario,

you start getting disoriented.

You end up going down. Don't even know what happened.

[ beeping ]

‐ We don't want to go no further than this, Levi.

We got‐‐ Our oxygen's messed up.

[ beeping continues ]

‐ Getting bad?

‐ Well, we've got low readings,

but we don't dare go any further.

‐ Let's get this whiz bang hooked up.

‐ Get this thing ventilating. ‐ Yeah.

Pull these hoses up here, get it hooked up,

and get ventilation in here,

and then we'll get back out of here

for a couple of hours.

‐ They're pumping outside oxygen

into the tunnel

to flush out the remaining carbon dioxide.

[ oxygen hissing ]

‐ Every time we make a head‐‐ little bit of headway here,

we get pushed back two steps.

It's been this way the whole time.

Now we got bad gases.

Hopefully we've given it enough time to ventilate

and get all that gas blown out of there.

‐ At the bore hole site,

the horizontal drill needs to get past the manmade hole

the team encountered on their way to the waterfall,

still 700 feet away.

‐ But with no way to keep water sealed

around the drill as it moves through this open space,

they're worried it could break down.

‐ Because we hit that tunnel down there,

we lost all the water pressure.

In order to reach the tunnel, get the water pressure back,

got to be able to send a sleeve down in there

and sleeve right across the tunnel

so the drill bit can hook up back up on the other wall

and continue going.

‐ Installing a metal sleeve across the hole

will support the weight of the drill,

allowing it to bridge the gap

and continue toward the target.

‐ It's seated. ‐ Yeah.

‐ What happens if we don't make a seal

and get water circulation back?

‐ If this don't work, we're not gonna see nothing

and all this will have been a waste.

This has got to work.

Give it a shot.

‐ All right! ‐ All right! There it is!

Here we go.

‐ Ready to rock now.

We've sleeved over the area

that was the void space that we hit,

and we're back on track

to get to the waterfall void.

That stretch of mountain that we gotta go through,

there's a lot between here and there.

We really got a significant undertaking here.

I hope we get there.

‐ If I tilt it up, I can show

where the ERT's find was collected,

and you see this‐‐ this large resistor.

‐ Yeah, we got to get in there.

I mean, I got to figure out a way to get in here.

‐ Turn your light off real quick, Geo.

I can see daylight. ‐ What is going on?

‐ With progress stalled in Breach 6,

John's revisiting an old site from last year‐‐

the Back Door.

‐ Last time we were at the Back Door,

we had some issues there.

You know, we couldn't really get to the target.

I don't see anything in here.

It's a bunch of rocks.

As much as we tried last year and couldn't get into it,

I think it's pretty significant

that it lines up to McDougald's map.

Now more than ever,

I want to get back down there and revisit this thing.

I think we walked away too soon.

‐ Based on Chuck's map

and confirmation from the drone scout,

Max and Colin gather data about the Back Door,

hoping to find a void space

that could indicate a tunnel or treasure.

‐ We've set up an ERT line,

electrical‐resistivity tomography,

over the top of the Back Door void,

and what that's gonna give us

is, if there's a void space under this area,

air does not conduct electricity at all,

so it's gonna be a big red hot spot

right in the middle of the data.

So using our ERT, seismic,

and hopefully some ground‐penetrating radar,

we'll be able to image that void

and give them a solid target

that, if they drill right where I tell them to,

they're gonna hit‐‐ they're gonna hit the void.

‐ Later that day...

‐ Just to get you oriented,

what are you looking to get

out of this whole, um, data set here?

‐ Basically, we're looking to see

if this Back Door

or there's any relation to this Back Door

to get into this tunnel system.

Well, we collected a ton of ERT over at the site.

And, of the whole area,

this is their whole Back Door site.

If I tilt it up, I can show

where the ERT's find was collected,

and you see this‐‐ this large resistor.

‐ John: Wow.

‐ I suppose it could be a void,

um, but I don't‐‐I don't know.

It's looking like maybe about 6 to 15 feet in height

and maybe 15 to 30 feet across.

‐ Yeah. That's‐‐ You know, that's big enough

to, like, be something.

‐ The shortest way and the most definitive way

to know that you're going in the right direction

is through this spot

right through this resistive blob.

‐ Yeah. We got to get in there.

I mean, I got to figure out a way to get in here.

‐ Using the tech team's GPS coordinates,

Rick and heavy machine operator Steve

search for the spot to access this new void space.

‐ Yeah, it is right‐‐right here.

Right here.

Under our feet is a huge void space, man.

I just need to get a work pad cleared in here.

We can get these boulders moved out.

I need a big, flat work space area here.

Getting all this confirmation about the Back Door

is like finally finding the last piece to the puzzle

that's gonna get us in this mountain.

With the new data that we've got,

we know that that void space comes almost to the surface.

The big hope is that we've found access

into this mountain.

‐ At the tunnel site,

after pumping in fresh air for over five hours...

‐ Hopefully we've given it enough time to ventilate

and get all that gas blown out of there.

‐ ...it's time to get back to work.

[ oxygen hissing ]

‐ All clear to here. Looking good.

‐ Geo's done his checks back there.

All the gases look clear. Oxygen levels are good.

Now we're able to get through this hole

and get everything barred down and start exploring,

we're gonna get back in there,

and we're gonna see where this tunnel goes.

‐ Oh, that ground looks a little shaky.

This ground is really edgy in here, Levi.

I'm through the break‐in,

and on the inside of the tunnel,

the ground is very sketchy.

The rock is super oxidized,

and the timber's just virtually rotted to nothing.

So we're gonna have to be really careful

repairing this thing.

It's gonna be time consuming.

Look at all the clay and mud in the ground.

‐ And it's all held together by this mush.

I think we're gonna have to go slow

when we go through here and bar it down really good.

‐ Yeah. ‐ Take our time

and get as far ahead as we can

to give us an idea of what we have ahead of us, you know?

We just broke through into the old tunnel.

I can see in there. It's not totally collapsed.

I mean, there is some sort of a void.

It's awesome that we hit it.

‐ So how far in here to you think we are?

‐ I bet we're in here 700 to 800 feet now, man.

‐ As the miners head deeper into the old tunnel,

the probe the walls,

looking for any weak rock

which could trigger another cave‐in.

‐ Hey, Geo.

We got another giant wreck.

It's getting worse all the time, man.

Hopefully I can get a hole opened up

and we can see in there.

Hopefully it's not plugged tight.

Turn your light off real quick, Geo.

There's light coming through here.

That's got to be the surface.

‐ What is going on?

‐ On the next "Lost Gold of World War II"...

‐ Rob: Here we go.

I'm gonna send smoke coming out of that opening.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop, stop. What's that right there?

‐ You see this big diamond shape here?

If we can find that, I think we can start to figure out

the rest of this map.

‐ It doesn't make any sense.

It goes from solid rock to sand to solid rock again.

‐ Come on, baby, get in there.

Come on, Steve, push it!

‐ I can't do it, man.

‐ I think maybe I'm just pushing

this whole Back Door thing too hard.

There's got to be a better way in here.

I don't know.

Captioned by Los Angeles Distribution and Broadcasting, Inc.