Original subtitles

Could a Nazi shipwreck

lying at the bottom of the Baltic Sea

finally reveal the location of one of the world's greatest lost treasures?

We start thinking, "My God! Maybe it's something important."

Is there an unknown force

capable of snapping ships clean in half

and sinking them with no warning?

How can a ship just break into two pieces?

And who or what is responsible

for a bizarre series of sea lion mutilations...

in the waters around Vancouver?

It was something, in my opinion, that did this deliberately.

The underwater realm is another dimension.

It's a physically hostile place

where dreams of promise can sink into darkness.

I'm Jeremy Wade and I'm searching the world

to bring you the most iconic

and baffling underwater mysteries known to science.

The vast majority of our ocean is unobserved, unmapped, and unexplored.

It's a dangerous frontier that swallows evidence.

You have nowhere to run.

Where unknown is normal and understanding is rare.

Tales of lost treasure have captivated our imaginations for centuries,

but few of these stories are as puzzling

as the disappearance of the Amber Room.

It's the height of World War II

and the Nazis steal a priceless masterpiece from the Soviet Union,

a dazzling room made of amber, gemstones and gold.

When the brutal conflict comes to an end,

all traces of this magnificent treasure are gone.

But now a fresh investigation by a team of divers

suggests that the Amber Room's final resting place

might be deep beneath the Baltic Sea.

June 22, 1941,

Adolf Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union begins.

As they advance,

the Nazis pillage gold, art and other valuable treasure.

High on Hitler's wish list is the Amber Room

located in Leningrad's Catherine Palace.

The Amber Room is often dubbed the Eighth Wonder of the World

such was its absolute magnificence.

Made from huge panels

containing over six tons of prehistoric amber,

gold and precious gemstones,

this extravagant chamber is the envy of the world

and is estimated to be worth up to half a billion dollars

in today's money.

Once captured by the Nazis,

the exquisite amber panels are ripped from the walls,

placed into individual wooden crates

and transported over land from Leningrad

to the port city of Konigsberg.

The tide of war turns

and by 1945, Konigsberg is under siege

and surrounded by the Soviets.

What happens to the Amber Room

during the onslaught is unknown...

but when Soviet troops finally capture the city,

all signs of it have vanished.

She disappeared and nobody knows what's happened.

Where's the Amber Room?

That's the thing. We don't know. It's a mystery.

Many people believe this priceless treasure

was destroyed during the fighting...

but could the Amber Room have survived?

Under the orders of Joseph Stalin

in 1946 the KGB launches a secret investigation.

The Amber Room is one of the great cultural treasures of Russia.

The Germans stole it, the Russians wanted it back.

And they uncover a vital clue.

A set of partially burned letters

emerge from the smoldering ruins of Konigsberg.

Dated January 12, 1945,

they order the immediate evacuation of the treasure.

There's a very strong chance that the Amber Room could have survived the Second World War.

The search shifts to mainland Europe,

deep into abandoned bunkers, caves, and mines.

But have we been looking for this lost treasure in the wrong place?

There have been numerous attempts

to try and find the Amber Room on land, but very few underwater.

The key thing here is to remember exactly

where the Amber Room was being stored. It was in Konigsberg.

The only way to leave Konigsberg at this point in time

was on a vessel going through the Baltic Sea.

What if the Amber Room never made it back to Germany? What if it was sunk en route?

Could this priceless treasure be hidden beneath the waves

waiting to be found on one of the Baltic Seas' many shipwrecks?

To save the soldiers and civilians

trapped by the advancing Soviets...

the Germans launch a huge rescue mission, codenamed Operation Hannibal.

It was the biggest maritime evacuation ever.

Hundreds of ships crisscrossed the Baltic,

running a gauntlet of brutal weather

and Soviet submarine and air attacks.

The Amber Room is an irreplaceable artifact...

and very few ships can be trusted to carry it on this perilous journey.

One of them is the Wilhelm Gustloff.

It was the pride of the Nazi Merchant Fleet.

It was their big status cruise line.

Hitler's very own version of the Titanic,

the Wilhelm Gustloff was designed to take Nazi passengers

on luxury pleasure cruises.

But with Germany losing the war,

the ocean liner is sent to help with the evacuation.

As German refugees pour on board,

another cargo arrives at the dock.

It also picks up crates which are under armed guard.

And you have to ask yourself,

why would you need armed guards

if there isn't something incredibly valuable in those crates?

A rumor spreads and some of the passengers on the ship suspect

they hold the Amber Room.

The Wilhelm Gustloff departs in a blistering winter snowstorm.

They do not expect any Russian attack during this terrible weather.

But the defenseless cruise liner isn't alone.

It's torpedoed by a Soviet Submarine and it sinks very quickly.

It was the beginning of a huge, huge, disaster.

Most of the lifeboats are frozen solid to their fittings...

triggering a calamity of catastrophic proportions.

This proves to be the greatest loss of life ever in maritime history.

9,500 people lost their lives.

The wreck of the Wilhelm Gustloff

is the site of one of the greatest tragedies of World War II...

but could it also be the final resting place of the Amber Room?

The mission to find out begins in the 1960s

when Polish divers pinpoint the location of the wreck.

But as the outline of the ship looms in front of them

something isn't right.

The strangest thing was that this supposedly unknown wreck,

this un-dived wreck had had a lot of diving activity on it.

It appeared that there was much more post war damage to it.

That the vessel was destroyed, dynamited.

If the Amber Room was in the wreck,

someone has beaten the Polish divers to it.

The disappearance of the Amber Room

is one of World War II's greatest unsolved mysteries.

But when divers narrow down the search

for this lost treasure to a shipwreck in the Baltic Sea,

they find someone has beaten them to it.

Who got to the Wilhelm Gustloff first, and why did they ransack it?

Suspicion falls on the Soviets.

They are the navy in the region

who had the technology before the 1960s

to actually do this kind of investigation.

Some people believe the Russians knew the Amber Room was on board

and launched a secret mission to retrieve it.

But if this was the case,

why wouldn't they announce the rediscovery of this beloved national treasure?

Finding the Amber Room, if they had managed to find it,

would have been a tremendous coup for the Soviet Union.

A survivor's testimony emerging decades later

suggests they may have recovered

a different kind of Nazi treasure.

Rudi Lange, who is a survivor of the sinking of the ship

and the radio operator,

he came out in the 1980s and said, "Nope, sorry. There was no Amber Room."

He said that those crates were being guarded

because they were full of gold.

Could the Amber Room have actually been loaded into a different ship?

Have we been hunting in the wrong place all this time?

Now, a team of Polish researchers thinks this might be the case.

I'm absolutely sure they do not use Wilhelm Gustloff for this mission.

Led by Tomasz Stachura,

the team has identified a standout alternative ship...

the SS Karlsruhe.

Records indicate this ship was heavily laden

with up to 360 tons of cargo.

The Hannibal operation focused on civilians and on the soldiers,

so it was not very common to take some cargo.

And there's another key detail

that makes the Karlsruhe such an enticing candidate.

It was the very, very, last ship to leave Konigsberg

before the Soviet Forces arrived.

So maybe in a panic, the Germans placed the Amber Room,

the gold, the gems, the wealth, on this last ship.

But the ship doesn't get far

before it's spotted and attacked by Soviet torpedo bombers.

One aircraft bomb was sent directly to the Karlsruhe

and she sunk in three minutes.

To find out what the Karlsruhe was carrying,

Tomasz and his team first need to find its wreck.

So hunting these ships is not a quick process.

It can take years.

To aid the search, they deploy a multi-beam echo sounder.

They create more of a three-dimensional image

rather than a two-dimensional image of what's on the seabed.

It's a pretty fantastic technology.

We're very lucky because we found the ship

which was exactly the same size.

Oh, my God! Maybe we find Karlsruhe, yes?

But the only way for the team to know for sure

is to dive the wreck themselves.

We start to be absolutely sure that we found Karlsruhe.

We start to see more and more details

and our eyes was bigger and bigger

because we were absolutely surprised.

I am a diver of 40 years

and I never ever saw so many artifacts,

so many chests, so many trucks and motorcycles, guns...

But are there any signs of treasure on board?

We were convinced that maybe we can find one or two crates,

but in one day we find 15 of them, one-five.

It's seeing your presents on Christmas morning.

You don't know what's in them,

but you notice something cool ready to be unwrapped.

Some of the crates have spilled open

giving a tantalizing glimpse of their contents.

The divers can see what looks like

the remains of canvas and frames.

If they've got very fine expensive artwork on board the Karlsruhe

then maybe also that could be where the Amber Room is.

Tomasz and his team plan to return to the wreck of the SS Karlsruhe in the near future.

With special permission from the Polish government,

they plan to salvage some of the unopened crates.

Their contents could reveal the location the long-lost Amber Room

and finally solve one of the greatest mysteries of World War II.

It's 2020 and the picturesque beaches of Vancouver, Canada

are about to become the setting of a series of shocking discoveries.

Over the course of just a few months

the remains of several sea lions are found.

All their heads are missing, removed and separated from the rest of the body.

Whatever is behind these brutal attacks remains at large,

but can the growing list of suspects help solve

these bizarre animal mutilations?

CTV News, Vancouver Island report.

Good evening. Thanks for being here.

A stellar sea lion has washed up on a beach

near Campbell River without its head.

The recent reports of these grisly remains

have gripped the local population...

but it isn't the first time this has happened.

Over the past ten years,

countless other headless sea lions have been found,

dotted at different locations around the Vancouver area.

I cannot imagine the horror that must have been experienced

to come upon a sea lion

that has been decapitated on the beach.

Are all these deaths connected?

Is there a sea lion serial killer on the loose?

More worrying still,

whatever is happening to these sea lions appears to be spreading...

and several seals have been found in a similar state.

I'm no stranger to unexplained animal attacks...

and I've spent many years on the trail of unknown killers

that lurk beneath the surface.

So far, this case has defied explanation.

So I'm eager to hear first-hand evidence for myself.

In 2016, Vancouver resident, Dave Stewart

is walking his dog on a local beach.

I've come back to it. I just found this on the beach.

This seal's head's been completely sheared off.

Completely taken off.

It's almost, it almost looks fake in a way,

but like this is a, it's a real seal.

I've never seen anything like this ever.

It was fresh, like sushi.

Blood was coming out of the neck, dripping out fresh. You can see this in the video.

Dave, are there any signs of what might have done this?

You can see really nothing disturbed in the sand,

certainly not around the seal itself of drag marks or anything.

It was just sitting there like it had been placed.

And can you tell me any details

about the wounds around the neck?

Though it was something, in my opinion, that did this deliberately...

not only is it, does it look like it's been sliced,

but in one section it looks like it's been gnawed at.

It seems the heads of these animals

are being intentionally targeted

and taken by something... or someone.

Sea lions are huge animals.

They can typically weigh over 2,500 pounds

and they can range up to 12 feet in length.

There aren't many other animals which can take them out.

But there is one leading suspect.

Some people think these attacks could be the work of a known killer.

When a series of decapitated sea lions

are found on the beaches of Vancouver, Canada,

the general public and law enforcement are equally baffled.

Could a ferocious predator known to frequent these waters

be responsible for these strange animal deaths?

Killer whales, also known as orcas,

frequently attack other kinds of marine mammals.

It's been documented that they catch sea lions

and sea lion pups and play with them.

Literally, it looks like they're playing ocean volleyball.

It could be forceful enough

to cause, literally, a separation of some body parts.

But these highly intelligent hunters

may have a more specific motive.

Killer whales will kill blue whales and fin whales

and eat their tongues because they think they're tasty.

Has some killer whale got the taste for sea lion heads?

But are killer whales really to blame

or are they just an easy scapegoat?

While killer whales are known to play with their food,

there's no documented cases of killer whales

actually ripping the heads off their sea lion prey.

The fact that these sea lions have simply been decapitated

and none of their juicy blubber consumed

leads me to think that it was not a natural predator

such as sharks or killer whales.

With suspects thin on the ground,

the case is in danger of going cold.

But several of the sea lion carcasses

hold an easily overlooked clue,

what appear to be gunshot wounds.

Fishermen have an uneasy relationship with sea lions

because they're competing with these sea lions for the same fish stock.

In recent years, stocks of wild salmon have plummeted

in the Vancouver area.

The reasons why are complex,

but an overpopulation of sea lions is sometimes blamed as the cause.

They eat a lot of fish.

They have a habit of breaking nets.

This can all make local fishermen very upset.

And there have been documented cases

where some fishermen have injured, shot,

um, taken out sea lions, which is really unfortunate.

But if some fishermen are shooting these sea lions,

why would their heads also be missing?

They're protected. They should not be harmed.

Harming a sea lion is breaking the law.

The penalty for harming a sea lion in Canada

is a massive fine of half a million dollars

or a potential two-year jail sentence.

Fishermen could be shooting the sea lion in the head

and then decapitating it to remove evidence of the fact

that they shot the sea lion.

If you cut off the head, you of course remove the evidence

of it having been shot and you create a mystery.

With mounting evidence

that humans are behind Vancouver's decapitated sea lions,

this decade-long mystery might finally be solved.

And with citizens and law enforcement on high alert,

hopefully it's only a matter of time

before those responsible are brought to justice.

In 2015, scientists are mapping the bottom of Lake Constance, Switzerland

with state-of-the-art sonar scanners

when they detect an unexpected anomaly.

Beneath the surface, they find 170 large stone mounds

that form an incredible unbroken chain

running for six miles parallel to the shore.

No one knows who or what created this inexplicable formation of rocks,

but can fresh scientific analysis

shed new light on this megalithic mystery?

The discovery of this strange configuration

of underwater rocks in Lake Constance

is soon picked up by the European press

who dub it the Swiss Stonehenge.

These are very strange piles of stone.

They're 100-foot wide and 5-foot high.

Each pile is made up of thousands of individual large stones.

There are many, many, of them

and they stretch six miles around the coast.

When archaeologists are confronted with an anomaly,

the first thing we ask ourselves is,

"Is this a man-made structure or is this a natural formation?"

So one reason for thinking

these might just be natural arrangements of stone

is that if you look at the total weight,

you see 78,000 tons of rock.

If these stones had been put there by hand,

then that would have taken an incredible effort.

What natural force could be capable of moving and assembling this formation?

Glaciers may appear static when you look at them from the outset

but they are, in fact, constantly moving.

As these huge walls of ice advance and retreat,

they have the power to carve out valleys

and move huge amounts of stone.

These stones can find themselves left behind

when the glacier retreats.

Twenty thousand years ago,

glaciers covered a vast area of the Alps

including present day Lake Constance.

So could the Swiss Stonehenge have been formed by a glacier?

To put this theory to the test,

the mapping team turn more high-tech equipment on the underwater stones.

Scientists use GPR, or ground penetrating radar, to survey the site.

It gives them an idea of any structures that are below the surface.

The data it beams back reveals something totally unexpected.

The Swiss Stonehenge sits well above the mineral deposits

left by the retreating glacier,

meaning these stone mounds were placed here

thousands of years later and are man-made.

What on earth are they?

It's a real mystery.

When scientists discover that a strange formation of rocks

beneath the surface of a lake in Switzerland is man-made,

it raises more questions than it answers.

78,000 tons of stones are involved.

If it was man-made, it would be a monumental effort.

In 2019, archaeologists returned to the site

with the mission of unlocking its secrets.

If they find out when these structures were built,

it might help reveal who made them and for what purpose.

The team dig trenches and take core samples around the rocks

which they date back at the lab.

It would appear as though these enigmatic stone piles

uh, were placed there over 5,000 years ago.

These stone platforms date to the Neolithic

and they're actually older than Stonehenge itself.

When we're talking about the Neolithic period,

they're doing all sorts of weird

and wonderful things with giant rocks

and we can see that across Europe.

But the underwater location of these Stone Age structures

makes them particularly unique

and their purpose all the more puzzling.

Could the answer lie in the close proximity of the stone piles

to the water's edge?

They do bear a striking resemblance

to similar platforms in the outer Hebrides in Scotland,

and those platforms are village sites.

Known as crannogs, these artificial rock islands

are believed to be the sites of ancient wooden houses.

This house was built on this lake

because it provided them with a ready source of food and a ready source of safety.

But unlike the crannogs in Scotland,

the Swiss mounds don't have any telltale signs of the bridges

that would have been necessary to connect to dry land.

Their absence opens the door

to an entirely different possibility.

What if these stone piles weren't built in water after all?

Lake levels go up and down

and actually, we know that during the Neolithic period,

the lake levels would be much lower than they are today.

So therefore, the stones could have actually been on dry land.

If they were built on dry land,

what purpose could these rounded stone circles have served?

Researchers have long speculated

that other ancient sites have a hidden celestial meaning.

There's various arguments about the Pyramids of Giza lining up with Orion,

and, of course, Stonehenge is most famously associated with various star maps.

We know that Neolithic people were interested in the seasons

and measuring these things.

Could the Swiss Stonehenge be some kind of star map

or seasonal measuring tool?

Turns out this long line of underwater stones

appears to line up with the sunrise and sunset on the 21st of June,

which happens to be the longest day of the year.

The stone formations discovered in Lake Constance are fascinating

and they remain a mystery.

One theory states that they were designed to align to different solar phenomenon.

The stone piles do seem to line up

with the sunrise and sunset on the 21st of June,

the northern hemisphere's summer solstice.

Initial thoughts are, "Yes, these align.

That's really exciting. We're seeing something."

But actually when they start surveying

more and more of them, that pattern just disappears.

So the Swiss Stonehenge doesn't match with the stars,

but that doesn't mean its purpose wasn't aimed at the heavens.

In my opinion, the most likely explanation for these incredible stone piles,

um, is that there was some kind of monument

to do with funerary rights or religion.

Throughout our entire history,

humans have built magnificent monuments to mark death

and our passage to the afterlife.

But how might the Swiss Stonehenge have been used in this way?

We see quite a few megalithic structures dating to the Neolithic

and some across this region as well, which act as tombs.

But no bones or chambers have been found

inside the stone piles.

Could the remains of the dead have been placed on top of the rocks instead?

They may have actually been some sort of burial platform.

These mounds might have acted as altars for water burials

where bodies are placed on the rocks in shallow water...

and left to be decomposed by the lake.

It's a very complicated scenario

and we need to investigate more,

because ultimately what this site is, is a mystery.

So the true purpose of the Swiss Stonehenge remains unknown

and some people believe we may never reveal its secrets,

but similar searches of Switzerland's other alpine lakes

are already taking place

and future discoveries may reveal more

about this baffling underwater wonder.

Each year, dozens of cargo ships

crossing the world's oceans vanish for unknown reasons.

Some of these vessels disappear so quickly,

they take all clues as to why they sank with them.

But can a terrifying viral video shed new light

on what's causing some ships to sink without a trace?

It's January 2021

and the MV Arvin is at anchor in the Black Sea

close to the northern coast of Turkey.

As the cargo ship rides rough swells, disaster strikes.

Mayday! Mayday!

This must be a truly, truly, terrifying experience.

The crew are on a ship that's been torn in two.

Mayday! Mayday! This is cargo vessel Arvin.

Mayday! Mayday!

Arvin..

There was no warning signs and that to me was just like,

"Holy cow! People are going to die on this thing."

The ship sinks within a matter of minutes

disappearing beneath the waves in two pieces.

Only six of its 12 crew managed to be saved,

managed to escape.

How in the heck can this happen?

You know, this thing's made out of steel.

It's, you know, welded, it's put together.

What would break a ship?

The footage is chilling,

but what causes this sudden and deadly disaster?

We know how dangerous the Black Sea can be

at certain times of the year

and with certain weather conditions.

The strong winds that sweep across the region

are capable of whipping up waves as high as 60 feet.

But in rough seas, it's not just a huge single wave

that can pose a threat to ships.

As the ship travels through rough, rough seas,

you can get quite dynamic stresses

being applied to the ship's heart.

The hull is actually bent here

and there depending on the power of the waves,

depending on which way the waves are going.

A particularly dangerous scenario can unfold

when the front and back ends of the ship are riding two different waves

leaving the weight at the center of the ship unsupported.

This phenomenon is known as sagging

and in severe weather conditions it's been known

to seriously damage or even sink ships.

The question is, are the wave conditions alone

enough to explain why the MV Arvin broke in two?

On the day it snaps in half,

the Arvin is experiencing choppy conditions

but it's nothing out of the ordinary for the Black Sea.

This puts stress on the hull, but the ship's designed to take it.

Ships only get pushed beyond these limits

in the most extreme weather...

which has led some people to believe

there could be more going on than meets the eye.

Did something below deck cause this disaster?

When a cargo ship snaps in two in the Black Sea

and sinks in a matter of minutes,

people look to the rough seas for an explanation.

But could the true cause of this maritime disaster

lie below deck, in the belly of the ship?

The contents of the ship, the cargo and how it's been stowed

and the weight of the cargo of course as well, is also really important.

Is this ship transporting anything dangerous in its hold?

The MV Arvin is carrying urea which is a granular substance

and it's not normally considered hazardous.

Urea is an inert and non-flammable product

often used as fertilizer...

but even supposedly safe cargos like this

can turn deadly in the wrong conditions.

When cargo ships are loaded,

the weight needs to be distributed evenly.

An unbalanced ship can list or tilt dangerously once at sea...

and in worst-case scenarios, it can even capsize.

But could an unstable cargo hold the power to rip a ship in two?

Unlike container ships

which can have thousands of separate metal boxes,

the Arvin is a bulk carrier.

MV Arvin had four separate holes to put their cargo in.

It's dry bulk cargo.

Huge loose loads such as grain or sand

are poured directly into the ship.

A rare poorly understood phenomenon can strike at sea

that instantly transforms these safe dry heaps of material

into a deadly ship-sinking force.

If liquid or water is introduced into a dry bulk cargo

it can become semi-liquefied,

basically turn into a mushy jelly or pudding

and start sliding around.

This is known as liquefaction.

If small coarse substances like sand contain moisture,

with enough disturbance or vibration,

the molecules can become energized and instantly change state.

For ships at sea,

this can lead to devastating consequences.

The liquefied cargo can then move around freely within the hold of the ship

which can wreak havoc with the ship's weight distribution.

Does the Arvin's cargo turn to liquid

and slosh dangerously around inside the ship...

causing a weight overload that snaps the vessel clean in two?

For this to be the case,

moisture must have found a way into its watertight cargo holds.

That vessel was old. It was almost 50 years old.

They actually did an inspection on it

and they were complaining about the rust on the deck,

the poor maintenance of the vessel.

Did water seep through the Arvin's rusty bulkheads,

enter the cargo holds and help trigger this disaster?

This vessel being as old as it was,

I think had something to do with it.

The footage captured on the MV Arvin

provides a rare chilling glimpse

of the final moments on board a doomed ship.

Cargo liquefaction could have played a key role in this tragic event

and it's thought up to ten cargo ships a year could be lost

due to this poorly understood phenomenon.

Footage like this is helping scientists and shipbuilders

better understand its causes and consequences

and their urgent work could help prevent more disasters in the future.