El Triángulo de las Bermudas es una zona delimitada aproximadamente por Miami, las Bermudas y Puerto Rico. Nadie lleva estadísticas, pero en el último siglo numerosos barcos y aviones han desaparecido sin dejar rastro en el triángulo imaginario. En el pasado ya se habían observado características inusuales de la zona.
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00:00December 1945. A squadron of American military aircraft vanishes off the coast of Florida.
00:10March 1918. A huge US Navy cargo ship heading for Baltimore disappears without a trace.
00:19Over the years, many ships and planes have disappeared in an area of the ocean with an extension of 725,000 square kilometers.
00:28Giving rise to mystery, legends and fear.
00:34It is the Bermuda Triangle.
00:38Now, using new technologies, we can make the waters completely withdraw to reveal a hidden landscape.
00:49We are going to empty the Bermuda Triangle.
00:54We will descend to the depths to explore its darkest corners and to investigate some of its greatest mysteries.
01:04When the waters have completely disappeared, what will we find at the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle?
01:13Bermuda is an oasis of islands 1,050 kilometers from the east coast of the United States.
01:20For centuries, it was a refuge for the ships that crossed the Atlantic.
01:25But the waters that surround it hide a deadly threat.
01:30Apart from being very attractive, they represent a serious threat to the sailors who do not have specific experience in the area.
01:37The name of the Bermudas came to infuse fear in the hearts of the sailors, who gave their main island the name of Devil's Island.
01:46The paradox of this paradise is that it was a ship cemetery during its first two or three hundred years.
01:53As a shipwreck conservator, the work of Philippe Rouya consists of locating and monitoring the historical sites of the archipelago.
02:01And there are enough to keep it occupied.
02:04In fact, up to 300 ships may have sunk in these waters.
02:10But why did they shipwreck so many ships in these clear and crystalline waters, so close to land?
02:21Today, Philippe is going to visit the remains of several shipwrecks that could shed some light on the mystery.
02:28The first is the Mary Celestia, a ship that transported supplies during the American Civil War.
02:45She left Bermuda, followed the south coast and sank here.
02:48Something very curious, because we are 800 meters from the shore.
02:52And it happened on a flat calm day.
02:54It's something really intriguing.
02:56And we're going to try to figure out how this came to be.
03:03The remains are only 15 meters deep.
03:09And you can still recognize the characteristic paddle wheel.
03:17A little further along, following the coast, there is another shipwreck, the Constellation.
03:23And a little further on, another one, the Montana.
03:31In fact, according to Philippe's records, the Bermudas are completely surrounded by sunken ships.
03:39Here there is clearly something that represents a deadly threat to navigation.
03:44To reveal this and other ancient mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle, we need to see what is under the water.
03:56We need to drain the ocean completely, to be able to contemplate an extraordinary landscape,
04:05never seen before.
04:19Now it is possible to observe the depths of the Bermuda Triangle,
04:23thanks to a technology called batimetry, or mapping with sonar.
04:28The method consists of launching a sonar probe,
04:31the signals that bounce in the background reveal the shape and depth of the earth below.
04:37And it is this technology that can help us discover the cause of the hundreds of shipwrecks around the island.
04:47Geologist Nick Hutchings is a prospector of marine backgrounds.
04:51Today, he is going to use sonar batimetry to look for specific underwater formations.
04:56in the areas where some of the shipwrecks occurred.
05:01What we are looking for are mineral deposits that could have formed in extinct hydrothermal fountains,
05:08the so-called black chimneys.
05:14Nick believes that these extinct hydrothermal fumaroles could contain rare metals and minerals.
05:20We would be looking at gold and copper.
05:23In the crusts there may be platinum, cobalt, nickel, and especially rare earths,
05:30which are now very important because they are vital for many modern technologies.
05:36To be able to find these valuable metals, Nick is going to use a sonar multiradio.
05:41The data reveals an extraordinary place in the Bermuda Triangle.
05:45He is going to use a sonar multiradio.
05:48The data reveals an extraordinary underwater landscape around the Bermudas,
05:53including what appears to be the edge of a mountain.
05:56We have a big sort of flat plateau, and suddenly we get to what we call the edge.
06:02And from there the terrain descends in a slope of about 60 degrees to almost 600 meters.
06:08It's a fascinating fact.
06:10But why do we find the edge of a mountain right in front of the coast of Gran Bermuda?
06:16To understand it, we need to see the complete image.
06:21Using the latest data taken with sonar around the Bermudas,
06:26we can empty this entire area completely.
06:32When the water disappears, the small archipelago appears located on top of a colossal mountain,
06:39a 4,000 meter high marine mountain, isolated in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
06:46Mandy Shaila, cartographic analyst at the Government of the Bermudas,
06:51was amazed to learn about this new data.
06:54It's wonderful to have this technology that shows us the image of what's underneath the marine surface.
07:00What we can see here is an incredible view.
07:03It's as if we were standing on top of the Bermuda Mountain,
07:07looking south, towards the Caribbean, towards the Bermuda Triangle,
07:10without a drop of water, with this endless plain in front of us.
07:16It's extraordinary to think that we're here, on this mountain, in the middle of nowhere.
07:26But how did it appear here?
07:29The reason why these islands are here is that there was a very significant volcanic eruption in this place,
07:35relatively isolated from the oceanic plate that has been formed
07:39since the oldest phase of the development of the Atlantic Ocean.
07:43The volcano continued to grow non-stop for millions of years,
07:47until it vertically erupted over the surface of the ocean.
07:52It erupted until it formed a huge volcanic island
07:56that rose 1,000 or 1,200 meters above sea level.
08:00When the volcano extinguished 30 million years ago,
08:03the wind and rain eroded the mountain until it became a flat plateau.
08:08And later, as the sea level rose after the Ice Age,
08:12Gran Bermuda became a small island at the top of a submarine mountain.
08:17On the slopes of this ancient volcano,
08:20reefs were formed that currently surround the Bermudas almost completely.
08:25The reefs are a natural barrier that protects us from the ocean's fury,
08:30but they have also caused the tragic end of many sailors.
08:34These reefs are potentially fatal for ships,
08:38but it is what they hide that represents the greatest threat.
08:42They are the shells.
08:47They are formations created by a type of rocky algae
08:51and by the shells of millions of tiny molluscs.
08:55Together they form an incredibly hard limestone structure
08:59that can rise up to 12 meters above sea level.
09:01And whose edges sometimes appear on the surface with low tide.
09:06These shells are much harder than the reef that surrounds them,
09:10hence they have survived and the processes that created them continue to advance.
09:14And when a ship hits one of them,
09:17whether it is made of wood, metal or other material, the impact is very strong.
09:21Sometimes these shells have sharp tips
09:24and can pierce the hull of a ship like a can opener,
09:28sinking it in a few minutes.
09:31And when they are more treacherous, it is in the calm sea days.
09:35One of the ironies of the shells is that they are more visible when there is a wave and storms.
09:40In fact, the calm sea days are much more dangerous because there is no way to see them.
09:45These shells have been the cause of many shipwrecks in the Bermudas,
09:50including the Mer y Celestia.
09:54This hidden threat surrounds the archipelago as a mortal legacy of its volcanic past.
10:02Draining the Bermudas region has allowed to explain the hundreds of sinkings that have occurred here.
10:09But this is nothing more than a vertex of the gigantic triangle that extends between Bermudas in its north angle,
10:16Puerto Rico in the south and the coast of Florida in the west.
10:22And it was an air mission that departed from Florida after the Second World War,
10:26which gave rise to the best-known myth of the Bermuda Triangle, Flight 19, The Lost Patrol.
10:34Now a team of submariners is going to look for a plane related to the mysterious events of that day.
10:41And if we continue to drain the sea, could we find evidence that contributes to solving the mystery?
10:48December 5, 1945.
10:50Five Avenger planes take off from Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Base in Florida.
10:56Flight 19, according to its codename, is a routine training mission along the Atlantic coast.
11:06In command is US Navy Lieutenant Charles Taylor, a pilot with plenty of experience.
11:13He has conducted dozens of training missions,
11:16but he is not familiar with this coastline in particular.
11:23In the middle of the mission, things get complicated.
11:27Lieutenant Taylor reports problems with the navigation instruments.
11:32The weather conditions worsen rapidly and soon after they disappear without a trace.
11:39A Martin Mariner PBM-5 departs on a rescue mission to try to locate the planes and bring the pilots back home.
11:48The mariner emits a routine message, but then he is never heard from again.
11:57No remains of Flight 19 or the rescue plane were found.
12:04All kinds of strange and fantastic theories have tried to explain the disappearance of these planes.
12:12From extraterrestrial abductions to the effects of electromagnetic fog.
12:19Most likely, the pilots simply got lost, ran out of fuel and fell somewhere in the ocean.
12:27The mariner and Flight 19 had some kind of problem in the area around the Bahamas.
12:36And for the first time, it is possible to empty this area to a depth of about 5,000 meters.
12:46The landscape that is revealed to us is a vast and uniform submarine extension known as the Abyssal Plain.
12:53It is like an immense underwater desert.
12:58So it is easy to understand that no remains of the planes have been found.
13:03But now, 70 years later, it is possible that we are about to find the Martin Mariner rescue plane.
13:14Mike Barnett is a diver specializing in the search for lost planes.
13:20It's been years investigating the mystery of Flight 19.
13:25And now he believes he knows exactly where the Mariner crashed.
13:30I tried to recreate mentally his route, where he could have gone and where he fell into the sea.
13:36The plane left the Naval Air Base of Banana River, traveled north to Cape Canaveral,
13:43and then it drifted off the coast to the search area assigned to it.
13:50We know that about half an hour after takeoff, a freighter reported that it had seen an explosion.
13:57But when a ship arrived in the area, it did not find any remains.
14:01Either the plane sank, or the Gulf Stream took the remains.
14:07Today, Mike and his team are going to start looking for the remains of the missing plane.
14:13The price is about 70 meters deep and about 80 kilometers off the coast.
14:19We think there are some remains there that are worth examining, because it is inside the area.
14:24Although due to the effect of the Gulf Stream, it may be a little further north.
14:32Fishermen in the area say they have seen remains in this area, and Mike is looking for them with the sonar.
14:39We just ran over it, it's pretty small, which is to be expected if it's a plane.
14:45Let's put on our suits and go down to see it.
14:49Down, down, down.
14:55The remains are 69 meters deep.
14:59Mike thinks it may be a plane, but it is still too early to know if it is the mariner.
15:05Visibility at this depth is very limited, and the strong current complicates the search even more.
15:11We know we're close, there are many fish.
15:13The remains of shipwrecks always attract many fish.
15:15Suddenly, the submariners see something in the darkness.
15:19That's the front wheel of the plane.
15:24And a stone shot.
15:27The rusted fuselage of a large plane.
15:31It's very interesting.
15:33Much of the structure is intact.
15:35Typically, over time, there are only small fragments left on the seabed.
15:39So to see something like this is quite spectacular.
15:41Could it be the remains of the rescue plane?
15:47The next step is to take images of any detail that allows you to identify the plane.
15:53In the wings you can see pylons that could have been supports for floaters.
15:58It seems to be the remains of a hydroplane.
16:02The windows to the doors.
16:05It seems to be the remains of a submarine.
16:07And the shape of the horizontal stabilizer matches the photos they have seen of the plane.
16:16Everything indicates that it could be the remains of the rescue plane.
16:20But they have not yet found any conclusive evidence.
16:24It's definitely a plane.
16:26I have to be very careful with what I say.
16:29It's definitely a plane.
16:31It's definitely a plane.
16:33It's definitely a plane.
16:34It's definitely a plane.
16:36I have to be very careful with what I say.
16:38But there are very interesting details.
16:40There are many things typical of a rescue plane.
16:42I want to go back and see the photos and videos in detail.
16:46I'm excited, very excited.
16:48This deserves a more thorough examination.
16:55Mike needs the opinion of an expert to identify the plane.
16:59And he's going to show the images of the immersion to the historian Roy Stafford.
17:03Roy is a former pilot of the US Navy and an authority on American military aircraft.
17:09This is the beginning of the immersion.
17:11We've made our way to the bottom and we swim against the current to the deck.
17:15As you can see, here you can see some debris.
17:18We were hoping to find the Martin Mariner.
17:21But as we were examining the remains, we saw some things that did not fit.
17:26So right now we're not sure what model it is.
17:33Well, judging by the braking system that has the wheel that you see there,
17:37it's a plane after World War II.
17:40I can tell you that.
17:43That obviously looks like part of the cabin.
17:45The top part of the windows.
17:49Roy is 100% sure that these remains do not belong to the Mariner they were looking for.
17:55But if it's not the lost rescue plane, what plane is it?
17:59The answer could contribute to solving another mystery of the Bermuda Triangle.
18:05What we see here is important.
18:08It could be a window for a camera.
18:10Exactly. In fact, we saw several inside.
18:13And they looked a lot. They caught our attention.
18:15You can see it's a twin-engine.
18:17It's clear. There are only two possibilities.
18:19Two pylons, one on each side.
18:22It could be an RB-66, which would not have to be in that area.
18:26Or a Marine 3.
18:28Roy does not take long to conclusively identify the aircraft model.
18:34Without a doubt, it's an A3 Skywarrior.
18:37If we look at the fuselage and the pylons under the wings,
18:42at the details that are seen from the tail,
18:45and that the landing gear is retracted in the fuselage,
18:48everything indicates that it is undoubtedly an A3 Skywarrior.
18:52The A3 Skywarrior was the largest aircraft of the American Navy
18:56that could take off from a aircraft carrier at that time.
19:00And the archives of the Navy collect that in 1960,
19:04one of them sank when trying to land in an aircraft carrier in the area.
19:10It is very likely that the remains that Mike and his team have found,
19:14belong to that A3.
19:17But Flight 19 and the Marine Rescue Aircraft are still lost.
19:23The search continues to find Circa.
19:26We know it's out there, it's just a matter of finding the exact place.
19:31If we could dry the great abyssal plain that surrounds the Bahamas,
19:36almost certainly, somewhere we would find the lost patrol.
19:43And based on the conditions of the remains of other aircraft found on the sea floor,
19:49they could look very similar to this one, after seven decades at sea.
19:57As we continue to empty the triangle of the Bermudas and descending more and more,
20:02we find other strange phenomena.
20:08In the Bahamas, ancient legends speak of sea monsters
20:12hidden in deep underwater caves.
20:15Beasts that devour sailors and ships.
20:18Now science is discovering the extraordinary truth that is hidden behind those legends.
20:35Only 80 kilometers from the Florida coast,
20:38at the western tip of the Bermuda Triangle,
20:41are the Bahamas.
20:43An archipelago of more than 700 islands.
20:48This is where we find one of the most mysterious natural forces of the triangle.
20:56Whirlpools that, according to local legends, can swallow people and ships.
21:02By emptying the ocean up to almost five kilometers deep,
21:06we find an extraordinary landscape.
21:11The Bahamas are located on a vast limestone plateau that rises above the sea floor.
21:16It is known as the Great Bank of the Bahamas.
21:22Hills higher than any known formation on land,
21:26rise up to 5,000 meters, almost three times that of the Great Canyon.
21:32Here myths and legends emerged many centuries ago.
21:39The islands of the archipelago closest to the United States are
21:42Bimini del Norte and del Sur.
21:45Their waters were famous centuries ago,
21:48when pirate ships sailed the seas.
21:53And according to the mythology of the triangle,
21:56in ancient times there was a legendary place here.
22:00Some think that the proof is still submerged five meters
22:04opposite the island of Bimini del Norte.
22:06It is something that looks like a stone road on the seabed.
22:11This strange formation is known as the Bimini Road.
22:15It is so straight and uniform that many underwater explorers
22:19affirm that it has to be human work.
22:22But if they are right, what does a road do at the bottom of the sea?
22:27According to legend, the Bimini Road could be a remnant of the submarine mystery
22:32by this legend.
22:33Bimini could be a remnant of the submarine mystery par excellence,
22:37the fabulous city of Atlantis.
22:43But despite its artificial appearance,
22:46science has shown that they are formations of completely natural limestone plates.
22:54If we drained the waters that cover the Bimini Road,
22:58this is the look it would have.
23:00The door of Atlantis continues in other places in the world.
23:05But this road is not the only strange thing in the waters that surround the Bahamas.
23:10On the Long Island, one of the southern Bahamas,
23:13we find some even stranger geological accidents.
23:20Tom Iliff is a professor of marine biology
23:23and has been studying this region for more than 25 years.
23:26He may not have found the door to Atlantis,
23:29but his discoveries can be just as deep and mysterious.
23:36Right now we're in a very unusual place.
23:39It's called the Grotto.
23:41It's back behind an abandoned Spanish church in the middle of the forest.
23:45This is one of the numerous blue holes
23:48or submarines that are in the Bahamas.
23:50They were formed when the ground gave way
23:53to areas previously emptied by erosion.
23:59A submarine full of salty water,
24:02a mixture of sweet and salty water,
24:05is not what one would expect to find in the middle of an island.
24:08It's very unusual because it contains a large number of very interesting animals.
24:12There is a population of large red shrimps that live in the cave.
24:16In the blue hole, there is a great abundance of underwater life.
24:20The question is, how did this happen?
24:23Where does the salty water come from?
24:26Why is there such a concentration of underwater life?
24:29The answer could be found in another blue hole,
24:32one that is much closer to the coast.
24:37Located a few meters from the sea,
24:40it is a giant hole compared to the Grotto.
24:42Even from the air it is possible to peek into its depths
24:45and extends hundreds of meters below sea level.
24:52It is the Blue Hole of Ding,
24:55the largest and deepest known.
24:59And being one of the people who has explored it the most,
25:02Tom Ayliffe is very aware of the dangers it contains.
25:05There have been cases of people who have been trapped in the cave
25:08and there is a very steep slope of sand.
25:11If you are not careful, a false step on the edge
25:14is enough to slip and fall into it.
25:17Over the years, the Blue Hole of Ding has claimed several lives.
25:21The inhabitants of the area maintain the distances
25:24because of the stories about supernatural events.
25:27In the Bahamas, there is a large number of fish,
25:30and there is a great abundance of fish.
25:33It is the largest and deepest cave in the world.
25:36In the Bahamas, there are many stories and popular legends
25:39about the Blue Holes.
25:42One of them tells that there is a monster,
25:45the Lusca, who lives there,
25:48and that the water that comes in and out of the hole
25:51is the water that inhales and exhales the monster.
25:55There are stories of ships
25:58that got too close to the Blue Hole
26:01and were swallowed by the inhalation of the Lusca.
26:05Incredibly,
26:08Tom has observed whirlpools in the Blue Hole of Ding
26:11like the ones mentioned in the legends.
26:14When the tide was going down,
26:17I saw as many as three whirlpools
26:20sucking water at the same time
26:23on the surface of the hole.
26:26Tom has proposed to find a rational explanation
26:29for this strange phenomenon.
26:32Tides affect the water in the cave,
26:35and the water that comes in and out of the hole
26:38is the water that comes in and out of the Blue Hole.
26:41The only way to find out is by diving.
26:44Tom has been exploring Blue Holes in the Bahamas
26:47for more than 20 years,
26:50but they have never ceased to impress him.
26:53They are portals to another world.
26:56When you dive here,
26:59you enter a unique place on the planet.
27:02Blue Holes are a strange natural phenomenon
27:05that geologists believe to have given an explanation.
27:08During the last glaciation,
27:11the sea level was lower,
27:14so all this limestone rock was on the surface.
27:17Acid rains filtered through the stone,
27:20eroding it
27:23and forming large empty underground vaults.
27:26At some point,
27:28the roof of the vault sank,
27:31giving rise to the characteristic bottle shape
27:34of the Blue Holes.
27:37And later, when the sea level rose again
27:40after glaciation,
27:43the structure was completely submerged.
27:46As soon as you dive into the Blue Hole of Ding,
27:49Tom sees how it suddenly widens.
27:52When we get down to a depth of 18 meters,
27:55the camera has a diameter of about 30 meters.
27:58And as we keep going down,
28:01at about 25 meters, it widens even more,
28:04probably to reach
28:07about 90 meters in diameter.
28:12And at a depth of 36 meters,
28:15Tom sees what appear to be side tunnels
28:18coming out of the main chamber.
28:21They are small, but they exert a powerful suction force.
28:24We noticed some very strong tidal currents
28:26that dragged us.
28:29We only went a few meters,
28:32but when we got out, we had to grab each other's hands
28:35and pull each other to get out of there.
28:38At 45 meters,
28:41Tom reaches the limit of immersion.
28:44He has never ventured lower.
28:47A small number of specialists have done it.
28:50One of them descended to the amazing depth of 202 meters.
28:53But the depths of the cave
28:56are completely unexplored.
28:59Tom is sure that there is much more down there.
29:02Hidden channels that connect different blue holes,
29:05allowing water and marine life to reach the interior of the island.
29:08At deeper depths,
29:11where there is a greater volume of water,
29:14the force of those currents must be enormous,
29:17so great that it is probably impossible to fight it
29:20when the tide begins to act.
29:26But as far as we know,
29:29if we emptied Dean's blue hole,
29:32not only the huge bottle-shaped cave would appear before our eyes,
29:35but also a network of tunnels and cracks
29:38that penetrate the depths.
29:41It is the flow of water
29:44when entering and leaving these tunnels
29:47that generates the whirlpools,
29:50and not a mythical sea monster.
29:53Without a doubt, Dean's blue hole
29:56is absolutely, but completely natural.
29:59The blue holes of the Bahamas
30:02are revealing their secrets little by little.
30:05But there are still many other phenomena
30:08without explanation in the Triangle of the Bermudas.
30:11Strange stories of giant water walls
30:14that suddenly appear.
30:17And a strange substance
30:20that covers parts of the seabed
30:23and that can destroy ships.
30:27March 1918.
30:30A US Navy cargo ship
30:33hits Barbados.
30:36The USS Cyclops is a huge cargo ship
30:39of 19,000 tons.
30:42It carries a load of manganese mineral
30:45and there are 309 men on board.
30:48The next day it enters one of the deepest waters
30:51of the entire Triangle of the Bermudas.
30:53And the Cyclops simply disappears.
30:56No trace of the giant ship
30:59or its crew was found.
31:08For Marvin Barras,
31:11the story is linked to a personal tragedy.
31:14My great-uncle, Lawrence Merkel,
31:17was a fireman on the ship.
31:20He was only 20 years old
31:23when the ship was lost
31:26he always found something.
31:29Part of a lifeboat or part of the cargo.
31:32Some remains of the wreck.
31:35In the end, something always appears.
31:38But in this case, nothing.
31:41The absence of remains of the wreck
31:44did not take long to lead to fantastic theories.
31:47All kinds of bizarre stories appeared.
31:50There was a Washington newspaper
31:53about the disappearance of the wreck.
31:56Others said it had been captured
31:59by a German submarine.
32:02It was even said that it had been
32:05some kind of sea monster.
32:08And there were illustrations of incidents
32:11of that kind in newspapers all over the country.
32:14Marvin has dedicated his life
32:17to investigating what really happened to the Cyclops.
32:20He has examined in great detail
32:23but now he believes he has identified
32:26a potentially fatal weak point in the design of the ship.
32:29She was at one time
32:32the largest and fastest ship of the US Navy.
32:35She had a flat keel, she could turn relatively easily.
32:38On one occasion, she came to tilt about 50 degrees to one side
32:42and 40 and many to the other.
32:45Given these circumstances, most of the ships
32:48would have completely overturned, causing a catastrophe.
32:50Given the tendency of the ship to overturn,
32:53was it possible to turn it over
32:56and make it tilt?
32:59Something extraordinary?
33:02For centuries, sailors have told stories
33:05of wild waves.
33:08Huge walls of water that suddenly appeared,
33:11rolling any ship they found in their path.
33:14The idea of wild waves
33:17has been a material of legends for hundreds of years.
33:20They have been told that they had met them
33:23and that they had survived.
33:26According to Dr. Simon Boxall,
33:29we cannot continue ignoring these old sailors' stories.
33:32Using satellites,
33:35we can observe the entire planet in a few days.
33:38And during the last 20 years,
33:41we have observed and measured wild waves
33:44which sometimes exceeded 30 meters in height.
33:47So they exist.
33:50We have managed to film giant waves.
33:53This one, recorded in the winter of 2012,
33:56crashed against a lifeboat
33:59in the North Sea.
34:02Taking into account the meteorology
34:05of the Bermuda Triangle,
34:08could giant waves occur here
34:11at a similar scale?
34:14We have the North Atlantic,
34:17equatorial storms,
34:20which form regularly,
34:23and we have storms coming from the Gulf of Mexico.
34:26All this together gives rise to a very chaotic and turbulent sea
34:29with wild waves.
34:32So could the turbulent waters of the triangle
34:35produce a wild wave
34:38big enough to sink the Cyclops?
34:41The Bermuda Triangle
34:44has been a place shrouded in mystery for centuries.
34:47Now we are using the most advanced technologies
34:50to make the sea disappear,
34:53dismantling myths
34:56and investigating what really happened.
34:59But sometimes experimental science is enough
35:02to solve an old enigma.
35:05We are at the University of Plymouth in England
35:08and this is the Coast Laboratory wave tank,
35:11one of the most advanced in the United Kingdom.
35:14It can simulate a wide variety of ocean conditions
35:17that can occur in the Bermuda Triangle.
35:20Are wild or giant waves serious?
35:23Let's go to a focal location of 16 meters.
35:26Today, this team of oceanographers
35:29is going to carry out an experiment
35:32to determine if a giant wave
35:35could have sunk a large ship
35:38like the American ship, the Cyclops.
35:41The team places in the tank
35:44a scale model comparable in size to the Cyclops
35:47and they are going to subject it to the effect of a giant wave.
35:50First, they generate a normal wave pattern.
35:54With the equivalent of waves of 8 meters,
35:57the ship remains afloat.
36:02But when they simulate the impact
36:05of two converging storm fronts,
36:08interferences begin to occur in the wave pattern.
36:11And suddenly, as if it sprang out of nowhere,
36:14a giant wave.
36:17It is the equivalent of a wave of more than 5 meters
36:20or 15 meters high.
36:23And its effect on the scale model is more than evident.
36:33This is the proof that, in theory,
36:36a wild wave could have sunk the Cyclops.
36:43But there is another strange phenomenon
36:46that could have caused the sinking of the ship.
36:49To see it, we have to empty even more
36:52the triangle of the bermudas.
36:55On the seabed, more than 350 meters deep,
36:58there are large deposits of a strange
37:01white and porous material.
37:04A single of these spots can cover
37:07a larger area than Manhattan.
37:10It is a substance called methane hydrate.
37:13These methane hydrates are formed
37:15when dead fish, dead plants, plankton
37:18are deposited on the seabed and degraded
37:21by the effect of bacterial and microbial activity.
37:25These images show real agglutinations
37:28of methane hydrates on the seabed.
37:31But methane can also be trapped
37:34in bags under the ocean floor.
37:381981, in the South China Sea.
37:41A ship perforates a bag of surface gas
37:43that explodes.
37:46The large gas bubbles that rise to the surface
37:49affect the stability of the ship,
37:52which turns and ends up sinking.
37:56Any great turbulence that occurs on the seabed,
37:59such as an earthquake or an earthquake,
38:02can release a substantial mass of methane hydrates
38:05that would turn into gas as it rises to the surface.
38:07So a methane hydrate leak
38:10could have caused the sinking of the Cyclops,
38:13even more so considering that its design
38:16was prone to overturn.
38:19But the only way to determine
38:22what really happened to the ship
38:25is to find its remains.
38:28After studying everything I found
38:31about the approximate course
38:34that the ship could take from the starting point,
38:37I came to the conclusion that it would be
38:40a day out of port and should be
38:43in the northwest of Puerto Rico.
38:46Marvin does not lose hope
38:49that one day the remains will be found.
38:52Finding the place where the remains of the Cyclops
38:55and my uncle Abuelo and all those who served with him
38:58would mean a lot.
39:01But if Marvin's calculations are correct,
39:04it would not be easy to recover the ship.
39:07There is a pit that reaches 8 km deep.
39:10It is the Puerto Rico pit.
39:13This is where the deepest point
39:16of the triangle is located.
39:19In fact, it is the deepest point
39:22of the entire Atlantic.
39:25When exploring this gigantic
39:28underwater geological accident,
39:31scientists are discovering that it could hide
39:34the most fearsome of the secrets
39:37of the future.
39:42The deepest part of the Triangle of the Bermudas,
39:45the Puerto Rico pit,
39:48could hide its most destructive secret.
39:51That is why scientists work against the clock
39:54to explore this inaccessible submarine region.
39:57Here, in the remote imaging laboratory
40:00of the National Geographic Society,
40:03a new technology has been developed,
40:05a key to be able to film
40:08in the deep ocean.
40:11It is called DropCam.
40:14Sending a camera to the deepest parts of the ocean
40:17entails several challenges.
40:20When you put anything underwater,
40:23the weight of the water column above it
40:26exerts pressure on that object.
40:29And if we imagine the weight of 8,000 meters of water
40:32above a glass bubble,
40:35the weight of 8,000 meters of water
40:38is equivalent to the weight of the ocean.
40:41After years of development,
40:44its chief engineer, Eric Bergenpass,
40:47is about to test his camera in the ocean in front of Chile.
40:50It has no propulsion,
40:53so a weight sinks the camera to the bottom.
40:56We had a knot in our stomach
40:59at the time of throwing it into the sea by the edge.
41:02When the team released it on the Puerto Rico pit,
41:05it was programmed to spend several hours
41:08on the seabed, return to the surface
41:11and transmit its position.
41:14You feel an incredible relief when you finally hear the VHF signal
41:17from the beacon on the radio transmitter
41:20and you see that the satellite detects it.
41:23These are some of the first real images
41:26of the bottom of the Puerto Rico pit,
41:298 kilometers deep.
41:32The remote image project of the deep ocean
41:35is the largest in the world.
41:38But its images are a series of instants
41:41that capture an area of few square meters in each immersion.
41:44To completely empty the entire Puerto Rico pit,
41:47we need much more data.
41:50The geological service scientist
41:53from the United States, Uri Tenbrink,
41:56is trying to create a complete map of the pit
41:59and believes it is an extremely urgent task.
42:02We started researching this pit
42:05because it is very similar geometrically
42:08to the Sumatra pit,
42:11where the earthquake and the great tsunami
42:14occurred in 2004, and that worries us a lot.
42:17Because a magnitude 9 earthquake
42:20in the Puerto Rico pit
42:23could cause a tsunami that would affect
42:26the east coast of the United States
42:29and even Europe.
42:32Uri's team has deployed submarines
42:35called ROVs to scan the pit
42:38and assess the risk level of a tsunami.
42:41The ROV emits sound impulses
42:44to get as accurate readings as possible.
42:47The 3D map reveals the almost vertical walls
42:50of the gigantic submarine canyons.
42:53In some of the valleys and ridges
42:56we see vertical walls
42:59that can be thousands of millimeters high.
43:02Geologists have known for a long time
43:05that it is possible to sink the edge
43:08of the North American tectonic plate
43:11under the Caribbean plate
43:14and slide against it simultaneously.
43:17But what these new data reveal
43:20is that it could be an area
43:23prone to earthquakes.
43:26They can move rock masses
43:29of many hundreds of square kilometers,
43:32the size of large cities,
43:35and it can even move sometimes.
43:38A submarine landslide of this scale
43:41could threaten the east coast of the United States
43:44with a tsunami like Uri had.
43:47When you think of Boston, Charleston, Baltimore
43:50and all the nuclear power plants along the coast,
43:53you have to prepare for it.
44:01Now, after the Fukushima disaster in 2011,
44:03we know well the consequences
44:06of the impact of a tsunami
44:09against a nuclear power plant
44:12insufficiently protected.
44:15For a tsunami equivalent
44:18to reach the United States,
44:21an earthquake of magnitude 9
44:24would have to occur in the pit.
44:27To calculate the possibilities
44:30of an earthquake of that magnitude,
44:33the results will be an immense relief
44:36for the inhabitants of the North American east coast,
44:39although for those who live closer to the pit
44:42they could be disastrous.
44:45From what we currently know,
44:48we are not sure that earthquakes of that magnitude
44:51may occur, which does not mean
44:54that there may not be large earthquakes
44:57of magnitude 8 or 8.5
45:00that may not reach the North American east coast,
45:03which would cause tremendous damage
45:06in the Caribbean.
45:09It is also possible that an earthquake
45:12originated in the pit caused the release
45:15of methane hydrates, and there is the possibility
45:18that this phenomenon is responsible
45:21for some of the disappearances
45:24that occurred in the area.
45:27The data collected by Uri
45:30has allowed us to empty 800 kilometers
45:33of water in the Atlantic Ocean.
45:36It is surprising that many of the ships
45:39and planes landed in the triangle
45:42have never appeared.
45:45There are spectacular vertical cliffs
45:48of several kilometers high.
45:51It is a truly imposing landscape
45:54at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean,
45:578 kilometers deep.
46:00Draining the waters of the Bermuda Triangle
46:03allows us to see for the first time
46:06an amazing variety of landforms
46:09and some of the strangest phenomena
46:12observed in our oceans.
46:15The myths and legends of the triangle
46:18are deeply rooted in history,
46:21but we have discovered that the dangers
46:24that this region contains
46:27do not seem to be due to any supernatural phenomenon,
46:30but to the very real and fearsome forces
46:33of Mother Nature.