Imagine stumbling upon a hidden treasure trove beneath the waves—well, that’s exactly what archaeologists just did! They found 250 sunken ships packed with gold, silver, and other valuables, lost for centuries beneath the sea. These ships belonged to traders, explorers, and maybe even pirates, each carrying priceless cargo before meeting their watery fate. Some of the gold is so well-preserved that it still shines, untouched by time! Experts are now carefully studying these wrecks to uncover their stories—where they came from, who owned them, and how they sank. This incredible discovery could rewrite history and bring long-lost treasures back to the surface! Animation is created by Bright Side.
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This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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FunTranscript
00:00A Portuguese archaeologist just discovered a bunch of sunken ships filled with gold,
00:06including a Spanish galleon with 22 tons of gold and silver.
00:11This much gold today is worth about $2 billion, and this is the money from one ship alone.
00:20Archaeologist Alexandre Monteiro made this discovery almost by accident.
00:25He was studying some documents when he found some information about a ship that went missing
00:29in 1615, and he decided he wanted to find it.
00:34After many years, Alexandre found not just this specific ship.
00:38He actually discovered 8,620 shipwrecks in the waters of Portugal alone.
00:46Out of this number, 250 are gold-filled shipwrecks, a discovery that would make any Jack Sparrow
00:52shake in his boots.
00:54Most of these ships went down for boring reasons like the weather, but sometimes they were
00:59destroyed in battles, which may or may not have been super epic.
01:04They were carrying gold and other treasures from the New World to Europe, and of course,
01:09everyone wanted a share.
01:12Alexandre had been studying historical shipwrecks for 30 years now, so he has discovered many
01:17ships that went down in somewhat glorious ways.
01:21In 1816, for example, a ship of one of the richest men in Portugal sank in Australia,
01:27with an insane amount of 66,000 silver coins.
01:32This was the first ship from Portugal to ever plunge in the waters of Australia.
01:37The bad news is that these ancient sunken vessels, filled with riches and epic stories,
01:42are not so easy to reach.
01:45They're deep down in the ocean and covered by sand.
01:48You could still try, but that would be stealing part of a country's history, and you wouldn't
01:52want to be that person, would you?
01:55Naturally, Portugal was not the only country that explored the seas back then.
02:00The coast of Europe is packed with sunken ships filled with gold.
02:05In fact, there are about a million historical shipwrecks underwater right now, and the treasures
02:10abandoned under the sea might be worth around $60 billion.
02:16It's an insane amount of money, but let me tell you that these gold-filled sunken ships
02:20aren't really worth the hassle.
02:23There are many stories of maritime treasure discoveries that turned into insane lawsuits
02:28and even long jail time.
02:32Our first story starts in 1746, when a violent storm crashed a ship called Prince de Conti
02:39near an island in Britain.
02:41The ship was filled with tea, ceramics, and 100 gold ingots.
02:47Of course, the owners of the ship tried to save the loot, but if it's not easy now,
02:51imagine how it was back in the 18th century.
02:55It took more than 200 years for the vessel to be found.
02:59It finally happened in 1975, when a group of French men discovered it and decided to
03:04take pretty much every valuable thing they could find.
03:07Now, I said these things were not worth the trouble for a reason.
03:12In France, if you find anything that can be historical, you must declare it to the local
03:16authorities within 48 hours.
03:19If you fail to comply, then you will be committing something known as a crime.
03:25To be fair, our French friends here did declare their findings, but only the corroded cannons
03:29from the ship.
03:31And the gold?
03:32Well, they sold it, obviously because each gold bar is worth between $125,000 to $231,000.
03:42It took French authorities almost 50 years to retrieve the stolen gold, and they didn't
03:47retrieve all of it.
03:49Part of it was bought by an elderly couple living in Florida, and the crime is so serious,
03:54they were charged for connection with money laundering, organized crime, and the trafficking
03:58of cultural goods.
04:00The poachers also sold some gold ingots to the British Museum collection.
04:05Now, let's go back to the 1850s, when a steamer called SS Central America traveled
04:12from Panama to California and back again.
04:16This was during the Californian Gold Rush, a time when 300,000 people moved to California
04:22to dig for gold.
04:24Because the travel route was not easy breezy, people needed to carry their gold around on
04:28big ships.
04:29This is where our friend SS Central America comes in.
04:34In 1857, the ship had 578 people on board and about 10 tons of gold.
04:40Very few survived, and around $100 to $150 million in gold went down with the ship.
04:48All of this explains why in 1988, a group of investors from Columbus decided to finance
04:54a research project to find this ship.
04:57The research was led by a guy named Tommy Thompson.
05:01Tommy was really crazy about the idea of finding this sunken ship filled with gold.
05:06It took him years to find the exact location of the SS Central America, especially because
05:12the ship was 7,500 feet beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean and retrieving it required
05:18a lot of fancy tech.
05:21A group of 161 investors paid for his adventure, but it goes without saying that they were
05:27not doing this out of love from their hearts.
05:30They invested $12.5 million in this project because they were expecting to earn at least
05:3610 times more.
05:38But since life is not all sunshine and rainbows, 39 insurance companies sued the research team
05:44as soon as they retrieved the gold.
05:47Back when the ship was up and running, these companies insured the cargo of the SS Central
05:51America.
05:52And when the cargo was finally retrieved, more than 100 years later, they wanted to
05:57be compensated.
05:59They said it was not their job to retrieve it, but that doesn't mean they abandoned
06:03it.
06:04But this crazy talk didn't stick, and 92% of the gold was given to the research team.
06:10The plot thickened when the investors were scammed by none other than Tommy Thompson,
06:14who fled with $4.16 million.
06:18He also had 500 gold coins, but he's not telling a soul where they are.
06:25Nonsense like this is the reason why most countries have rules to protect cultural properties.
06:30And yes, sometimes shipwrecks can be a cultural property.
06:35Obviously, there are many maritime treasure discoveries that happen without breaking any
06:40laws.
06:41The SS City of Cairo, for example, was a steamship that submerged in 1929 with 2,000 boxes of
06:48silver coins weighing 122 tons.
06:52A company called Deep Ocean Search retrieved the coins from a depth of 17,000 feet, which
06:59is 4,500 feet lower than the Titanic.
07:03£34 million went to the UK Treasury, and the Deep Ocean Search also got a share.
07:11The good news here is that some of the coins can be bought by collectors, legally.
07:16Paying for a treasure is probably the closest you can get to an underwater archaeology find.
07:23I know all I did was destroy your piracy dreams, but while raiding gold-filled shipwrecks may
07:28be a crime in most countries, or just financially impossible for us mere mortals, not all hope
07:34is lost.
07:36There is about $771 trillion worth of gold lying on the ocean floor, and it doesn't
07:42have an owner.
07:43It's like an underwater gold mine, except the gold is IN the water!
07:49You know how the water of the ocean is salty?
07:52Well, the gold gets mixed with the minerals in the water, so it's not like you stumble
07:56upon a gold nugget on the beach.
07:59Each litre of ocean water has 13 billionths of a gram of gold, and it's very difficult
08:05to extract such tiny particles of gold from the water.
08:09But that doesn't mean people haven't tried, and of course, there's been a scam here too.
08:16In the 1890s, a guy claimed he had invented a thing that would suck gold from the seawater.
08:23When he got enough money, he fled the country with the cash.
08:27If you really want to get some gold, you can try to extract it from the Earth's core,
08:32which has 1.6 quadrillion tons of gold.
08:36There's 16 times more gold in the Earth's core than what humans have mined in the whole
08:41of history.
08:42No hoax involved here, because nobody has dared to go down there yet.
08:48With archaeologists discovering gold-filled sunken ships out and about, maybe we can make
08:53our own maritime treasure discoveries!
08:56Or at least save enough money to buy some silver coins!