75 Intriguing Facts to Liven Up Any Conversation

Bright Side

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Transcript

00:00:00Remember the Neanderthals?

00:00:02Our superstar humanoid cousins of the Pleistocene Era

00:00:05in all their wide-nosed and slope-foreheaded glory?

00:00:08They roamed through Europe and Asia

00:00:10for over 350,000 years before they vanished.

00:00:14This was around the same time our ancestors, the Homo sapiens,

00:00:17decided to take a vacation from Africa and explore the world.

00:00:20We may never know what truly happened to the Neanderthals

00:00:23and why they didn't make it to the present times,

00:00:26but thanks to some hefty archaeological digging

00:00:28and impressive fossil finds,

00:00:30we now know a bit more about them.

00:00:33One theory for their disappearance

00:00:35is that the climate wasn't suitable for them anymore.

00:00:38Supporters of this idea think Mother Nature

00:00:40turned on the Neanderthals and sent them packing.

00:00:43Unfortunately, if we look at Neanderthal archaeological sites

00:00:46in Italy, for example,

00:00:48there are no signs of weather catastrophes

00:00:50that could have wiped out this entire species.

00:00:54Others believe there was a bit of resource competition

00:00:56between Neanderthals and humans.

00:00:58That's why specialists also dug around

00:01:00several other archaeological sites

00:01:02where Neanderthals and sapiens

00:01:04might have rubbed elbows for about 3,000 years.

00:01:07In this case, it does seem that the Neanderthals

00:01:09were a bit behind with their tools.

00:01:12Their technology was like flip phones in the age of VR.

00:01:15But who knows if these two species

00:01:17ever crossed paths in that particular region.

00:01:20The evidence is still fuzzy.

00:01:22How they went extinct isn't the only information

00:01:24we're curious about when it comes to Neanderthals.

00:01:27Other scientists, for instance,

00:01:29are trying to decode some of the Neanderthal

00:01:31molecular barcodes to identify their specific traits,

00:01:35some of which you might share, believe it or not.

00:01:38Sure, Neanderthals as a whole species did,

00:01:40in fact, go extinct.

00:01:42But that's not to say remnants of their DNA

00:01:44can't be found in humans.

00:01:46Now, you know how things go when folks live near each other.

00:01:49Some genetic mixing was bound to happen.

00:01:51The evidence?

00:01:53A dash of Neanderthal DNA which was found in modern folks.

00:01:56Now, this is where the plot thickens.

00:01:58Scientists thought that since Neanderthals

00:02:00never lived in Africa,

00:02:02their DNA wouldn't be found in modern African populations.

00:02:05Well, it turns out that African people

00:02:07have about 0.5% Neanderthal DNA too.

00:02:11This doesn't mean our Neanderthal relatives

00:02:13simply teleported through African territories

00:02:15without leaving any trace behind.

00:02:18What this discovery actually implies

00:02:20is that early humans might have visited Europe,

00:02:23mixed their genetic material with that of Neanderthals,

00:02:26after which they returned to Africa.

00:02:28That's a lot of migration.

00:02:31How did we stumble upon that Neanderthal DNA these days,

00:02:34you might wonder?

00:02:36Well, scientists gathered thousands of people

00:02:38from all around the world.

00:02:40Participants came from places like East Asia,

00:02:42Europe, South Asia, America, and Africa.

00:02:45Percentages may vary, sure,

00:02:47but around 20% of the good old Neanderthal DNA

00:02:49is still found in U.S. modern folks.

00:02:52Sure, the average Joe only carries about 2%

00:02:54of that caveman swagger.

00:02:56If you're from certain places or families

00:02:58that have a smidge more Neanderthal in their gene soup,

00:03:00you're looking at 3% tops.

00:03:04Is there anything in particular that we share

00:03:06with our long-gone humanoid cousins?

00:03:08As it turns out, our Neanderthal ancestors

00:03:11gifted us more than just their company

00:03:13for some thousands of years.

00:03:15They also passed down the incredible legacy

00:03:17of their noses.

00:03:20Well, you see, the Neanderthals were outfitted

00:03:23with some seriously high-rising sniffers.

00:03:26These weren't just cosmetic,

00:03:28they were also quite the asset in chilly climates.

00:03:31The icicle-dripping, teeth-chattering kind of cold

00:03:34where your breath could freeze before it leaves your lips.

00:03:37During those days, the Neanderthal noses

00:03:39worked as personal heaters,

00:03:41warming and humidifying the cold, dry air they inhaled.

00:03:46For that kind of extreme weather,

00:03:48these impressive nasal skyscrapers

00:03:50turned out to be quite handy.

00:03:52When our Homo sapiens ancestors decided

00:03:54to leave the sunny savannas of Africa

00:03:56for a spot of frostbite up in Eurasia,

00:03:59they bumped into the Neanderthals.

00:04:01This encounter resulted in not just an exchange

00:04:03of pleasantries, but also an exchange of genes

00:04:06that coded for larger noses.

00:04:08This newfound genetic nugget was discovered

00:04:10by scientists who dug deep into the DNA

00:04:12of over 6,000 volunteers.

00:04:14To complete the study,

00:04:16these scientists meticulously compared this genetic data

00:04:19to snapshots of the volunteers' faces.

00:04:22They measured the distances between various points

00:04:24on each face, such as the height

00:04:26of the volunteers' nose bridges.

00:04:28They then played a game of spot the genetic marker

00:04:31to identify if certain facial traits

00:04:33were linked with specific genes.

00:04:35By the end of this exciting chase,

00:04:37they hit the jackpot 33 shiny new genome areas

00:04:40were linked to facial features.

00:04:43One standout gene, named ATF3,

00:04:45was traced back to our Neanderthal ancestors

00:04:47and seemed to be the maestro of controlling nose height.

00:04:50Participants with Native American ancestry

00:04:52had Neanderthal hand-me-downs in this gene,

00:04:55contributing to their taller noses.

00:04:57Think of the ATF3 gene

00:04:59as a Neanderthal housewarming gift to us humans

00:05:01as we stepped into colder climates from Africa.

00:05:05Interestingly, this isn't the first time

00:05:07our ancestors have played pass the gene.

00:05:10Back in 2021, the same research team

00:05:13uncovered a gene influencing lip shape called TBX15.

00:05:17This gene was a little love note from the Denisovans,

00:05:20another set of our ancient relatives,

00:05:22who lived in Asia and went extinct around 30,000 years ago.

00:05:27Another part of the scientific community

00:05:29believes our Neanderthal buddies had this weird genetic feature

00:05:31when it came to their brains.

00:05:33Is that why they didn't make it?

00:05:35Through this theory, it was suggested that US humans

00:05:37might owe our brainy edge to a quirky gene mutation.

00:05:41This mutation gave our neocortex,

00:05:43that's the smarty-pants part of the brain,

00:05:45a little population boom in the neuron department.

00:05:49This amazing gene of ours isn't all that different

00:05:51from the Neanderthal version.

00:05:53It's just one amino acid off,

00:05:55just like ordering a coffee with one sugar instead of none.

00:05:59This tiny tweak is found in virtually all modern humans.

00:06:02Meanwhile, our extinct relatives,

00:06:04the Neanderthals, Denisovans and other primate pals,

00:06:08all missed the mutation memo,

00:06:10at least according to the study.

00:06:12Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

00:06:14Just because we have more neurons

00:06:16doesn't necessarily mean we're geniuses by comparison.

00:06:19But these results do suggest that we might have rewired the brain

00:06:22in a way that gave us a cognitive leg up.

00:06:25Also, it's not all about this lone amino acid difference.

00:06:28It's just a piece of the puzzle.

00:06:30Scientists have previously found a whopping 96 differences

00:06:33between our DNA and that of Neanderthals

00:06:36that could have potentially affected our different outcomes as species.

00:06:40Studying Neanderthal DNA also gave us some insight

00:06:43into their relationships.

00:06:45In fact, we now have some solid evidence

00:06:47of what a Neanderthal family looked like.

00:06:49And surprisingly, it's not really that different from ours.

00:06:52For this study, researchers gathered information

00:06:55from a Neanderthal archaeological site located in Asia.

00:06:59They discovered that one particular family

00:07:01included a doting Neanderthal dad,

00:07:04his teen daughter, and a sprightly young lad

00:07:07who was possibly their nephew or cousin.

00:07:09Part of the group was also an older female relative,

00:07:12maybe an aunt or granny.

00:07:14Now, our young damsel would eventually pack her bags,

00:07:17wave a teary goodbye,

00:07:19and leave her papa's home when she found Mr. Right.

00:07:22Had she been a boy like her young cousin,

00:07:24she would have been a happy homebody.

00:07:26But worry not, she wasn't stepping into a world of strangers.

00:07:29Her new community likely had some familiar, friendly faces.

00:07:33But how were scientists able to predict the ending of this story?

00:07:37By browsing through their gene pool,

00:07:39researchers were able to figure out

00:07:41that the Neanderthal social structure was patrilical.

00:07:44What this means is that most female Neanderthals

00:07:47left their homes when choosing a partner

00:07:49and started a new life with another family.

00:07:53The same research shows that our cave-dwelling clans

00:07:56likely weren't living in isolation either.

00:07:58Families living close by

00:08:00were probably visiting the same rock sampling areas

00:08:03to make their stone tools,

00:08:05the equivalent of a neighborhood hardware store.

00:08:07And when they weren't tooling around,

00:08:09they were busy hunting delicious meals

00:08:11like ibex, horses, bison, and other wandering critters.

00:08:14Scientists, however, were careful to add

00:08:16that this ancient family portrait

00:08:18might not represent the full spectrum

00:08:20of Neanderthal social life.

00:08:22They've kindly asked future archaeologists

00:08:24to get more Neanderthal DNAs on the Ancestry websites.

00:08:29You're entering the territory

00:08:31of an amazing but abandoned wildlife park.

00:08:34The animal cages are overgrown with grass,

00:08:37small houses have been left for a long time,

00:08:40and cobwebs and mold are everywhere.

00:08:44You walk into a dark building

00:08:46and see a green glow ahead.

00:08:48You approach and realize it's a large water tank.

00:08:52There's old green water in it,

00:08:55but you're attracted by the silhouette

00:08:58of a huge fish inside.

00:09:00You've just found a great white shark.

00:09:03Its body is in a formaldehyde solution,

00:09:06keeping it almost perfectly preserved.

00:09:09In 2012, Wildlife Wonderland in Australia

00:09:13ceased its operations.

00:09:15All the animals were moved from there,

00:09:18but the shark was forgotten.

00:09:22In 2018, urban explorer Luke McPherson

00:09:26visited this abandoned place

00:09:28and posted a video of the embalmed shark.

00:09:31The video got millions of views,

00:09:34and the shark got a name, Rosie.

00:09:38Since then, the park has attracted many tourists.

00:09:43Unfortunately, vandals were among them.

00:09:46The fish tank was damaged,

00:09:48and graffiti was painted on it.

00:09:50People demanded to save the unusual find,

00:09:53and a few months later,

00:09:55when the shark tank was almost destroyed,

00:09:57it was moved to another working exhibition center.

00:10:01There, they restored the tank

00:10:03and renewed the liquid in it,

00:10:05so the shark could retain its appearance.

00:10:09The next abandoned place is much scarier.

00:10:13Probably because of this,

00:10:15it attracts lots of visitors.

00:10:18We're in the Czech Republic,

00:10:20in the small village of Luková.

00:10:23It's very beautiful here,

00:10:25with small houses, cozy streets, and rich nature.

00:10:30Among the trees,

00:10:32you suddenly notice the silhouette of an old chapel.

00:10:35Before you go inside,

00:10:37you realize it's completely abandoned.

00:10:41You see old bricks with faded paint on the walls,

00:10:44and a rusting metal roof.

00:10:47It looks a little creepy.

00:10:49You make a step inside.

00:10:52If some travelers discovered this place at night,

00:10:55they would run away screaming from what they saw inside.

00:11:00There are patrons in the chapel.

00:11:03Most of them are sitting on benches,

00:11:05and some are standing.

00:11:08They don't move, because they are plaster statues.

00:11:12But the most terrifying thing is

00:11:14that each statue is covered with a white sheet.

00:11:19In 1968, the chapel roof began to rot.

00:11:24Eventually, it collapsed,

00:11:26and residents stopped coming here.

00:11:29In 2014, an artist made some plaster statues

00:11:33and placed them here

00:11:35to make it seem as if the building was haunted.

00:11:38This installation attracts tourists from all over the world,

00:11:42which helps gather the money to restore the chapel.

00:11:47We're in the U.S. now,

00:11:49driving along Vashon Highway.

00:11:51There's a dense forest on both sides of the road.

00:11:55You get to the bus stop and get out of the car.

00:11:58To see the strange find you've heard about,

00:12:01you need to go into the forest.

00:12:03You wade through bushes, mud, trees,

00:12:07and there you are.

00:12:10At first, you see nothing special,

00:12:13but then you look up.

00:12:15There's a rusty red bicycle literally inside a tree.

00:12:21It's become a part of the forest.

00:12:24The wheels and handlebars stick out,

00:12:26and everything else is inside the trunk.

00:12:30It turns out that in 1954,

00:12:33a local boy was given a bicycle,

00:12:35but he was not very happy with his gift.

00:12:38The tires were very thin and hard,

00:12:41and the handlebar looked like it came from a child's tricycle.

00:12:45One day, this boy was playing in the woods with his friends,

00:12:49and only he had a bicycle.

00:12:52When everyone started to go home,

00:12:54the boy just left the bike by the tree.

00:12:57The tree continued to grow,

00:12:59and the bike became part of it.

00:13:03Let's leave cold, dark places

00:13:06and come right to the center of the Southern California desert.

00:13:10The sun is very hot, and there's no one around.

00:13:14Only sand, dry brush, and mountains are in the distance.

00:13:20A couple of hours have passed.

00:13:22You're thirsty, the sun burns your skin,

00:13:26and suddenly, you see water.

00:13:29Or is it a mirage?

00:13:31You approach in hopes it isn't.

00:13:34Yes, this is real water, but it's not an oasis.

00:13:39Here, in the middle of the desert,

00:13:42there's an unmarked swimming pool.

00:13:45What a pleasure it is to jump inside.

00:13:48It's called a social pool.

00:13:50An artist built it in the summer of 2014.

00:13:54Absolutely anyone can use this pool,

00:13:57but not everyone will be able to find it.

00:14:00Unfortunately, there's only a carcass left of it today.

00:14:06Abandoned places don't just hold creepy and weird things.

00:14:10Some finds can make the person who found them rich.

00:14:15We're going to the Pigalle Red Light District in Paris.

00:14:19This is a residential area, and nothing looks abandoned.

00:14:23You go into one of these houses.

00:14:25You meet people at the entrance who check their mail in the box.

00:14:29You go up the stairs and stop at the door to a certain apartment.

00:14:34It looks dilapidated.

00:14:36You open it and step inside.

00:14:39What you see here reminds you of a creepy scene from a haunted house movie.

00:14:44All the furniture and decorations are not from this century.

00:14:49The whole apartment looks like an antique.

00:14:52A thick layer of dust covers every inch of this place.

00:14:56Old creepy dolls and stuffed toys lie on the tables and the floor.

00:15:02Add a disturbing tune from a music box, and you have a full horror set.

00:15:08You feel like you've traveled a century back in time,

00:15:11and in a sense, it's true.

00:15:15The owner of the apartment moved out in the 1940s.

00:15:20She left everything as it was.

00:15:23The apartment was left untouched for 70 years.

00:15:27It was discovered in 2010

00:15:30when people began to evaluate the property of the apartment's owner.

00:15:34She lived somewhere else and didn't tell anyone about the place.

00:15:39When appraisers opened the apartment,

00:15:41they found a painting by the Italian artist Giovanni Boldini,

00:15:46which he created in the 19th century.

00:15:49This painting was sold for $2.5 million.

00:15:54Now we go to another desert in Namibia.

00:15:58Here, among the dunes not far from the ocean coast,

00:16:02you find a dried-up lagoon and an old sunken ship half buried in the sand.

00:16:09Or rather, what's left of it.

00:16:12The age of this Portuguese vessel is about 500 years.

00:16:19It originally sailed from Lisbon in 1533

00:16:23and disappeared near a Namibian diamond mining city.

00:16:28Walking among the wreckage, you can find ship parts from those times,

00:16:33but the most interesting thing is a chest with gold coins.

00:16:38The net worth of the entire ship, along with the valuable treasure,

00:16:43is estimated at over $12 million.

00:16:47The wreckage was discovered by geologists in 2008,

00:16:51but its full glory was only uncovered eight years later.

00:16:56And now you're walking down New York streets,

00:16:59passing a dark, deserted alley where you see some trash bins.

00:17:04You notice a painted canvas sticking out of one of them.

00:17:08You take it out of the trash, and it turns out to be a painting.

00:17:12The image isn't very clear, but it looks beautiful.

00:17:16You decide a piece of art doesn't belong in the trash, and take it home.

00:17:21For the next four years, you try to find out something about this painting,

00:17:26and one day, on a website about antique stuff,

00:17:30you find out that this painting is a missing art masterpiece worth a million dollars.

00:17:39This is what happened to a woman from New York in 2003.

00:17:43When she found the painting in the trash,

00:17:46she immediately felt the power emanating from it.

00:17:50The woman learned the painting was stolen from its owner in 1989.

00:17:55She returned it and received $15,000 as a reward.

00:18:00The painting, called Tres Personajes,

00:18:03was drawn by the Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo in 1970.

00:18:09A collector bought this work of art as a gift for his wife,

00:18:13but a few years later, the painting was stolen while the couple was moving into a new home.

00:18:20Now let's finish our journey with the most grandiose and large-scale find.

00:18:27We're in Turkey.

00:18:29You've been living in an old house for a very long time,

00:18:33and you want to redecorate the place.

00:18:36You throw out all of your obsolete stuff,

00:18:39and then remember, you have an old basement.

00:18:42You never needed it before, but now you decide to turn it into a room.

00:18:47You break down a wall and discover a tunnel that leads underground.

00:18:53Excited, you go there and realize the tunnel doesn't just lead to a secret room.

00:18:59It leads to a colossal underground city.

00:19:04In 1963, a man from Turkey discovered an ancient city going down as deep as 18 floors.

00:19:13It could accommodate about 20,000 inhabitants, livestock, and food supplies.

00:19:19It's not just a maze of tunnels.

00:19:22There is a chapel, a school, stables, kitchens, and other attributes of civilization.

00:19:29The city was founded in the Byzantine era over a thousand years ago.

00:19:34It was likely built as a shelter from natural disasters and wars.

00:19:39The coolest detail, though, is that it's not the only underground town.

00:19:44It adjoins many other tunnels that stretch for several miles.

00:19:51Hey, check it out.

00:19:52You could technically live in the Eiffel Tower,

00:19:55if you don't mind residing in a small apartment.

00:19:58Christoph Eiffel designed the tower to feature a private apartment for himself right at the top of the construction.

00:20:04He left the place all neat and tidy with all the necessary furniture.

00:20:08These days, the apartment is home to two mannequins,

00:20:11that of Eiffel himself and his equally famous friend Thomas Edison.

00:20:15A sneak peek at the apartment is available for tourists who purchase a ticket to the top of the tower.

00:20:22If you ever pass through Trafalgar Square,

00:20:24you'll surely miss London's smallest police station, since it's hidden beneath a lamppost.

00:20:29The reason why it was placed there back in 1926 was to let police officers be close to public rallies.

00:20:36They happen quite a lot in that area.

00:20:38Some even said it used to have a direct phone line to Scotland Yard.

00:20:42It's now used as a cleaning station, so there isn't much to see there apart from some mops.

00:20:49Grand Central Station, one of New York's busiest, has a great hidden activity for travelers.

00:20:55There are tennis courts available in a secret space named the Annex.

00:20:59This area used to host a lot of different things back in the day, from a recording studio to an art gallery.

00:21:06These days, though, the location is known as the Vanderbilt Tennis Club and can be visited by the public.

00:21:13Similar to Mr. Eiffel, producer Samuel Lionel Roxy Roxafel designed a hidden apartment for himself in the Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

00:21:23He also asked for the apartment, now called the Roxy Suite, to be decorated in the Art Deco style.

00:21:29It features 20-foot high ceilings covered in gold leaf and walls with floor-to-ceiling plush drapes.

00:21:35These days, only Radio City performers and VIP guests can visit the location.

00:21:41You might be able to rent it out, too, but they say the prices are very high.

00:21:46Rome's best-known symbol, the Colosseum, has secret tunnels hidden beneath its grounds.

00:21:51Back in the day, ancient Romans used these passageways to keep wild animals like lions, tigers, elephants, and bears

00:21:58as they were used for gladiator fights and other types of entertainment.

00:22:03They've been open for visitors since 2010, along with the Colosseum's plumbing system.

00:22:08It was quite the technological advancement for the time, featuring drinking fountains and even toilets.

00:22:14There are some people that have criticized the opening of these secret tunnels.

00:22:18They believe it might affect the building's structure, given the huge traffic of visitors.

00:22:24The Empire State Building is said to have 102 floors, but that's not true.

00:22:29It actually has a secret 103rd floor.

00:22:32The way to access it is through a hidden staircase located on the 102nd floor,

00:22:37but it's mostly available for the building's engineers and celebrities from time to time.

00:22:43That's not all. The 103rd floor leads to the Empire State Building's capsule.

00:22:48It's the building's famous dome.

00:22:52One of the most famous American landmarks features a mysterious hidden chamber.

00:22:57If current records are true, there's a secret room behind Abraham Lincoln's head from Mount Rushmore.

00:23:03It was meant to keep relative artifacts and documents of American history,

00:23:07like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

00:23:10We now know these important documents are kept in another location,

00:23:14and the Mount Rushmore room remains inaccessible to the public to this day.

00:23:19Like, maybe it's a video game room for park rangers. Or not.

00:23:23Completed between 2550 and 2490 BCE,

00:23:28the Great Pyramid of Giza is the last remaining of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

00:23:33Constructed as a resting place for the 4th Dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Khufu,

00:23:38it was thought to feature the Grand Gallery, the King's Chamber, and the Queen's Chamber.

00:23:43But that's not all, as recently a secret room was discovered here.

00:23:48Dubbed the Big Void, kind of like my head,

00:23:51this huge space is nearly 100 feet long.

00:23:54Its main purpose is still up for debate,

00:23:57but some archaeologists believe it was used as an internal ramp to help build the massive structure.

00:24:03Cinderella Castle is the main attraction of Disney World in Orlando, Florida,

00:24:08in an area called the Magic Kingdom.

00:24:11It does have a hidden room of its own, dubbed the Cinderella Suite.

00:24:15The suite was originally intended to host Walt Disney himself and his family.

00:24:19He passed away in 1966, and he never got to see the final result.

00:24:24It was finally finished in 2006, and ever since,

00:24:28it's only been open a limited number of times and only for visitors invited by the Disney company.

00:24:34Grand Central isn't the only station with hidden features.

00:24:38Italy has its own Milano Centrale, the country's second-largest railway station.

00:24:44More than 320,000 passengers pass by these walls every day.

00:24:49But most of them never notice the closed doors on the sidewall of the station leading to the Royal Pavilion,

00:24:55a fashionable area designed as a waiting room for the royal family.

00:24:59The pavilion features two grand halls divided into two floors with luxurious furniture,

00:25:05styled marble, all decorated with royal sculptures.

00:25:09Now, even the Statue of Liberty has a hidden room.

00:25:12Try to guess where it is? It's in the torch of the statue.

00:25:16Now, unfortunately, it's not available to the public ever since it was completely closed back in 1916.

00:25:23A camera was placed here back in 2011 to allow people to enjoy live streaming of the panoramic view.

00:25:30A statue of Leonardo da Vinci, located at Rome's Da Vinci Airport, was first unveiled back in 1960.

00:25:38It recently went under renovation.

00:25:40One of the workers made a mysterious discovery during this process.

00:25:44A small hole, somewhere in the middle of the statue, at about 30 feet.

00:25:49When it was carefully opened, two parchments were found inside.

00:25:53Written in classical Latin, the first document told the story of the area that now houses the airport.

00:25:59The other one provided a list of people who attended the inauguration of the statue.

00:26:05The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. has a secret sports facility

00:26:11where clerks, off-duty police officers, and other Supreme Court employees can play basketball.

00:26:17The court, located on the top floor of the building, is obviously dubbed the highest court in the land.

00:26:23Excuse me while I dribble.

00:26:26Disneyland's Club 33 is located in the New Orleans Square section of the theme park in Anaheim, California.

00:26:33This exclusive club houses only 500 members, and it was inaugurated in 1967.

00:26:40It aimed to entertain celebrities, politicians, and sponsors.

00:26:44The decorations were courtesy of Walt Disney himself and his wife.

00:26:48Services here come at a hefty price.

00:26:51Members have to pay $25,000 to join the club, and later a yearly fee of between $12,000 to $25,000.

00:27:00The entrance to the club was easy to miss since it was hidden behind a doorway

00:27:05with a single gold plate that had the number 33 engraved on it.

00:27:09A makeover of the club took place in 2014.

00:27:12They moved the entrance to an even more secret location,

00:27:16but people can still see the old one in its original place.

00:27:20The New York City public libraries have hidden apartments too.

00:27:24Employees and their families could stay in those hidden rooms that are placed above many of the public libraries.

00:27:30Most of them are either closets or empty rooms these days.

00:27:34But some of them are available to the public,

00:27:37like those belonging to the $4.4 million renovation project of the apartment in the Washington Heights branch.

00:27:44It was transformed from an old, dusty, 3,750-square-foot space

00:27:49into a dedicated teen area and tech center that also features rooms for adult education programs.

00:27:55Cool!

00:27:58On April 10, 1912, the RMS Titanic set sail from England.

00:28:03But this wasn't the launch of a regular ship.

00:28:06The Titanic was the largest liner ever built at the time.

00:28:09It was 882 feet long.

00:28:11That's nearly the size of three soccer fields!

00:28:14And measured from the hull to the top of the smokestacks,

00:28:17the ship was an impressive 175 feet tall.

00:28:20That's the size of a 17-story building!

00:28:23Deemed unsinkable, it took 3,000 workers almost three years to build.

00:28:31But a mere four days into its very first voyage,

00:28:34at 11.40 p.m., the ship collided with an iceberg and was lost beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

00:28:40It took the liner only two hours and 40 minutes to sink.

00:28:44And of more than 2,200 passengers and crew members on board, only 706 survived.

00:28:53The wreck would remain lost for another 73 years,

00:28:56hiding its many secrets within the frigid Atlantic waters.

00:29:00And if it wasn't for a man whose whole life had been devoted to exploring the sea,

00:29:05the giant ship might have remained lost for a lot longer.

00:29:11That man was Robert Ballard.

00:29:13As a child, Ballard was obsessed with the ocean.

00:29:16This fascination started when he was just 12 years old.

00:29:20That's when he watched a film adaptation of Jules Verne's science fiction novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

00:29:29It had everything to spark a young person's imagination,

00:29:32from adventure and strange creatures to a powerful underwater vehicle called the Nautilus.

00:29:38It could travel anywhere in the world you want it to go.

00:29:44From that moment, life on dry land was no longer in Ballard's future.

00:29:49When he was 23, he was assigned to the Deep Submergence Group.

00:29:53There, he helped develop techniques to search the ocean floor.

00:29:57His biggest accomplishment was the creation of Alvin.

00:30:03It was a small, easy-to-maneuver submarine that could carry three people.

00:30:08It also featured an external mechanical arm designed to gather underwater samples

00:30:13while the crew remained safe and dry inside.

00:30:18Alvin the submarine quickly proved useful for a variety of tasks.

00:30:22For example, once it was used to track down an aircraft that had crashed into the sea.

00:30:30But the vessel experienced a series of setbacks.

00:30:33In one case, it was attacked by a swordfish,

00:30:36which caused the submarine to resurface quickly.

00:30:39The swordfish, still stuck in the outer skin of the submarine, became that night's dinner.

00:30:47And in October 1968, the submarine was being lowered into the water

00:30:51when the cables holding it snapped,

00:30:53sending it careening into the ocean along with three crew members on board.

00:30:58And because the small vessel was still open,

00:31:00it immediately filled with water and quickly began to sink.

00:31:06Luckily, the crew managed to escape, but Alvin was gone.

00:31:10Bad weather hampered multiple attempts to recover the vessel.

00:31:14It wasn't until the following year that it was finally returned to the surface.

00:31:20In time, Alvin would be improved.

00:31:23Its hull would be strengthened by titanium, giving it a higher depth rating,

00:31:27thus making it even better suited for ocean exploration.

00:31:31The specialized submarine would come in handy in many of Ballard's 100-plus expeditions.

00:31:36The man was one of the first to explore an underwater mountain chain

00:31:40called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in the Atlantic Ocean.

00:31:45And when he found thermal vents in the Galapagos Rift in the late 70s,

00:31:49he also helped discover and document the process of chemosynthesis.

00:31:54That's a complicated chemical synthesis of food energy by bacteria.

00:31:59But his biggest discovery was still to come.

00:32:02Ballard claimed he'd never been a Titanic fanatic.

00:32:06But he eventually became obsessed with finding the ship

00:32:09after watching other explorers try and fail.

00:32:14As he said,

00:32:15Titanic was clearly the big Mount Everest at the time.

00:32:18Many others had tried, many that I thought would have succeeded

00:32:22or should have succeeded but didn't.

00:32:24Ballard began thinking about finding the ship as early as 1973.

00:32:29And four years later, he actually made an attempt.

00:32:32He used the deep-sea salvage vessel Sea Probe,

00:32:35which was a drill ship equipped with cameras and sonar.

00:32:39But he was forced to give up when the drilling pipe broke.

00:32:42It just wasn't his time.

00:32:46In the early 80s, a Texas oil man named Jack Grimm

00:32:50tried to find the wreck on three different occasions.

00:32:53Once, Grimm was actually right over the Titanic,

00:32:56but his equipment failed to detect it.

00:32:59That's what we call extreme bad luck.

00:33:03Ballard was just biding his time.

00:33:05He needed a plan and some help.

00:33:08The first issue was getting down to the bottom of the Atlantic.

00:33:11The furthest down he had ever traveled before was 20,000 feet.

00:33:15And this trip was a long one.

00:33:17The furthest down he had ever traveled before was 20,000 feet.

00:33:21And this trip took him three hours.

00:33:23And that didn't include the way back up.

00:33:28Ballard knew he could use Alvin,

00:33:30already enhanced with a titanium hull,

00:33:32to withstand the pressure of the ocean.

00:33:34But he also needed something that didn't require him

00:33:37to actually go down with it.

00:33:39An unpiloted, remote-controlled submarine would be ideal.

00:33:43But first, he would have to create one.

00:33:47He called the authorities,

00:33:48hoping they would provide funding for his project.

00:33:50And though officials had no interest in the Titanic,

00:33:53they were willing to help.

00:33:57Ah, but there was a catch.

00:33:59Ballard had to first focus on tracking down two submarines,

00:34:02the Thresher and the Scorpion,

00:34:04which had sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in the 1960s.

00:34:08The authorities were hoping to study them

00:34:10to find out why they had sunk in the first place.

00:34:13They also wanted to know if they could be recovered

00:34:16or if it was safe to leave them on the ocean floor.

00:34:21Only when he had successfully completed this task

00:34:24would he be free to use any remaining time on his contract

00:34:27to find the Titanic.

00:34:29With no other options for funding, Ballard took the offer.

00:34:35He got to work.

00:34:36First, he created two new devices.

00:34:39Argo was an unpiloted, deep-towed undersea video camera sled.

00:34:44It was designed to take photos and record videos

00:34:47from a series of cameras mounted on it.

00:34:50It could work at depths of up to 20,000 feet,

00:34:53and it could also explore nearly 98% of the ocean floor.

00:34:59Argo was supposed to be tethered to a boat.

00:35:02As the boat moved, Argo would be pulled behind,

00:35:05floating just above the ocean floor.

00:35:07The camera would then transmit images to the surface.

00:35:11The second device was a small robotic vehicle called Jason Jr.

00:35:17It was also controlled remotely,

00:35:19which allowed the crew inside a submarine, like Alvin,

00:35:22to get closer to and photograph underwater objects.

00:35:27Ballard was now ready.

00:35:29He knew he had to find those submarines quickly,

00:35:32and it didn't take him long.

00:35:34Much to his relief, the search was relatively simple,

00:35:37and he was able to fulfill his obligations with 12 days to spare.

00:35:43With almost two weeks to devote to finding the Titanic,

00:35:46he set out to explore the ocean.

00:35:49He focused the search close to Newfoundland, Canada,

00:35:52pulling Argo along the ocean floor

00:35:54and reviewing the images it collected.

00:35:58And after a few days of nothing,

00:36:00they eventually found riveted hull plates in a boiler.

00:36:03Could this be it?

00:36:05The next day, a ship's large bow was revealed.

00:36:08On September 1, 1985,

00:36:11Ballard and his fellow crew members realized

00:36:14they had finally found the infamous ship.

00:36:18The discovery resulted in a mix of emotions.

00:36:21Ballard was excited to be the first to find the Titanic's final resting place,

00:36:26but he was also overwhelmed by the sense of grief

00:36:29for those who had suffered when the ship had gone down.

00:36:33Over the next four days, the crew explored the wreck.

00:36:37They found the crow's nest, from where the iceberg had first been spotted.

00:36:41Plus, there was finally evidence of how the massive ship

00:36:44had split in two before sinking,

00:36:47with both halves of the ship found.

00:36:51There was furniture and dinnerware,

00:36:53and sadly, several leather shoes of those who hadn't made it to safety

00:36:57were scattered about the ocean floor.

00:36:59Ballard succeeded where others had failed

00:37:02and became an instant celebrity around the world.

00:37:05You'd think that locating the Titanic would be enough for one man,

00:37:08but not for Ballard.

00:37:12In 2019, he took on the challenge of solving another mystery,

00:37:16the disappearance of Amelia Earhart.

00:37:19Earhart had attempted to be the first woman to fly around the world.

00:37:23Unfortunately, she disappeared somewhere over the Pacific Ocean,

00:37:27in 1937.

00:37:30She and her plane were never found.

00:37:32Ballard hoped that his luck with the Titanic

00:37:35would help with finding where Earhart had gone down,

00:37:38but his expedition failed to find anything.

00:37:42And though Robert Ballard has found more shipwrecks than anybody else,

00:37:46it's only the tip of the iceberg.

00:37:48It's estimated that there are over 3 million shipwrecks in the ocean,

00:37:52and Ballard has only located 100 of them.

00:37:55Now, in his late 70s,

00:37:57the man is hoping to encourage young people

00:37:59to continue his work of exploring the ocean and its many mysteries.

00:38:03In 1989, he started the Jason Learning Project

00:38:07to inspire grade school students to pursue science, technology,

00:38:11engineering, and math.

00:38:15He has his own research vessel called the E.V. Nautilus,

00:38:18after the name of the submarine in Jules Verne's novel.

00:38:21Seriously, how could a grain of pollen change the world?

00:38:25Well, it sure did.

00:38:28In 1827, Robert Brown,

00:38:30England's premier botanist before Charles Darwin,

00:38:33was studying the pollination of plants

00:38:35when he noticed something strange going on under his microscope.

00:38:38A grain of pollen was jiggling around in a drop of water.

00:38:42Brown curiously discovered that it was a grain of pollen

00:38:45that had been in the water for a long time.

00:38:49Brown curiously watched the grain of pollen

00:38:52through his microscope for a long time,

00:38:54and it never stopped jiggling.

00:38:56It kept shaking and shuddering.

00:38:58There was no pattern to it at all,

00:39:00just random, continuous, zigzag jiggling.

00:39:03He couldn't figure out why.

00:39:05Robert Brown tried diligently to figure it out.

00:39:08Brown tried changing the temperature of the droplet

00:39:10that the pollen grain was suspended in.

00:39:12He cooled it.

00:39:13The pollen grain zigzagged less.

00:39:15He heated the water droplet, and it zigzagged more.

00:39:18Brown wrote a paper about it,

00:39:20and none of the scientists who read his article

00:39:23could figure it out either.

00:39:25The mysterious invisible cause of Brownian motion

00:39:28defied a solution.

00:39:29Science was stumped.

00:39:31An explanation was offered.

00:39:33Some scientists suggested that the energy of the water

00:39:36was making it move, but there was no proof.

00:39:39Proof is essential for science,

00:39:41or else everything is just science fiction.

00:39:44And since no proof could be given

00:39:46for why the pollen grain continued to jiggle around,

00:39:49scientists decided to just forget about it.

00:39:52The pollen grain was too tough for them.

00:39:55For 75 years,

00:39:57science more or less ignored the unexplained problem

00:40:00of the grain of pollen zigzagging around,

00:40:02until Albert Einstein took particular notice of it.

00:40:06There must be some explanation

00:40:08for these pollen grain dancing this jitterbug dance.

00:40:12I'll just put a glass of water on my desk,

00:40:15add a few grains of pollen from the flower,

00:40:17and see if I can figure out what is happening.

00:40:20Invisible phenomena can be fundamental,

00:40:23gravity, magnetism, and whatever it is.

00:40:27Ah, but what if it's not some invisible energy

00:40:30that we physicists have never heard of before?

00:40:33The simpler the better, I always say.

00:40:35Maybe the pollen grain is not dancing.

00:40:38Maybe it's being pushed around and shoved here,

00:40:41thereby something too small to see,

00:40:44even in a microscope.

00:40:46Ah, let me think.

00:40:48To make a physical formula,

00:40:50I will first need to decide what I want to solve.

00:40:54If I can predict the distance the pollen grain will move,

00:40:57I can calculate its invisible pusher's strength.

00:41:00But since the motion is random,

00:41:03my prediction must be relative to all conditions.

00:41:07Everything is relative.

00:41:09Aha, I am beginning to see a formula coming into view

00:41:12on my forward view screen.

00:41:14Ah, they don't have view screens yet, but they will.

00:41:18Oh, where is my pencil?

00:41:20Aha, this is what I have come up with.

00:41:23Isn't it lovely?

00:41:25Flashing his brilliant genius

00:41:27at combining a large variety of physics formulae,

00:41:29Einstein showed that a particle which was moving randomly

00:41:32when suspended in water, the pollen grain,

00:41:35obeyed statistical laws of motion

00:41:37dependent on the viscosity of the water,

00:41:40the temperature of the water,

00:41:41the distance the particle moved,

00:41:43the mass and size of the individual pollen grain,

00:41:46its velocity, and the duration of the time of motion.

00:41:50Einstein's novel statistical approach to fluid mechanics

00:41:54enabled a computational reduction

00:41:56to yield a figure for the mass of a single H2O water molecule,

00:42:00and eventually for the hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

00:42:05Brownian motion was solved,

00:42:07and Einstein opened the 20th century

00:42:09to the world of the atom.

00:42:11The overlooked, jiggling, trivial grain of pollen

00:42:14pointed the way to the proof of atoms.

00:42:17That grain of pollen deserved a Nobel Prize.

00:42:21Statistical analysis of random events

00:42:23has become an essential tool

00:42:25in various scientific applications.

00:42:27With an understanding of Brownian motion,

00:42:30random fluctuations,

00:42:31science can finally get a quantitative grip

00:42:34on weather phenomena, game theory,

00:42:36traffic flow, stock market fluctuations,

00:42:39even human cell function,

00:42:40to name just a few applications of Einstein's statistical theory,

00:42:44all thanks to a tireless grain of pollen.

00:42:48And yet, there was still another oddity

00:42:50that science had chosen to forget about

00:42:52that caught the intense attention of Albert Einstein.

00:42:55The planet Mercury was doing something

00:42:57that nobody could explain.

00:42:59Over 200 years before the dawn of the 20th century,

00:43:02Sir Isaac Newton published his Universal Law of Gravity.

00:43:06It really should be called Newton's Theory of Gravity,

00:43:09not a law,

00:43:10because Einstein was going to supplant Newtonian gravity

00:43:13with his new theory of gravity

00:43:15as soon as Einstein could figure out

00:43:17the unexplained mystery of the planet Mercury's orbital peculiarity.

00:43:21Newton revealed the formula for gravitational attraction

00:43:24between two masses.

00:43:26With Newton's mathematical explanation of gravity,

00:43:28science now knew why the planets orbited the Sun.

00:43:32In contrast, before Newton,

00:43:34science only knew that the planets orbited the Sun,

00:43:37but didn't know the why.

00:43:39Astronomers after Newton

00:43:41jumped merrily into recalculating the orbits of the known planets

00:43:44according to Newton's theory of gravitation

00:43:47and checking their calculations

00:43:48against careful observations of the planets with telescopes.

00:43:52Except that the planet Mercury wasn't cooperative.

00:43:55As I'll explain after a brief digression,

00:43:58Mercury wasn't precisely obeying Sir Isaac Newton's mathematical formula.

00:44:03In the early years after Newton,

00:44:05the 1750s and beyond,

00:44:07there were only six known planets,

00:44:09the visible planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

00:44:14No additional planets or asteroids

00:44:16had at this time been yet discovered by telescope.

00:44:19And then, something genuinely unusual occurred

00:44:23for which science still has no explanation.

00:44:25In the late 1760s and early 1770s,

00:44:29two German astronomers published a simple numeral series

00:44:32that located the orbital paths of all the known planets,

00:44:36and some unknown ones too.

00:44:38Johann Daniel Thydius and Johann Elert Bode

00:44:42published this mathematical rubric.

00:44:44Add the number 4 to each of the following numbers

00:44:47in this progressive series.

00:44:490, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 96, 192.

00:44:55Then divide each sum by 10.

00:44:57Voila!

00:44:58You get the orbital paths of the planets in the solar system

00:45:01in astronomical units.

00:45:03The distance from the Earth to the Sun

00:45:05is considered one astronomical unit.

00:45:07It's a useful approximation

00:45:09and is a convenient standard of measurement.

00:45:12Earth is the third planet,

00:45:13so you take the third number of the series, 6,

00:45:16add 4, and divide by 10.

00:45:18You get one astronomical unit, called an AU.

00:45:22Let's try Jupiter.

00:45:23That's number 48 in the Thydius-Bode series.

00:45:2648 plus 4 equals 52,

00:45:29divided by 10 is 5.2 astronomical units.

00:45:33And that's exactly where the orbital path of Jupiter

00:45:35lies from the Sun.

00:45:37Does it work for Saturn too?

00:45:39Let's try it.

00:45:4096 plus 4 equals 100,

00:45:43divided by 10 equals 10 AUs from the Sun,

00:45:4610 times farther away from the Sun than Earth.

00:45:48That's where Saturn orbits.

00:45:50The Thydius-Bode law works.

00:45:52The pattern is correct.

00:45:55Astronomers quickly noted a number between Mars and Jupiter,

00:45:58one after Saturn.

00:46:00The Thydius-Bode rubric inspired

00:46:02William Herschel's search for, and discovery,

00:46:04of the planet Uranus in 1781

00:46:07and the discovery of the first asteroid, Ceres,

00:46:10in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi.

00:46:13That's a strangely accurate little numerical progression.

00:46:16The Thydius-Bode law is being used today

00:46:19to predict the location of Saturn's moons,

00:46:21Uranus's moon system,

00:46:23and even to indicate the location of exoplanets around other stars,

00:46:27even though no one knows why it works.

00:46:29It looks like a good mystery for a young new Einstein to solve.

00:46:33But I digress.

00:46:35What's that about Mercury?

00:46:37Mercury was doing something

00:46:39that didn't compute with Newtonian gravity.

00:46:42The perihelion point of Mercury's orbit,

00:46:44that's the place where a planet is closest to the Sun,

00:46:47was moving forward a little bit every year.

00:46:50It was noticeable and unaccounted for

00:46:52by Newton's gravitational formula,

00:46:54unless there was another planet in the inner solar system

00:46:58affecting Mercury's orbit.

00:47:00The search for a planet inside Mercury's orbit had begun.

00:47:03Calculations of its potential orbit were distributed worldwide,

00:47:07and a name was already picked out, Vulcan.

00:47:10Telescopes worldwide searched the skies at dawn and sunset,

00:47:14looking for Vulcan near to the Sun.

00:47:16But no planet inside Mercury's orbit was ever found.

00:47:20Vulcan just didn't exist.

00:47:22Sorry, Mr. Spock.

00:47:24Science was stumped again.

00:47:26The anomalous precession forward

00:47:28of the perihelion point of Mercury's orbit

00:47:31remained a mystery without an explanation for over 50 years.

00:47:35Until one day, when Einstein was having coffee

00:47:38at an outdoor cafe with his co-worker

00:47:40at the patent office in Bern, Switzerland,

00:47:43Michele Besso had been a classmate of Einstein's

00:47:46and would be his lifelong friend.

00:47:48I don't like things that don't add up.

00:47:51Neither do I, Albert.

00:47:53The forward precession of Mercury's perihelion point doesn't add up.

00:47:57Please give me the sugar.

00:47:59Well, it's not Vulcan.

00:48:02No, it's not Vulcan.

00:48:04But what is it?

00:48:06Albert, you keep trying to solve all your problems with physics.

00:48:10Why don't you take an engineering approach?

00:48:12How do you mean?

00:48:14If you look at the solar system as a physical construction,

00:48:18there could be an answer.

00:48:20Okay, Michele. I am following you.

00:48:23If I trace my finger around the rim of my empty coffee cup,

00:48:27the pathway is circular.

00:48:29But if I stuff this napkin into the cup and make a cone, like this,

00:48:33then an elliptical orbit inside the cone will tend to process forward.

00:48:38Mein gosh! Space is not flat!

00:48:41Walter, bring Michele another cup of coffee.

00:48:44You are going to have to do a bunch of new calculations, Albert.

00:48:47Ach, ja. I've got to be going.

00:48:50Walter, hold that cup of coffee.

00:48:52See you later, Michele.

00:48:54Ha ha ha. Okay, Albert. Good luck.

00:48:57When Einstein published his special theory of relativity in 1905,

00:49:02he credited Michele Besso for his invaluable contribution.

00:49:06Just recently, the letters that Michele Besso and Einstein exchanged

00:49:11in the years before Einstein published his general theory of relativity in 1915

00:49:15were sold at auction for 13 million dollars.

00:49:19You might want to keep safe those letters and texts from your best friend.

00:49:23Hello, brave visitor, and welcome to the exhibition of the uncanny.

00:49:28But beware, this is going to be one chilling experience for you.

00:49:33Even Sabrina the witch couldn't handle these photos.

00:49:36Now, if you've got what it takes to jump into the tunnel of oddities, let's begin.

00:49:42The first photo will take you back to 1900s Belfast.

00:49:47It shows 15 females who were workers at a linen mill.

00:49:51If you calculate how many hands 15 people have, it makes 30, right?

00:49:56But take a good look at the photo, and you'll see there's an extra hand

00:50:00that doesn't belong to any of the ladies there.

00:50:04All the women are arranged in rows with their arms crossed over their chests

00:50:08and hands tucked underneath their arms.

00:50:11There is only one exception to that, and it's the lady in the second row

00:50:15with one hand on her hip and the other down by her side.

00:50:18That's one little rebel you got there.

00:50:22But the mysterious claw-like hand is neither hers nor does it belong to someone close to her.

00:50:29It's actually resting on the shoulder of a girl on the other side of the same row.

00:50:34And there's no one else who the hand could belong to.

00:50:39Even though it's a century old, the photograph first appeared on the Internet on April 29, 2016.

00:50:46It was sent to one website by a woman named Linda,

00:50:49who identified the girl with the hand on her shoulder as her grandmother Ellen Donnelly.

00:50:54But she never commented on who that hand might belong to.

00:51:00What's even weirder is that there's no evidence whatsoever that suggests that the photo was digitally altered.

00:51:07So where did this lonely hand come from?

00:51:11Photoshop didn't exist back then.

00:51:13But this doesn't mean photographers didn't have the necessary skills to edit their photos.

00:51:18Although it was not possible to add an extra hand to the photo,

00:51:22it was surely possible to remove any unwanted objects or people by simply cutting them out with scissors.

00:51:29Photographers would then draw what they wanted to be in the picture in pencil or charcoal.

00:51:34They could also combine multiple negatives to create a single image.

00:51:39There's one more answer to where the hand could've come from.

00:51:43Even though instantaneous photography had already existed in the 1900s,

00:51:48some photographers still used the long exposure technique to capture the moment.

00:51:53So it is possible that while the photo was being taken,

00:51:57the lady in the back initially placed her hands on Ellen and then decided to cross her arms,

00:52:03which makes this terrifying photo the result of long camera exposure.

00:52:08So you can ease your mind that it was not Thing, the hand that lived with the Addams family,

00:52:13that photobombed this picture.

00:52:17Now in our second photo, you'll see a young lady holding a glowing apparition between her hands.

00:52:23It might also make it easy for you to believe that magic is real.

00:52:27But sorry to disappoint you, because that is not the Expellerama spell she's doing.

00:52:33The woman in the photo is French-born Martha Baron, who later changed her name to Eva Carrera.

00:52:39She lived between 1886 and 1943.

00:52:43She was a fraudulent medium.

00:52:45She claimed to have psychic abilities that allowed her to communicate with people

00:52:50who had passed over to the other side and make their spirits materialize during her seances.

00:52:56At the time, such lying mediums would follow a standard procedure during their seances.

00:53:02They would enter a closet installed in the room to pretend to concentrate.

00:53:06Then they could use their powers at full capacity to generate ectoplasm.

00:53:11When not used in the context of cell biology, ectoplasm is a term referring to an imaginary substance

00:53:18that would come out of the body of the medium.

00:53:21It then might take the shape of a face, a hand, or even the entire body of the person who's being called back to life.

00:53:31Eva Carrera was one of those dishonest mediums who would use chewed paper

00:53:36and cut out faces from magazines and newspapers to make fake ectoplasm.

00:53:41This photo of hers, taken in 1912 by German parapsychological researcher Albert von Schrenck-Nozing,

00:53:49shows her in action during one of such deceptive seances.

00:53:53But knowing the full story doesn't change the fact that this photo can make your hair stand on end.

00:54:00But what's even more unbelievable than the photo itself

00:54:04is the fact that she was able to convince big names like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,

00:54:09the author of the Sherlock Holmes mystery series, that she was the real thing.

00:54:14But you'll be happy to know that she couldn't trick illusionist and escape artist Harry Houdini,

00:54:19who, unlike Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, thought her performances were nothing more than a magician's tricks.

00:54:27Now, these owls in the third photo are not Hogwarts owls,

00:54:31and they are not here to bring you your acceptance letter.

00:54:34This photo was taken in the 1920s outside the Manchester Grammar School,

00:54:39which was founded all the way back in 1515 by a man named Hugh Oldham.

00:54:45And he is the reason why these people are wearing weird owl costumes as they're marching.

00:54:51Hugh Oldham was born in Manchester.

00:54:54He wasn't a serious scholar, despite attending both Oxford and Cambridge universities.

00:54:59Well, the tuition was cheaper then.

00:55:01However, he was in royal service, and thanks to his administrative skills,

00:55:06he was favored with important titles.

00:55:08That is what actually helped him reach high positions and become a powerful and influential figure.

00:55:14And through his new duties, he was able to achieve great wealth,

00:55:18which he later used to fund the school.

00:55:21The motto of Oldham's school, which is written on its coat of arms,

00:55:25is the Latin phrase Sapere Ode, which loosely translates to dare to be wise.

00:55:31To this day, the school still has that same motto,

00:55:34but the choice of the owl doesn't symbolize wisdom as you might think.

00:55:39The owl on the Manchester Grammar School's badge is carrying a banner with the word dome on it.

00:55:45If you read it as one would read emojis,

00:55:48you would arrive at Owldum, which is actually a reference to Hugh Oldham.

00:55:53When you look at the crest of the town of Oldham,

00:55:56you'll see it's very similar to that of the school.

00:55:59This choice was made to reflect the pronunciation of Oldham in the local accent,

00:56:04which is Owldum.

00:56:06Accordingly, paying respects to their founding father

00:56:09is why both the school's and the town's mascot is the owl.

00:56:14So, rest assured that nothing sinister and spooky is going on in this photo.

00:56:22Now, how about something sweet after all that eerie stuff?

00:56:26The fourth photo depicts an innocent child whose eyes are screaming,

00:56:31Help me!

00:56:32But don't worry, the boogeyman is not the one holding him.

00:56:36The thing he seems to be sitting on is actually his mother.

00:56:40This is called hidden mother photography,

00:56:43and it was actually very common in the Victorian era.

00:56:47Back in the 1840s, the only way people could have their photos taken

00:56:51was with a daguerreotype camera,

00:56:53which was the first photographic camera developed for commercial use.

00:56:58These cameras had exposure times from tens of seconds to several minutes.

00:57:03So, one had to stay perfectly still during all that time to get a clear picture.

00:57:09But, as you can imagine,

00:57:11it's not easy for a child, let alone me,

00:57:14to stay motionless for such a long period of time.

00:57:17And you can't say strike a pose to a baby either.

00:57:21So, this is the reason why the hidden mother technique was born.

00:57:26Children would be photographed with their mothers present.

00:57:29But mommy would also have to be hidden within the frame.

00:57:33To achieve that, they would often stand behind curtains,

00:57:36under cloaks or blankets,

00:57:38or act as chairs.

00:57:40Sometimes photographers would also remove parts of photographs

00:57:44where moms were visible.

00:57:46Wow, the hardships mothers have to go through for their children.

00:57:50Boy, that hasn't changed.

00:57:52Some of the photos turned out quite well.

00:57:54But some of them ended up looking nightmarish.

00:57:57This practice continued to be used up until the 1920s.

00:58:01But as cameras became faster,

00:58:04there was no need for moms to hide anywhere.

00:58:07At least until photobombing became a thing.

00:58:10The legend goes that a dwarf named Fafnir was famous for his strength and courage.

00:58:17Because of his qualities, he was tasked with protecting their kingdom.

00:58:21Dwarves were known to gather a lot of wealth,

00:58:24so a bit of added security was a must.

00:58:27I mean, they lived in a house made from gold and precious gems.

00:58:31But Fafnir also had another special talent.

00:58:34He was able to shapeshift.

00:58:37Tricked by Loki, the Norse spirit of mischief,

00:58:40Fafnir was taken over by his greed and the shine of his father's treasure.

00:58:45He decided he did not want to share any of it,

00:58:48not even with his father or his brothers.

00:58:51He stole it and ran away all by himself

00:58:54to a place he'd be hard to find, the middle of the desert.

00:59:00To protect his wealth, Fafnir transformed into a huge dragon.

00:59:05His new appearance looked like a huge snake, powerful and scary.

00:59:09His magical powers did not end there, though.

00:59:12His magical powers did not end there, though.

00:59:15Because the dragon couldn't fly,

00:59:17he also spread poison all around his new home,

00:59:20so no one had a chance to survive if they wanted to take his gold away.

00:59:26Fafnir was soon defeated by a young hero named Sigurd.

00:59:30The legend of Fafnir tries to explain why family is more important than greed.

00:59:36It also shows the many magical powers dragons possess.

00:59:40But the most interesting part is that it's quite a good example

00:59:43of how dragons came to be in our tales.

00:59:47But hey, this is just one of the many stories mentioning dragons.

00:59:51Just switch on your TV or peek into any bookstore

00:59:54and you'll surely stumble upon dragons somewhere.

00:59:59Variations of dragon-like creatures have been described in stories

01:00:02from all over the world, from Asia to Northern Europe.

01:00:06Most of these creatures are depicted with reptile-like bodies,

01:00:09wings and claws.

01:00:11And the scariest trait of them all,

01:00:13they can breathe fire out of their mouths.

01:00:17The name of these creatures comes from the Latin word draconum,

01:00:21which translates to huge serpent.

01:00:24But let's take a trip down memory lane to see how it all started.

01:00:28An Asian historian, for example,

01:00:30discovered some fossils back in the 4th century BCE

01:00:34and decided that he'd stumbled upon dragons.

01:00:37It's easy to understand why he got so confused

01:00:40if you look at a fossilized Stegosaurus.

01:00:42It was 30 feet long, 14 feet tall,

01:00:45and covered in armored plates and spikes.

01:00:49The Nile crocodile might have gotten mistaken for a dragon too.

01:00:53It still exists today and lives in sub-Saharan Africa.

01:00:57But it may have been more popular in ancient times.

01:01:00When reaching maturity, Nile crocodiles can grow up to 18 feet long.

01:01:05But that's not all.

01:01:07It can even walk with its body off the ground,

01:01:10and some were even pictured standing on their two back legs.

01:01:15Goannas are dragon-like lizards that live in Australia.

01:01:19Large as they are, they also have razor-sharp teeth and claws

01:01:23and are also known to even produce venom.

01:01:25It's easy to see why goannas may be the source

01:01:28for the Australian version of dragons.

01:01:31When humans first discovered whale bones back in the day,

01:01:34we had no idea these animals lived in the sea.

01:01:37Given their size, we surely must have thought they were dangerous.

01:01:41And because we rarely see whales, if we don't go underwater of course,

01:01:45they were poorly understood and easily mistaken for dragons too.

01:01:51Probably the most interesting source of dragon mythology

01:01:54is actually the human brain.

01:01:56In a book called An Instinct for Dragons,

01:01:59there was a theory which claimed that dragons existed

01:02:02in almost all ancient cultures

01:02:04because we had evolved to fear large predators to survive.

01:02:08We aren't the only mammals to do this.

01:02:11Monkeys have an innate fear of snakes and large cats too, for example.

01:02:15When you combine these natural traits with folklore,

01:02:18you get a lot of dragon stories everywhere, adapted to each region.

01:02:24Reptilian beasts with magical powers

01:02:27date back as far as the origins of human civilization itself.

01:02:31I'm talking about ancient Mesopotamia.

01:02:34Humans back then used to believe in all sorts of creatures,

01:02:37but their head spirit was Marduk, the patron of the city of Babylon.

01:02:42If you look at the artwork from back then,

01:02:44Marduk was depicted with a snake-like dragon at his side.

01:02:48It could be either nice or vengeful, depending on what mood it was in.

01:02:53If you want to sign up to become a dragon,

01:02:56the first thing they'll ask you at the interview will be

01:02:59if you can breathe fire, of course.

01:03:01So, scientists have tried to look into some ways

01:03:04that could make it real for dragons to breathe out fire

01:03:07without damaging their throats.

01:03:09To do that, they examined the bombardier beetle.

01:03:12This eccentric insect can pack up some really hot substances in its belly.

01:03:17Once the creature gets bothered by something,

01:03:19it shoots out a fiery load of chemicals.

01:03:22In all fairness, it's not really fire,

01:03:25but it does burn, so it's close enough.

01:03:28Going back to dragons,

01:03:29they'd need to have similar glands in their throats

01:03:32to produce the same effect.

01:03:34But where do dragons come from?

01:03:37They didn't just appear out of nowhere,

01:03:40regardless of the source you consult.

01:03:42Some tales, like that of Fafnir,

01:03:45Some tales, like that of Fafnir,

01:03:48say that even humans can turn into dragons.

01:03:51But the most popular theory is that dragons start out as eggs.

01:03:55Some sources even draft a series of stages

01:03:57a dragon has to go through during its life.

01:04:00Everything starts with hatching.

01:04:02Dragons are said to eat their way out of those shells

01:04:05and break the sides of the egg.

01:04:10Then there's the wormling stage,

01:04:13which is what dragon specialists,

01:04:15or dragonologists, if you like,

01:04:17call a newly hatched dragon.

01:04:20It's still small and weak, but don't worry,

01:04:23it can take care of itself pretty well.

01:04:25The rest of a dragon's life stages are pretty self-explanatory.

01:04:29There are grown-up dragons, then ancient ones.

01:04:33A dragon's life ends when it reaches the twilight stage.

01:04:37Some sources claim dragons never stopped growing.

01:04:40Others even say they never reach the end of their lives.

01:04:43They just pass on to another type of spiritual existence.

01:04:48Dragons are known to be the symbol of a lot of different things.

01:04:52But that all depends on their origin.

01:04:54In some regions of Asia,

01:04:56they are known to bring luck, power, and wealth.

01:04:59To become a powerful warrior in Britain,

01:05:02you'd need to first defeat a dragon.

01:05:04That's why you often see them on flags.

01:05:07The flag of Wales, for example,

01:05:09is a large red dragon on a green and white background.

01:05:12Western stories aren't as nice to dragons.

01:05:15They are often seen as evil and vengeful.

01:05:19Another myth associated with dragons

01:05:21is that they love gold and precious stones.

01:05:25This greedy side of their temperament

01:05:27seems to date back to ancient Greece,

01:05:30where dragons were tasked with guarding treasures.

01:05:33Some of these guarding dragons were seen in such tales

01:05:36as The Hobbit and in the Harry Potter series.

01:05:40As for dragons' magical abilities,

01:05:43they also vary a lot.

01:05:45Some were said to have blood with supernatural properties.

01:05:48Some were rumored to be able to speak.

01:05:50Others were famous for their wisdom.

01:05:52A lot of dragons in ancient literature could fly

01:05:55or shapeshift, even into humans.

01:05:59Some real-life creatures got their names

01:06:02thanks to bearing a resemblance to dragons,

01:06:05like the dragonfly that has more than 5,000 subspecies we know about.

01:06:10It got its name from folklore tales,

01:06:12as Europeans in the Middle Ages saw it as an evil insect.

01:06:17Dragonflies were accused of some really nasty things,

01:06:20like biting people's eyes and mouths.

01:06:24But the creature that resembles mythical dragons most

01:06:27is a reptile called the flying dragon.

01:06:30They're seen in wooded areas of Southeast Asia.

01:06:33They don't really have wings, per se,

01:06:35but parts of their ribs are elongated to support some extra skin

01:06:39that allows them to leap through the air between trees.

01:06:42Those wings are also brightly colored

01:06:45and contrast with their brown bodies.

01:06:51Now think about it.

01:06:54Almost anywhere in the world,

01:06:56you'll be able to drink a cup of coffee.

01:07:00But how on Earth did coffee become so popular among us human mammals?

01:07:05And what does it take for coffee to go all the way from a bean

01:07:09to the delicious java in our cups?

01:07:13Well, meet Carla.

01:07:15She comes from a Brazilian family

01:07:17that owns one of the most successful coffee farms in the world.

01:07:21She's gonna show us around the farm

01:07:23and give us a behind-the-scenes look

01:07:25into the process of coffee production.

01:07:28By the way, do you even know what coffee is?

01:07:33Coffee is a fruit.

01:07:35It grows in medium-sized shrubs known as the coffea plant,

01:07:39just like the ones you see all over this place.

01:07:42The fruit itself is called a cherry because it's red in color.

01:07:47Carla is part of the team that picks cherries by hand

01:07:50since they mature at a different pace.

01:07:54She walks around with a large handmade basket

01:07:57and picks up to 55 pounds of cherries every day.

01:08:02If she's been picking cherries all morning,

01:08:05she'll pause to eat something sweet

01:08:07and appreciate her first cup of coffee of the day.

01:08:11Carla, like me and probably you,

01:08:13are part of one billion people around the world

01:08:16that love drinking coffee.

01:08:18That means we'll share something in common.

01:08:20Isn't that nice?

01:08:23Carla will drink her coffee while sitting on a lovely balcony

01:08:26overlooking the beautiful mountains of Minas Gerais.

01:08:29It's one of Brazil's biggest coffee-producing regions.

01:08:33Her family farm works with Arabica beans.

01:08:36These are beans usually sold in your local specialty coffee shop.

01:08:40They are superior-quality beans

01:08:42with a richer flavor than the Robusta variety.

01:08:47Arabica beans are usually found at heights of 4,000 feet.

01:08:51To thrive, they need high altitudes and a drier climate.

01:08:55Thankfully, Carla's farm has all that Arabica beans need

01:08:59for a fantastic, delicious coffee.

01:09:02High altitudes allow coffee to have a richer taste

01:09:05since the oxygen in these regions is scarcer

01:09:08and it takes longer for coffee of beans to grow and evolve.

01:09:12As a lover of coffee,

01:09:13Carla likes trying out different varieties of coffee every week,

01:09:17buying from other producers around the world.

01:09:20Her pantry has coffee from Uganda, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Guatemala,

01:09:25and other regions of Brazil as well.

01:09:27After all, each region produces coffee with a unique taste.

01:09:32Brewing methods also influence the taste,

01:09:35but we're gonna do the tasting later.

01:09:39Carla's family began working with coffee in the 20th century.

01:09:43Why does that sound so long ago?

01:09:45Anyway, coffee itself is much older than that.

01:09:49It was discovered in Ethiopia back in the 15th century.

01:09:53After Ethiopians started to brew it

01:09:55and discovered that the beverage had energizing qualities,

01:09:59they started to sell the commodity to the nearby countries.

01:10:03It is unknown who discovered coffee,

01:10:06but there is a legend that says it was a mountaineer goat herd.

01:10:10He noticed that the goats were eating red cherries

01:10:13that left them more energized,

01:10:15and he decided to try it for himself.

01:10:20It was only around the 17th century

01:10:22that coffee reached Europe through the trade done by Dutch merchants.

01:10:26These guys founded the first coffee shops in Europe.

01:10:30They were based in Amsterdam,

01:10:32but after that, coffee culture spread quickly around the Western world.

01:10:36Today, the world's biggest coffee consumer is the United States.

01:10:41Only the city of New York alone

01:10:43drinks millions of cups of coffee every day.

01:10:47Now, back to Carla's farm.

01:10:49The next stage of coffee production is necessary

01:10:52in order to get the beans out of the cherries.

01:10:55Producers need to do that without compromising the taste of coffee,

01:10:59so there are two ways to do that.

01:11:02One process is called washing, the one that Carla does,

01:11:06and the other is known as a natural process.

01:11:09After picking cherries,

01:11:11Carla washes the beans the way her great-grandfather taught her.

01:11:15First, she'll put the beans in a wet mill.

01:11:18This machine will separate the seeds,

01:11:20also known as the coffee beans, from the fruit.

01:11:24Water is an important part of this process

01:11:26as it will help to separate good beans from bad ones based on their density.

01:11:31Ripe beans are heavier, so they will sink to the bottom.

01:11:34A washed coffee bean will keep all of the original characteristics of the coffee bean,

01:11:39giving a more intense mouthfeel.

01:11:42Then the beans will need to be fermented for a day or two.

01:11:46Much like with cheese or chocolate,

01:11:49this is the part where coffee will acquire its rich and complex flavor.

01:11:53Some farms will ferment coffee beans for over 30 days.

01:11:57This is what is called a natural process.

01:12:00If you choose coffee that has undergone this process,

01:12:03expect a very fermented-tasting bean, almost cheesy in taste.

01:12:07But not in a bad way, I swear.

01:12:12Now, remember we said that the best coffee farms are located in a dry climate?

01:12:17That's because Carla needs to leave several tons of coffee to dry out in the open air

01:12:22before she continues the process.

01:12:24And no, the beans still aren't ready for consumption.

01:12:28They'll spend three weeks drying,

01:12:30and Carla will rake them regularly so that all the beans can dry evenly.

01:12:35Finally, the beans will go to the roasting stage.

01:12:38This is when coffee is cooked, or should I say when it is baked.

01:12:42Whenever you walk into a coffee shop, you see that coffee beans are brown, right?

01:12:47But that's not their original color.

01:12:50Coffee beans are usually greenish in color,

01:12:52and they turn brown only during the roasting process.

01:12:56So it's safe to say that roasting coffee is a science,

01:12:59one that needs precision.

01:13:01Beans are baked at extremely high temperatures,

01:13:04ranging from 365 to 482 degrees Fahrenheit.

01:13:09So roasters have to be pretty careful not to overroast and burn entire batches of coffee.

01:13:15Since a pound of raw specialty coffee can cost up to 20 bucks,

01:13:20there's not a lot of room for error while roasting.

01:13:23Next time you see a light roast coffee,

01:13:25remember that this process highlights traces of sweetness and floral notes,

01:13:30while a dark roast will bring a more chocolatey touch to it.

01:13:35Some countries deliberately overroast their coffee beans,

01:13:39but this is a cultural option.

01:13:41Italians love extremely dark roasts,

01:13:43so it's common that in their local coffee shops,

01:13:46you'll taste an almost burnt espresso.

01:13:49But hey, it was Italians' love for strong coffee that gave the world the mocha pot.

01:13:55The mocha pot was invented around 1933,

01:13:58and it is like a mini espresso machine.

01:14:01It's a home-brewing method that will let you have a drink that is similar to espresso,

01:14:05but is a more watered-down version of it.

01:14:10Now, not all coffee producers roast their own coffee.

01:14:14A lot of farms sell their green beans to roasteries around the world.

01:14:18And hey, maybe your favorite local coffee shop is also a coffee roaster,

01:14:23so you'll always get freshly roasted coffee.

01:14:29Here at Carlos, they do their own roasting.

01:14:32To taste which roast they'll sell, they do something called cupping.

01:14:36This is when grounded beans are immersed in water,

01:14:39and professional tasters evaluate the coffee's taste, aroma, and mouthfeel to determine its quality.

01:14:45Here's the catch – they don't actually drink this coffee.

01:14:49They just let it sit in their mouths and spit it into another cup.

01:14:53Okay, since you're a coffee expert now, let's do some serious tasting.

01:14:58We need to pour the liquid into the cup first.

01:15:01So, how can we do that?

01:15:03We can try out different brewing methods.

01:15:05You can try pour-over methods for vibrant flavors but less bitterness.

01:15:10If you don't mind the natural bitterness,

01:15:12try some pressure methods like the espresso machine,

01:15:15the AeroPress,

01:15:17or even the mocha pot.

01:15:20If you're one of those people who love your coffee cold,

01:15:23how about a cold brew?

01:15:25Everything depends on the taste you're looking for.

01:15:28Well, that's it. Our coffee tour is over.

01:15:31But hey, next time you think that paying 5 or 6 bucks for a cup of specialty espresso is too much,

01:15:37remember how long the entire process takes

01:15:40and how many people are involved in delivering that tiny bit of liquid into your cup.

01:15:45It was September 12, 1990.

01:15:48In those times, way before instant messaging and Zoom calls,

01:15:52a little girl was looking for pen pals.

01:15:55Zoe was aboard a ship from England to Belgium on vacation with her parents.

01:16:00She was only 10 years old at the time but was a very clever schoolgirl.

01:16:04She took a piece of paper and started putting some words together.

01:16:08She introduced herself, then wrote about how she liked ballet and playing the flute and the piano.

01:16:14Of course, she couldn't help but mention her two adored pets.

01:16:17A little hamster she called Sparkle and her fish Speckle.

01:16:21She also put down the address at which she could be reached

01:16:24in case someone was interested in writing back to her.

01:16:27But alas, she was at sea.

01:16:29Who could she send this message to?

01:16:32An interesting idea came to her mind.

01:16:34She carefully placed her letter in a plastic bottle,

01:16:37tightly closed the lid to protect it from the water,

01:16:40and threw it into the sea.

01:16:42The little girl's excitement faded away over the years

01:16:45as she didn't receive a response.

01:16:47Maybe the bottle got stuck somewhere.

01:16:49Maybe it was swallowed by some big scary sea creature.

01:16:53Or maybe the water actually poked through the plastic cap and destroyed her message.

01:16:58Many years later, on Christmas,

01:17:00a letter for Zoe was received at her parents' house under her maiden name.

01:17:04The postage signaled that the message was from Europe.

01:17:07It was from a Dutch couple, Piet and Jacqueline Leteau,

01:17:11who had found her delicate bottle and were very considerate to write back.

01:17:15They pointed out that they had found the letter among the debris

01:17:18thrown at the shore by the sea.

01:17:20Zoe's letter had been stranded for a staggering 23 years at sea

01:17:25and traveled for more than 350 miles

01:17:28to reach its final destination near Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

01:17:32That's quite a voyage for a small plastic bottle.

01:17:35A story similar to that of Zoe is the strange connection between two little boys.

01:17:41A little German boy named Frank Uzbek was on a boat traveling to Denmark

01:17:46when he got the same idea as Zoe.

01:17:48He was 5 years old at the time he put together a message

01:17:51and threw it into the unknown.

01:17:53The year was 1987.

01:17:55He got his response years later when he was 29.

01:17:59His letter, just like the one Zoe would send a couple of years later,

01:18:03had been at sea for 24 years.

01:18:06His message was found by a boy named Daniel Korotke

01:18:09while he was on a walk with his parents on the Koronian Spit near the Baltic Sea.

01:18:14Daniel was lucky that his father knew enough German to translate the message.

01:18:18The unlikely friends eventually met via video call in 2011.

01:18:23Not all message-in-a-bottle stories have been explained away.

01:18:27In 2013, a Croatian surfer came across a damaged bottle while near the Adriatic Sea.

01:18:33The message it contained dated back to 1985

01:18:37and it was from a man named Jonathan.

01:18:40The sender was eager for his letter to reach a woman named Mary,

01:18:43and he also expressed his keenness for her to respond.

01:18:47Since the letter was supposedly sent from Nova Scotia,

01:18:50the bottle had to have traveled a mind-boggling 3,700 miles.

01:18:55The message went from the Atlantic Ocean,

01:18:57entered the Mediterranean Sea,

01:18:59and reached the Adriatic shores in Croatia.

01:19:02The identities of neither John nor Mary were ever discovered.

01:19:06There are also messages-in-a-bottle with wonderful love stories to share.

01:19:11This was the case for Ake and Paulina Wiking.

01:19:14When Ake, a lonely Swedish sailor, placed a letter in a bottle

01:19:18and threw it in the Mediterranean Sea,

01:19:20he had no idea the piece of paper would eventually reach his future wife.

01:19:25This was in the early 1950s.

01:19:28The bottle was found by an Italian man

01:19:30who was inspired enough to give it to his niece, Paulina.

01:19:34After a year of back-and-forth letters being exchanged,

01:19:37Ake and Paulina eventually met and got married.

01:19:41Having decided to share their story with the world,

01:19:44they became somewhat of a celebrity couple for the time.

01:19:47They even shared video footage of their wedding with the world,

01:19:50and their story was featured in a bunch of newspapers.

01:19:54This fortunate event started a movement between young people looking for love,

01:19:58increasing the number of messages being thrown out at sea

01:20:01in search of a fairytale ending.

01:20:04Not all the stories that started out like this eventually worked out, though.

01:20:08In 1945, an American named Frank Hayostack

01:20:12placed a similar message to that of Ake's in a bottle and threw it in the waters.

01:20:17Almost a year later, his letter was found by an Irish woman.

01:20:21Her name was Brenda O'Sullivan.

01:20:24Their years of correspondence soon caught the attention of the media at the time,

01:20:28but their friendship never flourished because of the added pressure.

01:20:32They eventually met in person when Frank traveled to Ireland,

01:20:36but he didn't stay for long, and they eventually got out of touch with each other.

01:20:41After Titanic met its strange ending,

01:20:43many bottles containing secret messages started to surface.

01:20:47Almost all of them proved to be counterfeited, apart from one letter.

01:20:52Years after Titanic had sunk in the icy Atlantic waters,

01:20:55a bottle was found on the Irish shores.

01:20:58It was supposedly from a man named Jeremiah Burke,

01:21:01and to this day, it is considered to be the only genuine message in a bottle

01:21:06originating from Titanic.

01:21:08The piece of paper simply stated the sender's name and the location,

01:21:12the Titanic, accompanied by the word goodbye.

01:21:16Since the date has washed away,

01:21:18it's difficult to estimate whether the note was sent before

01:21:21or after the ship had hit the iceberg.

01:21:24The common understanding is, however,

01:21:26that since Jeremiah was looking to relocate to the U.S.,

01:21:30he was merely sending his last symbolic regards to his family and friends back in Ireland.

01:21:36This simple way of meeting, and sometimes corresponding with people,

01:21:40has turned into a hobby for a man from a Canadian province named Prince Edward Island,

01:21:45located east of the U.S. state of Maine.

01:21:48This man, Harold Hackett,

01:21:50claims to have sent over 4,000 bottles into the Atlantic Ocean since 1996.

01:21:56He also claims to have received many responses from all over the world,

01:22:00including letters from people in Europe, like France and Germany,

01:22:04but also from the Bahamas or even Africa.

01:22:07This unlikely pastime earns him about 150 Christmas cards from his pen pals each year.

01:22:13To this day, he refuses to add his phone number to any of his letters.

01:22:18This way, he ensures that if people ever want to contact him,

01:22:22the only means of doing so is via a written letter.

01:22:26He's also studied the best times to send the messages in the water

01:22:30based on the direction of the winds and the currents.

01:22:33Now, some bottles spend a whole lifetime at sea after being cast away by their sender.

01:22:39It was the case for a British man that wrote a message

01:22:42and placed it into a bottle before throwing it in the English Channel in 1914.

01:22:47His name was Thomas Hughes, and he wanted to direct the message to his wife,

01:22:51but was polite enough to write a letter to whoever got their hands on the bottle first,

01:22:56asking them to redirect the piece of paper accordingly.

01:23:00The bottle didn't reach his wife since it was found 85 years later on the Essex coast.

01:23:06The man that stumbled upon the bottle was kind enough to reach out to the family

01:23:10and place the message in possession of Thomas' daughter.

01:23:14And 85 years isn't the longest time for a small bottle to be cruising the waves.

01:23:19A scientist named Hunter Brown was studying currents in the North Sea

01:23:23when this idea came to his mind.

01:23:26He placed the same message in almost 2,000 bottles

01:23:30and requested the unlikely recipient that they write back with the location of their discovery.

01:23:35He thought this method would help him better understand the layout of the North Sea currents.

01:23:41A bottle was found about 11 miles from its original departing location after 97 years.

01:23:47To this day, more than 300 of the original bottles relating to Hunter Brown's project

01:23:52eventually made it to the shore.

01:23:55Not all of the messages that were found in bottles got replied to via physical letters.

01:24:00Oliver Vandevala threw a bottle containing a letter on the English coast

01:24:04while he was on vacation with his family.

01:24:07He was 14 at the time.

01:24:0933 years later, a woman reached out on Facebook

01:24:13claiming she had gotten his message and tracked him down through his social media profile.

01:24:18At first, he hardly remembered having placed the letter in the bottle.

01:24:22But he eventually recounted the events,

01:24:25even the fact that he sealed the bottle with candle wax to make sure it was leak-proof.

01:24:30And then there's Christina Aguilera and her bottle.

01:24:33No wait, hers is about a genie in a bottle.

01:24:36Okay, never mind.

01:24:40This hidden village is called Aogashima.

01:24:43It's located right in the middle of a volcanic crater.

01:24:46You can find it to the south of Japan, in northernmost Micronesia.

01:24:51The story goes that a volcano erupted in the Philippine Sea in the 1780s,

01:24:56causing a lot of harm to a nearby community.

01:24:59Half of the population managed to escape the massive eruption

01:25:02and came back years later to rebuild their village.

01:25:05At the moment, about 160 people are living there peacefully,

01:25:09even though the volcano is still considered to be active.

01:25:15Huacachina, in Peru, lies in one of the driest climates in the world.

01:25:20And still, it's a beautiful town, surrounded by lush palm trees.

01:25:25It also has a lagoon, which is said to have special healing properties.

01:25:29The settlement has a little over 90 residents that manage small businesses.

01:25:34Most of them use sand as their primary resource.

01:25:37Some offer sandboarding services, or even provide luxury dinners in the desert.

01:25:44For over 500 years, a small group of people has been living on a cliffside

01:25:49of a peak called the Green Mountain.

01:25:52It's one of the most remote places in Oman, and in the whole world.

01:25:56The only way to reach the settlement is on foot, by mule, or by all-terrain vehicle.

01:26:03It's called Al-Soghara, and you need to hike around 20 minutes

01:26:07up a steep stone staircase to get there.

01:26:10The village appeared back when the locals chiseled their houses into the mountain stone

01:26:14to protect themselves from storms and the cold.

01:26:17Five families of the Al-Shariki tribe still call this place home,

01:26:21about 25 people in total.

01:26:25A lot of other villages like this one can be found in the region,

01:26:28but Al-Soghara is special because it's the only one that is still inhabited.

01:26:33Up until 14 years ago, there wasn't even electricity or telephone lines here.

01:26:38The nearest road you could drive on was 9 miles away.

01:26:42Since there were no schools, people had to learn how to read and write at home from their elders.

01:26:48To this day, the villagers continue their traditional practice of building their homes

01:26:53by carving them directly into the mountain rock.

01:26:57One of the most beautiful Greek gems is Monemvasia,

01:27:01a castle town located in southeastern Peloponnese.

01:27:05It was designed to be invisible from the mainland for added protection.

01:27:09You can only see it from the sea.

01:27:11And to reach it, you need to follow a narrow pathway that connects it to the mainland.

01:27:17That's actually how its name came into being.

01:27:20It translates to a single passage.

01:27:23Monemvasia was built in the Middle Ages, exclusively carved in the mountain rock.

01:27:28These days, a lot of old mansions have been turned into guesthouses and boutique hotels.

01:27:34Not only is the architecture amazing and beautifully preserved,

01:27:38but it's also surrounded by crystal clear waters.

01:27:43A town with no roads? Pack your bags for Giethoorn in the Netherlands,

01:27:48if you don't mind traveling by boat.

01:27:50The town is very peaceful, probably because everyone here travels by canals.

01:27:55Even the mail gets delivered by water.

01:27:58Since there's no car traffic and people rarely move around, the town is really quiet.

01:28:03So quiet that the loudest sound one can hear is the quacking of a duck every now and then.

01:28:11It initially started as a movie set, but Hobbiton in New Zealand still exists.

01:28:17Even after the filming of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit was finished,

01:28:21tours to the charming set town are now available.

01:28:24There are 44 Hobbit holes in total, though only a few of them are actually open to the public.

01:28:32The isolated cliffside village of Gassadalar in the Faroe Islands has a population of only 11 people.

01:28:39It's mostly known for its scenic waterfall, which falls directly into the Atlantic Ocean.

01:28:45You could only reach it on foot, hiking through the mountains not so long ago.

01:28:49However, a tunnel has been constructed recently, making the place easily accessible by car.

01:28:57The 1980s musical Popeye had a custom set built on Malta.

01:29:02It wasn't taken down after the filming had been finished,

01:29:05and Popeye Village is now home to groups of beautifully colored wooden buildings and a company of actors.

01:29:12There's a lot of fun stuff to do there, like watch theater shows, go on boat rides, visit museums,

01:29:18or simply explore the creative village.

01:29:23The oldest and most photographed village in Austria is called Hallstatt.

01:29:28It's a hidden European gem, with beautifully preserved old buildings and a subterranean salt lake.

01:29:34It's also home to a museum with artifacts as old as 7,000 years and the world's oldest salt mine.

01:29:43Fort Bortange in the Netherlands is a small establishment shaped like a star.

01:29:48Creative parts aside, it was built this way for defensive purposes.

01:29:53It gave the guards of the fort a strategic advantage because they had a perfect 360-degree view.

01:30:00These days, the construction is perfectly preserved, including its old buildings,

01:30:05cobblestone streets, wooden windmills, and sophisticated bridges.

01:30:11In Morocco, there's a traditional earthen village made entirely from clay bricks.

01:30:16You can find it in a valley close to the Atlas Mountains, 32 miles from the capital of Morocco.

01:30:22Merchants who followed the Trans-Saharan trade route went through this town, carrying spices and gold.

01:30:29As the trade route became less and less popular, many of these fortresses were abandoned and are now preserved relics.

01:30:37It's one of the best places for skiing in the world, but it's still hidden from the public.

01:30:43No wonder the locals call it the secret side of the valley.

01:30:47Located in Austria, the tiny village of Barth has only a couple hundred inhabitants.

01:30:53Not only is it the snowiest village on Earth, but it also has access to one of the biggest ski slopes in the world.

01:31:01Its popularity increased a bit in 2013 when the construction of a high-speed road was completed nearby.

01:31:09Virano in Italy is one of the most colorful islands in the world.

01:31:14Because of its vibrant colors, it almost looks tropical.

01:31:18It features emerald green waters, beautiful houses, and a 17th-century bell tower.

01:31:23Its lace-making tradition brought Leonardo da Vinci to the island back in the 1400s.

01:31:29He bought a piece of cloth there and later used it for the design of the famous Dome of Milan.

01:31:37If you have a UK passport, you must be familiar with the beautiful small town of Bybury,

01:31:43as its scenery is featured in your ID.

01:31:46It's surely one of the most charming towns in Europe, as it's made up of stone buildings standing on the River Colne.

01:31:53The image in the UK passports is that of Arlington Row, a line of weavers' cottages that date back to the 14th century.

01:32:03The town of Coober Pedy in Australia is partially underground.

01:32:07It all began back in 1915 when opal deposits were found in the area.

01:32:12To this day, the town is still the biggest opal mine in the world.

01:32:16People living there figured out that it would be more comfortable for them to stick to the underground,

01:32:21as the temperatures outside can reach 125 degrees Fahrenheit.

01:32:26So, the settlement now has underground stores and galleries.

01:32:30Coober Pedy is also home to the world's first four-star underground hotel.

01:32:36To visit the most remote location in the whole world, you'll need to prepare yourself for quite a journey.

01:32:42If you're traveling from the United States, for example, the easiest route is a 15-hour-long flight to Cape Town, South Africa,

01:32:50followed by a six-day boat ride.

01:32:52Only after that will you reach Tristan de Cunha.

01:32:56Or you can take a month-long cruise across the South Atlantic Ocean, whatever works better for you.

01:33:02Planning in advance is a must, since there are only nine boat trips to the island yearly.

01:33:09The island itself is just seven miles long.

01:33:12Sitting right in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, it covers a mere 37.8 square miles.

01:33:18The 300 residents are all farmers.

01:33:21They have the Internet, but it's really slow.

01:33:24As for a phone network or a local newspaper, neither is available.

01:33:29The inhabitants of the island speak a dialect of English that is used by the smallest number of people in the world.

01:33:37So, imagine you're 15 and you get bored of playing video games.

01:33:41Instead, to pass the time, you decide to give some attention to an old hobby of yours, tracking down lost Mayan cities.

01:33:49You've heard that some ancient civilizations are said to have built entire cities based on constellations.

01:33:55So, you decide to check out whether that was true for the Mayans.

01:33:59You find a book containing all the constellations the Mayan civilization believed to exist.

01:34:05You open good old Google Maps and map every ancient Mayan city discovered to date.

01:34:10You start seeing that this information actually matches.

01:34:14And truly, the biggest ancient Mayan cities correspond to the brightest and biggest stars of the Mayan constellations.

01:34:21Okay, this is getting interesting.

01:34:24You manage to map out over 100 ancient cities when you suddenly notice something strange.

01:34:30There's an area in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico where archaeologists have unearthed two Mayan cities.

01:34:37But on the constellation map, there are three stars.

01:34:41Could this mean there is a long-lost city waiting to be discovered nearby?

01:34:46You might think this sounds too daydreaming, but the story is actually true.

01:34:51The previous account happened to a Canadian teenager named William Gadery.

01:34:56The boy is known as a science genius and had even won an award for the constellation theory we presented just now.

01:35:03When he noticed that a third city was missing from the 23rd constellation he was examining,

01:35:08he began to scour the Internet for satellite pictures that could help him solve this mystery.

01:35:14He looked into images from NASA, JAXA, a Japan-based satellite company, and Google Earth.

01:35:20These images were still insufficient to answer his questions,

01:35:24so he reached out to a friend inside the Canadian space agency.

01:35:28His friend provided him with state-of-the-art satellite imagery that gave him the answer he was looking for.

01:35:34According to the images, there is a large square area right on the border of Mexico and Belize,

01:35:40which looks like the remains of a city.

01:35:43William took the images to a remote sensing expert known as Dr. Armin LaRocque from the University of New Brunswick.

01:35:50They studied the images thoroughly and concluded that the area could be housing 30 buildings and even a large pyramid.

01:35:58The scientific and archaeological community went crazy with the 15-year-old's discovery.

01:36:04Could this really be true?

01:36:06Some background.

01:36:08Lost Mayan cities began to be unearthed in the mid-20th century.

01:36:12Since then, ruins from cities such as Tikal, Palenique, and Uxmal have been rediscovered.

01:36:18The Mayans were one of the biggest pre-Columbian civilizations living in the Americas.

01:36:23They began to settle in the area as early as 1500 BCE.

01:36:28Experts believe that, at its height, the Mayan civilization consisted of over 40 cities with a population of millions of people.

01:36:36That's a crowd.

01:36:38And their cities were pretty interesting.

01:36:40Their civilization spanned over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, Guatemala, and Belize.

01:36:46They survived mainly on agriculture, so they developed a complex irrigation system in most of their cities.

01:36:53They built a series of ceremonial buildings, pyramids, plazas, and even courts for ball games.

01:36:59The Mayans were keen pyramid builders, but they also developed an advanced astronomical system.

01:37:05With whatever ancient technology they had, they were able to predict the exact location of planets, such as Venus and Mars,

01:37:13and they were able to predict the exact dates of eclipses.

01:37:17That's why the methodology William used to discover this long-lost Mayan city was unusual, but not completely surreal.

01:37:25The Mayans were keen astronomers, so it wouldn't be too strange that they built their major architectural feats in relation to the sky, would it?

01:37:34And they wouldn't be the first ones to be doing so.

01:37:37There is a famous fringe of Egyptology dedicated to studying how the Giza pyramids were built in perfect alignment with the Orion constellation,

01:37:46meaning that each pyramid was purposely built to align with one of the major stars of Orion's belt.

01:37:53According to William, he first had the idea to look at the Mayan constellations because he couldn't understand why the Mayans built their cities where they built them.

01:38:03Most major cities, such as Chichen Itza and Uxmal, aren't near any rivers or significant bodies of water.

01:38:10Instead, they're built on marginal lands and on top of mountains, which confused the 15-year-old.

01:38:16His next thought was that it might have something to do with astronomy.

01:38:20William named the new city he discovered Mouth of Fire, which is also my nickname, and he even won a Merit Award for his hard work.

01:38:28However, his theory was very much contested inside the archaeological community, and many Mayan experts worked to debunk William's findings.

01:38:37Some archaeologists say that constellation theories are too unscientific.

01:38:42Anthony Aveni, a renowned anthropologist and astronomer, referred to William's methodology as an act of creative imagination.

01:38:51He explained that there is no way to be sure what the Mayan constellations really were. It's all just hypothetical.

01:38:59Another debunking of William's findings came from Mayanist David Stewart, who said that the object identified on the satellite imagery is nothing but an old cornfield.

01:39:10His claim was supported by an expedition that took place near the area in 2021, when the archaeologists present reported there was nothing at all in this area.

01:39:20Still, a 15-year-old boy almost found a long-lost Mayan city, which is pretty exciting if you ask me.

01:39:27Similar techniques as those used by William are actually being used to unearth lost civilizations all over the world.

01:39:35According to space archaeologist Sarah Parquet, satellite imagery has been a key player in discovering ancient cities in Egypt and other places.

01:39:43Sarah herself spends most of her days scouring images for any sign of where there could have been cities long ago.

01:39:50What happens, she says, is that any time you have something buried, it's going to be covered either by vegetation, soil or sand, or some other modern construction on top of it,

01:40:01in order to assess whether there is something hidden under large canopies of vegetation or not.

01:40:07She uses infrared technology, for instance.

01:40:11A major recent discovery in Brazil was done in a similar way.

01:40:15Satellite imagery detected a network of trenches dating back to 200-1200 CE.

01:40:21These suggest settlements that could have supported around 60,000 people.

01:40:26But in this case, the satellite imagery did indeed correspond to what was on the ground.

01:40:32Researchers from the University of Florida found several mountains that were accompanied by ditches and geoglyphs.

01:40:39Archaeologists also found remnants of carefully designed walls centered around closets,

01:40:45much like the type of construction done by the ancient Mayans.

01:40:49Advances in satellite tech have also shed new light on long-discovered ancient Mayan cities, such as Tikal.

01:40:56Located in the heart of the Guatemalan jungle, Tikal is believed to have been the capital of the ancient Mayan empire.

01:41:03At its height, it was comparable in importance to cities such as London or New York in today's world.

01:41:09It was composed of a series of complex monuments, many of them believed to have been the resting places of kings and chiefs.

01:41:17Tikal is already known to have been big,

01:41:20but recent discoveries show it could have been even three times larger than what scientists originally believed.

01:41:26The main discovery revolves around a fortification on the outskirts of the city,

01:41:31indicating how far the original city stretched.

01:41:34And new discoveries still take place.

01:41:37In 2017, researchers also unearthed new clues regarding the potential causes of the decline of the Mayan civilization.

01:41:45Using data from a site in Cebul, located 62 miles southwest of Tikal,

01:41:51scientists analyzed radiocarbon data from ceramics and archaeological excavations

01:41:57to extract new information about the sudden demise of this great civilization.

01:42:02The information shows that, instead of a sudden collapse,

01:42:06the Mayans most likely collapsed in waves of social instability and political crises.

01:42:11These events are believed to have deteriorated Mayan city centers and began causing the dispersion of the Mayan population.

01:42:19Well, it seems like it's a prime time to uncover ancient ruins.

01:42:24It was April 10, 1912.

01:42:27Richard had just departed from Southampton, England,

01:42:30aboard the most famous ship of the time, dubbed the Unsinkable.

01:42:34Since he had just witnessed a near collision with the SS City of New York,

01:42:38he decided to write to his wife and report the unfortunate and frightening event.

01:42:43My dearest Sal, he wrote, we got away yesterday after a lot of trouble.

01:42:49Little did he know that a mere four days later,

01:42:52both his pen and the ship he was on would be lost forever at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean.

01:42:58Was this some sort of bad omen?

01:43:00Did Richard actually foresee what was about to happen to the ship he was on?

01:43:05In case you haven't figured it out by now,

01:43:07Mr. Richard Geddes was aboard the Titanic on the day that he wrote the letter to his wife.

01:43:13On April 14, 1912, the ship seemed to have been lost forever.

01:43:17Along with it, so many secrets and treasures have settled at the bottom of the ocean.

01:43:22It took until 1985 for the Titanic's wreck to be finally rediscovered using state-of-the-art sonar technology.

01:43:30Ever since then, they've managed to recover thousands of items from the Titanic,

01:43:34and many of them went on display or auction.

01:43:37Things like jewelry, a life jacket, a menu from the ship's restaurant,

01:43:42or even a sample square of carpet from the first-class stateroom have all captivated the public's attention,

01:43:48just like the many stories of the people on board.

01:43:51Scientists have even tried to come up with strategies to get the Titanic back up altogether

01:43:56to properly study it and stop it from getting more and more damaged at the bottom of the ocean.

01:44:01Some have suggested filling the wreck with ping-pong balls to make it float,

01:44:05while others even considered injecting it with 180,000 tons of Vaseline.

01:44:10Another idea was to use 450,000 tons of liquid nitrogen to trap it in an iceberg that would float to the surface.

01:44:18But they eventually had to let go of all these potential strategies,

01:44:22since the Titanic is way too fragile to ever be recovered.

01:44:26The Titanic may be one of the most interesting ships lying at the bottom of the ocean,

01:44:31at least in popular culture, but deep-sea divers have a lot of other stories to share.

01:44:38Planes also sometimes find their way to the bottom of the ocean.

01:44:42Deep-sea divers in Oahu, Hawaii, came across the wreckage of an F4U Corsair plane.

01:44:48It seems to have crashed into the ocean in 1946, as it didn't have sufficient fuel.

01:44:55If you can dive deep enough, you might even stumble upon statues and lost artifacts,

01:45:00like those found in the world's only underwater archaeological park off the coast of Naples, Italy.

01:45:06It features the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Baia.

01:45:10The underwater statues found here are breathtaking, to say the least.

01:45:15In an ironic twist of events, some of the equipment we intended to use to get us to the Moon

01:45:21was lost at the bottom of the sea for a very long time.

01:45:24But how did that happen?

01:45:26Beginning from the late 1960s and ending in the early 70s,

01:45:30many Apollo rockets were launched to orbit the Earth and the Moon.

01:45:34When reaching altitudes of about 38 miles,

01:45:37the first portion of the spacecraft, including the engines, needed to separate.

01:45:41People thought these components got destroyed or lost forever.

01:45:45But were they really?

01:45:47In 2012, a team of specialists discovered a bunch of rocket engines 14,000 feet off the coast of Florida.

01:45:54They have since gone through a two-year renovation plan

01:45:57and are now on display at Seattle's Museum of Flight.

01:46:01Can you imagine stumbling upon a whole city underwater?

01:46:05Back in 2001, a lost city was discovered in the Gulf of Cambay off the coast of India.

01:46:11Some archaeologists believe it to be the oldest city in history.

01:46:15By comparison, it's almost the size of Manhattan and features massive walls and even plazas.

01:46:21They stumbled upon pieces of sculpture, artwork, and even what looked like ancient wooden furniture,

01:46:27believed to date back up to 9,500 years ago and 5,000 years older than any city previously discovered.

01:46:36Okay, how about an underwater river?

01:46:39I can't even imagine what that would look like,

01:46:41but some deep divers claim to have seen it south of Tulum, Mexico.

01:46:46Is that even possible?

01:46:47Well, not really, since the Cenote Angelita Cave is not a true river,

01:46:52but a very special type of optical illusion.

01:46:56It's formed by a halocline, meaning a cloud of hydrogen sulfide at the bottom of this underwater cave.

01:47:03Turns out you can actually swim right through this cloud,

01:47:06which makes you feel like you're swimming through a flowing body of water.

01:47:12Not all things discovered underwater are inanimate objects.

01:47:15Some of them are actually quite scary sea creatures.

01:47:19A jellyfish might not be on your list of things to look out for if you can avoid the stings,

01:47:24but this giant one, also known as a lion's mane jellyfish, is the largest known species of its kind.

01:47:31In all fairness, you'll only uncover it if you happen to dive into the waters of the Arctic,

01:47:36Northern Atlantic, and Northern Pacific oceans.

01:47:39You surely won't miss it, since it stretches across 120 feet from the top to the bottom of its tentacles.

01:47:47When it comes to deep-sea diving, a lot of people are looking to discover some lost treasure.

01:47:53One diver was lucky enough to have hit the literal jackpot

01:47:56when he came upon nearly $1 million worth of treasure on the bottom of the seabed.

01:48:01That was back in 2015, when this lucky diver was swimming just off the coast of Florida.

01:48:07What did he find, you might ask?

01:48:09Well, about 51 gold coins, 40 feet of gold chain,

01:48:13and a rare single coin that was tailored for the king of Spain, Philip V.

01:48:19Speaking of people looking for lost treasures,

01:48:22divers also sometimes found pirate ships.

01:48:25They discovered one of these pirate shipwrecks in 2015 off the coast of Colombia.

01:48:30It dates back to the 18th century.

01:48:32The value of this forgotten ship was estimated to be between $4 billion and $17 billion,

01:48:39as it contained treasures, precious stones, gold, and countless other really valuable items.

01:48:45By comparison, a whole island in the Bahamas is up for grabs at $75 million.

01:48:52A computer is the last thing you'd ever expect to discover underwater, right?

01:48:56And this was no regular computer, but an ancient one.

01:49:00And yet, someone stumbled upon it between 1900 and 1901

01:49:05on the spot of a shipwreck located off one Greek island.

01:49:08Researchers believe this weird stone contraption to be the earliest form of a computer.

01:49:13It was designed to serve many purposes,

01:49:16such as predicting astronomical positions and eclipses on the calendar.

01:49:20Since humanity lost most of the technology used back then,

01:49:24it was wonderful to rediscover it so many years later.

01:49:27It let us piece together many of the ancient Greeks' accomplishments.

01:49:31The computer is now at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens,

01:49:35should you ever want to check it out in person.

01:49:38This has to be one of the most mysterious places on Earth.

01:49:42It's called the Mariana Trench, and it's the deepest part of the Earth's oceans.

01:49:47We really don't know how deep it is, since it's so difficult to measure.

01:49:51But it's somewhere around 7 miles deep and 5 times longer than the Grand Canyon.

01:49:56They first studied this massive underwater hole back in 1875 using a weighted rope.

01:50:02Back in 2012, a Canadian film director named James Cameron

01:50:06reached the bottom of the trench in the submersible vessel Deep Sea Challenger.

01:50:10Some of the most bizarre creatures on the planet call this place their home,

01:50:15including the Dumbo Octopus, the Sea Cucumber, and the Goblin Shark.

01:50:20The Mariana Trench took its name after the nearby Mariana Islands,

01:50:24which are named Las Marianas in honor of the Spanish queen Mariana of Austria.

01:50:32You plan to spend your summer vacation in Africa.

01:50:35The final destination is the Sahara Desert.

01:50:38It's located in northern Africa, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.

01:50:42You're excited to ride camels and learn about the region's rich cultures.

01:50:46You hop on an extensively long flight, and finally, you are here.

01:50:51You find yourself in the world's biggest hot desert.

01:50:54Can you believe it's 3 million square miles?

01:50:57You're ready for your first adventure after drinking liters of ice-cold water.

01:51:02The guide gives you a choice.

01:51:04You can spend two weeks visiting a collection of oases,

01:51:07or you can help them solve an ongoing local mystery.

01:51:12Deep into the desert, near this Algerian town, lies a mystery begging to be solved.

01:51:18A collection of huge, spotted circles in the sand.

01:51:21There are dozens of them, stretching for miles in a straight line.

01:51:25The circles were first identified via Google Earth images several years ago.

01:51:30People have debated them for years, but no one seems to know the answer.

01:51:35The strange thing is that they are so many miles away from any towns, roads, or human activity.

01:51:41The quickest way to discover the truth behind the circles is asking questions.

01:51:46You grab your notebook and set out to talk to locals.

01:51:49Everyone is helpful in this scenario.

01:51:51Geographers, anthropologists, elders, and historians.

01:51:55The first person you talk to is a map expert.

01:51:58You need to understand if those circles were authentic or a satellite glitch.

01:52:03You end up interviewing the people who take Google Earth satellite pictures.

01:52:07The circles are really there.

01:52:09They appear in multiple pictures from many years.

01:52:12Then, let's understand why they are there in the first place.

01:52:16After two days of interviews, you have your first lead.

01:52:20The circles could be the result of oil activity.

01:52:23Experts explained why this would make sense.

01:52:26Algeria is a rich area for natural resources, so this would be a sensible guess.

01:52:32Usually, to find out if there is anything worth extracting, companies would undertake seismic surveys.

01:52:38Seismic surveys are a way of analyzing the Earth's surface by sending shock waves into the ground.

01:52:43Depending on how these waves bounce back, you'll know what is located there.

01:52:48A special vehicle could have marked the soil that way.

01:52:52So, did we unravel the mystery?

01:52:54Not quite so.

01:52:56As you know, the Sahara Desert is one of the driest areas on the planet.

01:53:00The average high temperatures in summer are over 104°F.

01:53:05To survive there, people need to find ways of accessing water.

01:53:09So, these circles could be a kind of ruin or leftovers from ancient water wells.

01:53:15Again, I'd say this is a sensible guess.

01:53:18Ready for some fact-checking?

01:53:20Some anthropologists agree that these circles could be ancient fagueras.

01:53:24Faguera is the name of a 2,500-year-old style of irrigation system.

01:53:29Usually found in Northern Africa.

01:53:31It is also known as a kanak in other places in Northern Africa.

01:53:37Locals would dig a deep well at an elevated point, deep enough to tap into underground water.

01:53:43They would then dig parallel shafts at regular distances.

01:53:46Then, they would dig an underground channel that connected the city to the well.

01:53:51Solely with the help of gravity, water would run from the well to the city.

01:53:56This traditional technology provided water for crops, livestock, and humans.

01:54:02Now, let's say these wells made human-made oases possible.

01:54:06Even the closest municipality name was an indication that this could be true.

01:54:11The name Fagueret Ezeoia is actually named after faguerets, these ancient wells.

01:54:17Now, this lead was proving to be very accurate.

01:54:20You decide to travel over there to see for yourself.

01:54:23You take a local bus, sit back, and enjoy the ride.

01:54:27The landscape in Northern Algeria is filled with ancient-looking towns.

01:54:31You even see ruins of wells along the way, on the outskirts of smaller cities.

01:54:36Opening Google's satellite images, you can see the kanak's markings on the ground.

01:54:41A series of holes running down several miles.

01:54:44But, as soon as you arrive, you find out you were wrong.

01:54:48Dale Lightfoot, one of the world's leading experts on kanaks,

01:54:52said that the circles were definitely not kanaks.

01:54:55Even the satellite images confirm this difference.

01:54:58Uh-oh, we were so close!

01:55:02Apparently, kanaks or faguerets would not run down a straight line.

01:55:06They wouldn't be shaped like circles.

01:55:08Another clue that this wasn't the case was that there were no towns at the end.

01:55:12The circles were really far away from any human activity.

01:55:16And kanaks were explicitly built to provide water for human settlements.

01:55:20Well, it sure was a good try.

01:55:23You almost gave up on this mystery when you decided to take one more field trip.

01:55:28It was days of preparation. Pick-up cars, food, equipment.

01:55:32All so that the mystery of the Sahara Circles could be unraveled.

01:55:36On the first day, you drove over 99 miles into the desert.

01:55:40You were always curious to see what this part of the world looked like.

01:55:44Over there, you see nothing but mustard-yellow dunes.

01:55:48The night sky is pretty decent, though.

01:55:50You can see the entire Milky Way with your own eyes.

01:55:53You set up camp and sleep under a canopy of stars.

01:55:57The next day, tension grows.

01:56:00There's no cell reception. Oh dear.

01:56:02But thankfully, you added the coordinates of the circles to your Google map.

01:56:06And surprise, the offline mode works out there.

01:56:10You follow the coordinates, but it leads you astray.

01:56:14You start to get nervous, thinking this was all in vain.

01:56:17But you and the team get into the car and drive a few more miles past the coordinates on your phone.

01:56:23After a very bumpy ride, you can't believe your eyes.

01:56:27There it is. An enormous crater dug on the sand, surrounded by 12 smaller holes.

01:56:34From up high, it looks like a clock. Without the pointers, of course.

01:56:38On the ground, they're very faint. So faint, you almost miss them.

01:56:43Searching the area, you notice all the holes had something similar.

01:56:47Metal wires. Thin wires that you can pull from the ground.

01:56:51They're buried deep, so you start digging.

01:56:54An object starts to reveal itself.

01:56:57Uh-oh. It looks like old dynamite.

01:57:00This certainly surprises you.

01:57:02Um, better stop digging to avoid any accidents.

01:57:05At the end of the survey, you feel satisfied, but still curious.

01:57:09What could all this dynamite mean?

01:57:12And who put it there?

01:57:14What comes next is the turning point of your adventure.

01:57:17Walking back to the car, you see something shining on the ground.

01:57:21You approach the item with curiosity.

01:57:24It's round and rusty and looks like a sardine can.

01:57:28What's that doing here?

01:57:30Could this give you more clues about the circle's mystery?

01:57:33Just in case, you pick it up and put it in the car.

01:57:37Back in the city, the puzzle pieces start to reveal the story behind the Sahara Circles.

01:57:42You bring photos and the sardine can and show them to local experts.

01:57:47They analyze your material and give you an intriguing verdict.

01:57:51As it turns out, guess number one was the closest one to the truth.

01:57:56So, what happened to the first guess?

01:57:58Why do we need to keep digging deeper?

01:58:01Well, because it was only half right.

01:58:04The Sahara Circles are not a historical footprint of seismic surveying.

01:58:09Back when the circles were made, this technology didn't even exist.

01:58:13But they sure are related to oil exploration.

01:58:16The dynamite-filled holes were an old method for oil searching.

01:58:20The circles are the leftovers of surveyors looking for resources underground.

01:58:25And the sardine cans?

01:58:27Well, they were left by the workers who held explosion works.

01:58:30You gotta eat, right?

01:58:32According to the model of the can, this happened more or less around the 1950s and 1960s.

01:58:37So, these circles aren't even that ancient.

01:58:40More like modern ones, if you ask me.

01:58:43Well, well, well.

01:58:45Hope you are glad you tagged along and helped unravel this mystery.

01:58:48See you in the next mystery-solving adventure!

01:58:51That's it for today.

01:58:53So, hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.

01:58:58Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!

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