01x01 - Impossible Riches

[bunniefuu]

In the summer of 1986,

we head out to sea

and begin the search.

Pull the other way.

We were looking

for the Central America,

the richest shipwreck anyone

had ever known about,

lost for a century.

Woo! Ha ha!

We have 40 days at sea.

I'm pulling out!

No more, no less.

We have 40 days

to find our target.

We're running out of time.

People are becoming nervous

about the impending weather.

Okay! Clockwise.

We hadn't slept for days.

We are beginning

to give up hope.

I cannot imagine the pressure

that may have been on Tommy.

This has been possibly 10 years

in the making, a dream of his.

All the way to the pier end.

Most people

would have buckled

under that kind of pressure.

But if anybody could find a ship

on the bottom of the deep ocean,

Tommy Thompson would be

the guy to do it.

We hope to be rich.

It could be worth

a billion dollars.

This is the end

of the rainbow right here

on the docks

in Norfolk, Virginia.

Tommy's story shows

that there are still Americans

who dream the American dream.

In the beginning,

it was really exciting.

And then it turned

into a tragedy.

Gold makes people crazy.

Tommy Thompson

has truly violated the trust

investors placed in him.

Now one of the most

wanted men in America.

He just vanished,

he's gone.

You just

wouldn't believe

what Tommy's been through.

Brilliant scientist

turned criminal;

inventor turned fugitive.

People say they know

where it is,

but, my god, you will never

find that gold.

Tommy will take the secret

of the Central America's gold

to his grave.

This story

has truly consumed my life

for almost 35 years now.

It is the greatest sea adventure

no one's ever heard of.

At the center is a man

named Tommy Thompson.

You do not know anyone

like Tommy Thompson.

I grew up in a small town

in northern Ohio.

I was always a tinkerer.

They tell me I could fix

anything in the house.

I wanted to be an inventor,

but there's no college training

for that.

Oh, my god.

Oh, my golly, Tommy Thompson.

Even as a really young

little boy,

Tommy was always

pushing the envelope,

he was always

challenging himself.

We were pretty sure that

he'd probably be an engineer,

a scientist, because he was so

innovative, he was so curious.

We were all sort of in awe

of what he wanted to do.

I entered into

the engineering school

at Ohio State.

I became interested in

how are we going to explore

the deep ocean?

I loved seeing and doing things

underwater.

Despite

growing up hundreds of miles

from, from any ocean coast,

the sea really starts

to captivate Tommy,

and he feels drawn to that

next frontier of exploration.

One of the things

that became obvious was

there's some things that

we lost in the deep ocean.

Why don't we go look

for some of those things?

He developed an obsession

with a lost ship.

A ship carrying so much gold,

it caused a banking panic

across America when it sank.

A shipwreck far deeper

than any other wreck

that had been salvaged.

He became obsessed with

the SS Central America,

the ship of gold.

The SS Central America

is legendary

among treasure hunters.

It was what they called

a sidewheel steamer

going from Havana up to New York

in September of 1857.

It got hit by a massive storm.

The waves are as high

as an office building.

The ship was carrying almost

500 passengers, 100 crew.

Original 49ers,

people that mined

during the California gold rush

and embodied the American dream.

A monster wave

came over the ship

and just drove it to the bottom

in a giant whirlpool.

425 people died.

This is the worst at-sea

disaster in American history.

At the time,

there was an estimated

six tons of gold on board.

It's been estimated

to be worth $400 million;

more gold than any other ship

that has sunk.

Treasure hunters lusted

after this ship.

It had life-changing wealth,

if they could only find it.

Tommy essentially

resolves

to make this his life's work.

It was just part

of the treasure hunting lore,

everyone knew it was

the jackpot of jackpots.

The task of finding

a tiny remains of a wreck

in the vast Atlantic Ocean

was compared to finding

a single grain of sand

in the floor plan

of a huge home.

So just where would you

even begin

to search for something

like that?

No one knew

where the ship sank.

Most people assume that

the Central America had sunk

in thousands and thousands

of feet of water

off the Carolina coast.

Anybody who did

real research on it

would discover that

it had to have been

at least 100 to 200 miles out.

It was not going to be found

in shallow water.

What chance would

Tommy Thompson have in finding

this ship that's been missing

for 130 years?

Has Tommy ever found

a wreck before? No.

Has he even gone on a mission

like this before? No.

Could they guarantee that

they could get the gold back

once they did find it,

if they did?

Uh, no.

Tommy spends hundreds of dollars

in quarters a week

calling as many people

as he can,

in every field that might be

conceivably relevant.

Sonar technicians, geologists,

undersea oil workers,

people who build submarines,

just any expert he can find.

Everybody that

Tommy talks to

thinks that this is impossible.

I think when

Tommy Thompson considered

something to be impossible,

his engineering brain

couldn't give up

on the idea that

there was a solution.

And he wasn't deterred by

hearing this can't be done,

because he believed it could be.

You need to figure out

the physics.

It is an X marks the spot.

When a ship has

that much water in it,

then it's going to drift

this fast in the current.

If the hurricane that hit

the Central America

was actually 110 knots

instead of 78,

that would affect the eventual

position of the sinking.

Tommy wants to search

the deep ocean,

not as a treasure hunter,

but as a scientist.

He was just wringing

these contemporaneous articles

from 1857 for every little piece

of information.

Weather, currents,

eyewitness accounts,

newspaper articles,

were fed into a model.

Every two-square-mile

piece of the ocean

has been assigned a number

that gives a probability

whether or not this

would be the shipwreck.

He was reducing thought

and conversation

into algorithms,

into mathematics.

It's the most

scientific approach

that had ever been implemented

for finding a shipwreck.

Tommy is now confident

that the wreck lies

somewhere in the search area.

If he's right, it'll make him

rich beyond his wildest dreams.

And before this mission

can even properly kick off,

Tommy needs to raise over

a million and a half dollars.

The question is, will anyone be

crazy enough to give it to him?

So, at this point, Tommy

needed to raise a lot of money.

Tommy has been working

on his plan for around 10 years.

At this point,

he needs to raise $1.6 million.

We had to put

together a budget.

I had absolutely no real idea

of how to put together a budget

for a deep-sea exploration.

Tommy basically took a napkin

and put a million dollars

for this, 30,000 for that,

and we made a budget that way.

That was terrifying to me.

It felt like we were making it

up as we went along.

Tommy made some key connections

in Columbus,

and from those connections, he

met the luminaries of the city.

There were a group of

us who were called to consider

putting in $5,000 or $10,000

to support a man

named Tommy Thompson.

My dad, he was in insurance,

my mom took care of my sister

and my brother and I.

I would say we are not

a rich family.

My dad was watching

some other people

who were investing

in this project,

and he said,

"What do you think?"

Most of the people

were really skeptical.

It was such a fly-by-night idea.

It was always about,

kiss your money goodbye,

because the chances of

succeeding were next to nothing.

But there's always

this glimmer of hope,

and when gold's involved,

it makes that glimmer

even brighter.

It's the Reagan years,

people have dollar signs

in their eyes.

Looking great!

The spirit in

the United States in the 1980s

is just bigger risks

mean bigger rewards,

and people are eager to pursue

these crazy opportunities.

It is my hope

that deep down inside

you'll find the courage

to be rich.

If they found

this treasure

and they brought it back

and they sold it properly,

the investors could realize

a huge, huge return.

What you're looking at

is a profit ratio

of maybe 10 to 1.

Like, if you put in $100,

you will get $1,000.

Obviously, there is

a lot of allure and excitement

about the idea

of a treasure hunt,

and Tommy taps into that.

And as you may have noticed

the pre-marketing went

pretty well.

Tommy, he's one

of the most charming people

you'd ever meet.

He's a down-home Ohio boy.

He's something special.

I don't know if I'm

an entrepreneur or not,

but I know that

no good entrepreneurs

are very good

without good mentors.

Tommy sold

to his investors

that this absolutely

could be done.

So, I started in it

as one of the first investors.

My dad said, "You know what?

I'm going to give it a try."

90% of the people

Tommy met with invested.

They invested in him

and his concept, his dream.

Sometimes the money

would come right in the mail,

and we would be excited,

and a lot of times there

would be a check for 10,000,

sometimes $20,000.

The possibility of

turning $100,000 into millions

was there.

People are eager to grow

their personal fortunes.

Investors will take 60% of the

estimated $400 million of gold,

with 40% going to Tommy

and his company.

But now we've got

$1.6 million

of other people's money.

The pressure on Tommy to deliver

must have been huge.

Today we are

230 miles out at sea

on the most sophisticated craft

on the ocean.

The engine's gonna die

any minute.

Our fearless mechanic

back there,

he's got things under control.

The SS Central America

was believed to lie

in 8,000 to 10,000 feet

of seawater

across an area of approximately

1,400 square miles.

That's an area three times

the size of Los Angeles.

It's like trying

to find a needle

in a field of haystacks,

in the dark.

Tommy had a search plan,

and that search plan

could only be enacted

for about a 40-day period,

because there were limited funds

and there was limited

contract time

for the equipment being used.

Tommy had paid

for 40 days of SeaMARC.

The SeaMARC was one

of the most powerful

deep-water sonar system

in the world.

A sonar search is often

described as mowing a lawn.

You have to figure out the most

efficient way to cut the grass

with no missed spots in between.

We tow the SeaMARC

behind our ship

that allowed us to look

at the seafloor

in swaths of

five kilometers wide.

We ran track lines

back and forth.

Tommy wanted us to survey

the entire 1,400 square miles

of the probability map.

This is control.

We've finished track line Z

and we're beginning to retrieve.

I am looking

at the computer screen

that is showing sweeps

of the sidescan sonar

as we're moving

along the bottom.

We're seeing just a blue screen.

Then gradually we would

come across an object.

The colors would change

from a blue to a yellow,

orange to a red,

depending upon the object.

We see shipping

containers, oil drums,

cables, we see old anchors.

One mile after another mile,

after hundreds of miles.

But no SS Central America.

Tommy became removed

from the team,

staying in his quarters,

making phone calls,

getting pressure from

the investors to have results.

The initial search became

this intense weight

that he carried with him

as the days moved on.

The pressure's just building

and building and building.

Looking at a screen

for days on end

is very tiring,

very, very boring.

After hours and hours of towing,

you're wondering, hey,

is this thing working or not?

This one right here, what about

this thing right here?

And then out of the blue,

as we're looking at the screen,

we start to see

something appear,

and, hey, guys, we've got

something here.

We start seeing colors,

we're starting to see yellows,

and then more intense oranges

and more intense reds.

And then we can start to see

sides of what might be a ship.

Fish heading 248.

Tommy's eyes widened

and he was excited.

This is a serious contact,

this is a serious contact.

Could this be

the SS Central America?

You got a bunch

of them already in there, right?

You can try

different sets of colors,

once you look at the numbers.

If a guy wanted to dream

he might say

the whole boat rotted away

and this here's

two paddle wheels,

honest to God!

Because they are parallel

And at a little angle.

We were screaming,

"Look what we've got,

look what we've got!"

We found it, we found it.

We've done it!

there it is, we found the wreck!

And now

the dilemma becomes,

do we carry on completing

the search grid,

or drop a camera down

to see what we've found?

There might be two sizes because

it depends on whether we are

just seeing the engine room

or we're seeing

the whole anomaly.

For the search team,

it's obvious

that we must drop a camera down,

and it set up

a conflict between us.

If we put a camera down,

we could have saved him

half the cost of the survey.

So, it seemed like

it might be to his benefit

and his investors

if we took a quick look.

Tommy did not

want to do that.

Tommy wanted to continue

searching,

and it was very annoying for us.

Our team was met

with a stone wall

of "No, we're going

to do it my way."

So that was very much

how Tommy was.

Psychologists would love

to get a hold of you.

So we've run out

of Cuban coffee, right?

Tommy was excited

about the image,

but it was one image,

and we had, at that point,

surveyed so little

of the 1,400 square miles.

We only had 12 days left

to complete the contract.

Tommy decides to not listen

to the world's greatest

sonar expert.

Tommy was someone

that could always smile.

He was someone that could look

at you and you would wonder,

is this a genuine smile

of affection and camaraderie,

or is he grinning at me

because I said something stupid

to somebody that's very smart?

Tommy says,

"I'm a scientist,

I'm going to do it by the book.

I will complete the search;

we will not deviate."

So, we continue

our search,

and we complete the search grid.

We find 10 possible sites

that could be

the Central America shipwreck.

But the best area of interest is

still the first sonar contact.

40 days at sea is almost up.

We face storm after storm.

With only days left before

we need to head to shore,

Tommy gambles on returning

to the first contact.

If it's not right,

we're out of money

and going home empty-handed.

Tommy was under

considerable pressure.

I just can't imagine

what he was thinking

and what he was experiencing.

They finally

dropped a camera.

I think it was the very last

dive of the season.

We descend,

turn on the camera,

and voilà.

We're still seeing blackness,

but occasional

flickers of light.

It's like another world,

because you're seeing fish

at 8 or 9, 10,000 feet deep.

Ah! Ah, come back.

He just faked you.

He was running at you.

Stop.

It's just so exciting,

because it's life,

you're seeing life.

But then eventually

we see a link of a chain

connected to other chains.

We are excited.

We knew the chain is connected

to something important,

likely to the target

that we're interested in.

What else

could it be out here

in 8,000 feet of seawater,

200 miles offshore?

John Lettow has

a loud, booming voice,

and he starts singing.

Chain, chain, chain.

Chain, chain, chain ♪

Chain, chain, chain ♪

Chain, chain, chain! ♪

Chain, chain, chain ♪

Chain of fools ♪

And we're just dancing

around the room, we can't stop.

And so, here we are singing this

song, "chain, chain, chain,"

knowing that the real lyrics

to it are "chain of fools,"

and, you know,

we're at that point,

wondering whether we're fools

or people that have made

the greatest discovery

of a historic shipwreck

ever found.

Oooooh, yeaahhh ♪

Chain, chain, chain ♪

That's something else

you made.

I'd recognize you anywhere!

So, at the end of 1986,

Tommy has a potential site for

being the SS Central America.

We had proven we had met

our first milestone,

but now we had to raise

more money

to get out there next season.

At that point,

we knew we had found the target,

and that it was probably

the Central America.

Back in Ohio,

Tommy was able to raise funds

very quickly.

$3.6 million.

The checks went from

10,000 per unit to $72,000.

As the project continues,

it becomes more expensive

to be a part of the project,

because the odds are becoming

more and more known.

We feel more confident

that we do actually

maybe have a shot at this.

Woo!

The main objective in '87

was to get a video presence

on the bottom.

Slack off

a little bit on that one.

We needed to get

a better look at this

and actually get some

100% ground truthing

that this was in fact

the SS Central America.

Get those lines,

get that side away.

One of the things

that Tommy had prepared

his investors for

was that when we initially find

the Central America,

we are most likely

to find sidewheels.

The Central America was

a sidewheel steamer.

The sidewheels are

30 feet in diameter.

That's how power was delivered

to move the vessel forward.

As we were seeing objects

appear on the video screen,

we were asking,

are those paddle wheels?

At the moment,

the excitement had built

that this is our ship,

and as we go along,

we realize this is a letdown.

As we went

over the wreck,

it became very obvious there was

no sign of any sidewheels,

and it was the wrong size.

Hey, it may not be

the Central America,

but it was some other ship that

sank in that same timeframe.

Examining the site

left us feeling

that we might be fools.

Chain, chain, chain ♪

For having been led to the idea

that this was

the SS Central America.

Tommy threw up his hands

and said,

"Let's get out of here."

Despite searching for

two years, two seasons at sea,

they realize that they are

searching the wrong site.

And the feeling of having spent

years of time,

millions of dollars of funding,

exploring the wrong places

was definitely starting to

create a bit of desperation.

Even though I told

all our investors

it was a high-risk thing,

it seemed like

a tremendous responsibility.

Because everybody was counting

on me to make it happen.

For Tommy,

it was incredibly difficult

to not be able to tell

his investors and the world

that we absolutely had found

the SS Central America,

and it had a great effect

on him.

It seemed like failure

was going to be imminent.

It had to be absolutely

crushing to Tommy.

We got back that fall

totally exhausted,

spent physically and mentally.

And now the hard part starts.

Now we're in an uphill battle

to raise money.

We had essentially

blown through

all the money

that he had raised.

This entire mission and

all the crew's hopes and dreams

and Tommy's own ambition,

it looks like they're all

staring failure in the face.

Partners and friends,

our partner and leader,

Thomas G. Thompson.

So, there's a meeting

that we have,

and we invite our investors.

And we are there to raise funds.

Tommy's going to say

we know that we have searched

this entire probability map,

there are nine out of ten

targets still to look at.

We will keep working on this

until we find it.

Tommy had a determination

about him,

he was not going to give up.

It's a tough challenge

for everybody who tried

to bring the project

to a higher level.

We're going to find out when we

go out there next summer.

Now any other questions?

Yes.

The investors

who really believed in Tommy

came forward with the money.

They just really trust

Tommy as an individual.

They trust the methods

that he's put into place

and the plan he has

to find this treasure.

They were attracted by

the profit that they might see.

I remember one of the investors,

they stood to receive

$10 million

from their investment.

My dad just decided,

I'm willing to take that risk.

He felt pretty comfortable

that they were going to do

what they said

they were going to do.

My dad has $210,000 invested.

How much did you contribute?

I'm not sure

I want to say that.

I would say that I was

one of the biggest investors.

Tommy was able

to go back to sea.

They're going way out

into the ocean, and this is it.

This is the final chance

they're going to have

to realize Tommy's dream.

For Tommy,

the pressure just got huge.

This was their third year

and they had found

no gold, nothing.

It was do or die.

RV, are you on a handheld?

That's correct, do you

want me to go to bridge?

They still had

nine targets on their grid.

Studying the sonograms,

they found one which looked

particularly promising.

This one image on their sonar

was bigger than all the others

and it had a lot more

interest in it.

We arrived on site

somewhat late in the year.

The storm season is approaching,

and the weather window

is closing.

Good, rotate

over there clockwise.

Swing it out, Bob,

take out the slack.

Start laying on this one.

Watch the

Let it go, you guys,

let it go.

We launched

the submersible.

I started developing

a very clear sonar picture.

There were large objects

that we had not seen

on any of the other sites, but

we didn't know what they were.

And as we got closer and closer,

the sonar images were becoming

more and more distinct.

John Moore yelled,

"We have something."

We then noticed

on the video monitor

an item that was

coming into view.

It was like a curved line,

and as we were moving over it,

that curved line

had spokes to it.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Here we go.

Ohh, you know what that is.

You know what that is.

Ahh!

You know what that is.

It would have been

the starboard side paddle wheel.

I probably passed

a foot above it.

It filled up

the entire video frame.

Look at that.

Is there any doubt

in your mind what that is?

Big bad boy.

Standing upright.

I am very overwhelmed

at this point.

I'm looking at something that

no other human has ever seen.

Ahh!

You know what that is.

This is more exciting

than anybody's gonna

come up in a Hollywood film.

We went down to have

a closer look.

And we saw an object

that could be

the ship's bell.

It's really beautiful.

Isn't that cool, man?

That's excellent right there.

And I was able

to bring it back.

We removed the bell

from the vehicle,

and now we were able to read

the inscription,

it read

"Morgan Iron Works, 1853."

At that point

we were very excited.

Morgan Iron Works

was the foundry

that built the heavy machinery

on the Central America,

and 1853 was the year

that the Central America

was commissioned.

That really confirmed it.

We got sidewheels, we got the

right engines, we got the bell.

This is really it.

Tommy was just beaming

from ear to ear

with a smile and pride.

But now the next question is,

where's the gold?

We're taking

many, many pictures.

We were seeing a lot of orange

and thinking,

well, that's kind of, uh,

that's almost the color of gold.

There has to be gold

on board this boat,

so we're starting to see

objects that, could that be it?

The answer

was almost universally no.

We still hadn't seen anything.

It was very frustrating.

You're seeing things again.

We started taking

hundreds of pictures a day

and developing the slides.

We had a lot

of questions of what this is.

One night the guys that

were reviewing the photographs

were quite excited.

Okay, here, here is

what the display looked like.

There's the posterboard.

Best I could do.

They called me and Tommy

and said, "Hey, we want you

to see something."

And they just handed me

a picture.

Oh, god, I'm seeing all these

rectangular, rectangular objects

and also circular items,

which in my mind could

have been, could be coins.

And I said,

"Whoa, could that really be?"

Oh, you can see it in here,

it's not a very good picture,

but here's the crest,

the town crest,

in the upper right-hand corner.

Oh, yeah.

So, we lowered

the vehicle,

we directed the thrusters

that we normally used

for maneuvering the vehicle

in the direction of this area

in the photo images.

Tommy says, "Okay,

I believe that if we're gentle

in trying to move some of this

overburden away,

we're not going to destroy

any important clues."

We go very gently,

and not much happens.

We try a little harder.

So, we try a little harder.

We then turn

the thrusters onto maximum

and just blew the area,

blew the silt and sediment away.

And then the dust cleared,

and we all could see

for our own eyes,

yellow, bright yellow.

Oh!

Wow, that's incredible!

We found it.

Gold. Lots of it.

They said it couldn't be done.

They said even if

we got down there,

we wouldn't be able to find it.

We turned impossibilities

into realities.

Eureka!

We found the gold.

We call it the garden of gold.

Just jaw-dropping beauty,

you couldn't imagine,

even in your dreams.

My god.

This is incredible.

So, Tommy had dreamed

about it since he was a kid,

and he had found

the Central America.

We've hit

the motherlode.

It's unquestionably the greatest

American treasure ever found.

The largest

treasure in American history.

So now they had

found the gold,

it is definitely time for Tommy

to deliver to his investors

so that they know that

their investment has paid off.

Chuck is

standing by live right now

to tell us the story of some

very happy local investors.

Investors in this project,

they're wanting their return

on their investment

as soon as possible.

There's absolutely

the thrill of getting some gold

and monetizing it.

The possibility of 400 million

to a billion-dollar windfall.

We were ecstatic,

absolutely ecstatic.

In the beginning,

it was really exciting.

But if you're gonna do something

magnificent like Tommy did,

you're going to be up for grabs.

We'd found the treasure,

and then things started

to go haywire.