02x08 - Mystery of the Sub Destroyer

[bunniefuu]

Is a Russian
nuclear sub

on a secret spy mission
when a deadly fire breaks out?

This kind of sabotage
would bring

the Western world
to its knees.

Can cutting-edge
forensic technology

reveal the identity
of human remains

buried in an eerie
Scandinavian lake?

There are
so many of them,

it obviously
could not be a single m*rder.

And what can explai a bizarre toxic haze
hitting England's beaches?

A day of fun at the beach
turns into a nightmare.

The underwater real
is another dimension.

It's a physically
hostile place

where dreams of promise
can sink into darkness.

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

to bring you the most iconi and baffling
underwater mysteries known to science.

The vast majority
of our ocean is unobserved,

unmapped, and unexplored.

It's a dangerous frontier

that swallows evidence...

You have nowhere to run.

...where unknown
is normal

and understanding is rare.

We think of the internet
as something

that exists "in the cloud"
but, incredibly,

99.5% of it is located
at the bottom of the ocean.

Email, banking data,
and top-secret intel,

all transported by a vast network
of underwater cables.

So, when a mysterious
Russian spy submarine

catches fire
in the Arctic Ocean,

tragically k*lling
most of her crew,

it brings to light
how vulnerable

these cables might be
to sabotage.

Do subs like this have the capability
to cr*pple the Western world

And if so, will we be ready
and able to stop them?

July 1st, 2019.

A Russian
nuclear-powered submarine

emerges discreetly in the Port of
Severomorsk, on the Kola Peninsula.

The vessel
is in a state of emergency.

The submarine is badly damaged
after catching fire in the Barents Sea.

There are reports that up to 14 people
have died.

This is Russia's deadliest
submarine accident in over a decade.

This sub is Russia's most secret
naval asset,

and any information
about it is classified.

Russian authorities
are very reluctant

to talk about
their military operations.

Moscow's silence raises suspicion
all over the world.

The question
everyone wants to know,

what was this nuclear sub up to
when the accident happened?

Details are scarce.

The Russian Minister
of Defense

doesn't name the submarine and
actually says that it's a state secret.

The response prompts accusations
of a cover-up

and a lack of transparency that draws
parallels with past nuclear disasters

In the 1980s,
with the Chernobyl incident

the Russian government stayed silent
for over three days.

And it echoes another well-known tragic
nuclear sub accident,

the Kursk.

Where 118
Russian submariners died,

the Russian government stayed silent
for over two days.

In 2019, will this tragedy
also be shrouded in mystery

A day after the incident,
the Minister of Defense

does let slip one piece
of intriguing information.

The Russian Ministersaid the submarine
was mapping the seafloor.

Ocean mapping
is a classic cover

for top-secret
underwater missions.

Is that the case here?

The identities of the 14
deceased submariners

are released to the public

and it's
a bombshell revelation.

These weren't your usual
Russian submarine personnel.

These were the elite
of the Russian Submarine Service.

So much so,
they have their own name.

They're called
"the Hydronauts."

They were
very high-ranking.

This indicates that there was
a special mission

that required
their presence on board.

You can rebuil
a submarine far easier

than you can build
experienced crew.

So, losing the crew, that's a loss
of a tremendous asset.

The presence
of the Hydronauts

could throw doubt
on the claim

that the sub was only mappin
the seafloor.

Was this mission
more ominous?

A Russian news channel

identifies the mysterious submarine
as the AS-31, Losharik.

The Losharik
is a top-secret submersible

It belongs to intelligence, research,
and development organization.

Its last known location

was only 60 nautical miles
east of Norway.

What was it doing so suspiciously close
to a foreign coastline?

At the time
of the accident,

there was actually a NATO exercise
taking place in the Norwegian sea.

Submarines fro
France, Germany, Norway,

the UK, and the United States
are all there on this training mission.

They have
one country in mind.

Russia.

Is it merely a coincidence
that this ship enters these waters

during such an important
NATO training exercise?

Was the Losharik
spying on these maneuvers?

Literally
a goldmine of information

being put out there during
these training exercises.

This isn't
the first time

Russian military presence
has been so close to Norwegian borders.

It seems that these waters are most important
to Russia, but the question is why.

It's no secret
that Russia

has big ambitions to dominat
this Arctic region.

The Arctic has been
of strategic interest

to Russia since the beginnin
of the Cold w*r,

where it kept
its nuclear weapons arsenal.

Arctic region
is enormous.

Russia has expanded its military
along the whole Arctic coast.

Losharik is just on
of a growing number of

nuclear-powered submarines
and icebreakers in the region.

Russia has bases and operation area
for the strategic submarines

which are capable of launching
intercontinenta ballistic missiles

toward the United States
and Canada.

But does the accide
on board the doomed Loshari

expose another possible
reason why Russia

needs a strong naval presenc
in the Arctic,

an area that's just beginnin
to reveal its untapped treasures?

In 2017, Putin
suggested that the Arctic

contains over $35 trillion
in untapped natural resources.

It's the proverbial goldmine

And vessels like Losharik
can now access these rich waters

through shipping routes
made possible by the melting ice sheets.

But it means other countrie also have
their eyes on the Arctic.

This makes Russ
very nervous.

So, the Losharik
contributes to this in the way

that it strengthens the Russian presence
in the region.

But the sub's
secret experimental design

may hint at an even more
threatening agenda,

one that could cr*pple
the West.

As the ice cap melts
in the Arctic Ocean,

countries all over the worl
are racing to get their hand

on the area's untapped
wealth of natural resources.

Could the Losharik be part
of Russia's secret plans

to control these
extremely lucrative waters?

What the Losharik
was doing in the Arctic

at the time of the fire
is still a mystery,

but the sub's
advanced capabilities

and unusual design
may provide vital clues.

This particular submarine

is composed of a number
of titanium spheres.

They're also
very enclosed spaces,

so if something goes wrong
in one of them,

then that could become
the tomb of anybody
who is in there.

Three days
after the incident,

it's revealed that the fire started
in the sub's battery compartment.

Although the vessel
was nuclear-powered,

it does have batteries
as secondary source of power.

And batteries under sea,
they can let off gases.

So, the crew would've been trapped
in small areas,

and it would've been
full of fire and smoke,

and it would've contributed
to their death.

So,
in the wrong circumstances,

the Losharik
could become a death trap.

Why was it designed in a wa
that could endanger its crew

A series of spheres inside
allows it to dive deeper

than a conventional
submarine would.

The Losharik
was designed to carry out

special operations
at unusually extreme depths

possibly up to
20,000 feet down.

This is ten times deeper than the
operational depth of a US submarine.

The nuclear-powered sub

is equipped
with another strange element

It has retractable manipulator arms
on the outside of its hull.

Why would the Losharik
need these robotic arms?

The sub's
advanced capabilities

give Western intelligence
reason to be suspicious.

Losharik could be hiding
a sinister agenda,

one that would bring
mayhem across the globe.

Maybe the submarine
was trying to do

something very clandestine
and potentially ill*gal.

Today, nearly all
of our daily communications

are carried
through underwater cables,

nearly 750,000 miles of them
running along the seafloor.

On a daily basis,

what could be going through
these fiber-optic cables?

Well, it could be
financial transactions,

it could be any kind
of secret communications.

It could be the Allied Nations
communicating

with their military assets
around the world.

Western intelligenc speculates that
with its unique design,

the Losharik's mission was to tamper
with these deep-sea cables

and, possibly,
even sabotage them.

This is 2015.

Various NATO officials
were reporting

that Russian submarines were operating
quite close to the seabed cables.

And, of course,
the question was why.

Severing them, severing the flow
of information

would strike very hard the economic
and financial system,

and probably would wreak havoc
on the Western societies.

So far,
there is no hard evidence

that confirms
Losharik's true mission.

But what's telling is that,
even after the tragic fire

that k*lled
14 elite submariners,

it remains
a crucial asset for Russia.

Losharik will be repaired
and it will return to servic

because it's so important
for the research,

for the intelligence gathering,
for the Russian Navy,

and the Russian
Armed Forces in general.

This mysterious su
will take years to repair,

but its potential
to wreak havoc

in the future
remains very real.

Ancient underwater
burial sites

have been discovered
all over Northern Europe,

but few are as mysterious as the one found
in a remote lake in Finland,

where the remains of around 100 people
are uncovered.

Who these bones belong to
and why they are here

have remained unanswered
for over three centuries.

Now, with incredible advances
in DNA technology,

these cryptic bones might finally start
to reveal their secrets.

2018.

Scientists are examining
human remains

discovered in a very strange
gruesome-looking lake

in western Finland,
known as Levanluhta.

It's a real mystical
but eerie site.

In the springtime,
the lake's iron-rich,

blood-like water foams up
through the ground.

Devoid of oxygen, it's perfect
for preserving bones.

This stops
the microorganisms from eating

the bodies of dead people
buried inside of them.

The mystery
begins in 1884,

when local men
working in Levanluhta

are shocked to discover
eight human skulls.

And it doesn't stop there.

More and more
human bones are recovered.

The remains of approximately 100 people
were found at this site.

It's a gruesome discovery.

Something extraordinary
is going on at Levanluhta.

It takes nearly 150 years
for scientists

to piece together clues
from the human remains,

and start
to unravel the riddle

of how so many bodies ended up
in this chilling watery grave.

A mysterious
and grisly lake in Finland

is giving up
numerous human remains.

Archeologists suspect they could
be the victims of a brutal sacrifice.

Will contemporary forensic analysis
reveal the lake's dark secret?

When you find
bones of dead people,

you wonder
where they came from.

Are they, you know, ancient?
Are they a m*rder victim?

When the mass of human remains
is uncovered in 1884,

it's assumed they are w*r victims
from the 16th century.

People believed
that these bodies might be

from the Cudgel w*r,
which was a peasant uprising.

The peasants were fighting
against exploitation

by the nobility
and the military.

The name "cudgel" comes from the type
of weapons that the peasants used.

Blunt objects,
such as the cudgel.

The w*r
was known for its weapons,

but no weapons
are found at Levanluhta.

And the investigation throws yet another
perplexing conundrum

that scientists
just can't solve.

Shockingly, they discovered that
the bones are mostly women and children.

The presence
of women and children

doesn't fit with the characteristics
of a typical w*r grave.

At the turn
of the 20th century,

an anthropologist throws even more doubt
on the Cudgel w*r theory.

Analysis
of the skeletal remains

reveals that the skulls
are strangely narrower

and longer than those
of Finnish people.

Anthropologists propose that the people
are not from Finland at all

but from mainland Europe,

where there are records of sacrificial
rituals and burying the dead in water.

There are multiple examples
of watery graves

and water burials
in Northern Europe.

We often see watery burials
as a sacrifice to the gods,

in which case criminals or bandits
could be the ones who were buried there.

They're usually found
strangled, uh, bound.

Uh, there's acts of violence,
throats slit.

But the bones
found in Levanluhta

are missing a crucial piece of evidence
to support this theory.

These Finnish remains,

there appears to be
no acts of violence.

The Levanluht remains show no signs
of trauma,

so this could be evidence
that this wasn't a sacrifice.

It's not until 199
that a breakthrough

in forensic science begins
to untangle this mystery.

Through radiocarbon analysis scientists
can finally date the bones.

Turns out they date
to the Iron Age.

The radiocarbon date
suggests that these people

died somewhere
between 500 and 700 A.D.

Now,
with specific dates,

archeologists investigate
what was going on

in Levanluhta
around this time.

They turn
to ancient Norse mythology,

and it provides
a crucial clue

of a terrifying
doomsday event.

Ancient Norse mythology

mentions three successive winters
without any summer,

which they call
the Fimbulwinter.

In the legend, snow comes in from all
directions and ends all life on Earth.

A recent study in 2019 links
the Fimbulwinter

to a series of real-life
volcanic eruptions

in Central America
in the 6th century.

A huge volcanic eruption,
which brought darkness

and social collapse
across the world.

This would've impacted
agriculture.

It would've led to crop loss and famine
all across the northern hemisphere.

Did crop failures cause the Levanluhta
people to die of starvation?

In 2019, with new technology

scientists finally analyze
the bones to determine

if this freak climate disaster could be
the cause of death.

Isotopic analysis is used
to reconstruct ancient diets

And the way that it's done is by looking
at the carbon and the nitrogen values,

and by doing that, comparing
it to different food sources.

Isotopic analysis
reveals something unexpected

These people exploited food
from three sources,

sea, earth, and fresh water

They had
an incredibly varied diet,

and were actually
really healthy when they died.

Their versatile diet
would make them well equippe

to deal with any sort of crop failure
due to a catastrophic event.

So, modern science
rules out the possibility

that this extreme, long winter k*lled
the lake victims.

After a nearly
150-year investigation,

are we any closer to knowin why so many
bodies ended up in Levanluhta Lake

Answers could be concealed in the ancient
traditions of these mysterious people.

The ancient
Levanluhta Lake bones

are so well preserved that they
still hold vital clues

about who
these people might be.

DNA technology may finally reveal
the identity of the people

who were buried
in this watery grave.

In 2019,
after samples of the bones
are DNA tested,

the scientists
make a major breakthrough

in this nearly
150-year-old investigation.

DNA testing indicates
that these are Sami people.

The Sami
are indigenous to Finland,

but they inhabit areas much further north,
nowhere close to the lake.

What were these Sami people
doing so far south?

And how did they all end up
in an underwater grave?

With the latest
genetic revelations,

the puzzle pieces
are coming together.

Finnish scientists
now have a new theory

as to why these people
were buried in a lake.

And the answer could be
found deep in Sami mythology

The Sami word "saiva"
is used to refer

to a holy lake and the spirits
living within it.

Saiva lakes take on magical and mystical
properties,

and they represent
the underworld
for the Sami people.

Were these ancient Sami people
buried in the lake,

which they believed to be
a gateway to the afterlife?

This exciting new evidence
in an investigation

that has lasted
nearly a century and a half

is beginning
to rewrite the story

of one of Europe's most extraordinary
burial sites.

The mystery of why
these Sami people were buried

in Levanluhta Lake
is not yet solved.

However, as modern technology
continues to transform archeology,

it may one day bring us closer
to fully understanding our ancestors

and their connection
to the underwater world.

A summer day
at the beach turns ugly

when a strange haze
hits England's southern coast

and hundreds of people
end up in the hospital.

No one's sure
what's causing it,

and it's followed
by similar incidents.

Can authorities
solve this toxic beach mystery

before even more people
fall ill?

August 2017.

Birling Gap Beach on the southern coast
of England.

Crowds are enjoying
one of the hottest days of the year.

Then, like a scene
from a horror movie,

the air turns
into a yellowy haze

and begins to smell
unbearably foul.

Is everybody
all right?

Some say it's like the smell
of burnt plastic, and corpses.

A nice day
out in the sunshine

turns into a nightmare
for these beachgoers.

Passersby are
heaving and retching

after coming in contact
with this toxic mist.

One person captures the bizarre moment
on video.

Kyle, when did you
first start to notice

things weren't quite right
on the beach?

I noticed...

well, like I said,
there was a yellowy-colored cloud

getting closer
and closer to the coastline

I noticed more and more
people around us,

they were coughing and spluttering,
eyes watering.

This is
such an unusual incident.

It must be really scary
not knowing what was happening.

Everyone was rushing
to their cars,

there was traffic everywhere.

Coast guards and fire service,
police, ambulance.

So strange to just...

Like, probably
thousands of people

just emptying out
on the road, and just...

There was definitely mass panic going on
at the same time.

A major incident
is declared.

The local hospital
ends up carrying out

one of the biggest massive
decontaminations in England's history.

About 200 people
went to the hospital.

This frightening toxic haze
is coming in from the sea.

But what's causing it is a mystery that
no one can figure out.

The scene in Birling Gap
reminds people

of a similar freakish
incident four years earlier

In 2013, citizens living
in South England

complain of nausea and headaches,
and a foul, rotten egg stench.

This time, authorities can pinpoint
where it's coming from.

A gas leak from a power station
in Normandy

that has traveled 200 miles
to the UK shore.

If the wind
is blowing the wrong way,

then all that pollution
gets blown across to the UK.

Is another gas lea
from France to be blamed

for causing a stink on Britain's
shore again, four years later?

Scientists
have tried reverse-modeling
the winds

at those particular times to pinpoint the
location of the source of these toxins.

The models show
that on August 27th, 2017,

the surface air had come
from an easterly direction

and, before that, had been parallel
to the coast and coming from the west.

So, a gas leak in France is
quickly ruled out as the cause.

There's no doubt, however,
that the strange haze

is coming from somewhere
out at sea.

Could the answer be found in a lethal
marine phenomenon?

In different water bodies,

you will have what's called
an algal bloom,

and this can happen
as the seasons are warming up.

Algal blooms are known
sometimes to produce

toxic chemicals
that are not good for people.

Two days
after the incident,

water samples are taken and
tested for signs of an algal bloom.

The measurements
that were done in this case

suggested there just wasn't
enough algae in the water

to be producing anything that would harm
human health on the beach.

So, what did cause
this toxic mist?

If it's not coming
from the water,

are there any other clues
hiding in the air we breathe

Authorities turn to local
air monitoring stations,

and they reveal
something disturbing.

When a toxic haze hits
the southern coast of Britain,

what's causing it
leaves scientists puzzled.

Could the answer lie in the foul smell
coming from the toxic fog?

If people are reporting smelling
rotten eggs,

my first idea is going to be there's
sulfur dioxide out there.

One air monitoring station

reports an unusual increase
in sulfur dioxide.

Meteorological evidence already suggests
the source is off-shore.

So, the sulfur dioxide seems
to be coming from the English Channel.

The sulfur dioxide could have come
from ships in the English Channel.

The English Channe
separates the UK and France

and it's one of the world's
busiest shipping lanes.

But how could this have produced
toxic sulfur dioxide?

Many cargo ship contain hazardous
and deadly chemicals.

So, sometimes, shipping containers
might fall off a ship,

which cause
hazardous chemicals

to enter the water
and end up on nearby beaches.

Authorities
investigate the ships

that were in the area
at the time of the toxic haze.

There are no reports of sulfur
dioxide-related accidents.

Baffled authorities
draw a blank

and are no closer
to solving the mystery

of the toxic haze
in Birling Gap.

The case goes cold...

until two years later.

In 2019, only 25 miles away

a scarily familiar state of emergency
is declared on the coast.

Witnesses described people
heaving and retching.

The beaches are evacuated.

Adding to the fear
the nightmare continues

along the same coastline
in yet another frightening scene.

Only two weeks later, another
150 people fall ill on the coastline.

Could the toxic chemical
have returned?

And authoritie
are very worried

the whole thing
could happen again.

With three near-identical cases within
the space of two years,

scientists desperately
need to crack

the unknown source
of the toxic haze.

Satellite data
could hold the answer

that everybody
desperately seeks.

In 2017,
a satellite image captures

a strange plume coming
from the English Channel.

One theory is that these
toxic gases might come

from some release of toxic substances
from shipwrecks.

They do often change,
move, adjust,

and you do get leakage of potentially
polluting substances.

The English Channe
is littered with shipwrecks

sunk during the First
and Second World Wars.

These underwate
ticking-time bombs

could be an explanation for the hazardous
chemicals that arrive on the beach.

The satellite imag
seems to show the plume

coming from almost exactly
the same location

as a shipwreck sunk
by a German mine in 1917.

It's known that there was
a shipwreck from World w*r I the SS Mira,

that lays in that particular
part of the seabed.

Investigators
work out that if chemicals

from the wreck were
transported in the water,

it's possible they
could've reached Birling Ga

at the exact same time
the incident was reported.

If the toxic plume
was in the air, however,

because of the easterly
wind direction,

the wreck is unlikely
to have been the source.

Authorities now believe
a shipwreck

leaking a toxic chemical
is plausible,

but it hasn't yet been categorically
confirmed as the toxic culprit.

A massive effort
has been made to track down

the source of this bizarre
and terrifying haze,

but there's still
no definitive answer.

And whether
this poisonous seaside air

will become more frequent and
more dangerous remains a mystery.

When divers explore
a 300-year-old wreck

in the icy depths
of the Baltic Sea,

they uncover
a vast amount of cargo,

including an unexpected find.

Fragments of a Bible.

Researchers are perplexed
by how these paper pages

could've survived underwater
for three centuries.

In their quest for answers,
they revealed a ship

with a saintly name
but a sinful past.

2002.

A team of Russian divers
is exploring a shipwreck

hiding in the cold, dark
waters of the Baltic Sea.

They believe
it could be the wreck

of an 18th-century vessel that
was entangled in a corruption scandal

at the time
of Peter the Great.

It's reputed to be hiding
secret and ill*gal cargo.

Piecing together informatio
from historical records

and exploration
of the wreck,

the divers hope to find
clues that will confirm

that this is the infamous ship
they've been looking for.

They focus their attention
first on some pieces of wood

They find bits of timber, which they can
then radiocarbon date.

Radiocarbon dating

came within dates
about 1650 to 1680,

so it had to be made
after that.

More intriguing
is a broken ceramic dish.

It features an image of the biblical
Archangel Raphael,

engraved with the date 1696

These two pieces
of dating evidence

indicate this is the wreck
of the Archangel Raphael.

The archeologists realize they've found
a very special shipwreck.

The divers
have conclusive proof

they found
a notorious shipwreck

with a 300-year-old
unsolved mystery.

Historical sources
suggest the Archangel Raphal

could've been laden with smuggled cargo
when it sank.

After three centuries
under water,

is there a trove of contraband
still hiding inside the wreck?

Researchers begin
their investigation

in Russian
State Navy archives,

hoping to reconstruct
the ship's final voyage.

October 1724,

the merchant ship
departs St. Petersburg.

Its intended destination,
the German port city of Lubeck.

It's normal for the trade

between the German
and Russian ports,

from St. Petersburg
to Lubeck,

there is a row
of trading towns,

really, entrepots
along the coast.

It was a vibrant
trading economy,

and the Archangel Raphael
was a key part of this.

The location
of the wreck, however,

is mysteriously far away
from its intended route.

Well, the ship was originally
headed to Lubeck,

which is nowhere close
to where it was found.

So, what the heck
was it doing there?

Luckily
for the investigators,

details of the ship's sinkin
are well documented,

and they are yielding
some critical clues.

The historical archives
suggest that this ship

was lost by getting stuck
in ice and, as the ice moves,

the ship is basically
crushed and dragged.

The crew all survive
and are able

to successfully get away
from the ship before it sinks.

The records describ
how local inhabitants

try to salvage cargo
through an ice-hole

a few months
after the ship goes down.

They recover over 350
bales of leather,

and say there's more cargo
out of reach inside the wreck.

In their quest to discover

if these could be
smuggled goods,

the investigators turn to original
customs documents.

And they expose
something highly suspicious

When the Archangel Raphael

departs St. Petersburg
in October of 1724,

according to customs records,
it's nearly empty.

This contradicts
what the local divers saw.

There might have been
some smuggling going on.

The ship was clearly
up to no good.

Not only
does this strongly suggest

the ship was carrying
ill*gal goods when it sank,

it also helps researchers
understand why the wreck

is far from its
intended destination.

It's thought
Archangel Raphael stops
on the way to Lubeck

in a place called
Krasnaya Gorka,

where it could possibly
have taken on the contraband

This place is well known
for its smuggling activities,

and, suspiciously,
the Archangel Raphael

stays there
for a biblical 40 days.

The long stopover results in the ship
getting trapped in the ice

and abandoned by its crew,
after which it sinks.

Everything on board
the Archangel Raphael,

from personal items to cargo,
is left just as it is.

And the ship
lies forgotten

in the Baltic waters
for three centuries.

Until 2014.

Have these
precious artifacts survived

And what dark secrets can they reveal
about the Archangel Raphae?

Russian
underwater archeologists

hope to discover
what treasures
are hiding inside

the 18th-century shipwreck,
Archangel Raphael,

and whether they've survived
300 years under water.

After investigating
historical records,

maritime archeologists
now need to go underwater

to find out more
about this
infamous merchant ship.

The investigators
plan to excavate the ship.

2014,
excavations begin.

Divers look for any clues that might help
uncover the truth

about what the ship
is carrying when it sinks.

Is it possible the cargo could have
survived for three centuries?

The beauty of the Baltic Se

when it comes to preserving a shipwreck,
is the water is brackish.

All the little critters
that would normally eat

and degrade organic materials
just aren't present.

As divers explore inside the shipwreck,
they find something unusual

They're shocked to find artifacts
covered completely in tar.

Tar was often transported inside
of wooden barrels in this period.

Now, remember that the ship
is locked in ice

and is being gradually, slowly,
over a period of time,

crushed and crushed,
and, eventually,

the tar starts to leak out and
it goes all over the various artifacts.

It's a setback
for the archeologists

who were hoping to find
the artifacts still intact.

Then, the mystery
of the ship's cargo

takes a new twist with the discovery
of a book of psalms.

The book, strangely, is unlike
the other artifacts.

They find one of the most precious
items of cargo

is not covered in tar.

And why is this?

Scientists restorin
these pages in their labs

are surprised to find them
perfectly intact and legible

It's very rare to find paper preserved
on these sorts of sites.

Instead of tar, this book has been
hiding away in silt.

Silt, or mud, is very good
at preserving artifacts

because it creates
sort of anoxic environment

and reduces
the amount of oxygen,

which is what organisms
need in order to decompose.

Why it's only
this holy book

that avoided being covered
in tar is a mystery.

Being named
Archangel Raphael,

is there some kind of magical
or spiritual activity going on?

Unable to see the complete load of cargo
still hiding inside,

the dive team employs photogrammetry
to fully survey the wreck.

Photogrammetr is a series of photographs
or images that,

when we merge them together,
we can create

a three-dimensional image
of the object.

The incredibly
accurate 3D model of the shi

and seven years
of painstaking excavation

begin to yield
stunning discoveries,

including items of clothing that just
shouldn't have survived for so long.

What makes
the Archangel Raphael

so special is the preservation of
organic material on this incredible site.

And after years of researching
the state archives,

they finally find
physical evidence

of smuggled goods
on board the ship.

Animal horns and barrels of grain,
fish, and even bacon.

And the amount of cargo
is way in excess

of what's recorded
on the 1724 customs list.

What's shocking about the number
of artifacts found inside

is that there are far more
than they should be

based on its last port of call,
which was in St. Petersburg

The ship was in ill*gal possession
of goods.

The 18th century was known
as the golden age of smuggling,

and the staggering amount
of artifacts retrieved

three centuries later
reveals the true scale

of the ship's lucrative
cloak-and-dagger operation.

After years
of investigating the wreck,

four hundred items
are recovered in total,

including things which are impossible
to imagine in their worth

and things we
had never believed

would be recovered
from such a wreck.

Researchers
believe there could be

even more secrets hiding
in the Archangel Raphael.

Wrecks and historical treasure
like these lead us to wonder

what other time capsules
the sea has preserved,

still waiting
to be discovered.