NARRATOR: On this episode of "Destination Truth,"
Josh travels to the ancient canals of Mexico City
to investigate an island that locals claim is haunted
by thousands of decrepit dolls.
He's seen the dolls' heads move up.
- So the dolls move? - Yes.
NARRATOR: Are these playthings possessed
by the island's deceased caretaker?
[ Loud clank ] - Aah!
Next, the team journeys to Andros Island in the Caribbean,
chasing new reports that a tentacled sea monster
is terrorizing the tourists.
Josh's hunt for the creature
sends him on a dangerous night dive
through a watery maze beneath the island.
What is that thing?
♫
Hold on!
- I'm Josh Gates. - [ Piglet squeals ]
In my travels, I've seen some unexplainable things,
and I've done some things I can't quite explain.
Aah!
Now, I've pulled together a team
armed with the latest technology in the search
for answers to the world's strangest mysteries.
I'm not sure what's out there waiting for me,
but I know what I'm looking for —
the truth.
♫
In ancient canals just south of Mexico City
sits an island that is populated by thousands
of reportedly possessed dolls.
Not even the perverse Chucky can compare to the creepiness
of these decayed playthings.
The island's caretaker began hanging up these dolls years ago
in an effort to ward off the spirit of a young girl
who had drowned there while visiting the island.
Locals claim that over time the dolls themselves became
charged with the dead girl's paranormal energy,
and those who have passed by the island at night
have seen the dolls moving and whispering,
beckoning people to come on shore.
Now, there's a new twist to the story.
Recently, the island's caretaker, Don Julian,
was found dead in the same canal where the visiting girl drowned,
and locals claim that his spirit now, too, haunts the island.
We had to find out for ourselves
just who was pulling the strings of this paranormal puppet show.
Our journey began in Los Angeles,
where we traveled 1,500 miles south of the border.
Never one to pass up an investigation,
I figured we might as well explore the local nightlife
just a little before heading out in the morning.
♫
We're at the "Three Amigos" casting party.
I've never seen so many mariachis
in one place in my life.
Yeah!
♫
Getting a real "Brokeback Mountain" vibe.
That's "Brokeback Mountain" right there, yeah.
Mike, I wish I knew how to quit you.
Now that I have my hat, I would like a cerveza.
GATES: Mexico is world-famous for many things,
and unfortunately, tequila is one of them.
You wanna know the best part about Mexico?
This is it.
[ Man singing in Spanish ]
♫
With a big investigation ahead of us,
I carted Jael out the door,
and my crew and I danced off into the night.
♫
Our plan was to make it to the island before dark
to set up our investigation.
But first, I sought out Hector Mendez,
a local paranormal expert who's been tracking this story.
So what happened to Don Julian?
[ Speaks Spanish ]
One day, his nephew found him dead in the water,
and Don Julian kept saying that he was hearing voices
and singing from the water,
and they were calling to him, but he didn't want to go.
Some people believe that the dolls might have killed him.
And do you believe that if I go there
and I spend the night on the island,
that I can observe this paranormal activity?
- Claro que sí. - Absolutely.
If you go there,
you will experience some paranormal activity.
GATES: Hector told me
that for my team and I to set foot on the island,
we'd first need permission.
After all, this is private property.
We'd need to first meet the new caretaker,
Don Julian's nephew Anastasio,
who, after his uncle's mysterious demise,
has been managing the property from the safety
of the distant countryside.
So we left the urban sprawl of Mexico City
and traveled into rural territory,
a minor detour in our journey to the island,
but a necessary one.
Reaching Anastasio should have been the easy part
of this investigation.
That's normal, right?
And your radiator coolant is not supposed to boil,
which leaves me to believe that that is just green water.
Just another
classic "Destination Truth" vehicle, Bicha.
Only the best, my friend.
GATES: While part of the crew stayed back
to work on our broken-down SUV,
Jael and I resorted to some four-legged friends
to get us to our meeting. - [ Laughs ]
It's a horse. Just jump up on it.
There you go.
Jael, come on. It's not a spaceship.
Just turn it around.
I'm trying!
Turn around. [ Speaks Spanish ]
That girl cannot ride a horse.
Ya! Come on.
I'm not really that good at guiding these.
GATES: With Jael now in relative control of her horse
and after a 3-mile ride,
we finally made it to a small town deep in the country
to speak with Anastasio
and hopefully get permission to explore his inheritance.
We caught up with him on his farm at the edge of town.
Since taking over his charge of the island,
he's now a firm believer in the island's power.
[ Speaks Spanish ]
In plain light of day,
Anastasio has been sitting on the farm,
and he says that he's seen the dolls heads
move up and then back down.
- So the dolls move? - Yes.
GATES: Anastasio warned us to be careful
and only asked one thing of us,
that we bring traditional offerings and a doll
to appease the restless spirits of the island.
As soon as you take the doll to the island,
it connects with all the other hundreds of dolls
that are there,
and the best way to see this girl's ghost
is to put the doll near where she drowned.
Okay.
GATES: And so, with our SUV back up and running,
my crew set off to collect these items
from one of the world's largest markets
where one can find... well, just about everything.
♫
We ate.
This is a boiling hot thing.
I grab it and turn it... Okay.
Oh, no. I got it. I got it.
Gah!
This is — You need —
Ma'am, have you heard of a spatula?
We shopped.
This is Jesús Malverde...
- Of course it is. - Verdad?
GATES: We played.
♫
And finally, we emerged
into the more shadowy corners of commerce to get our supplies.
So this would be, like,
the spiritual part of the market.
Mexico City is, after all, a melting pot of mysticism.
Just about any religious paraphernalia
you can think of can be purchased here.
We found a woman who had visited the Island of the Dolls
and knew exactly what we needed to bring
in order to please the ghosts there.
So I should bring nine white candles.
- I should bring candy. - Mm-hmm.
- Bring a traditional doll. - Traditional doll, okay.
- I have — - And don't eat all the candy.
- I will not eat all the candy. - [ Laughs ]
I will eat all the candy.
Creepy doll... check.
After buying the doll, candles, and candy in the market,
Mike, my audio man, told me about a strange encounter.
I was around the corner, and this woman
put three stones in my hand,
sprayed some, like, holy cologne,
and blessed me for life.
Pretty good to be Mike. Pretty good to be Mike.
We didn't know it at the time, but the blessing Mike received
was extremely timely.
All stocked up on paranormal presents,
we set off for the island.
The island is located 18 miles outside
of Mexico City in Xochimilco,
the heart of the old Aztec canals.
We boarded a colorful traditional Mexican boat
called a trajinera
and embarked on a 2-hour journey downstream to our destination.
♫
As we approached the island,
we were met by its most infamous residents,
and their creepiness most definitely did not disappoint.
It's very inviting.
Oh, this is so wrong.
Our boat operators weren't eager to join our party
and would leave us there till dawn,
when the boats would return to pick us up.
6:00 a.m. Don't forget me.
- Sí. - Okay.
Those guys are never coming back.
In the last hours of daylight,
we scrambled to launch our investigation.
First, we set up our base camp several hundred yards inland.
The entire island can be crossed in less than 10 minutes,
so we wouldn't have to string our cameras far.
Since most of the reports of paranormal activity
come from the water near the dock
where both the young girl and Don Julian died,
we placed three of our infrared cameras there.
Bicha and Sharra would monitor them from base camp
throughout the night,
and I set out on an initial sweep with Jael.
JAEL: Okay, so we have to put this doll over by the water.
Yeah?
Yeah, the doll and the candles and the candy.
Okay. Hey, Josh for base camp, come in.
Go for base camp.
We're at the edge of the dock,
next to the water, where the girl drowned.
We're gonna set the offerings here.
Copy that.
JAEL: So this is the place where they say she died.
GATES: They say she drowned right off this dock.
By the way, this is officially the nicest doll on this island.
Okay, so...
let's put her here in her new home,
put our candles. Perfect.
And we need candy, hard candy.
- Right. - So I brought a lollipop.
Okay.
We've been told that if you bring these offerings...
You bring all that, you put it at the spot where she drowned,
you make an offering to her, and she will show up.
This is Josh.
Everybody on the team, be aware we've set up the shrine
as we were told to do.
The candles are lit,
so everybody keep their eyes open.
- I think she knows we're here. - What's wrong with you?
[ Water splashes ] - Oh! Oh, ripples, ripples.
- You see the ripples? - Oh, my god.
Just setting this up, and there's just —
something just moved. - That is so weird.
We just heard something moving in the water right behind us.
Go for base camp.
I'm seeing rippling across infrared number four.
Jael said she thought the girl knew we were here,
and then, immediately, something splashed
in the water right behind me.
It could have been anything,
but we should keep an eye on those cameras.
Hopefully, we get a shot
of whatever is causing the splashing.
- Copy that. - This place is freaky.
Whoa. Wow.
Oh, my god.
I mean, this place just gets worse by the minute.
Temperature is about 54 degrees, pretty cool out actually.
No electromagnetic fluctuations at all.
Everything seems pretty normal.
A lot of people say that spirits
change the temperature around them.
They displace cold or heat.
So we might feel some cold spots.
- Maybe. [ Device beeps ]
- Oh. [ EMF warbling ]
What is that?
It's sensing some sort of magnetic disturbance.
Well, this would be the right place for it.
I've got a EMF disturbance out in this shack
that we came across that's full of dolls,
just like everything else around here,
but some big EMF spikes inside of it,
particularly around a few of the posts
where these dolls are nailed up.
I don't know if it was the light or something,
but I could have sworn that doll just moved its eye.
Josh for base camp. There's this one doll in particular
that just gives off huge EMF spikes.
Jael thought she saw it move.
If this thing opens its eyes, I will [bleep] my pants.
[ Laughs ]
♫
[ Gasps ]
♫
- [ Jael gasps ] - Uh...
- Oh, my god. - And I'm done.
Good night, ladies and gentlemen.
- What was that? - You didn't see it?
- I think it... - Ohh!
- I mean, I saw it — - It opened its eye!
JAEL: That was so weird.
Josh to Bicha. I just — This doll just opened its eye.
That was so bizarre.
This whole shed is out of control.
♫
Base camp, I got this strange,
overwhelming feeling that I'm being watched
by these creepy dolls.
It seems like they track you with their eyes.
All right. Copy that.
Just keep a look out for those things,
if anything moves if you touch it.
Cop— Copy...
What's going on out there, man?
It's something loud right in the water bank.
Copy that. Just stay down there and see
if you can get anything else with it.
- Hey. - Wow.
We've had a bunch of really weird things happen.
Something that we've done in the past is honing in on,
you know, places where people have reported the most energy.
In this case, one of those places is this shed.
So tonight, all of us will, for a half-hour each,
sit completely alone in the dark,
no headlamps, no lights of any kind,
and see if anything materializes in that room.
- Yeah. That sounds great. - Great.
♫
[ Static crackles ] All right, Gabe, you're home free.
- Head back to base camp. - Copy.
♫
All right. Jael, your time's up.
Come on back to base camp.
♫
In there any spirit in this room with me?
Is the spirit of the girl who drowned here on this island?
Are you a man or a woman?
[ Loud scrape ]
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Yes. We heard it. We heard it, Josh.
All right. Josh, you're home free.
Hey, Mike, did you bring in the audio recorder
to do an EVP session in there?
Yes, I did. It's already activated.
Brilliant. Okay.
You have 30 minutes. That starts right now.
[ Exhales deeply ]
♫
Guys, there's something outside the window.
Can you see it?
Let us know what you hear.
There's something outside the shed.
I don't know if it's an animal or what.
We're actually seeing a white light passing through our camera
that's pointed towards the lake right now.
I heard foot— Aah!
Something is making a sound outside the shack
that just went like, "Aah!"
And then, before that, I heard a sound that was like,
"Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta." - Okay, just breathe.
You're doing great.
There it is again.
I can't make sense of all these sounds.
I mean, I'm just, like, I'm freaking out in here.
There's an energy here trying to communicate to me,
and I think it's expressing itself
in the form of sounds and the shadows.
If there's anybody here,
please give me a sign of your presence.
- Is he asking questions? - Yeah. It seems like he is.
If the spirit or the ghost of Don Julian is here,
please talk to me.
Are we safe here?
Do we have anything to fear on this island?
If you wish to make yourself known,
please speak.
[ Loud clattering ] Good place...
Aah!
♫
If you wish to make yourself known,
please speak.
Is the island a good place...
[ Loud clattering ]
Aah!
Oh, my god.
No way. Unh-unh.
- What happened? - What did you see?
Above the alter,
on the right-hand side of the shack,
something was dragging across the roof loud, like, super loud.
Just... I bailed.
Like, I was just... That was it for me.
GATES: Okay, guys, I'm going to do a thermal sweep,
see if I can pinpoint what's making these noises.
Let's see if I can see these guys on the FLIR:
The dolls are all cold.
If these dolls are possessed,
they're certainly not putting off any heat or any cold spots.
They basically blend in with the world around them.
Hold on one second.
Mike, don't move.
I just had the weirdest thing on the FLIR:
Take a half-step to your left.
Mike, right over your shoulder,
there was what looked like a head
and part of a figure of a person.
That's for real. Like, I got it on here.
[ Whispers ] God, that was so weird.
That's, like, one of the weirdest things
I've ever seen on this thing, for real.
I just had something behind you again.
- Are you serious, man? - Hold on.
I got two hot spots right behind you.
They're small. They're, like...
- Come here. Look at this. - Yep.
MIKE: Oh, that's real.
Josh for base camp.
I got something right behind Mike again.
I got three orbs on the thermal imagery
right now that are just clear as day.
Oh, one of them's moving. One of them's moving.
I got something moving in the thermal. Oh, it's hot.
I'm going to go over and check 'em out. Hold on.
Oh, that canal is right there.
I can't get over to them.
I think they're on the other side of one of the canals,
but whatever they are,
they appeared just for an instant,
and then they vanished.
GATES: Many unexplainable things happened
during our night spent on the island,
and we were successful in recording
many of our experiences with our equipment —
the doll's eye, which opened on its own,
the anomaly on the thermal imager,
and the three orbs on the other side of the canal.
With this and our audio evidence in hand,
I was excited to get results.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Did you hear that?
We flew home and sat down with our audio specialist, Mike,
to review our EVP recordings from the island
to determine what we heard
and didn't hear during our investigation.
So I've been pouring over these recordings,
amplified this one section right before
I'm about to pack up and leave.
Aah!
There's a few things going on,
but listen for what sounds like kind of a low voice.
Let's play it.
- [ Whispers indistinctly ] - Right there.
That's — that sounds like someone saying "leave."
Oh, my god. I heard it that time. That was really weird.
- You see? - Yeah.
If a ghost tells you to leave, you don't mess around.
- You're gonna leave. - You get out of there.
Aah!
Josh, this is during your EVP session.
Okay.
GATES: If you want us to leave this place, please tell us.
[ Whispers indistinctly ]
- Right there. - Oh, my...
- Right there. - Right there.
I definitely heard something right there. Mm-hmm.
- Can you isolate that? - Sure.
Amplify it?
Like, I think it's a similar voice as the other EVP.
Right.
And I think it's also saying, "Leave."
It's funny though that there are two different recordings
that distinctly sound like they say, "Leave."
- Sure, yeah. - It sounds like a voice.
It really does.
That's actually pretty compelling stuff,
you know, because it does, Jael.
It sticks out like a sore thumb in the recording.
GATES: For analysis of our strange video footage
and to put this whole investigation to rest,
we turned to some bona fide experts.
Came across with some really interesting things.
One thing is the doll's eye here.
Ugh. Oh, my god.
- That is creepy. - So what do you make of that?
You know, energy can attach to an item.
Mm-hmm. You know, if someone had a strong emotional bond
to this object when they were alive,
perhaps that bond is gonna continue to stay there.
Mm-hmm.
So you definitely have the possibility
that something is attached here.
Now, this here...
GATES: Mike, don't move.
Take a half-step to your left.
there's an anomaly behind him.
The trees could absorb that heat from the day or whatever,
but I don't think it would just concentrate
on one little section of the trunk. Yeah.
That heat has to be coming from somewhere.
♫
Now, this here...
Mike, don't move.
Take a half-step to your left.
So what do you make of that?
I would think there's something there.
There's something with energy there for some reason.
As far as linking it to something paranormal,
I would be a little more convinced
if it was free-floating, you know, from the tree.
Mm-hmm.
Now this next thermal footage here,
it looks like you're close enough then,
if they were animals or people,
you would hear the rustling and all that stuff.
The easiest shape for energy to take is a circle.
And if you're going to capture energy on a thermal camera,
that's very well what it may look like.
Well, let's talk about the audio evidence.
Okay.
This is the point when Mike is in the cabin.
[ Loud clattering ]
Aah!
After he runs out, it almost sounds like a door
or like somebody trying to get in.
[ Tapping ]
- You hear that? - I do hear that. Wow.
[ Tapping ]
Something has to be making those noises.
Possibly paranormal?
- Yeah. - Mm-hmm.
I think something else was there with you guys.
GATES: With disturbing audio evidence,
it seems that the strange happenings on the island
cannot be explained away easily.
Could it be that Don Julian's drowning
was foul play after all?
It may be hard to find the culprit,
what with thousands of suspects at the scene.
♫
[ Giggles ]
♫
Ask anybody what the most feared monster in the ocean is,
and they'll likely tell you that it's the great white shark.
But I had recently read about a spike
in sightings of a different ocean predator
with the same unquenchable taste for tourists.
But with its trademark tentacles,
you're eight times more likely to be pulled to your death
if you cross its path.
Caribbean locals called this terrorizing beast the Lusca.
The Lusca is quite simply a monstrous octopus
who's homicidal reputation
holds a vivid and palpable place in Bahamian folklore.
Now several islanders living on the remote island of Andros
have recently claimed to see it and lived to tell the tale.
And just when I was beginning to look forward
to a vacation destination
with tropical drinks and crystal blue waters,
I'd now have to worry about
getting hugged to death in the Bahamas.
Great.
This monster-sized octopus is said to make its home
under the island of Andros.
Satellite imagery reveals
the opening to one of the many vertical caves,
or blue holes, on the island.
These are entrances to a complex system of watery tunnels,
formed during the last ice age,
that snake their way underneath the island
and connect to underwater entrances
to the tunnel system just offshore.
The Lusca is said to emerge from these offshore holes
more than 100 feet down beneath the waves.
Reports from boat captains in the Bahamas claim
the beast has attacked their vessels
and pulled swimmers to their deaths.
The Lusca is described as a huge monster,
believed to be bigger than any known octopus,
with up to 85-foot powerful tentacles
that support huge suction cups
and a mouth with rows of hundreds of razor-sharp teeth.
We packed up our wet suits,
a copy of "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea,"
and a little octopus repellent and set out for the Bahamas
on a hunt for this tentacled tyrant.
♫
We flew overnight from Los Angeles to Fort Lauderdale,
then transferred to a prop plane
for our contacted journey to Andros Island.
Even though Andros is
the largest island in the Bahamas
and is ringed by the third-largest
barrier reef in the world.
it is also the least populated
and one of the least explored islands in the entire Caribbean.
The typography here is unique as the island chain is littered
with entrances to vertical caves commonly known as blue holes.
Since nobody has ever explored
this flooded underwater death maze
from beginning to end,
I wondered if a monster-sized octopus
could be living here undetected.
Touching down on Andros was like arriving in Margaritaville.
Now this is what I call a destination.
♫
I knew we needed to shed our field gear
in favor of the local uniform.
Call it the Hawaiian shirt of the Caribbean.
We called ahead to personalize our shirts
with this year's hottest new design.
What can I say? I'm a shameless self-promoter.
What do you think? [ Laughter ]
It's a little "Miami Vice," right?
You'll be Tubbs, and I'll be Crockett.
- Why am I Tubbs? - BICHA: uh...
Seriously, I got, like,
a real Billy Ocean vibe in this thing.
- Let's hit the town? - Let's do it.
All right.
GATES: Now that my case manager and I were traveling incognito
and were indistinguishable from the locals,
my team and I got down to business.
My plan was to charter a dive boat to take me
to the cavernous ocean blue holes to begin my search.
It didn't take long for us to find this veteran seaman
who claims to have gone toe to tentacle with the Lusca
on a recent diving excursion.
It appears that you and I are shopping at the same store.
Yep. That's a new style. I like that.
You like that? It's part of my line.
When you go diving, leave it on land.
I will. You can have this as a memory of me. [ Laughing ]
People say the Lusca is, like, a giant, giant octopus, right?
I was down in the ocean blue hole,
and as I checked it out, it just came up off the bottom.
And it was mainly a murky-ish, grayish, brownish color.
And then behind it,
I just saw a couple tentacles rise up off the bottom.
It just slowly turned around and went back in.
How big was it?
It was at least 40, 50 feet. It was huge.
What percentage of these blue holes
would you say have been explored?
Less than 1%.
GATES: After his close encounter,
he wanted nothing to do with my expedition,
and I headed to the appropriately titled town
of Small Hope to contact my search for a brave boat captain.
Were you scared when you saw it?
Oh, hell, yeah.
The thing looked like part of an octopus coming up.
Do you think, if I go down there,
I'd have a chance of seeing it?
[ Chuckles ]
Do you think this is an animal that could eat me?
Oh, I guarantee he will eat you.
Oh, boy. Why would you guarantee that?
GATES: I took the man's advice and changed my shirt.
It seemed every captain on the island
was fearful to aid in my sea hunt,
and I was starting to think that I might need
some backup of my own.
I decided to stop off for some necessities.
- MAN: Hey. - Is this the hardware store?
Yeah...
- I do need a machete. - How much you need?
There's eight tentacles on the Lusca, so we need eight.
- Yeah, man, over there. - You have a big one?
All right. Don't get up. I'll get it.
"Arabian Nights" or "Friday the 13th"?
Put your arm on the counter. I'm going to chop it off.
I'll pay extra. I'll pay extra.
[ Laughter ]
How drunk is too drunk to be managing a hardware store?
Buying a machete is a lot like buying a new car —
always take a test drive.
Sharra, stay directly under this tree.
- What? - [ Laughs ]
- Yes! - Oh, yeah.
- Yeah. - Nice.
GATES: With my machete slicing and dicing as advertised,
I decided to charter my own boat.
♫
Since no locals would come with us, I would captain it myself.
We charted a course for the ocean blue holes,
where many of the boat captains I spoke to
had their encounter with the Lusca.
The waters around Andros
are a minefield of deadly reefs and turbulent waters.
Whoo-hoo!
Once at our dive location, we anchored
and prepared to get wet.
So we have our Aqua-Vu camera
that's going to be attached to a deck up here
so that I can monitor the top of the blue hole
while you guys are down below.
If anything comes flying out of the hole,
we're going to be able to see it with this.
We're also going to have a sonar system hooked up.
That's going to give us a much deeper view
of anything that's moving around.
We'll be able to see you as well.
GATES: The majority of sightings all occurred
near a deep cavern entrance
to the island's maze of underwater tunnels.
Jael and I suited up to explore the area near the blue hole
to get a lay of the land in a graveyard full of vessels
that the locals claim succumbed to the Lusca's wrath.
♫
Copy that. Does there appear to be any life in that boat?
♫
Yeah. We copy.
GATES: Finding no evidence of the Lusca here,
Jael and I surfaced and made a second dive
closer to the blue hole entrance,
an area where hundreds of sharks are known to feed.
♫
GATES: Jael and I were 60 feet below the surface
and surrounded by sharks.
Unprovoked, these ocean predators
usually leave humans alone.
Not taking any chances, Jael and I looked for a window
to ascend to the safety of the boat.
Oh, my god. I'm shaking.
GATES: Back on board,
we tracked the sharks on sonar until they passed,
and then made a plan to enter the hole itself.
This underwater cabin starts at about 140 feet.
I mean, obviously, a real concern for a dive like this
is getting what's called the bends,
or decompression sickness.
GATES: The bends is a potentially fatal disorder
brought on when diving too deep for too long.
Sharra would monitor and limit my dive time from topside,
and I proceeded into the blue hole
with only one camera operator.
At depths of more than 150 feet,
the fewer people inside this enclosed space, the better.
There's something huge on the sonar.
- What is that? - What is that? Right there?
- Yeah. - Can you see it?
- Right there. - Yeah.
- What is that? - Dive boat for Josh.
We've got something on the sonar
that's maybe about 120 feet down the blue hole,
so just keep your eyes open.
♫
Dive boat for Josh. What did it look like?
Tell him to come up. Just tell him to come up.
Yeah. Dive boat for Josh...
♫
Oh, there he is. There he is. There he is. Oh!
I mean, it's dark and it's big,
and there is something moving around in there,
that is for sure.
Like, there's something big in there.
GATES: I knew I'd seen something huge swim deeper
down into the cavernous tunnel, so we came up with a new plan.
This coastal blue hole entrance
connects to a second entrance in the island's interior.
Whatever we saw retreat into the cavern
had just one other place to go.
Our best chance for a second encounter
was at the opposite entry point,
and we raced ashore to make it there.
Guys, here it is.
Try to get everything up and running
before it gets too dark.
- Okay. - Let's go, guys.
GATES: Arriving at the interior blue hole,
we quickly staged four infrared cameras
pointing topside of the opening.
This cameras would be continually monitored
by my team throughout the night
for anything that might breach the surface.
Sharra would stay in communication with me
at the surface.
Jael and Gabe would position themselves
above the entrance of the tunnel in a small boat
and monitor the sonar unit,
and Rex would go fishing with the underwater Aqua-Vu camera
to image anything that came near me.
Unfortunately, this entry point was much smaller
and far more dangerous than the ocean blue hole.
I'd be diving to depths of more than 175 feet
with our medic on deck
for a rapid decent if anything went wrong.
This would be the deepest dive I'd ever done.
Okay. [ Speaks indistinctly ]
From my point of view, I mean, this is way too dangerous.
Any thoughts, anything cross your mind, just come back up.
I don't care, you know, whatever...
- Yep. - Be careful.
♫
Okay.
Copy, Josh. Go for base camp.
Copy. Just be aware that you've been down there
for about 10 minutes.
Jael for base camp.
Go for base camp.
We're in the boat out here.
We're monitoring the sonar,
and we'll let you know if we see anything.
Please keep us posted on Josh's status.
So far, so good.
Go for base camp.
♫
- Did — did you see that? - What do you got over there?
- Do you see something? - He's not alone down there.
Oh, my goodness. I'm seeing some shapes.
- Bicha for Jael. - Bicha, that's good timing.
I'm actually looking now at the sonar,
and I'm seeing some strange shapes.
It looks like something moving around down there,
and I'm not sure, but it definitely doesn't look normal.
Base camp is starting to lose contact with you, Josh.
♫
[ Static crackling ]
♫
Right now, we lost communications with him.
We hear him faintly, comes in and out, but nothing else.
I mean, I don't know what's down there.
I don't know what's happening down there,
but all we can do is wait right now.
Base camp for Josh.
I figured I'd give you another try. Do you copy?
What is that?
It's been 27 minutes,
and I know they're supposed to be on their way out,
but we've lost all communications with him.
Nope...
This is not good. These are Josh's emergency lights.
♫
Base camp for Josh.
We just saw your glow sticks come to the surface.
Are you okay?
Nope...
What is that?
There's bubbles. Something's coming towards me.
I don't know what it is.
It's really, really fast.
A huge shape on the sonar right now.
I just really hope we don't get tipped over
on this boat right now.
Base came to Josh. Do you copy?
Just be careful. Okay?
There's definitely something in the water.
Oh, my god. And it's really close.
Gabe, can we get — can we move?
You guys might want to dim your lights.
[ Whispers ] Oh, my god.
Something's coming at you guys.
Jael, try to keep it down.
Whatever it is, it's heading towards you guys.
It just might go past you and just ignore you.
Just keep still.
Don't paddle around. Don't splash.
Let whatever it is come towards you and swim away.
♫
Josh, can you check in with us?
'Cause you're getting to the end of your air.
I'm getting worried.
It's 30 minutes, now. They're supposed to be up.
I mean, he's got to be out.
They should be out by now.
I hear something.
- What? What is that? - Wait. What was that?
[ Ringing ]
Do you hear an emergency bell? Hear that?
[ Ringing continues ]
[ Speaks indistinctly ]
I'm just a little bit deeper, and I'm —
Base camp for Jael, what's going on up there?
And we just got Josh on the surface, guys.
- Welcome back. - Thank you.
He seems to be okay.
He's going back to you guys, right now.
Guys, it's unbelievable down there.
I saw something.
I saw something in the darkness. I don't know what it was.
It moved. It just moved.
It was almost like it just flashed away from me.
There was something huge bubbling out there
while we were there. I mean, it was all around us.
GATES: My team and I had simultaneous experiences,
but we couldn't be sure if whatever I saw
deep in the tunnel was responsible
for the disturbance in the water near Jael's boat.
Exhausted from my two dives
but not ready to give up the hunt,
I had Jael suit up and get in the water
while the rest of us continued to scan the surface.
I don't know why I'm getting undressed
and dressed in front of all you people, right now.
Slowly and with some Barry White playing in the background.
[ Laughs ]
♫
Josh to base camp. Come in, base camp.
Go for base camp.
I'm doing a sweep with the thermal imager just to see
if I can see anything giving off any heat at the surface.
Copy...
Only if it's very close to the surface.
Anything deep is not going to show up on here.
Copy that.
I really don't see anything, yet.
It's definitely cold, though...
- You're a little — - And dark.
- Oh, it's on camera! - What is that thing?
I just saw something on the FLIR
right at the surface, right there. Hold on.
Jael, come and swim back to where we're standing at.
We saw something up here on the FLIR:
There's something happening up here.
If you guys can get back to here ASAP:
Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Whoa!
Okay.
Okay, so let's talk about kind of where we're at now.
We know that these two blue holes connect underwater.
There's something living down there,
and I don't know what it is.
- Definitely. - Yeah.
For tonight, let's let the infrared cameras
do the rest of the work.
- All right. - Okay. Let's pack it up, guys.
GATES: We'd spent a very long day
and even longer night chasing down something elusive
in the aquatic tunnels beneath Andros Island.
In the dim light of the ocean blue hole,
it seemed to be something very large and very fast.
We headed home to continue our search for the truth.
In our offices in Los Angeles,
we scoured every frame, both above and below the water,
but our aquatic footage didn't yield a clear
and definitive picture of what I thought I saw
deep in the cavern.
Maybe I had water on the brain, but I still wanted an answer,
so I sat down with marine biologist Dr. Scott Cooper
from U.C. Santa Barbara
to get his point of view on what I may have seen.
Is this an environment that would be conducive
to a giant octopus?
When we look at reports of large creatures,
we always look at basic issues.
Is there a sufficient food base?
Yeah, maybe.
They have the right habitat.
It's a labyrinth of huge, extensive caves.
This would be a perfect habitat for them.
So when you go through this kind of checklist of,
"Can this creature exist or not?" Maybe.
Wait. I saw something right here.
What is that thing?
It's very hard to prove something doesn't exist.
GATES: In the end,
Dr. Cooper couldn't positively I.D. what we saw,
and so my opinion on the Lusca's existence
is as murky as the waters of Andros' blue holes.
Here, in prehistoric tunnels that no human
has ever fully catalogued,
there is little doubt that something is alive.
As to its identity, for now,
it remains shrouded in the depths
and darkness beneath the waves of the Caribbean,
hiding from the bright light of the truth.