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Look at this thing. It is a monster.

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Do we have a clear understanding of why the woolly mammoth went completely extinct?

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No, we really don't.

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Oh, look at this!

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This is a huge boat.

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Excellent.

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Nice preservation.

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The whole wall is literally just disintegrating.

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Josh, look out!

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It's collapsing!

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The woolly mammoth was the king of the Ice Age and the largest mammal ever to walk the Earth.

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For millions of years they dominated the planet from Asia to Europe to North America.

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But then about 10,000 years ago, something went wrong and mammoths rapidly went extinct.

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Now, scientists across the globe are investigating to determine why the mammoth vanished

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and what their fate might mean for our own future.

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In Canada, gold miners are finding mammoth bones trapped in ancient ice

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and scientists are using these remains to decipher Earth's ancient environment.

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And half a world away, Korean geneticists have a radical idea to study the mammoth firsthand by bringing it back to life.

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In a real-world version of Jurassic Park, they plan to clone the mammoth and return the species from the grave.

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But to pull it off, they'll need DNA trapped deep in the ice at the northern reaches of the planet.

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I'm embarking on a quest to find the smallest fragments of life to restore the largest of beasts.

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The fate of the woolly mammoth isn't just ancient history.

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It's a puzzle that may have huge implications for humanity.

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So bundle up, because we're headed north to unlock the mysteries of the mammoth.

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My name is Josh Gates.

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Look at that!

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With a degree in archaeology and a passion for exploration.

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I have a tendency to end up in some very strange situations.

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This is horrible.

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This is officially horrible.

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My travels have taken me to the ends of the Earth as I investigate the greatest legends in history.

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We're going to fly, let's go!

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This is Expedition Unknown.

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My expedition begins on the other side of North America in the small Canadian city of Whitehorse.

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Welcome to the Yukon.

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It's one of the most naturally stunning places in the world,

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but it's also one of the most sparsely populated.

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So very few people are around to approach the expedition.

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Tens of thousands of years ago, this area was teeming with woolly mammoth.

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To learn what happened to them, I'm headed to the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Center,

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a scientific shrine to the Ice Age.

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Dr. Grant Zazula is the chief paleontologist,

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and is going to give me a crash course in Mammoth 101.

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So here we are, this is our main exhibit gallery, and this is our woolly mammoth.

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Wow!

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Unbelievable!

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Yeah, so that's probably a large adult male.

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You can tell it's a male because it's got these giant curved tusks like that.

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I mean, look at this thing, it is a monster!

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Yeah, they're about 11 feet tall at the shoulder, 6 tons in weight.

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It's a large animal.

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It's incredible.

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Yeah.

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It's a giant giant giant.

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It's a giant giant.

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It's a giant giant.

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It's incredible.

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Yeah.

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Meet the master of all mammals.

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First appearing 2.5 million years ago, these beasts weighed up to 6 tons,

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with large dome-shaped heads and lethal 12-foot-long tusks.

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So I see a lot of other dangerous-looking skeletons mounted here.

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So who are the mammoth's cohorts?

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There's Ice Age horses, there's ground sloths, and camels, and saber-toothed cats.

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These are...

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Yes.

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Huge cats with these giant fangs that could just rip into a woolly mammoth if they wanted to.

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Just say nothing of the most dangerous animal of all.

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People.

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People, of course.

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You know, these are woolly mammoths that live alongside people for hundreds of thousands of years in Europe and Asia.

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So we know that people were hunting them because we find bones of woolly mammoths at archaeological sites.

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We also see the paintings of woolly mammoths in the caves in Europe dating to the Ice Age.

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So we know that people had a relationship with woolly mammoths.

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In fact, mammoths were so resilient, the very last ones died out only 4,000 years ago.

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That means while the pyramids were being constructed in Egypt,

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people in the Arctic were still running into these prehistoric behemoths.

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Do we have a clear understanding of why something as hardy and huge as the woolly mammoth went completely extinct?

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No, we really don't.

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It could have been climate change that caused a lot of stress on these populations,

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and then people were obviously hunting these animals too.

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Maybe it was disease.

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But you don't know yet.

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We still don't have a clear understanding of what actually drove these animal populations into extinction.

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The Beringia Center's impressive collection of mammoth bones comes mostly from one surprising source,

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a gold mine north of Whitehorse that turns up priceless remains along with their precious metals.

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Grant invites me on his next expedition.

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In the Yukon Minute, we're off to Dawson City, home of the great Klondike Gold Rush of 1896.

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This is no milk run, it's 350 miles through some of the least populated land on Earth.

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Five hours later, the endless forests give way to signs of civilization.

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Dawson City was the Yukon's first capital, and shortly after the 1896 gold strike,

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it exploded into a frontier city of 40,000 people.

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Today it's down to 1,300, but gold mining is still an active industry.

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Smack in the middle of Dawson City is the historic downtown hotel.

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While Grant parks, I walk into what feels like Westworld and the sounds of an old timey piano.

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Nearby is an old timey person who keeps a watchful eye over the saloon.

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How are you, I'm Josh. I'm Captain Terry Lee. Captain Terry, how are you? I'm fine.

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What am I getting myself into here? You're about to enter into the Sartol Cocktail Club.

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What is a Sartol Cocktail?

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Sartol Cocktail is a human amputated toe that is completely necrotic.

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It's an actual human toe? Human toe. Where did this toe come from? Somebody's foot.

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Well, ask a stupid question. That's a human toe. That is, that's officially a human toe.

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The Sartol Cocktail is a tradition that's been going on here for more than 40 years.

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Local residents donate their little piggies and idiots like me belly up to the bar for the ultimate in bespoke cocktails.

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Alright, well, when in Rome...

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You can drink it fast. You can drink it slow.

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But your lips must touch this gnarly toe. Just you lips, Josh. It's up to you.

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It's your health. Slauncha.

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So, there it is. Oh my God. Count them to the clubs.

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This has been one of the weirdest experiences of my life, but an honor. Thank you.

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Before I end up with athletes' tongue, I'm back on the mammoth trail.

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A few miles outside of town, we drive into Gold Country and we begin to see evidence of a massive mining operation.

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Grant and his team have been contacted by the owners, who have reportedly discovered ancient animal bones during their excavations.

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Is it? Frozen mud? It smells like mammoth to me. Let's check it out. Let's go.

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We grab some tools and bags for specimen collection and meet up with Grant's colleague, paleontologist Dick Mold, who's already gotten the party started here.

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Hey, look at you. You're already at work.

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There are bones all around the place. Look. A tibiava horse. Beautiful. Nice mandible of a stepbison. But this one.

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This is a mandible, a lured jaw of a wild horse. And all the teeth in? Yeah.

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There's so many bones around and it's all over the place.

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These bones are up to 10,000 years old. So how did they end up laying on the ground?

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The answer has to do with the terrifying cliff that's slowly collapsing behind us.

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You can start to feel the cold and the firmer frost. You really can. It's actually temperatures dropping as you get close to the wall.

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So underneath all this stinky mud is just solid ice.

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Look at that too. Right there you can see it more clearly. That's ice.

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This is all ice that's 25 or 30,000 years old from the ice age.

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We begin to walk up to the main mine and everywhere we look we find ice age remains from animals that lived alongside the mammoth.

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It's hard not to notice that the hillside is drenched by a rushing stream.

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And as we trudge through it we make another discovery. Canadian gold miner Guy Fevron.

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How's it going man? Good. Josh. Guy. Nice to meet you.

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Guy's the owner of this mine. He's been working here for generations out in the Klondike and finding gold and helping us find bones as well.

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Anytime we're in the frozen black mud it's a recipe for bones.

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Where is all this water coming from?

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We don't protect of gear and Guy leads us to the source of the stream which isn't exactly a natural spring.

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This is incredible.

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This is called placer mining. High pressure water cannons called monitors are used to blast the permafrost in search of gold.

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In the process they free prehistoric remains from their icy tombs.

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Do you just let it go or do you aim this thing? What are you doing?

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We can steer it around. If we got an operator for it they'll sit there and cut the gravel which is actually just sinking the gravel down.

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So this thing can do some serious damage? It can.

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Can I run it? Yeah you betcha. You're making a huge mistake here. I love this.

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Right about now you might notice the dumb grin that I can't wipe off my face.

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Suck it permafrost.

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This baby is the ultimate super soaker. Powerful enough to bore straight into the permafrost.

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Not to mention launch a person clear across the valley.

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Hey Josh we're gonna go over here and have a look for some bones so make sure you keep this thing over here so you don't mow it down okay?

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I make no promises Grant. Okay. I'll work on this side.

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While I break apart the rock and ice ahead of us Grant and Dick investigate to see if my blasting turns anything up.

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Hey Josh! Josh! You got something?

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I'm on a hunt for the largest mammal that ever walked the earth, the woolly mammoth.

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Here in the Canadian Yukon scientists are working with gold miners to solve the mystery of why it vanished by hunting for ancient remains using ice shattering water cannons.

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And it looks like we just hit something.

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Hey Josh! Hey! Hey!

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We got something over here! We got something big!

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Holy! Yeah we got something big. Oh my god!

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Ready? Take that in. Oh wow!

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Look at this! This is mammoth yeah?

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100%

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Yes. Look how wonderful preserved.

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What bone is this? That's the older one. Yeah it's the lower arm.

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There must be more of that because that's so well preserved you can't imagine it just kind of popping under the ground.

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It must be cleaning in the water. Yeah yeah.

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So let's keep on looking around as Dick's cleaning that off and see if we find anything more.

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The thing that's tricky though is like that bone could have been here, it could have been up there.

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I can and move so much stuff that it's like who knows where it came from.

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Yeah, hey! Oh another one!

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This is a huge bone.

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The mammoth bone is still deeply embedded in the frozen mud and it takes two of us with all our strength to pull it out.

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Okay what bone is this? Well I think it's a humerus of a woolly mammoth right?

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There's nothing funny about this. Yeah humerus joke huh?

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It's a required joke. It's a parmbo yes.

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Parmbo, you think these are from the same animal? Maybe they will fit to each other.

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To determine if our two finds came from the same mammoth, there's some assembly required.

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Here we go, come on in.

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Look at that it locks right in. Oh yeah, there's one individual for sure.

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Is this from the same animal? Yeah it has to be.

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Look they're so well preserved they're found 20 feet from one another at the same site.

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Congratulations! Oh my god that's so cool.

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You are a mammoth hunter. Thank you.

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It's obviously a lot of controversy about what happened to these animals. What do you think did them in?

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Well there are different hypotheses. We have the over ill that viruses came in and the mammoths passed away.

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We have the hypothesis of the over kill that humans were over hunting these animals.

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But I think it's the over chill. It's the dramatic change of climate at the end of the Pleistocene.

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Remains like this are showing that at the end of the Ice Age temperatures dropped, freezing grasslands and water supplies for the mammoth.

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Then temperatures swung the other way and rapidly warmed.

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When you have higher temperatures, a great ocean surface needs more evaporation and then finally this mammoth step disappeared.

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Once you have habitat loss and you have human invasion into natural landscapes, animals will die.

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I'm elated at our discovery, but there is a sad irony here.

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The mammoth which Grant and Dick believe may have been a victim of climate change is being unearthed by our own deliberate erosion of the landscape.

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And we would be wise to remember that once a species dies out, it's gone forever.

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Or is it? It turns out that another brazen group of scientists believe it may be possible to rewind the hands of time.

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So I'm jetting across the Pacific to a place that hopes to resurrect the woolly mammoth.

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Seoul, South Korea.

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Welcome to Seoul. This is a place of awesome contradictions to city of temples and spaceships.

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For hundreds of years, Seoul has also been a seat of power, a place of politics and art, of cuisine and cultures.

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Today, it's all of those things and more. It's the past, the present and the future all rolled into one.

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Here, the future isn't just happening now, it happened yesterday and they're already on to something new.

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Seoul's high-tech computing scene is revolutionizing everything from buying a new car to picking out the perfect shade of makeup.

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Even the food looks like something out of science fiction, including ice cream cones that require special training to handle it.

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Thank you. Thank you. That should be enough. Keep it straight. Keep it straight. Yeah, that's the small?

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I would have bought a large, but my crew wasn't big enough.

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Want some?

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Son of a...

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But forget the ice cream. The most futuristic advancements here in Seoul are happening in a nondescript compound at the edge of the city.

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This is So-Am Biotech Laboratory, where I'm meeting cell biologist Jay Wong.

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Jay. Josh. Jay, nice to meet you. It's a pleasure.

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So-Am has made headlines as one of the world leaders in animal cloning, with aspirations to revive the woolly mammoth.

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Is this science fiction? Is this something that's possible?

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Well, I don't think it's fiction anymore, considering we've cloned hundreds of animals here thus far.

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And we're trying to apply that knowledge and bring it back to woolly mammoths.

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I'd love to see what you guys are up to.

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Yes, please. Follow me.

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Getting a peek into So-Am's facilities is rare, and I'm not exactly sure what to expect.

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So, welcome to our dog quarantine room.

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Wow, look at this place.

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These are where puppies that are waiting for quarantine are kept.

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So, these are all clone dogs?

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Yes, they are.

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Okay, so it is about a thousand times more adorable in here than I ever expected.

219
00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:52,000
To date, So-Am has cloned over 600 dogs, but second lives aren't cheap.

220
00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:57,000
The cost of a rerun of your favorite pet? A mere $100,000.

221
00:17:57,000 --> 00:18:01,000
Are they all just for pets, for personal ownership?

222
00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:07,000
Some have a different purpose behind their birth, in which we clone dogs that had a very good career

223
00:18:07,000 --> 00:18:08,000
in helping people.

224
00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:14,000
So-Am has cloned some of the world's best-seeing eye and search-and-rescue dogs, including Tracker,

225
00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:19,000
who pulled the last survivor out of the wreckage of the Twin Towers on 9-11.

226
00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:21,000
When I think of cloning, I never really thought about that.

227
00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:26,000
You know, taking dogs that have a real skill set and trying to foster that and to pass it on.

228
00:18:26,000 --> 00:18:27,000
That's really cool.

229
00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:32,000
Jay tells me they've also cloned cows, pigs, deer, and even wolves.

230
00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:34,000
You wonder where this stops.

231
00:18:34,000 --> 00:18:36,000
And where do you keep the velociraptors?

232
00:18:37,000 --> 00:18:38,000
On a separate floor?

233
00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:40,000
That's highly confidential.

234
00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:42,000
Highly classified. I understand.

235
00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:44,000
You don't have to talk about it now.

236
00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:50,000
So-Am even combines material from different animals to study gene expression,

237
00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:55,000
like the glow-in-the-dark nails on this pooch, courtesy of jellyfish DNA.

238
00:18:56,000 --> 00:18:59,000
Now I'm going to take you into our clean facility.

239
00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:02,000
We're afraid we're going to have to change suits.

240
00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:06,000
Wow, we're trying to keep this place as clean as possible.

241
00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:11,000
To see the inner sanctum of the lab, Jay and I suit up for a sterile environment.

242
00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:14,000
Ready?

243
00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:15,000
Ready.

244
00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:16,000
Okay.

245
00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:20,000
We pass through an airlock that blows any remaining foreign particles off our bodies

246
00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:22,000
and head into the heart of the operation.

247
00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:27,000
And it just so happens, I picked a special day to visit the lab.

248
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:32,000
Jay leads me into a delivery room, where a team of geneticists and vets

249
00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:35,000
are about to attempt a delivery of a cloned puppy.

250
00:19:36,000 --> 00:19:40,000
Leading up the operation is Dr. Huang Wu-Sook, the mastermind of So-Am

251
00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:43,000
and the world's leading animal cloning expert.

252
00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:50,000
In terms of the mammoth project, this is the same basic process that we're seeing here?

253
00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:55,000
Yes, in theory, we will be applying the same particles in the cloned mammoth as well.

254
00:19:57,000 --> 00:19:59,000
This is bigger than just a puppy.

255
00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:04,000
As he begins the surgery, it feels like I'm watching the future itself being born.

256
00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:20,000
I'm in South Korea at So-Am Biotech, one of the world leaders in the controversial technology of cloning.

257
00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:24,000
After a sterilization process that would impress Howard Hughes,

258
00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:30,000
cell biologist Jay Wong grants me exclusive access to witness the birth of a cloned dog.

259
00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:39,000
Oh my God!

260
00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:40,000
Wow!

261
00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:43,000
Honestly, this is nothing like I expected.

262
00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:49,000
Cloning is a cold word, but once the egg is inserted, the entire pregnancy is totally natural,

263
00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:53,000
and the results? Real? Precious? Life?

264
00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:59,000
But what about So-Am's most ambitious project? Cloning the currently extinct wooly mammoth?

265
00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:02,000
Some people might ask the question, why? Why cloning mammoth?

266
00:21:02,000 --> 00:21:05,000
You know, this is an animal that went extinct. Why try to revive it?

267
00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:10,000
If the mammoth can walk the earth one more time, then we'd be able to learn so much about the mammoths

268
00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:13,000
and its ecology than being in the fossil form.

269
00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:14,000
Sure.

270
00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:19,000
It sounds like a long shot, but anything seems possible when you hold a newborn clone in your hands.

271
00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:21,000
Cloning.

272
00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:24,000
Look at that.

273
00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:33,000
So this room is purposely kept dark.

274
00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:38,000
And you can see all these microscopes around here, and these are the micromanipulators.

275
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:42,000
These manipulators are how DNA is extracted from the cell of a creature to be cloned

276
00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:45,000
and then injected into a waiting egg.

277
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:49,000
In the case of the mammoth, it would be slipped into the egg of a modern elephant.

278
00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:53,000
Those live mammoth cells are the key to making this whole thing work.

279
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:57,000
And to find them, they're using remains found trapped in the ice.

280
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:04,000
Jay takes me to our final stop, the company's mammoth cloning project.

281
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:07,000
What you're seeing in front of you is a mammoth tissue.

282
00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:08,000
This is mammoth tissue.

283
00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:09,000
It is.

284
00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:13,000
Wow, that's astounding.

285
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:14,000
This is Ms. Park.

286
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:15,000
Hello, Ms. Park.

287
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:16,000
You can call me Kelly.

288
00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:17,000
Hi Kelly.

289
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:19,000
She's Sensei Kelly for the day.

290
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:23,000
And today she's going to teach you how to culture mammoth cells.

291
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:28,000
Kelly and I get to work preparing the tissue samples for DNA extraction.

292
00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:32,000
First, the tissue is given a bath to remove any large impurities.

293
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:36,000
Then we cut the tissue into finely ground mammoth burger.

294
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:45,000
It's a pretty wild feeling to be cutting away here at a meat that's 10 or 20,000 years old.

295
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:47,000
It's really incredible.

296
00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:53,000
The meat is then saturated in enzymes that break down the cells to free the DNA inside.

297
00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:54,000
To the incubator.

298
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:58,000
To aid the process, samples are gently heated.

299
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:00,000
Nice work.

300
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:02,000
But here's the rub.

301
00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:06,000
No complete strand of mammoth DNA has ever been salvaged.

302
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:14,000
That's because unlike the live cells used to clone the puppy, every mammoth cell discovered turns out to be damaged or degraded.

303
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:17,000
In the case of mammoth, we're going to have to work with frozen tissue.

304
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:20,000
And it's very hard to clone using frozen tissues.

305
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:28,000
A single live cell with a complete DNA strand is the key to unlocking the mammoth's genetic code and bringing it back to life.

306
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:31,000
So with a mammoth, you're really looking for that complete DNA.

307
00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:40,000
That's one of the reasons why we embark on expeditions so we can find that one cell that can be served as the raw material for the mammoth cloning.

308
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:45,000
SOAM currently has scientists on the ground scouring for viable mammoth DNA.

309
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:48,000
And they've arranged for me to join their latest mission.

310
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:51,000
And those expeditions are primarily headed where?

311
00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:52,000
Siberia.

312
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:58,000
I'm nodding on the outside, but inside I'm remembering that I didn't pack any long underwear.

313
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:04,000
I leave the lab and board a flight that carries me 1700 miles north to the very edge of human existence.

314
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:07,000
Siberia.

315
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:15,000
In a place this fast, even the rental cars are bigger.

316
00:24:15,000 --> 00:24:17,000
Welcome to Siberia.

317
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:23,000
5 million square miles of tundra, permafrost, swamps and forests.

318
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:31,000
Collectively, it takes up almost all of northern Asia and represents about 10% of all the land on planet Earth.

319
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:34,000
In other words, it's enormous.

320
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:41,000
My Soviet-era monster truck could probably drive through anything, but I do hit the brakes for some local traffic.

321
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:53,000
Come on. Come on.

322
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:57,000
I feel like they don't respect that I could run them over with this thing.

323
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:04,000
First stop on our Siberian quest is the largest town in these parts, Yakutsk,

324
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:08,000
home to the Suam Laboratory's sister facility.

325
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:13,000
Yakutsk is famously known as the coldest city on Earth.

326
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:17,000
In the winter, temperatures can drop to 40 degrees below zero.

327
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:21,000
Fortunately, it's summer, so I can walk outside without dropping dead.

328
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:29,000
My first stop is the Yakutsk Outdoor Market, where I rendezvous with two scientists looking to find viable mammoth DNA.

329
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:33,000
Paleontologists Alexei Tikanov and Simeon Grigoryev.

330
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:34,000
Alexei.

331
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:36,000
Yeah. Nice to meet you.

332
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:37,000
Nice to meet you, Josh.

333
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:38,000
Hi.

334
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:39,000
Oh, my name's here.

335
00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:40,000
Hi, Simeon. Nice to meet you.

336
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:41,000
Nice to see you.

337
00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:42,000
Thank you. Happy to see you too.

338
00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:43,000
You're welcome to Siberia.

339
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:44,000
Thank you very much.

340
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:45,000
So what's the plan?

341
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:50,000
The plan to organize an expedition to Batagay.

342
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:51,000
What's Batagay?

343
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:53,000
Batagay is a settlement.

344
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:56,000
It's around 400 miles from here to the north.

345
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:58,000
Wow. Near the Arctic Circle.

346
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:00,000
Inside already Arctic Circle, yes.

347
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:01,000
Wow.

348
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:05,000
We have visited this place looking for the remains of palaces and animals,

349
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:07,000
and first of all of woolly mammoths,

350
00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:12,000
because the preservation of the material can be excellent.

351
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:14,000
So a good chance of finding something.

352
00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:16,000
Yes, it's a good chance.

353
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:17,000
All right, so where do we start?

354
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:19,000
We start from here, from market.

355
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:20,000
Okay.

356
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:25,000
We can buy good things from here.

357
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:28,000
Batagay is off more than the beaten path.

358
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:29,000
It's off the grid.

359
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:32,000
We'll have to bring everything we need to survive,

360
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:36,000
which means we have to shop while the shopping is good.

361
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:39,000
Proper headgear is, of course, a must.

362
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:42,000
I'm trying to blend in.

363
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:46,000
As well as the latest in Russian stealth technology.

364
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:49,000
Can you even see me right now, Brian?

365
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:50,000
Hey, has anybody seen Josh?

366
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:52,000
I heard him just a second ago.

367
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:54,000
He was literally just right here.

368
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:57,000
Guys, I'm right here.

369
00:26:57,000 --> 00:26:59,000
Tell you one thing, this stuff works.

370
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:03,000
Some of the items on Alexi's wish list are a bit worrying.

371
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:04,000
Is this necessary?

372
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:05,000
Do I really need this?

373
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:07,000
Yes, you really need this.

374
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:08,000
Where are we going?

375
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:11,000
Now that Team Pleistocene is fully outfitted for the journey ahead,

376
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:15,000
we're ready for our flight into northern Siberia.

377
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:19,000
The heart of Mammoth Country.

378
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:21,000
Okay, what's our back count?

379
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:22,000
30 green.

380
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:25,000
For being one of the most northerly cities in the world,

381
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:28,000
the Yucuzk Airport is surprisingly modern.

382
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:31,000
I wish I could say the same about our airplane.

383
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:32,000
Oh, boy.

384
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:41,000
I'm on my way to the town of Batagay in northern Siberia,

385
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:44,000
with a team of paleontologists hoping to clone

386
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:47,000
the long extinct woolly mammoth.

387
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:49,000
To get the DNA they need, though,

388
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:52,000
we have to pack into an airplane only slightly younger

389
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:54,000
than the mammoth we're hunting.

390
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:56,000
Welcome aboard the Antonov An-26.

391
00:27:56,000 --> 00:28:00,000
On this bucket of bolts, navigation is done entirely by hand.

392
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:03,000
Weird pieces of machinery are bolted to the cabin ceiling,

393
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:05,000
the lavatory is, just forget it,

394
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:07,000
and the luggage compartment,

395
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:10,000
it's conveniently located right behind us.

396
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:13,000
After a few dozen hail marries,

397
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:16,000
and some other stuff I learned in Hebrew and Arabic for good measure,

398
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:19,000
the engines roar to life and we take off.

399
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:24,000
We're up.

400
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:29,000
In case you're wondering, there is meal service on the flight.

401
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:30,000
Thank you.

402
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:39,000
Man, Alicia's not handing out parachutes.

403
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:46,000
As we fly north, it's impossible not to be struck by what we're flying over.

404
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:51,000
It's just pure wilderness, forests and swamps and lakes,

405
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,000
and no roads, no cities, no people.

406
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:58,000
But underneath all of this down here are millions of tons of permafrost,

407
00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:01,000
and somewhere in all of that ancient ice,

408
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:03,000
there are remains of mammoths,

409
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:06,000
and just maybe one intact strand of DNA

410
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:09,000
that could bring them back to life.

411
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:15,000
We fly a harrowing 400 miles closer to the north pole

412
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:19,000
and begin our descent into one of the more remote towns on Earth.

413
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:26,000
That's a guy. Here we come.

414
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:33,000
Once we touch down, we quickly offload our gear in awaiting convoy

415
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:36,000
and drive off in search of mammoth DNA.

416
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:39,000
Okay, here we go.

417
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:43,000
Okay, so, Alexi, where are we headed?

418
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:46,000
We are going to a very interesting place.

419
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:48,000
We call this place Butterguy Creator.

420
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:51,000
It's a very important creator for permafrost study.

421
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:52,000
Great.

422
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:57,000
We drive across an eerie landscape that feels unlike anywhere I've ever seen.

423
00:29:57,000 --> 00:30:00,000
It's a long bumpy slog down a mud track,

424
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:03,000
and eventually the gulfs are gone.

425
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:05,000
We're heading to the next stop,

426
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:08,000
where we'll be able to see the place I've ever seen.

427
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:11,000
It's a long bumpy slog down a mud track,

428
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:14,000
and eventually the ground becomes too soft to continue driving.

429
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:16,000
Okay, here we are.

430
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:18,000
We're here. Great. Okay, let's do it.

431
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:23,000
We'll walk from here, so we unload our gear

432
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:26,000
and prepare for a long hike through melting permafrost.

433
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:29,000
Since nothing destroys DNA faster than heat,

434
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:33,000
the most important thing in our kit is a cooler lined with dry ice

435
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:35,000
that we might discover.

436
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:47,000
So, what do we have living up here, Alexi?

437
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:51,000
Some local people, they have some stories about Chuchuna.

438
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:55,000
Chuchuna? Chuchuna is what? It's like, like, bigfoot?

439
00:30:55,000 --> 00:31:00,000
Yeah, and the females are very dangerous for big guys like you.

440
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:02,000
They're looking for mates, yeah?

441
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:05,000
Yes, they're looking to breed with somebody.

442
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:07,000
Alright, I'll take that under advisement.

443
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:10,000
A bunch of horny bigfoots up here.

444
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:19,000
With our eyes peeled for the one bigfoot you really don't want to find,

445
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:23,000
our group finally approaches the northern rim of the Badagai crater,

446
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:26,000
and it is truly the edge of the world.

447
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:28,000
Welcome to Badagai Crater.

448
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:30,000
Whoa.

449
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:35,000
Look at that!

450
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:37,000
That is insane.

451
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:41,000
I'm in northern Siberia with a team of paleontologists

452
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:46,000
looking for preserved remains of the woolly mammoth trapped in the permafrost,

453
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:50,000
and they've just led me to a place that leaves me speechless.

454
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:52,000
Welcome to Badagai Crater.

455
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:54,000
Whoa.

456
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:00,000
Look at that!

457
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:03,000
That is insane.

458
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:07,000
The crater is unlike anything I have ever seen,

459
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:09,000
a postcard from another planet.

460
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:13,000
If you saw it in a James Cameron movie, you'd think it was a digital effect,

461
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:16,000
but it's actually stunningly real,

462
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:20,000
nearly a mile long and up to 350 feet deep.

463
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:24,000
And what's really incredible, it didn't form naturally.

464
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:26,000
How did it get here?

465
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:29,000
It's interesting. 45 years ago, it was just this surface.

466
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:30,000
It was like this?

467
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:31,000
Like this.

468
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:36,000
But the guys decided to excavate some rocks,

469
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:38,000
some material to make a road,

470
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:43,000
and they removed trees, they removed moss covering everything.

471
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:48,000
And when the ice was exposed to the surface,

472
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:50,000
the sun started to melt.

473
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:52,000
So it just started to eat away?

474
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:56,000
Start to eat, to eat, to eat, and after 45 years we have this.

475
00:32:57,000 --> 00:32:59,000
And it isn't done growing.

476
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:02,000
This mile-wide mega-slump, as geologists call it,

477
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:05,000
widens about 60 feet every year,

478
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:09,000
as its walls melt away, collapse, and reveal ancient bones.

479
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:12,000
So up here, this is present day.

480
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:15,000
At the bottom of the wall, what year is it?

481
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:18,000
It's approximately 300,000 years ago.

482
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:21,000
It's like slicing through time.

483
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:24,000
It's slicing for 300,000 years.

484
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:25,000
Incredible.

485
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:27,000
So now that I see it, I understand it.

486
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:30,000
You've got hundreds of thousands of years of ice exposed here,

487
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:32,000
and that ice is filled with samples.

488
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:34,000
How do you find those samples?

489
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:36,000
How do you get at those preserved remains?

490
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:37,000
We have to look.

491
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:41,000
Since the walls of the crater are unstable,

492
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:45,000
we decide to send up our drone to scout ahead for possible remains.

493
00:33:56,000 --> 00:34:00,000
We look for outcroppings of bone that emerge from the melting curtain of permafrost.

494
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:02,000
It isn't as simple as it sounds.

495
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:05,000
So, Alexei, where is the best place to search for the bones?

496
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:08,000
Most interesting for us is the lower part of walls.

497
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:11,000
Between the ice and already melted sediments.

498
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:13,000
Aha, because stuff's falling down there?

499
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:17,000
Fall down, and of course it's the most recent finds.

500
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:22,000
The drone sweeps up and down the crater as we stay riveted to the screen.

501
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:26,000
It's tough because there's so many trees down there that look like bones.

502
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:28,000
Yes, sometimes it's quite difficult.

503
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:30,000
This is all wood, yeah?

504
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:33,000
Yes, all wood which fall down from the slope.

505
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:38,000
What's that? Is that wood?

506
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:41,000
Eventually, our patience pays off.

507
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:43,000
No, this is a bone.

508
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:45,000
That's a bone? There, yeah?

509
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:47,000
This is it. A mammoth bone.

510
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:49,000
Tens of thousands of years old,

511
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:52,000
and ours for the taking, if we can get it.

512
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:54,000
Okay, we got a bone. We got a bone.

513
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:56,000
Okay, all right, good. Danny, let's mark that.

514
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:59,000
Let's look around here and see if anything else fell out with it.

515
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:07,000
After tagging the coordinates of the bone on GPS, we keep the drone flying.

516
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:11,000
It's covering more ground in a few minutes than we could in a full day.

517
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:14,000
God, there's so much debris down there. It's tough.

518
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:17,000
This is capital of mammoth.

519
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:21,000
I should have played. Okay, bone number two.

520
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:26,000
Okay, we've got two pieces. We start with that, yeah?

521
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:29,000
Okay, we should go to this place and look for sure.

522
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:34,000
Got it?

523
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:39,000
Okay, nice work everybody. Let's go find a mammoth.

524
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:44,000
The drone is down. Now it's our turn to explore.

525
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:47,000
We gear up not for a hike, but for a climb.

526
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:54,000
The walls are solid ice.

527
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:57,000
We have to use cramons so that we can stick them.

528
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:00,000
So what's the plan, Alexei?

529
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:01,000
You will go first.

530
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:03,000
And why am I going first again?

531
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:08,000
Because we need to check the equipment, and you are the heaviest guy among us.

532
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:11,000
Russians.

533
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:16,000
While I'm all for a good joke, it's hard to laugh right now.

534
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:23,000
The rim of the crater grows wider every day, and Alexei is using me to make sure that it and our gear will hold up.

535
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:28,000
Look at that. It's just pure ice.

536
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:32,000
Super dangerous looking.

537
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:40,000
The whole wall is literally just disintegrating. You can see it just melting away.

538
00:36:40,000 --> 00:36:45,000
Everywhere I look, the muddy wall is carving off and plunging down to the crater floor.

539
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:48,000
I just do my best to stay stuck to the ice.

540
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:53,000
It's okay now. We're going to be to the right.

541
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:59,000
It's too difficult to repel quickly, but I don't want to be up here for too long.

542
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:05,000
Since it fast becomes apparent that the ground beneath my crampons is something I definitely can't rely on.

543
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:09,000
Josh, look out.

544
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:10,000
It's collapsing. Holy...

545
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:28,000
I'm repelling down the side of a massive crater in northern Siberia on the hunt for mammoth DNA, and the rim suddenly collapses.

546
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:30,000
Josh, look out.

547
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:32,000
It's collapsing. Holy...

548
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:44,000
A huge section of the rim falls inches to the left of my rope, a stark reminder that the whole cliff could go at any moment.

549
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:52,000
But a potential trove of mammoth DNA lies directly below me, so I keep going into the abyss.

550
00:37:52,000 --> 00:38:08,000
Finally, I touch down on the ledge midway down the crater, where we spotted the first mammoth bone with our drone.

551
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:11,000
That was ill-advised.

552
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:21,000
If anybody out there thinks that cutting down trees doesn't have an impact on the planet, that's what happened when they cut down the forest.

553
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:27,000
Okay, Josh.

554
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:30,000
Falling is going down now.

555
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:34,000
We lower the cooler from the top to receive our mammoth samples.

556
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:39,000
To preserve the DNA, anything we find needs to be immediately put on ice.

557
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:42,000
Keep coming.

558
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:46,000
Okay.

559
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:47,000
Little more.

560
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:48,000
Good.

561
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:52,000
Once our gear is down, we can begin our search.

562
00:38:54,000 --> 00:38:57,000
It should be close. It's somewhere on this part.

563
00:38:57,000 --> 00:38:58,000
Yeah.

564
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:09,000
Just standing up is a balancing act. One false step and we'll plunge another hundred feet into 300,000-year-old permafrost, becoming specimens ourselves.

565
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:14,000
Look on it.

566
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:17,000
It's a bone.

567
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:18,000
That's it, yeah?

568
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:19,000
It's great.

569
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:21,000
What a beautiful find.

570
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:25,000
It's a mammoth bone, all right, from an adult's leg.

571
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:28,000
Wow.

572
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:32,000
Oh, it's a nice preservation from this side.

573
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:33,000
Look at that.

574
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:34,000
Male.

575
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:35,000
Male, yeah.

576
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:36,000
Yeah, exactly.

577
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:37,000
Adult one.

578
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:38,000
Adult.

579
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:39,000
It's freezing cold.

580
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:42,000
Yeah, because you see the surface pale.

581
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:43,000
Yeah.

582
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:44,000
It's yellowish.

583
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:45,000
Uh-huh.

584
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:48,000
It should be well preserved in such places where there is no damages.

585
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:49,000
We can cut.

586
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:50,000
Uh-huh.

587
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:51,000
A little bit, yeah.

588
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:53,000
Good bone for the analysis.

589
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:55,000
Okay, so let's get a sample out of it, yeah?

590
00:39:55,000 --> 00:40:02,000
Unlike the bones I found in Canada, this is still ice cold and therefore more probable to carry viable DNA.

591
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:03,000
Please.

592
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:04,000
Me?

593
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:05,000
Take some.

594
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:06,000
Sure.

595
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:07,000
Okay, here we go.

596
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:11,000
Any live cell is likely going to be deep inside the bone in the marrow.

597
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:18,000
Ameth bone is dense enough, but after being frozen for 10,000 years, it's like cutting into concrete.

598
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:27,000
What's the smell?

599
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:28,000
A fresh bone.

600
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:29,000
The smell of fresh bone?

601
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:30,000
Yeah, sure.

602
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:32,000
I love the smell of fresh bone in the morning.

603
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:37,000
The saw isn't getting us in there fast enough, so we break out a slightly more direct tool.

604
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:46,000
Will this bone, buried in the ice for 200,000 years, tell us how to resurrect the woolly mammoth?

605
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:52,000
Look at this!

606
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:53,000
Oh my God.

607
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:54,000
That's unbelievable.

608
00:40:56,000 --> 00:40:59,000
There's more expedition to the world.

609
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:03,000
There's more expedition to come.

610
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:10,000
For more than 100 miles above the Arctic Circle and continuing farther north.

611
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:14,000
A dangerous mission takes me deep into Siberia.

612
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:15,000
What's going on?

613
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:17,000
I think we broke down.

614
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:20,000
It just basically jeopardizes the whole mission at this point.

615
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:24,000
And I find myself in a lawless wilderness.

616
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:26,000
Let's see if they let us go forward.

617
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:31,000
In an Ice Age graveyard ruled by the Black Market.

618
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:33,000
Oh my God.

619
00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:36,000
This could be where my adventure ends.

620
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:38,000
The ceiling's gonna come down on us.

621
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:44,000
Or will we succeed in finding enough DNA to clone the woolly mammoth?

622
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:45,000
Ha ha!

623
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:46,000
Look at this thing!

624
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:47,000
Yeah.

625
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:48,000
Intact!