1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000
A dramatic statue of fierce and unlikely heroine.

2
00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:10,000
What she was facing that night was a very strong possibility of death.

3
00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:14,000
The most notorious storage shed in America.

4
00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:20,000
It was Bedlam, Boston Sirens, and emergency vehicles.

5
00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:25,000
And an epic memorial to a vessel that mysteriously vanished beneath the waves.

6
00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:29,000
Why did she go down? Was she attacked?

7
00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:33,000
Sometimes the greatest secrets lie in plain sight.

8
00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:36,000
These are monumental mysteries.

9
00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:49,000
Deep in the remote highlands of northwest Arkansas is a charming and picturesque town,

10
00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:53,000
which is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.

11
00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:57,000
There are no two dwellings alike. There are no two streets alike.

12
00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:00,000
The whole place is very romantic.

13
00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:04,000
But according to local history expert Keith Scales,

14
00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:11,000
this secluded Ozark community owes its unlikely existence to a unique geological feature.

15
00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:18,000
There was no reason for a town to be here at all except for the springs, the magic springs.

16
00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:24,000
Named for its supposedly curative waters, used to treat every manner of ailment,

17
00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:28,000
this is the landmark town of Eureka Springs.

18
00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:34,000
But of the many stories that have arisen from this therapeutic mecca,

19
00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:37,000
there is one that had a truly tragic ending.

20
00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:43,000
Thousands of people came here on the hope that they could be cured by something terribly wrong.

21
00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:50,000
What appalling scandal shook the foundation of this mountain retreat to its very core.

22
00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:54,000
The 1930s, Eureka Springs.

23
00:01:56,000 --> 00:02:01,000
For more than 50 years, the mineral-rich waters of this Arkansas mountain town

24
00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:05,000
have drawn countless visitors in search of health and vitality.

25
00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:10,000
And one of the biggest local enterprises in the town is the Crescent Hotel.

26
00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:19,000
But as the Great Depression hits, the Grand Hotel, along with the rest of the town of Eureka Springs, falls on hard times.

27
00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:24,000
When the depression came along, the hotel just closed down.

28
00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:30,000
Until one day, when an elegant stranger arrives at the derelict hotel.

29
00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:33,000
His name is Norman Baker.

30
00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:43,000
He said that he would like to buy this building and that he promised to restore Eureka Springs to its position as a famous place of healing.

31
00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:52,000
When the deal goes through, Baker throws an extravagant party for local dignitaries on the grounds of the former hotel.

32
00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:56,000
And there he reveals his ambitious scheme.

33
00:02:56,000 --> 00:03:03,000
He plans to open a hospital on the site, and one he claims will revolutionize medical science.

34
00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:10,000
He came to Eureka Springs to cure the most deadly escorts of humanity of all, cancer.

35
00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:14,000
Claiming conventional medicine is futile.

36
00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:19,000
Baker describes the miracle cure with which he intends to base his treatments.

37
00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:22,000
Its name? Secret Remedy Number 5.

38
00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:32,000
And thanks to an ambitious direct mail campaign, within months, hundreds of cancer sufferers are flooding into the town of Eureka Springs.

39
00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:39,000
And each new patient is anxious to begin their regimen of injections of Secret Remedy Number 5.

40
00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:43,000
He very quickly filled his hospital.

41
00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:49,000
So suddenly Eureka Springs rose from the dust, and everybody was making money, and everybody loved Norman Baker.

42
00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:55,000
But the town of Eureka Springs is in for a shocking revelation.

43
00:03:57,000 --> 00:04:06,000
One of the local officials who supported Norman Baker in his bid to open his cancer hospital is the influential Arkansas Congressman Claude Fuller.

44
00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:10,000
And one day the Congressman receives a troubling letter.

45
00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:14,000
It is from the daughter of one of Baker's former patients.

46
00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:20,000
The letter accuses Baker of peddling false hope to the desperate victims of the deadly disease.

47
00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:29,000
Fuller started to wonder if perhaps the man was actually a charlatan who was doing a lot more harm to his patients than he was doing good.

48
00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:36,000
Determined to get at the truth, Congressman Fuller launches an inquiry into the hospital and its owner, Norman Baker.

49
00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:40,000
What investigators uncover is surprising.

50
00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:47,000
Not only had he never set foot in medical school in his life, but his original success had been in Waterville.

51
00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:52,000
It had been 10 years on a Waterville stage doing magic acts and levitating people.

52
00:04:53,000 --> 00:05:05,000
And when they study the content of his secret remedy number five, what they find is actually a mixture of ground-up watermelon seeds, brown corn silk, peppermint, and carboly acid.

53
00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:11,000
A bizarre concoction that seems to hold little prospect of curing anything.

54
00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:18,000
Although his actions appear despicable, it's not clear whether Baker has actually broken the law.

55
00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:21,000
But Congressman Fuller is determined to act.

56
00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:24,000
Fuller had been a lawyer, a prosecuting attorney.

57
00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:31,000
And I think when he decided to go after Baker, he had to be definitive.

58
00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:33,000
It couldn't be something that Baker could wriggle out of.

59
00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:41,000
They eventually charged him with a federal crime, misuse of the US mail's fraudulent purposes.

60
00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:50,000
Baker has been suiting prospective cancer patients through a constant stream of letters, filled with categorical guarantees of a cure.

61
00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:55,000
And since the claims are provably false, Baker has committed fraud.

62
00:05:56,000 --> 00:05:57,000
Mail fraud.

63
00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:05,000
And although it seems like a minor charge in light of the horrific facts of the case, the charges stick.

64
00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:14,000
On January 24th, 1940, three years after he arrived in Eureka Springs, Norman Baker is found guilty.

65
00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:20,000
He was given four years in Livermore's prison and a $4,000 fine.

66
00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:27,000
There's no way to know for certain how many victims perished under his care.

67
00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:34,000
But there are chilling rumors of how he may have concealed the dismal results of his bogus treatments from other patients.

68
00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:39,000
There is an annex that was essentially a pain ward.

69
00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:44,000
This is where he would put people who were in so much suffering, they were disturbing other people in other parts of the building.

70
00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:49,000
And the story is that he had steel shutters on the end of those wards to kind of contain the sounds.

71
00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:56,000
It's said that the bodies of the dead were wheeled out of this ward late at night and incinerated.

72
00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:08,000
In the end, the fraudulent administrator is believed to have fleeced more than $4 million from his patients' pockets, or $65 million in today's currency.

73
00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:18,000
After serving out his four-year term in prison, Norman Baker moves to Florida, where he meets a most ironic fate.

74
00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:21,000
His cause of death is cancer of the liver.

75
00:07:23,000 --> 00:07:30,000
Six years after Baker's hospital is closed down, the Grand Crescent Hotel reopens for business.

76
00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:38,000
And today, the landmark town of Eureka Springs stands as a symbol of gracious southern hospitality,

77
00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:45,000
but will be forever remembered for the sideshow swindler who peddled hope, but delivered only grief.

78
00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:55,000
Founded in 1795, the town of Carmel, New York overlooks the majestic Lake Glenita.

79
00:07:56,000 --> 00:08:01,000
And amidst the sometimes snowy hills that line the shores of this pristine reservoir,

80
00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:08,000
is a larger-than-life bronze statue that depicts an unlikely heroine riding side saddle on a galloping steed.

81
00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:17,000
The statue is of a young girl bent over, fair-slope on her face, stick in hand. Obviously a girl on a mission.

82
00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:26,000
As author Vincent DeQuino knows, despite her diminutive stature, this girl possessed colossal amounts of courage.

83
00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:30,000
She took her life in her hands for her country, for freedom.

84
00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:38,000
So who was this brave young girl, and what role did she play in battling the most formidable army of the day?

85
00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:49,000
1777. The War of Independence is in full swing, as the North American colonies seek to free themselves from the shackles of the British.

86
00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:56,000
One of the key strategic locations in this conflict is the New York Hudson River Valley,

87
00:08:56,000 --> 00:09:01,000
a rebel stronghold which connects the colonies in the north to the mid-Atlantic region.

88
00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:09,000
If that area was attacked, it would have cut off the zone between Connecticut and New York.

89
00:09:10,000 --> 00:09:15,000
Among those protecting the area is Colonel Henry Luddington of Duchess County.

90
00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:22,000
He was in charge of a volunteer force of 400 men.

91
00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:29,000
April 26th. A messenger arrives at the Colonel's home with alarming news.

92
00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:37,000
British troops have made an assault on Danbury, Connecticut, 15 miles away, and are laying waste to everything in their path.

93
00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:47,000
What was crucial about Danbury was that flour, weapons, guns were hidden in homes.

94
00:09:47,000 --> 00:09:51,000
So they burned homes down. They killed citizens.

95
00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:59,000
To have any chance of holding on to the Hudson Valley, the Colonel must rouse the local militia and fast.

96
00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:04,000
But it's late at night, and the messenger is not familiar with the area.

97
00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:12,000
He didn't know where these men lived. The Colonel had 400 men tucked away in little dirt rolls.

98
00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:16,000
But help comes from a most unexpected quarter.

99
00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:21,000
His daughter, Sybil, said father, send me.

100
00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:29,000
16-year-old Sybil Luddington is the Colonel's oldest daughter and known as a highly skilled horsewoman.

101
00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:36,000
She was the only one who knew where to go. There was no one else who could have made that journey that night.

102
00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:42,000
But the young Patriots offer immediately strikes terror in her conflicted father's heart.

103
00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:47,000
What she was facing that night was a very strong possibility of death.

104
00:10:47,000 --> 00:10:51,000
Yet with Danbury burning, the Colonel knows he has no choice.

105
00:10:53,000 --> 00:10:59,000
As tough of a decision was, he had to take the chance of sacrificing his oldest daughter.

106
00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:05,000
Sybil mounts her horse and rides off into the night.

107
00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:08,000
There is no question about the difficulty of what she was about to do.

108
00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:13,000
But her father, her neighbors, her family's lives were at stake.

109
00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:19,000
Will Sybil rouse the militia in time to stave off the marauding British?

110
00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:28,000
It's April 26th, 1777, the height of the Revolutionary War.

111
00:11:29,000 --> 00:11:36,000
British troops have landed at Danbury, Connecticut and laid waste to the town, vowing to root out the rebels and try them for treason.

112
00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:43,000
When 16-year-old Sybil Luddington, whose father is a Colonel in the Revolution, hears of the raid.

113
00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:48,000
She leaps on her horse and makes a desperate bid to rouse the region's militia.

114
00:11:48,000 --> 00:11:50,000
So will Sybil make it through?

115
00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:56,000
Sybil rides through the darkness, stopping at farms and homesteads along the way.

116
00:11:56,000 --> 00:12:00,000
And at each, she gives the same urgent cry.

117
00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:04,000
Quickly, muster at the parade grounds.

118
00:12:04,000 --> 00:12:06,000
Colonel Luddington needs you.

119
00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:08,000
Danbury is burning.

120
00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:14,000
From Carmel to Mayopic to the village of Stormville, Sybil rides to rally the troops.

121
00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:18,000
Finally, all 400 men were alerted.

122
00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:24,000
One of the most amazing things about this ride is that Paul Revere went 12 miles.

123
00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:25,000
Sybil went 40.

124
00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:30,000
Paul Revere was 40-something. Sybil was barely 16.

125
00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:38,000
And when her journey is complete, she returns home to find hundreds of soldiers gathered on the grounds, ready to march.

126
00:12:39,000 --> 00:12:44,000
It must have been magnificent. Those men had to be screaming, who's that?

127
00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:51,000
And her father, who saw his daughter alive and well, her mission accomplished.

128
00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:59,000
Colonel Luddington and his men, joined by three other colonial regiments, press on toward Danbury.

129
00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:03,000
They blocked British troops and forced them back to their ships.

130
00:13:04,000 --> 00:13:10,000
Luddington and his men pushed him back, and Sybil Luddington helped us to achieve that.

131
00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:17,000
In 1961, a statue of Sybil Luddington is erected in Carmel.

132
00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:21,000
Just one of the many towns she bravely rode through that night.

133
00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:28,000
Sybil Luddington traveled as far and as fast as Paul Revere.

134
00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:32,000
She deserves her place in our American history.

135
00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:43,000
And today, the imposing sculpture of the fierce, tiny figure, endures as a testament to her remarkable courage in the face of unimaginable danger.

136
00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:55,000
The remote Rocky Mountain town of Netherland, Colorado, stands at more than 8,000 feet above sea level.

137
00:13:56,000 --> 00:14:00,000
We have a beautiful view of the Indian Peaks Wilderness area.

138
00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:05,000
The continental divide is our backdrop of our community.

139
00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:15,000
But Netherland is best known not for its spectacular vistas, but rather this pedestrian structure that sits on the outskirts of town.

140
00:14:15,000 --> 00:14:16,000
A shed.

141
00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:22,000
It's maybe 150 square feet, but there is something special about this shed.

142
00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:30,000
This simple hut has inspired media frenzies, legal struggles, and even festivals.

143
00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:35,000
So what lies within the Netherland shed?

144
00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:39,000
The 1990s, Netherland, Colorado.

145
00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:46,000
For years, this high-altitude haven has boasted a colorful array of local characters.

146
00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:55,000
We do attract a certain element of people who feel like perhaps they're misfits in the rest of the world, but they're going to be accepted here in Netherland.

147
00:14:57,000 --> 00:15:05,000
And no one fits this description more than Norwegian immigrant Odd Morstal, who lives alone in a house on the outskirts of town.

148
00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:10,000
In 1994, Odd applies for a building permit to enlarge her home.

149
00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:15,000
But before it can be granted, town officials must conduct an inspection of the property.

150
00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:22,000
What they found was less of a house and more of something that looked like a fortress.

151
00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:30,000
There was no running water and no electricity, but it was built to withstand the apocalypse.

152
00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:35,000
In violation of zoning laws, the property is condemned by town officials.

153
00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:38,000
And Odd is served with an eviction notice.

154
00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:42,000
But the eccentric Scandinavian appeals the decision.

155
00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:49,000
And when her case is heard at a town board meeting, she makes a bizarre and disturbing statement.

156
00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:54,000
She'd said, but who will take care of the bodies?

157
00:15:55,000 --> 00:15:57,000
Mayhem erupted.

158
00:15:57,000 --> 00:16:00,000
What bodies is she talking about?

159
00:16:01,000 --> 00:16:09,000
Stunned by her claim that there are bodies on her property, town officials immediately dispatched the local police to investigate.

160
00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:14,000
It was bedlam, lots of sirens and emergency vehicles.

161
00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:21,000
After conducting an extensive search of her home, police find a brown storage shed in the backyard.

162
00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:26,000
And they open up the doors.

163
00:16:27,000 --> 00:16:28,000
To see what's inside.

164
00:16:29,000 --> 00:16:34,000
Inside, they find a large styrofoam box about the size of a bed.

165
00:16:35,000 --> 00:16:38,000
When they lift the lid, they make an alarming discovery.

166
00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:43,000
And what they find is a frozen dead body.

167
00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:49,000
So what bizarre deeds have been performed in this humble Colorado shed?

168
00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:53,000
It's 1994 in Niederland, Colorado.

169
00:16:54,000 --> 00:16:58,000
64-year-old Norwegian immigrant Odd Morshto is in a heap of trouble.

170
00:16:59,000 --> 00:17:03,000
Police have found something astonishing in the shed in her backyard.

171
00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:05,000
A frozen corpse.

172
00:17:06,000 --> 00:17:08,000
So what's this eccentric woman up to?

173
00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:15,000
Inside Odd's shed, police make another shocking discovery.

174
00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:17,000
A second frozen body.

175
00:17:18,000 --> 00:17:22,000
Police are horrified and they demand to know what's going on.

176
00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:29,000
Under interrogation, Odd confesses that one of the bodies is that of her very own father, Brado Morshtal.

177
00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:39,000
The story began five years earlier in Norway, when Brado Morshtal died suddenly of a heart attack.

178
00:17:39,000 --> 00:17:46,000
His distraught grandson, Trig Fibaga, who had long believed that medical science would eventually make it possible to resurrect frozen dead bodies, makes a rather unconventional decision.

179
00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:53,000
To ship the body to the trans-time cryonics facility in California to be cryonically preserved.

180
00:17:54,000 --> 00:18:00,000
A process that uses liquid nitrogen to keep the remains frozen at about negative 200 degrees Celsius.

181
00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:05,000
But preserving grandpa Brado in California proved to be expensive.

182
00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:14,000
So eventually, Trig V and his mother, Odd, decided to move the body to Chile, Netherlands, Colorado, to do the preserving themselves.

183
00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:22,000
The family is so intrigued with cryonics, they decided to move the body to the trans-time cryonics facility in California.

184
00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:29,000
And so, as Odd informs police, the second body found in her shed belongs to their first customer, a man named Al from Chicago, who had requested that his body be frozen in his will.

185
00:18:31,000 --> 00:18:36,000
After Odd's death, Brado Morshtal, who was a doctor, says that his body was frozen in his will.

186
00:18:37,000 --> 00:18:40,000
He says that his body was frozen in his will.

187
00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:44,000
He says that his body was frozen in his will.

188
00:18:44,000 --> 00:18:49,000
A man named Al from Chicago, who had requested that his body be frozen in his will.

189
00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:58,000
After Odd's extraordinary confession, it appears at the very least that she has violated local zoning regulations.

190
00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:11,000
And while Al's body is sent home to his family in Chicago, the town council eventually determines to allow Odd to keep grandpa Brado in her shed in Netherlands.

191
00:19:12,000 --> 00:19:18,000
People of the town came to grandpa's defense and said, hey, no, we want him to stay. This is cool. We want him here.

192
00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:32,000
Odd has since moved back to Norway, but the family continues to pay for fresh deliveries of ice to the shed in Netherlands, which is now famous as one of the most unusual mausoleums in America.

193
00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:41,000
We knew that the stigma was never going to go away. We were the place where the frozen dead guy was.

194
00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:51,000
And in 2002, the town launches what is now one of the top small town festivals in the country. Frozen Dead Guy days.

195
00:19:52,000 --> 00:19:58,000
We have the antique hearse parade, coffin races. It's so much fun.

196
00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:14,000
And every March when the festival takes place, pilgrims visit the scenic hilltop on the outskirts of town to pay tribute to grandpa Brado, who still resides in his frosty bed inside this now famous storage shed.

197
00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:34,000
Edwards, California, home of the Edwards Air Force Base. For more than 70 years, these high desert flatlands have served as an ideal testing ground for the nation's most iconic aircraft.

198
00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:39,000
From U-2 spy planes to the early space shuttle modules.

199
00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:51,000
But far from the earsplitting runways here, in a grove of cottonwood trees stands a monument to a simple man and a great American hero.

200
00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:58,000
It's a figure wearing an Air Force uniform. It's made of bronze, so it weighs about 500 pounds.

201
00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:07,000
According to aerospace historian Peter Merlin, the statue celebrates one of the most important figures in modern aviation history.

202
00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:14,000
The statue is a fine tribute to a man who changed the face of aerospace forever.

203
00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:21,000
What role did this man play in a daring experiment that revolutionized modern flight?

204
00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:34,000
1941, Hamlin, West Virginia. In this rugged coal mining town deep in the Appalachian Mountains, lives an inquisitive teenager named Chuck Yeager.

205
00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:41,000
When he's not dismantling engines in his father's garage, Yeager is dreaming of speed.

206
00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:50,000
Chuck Yeager developed an early love of aviation and wanted to be a pilot. And as it turned out, his best route into flying was through the military.

207
00:21:51,000 --> 00:22:01,000
In 1941, three months before America entered World War II, Yeager joins the U.S. Army Air Corps, where he quickly impresses his commanding officers.

208
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:09,000
Yeager was a natural pilot. He didn't have a college degree, but he really understood aerodynamics and flight.

209
00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:16,000
By 1943, at the age of 20, Yeager is a fighter pilot in the European theater.

210
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:23,000
And during the course of World War II, he becomes one of the most decorated flyers in the U.S. Army Air Corps.

211
00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:32,000
A fighter pilot needs to shoot down at least five enemy planes to become an ace. Yeager shot down five in a single day.

212
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:42,000
When the war ends, Yeager re-enlists with the U.S. Army Air Corps and is quickly promoted to test pilot on a top-secret project.

213
00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:50,000
To design and test the fastest plane in history, the Bell X-1.

214
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:57,000
The X-1 was designed for one mission and one mission only, to fly faster than speed of sound.

215
00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:10,000
Until this point, pilots who flew at speeds approaching 700 miles per hour, the approximate speed at which sound travels, had reported some disturbing phenomena.

216
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:18,000
As they entered this trans-sonic region, their planes encountered disruptive shockwaves, causing many aircraft to break apart in flight.

217
00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:26,000
This hazardous speed, above which no plane was known to have survived, became known as the sound barrier.

218
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:35,000
The Air Force designed an airplane that could fly into the supersonic region, and to be the first one to do it was to take a great risk.

219
00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:41,000
But the risk doesn't bother Chuck Yeager. In fact, he thrives on it.

220
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:49,000
Flying is exciting. There's no question about it, and the kind of flying he was doing is probably the greatest adrenaline rush of all.

221
00:23:50,000 --> 00:24:01,000
Over the course of numerous test flights, the 24-year-old pilot gradually increases his flight speeds, until he is finally ready to try and break the sound barrier.

222
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:07,000
October 14, 1947 was Chuck Yeager's date with destiny.

223
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:13,000
But two days before the landmark attempt, disaster strikes.

224
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:18,000
Yeager breaks two of his ribs in a horse-riding accident.

225
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:26,000
The ambitious young pilot knows that if the Air Force catches wind of his injury, they will oust him from the mission.

226
00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:31,000
So to what lengths will Chuck Yeager go to make the historic flight?

227
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:39,000
October 1947, Lancaster, California.

228
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:43,000
Test pilot Chuck Yeager is preparing to try and break the sound barrier.

229
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:49,000
But two days before his historic flight, he fractures his ribs in a horseback-riding accident.

230
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:57,000
Despite the excruciating pain, he's determined to hide his injury from the Air Force and complete his landmark mission.

231
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:00,000
But how will he do it?

232
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:08,000
While Yeager is confident that he can fly the plane effectively, there is one aspect of the mission that he is concerned about.

233
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:15,000
With two broken ribs, it will be nearly impossible for him to close the heavy hatch on the X-1 cockpit.

234
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:22,000
He didn't have the full range of motion in his arm, so he needed a little something extra to get that hatch closed.

235
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:30,000
To give himself the leverage he will need, Yeager conceals a makeshift tool in his flight suit, a sawed-off broom handle.

236
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:37,000
Once he squeezes into the cockpit and sits down, he uses the broom handle to torque that hatch closed and locked.

237
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:41,000
It's probably a great relief for him to finally settle down on the seat.

238
00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:44,000
But he's not out of the woods yet.

239
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:51,000
The X-1 is designed to be released mid-flight from beneath the belly of a modified B-29 bomber.

240
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:58,000
So as the massive mother ship nears 20,000 feet, Yeager girds himself for separation.

241
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:03,000
They did a countdown and when they got to zero, the X-1 dropped away.

242
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:10,000
Yeager flipped on the switches to ignite the four-chamber rocket engine and climbed to altitude.

243
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:17,000
Leveling off at more than 40,000 feet, Yeager fires his third rocket chamber.

244
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:25,000
And as he enters the turbulent trans-sonic region, the pilot's injured right side begins to throb with pain.

245
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:28,000
The compression shock built up in front of the aircraft.

246
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:31,000
Pretty soon, the control surfaces began to shake and rattle.

247
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:36,000
Yeager would have felt that through the control stick and through his busted ribs as well.

248
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:46,000
On the ground, the Air Force brass watch anxiously as the distant orange speck, the X-1, streaks across the clear blue sky.

249
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:57,000
All they saw was the contrails the plane went over and then a few minutes later, they felt that sonic boom shock wave for the first time ever.

250
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:00,000
And they knew he'd done it.

251
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:10,000
The first person ever to accomplish this, Yeager was the fastest man alive and he was truly a hero.

252
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:16,000
Yeager later confides to a friend about his broken ribs and days later, his commanders find out.

253
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:20,000
But by then, they offer only their admiration.

254
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:26,000
The 24-year-old country boy from the hills of West Virginia would take his place in the history books.

255
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:36,000
Chuck Yeager goes on to have a long and storied career in the Air Force, retiring in 1975 at the rank of Brigadier General.

256
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:44,000
And today, this lifelike monument stands in the aptly named Sound Barrier Park on Yeager Boulevard,

257
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:52,000
reminding visitors to Edward's Air Force base of one man's remarkable courage and the lengths he went to achieve his dream.

258
00:27:56,000 --> 00:28:02,000
A hundred miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River is the historic port city of New Orleans.

259
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:10,000
Here, the architecture derives from an eclectic mix of Spanish, Greek revival and French origins.

260
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:22,000
And perhaps no landmark embodies this diversity more than this set of red brick structures in the city's beloved French Quarter.

261
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:31,000
The buildings are really classical Greek buildings, but because of the iron lace, they don't have the forbidding exterior.

262
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:40,000
People in New Orleans today don't realize how innovative they were and how they set the standard for all the ironwork of the city.

263
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:45,000
They really cause New Orleans to look the way it looks.

264
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:52,000
These are the Pantalba buildings, said to be the oldest apartment complex in the United States.

265
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:59,000
And the tale of how they came to be here is one of the strangest in New Orleans history.

266
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:08,000
Behind these lovely buildings, there lies an ugly story of greed, tragedy and psychological torment.

267
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:15,000
What bizarre series of events led to the construction of the magnificent Pantalba buildings.

268
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:32,000
1811. French nobleman Baron Pantalba is eagerly anticipating the wedding of his son Celestin to a wealthy young New Orleans heiress named Mikhaela Almenester.

269
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:42,000
Everybody thought it was just going to be a perfect marriage. They were infatuated with each other. The groom was beautiful and the bride was rich.

270
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:52,000
The bride in fact is very rich and stands to inherit a vast portfolio of her family's money and property in New Orleans.

271
00:29:53,000 --> 00:30:10,000
After the wedding, Baron Pantalba, whose wealth pales in comparison to that of the Almenesters, whisks Mikhaela and Celestin to France to live with him at the family's ancestral home in Saint-Lise, Chateau Mont-Levec.

272
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:16,000
But no sooner has the couple arrived than the Baron receives a nasty surprise.

273
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:27,000
He had expected to receive a hefty dowry from Mikhaela's family. But when the dowry is paid, it turns out to be a fraction of what he had expected.

274
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:34,000
So the greedy Baron resorts to more extreme means to access her fortune.

275
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:45,000
Pantalba began to try to extort more and more of Mikhaela's property and her husband Celestin acquiesced in everything his father did.

276
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:55,000
At times the Baron even confines the young bride to the Chateau and threatens to refuse to let her leave unless she signs away her inheritance.

277
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:58,000
But the young heiress is resolute.

278
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:05,000
She stood up to him. She refused to give over more of her New Orleans property.

279
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:10,000
As the years go by, the Baron's actions become increasingly cruel.

280
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:20,000
After the couple's second child is born, the baby boy is removed from her care and the Baron refuses for a time to disclose his location.

281
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:25,000
Mikhaela endures decades of torment.

282
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:34,000
Then one day in 1834, the ugly familial feud boils over.

283
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:45,000
As the story goes, a maid servant working in the Pantalba household sees the enraged Baron enter Mikhaela's quarters.

284
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:54,000
The maid heard him lock each door from the inside. Then she heard shots.

285
00:31:55,000 --> 00:32:00,000
What terrible fate awaits the much-belined heiress and her greedy father-in-law.

286
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:06,000
It's 1834 in Songlyce, France.

287
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:14,000
For years, New Orleans heiress Mikhaela Pantalba has lived under the cruel and abusive hand of her father-in-law, Baron Xavier Pantalba,

288
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:20,000
who's persistently demanded that she hand over her family's New Orleans property and fortune.

289
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:25,000
One day, a servant overhears a fearsome argument between Mikhaela and the Baron.

290
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:31,000
Then there are gunshots. So what has become of this persecuted heiress?

291
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:42,000
As Mikhaela stumbles through the doorway and falls, her maid realizes that she is gravely wounded, with several gunshots to the torso.

292
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:48,000
Mikhaela was very, very near death and excruciating pain.

293
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:58,000
Then, apparently overcome by the horror of his deed, the Baron turns the weapon on himself and dies.

294
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:05,000
But Mikhaela, after lingering in a critical state for weeks, miraculously survives.

295
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:12,000
As the heiress gradually recovers, she becomes determined to re-establish her independence.

296
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:20,000
In 1848, at the age of 53, she moves with her now grown children back to her family's home in New Orleans.

297
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:29,000
She staggered away from that awful marriage and she was free. She could do whatever she wanted to with her money.

298
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:40,000
But once back in New Orleans, which had been devastated by a recent financial crash, Mikhaela is shocked by the dilapidated condition of her native French quarter.

299
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:50,000
It was a slum and she thought, I can revive this, I can make this the center of the city and a beautiful center.

300
00:33:52,000 --> 00:34:05,000
Electing to use her vast wealth to help rebuild and restore beauty to the city she loved as a child, the entrepreneurial heiress sets her mind to constructing a magnificent block of apartments on Jackson Square.

301
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:17,000
This girl had architecture in her soul. She was a lay genius and she constructed the gorgeous Pantalba buildings.

302
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:30,000
As the years pass, the Pantalba buildings of Jackson Square and their iron mesh balconies form a unique template which is replicated throughout the French quarter.

303
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:41,000
Although Mikhaela returned to Paris for the final decades of her life, she will be forever memorialized in New Orleans by these splendid buildings.

304
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:59,000
Mount Pleasant, South Carolina is a quiet community on the Charleston Harbor and is home to the Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum, which boasts an impressive fleet of national historic landmark ships.

305
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:08,000
But one monument here stands apart from the rest, a hulking half submerged vessel protruding out of the ground.

306
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:13,000
It's an image that is striking, yet beautiful, it's a piece of history.

307
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:27,000
This memorial honors some of America's most clandestine missions and at its base stands a gleaming slab of granite, a tribute to one of the country's worst nautical disasters.

308
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:37,000
It is a terrible tragedy that today is still wrapped in an enigma. No one really knows what happened.

309
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:47,000
So what is this maritime mystery and how is this tragedy tied to one of the greatest deep sea discoveries of all time?

310
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:51,000
1968, The Cold War.

311
00:35:52,000 --> 00:36:03,000
On May 22, the USS Scorpion, a nuclear submarine, is heading to the naval station in Norfolk, Virginia from the North Atlantic.

312
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:07,000
She started on her way, but she never made it home.

313
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:12,000
The Navy launches a massive hunt for the missing sub.

314
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:19,000
But after nine days, the vessel is presumed lost at sea with all 99 hands on board.

315
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:24,000
Why did she go down? Was she attacked?

316
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:28,000
The United States was very scared of the Soviet threat.

317
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:33,000
Could the sub have been sunk by a new top secret Soviet weapon?

318
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:41,000
Five months later, the Navy finds something in the Atlantic Ocean, 400 miles south of the Azores Islands.

319
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:49,000
It's the hulking remains of the USS Scorpion, resting 10,000 feet below the ocean's surface.

320
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:55,000
But the technological limitations of the cameras at the time hamper the investigation.

321
00:36:56,000 --> 00:37:05,000
They were able to get some very blurry, very grainy shots of it, but the photographic evidence was not clear enough to really help in the investigation.

322
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:09,000
It seems the mystery may never be solved.

323
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:14,000
But 14 years later, the case will be blown wide open.

324
00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:20,000
1982, Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

325
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:30,000
Renowned oceanographer Dr. Robert Ballard has developed a new machine that he hopes will revolutionize the world of undersea exploration.

326
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:37,000
It's called the Argo, and it's outfitted with high-tech lights and high-resolution cameras.

327
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:45,000
Deep in the ocean, it is black, it is dark, and this was a tool that would light up the area down there.

328
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:52,000
And when the Navy learns about this new device, they decide to approach Ballard with a request.

329
00:37:53,000 --> 00:38:00,000
To use the Argo to photograph and film the wreck of the USS Scorpion to try and find out why it sank.

330
00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:05,000
Ballard accepts the mission on one condition.

331
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:14,000
After he photographs and films the Scorpion, he asks that the Navy fund another mission that has been a lifelong quest of his.

332
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:22,000
To find the final resting spot of a luxury liner that has eluded explorers ever since it sank in 1912.

333
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:31,000
Titanic was the Everest of the submersible world. It was the big shipwreck.

334
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:39,000
The Navy agrees and even sees a way to use Ballard's personal quest to their own advantage.

335
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:45,000
The cover story was that Bob Ballard was able to do his lifelong dream and go find Titanic.

336
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:54,000
And so, in the summer of 1985, the undersea explorer sets out on this top-secret expedition.

337
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:57,000
So what will he find?

338
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:09,000
It's the 1980s. At the request of the US Navy, renowned oceanographer Robert Ballard is on a top-secret mission.

339
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:16,000
Photograph the wreckage of a sunken nuclear sub called the USS Scorpion and find out why she sank.

340
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:21,000
So can Robert Ballard's high-tech images get to the bottom of this mystery?

341
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:28,000
In the summer of 1985, Ballard's crew spots the downed USS Scorpion.

342
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:33,000
The team begins capturing high-resolution video and still images.

343
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:38,000
The pictures were the best images that had ever been produced at that time.

344
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:44,000
And Ballard's data reveals that the hull of the vessel is broken into two main pieces.

345
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:48,000
But other than that, the wreckage is largely intact.

346
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:56,000
Navy investigators conclude that something forced the sub to sink below crush depth and it imploded.

347
00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:00,000
The question is, what?

348
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:06,000
One long-standing theory is that a Russian torpedo shot down the sub.

349
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:11,000
But Ballard's photos do not show any obvious torpedo scars on the hull.

350
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:19,000
It would have caused a tremendous amount of explosive damage, so Ballard's pictures effectively ruled that theory out.

351
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:28,000
So if it wasn't a Russian torpedo, what sent the Scorpion plummeting 10,000 feet to the ocean depths?

352
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:32,000
The answer may lie with the pressures of the Cold War.

353
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:39,000
According to newly declassified documents, the Navy was so intent on deploying the stealthy craft

354
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:45,000
that it cut the time of allotted regular maintenance from 24 to just 8 months.

355
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:52,000
There are theories that perhaps the maintenance was rushed on the vessel.

356
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:55,000
Because it was the Cold War, she had to get back out to service.

357
00:40:56,000 --> 00:40:58,000
But the investigators cannot be sure.

358
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:03,000
What really happened to the Scorpion is still a mystery. We really don't know.

359
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:12,000
With his job for the Navy complete, Ballard moves on to his next mission, the search for the Titanic.

360
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:21,000
And on September 1st, 1985, Ballard, with the help of the Argo, detects a debris trail in the North Atlantic.

361
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:26,000
Shortly after, Ballard spies the long lost Titanic.

362
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:34,000
The watery tomb of 1,500 souls, lying 12,450 feet below the ocean surface.

363
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:40,000
The 73-year-old mystery is finally put to rest.

364
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:47,000
But it will be more than 20 years before it is publicly revealed that Ballard's quest for the Titanic

365
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:51,000
was intrinsically tied to a top-secret naval mission.

366
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:58,000
And today, this granite marker at the Cold War Submarine Memorial

367
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:02,000
is a sobering tribute to those who lost their lives on the USS Scorpion

368
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:09,000
and a reminder of how one man, in an attempt to solve one mystery, solved another.

369
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:16,000
From a sideshow swindler to a frozen forebearer, a sunken submarine to a hamstrung eris.

370
00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:21,000
I'm Don Wildman and these are Monumental Mysteries.