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Is our vital undersea cable network at risk

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from forces beyond our control?

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It could literally cripple modern society as we know it.

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Can new discoveries on the sea floor finally confirm

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an explosive theory about the Atlantic's most notorious expanse of water?

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Could this explain some of the stories that we've heard about the Bermuda Triangle?

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And how have a fortunate few gone over the world's most famous waterfall

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and lived to tell the tale?

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It's very, very unlikely that you would survive going over the Niagara Falls.

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The underwater realm is another dimension.

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It's a physically hostile place where dreams of promise

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can sink into darkness.

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I'm Jeremy Wade.

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I'm searching the world to bring you the most iconic and baffling underwater mysteries

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known to science.

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Shipwrecks can't just disappear, or can they?

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It's a dangerous unexplored frontier that swallows evidence.

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We know more about the face of Mars than we do our deepest oceans.

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Where unknown is normal and understanding is rare.

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Over the years, the Bermuda Triangle has been the scene of the disappearance

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of dozens of ships and aircraft and hundreds of people.

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What is it about this area of ocean that has made it so notorious?

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Now, scientists are making big discoveries at the bottom of our oceans

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that promise to shed new light on some of the Bermuda Triangle's most mysterious incidents.

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On a calm spring day, a tugboat is sailing from Puerto Rico to Fort Lauderdale, Florida

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through the southern section of the Bermuda Triangle.

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Her experienced captain is resting below deck when he receives a sudden call to come to the bridge.

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The compass was spinning like mad, and he'd never seen anything like that before.

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A strange darkness descends on the vessel,

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and without warning, all the tugboat's electronic systems shut down.

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Nothing electric was working, the communications were all out.

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The captain heads out on deck and is shocked by what he sees.

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The crew become aware that the sea around the ship is boiling.

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The currents on the sea are going wildly in different directions.

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The crew are absolutely terrified.

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The fog is just so thick that he can't distinguish between where the sky stops and the sea starts.

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Fearing the worst, the captain orders full speed ahead to escape the churning waters.

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Eventually, the tugboat breaks through the fog into calmer seas and sails away from the danger.

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The crew are at a loss to explain what they have just experienced.

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What could have caused this to happen?

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We want to know what it is, and we want to know more.

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One natural phenomenon that can have a dramatic effect on the state of the sea

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is underwater seismic activity.

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Volcanoes and marine systems vary quite a bit, just like they do on land.

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It can cause disturbances that can affect the surface of the water.

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In that case, what you actually have is heat.

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They emit a huge amount of gases, and all of those create bubbles.

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Underwater volcanoes have been blamed for sea disturbances and ship disappearances elsewhere in the world.

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But no volcanic activity was reported in the vicinity of the tugboat incident.

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So what else might be responsible?

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There are also underwater rock shifts that will release unexpected waves, unexpected currents.

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But generally, those currents are not associated with bubbling or boiling.

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For the ocean to be as volatile as the waters that surrounded the besieged tugboat,

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it is thought that some other natural force must have been at play.

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And there is one prime suspect, the highly combustible gas, methane.

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Methane deposits are mixtures of ice and gas that are found in sediments in the world's oceans,

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and we're finding more and more of them.

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Kept in an icy state by the immense pressure and low temperatures at the bottom of the ocean,

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methane, often in the form of solid compounds called hydrates, only needs a small disturbance to be unleashed.

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You go to the bottom of the ocean and you shake up and you disturb the areas where the hydrates are,

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and literally bubbles of gas erupt from the bottom of the ocean, and start going up the water column.

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So could releases of methane from the sea floor have caused the appearance of a boiling sea

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around the tugboat traveling through the Bermuda Triangle?

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By the time methane gas reaches the top surface, it is going very rapidly.

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That motion generates turbulence, seemingly random motion in all directions.

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But a boiling sea was not the only phenomenon witnessed by the tugboat crew.

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Their navigational instruments also malfunctioned.

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When gases follow close to a conductive surface, they build up an electric charge.

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It's known as the streaming potential. It's an electric kinetic phenomenon.

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This charge could have overloaded the tugboat's electrical systems, sending its instruments haywire.

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The tugboat was then sailing blind, trying to get through the dense fog, possibly another effect of methane.

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Those small bubbles, they've had the opportunity to hit 100% relative humidity,

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and it will release a fog when those bubbles have burst.

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It's a fog that should be fairly dense.

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A methane burst seems the most likely cause of the mysterious event experienced by the tugboat crew.

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But could methane be responsible for more deadly incidents in these notorious waters?

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Could this potentially explain some of the narratives and the stories that we've heard about the Bermuda Triangle?

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Terrifying a tugboat crew is one thing, but causing the disappearance of whole ships with all passengers and crew is quite another.

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This would require an enormous force.

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October 1985.

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In the Norwegian oil fields of the North Sea, a helicopter captures this extraordinary footage.

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Routine drilling beneath a rig has accidentally unlocked a large pocket of natural gases, predominantly methane.

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Huge quantities of gas roar up from the sea floor with a force that threatens the stability of the platform itself.

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This phenomenon, known by oil workers as the Burp of Death, is not uncommon in oil fields.

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But could there be dangerous methane deposits elsewhere, including in the Bermuda Triangle, with the power to take down ships?

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The Bermuda Triangle

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Methane gas escaping from the sea floor is responsible for a number of disturbing incidents at sea.

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But could it be behind mystery disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle?

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The 1985 gas release that threatened an oil platform in the North Sea showed devastating force.

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The incident was not a natural occurrence, however. It was caused by intrusive human activity drilling for oil.

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But could massive methane discharges like this occur naturally and on a scale that could endanger shipping?

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In 2017, researchers at the Arctic University of Norway report a remarkable new discovery.

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Huge craters at the bottom of the ocean, up to half a mile wide and almost 100 feet deep.

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The Norwegian research indicates that you could have large bubble bursts from the sea floor.

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The giant craters found at the bottom of the Beren Sea reveal what could be evidence of massive, naturally occurring deep ocean methane bursts.

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These large methane craters were the result of significant methane explosions.

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The methane built up in large amounts and then was released all at once.

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Instead of a gradual release of bubbles that causes the surface water to churn, these craters suggest methane blowouts on a massive scale.

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A single eruption can throw vast quantities of methane into the sea. We're talking millions of tonnes.

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A ship caught in such an event could be doomed.

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The water would suddenly become much less dense due to the sheer quantity of gas, sinking the vessel in a matter of moments.

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If a bubble occurred while a ship was directly above it, it could be submerged into this pocket of gas that is less dense than the water that the rest of the ship is on.

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But this deadly gas from the bottom of the ocean doesn't stop at the surface. It continues to rise.

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So if you have a crater that's half a mile wide releasing a burst of methane, what would it do to the air sea interface and the turbulence of the air above?

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What would that look like?

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Momentum doesn't just stop when this plume hits the top surface. It carries on into the atmosphere.

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If your aircraft is above that, it will knock out the controls, the communications and of course the navigation.

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And there's a further potentially fatal threat to overflying planes.

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Methane is explosive and if you have a huge pocket of it, an aircraft goes through it.

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You have all that static electricity around them as well and if you just need to spark methane in a surrounded by oxygen.

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But what happens if you're in the middle of the ocean?

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Faced with shocking evidence of the dangers to shipping an aircraft, scientists are racing to try and identify where large reserves of methane may be located, either in the form of gas pockets or solid hydrates.

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Currently, researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute are using spectroscopy to identify methane hydrates.

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They've been using gas collection techniques to actually measure the amount of natural gas that's found on the seafloor in different locations and they're measuring those gases to see what their components are.

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And the results for methane are startling.

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Recent discoveries show that methane is incredibly super abundant in the world's oceans.

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Some estimate that it's as much as 70% of the world's fly of methane is actually stored on the oceans.

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These undersea reservoirs are being discovered all over the world, including off the east coast of the United States.

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But are there any in the seabed under the Bermuda Triangle?

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We currently don't have any evidence that large methane buildups are happening in the area of the Bermuda Triangle.

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That's yet to be discovered.

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Massive methane discoveries under our oceans add weight to the theory that this gas could be responsible for disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle.

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But with reserves being uncovered worldwide, could methane be behind the mystery of missing ships in other parts of the world too?

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Hidden on the bottom of our oceans is a massive network of undersea cables.

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These carry 99% of all internet traffic and trillions of dollars of financial transfers every day.

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They are the arteries that keep the modern world alive.

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But an alarming incident in the early 1970s suggests this network could be vulnerable to mysterious forces.

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August 1972.

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A military aircraft from US Task Force 77 is flying over Southeast Asia on a routine flight.

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As it banks over the South China Sea, the crew sees a disturbance in the water below, a large mysterious explosion bursting from the ocean.

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This is a real mystery. No one actually really knew what happened here.

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The Vietnam War is at a critical stage, but there are no major combat operations in the area at this time.

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So what is exploding? And why?

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In an attempt to bring the war to a swift conclusion, the US military has initiated a blockade of North Vietnamese ports.

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All entrances to North Vietnamese ports will be mined.

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Huge numbers of powerful sea mines are deployed.

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This was a huge operation done by the United States Navy. The sea was literally seated with over 11,000 mines.

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Floating on or just under the surface, these mines lie in wait for any unsuspecting enemy vessel.

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Any ships attempting to leave or enter these ports will do so at their own risk.

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But on August 4th, near the North Vietnamese port of Hai Phong, something strange starts to happen.

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These mines just start exploding.

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The US Navy has no idea why.

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The overflying US aircrew observed 25 explosions in about 30 seconds.

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But it's just the tip of the iceberg. Elsewhere along the coast, many hundreds of mines spontaneously explode.

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When your weapons start going off, that is a mystery that you want to get to the bottom of.

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What's behind this synchronized undersea salvo? Enemy action? A new superweapon? Or something from out of this world?

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Our vital undersea cable network is under threat and with it the very future of the modern world.

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And the key to understanding why lies in a mysterious incident 50 years ago.

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In August 1972, up to 4,000 US Navy mines mysteriously explode in the seas around Northern Vietnam.

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The question is what caused all of these sea mines to self-detonate for apparently no reason.

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The initial assumption of US investigators is that the enemy must be responsible.

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There's speculation that it may be the North Vietnamese that somehow they've been able to alter these mines autonomously.

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But few believe that the Vietnamese have the technological means to pull off such a coordinated feat.

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It's not as though the Vietnamese are sending out underwater demolition teams and blowing these things up.

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The naval officers in charge, they have no idea why these mines were self-detonating.

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With the North Vietnamese plot unlikely, the Americans investigate further and discover something intriguing.

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Among the different mines deployed by the US Navy, only one specific type has blown up in large numbers. Magnetic mines.

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These are mines which go off when they feel large disturbance in the magnetic field of the earth.

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As a ship passes through this, it affects the field. It's a big lump of metal and it affects the magnetic field around it.

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If it's a big enough effect, the mine goes off.

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But no ships were spotted in the vicinity of the explosions, so there must have been some other kind of trigger.

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US Navy investigators now strongly suspect some sort of secret enemy weapon.

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And for this, there is a precedent.

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During World War II, British engineers were able to trip magnetic mines by using huge electromagnets attached to aircraft.

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If you have a mine sitting here in the earth's magnetic field, then all of a sudden this other artificial magnetic field comes through and it will basically trip off the mine.

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The Vietnamese are not thought to have such means at their disposal, but their cold wall backers, the Soviet Union, could the Americans suspect be using such aerial technology.

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The first investigations were all focused on sabotage and a secret Soviet weapon, which caused probably a CIA to spend a lot of time chasing its own tail.

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Having found no evidence of an electromagnetic super weapon, the US Navy investigators are left scratching their heads.

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But then, in a strange twist, reports emerge from further afield indicating that they've been looking in the wrong place all along.

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Elsewhere in the world, other unexplained phenomena have been occurring.

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We know that this kind of thing was happening, not just with these mines, but with other things.

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At the same time as the mines went off in Vietnam, there were actually reports of electromagnetic services in the Philippines, Brazil, Japan.

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In America itself, power companies were reporting failures. The power systems went completely haywire.

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There's only one thing known to meddle with the Earth's magnetic field with such force.

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The Sun.

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The magnetic mines are set up by a magnetic anomaly by a solar flare.

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A solar flare is an explosion of energy on the surface of the Sun.

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It can trigger what's known as a coronal mass ejection, which blasts an immense cloud of magnetized particles out from the Sun at over a million miles per hour.

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If the Earth happens to be in its path, strange things start to happen.

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They can cause alterations in the Earth's magnetic field.

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If the magnetic flux caused by the Sun matched that of a large metal ship passing near the sea mines, it could have triggered the underwater explosions.

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For researchers, this was sort of a smoking gun.

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The explosive events of 1972 were shocking enough.

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But a similar solar event today could have a far more wide-ranging impact, devastating our vital underwater communications.

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If we had a massive solar flare, it could literally cripple modern society as we know it.

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Explosive events in 1972 showed conclusively that solar storms can have a dramatic impact here on Earth.

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But new evidence suggests that their effects can penetrate to the very bottom of our oceans, with potentially devastating consequences.

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Electromagnetic radiation from a solar flare can have implications for radar and communications at sea, but it also has the potential to affect undersea cables.

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Hidden along the bottom of the world's oceans and connecting the continents lies a network of submarine cables.

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All this data that we're sharing and transferring doesn't get thrown up through satellites, it all goes through subsea cable systems.

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Those are really the conduits of the modern information age.

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21st century life on Earth relies on three-quarters of a million miles of undersea cables.

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Every day these carry $10 trillion worth of financial transfers and 99% of internet traffic.

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Data doesn't move through the cloud, it moves under the ocean.

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We sometimes think that they are, since they're so deep in the water, that they're not affected by these solar storms, electromagnetic kind of disturbances.

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But what we're finding now is that they are actually being affected by these things.

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Many experts now agree that a large-scale solar event could cripple our essential underwater cable network, causing unimaginable disruption to our daily life.

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We cannot rely upon the sea to protect our communication systems.

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If we have another solar flare, if there is another event similar to that of 1972, then that could wipe out global communications for days, if not weeks, causing untold trouble for millions.

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The question is not if, but when the next solar storm will hit us.

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It's turned from a mystery into a nightmare.

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The world's great waterfalls combine awe-inspiring beauty with terrifying power and the dizzying prospect of certain death.

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On rare occasions, however, people do survive such chance in a million cascades.

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But how does anyone overcome the most feared and famous falls on the planet?

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How does anyone survive Niagara?

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May 21st, 2012.

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A man in his early 40s climbs a railing near the top of Niagara Falls and jumps in.

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He disappears into the torrent and is swept over the top.

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Emergency services are scrambled to recover what is assumed to be his dead body.

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But when they arrive at the foot of the falls, they are amazed to discover him alive.

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The survivor is hauled back up the cliff on a stretcher and airlifted to the hospital.

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There, doctors treat him for broken ribs and a collapsed lung.

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But he lives.

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Of the estimated 5,000 people who have gone over Niagara Falls, the middle-aged man is one of just 13 who have survived.

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Statistically speaking, it's a very, very unlikely event that you would survive going over the Niagara Falls.

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Is it luck? Is it a miracle? Or can science help us understand how a fortunate few have survived this deadly drop?

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Astonishingly, some people have, for whatever reason, gone over these falls and survived.

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Niagara Falls is a thunderous cliff on the American-Canadian border that sends an icy torrent plunging 188 feet down into a churning mass of frothy water and jagged rocks.

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This natural wonder is thought to be the fastest-flowing falls in the world, with over 6 million cubic feet of water rushing over the edge every minute.

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Niagara Falls is absolutely spectacular. Hundreds of thousands of tons of water crashing over the escarpment.

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It's powerful. It's fast. There's a lot of force. It's cold. It's one of those amazing places on Earth.

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Despite the obvious dangers, there is a long history of people throwing themselves over the great falls at Niagara to see if they can survive.

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People get mesmerized and they're curious. Can I survive it? How could I survive it? Is it even possible to survive it?

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The first known successful attempt was made by a woman called Annie Edson Taylor, a 63-year-old teacher from Auburn, New York.

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Annie Taylor decides that she is going to be the first to survive going over the Niagara Falls purposely in a barrel.

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She had a mattress wrapped on the inside of the barrel for cushioning, went over the falls, survived it and was therefore the first person to successfully go over the falls.

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Annie Taylor survived with just a cut and bruises. But her first words when she surfaced after the death-defying feet were a warning to others. No one ought to ever do that again. But they did.

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People started to go over the falls in barrels. Some made metal barrels, some went over in wood barrels. People come up with inventive ways to go over Niagara Falls. Metal boats. One guy used inner tubes.

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I guess the same reason why people want to climb mountains is the falls is there and he just won the Congress.

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Some people go over because they want to be daredevils. Some people go over just because they're crazy.

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Daredevil attempts carried out using some form of safety equipment like barrels make up the majority of Niagara's survivals.

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But even more remarkable are the handful of survivors who have made the Great Leap without any form of protection. How could anybody survive such a fall?

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As far as we know, only 13 people have survived a leap over Niagara Falls, the majority in protective barrels. But a handful have gone over without any form of protection and lived to tell the tale.

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It's kind of a mystery why those people survive while other people don't.

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There are a number of factors to bear in mind here. So firstly, there's the sheer heights.

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At 188 feet, Niagara is higher than the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

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188 feet, icy drop to the bottom. No thank you.

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But remarkably, unprotected jumps into water from an even greater height have been survived.

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In 2015, Lazaros Schaller jumped into a lagoon in Switzerland from a height of 192 feet.

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He came out unscathed.

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But Schaller had carefully selected his jump point and could control exactly where and when he hit the water.

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A jump into the mighty torrent of Niagara is far less predictable.

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At the bottom of the falls, there are some areas that are rockier and some areas that are less rocky.

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And there are other odds stacked against a Niagara jumper.

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There's a shock of the hitting the water.

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The water is cold. It's freezing. How long do you have before you're at risk for hypothermia?

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There's so many things working against you here.

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But certain things are as applicable to successful Niagara jumpers as they are to any other high divers.

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Body position on water entry is critical.

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It seems as though many of them enter the water feet first, perhaps on the tips of their toes, which is protecting their brain from a brain injury.

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And therefore they go much more easily into the water.

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And high divers have another trick to survive hitting the water.

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They will tighten up their muscles really, really tight.

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And this will help them avoid any sort of injury to their organs or their other muscles by going, entering the water in super tight form.

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The maelstrom of water at the bottom of the falls could also offer an initial advantage.

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There is a giant washing machine creating air bubbles down there.

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Hitting static water at speed is like hitting a solid object, but aerated water provides far less resistance.

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And because of this, high divers often rig air tanks into their dive pools to soften their entry.

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But there is a downside to this aerated water.

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You are not going to be able to swim in that low density, almost water.

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You can't get to the surface, you try to breathe, you're going to breathe in water and air.

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You're going to drown.

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In addition, the water thundering down from the falls creates lethal eddies and whirlpools, making the freezing water completely unpredictable and whipping debris around at up to 30 miles per hour.

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There is a dynamic movement of water when you get to the bottom of the falls.

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We're talking whirlpools and currents, so it's not like you can even physically swim.

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The water beneath them churns and it will push you under and most people want to come to the surface immediately.

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What people need to do is actually swim down below to be able to get kicked out.

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Most people who go over the falls don't know that and if you're stuck, you drown.

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But against all the odds, somehow, it is possible to survive this lethal descent.

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It might be a combination of luck and chance and physics. You just kind of never know. A lot of things have to play together.

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We'll probably never really understand how a small number of men and women have endured one of the most powerful forces on the planet and lived to tell the tale.

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But for me, the best way to survive Niagara is to never even consider jumping in the first place.

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Although statistically safe, the history of sea travel is awash with mysterious dangers.

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Sudden storms, pillaging pirates, even sea monsters.

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But could there be a new danger out there on the high seas?

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A secretive force that arrives without warning causes huge destruction and disappears without trace back into the deep.

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June 13th, 2019. The Norwegian-owned oil tanker Front Oltaire is sailing in international waters near the Strait of Hormuz on a routine voyage from the United Arab Emirates to Taiwan.

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When suddenly, the ship is shaken by a powerful impact.

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The ship is smothered in smoke. Clearly, something dramatic has happened.

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The ship's crew have no time to launch any lifeboats.

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Smoke is so thick that the crews decide to radio for help and abandon ship as quickly as they can, avoiding normal procedure and just getting to sea to get away from their ship.

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The tanker is carrying 75,000 tonnes of naphtha, a flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture.

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It could be an accident, so if something's exploded on the ship accidentally.

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The Front Oltaire's crew are still in the water when the nearby US 5th Fleet receives a second distress signal from a different ship.

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It soon emerges that another attack has taken place on a similar vessel of another nation in the region, raising a spectre of a concerted campaign being carried out against shipping that is vital to the world economy.

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Can this be a coincidence? Probably not.

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When you see these kind of attacks that are very similar, they're very close in time, you have to start asking questions. Are they related? Are they coordinated?

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Fortunately, no one is seriously harmed, but these multiple explosions are no accident.

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Soon it becomes apparent a major incident has occurred.

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Who or what is behind this coordinated series of attacks?

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A military assault on a large ship would normally utilise missiles or torpedoes.

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The moment they see smoke, the moment they see a ship, belch fire, they think it's been hit by a missile.

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But this is not a conventional military attack.

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From the evidence we can see that they're not projectiles, they're not missiles, so it speaks to a different kind of delivery system, a different kind of attack.

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The damage bears the hallmarks of magnetic mines.

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Exposive devices attached to the hull, the outside of the ships, which had been set off by either via timer or remotely.

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The damage at the blast hole is consistent with a limpid mine attack. It is not consistent with an external flying object striking the ship.

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Tears in the hull of this shape, of this sort of style, are usually seen when you're seeing the effects of limpid mines.

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A limpid mine is a portable small explosive that can be stuck to, in this case, a hull of a ship.

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Which means this deadly military hardware was placed in position. So who put it there?

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Mysterious, coordinated attacks on two tankers in the Strait of Hormuz have investigators baffled.

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And it turns out this is not the first time it's happened.

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A month earlier today, four other huge super tankers had sustained similar damage in other similar attacks.

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The theory about coordination becomes even more likely.

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Billions of dollars worth of oil are shipped through the Strait of Hormuz every year.

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And as a result, it is one of the most closely monitored sea areas on the planet.

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So if the perpetrators of the attacks were using boats, they would have been spotted.

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But could they have been using remote underwater vehicles?

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Was there some kind of submersible or some kind of underwater mechanism that is being used to attack these ships?

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Underwater vehicles are usually operated via a control line, which makes clandestine use over distance difficult to impossible.

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Only one other obvious option remains that can operate above and below water with such stealth and precision.

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Specially trained divers.

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He's a very highly skilled frogman. Highly trained military individuals.

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Elite warriors.

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The identity and true motives of the attackers remains shrouded in mystery.

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You cannot prove who they are. The equipment will all be internationally sourced. They will all disappear.

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No nation will acknowledge who they are.

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You actually have to physically catch them to be able to prove who they belong to.

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This is a region absolutely rife with tension. The blame game begins. Who did it?

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Iran does have a track record of causing trouble in the streets of Hummers. However, they cannot be ruled as the only potential actor.

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There are terrorist organisations around the world. Some of them have developed marine wings which are specialising in this sort of operation.

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Could an unknown terrorist network be responsible for these maritime attacks?

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We're used to seeing terrorist acts on land. We're not used to seeing terrorist acts at sea. And especially in the stealthy undersea environment.

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This could be a really scary new development.

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As airports have become more secure, our terrorists turning to ports and shipping as the new targets of choice.

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The fear with the problem, especially with the growth in diving as a hobby and as an industry, is that these skills are actually becoming more and more available.

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Terrorist organisations developing marine wings with these capabilities.

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The world is now waking up to this new threat. But how do you stop an underwater terrorist?

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The only way they can protect themselves is getting a full picture of what's happening under the water.

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So now with technology like sonar, electro-optics, radar, we're actually able to see a real-time view of the underwater environment.

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But while port defences can be stepped up relatively easily, the risk of terrorist attack out on the open ocean remains.

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Are we heading to a future where these are going to get more frequent? Where there is going to be more and more incidents in the maritime sphere that impact upon global trade?

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Terrorism worldwide is constantly adapting and evolving, finding new ways of wreaking havoc in new and unexpected places.

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The 9-11 terrorists turned civilian airliners into lethally effective missiles, killing thousands.

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So if the threat of deep water terrorists isn't countered, what might they do in the future with, say, a super tanker full of oil?