Speaker 1: When we think of the great unknowns, it is often
Speaker 1: to the heavens that we have looked gazing out into
Speaker 1: the deepness of space in wonder at what lies beyond.
Speaker 1: But what lies below the surface of our planet's vast
Speaker 1: oceans is perhaps almost equally mysterious, and for some it
Speaker 1: is a world that will never be glimpsed in any
Speaker 1: way at all. Since time immemorial, the ocean has held
Speaker 1: a powerful grip on the imagination of all cultures that
Speaker 1: have come into contact with it. Through the power of
Speaker 1: myth and folklore. It is a raging manifestation of all
Speaker 1: that is unknown. For some, it is the very embodiment
Speaker 1: of freedom. For others, it is nothing less than the
Speaker 1: murky fluid of their darkest nightmares. In signa Freud's interpretation
Speaker 1: of dreams, it is to water that the psychologist turns
Speaker 1: to elaborate his ideas. Where at the surface we find
Speaker 1: the conscious mind. Down below, deeply submerged, lies a shadowy
Speaker 1: world of all that is repressed. And yet for all
Speaker 1: the myths and stories that have sprung from the sea,
Speaker 1: fantastical tales of monsters and mermaids, there remain those that
Speaker 1: make no allusions to metaphor whose place is not for
Speaker 1: the pages of the poet or the psychologist's couch, but
Speaker 1: exist merely as a matter of record stories of hidden
Speaker 1: worlds and unknown creatures that may yet prove to be
Speaker 1: beyond our wildest imaginations. You're listening to Unexplained, and I'm
Speaker 1: Richard McClain Smith. The sea monster has been ever present
Speaker 1: in ocean folklore since men and women first gazed across
Speaker 1: the surface of the mysterious deep. Many creatures of myth
Speaker 1: and legend have since been found to be nothing but
Speaker 1: misidentified aquatic mammals, creatures such as the beautiful and beguiling
Speaker 1: manatee that gave rise to the sirens of Greek mythology.
Speaker 1: But there are also stories equally abundant of strange sightings
Speaker 1: of creatures that don't quite tally with the known biology,
Speaker 1: sighting such as the one experienced by Lutheran missionary Hands
Speaker 1: Ighied in July seventeen thirty four, whilst traveling on a
Speaker 1: ship bound for the city of Nuke in Greenland. Ighied
Speaker 1: claimed to have seen a staggering creature resembling nothing he
Speaker 1: had seen before. With a small head, elongated neck, and
Speaker 1: short body. It propelled itself through the water using giant fins. Later,
Speaker 1: when the sailors also saw its tail, it was judged
Speaker 1: to have measured longer than the whole length of the ship.
Speaker 1: In December eighteen seventy two, the HMS Challenger, captive by
Speaker 1: George Naires set sail on a pioneering circumnavigation of the globe.
Speaker 1: On board were of scientists led by famed Scottish zoologists
Speaker 1: Charles Thompson. Their mission to map the physical conditions of
Speaker 1: the deep sea. What they discovered was nothing less than astounding.
Speaker 1: The expedition, widely accepted to have marked the birth of oceanography,
Speaker 1: is perhaps best known for the discovery of an area
Speaker 1: known as Challenger Deep, located at the bottom of the
Speaker 1: South Pacific, part way between Guam and Palau. Challenger Deep
Speaker 1: is to be found at the southern tip of the
Speaker 1: Mariana Trench and is thought to mark the deepest point
Speaker 1: of the ocean floor. Although initially measured at over eight
Speaker 1: thousand meters, it has since been calculated as being closer
Speaker 1: to eleven thousand meters. To put it into context, if
Speaker 1: Mount Everest were placed at the bottom, there would still
Speaker 1: be over a mile of ocean above its peak. The
Speaker 1: region located roughly a mile below the surface is known
Speaker 1: as deep sea, comprising eighty percent of the entirety of
Speaker 1: the oceans. More people have traveled into space than have
Speaker 1: been known to travel there. Indeed, the Voyager one probe
Speaker 1: has explored over twelve billion miles of space, and with
Speaker 1: the incredible workings of the Hubble telescope, we have never
Speaker 1: before been able to see so far, with present distances
Speaker 1: estimated to be roughly thirteen point eight billion light years.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to the area that comprises ninety
Speaker 1: nine percent of all living space on the planet, it
Speaker 1: is estimated that we have explored less than ten percent
Speaker 1: of it, a fact or the more startling when you
Speaker 1: consider the deep sea contains eighty percent of the Earth's
Speaker 1: entire biosphere. So when you put it like that, it's
Speaker 1: hard not to wonder just what exactly might remain undiscovered,
Speaker 1: lurking deep in the shadows. It is a thought that
Speaker 1: has haunted one Russian sea captain for thirty years, the
Speaker 1: mystery of what happened to Soviet nuclear submarine K two
Speaker 1: one nine when it ventured into the region known as
Speaker 1: the Bermuda Triangle in the early hours of Friday, October third,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six has never fully been accounted for. Considered
Speaker 1: by some one of the most controversial instants of the
Speaker 1: Cold War, it is a mystery that mains to this
Speaker 1: day unexplained. For many, there could perhaps be no more
Speaker 1: frightening notion than to be trapped in a glorified tin
Speaker 1: can deep below the ocean surface for months on end.
Speaker 1: But for Captain's second Rank Eagle Brittanov of the Soviet Navy,
Speaker 1: it was the nearest thing to home, albeit a home
Speaker 1: stocked with a substantial number of nuclear warheads. For this
Speaker 1: was the Cold War, and the stakes could not have
Speaker 1: been higher. Although believed by some to have never ended,
Speaker 1: the war is generally regarded to have taken place between
Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven and nineteen ninety one between the Western
Speaker 1: Bloc powers of the United States and NATO and the
Speaker 1: Eastern Block spearheaded by the Soviet Union, an intensely complicated
Speaker 1: period of proxy wars and nuclear threat It is perhaps
Speaker 1: best summed up by the series of catamouse games played
Speaker 1: out by submarines of the Soviet and United States navies
Speaker 1: in early September nineteen eighty six. The submarine K two
Speaker 1: one nine, captained by the experienced Igor Brittanoff, set off
Speaker 1: from the port town of Gadzievo, located in the northwest
Speaker 1: of Russia. On board the vessel was a total of
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifteen crew and forty two nuclear missiles
Speaker 1: and torpedo warheads. Thirty days into the mission, on October third,
Speaker 1: the sub was patrolling a stretch of water roughly six
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty miles northeast of the British territory of Bermuda.
Speaker 1: At approximately fourteen, one of the crew's engineers noticed something
Speaker 1: alarming in missile compartment number four. Saltwater appeared to be
Speaker 1: dripping from under the plug of one of the subs
Speaker 1: nuclear missiles. Their alarm soon turned to panic when an
Speaker 1: attempt at decompression turned the slowly dripping water into a
Speaker 1: gushing stream at zero twenty five. The engineer alerted Captain Brittanoff,
Speaker 1: who immediately ordered the sub to the safer depth of
Speaker 1: forty six meters. Minutes later, a brown cloud of occident
Speaker 1: issued from the missile plug. The missile casing had split.
Speaker 1: A full scale emergency was declared and all personnel were
Speaker 1: instantly evacuated from the area, with the exception of nine
Speaker 1: crewmen who stayed behind to fix the problem, but it
Speaker 1: was too late. Moments later, a huge explosion ripped through
Speaker 1: compartment number four. Two crewmen were killed instantly by the blast,
Speaker 1: and another died shortly after from toxic fume inhalation. Most
Speaker 1: alarmingly for the remainder of the crew, the explosion had
Speaker 1: torn open the hull and the submarine began rapidly taking
Speaker 1: on water. The vessel made a sickening lurch before quickly
Speaker 1: plummeting deeper and deeper into the darkest step of the ocean. Incredibly,
Speaker 1: the crew managed to close off all compartments, and eventually
Speaker 1: they were able to engage the seawater pumps. As the
Speaker 1: submarine approached crush depth, it began to stabilize. The crew,
Speaker 1: now wearing gas masks and safely positioned in the bow
Speaker 1: and stern of the vessel, breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Speaker 1: The worst appeared to be over, but something was deeply wrong.
Speaker 1: In the event of major catastrophe, the nuclear reactors were
Speaker 1: programmed to shut down, but as the chief engineer carried
Speaker 1: out a check of the ship's instruments, he noticed something odd.
Speaker 1: The temperature of the nuclear reactors was rising. In short,
Speaker 1: the reactor was an imminent danger of a complete nuclear meltdown.
Speaker 1: The engineer scrambled to the control station in an attempt
Speaker 1: to initiate a remote shutdown, but the damage had been
Speaker 1: too great. It would have to be done manually. Although
Speaker 1: all vessels were with contamination suits, there was nothing on
Speaker 1: board that could protect from the gamma and neutron radiation
Speaker 1: of the reactor's cores. It was clear to all the
Speaker 1: men that any attempt at a manual shutdown would be fatal.
Speaker 1: At this point, a twenty year old sailor named Sergey
Speaker 1: Preminin stepped forward. The son of an electrician and a
Speaker 1: factory worker, it had been Sergey's dream to follow in
Speaker 1: the footsteps of his oldest brother, Nicholas by becoming an engineer,
Speaker 1: a dream he took a step closer to achieving after
Speaker 1: graduating from engineering school in nineteen eighty four. Shortly after, however,
Speaker 1: Serge was drafted into the Russian Navy. Fully aware of
Speaker 1: the severity of the situation, Sergey volunteer to shut the
Speaker 1: reactor down together with senior reactor officer Lieutenant Nikolai Belakov.
Speaker 1: He donned the regulation safety suit and full faced gas mask,
Speaker 1: and Julie entered the burning reactor chamber. After they managed
Speaker 1: to reinsert three out of the four displaced fuel rods,
Speaker 1: Nikolai Belakov succumbed to the seventy degree heat, just managing
Speaker 1: to evacuate the chamber before falling unconscious. In a monumental effort.
Speaker 1: Sergey completed the last part on his own, successfully engaging
Speaker 1: the fourth rod. But when Sergey tried to reach his
Speaker 1: colleagues on the other side of the compartment, the chamber
Speaker 1: hatch would not budge. The rising temperature in the room
Speaker 1: had increased the pressure so much that it had become
Speaker 1: impossible to open. As his colleagues tried desperately to rescue
Speaker 1: him from the other side, Sergey too succumbed to the
Speaker 1: heat and soon after died. Are you always taking care
Speaker 1: of your family? Do you often take care of others
Speaker 1: and not yourself? Now it's time to take care of yourself,
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Speaker 1: by phone or video. Therapy appointment are available seven days
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Speaker 1: to facilitating great therapeutic matches, so they make it easy
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Speaker 1: get started. That's teladoc dot com slash Unexplained Podcast. The
Speaker 1: young sailor's actions had saved the rest of the crew
Speaker 1: and in so doing, prevented a certain nuclear catastrophe. The
Speaker 1: consequences of such an event would have been on a
Speaker 1: scale comparable with the Chernobyl disaster that had occurred only
Speaker 1: six months previously. With the reactor sufficiently secured, Submarine K
Speaker 1: two one nine returned to the surface of the Atlantic.
Speaker 1: But when the conning tower hatch was opened, something extraordinary
Speaker 1: caught the attention of the crew, As senior assistant Captain
Speaker 1: Sergey Vladimova recounts, all the way along the left side,
Speaker 1: just above the missile silos, was what looked like two
Speaker 1: huge scratch marks. The gouge extended from the edge of
Speaker 1: the damaged missile section right across to the port side
Speaker 1: of the vessel. Clearly something big had collided with the submarine.
Speaker 1: A few days later, a Soviet freight had duly arrived
Speaker 1: to tow the damaged vessel back to port. Despite repeated
Speaker 1: efforts to salvage the up, a series of gas leagues
Speaker 1: prompted Captain Brittenoff to order an immediate evacuation of the vessel.
Speaker 1: At eleven hundred hours on October sixth Captain Igor Brittanof
Speaker 1: became the last living man to exit Submarine K two
Speaker 1: on nine. Three minutes later, the vessel, along with the
Speaker 1: body of Sergey Premininent, sank to a depth of roughly
Speaker 1: six thousand meters, where it remains to this day. The
Speaker 1: heroic Premanin was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red
Speaker 1: Star for his Bravery shortly after returning home, all the
Speaker 1: surviving members of the crew were required to take part
Speaker 1: in what became a year long investigation into the precise
Speaker 1: cause of the explosion. However, the full results have never
Speaker 1: come to light, and nor are they likely to, since
Speaker 1: all the men were ordered to sign non disclosure agreements
Speaker 1: prior to the investigation. What is known is that after
Speaker 1: a series of simulations and careful analysis, the Soviet Navy
Speaker 1: was satisfied that the disaster had not been the fault
Speaker 1: of the crew, but was indeed due to the impact
Speaker 1: of external factor, the most likely culprit being a submarine
Speaker 1: belonging to the United States on the other side of
Speaker 1: the world. Attention soon focused on reports of a US
Speaker 1: vessel that had been damaged. At some point in the
Speaker 1: early part of October. The submarine US Augusta had been
Speaker 1: taken to the port of New London, Connecticut, to repair
Speaker 1: damage caused by an apparent collision. It is believed the
Speaker 1: Augusta had been patrolling the same region of ocean as
Speaker 1: K two one nine, and yet Soviet intelligence at the
Speaker 1: time indicated not a single NATO submarine had in fact
Speaker 1: been repaired around the time of the incident. Perhaps unsurprisingly,
Speaker 1: the US Navy denied all involvement. Despite the Soviet Navy's
Speaker 1: insistence that the boat was indeed rammed. Had this in
Speaker 1: fact been a cover up of the US Navy, It
Speaker 1: is strange that, over thirty years later, this stance is
Speaker 1: still strongly maintained by the American government. What is even
Speaker 1: more surprising, however, is that Captain Brittenoff himself has also
Speaker 1: denied the allegations, claiming unequivocally that he did not collide
Speaker 1: with an American submarine. In twenty and ten, a Soviet
Speaker 1: captain of the first rank called Nikolai Tushin, gave an
Speaker 1: extraordinary interview to the Russian news website Pravda Ru. Tashin,
Speaker 1: the former deputy commander of a brigade of nuclear submarines,
Speaker 1: appeared convinced that although K two one nine had collided
Speaker 1: with something, whatever it was, was not man made. Instead,
Speaker 1: he believed the vessel had been brought down by a mysterious,
Speaker 1: unidentified underwater object known in maritime circles as a quacker.
Speaker 1: The oddly titled quaker gets its name from a mysterious
Speaker 1: sound frequently picked up by submarine audio equipment, resembling something
Speaker 1: between the quack of a duck and the croak of
Speaker 1: a frog. It is thought by many submariner crew to
Speaker 1: belong to an unknown creature of the deep, or perhaps
Speaker 1: even something somewhat more alien. The phenomena is thought to
Speaker 1: have first come to our attention due to the advances
Speaker 1: in sonar equipment necessitated by the arms race of the
Speaker 1: Cold War, and when you take into account the extreme
Speaker 1: hyper vigilance of the Soviet and US navies at the time,
Speaker 1: it is quite probable that these sounds had just not
Speaker 1: been noticed before. In a particularly striking story, one submarine
Speaker 1: sailor recounts picking up the fabled quacker sound while out
Speaker 1: on a routine operation. His readings suggested something of a
Speaker 1: significant size that appeared to be circling the vessel in
Speaker 1: what he believed was a benign attempt to make contact. Incidentally,
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine, the Russian gun released a
Speaker 1: number of previously classified documents. The reports were taken from
Speaker 1: a Soviet Navy group specifically established to document unexplained incidents
Speaker 1: reported by naval vessels. Former Navy officer of Vladimir Adzatza
Speaker 1: points to one incident in particular, where a complete submarine
Speaker 1: system malfunction occurred as an unidentified object was recorded close
Speaker 1: by traveling at the seemingly impossible speed of two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty miles per hour. In another report, one Navy
Speaker 1: intelligence veteran notes the strange ufoes were most prone to
Speaker 1: appear in the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean, specifically
Speaker 1: the Bermuda Triangle. In nineteen fifty seven, a team of
Speaker 1: Soviet explorers led by Alexei Treshnikov set off from a
Speaker 1: small research station on the coast of Antarctica in search
Speaker 1: of the geomagnetic South Pole. After a hellish journey, suffering
Speaker 1: intense storms and extreme cold, the team arrived at their
Speaker 1: destination on the sixteenth of December. A research center was
Speaker 1: quickly established. It has since become known as Vostok Station.
Speaker 1: Temperature readings taken from the area have confirmed the region
Speaker 1: as the coldest known place on Earth. However, eighty million
Speaker 1: years ago, the frozen desert we now know as Antarctica
Speaker 1: was in fact an equatorial region making up part of
Speaker 1: the supercontinent known as gonduanaland home to dinosaurs and a
Speaker 1: number of other creatures. The land was a thick mass
Speaker 1: of ferns and other tropical vegetation. At some point, the
Speaker 1: land began to fragment and split apart, with the bit
Speaker 1: we now call the Antarctic, eventually settling millions of years
Speaker 1: later over the South Pole. Over time, the vegetation changed,
Speaker 1: being replaced by thick forests of deciduous trees. It became
Speaker 1: home to a colorful array of birds, reptiles, and mammals.
Speaker 1: Rivers and streams teemed with life as the ecosystem adjusted
Speaker 1: to a post dinosaur world. But then things began to change.
Speaker 1: A radical drop in greenhouse gas levels led to a
Speaker 1: deep freeze that engulfed the continent. As the temperature plummeted,
Speaker 1: the ecosystem was irreversibly altered, resulting in the extinction of
Speaker 1: all the terrestrial animals. The lakes and rivers frosted over
Speaker 1: until eventually they were locked under sheets of ice thousands
Speaker 1: of meters thick. In nineteen seventy five, a team of
Speaker 1: British scientists were conducting a seismic survey of the area
Speaker 1: when they discovered something extraordinary. Trapped deep below the ice
Speaker 1: was what appeared to be a huge freshwater lake, now
Speaker 1: known as Lake Vostok. Satellite images taken in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: six to pick the mass as being similar in size
Speaker 1: to Lake Ontario. Even more incredibly, despite being trapped for
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of years, the lake was to be
Speaker 1: teeming with life, from single cell bacteria to molluscs and worms,
Speaker 1: and even fairly complex arthropods. Is it completely inconceivable that
Speaker 1: such undiscovered ecosystems may exist in other parts of the planet,
Speaker 1: perhaps fostering the life of creatures once thought extinct or
Speaker 1: that may not yet have even been discovered. For anyone
Speaker 1: doubting the likelihood of such an occurrence, it is worth
Speaker 1: bearing in mind the mythic tales of the Mighty Kraken.
Speaker 1: The great aquatic monster of Norwegian folklore, is thought likely
Speaker 1: to be based on sailor's reports of the giant squid,
Speaker 1: a creature that was itself once thought to be a myth.
Speaker 1: In fact, despite extensive efforts to capture footage of the
Speaker 1: giant squid in its natural habitat, it wasn't until two
Speaker 1: thousand and four that a team of Japanese scientists were
Speaker 1: finally successful in doing so. The great aquatic monsters, such
Speaker 1: as the kraken, may of course, prove to be nothing
Speaker 1: but figments of our imagination, embodiments of the many subconscious
Speaker 1: fears that we might one day defeat. But perhaps for
Speaker 1: a moment, consider the so called monsters hidden from view,
Speaker 1: deep below the waves. Maybe they are hiding for a reason,
Speaker 1: for you can be certain what fate awaits them if
Speaker 1: they were ever foolish enough to show themselves. It makes
Speaker 1: you wonder just what would they make of us? Below
Speaker 1: the thunders of the upper deep, far far beneath, in
Speaker 1: the abysmal sea, his ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep, the krak
Speaker 1: and sleepers, faintest sunlights flee about his shadowy sides. Above
Speaker 1: him swell huge sponges of millennial growth and height, and
Speaker 1: far away into the sickly light from many a wondrous
Speaker 1: grot and secret cell, unnumbered, an enormous Polypi winner with
Speaker 1: giant arms, the slumbering green. They're happy. Lane for ages
Speaker 1: and will lie battering upon huge seaworms in his sleep
Speaker 1: until the latter fire shall heat the deep. Then, once
Speaker 1: by man and angels to be seen in roaring, he
Speaker 1: shall rise, and on the surface die. All elements of
Speaker 1: Unexplained are produced by me, Richard McClane smith. Please subscribe
Speaker 1: and rate the show on iTunes, and feel free to
Speaker 1: get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the
Speaker 1: stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an
Speaker 1: explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can
Speaker 1: reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or on
Speaker 1: Twitter Unexplained Pod Now. It's time to take care of yourself.
Speaker 1: To make time for you, teledoc gives you access to
Speaker 1: a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling
Speaker 1: your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or
Speaker 1: video anytime between seven am to nine pm local time,
Speaker 1: seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy is available through most
Speaker 1: insurance or employers. Download the app or visit teledoc dot com,
Speaker 1: Forward slash Unexplained Podcast Today to get started. That's t
Speaker 1: e l a d oc dot com slash Unexplained podcast