WEBVTT - The Great Wave 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:04.960 Welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:13.640 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, are you welcome to 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:15.800 Stuff to Blow your Mind? My name is Robert Lamb 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:17.840 and I'm Joe McCormick, and I want to kick off 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:20.600 this episode by talking about a piece of art. And 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:22.840 it's a piece of art that I imagine a lot 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:25.040 of you have seen. And if you haven't seen it, 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:27.480 you can, and you're not driving a vehicle or anything 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:29.240 right now, you can easily look it up and you 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:32.720 can certainly find it for the landing page for this episode. 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:35.320 It's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. It is 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:38.400 a Japanese print. It is a title the Great Wave 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:43.240 off Kanagawa, and it's a nineteenth century Edo period would 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:48.600 block print by Katsushika Hokosai, and it depicts a great 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:54.000 wave endangering ships off the coast of Kanagawa. And it 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:57.040 was once thought to depict a tsunami, but now most 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:02.320 commentators think that it actually depicts a row wave. UM. Now, 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:05.520 the the artist here, he explored the subject matter many 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:08.240 times in his career, so if you look at other 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:10.959 images he created, there are plenty of other waves, but 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:14.080 this particular print is considered the peak the culmination of 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:17.200 sixty years in the arts um, and since it's a 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:19.720 woodblock print and not a painting, you can actually find 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:23.160 it in numerous museums around the world, thus increasing the 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:25.920 odds that you have seen this image, if not online 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:29.120 and perhaps in purpose in person. But I think one 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:32.039 of the great things about it is that it captures 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:36.160 a sense of the majesty of a great wave, the 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:38.840 idea that it's it's there's like a topography of the 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:43.240 ocean visible, the ocean surface visible in this picture. That 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:46.800 that reminds us that a wave can be a mountain. Well, yeah, 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:49.480 and the wave in the in the woodblock even what 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:51.400 do you call it a print or a painting when 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:55.000 it's the painting whatever it is on this image, uh, 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.520 the wave resembles the mountain in the background, and the 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.520 mountain in the backgrounds has sort of a blue gray 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:04.680 uh slope, and then the white peak of course covered 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:06.840 in snow. The waves are much like that with these 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:09.760 uh the white surging foam at the top. But in 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:13.760 the painting, the foam has these like hooks that almost 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.840 looked like eagles talents reaching out of the top of 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:19.680 this wall of water, and there's there's a way that 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:22.280 I at least often looked to this painting without even 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:25.519 realizing they were supposed to be boats represented at the bottom. Yeah, 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:27.760 it's kind of easy to miss the boats. They're they're 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:31.040 swallowed up by what's going on all around. It's a 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:33.920 beautiful piece of art, and I don't know why, but 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:36.480 I've always, when I've looked at it before, thought of 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:39.959 it as somehow calming or like a picture of sort 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:43.440 of like serene nature, which is hilarious because it's depicting 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:46.880 a scene of utter chaos and destruction and terror. Right. 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:49.560 I mean, it's spoken like a true landsman, right when 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:52.040 clearly like this is a product of of of an 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:55.960 island culture that it was very you know, very aware 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:59.280 of the dangers posed by the by the ocean. And 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:03.120 uh yeah, because I probably am in the same same boat. Uh. No. 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:05.600 Pun intended with you is that when I've seen the 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:08.080 image in the past, it was just always like, ah, yeah, 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:13.040 serene nature. But no, this is a cresting mountain of 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:18.280 oceanic destruction, or at least potential destruction, uh, in terms 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:21.400 of human activities on or near the ocean. The mountain 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:25.640 that flows. So speaking of the dangers of the ocean. 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:27.960 I mean, there are many of them, and we know 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.360 what many of them are. But we often discuss ancient 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:35.040 beastiaries and records of monsters and strange creatures from the 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:37.120 ancient world, and of course some of the best ones, 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:41.040 even through like the medieval period, are of sea monsters. 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:43.880 So you've got these stories about lizards that kill with 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:47.200 a gaze, or giant sea monsters that suck entire ships 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:49.600 into their mouths, and they can be funny to read 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:52.720 about now, especially with the certainty that ancient writers had 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:55.720 when they talked about these subjects. But one point I've 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:57.560 made before and that I want to echo again is 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:01.320 I think it was not at all stupid or irrational 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:04.840 for ancient people's to believe in sea monsters. I think 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.760 it was a perfectly reasonable and rational thing for them 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:09.840 to assume. And there are a few reasons for this. 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:11.960 We've touched on some of them on the show before. 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:14.839 Number one, There actually are sea monsters in a way. 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:17.359 We just call them by different names now, Like you 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:20.480 know the sperm whale, blue whale, giant squid, the sunfish, 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:24.760 the lion's main jellyfish. These are all giant magnificent, all 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:28.440 inspiring creatures. But what's changed is that we've fit them 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:31.400 into a standard evolutionary taxonomy. We think of them as 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.919 animals that have common origins with the other animals. But 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:38.080 when ancient sailors told stories of these giant beasts out 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:40.479 in the ocean, many we're probably telling the truth to 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:43.680 the best of their ability. They saw something huge and 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:47.000 strange and terrifying, and they're trying to remember and describe 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:49.240 what it was. And then on top of that, you're 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:52.000 dealing with it with just a culture and a legacy 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:56.640 um of of danger upon the sea and beneath the sea. Yes, 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:59.160 so there were those two things come together. I mean 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:03.520 here there'd be right exactly. And because the sea, you know, 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.560 a life at sea has long I think been associated 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:10.360 with a kind of with a kind of daring and bravado. Right. 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:13.440 But also I think there's another reason it was sort 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.640 of rational to believe in giant krakens that could pull 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:19.960 ships down to their doom, And it's that Poseidon is 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:22.359 one of the cruelest and most fickle of the gods. 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:24.960 That that's not an accident that the Greek myths are 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:27.800 like that, it is not at all uncommon for ships 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:30.920 to set sail on the high seas and then just vanish, 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.560 leaving behind no trace at all. Other times you might 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:38.080 find a giant, sturdy ship wrecked with no apparent cause, 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:41.920 like it's masked and rigging smashed bits, with giant holes 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:44.880 blown in its solid hull. And when when you see 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:47.279 rex like this. Uh. In fact, some of the rex 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:50.279 I was looking at in preparation for this episode, it 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:52.600 calls to mind. Uh, I was thinking about that poem 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.080 we've talked about on the show before, Alfred Lord Tennyson's 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:58.360 The Kraken, where you know, there's this beast battening upon 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:00.960 huge sea worms in his sleep deep until the latter 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:03.359 fire shall heat the deep and he comes up to 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:05.400 the surface, and of course in the poem he dies. 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:08.200 But what's more likely it's he's actually gonna like punch 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:11.040 a hole right in the middle of your ship. Now, obviously, 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:13.880 there are many ways for ships to wreck and sync 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:17.000 causing them to vanish without a trace. They can hit rocks, 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:20.279 they can hit hidden reefs, they can capsize and take 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:23.640 on water. But there is one particular phenomenon that sailors 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:28.719 have long been telling these dark majestically terrifying stories about 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:33.039 and it's something that could explain many sudden disappearances of 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:36.440 seagoing vessels if it was anything more than a fantasy. 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.800 And it's what you mentioned about the woodblock painting earlier. 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:43.520 The monster wave, the rogue wave, also known as a 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:46.479 freak wave, which I like because it sounds like either 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:49.960 a musical subgenre or some sort of like misfit style 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:53.479 punk band, you know, freak wave. It's a genre that 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.880 mixes punk music with carnival music, circus music. No, I 0:06:57.560 --> 0:06:59.440 you know, I say that, but I bet that's actually 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.560 as honor us somewhere. Probably at this point all sub 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:06.000 genres exist. But so, yeah, the the idea of a 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:08.120 rogue wave or a monster wave, so we're not just 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:12.960 talking about rough seas in general, but a single gigantic wave, 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:17.240 an unbelievably high wall of water that appears as if 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:20.200 out of nowhere and crashes over your ship like a 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:23.480 hammer of the sea gods and so sailors have talked 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:25.960 about this, and we want to ask today, could these 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:28.440 tales be true? Do we now know whether they're true? 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:31.720 And could they explain many of histories vanished ships and 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:35.360 hulls broken like toys. Now at this point, I do 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:38.720 want to mention that in our research, I think we'd 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:42.360 hope to maybe throw in more like a giant wave myths, 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:46.600 more accounts from say ancient histories of of giant waves 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:50.680 as opposed to organic sea monsters. And I'm not saying 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:53.040 they don't exist. They may very well exist, but I 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:55.880 had trouble finding them, and we were discussing whine that 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:58.120 might be. I mean, you could go back to what 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:00.720 you said earlier, how a ship just piers at sea, 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:03.600 perhaps caused by a giant wave, and the story is 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:06.160 about a sea monster, or it becomes about an organic 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:09.480 sea monster. Yes. Uh. And one point of parallel here 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:13.040 is that obviously even the ancient people's knew about the 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.840 idea that the ship could encounter, say, bad weather while 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.120 it was out at sea and be wrecked and all that. 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:20.320 So it's not like there was no other way for 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:22.720 ships to sink. But the way in which a rogue 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:25.680 wave as a concept resembles a sea monster is is 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:28.360 that it's unexpected, you know that that it reaches up 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:30.320 out of the deep, that it's much higher than all 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:32.400 the other waves in the in the ocean and it 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:35.160 just takes you completely by surprise. And that's key here. 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:37.120 It's not a situation of like, oh, suddenly all the 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:41.400 waves were enormous. No, suddenly one wave stands vastly m 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:43.760 above all the others, much like the mountain of a 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:47.120 wave in the print we were discussing at the top 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:50.079 of the episode. Now, obviously, lots of ships in history 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.040 of encountered rough seas, like certain regions of the ocean 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:56.320 and certain weather patterns can generate lots of chop and 0:08:56.440 --> 0:09:00.079 high waves, but ships are usually made to withstand to 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:02.520 bad weather. That's part of what ship design is for. 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:04.959 You know, you say, okay, might encounter this kind of weather, 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:07.400 so we need to make it this amount strong to 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:10.160 withstand it. Right, Like, if you know you're going around 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:13.520 the cape, you're gonna you're gonna build and sail vessels 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:17.280 designed for for rough seas. Yeah, And these wave patterns 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.520 have long been understood to be predictable within certain parameters. 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:23.760 You make a ship strong and she'll hold. But what 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:26.080 we're talking about with these monster waves stories is a 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:29.400 wave that suddenly appears without warning and is at least 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:32.640 twice as high as all the other waves. In the sea. 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:34.960 And of course when you're talking about a wave of 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:38.160 water that's twice as high as the other waves around it. Uh, 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:40.800 it's something where you know, the power and destructiveness of 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:44.040 it doesn't just scale linearly. You know, it becomes a 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:47.360 new kind of phenomenon you're dealing with. Now. I want 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:49.960 to be I want to be clear here that we're 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:54.840 talking about true rogue waves or monster waves, freak waves, etcetera. Here, Uh, 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.880 that do seem to come out of nowhere, and they're 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:00.360 not to be confused with giant waves generate aated by 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:06.040 seismic activity like underwater volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, or cascades. That 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:08.680 though those can be incredible and I mean, just for 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:12.160 an example, um, I was reading about the earthquake generated 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:17.320 tsunami in Alaska's LaToya Bay, which, according to Discover magazine, 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:21.320 was a four hundred feet taller than the Empire State Building. Yeah, 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:24.199 they're they're people have done like illustrations of this online. 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:27.439 You can find where it's it's just staggering like it 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:29.520 it created this. I think it was supposed to be 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:33.040 like seventeen hundred feet roughly. Yeah, according to the University 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:37.600 of Alaska Fairbanks. Quote. The earthquake shook loose millions of 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:40.280 cubic yards of dirt and rocks from a forty degree 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:43.240 slope in the northeast corner of the bay. The rock 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:46.200 mass displaced a large body of water, causing both of 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:49.920 the splash wave that rose to one thousand, seven hundred 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:52.959 forty feet and a gravity wave that was one fifty 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:55.240 feet high at the head of the bay. The waves 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:58.320 sheared and stripped the bark from thousands of trees, some 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:01.240 of them four feet in diameter, just clear cut the 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:03.840 land next to the bay. Yeah, and this occurred in 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:08.120 night again, but they see seemingly something like it occurred 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:11.640 at the same area in thirty six and also in 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.360 the eighteen fifties and eighteen seventy four as well. So 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:17.720 that's just a taste of the destructive possibilities of seismically 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:21.280 generated waves in shallow coastal areas. Yeah, And of course, 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:24.680 so we've got tsunamis as well. Tsunamis happened when something 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:27.560 happens out in the ocean. Uh, there's like an earthquake, 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:30.320 you know, shift in the sea floor and eruptions something 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:32.480 like that, and then there's a pressure wave that goes 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:35.880 throughout the water column towards the shore. As it nears 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:38.240 the shore, of course, as it enters the shallow waters, 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:41.320 that's when it becomes really destructive because that massive pressure 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:43.760 it rises up out of the water and it, you know, 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:46.959 keeps coming and flooding against the shore, taking whatever is 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:49.440 on the shore along with it. Yeah. And now, obviously 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:53.040 atmospheric conditions are complicated, as we've discussed on the show before. 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:58.360 The complex systems um a lot of forces conversion together. 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:01.640 It becomes very difficult to predict atmospheric conditions and weather 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:05.160 conditions increasingly far in the future. And of course we 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:08.800 have a very similar situation with the movement of the 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:13.160 fluids in the ocean. But uh, but but with these cases, 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:15.000 they make a lot more sense to us, right the tsunami, 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:19.200 the earthquake generated tsunami, because we can we can easily say, well, 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:21.080 this is the thing, this is the great event that 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.959 caused the great wave. And the idea of a wave 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:29.959 just coming out seemingly out of nowhere the sources it 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:32.400 is seeming aly little more elusive, like it seems to 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:37.160 be emerging from the complex interplay of different storm patterns 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:39.560 and occurrents. Yeah, you might be just out in a 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.840 storm with waves that are pretty regular, certain height, coming 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:44.880 and going and going and going and going, and then 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:49.280 there's one suddenly the mountain arrives. Or so the stories 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:51.840 tell us, right, So the question is wind sailors tell 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:54.600 these stories? Are they true? And so I thought maybe 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:58.000 we should look at a couple of firsthand accounts. You ready, Robert, 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:00.480 let's do it. Who's our first adventure? Well? I thought 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.920 we should turn to one firstand account from the Antarctic 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:08.240 explorer Ernest Shackleton, which came from the famous voyage of 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:11.840 the James cared. Now, this voyage was one part of 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:16.920 the overall survival journey after the failure of Shackleton's Antarctic 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:19.840 expedition in a ship called the Endurance that started in 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:24.720 nineteen fourteen. And this is an absolutely astounding survival story 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:26.600 that is worth looking up if you've never read it. 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:29.600 And this is this is only one part of the story, um, 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:31.760 but the short version of the context here was a 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.679 nineteen fourteen Shackleton and crew set out for Antarctica in 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:38.760 this ship, the Endurance, but the ship became trapped in 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:42.040 ice in the wet El Sea, and the ship eventually sank. 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.160 Of course, this was nineteen fourteen or fifteen. You're in 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:48.800 Antarctica that you know, your ship sinking is sort of 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.280 a death sentence. Yeah, I mean even today, it's very 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:55.120 bad news. So the crew made their way, you know, 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:57.400 they're out there stranded, and the crew made their way 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:01.280 to an uninhabited island known as Elephant Island, from after 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:04.800 where the ship sank, and Shackleton reasoned that their only 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.000 hope of survival was seeking help and reinforcement from the 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:10.560 island of South Georgia, where he knew that there was 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:12.560 a whaling station. So if they got to where the 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:15.440 people were at the whaling station there, they could you know, 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.240 come back for rescue with the bigger ship. But South 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:22.680 Georgia was about eight hundred miles or hundred kilometers away 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:26.080 over terrible seas, you know, the seas around Antarctica or 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:29.480 you know, there's their icy there's rough, bad weather. It's 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.280 not a place to be sailing in an unreinforced vessel. 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:35.600 And the only viable vessel they had for making the voyage, 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:38.520 because remember their ships sank. The best thing they had 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:41.080 to use was a twenty two foot or about six 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:44.600 and a half meter lifeboat called the James Cared, So 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.280 Shackleton and a few others that they left the rest 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.560 of the crew sheltered at Elephant Island and they set 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:53.280 out on this brutal journey to get a rescue party, 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.840 during which they encountered ice and bad weather. The story 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:00.400 is harrowing and amazing. They talked about how, you know, 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:03.000 ice would keep building up on the boat because it's freezing, 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:06.200 and they'd be soaked by all these horrible waves that 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:08.600 are pounding on them. It's freezing weather, and they'd have 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:11.400 to keep constantly chipping the ice off of the boat 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:13.720 because the ice would weigh the boat down and start 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.400 to make it sink um. And you know, this is 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:19.320 a this is like a multi week journey. And at 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:22.520 one point, while Shackleton was at the tiller of the boat, 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:25.000 uh So, there had been very bad weather, of course, 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:27.520 and then he's at the tiller one time and he 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:31.080 thinks he sees the clouds breaking and a clear sky 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:33.520 up ahead. And then I want to quote from Shackleton's 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:36.600 own account, quote, I called to the other men that 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:39.360 the sky was clearing. And then a moment later I 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:42.240 realized that what I had seen was not a rift 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:45.960 in the clouds, but the white crest of an enormous wave. 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.800 During twenty six years experience of the ocean in all 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:52.840 its moods, I had not encountered a wave so gigantic. 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:56.080 It was a mighty upheaval of the ocean, a thing 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:58.880 quite apart from the big, white capped seas that had 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:02.000 been our tireless and me's for many days. I shouted, 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.280 for God's sake, hold on, it's got us. Then came 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:08.520 a moment of suspense that seemed drawn out into hours 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:11.960 white surge, the foam of the breaking sea around us. 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:15.000 We felt our boat lifted and flung forward like a 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:18.440 cork and breaking surf. We were in a seething chaos 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:21.920 of tortured water, but somehow the boat lived through it, 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:25.000 half full of water, sagging to the dead weight and 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:28.400 shuddering under the blow. We bailed with the energy of 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.600 men fighting for life, flinging the water over the sides, 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:34.640 with every receptacle that came to our hands, and after 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.680 ten minutes of uncertainty, we felt the boat renew her 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:41.720 life beneath us. So the fact that this giant wave 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.800 did not sink or just completely smash their tiny boat 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.080 to pieces. Is one of the many bizarre miracles of 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:51.520 this unbelievable journey. Uh. You know, you always have to wonder, 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:53.960 like how things like that happened, But apparently it did 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:57.880 according to Shackleton's telling, and the crew actually did manage 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:00.760 to reach South Georgia. According to an account by Jerry Pearson, 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:04.280 though after they got ashore in South Georgia, quote, at 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:08.040 two am on the first night ashore, Shackleton woke everyone shouting, 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:11.000 look out, boys, hold on, it's going to break on us. 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:15.000 It was a nightmare. Shackleton thought that the black snow 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:20.120 crested cliff above them was a giant wave. Yeah. That 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:21.879 that is an impressive telling. And but yet at the 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:25.159 same time, you can easily go either way on it. Right, 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:27.640 you can say, well, all right, Shackleton is a trustworthy 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.240 source of information and this is what he saw. But 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:32.240 then on the other hand, we have to say he 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:36.000 was in an extreme situation. I mean, we've spoken before 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:39.399 in the show about how extreme conditionings can lead to 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:43.199 seemingly paranormal encounters. You know, if you've been awake for 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:45.919 a long time, if you're fighting for your survival, etcetera. 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.120 And all of those elements are are here. Yeah, and 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.479 there are problems with the plausibility of the story. I mean, 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:54.240 how did this wave not sink and kill them? Yeah, 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:57.520 So whatever happened obviously made an impression Like this consummate 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:01.439 survivor had nightmares not of monsters in the deep, but 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:04.520 of a lone killer wave rolling up out of the 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:08.040 ocean as high as a mountain side. Uh. And so 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:10.600 one thing about giant waves like this is that if 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:14.719 they exist, we shouldn't have necessarily expected to hear eyewitness 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:17.800 accounts of them all that often in history because of 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:19.840 a couple of things. Number one, of course, if they 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:21.800 do exist, for a long time people thought them to 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:25.000 be very rare. But on top of that, if sailors 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:27.600 in the wooden ships of olden days encountered a wave 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:30.399 like this, uh, there was not a good chance of 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:33.399 them living to tell about it. Right. The goliath wave 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:37.320 would just arise, suddenly, kill everyone, sink the ship, and 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:39.600 then melt back into the sea without a trace. How 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:42.320 would you how would you even know it had happened? Yeah, 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:44.680 it would be like asking for eyewitness accounts of the 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:48.520 Grim Reaper. Yeah, because if if if the reapers showing up, 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:51.840 but then it's probably doing its job. Yeah. But the 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:54.600 of course, uh, Shackleton's story is not the only one. 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:56.800 There actually were a lot of stories like this. Many 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:00.480 mariners told these tales of a giant kill their wave. 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:04.040 In the book Oceanography in the Days of Sale by 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:06.919 Ian Jones and Joyce Jones, the authors write about the 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:11.479 French naval explorer and scientists Dumont d'Urville and his his 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:15.040 disputes with the French scientists Francois Arago about the upper 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:18.439 limits of wave height. Quote when the astrolabe and that 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:22.520 was Derville's ship. When the Astrolabe in eighteen twenty six 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:25.080 was making its way across the southern stretches of the 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:28.600 Indian Ocean, it encountered a gale with mountainous seas, in 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:32.679 which a man was lost overboard. Dumont d'Urville, in his narrative, 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:35.280 expressed the opinion that the waves reached a height of 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:38.520 at least eighty to a hundred feet. In an era 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:41.560 when opinions were being expressed that no wave would exceed 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:45.960 thirty feet, Dumont d'urville's estimations were received. It seemed with 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:51.160 some skepticism and France, while Arago rejected and even ridiculed 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:55.119 Derville's claim. Basically, you know, this is just a seamen's fancy. Uh. 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:58.680 He referred in writing to the quote truly prodigious waves 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:02.480 with which the lively imagination of certain navigator's delights in 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:05.800 covering the seas. That sounded like a burn. That was 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:07.320 a bit of a burn. I think, yeah, I think 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:09.800 he was being a bit dismissive here. But maybe we 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:11.440 should take a break and then when we come back, 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:15.000 we can talk about some physical evidence that actually points 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:20.840 to the existence of waves like this. All right, we're back. 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:26.560 We've we've discussed accounts anecdotal evidence of giant waves, of 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:30.119 freak waves, of rogue waves. But now we're going to 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:33.280 get into what the science has to say. What what 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:37.520 kind of proof is there, if any, to substantiate these claims, Right, 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:39.919 you'd want some kind of physical evidence other than just 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:42.680 people saying they saw a giant wave, because people say 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:45.000 they saw all sorts of things. But uh, you know, 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:47.399 ultimately though, this is why we have science. This is 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.399 why we have a recording equipment. This is so we 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:54.880 can actually validate that that waves of this nature exists. Yeah, 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:57.200 and so we talked about the French scientists France while 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:02.040 Rago being severe really doubting that waves like this existed. 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:03.960 And from a scientific point of view, there had long 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:07.399 been reason to doubt these accounts of gigantic monster waves, 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:10.520 not that it was impossible for a giant wave to exist, 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:13.639 but that monstrous waves of the kind reported by mariners, 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:15.399