WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Great Wave 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.840 Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:11.120 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:13.680 Time to dive into the vault. This time we're doing 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:17.840 an episode that originally aired on May nineteen. This one 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:21.360 was called The Great Wave. It was about giant waves, 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:24.880 rogue waves. I remember this episode being very interesting, especially 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:28.520 because in preparing for it, it was when I, uh, 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:33.280 I learned about the the incredible survival by sea voyage 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:37.680 of was it the Shackleton Expedition? Yes, I believe so. Yeah. 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:41.320 So this one, this one is filled with aquatic peril 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:43.879 and uh and I seem to recall there's a fair 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:49.040 amount of sort of looking at at historical accounts and 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:51.360 people weighing in on exactly what kind of wave we 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:57.240 were talking about. Here, Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:06.319 A production of I Heart Radios has to work. Hey, you, 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:08.240 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:10.520 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and I'm want to 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:12.880 kick off this episode by talking about a piece of art. 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:15.760 And it's a piece of art that I imagine a 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:18.120 lot of you have seen and if you haven't seen it. 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:20.520 You can, and you're not driving a vehicle or anything 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:22.319 right now, you can easily look it up and you 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:25.800 can certainly find it for the landing page for this episode. 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:28.399 It's stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. It is 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:31.440 a Japanese print. It is a title the Great Wave 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:36.319 off Kanagawa, and it's a nineteenth century Edo period would 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:41.679 block print by Katsushika Hokusai, and it depicts a great 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:47.080 wave endangering ships off the coast of Kanagawa. And it 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:50.120 was once thought to depict a tsunami, but now most 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:55.400 commentators think that it actually depicts a rogue wave. UM. Now, 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.600 the the artist here, he explored this subject matter many 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.320 times in his career, so if you look at other 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.040 images he created, there are plenty of other waves, but 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:07.120 this particular print is considered the peak the culmination of 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:10.240 sixty years in the arts. UM And since it's a 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:12.800 woodblock print and not a painting, you can actually find 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:16.240 it in numerous museums around the world, thus increasing the 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.000 odds that you have seen this image, if not online 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:22.160 and perhaps in purpose in person. But I think one 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:25.080 of the great things about it is that it captures 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:29.200 a sense of the majesty of a great wave. The 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:31.880 idea that it's it's there's like a topography of the 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:36.280 ocean visible, the ocean surface visible in this picture. That 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:39.840 that reminds us that a wave can be a mountain. Well, yeah, 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:42.560 and the wave in the in the woodblock even what 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:44.440 do you call it a print or a painting when 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:48.040 it's the painting whatever it is on this image, Uh, 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:51.600 the wave resembles the mountain in the background, and the 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:54.600 mountain and the backgrounds has sort of a blue gray, 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:57.720 uh slope, and then the white peak of course covered 0:02:57.760 --> 0:02:59.920 in snow. The waves are much like that with these 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:02.800 uh the white surging foam at the top. But in 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:06.800 the painting, the foam as these like hooks that almost 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:09.920 looked like eagles talents reaching out of the top of 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.760 this wall of water. And there's there's a way that 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:15.360 I at least often look to this painting without even 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:18.560 realizing they were supposed to be boats represented at the bottom. Yeah, 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:20.840 it's kind of easy to miss the boats. They're they're 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:24.120 swallowed up by what's going on all around. It's a 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.000 beautiful piece of art. And I don't know why, but 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.560 I've always when I've looked at it before thought of 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.040 it as somehow calming or like a picture of sort 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.520 of like serene nature, which is hilarious because it's depicting 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.960 a scene of utter chaos and destruction and terror, right, 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:42.640 I mean it's spoken like a true landsman, right when 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.480 clearly like this is a product of of an island 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:49.160 culture that it was very you know, very aware of 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:53.000 the dangers posed by the by the ocean. And uh yeah, 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:56.200 because I probably am in the same same boat. Uh No. 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:58.680 Pun intended with you is that when I've seen the 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:01.160 image in the past, it was just I was like, ah, yeah, 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:06.080 serene nature. But no, this is a cresting mountain of 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:11.440 oceanic destruction, or at least potential destruction in terms of 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:16.080 human activities on or near the ocean the mountain that flows. 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:19.000 So speaking of the dangers of the ocean, I mean, 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:21.479 there are many of them, and we know what many 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:25.440 of them are. But we often discuss ancient beastiaries and 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:28.640 records of monsters and strange creatures from the ancient world, 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:31.279 and of course some of the best ones, even through 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.440 like the medieval period, are of sea monsters. So you've 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.520 got these stories about lizards that kill with the gaze 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:41.360 or giant sea monsters that suck entire ships into their mouths, 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:43.600 And they can be funny to read about now, especially 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:46.440 with the certainty that ancient writers had when they talked 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.400 about these subjects. But one point I've made before and 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:51.359 that I want to echo again is I think it 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:55.960 was not at all stupid or irrational for ancient people's 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:58.240 to believe in sea monsters. I think it was a 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:01.359 perfectly reasonable and rap channel thing for them to assume. 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:03.760 And there are a few reasons for this. We've touched 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:05.640 on some of them on the show before. Number one, 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:08.159 there actually are sea monsters in a way. We just 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:10.640 call them by different names now, like you know the 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:14.160 sperm whale, blue whale, giant squid, the sunfish, the lion's 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:19.080 main jellyfish. These are all giant, magnificent, all inspiring creatures. 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:21.919 But what's changed is that we've fit them into a 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.279 standard evolutionary taxonomy. We think of them as animals that 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:28.680 have common origins with the other animals. But when ancient 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:31.880 sailors told stories of these giant beasts out in the ocean, meany, 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.880 we're probably telling the truth to the best of their ability. 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:38.480 They saw something huge and strange and terrifying, and they're 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:41.520 trying to remember and describe what it was. And then 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:43.200 on top of that, you're dealing with it with just 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:47.520 a culture and a legacy um of of danger upon 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:50.520 the sea and beneath the sea. Yes, so there were 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:53.480 those two things come together. I mean, here there'll be monsters, 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:57.320 right exactly. And because the sea, you know, a life 0:05:57.360 --> 0:05:59.800 at sea has long I think, been associated with the 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.400 kind of with a kind of daring and bravado. Right. 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:06.479 But also I think there's another reason it was sort 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:09.680 of rational to believe in giant krakens that could pull 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:13.000 ships down to their doom. And it's that Poseidon is 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:15.400 one of the cruelest and most fickle of the gods. 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:18.040 That that's not an accident that the Greek myths are 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:20.880 like that it is not at all uncommon for ships 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:24.040 to set sail on the high seas and then just vanish, 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:27.640 leaving behind no trace. At all. Other times you might 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:31.120 find a giant, sturdy ship wrecked with no apparent cause, 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:35.080 like it's masked and rigging, smashed bits, with giant holes 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.920 blown in its solid hull. And when when you see 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:40.360 rex like this, uh, In fact, some of the Rex 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:43.320 I was looking at in preparation for this episode. It 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:45.680 calls to mind, uh, I was thinking about that poem 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:48.120 we've talked about on the show before, Alfred Lord Tennyson's 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.400 The Kraken, where you know, there's this beast battening upon 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.440 huge sea worms in his sleep until the latter fire 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.000 shall heat the deep and he comes up to the surface. 0:06:57.040 --> 0:06:59.280 And of course in the poem he dies. But what's 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:01.560 more likely, say, he's actually gonna like punch a hole 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:04.360 right in the middle of your ship. Now, obviously there 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:07.440 are many ways for ships to wreck and sync causing 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:10.040 them to vanish without a trace. They can hit rocks, 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.360 they can hit hidden reefs, they can capsize and take 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.720 on water. But there is one particular phenomenon that sailors 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:21.800 have long been telling these dark, majestically terrifying stories about, 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:26.080 and it's something that could explain many sudden disappearances of 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.520 seagoing vessels if it was anything more than a fantasy. 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:32.840 And it's what you mentioned about the woodblock painting earlier. 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:36.560 The monster wave, the rogue wave also known as a 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.560 freak wave, which I like because it sounds like either 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:43.040 a musical subgenre or some sort of like misfit style 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:46.520 punk band, you know, freak wave. It's a genre that 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:49.680 mixes punk music with carnival music and circus music. No, 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:52.040 I you know, I say that, but I bet that's 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:55.640 actually a genre somewhere. Probably at this point all sub 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:59.080 genres exist. But so, yeah, the the idea of a 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:01.160 rogue wave or a monster waves, so we're not just 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:06.040 talking about rough seas in general, but a single gigantic wave, 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:10.080 an unbelievably high a wall of water that appears as 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:13.080 if out of nowhere and crashes over your ship like 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:16.120 a hammer of the sea gods, and so sailors have 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:18.720 talked about this, and we want to ask today, could 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:21.520 these tales be true? Do we now know whether they're true? 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:24.760 And could they explain many of histories vanished ships and 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:28.400 hulls broken like toys. Now at this point, I do 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:31.760 want to mention that in our research, I think we'd 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:35.400 hope to maybe throw in more like a giant wave myths, 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:39.680 more accounts from say, ancient histories of of giant waves 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:43.720 as opposed to organic sea monsters. And I'm not saying 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:46.120 they don't exist. They may very well exist. But I 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:49.280 had trouble finding them, and we're discussing why that might be. 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:51.959 I mean, we could go back to what you said earlier, 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:54.920 how a ship disappears at sea, perhaps caused by a 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.679 giant wave, and the story is about a sea monster, 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:00.719 or it becomes about an organic sea monster. Yes. Uh. 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:03.920 And one point of parallel here is that obviously even 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:06.880 the ancient people's knew about the idea that the ship 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.600 could encounter, say, bad weather while I was out at sea, 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:11.920 and be wrecked and and all that. So it's not 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:14.199 like there was no other way for ships to sink. 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:16.520 But the way in which a rogue wave as a 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:19.920 concept resembles a sea monster is is that it's unexpected, 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:22.000 you know that, that it reaches up out of the deep, 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.360 that it's much higher than all the other waves in 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:26.600 the in the ocean, and it just takes you completely 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:29.160 by surprise. And that's key here. It's not a situation 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:31.160 of like, oh, suddenly all the waves were enormous. No, 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:35.760 suddenly one wave stands vastly um above all the others, 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:39.199 much like the mountain of a wave in the print 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:41.160 we were discussing at the top of the episode. Now, 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:44.400 obviously lots of ships in history of encountered rough seas, 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:47.839 like certain regions of the ocean and certain weather patterns 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:51.200 can generate lots of chop and high waves. But ships 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:54.280 are usually made to withstand bad weather. That's part of 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:56.520 what ship design is for. You know, you say, okay, 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:58.800 might encounter this kind of weather, so we need to 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:01.920 make it this amounts strong to withstand it. Right, Like, 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.480 if you know you're going around the cape, you're gonna 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:09.240 you're gonna build and sail vessels designed for for rough seas. Yeah, 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:11.720 and these wave patterns have long been understood to be 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:15.160 predictable within certain parameters. You make a ship strong and 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:18.280 she'll hold. But what we're talking about with these monster 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.240 waves stories is a wave that suddenly appears without warning 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:24.280 and is at least twice as high as all the 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.040 other waves in the sea. And of course, when you're 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:29.439 talking about a wave of water that's twice as high 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:31.960 as the other waves around it, uh, it's something where 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:34.360 you know, the power and destructiveness of it doesn't just 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.920 scale linearly. You know, it becomes a new kind of 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:40.680 phenomenon you're dealing with. Now, I want to be I 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:44.000 want to be clear here that we're talking about true 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:47.920 rogue waves or monster waves, freak waves, etcetera. Here, Uh, 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.920 that do seem to come out of nowhere. And they're 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:54.599 not to be confused with giant waves generated by seismic activity, 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:59.600 right like underwater volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, or cascades like riding, 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:01.720 though those can be incredible and I mean, just for 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:05.240 an example, um, I was reading about the earthquake generated 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:10.360 tsunami in Alaska's LaToya Bay, which, according to Discover magazine, 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.400 was a four hundred feet taller than the Empire State Building. Yeah, 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:17.240 they're they're people have done like illustrations of this online. 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:20.520 You can find where it's It's just staggering like it 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:22.600 it created this. I think it was supposed to be 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:26.120 like seventeen hundred feet roughly. Yeah. According to the University 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:30.680 of Alaska Fairbanks quote, the earthquake shook loose millions of 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:33.319 cubic yards of dirt and rocks from a forty degree 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:36.280 slope in the northeast corner of the bay. The rock 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:39.240 mass displaced a large body of water, causing both of 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:43.000 the splash wave that rose to one thousand, seven hundred 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:46.040 forty feet and a gravity wave that was one fifty 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:48.319 feet high. At the head of the bay. The waves 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:51.320 sheared and stripped the bark from thousands of trees, some 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:54.280 of them four ft in diameter, just clear cut the 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:56.880 land next to the bay. Yeah, and this occurred in 0:11:57.120 --> 0:12:01.200 night again, but they seem seemingly something like it occurred 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:04.680 at the same area in thirty six and also in 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:07.440 the eighteen fifties and eighteen seventy four as well. So 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:10.800 that's just a taste of the destructive possibilities of seismically 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:14.360 generated waves in shallow coastal areas. Yeah, and of course 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.760 so we've got tsunamis as well. Tsunamis happen when something 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.600 happens out in the ocean. Uh, there's like an earthquake, 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:23.360 you know, shift in the sea floor and eruptions something 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:25.560 like that, and then there's a pressure wave that goes 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:28.960 throughout the water column towards the shore. As it nears 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:31.319 the shore. Of course, as it enters the shallow waters, 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:33.839 that's when it becomes really destructive because that mass of 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.559 pressure it rises up out of the water and it 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:39.360 you know, keeps coming and flooding against the shore, taking 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.480 whatever is on the shore along with it. Yeah. No, No, obviously, 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:46.120 atmospheric conditions are complicated, as we've discussed on the show before, 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:51.520 the complex systems, a lot of forces conversion together, it 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:55.360 becomes very difficult to predict atmospheric conditions and weather conditions 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:58.320 increasingly far in the future. And of course we have 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:02.240 a very similar situation with the movement of the fluids 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:06.240 in the ocean. But uh, but but with these cases, 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:08.080 they make a lot more sense to us, right, the tsunami, 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:12.240 the earthquake generated tsunami, because we can we can easily say, well, 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:14.120 this is the thing, this is the great event that 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:18.000 caused the great wave. And the idea of a wave 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:22.720 just coming out seemingly out of nowhere the sources as 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:25.439 is seeming a little more elusive, like it seems to 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:30.280 be emerging from the complex interplay of different storm patterns 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:32.640 and occurrents. Yeah, you might be just out in a 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.920 storm with waves that are pretty regular, certain height, coming 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:37.959 and going and going and going and going, and then 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:42.319 there's one suddenly the mountain arrives, or so the stories 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:44.920 tell us. Right, So the question is wind sailors tell 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:47.640 these stories? Are they true? And so I thought maybe 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:50.040 we should look at a couple of first hand accounts. 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:53.199 You ready, Robert, let's do it. Who's our first adventure? Well, 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:56.120 I thought we should turn to one first hand account 0:13:56.160 --> 0:14:00.240 from the Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, which came for the 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.800 famous voyage of the James Cared. Now, this voyage was 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:08.360 one part of the overall survival journey after the failure 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:12.160 of Shackleton's Antarctic expedition in a ship called the Endurance 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:15.840 that started in nineteen fourteen. And this is an absolutely 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:19.120 astounding survival story that is worth looking up if you've 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:20.880 never read it. And this is this is only one 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:23.840 part of the story, um, but the short version of 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:27.200 the context here was a nineteen fourteen Shackleton and crew 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:30.200 set out for Antarctica in this ship, the Endurance. But 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:33.240 the ship became trapped in ice in the wet El Sea, 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:36.160 and the ship eventually sank. And of course this was 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:40.040 nineteen fourteen or fifteen. You're in Antarctica that you know, 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:42.960 your ship sinking is sort of a death sentence. Yeah, 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:46.560 I mean even today, it's very bad news. So the 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:49.280 crew made their way, you know, they're out there stranded, 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:52.040 and the crew made their way to an uninhabited island 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:55.200 known as Elephant Island. From after where the ship sank, 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:58.920 and Shackleton reasoned that their only hope of survival was 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:02.520 seeking help and enforcement from the island of South Georgia, 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:04.840 where he knew that there was a whaling station. So 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:06.320 if they got to where the people were at the 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:09.080 whaling station there, they could, you know, come back for 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:12.400 rescue with the bigger ship. But South Georgia was about 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:17.440 eight hundred miles or hundred kilometers away over terrible seas. 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:19.840 You know the seas around Antarctica are you know, there's 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:23.200 they're icy, there's rough, bad weather. It's not a place 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:26.360 to be sailing in an unreinforced vessel. And the only 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:29.240 viable vessel they had for making the voyage because remember 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:31.680 their ships, saying that the best thing they had to 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:34.200 use was a twenty two foot or about six and 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:38.320 a half meter lifeboat called the James Care. So Shackleton 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:40.440 and a few others that they left the rest of 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:43.840 the crew sheltered at Elephant Island, and they set out 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.040 on this brutal journey to get a rescue party, during 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:50.080 which they encountered ice and bad weather. The story is 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:53.720 harrowing and amazing. They talked about how you know ice 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:56.040 would keep building up on the boat because it's freezing, 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:59.240 and they'd be soaked by all these horrible waves that 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:01.840 are pounding on Them's freezing weather, and they'd have to 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:04.840 keep constantly chipping the ice off of the boat because 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:06.880 the ice would weigh the boat down and start to 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:09.560 make it sink um. And you know, this is a 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:13.000 this is like a multi week journey. And at one point, 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:16.480 while Shackleton was at the tiller of the boat, uh so, 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:18.400 there had been very bad weather, of course, and then 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:21.120 he's at the tiller one time and he thinks he 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.760 sees the clouds breaking and a clear sky up ahead. 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:27.920 And then I want to quote from Shackleton's own account, quote, 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:30.880 I called to the other men that the sky was clearing. 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:33.720 And then a moment later I realized that what I 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:36.440 had seen was not a rift in the clouds, but 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:40.560 the white crest of an enormous wave. During twenty six 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.600 years experience of the ocean, in all its moods, I 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.680 had not encountered a wave of so gigantic. It was 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:49.920 a mighty upheaval of the ocean, a thing quite apart 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:52.240 from the big, white capped seas that had been our 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:55.800 tireless enemies. For many days, I shouted, for God's sake, 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:58.920 hold on, it's got us. Then came a moment of 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:02.960 suspense that seemed drawn out into hours. White surge the 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:05.959 foam of the breaking sea around us. We felt our 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:09.600 boat lifted and flung forward like a cork and breaking surf. 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:12.919 We were in a seething chaos of tortured water, but 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.200 somehow the boat lived through it, half full of water, 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:19.439 sagging to the dead weight and shuddering under the blow. 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:22.720 We bailed with the energy of men fighting for life, 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:25.960 flinging the water over the sides, with every receptacle that 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:29.080 came to our hands, and after ten minutes of uncertainty, 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:32.639 we felt the boat renew her life beneath us. So 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:35.840 the fact that this giant wave did not sink or 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:39.240 just completely smash their tiny boat to pieces is one 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:43.080 of the many bizarre miracles of this unbelievable journey. Uh. 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:45.359 You know, you always have to wonder, like how things 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:48.800 like that happened, But apparently it did according to Shackleton's telling, 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:52.000 and the crew actually did manage to reach South Georgia. 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:55.000 According to an account by Gary Pearson, though after they 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:58.119 got ashore, in South Georgia. Quote at two am on 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:01.879 the first night ashore, Shackleton Oak, everyone shouting, look out boys, 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:04.720 hold on, it's going to break on us. It was 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:09.160 a nightmare. Shackleton thought that the black snow crested cliff 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:13.399 above them was a giant wave. Yeah. That that is 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:15.520 an impressive telling. And but yet at the same time, 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:18.320 you can easily go either way on it. Right, you 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:21.040 can say, well, all right, Shackleton is a trustworthy source 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:23.480 of information and this is what he saw. But then 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:25.520 on the other hand, we have to say he was 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:29.119 in an extreme situation. I mean, we've spoken before in 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:33.280 the show about how extreme conditionings can lead to seemingly 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:36.399 paranormal encounters. You know, if you've been awake for a 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:39.239 long time, if you're fighting for your survival, etcetera. And 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:42.320 all of those elements are are here. Yeah, and there 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:44.560 are problems with the plausibility of the story. I mean, 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:47.240 how did this wave not sink and kill them? Yeah, 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:50.560 So whatever happened obviously made an impression. Like this consummate 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:54.359 survivor had nightmares not of sea monsters in the deep, 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:57.439 but of a lone killer wave rolling up out of 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:00.840 the ocean as high as a mountain side. Uh. And 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:03.479 so one thing about giant waves like this is that 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:07.120 if they exist, we shouldn't have necessarily expected to hear 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.360 eyewitness accounts of them all that often in history because 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:12.760 of a couple of things. Number one, of course, if 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:14.760 they do exist, for a long time people thought them 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:17.440 to be very rare. But on top of that, if 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:20.480 sailors in the wooden ships of olden days encountered a 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:23.320 wave like this, uh, there was not a good chance 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:26.080 of them living to tell about it. Right. The goliath 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:30.200 wave would just arise, suddenly, kill everyone, sink the ship, 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:32.520 and then melt back into the sea without a trace. 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.360 How would you how would you even know it had happened. Yeah, 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:37.760 it would be like asking for eyewitness accounts of the 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:41.560 Grim Reaper. Yeah, because if if, if the reapers showing up, 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:44.919 But then it's probably doing its job. Yeah. But the 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:47.639 of course, Uh, Shackleton's story is not the only one. 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:49.880 There actually were a lot of stories like this. Many 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:54.280 mariners told these tales of a giant killer wave. In 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:57.400 the book Oceanography in the Days of Sale by Ian 0:19:57.480 --> 0:19:59.920 Jones and Joyce Jones, the author is right about the 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:04.520 French naval explorer and scientists Dumont d'Urville and his his 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:08.080 disputes with the French scientists Francois Arago about the upper 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.480 limits of wave height quote when the astrolabe and that 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:15.600 was Derville ship. When the astrolabe in eighteen twenty six 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.119 was making its way across the southern stretches of the 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.679 Indian Ocean, it encountered a gale with mountainous seas in 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:25.719 which a man was lost overboard. Dumont d'Urville, in his narrative, 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:28.320 expressed the opinion that the waves reached a height of 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:31.560 at least eighty to a hundred feet in an era 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.639 when opinions were being expressed that no wave would exceed 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:39.000 thirty feet. Dumont d'urville's estimations were received, it seemed, with 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:44.200 some skepticism and France, while Arago rejected and even ridiculed 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:48.159 Derville's claim. Basically, you know this is just a semen's fancy. Uh. 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:51.760 He referred in writing to the quote truly prodigious waves 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:55.560 with which the lively imagination of certain navigators delights in 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:58.840 covering the seas. That sounded like a burn. That was 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:00.399 a bit of a burn. I think Yeah, I think 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:02.879 he was being a bit dismissive here, but maybe we 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:04.719 should take a break and then we come back. We 0:21:04.760 --> 0:21:08.240 can talk about some physical evidence that actually points to 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:13.880 the existence of waves like this. Thank alright, we're back. 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:19.600 We've we've discussed accounts anecdotal evidence of giant waves, of 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:23.159 freak waves, of rogue waves. But now we're going to 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:26.320