<i>male narrator: Every day,
people are finding</i> <i>unexplained objects
across America.</i> - They found 'em in river beds,
in the middle of a forest, <i>in their backyard.</i> <i>narrator: History has received
thousands of tips</i> <i>from people seeking answers</i> <i>about their strange
discoveries.</i> - The inscriptions, I've never
seen anything like that before. <i>- Oh, my God,
that can't be real,</i> but what if it is? <i>narrator:
Now for the first time,</i> <i>we've gathered experts
from around the country</i> <i>to investigate these artifacts,</i> <i>following tips sent in by you.</i> <i>- It's the perfect setup.</i> <i>We'll identify
the most compelling cases,</i> and we'll solve
these mysteries. - We believe that this
could be 2,000 years old. - Oh, my God. <i>narrator: There's a history
behind every object.</i> - I'm sure that's gotta
be Jesse James's blood. <i>narrator: But it's not always
the history you expect.</i> - When I saw "Scandinavian runes
found in Florida," my BS meter was just
off the charts, man. There's a whole country
full of people out there <i>with strange artifacts.</i> <i>We're gonna get them
the answers they deserve.</i> <i>[dramatic music]</i> <i>[upbeat rock music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>- My father was a coal miner.</i> He worked in an underground
coal mine. They were working and he found
it under the--in the coal. I think that this is
a death mask of somebody-- a prominent person. <i>♪ ♪</i> - So your father worked
in the minutes? - He did. Probably from the time
he was about 14. That's usually when they
started, 'bout 14 years old. - God, that's so young.
- Yep. <i>[eerie music]</i> [water dripping] - So he was crawling around,
just hacking this stuff out. Probably wasn't much taller
than... - 17 inches in some places.
- 17 inches. That's a rough life.
- It is. - Coal mining's not easy. When and where did he find this? - We're gonna say in the 1930s.
- Okay. - 'Cause it's been with us...
long time. And they were actually
just working in the coal, like this,
and they were digging. Back then, they used
a pick and a shovel. - So this came out of the coal.
- Yes, it did. - It was embedded in the coal?
But not this mine? - No.
- No. - Well, do you guys mind
if I take a look at it? - No, no, no.
- Go right ahead. - It's kinda heavy. - The weight on it--
- Ooh! - What would you estimate
the weight to be? - I'd say this has
got to be 50, 60 pounds. This is really heavy.
- I think so. I think so. - Just by looking at it
and holding this thing, I could tell this was iron. Have you taken this to anybody? Has anybody told you
anything about this piece? - Yes. I took it
to an archaeologist and they think
that it is a death mask that was probably
from a prominent person. - Okay. There have been
some famous people who have had death masks
made of them. <i>King Tut, John Dillinger,</i> <i>Abraham Lincoln,
just to name a few.</i> Prior to the invention
of photography, people would make death masks
of loved ones because this was the only way that they could keep
an image for all time. Kinda odd that you'd find one
in a coal mine. You guys obviously
grew up with this. Now you guys remember
any stories? Did your father ever talk
about this thing? - Well, back when
he showed it to us, we didn't think nothing about
it, 'cause we was young. That's what we propped our door
open with. - So this object
was your doorstop? - Yes, we had no idea.
- Absolutely. - Okay, okay, well, what coal mine did he work in,
do you know? - Many. Several different ones. - Okay, and he's the one that
actually dug this thing out? - Well, he was there. I'm sure, once they found it,
everybody was there. - Right. <i>The details surrounding
how this mask was found</i> are very fuzzy. They're not sure whether
their father found it or another coworker,
or what mine he worked in, or how old he was
when he worked in it. All of these details are making
my job extremely difficult. Did they tell you how old they
thought this thing might be? - The first archeologist
that looked at it, he said probably
25,000 years old. - 25,000 years old. Okay. - Mm-hmm. - We're gonna have to
rule that out. This may be an older piece,
but it's not 25,000 years old. - To your knowledge. - To my--to my knowledge.
- [laughs] - There is no way this thing
is 25,000 years old. Humans didn't even begin
smelting iron till about 5,000 years ago. - It shows a lot of detail
if you look at it really close. - You can see the features,
the wrinkles in the face here. Got a very, uh,
very strong nose, doesn't he? - Yes, he does. - This is an interesting feature
right here. This may have been
part of the mold where they poured
the molten iron in. On death masks
that are made of metal, you'll sometimes find
what is called a sprue. <i>Most of the time,
the sprue is taken off</i> <i>and the edges are smoothed.</i> <i>However, the protrusion
on this mask seems</i> <i>way too big to be a sprue.</i> - If we could find out how
old it is or the origin, it'd ease us up a little bit,
you know, 'cause-- it's always--it's always there
on our minds, wondering. Wondering, you know.
- We can run some tests on it. Would you be okay with that? - If there's a way
that you could test a piece of it, that's great. - Well, I've got
the mobile lab with me and there's a few things
I can do to see what we can figure out. - Okay, that's good.
- All right? <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>In the mobile lab,</i> <i>I conducted an alloy test
on this thing</i> <i>to confirm
what I already suspected.</i> <i>This thing is iron.</i> <i>Then I used a microscope
that actually attaches</i> <i>to the camera on my phone,
so I can get a better look</i> <i>at the craftsmanship
of this thing.</i> <i>And that's when I found
something interesting</i> <i>about what I had thought
was the sprue.</i> <i>Something that tells me
when this thing was made</i> <i>and where it came from.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> - Hi, Blue.
- Hey, Priscilla and Charles. - Anything to tell us? - I do have some answers
for you. So I conducted a test.
It's mostly iron. Now Kentucky had an iron boom
during the 19th century. In fact, by 1830,
Kentucky was number 3 for iron production
in the country. Death masks in the United States
became more popular during the 19th century. Coal mining in Kentucky
begins in the 1820s. I would submit that this mask is
deposited between 1820 and 1930, when your father comes into
contact with this thing. - This is completely different
than what we were thinking. I was just expecting-- hoping that it would be
older than 1800s. - I've gotta go where
the science and the research take me. And there's no evidence
suggesting that this thing
is pre-Columbian or ancient. What you may have here
is possibly a miner who died. - Mm-hmm.
- Some horrible accident. And a couple of his buddies
make a death mask, or maybe the family
makes a death mask, and then they leave it
in the mine he worked in. Actually, I think the coolest
thing to note about your mask, is what we thought
may have been the sprue. - Yeah.
- When you handed it to me this morning, it was a little
dark in that coal mine. I had a little trouble
seeing it. But when we brought it
in the light, I wanna point something out
to y'all. Take a look at this.
You notice this indentation? - Mm-hmm.
- I think what you have is not only a death mask...
- Somebody killed him with it. - But you have the mortal wound. This right here is
the indentation in the head. This person was impaled through
the head with something. Now I can only guess
what that may be. Maybe somebody stuck him
in the head with a pick, but you can clearly see,
there's no symmetry here. All right,
this side of the head looks completely different
from this side. And this piece right here
was actually formed and molded around the actual
thing that killed him. Between 1900 and 1910,
there was an average of 2,000 coal mining deaths
a year. Those numbers only declined
in 1919 <i>with the introduction
of the modern hardhat.</i> Further research
might tell us who this is. I know y'all said earlier that,
you know, your father worked
in a bunch of different mines, but do you happen to have
the list of places he worked, just for something
that we could, you know, kinda get the ball rolling?
- Not to my recollection. - No, we'd have to--
we'd have to check on that. No, I don't know that. - In order to give them
more information on who this mask belonged to, I'ma need to know exactly
where their father found this. - At least we know now.
- Right. - More than what we had knew
before we come down here. - I really wanna help
Priscilla and Charles. I'm not gonna stop
working on this until I can figure out
exactly who this person is. <i>If you have
any additional information</i> <i>about this artifact,
contact us at:</i> <i>[upbeat rock music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> - This stone is very important
to me and my family. It's just something
that I've been intrigued with my whole life
and spent a lot of time trying to investigate it. <i>♪ ♪</i> There it comes. And there it is. - Wow.
- Tiny little thing. - That's much smaller
than I thought. <i>- What I'd like to figure out</i> is maybe some detail about
the stone, where it came from, how old it is. I know there's some
very intriguing symbols on the front and the back, <i>so finding the history of that
would be exciting.</i> - Let's go back into the who,
what, why, where, when, how of this piece. - It was an artifact
of my grandfather's. And he was a missionary
in South Dakota. He collected a lot
of different artifacts and arrowheads and things that the Indians had
way back when, but nobody really knew
exactly where he got it and after he passed,
it came down to me. - How old do you think this is? - My grandfather got it while he was just starting
his ministry, which would be somewhere
in the early 1900s. - So you would say
that the age of this known in your family,
100 years? - At least. At least.
- That's exceptional. - I remember
the first time I saw it. It just kinda popped out at me
and it never left my brain. It made a big impact
on me as a child. At first, I was thinking
it was Native American, but then I sent it
to certain experts and they were telling me
it was a scarab stone, which is Egyptian. So that intrigued me
even more, and that's what led me
to find out about you and see what you thought.
- Excellent. Scarab stones were used
quite frequently in Egyptian jewelry,
representing the scarab beetle, <i>which was revered for
its life and death connections.</i> <i>Scarab beetles push these piles
of dung along</i> <i>and when they're ready,</i> they put their eggs
inside the dung. Now we have this pile
of death on the outside with life on the inside, and
that's what the Egyptians see: life after death. Scarab stones are pretty
amazing, you know, and I think that they represent some of the most elite
of the Egyptians. This is really starting
to jump out at me. What's on the back there? - Well, that is the most
intriguing thing to me, because the front just resembles what a lot of scarab stones
look like, especially in costume jewelry. But then when you flip it over,
the symbol on the back is so intriguing--almost seems
as if somebody was trying to code the symbol in a way that you'd have to
unravel the code to find the symbol
in its entirety. - And you think
you've unraveled the code? <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>- I can really appreciate
the fact</i> <i>that Matt and his family</i> have kept protected this
artifact for almost 100 years. And it's about time
they get some answers. <i>♪ ♪</i> - If almost seems as if somebody
was trying to code the symbol in a way that you'd have to
unravel the code to find the symbol
in its entirety. - And you think
you've unraveled the code? - You got the symbol on the back that looks like
that backwards E. - Okay.
- With the A imposed over it. - Yes.
- But then, if you open up the symbol
like a book... - Mm. Oh, wow. - And then you bring that
back down and all the way over, you start to see
an emerging pattern. And we extend the lines here...
- Right. - And this symbol here begins to show itself. It is the symbol known
as the Star of David. - Hmm. Clever.
I find that very clever. How long
were you sitting on this? - Well, you know, it just
started popping out to me, the more I studied it. One of my theories
about this stone is that it holds
some of the characteristics that's described
in King Solomon's ring. The ring of King Solomon was
supposed to have that symbol of the Star of David
somewhere. - Matt has two theories.
One, this is Egyptian, and number two,
that it's a specific ring tied to King Solomon
from the Bible. <i>We're talking 1,000 BC
for King Solomon.</i> Seems like a long shot. And you know
what I've also noticed is, see some of
these shell fractures. - Yeah, it almost looks like
it was fastened to something at those points--that's
the perfect size for a ring. - You know,
that's a great point there. So I think we should look
at that symbol a little bit, and I think we look
at some of the beetle design. - Oh, that'll be fantastic,
yeah. I can't wait. - The best thing that I can do is go from my eyes
to technology. So what I'm thinking is, we're gonna use
a digital microscope. I think that we can get about
10-15x in, you know, magnification. And what I'm most interested
in is going to be, obviously, the mark in the back. I really wanna look at these
little grooves on the side. Because there are so many,
and they're so uniform, and judging how smooth this is, I think they play
a role in this. - I think so too. <i>♪ ♪</i> - Once I put that underneath,
a lot of facts came out. Through my first rough analysis, I was convinced that perhaps we had something
a little bit older, but when I'm looking
at some of these marks that are on here,
these are machine-made. - Oh, okay. - When we find
hand-carved materials, what we find are
little nicks and cuts. It's not so smooth. So seeing that this is
machine-tooled, this is modern. Although I enjoy your ability
to think outside the box, I don't think that this
is gonna be related all the way back to Solomon. So my next question is, who made this and why? Matt, have you ever heard
of Egyptomania? - No, I haven't.
- In the '20s, a very famous archeologist,
Howard Carter, <i>found King Tut in
the Valley of the Kings.</i> <i>- Oh, all right.</i> <i>- And after Tut was found,</i> <i>there was this huge surge
of anything Egypt</i> <i>coming to the States.</i> <i>- Oh, okay.</i> - You have jewelry,
you have sphinx, you have small pyramids,
you have papyr-- you have it all.
And the idea was, it's just sort of
this resurgent Egyptian phase. So Egyptomania's something
that we feel when we see pieces like that,
this real interest in Egypt. This mark on the bottom, jewelers put their mark
on there. And I'm thinking that
this is a name of someone. - Oh, interesting.
That makes sense. - So the--the hard line
of it is, is it real?
I sadly have to tell you no. Is it still an amazing piece
that highlights the influence of Egypt in
the United States and the world? Absolutely. But even more
important, to me, is the connection between
you and your grandfather. - I'm a little disappointed
as far as, uh, what I was hoping or expecting. I'll hold onto the stone
and perhaps even pass it down to someone else and
tie it in with my grandfather <i>and give them the history
of their own family</i> a little bit for the generations
to come down the line. - People may ask,
is this artifact important? For Matt, it's very important. It's our job to figure out
what it is, to give answers to the questions
people have about their stuff. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>[upbeat rock music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>- We had all sorts of artifacts
sent to us,</i> but this is the first time
we've received a machete. - I love a mystery,
and I'll tell you what, there are mysteries all around
the country. People like you and me who have
artifacts-- they don't know
where they came from. They don't know how old
they are, but the bottom line is,
we're able to give them answers. - Hey, bud.
- Hey, what's up? - Debra. She thinks that
this may be associated with Ponce de León.
- This machete. Okay. - The conquistador
from the 1500s, yes. [laughter] <i>If you tell
a Florida archeologist</i> that you have Ponce de León's
anything, you've got my attention. - Juan Ponce de León
of the Fountain of Youth. - Hey, just 'cause you say it
like that doesn't make you classier
than me. - Yeah, you're the guy
with the knife. - I'd say it's a bit a stretch. She also mentioned a guy named
J. Francis LeBaron, who was an Army Corps of
Engineers surveyor in the 1880s. - Okay. - She thinks that those may be
his initials on it. - Yeah, looks like J, L... - Only I'm thinking somebody
has, you know, put their initials
on their working tool. - Yeah. They're sort of obscured
by some corrosion there. - I think there's a few things
we could do with this. Obviously, we can XRF the blade and see what kind of material
this is made of. - Let's get a C-14 date
on the handle. - Awesome, yeah. Let's see if
we can figure this thing out. <i>♪ ♪</i> Morning, Debra, this is
Blue Nelson. How you doin'? <i>- Good. How are you?</i> - I'm doing well. Hey, listen, we got
the machete you sent us, and I was wondering, could
you tell me a little bit more about this thing, like,
you know, how you found it? <i>- I found that machete
in December of 2014.</i> <i>I went to Florida
to visit my family,</i> <i>and we decided to book
a fossil-hunting expedition</i> <i>on the Peace River.</i> <i>We're paddling down
for, like, 15 minutes</i> <i>and right
as we're pulling over,</i> <i>I look and I see the machete,
and I went, "Oh, that's cool."</i> <i>And I said,
"Hey, can I have this?"</i> <i>And he's like, "Sure."</i> - So you picked it up
and took it home with you? <i>- I did. I showed it
to a couple people,</i> <i>and we kind of thought maybe</i> <i>it had a connection
to Ponce de León.</i> <i>On the other side of the handle
of this machete</i> <i>were the initials J.L.</i> <i>Some of us were thinking,
what if John LaBaron found</i> <i>this old machete
that was somehow left</i> <i>during the Ponce de León time?</i> - Are you insinuating
that this was maybe a machete
that's Ponce de León's, that it was lost,
found by J. LaBaron, and then he carved
his initials onto it? <i>- I have no idea,</i> <i>and that's why
I reached out to you.</i> <i>I want the answer,</i> <i>and I figured you could help me
figure it out.</i> - There's a few tests I'd like
to run on this thing, and I'll give you a call back when I got some answers,
all right? <i>- Thank you very much.</i>
- Thank you so much. - I don't think the machete was
part of Ponce de León's arsenal, but he was in Florida
in the early 1500s. As a Floridian,
if there's an artifact that's related to Ponce,
I'm into it. - J. Francis LaBaron does have
the initials J.L. Does this machete belong to him? Only the research
is gonna tell me that. <i>♪ ♪</i> - This woman was
on a fossil-hunting tour on the Peace River. What she walked away with
was this machete. <i>♪ ♪</i> - Good morning, Debra.
How you doin'? <i>- Good. How are you today?</i> - We've run some tests
on your machete. And we got you some answers.<i>
- Great.</i> - As you know, the machete
had a wooden handle. And interestingly enough,
the date's pretty old. 170 years.<i>
- Whoa!</i> <i>I knew it was old!</i> - But...[laughs] 170 years, that's gonna rule out
Ponce de León. <i>- Right, right.</i> - Now what it does, though, do
is it puts us in the range
of John Francis LaBaron. - But we happen to know that
the Army Corps Of Engineers were not using machetes
back then. - So, unfortunately,
that does eliminate, also John Francis LaBaron. - The U.S. military didn't adopt
it until 1909 after
the American-Philippine war. <i>After seeing how effective
a weapon the machete was</i> <i>for the Filipino army during
their war for independence,</i> the United States army decided
to give 'em a try. - We actually found
the manufacturer of that very machete. It's a company out of Brazil
called Tramontina, <i>and they're still manufacturing
machetes that look</i> <i>absolutely identical
to the one you found.</i> It's a 14-inch blade, and you can buy it
for 15 bucks on Amazon. The bottom line is,
the handle from the machete came from a tree that died
a long time ago, but the machete itself
wasn't manufactured until the 20th century. <i>- Now we know!</i> - Now we know. Well, Debra, thank you so much for sending your artifact in
and sharing your story. <i>- You're very welcome.</i> <i>Thank you for getting to the
bottom of my machete mystery.</i> - It was our pleasure. - Just raining on parades. Dude.
[laughter] <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>[upbeat rock music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>- The piece was very
important to my mother,</i> and it's very important
to my brothers and I. And we really would just
like to find out what it is. It's just always been this
mystery in my family. <i>♪ ♪</i> - You played "Oregon Trail"
when you were a kid, right? - Yes, I played "Oregon Trail"
when I was a kid. That was my jam. - You were, like,
good at that game? Like, I don't know anybody that
was actually good at that game. Everyone played "Oregon Trail"
as a kid, and everyone died of dysentery
as a kid. So--and anybody who says
they didn't is a liar. <i>[electronic tones]</i> - There's the "Oregon Trail"
game, and then there's the real thing: a brutal, 2,000-mile trail that pioneers used to travel
west in the mid-1800s. It's known as the nation's
biggest graveyard, because one out of every ten
travelers died along the trail. <i>♪ ♪</i> - So you mind if we take a look
at that artifact? - You certainly can. - Ooh. - That's smaller than
I thought it would be. - Yeah, it's heavy, though. <i>♪ ♪</i> - My brother talked
to my grandfather, and he said that it was found
along the Oregon Trail. It was passed from mother
to the oldest daughter for about six generations. - Oh, wow.
- That's super cool. - I can definitely see a lion
in the face and a wolf in the tail. What do you think
about the material? - I don't know.
Looks like it could be maybe a bronze. There's some color here.
- Mm-hmm. - Maybe some sort of paint. - My great-grandfather,
back in the 1950s, had a photograph taken, and he scraped a little
bit off of the back and sent that to
the Smithsonian. - What did they say? - My family has been told that the piece is about
4,000 to 5,000 years old. - When Leah said 4,000 to 5,000
years old, my gut said "probably not." But the Bronze Age in China
was 4,000 years ago, so if this little thing
is bronze, <i>we kind of have a chance.</i> - So you said 4,000 or 5,000
years old. I'm not sure,
but this being found 160-some odd years ago around the 1850s sometime-- actually, that timeline lines up
really nicely with the Chinese immigrants
that were coming over basically during the Gold Rush. - And what about this
writing on the bottom? - When my brother
was looking into it, he actually took pictures of
that and put it on the Internet, and he had a response from
a gentleman in Colorado. He said it was ancient Chinese. He thought that one word
said "land" <i>and another word said "ruler."</i> - Well, I think
they're probably right. This is definitely
Chinese characters. Chinese was basically
the Latin of East Asia. And so if you were
an educated person, you knew how to read and write
in this ancient Chinese style. Looks there are four
characters on here. One, two, three, and four. And then this piece--
the third character, actually-- swirls around and goes around the bottom character
right there. And it's kind of a really unique
way to write that character. I've seen things
like this before, and my first reflex is to say that this is what the Japanese
call a "hanko," or a chop-- which is basically a signature,
a name stamp. <i>I lived in Japan
for about a year,</i> and until I got my hanko, I couldn't do anything. I couldn't open a bank account. I couldn't get paid. My whole life was really tied
to this little stamp. If I want to sign
an official document, I have to have my hanko. Often, they don't even give you
a pen to sign something. They just provide a little
black pad so you can use your hanko
on the document. It's really, really tied up
to your personal identity. It's like a Social Security
number. <i>I think we can safely say
that this was</i> <i>not native to North America.</i> I don't think it's a lion,
and I don't think it's a wolf. I think it's actually
a fictitious animal called a komainu. <i>♪ ♪</i> Komainu are these
mystical animals. They serve as temple guardians, <i>so you always
see them in pairs.</i> <i>Usually, one is male
and one is female.</i> <i>One has their mouth open;
one has their mouth closed.</i> <i>And this is to show
the sound "om,"</i> which is the sound that's made
during many people's meditation. There's a lot of significance
for the komainu in East Asia. I've never actually seen
one standing like this. <i>That's another reason why this
is such an unusual piece.</i> <i>I'm still super confident
that this is a hanko--</i> <i>that this is a stamp.</i> - I'm really interested in
seeing what type of metal it's made from. We have a mobile app, and we have an XRF gun, and I can use that to figure out what types of metal
make this up. - The closer we get
to the modern ages, the more pure metals get. - I'm not exactly sure
what this thing is made of, but it reminds me of a brass
or a bronze. - The Bronze Age in China
started around 4,000 years ago, and back then, the bronze
was really impure. So you can sort of think of it
like dirty bronze. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>If Leonard's test picks up
some impurities,</i> <i>then there's a chance that
this could actually be</i> <i>an ancient artifact.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> - I'm no
- Leah has this super cool
little lion statue <i>that one of her ancestors found
on the Oregon Trail.</i> <i>We're gonna actually use
the XRF gun in the field</i> <i>to try to figure out
what the material is</i> <i>that this thing is made of.</i> - Right away, Lily thought
this thing was a hanko, which is like a stamp of sorts that people might use to make
a document more official <i>or to stamp their name.</i> <i>- This hanko has Chinese
lettering on it.</i> The hanko itself might actually
not be thousands of years old, but the way that the script
is written certainly could be evocative
of the way script was written thousands of years ago. <i>♪ ♪</i> - Find out anything?
- Yeah. - It's mostly copper and tin, which means that it's bronze,
like I initially thought. While it's great to know
that this is bronze, we know that this mixture of
metals was used centuries ago and still used today. <i>So there's no way
to really know</i> <i>if this is 4,000
to 5,000 years old</i> <i>like Leah said that
the Smithsonian thought.</i> <i>Because she doesn't
have any documentation</i> of the tests that they ran, we've got to go with
what we've learned, which is that there's no way
to definitively date this. It's hard for us to know
exactly how old it is and when it was cast. - I don't want to discourage
you from thinking that this, in fact,
potentially older than the 160 years that
it's been in your family. The back of this, obviously,
is more corroded than the front, which makes me think
that it has been lying in the ground somewhere. But if, before that time,
it was well taken care of, there is a chance that it is
significantly older than 160 years. - Based on what was going on in this area at the time
that it was found, it makes sense that
it could be a hanko. There were railroads
going in all over to support the expansion from
the east to the west, and Chinese laborers had made
their way here to help build it. - This could have been
an heirloom for someone, just like it's become
an heirloom for Leah. Personally, I think this hanko
could be really old. So Leah should be happy
about that. <i>♪ ♪</i> - I think one of the greatest
things about what we figured out was that this was a part
of somebody's everyday life <i>and probably held it really
closely to them.</i> This was a really personal
item for someone. And now it's part of your family
for generations. And that's a good story
to hold onto. - I will definitely keep it in
my family, pass it down. This has been passed
so many generations, and I have a daughter, so there's no reason not to. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>- If you have any
additional information</i> <i>about this artifact,
contact us</i> <i>at history.com/found.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>- Just was walking down
the river this summer,</i> and there was a round
rock-looking thing. Made me say,
"That seems strange," and I reached over
and picked it up. For about a three-mile stretch,
I kept finding these artifacts. I feel like they fell
off a ship somehow, or, you know--way back when. <i>♪ ♪</i> - I'm gonna be honest with you. I don't make it a habit
of meeting strange fellas in back alleys. - [laughs] Yeah, this is
a little sketchy. - So what are we doing here? - This is where I found
the artifacts-- right down here. <i>♪ ♪</i> Right now, the water's
really high, but this summer, it was way out, like 20, 30 feet out. It was so dry. <i>♪ ♪</i> - Oh, wow. These are kind of neat-looking. - Pulled it out the mud
like that, and it looked like a muffin. - And there was a bran muffin.
[laughing] - This one here was--
it was down in the mud. - Uh-huh.
- And just that part was sticking up out of-- - And this is the part that
would've been exposed, so, you know, it gathered algae. - Yup.
- And got the discoloration. I mean, they kind of look
like they might be some sort of a bottle top or an enclosure of some sort, maybe for a jug or a jar
or something. I would suggest that these
are possibly late 19th century, even early 20th century. I'm noticing on top
of these artifacts there's a cross groove
in at least two of them. Almost is like a champagne
bottle where'd you have a wire latch over it. Did you find any other artifacts
in relation to these? 'Cause for an archaeologist,
context is everything. - Yeah, further out in
the river, about 30 feet, there was about a 30-foot beam, about a foot and a half square with holes in it
every five feet-- three-inch holes. - That certainly
sounds man-made. - I'm hoping it's a shipwreck,
to tell you the truth. There's been a lot of
shipwrecks, you know, in this area. In Groveland, Mass, which isn't
too far from here, there's a pirate ship that
came up way back when. When I'm thinking shipwrecks,
I'm thinking treasure. And there could be something
like that out there. You never know. - This guy named Gary--
the su he's got some artifacts
that he found on the Merrimack River
in Massachusetts. My initial impression
of these things is, it's some sort of stopper
or a top for a bottle or jar. <i>The truth is, these things
could be associated</i> <i>with a shipwreck.</i> Missing ships are for sure
out there. In 2003, wreck hunters
found "Black Sam" Bellamy's <i>pirate ship, the Whydah,</i> <i>here in Massachusetts.</i> <i>Well, he had 50 ships.</i> So those others are still
out there somewhere. <i>♪ ♪</i> I do want to temper
your expectations. You know, it could have been a,
you know, an old bridge or a pile-in. <i>- Hopefully, Blue can find out
what they are</i> and where they came from and give me some more
information on them. That would be really great. <i>- I'd love to be able
to tell Gary</i> <i>what it is he found.</i> And if we were able to find
a shipwreck, that'd be a first for me. Well, let me ask you this. It may require bringing in
a maritime archaeologist. You know, is there, like,
a boat launch or a boat ramp that we'd be able
to launch from? - There is one. There's one downriver
about a mile that way. <i>- If these things are
associated with a shipwreck,</i> <i>the only way to tell
is to get back out there.</i> And I'm not going alone. I'ma need a wingman. <i>♪ ♪</i> How's it feel to finally get
your backside out of the office? - There's no way in hell
I was gonna let you have all the fun on your own. This maritime job--
this is in my wheelhouse. In addition to running the lab,
my other expertise is in underwater archaeology. I've been to the "Titanic"
with James Cameron. I've studied pirate ships. And I'll tell you,
nothing gets me more excited than when somebody thinks
they've found a shipwreck. I mean, I want to find something
as bad as Gary does. You know that this area's been
settled since the mid-1600s? You know, I don't think
these ceramic corks-- they date, really, much beyond
the 19th century, but there's been ships
plying these waters for several hundred years. So there's definitely
wrecks out there. Technology is making it easier to find shipwrecks. In fact, in 2011, Captain Morgan, the rum guy-- his ship was found. Surveys are pretty complicated. So we've invited a team of guys
to help us out. Hey, good morning, gentlemen.
- Hey, guys. - When we got down here
this morning, we discovered that conditions
were actually a lot worse than we expected. - There's still a lot of ice
under the water. That's the tricky part, 'cause
that truck with the trailer's gonna slide right back. So I think we'll use the search vehicle...
- Okay. - With the winch
and the hook on it. Just in case we need it, we can
hook it up to the frame... - Yeah, sure.
- And pull the whole rig out of the water.
- Sure. - Slides back. <i>♪ ♪</i> - All right, Arbie. Let's do this, man. <i>♪ ♪</i> There've been approximately 3,000 shipwrecks along
the Merrimack. <i>We found two that were
unaccounted for.</i> <i>One of 'em belonged
to the Groveland Sea Scouts,</i> which is kind of like
a maritime Boy Scouts. That ship went down in 1936. <i>The other one was essentially
a floating lighthouse.</i> <i>It was about 100 feet long,</i> <i>and it went down
in the late 1800s.</i> - Finding either one
of these ships would solve what has become sort
of little historical mysteries in the area. From what I know about Gary, I think he'd be happy with that. I think he'd probably
also be happy if we found a pirate ship
with treasure. <i>What we're doing
is an underwater</i> <i>archaeological survey.</i> <i>And the equipment
we're using today</i> is known as an AUV. That's an Autonomous
Underwater Vehicle. Let's put her in. All right, Big Red,
find us a big wreck. <i>♪ ♪</i> Gary showed Blue exactly where
he found his artifacts. So our survey is gonna be
in that location, just off the bank. We're gonna run a 600-foot
survey area <i>from end to end.</i> We're coming into
the survey area here. <i>Ships have iron.</i> <i>It's one of the best ways
to detect a shipwreck.</i> <i>The AUV has three types
of remote sensing.</i> It'll show us metal objects,
where those are located. <i>It'll also show us if there's
any hull structure</i> or if there's any
sunken vessels out there. We will see them. And we will also get
a nice topography of the riverbed,
basically a contour <i>of exactly what
the river looks like.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> Here is the gold. So why don't we get that
up and processed and see if we got a shipwreck. - That sounds good, man.
- All right, thank you, sir. - I'm hoping Blue and his team find something really great,
like a shipwreck out there, and that would be way cool. - He<i>
- Blue and I are here
at the Merrimack River.</i> Blue met a local named Gary, and Gary found these very weird,
little ceramic corks. <i>Essentially, we looked at 'em.</i> We determined that, you know,
maybe these things came off a shipwreck. Why don't we get that
up and processed, and see if we got a shipwreck? - That sounds good, man. <i>♪ ♪</i> I'm so excited for Gary. To have stumbled
across artifacts that may be associated
with a shipwreck-- that's incredible. This story reminds me of why
I got into archaeology in the first place: to connect
with people from the past and the present through
these awesome artifacts. - Gary, can you show us exactly
where you found the stone corks? - Yup, right in this area
right there. - Just right on the riverbank? - Yeah, right on the bank, yup. - Start with the mag. The mag--magnetometer
will detect what are known as
magnetic anomalies that are under the water, typically objects that
comprise ferrous metal and iron, so you can see
pretty clearly where iron was detected. You see the red. It might be anchor;
it might be a single object-- an outboard engine. But it does not look consistent with what a 19th- or
20th-century shipwreck might yield. Why don't we look
at the side scan, see what that's got? The AUV, as it's moving along,
is sending sonar out two directions. And so we're seeing
to the left and to the right of the vehicle. - There's a circular
object here. It's actually a tire. You can zoom in on that. - A lot of tires are used
out here as mooring anchors. Hey, stop for a second. What have we got going here? That's a--that's a hell
of a feature. Wow. There's this concentration
of material up here. Look at that. We're seeing all kinds
of debris. There's, like, tires. There's trees. But then as it scrolls over,
bang! It's, like, there it is. And it has the shape of a--
of a hull. That's about five meters long, 16 1/2 feet.
- Very cool. - This is--this is exactly
where Gary had pointed. - That's definitely man-made. - Well, it's promising. - I'm not saying we got
a shipwreck here, guys, but we may have a shipwreck.
- We may have one. [laughing] That would be great.
- That's awesome. - Mike hasn't been out
of the lab in, like, 50 years or more. He comes out, boom.
Shipwreck. Congratulations, Gary.
- Excellent. You may have found a shipwreck.
- Thank you very much. I'm very excited. I hope--
- Me too. - Bottom line is,
I would be very surprised if the artifacts you found
on the bank there aren't in some way related
to what we're seeing in the survey data. <i>♪ ♪</i> The way this all played out is great, you know. Gary's wandering the banks. He finds a couple of corks. He brings 'em to us. <i>The next thing you know,</i> <i>we might have a shipwreck.</i> - In order to do a larger
underwater investigation, we're gonna have to go through
the permitting process. We're gonna have to wait
for the water to warm up, <i>and we're gonna see where
these little corks take us.</i> - Maybe it's the missing
light ship or the Sea Scout boat-- or something more. We got to hang tight for now. - In the meantime, Mike and I have some info on the corks
that Gary found. - While Blue and I
were out here, the rest of the team
was drilling in to the archives and the research <i>to try and figure out what
these these actually were.</i> - What's up, guys?
- Hey, what's up, partner? - What?
- Well, what do you think, Gary? Quite a day.
- Psyched. - I've got some good news
for you, Gary. - These are ceramic. And these were actually
bottle-stoppers on these large, glass carboys.
- Yeah? - Which were essentially
a big, glass jug-- about a five-gallon glass jug. These date back to about the
late 19th, early 20th century. - These carboys were used
to contain nitric acid, and the nitric acid
was so caustic, it actually ended up
dissolving-- degrading the stoppers
to the point that they're actually known to have caused a number
of fires, including fires on boats. - Wow. - It got so bad to the point that the government
got involved. - Wow.
- In 1917, we actually found a document issued by
the Department of Explosives. - Wow.
- Who knew we had one of those, right? - I didn't even know
that was a thing. - Wow, interesting. - But we have a lot
more research to do before we can even determine whether these were related to a shipwreck or not.
- Yup. - So you may be seeing us again, if that's all right with you.
- That would be great. I'd be--love to see
you guys again. - If we dive, and we
find a wreck... - Yeah.
- And we find stoppers on the wreck--
- Then we know. If it is a shipwreck, and I'm a part of it, I--it would be just
unbelievable for me-- totally unbelievable. - It's hard to walk away
at this point. - I don't think we've
seen the end of this. <i>♪ ♪</i>
