Japan's Lost ATLANTIS | Monty Hall's Dive Mysteries | Episode 2 | Reel Truth Earth

I'm Monty halls I'm on a mission to solve some of the greatest mysteries in the world of diamonds from the deadliest dive site on earth to missing treasure in an African lake from Japan's lost Atlantis to the most perfectly preserved wrecked I've ever seen this is deep and dangerous diving that will push me to my very limits this time I'm in Japan in 1986 a local diver on this remote Japanese island made a discovery that filled him with all and stunned the academic world not ki other students since my own I've never seen anything under the waterline a before ever over some of the most staggering and perilous dives of my career I'm going to investigate a discovery that could rewrite the history bonus is this Japan's Atlantis every so often an archaeological site of such importance is found around the world that it revolutionizes our understanding of ancient man how would it feel to discover a lost civilization like Petra will match a pitch to the lost city of the Incas I've traveled to the southwestern tip of the Japanese archipelago to meet a man who claims to have done just that at the bottom of the sea Yonaguni is the westernmost of japan's riyuku islands at ten kilometers long it's home to just a few thousand inhabitants it was off these shores that in 1986 a local diver made his life-changing discovery I've just come to meet our guide it's named sister aratake and here's the man who first laid eyes on this structure and indeed in his own right is something of a local diving legend [Music] mr. aratake is a hugely experienced diver but nothing could have prepared him for the sight of a vast stone monument rising towards him from the deep our attack assign you've dived the monument a hundreds of times thousands of times but do you still remember the moment when you first saw it so no titanius nation okay the move pointers are acceptable oh hi Jenny much petunia nice akiva mythic status so they're more may not carry your dad still in the sky now the only other one is running much pretty Mary Shakira doing it is no I believe as much the first photos of mr. arrow takis discovery were met with astonishment across the archaeological world it covers 40,000 square meters and stands 26 metres tall just who could have built such an impressive structure and what is it doing here on the seabed there like one guy and one thing some other day he movie I've ever got matter which you know Hansen see can you not tell this man meat-eater I got a bar where the hunt and you see get up do whatever work I love them yeah I can't wait for that moment I can't wait to see it I brought my dive team to investigate mr. era takis claims he's agreed to captain our expedition boats and we're wasting no time in leaving ports and making the three kilometer journey out along the southeastern coast of the island but one thing you hear people say again and again and again is that first sight of it just blows your mind the first sight of it is a moment you never forget for the rest of your life although conditions look good on the surface this is a notoriously difficult site to explore that's why I've recruited a team of elite divers to help with the investigation will be supervised by one of Britain's most experienced expedition leaders Kevin Gert my support divers are cave and rec specialist and underwater cameraman rich Stephenson X power and safety diver specializing in marine archaeology and eat orbit and our main underwater cameraman Dan Stevens there's always a real Arab anticipation any time you're getting to dive a new site but this is a little bit special it's a little bit different such a mystical site and none of us really know what to expect the island lies at the meeting of the Pacific and the East China Sea at the mercy of competing ocean currents all right we're gonna be dropping in this area here where there's very low current experienced local dive leader Doug Bennett's will be joining my team and he knows just how hard it can be here the curt's gonna pick us up and basically pull us right on top of the on top of the main Monument the guys who need know how much current there is when they're actually sitting on top of the site and where Doug just said looking at the way the surface is moving boiling there is a lot of water movement down there which is one of the big challenges of diving to site and surveying it properly [Music] [Music] as we begin the dive that powerful current is working in our favor pushing us towards the sign school this is an eerie feeling none of us really know what lies ahead then out of the gloom a strange angular structure rising from the seabed as the current draws us closer the true beauty of the architecture here is revealed vast walls steps and platforms it's like entering some magical kingdom [Music] it looks undeniably man-made but who could have created such a magnificent structure and how did it end up here so far the currents been working with us but now we want to explore further and we're having to swim against it we're in danger of being blown off the monument altogether and Dan our cameraman is struggling to hold his shots as we get wrenched from the rock [Music] the current wrapping the monument leg movements with poking Han Jimin through your ass finally with force to let go as we drift away we get one last glimpse of the true scale of what gives every impression of being the ruins of an ancient civilization for all hardened old sea docks but that was truly one of the most magical dives of all our careers the overwhelming impressions how beautiful it is it's staggering I've never seen anything under the water like that before ever was waiting for get you to pop out from behind the rock at any moment I really wanted a fish on the end of adrenaline is pumping amongst my team but we're on a scientific mission here just what is it that we've seen the big problem you face down there is trying to make a cool measured analysis while you're essentially being blown around like a leaf in a storm we've just dived what some people call Japan's Atlantis but can this really be the work of ancient man and if so how did it end up 25 meters deep on the seabed it's every divers dream regardless of how cynical that diver might be to jump into the sea to look down and there before them lies the lost city of Atlantis the myth of a city lost to the waves is in fact common to most ancient cultures in the East the legend of MU tells of a whole continent lost beneath the Pacific Ocean too many atlantis and mu are just a folklore but the stories could be supported by hard science is that 20,000 years ago with the piece of hide to the I say and then the ice melted and as it melted sea level rose studies in ancient sea levels show that the monument would have been flooded by the rising waters 10,000 years ago but that means it must been built 5,000 years before the Egyptians built the pyramids were the ancient people of the island capable of such feats [Music] before we died the structure again I'm going to meet a Japanese professor who's convinced that this is the ruins of a lost city what I don't want to do is just crawl all over it randomly I want really targeted and look for very specific clues as to potential man-made origins and I think it's professor Kimura who can point me in the right direction professor Kimura is an emeritus professor of Earth Science at ryuko University he spent the last 20 years cataloguing and mapping what he's dubbed the Yonaguni monument for you is this the lost civilization of MU well sold out almost deviously technical to you la muchacha de WA how do you know our teacher Lebar so well you're meeting with them right OH what's it are not problem eating with today as well as what appears to be a built gateway leading directly to two huge megaliths the professor shows me postholes wide step terraces and a loop road around the base of the monument when you get this bird's-eye view of the monument through looking at the model here which is a completely invaluable tool for what we're trying to do it does seem fairly compelling that this is man-made this has this the hand of man all over it it's a fantastic place to really start a vivid visual impression of this extraordinary structure the professor's studies seemed to back up my gut feeling that these are ruins but I'm surprised to find in the cold light of day that not all of my team agreed it's isolated there is a lots of straight lines all running in the same directions just looks like it's being worked it just looks like it's been been utilized see I disagree I want to believe I want it to be fully man-made on the immediate greats of revolution in archaeology prehistory if it was however it could also stand well Dean artstor I might find this hard to accept but Andy is our archaeology specialist and he's not alone with this theory since its discovery many experts have argued that the structure is no more than a natural phenomenon we've now got underwater scooters to deal with that ripping current an eclair mission as we head back for our second dive to find out if this is really Japan's Atlantis for just a lump of rock heading back to the site the elements are still against us huge swells have picked up from the Pacific he's been the Lee of the island at the moment let me go around that corner all hell will break loose on this dive deck we're really gonna rock and roll these are atrocious conditions but with limited time on the island we can't miss an opportunity to die it's a real relief to get underwater and straight away the scooters prove their worth as we battle the current to the first of the features described by Professor Kimora to the monument let's have a swim through let's see what we see on the other side it does seem as though we're passing through a distinctly built gateway and on the other side we're confronted by two enormous the megaliths are impressive but each one must weigh hundreds of tons and I can't help wondering why are they here as we move up past these distinctive steps and platforms the features become increasingly architectural it's like some solid rock fortress it's easy to imagine large gatherings taking place here on these wide terraces on the top of the monument [Music] [Music] Andy on the other hand is still wondering if this has been chiseled at all could it really be a natural formation 10 metres or so below us he and Kev are collecting a sample to find out what type of rocket is Dan and I are now 25 meters below sea level at the base of the structure at what professor Kimura calls the loop road we've got just enough air to investigate a few more features could this be a line of wedge holes or quarry marks is this a rudimentary carving of a turtle as some suggest and what appears to be some form of drainage ditch running across the top of the monument with our time running out care view today from his reserve tank to lift the rock sample to the surface at the end of a successful dive this will be a vital clue as to how the structure was created on a formation that is 250 metres wide we've seen a whole raft of what do appear to be man-made features but some experts are convinced man had nothing to do with the Yonaguni monument at all I'm invited a leading geologist and archaeologist to join our expedition he's a professor from Boston University he firmly believes that what we're dealing with here is completely natural professor Robert Schoch is going to look at the sample we've brought up and tell me why the type of rock is so important now look at that what kind of don't say you can you tell me when a sandstone that's a sea the granules that's right that's right this is part of the sandstone series that we have on the island this is a series that has nice bedding planes in fact this is probably a bedding plane right here it weathers in a rows out and nice horizontal layers and it fractures vertically it's difficult to believe that professor shot really thinks this tiny fragment of sandstone proves the monument was formed naturally but just a few hundred meters from the dive site he's determined he can change my mind look at this you see that mm-hmm absolutely natural what we have is the sand stones here and they form the bedding planes are actually standing on a bedding plane nice and horizontal there are fractures nice vertical fractures a sets of fractures at approximately right angles what have you seen underwater you've seen areas like that where the rock between the two little fractures has eroded out and you have nice parallel channels you get this block like features you get step-like features we see it all right here on this surface happening naturally yeah that is striking actually you can see this you're looking at the monument it's a startling twist and it defies everything I believe so far perhaps ancient man really did play no part here at all but when I think back to our dives I can't ignore my gut feeling and the sheer abundance of architectural features professor Kimura agrees he claims to know first certain that man was here when the monument was on land nice almost us in short yeah we follow whatever emotions and we assure muscular war [Music] he tells me of an artifact found deep within the ruins that could only have been hidden by ancient man potentially you're touching something that the hand of man touched last time thousands and thousands of years ago : honestly Greenock dating he much their holy Corleone cross cross taka another so this is unequivocally man isn't it that's the hand of man at last it seems we have tangible evidence of people using the monument when it was on land professor Kimura marine biologist dived all over the world and I have never seen anything in the natural world like that before on a reef on a rock anywhere if we know ancient man was here I wonder if the true origins of the Yana goony monument like between the arguments for it being natural or man-made perhaps the early inhabitants exploited the weaknesses in the sandstone and modified the existing natural rock formation [Music] professor Kimura is convinced that another dive will prove that man did indeed dramatically shape the rock we're all quite excited about this because for what professor mirrors describe this this is hard evidence and I think it could swing all of our opinions we're all balanced right on there on the cusp but thinking it is or it isn't man-made this dive can make all the difference a kilometre past the main monument this natural rock stack known as the standing god Rock is revered by the Islanders to this day professor Kimura claims that at its base lie something truly extraordinary if you see promised by me chief delight in the sense that some of this so dropped me will be remind modifies I just can't wait to see this I really can't wait to see it frustratingly I damage my ear on the last dive and I'm having to sit this one out don't last sending the boys off and I'm not with them descending to the seabed my team heads straight for the entrance of a tunnel burrowing directly through the base of the wrong stack [Music] on the other side they follow a path leading pasture structure very similar to the monument professor Kimura thinks this may have been the approach route for some form of ancient ceremony what would you expect the team to be looking at now so you cut it there mcauliffe meaning some links my own they now cross to an area known as the stage and it's here that the god-like face carved into the corner of the rock confronts them [Music] a mouth and two glaring eyes certainly present an imposing image could it be that this face acted as some guardian God has the Sphinx did to the pyramids Torah so when you know more you understand it may only be a rudimentary carving but these are parent pupils in each I do show symmetry in the detail people is in the center of the eye especially 31 to 175 but back on land I'm surprised to find my team are again questioning if it's been carved at all with the light coming on it in the correct angle it really stands out to be a face if you come down to the other side there's no facial feature recognition whatsoever if it is meant to be this thing's like structure it's half a job it's not funny look at this Sphinx when this thing's actually not very accurate representation of the same but without wishing to play devil's advocate again if the Sphinx was underwater for thousands of years in an area of really high energy yep the Typhoon's that have hit that you can see the surface just above it that energy we really smashed to bits it's intensely frustrating that we just don't seem to be getting any closer to agreement I still think that this could well be the work of ancient man but with any tool marks or other artifacts lost to the waves just seeing a face in the rock really doesn't prove anything but I'm not ready to give up just yet with just a few dives to go we need to take a radical new approach since 1986 when the structure was discovered what's happened here is people have come here and dived this side under statue the face they've died that side no one's really dived in between all this whole stretch of coastline I'm hoping the unexplored seabed between the monuments in the face may help us understand how the ancients view these incredible structures we've dropped in right on top of the main monument and the current immediately pushes us towards the standing god Rock [Music] [Applause] [Music] we'll be drifting gently along the coastline for a kilometer scouring the seabed for clues as we go around me with all that far for the monument but the undersea topography is fundamentally different so gently undulating seabed with read squirrelfish so beautiful but is that nothing Mike the monument before long great swaths of coral give way to a whole new geology a huge boulder field if man was here thousands of years ago the certainly no sign of him now 500 meters on everything changes once again trunks with a network craft almost alleyways and tunnels through them perhaps now we're pushing more into the type of geology that would create the volume of naturally with our air running low we finally begin to enter the familiar landscape of the face and the standing god Rock [Music] we may not have found any more signs of man but for me the dive has confirmed one thing the monuments are and have always been unique the thing that struck me was where 50 meters hundred meters away from the monument here fundamentally different yeah it is it's not like there's a continuous feature just out of interest which to me doesn't necessarily say it's artificial but it says it's stuck out yes this is obviously a massive geological feature will this finally persuade the doubters the ancient man would have been drawn to these features even if he didn't create them right regard to the little the details were kind of picking on a point I'd like to make is something I've found in my stays of very early people around the world is they would work with nature they would recognize incredible natural features and they would use them as you say they would utilize they weren't stupid why create something if there's a perfectly good natural feature there to use and to venerate to whatever they want to do with it [Music] so little is known about the ancient inhabitants of Yonaguni but I'm more convinced than ever that the rock monuments here played a central role in their lives the deeper were drawn into this mystery the more I wonder just how sophisticated these people really were the Fantastic phase you just go wow so striking compared to the rest of the topography around it what do you think I think it would have been a gathering place and a place of importance culturally but the one thing I can't get my head round is if the ancient inhabitants did modify the rock could they really have done so 10,000 years ago 5,000 years before the Egyptians built the pyramids [Music] professor Kimura has a theory that the monument may have been on land much more recently he thinks the answer lies in Japan's notoriously violent tectonic history it's that poor Zola dancing Shino come on up to sit disability that's deep you could stiffness how long ago do you think that happened about two thousand two years ago so 2,000 years ago the the structure the monument was on land and then there was a huge event a violent event and the earth shook and a big chunk of the island broke off and slipped beneath the sea and carried with it the structure and the monument and it's lain beneath the waves ever since it may seem plausible but it is just a theory and as with everything in this enduring mystery the experts don't agree I'm just not finding any evidence of what Professor chimera is hypothesizing happened 2,000 years ago we need to settle this question of when the structure was last on land once and for all and my team has found a limestone cave that might just hold the answer [Music] stalactite these rock structures form only on land if they ever end up underwater they stop growing and are frozen in time and that moment can be dated [Music] there are two underwater cave systems in the bedrock near the monument if they contain stalactites we'll be able to confirm professor Camara's theory is correct and finally put a date on when man could have last used this site but it's a dive that will test our skill and our nerve to the limits to give you an idea of how dangerous this can be we've got a choice of two cave we could have died today we've chosen this one because the other ones still got three dead bodies in it a few years ago three divers entered this cave and didn't come out essentially it's a two so this is something we need to take very very seriously this is our last chance for answers if the cave we're heading to contains stalactite we'll be able to put a date on exactly when the structure sank beneath the waves but this is our most dangerous dive we have no knowledge of the cave system we're heading into communication will be essential between the team if comms fail we need a backup cave-diving expert kefka runs a safety line from the cave entrance if anything goes wrong this will be the difference between the life and death I'm not qualified to dive in such a deadly environment so I'll be acting as safety diver monitoring my team from the cave mouth the cave system turns out to be extensive they reach a chamber and from here several much narrower tunnels branch off in all directions the team explore them one by one they've now penetrated over 100 meters into the cave system [Music] further into the labyrinth of underwater tunnels the squeezes are getting tighter and more treacherous and suddenly they encounter a problem we're now an hour into the dive and have used nearly two-thirds of our air supply but I've no way of knowing when the team will return that safety line is the only sign that they were even here then at last a light in the darkness but what news do they carry with them [Music] they've risked everything but we still can't know for sure when the Yonaguni monuments were lost on land or how they ended up on the bottom of the sea [Music] we came here to see if this tiny remote island really could Harbor Japan's Atlantis what we've discovered is that there is an architectural rock structure and it would have once stood prominently on land I've been desperate to find proof that man builds or at least modified this site long before the dawn of civilization but the truth is any conclusive evidence has been lost to the eroding powers of the ocean when he closed down not on you Jory if we still don't understand what I think is [Music] what seems certain is that the ancient people of the island however sophisticated they were would have lived in or the Yonaguni monument there were people like us they were the same species as us two had his large brains as us they were as intelligent as us the true origins of this site may still elude us but perhaps that is what makes it so special but that you are do the Mr Blair easy and in the end amidst all the uncertainties there isn't one thing I'm sure [Music] whether it's bad made bad modified or natural that would have been a magnet to me hope people would have been your head I pay off today [Music] [Music] you [Music] [Music]

Channel: Banijay Wild

Views: 6,381

Keywords: documentary, full documentary, top documentaries, documentaire, documental, free documentary, animals, nature, naturaleza, facts, nature documentary, discovery, universe, wild life documentary, animal documentary, wild animals, earth, sea, ocean, lost atlantis, atlantis, mystery, lost, city of atlantis, underwater, diving, dive, monty hall, monty hall's dive mysteries, fish, fishing

Id: VKl_nMAtBpE

Length: 44min 48sec (2688 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 13 2020