On this episode of "expedition files..."
The infamous Franklin expedition
charts a path through the punishing arctic,
leading to the disappearance of 129 men.
Now, for the first time, we reveal a shocking new theory
behind their grisly end.
And a young woman travels to Hollywood,
chasing her silver screen dreams.
But it's her gruesome death that lands her the moniker
of the "black Dahlia."
Then, an adventure to find the legendary lost city of z,
hidden deep in the Amazon, ends in tragedy.
But we discover there's so much more to this story
than just a myth.
In the corridors of time
are mysteries that defy explanation.
Now, I'm traveling through history itself
on a search for the truth.
New evidence.
Shocking answers.
I'm Josh gates.
And these
are my "expedition files."
My travels have taken me to 114 countries and counting.
And I've had amazing adventures along the way.
There's nothing quite like the thrill of setting foot
in a foreign land on an expedition into the unknown.
And I'm not alone.
Humans have long been searching for what's just
beyond the horizon, relentlessly adventuring with
exciting and sometimes deadly consequences.
In this episode, we chart the courses of three
of history's most mysterious adventures,
or perhaps that should be misadventures.
For each file, the same question
guides our compass.
What really happened to these brave mavericks?
We begin here on the frigid deck
of the British royal Navy's hms erebus.
Not far behind is her sister ship, the hms terror.
Our position?
Somewhere above the arctic circle in baffin bay,
west of Greenland.
And the temperature is dropping.
It is June of 1845, and the erebus' captain,
sir John Franklin, has just spotted ice.
He's leading an expedition to discover the northwest passage,
a route through the Canadian arctic linking the Atlantic
and pacific oceans that, if found,
would revolutionize global trade.
But they won't find it.
Instead, these two ships will soon be trapped in the ice.
And after reports of bizarre behavior,
all 129 men aboard will vanish in what will become known
as "Franklin's lost expedition."
But now, the cold truth about their fate
may finally be thawing out.
This is captain Franklin's third attempt
to chart the arctic.
He's really hoping third time's the charm
haunted by what happened on his first expedition
to these frigid waters.
During that trip, ignoring native inuit warnings
about scarce game, Franklin lost 11 crew members
to starvation, with the rest surviving on deer bones
and boiled boot leather.
Now known as "the man who ate his boots,"
this time he's come prepared.
With a wealth of food on board,
Franklin is driven to upgrade his nickname
to "the man who found the northwest passage."
Since the end of the 15th century, European explorers
have tried and failed to find the fabled passage,
turned back by a maze of hull-crushing ice
and deadly cold.
John Franklin commands the hms erebus.
In Greek mythology, erebus is the personification of darkness.
The second vessel, the hms terror,
is overseen by second-in-command captain Francis Crozier.
Decades earlier, both vessels served as British warships,
hence their threatening monikers.
Subsequently, they're retrofitted for
polar exploration.
The ships have been outfitted with iron-plated hulls,
reinforced decking, and even central heating.
For emergencies, each has a propeller powered by
a locomotive engine.
But perhaps the greatest innovation of all is this
canned food.
Both ships are stocked with enough canned rations
to help ward off hunger and scurvy for up to three years.
The 129 men aboard know they may need it because.
Franklin's last arctic adventure took exactly that,
three long, torturous years.
After setting sail from the United Kingdom
in may of 1846, no one is alarmed when the summer of 1847
passes without any news from the expedition.
It isn't until the spring of 1848, two years after
the expedition set sail, that British search parties
finally venture into the arctic over land and by sea.
But they find nothing, no trace of Franklin or his men.
Desperate, the admiralty offers a reward
equivalent to nearly $4 million today
to anyone who can find the lost expedition.
Soon, more than a dozen ships join the search.
Finally, in the summer of 1850, a chilling discovery.
On an island deep in the arctic,
searchers uncover the remnants of a winter camp,
with hundreds of empty food cans,
as well as some still unopened, left behind.
But the most haunting find is yet to come.
Three well-marked graves. Two for crewmen of the erebus,
one for a sailor from the terror.
The graves raise big questions.
Why had the men abandoned the warmth and safety
of their ships?
Where were they heading when these three died?
And biggest of all, could the rest of
their comrades still be alive out here somewhere?
With renewed optimism,
a surge of explorers join the search.
But sadly, the trail yet again goes ice cold.
Then in 1854, eight years after the Franklin expedition
first set sail, arctic explorer John rae meets
with inuit people on king William island,
who claim to have seen "kabloonas,"
their word for "white men."
The inuit recount that four winters earlier,
they had seen 40 men towing a lifeboat over the ice,
their leader matching the description of.
Franklin's deputy Francis Crozier.
But this wasn't the end of the inuits' tale.
They also claimed to have found the remains of a camp.
It contained dozens of rotting bodies,
some showing signs of cannibalism,
and no one was still alive.
As proof of their story, the inuit present items
recovered from the camp,
including a medal that belonged to Franklin.
When these reports reach London, the public refuses to believe
the men of the royal Navy would ever commit
the barbaric act of cannibalism.
Instead, opinion turns against the inuit.
They are accused of murdering the sailors
and then lying to hide their crimes.
And so further inuit reports are largely ignored,
even though they may provide the key to unlocking the truth.
Because an inuit family contends
they met Franklin's crew while they were still alive.
They claim a small group of white men staggered
into their camp.
The starving sailors seemed incapable of speech,
staring blankly, clutching worthless possessions.
Fearful of provoking them, the inuit invited
the zombie-like men into their home, offering seal meat.
But the men refused to eat,
even though they were clearly hungry.
The terrified family waited for the cover of night
before slipping away,
leaving behind a supply of food for the men.
But months later, the inuit returned to find
the food uneaten and the white men dead.
And just like in the other inuit report,
the bodies were cannibalized.
Once again, the authorities dismiss
the inuits' accounts of cannibalism.
Meanwhile, John Franklin's widow, Jane,
funds a new mission to save her husband,
or at least his legacy.
For two grueling years, this new crew,
equipped with sleds and dogs,
fight their way through the arctic,
where they make the most crucial discovery
since Franklin vanished.
On the northwest coast of king William island,
the expedition discovers a cairn,
a marker made of stacked stones,
and hidden among these stones, a note.
Sir John Franklin died on the 11th of June, 1847.
Total loss by deaths
nine officers and 15 men,
under the command of captain Francis Crozier.
The news is shocking.
The erebus and the terror have been abandoned after being
trapped by ice for 19 months.
The architect of their journey, sir John Franklin, is dead,
confirmed in writing by his deputy, Francis Crozier.
In total, 24 members of the expedition have perished.
For the next century and a half,
more grisly clues will be found to the south,
where more than two dozen bodies from the Franklin expedition
are found scattered across king William island,
some in shallow graves,
many frozen where they fell.
But nothing explains the expedition's sudden deaths,
divided crews, strange zombie-like behavior,
and why some would travel back to the north
directly away from their only chance of survival.
Had the entire crew gone mad?
Over the years, many theories have been put forward
to explain the crew's deaths, including scurvy,
pneumonia, and tuberculosis.
To explain the crew's bizarre behavior,
many contend that lead poisoning from the sailors' canned food
was to blame.
But then again, many ate canned food in the mid-19th century,
and it didn't cause them to lose their minds
or their lives.
Perhaps the answers to the mystery lie with
the missing ships themselves, hms erebus and terror.
Where exactly did they vanish, and what secrets do they hide?
Recent discoveries may finally reveal all.
In 1845, English ships erebus and terror,
along with 129 men aboard, vanished during
their arctic adventure to find the northwest passage.
But now a recent discovery is changing the course
of this truly chilling mystery.
In 2014, nearly 170 years after it left england,
the erebus is found.
Searchers finally turned to the source they'd been ignoring,
the oral histories of the inuit,
notably one concerning, spoiler alert,
a giant ship trapped in ice.
In the shallow waters off the Canadian mainland,
south of the original search area,
the erebus is finally discovered.
And it wasn't long until researchers had a matching set.
Author Ken mcgoogan has spent over 25 years researching
the Franklin expedition.
Now, with the shipwrecks found exactly
where inuit stories said,
Ken is reexamining these tales as key evidence
of the expedition's final days.
Going right back to the earliest reports,
the inuit described the men trekking along the coast of
king William island
delirious and not making very much sense.
So why were they stumbling and delirious?
I was trying to piece it together,
looking for the root cause.
Ken examined the popular theory that canned supplies had killed
the crew, though perhaps not from the lead lining on
the tins, but rather poisoning of the food itself,
specifically a deadly bacterial toxin called "botulism."
But botulism alone wouldn't explain
the crew's strange behavior.
Ken suspects another culprit altogether.
One native to the arctic.
I think they were killed by polar bears.
Not that they fell victim to an attack
but rather that they ate the polar bears.
They ate the polar bears that were infected with trichinella
and they contracted it themselves.
Gentlemen, a toast,
to the thawing of the ice.
Trichinella, a parasite found in undercooked meat,
causes a deadly disease called trichinosis.
Symptoms can take several weeks to appear as the parasite
incubates, with severe cases leading to delirium
confusion, and even hallucinations.
And without treatment, it can be fatal.
The larvae get into the muscles,
and that's how it begins.
And then they spread, and ultimately,
they do affect the brain
and that to me is the sole explanation.
This could explain how captain Franklin and his men
fell into a terrifying mental state.
What I think happened is that
they panicked because all these men are dying.
So they start trekking along king William island but many of
them are falling more and more sick and dropping down dead,
as a matter of fact.
And at that point, they reached desperation eventually,
and they do resort to cannibalism.
Ken's theory is compelling.
As the crew trek south, unknowingly,
the trichinella parasite is already incubating within them.
Its disease then suddenly flourishes and many become
too weak to continue, while others are driven insane.
Each year, authorities continue their archaeological excavation
of hms erebus and terror,
both still submerged in unforgiving arctic waters.
Perhaps they'll find definitive answers as to the true fate of
John Franklin and his men.
Although they never managed to find the northwest passage,
the courage and sacrifice of their expedition
inspired others to follow in their wake.
And 60 years later, in 1906,
Norwegian explorer, roald amundsen
became the first to successfully navigate a ship
through the northwest passage.
Today, due to the changing climate, these waters
have become ice-free for several months a year,
allowing commercial vessels
and even the occasional cruise ship to pass through.
Franklin would be thrilled.
From an expedition lost in the arctic wilderness
to a tragic crime in the city of dreams.
It is January 9th, 1947,
and I'm here in the shadows of downtown Los Angeles.
22-year-old Elizabeth short has come here on a very different
type of adventure,
an adventure to reinvent herself as a Hollywood star.
That's her in front of the biltmore hotel with
her boyfriend, Robert manley.
She'll become famous, all right, world famous,
but in the most horrifying way imaginable, because six days
from now, Elizabeth will be known by another name,
the "black Dahlia."
This ghastly murder has confounded investigators
for over 75 years.
Now, new evidence may finally reveal the identity
of the depraved killer
and explain how they stayed one step ahead of justice.
Betty bersinger is pushing her three-year-old daughter
down the sidewalk in L.A.'s leimert park when the mother
spots what she believes is a mannequin lying on the grass.
But it is no mannequin.
It is the dismembered body of a woman.
When police detectives arrive,
they discover a crime scene unlike any they've seen before.
A nude woman cut in half
and a smile has been carved into her face,
stretching from ear to ear.
Police have no idea who this woman is
or who's behind her brutal murder.
Analyzing her wounds, the coroner believes the cuts
to the victim's body are so precise, so surgical,
they were likely performed by a doctor.
When detectives send the woman's fingerprints to the FBI
for analysis, they find a match, Elizabeth short.
With Elizabeth's dark hair and propensity for
dark clothing, reporters nickname her the "black Dahlia"
in local newspapers.
And she was seen for the final time with a young salesman
she'd been dating named Robert manley.
Manley tells investigators he has no idea
what happened to Elizabeth.
He says he last saw her when he dropped her off at
the biltmore hotel.
Manley is given several polygraph tests
to verify his story.
He passes all of them and is dropped as a suspect.
Questioning people around the biltmore,
detectives get their first lead in the case.
Good evening, detective brown, LAPD.
Have you seen this lady?
Yeah, yeah, sure I have. Couple nights ago.
She came and used the phone.
They locate a hotel employee who claims he saw Elizabeth
using a lobby phone before exiting the hotel
around 10 P.M.
Thank you, sir.
Another witness then spotted short walking down the street
with a gentleman.
When detectives press the witness about the man seen
with Elizabeth, they can't remember any specific details.
A shame since police believe this mystery man
may have been her killer.
The brutal murder was already among the most disturbing
that law enforcement had ever encountered
but things were about to get even more surreal.
A week after the discovery of short's body
a phone call from someone claiming to be the killer
is placed to the offices of the Los Angeles examiner
newspaper congratulating them on their coverage of the murder.
A few days later a mysterious package will arrive,
and the contents could crack the case wide open.
A note on the package reads, "here is Dahlia's belongings,
letter to follow."
Inside, reporters find short's birth certificate,
photographs, and an address book with the name
Mark Hansen on the cover.
For the police, this is a gold mine of potential evidence.
Detectives are confident the letter was sent
by short's killer.
They dust the package for fingerprints,
but nothing usable is recovered.
Police believe this Mark Hansen character
could be the key to solving the case.
Investigators question Elizabeth's roommate,
Ann toth, about Mark Hansen.
He owns the nightclub at the biltmore.
They discover he is a wealthy Hollywood nightclub owner.
Toth reveals short stayed with Hansen for a few nights
in the months leading up to her killing.
She also informs detectives that Elizabeth had rejected.
Hansen's romantic advances.
Detectives question Hansen about his relationship
with Elizabeth.
Mark denies he was attracted to short
and claims to have offered her a room in his home
simply because she needed a place to stay.
Mark also claims short stole the address book
from his residence.
I got nothing to do with it.
In time, detectives clear Mark Hansen
as a potential suspect.
Over the next 52 years, hundreds of individuals
would confess to killing Elizabeth short.
But the LAPD decides none of these confessions are credible.
Then, in 1999, a former Los Angeles police detective
discovers something that turns this case
and his world upside down.
For over 50 years, the savage killer behind
the notorious 1947 black Dahlia murder eluded police.
But in 1999, retired LAPD detective Steve hodel
is sifting through his father's belongings
when he uncovers something unusual, a photograph of a woman
who looks like the black Dahlia herself, Elizabeth short.
Steve hodel's father is George hodel,
a prominent Los Angeles physician.
When Steve was a boy, the hodels lived
in the sowden house in the hills above Hollywood,
designed by frank Lloyd Wright to resemble a Maya temple.
At this stage in his life, his father was on his third
marriage and had five children.
His first wife had been common law,
and his second wife had never officially divorced him.
George was not one to follow the constraints of
conventional society.
Steve's early childhood was filled with memories of
his parents' wild parties,
attended by Hollywood actors and actresses.
And why would his father have a photograph of L.A.'s most
notorious murder victim?
Relying on his decades as a detective,
Steve digs deeper into his father's past
to see if George had any connection to the black Dahlia.
He becomes intrigued when he reads that the police
theorized short's vicious injuries
likely came at the hands of a doctor.
Steve's father, George, was a doctor
who had performed numerous surgeries
during his early career.
And hodel's medical office was in downtown L.A.,
close to the biltmore hotel,
where Elizabeth short was last seen alive.
When Steve compares the letters sent to the press
by the supposed murderer in 1947
with a sample of his father's handwriting,
his blood runs cold.
The similarities are alarming.
He even hires a handwriting expert to analyze
the two samples. The expert confirms it.
The same person wrote both letters.
Steve pulls some favors and gets access to the original
black Dahlia case file,
and his darkest suspicions are confirmed.
George hodel was one of the prime suspects
in the black Dahlia murder.
Witnesses identified Elizabeth short
as one of George's girlfriends.
Steve even discovers the LAPD installed a wiretap
inside his father's house.
This revelation has been closely followed by journalists
Anne and David vasquez, who have become the foremost
experts on short's unsolved murder.
So the LAPD ends up wiretapping George hodel's home
for some 40 days,
and they capture some incredible evidence,
including a conversation in which George tells a friend,
"supposing I did kill black Dahlia.
They can't prove it now."
Even after these conversations were recorded
during the wiretapping, LAPD still didn't feel confident
that they had enough evidence to make an arrest of George hodel.
But it confirmed what Steve hodel had spent already
years building a case about connecting the dots
between his father and the black Dahlia murder.
As unconscionable as it is,
Steve firmly believes the unthinkable.
His own father was responsible for one of the most
disturbing murders in history.
As a retired cop, Steve's confident the LAPD had
enough evidence to arrest his father
for the black Dahlia murder.
So why didn't they?
For years, Steve was left wondering
until a rediscovered letter from the 1940s
offered critical clues.
The letter was penned in 1949 by w. Glenn Martin,
then a paid informant working for the LAPD.
And it makes stunning allegations
about the black Dahlia case.
That letter is filled with references to someone known
as g.H., and it connects g.H. To the murder of black Dahlia.
And g.H. Was using his influence with the L.A. district attorney,
with LAPD, to either confuse or disrupt the investigation
into the black Dahlia murder.
Steve hodel sees the initials g.H.
Throughout this letter. He knows instantly that g.H.
Stands for George hodel and that his dad is yet again
connected and tied to the black Dahlia murder.
Steve's sister, tamar, who had experienced her own troubled
past with their father warned him that George had deep roots
within the police community.
He had been rumored to have treated venereal disease
and terminated unwanted pregnancies
on behalf of city officials
who in turn might have protected him from being arrested.
After analyzing all of the evidence for over a decade,
Steve hodel has developed a strong theory
of what he believes happened in the case of the black Dahlia.
On the fateful night of January 9th,
George meets Elizabeth short at the biltmore hotel.
Steve believes that what began as a charming date
spiraled into disaster.
George becomes enraged when he discovers Elizabeth
is romantically involved with someone else.
George then forces her back to his house against her will.
Steve suspects his insanely jealous and humiliated father
punishes Elizabeth for her betrayal by torturing short
for days in his basement.
Steve's half-sister claimed to have witnessed their father's
dark proclivity for sexual orgies and sadomasochism.
So there is a chance that this dark obsession turned deadly.
Amidst the punishment she dies, and Steve believes his father
surgically dismembers her.
Then, George drives Elizabeth's mangled body to leimert park,
where he stages her remains to shock the world.
In a recent interview, Steve hodel said,
"I couldn't believe the great man I knew
"could ever do something like this
I was very wrong."
George hodel though, was never arrested
for the death of Elizabeth short and he never will be.
He died in 1999.
And to date, the LAPD has never charged anyone
with the black Dahlia murder.
But for George hodel's son, at least,
this horrifying case is closed.
From the concrete jungle to the actual jungle,
it's may 30th, 1925,
and I am deep in the south American Amazon.
That right there is Percy fawcett,
a veteran explorer on his seventh expedition
into this unforgiving wilderness.
Alongside is his son, Jack, and friend, Raleigh.
Together, they're searching for a fabled lost city
rumored to be dripping in gold and jewels.
It's a place hidden deep in the vast mato grosso jungles
in the interior of Brazil.
This city has no name, but fawcett calls it "z."
Far from solving this mystery, Percy and his companions
will only add to it because all of them
are about to disappear without a trace.
In his early career, fawcett goes to work for
the royal geographical society
to survey and map the jungles near Bolivia.
With accounts of his daring jungle exploits published in
newspapers back in england, fawcett's fame grows,
and he embraces his celebrity status.
He reports encountering exotic animals unknown to science,
including an almost certainly exaggerated account of shooting
a 62-foot-long anaconda.
But he does accomplish something few other westerners
are able to,
navigating dense jungles and maintaining
friendly relationships with indigenous tribes,
many of whom are known to be hostile to outsiders.
Some of these natives whisper stories to fawcett
about a sprawling, ruined city hidden deep in the jungle,
and soon an obsession begins to take root.
Fawcett isn't the first to follow the siren's call
into the Amazon.
Centuries earlier, Spanish conquistadors had also
pursued rumors of glittering, abandoned ruins.
Their expeditions to find them ended in failure and death.
Fawcett's own search leads him to the national library
of Brazil, where he discovers a weathered parchment.
Known as manuscript 512,
it appears to have been written in 1753
and describes a Portuguese expedition
into the Brazilian interior,
which claimed to discover ruins
resembling a classical Roman city with stone arches,
opulent statues, and enigmatic carved symbols.
This, coupled with the native accounts,
convinces fawcett that a majestic lost civilization
is hidden in the depths of the Amazon,
waiting to be rediscovered.
His research has led him to believe the lost city hides
somewhere in the Brazilian state of mato grosso,
nearly 350,000 square miles of wilderness.
His team heads into the jungle on April 20th, 1925.
Fawcett decides to travel light
and to make the expedition a family affair,
bringing his 21-year-old son, Jack,
and Jack's best friend, Raleigh rimmell.
The public is fascinated with the quest,
but experts are less than enthusiastic.
The overwhelming majority think that z is just a fantasy,
but fawcett is undeterred.
After a month trekking through the jungle,
fawcett's team arrives at a place known as dead horse camp.
Here, he sends a native runner back to civilization with
a letter he's written to his wife, Nina.
He gives the coordinates of the camp
and notes that his group has plenty of provisions
and remain in good spirits.
He signs off, "you need have no fear of any failure."
These are the last written words of Percy fawcett.
After he departs dead horse camp,
he will never be heard from again.
Los Angeles is known for its traffic, its movie stars,
and surprisingly, its underground tunnels.
Originally built in the early 1900's for streetcars,
these tunnels soon found themselves repurposed
for far more exciting and possibly illegal activities.
During prohibition, they became secret highways for
smuggling booze, allowing city officials and mobsters
to both enjoy a drink.
Some believe they were the pathway by which
the notorious black Dahlia murderer was able to dump
Elizabeth short's body without detection.
Later, the tunnels were used for more official purposes,
like moving prisoners to the county jail,
proving that L.A. has always had a flair for dramatic entrances.
Today, these tunnels have been mostly sealed,
a stomping ground for conspiracy theorists
who swear they connect to secret government facilities,
or at least some really creepy basements.
Amazon explorer, Percy fawcett, is convinced that the ruins of
an advanced civilization nicknamed "z"
lay hidden in the jungles of Brazil.
In may 1925, while searching with his son, Jack,
and their friend, Raleigh,
the three men venture out to find the city,
but never return.
They leave behind two mysteries
what was their ultimate fate?
And does the lost city of z really exist?
In January 1927, after 18 months
with no communication from the expedition,
the royal geographical society declares the men lost,
presumed dead.
But fawcett's skill in the wilderness is almost
unmatched, and many of his friends and admirers
refuse to believe he's missing,
and instead think he may have found the city and stayed.
In 1928, a rescue mission led by British aviator g.M. Dyott
retraces fawcett's route through the Amazon.
Although he's unable to find the men,
he does discover a small brass plate bearing fawcett's name
in the possession of a native tribe.
Unfortunately, it's later confirmed that the object was
from fawcett's previous mission five years earlier.
Later, a compass of fawcett's is also found in the jungle,
but it was one he left behind before his final expedition.
One persistent theory is that fawcett and his companions
were killed by a local tribe.
In 1951, the kalapalo Indians revealed they were in
the possession of bones that they claimed were the remains
of Percy fawcett after he was killed by the tribe's chief.
Please, please, no, no, no, no.
For the next 50 years,
that's the story that is largely and falsely believed.
But in 2005, the kalapalo tribes people
tell a different story.
They claim the bones are not fawcett's after all,
but belong to one of their elders.
They say they lied in 1951 to prevent more outsiders
from coming into their territory to search for the explorer.
The kalapalos say they did encounter fawcett and his party,
but just gave them food
and cautioned them not to venture further.
But the men ignored their warnings.
Rumors have long swirled that fawcett
and his companions encountered less hospitable tribes
who riddled them with arrows or clubbed them to death.
Other stories emerged that they died of fever
or starvation deep in the labyrinth of the Amazon.
One thing is clear, somewhere along the way,
like those who searched before them,
their obsession with z led to their demise.
For 100 years after Percy fawcett and his team
vanished, experts remained highly skeptical
that a jungle Metropolis existed in the Amazon.
But then, a remarkable scientific discovery in 2022
using helicopter-mounted lidar technology may prove fawcett
was right after all.
Lidar, which stands for light detection and ranging,
uses lasers to map terrain and reveal long-hidden features.
Archaeologist Dr. Andrew kinkella has analyzed
the latest lidar results,
and what he's found could rewrite the history
of the fawcett expedition.
Using lidar across some of these areas,
we have started to find what we term "garden cities."
What you have there is you have homes,
you have kind of farmsteads,
you have plazas where the homes are situated around,
and you even have roads connecting these things.
There have been guesses at population in this area that it
might have been as high as 50,000.
So the lidar gives us irrefutable data that many,
many more people were living in the jungle at this time.
About a thousand years ago,
things were really happening in the Amazon.
Percy fawcett disappears in the mato grosso area
of the Amazon, in 1925.
And that turns out to be one of the areas where we're finding
these garden cities.
So while looking for z, Percy fawcett was probably
literally walking over these cities.
But if you're cutting a trail in the jungle,
your world is about a 10-foot circle.
So there could be a huge pyramid right there.
You will not see it.
We don't know how Percy, his son, Jack,
and their friend, Raleigh, met their end.
Their remains and the artifacts of their bold adventure
are out there somewhere in the endless jungles of the Amazon.
But we do know that z wasn't a towering city made of stone,
but rather a vast network of native communities
that once thrived in the Amazon.
And fawcett's expedition, though fatal,
wasn't as foolish as many of his peers believed.
I'm Josh gates, and I'll see you on the next expedition.