Cursed Gold: A Shipwreck Scandal (2024) s01e01 Episode Script
Impossible Riches
1
In the summer of 1986,
we head out to sea
and begin the search.
Pull the other way.
We were looking
for the Central America,
the richest shipwreck anyone
had ever known about,
lost for a century.
Woo! Ha ha!
We have 40 days at sea.
I'm pulling out!
No more, no less.
We have 40 days
to find our target.
We're running out of time.
People are becoming nervous
about the impending weather.
Okay! Clockwise.
We hadn't slept for days.
We are beginning
to give up hope.
I cannot imagine the pressure
that may have been on Tommy.
This has been possibly 10 years
in the making, a dream of his.
All the way to the pier end.
Most people
would have buckled
under that kind of pressure.
But if anybody could find a ship
on the bottom of the deep ocean,
Tommy Thompson would be
the guy to do it.
We hope to be rich.
It could be worth
a billion dollars.
This is the end
of the rainbow right here
on the docks
in Norfolk, Virginia.
Tommy's story shows
that there are still Americans
who dream the American dream.
In the beginning,
it was really exciting.
And then it turned
into a tragedy.
Gold makes people crazy.
Tommy Thompson
has truly violated the trust
investors placed in him.
Now one of the most
wanted men in America.
He just vanished,
he's gone.
You just
wouldn't believe
what Tommy's been through.
Brilliant scientist
turned criminal;
inventor turned fugitive.
People say they know
where it is,
but, my god, you will never
find that gold.
Tommy will take the secret
of the Central America's gold
to his grave.
This story
has truly consumed my life
for almost 35 years now.
It is the greatest sea adventure
no one's ever heard of.
At the center is a man
named Tommy Thompson.
You do not know anyone
like Tommy Thompson.
I grew up in a small town
in northern Ohio.
I was always a tinkerer.
They tell me I could fix
anything in the house.
I wanted to be an inventor,
but there's no college training
for that.
Oh, my god.
Oh, my golly, Tommy Thompson.
Even as a really young
little boy,
Tommy was always
pushing the envelope,
he was always
challenging himself.
We were pretty sure that
he'd probably be an engineer,
a scientist, because he was so
innovative, he was so curious.
We were all sort of in awe
of what he wanted to do.
I entered into
the engineering school
at Ohio State.
I became interested in
how are we going to explore
the deep ocean?
I loved seeing and doing things
underwater.
Despite
growing up hundreds of miles
from, from any ocean coast,
the sea really starts
to captivate Tommy,
and he feels drawn to that
next frontier of exploration.
One of the things
that became obvious was
there's some things that
we lost in the deep ocean.
Why don't we go look
for some of those things?
He developed an obsession
with a lost ship.
A ship carrying so much gold,
it caused a banking panic
across America when it sank.
A shipwreck far deeper
than any other wreck
that had been salvaged.
He became obsessed with
the SS Central America,
the ship of gold.
The SS Central America
is legendary
among treasure hunters.
It was what they called
a sidewheel steamer
going from Havana up to New York
in September of 1857.
It got hit by a massive storm.
The waves are as high
as an office building.
The ship was carrying almost
500 passengers, 100 crew.
Original 49ers,
people that mined
during the California gold rush
and embodied the American dream.
A monster wave
came over the ship
and just drove it to the bottom
in a giant whirlpool.
425 people died.
This is the worst at-sea
disaster in American history.
At the time,
there was an estimated
six tons of gold on board.
It's been estimated
to be worth $400 million;
more gold than any other ship
that has sunk.
Treasure hunters lusted
after this ship.
It had life-changing wealth,
if they could only find it.
Tommy essentially
resolves
to make this his life's work.
It was just part
of the treasure hunting lore,
everyone knew it was
the jackpot of jackpots.
The task of finding
a tiny remains of a wreck
in the vast Atlantic Ocean
was compared to finding
a single grain of sand
in the floor plan
of a huge home.
So just where would you
even begin
to search for something
like that?
No one knew
where the ship sank.
Most people assume that
the Central America had sunk
in thousands and thousands
of feet of water
off the Carolina coast.
Anybody who did
real research on it
would discover that
it had to have been
at least 100 to 200 miles out.
It was not going to be found
in shallow water.
What chance would
Tommy Thompson have in finding
this ship that's been missing
for 130 years?
Has Tommy ever found
a wreck before? No.
Has he even gone on a mission
like this before? No.
Could they guarantee that
they could get the gold back
once they did find it,
if they did?
Uh, no.
Tommy spends hundreds of dollars
in quarters a week
calling as many people
as he can,
in every field that might be
conceivably relevant.
Sonar technicians, geologists,
undersea oil workers,
people who build submarines,
just any expert he can find.
Everybody that
Tommy talks to
thinks that this is impossible.
I think when
Tommy Thompson considered
something to be impossible,
his engineering brain
couldn't give up
on the idea that
there was a solution.
And he wasn't deterred by
hearing this can't be done,
because he believed it could be.
You need to figure out
the physics.
It is an X marks the spot.
When a ship has
that much water in it,
then it's going to drift
this fast in the current.
If the hurricane that hit
the Central America
was actually 110 knots
instead of 78,
that would affect the eventual
position of the sinking.
Tommy wants to search
the deep ocean,
not as a treasure hunter,
but as a scientist.
He was just wringing
these contemporaneous articles
from 1857 for every little piece
of information.
Weather, currents,
eyewitness accounts,
newspaper articles,
were fed into a model.
Every two-square-mile
piece of the ocean
has been assigned a number
that gives a probability
whether or not this
would be the shipwreck.
He was reducing thought
and conversation
into algorithms,
into mathematics.
It's the most
scientific approach
that had ever been implemented
for finding a shipwreck.
Tommy is now confident
that the wreck lies
somewhere in the search area.
If he's right, it'll make him
rich beyond his wildest dreams.
And before this mission
can even properly kick off,
Tommy needs to raise over
a million and a half dollars.
The question is, will anyone be
crazy enough to give it to him?
So, at this point, Tommy
needed to raise a lot of money.
Tommy has been working
on his plan for around 10 years.
At this point,
he needs to raise $1.6 million.
We had to put
together a budget.
I had absolutely no real idea
of how to put together a budget
for a deep-sea exploration.
Tommy basically took a napkin
and put a million dollars
for this, 30,000 for that,
and we made a budget that way.
That was terrifying to me.
It felt like we were making it
up as we went along.
Tommy made some key connections
in Columbus,
and from those connections, he
met the luminaries of the city.
There were a group of
us who were called to consider
putting in $5,000 or $10,000
to support a man
named Tommy Thompson.
My dad, he was in insurance,
my mom took care of my sister
and my brother and I.
I would say we are not
a rich family.
My dad was watching
some other people
who were investing
in this project,
and he said,
"What do you think?"
Most of the people
were really skeptical.
It was such a fly-by-night idea.
It was always about,
kiss your money goodbye,
because the chances of
succeeding were next to nothing.
But there's always
this glimmer of hope,
and when gold's involved,
it makes that glimmer
even brighter.
It's the Reagan years,
people have dollar signs
in their eyes.
Looking great!
The spirit in
the United States in the 1980s
is just bigger risks
mean bigger rewards,
and people are eager to pursue
these crazy opportunities.
It is my hope
that deep down inside
you'll find the courage
to be rich.
If they found
this treasure
and they brought it back
and they sold it properly,
the investors could realize
a huge, huge return.
What you're looking at
is a profit ratio
of maybe 10 to 1.
Like, if you put in $100,
you will get $1,000.
Obviously, there is
a lot of allure and excitement
about the idea
of a treasure hunt,
and Tommy taps into that.
And as you may have noticed
the pre-marketing went
pretty well.
Tommy, he's one
of the most charming people
you'd ever meet.
He's a down-home Ohio boy.
He's something special.
I don't know if I'm
an entrepreneur or not,
but I know that
no good entrepreneurs
are very good
without good mentors.
Tommy sold
to his investors
that this absolutely
could be done.
So, I started in it
as one of the first investors.
My dad said, "You know what?
I'm going to give it a try."
90% of the people
Tommy met with invested.
They invested in him
and his concept, his dream.
Sometimes the money
would come right in the mail,
and we would be excited,
and a lot of times there
would be a check for 10,000,
sometimes $20,000.
The possibility of
turning $100,000 into millions
was there.
People are eager to grow
their personal fortunes.
Investors will take 60% of the
estimated $400 million of gold,
with 40% going to Tommy
and his company.
But now we've got
$1.6 million
of other people's money.
The pressure on Tommy to deliver
must have been huge.
Today we are
230 miles out at sea
on the most sophisticated craft
on the ocean.
The engine's gonna die
any minute.
Our fearless mechanic
back there,
he's got things under control.
The SS Central America
was believed to lie
in 8,000 to 10,000 feet
of seawater
across an area of approximately
1,400 square miles.
That's an area three times
the size of Los Angeles.
It's like trying
to find a needle
in a field of haystacks,
in the dark.
Tommy had a search plan,
and that search plan
could only be enacted
for about a 40-day period,
because there were limited funds
and there was limited
contract time
for the equipment being used.
Tommy had paid
for 40 days of SeaMARC.
The SeaMARC was one
of the most powerful
deep-water sonar system
in the world.
A sonar search is often
described as mowing a lawn.
You have to figure out the most
efficient way to cut the grass
with no missed spots in between.
We tow the SeaMARC
behind our ship
that allowed us to look
at the seafloor
in swaths of
five kilometers wide.
We ran track lines
back and forth.
Tommy wanted us to survey
the entire 1,400 square miles
of the probability map.
This is control.
We've finished track line Z
and we're beginning to retrieve.
I am looking
at the computer screen
that is showing sweeps
of the sidescan sonar
as we're moving
along the bottom.
We're seeing just a blue screen.
Then gradually we would
come across an object.
The colors would change
from a blue to a yellow,
orange to a red,
depending upon the object.
We see shipping
containers, oil drums,
cables, we see old anchors.
One mile after another mile,
after hundreds of miles.
But no SS Central America.
Tommy became removed
from the team,
staying in his quarters,
making phone calls,
getting pressure from
the investors to have results.
The initial search became
this intense weight
that he carried with him
as the days moved on.
The pressure's just building
and building and building.
Looking at a screen
for days on end
is very tiring,
very, very boring.
After hours and hours of towing,
you're wondering, hey,
is this thing working or not?
This one right here, what about
this thing right here?
And then out of the blue,
as we're looking at the screen,
we start to see
something appear,
and, hey, guys, we've got
something here.
We start seeing colors,
we're starting to see yellows,
and then more intense oranges
and more intense reds.
And then we can start to see
sides of what might be a ship.
Fish heading 248.
Tommy's eyes widened
and he was excited.
This is a serious contact,
this is a serious contact.
Could this be
the SS Central America?
You got a bunch
of them already in there, right?
You can try
different sets of colors,
once you look at the numbers.
If a guy wanted to dream
he might say
the whole boat rotted away
and this here's
two paddle wheels,
honest to God!
Because they are parallel
And at a little angle.
We were screaming,
"Look what we've got,
look what we've got!"
We found it, we found it.
We've done it!
there it is, we found the wreck!
And now
the dilemma becomes,
do we carry on completing
the search grid,
or drop a camera down
to see what we've found?
There might be two sizes because
it depends on whether we are
just seeing the engine room
or we're seeing
the whole anomaly.
For the search team,
it's obvious
that we must drop a camera down,
and it set up
a conflict between us.
If we put a camera down,
we could have saved him
half the cost of the survey.
So, it seemed like
it might be to his benefit
and his investors
if we took a quick look.
Tommy did not
want to do that.
Tommy wanted to continue
searching,
and it was very annoying for us.
Our team was met
with a stone wall
of "No, we're going
to do it my way."
So that was very much
how Tommy was.
Psychologists would love
to get a hold of you.
So we've run out
of Cuban coffee, right?
Tommy was excited
about the image,
but it was one image,
and we had, at that point,
surveyed so little
of the 1,400 square miles.
We only had 12 days left
to complete the contract.
Tommy decides to not listen
to the world's greatest
sonar expert.
Tommy was someone
that could always smile.
He was someone that could look
at you and you would wonder,
is this a genuine smile
of affection and camaraderie,
or is he grinning at me
because I said something stupid
to somebody that's very smart?
Tommy says,
"I'm a scientist,
I'm going to do it by the book.
I will complete the search;
we will not deviate."
So, we continue
our search,
and we complete the search grid.
We find 10 possible sites
that could be
the Central America shipwreck.
But the best area of interest is
still the first sonar contact.
40 days at sea is almost up.
We face storm after storm.
With only days left before
we need to head to shore,
Tommy gambles on returning
to the first contact.
If it's not right,
we're out of money
and going home empty-handed.
Tommy was under
considerable pressure.
I just can't imagine
what he was thinking
and what he was experiencing.
They finally
dropped a camera.
I think it was the very last
dive of the season.
We descend,
turn on the camera,
and voilà.
We're still seeing blackness,
but occasional
flickers of light.
It's like another world,
because you're seeing fish
at 8 or 9, 10,000 feet deep.
Ah! Ah, come back.
He just faked you.
He was running at you.
Stop.
It's just so exciting,
because it's life,
you're seeing life.
But then eventually
we see a link of a chain
connected to other chains.
We are excited.
We knew the chain is connected
to something important,
likely to the target
that we're interested in.
What else
could it be out here
in 8,000 feet of seawater,
200 miles offshore?
John Lettow has
a loud, booming voice,
and he starts singing.
Chain, chain, chain.
Chain, chain, chain ♪
Chain, chain, chain ♪
Chain, chain, chain! ♪
Chain, chain, chain ♪
Chain of fools ♪
And we're just dancing
around the room, we can't stop.
And so, here we are singing this
song, "chain, chain, chain,"
knowing that the real lyrics
to it are "chain of fools,"
and, you know,
we're at that point,
wondering whether we're fools
or people that have made
the greatest discovery
of a historic shipwreck
ever found.
Oooooh, yeaahhh ♪
Chain, chain, chain ♪
That's something else
you made.
I'd recognize you anywhere!
So, at the end of 1986,
Tommy has a potential site for
being the SS Central America.
We had proven we had met
our first milestone,
but now we had to raise
more money
to get out there next season.
At that point,
we knew we had found the target,
and that it was probably
the Central America.
Back in Ohio,
Tommy was able to raise funds
very quickly.
$3.6 million.
The checks went from
10,000 per unit to $72,000.
As the project continues,
it becomes more expensive
to be a part of the project,
because the odds are becoming
more and more known.
We feel more confident
that we do actually
maybe have a shot at this.
Woo!
The main objective in '87
was to get a video presence
on the bottom.
Slack off
a little bit on that one.
We needed to get
a better look at this
and actually get some
100% ground truthing
that this was in fact
the SS Central America.
Get those lines,
get that side away.
One of the things
that Tommy had prepared
his investors for
was that when we initially find
the Central America,
we are most likely
to find sidewheels.
The Central America was
a sidewheel steamer.
The sidewheels are
30 feet in diameter.
That's how power was delivered
to move the vessel forward.
As we were seeing objects
appear on the video screen,
we were asking,
are those paddle wheels?
At the moment,
the excitement had built
that this is our ship,
and as we go along,
we realize this is a letdown.
As we went
over the wreck,
it became very obvious there was
no sign of any sidewheels,
and it was the wrong size.
Hey, it may not be
the Central America,
but it was some other ship that
sank in that same timeframe.
Examining the site
left us feeling
that we might be fools.
Chain, chain, chain ♪
For having been led to the idea
that this was
the SS Central America.
Tommy threw up his hands
and said,
"Let's get out of here."
Despite searching for
two years, two seasons at sea,
they realize that they are
searching the wrong site.
And the feeling of having spent
years of time,
millions of dollars of funding,
exploring the wrong places
was definitely starting to
create a bit of desperation.
Even though I told
all our investors
it was a high-risk thing,
it seemed like
a tremendous responsibility.
Because everybody was counting
on me to make it happen.
For Tommy,
it was incredibly difficult
to not be able to tell
his investors and the world
that we absolutely had found
the SS Central America,
and it had a great effect
on him.
It seemed like failure
was going to be imminent.
It had to be absolutely
crushing to Tommy.
We got back that fall
totally exhausted,
spent physically and mentally.
And now the hard part starts.
Now we're in an uphill battle
to raise money.
We had essentially
blown through
all the money
that he had raised.
This entire mission and
all the crew's hopes and dreams
and Tommy's own ambition,
it looks like they're all
staring failure in the face.
Partners and friends,
our partner and leader,
Thomas G. Thompson.
So, there's a meeting
that we have,
and we invite our investors.
And we are there to raise funds.
Tommy's going to say
we know that we have searched
this entire probability map,
there are nine out of ten
targets still to look at.
We will keep working on this
until we find it.
Tommy had a determination
about him,
he was not going to give up.
It's a tough challenge
for everybody who tried
to bring the project
to a higher level.
We're going to find out when we
go out there next summer.
Now any other questions?
Yes.
The investors
who really believed in Tommy
came forward with the money.
They just really trust
Tommy as an individual.
They trust the methods
that he's put into place
and the plan he has
to find this treasure.
They were attracted by
the profit that they might see.
I remember one of the investors,
they stood to receive
$10 million
from their investment.
My dad just decided,
I'm willing to take that risk.
He felt pretty comfortable
that they were going to do
what they said
they were going to do.
My dad has $210,000 invested.
How much did you contribute?
I'm not sure
I want to say that.
I would say that I was
one of the biggest investors.
Tommy was able
to go back to sea.
They're going way out
into the ocean, and this is it.
This is the final chance
they're going to have
to realize Tommy's dream.
For Tommy,
the pressure just got huge.
This was their third year
and they had found
no gold, nothing.
It was do or die.
RV, are you on a handheld?
That's correct, do you
want me to go to bridge?
They still had
nine targets on their grid.
Studying the sonograms,
they found one which looked
particularly promising.
This one image on their sonar
was bigger than all the others
and it had a lot more
interest in it.
We arrived on site
somewhat late in the year.
The storm season is approaching,
and the weather window
is closing.
Good, rotate
over there clockwise.
Swing it out, Bob,
take out the slack.
Start laying on this one.
Watch the
Let it go, you guys,
let it go.
We launched
the submersible.
I started developing
a very clear sonar picture.
There were large objects
that we had not seen
on any of the other sites, but
we didn't know what they were.
And as we got closer and closer,
the sonar images were becoming
more and more distinct.
John Moore yelled,
"We have something."
We then noticed
on the video monitor
an item that was
coming into view.
It was like a curved line,
and as we were moving over it,
that curved line
had spokes to it.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Here we go.
Ohh, you know what that is.
You know what that is.
Ahh!
You know what that is.
It would have been
the starboard side paddle wheel.
I probably passed
a foot above it.
It filled up
the entire video frame.
Look at that.
Is there any doubt
in your mind what that is?
Big bad boy.
Standing upright.
I am very overwhelmed
at this point.
I'm looking at something that
no other human has ever seen.
Ahh!
You know what that is.
This is more exciting
than anybody's gonna
come up in a Hollywood film.
We went down to have
a closer look.
And we saw an object
that could be
the ship's bell.
It's really beautiful.
Isn't that cool, man?
That's excellent right there.
And I was able
to bring it back.
We removed the bell
from the vehicle,
and now we were able to read
the inscription,
it read
"Morgan Iron Works, 1853."
At that point
we were very excited.
Morgan Iron Works
was the foundry
that built the heavy machinery
on the Central America,
and 1853 was the year
that the Central America
was commissioned.
That really confirmed it.
We got sidewheels, we got the
right engines, we got the bell.
This is really it.
Tommy was just beaming
from ear to ear
with a smile and pride.
But now the next question is,
where's the gold?
We're taking
many, many pictures.
We were seeing a lot of orange
and thinking,
well, that's kind of, uh,
that's almost the color of gold.
There has to be gold
on board this boat,
so we're starting to see
objects that, could that be it?
The answer
was almost universally no.
We still hadn't seen anything.
It was very frustrating.
You're seeing things again.
We started taking
hundreds of pictures a day
and developing the slides.
We had a lot
of questions of what this is.
One night the guys that
were reviewing the photographs
were quite excited.
Okay, here, here is
what the display looked like.
There's the posterboard.
Best I could do.
They called me and Tommy
and said, "Hey, we want you
to see something."
And they just handed me
a picture.
Oh, god, I'm seeing all these
rectangular, rectangular objects
and also circular items,
which in my mind could
have been, could be coins.
And I said,
"Whoa, could that really be?"
Oh, you can see it in here,
it's not a very good picture,
but here's the crest,
the town crest,
in the upper right-hand corner.
Oh, yeah.
So, we lowered
the vehicle,
we directed the thrusters
that we normally used
for maneuvering the vehicle
in the direction of this area
in the photo images.
Tommy says, "Okay,
I believe that if we're gentle
in trying to move some of this
overburden away,
we're not going to destroy
any important clues."
We go very gently,
and not much happens.
We try a little harder.
So, we try a little harder.
We then turn
the thrusters onto maximum
and just blew the area,
blew the silt and sediment away.
And then the dust cleared,
and we all could see
for our own eyes,
yellow, bright yellow.
Oh!
Wow, that's incredible!
We found it.
Gold. Lots of it.
They said it couldn't be done.
They said even if
we got down there,
we wouldn't be able to find it.
We turned impossibilities
into realities.
Eureka!
We found the gold.
We call it the garden of gold.
Just jaw-dropping beauty,
you couldn't imagine,
even in your dreams.
My god.
This is incredible.
So, Tommy had dreamed
about it since he was a kid,
and he had found
the Central America.
We've hit
the motherlode.
It's unquestionably the greatest
American treasure ever found.
The largest
treasure in American history.
So now they had
found the gold,
it is definitely time for Tommy
to deliver to his investors
so that they know that
their investment has paid off.
Chuck is
standing by live right now
to tell us the story of some
very happy local investors.
Investors in this project,
they're wanting their return
on their investment
as soon as possible.
There's absolutely
the thrill of getting some gold
and monetizing it.
The possibility of 400 million
to a billion-dollar windfall.
We were ecstatic,
absolutely ecstatic.
In the beginning,
it was really exciting.
But if you're gonna do something
magnificent like Tommy did,
you're going to be up for grabs.
We'd found the treasure,
and then things started
to go haywire.
In the summer of 1986,
we head out to sea
and begin the search.
Pull the other way.
We were looking
for the Central America,
the richest shipwreck anyone
had ever known about,
lost for a century.
Woo! Ha ha!
We have 40 days at sea.
I'm pulling out!
No more, no less.
We have 40 days
to find our target.
We're running out of time.
People are becoming nervous
about the impending weather.
Okay! Clockwise.
We hadn't slept for days.
We are beginning
to give up hope.
I cannot imagine the pressure
that may have been on Tommy.
This has been possibly 10 years
in the making, a dream of his.
All the way to the pier end.
Most people
would have buckled
under that kind of pressure.
But if anybody could find a ship
on the bottom of the deep ocean,
Tommy Thompson would be
the guy to do it.
We hope to be rich.
It could be worth
a billion dollars.
This is the end
of the rainbow right here
on the docks
in Norfolk, Virginia.
Tommy's story shows
that there are still Americans
who dream the American dream.
In the beginning,
it was really exciting.
And then it turned
into a tragedy.
Gold makes people crazy.
Tommy Thompson
has truly violated the trust
investors placed in him.
Now one of the most
wanted men in America.
He just vanished,
he's gone.
You just
wouldn't believe
what Tommy's been through.
Brilliant scientist
turned criminal;
inventor turned fugitive.
People say they know
where it is,
but, my god, you will never
find that gold.
Tommy will take the secret
of the Central America's gold
to his grave.
This story
has truly consumed my life
for almost 35 years now.
It is the greatest sea adventure
no one's ever heard of.
At the center is a man
named Tommy Thompson.
You do not know anyone
like Tommy Thompson.
I grew up in a small town
in northern Ohio.
I was always a tinkerer.
They tell me I could fix
anything in the house.
I wanted to be an inventor,
but there's no college training
for that.
Oh, my god.
Oh, my golly, Tommy Thompson.
Even as a really young
little boy,
Tommy was always
pushing the envelope,
he was always
challenging himself.
We were pretty sure that
he'd probably be an engineer,
a scientist, because he was so
innovative, he was so curious.
We were all sort of in awe
of what he wanted to do.
I entered into
the engineering school
at Ohio State.
I became interested in
how are we going to explore
the deep ocean?
I loved seeing and doing things
underwater.
Despite
growing up hundreds of miles
from, from any ocean coast,
the sea really starts
to captivate Tommy,
and he feels drawn to that
next frontier of exploration.
One of the things
that became obvious was
there's some things that
we lost in the deep ocean.
Why don't we go look
for some of those things?
He developed an obsession
with a lost ship.
A ship carrying so much gold,
it caused a banking panic
across America when it sank.
A shipwreck far deeper
than any other wreck
that had been salvaged.
He became obsessed with
the SS Central America,
the ship of gold.
The SS Central America
is legendary
among treasure hunters.
It was what they called
a sidewheel steamer
going from Havana up to New York
in September of 1857.
It got hit by a massive storm.
The waves are as high
as an office building.
The ship was carrying almost
500 passengers, 100 crew.
Original 49ers,
people that mined
during the California gold rush
and embodied the American dream.
A monster wave
came over the ship
and just drove it to the bottom
in a giant whirlpool.
425 people died.
This is the worst at-sea
disaster in American history.
At the time,
there was an estimated
six tons of gold on board.
It's been estimated
to be worth $400 million;
more gold than any other ship
that has sunk.
Treasure hunters lusted
after this ship.
It had life-changing wealth,
if they could only find it.
Tommy essentially
resolves
to make this his life's work.
It was just part
of the treasure hunting lore,
everyone knew it was
the jackpot of jackpots.
The task of finding
a tiny remains of a wreck
in the vast Atlantic Ocean
was compared to finding
a single grain of sand
in the floor plan
of a huge home.
So just where would you
even begin
to search for something
like that?
No one knew
where the ship sank.
Most people assume that
the Central America had sunk
in thousands and thousands
of feet of water
off the Carolina coast.
Anybody who did
real research on it
would discover that
it had to have been
at least 100 to 200 miles out.
It was not going to be found
in shallow water.
What chance would
Tommy Thompson have in finding
this ship that's been missing
for 130 years?
Has Tommy ever found
a wreck before? No.
Has he even gone on a mission
like this before? No.
Could they guarantee that
they could get the gold back
once they did find it,
if they did?
Uh, no.
Tommy spends hundreds of dollars
in quarters a week
calling as many people
as he can,
in every field that might be
conceivably relevant.
Sonar technicians, geologists,
undersea oil workers,
people who build submarines,
just any expert he can find.
Everybody that
Tommy talks to
thinks that this is impossible.
I think when
Tommy Thompson considered
something to be impossible,
his engineering brain
couldn't give up
on the idea that
there was a solution.
And he wasn't deterred by
hearing this can't be done,
because he believed it could be.
You need to figure out
the physics.
It is an X marks the spot.
When a ship has
that much water in it,
then it's going to drift
this fast in the current.
If the hurricane that hit
the Central America
was actually 110 knots
instead of 78,
that would affect the eventual
position of the sinking.
Tommy wants to search
the deep ocean,
not as a treasure hunter,
but as a scientist.
He was just wringing
these contemporaneous articles
from 1857 for every little piece
of information.
Weather, currents,
eyewitness accounts,
newspaper articles,
were fed into a model.
Every two-square-mile
piece of the ocean
has been assigned a number
that gives a probability
whether or not this
would be the shipwreck.
He was reducing thought
and conversation
into algorithms,
into mathematics.
It's the most
scientific approach
that had ever been implemented
for finding a shipwreck.
Tommy is now confident
that the wreck lies
somewhere in the search area.
If he's right, it'll make him
rich beyond his wildest dreams.
And before this mission
can even properly kick off,
Tommy needs to raise over
a million and a half dollars.
The question is, will anyone be
crazy enough to give it to him?
So, at this point, Tommy
needed to raise a lot of money.
Tommy has been working
on his plan for around 10 years.
At this point,
he needs to raise $1.6 million.
We had to put
together a budget.
I had absolutely no real idea
of how to put together a budget
for a deep-sea exploration.
Tommy basically took a napkin
and put a million dollars
for this, 30,000 for that,
and we made a budget that way.
That was terrifying to me.
It felt like we were making it
up as we went along.
Tommy made some key connections
in Columbus,
and from those connections, he
met the luminaries of the city.
There were a group of
us who were called to consider
putting in $5,000 or $10,000
to support a man
named Tommy Thompson.
My dad, he was in insurance,
my mom took care of my sister
and my brother and I.
I would say we are not
a rich family.
My dad was watching
some other people
who were investing
in this project,
and he said,
"What do you think?"
Most of the people
were really skeptical.
It was such a fly-by-night idea.
It was always about,
kiss your money goodbye,
because the chances of
succeeding were next to nothing.
But there's always
this glimmer of hope,
and when gold's involved,
it makes that glimmer
even brighter.
It's the Reagan years,
people have dollar signs
in their eyes.
Looking great!
The spirit in
the United States in the 1980s
is just bigger risks
mean bigger rewards,
and people are eager to pursue
these crazy opportunities.
It is my hope
that deep down inside
you'll find the courage
to be rich.
If they found
this treasure
and they brought it back
and they sold it properly,
the investors could realize
a huge, huge return.
What you're looking at
is a profit ratio
of maybe 10 to 1.
Like, if you put in $100,
you will get $1,000.
Obviously, there is
a lot of allure and excitement
about the idea
of a treasure hunt,
and Tommy taps into that.
And as you may have noticed
the pre-marketing went
pretty well.
Tommy, he's one
of the most charming people
you'd ever meet.
He's a down-home Ohio boy.
He's something special.
I don't know if I'm
an entrepreneur or not,
but I know that
no good entrepreneurs
are very good
without good mentors.
Tommy sold
to his investors
that this absolutely
could be done.
So, I started in it
as one of the first investors.
My dad said, "You know what?
I'm going to give it a try."
90% of the people
Tommy met with invested.
They invested in him
and his concept, his dream.
Sometimes the money
would come right in the mail,
and we would be excited,
and a lot of times there
would be a check for 10,000,
sometimes $20,000.
The possibility of
turning $100,000 into millions
was there.
People are eager to grow
their personal fortunes.
Investors will take 60% of the
estimated $400 million of gold,
with 40% going to Tommy
and his company.
But now we've got
$1.6 million
of other people's money.
The pressure on Tommy to deliver
must have been huge.
Today we are
230 miles out at sea
on the most sophisticated craft
on the ocean.
The engine's gonna die
any minute.
Our fearless mechanic
back there,
he's got things under control.
The SS Central America
was believed to lie
in 8,000 to 10,000 feet
of seawater
across an area of approximately
1,400 square miles.
That's an area three times
the size of Los Angeles.
It's like trying
to find a needle
in a field of haystacks,
in the dark.
Tommy had a search plan,
and that search plan
could only be enacted
for about a 40-day period,
because there were limited funds
and there was limited
contract time
for the equipment being used.
Tommy had paid
for 40 days of SeaMARC.
The SeaMARC was one
of the most powerful
deep-water sonar system
in the world.
A sonar search is often
described as mowing a lawn.
You have to figure out the most
efficient way to cut the grass
with no missed spots in between.
We tow the SeaMARC
behind our ship
that allowed us to look
at the seafloor
in swaths of
five kilometers wide.
We ran track lines
back and forth.
Tommy wanted us to survey
the entire 1,400 square miles
of the probability map.
This is control.
We've finished track line Z
and we're beginning to retrieve.
I am looking
at the computer screen
that is showing sweeps
of the sidescan sonar
as we're moving
along the bottom.
We're seeing just a blue screen.
Then gradually we would
come across an object.
The colors would change
from a blue to a yellow,
orange to a red,
depending upon the object.
We see shipping
containers, oil drums,
cables, we see old anchors.
One mile after another mile,
after hundreds of miles.
But no SS Central America.
Tommy became removed
from the team,
staying in his quarters,
making phone calls,
getting pressure from
the investors to have results.
The initial search became
this intense weight
that he carried with him
as the days moved on.
The pressure's just building
and building and building.
Looking at a screen
for days on end
is very tiring,
very, very boring.
After hours and hours of towing,
you're wondering, hey,
is this thing working or not?
This one right here, what about
this thing right here?
And then out of the blue,
as we're looking at the screen,
we start to see
something appear,
and, hey, guys, we've got
something here.
We start seeing colors,
we're starting to see yellows,
and then more intense oranges
and more intense reds.
And then we can start to see
sides of what might be a ship.
Fish heading 248.
Tommy's eyes widened
and he was excited.
This is a serious contact,
this is a serious contact.
Could this be
the SS Central America?
You got a bunch
of them already in there, right?
You can try
different sets of colors,
once you look at the numbers.
If a guy wanted to dream
he might say
the whole boat rotted away
and this here's
two paddle wheels,
honest to God!
Because they are parallel
And at a little angle.
We were screaming,
"Look what we've got,
look what we've got!"
We found it, we found it.
We've done it!
there it is, we found the wreck!
And now
the dilemma becomes,
do we carry on completing
the search grid,
or drop a camera down
to see what we've found?
There might be two sizes because
it depends on whether we are
just seeing the engine room
or we're seeing
the whole anomaly.
For the search team,
it's obvious
that we must drop a camera down,
and it set up
a conflict between us.
If we put a camera down,
we could have saved him
half the cost of the survey.
So, it seemed like
it might be to his benefit
and his investors
if we took a quick look.
Tommy did not
want to do that.
Tommy wanted to continue
searching,
and it was very annoying for us.
Our team was met
with a stone wall
of "No, we're going
to do it my way."
So that was very much
how Tommy was.
Psychologists would love
to get a hold of you.
So we've run out
of Cuban coffee, right?
Tommy was excited
about the image,
but it was one image,
and we had, at that point,
surveyed so little
of the 1,400 square miles.
We only had 12 days left
to complete the contract.
Tommy decides to not listen
to the world's greatest
sonar expert.
Tommy was someone
that could always smile.
He was someone that could look
at you and you would wonder,
is this a genuine smile
of affection and camaraderie,
or is he grinning at me
because I said something stupid
to somebody that's very smart?
Tommy says,
"I'm a scientist,
I'm going to do it by the book.
I will complete the search;
we will not deviate."
So, we continue
our search,
and we complete the search grid.
We find 10 possible sites
that could be
the Central America shipwreck.
But the best area of interest is
still the first sonar contact.
40 days at sea is almost up.
We face storm after storm.
With only days left before
we need to head to shore,
Tommy gambles on returning
to the first contact.
If it's not right,
we're out of money
and going home empty-handed.
Tommy was under
considerable pressure.
I just can't imagine
what he was thinking
and what he was experiencing.
They finally
dropped a camera.
I think it was the very last
dive of the season.
We descend,
turn on the camera,
and voilà.
We're still seeing blackness,
but occasional
flickers of light.
It's like another world,
because you're seeing fish
at 8 or 9, 10,000 feet deep.
Ah! Ah, come back.
He just faked you.
He was running at you.
Stop.
It's just so exciting,
because it's life,
you're seeing life.
But then eventually
we see a link of a chain
connected to other chains.
We are excited.
We knew the chain is connected
to something important,
likely to the target
that we're interested in.
What else
could it be out here
in 8,000 feet of seawater,
200 miles offshore?
John Lettow has
a loud, booming voice,
and he starts singing.
Chain, chain, chain.
Chain, chain, chain ♪
Chain, chain, chain ♪
Chain, chain, chain! ♪
Chain, chain, chain ♪
Chain of fools ♪
And we're just dancing
around the room, we can't stop.
And so, here we are singing this
song, "chain, chain, chain,"
knowing that the real lyrics
to it are "chain of fools,"
and, you know,
we're at that point,
wondering whether we're fools
or people that have made
the greatest discovery
of a historic shipwreck
ever found.
Oooooh, yeaahhh ♪
Chain, chain, chain ♪
That's something else
you made.
I'd recognize you anywhere!
So, at the end of 1986,
Tommy has a potential site for
being the SS Central America.
We had proven we had met
our first milestone,
but now we had to raise
more money
to get out there next season.
At that point,
we knew we had found the target,
and that it was probably
the Central America.
Back in Ohio,
Tommy was able to raise funds
very quickly.
$3.6 million.
The checks went from
10,000 per unit to $72,000.
As the project continues,
it becomes more expensive
to be a part of the project,
because the odds are becoming
more and more known.
We feel more confident
that we do actually
maybe have a shot at this.
Woo!
The main objective in '87
was to get a video presence
on the bottom.
Slack off
a little bit on that one.
We needed to get
a better look at this
and actually get some
100% ground truthing
that this was in fact
the SS Central America.
Get those lines,
get that side away.
One of the things
that Tommy had prepared
his investors for
was that when we initially find
the Central America,
we are most likely
to find sidewheels.
The Central America was
a sidewheel steamer.
The sidewheels are
30 feet in diameter.
That's how power was delivered
to move the vessel forward.
As we were seeing objects
appear on the video screen,
we were asking,
are those paddle wheels?
At the moment,
the excitement had built
that this is our ship,
and as we go along,
we realize this is a letdown.
As we went
over the wreck,
it became very obvious there was
no sign of any sidewheels,
and it was the wrong size.
Hey, it may not be
the Central America,
but it was some other ship that
sank in that same timeframe.
Examining the site
left us feeling
that we might be fools.
Chain, chain, chain ♪
For having been led to the idea
that this was
the SS Central America.
Tommy threw up his hands
and said,
"Let's get out of here."
Despite searching for
two years, two seasons at sea,
they realize that they are
searching the wrong site.
And the feeling of having spent
years of time,
millions of dollars of funding,
exploring the wrong places
was definitely starting to
create a bit of desperation.
Even though I told
all our investors
it was a high-risk thing,
it seemed like
a tremendous responsibility.
Because everybody was counting
on me to make it happen.
For Tommy,
it was incredibly difficult
to not be able to tell
his investors and the world
that we absolutely had found
the SS Central America,
and it had a great effect
on him.
It seemed like failure
was going to be imminent.
It had to be absolutely
crushing to Tommy.
We got back that fall
totally exhausted,
spent physically and mentally.
And now the hard part starts.
Now we're in an uphill battle
to raise money.
We had essentially
blown through
all the money
that he had raised.
This entire mission and
all the crew's hopes and dreams
and Tommy's own ambition,
it looks like they're all
staring failure in the face.
Partners and friends,
our partner and leader,
Thomas G. Thompson.
So, there's a meeting
that we have,
and we invite our investors.
And we are there to raise funds.
Tommy's going to say
we know that we have searched
this entire probability map,
there are nine out of ten
targets still to look at.
We will keep working on this
until we find it.
Tommy had a determination
about him,
he was not going to give up.
It's a tough challenge
for everybody who tried
to bring the project
to a higher level.
We're going to find out when we
go out there next summer.
Now any other questions?
Yes.
The investors
who really believed in Tommy
came forward with the money.
They just really trust
Tommy as an individual.
They trust the methods
that he's put into place
and the plan he has
to find this treasure.
They were attracted by
the profit that they might see.
I remember one of the investors,
they stood to receive
$10 million
from their investment.
My dad just decided,
I'm willing to take that risk.
He felt pretty comfortable
that they were going to do
what they said
they were going to do.
My dad has $210,000 invested.
How much did you contribute?
I'm not sure
I want to say that.
I would say that I was
one of the biggest investors.
Tommy was able
to go back to sea.
They're going way out
into the ocean, and this is it.
This is the final chance
they're going to have
to realize Tommy's dream.
For Tommy,
the pressure just got huge.
This was their third year
and they had found
no gold, nothing.
It was do or die.
RV, are you on a handheld?
That's correct, do you
want me to go to bridge?
They still had
nine targets on their grid.
Studying the sonograms,
they found one which looked
particularly promising.
This one image on their sonar
was bigger than all the others
and it had a lot more
interest in it.
We arrived on site
somewhat late in the year.
The storm season is approaching,
and the weather window
is closing.
Good, rotate
over there clockwise.
Swing it out, Bob,
take out the slack.
Start laying on this one.
Watch the
Let it go, you guys,
let it go.
We launched
the submersible.
I started developing
a very clear sonar picture.
There were large objects
that we had not seen
on any of the other sites, but
we didn't know what they were.
And as we got closer and closer,
the sonar images were becoming
more and more distinct.
John Moore yelled,
"We have something."
We then noticed
on the video monitor
an item that was
coming into view.
It was like a curved line,
and as we were moving over it,
that curved line
had spokes to it.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Here we go.
Ohh, you know what that is.
You know what that is.
Ahh!
You know what that is.
It would have been
the starboard side paddle wheel.
I probably passed
a foot above it.
It filled up
the entire video frame.
Look at that.
Is there any doubt
in your mind what that is?
Big bad boy.
Standing upright.
I am very overwhelmed
at this point.
I'm looking at something that
no other human has ever seen.
Ahh!
You know what that is.
This is more exciting
than anybody's gonna
come up in a Hollywood film.
We went down to have
a closer look.
And we saw an object
that could be
the ship's bell.
It's really beautiful.
Isn't that cool, man?
That's excellent right there.
And I was able
to bring it back.
We removed the bell
from the vehicle,
and now we were able to read
the inscription,
it read
"Morgan Iron Works, 1853."
At that point
we were very excited.
Morgan Iron Works
was the foundry
that built the heavy machinery
on the Central America,
and 1853 was the year
that the Central America
was commissioned.
That really confirmed it.
We got sidewheels, we got the
right engines, we got the bell.
This is really it.
Tommy was just beaming
from ear to ear
with a smile and pride.
But now the next question is,
where's the gold?
We're taking
many, many pictures.
We were seeing a lot of orange
and thinking,
well, that's kind of, uh,
that's almost the color of gold.
There has to be gold
on board this boat,
so we're starting to see
objects that, could that be it?
The answer
was almost universally no.
We still hadn't seen anything.
It was very frustrating.
You're seeing things again.
We started taking
hundreds of pictures a day
and developing the slides.
We had a lot
of questions of what this is.
One night the guys that
were reviewing the photographs
were quite excited.
Okay, here, here is
what the display looked like.
There's the posterboard.
Best I could do.
They called me and Tommy
and said, "Hey, we want you
to see something."
And they just handed me
a picture.
Oh, god, I'm seeing all these
rectangular, rectangular objects
and also circular items,
which in my mind could
have been, could be coins.
And I said,
"Whoa, could that really be?"
Oh, you can see it in here,
it's not a very good picture,
but here's the crest,
the town crest,
in the upper right-hand corner.
Oh, yeah.
So, we lowered
the vehicle,
we directed the thrusters
that we normally used
for maneuvering the vehicle
in the direction of this area
in the photo images.
Tommy says, "Okay,
I believe that if we're gentle
in trying to move some of this
overburden away,
we're not going to destroy
any important clues."
We go very gently,
and not much happens.
We try a little harder.
So, we try a little harder.
We then turn
the thrusters onto maximum
and just blew the area,
blew the silt and sediment away.
And then the dust cleared,
and we all could see
for our own eyes,
yellow, bright yellow.
Oh!
Wow, that's incredible!
We found it.
Gold. Lots of it.
They said it couldn't be done.
They said even if
we got down there,
we wouldn't be able to find it.
We turned impossibilities
into realities.
Eureka!
We found the gold.
We call it the garden of gold.
Just jaw-dropping beauty,
you couldn't imagine,
even in your dreams.
My god.
This is incredible.
So, Tommy had dreamed
about it since he was a kid,
and he had found
the Central America.
We've hit
the motherlode.
It's unquestionably the greatest
American treasure ever found.
The largest
treasure in American history.
So now they had
found the gold,
it is definitely time for Tommy
to deliver to his investors
so that they know that
their investment has paid off.
Chuck is
standing by live right now
to tell us the story of some
very happy local investors.
Investors in this project,
they're wanting their return
on their investment
as soon as possible.
There's absolutely
the thrill of getting some gold
and monetizing it.
The possibility of 400 million
to a billion-dollar windfall.
We were ecstatic,
absolutely ecstatic.
In the beginning,
it was really exciting.
But if you're gonna do something
magnificent like Tommy did,
you're going to be up for grabs.
We'd found the treasure,
and then things started
to go haywire.