Latest / Crime and Horror / Top 3 places you CAN'T GO & people who went anyways... Part 6

Transcript

Top 3 places you CAN'T GO & people who went anyways... Part 6 · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: If you want to hear about one of the most
0:01
Speaker 1: ridiculously dangerous jobs in the entire world, stick around for
0:05
Speaker 1: today's top story. But before we get into today's stories,
0:09
Speaker 1: if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious
0:11
Speaker 1: delivered in story format, then you come to the right
0:14
Speaker 1: channel because that's all we do and we upload three, four,
0:16
Speaker 1: even five times every week. So if that's of interest
0:19
Speaker 1: to you, invite the light button to go on a
0:21
Speaker 1: bike ride with you and then jabb a stick into
0:23
Speaker 1: their front s folks while they're moving. Also, please subscribe
0:25
Speaker 1: to this channel and turn on all notifications so you
0:27
Speaker 1: don't miss any of our weekly uploads. All right, let's
0:30
Speaker 1: get into today's stories. Off the coast of mainland Southeast
0:46
Speaker 1: Asia in the Indian and Pacific Oceans lies Indonesia, which
0:49
Speaker 1: is the world's largest archipelago. It's made up of seventeen thousand,
0:53
Speaker 1: five hundred and eight individual islands that if you are
0:55
Speaker 1: measuring from the westernmost point on the westernmost island to
0:59
Speaker 1: the east easternmost point on the easternmost island, it would
1:02
Speaker 1: be five thousand kilometers right across the equator, so it
1:05
Speaker 1: spans one eighth of the world's circumference. Many of these
1:09
Speaker 1: islands are tiny, uninhabited and unremarkable. At first glance. You
1:13
Speaker 1: might think that about one particular island that's located twenty
1:16
Speaker 1: five hundred kilometers north of Australia, And I would tell
1:19
Speaker 1: you the name of this island, but if I did,
1:21
Speaker 1: I would be giving away the island's secret. Living on
1:24
Speaker 1: this island are two thousand people who are direct descendants
1:27
Speaker 1: of former convicts who are exiled to this island. And
1:30
Speaker 1: they share this island with a particular predator that is
1:33
Speaker 1: endemic to this island, who is a direct descendant of
1:36
Speaker 1: flesh eating dinosaurs. It can grow up to ten feet
1:39
Speaker 1: long and weigh up to three hundred and fifty pounds,
1:42
Speaker 1: and its taste buds are so immaculately developed it can
1:46
Speaker 1: taste blood in the air up to nine kilometers away.
1:50
Speaker 1: These creatures are so good at smelling blood and death
1:54
Speaker 1: that anytime there is a burial on this island, they
1:57
Speaker 1: have to put big boulders over the grave. Site Wise,
2:00
Speaker 1: these creatures will come running out of the jungle and
2:02
Speaker 1: dig up the freshly deceased and eat them. This creature's
2:05
Speaker 1: bite is savage, and they certainly have the ability to
2:08
Speaker 1: rip a person in two and in the past they have,
2:10
Speaker 1: but they don't typically bite to kill. They bite to
2:13
Speaker 1: create a massive flesh wound so they can inject venom
2:16
Speaker 1: into the wound site. This allows them to not expend
2:19
Speaker 1: a ton of energy waiting for their prey to die
2:21
Speaker 1: so they can eat it. They basically bite you, poison
2:24
Speaker 1: you leave, come back within twenty four hours, and then
2:26
Speaker 1: they eat you. These creatures are strict carnivores and have
2:29
Speaker 1: a voracious appetite where they will eat up to eighty
2:32
Speaker 1: percent of their own body weight in a single day.
2:34
Speaker 1: They've been known to bite goats and eat them whole
2:37
Speaker 1: by opening up their mouth and ramming the body of
2:40
Speaker 1: the goat into a tree to force it down their throats.
2:43
Speaker 1: But when goats and sheep and buffalo are not enough
2:46
Speaker 1: to feed their appetite, they start eating each other. In fact,
2:49
Speaker 1: cannibalism is so common that they're young will hide in
2:52
Speaker 1: the trees for the first four years of their life,
2:54
Speaker 1: hiding from their own parrots because if they're spotted by
2:57
Speaker 1: an adult, they'll be eaten. On top of all this,
3:00
Speaker 1: they can climb, run, and swim faster than a human can.
3:03
Speaker 1: These apex predators are called Komodo dragons, and they live
3:07
Speaker 1: on this one island in Indonesia called Komodo Island. In
3:11
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, a thirty one year old fisherman
3:13
Speaker 1: named Mohammad Anwar, who had grown up on Kimodo Island
3:16
Speaker 1: and was living there at the time, decided he wanted
3:19
Speaker 1: some fruit. He normally would just eat the apples that
3:21
Speaker 1: were right outside of his house, but he had always
3:23
Speaker 1: been tantalized by the sugar apple trees that were inside
3:27
Speaker 1: of the fenced off section of Komodo Island, the so
3:30
Speaker 1: called forbidden section. This section was of course teeming with
3:33
Speaker 1: Kimodo dragons, and so as a result, the locals basically
3:36
Speaker 1: fenced it off and said we don't go over there,
3:38
Speaker 1: they don't come over here. But Mohammed had always wanted
3:41
Speaker 1: those sugar apples. He's grown up here and he never
3:43
Speaker 1: got to have one, and so this day, for whatever reason,
3:46
Speaker 1: he decided, today's the day I'm going to get one.
3:49
Speaker 1: And so he goes over to the fence and he's
3:50
Speaker 1: looking out and there's some fairly tall grass, so he
3:53
Speaker 1: can't see what's on the immediate other side of this fence.
3:55
Speaker 1: But it's pretty open. Then he can see the trees.
3:57
Speaker 1: They're a little bit off in the distance, and so
3:59
Speaker 1: after looking around and feeling like the coast was clear,
4:02
Speaker 1: he hopped the fence and he ran out to the
4:04
Speaker 1: sugar apple tree. Mohammed's neighbor, Teresa Tawa, was outside and
4:08
Speaker 1: happened to look over at Mohammed right as he hopped
4:10
Speaker 1: the fence into the forbidden section, and so she ran
4:12
Speaker 1: over to the fence and yelled to him to come back,
4:14
Speaker 1: but he didn't hear her. And so she's standing at
4:16
Speaker 1: the fence looking out, scanning herself to see if there's
4:19
Speaker 1: any Kimodo dragons out there, and she didn't see any,
4:22
Speaker 1: and so she turns her attention to Mohammed and she's
4:24
Speaker 1: watching him, hoping that he just gets the apples and
4:27
Speaker 1: comes back without incident. And as she's watching, she sees
4:30
Speaker 1: he's reaching out and extending his arm as far enough
4:33
Speaker 1: he wants to get one more apple, and he loses
4:35
Speaker 1: his footing and he falls to the ground. From her perspective,
4:38
Speaker 1: she couldn't see Mohammed on the ground because the tall
4:41
Speaker 1: grass obscured him, so she didn't know if he's laying
4:43
Speaker 1: there unconscious, or if he's just rolling around and he's
4:46
Speaker 1: in pain and he's about to stand up, and so
4:48
Speaker 1: she's just looking anxiously hoping he stands up soon. And
4:51
Speaker 1: then she hears the sound of two Kimodo dragons running
4:55
Speaker 1: through the tall grass. She can see the grass moving
4:57
Speaker 1: as these two massive creatures are running and grunting at
5:01
Speaker 1: full speed towards Muhammad Mohammed. When he fell, he had
5:04
Speaker 1: cut himself and they smelled his blood and they charged
5:07
Speaker 1: over and Teresa could only scream and yell for help
5:10
Speaker 1: as these two Komodo dragons ate Mohammed. The authorities were
5:14
Speaker 1: able to get out there pretty quickly, and they were
5:16
Speaker 1: able to get the Kimodo dragons off before they actually
5:19
Speaker 1: consumed him, but he was already dead. Today, you can
5:22
Speaker 1: actually go to Komodo Island as a tourist, but it
5:24
Speaker 1: costs you a thousand US dollars to get a membership fee,
5:27
Speaker 1: and then once you get there, you're only allowed to
5:29
Speaker 1: be in a couple different sections that are totally regulated,
5:32
Speaker 1: and you're really not anywhere near the Komodo dragons because
5:35
Speaker 1: it really is extremely dangerous. On the evening of June twentieth,
5:42
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five, four high school friends set off for
5:45
Speaker 1: a remote desert location about ninety miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada,
5:50
Speaker 1: that was within the very famous Death Valley. They arrived
5:53
Speaker 1: at their destination, which if he didn't know any better,
5:55
Speaker 1: would just look like the middle of nowhere in the desert,
5:57
Speaker 1: but to them, they knew exactly where they were. They
6:00
Speaker 1: parked their car, they got out, and they began unloading
6:02
Speaker 1: very heavy underwater diving equipment and began walking it up
6:06
Speaker 1: a nearby hill. The group was made up of nineteen
6:08
Speaker 1: year old Paul Jeohn Contieri, his brother in law, twenty
6:11
Speaker 1: year old David Rose, nineteen year old Bill Alter, and
6:14
Speaker 1: his younger brother Jack, who was sixteen years old. As
6:16
Speaker 1: these four boys walked their diving equipment up this hill,
6:19
Speaker 1: they were hit with sign after sign after sign that
6:22
Speaker 1: was telling them do not go any farther. Turn around.
6:25
Speaker 1: They made it to the top of the hill and
6:27
Speaker 1: they were met with a huge fence which once again
6:29
Speaker 1: said do not go any farther. Without any hesitation, they
6:32
Speaker 1: went right under the fence and began walking down the
6:34
Speaker 1: other side, which was a very steep, thirty foot rocky
6:37
Speaker 1: slope that led down to this very narrow strip of
6:40
Speaker 1: water that was the entrance to a very famous underwater
6:43
Speaker 1: cave called the Devil's Hole. Their plan was to dive
6:45
Speaker 1: all the way down to the bottom of the cave,
6:47
Speaker 1: which was at three hundred and twenty five feet. So
6:49
Speaker 1: they get down to the bottom of the hill and
6:51
Speaker 1: they begin putting on their scuba gear and Jack, the youngest,
6:54
Speaker 1: he's like, you know what, guys, I'm having second thoughts
6:56
Speaker 1: and I don't want to do this anymore. And they're like,
6:58
Speaker 1: I they so yourself, and so Jack volunteers himself to
7:01
Speaker 1: sit on the outside and be their lookout. The other
7:04
Speaker 1: three Paul, David, and Bill, they're totally still doing this dive,
7:07
Speaker 1: and so they put on the rest of their equipment.
7:09
Speaker 1: They hop in the very warm water. It stays at
7:11
Speaker 1: about ninety two degrees fahrenheit year round inside of the
7:13
Speaker 1: Devil's Hole. They checked their flashlights a couple of times,
7:15
Speaker 1: and when they're ready, they signaled to each other and
7:18
Speaker 1: they begin their descent down into the dark abyss that
7:20
Speaker 1: is the Devil's Hole. So for the next couple of hours,
7:23
Speaker 1: Jack just sat on the surface waiting for his brother
7:25
Speaker 1: and his two friends to return. And just after midnight,
7:28
Speaker 1: David and Bill did return, but Paul didn't. And so
7:31
Speaker 1: when David and Bill got to the surface, they asked Jack, hey,
7:33
Speaker 1: have you seen Paul, because we got separated on the
7:36
Speaker 1: way up and we figured he was already up here.
7:38
Speaker 1: And Jack said, no, it's just you two. I haven't
7:40
Speaker 1: seen Paul. And so David and Bill look at each
7:43
Speaker 1: other and they know they have a problem, and they're like,
7:45
Speaker 1: we got to go back down, and so they put
7:46
Speaker 1: their regulators back in and they turn and start swimming down.
7:49
Speaker 1: Bill would say when they went back down to look
7:51
Speaker 1: for Paul, Dave was leading, and Dave was going really fast,
7:55
Speaker 1: to the point where Bill couldn't keep up with him.
7:57
Speaker 1: And you got to remember, it's pitch black down there,
8:00
Speaker 1: and Bill's got his flashlight. That's the only way he
8:02
Speaker 1: can see Dave, and Dave was creating separation and getting
8:05
Speaker 1: farther and farther away. Bill had no way to stop him,
8:08
Speaker 1: and at some point he lost him. Dave was just gone,
8:10
Speaker 1: and so Bill, not wanting to turn this into an
8:12
Speaker 1: even bigger problem, stopped where he was and went back
8:15
Speaker 1: to the surface, and he and his brother Jack just
8:17
Speaker 1: sit there anxiously waiting for Dave and Paul to return,
8:20
Speaker 1: but they don't, and so at some point Jack went
8:23
Speaker 1: and got authorities. When the police got the report about
8:25
Speaker 1: the two missing divers inside of Devil's Hole, I'm sure
8:28
Speaker 1: on some level they were like, that's why the signs
8:30
Speaker 1: are there, you're not allowed to dive in there, But
8:33
Speaker 1: they put that aside and instead they contacted a guy
8:35
Speaker 1: named Jim Hoots, who was a professional diver who regularly
8:38
Speaker 1: dove inside of Devil's Hole, so he's very familiar with it,
8:41
Speaker 1: and they got him on scene within a couple hours
8:44
Speaker 1: to go looking for these guys. And originally the hope
8:46
Speaker 1: was Paul and David had found their way into a
8:49
Speaker 1: section of Devil's Hole called Brown's Room, which was this
8:52
Speaker 1: big air pocket that perhaps in an emergency situation they
8:55
Speaker 1: had found their way in there, and now they're trapped.
8:57
Speaker 1: So Jim and his dive partner get to the end
9:00
Speaker 1: edge of Double's Hole. They put on their gear, they
9:02
Speaker 1: hop in the water, and they begin their descent and
9:04
Speaker 1: it's totally dark. They got their lights and they go
9:06
Speaker 1: down about ninety feet to where the tunnel basically funnels
9:09
Speaker 1: down to a point, and through this point, you have
9:12
Speaker 1: to wriggle through and push through. Once you get through that,
9:14
Speaker 1: you enter into this massive chasm that if you shine
9:17
Speaker 1: your light in any direction, the walls are so far
9:21
Speaker 1: away that initially it looks like you're shining a light
9:23
Speaker 1: into infinity. It's this massive, massive space. But for them
9:26
Speaker 1: to get to Brown's room, the first place they're going
9:28
Speaker 1: to look for these guys, they needed to push through
9:30
Speaker 1: that little funnel and then immediately turn left and track
9:33
Speaker 1: the ceiling until they find a tunnel that goes back
9:36
Speaker 1: up again. And that is the tunnel that's very claustrophobia inducing.
9:39
Speaker 1: It's very tight that if you take it ninety feet
9:42
Speaker 1: back up you get to Brown's room and that's that
9:44
Speaker 1: big air pocket. And so Jim and his dive partner
9:46
Speaker 1: they make their way up this tunnel. They get to
9:48
Speaker 1: the air pocket and there's no divers and so they
9:50
Speaker 1: go back down through the tunnel back into that huge chasm.
9:54
Speaker 1: And instead of going back to the surface, they knew
9:56
Speaker 1: that if they didn't find them in the air pocket,
9:58
Speaker 1: they were going to go down little ways and see
9:59
Speaker 1: if they could find them on this one area called
10:01
Speaker 1: the Lower Ledge. And so the Lower Ledge was just
10:04
Speaker 1: a rocky outcropping that was about halfway down to the
10:07
Speaker 1: bottom of the cave. It was a natural break point
10:10
Speaker 1: before you went to the bottom. And so as they're
10:12
Speaker 1: descending in this infinity chasm, Jim is shining as flashlight
10:16
Speaker 1: in every direction looking for signs of these guys, and
10:18
Speaker 1: at some point this light picks up a reflection on
10:21
Speaker 1: the lower ledge, and so they get down to the
10:23
Speaker 1: lower ledge and that reflection was from a dive mask,
10:25
Speaker 1: the glass of the dive mask, it was sitting right
10:28
Speaker 1: on the lower ledge, and then next to it was
10:30
Speaker 1: a single dive fin. So Jem and his dive partner
10:33
Speaker 1: they pick these items up, they go back up to
10:34
Speaker 1: the surface and they confirm with Jack and Bill Alter
10:38
Speaker 1: that yes, that mask and that fin belonged to David Paul.
10:41
Speaker 1: And then afterwards they say to the search party, look,
10:44
Speaker 1: we were in Brown's room and they weren't in there,
10:46
Speaker 1: and so there's nowhere else they could be alive. And
10:48
Speaker 1: by now they've run out of air, and so that
10:51
Speaker 1: mixed with the fact that we're finding their equipment strewn
10:53
Speaker 1: about the chasm, it's safe to say they're more than
10:55
Speaker 1: likely deceased. Jem and his dive partner said, look, we'd
10:58
Speaker 1: like to go back in and go all the way
10:59
Speaker 1: to the bottom. We stopped at the lower ledge, so
11:01
Speaker 1: we don't know what's down there. We anticipate we'll be
11:04
Speaker 1: able to find their bodies and we can at least
11:05
Speaker 1: confirm there down there and then shift to a body
11:08
Speaker 1: retrieval mission. So Jim and his dive partner get back
11:11
Speaker 1: in the water. They go down the ninety feet to
11:13
Speaker 1: that little section you have to wriggle through to get
11:15
Speaker 1: into the chasm. Once they're inside, they keep going down.
11:18
Speaker 1: They pass the lower ledge and they go all the
11:20
Speaker 1: way down to three hundred and twenty five feet. Now,
11:22
Speaker 1: this cave is huge, and the floor bottom is huge,
11:26
Speaker 1: but it's not so huge that you wouldn't be able
11:28
Speaker 1: to spot two bodies that have just recently landed down here.
11:31
Speaker 1: And so Jim and his partner are scanning their light
11:34
Speaker 1: across the bottom, which is relatively flat. You can see
11:36
Speaker 1: pretty far because of how clear the water is, and
11:39
Speaker 1: they're not seeing anything on the bottom. They're looking all
11:41
Speaker 1: over the place and there's no bodies, there's no equipment,
11:44
Speaker 1: there's nothing, and they're thinking, how are we missing this?
11:46
Speaker 1: How are we not able to see this. And it
11:48
Speaker 1: was at this point that Jim noticed a little hole
11:51
Speaker 1: in the bottom of the cave floor, barely big enough
11:53
Speaker 1: for a full sized person with tanks to fit through,
11:56
Speaker 1: that he hadn't seen before, and so they make their
11:58
Speaker 1: way over to it, and Jim says, right when he
12:00
Speaker 1: was on the edge, he felt a fairly strong current
12:03
Speaker 1: being pulled past his legs down into this hole. It
12:06
Speaker 1: was almost like this was a drain on the bathtub
12:08
Speaker 1: and someone had pulled the plug, and now all the
12:10
Speaker 1: water is draining into this little hole. And so Jim
12:12
Speaker 1: and his dive buddy kind of pushed themselves back to
12:14
Speaker 1: make sure they don't get sucked in. Then Jim pulls
12:17
Speaker 1: out a weighted piece of string that goes out to
12:19
Speaker 1: nine hundred and thirty two feet, and he would use
12:22
Speaker 1: this if there was ever a tunnel that he wanted
12:23
Speaker 1: to go down and he wanted to size up how
12:25
Speaker 1: deep it was. He would extend the line and he
12:28
Speaker 1: would let it fall until it hit something and then
12:30
Speaker 1: he would stop it. And on the line were marks
12:32
Speaker 1: of how deep it was. And so he let this
12:34
Speaker 1: line go inside of this hole, and it went all
12:36
Speaker 1: the way down to nine hundred and thirty two feet
12:39
Speaker 1: without touching any surface, meaning it's at least nine hundred
12:42
Speaker 1: and thirty two feet deep from that point down. So
12:45
Speaker 1: Jim just pulls his line back up and he looks
12:47
Speaker 1: at his dive partner and he's like, yeah, no, we're
12:49
Speaker 1: not going down there. Not only were they not equipped
12:51
Speaker 1: to go that deep, they also both knew if we
12:54
Speaker 1: go in this hole, there's a good chance we won't
12:56
Speaker 1: be able to get back out again because the current
12:58
Speaker 1: is so strong. So Jim and has dived partner go
13:00
Speaker 1: back to the surface and they say, look, we couldn't
13:02
Speaker 1: find their bodies. But what we think happened is they
13:05
Speaker 1: developed nitrogen narcosis, where you're in this sort of drunken state,
13:08
Speaker 1: you don't really know what's going on around you, and
13:10
Speaker 1: that suction slowly pulled them into this hole, and they
13:14
Speaker 1: weren't really aware of their surroundings, and they didn't stop
13:17
Speaker 1: themselves before they got pulled in, and then it was
13:19
Speaker 1: too late and they were pulled down into oblivion. To
13:21
Speaker 1: this day, they'd never found their bodies, and scientists still
13:24
Speaker 1: don't know how deep that hole is. But in twenty twelve,
13:28
Speaker 1: there was an earthquake in Mexico, So two thousand miles
13:30
Speaker 1: away from Devil's Hole. That caused a tsunami to come
13:34
Speaker 1: through Devil's Hole. I don't know how that actually works,
13:37
Speaker 1: but the scientists say that's what happened, and so scientists
13:40
Speaker 1: believe that hole leads to an underground ocean that connects
13:43
Speaker 1: to other parts of the world as far away as
13:46
Speaker 1: two thousand miles. Today, diving is still strictly forbidden inside
13:49
Speaker 1: a Devil's Hole unless you're a scientist, and they stay
13:52
Speaker 1: far away from that hole. At the bottom Pearly Beach
13:59
Speaker 1: is this beautiful little beach town in South Africa that's
14:02
Speaker 1: very popular amongst tourists. There's lots of snorkeling and whale
14:05
Speaker 1: watching and horseback riding on the beach. But behind this
14:09
Speaker 1: beautiful vacation town, down this bumpy access road going inland,
14:13
Speaker 1: you come to this unmarked settlement called Aluxelwaney that is
14:16
Speaker 1: like the opposite of a vacation. Basically everyone there is
14:20
Speaker 1: completely impoverished. Beyond some seasonal cleaning jobs and the occasional
14:24
Speaker 1: gardening job, there's virtually no work in that area. As
14:27
Speaker 1: a result of this crushing poverty. The men in this
14:30
Speaker 1: town have had to take on one of the most
14:32
Speaker 1: dangerous jobs in the world. It's called abalone poaching. Abalon
14:36
Speaker 1: are a very rare type of shellfish that are illegal
14:39
Speaker 1: to be captured and sold, but there's this booming illicit
14:42
Speaker 1: market for them, their primary customer being the Chinese, who
14:45
Speaker 1: view eating abalone as a status food. Abalon can only
14:48
Speaker 1: be harvested by hand, and one of the very few
14:51
Speaker 1: places you can find them is on Dyer Island, which
14:54
Speaker 1: is three kilometers off the coast of Pearly Beach, and
14:57
Speaker 1: so the men of Aluxelwaney have become the primary labor
15:00
Speaker 1: force to go collect these shellfish for this illegal trade.
15:03
Speaker 1: On a really good night, these Aluxelwaney poachers will come
15:06
Speaker 1: back and make the equivalent of a couple hundred US
15:09
Speaker 1: dollars and they'll use that money to support their entire
15:12
Speaker 1: family mom, dad, you know, grandparents' kids, nieces, nephews, everybody,
15:17
Speaker 1: because nobody else can work. This is like the one
15:19
Speaker 1: thing that generates money. So you're probably wondering what makes
15:22
Speaker 1: this particular job one of the most dangerous in the world. Well,
15:26
Speaker 1: I can tell you it has nothing to do with
15:27
Speaker 1: the actual act of removing a balons. That's pretty straightforward.
15:31
Speaker 1: It's the creature that lurks below you the whole time
15:33
Speaker 1: you're in the water, pulling abalons off the reef, that
15:36
Speaker 1: at any moment might come up and strike. In the
15:38
Speaker 1: early morning hours of September third, twenty seventeen, a group
15:41
Speaker 1: of Aluxelwaney poachers met on Pearly Beach to make their
15:45
Speaker 1: way out to Dire Island. Now, because they are so poor,
15:48
Speaker 1: they do not have the money to afford renting a
15:51
Speaker 1: boat to take them out to Dire Island, and so
15:53
Speaker 1: they swim out to Dire Island. It takes them about
15:56
Speaker 1: three hours to swim out there, and then they stay
15:58
Speaker 1: there for three hours, going down on a breath hold
16:01
Speaker 1: over and over again, pulling abalones off the reef, and
16:04
Speaker 1: then they swim three hours back. And so this particular day,
16:07
Speaker 1: the poachers are pulling up their wetsuits, getting ready for
16:09
Speaker 1: the swim, and they're chatting nervously with each other, doing
16:12
Speaker 1: their best not to talk about the one thing they
16:15
Speaker 1: were all terrified at, which is what's swimming out in
16:17
Speaker 1: that water. One of the men on the beach was
16:19
Speaker 1: a thirty four year old named Salala, who had taken
16:21
Speaker 1: a break from abalone poaching because of how dangerous it was,
16:25
Speaker 1: but he had just found out his wife was pregnant
16:27
Speaker 1: and so he needed the extra cash, so he was
16:29
Speaker 1: going with them. South Africa is home to the largest
16:32
Speaker 1: population of great white sharks in the world. Specifically, there
16:36
Speaker 1: is a stretch of water between Dire Island and the
16:39
Speaker 1: shores of Pearly Beach called Shark Alley that is the
16:42
Speaker 1: highest concentration of great white sharks in the world. So
16:46
Speaker 1: every time the Aluxelwaney poachers swam out to Dire Island,
16:50
Speaker 1: they had to swim over Shark Alley and then once
16:53
Speaker 1: at the reef removing the abalones. That's where all the
16:56
Speaker 1: sharks would hang out because they would eat the seals
16:58
Speaker 1: that were in the area all around them there, and
17:01
Speaker 1: then they would swim back over Shark Alley. So all
17:04
Speaker 1: in they would be spending nine hours around some of
17:07
Speaker 1: the most ferocious apex predators in the world. So that
17:10
Speaker 1: morning's Zaleila and the other poachers make it out past
17:12
Speaker 1: the breakers and they head out to this stretch of
17:15
Speaker 1: kelp that covered the first third of their trip. Basically,
17:18
Speaker 1: they would stay in this big kelp field because they
17:20
Speaker 1: said the sharks didn't like to come in the kelp.
17:22
Speaker 1: But at some point they reached the end of the
17:24
Speaker 1: last bit of kelp and what was next was this
17:27
Speaker 1: open water swim up to Dyer Island. This would be
17:29
Speaker 1: the most dangerous part. And Zalila was the first person
17:33
Speaker 1: that was going to be entering the open water. And
17:35
Speaker 1: the way they did it is in the open water,
17:37
Speaker 1: they would intentionally space themselves out by a couple of
17:40
Speaker 1: meters in case one of them got attacked, the others
17:43
Speaker 1: would have a chance to swim away and avoid being
17:45
Speaker 1: caught up in the feeding frenzy. So Zalala leaves the
17:48
Speaker 1: kelp field and begins swimming across the open water, and
17:51
Speaker 1: then after a little bit, the next poacher he begins swimming.
17:54
Speaker 1: And they had this practice where they would constantly be
17:56
Speaker 1: looking around and counting all the people they were with
17:59
Speaker 1: the shark attacks when they happened. A lot of times
18:02
Speaker 1: they would get pulled under the water and you wouldn't
18:04
Speaker 1: hear it at first. If there was a head missing,
18:06
Speaker 1: you stopped, and you stopped everybody else, and you made
18:09
Speaker 1: sure no one was being attacked by a shark. And
18:11
Speaker 1: so as this second swimmer is swimming along. He's counting
18:13
Speaker 1: and he's got a full head count, and then he
18:15
Speaker 1: looks and Zaleila's missing, and he yells for the others
18:18
Speaker 1: to stop, and as they're kind of poking their heads
18:20
Speaker 1: up to see what's going on, Zeleela re emerges in
18:23
Speaker 1: the mouth of a great white shark that is violently
18:26
Speaker 1: shaking inside the side, and Zalela's screaming out and the
18:29
Speaker 1: other poachers know they can't do anything to help him,
18:32
Speaker 1: and so they turn and they swim as fast as
18:34
Speaker 1: they can, and all they hear behind them is the
18:36
Speaker 1: sudden scream as his face would come out of the
18:38
Speaker 1: water and then go back down again, and the violent
18:40
Speaker 1: thrashing of fins as a feeding frenzy began. And so
18:43
Speaker 1: the others make it back to the kelp field, and
18:45
Speaker 1: one of them had a cell phone wrapped in rubber,
18:47
Speaker 1: so he pulls that out and he calls one of
18:49
Speaker 1: the poacher boats, because even in an emergency, they don't
18:52
Speaker 1: call the police because they can't jeopardize their livelihood, And
18:55
Speaker 1: so they call a poacher boat that comes over scoops
18:58
Speaker 1: them up out of the water, and then the remains
19:00
Speaker 1: of Zalela that came to the surface, they were able
19:02
Speaker 1: to pull those into the boat and bring them back
19:05
Speaker 1: for a funeral. According to police reports, in the last
19:08
Speaker 1: two decades, five Aluxelwaney poachers have been killed by sharks,
19:12
Speaker 1: but to the Aluxelwaney locals, they say that count is
19:16
Speaker 1: not even close to accurate because a lot of times
19:18
Speaker 1: when people do get attacked and killed by sharks, they
19:20
Speaker 1: don't report it to the police because they don't talk
19:22
Speaker 1: to the police, and so they think it's probably closer
19:25
Speaker 1: to two or three dozen people that have been killed
19:27
Speaker 1: by sharks. When interviewed, an Aluxelwaney poacher has said, anytime
19:31
Speaker 1: there's a shark attack, whether it's fatal or not, they
19:33
Speaker 1: usually just take a week or two off and then
19:35
Speaker 1: go right back in the water. Poverty has given them
19:38
Speaker 1: no other choice, so that's going to do it. Guys.
19:40
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed the stories. If you've found the
19:42
Speaker 1: secret in today's episode, tell us in the comments what
19:45
Speaker 1: it is and where you found it, give us the timestamp,
19:48
Speaker 1: and if you're the first to do that, we'll pin
19:50
Speaker 1: you at the top of the comments section. If you
19:52
Speaker 1: enjoy today's videos and you haven't done this, already. Please
19:54
Speaker 1: go on a bike ride with a like button and
19:56
Speaker 1: then drive up next to them and jab a stick
19:58
Speaker 1: into their spokes at high speed. Also, please subscribe to
20:01
Speaker 1: this channel and turn on all notifications so you don't
20:03
Speaker 1: miss any of our weekly three, four, even five video uploads.
20:06
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with me, you
20:08
Speaker 1: can direct message me on Instagram or on Twitter. My
20:10
Speaker 1: username for both platforms is the same. It's just John
20:12
Speaker 1: Balin four one six. I also have a ton of
20:15
Speaker 1: content over on TikTok, where my username is mister Ballin.
20:18
Speaker 1: If you have a story suggestion, please submit it to
20:20
Speaker 1: our subreddit just called mister Ballin. It's linked in the
20:23
Speaker 1: description below. So whether I see you on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, YouTube,
20:27
Speaker 1: or some combination, just know that I really appreciate your
20:30
Speaker 1: support and until next time that's going to do it,
20:33
Speaker 1: see it