JESS: What's that?
MIKE: Yeah, what's that? That's something.
What's that?
NARRATOR: In Lake Michigan, just off the coast
of Poverty Island, while investigating a shipwreck
believed to possibly contain $400 million
in lost Civil War gold, Rick Lagina and the team
have just made what could be a surprising discovery.
I haven't seen that before.
MIKE: We've got something else there, possibly two wrecks, one
across the top of another.
That does.
That looks like two.
MATTY: Right now, I'm following the imaging on the screen,
and we see what clearly could be a ship.
And then all of a sudden, we all kind of realize
that there could be two.
MIKE: So we've got one shipwreck this way
and another one laying across there.
MATTY: Holy moly.
So we got one here and the other one across it.
RICK: And that would fit the story, right?
Definitely fits the story.
MATTY: Come on.
Come on.
This is great.
This is one of those awesome times when what you're finding
fits the story, and the story here
is that a ship sank after they jettisoned Civil War
gold into Lake Michigan.
Another ship at a later date came, possibly found some
of that gold, but then sank.
And so we are finding evidence of two ships.
One looks like it could possibly be on top of the other.
That fits the story.
So that's exciting.
That's two ships.
MIKE: It's two ships.
One went down, and there was already one down.
It would pretty much-- could look like that right, Mike?
That's what I would expect it to look like?
I love it.
That's awesome.
MATTY: How are you feeling, Jess, right now?
You-- - Pretty awesome.
I'm like, I'm speechless for once.
Your hard work's paying off, you know what I mean?
You're telling the story, and it's
emerging right before our eyes.
It's incredible.
All right, so I mean, we've seen it from the air.
We've seen it with our eyes.
We've seen it on this imaging.
Great job, guys.
So next step is what?
Let's get in and dive it.
MATTY: Look, I think this is a great day, Rick.
It was-- it was better than a great day,
as far as I'm concerned.
And whenever you can take your analytics
and overlay it onto the historical narrative,
you've moved the dial.
And the next way to move the dial is what Mike is saying.
You got to get wet, right?
You got to get wet.
Well, it's getting late, so let's get that dive thing going
and get back out here tomorrow morning and just get at it.
All right.
Great day.
MIKE: It's been a great day.
[suspenseful music]
NARRATOR: The next morning--
RICK: Let's get in that water.
NARRATOR: --Mike and Jess Groleau, along with Rick Lagina
and Matty Blake, return to the waters just
off the coast of Poverty Island to begin their underwater dive
operation.
Do we have any zip ties?
NARRATOR: Joining them is the Groleaus' friend,
diving expert Jon Smith.
MIKE: I have dove with him many, many times in the past.
And we share a mutual interest for the Poverty Island gold.
NARRATOR: He will be helping the team to hopefully
find and confirm the existence of two
shipwrecks identified during yesterday's
side scan sonar search.
OK, you ready?
MIKE (VOICEOVER): So the first dive is a reconnaissance dive.
But we're looking for a second wreck.
We're looking for that second shipwreck that's across the top
of the older, bigger shipwreck.
If we do find something, we need to approach the state
and get a permit to bring it up.
MATTY: OK, divers are ready.
Divers are down.
Hey, Mike, it's Matty in the surface.
Just want to see how you guys are doing down there.
Over.
Do you have eyes on the target?
Mike, just confirming.
So you're seeing something?
Over.
Unbelievable.
That's great.
They're over that shallow--
The shallow one. So the first ship.
MATTY: The part that we can see, it looks like-- he
said it's pretty broken up.
MIKE: What it looks like to me is maybe the ship went down.
And because it was in such a shallow area
right off the big lake, waves came in, busted up the wreck.
I mean, it looks like a tornado.
Stuff was rolling down down there,
and it's a huge debris field.
MATTY: Mike, I'm just confirming, ballast rock?
You think you see ballast rock?
Over.
Well, that would be cool if we have ballast stones
down there near the wreck.
NARRATOR: Ballast stones, lying adjacent to the wooden remains
of a shipwreck on the lake floor?
During the 18th and 19th centuries,
ballast stones were commonly placed
on the hulls of large sailing vessels
to offer additional weight and stability
to ships as they traveled over rough or unstable waters.
Could these ballast stones suggest that the shipwreck
the team has just found might date
as far back as the Civil War?
If so, might it be the ship that once carried the lost cache
of gold that the Captain Laurence and its crew
were reported to have found in 1933,
before also sinking to the bottom of the lake?
The ballast stones are key in a lot of ways
because first of all, it narrows what kind of ship it could be
and when that ship was sailing.
Oh, Rick.