By the beginning of the Twentieth Century,
human explorers have navigated the earth and soared through the skies.
Yet one earthly realm remains silent and hostile.
The deep.
Its crushing pressures kill all
who attempt to invade its forbidden darkness.
Then, in 1930, an adventurous scientist and a wealthy dreamer
undertake a daring voyage in a tiny steel capsule,
to a place no living man has ever gone.
Success will make them ocean science pioneers.
Failure will end in death.
Awaiting thembeckoning them is a fantastic unexplored universe.
This is the story of these first intrepid descents into the abyss.
Earth is an ocean planet.
Water covers over seventy percent at an average depth of two miles.
Yet at the beginning of the twentieth century,
almost nothing is known about the deep ocean.
Then, in 1925,
a charismatic explorer and scientist turns his attention to the sea.
His name is William Beebe.
And his quest begins with a shallow dive in a crude copper helmet.
At 48, Beebe has spent his life
bringing tales of jungle adventures home to the American public.
Now he is reborn into a new world.
"As I peered down I realized that I was looking toward a world of life
almost as unknown as that of Mars or Venus.
William Beebe believes that the only way to study the sea
is to explore it himself.
To date, few other scientists have ventured into the ocean
and witnessed its wonders.
Modern oceanographic knowledge of deepsea fish
is comparable to the information of a student of African animals,
who has trapped a small collection of rats and mice,
but is still wholly unaware of antelope, elephants, lions and rhinos."
Beebe is tantalized by the unknown world in the depths below
and the unseen creatures which live there.
Beebe is already a celebrity scientist.
He was the 25year old prodigy named curator of Birds
at the Bronx Zoo, today's Wildlife Conservation Society.
He is a gifted writer, and a restless traveler,
popularizing scientific observation
with a healthy dose of exotic adventure.
His friends include former President Theodore Roosevelt.
In what is believed to be his last letter before his death in 1919,
Roosevelt praises Beebe's work
At age forty, he turns his attention and energy to the First World War
and volunteers as a pilot, serving in skies over Europe.
When the war is over, William Beebe returns to his explorations
and in 1925, sets out on the ocean journey that will change his life.
Beebe's ship is Arcturus, donated to him by a wealthy patron.
A tireless promoter, Beebe knows how to use adventure to sell science.
Several Manhattan millionaires sponsor his expedition.
Beebe steers Arcturus for the Sargasso Sea,
in search of the teeming aquatic life
amidst the rafts of floating sargassum weed.
His team of fifteen scientists labor tirelessly,
gathering fish and ocean animals,
recording and cataloguing their fiindings,
and preserving specimens for more detailed study at the Bronx Zoo.
For 25 years, Beebe has scoured the continents.
Now, he opens his eyes to a new world, the living sea.
But does life exist in the deeper ocean?
And if so, is it different?
Arcturus is specially equipped to dredge the deep.
Beebe orders nets to be sent down over half a mile
They return with hundreds of creatures,
most are dead, many are alive,
and most importantly, many species are completely unknown to science.
Beebe is astounded.
"When we realize the possibilities of deepsea life still unknown to us,
every haul of the dredge should be welcomed by an enthusiasm
equaled only by the possible hope of communication with our sister planets."
Beebe longs to know about life in this sunless place, where plants cannot grow.
How do creatures thrive in an animal world of total darkness?
Beebe wants to see this alien ecosystem at work with his own eyes.
Ocean life becomes Beebe's obsession.
He makes hundreds of descents, pushing his copper helmet
and his bodyto its maximum depth.
At just over sixty feet, he reaches his limit.
Even obsession can take him no deeper.
Below him are chasms deeper than the Grand Canyon.
Barely beneath the surface, the reach of human exploration ends.
To dive much deeper is foolish, and deadly.
"I made my way to a steep precipice, balanced on the brink
and looked down, down into the green depths.
It would have been exceedingly unwise to go much farther.
At double the depth I had reached
I would probably become insensible and unable to ascend."
Ocean pressure can crush the unprotected human body
at just three hundred feet.
Even submarines in Beebe's day can descend no deeper than four hundred.
Beebe is determined to descend into the darkness
and just as determined to return alive.
He needs radical new technology.
Beebe's wellpublicized shallow dives make him an underwater icon
the brave explorer in the copper helmet
is the Jacques Cousteau of the Roaring Twenties.
Back at the Bronx Zoo, Beebe sets his sights on the ocean depths
for two years, he draws up plan after plan for a deepsea diving device.
He abandons them all as impractical.
In 1928, Beebe decides to move to the ocean to pursue his obsession.
His choice is Bermuda.
The Bermuda government donates a hospital
on the outlying Island of Nonsuch.
Beebe knows that Bermuda
is the perfect base for exploration of the deep Atlantic,
one of the few places in the world
where the sea floor plummets more than a mile deep, just off shore.
Attracted by the new science of oceanography,
and by the dynamism of Beebe's character,
the lab at Nonsuch draws young, talented researchers.
John TeeVan, a New Yorker,
has been Beebe's assistant since Teevan was nineteen
Teevan is Beebe's personal planner
harness for Beebe's unstoppable energy.
Twentyseven year old New Yorker Gloria Hollister joins Beebe's team.
Hollister is typical of the young, fashionable, and brilliant group.
The research team works long hours at varying jobs,
but Bermuda life is comfortable,
and the climate ideal for a midocean outpost.
Beebe's boundless energy inspires the group in discovery after discovery.
Gloria Hollister experiments with Beebe's copper helmet,
continuing research in the shallows,
following Beebe's footsteps down into the living sea.
But William Beebe cannot shed his dreams of the deep waters
just off shore fiilled with creatures that he has only seen in nets.
He is three years into his quest,
and he still has no idea how to reach the living deep.
The answer will come from a rich stranger.
His name is Otis Barton.
Barton is 29, the highspirited heir of a New England retailer.
He has read about William Beebe's deep ocean dream in New York papers,
and he has the money to make it come true.
He offers to fiinance the design and construction of a device
that can be lowered to at least 3000 feet,
on one condition: That he gets to ride along.
1929, In a New Jersey machine shop,
Barton's hopes and dreams
for the world's first working deep diving capsule start to take shape.
It is a hollow sphere of inchandahalf thick steel.
Its strength lies in its round design
withstanding the relentless ocean pressure by equalizing its assault.
No glass is strong enough for portholes.
Barton orders panes of fused quartz, three inches thick
These tiny windows might allow man's first glimpse of the living deep
but they too, must withstand the pressure.
The factory work takes more than a year.
Beebe is within reach of his dream.
Word comes from New York The diving globe is ready.
For Otis Barton,
the price tag of 12,000 dollars proves to be a sizeable chunk of his fortune.
In May, 1930, Barton arrives in Bermuda.
He has come with the vessel that, if it works,
will transport two men to the unknown deep
making history, and changing science.
On the docks of Bermuda,
William Beebe inspects the bizarre deepsea capsule.
He calls the invention a bathysphere meaning "deep sea ball".
Barton's plan is simple.
The bathysphere will descend on a 3500foot steel cable.
The hatch is just 14 inches wide,
sealed from the outside with a 400pound steel door.
The bathysphere is unwieldy and untested,
but it is Beebe's best and only prospect to get to the deep alive.
June 3, 1930. The journey to deep waters begins.
Beebe and Barton hire a retired British warship, the Ready,
to serve as mother ship for the bathysphere.
The Ready isn't ready for much.
The tired old hulk must be towed to the deep water site
so Beebe can make his first descent.
Beebe cannibalizes the winch from his old research vessel Arcturus
and bolts it to the Ready's deck
It will have to support the bathysphere's
twoandahalf ton weight, plus two tons of steel cable.
If the cable snaps or snags, the bathysphere, and the men,
will plummet to the ocean floor, with no hope of rescue.
Beebe chooses a place a few miles off shore,
where waters are a mile and a half deep.
The Ready is halted.
Firstan unmanned testto see if the bathysphere performs as planned.
As the power winch lets out the steel cable,
an additional rubbercoated electric line is deployed by hand.
This line will allow them to use a searchlight,
and more importantly, to communicate with the mother ship.
In just forty minutes the steel ball dangles 2000 feet below the surface.
The simple test ends in disaster.
The vital electrical conduit has snaked itself
around the top of the capsule no fewer than fortyfive times.
Beebe fears that his adventure may be over, before it has even begun.
It looked as if we were to pay penalty at the very start
for daring to attempt to delve into the forbidden depths.
Beebe has learned his first lesson in deepocean exploration.
Every attention must be paid to mechanical matters.
The ocean is not forgiving the slightest miscalculation could kill.
It takes a full day to unravel the cable.
No damage is found.
Three days later, on June 6,
Beebe tries another unmanned test.
This time, the cables do not tangle.
But upon inspection,
Beebe and Barton discover a small pool of water in the sealed capsule.
All things considered, Beebe declares the test a success.
He'll risk his life and Barton's and attempt the decent.
Beebe and Barton outfit the capsule
with oxygen tanks and purifying chemical trays:
Soda lime for clearing carbon monoxide,
and calcium chloride for absorbing moisture.
Beebe hasn't forgotten his first lesson
he will concentrate solely on the mechanics of his mission
dive one is not for science, but survival.
At the moment Beebe has waited for and dreamed of
he fiinds himself at a loss for words.
"I looked around at the sea and sky, the boats and my friends,
and not being able to think of any pithy saying
which might echo down the ages,
I said nothing, crawled painfully over the steel bolts,
fell inside and curled up on the cold, hard bottom of the sphere."
On deck John Teevan supervises the mission.
He has served William Beebe for half his life.
Now Beebe's life is in his hands.
Beebe and Barton are big men both of them, six feet tall,
crammed into a sphere less than five feet across.
Heavy hammers pound steel bolts tight,
a deafening experience inside the sphere.
Gloria Hollister will communicate with Beebe by telephone
the first to record his observations,
or to hear his fiinal words in the event of a catastrophe.
The fiinal bolt.
On deck the team is tense, each person concentrating,
hoping for the best, imagining the worst.
Nothing has been left to chance,
yet no one has ever attempted anything like this before.
At one PM, on June 6, 1930,
the bathysphere is swung over the side.
In less than a minute,
they are sixty feet down, the range of Beebe's old copper helmet.
They are suspended by a thread of steel,
with a mile and a half of ocean beneath them
and no hope of rescue if their equipment fails.
150 feet.
200, 250.
Barton closely monitors the oxygen supply.
Too little, and they will slowly suffocate.
Too much, and they can become disoriented.
At 600 feet, Beebe speaks from a place no living man has ever been.
"Only dead men have sunk below this."
Beyond the tiny windows,
the two ocean pioneers witness an eerie twilight.
"We were the first living men to look out at the strange illumination:
An indefiinable translucent blue."
Then, at 800 feet,
with all going well, Beebe suddenly calls off the descent.
His instincts tell him, stop.
"Some hunch some mental warning
which I have had at half a dozen critical times in my life,
spelled bottom for this trip."
At this depth, Beebe knows that the ocean pressure would kill them
in a way much more terrifying than drowning.
"There was no possible chance of being drowned,
for the first few drops would have shot
through flesh and bone like steel bullets."
He orders Teevan to haul them home.
Two strangers in a strange device
have dived deeper than any living men in history.
Consumed by the operation of the sphere itself,
Beebe has paid little attention to the world of the deep
but he has proven that humans can descend into the abyss and return alive.
His team greets him with congratulations, elation, and relief.
William Beebe and Otis Barton will descend again,
deeper - not just for adventure, but for science.
Their journey has only begun.
The unlikely partnership of William Beebe and Otis Barton has created
an entirely new field of science manned exploration of the deep ocean.
They know they can get there but what's down there?
Now the real work of scientific observation begins.
On June 11, 1930, they are lowered again into the Bermuda chasm
more than three thousand tons of water pressure
assaults the steel hull, but again it holds firm
and offers Beebe and Barton
a first look at the creatures of the ocean abyss.
Beyond the windows,
the strange animals that had perished in the nets of Arcturus
now move majestically in the deep darkness.
"When I came again to examine the deepsea treasures in my nets,
I would feel as an astronomer might who looks through his telescope
after having rocketed to Mars and back or like a paleontologist
who could suddenly annihilate time and see his fossils alive."
The animals Beebe describes, such as shimmering jellyfish, appear fragile
yet they are superbly adapted to the pressure, the cold, and the darkness.
It is a scientific revelation in a realm of constant peril.
Each square inch of the quartz windows holds back 650 pounds of water
stresses that no submarine or diving suit has ever withstood.
They reach a depth of 1426 feet and come home alive.
On June 13, 1930, in a telegram to the NY Times,
the scientist and the inventor announce to the world that
they have joined the ranks of history's great explorers.
Armed with confidence in the bathysphere's safety,
Beebe permits John TeeVan and Gloria Hollister to dive to 400 feet.
Hollister sets a new depth record for women.
In the weeks to come, the bathysphere is taken on repeated dives,
testing its capabilities.
The impressionable Barton, in an act of generosity,
grants William Beebe ownership of the bathysphere,
on the condition that he be called back for future dives.
In October, the coming winter puts an end to field work off Bermuda.
The bathysphere is put in storage.
It is time for Beebe to return to the Bronx Zoo and write his reports.
But Beebe knows that writing reports
is not the way to keep the public informed and the money flowing.
In newspaper interviews, magazine articles and a lecture tour,
William Beebe promotes oceanography in a popular and accessible way.
He likens his dives to visiting outer space without leaving the Earth.
Beebe enlists an artist, Else Bostelmann,
to illustrate the haunting images of the creatures seen from the bathysphere.
Bizarre marine animals that, at the time,
no one but William Beebe has seen alive in the deep.
Beebe joins the ranks of the great explorers of his era,
household names such as Charles Lindbergh and Richard Byrd,
heroes of the skies.
Beebe believes his ocean exploration is of greater value.
The concrete intellectual returns from aviation are most superficial...
but adventuring under sea is an unearthly experience,
and we are actually entering a new world."
In the press, it is 'Beebe and his Bathysphere.
The man who built itand paid for it Otis Bartonis rarely mentioned.
Barton is stung.
In Spring, 1931, despite the devastation of the Great Depression,
the resourceful Beebe raises enough funding
for a scaleddown year of ocean research off Bermuda.
He returns to methods perfected on Arcturus six years earlier
deepocean dragging with nets.
As before, specimens are retrieved
creatures Beebe has seen alive from the bathysphere.
Nonsuch Island hums with activity.
But the bathysphere remains in storage,
while Beebe writes another book to further promote his ocean science.
The year passes into another.
Then, Beebe makes a decision that makes headlines.
He and Otis Barton will attempt to descend to a depth of half a mile
and his communication with Gloria Hollister
will be broadcast live on NBC Radio
and on affiiliate stations around the world.
Beebe is determined that his bathysphere adventure
not to go down in history as a stunt.
He must go back and deeper, seeking a major discovery in the name of science
even if it means risking his own life.
September, 1932. Storms lash Bermuda.
A bad omen for events to come.
Otis Barton decides to install a new window in the diving ball
to permit better photography, despite Beebe's fears that
any modification to the quartz ports would be dangerous.
The decrepit barge, Ready has been replaced by a tugboat called Freedom.
But the new mothership leaks and wallows under its heavy load,
and on one occasion almost sinks.
Waiting for weather to clear,
they make an unmanned test of the new design,
sending it down to 3000 feet.
But the bathysphere is unusually heavy, straining at its fragile lifeline.
When the capsule surfaces,
it is fiilled with an explosive cocktail of hyperpressurized water and air.
Anyone in the bolt's path would have been decapitated.
Anyone inside would have been pulverized into a liquid.
It is a sober reminder of the brutal power of the deep.
For two weeks, Atlantic storms ground the world's first deep sea explorers.
Beebe and Barton remove the leaking window of the bathysphere
and fit the hole with a heavy steel plug.
For the journalists Beebe has invited to witness his historic dive,
there's nothing to report.
On September 22, Beebe decides to give the press their story.
He will risk his life, and Otis Barton's,
on a perilous dive.
These are the worst conditions in which they have ever attempted a descent
Again, Beebe and Barton endure the painful climb across the steel bolts,
squeeze through the narrow hatchway,
and tumble onto the capsule's hard steel floor.
Beebe has set a goal of half a mile
almost twice as deep as they have gone before.
He is willing to dive dangerously deep to give the press what he's promised
the discovery of new forms of life, broadcast live.
Beebe and Barton pass 1400 feet,
shattering their previous record, and continue down.
At 1700 feet, they are enveloped in eternal darknessa new milestone.
Beebe has reached a realm where no light has ever shone.
"I was beyond sunlight as far as the human eye could tell,
and from here down, for two billion years
there had been no day or night,
no summer or winter, no passing of time until we came to record it."
He is rewarded for the risk he has taken.
At 2200 feet, thousands of pinpoints of light appear out of the blackness.
Strange creatures, thriving in the black cold ocean depths.
Beebe witnesses these amazing animals in a flood of bioluminescence.
The number of creatures illumined,
and the strength and color of these lights
all these have been far beyond all my expectations.
He broadcasts his fantastic discovery to the radio audience.
The world listens to this firsthand account of life at 2200 feet below.
But on the surface, the Freedom pitches and rolls,
threatening to sever the capsule's lifeline.
Beebe calls off the dive, short of his halfmile goal.
On the return to the surface,
Beebe announces the most extraordinary sight of all
a 6footlong predator with vicious, glowing fangs
he names it the "Untouchable bathysphere fish."
Beebe's sighting remains, to this day, the one and only.
In a lifetime of wellpublicized adventures,
this is Beebe's fiinest hour.
He has broken his own depth record
described creatures never seen before
and broadcast the entire event to the world.
The achievement and William Beebe make frontpage news
a triumph Beebe hopes will translate into dollars.
At the age of 55, Beebe's energy is inexhaustible,
and his ambition unfettered.
He decides to make one more expedition
to smash the halfmile barrier which has eluded him.
But the Great Depression has made private money scarce.
Beebe works for over a year, seeking funding.
Finally, the National Geographic Society agrees
to fiinance a series of dives in summer, 1934.
Otis Barton has not been as fortunate.
A victim of hard times,
he is scrambling to make a living for the first time in his life.
Barton launches a career as a movie producer,
and spends 1933 fiilming an underwater adventure.
The fiilm is a flop.
But William Beebe has not forgotten the man
who has helped make him an international luminary.
In 1934, he remembers his pledge to include Barton on his bathysphere dives,
and invites Barton to join him.
For four years,
Barton has slipped into the shadows as Beebe's star has risen.
Despite his grievances, Barton agrees to join Beebe once again.
John TeeVan and Gloria Hollister also return
for what is to be the bathysphere's most dangerous descent.
After countless hours at deepocean pressures,
the capsule needs an costly overhaul.
The price tag includes new quartz windows,
a new oxygen purifier, and improved communication lines.
On August 7, 1934, an unmanned test reaches 3,020 feet.
The refitted capsule performs perfectly.
Satisfied, Beebe and Barton squirm into the steel chamber.
While Beebe's personal goal is to break the halfmile barrier,
he will continues to relay his observations,
convinced that the deeper he goes the more he'll discover.
And Beebe delivers.
He announces his discovery of three more new creatures
and gives them fanciful names.
Pallid Sailfiin
ThreeStarred Anglerfish
Five LinedConstellation Fish
And once again, no one since has seen these fish.
Barton attempts to document the sights outside the sphere,
but his movie fiilm shows only faint, blurred images.
Only Beebe's descriptions endure.
The dive drops Beebe and Barton to 2,510 feet,
shattering all old records, but still short of the halfmile goal.
Then, eight days later on August 15,
Beebe pushes the ball to its absolute limit.
It comes to a rest at a depth of 3,028 feet.
The spool of cable has nearly run out.
One more revolution could send the capsule
in an unstoppable death plunge to the ocean floor.
At this depth, the bathysphere's steel and quartz
withstands more than a thousand pounds per square inch of pressure.
Steel and quartz hold firm.
William Beebe and Otis Barton pause at a depth
no explorer before them has ever reached, for a moment of contemplation.
"The only other place comparable to these marvelous nether regions,
must surely be naked space itself, where the blackness of space
must really be closely akin to the world of life
as it appears to the eyes of an awed human being,
in the open ocean, one half mile down."
Even after his recordbreaking descent,
William Beebe remains obsessed with the deep ocean.
But by the mid30's the Depression has claimed too many victims,
and privately funded exploration fades into memory.
Beebe must abandon his Bermuda headquarters in 1937.
Beebe returns to jungle research
for the Bronx Zoo, now known as the Wildlife Conservation Society.
He spends the last years of his life in Trinidad,
and never loses the love for action that once made him a household name.
But his fame slips away as years pass,
and Beebe dies quietly, far from the limelight, in 1962, aged 85.
Otis Barton leaps from one scheme to another.
In 1948, he returns to the ocean in an improved bathysphere
and breaks his own record by descending alone to 4,500 feet.
But the world takes little notice Barton dies in 1992, aged 93,
and five people attend his funeral.
Barton's record endures until 1960,
when the US Navy submersible Trieste descends to 35,000 feet
more than six miles.
That record stands.
Today, most of Beebe's discoveries have been verified.
The risks he took opened up a new era of exploration.
His gift to us is a new way of looking at the ocean,
that thrives today as the modern science of oceanography.
In a crude copper helmet in a primitive steel ball
William Beebe dared to challenge the ignorance of the ages,
to search for life in a dark and hostile world.
His legacy is one of adventure and knowledge
a pioneer and a wanderer in the living sea.