Transcripts For KPIX 60 Minutes 20240622

In shades of bronze, a building of color, against historys white marble. This is not the museum of tragedy. It is not museum of difficult moments. It is the museum that says, here is a balanced history of america that allows us to cry and smile. Ive done close to 150 expeditions, and as i look back upon my history, the most important discoveries were the ones that i didnt know were there. Logan bob ballard discovered the titanic in 1985, and as youll see tonight, he hasnt stopped exploring. Oh, i love that. Logan when youre operating 2,000 feet beneath the sea, you never know what youll find. Oh, beautiful. Oh, wow. Holy cow. Wow logan . Or what will find you. Kroft im steve kroft. Stahl im lesley stahl. Cooper im anderson cooper. Whitaker im bill whitaker. Logan im lara logan. Pelley im scott pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 minutes. This is my body of proof. Proof of less joint pain. And clearer skin. This is my body of proof that i can fight Psoriatic Arthritis from the inside out. With humira. Humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to both joint and skin symptoms. Its proven to help relieve pain, stop further joint damage and clear skin in many adults. Doctors have been prescribing humira for nearly 10 years. Humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis serious,sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. Before treatment, get tested for tb. Tell your doctor if youve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if youve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flulike symptoms or sores. Dont start humira if you have an infection. Visit humira. Com and talk to your rheumatologist. Humira. This is a body of proof cooper Lumber Liquidators is the largest retailer of Hardwood Flooring in north america, with over 360 stores in 46 states and revenues of more than a billion dollars a year. But hardwood isnt the only product they sell. More than 100 million square feet of the companys cheaper laminate flooring is installed in American Homes every year. Lumber liquidators is a u. S. Company, but much of its laminate flooring is made in china. And as we discovered when we first reported this story in march, it may fail to meet health and Safety Standards because it contains high levels of formaldehyde, a known cancer causing chemical. Lumber liquidators has insisted ever since our report that its chinesemade laminate flooring is safe, but it doesnt appear that way based on what we learned from our own reporting, and from the work of people like denny larson. You want the company to remove all the flooring . Denny larson every single board. At their cost and replace it with clean flooring. Cooper how much is that going to a cost . Larson you know what . I dont care. Because theyre guilty of selling people product that could make them sick. Cooper these worried california homeowners, who didnt want to be identified, arent waiting for Lumber Liquidators. They are ripping up their floors now. But many cant afford to replace the flooring on their own. Larson they dont know what to do. They have flooring that they think is making them sick. Cooper California Environmental activist denny larson teamed up with richard drury, a prominent environmental attorney, to test Lumber Liquidators chinesemade laminate flooring. Do you have any idea how much of this wood is in peoples homes right now . Richard drury we believe there are probably tens of thousands of households in california that have installed Lumber Liquidators chinese laminates that may exceed the formaldehyde standards. Cooper nationwide . Drury nationwide, its probably hundreds of thousands. Cooper drury and larson bought more than 150 boxes of laminate flooring at stores around california and sent them to three certified labs for a series of tests. The results . While laminate flooring from home depot and lowes had acceptable levels of formaldehyde, as did Lumber Liquidators americanmade laminates, every single sample of chinesemade laminate flooring from Lumber Liquidators failed to meet california formaldehyde emissions standards, many by a large margin. Drury the average level in Lumber Liquidators products that we found was over six to seven times above the state standard for formaldehyde. And we found some that were close to 20 times above the level thats allowed to be sold. Cooper that sounds like a huge amount. Drury its a startling amount. It was so high, in fact, that one of our test labs thought their machine was broken. Cooper the lab itself thought. Larson it hit the upper limit on the radar gun. And they thought it was broken. Philip landrigan its not a safe level, its a level that the u. S. E. P. A. Calls polluted indoor conditions. Cooper would you want that in your home . Landrigan no. Cooper dr. Philip landrigan of new yorks mt. Sinai hospital specializes in environmental pediatrics and exposure to toxic chemicals. Hes talking about the results of another kind of test drury and larson conducted measuring the concentration of formaldehyde emissions coming off the laminates into the air of a typical home. Landrigan i would say long term exposure at that level would be risky because it would increase the risk for chronic respiratory irritation, change in a persons lung function, increased risk of asthma. Its not going to produce symptoms in everybody, but children will be the people most likely to show symptoms at that sort of level. Cooper children are featured prominently in Lumber Liquidators ads, and the company likes to promote the donations of flooring they make to habitat for humanity, Ronald Mcdonald house charities, schools, and community centers. Trust the people over two millions families trust. The flooring experts at Lumber Liquidators. Cooper and on their website, Lumber Liquidators promises that all of their flooring meets or exceeds rigorous emissions standards. And they say we not only comply with laws, we exceed them. Is that true . Drury that is not a true statement. Cooper is it legal to sell these boxes of wood in california . Drury no, it is not. It is illegal to sell these boxes of wood in california. We hope that they will not sell these products anywhere in the nation, because they are above the healthbased standards that the state has set. Cooper drury and larson, who are backed by short sellers a group of wall Street Investors who are betting the company is overvalued have sued Lumber Liquidators, accusing them of violating californias toxic warning statute. Drury has also launched a Class Action Lawsuit against the company. It is legal for flooring to contain formaldehyde. The chemical is present in some of the cheap glues used in factories like this one in china. This footage was recorded by investigators hired by 60 minutes. Formaldehyde is in the glues used to bind wood particles together to make the core boards in laminate flooring. The laminated top, which covers the core board, keeps most of the formaldehyde emissions trapped inside. But formaldehyde does leak into the air. How much is inhaled by homeowners depends on how much formaldehyde is in the glue and how much ventilation is in the home. Larson youre in a chamber, so youre living with it. Youre sleeping in there. And youre constantly exposed. Thats the threat. The constant exposure to a potent carcinogen over a long period of time. Cooper because formaldehyde can cause Myeloid Leukemia and nasopharengeal cancer at high levels and respiratory issues as well as eye, nose, and throat irritation at even low levels, california has strict standards for how much of the chemical the core boards in laminate flooring can emit. Every box of laminate flooring Lumber Liquidators sells carries this label, stating its carb phase two compliant. Carb is an acronym for the California Air Resources Board, which sets strict standards for formaldehyde emissions in wood flooring. Congress adopted californias limits when it passed the formaldehyde standards act in 2010. That law is scheduled to take effect nationwide this year. Drury and larson only had wood tested that was being sold in california. But we wondered if the chinese made laminate flooring that Lumber Liquidators is selling nationwide also has high levels of formaldehyde. So we went to stores in virginia. Florida. Texas. Illinois. And new york. And bought 31 boxes of it. We sent the samples for testing at two certified labs. It turns out of the 31 samples of chinesemade laminate flooring, only one was compliant with formaldehyde emissions standards. Some were more than 13 times over the california limit. Both labs told us they had never seen formaldehyde levels that high. But when we took those test results to Lumber Liquidators founder and chairman tom sullivan, he refused to accept the methodology as valid and points out the company is not required by law to test their finished products like we did. Tom sullivan its not a realworld test of the laminate; its not the way its used. Cooper you say you dont believe in this test, but what you believe doesnt really matter its what the California Air Resources Board believes. And they believe in this test. Sullivan we will do whatever the regulations are. Cooper i just dont understand how a group can do tests on your chinesemade laminates and every single one of those failed to meet the emissions standards. Sullivan people have Different Reasons for this test. This is a group of lawyers who are suing us selling short on our stock. Cooper but the short sellers are not conducting this test, its these certified labs. Sullivan but it started with short sellers. Cooper one of the first people to raise questions about Lumber Liquidators back in 2013 was Whitney Tilson, a wall street hedge fund manager. He has shorted the companys stock but is not involved in any lawsuits against it. Whitney tilson in 16 years of professional money management, ive seen hundreds of companies do all sorts of bad things to get their stock prices up. But this has got to be the worst. Cooper Whitney Tilson studies the workings of companies hes interested in investing in, and he noticed the Profit Margins at Lumber Liquidators seemed unusually high compared to its competitors. Tilson when you see a commodity business suddenly double its Profit Margins, that raises red flags. Cooper because its hard to have your profit margin double in two years . Tilson exactly. Its almost unprecedented for a company. Cooper based on those profits, Lumber Liquidators stock price had gone from 13 a share in 2011 to 119 in 2013. Tilson suspected the Company Might be breaking the law. He learned there was already a federal investigation looking into the company for allegedly buying timber illegally logged in russia. U. S. Agents raided Lumber Liquidators headquarters in september of 2013. The Company Denies buying illegally logged wood but admits that the department of justice is seeking criminal charges against them. Six months after he bet millions the stock would go down, Whitney Tilson got tipped off by someone familiar with Lumber Liquidators operations in china, who said he was missing the bigger story. Tilson the much bigger story, he said, is that Lumber Liquidators was almost certainly purchasing formaldehydetainted laminated flooring in china. Cooper why would Lumber Liquidators purchase wood thats tainted with formaldehyde . Tilson the answer is greed, plain and simple. Its cheaper and net, it reduces the cost by about 10 . Cooper which in a business with these kinds of Profit Margins, 10 means its a lot of money . Tilson its enormous. Sullivan our goal is to sell a good product at a good price. And we dont get the price by skimping on anything. We get the price by low overhead, huge volume, and being very efficient at what we do. And were never going to a sell something unsafe. Cooper do you trust your mills in china . Sullivan we do. We have inspectors that double check them. The mills are licensed by california. The chinese mills we deal with in the laminates are licensed by california. Cooper when you say its licensed by california, what that really means is california says this mill is capable of making carb 2 compliant product. California is not saying every piece. Every product coming out of this mill is carb 2 compliant. Sullivan but our specs are to make it to california standards. Cooper but for months, we had been hearing from former Lumber Liquidators employees, suppliers, and industry competitors that their chinese made laminates are not being made to california standards. So we sent our investigators undercover to the city of changzhou, the laminate flooring capital of the world. Posing as buyers, and using hidden cameras, the investigators visited three different mills that manufacture laminates for Lumber Liquidators. Employees at the mills openly admitted that they use core boards with higher levels of formaldehyde to make Lumber Liquidators laminates, saving the company ten to 15 on the price. At all three mills, they also admitted falsely labeling the companys laminate flooring as carb 2, meaning it meets california formaldehyde emissions standards, and the new u. S. Federal law. At this factory, the general manager told investigators Lumber Liquidators is one of their biggest customers. This is a bestseller for Lumber Liquidators. For Lumber Liquidators . Yeah . Yeah. How long have you been selling this . From last year. Is this carb 2 . Cooper carb 2 means its compliant with california law. But listen to what the general manager told us. No, no, no. I have to be honest with you. Its not carb 2. Can i get carb 2 . Yes, you can. Its just the price issue. We can make carb 2 but it would be very expensive. Cooper and thats the same thing the Undercover Team was told at all three mills they visited. All this stuff here, Lumber Liquidators. All their labeling is carb 2, right . But its not carb 2 . Not carb 2. Cooper remember, Lumber Liquidators founder and chairman tom sullivan says that he trusts the chinese mills his company uses. Employees at all three mills told us the laminates they make are not carb 2 compliant. I want you to look at this. We shared some of our hidden camera footage with him. Sullivan i dont know the whole situation here. I will guarantee well be in that mill tomorrow and test it. And that is not anything we can condone in any way, to save a cent. Cooper this concerns you . Sullivan yeah, yeah, of course. Cooper is this acceptable to you . Sullivan if its true, no. Cooper all three mills told us they falsely label your products as carb 2 compliant thats cheating. Sullivan that would be if thats true. Cooper nobodys ever reported this to you . Sullivan again, we will investigate it. If there is anything going on, we will stop it immediately. I dont know if its true or not. I dont know what the whole story is, but we will investigate it immediately. Cooper it certainly calls into question not just these mills, but it calls into question your oversight of these mills. Sullivan it could, yes. Cooper two months after we first broadcast this story, Lumber Liquidators pulled all its chinesemade laminate flooring from the market nationwide. Also since then, the chief executive officer resigned and the chief Financial Officer was replaced. The chief merchandising officer, who was in charge of sourcing from china, was fired. Multiple state and federal investigations are underway by agencies including the Consumer Product safety commission, the California Air Resources Board, and the department of justice. This past week, a spokesman for the company said Lumber Liquidators has taken and continues to take significant steps to investigate these issues and reassure our customers. Cbs money watch update brought to you in part by glor good evening. Germanys Angela Merkel said today greece cannot expect its debt to be cut. Dish network and sinclair broadcast agreed to a shortterm contract extension as talks continue. And fed minutes on wednesday could offer new clues about a potential september rate hike. Im jeff glor, cbs news. Dunkin donuts kcups are available here at the grocery store. And people seem to be really excited about it. Like, really excited. Have a good one. New Dunkin Donuts kcup pods are here, available where you buy groceries. New Dunkin Donuts kcup pods are here, pelley 400 years have passed since americas original sin, and still, riots are ignited in the friction between race and justice. As this debate continues, the smithsonian is completing a monumental project, the 500 Million National museum of African American history and culture. The idea was authorized by an act of congress, which called it a tribute to the negros contribution to the achievements of america. The words are jarring because the act was written in 1929. As we first told you last spring, building this museum has been a long struggle, just like the story it hopes to tell. Beside the monument to washington, a slaveholding president , the museum is breaking free of the ground on the malls last five acres. Eight decades after congress framed a museum on paper, and then failed to fund it, the dream is being written, this time in steel and stone ten floors five above ground, five below; its complexion, rendered in shades of bronze, a building of color against historys white marble. Youve been at this nine years now. Its a big job. Lonnie bunch well, as i tell people, at 8 00 in the morning, i have the best job in america, and at 2 00 in the morning, its the dumbest thing ive ever done in my life. This is a Romare Bearden from the 1950s. Pelley sleepless nights are all in a days work for the museums founding director, lonnie bunch, a scholar of the 19th century. Bunch clearly, this is. Ought to be one of those moments where people are going to sort of reflect, pause. What does it mean once we open . What does it mean in terms of Development Opportunities . Pelley in 2003, president bush signed the law creating the museum. Congress put up 250 million, and bunch has raised most of another 250 million. Bunch i knew that this is where this museum would have to be, that this is americas front lawn, and this is the place where people come to learn what it means to be an american, and this museum needs to be there. Pelley so, were on the ground floor. This is where the visitors will come in. This will be their First Experience in the museum. So, whats going to be here . Bunch they will walk in either from the mall or from constitution ave, and they will run into amazing pieces of africanamerican art. Pelley when all of this is finally complete, what will america have . Bunch america will have a place that allows them to remember to remember how much we as a country have been improved, changed, challenged, and made better by the African American experience. Theyll have a place that they can call home, but theyll also have a place that will make them change. Pelley but even this place is only space until you fill it. Oh, my goodness. Now, did somebody already look at some of these things for you . No. No . pelley seven years ago, the smithsonian began rummaging the attics and basements of america. This may have marked a milestone in his life. And what we dont know is what that was. But at least it gives me something i can investigate. Pelley 3,000 people brought their Family History to 16 smithsonian events across the country. Mary elliott and this is the early free black family based out of baltimore . Yes. Pelley it sounds like antiques roadshow. Nancy bercaw it is like antiques roadshow. Pelley mary elliott and nancy bercaw are curators. Elliott we have experts from across the museum field. Experts in conservation. Experts who understand about paper, about metals, about you name it fabrics, textiles. And they come in and they review objects for the public. The coating on this is in pretty good condition. Some of that looks like its dried out a little bit. And dont put it near the air conditioning unit because that will dry it out too much. Pelley how do you convince someone to give up a priceless family heirloom . Bercaw do you know what . Our museum pitches itself. All we have to do is tell the absolute honest truth. People have been waiting for us. People in america have been waiting for this moment. And so, literally, they just hand us things. Elliot and were very excited like you are. Pelley thousands of relics were examined, but only 25 will be in the collection. This is one of them. Renee anderson this was actually a connection we made with the family. Mr. Jesse burke was an enslaved man, and he was charged with playing this violin and entertaining the slave holder and his guest. Pelley this is the smithsonians warehouse in maryland, where the story is being written. And these are a few of the lines. Received by grigsby e. Thomas, the sum of 350 in full payment for a negro boy by the name of jim, about ten years old, this 31st day of december, 1835. Jim would have been familiar with these shackles dating before 1860, bondage that might have been broken if the keeper of this bible had succeeded in his bloody rebellion. Nat turner had said that god commanded him to break the chains. His bible was taken away before his execution. Paul gardullo is a leader of the curating team. Paul gardullo i think many of us who know the story of slavery know about nat turner; know about nat turner from the perspective of perhaps a freedom fighter, perhaps a murderer. Well, we know this is a religious person. We know this is a person who can read, and when you begin with that, and those ideas, suddenly, the person of nat turner and your understandings of nat turner take on a whole new light. And i look to do that again and again, ways that we can see wellworn stories, stories we think we know, in a new light. Pelley you may think you know the story of a boy murdered for whistling at a white woman, until you are confronted with his casket. Bunch the story of emmett till is a crucially important story in terms of what it tells us, both about sort of reinvigorating the civil rights movement, but also its a story of his mother, mamie mobley, who was really one of the most powerful people, who said that her sons murder should not be in vain, that it should help to transform america. Pelley no one was punished for the murder of emmett till. His body was exhumed in a later investigation, and the original casket was neglected. Bunch but then the question was would we ever display it . Should we ever display it . And i wrestled a lot with it, but then i realized i kept hearing mamie mobley in my head. And she said, i opened this casket to change the world, to make the world confront the dangers, the power, the ugliness of race in america. Pelley a lot of the things that you intend to put on display are going to be hard to look at. Bunch what im trying to do is find the right tension between moments of sadness and moments of resiliency. Pelley one resilient moment came out of the blue. Air force captain matt quy and his wife tina rebuilt an old crop duster, and in curiosity, they sent the serial number to an air force historian. Matt quy and he said, are you sitting down . Because i have some news for you. Pelley turned out, in 1944, the stearman trained americas first black squadrons, the tuskegee airmen, who flew to fame in world war ii. Tina quy i had never really known much about the tuskegee airmen. Id seen a p51 plane, but id never really, truly understood what it meant. Matt quy take your time. Pelley before donating the plane, known as a pt13, the quys carried the last of the airmen back to the air. Matt quy and it was just great to sit back in the back seat and look at this real tuskegee airman in a real tuskegee airplane. Just magical. Leo gray the greatest thrill in my life was sitting in the seat where you are and watching the ground drop out from underneath me. The pt13 was the baby that we used to learn how to fly. Pelley the smithsonian collected the thoughts of Lieutenant Colonel leo gray in 2010. Gray they said we couldnt fly. But we had the best record of any Fighter Group in the 15th air force, and probably in the air force itself. We stayed with our bombers, we brought them home as best we could. And we proved that we could fly. Pelley time is the enemy of history, so smithsonian conservationists have been working for years restoring americas heritage from textiles to trains. This 1920 railcar had two sections white and colored. The same number of seats, but colored was compressed in half the space physical, touchable, jim crow confinement just like the guard tower from the prison in angola, louisiana, notorious for cruelty. Carlos bustamante its about 21 feet tall. And this is cast concrete, so its an enormous object. Pelley from monumental to miniscule, Carlos Bustamante is the project manager building a place for 33,000 moments in time. Bustamante so when you had the railcar, the railcar pieces, the guard tower, and all the support equipment, we had a convoy of about 12 semitrucks traveling down the road across six states to get here. And it took them about three days. Pelley how do you get those things into this building . Bustamante so we set up two very, very large cranes. And these cranes are. Are rare, theres not a lot of them this size. And we picked up these two objects, and basically brought them over the site and lowered them down about 60 feet below grade. Pelley the answer is, you dont move these objects into the building, you put these objects in place and you build the building around them . Bustamante exactly. Theres no other way. Gardullo oftentimes, what im drawn to are some of the smaller things shards of glass that were picked up after the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in birmingham, alabama. And its finding the balance between the big and the small, scott, that makes this work a challenge and so wonderful. Pelley what is something that you desperately want and have not been able to find . Gardullo i want willie mays mitt. laughs pelley which would be quite a catch to display along with Louis Armstrongs horn, and chuck berrys horn behind the chrome of his 73 cadillac. Theres the welcome of mintons playhouse, which resonated to miles, monk and dizzy. Alis headgear, pristine condition. And this firemens head gear, a revolutionary invention in 1914 by mechanical genius garrett morgan. Do you think the countrys ready for this now . Bunch i dont think america is ever ready to have the conversation around race, based on what we see around the landscape, whether its ferguson or other places, that people are really ready to shine the light on all the dark corners of the american experience. But i hope this museum will help, in a small way, to do that. Pelley this is not the American Museum of slavery . Bunch this is not the museum of tragedy. It is not the museum of difficult moments. It is the museum that says, here is a balanced history of america that allows us to cry and smile. And now a sex sports update brought to you by pref far. At the 97th pga championship at whistling straits in wisconsin, the title was taken by australias jason day in a recordbreaking performance of 20under par. The most strokes under par in major championship history. Day with a final round 67 holds off Jordan Spieth by three shots. For more sports news and information, go to cbssports. Com. Jim nantz reporting from wisconsin. 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But just a few little steps to master depositing checks with the chase mobile® app. Technology designed for you. So you can easily master the way you bank. Logan Robert Ballard has embarked on a new wave of american exploration, inspired by the epic journey of lewis and clark more than 200 years ago. This time, its not over land, but in a part of the country that lies in the deep sea. You may know ballard as the man who found the titanic. We first spent time with him a few years ago when he took us on a search for ancient shipwrecks in the aegean sea. But at the age of 73, hes changed course and come home. Why . Because the u. S. Has jurisdiction over more ocean than any other country on earth, and beneath the waves lies trillions of dollars in untapped Natural Resources and, as we saw on our journey, a wealth of american history. As we first reported in may, Robert Ballard calls it the unknown america. We joined him about 100 miles off the coast of mississippi in the gulf of mexico. Robert ballard if you ask someone, how much of the United States do you think lies beneath the sea . They may say, 5 or 10 . And when you tell them that half of their country lies beneath the sea and is unexplored, they dont believe you. Logan does it have a special meaning for you because its home . Ballard yeah, im 13th generation american. I love my country. And i served in the army. I served in the navy. Im a boy scout, yeah. Logan bob ballards unknown america stretches out to 200 nautical miles from all our coasts. This vast undersea area is called the u. S. Exclusive economic zone. And the United States has sovereign rights over all the Natural Resources that lie there, like this methane gas ballard filmed bubbling up from the seafloor off the coast of louisiana. Ballard oh, look at that logan the zone was established by president Ronald Reagan in 1983, and few realized that it more than doubled the area within americas boundaries. Ballard reagan may have signed a sheet of paper, but he did not follow it up with a modernday version of a lewis and Clark Expedition to actually find out what we own. Logan and thats what youre doing . Ballard thats what were doing. Logan with technology not fathomable during president reagans time, ballard is exploring and mapping as much of these waters as he can aboard the nautilus, this 200foot stateoftheart ship of exploration. Ballard i mean, you cant manage something until you know what youve got. So, before you can exploit, you explore. And so thats what we are doing right now. Were trying to get a fundamental understanding of what we own. Weve got mapping cameras on there. Logan his remotely operated vehicles can go down more than 13,000 feet. Hercules is armed with an array of cameras, ballards eyes under the sea. Argus hovers above, lighting up the depths with its powerful floodlights. Ballard keep going, keep going. Logan on our first day at sea, ballards team was on a mission for archaeologists with the u. S. Government. Ballard oh, look at that. Logan how far away are we now . Ballard 40 meters a hundred and some feet. And were creeping up because we dont know what were walking into. Were going down a dark alley. Logan hed been given the coordinates for a mysterious object that had been picked up on sonar by shell oil, and he was asked to find out what it was. What do you think it could be . Ballard its a ship. Logan it is definitely . Ballard oh, yeah, look at that. Its a ship. Its just a question of whose ship and what ship, and its a big one. Its a big ship. Logan there it is. Ballard there we have it. We have visual. Logan out of the darkness, nearly 8,000 feet below, a tangled web of cables and rope. It was an enormous ship, nearly two football fields in length. Ballard oh, its in pretty good shape. Logan i know, its like it just landed there. Ballard searched the ghostly site for clues. Ballard theres an he. See that he . Logan yeah. Ballard its like battle ribbons or something. Im interested that all the windows are battened down. See all those windows . They prepared it. You dont have time in a disaster to do that. Was this something sunk purposely . Were going to find out. Logan its fascinating trying to unravel the mystery of it. Ballard yeah, isnt it fun . Logan yeah. Bob ballard has been unraveling deep sea mysteries for 55 years, and none better known than the titanic, which he found in 1985 after others had tried and failed. And then you see neil armstrong. Logan we asked him to show us around the Explorers Club in new york city, where hes honored as one of the greatest explorers of the past century, and he told us hes committed the rest of his life to searching americas seas. What is down there that you think youre going to find . Ballard ive done close to 150 expeditions. And as i look back upon my history, the most important discoveries were the ones that i didnt know were there. I can only tell you that weve looked at so little, there has to be huge new discoveries still waiting for us. Logan part of what inspired his american exploration is what he calls the battlefields of the deep. But right now, were in the gulf of mexico. Ballard yeah. Logan beneath us is a world war ii battlefield. Ballard yep, most people dont realize that, during world war ii, german uboats were right where were sitting right now, sinking american ships. And lots of americans were dying. Logan 56 allied ships were lost to the nazis in the gulf of mexico, part of a campaign hitler called operation drumbeat. He celebrated germanys uboat victories in wartime propaganda films like this one. Ballard okay, dead ahead. Get ready for a big baby. Logan one of those lost was an american passenger ship, the robert e. Lee. And there she was, appearing slowly out of the gloom. This is what she used to look like, in one of the few surviving photographs taken just months before she was hit by a single torpedo in july 1942. She went down by the stern in about 10 minutes, taking 25 people with her, and came to rest nearly 5,000 feet below. Ballard there you can see the decks and the passageways. Logan now, you can really see it. 72 years later, her windows were still intact, a bell still hanging in place, her gun still mounted to the stern. Ballard this is an underwater national park. Just like a civil war battlefield. Just like going to pearl harbor. Were just a little deeper. Logan whats remarkable is that the robert e. Lee shares her watery grave with the uboat that sank her, the u166, seen here during sea trials in this old german film. Now, she lies under 5,000 feet of water. For decades, no one knew these wrecks were just a few miles apart until b. P. And shell oil conducted a Pipeline Survey here in 2001. How many people died on here . Ballard the whole crew. Logan their bodies are still inside . Ballard theyre still inside. Thats a tomb. Logan bob ballards mission was to try to film both wrecks in ways they hadnt been seen before. Ballard so now you just go straight up and around like youre going to crawl up onto the deck. Look at that beautiful reveal. Oh, i love that. Logan as luck would have it, the seas were calm and the images he captured are considered some of the clearest views of these sites. Theyre featured in a Nova National geographic documentary. Ballard okeanos, thats really cool. Logan bob ballard is not alone in his american adventure. His ship, the nautilus, has joined forces with the okeanos explorer, operated by noaa, the National Oceanic and atmospheric administration. Ballard theyre the only two official ships of exploration that the federal government has. Id like to have 20, but ill go for two. Its better than zero, which was just a few years ago. Logan both the nautilus and the okeanos explorer are mapping the seafloor using Multibeam Sonar attached to their hulls, a capability so powerful, it used to be classified during the cold war. How important is mapping to you in what the nautilus is doing . Ballard people think, well, the. The oceans a big bathtub full of mud. Well, the largest mountain ranges on earth are under the ocean. There are canyons down there that make the grand canyon look like a ditch. The biggest features on our planet are beneath the sea. Logan ballard works closely with larry mayer, the director of the center for coastal and ocean mapping at the university of new hampshire, a world leader in creating 3d maps based on multibeam data. Larry mayer our goal is to get the whole ocean mapped at this. Logan to look like that. Mayer brilliant we can do it. We. Weve done it for the moon, weve done it for mars. Lets. Lets do it for our own planet. Logan this is what the seafloor looks like with multi beam data just 90 miles from new york city. You can see the Hudson Canyon with walls 3,000 feet high. And here, you are looking at the new england sea mounts far off the coast of massachusetts, some rising 10,000 feet from the bottom of the ocean. Mayer lets turn off the multibeam data and just see what those mountains looked like without the multibeam data. Logan look at that. Mayer thats all youd see. Yes, there was a bump and it would probably get close to getting the right height. But the difference is just something when we see what the Multibeam Sonar adds. Logan and what do you gain from this knowledge . Mayer its giving us an insight. Its like lifting a veil. You know, all weve seen is the top of the water. Now, we can see whats going on underneath. Logan bob ballard always travels with a team of scientists, and on our trip, they had come to take samples of the mussels living around this brine pool, an underwater lake with its own shoreline. With no sunlight and almost no food at this depth, the mussels have learned to live off methane gas rising up from below. Ballard and we want to understand how do they do that . Can we isolate them and use them . Its amazing what these organisms are processing and thriving in. Logan so when you look at that, do you think about all the secrets that theyre holding that we havent unlocked yet . Ballard exactly. How do you do this, and can we turn it to our advantage . Logan ballards team on the nautilus explores for about six months a year, sailing with a crew of 50. And everything they do is shared in real time on the internet, which is how this rare encounter with a sperm whale nearly 2,000 feet down in the gulf of mexico was seen around the world. Wow awesome oh, wow. Holy cow. Wow. Logan scientists had been sampling seawater near the site of the b. P. Oil spill when this curious juvenile male circled hercules for 15 minutes. Ballard scientists dont normally share their data right away. We share it the minute we collect it because we want everyone to help. We cant wait to turn the corner and go, what in the world is that . And then immediately, reach off the ship and call someone, wake them up. Theyre in bed and say, turn on your laptop logan thats how ballards team identified that massive ship we saw earlier at the bottom of the gulf. Ballard yeah, what the heck is it . Its a. It looks like a naval vessel. You saw it work in a matter of minutes. We dont know what it is. And the archeologists and the maritime historian, they dont know what it is. And then people started coming in on the web and saying, you know, its a spruance class destroyer. Logan it was an american warship, the u. S. S. Peterson. One of the sailors who served on her gave us this footage of the night 14 tomahawk missiles were launched from her deck into baghdad in 1993, retaliation for an iraqi plan to assassinate former president george h. W. Bush. And just as ballard suspected, the ship was sunk intentionally. We got this video from the u. S. Navy, which shows them testing a new firefighting system aboard the peterson 11 years ago. The navy told us they sank her right afterwards, but they didnt share that information. And those archeologists in the u. S. Government who had turned to bob ballard had no idea the u. S. S. Peterson was down there. So that is one mystery solved . Ballard yep, chalk that one up. Next. Logan and therell be more. Ballard therell always be more. Thats whats the fun of it. Cant wait for the next mystery. For a look at how 60 minutes reports its stories, as well as interviews with correspondents and producers, go to 60minutesovertime. Com. 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