Killers from the Abyss is the first episode in the ninth season of River Monsters.
Episode Description[]
Fishing detective, Jeremy Wade, embarks on the biggest and most complex investigation of his career; to unravel the mystery of what happened to the passengers of a ship torpedoed in the mid-Atlantic during World War II.
Episode Summary[]
Jeremy Wade begins the episode by discussing the Laconia incident in 1942, when a Nazi submarine torpedoed RMS Laconia in the Mid Atlantic. The ship was struck twice, sinking, and taking with her over 1,500 passengers, including many Italian POWs. He says that this could be his largest investigation ever.
Survivors in the water were reportedly attacked by strange, long silver fish. Some were supposedly overpowered and dragged under by a different, larger fish. The next morning, sharks were seen by many survivors. Finally, when rescue rescue ships arrived, some mysterious wounds were found on bodies.
Jeremy travels to Ascension Island, only a few hundred miles away from the site of the sinking, to investigate each potential attacker. He suspects Snoek to be the silver fish that launched the first attacks. He also investigates the Oceanic Whitetip Shark, which would have been in the area, and can be aggressive. Jeremy explained the bizarre wounds with the Cookiecutter Shark, which latches on to prey and bites off circular chunks of flesh.
However, Jeremy suspects that a much larger predator was also present, perhaps in significantly smaller numbers. Reports have appeared of enormous, deep water sharks. Fishing in the night, he catches a Sixgill Shark. It is between 12 and 14 feet long, and he assumes it weighs around 1,100 pounds, making it his largest catch ever.
Jeremy then travels to the Cayman trench, to see if deep water sharks can really be aggressive. Using a submarine made by an individual designer, Jeremy heads 2,000 feet below the surface with a pig on the front of the submarine. A Sixgill Shark is attracted, and, after circling the submarine, attacks the pig.
The shark he caught earlier was also tagged, and its movement showed that these creatures come closer to the surface during the night. Based on these factors, Jeremy believes that some Sixgill Sharks might have attacked survivors of the Laconia Incident.
Animals Featured[]
Locations Featured[]
- Ascension Island
- England
- United States
- South Africa
Trivia[]
- The first 80 minute episode that was not a special since Amazon Apocalypse in Season 6.
- During this episode, Jeremy was able to catch a Yellowfin Tuna, which took him 4 1/2 hours to bring in. This would qualify for Jeremy's longest battle before bringing in a fish, although it was never shown on screen.
- This episode features Jeremy's largest catch ever, the Sixgill Shark. It weighed in at about 1,100 lbs.