EXPEDITION WEEK Website
Expedition Week Game: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/expedition-week-game
The Headshrinker – Shrink your head!:
EXPEDITION WEEK: Search for the Amazon Head Shrinkers
Sunday, November 15 at 9PM ET/PT
Terrifying legends from the Amazon tell of Indian headshrinkers who would shrink an enemy’s head to render the vengeful soul powerless. Now, NGC has exclusive U.S. access to 45-year-old archive footage captured by explorer Edmundo Bielawski, purportedly the only known footage that shows the process of an actual ? recently deceased ? human head being shrunk. Author and explorer Piers Gibbon heads deep into the Amazon jungle in an attempt to trace Bielawski’s 1960s journey, rediscover the exact location where this scene was filmed and reconnect with the tribe today. After a string of setbacks, Gibbon finally gets a striking clue that leads him on an arduous trek to the village of Tukupi, where he finds one aging warrior, the last of his generation, who could provide answers to the mystery once and for all.
Video “How to Shrink a Human Head” – Piers Gibbon learns from a local priest how the Shuar people’s head shrinking ceremony might have looked.
Video “The Head Shrinker Archives” – Rare archival footage demonstrates the Shuar practice of shrinking a human head.
EXPEDITION WEEK: Expedition Great White
Monday, November 16 at 9PM ET/PT
A hundred sixty miles off the coast of Baja California, science and sport fishing join forces for an unprecedented research effort. A team of world-class anglers will land one of the most challenging fish imaginable: the great white shark. Unlike any other catch ever attempted, they’ll lift an SUV-sized shark out of the water onto a platform, mount a long-lasting tracking tag by hand, take measurements and DNA samples while pumping water into the shark’s mouth to keep it alive, and release it unharmed … all within minutes, like a NASCAR race pit stop. Marine biologist Dr. Michael Domeier uses advanced tracking devices to help uncover how this predator lives, how it mates and where it roams, with the ultimate goal of conserving and protecting this endangered species. But he’ll rely on the fishing expertise of expedition leader Chris Fischer and crew members like actor Paul Walker (“Fast and Furious”), who jumped in as a deckhand and quickly earned the crew’s respect. With more than 1,000 hours of footage culled into 10 upcoming episodes, NGC gives the ultimate EXPEDITION WEEK sneak peak at this exciting series.
Guadalupe Island, Mexico: A great white shark approaches the underwater deck along with crew member Jody Whitworth before it is lifted onto the boat for tagging. (photo credit: © Chris Ross/Chris Fischer)
Video “Expedition Great White” – Maneuvering the great white shark and getting it safely into the cradle is a tense and delicate operationLink: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/expedition-week/4906/Overview#tab-Videos/07441_00
Video: “Preview: Expedition Great White” – Scientists and anglers work like a well-trained pit crew to tag a massive Great White, collect data, and get DNA samples.Link: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/expedition-week/4906/Videos/07442_00
EXPEDITION WEEK: Deep Secrets: The Ballard Gallipoli Expedition
Wednesday, November 18 at 9PM ET/PT
With 120 deep-sea expeditions under his belt ? one of which resulted in the historic discovery of the sunken R.M.S. Titanic — National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Dr. Bob Ballard embarks on a new, unparalleled underwater exploration for NGC’s second annual EXPEDITION WEEK. Off the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey, he’ll dive to the ocean depths searching for British and French warships that sank during the Battle at Gallipoli — one of the bloodiest and most controversial campaigns of World War I. We’ll scour the warship graveyard using Nautilus, an advanced mobile research vessel with state-of-the-art electronics, computers, navigational and communications systems, as well as side scan sonar and two deep-sea ROVs named Hercules and Argus. It’s the most comprehensive underwater exploration of shipwrecks from the Battle at Gallipoli ever taken. Now, stunning HD images from the sea floor could offer tantalizing new details about the Allied army’s catastrophic loss and the tragic carnage left in the battle’s wake.
SCREEN GRAB: AE2 wreck, as seen from underwater. (Photo Credit: © 2009 Prospero PTY Ltd./NGT/Screen Australia/Screen West, Inc.)
Video “Preview: Gallipoli Expedition” – Join Bob Bollard as he explores the sunken WWI battleships at Gallipoli and reveals secrets hidden for nearly a century.
EXPEDITION WEEK: Mars: Making the New Earth
Thursday, November 19 at 9PM ET/PT
The notion of bringing Mars to life ? transforming a cold, dry, uninhabitable desert into a living planet ? called terraforming, has been around for almost a century. Initially just a science fiction concept, it has become a subject of serious scientific investigation. NASA astrobiologist Dr. Chris McKay has spent 30 years researching extreme environments to understand the potential of such planetary engineering. On the surface, the red planet’s freeze-dried world of rocks, ice and dust looks like an unlikely place to plant a garden. But rocks and minerals found by the Mars rovers show it must once have had warmer, habitable living conditions. Now, using photorealistic CGI visualizations, we’ll make a science fiction dream of Mars — a world of trees, rivers and blue skies — a plausible future.
Early stage terraformed Mars (no vegetation), orbital view. This stage will be the first of many that will take hundreds of years. (Photo credit: © National Geographic Channel) Insrt Photo
Video “Preview: Mars: Making the New Earth” – An 18,500 foot volcano in Mexico is a living laboratory for NASA scientist Chris McKay as he investigates how to transform Mars from a cold, dead planet into a living world like planet Earth.
EXPEDITION WEEK: The First Jesus?
Friday, November 20 at 9PM ET/PT
He was called the King of the Jews, believed to be a Messiah. Just before Passover, the Romans beheaded him and crucified many of his followers outside Jerusalem. But his name was not Jesus … it was Simon, a self-proclaimed Messiah who died four years before Christ was born. Now, new analysis of a three-foot-tall stone tablet from the first century B.C., being hailed by scholars as a “Dead Sea Scroll on stone,” speaks of an early Messiah and his resurrection. Was Simon of Peraea real? Did his life serve as the prototype of a Messiah for Jesus and his followers? And could this tablet shake up the basic premise of Christianity? We’ll go to Israel to assess this unique and mysterious artifact, including testing by a leading archeological geologist and comprehensive review of the letters, script and content by a Dead Sea Scroll expert. Then, from Jerusalem to Jericho, we’ll investigate key archeological ruins that could help prove Simon was indeed real — all of which just might sway the skeptics.
Video “Preview: The First Jesus?” – Explore the mysteries of a recently discovered stone tablet that may speak of a messiah before Christ, who rose from the dead after three days.
