SEARCH FOR ANGEL FALLS

foreign Journey the exciting television series that brings you each week the actual films of colorful adventures in all parts of the world the golden journeys of real people here to present tonight's journey is John Stevenson good evening ladies and gentlemen tonight's true story bold journey is high adventure at its very best during the next 30 minutes we'll join an actual Expedition led by Colonel Nichol Smith to find the highest waterfall on the face of the Earth and here are the facts in 1937 while flying over a desolate unexplored region in Venezuela known as Devil's Mountain an American pilot by the name of Jimmy Angel discovered a waterfall with a sheer drop of 3212 feet 15 times greater than the drop of our own Niagara Falls Jimmy Angel's plane crashed on top of Devil's Mountain and he walked out on foot but he had discovered the number one waterfall in the whole wide world it's a sincere pleasure ladies and gentlemen to welcome tonight's distinguished guest who found and photographed For the First Time The Angel Falls in Venezuela he served during World War II with the OSS more popularly known to all of us as the Cloak and Dagger unit Andy is also the author of the wartime bestseller golden Doorway to Tibet let's meet Colonel Nicole Smith Colonel Welcome to our program I'm very happy to be here John Colonel Smith how do you account for the fact that the highest waterfall in the world wasn't discovered until 1937 now as far as scientists and explorers are concerned I should think that'd be like well picking up tomorrow's newspaper and reading that somebody had discovered a mountain higher than Everest actually John the world heard about this waterfall for the first time nearly four centuries ago but it just couldn't believe that it was possible but to your knowledge Colonel do any other movies of Angel Falls exist well we made the first pictures from its base in 1950 we were the third expedition to reach the base the first to film it of course there had been pictures made from Planes in the skies overhead but never from the jungles at the foot of the falls before oh thank you Colonel Smith we look forward to seeing these movies by car by foot and by Dugout canoe we joined the expedition of Colonel nickel Smith in the search for Angel Falls John when the Conquistadors first went to what is now Eastern Venezuela they met squat slant-eyed Asiatic appearing Indians called tarapons that told an extraordinary story that in the far Southeastern corner of the Land There was a huge devil mountain called ayantipui and from the clouds Above This Mountain tumbled the highest waterfall to be found anywhere in the world well 400 years ago that sounded like an old wives tale because we're going to see in our film Journey it's turned out to be the truth as I saw my little four-wheel drive truck being unloaded I wondered that at the next few months we'd be able to reach the base of Angel Falls and make the first motion pictures ever taken of this Scenic Marvel from the base we had brought with us twenty thousand feet of film canned food everything that we would need on the long journey and we'd send Indians 40 days Overland from ciudad Belieber on the Orinoco to build an Airfield for us because only the first two-thirds of the journey could be made in the pickup truck Colonel Smith excuse me what explorers do before the Jeep well before the Jeep I guess they went mostly by boat or a new car or camel back but we were fortunate to have it [Music] our first stop was going to be a few hours drive to the strange and mysterious castle of Rancho Grande in the mountains towering above Lake Valencia now some 30 years ago it was the castle of one of the last great dictators of the world Juan Vincente Gomez it has as you'll see in a moment 120 rooms and when word was brought to the 196 men who were constructing it that the dictator had died in bed they refused to continue any longer with their labors Dr BB did a lot of his scientific work here in the Years immediately following World War II in 1950 it was turned then into a biological station by the government and the government decided to place in charge of this station an extraordinary German Explorer this uh German Explorer is credited with a discovery of podrong the pre-brutis capital of Tibet before gossip was ever dreamed of so we have come here to a chat with Dr Ernst Shafer the famed German Explorer of Tibet he has traveled extensively also in the interior of Venezuela and there were many pointers which he could give us he's one of the most interesting men John I've ever met I imagine Colonel Smith that this man was a valuable advisor to you in this area yes he was most helpful so he spent several days here with him getting all sorts of urgent information then as we continued on our journey we dropped down over the mountain to turiamo bay where the late dictator used to keep his yacht moored as a constant Avenue of Escape while building our camp at the edge of the beach we had a surprise visit from two local distinguished visitors the famous thousand-legged worms are Venezuela automatic transmission fluid drive and freewheeling look at him navigate have you ever seen anything like that well thousand-legged worms a Venezuela tastes like prusik acid we found this out a moment later as we watched this hitchhiker moving up the limb of the tree toward our pet bird Alberto Jose Alberto Jose Sensei was something unpleasant about the worms he went as far as he could up for them and then bit into the Thousand leg worm to his horror he found out that it did taste like prusik acid fell off the lid of the stream and it would have been swept out to see if my friend Art Hall hadn't jumped into the stream and rescued him here he is the Wiz John for his experience it was one of the most unhappy little birds that you could find anywhere with Alberto traveled everywhere with us over Venezuela and I promised him a very good dinner that evening if he would promise me never to take a bite out of a thousand-legged worm as we left the beach and continued up into the higher country we had to make a stops our route do fill up the water tank we would get our water from Springs and then would be sure to boil it we didn't want to take any chance uh finishing up with amoebic dysentery as we had two years earlier on our lawn Caravan journey across Western Tibet now here in this section of Venezuela we find a typical costume for a traveler it doesn't wear an Overcoat but a blanket with a hole in the center for his head it can be pretty nippy up in the mountains as it's extremely warm in the jungles of the Coastland and in the desert regions we had to cross hundreds of miles of desert as we work moving on toward ciudad believer on the Orinoco here we run into a rather interesting Indian type now John I don't know if you know it or not but the most Savage Indians in all of South America the modalonis they still kill with the blow gun and the poison door and they live on the Colombian Venezuelan border this lady we were told was a distant cousin of those Indians she wouldn't kill you with a Blog on a poison dot but she'd remove all the contents of your wallet with the greatest of ease of given the opportunity a short distance Beyond her Village and we pass through the toy town of el Mahan everything here is on a toy scale from the church to the houses and what do we find here John but and Italian DP who is earning is living as a local Good Humor man oh no now educate educate children is compulsory in Venezuela there are four hundred thousand school children and we found that these little boys were playing hooky from school when we learned that they had their own boat we couldn't say that we blame them it's much more fun to go fishing than it is to go to school whether you live in the United States or in Venezuela the term Venezuela literally means Little Venice and was given that name by the Conquistador centuries ago in the Indian section of almahan we find that the houses are all built on stilts and we found only children and women here most of the able-bodied men were off in the oil fields making from six to fourteen dollars a day as you know the oil fields of Venezuela among the world's greatest and she is experiencing a tremendous economic boom these people could have easily afford modern Bungalows but they like their old-fashioned houses though they do purchase station wagons from the United States their wives wear the sacko these girls were waiting for a bus to appear and while waiting for it they've just had the Venezuelan equivalent of a hot dog and she's dipped her fingers in a wash basin where the water hasn't been changed for over a week but that doesn't disturb them in the slightest if you wear the Sarco you don't have to worry about an expanding figure with the passage of time it's a queen costume which has been affected by the introduction of the Mother Hubbard as we continue through the deserts we stop at Waterhole where we find hundreds of birds hitting the water and a moment later each and every one of them coming up with a silver fish in its mouth there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of fish to these water holes but here's a member of the Heron family that we call traffic signal bird why is that true well can you see what he's doing off with his tail as we were photographing them we suddenly saw the vacuum cleaner Bird come into the picture at least that was the name that we gave to him well the birds took fright they flew off against the distant Horizon and as we looked up into the top of the tree nearby we saw at an elevation of over 100 feet three members of the Macaw family these are among the most nervous Birds to be found in the jungle they never seem to be long in one Vantage Point are constantly moving on to a new one and as we moved in for a close-up a telephoto shot of one of the three macaws we could we suddenly saw why he was so nervous they're coming down the trail to finish up almost at our feet was the most curious member of the Jungle family and the bird even though he was in a great height didn't feel that he was far enough away from him I refer to none other than the Iguana now the Iguana is extremely curious he approached within a very few feet of us as I mentioned a moment ago we both knew that if you pick up an iguana by the tail he'll go off lickety-split leaving his tail in your hands and will quickly grow another and that is exactly what happened when my friend art went over to grab him by the Tail amazing look at that well we're getting on now John towards see you Dad believer on the arnoco river which is the gateway to the Grand sabana and to the lost world country which was made famous by sarafa Conan Doyle in his famous book of the lost world as we mentioned at the start of the film this evening of our journey we had sent Indians 40 days over then to build an Airfield for us and we're going to make the journey in an hour and a half by plane but before taking off from the local Airfield by plane I wanted to visit a tiny two-room house called Gibraltar it's the home of Mrs Sammy fails the wife of a well-known North American Bush pilot who is known throughout the length and breadth of the land as the bird lady she can do anything with birds and they're all crazy about her the cockiest of all them was this little fellow up under her golden curls well we spend all took brief attire with Mrs fails and went out to the Airfield where the plane was waiting now it seemed fantastic to me that we were going to make a I need an hour and a half that had taken our Indians 40 days to complete as without the field we were soon flying over the mysterious coroni river past the Outpost of Saint Helena and as we climb over country which only a few white men have seen thank you Colonel Smith we'll see the successful conclusion of your search for Angel Falls in just a moment we continue now with part two of the search for Angel Falls and here once again is Colonel nicholsmith to describe the action and so John as we continue on to the South we're passing on occasion over land that only a few white men have seen and every once in a while across land that no white man has ever visited as we get closer and closer to the great devil mountain of ayante Pui we know that there are two reasons why 295 of the 300 square mile surface area has never been explored the first reason is that for centuries the Indian medicine men have told the Indians that to visit the top of it means death a taboo has been placed upon it and the second reason you're going to see now when we go up onto the top of the mountain and that's a much more important reason here is the 300 square mile surface area of the top of this great Plateau the sedimentary Rocky Mesa of a avayante pooey every few yards there are gashes 10 20 50 up to 100 feet in width and sometimes thousands of feet in depth and great lonely Stone Sentinels guarding the approaches to this one of the few Frontiers that remain unknown in the mid 20th century to the white man and some of the most rugged country I've ever seen yes some of the most rugged country exists anywhere there's Jimmy Angel's Pine it crash landed in 1937. it was in 1937 that that Daredevil pilot Jimmy Angel hunting for gold on the top of the mountain crash landed and he's alive today he got down off the side of the mountain with ropes he had Indians in the neighborhood knowing that he could have trouble and he was prepared for any eventuality so in 37 he found that the legend is told 400 years ago for the tarapan Indians to the Conquistadors was true and that the world's highest waterfall does Tumble from the top of this mountain but though we were flying over the top of it we had many days of travel to reach the base of the falls and to see the world's highest waterfall for ourselves we've landed on the little field of mayupa the field which had been constructed by our Indians that we had sent Overland from ciudad believer on the ornoko river and as our pilot Captain Charlie Vaughn landed the plane he had trouble with the carburetor if he can't repair a shot it means a 40-day journey for us back by foot and canoe across this wild section of Venezuela to the Orinoco River I hope he knows his business he does know John exactly what he's doing and he's had many a problem in the past he's always been able to come out of it successfully sometimes he told me it took only a few minutes and sometimes hours well after four hours he has everything working you see the propellers turning and the great devil mountain in the distance and here are the Indians that are going to get us through to Angel Falls they're not very impressive looking first of all we meet the 12 year old son of our number one Indian he could carry a 50 pound pack on his back and he has one of the nephews of our number one Indian escribe you'll notice in the background the blow gun and the poison dart here is his assistant that lives down ribbon has helped in the construction of the canoes and then a 16 year old nephew who collected strange insects as a hobby and who was very skillful in building houses these houses had been constructed for the Indians as a permanent residence later and for our party while we were in mayupa they are covered with thatch and a so steadily built the doing the worst tropical downpour or hurricane you can swing back and forth in your hammock as snug as a bug in a Ruck well on the fourth day John at dawn we were on our way you see the devil mountain in the distance we brought an outboard motor with us and we were traveling in coryelles canoes hollowed out of the logs of trees escribe could pull and paddle us Upstream when we didn't want to use the out border we were into shallow water people laughed at us back in Caracas the capital uh Venezuela they said whatever makes you think that you're going to see Angel Falls for 360 out of 365 days of the year The Falls are hidden by clouds and Mist well we had a number of reasons that we thought we'd be successful we were going at the end of the dry season and we would be able to take advantage of the knowledge of these Indians who'd made the journey uh or up almost to the base of the falls before us we had plenty of food and we could stay here until the last possible moment when the rains would start now every few hours there would be Rapids fast water it would mean stripping down to our shorts removing the contents of the canoes powering them up to Stillwater Beyond but I enjoyed such a break John because it was hot there traveling along through those great primeval jungles and it was cool in stream and we didn't have to be afraid of the pure eye fish The Dread piranha that are never more than 18 inches in length and which are miniature sharks these particular streams were free of the pyrite then we had reflection pictures of the great devil Mountain overhead there it was towering above us this mysterious sedimentary Rocky Masa it looked as if there were Medieval castles up there on the top of it our Indians told us they knew it as a fact though they hadn't been there that there were strange mysterious animals uh a three Reagan animals with hoofs all sorts of curious stories but the top of it of course was as unknown to them as to us [Music] well we built our base camp three miles away from the base of the falls the first day it was raining we were busy cutting down Shrubbery and trees we wondered if we have a wood see that falls we didn't get a glimpse of them on the second morning we were back at eight o'clock cutting down trees at nine The Falls were still covered with mist and fog and a 20 minutes to 11 on the second day the Mis potted and here John the first motion pictures ever made of the world's highest waterfall 3 212 feet 15 times the height of Niagara and you can see how right the Indians were when they said it tumbled out of the crowds above the devil Mountain it's fed by Subterranean Springs and drops from the very edge of the top of the precipice its mist is carried on an arc up to a half a mile distance and it seems as it drops down for that tremendous height to almost disappear in midair adrenal I could waste a lot of superlatives and never say enough this is incredible it's just sort of From Another World The Lost World of Conan Doyle then it comes together it forms at the base into a stream and a second waterfall over 500 feet in height it was really awe-inspiring to see it the Explorers Club of New York of which I'm a member asked me to carry their flag since it was for the first time to the base of Angel Falls and now let's fly over the top of this Lost World this mysterious Eerie land and as we do so John just think of it that here in the mid 50s of the 20th century there can be something as extraordinary as this 50 758 and into the 60s I'm sure it'll be before a man has conquered the top of that mountain and has been able to see all of the 295 square miles which remain unknown perhaps they will find prehistoric monsters living up there just as Conan Doyle described them perhaps they won't but it certainly it'll be a great adventure for someone but to attempt and as I had my last few of the devil Mountain I promised myself to take a try at it in the not too distant future [Music] thank you very much Colonel Smith for an adventure that must certainly be a highlight among your many Journeys around the world now Colonel Smith you mentioned during the film Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's book The Lost World in which he used Devil's Mountain as the Locale well I'm not familiar with that book I thought that perhaps you might tell us why he chose Devil's Mountain well John it was a great bestseller many years ago and the story is that he had traveled down to the Orinoco country to see who dad believer there he encountered some Indians who told him extraordinary legend about this mountain and that strange prehistoric animals lived up on the top of it our Indians claim the same thing but after all none of them had been there as far as I know no Indian has ever been to the top of the mountain or Carolina that you've explored all of the continents and most of the land areas of our planet Earth which of these many regions do you think still remain well relatively unexplored John extraordinary things the thing about is there's so many corners of the Earth's surface that remain unexplored in 1937 we for instance were in the mountains of the Red Mist in the island of Hainan an island of 14 000 square miles south of foremost and we only touched on that area there are great stretches of the war headhunting country in southern Yunnan again that I've only skirted and that's in southernmost China the Omni March and go that country of Eastern Tibet the great mountains bordering the wakan area of Northeastern Afghanistan tremendous stretches in the central Amazon basin and again isolated Sparks in Africa and in Australia they're just well there's enough expiration left for an awful lot of young men in this country over many many years well Colonel Smith I couldn't help noticing these uh what is this I've been edging them towards you they're poisoned oh no you remember the little Indian family that you saw when we landed at mayupa we had sent them 40 days over then from ciudad believer on the ornoko to build the Airfield for us they weren't very impressive looking as an Indian family but as you know they got us through to the base of the falls that uh they had a blow gun a nine-foot blow gun in the background I don't remember if you noticed it or not well these are the arrows that they use in connection with it and they're dipped in poison which I was told is quite as effective as kirari and you know what kirari will do yes I do well thank you very much Colonel Smith we're certainly very grateful for your visit tonight with these historic films first ever taken from the base of Angel Falls right again Colonel thank you very much thank you Tom I'd like to take this opportunity once again to thank all of you School teachers and Educators for recommending our program to your students we'll continue to present this fabulous world we live in as it really is now Hollywood movies no trick photography made in a Hollywood studio every foot of Journey film that you see on this program is actually shot by our guests with our own 16 millimeter cameras John Stevenson saying thank you and good night [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music]