One of the best at this is Lauren Mcgough, from of all places oklahoma city. This is the most ancient form of falconry in the world. It blows my mind that its even real. Its like something out of lord of the rings, but you can do it. We built a camera harness to learn what its like to fly like an eagle. ticking these giant stone statues have fascinated and confounded visitors for centuries. Dutch explorers named this place almost 300 years ago, when they spotted it on Easter Sunday. It has soul, it has life. Theyre alive. Absolutely. In the middle of the pacific, Easter Island is very difficult for most people to reach, until tonight. Is now a good time for a flareup . Enough, crohns. ticking hey, its me. Your skin. Some cleansers get us clean but take my moisture. Im craving a balanced clean with cerave. 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Keep it at your desk, and save it for next time. Geico. Over 75 years of savings and service. Whitaker good evening. Im bill whitaker. Welcome to 60 minutes presents. Tonight, three great adventures. Well soar with eagles high above mongolia, then cruise across the pacific to visit Easter Island. We begin our adventures with a trip deep below ground. Over the years at 60 minutes, we have been in more than a few tunnels. We explored mexican drug lord el chapos subterranean escape routes, burrowed through a roman villa buried by mount vesuvius, and traveled the depths of the new york city subway. But nothing prepared us for a place called Moab Khotsong, a South African gold mine that extends nearly two miles beneath the surface. As we first reported in 2018, in their pursuit of gold, South Africans have dug the deepest holes on earth. The country was the worlds top gold producer for decades. Now, the gold is running out, just as these ultradeep mines have attracted a new breed of miner on a very different quest. We went along for the adventure. In the Early Morning light, tall mineshafts loom over the vaal river basin two hours southwest of johannesburg. This once was a booming gold field. Now, most mines lie abandoned. But Moab Khotsong is bustling. Long before the sun rises, thousands of miners start lining up for the tripledeck elevator called the cage. Its jammed, but more always push on. And early one morning, so did we. Its really snug in here. Were packed in as tight as sardines, the electric bells signal were ready, and the cage drops. Slowly at first, then picks up speed fast. We plunge 450 stories straight down. Its the longest elevator ride on earth. This is fast, its really fast the cage rattles and whistles as we descend. The air gets more humid the deeper we go. Our lifeline to the surface is a machine called the manwinder, massive coils of steel rope two inches thick that attach to the cage and unspool faster and faster. We dropped two miles in a couple of minutes, and emerged in an underground city. Its like Grand Central station at rush hour. To get to the gold, miners must walk miles through a vast maze of dimly lit tunnels. Sometimes youre lucky and can catch a ride, but mostly you just walk. For leroy lee, its in the blood. His father worked in the mines. Now its his turn. His family depends on his job. Leroy lee its four. Six people its my kids, my wife, my fianceee, my mum and my sister. drilling whitaker the gold in these ultradeep mines is found in narrow veins, laced through the rock. Some are no wider than a pencil. Its cramped at the rock face, and we crouch alongside the miners as they work, hunched over in the dark. The noise from the drills is deafening. Massive air conditioners cool the tunnels, but it can still reach 120 degrees down here. Are you guys ready . Whitaker at the end of the shift, we had to rush not to miss the elevator back up. It doesnt wait for anyone. And heres where all that breaking rock pays off the smelter. The ore is smashed and pulverized in a grinder before being fed into a furnace. Monga kasongo, who runs the operation, told us we were the first tv crew to film the weekly ritual they call the pour. We all had to wear these special pajamas with no pockets so we couldnt steal anything. The heat was intense as the furnace reached almost 2,000 degrees. The gold turned to liquid and poured down into the molds. Monga kasongo when i saw it the first time, i was like, wow. Thats something that keeps me going. When you hear people who have never seen gold or touched it, i feel like im more privileged. Whitaker these bars will be refined again to 99. 99 purity before theyre sold for coins and jewelry. The mine used to process about 60 tons of gold a year. Now its just a quarter of that. Still, the day we watched the pour, there was a pretty good haul. Wow, this is quite heavy. Kasongo yes, it is. Whitaker how much is this . Kasongo 11 million rand. Whitaker in u. S. Dollars, ml dolor whapo today . Kasongo yes, definitely. Whitaker that sounds like good day . Kasongo its a good business. laughs whitaker its one thing to come here for the gold, but now this harsh environment has attracted others scientists hunting for what they call extreme life. Tullis onstott weve found water thats a billion years old. Whitaker a billion years old . Onstott a billion years old. Whitaker in these caves . Onstott right. Whitaker an International Team led by princeton geoscientist Tullis Onstott and belgian biologist Gaetan Borgonie are pioneers in the search for life buried in the rock, where no one thought it could survive. Borgonie says his colleagues thought he was crazy when he took a sabbatical to try to prove there was life deep underground. Gaetan borgonie oh, come on, they said. Youre going to go to south africa for a year, youre going to go look for something that does not exist there . Whitaker theyve lost count of the number of trips to the bottom of the mines searching for life hidden in the ancient water, seeping through the rock. Borgonie this is a completely different world down there. There are different rules. Whitaker how so . Borgonie the temperature is different; the pressure is different. I mean, its a tough world down there for life. Whitaker the next day, we went along with them to the deepest level of the mine. For them, it was just another day at the office. For us, it was an eyeopener. This feels like that movie journey to the center of the earth. With just the light from our headlamps, we waded through a tunnel that had been flooded with cold water to cool it down. Then we grabbed a chairlift cut through a channel of rock except this one went down. This is like the best disney ride ever picture five of new yorks World Trade Centers stacked on top of each other. Thats how deep in the earth we are. Now weve stopped for a second. alarms i hope its a second. We have to get off . When the chairlift stopped suddenly, we had to hike down the last 50 yards to the bottom. Then, at the end of an abandoned tunnel, our scientists found something amazing. Onstott ive been looking for 20 years for a salty water deposit like this. Never found it till now. Whitaker white patches on the wall turned out to be salt. Is that edible . Borgonie i dont know. Hes tried it. Whitaker this is ancient salt . Onstott thats the question. Has to be has to be ancient salt. Whitaker very salty. And the source . This dripping salt water. What does that tell you . Onstott it tells me this water is extremely old. Because in these rock formations, they were formed three billion years ago. There werent salt deposits back then. Whitaker they believe this water could be all thats left of an ancient ocean. And where theres water, there can be life. Onstott we could be looking at something which has never seen the life that has evolved on the surface of the planet. Whitaker all from this cave two miles down in south africa . Onstott all from gold mines in south africa, exactly. Whitaker in 2011, they found what no one thought possible these tiny worms living in a pocket of water 5,000 years old. What youre seeing is magnified. These worms are no bigger than. As scies nerbor it ss tht sunlight, deep in the hot underworld, so they called it mephisto, or the devil. Borgonie thats where my worms live. They eat bacteria. Whitaker the first worm you found was in Something Like that . Borgonie yeah. Whitaker using an endoscope camera, they were the first to film this deep inside the earths crust. This is the devil worms home. Before this, no one thought animal life could exist this deep. Youve made a big discovery. Borgonie for me, it is big, because for me personally, i had to fight quite a lot of people to be able to do this. On a personal level, that was the biggest victory for me. In the total grand scheme of things, its just a worm. Whitaker its just a worm . Borgonie its just a worm. Whitaker they were surprised to find other living creatures too. So many, they called them a zoo. A crustacean, about 1 64th of an inch; an arthropod; a flatworm; and singlecell bacteria. It set off a storm of speculation about where else extreme life might exist. Perhaps even on mars. Nasa helped fund their research. Borgonie if there is life here in the deep, then you should definitely dig on mars, because if life was ever there, you will find some life form, i believe very strongly, still on mars. Whitaker so the martians we meet in the future could be these singlecell organisms youre, youre talking about. Borgonie i think that would be the that is yes, indeed. I think that would be the most likely. But be prepared to be surprised, i would say. Whitaker south africas gold mines are now so deep, they might as well be on another planet. Bernard swanepoel im not sure that we really want to send human beings much deeper. Whitaker Bernard Swanepoel started his career underground, and ended it as the c. E. O. Of harmony gold, which now owns Moab Khotsong. Swanepoel if you are in a successful mining team, it must be like a successful sports team. I mean, mining is one of those activities where, at the end of every shift, you know whether you won or lost. Whitaker gold was the lifeblood of south africa. The way its dug out has changed little since apartheid, when underpaid black miners often worked in mortal danger. At its worst, more than 800 workers a year died in mining accidents. No coincidence, the struggle that led to apartheids defeat started underground. Gold and gold mining seem to be in the d. N. A. Of south africa. Swanepoel South African gold mining especially has always been at the center of all political and other activities in our country. I mean, our bad apartheid history is intertwined with gold mining. I mean, a lot of the a lot of the legislation to dispossess black people of land was in order to create cheap labor for South African gold mines. Whitaker you grew up in a small mining town during the era of apartheid. What are your strongest memories . Swanepoel well, ultimately, im a privileged person that, because i was white and i was male, those were the two requirements at the time to become a mining engineer. Whitaker so are you the new face of south African Mining . Kasongo i will say yes. We are the new generation in the mining. Whitaker just a dozen years after apartheid ended, engineer Monga Kasongo started managing the smelter. He told us he chose to move here from the congo to work in the mines. Has that wound in south africa been healed . Kasongo not 100 healed. But there is some healing happening, there is some healing, yes, because you have a different, different people working in the mines, and the mindset has been changing. Whitaker now, safety is paramount. Youll find women underground, and blacks are senior managers. Once some of the lowestpaid laborers, are now among the highest. But this generation of gold miners know they may be the last. Of the 11 gold mines that once flourished around here, only three still operate. The mines are now so deep, its becoming too expensive to get the gold out. The story of the ultradeep mines is nearing its final chapter. To dig the riches from such astounding depths took grit and brute force. Now, south africas resolve must be deployed to solving the next challenge what to do when the gold runs out. ticking whitaker falconry, the art now you can make any morning of the week feel like the weekend. With jimmy dean simple scrambles. Made fresh with two real eggs, use. And ready in seconds. Why dont you put a sunday morning shine on tomorrow mornings breakfast. Can match the power of energizer. Because energizer ultimate lithium is the longest lasting aa battery in the world. [confetti cannon popping] energizer. Backed by science. Matched by no one. Shes driven by a primal desire for meat. A lynx in the wild and your cat. For a lynx this need is satisfied by what the wild provides. For your cat its meat rich blue wilderness. Because your cat is wild inside. Liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. I wish i could shake your hand. Granted. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Subut when we realized she wasn hebattling sensitive skin, we switched to new tide plus downy free. Its gentle on her skin, and dermatologist recommended. New tide pods plus downy free. Safe for sensitive skin with eczema and psoriasis. Narrator this is your skin. This is your skin in the sun. sizzling any questions . Whitaker falconry, the art of hunting with birds of prey, was born in the forbidding altai mountains of central asia. As we first told you last year, hunters there still loft Golden Eagles into the sky, in a partnership of man and bird that predates recorded history. We say man, but, in truth, one of the best hunters in mongolia today is a woman from oklahoma city. Lauren mcgough took scott pelley to one of the most remote places on earth to meet the hunters who trained her. And, before the next few minutes are through, you will know what its like to fly like an eagle. Pelley the mongolian steppe is the greatest expanse of grassland unaltered by humankind. It endures because human existence has narrow odds between the widest climate extremes on earth 104 degrees in summer, 50 below in winter. Nomads depend on the animals that yield nearly all of their food, fiber, clothing, and fuel. And, one of the oldest bonds in nature is an alliance of survival among hunters, horses, and Golden Eagles. Lauren mcgough this is the most ancient form of falconry in the world. This is where it all began. Its the cradle. So, several thousand years ago we dont know precisely when a man saw an eagle catch a rabbit or a fox, and had the ingenious idea to hunt in partnership with it. It blows my mind that its even real. Its like something out of lord of the rings, but you can do it. Pelley Lauren Mcgough was in high school when she dedicated her life to raptors. She traveled with us to the place she calls the cradle. 6,000 miles led us first to the mongolian capital of ulaan bataar. This civilization conquered the known world in the 13th century. The mongols ranged from asia to europe, the largest contiguous of altime. From here, we flew another 800 miles to bayanooooolgii, where mongolia, russia, china and kazakhstan meet. This was the end of the road, but not the end of our journey. We crossed the open steppe, past wild bactrian camels with two humps a vanishing species, with only about 1,000 left in the world. Our destination was a camp of nomads, people who introduced Lauren Mcgough to the golden eagle. Mcgough hello laughs pelley they hadnt seen her in two years. Mcgough it feels like i never left. laughter just in a few minutes of seeing everybody. Such a magical place. Pelley now, how did a woman from oklahoma end up out here, in mongolia . Mcgough ah, well, i read a book on falconry. And its like the fire was lit. I just knew i had to do it. And, as i was researching, i went to the library, and i found this old book that had black and white photos of eagle hunters fom mongolia. So, you know, this beautiful shaggy horse, and this man with a giant eagle and a fox pelt on his horse. And it just looked like the most incredible thing. And i thought, i have to see it, i have to do it. Pelley at the age of 17, her father, a former air force stealth pilot, brought her to mongolia. Lauren returned five years later, with funding from a fulbright scholarship. Then she earned a ph. D based on her work with the eagle hunters. Mcgough these are the people that can talk to animals. Because they have relationships with goats, sheep, horses, camels, eagles. They have intimate knowledge of where Snow Leopards are and foxes are. Theres no agriculture here because the lands not arable. So, theyve ingeniously learned to domesticate animals, and then build these unique relationships with wild animals. Pelley its a relationship that she learned from people who endure the life of 19th century ranchers. They are kazakhs, who make up just 4 of mongolians. They have no running water, no electricity. They survive on meat and milk, and buun half denilies or so. The boys mind the flocks, while the men ride in search of foxes to make furs for subzero survival. In all the years youve been doing this, what have you learned about these animals . A hunter named chukan gave us an answer we never saw coming. As they said in the old times if the horse makes your name famous in a race, once a year; the eagle makes your name famous 100 times a year. if i gift to people many foxes, they will say it was chukan who gifted us the foxes. Eagle hunting is more about your name b