King Kong

Okay, Boan, how much you got here?

About 1800.

1800?

What's going on?

There's Bagley.

Hey, Mr. Bagley.

Something haywire.

They only loaded me enough pipe to push one test hole.

Less than 2,000 feet.

Yeah, that'll be enough.

Are you kidding?

On Huangatan, we didn't come until we were past 26,000 feet.

Well, you take my word, fellas.

This whole proves out within 2,000,

or it's a write off.

How are you this evening?

All right.

The barometer's still falling.

That's a lousy forecast all right.

My advice is we stay here in Surabaya another 48 hours.

Hell with the weather.

Every hour we delay it gives Shell or Exxon

a chance of beating us to the island.

I thought we were the only ones...

Captain, we'll sail right away.

You'll be sorry.

All right, Mr. Carnahan,

we're ready to let go.

Standby fore and aft.

Okay, fellas, roll that gangway ashore.

Let it go.

Roy.

Fred.

Well,

here's to the big one.

Mayday.

Mayday.

Mayday.

- You know, for someone reason I'm reminded of Amsterdam.

You ever eat a raw herring,

with a beer chaser,

and a scoop of ice cream?

Captain here?

I picked up a mayday call, sir.

Low power signal.

It faded before I could get a fix on the vessel.

Check the Singapore center.

Keep listening, and let me know if you get anything.

Aye, aye, sir.

Like you said,

"To hell with the weather."

Look, Wilson, we can get out of this dump

by backtracking around Timor Island.

The only hitch is it costs us a couple of days.

Keep on course, Captain, I'm fine.

- You know, I gotta admit for a New York desk guy,

you got a lot of guts.

Guts, Hal.

I sold this one to the board.

If that island doesn't produce huge,

I'll be wiping Windshields.

Men.

Carnahan.

Bagley, Perco.

I need to talk to you about this plan, Joe.

I'd have told you earlier,

but I couldn't risk anyone talking

until we were on the high seas.

Men,

we may be sailing into the history books.

Hit the lights.

I believe we're headed for the biggest oil strike ever

right here in the magic circle.

That's magic, all right.

We're supposed to find oil

under 2,000 fathoms of the deep blue sea?

- That's what the charts put there, Sunfish.

That's right, just deep blue sea.

Now let's take a look at a low angle photo of the area.

This was taken in 1943.

We dug it out of Navy files.

This wake was left by the ship that took the photograph.

As the charts say, no sign of land.

Just a fog bank you wouldn't look at twice.

Let's look at another picture.

This is taken from precisely the same camera angle,

same area of ocean, same fog bank.

This picture was taken two weeks ago

35 years later.

A bank of fog that doesn't change

a wisp in 35 years, fantastic.

Still nothing for us to explore

except for one reason.

A NASA spy satellite went way off course

and photographed it by mistake.

I personally got hold of the super-classified pictures

via a donation I made to someone in Washington D. C.

No names,

but, I think, he lives on Pennsylvania Avenue.

All right, okay.

All right, fellas, come on.

Roy Bagley, would you take over

and let's science make the point?

Yes, sir.

- Roy. - Thank you.

Now.

Now,

that satellite was supposed to be analyzing exhaust gas

from a Chi-Comm missile test.

So it was loaded with two special kinds of film.

No, first the inferred.

I'm sorry.

Here we are, now,

the different colors

represent different surface temperatures.

You mean there's land behind that fog?

Correct, Joe,

an island, hidden by a perpetual fog bank,

never seen by human eye,

nor walked by human foot, huh?

The inferred patterns

aren't like any I've ever seen.

Even more surprising though

is what the spectrograph picked up.

Uh-huh, now,

chemical composition

of our mysterious low fog bank,

free hydrocarbon radicals,

excess nitrogen,

carbon dioxide far above normal, not poisonous,

but very damn curious.

See this has to be caused

by vapors seeping up through the ground.

My guess is vapors seeping up from petroleum deposits.

Guess, hell!

That island is the tip of a huge underground tank

just waiting for us to twist the cap off.

I'm betting everything I've got on it.

I'll take 50 cents of that.

There are all kinds of things

that might account for the excess C02.

For example, one would be animal respiration.

Turn the lights on.

What? - Where'd you come from?

Animal breathing.

Animal?

Are you crazy?

And I'm not so sure that human feet

have never walked the island before.

You see in 1605,

Fernando De Queres was blown south from Tenotang.

He wrote in his log of piercing the white veil,

that's obviously the cloud bank,

and landing on the beach of the skull

where he heard the roar greatest beast.

The rest of that log entry, unfortunately,

was suppressed by the holy office in Rome.

Who are you?

In 1749,

a water logged lifeboat was found in the same area.

It was empty,

but drawn in blood on the thwart

was a likeness of some huge slouchy,

humanoid thing,

and this strange warning.

"From thy wedding with the creature who touches heaven,

"lady, God preserve thee."

I also heard of a note in a bottle written by

a dying Japanese submariner in 1944.

I haven't been able to track that one down yet.

What the hell are you talking about?

Who is this joker?

- Beats me. - Well, he's wearing

one of your crew jerseys!

Take it easy, take it easy.

I'll pay any fair amount for my passage.

You're a stowaway?

No, Jack Prescott.

I'm from Princeton

Department of Primate Paleontology.

Department of...

You lying hippie!

You're from another oil company!

How did you know about this?

All right, men, the meeting is over.

That's it wrap it up, man.

The man's got one of our T-shirts.

You issue a T-shirt a keep a record

of everybody's that's got it.

All right, where'd you get it?

This doesn't mean a thing.

Gulf or Exxon could fix you a fake passport.

For the last time who the hell are you?

I am Jack Prescott.

Now look...

I admit I'm interested in your island.

It's got nothing to do with oil.

I'm a paleontologist professor.

You're not even a good liar.

There's no way that you could have found out in Surabaya