If you judged by how Apple presented the Blackmagic Design external graphics processing unit (eGPU) at its coming-out party for the latest MacBook Pro, turbo-charging your Mac with faster graphics performance was easy. Improving speed for things like exporting high-resolution video looked as simple as connecting the Blackmagic eGPU into one of the laptop’s Thunderbolt 3 ports.

Take it from me: It’s not.

After weeks of frustrated testing, I learned that there’s actually a very specific “correct“ way to use the $700 external graphics processor and I had been using it all wrong. 

But could you really blame me? None of the info to get the eGPU working properly is included in the instructions.

It was only after a long journey down Google search and seemingly endless back-and-forth emails with Blackmagic and a call with Apple that I was finally able to see faster and not slower graphics performance.

SEE ALSO: Review: The new MacBook Pro packs serious power, but only for a select few

But first, some basics. The almost 10-pound eGPU houses a non-upgradeable AMD Radeon Pro 580 graphics processor with 8GB of VRAM. Unlike other eGPUs such as the Razer Core, you can’t swap the GPU. This non-upgradeability severely limits its usefulness if you want more power down the road.

The Radeon Pro 580’s not bad (it’s the same one in the 2017 5K 27-inch iMac), but its performance still pales in comparison to NVIDIA’s GTX 1080 and is nowhere as powerful as the AMD Radeon Pro Vega GPUs inside of the iMac Pro.

If you need even more graphics performance, you can also connect multiple Blackmagic eGPUs directly to each of your Mac’s Thunderbolt 3 ports. (Don’t daisy chain them, though, because that will overload the port, according to the company’s FAQ.) I didn’t get to test multiple Blackmagic eGPUs (I only had one to play with), but keep in mind that an app also needs to support multiple GPUs (external or not) in order for it to access the extra power.

GPU choice aside, Blackmagic’s eGPU is well built and won’t easily be knocked over on desks (the included 20-inch Thunderbolt 3 cable is a tad short, though). I wouldn’t call it beautiful — the base is ugly in my opinion — but it blends in nicely with any space gray MacBook or iMac Pro. It kind of reminds me of the the trash can Mac Pro (Apple helped design this thing after all) and works similarly with air being sucked up from the bottom and released out through the top vent. Most impressive is how quiet it operates — it’s barely audible.

Around the eGPU’s back is a healthy stable of ports for connecting accessories: two Thunderbolt 3 ports, four USB 3.0 ports, and an HDMI 2.0 port. 

Noticeably missing on the eGPU is a power button. The only way to know if the eGPU is on and connected properly is the white LED down below, which lights up when its in use. Also, on your Mac, the eGPU symbol appears in the menu bar.

One issue after another

My main beef with Blackmagic’s eGPU isn’t just that it’s expensive or that the GPU is non-upgradeable, but that there are a whole lot checkboxes you need to tick off to get it to actually work. Even worse, when it’s connected and not working, there’s absolutely no way to tell (unless you’re looking at the Activity Monitor or doing rigorous testing like me). It still lights up, and you still get the menu-bar icon.

When I first unboxed the eGPU, I thought I’d just plug it into my 2017 top-of-the-line 15-inch MacBook Pro (2.9GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, Intel HD Graphics 630, and Radeon Pro 560 discrete GPU with 4GB of VRAM) running the latest version of macOS High Sierra and — BOOM — faster graphics performance.

How wrong was I.

My first order of business was to test video exporting with and without the eGPU. I plugged the eGPU into the MacBook Pro and fired up both Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Premiere Pro CC. With the help of Mashable video producer Ray White we created several test projects to export.

(We did a 1080p export project, but to keep things simple we’ll focus on my 4K trials because 1080p performance was the same with and without the eGPU.)

For both video-editing apps, we created a 4K video project with the following components:

• 12 video clips at 3,840 x 2,160 resolution and 30 fps (shot with a Sony A6300 camera) 

• 3 simple transitions (dissolve, crossfade, and wipe)

• 2 title cards (intro and outtro)

• 3 of the 12 clips were stabilized

We exported the video at native resolution and framerate in H.264 and took the average of three trials for each test. Here’s what we got:

Final Cut Pro X video export in H.264

Without the eGPU: 

• 2 minutes and 49 seconds

With the eGPU: 

• 2 minutes and 13 seconds

Adobe Premiere Pro CC:

Without the eGPU: 

• 8 minutes and 37 seconds

With the eGPU: 

• 13 minutes and 18 seconds 

After seeing a measly 36 seconds faster export time in Final Cut Pro X and surprisingly worse exporting times with the eGPU versus without in Premiere Pro CC, I knew something was perhaps… not right. So I did what anyone would do. I went to Google and found a shocking answer: The eGPU does nothing if it’s just plugged into a MacBook Pro by itself. 

If your Mac is running High Sierra, you need an external display plugged into the eGPU. This is because only one GPU can drive a Mac’s built-in screen and that’s the one already inside of it. 

(I later learned macOS Mojave does support eGPUs for a Mac’s built-in screen, but since the OS was still in beta at the time of testing, it didn’t work reliably.)

Okay, no biggie — just a minor setback! I borrowed an LG 5K UltraFine Display (it’s the only Thunderbolt 3 display that’s officially supported by the eGPU) and plugged it directly into my MacBook Pro with the eGPU also plugged into a separate port. 

I fired up both FCP X and Premiere Pro CC and again saw no improvements. Export times with the eGPU were again slower in Premiere CC compared to without it. What could be wrong now? More Googling and I find out graphics performance is only better if the monitor is plugged into the eGPU, which is then plugged into your Mac.

Ughhh. Alrighty, then!

With the correct wiring, I ran my tests and yet again saw exports that were either barely faster or somehow slower. I just wasn’t seeing faster performance.

Super annoyed, I combed Blackmagic’s website and noticed there’s no mention of faster graphics performance for any app but its own DaVinci Resolve video production software. Could it be that this eGPU is only good for one app? Because that would be really dumb. 

Besides, the description for the eGPU on Apple’s website says otherwise:

Get desktop-class graphics performance on your MacBook Pro with the Blackmagic eGPU. Featuring the Radeon Pro 580 graphics processor, the Blackmagic eGPU is built to make any Mac with Thunderbolt 3 ports a graphics powerhouse. Enjoy supersmooth gaming, accelerate graphics-intensive pro app workflows, and enable VR experiences or content creation. Built-in I/O connections drive a Thunderbolt 3 display, support multiple accessories, and charge your MacBook Pro at the same time.

Hmm, maybe it was something with High Sierra. I booted up another partition with the latest beta version of Mojave.

This was supposed to be easy. Instead, it was turning into a technical nightmare.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, they did. Premiere CC on Mojave just wouldn’t work. It kept crashing and I never was able to export a single video at any resolution. About to lose my mind, I contacted Blackmagic to see if I could get to the bottom of all of these problems I was experiencing.

A spokesperson kindly provided some non-answers that basically blamed the issues on Adobe for optimizing Premiere Pro CC for eGPUs. At the same time, I was told the eGPU (any one from any company) “should not slow any app down.”

Really wanting to smash the eGPU to bits (physical abuse is never the answer, but just goddamnit), I switched back to High Sierra and ran my Premiere exports again. This time, I opened up the Activity Monitor and fired up the GPU history to see what the heck was going on.

To my surprise, the GPU History chart showed the app was using the MacBook Pro’s two built-in graphics processors (both the discrete AMD Radeon Pro 560 and the Intel HD Graphics 630) and not the eGPU like it should have been.

I went back to Google to find out if there was a way to force apps to use the eGPU. I found out on High Sierra, that’s not possible. But, on Mojave, there is a way to force apps to use the eGPU on an app-by-app basis. I cursed both Apple and Blackmagic.

I rebooted into Mojave and followed the steps to force Premiere CC to use the eGPU and then said a little prayer as I launched the app. Everything seemed to work until I hit the export button. The app crashed again. 

Even more frustrated than before, I decided to try something else. I loaded up Fortnite on the default “High” settings to see how playable the game would be. TL;DR: Not very. Not at High settings.

On High settings on just the MacBook Pro, the game recorded between 30-32 fps. With the eGPU, the game’s framerate jumped up to 40-45 fps. Both were below 50-60 fps, which is considered to be the optimal framerate for smooth gameplay by many players.

The game wasn’t unplayable at High settings with the eGPU, but there was still quite a bit of noticeable latency as I panned the camera around or shot at other players. The framerate took a bigger hit when there were multiple players onscreen.

Even crazier was that it took longer to boot the game up with the eGPU compared to without: about 55 seconds versus 30 seconds.

Dropping Fortnite’s settings down to Medium increased the framerate, but the graphics became so low-res, I would have been better off just playing it on iPhone.  

Instructions that should have come in the box

I was all ready to give up on the eGPU until I reached out to Apple to see if I could make a last-ditch effort to troubleshoot my problems.

After chatting with an Apple hardware engineer I learned a few new things that (again) aren’t included in the instructions manual and is valuable for anyone who buys this eGPU.

Here’s what ultimately led to faster graphics performance with the eGPU:

• Never mirror your Mac to the external display. It uses up some of the eGPU in order to do so and as a result will slow performance down.

• If you’re using a MacBook like I did, make sure the lid is closed. Doing so forces the computer to always default to the eGPU when possible instead of using the internal GPU. Apple told me you don’t need to have the lid closed, but there’s a chance that it won’t tap the eGPU if you don’t.

• Most apps will not support hot-plugging with the eGPU, which is the ability for the computer to recognize changes when an accessory is plugged in or removed. In other words, if you want to use the eGPU with, say, Premiere Pro CC, you need to quit the game and launch it again after you hook it up. I’m told only two known apps are hot-pluggable, one of them being Cinema 4D.

With all this in mind, I ran the same 4K and 1080p export tests. Here’s what I got after properly setting the eGPU up with my MacBook Pro. (As with the earlier tests, all times are the average of three trials each.)

Final Cut Pro X video export in H.264

Without the eGPU:

• 2 minutes and 46 seconds (the MacBook Pro used the Intel integrated graphics)

With the eGPU:

• 2 minutes and 8 seconds

Adobe Premiere Pro CC 4K video export in H.264

Without the eGPU:

• 4 minutes and 27 seconds

With the eGPU:

• 2 minutes and 58 seconds 

For good measure, I also took the same 4K video project and exported it to a downscaled 1080p resolution. The leap in performance is much more drastic for rendering:

Without the eGPU:

• 9 minutes and 30 seconds (the MacBook Pro used the Intel integrated graphics)

With the eGPU:

• 3 minutes and 55 seconds 

As you can see in the above export times, Final Cut Pro X doesn’t appear to benefit much from the eGPU. However, exporting video in Premiere Pro CC is way faster. With the eGPU, Premiere Pro CC shaved 1 minute and 29 seconds off. 

Where the eGPU seems most useful is for rendering things like effects and scaling. 

Fortnite

Playing Fortnite with the correct setup, I saw almost no change in average framerates:

Without the eGPU:

• Average framerate: 30-32 fps

With the eGPU:

• Average framerate: 40-42 fps

Not worth the trouble (for now)

I’ve been fascinated by eGPUs for as long as they’ve been around. The idea that you can soup up a thin and light computer designed for portability (but not performance) and transform it into a desktop-class beast for graphics-intensive tasks like video editing or gaming when you’re at home or at work is super appealing.

I was genuinely excited that, maybe — just maybe — Blackmagic had made an eGPU that any regular ol’ joe could easily set up and enjoy the benefits of.

While I did eventually get the Blackmagic eGPU set up right and saw minor boosts to performance in FCP X and and significant improvements in Adobe Premiere Pro CC, I nearly lost my marbles doing so.

My tests are by no means definitive — everyone uses different apps and has a different workflow demands — but they do suggest eGPUs have potential.

Ultimately, the the Blackmagic eGPU is useful if your Mac has a really old discrete graphics card or only Intel integrated graphics. You may see big graphics performance boosts or you may not. It’s gonna take a lot of trial and error.

If you’re willing to experiment, then by all means check out the eGPU. However, if you’re hoping the eGPU will make your Mac faster across the board for all your apps, that’s just not gonna happen. 

Maybe in a few years when eGPUs are mature and more apps use GPU-acceleration, but they’re still in their infancy right now. The fact that all of the issues I ran into took a bunch of Googling and chats with Blackmagic and Apple to resolve tells you all you need to know about the current state of eGPUs: It’s basically the Wild West.

It’s fascinating to watch conspiracy theories die — their diehard captains still clinging to shards of evidence as the ship of belief cracks and sinks all around them. 

We’re watching that happen in two areas of the culture this week. There are the QAnon crazies, whose bizarre pro-Trump theory is taking on water after lawyer Michael Cohen turned on his former boss. Moderators in the Q forums have started banning mentions of Cohen’s name.

Alas, much this same reality-denying dynamic is at work in parts of Star Wars fandom.  

The parentage of Rey (Daisy Ridley) was revealed in The Last Jedi way back in December: her parents were drunken nobodies. Still, all these months later, some true believers in discredited theories hold out hope that this plot point will be reversed by J.J. Abrams in the upcoming Episode IX — and some websites are all too ready to attract eyeballs by stoking that belief.

But that’s just not how stories work. That’s not how any of this works. 

SEE ALSO: ‘The Last Jedi’ gave us the perfect answer to the question of Rey’s parents

Let’s back up, all the way back to Abrams’ first Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens. Rey was introduced as a junkyard orphan on the planet Jakku, selling scraps of old Imperial war equipment in exchange for a pittance paid in self-raising bread. She passes the time by telling herself that her parents are coming back for her. 

In the course of her adventures, Rey meets Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong’o), an ancient and wise woman who is able to tell a lot about a person’s history by looking in their eyes. Here’s what Maz tells Rey, plain as day: “You already know the truth. The belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead.” 

Still, elaborate parental theories sprung up in the wake of the movie: Rey must be a Skywalker, because Anakin and Luke’s lightsaber gave her a vision! No wait, she must be a Solo, because she’s so good at piloting the Millennium Falcon! Or maybe she’s a descendent of Obi-Wan Kenobi, because … reasons! 

And then there was the fourth option, the one many of us preferred post-Force Awakens: she’s a nobody. Because Force powers can spring up in anyone, even a Jakku orphan. Because if she is related to any of our heroes, that instantly turns them into assholes for abandoning her. But most of all, because Maz basically said it already, right there in Abrams’ film.

Then writer and director Rian Johnson confirmed the “nobody” theory in The Last Jedi. “You know the truth,” Kylo Ren tells Rey, literally echoing Maz. “They were filthy junk traders; sold you off for drinking money. They’re dead in a pauper’s grave in the Jakku desert.” 

To underline the fact that the villain of the piece isn’t lying, it is Rey herself who delivers the crucial piece of dialogue in between those two quotes above: “They were nobody,” she admits.

Case closed, right? There was foreshadowing in the first movie. A major fan theory got it right. The point that both movies were making about the democratic nature of the Force is clear. Johnson even cautioned us in advance not to make too much of the Rey’s parents thing. All should be right in Star Wars world. 

But of course it wasn’t. Skywalker, Solo and Kenobi theory purists lost their minds. This was all Rian Johnson’s fault, they said. Abrams will reverse it in the next film, they said. Drunk on fan theories, a number of movie and science fiction websites garnered clicks by holding out that hope. 

Actor and Abrams friend Simon Pegg added fuel to the fire in a podcast in April. Pegg said that way back before The Force Awakens there was “some talk” being “chucked around” about “a kind of relevant lineage for her.” Which is quite possible, given how many ideas Abrams and writer Lawrence Kasdan threw around in their year-long journey of writing the script. Revealingly, Pegg added: “Honestly, I don’t know.”  

Do you think the internet cared about that nuance? It did not. Controversy-seeking articles and (especially) YouTube videos made hay with Pegg’s quote. They played telephone with it to the point where the revelation came from Abrams himself. Surely, they assumed, he must be mad at Rian Johnson! Surely he’ll reverse course in Episode IX, giving Rey the famous parents she was always meant to have!

Cue millions of headlines giving hope to the hopeless, such as this week’s piece of fact-free tabloid nonsense from the UK’s Daily Express: “Star Wars 9 leak: this new scene reveals both Rey’s PARENTS?” 

To save you a click, I’ll point out that the question mark is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. 

But even if you ignore the fact that the pair of directors have had dozens of meetings about the two movies thus far, and even if you believe that J.J. Abrams is quietly seething and desperate to give Rey some famous parents, let us say it clearly again: that’s not how stories work. 

This isn’t a game of Whose Line Is It Anyway. Abrams and Johnson aren’t improv antagonists trying to score points by screwing each others’ content. They are collectively creating a trilogy of films that will hang together as one complete story, in collaboration with the many fine storytelling minds of Lucasfilm. 

Abrams isn’t going to go out of his way to make his film say “nu uh.” His job is to bring the trilogy’s story to a satisfying conclusion using logic and emotional beats. That’s it. 

Ask yourself this, true believers: How satisfying would it have been in 1983 if Return of the Jedi had simply said: “Never mind! Darth Vader was lying! Luke’s not his son after all!” 

And yet, as a 10-year-old kid at the time, that was absolutely the answer I wanted. After Empire Strikes Back, my friends and I simply couldn’t handle the fact that our hero and the galaxy’s most evil man were related. There had to be some other explanation, right? 

Four decades later, I’m relieved that George Lucas stuck to the plot development that was best for the story as a whole. I’m glad he didn’t listen to the world’s 10-year-olds. One day, fans of Rey Skywalker and Rey Solo and Rey Kenobi, you too will feel the same.

I’m not holding out that much hope for the QAnon folks, however. 

Since the day President Trump announced conservative judge Brett Kavanaugh as his Supreme Court nominee, liberals argued that giving him a lifetime appointment would be a terrible mistake. On Sunday, August 26, they’re taking their case to the streets with a national “Unite for Justice” day of action to demand the Senate reject Kavanaugh’s nomination.

Kavanaugh’s views suggest he’d be open to undermining the equal rights of women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. He may also be hostile to voting rights, abortion rights, Obamacare, and net neutrality.

SEE ALSO: 5 ways you can fight Trump’s Supreme Court pick

The progressive organizations NARAL Pro-Choice America and MoveOn oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination and are leading “Unite for Justice” protests this Sunday. With more than 75 organizations involved and more than 180 events set to take place in all 50 states, the efforts are expected to result in the largest single-day protest of a Supreme Court nominee in history.

Here’s everything you need to know about how you can join the fight against Kavanaugh’s confirmation, both on Sunday and beyond.

How to locate an event near you

Since every state has events planned for the day of action, you should be able to find a rally near you. The Unite for Justice website provides a map so you can see every event across the country, and it also has a helpful search tool that allows you to filter events by city, state, or zip code.

If you don’t find an event as close to you as you’d like, the website also offers information on how to host your own and register a Unite for Justice event such as a rally, press conference, and march, or even a petition delivery or potluck in your area.

Why these protests are so important

After Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy — who often served as a swing vote when it came to issues related to gay rights and abortion — announced his retirement in June, Trump looked for someone he knew would give Republicans and his administration a 5-4 advantage in court decisions.

“Brett Kavanaugh will vote to end Roe v. Wade, criminalize abortion, gut the Affordable Care Act, roll back LGBTQ rights, and decimate the Voting Rights Act and Affirmative Action,” Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a statement.

“Brett Kavanaugh will vote to end Roe v Wade…”

If Kavanaugh were to overturn Roe v. Wade and limit legal access to abortions, he would essentially send America back to a society that resembles The Handmaid’s Tale.

Though Kavanaugh recently told Sen. Susan Collins of Maine he feels Roe v. Wade is “settled law,” that doesn’t mean he’ll vote to uphold it in the future. Chief Justice Roberts once made the same claim and has since voted to undermine access to women’s healthcare and the right to abortion on several occasions.

Kavanaugh, who once suggested a sitting president can’t be indicted, also seems to believe the Supreme Court should put the president above the law — a viewpoint that seems immensely problematic, especially considering the legal drama currently surrounding Trump.

Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was recently found guilty on eight counts of tax fraud charges, bank fraud, and hiding foreign bank accounts, and his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors, implicating Trump in campaign finance crimes.

“There’s the threat that Kavanaugh could allow Trump to place himself above the law at a time when there is an active investigation into potentially criminal wrongdoing.”

“There’s the threat that Kavanaugh could allow Trump to place himself above the law at a time when there is an active investigation into potentially criminal wrongdoing by Trump and his associates,” Anna Galland, executive director of MoveOn Civic Action, said in a statement.

By peacefully making their voices heard across the country, Unite for Justice participants hope their actions will speak to senators in each state and discourage them from moving forward with Kavanaugh’s nomination hearings. 

“Senators have tried to hide from their constituents all summer because they know Brett Kavanaugh is a deeply unpopular nominee,” Hogue said. They don’t want to have to look their constituents in the eye and tell them they are risking our lives and our freedoms…” 

Other ways to make a difference

Though the upcoming day of action will have nationwide participation, it’s far from the first step that’s been taken to fight Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

According to NARAL Pro-Choice America, the Unite for Justice coalition previously organized around 400 events across the country to fight the SCOTUS pick, and other organizations like Planned Parenthood are also taking action.

If you can’t attend a Unite for Justice rally on Sunday, or simply want to do more to help, you can start by using the hashtag #StapKavanaugh on social media and visiting the website’s home page to download social graphics and posters to help raise awareness.

You can also donate money to The People’s Defense, a coalition of grassroots organizations fighting Kavanaugh’s nomination, and sign up for text message alerts by scrolling to the bottom of the Unite for Justice website’s “About” page.

The People’s Defense also organized a petition you can sign to demand that senators vote no on Kavanaugh. CREDO Action, a group of activists dedicated to bringing about progressive change, also has a petition urging members of Congress to block Kavanaugh, particularly because he could rule on any Supreme Court case related to the special counsel’s investigation into Trump and Russian election interference.

You can also get involved with Planned Parenthood’s #DearSenators campaign by sharing the personal reasons you’re opposed to Kavanaugh’s appointment. And finally, check out our comprehensive guide to learn even more ways to participate.

On a balmy Caribbean evening in August, crew members aboard the the 184-foot exploration vessel the Alucia tied dead fish to the front of a small yellow submarine. 

They tightly wound the fish to a metal pole extending out from the undersea craft to tempt whatever might be lurking, three thousand feet below.

But Dean Grubbs, one of the researchers preparing the bait, didn’t intend to catch anything. Grubbs, a shark scientist at Florida State University, only hoped to attract a little-seen creature that largely dwells in the lightless ocean depths: the sixgill shark.

SEE ALSO: A landmark climate change ruling could go up in smoke after Justice Kennedy retires

“They’re one of the oldest lineages of living sharks. That, by itself, makes them cool,” Grubbs, who with his long black hair and dark beard looks like he would fit right in at an Iron Maiden concert, said.

Unlike the charismatic sharks often spotted near the surface — hammerheads, great whites, and tiger sharks — the sixgill spends most of its life in the deep ocean, some 700 feet to 3,200 feet (200 to 1,000 meters) below the surface. It’s not easy to understand the sixgills, though Grubbs has glimpsed the sharks’ mysterious existence by tagging their dorsal fins with GPS devices.

Far under the sea, the sixgill has carved out a niche as the biggest, dominant predator of the deep tropical and temperate latitudes — a huge swath of ocean.

It’s mostly lightless down there, at least to humans. But the sixgills, and their creepy, vivid green eyes, are adapted to this black world. 

“It’s pitch dark to us, but to them, it’s daylight,” said Grubbs.

This species of shark is also ancient. At some 200 million years old the sixgill — so named for its sixth gill when most sharks have five — predates most dinosaurs.

Beyond their mystique, Grubbs has good reason to seek out these sharks. 

For years he’s been tracking where these ancient creatures go, why they go there, and the role they play in the deeps. But this requires catching the massive beasts, hauling them to the surface on a fishing line, and attaching a GPS tracker to their dorsal fin before releasing them back into the water. 

It rattles them, said Grubbs. 

So he’s come aboard the exploration vessel Alucia, operated by the deep sea exploration organization OceanX, to try a new idea. He’ll meet the sixgills where they live, thousands of feet beneath the surface. As the sharks swoop by to investigate the dead fish attached to the submersible, Grubbs will attempt to tag them with a GPS dart. 

Credit: Cape Eleuthera Island School/OceanX Media

On that evening at sea in August, Grubbs climbed through the hatch atop the Alucia and sat down inside the craft’s big bubble, which is sandwiched between two yellow slabs holding cameras and propellers. 

The bubble may initially appear vulnerable, but it’s built out of seven-inch thick plexiglass, designed to withstand the unrelenting weight of water pressing down on the craft, and the three occupants inside. 

Using a great hook dangling from the Alucia’s crane, submarine crew members raised the submersible into the air before gently plopping it into the Caribbean waters off of Eleuthera, a long, thin island in the eastern Bahamas. 

A wild-haired diver leapt off the Alucia’s nearby dinghy to unhitch the bobbing submersible from the crane, and then Grubbs, along with another scientist and submarine pilot, began to sink beneath the surface, and soon disappeared. 

Credit: OceanX Media

The submersible dropped down to the ocean floor like a space capsule parachuting down to Earth in slow motion. 

All is still in this forever wilderness, save the robotic sounds of the submersible. At first, an omnipresent blue glow pervades everything, dying human skin an alien, indigo color. Then, the light dims to dusk as the craft continues its descent. Eventually, there’s little to no light. Here, the sixgills dwell.

Down in the dark, one realizes why the sixgills evolved eons ago, but remain unchanged. They had no need to evolve.

“They’ve been living in a pretty constant environment for a very, very long time,” Chip Cotton, a marine scientist who also researches sixgills, but took no part in this expedition, said in an interview. 

On the surface, volcanoes rumble, continents collide, ice ages pass, and warfare ensues. But the sixgill shark, who holds dominion over this distant black realm, doesn’t flinch. 

The shark has spent millions years passing lethargically through the deep sea, said Cotton. And for good reason. 

“If you think about energy expenditures, food is kind of a luxury down there,” explained Cotton, saying that the creatures don’t needlessly waste energy by zipping around the sea floor.

The sixgills are masters of eating the dead. Their teeth, which have remained mostly unaltered for some 200 million years, are uniquely designed for twisting and tearing off big chunks of fallen whales, or large dead fishes.

“It’s a good way to make a living,” said Cotton.

Down in the dark, Grubbs waited patiently for the sixgills to arrive at the submersible. 

The night before, a curious sixgill swam right in front of him, just beyond the glass bubble. But he couldn’t get off a safe shot to tag the shark on its cartilaginous fins. The shark only exposed its underbelly, an area Grubbs didn’t want to risk harming.

Still, when Grubbs returned to the surface, he considered the mission a success. It almost worked. 

Now, down in the depths again for five hours, Grubbs hoped other sixgills would be tempted by the easy meal perched directly in front of the submersible, and within sight of the dart guns. 

Credit: Cape Eleuthera Island School/OceanX Media

But on this night, no sixgills came to visit the bait. 

Grubbs mused they needed to bring a larger hunk of meat, perhaps a pig. 

Yet, the mission wasn’t a failure. It’s precisely the type of experiment that interests OceanX, which in 2012 captured the first and only footage of the legendary giant squid wrapping its tentacles around part of the very same submersible Grubbs sat in.

“We’re into trying unprecedented things out there,” Vincent Pieribone, a Yale neuroscientist who oversees OceanX’s science operations, said in an interview. “What’s interesting to us is the untested, high-risk, high-reward type stuff.”

Grubbs hopes to return to realm of the sixgills again, and give the mission another shot.

Protecting the sixgills

Sharks that live in deep waters are generally vulnerable to overfishing. They get caught in nets like other fish, and hauled to the surface.

But not the sixgill. These large sharks have been mostly safe in their dark realms. Here, they’re numerous, but hard to find.

“We don’t go to their house often looking for them, so they’re perceived as rare,” said Cotton. 

They’re generally too big to catch, and too strong for hooks and lines, said Grubbs.

But every once in a while, someone accidentally snags a sixgill, and they take the sharks’ valuable livers.

Credit: Edie Widder and Dean Grubbs

“They throw the rest overboard,” said Grubbs. “The rationalization was the sharks were going to die anyways,” due to the trauma of being caught and taken from their usual waters.

But Grubbs wondered, is that true?

In 2005, he decided to do something that had never been done in order to figure out an answer to that question. He wanted to catch the elusive sixgill sharks, to see if they could survive the trauma after being forced out of the water.

Grubbs was told that it simply could not be done. Capturing a large deep sea shark is a daunting task. Doing it many times is beyond reason.

“We took that as a challenge,” said Grubbs.

Grubbs set out at sea, and has since caught 23 sixgills in an ongoing project that continues today. 

After releasing them into the water with GPS tags, he found 90 percent of them survived, and continued roaming the depths. 

It seemed sixgills needn’t be slaughtered just because they were hauled to the surface.

“Lo and behold, that assumption was totally wrong,” said Cotton. 

In their dark ocean homes, the sixgills might be king, but it’s not as if other predators aren’t lurking in these waters.

Tiger sharks, large dominant predators near the coast, sometimes venture into the sixgills’ realm. It’s likely they chew up smaller sixgills said Cotton. 

“I would be surprised if they didn’t,” he said, emphasizing that it might be the sixgills’ territory, but there are no walls keeping other predators out. 

“None of these things exist in a vacuum,” said Cotton. “Everything is interconnected in some way.” 

And in the a cold, lightless world where food is scarce and one eats what is available, both Grubbs and Cotton said the sixgills also hunt each other.

Even a monstrous 17-foot long sixgill Grubbs once hauled aboard a research vessel needs to look over its shoulder.

“There’s always a bigger predator,” he said.