Kevin Duffus is a noted North Carolina author, documentary filmmaker, and research historian who, for more than 50 years, has successfully unraveled dozens of longstanding maritime mysteries. At 17-years-old, he found, explored, and identified a sunken Confederate gunboat in an eastern North Carolina river, and later discovered the mythical grave of the pirate Blackbeard’s sister. In 2002, he solved what was called “the greatest mystery of American lighthouse history” and found the nation’s most historic lighthouse lens—the 6,000-lb., 1853 Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Fresnel lens missing since the Civil War. His book, The Lost Light—A Civil War Mystery, follows the incredible 150-year odyssey of the lens. He is also the author of: The 1768 Charleston Lighthouse—Finding the Light in the Fog of History; Shipwrecks of the Outer Banks—An Illustrated Guide; War Zone—World War Two Off the North Carolina Coast; The Last Days of Black Beard the Pirate; The Story of Cape Fear and Bald Head Island; and Into the Burning Sea—The 1918 Mirlo Rescue, a true story of one of the U.S. Coast Guard’s greatest rescues. He has appeared on the History Channel, National Geographic, and on the Travel Channel’s “Expedition Unknown.” In his first career in television Duffus produced programs and documentaries in England, East Africa, Central America, and the Philippines. His productions have been honored by the George Foster Peabody Award, the World Hunger Media Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award and the National Education Association Award. In 2014, he was named “Historian of the Year” by the North Carolina Society of Historians. He was the 2020 recipient of the National Lighthouse Museum Research Award in New York City.