Strange Evidence (2017–…): Season 3, Episode 7 - Return of the Witch - full transcript

[ camera whirs ]

narrator: Worldwide, 6 billion
cameras are watching us...

On our street, at work, and in our homes.

They capture things that seem impossible.

It defies the laws of physics.

Man: This is unbelievable, man.

Narrator: Experts carry out analysis

of these unusual events.

I want to know what I'm looking at.

There has to be some sort of explanation.

What else is going on here?



[ camera whirs ]

coming up...

Halloween horror in the skies of mexico.

When I saw this, I had
no idea what was going on.

Now that I've seen it many times,

I still have no idea what's going on.

People say witches hide
in the mountains here.

Maybe this is the evidence.

Narrator: What planet is this ape from?

[ speaks indistinctly ]

what on god's earth is this thing?

And is a sinister cloud hunting humans

in a virginia parking lot?

That is quite honestly the
weirdest thing I've ever seen.



Narrator: Bizarre phenomenon.

Whoa.

Narrator: Mysteries caught on camera.

Now, that's an explosion.

What is the truth behind
this strange evidence?

Now it's like something
from a dark fairy tale.

The fact that we don't know what this is

makes it seem so dangerous.

It just seems otherworldly.

I would be scared out of my wits, man.

I would be terrified.

Very much looks like a
witch flying through the air

at a very low rate of speed,
not at a very high altitude.

Narrator: A police officer reports

a terrifying confrontation
nearby with the same entity.

This isn't just some ancient witchcraft.

This is going on today.

Narrator: Mexico is the most
popular tourist destination

for americans,

attracting over 30 million each year.

Kourounis: When people think of mexico,

they think of beaches and drinking tequila.

Narrator: But there's a darker
and stranger side to mexico.

Monterrey, just 130 miles
south of the u.S. Border,

may 17th, 2006, a group
of locals hike the hills.

They see a strange object
in the sky and quickly film it.

The thing moves across the skyline, rises,

falls, crosses a valley,

then rises again in a clip
lasting over 3 minutes.

I'm looking at this thing,
this human-size thing.

Radford: This has a humanoid shape, right?

You can sort of see the
head and sort of a lower part.

It looked like a being hovering.

It doesn't make any noise.

It's very creepy.

Narrator: Experts wonder what
it is and how it's managing to fly.

Radford: It's almost
certainly not a helicopter.

It's not a plane.

It's not a gyrocopter.

Could it be a drone?

Well, this was taken in 2006
before drones were very popular,

so it's not likely a drone.

What is it?

It takes a lot of energy to
keep things up in the air,

yet this thing seems to
be doing it effortlessly.

Narrator: Shortly after
this film was recorded,

a police officer in the same area reports

a terrifying close encounter.

Police officer claims that
he then saw up close a witch

that dropped in front of him.

You know, did he? Didn't he?

I really believe he thinks he did.

Narrator: Officer leonardo
samaniego draws a picture

of the figure he claims confronted him,

which resembles a kind of
witch known in mexico as a bruja.

His account is verified by a colleague.

This area is said to be the
crucible of old black magic.

Hollis: A lot of rich history,

witchcraft, brujas, dark magic practices.

Radford: There's a palpable
fear of brujas in mexico.

They can hurt you. They can kill you.

Narrator: Millions of mexicans
are believed to engage

in brujeria, or witchcraft.

Most brujas, or witches,
claim to have powers

of spiritual healing and divination.

Their form of witchcraft dates
back to ancient mayan times,

but mexican brujeria has a dark side,

black as well as white magic,

which can involve shocking
instances of sacrifice.

Hollis: When children go missing in mexico,

oftentimes it's believed that
a bruja may have used them

for a sacrificial practice of some sort.

There's this very strong
belief that the black magic

and the dark arts are very real.

Narrator: Military tech
expert carlo muñoz considers

if the clue to the phantom flier

is to be found in the location, monterrey.

Muñoz: Over the last few decades,

monterrey has become a
center for cutting-edge technology.

It wouldn't surprise me
that what we're seeing here

is an example of one of these companies

testing out this
next-generation technology,

the personal jet pack.

Narrator: Since world war ii,
the u.S. Military has been working

on the development of personal jet packs.

If the pentagon were ever
able to add this technology

to their arsenal,

it would be a complete game changer.

The military showcased
the bell rocket jet pack

during the 1960s,

but it comes with some serious drawbacks.

Highly flammable hydrogen
peroxide powers the device

and not for very long.

It only had a 30-second flight time,

which was much too short for
any sort of battlefield application.

Narrator: The quest to extend
the flight time of jet packs

has been taken up by
entrepreneurial pioneers.

Real-life iron man
inventor richard browning

was inspired by the marvel movie

to create this turbo-charged outfit.

Powered by kerosene, his
1,000-horsepower jet suit

can reach speeds of 32 miles per hour

and flight times of 10 minutes.

Browning plans for his jet suit
to go into production in 2019,

but does this footage reveal
that someone in mexico

has already developed a jet
pack with a longer flight time?

Muñoz: What we're seeing here
could be an example of that idea

coming one step closer to reality.

Narrator: But ex-cia
operative lindsay moran

doubts this is the military.

In mexico, it's the cartels who
have the money and incentive

to buy tech like this.

Moran: Mexico is rife with a gang problem.

We're talking cartels,
vigilantes, gang members known

for human trafficking, drug trafficking,

all sorts of criminal activities.

Narrator: The notorious
mexican drug cartels

go to extraordinary lengths

to smuggle illicit goods
into the lucrative us market.

Is this their latest scheme?

Coming up, freaky fishing on a ghostly lake

as a fishing line defies gravity.

Gatlin: It's not hitting the water at all.

I got off the water immediately,
you know, in fear of my life.

Narrator: A street comes alive.

It doesn't take much to wipe
out entire neighborhoods.

Narrator: And is this
a jet-packing drug lord

or something far, far scarier?

Sanford: It has a very unusual shape

for something that's
flying through the air.

Narrator: In northern mexico,
local hikers film this sinister entity

flying across a valley.

Experts fear that a local criminal cartel

has perfected jet-pack technology

to win an ongoing turf war.

There's a constant battle for supremacy,

so as technology advances,

each side is racing to get the upper hand.

Narrator: But when engineer
david parent analyzes the footage,

he spots a key detail that casts
doubt on the jet-pack theory.

Parent: I would expect to
see some kind of exhaust

that would linger some
trail for some amount of time

as the jet pack would go by.

I'm doubtful that it's a jet pack,

and it must be something else.

Narrator: Image analyst ben radford studies

the footage frame by frame
and comes up with a fresh theory

about what's gliding ominously
across this mexican valley.

Radford: What things float in the air?

Balloons float in the air.

The most likely explanation
for this is an errant balloon,

maybe a weather balloon,
going through the air.

Narrator: Scientists launch weather
balloons to measure temperatures

and take other readings
high in the earth's atmosphere.

Filled with helium, weather balloons

can range in diameter
from 6 to 150 cubic feet

and reach heights of over 24 miles.

Weather balloons are
often mistaken for ufos.

They can look very strange.

They float it in an unusual way.

They tend to often be shiny and reflective.

There's a whole history of weather balloons

being mistaken for weird things,

for example, the roswell
crash, 1947, next mexico.

Narrator: On July 9th, 1947, the
u.S. Military announced to the press

that it had recovered
an unknown flying disk.

Later, the story w changed.

The disk was now said
to be a weather balloon.

Radford: It's not
surprising that the people

who found this wreckage
couldn't identify it,

and so they said, "well, maybe it's a ufo."

narrator: But the low-flying
object caught ocamera in the hills

near monterrey does not behave
or look like a weather balloon.

If it were a weather balloon in this video,

we wouldn't expect it to be this
very unusual shape that we see.

Narrator: In weather
balloons that descend to earth,

the air clearly sits at the
top, supporting the balloon

and giving it a top-heavy
teardrop appearance.

This object is widest in the middle,

giving it the wrong shape.

It has a very unusual shape

for something that's
flying through the air.

It's probably something else.

Narrator: Experts still can't
agree on what those hikers

filmed flying silently across
the skies above monterrey.

So this thing is really intriguing.

We don't know what it is, and
if it continues to go unidentified,

then it's an unidentified flying object.

It is a ufo.

Narrator: Now from a suburban garden wall,

a weird alien creature launches itself.

So this guy is just
riding along on his bike,

and out of nowhere, this
thing jumps out in front of him.

Wise: This screeching creature,

what on god's earth is this thing?

I sort of jumped when
I first saw it like, "ooh."

it jumped out.

Narrator: Experts struggle to match it

with anything in the animal kingdom.

It's like a gargoyle-monkey-humanoid
freaky thing.

It's muscular. It's big.

It's not just some average family pet.

Narrator: Locals fear a lab
experiment gone horribly wrong.

It looks like some weird cross
between a monkey and a dog.

Radford: There are no
animals that look like this,

so something very
weird has been done to it.

Narrator: The picturesque
tourist town of gyor

stands on the banks of the river
danube in northwest hungary.

August 22nd, 2017,
mountain-biking enthusiast

giorgi moll goes for a
ride through the town

when his helmet cam
captures something truly bizarre.

[ speaks indistinctly ]

out of nowhere, this thing
jumps out in front of him.

What is it?

Narrator: When he turns
around, the creature has vanished.

Expert analysis shows this footage

has not been tampered with,

and the animal screech doesn't
match any known animal sounds.

Investigators agree the
footage is not a hoax,

so what did moll see?

Price: I am completely baffled.

It doesn't look like any
animal I'm aware of.

Narrator: Could this be
the first-ever video evidence

of a bizarre ape-like creature

first reported attacking
people in virginia in the 1950s?

Known as the devil monkey,

this beast has reportedly
terrorized victims

in the united states

where no known ape
species live in the wild.

The devil monkey is said
to be sort of simian-like

with sort of a baboon-like
face, very, very fierce, very feral.

The devil monkey is able
to leap great distances

and attack people.

You see this footage.

You know, one well might ask,

"is this evidence that
this beast actually exists?"

narrator: An anatomical
detail convinces radford

this creature belongs to the monkey family.

One of the first things
you notice here is the tail.

It's a very, very long tail.

The first thing you might
jump to is a monkey.

Narrator: Monkeys don't live
in the wild anywhere near here,

but could one have escaped
from a local zoo or a private owner?

In the u.S., escaped primates attack

several people every year.

In stamford, connecticut,
2009, a 200-pound pet chimp

called travis escaped from his owner

and attacked 55-year-old charla nash.

Travis ripped off her hands

and inflicted such severe facial injuries

that nash lost her sight.

Reporter: Nash lost her nose,
lips, eyelids and hands in the attack

along with her ability
to see and speak clearly.

Narrator: Science
writer jeff wise discovers

that the close encounter in hungary

took place just a couple
of miles from a local zoo.

This zoo has eight different
species of monkeys and apes.

Narrator: It's incredibly rare
for a primate to escape a zoo.

In the u.S., there are one or two escapes

from enclosures a year,

but when that happens,
it's taken very seriously.

There's all kinds of
diseases that infect apes

that can also infect us.

It might not even be
that dangerous for them.

For you, it's fatal.

Narrator: Chimps and
other primates passed on

to humans one of the most
devastating plagues in history,

the hiv virus, which has killed
an estimated 39 million people.

They can also pass on
deadly hepatitis and simian b.

If this is an escaped
primate, it may be infected.

Samuel: The big fear in this case is,

well, what if that monkey bit someone?

Could be disastrous.

Narrator: But wise discovers
primate pet ownership

is virtually nonexistent in hungary,

and he rules out an
escapee from the local zoo.

Wise: There were no
reported escapes from this zoo,

so it seems unlikely

that it could've been
an escaped zoo animal.

Narrator: Wise comes up with another theory

as to why a monkey might be
on the loose in this urban area.

Wise: Because they're so
similar to humans biologically,

they're often used in labs.

Perhaps, what happened
is that a lab animal escaped

and attacked this biker.

Narrator: Since the 1940s, scientists
have experimented on primates

for medical research into organ transplants

and diseases like polio.

When investigators watch
the footage frame by frame,

they fear some sort of
terrifying frankenstein lab

monster is on the loose.

Wise: That's when it gets
really weird because now it's like

a gargoyle-monkey-humanoid freaky thing.

It's terrifying.

Narrator: Coming up, a highway
lifts and falls as though it's breathing.

You can see people running.

What are these people running away from?

Narrator: On a creepy lake, a
fisherman's tall tale turns out to be true.

Is there anything can
that can levitate fish lines?

Is it a natural phenomena?

Narrator: And investigators
fear a grotesque mutant

is on the lam from a lab.

Radford: Another thing that's odd here

is the lack of features on the face.

It's just sort of this
smooth gray blob thing.

Narrator: In hungary, a
mysterious creature jumps out

and terrifies a cyclist.

When investigators analyze
the footage frame by frame,

they're stunned.

Radford: Another thing that's odd here

is the lack of features on the face.

It's just sort of this
smooth gray blob thing.

We got to find out what this thing is, man.

That is creepy.

Narrator: The creature's strange appearance

makes biologist kelly price wonder

if it's been subject to some
sort of facial procedure.

Price: Is there any way that this
was the result of an experiment

where they did something to the face

like with face transplants
that we perform on baboons?

Narrator: In the mid-1980s,
plastic surgeon thomas loeb

performed the first
successful facial transplant

on a live baboon.

Now since then, we've had,
like, 30 human face transplants,

and that's only possible
because of that initial work

that was done on the baboon.

Monkeys are perfect for this

kind of testing and experimentation

because we're so structurally similar.

Narrator: However, when
biologist leslie samuel

researches animal-testing
licenses approved in hungary,

he doubts that this creature

is a frankenstein fugitive from a lab.

Samuel: When you look at the
records of this part in hungary,

animal-testing facilities are very limited.

That makes me doubt
that this is some escapee

from an animal test.

Narrator: Until investigators
can get ahold of more footage

or the creature itself,

the identity of this devil monkey

remains a troubling mystery.

Radford: This is a,
essentially, unique animal

that has never been seen before
and apparently hasn't been seen

since despite jumping in front of this guy.

[ speaks indistinctly ]

I think we just have to
hope that, whatever it is,

it's not dangerous
because it's still out there.

Narrator: Now in virginia,
the home of the cia,

locals flee a bizarre low-flying cloud.

That is quite honestly the
weirdest thing I've ever seen.

It looks exactly like a cloud,
but it's 3 feet off the ground.

I was scared.

I was thinking, like, the, you
know, the end of the world.

-Hey! -Hey, run the phone! Run the phone!

Narrator: Strangest of
all, this cloud appears

to have some sort of intelligence.

It seemed to be moving
in a specific trajectory

as if there were
someone else controlling it.

But when put to the test,
this creepy little blob packs

an explosive punch.

It's flammable, and it will go boom.

Could've killed everybody,
the whole neighborhood.

Narrator: Virginia, home of the
us central intelligence agency,

founded in 1947 by
president harry s. Truman

and considered the
world's greatest spy network.

June 2016, tiera scruggs
and her cousin, latanya,

take a walk through
residential newman village

when they spot something
completely bizarre.

Well, I got right here, and
I seen it coming from, like,

under the tree over there,
and I'm like, "what is that?"

I'm like, "oh, my god.

A cloud is floating
through the parking lot,"

and first I was scared.

I just pulled my camera
out and started recording it

because I wanted to know what it was.

-Hey! -Hey, run the phone! Run the phone!

Narrator: The creepy cloud seems
to target tiera's cousin, latanya.

Man: Hey, run the phone! Run the phone!

Cloud, you better chill out.

She just freaked out like, "oh, my god."

I knew, at that moment, she was scared,

because she didn't know
what in the world was going on.

I was thinking, like, the, you know,

the end of the world, you
know, something crazy.

No. I'm not hurting it.

You run up on it.

What the world?

Narrator: With no reported fires,

accidents or chemical leaks in the area,

this unidentified floating
object bewilders experts.

Lovell: So if this was an ordinary cloud,

usually as clouds touch the ground,

they turn into fog, or they'll dissipate.

I think it's not a cloud
because this looks like it

has a stable structure.

It's holding together.

Narrator: En ex-cia undercover agent

lindsay moran analyzes this footage,

she's struck by the creepy cloud's

seemingly deliberate movements.

Moran: This is really weird.

It's moving through the parking lot

as if there were
someone else controlling it,

or there was someone even driving it.

Narrator: Virginia is home
to moran's former employer,

the central intelligence agency,

and wonders if there might be a connection.

The cia has a long history of
camouflaging its spy technology

to hide what their true
purpose or function is.

Narrator: Havana, 1960, the
cia launches an outlandish plot

to assassinate cuba's
communist leader, fidel castro,

by placing an explosive
in one of his cigars.

Like so many other plots
to kill castro, this one fails.

These days, the cia targets terrorists

in places like pakistan.

We know that the cia is, to this day,

continuing to develop all
kinds of new drone technologies.

It's not far-fetched at
all to think that the cia

might try to hide some kind
of drone technology in a cloud.

Narrator: When electrical
engineer lisa lazareck-asunta

examines the footage, she
doubts if it's some sort of spy cloud.

It could be a drone,
but it's very unlikely that,

unless the cia got really lazy

and decided to go test it in a parking lot,

they'd be a bit more stealthy than that.

I'm not sure a fluffy cloud
is their most high-tech

or useful bit of equipment.

It's probably not from the cia.

Narrator: Science
journalist jayde lovell studies

the location of the cloud,

which leads her to an unsavory theory.

Virginia has one of the most
polluted waterway systems

in the united states,
so given the location,

it might be some sort of toxic foam.

Narrator: A 2014
report claims that virginia

has over 16,000 miles of polluted rivers.

Fecal bacteria from leaking
sewers and farm manure

are the most common pollutants,

putting virginians at risk
from illness or even death.

It could be a cloud of
toxic foam or sewage foam

that's drifted from a nearby sewage plant,

and they really look a lot like real clouds

that have just fallen out of the sky.

Narrator: Footage from bangalore, india,

reveals exactly what these
sewage-foam clouds look like.

Locals report how untreated sewage

leaves rivers oxygen-depleted

and covered in these foam clouds,

which get scattered by the wind.

If it is chemical foam, then that's toxic,

and we need to stay
away from that kind of stuff.

It can cause you to pass
out and go into a coma.

It can kill you.

Narrator: Could a polluted
river near richmond be the source

of this potentially toxic and lethal cloud?

Coming up, a monster
from the center of the earth.

What force lies beneath?

Narrator: What spooky power
is freaking out this fisherman

on a tennessee lake?

Wise: I would really like to
know how the heck this happened

because it is truly, truly weird.

Narrator: And geoscientist sian
proctor discovers the creepy cloud

in virginia could explode at any time.

If you have a spark or light a match, boom.

Narrator: Locals run from a
potentially toxic ground-level cloud

that creeps towards them in virginia.

Geoscientist sian proctor
discovers that this parking lot

is not far from a potential
source for a deadly cloud.

Oh, wow.

What we know is that, within 6 miles of

where this video was taken,

there is a waste-water
treatment plant and a rive

maybe that could be
the source of this cloud.

Narrator: But what would
convert chemical waste

into a foamy cloud that
floats at ground level?

Proctor believes it can
be only one chemical,

and she sets up a test to prove it.

I'm basically going to take couple buckets,

and they have soap and water in it,

and then I have my hydrogen gas,

and what I'm going to do
is I'm going to hook this up,

and I'm going to blow hydrogen into it.

Narrator: Because hydrogen
is the lightest of the elements,

she hopes that, by adding the right amount

to one of these bubble clouds,

it will float along the ground
like the one in the footage.

Oh, too light.

No, come back.

Okay. This is the one.

One of these will float.

Oh. Oh.

This one is really close.

It's just so hard.

This has got to be the
trickiest thing I've ever done.

Narrator: Although proctor
cannot reproduce the behavior

of the mystery cloud in the footage,

she's shown that hydrogen
is the most likely element

making the cloud float.

That means it may not
just be toxic but explosive.

I'm dealing with hydrogen gas here.

If you have a spark or light a match, boom.

Let's light it up.

Boom.

Narrator: The cloud in the
parking lot is so much bigger

than if it does contain hydrogen,

a single spark could
turn the area into a fireball.

If what we see in the video
actually is a hydrogen cloud,

then it's deadly.

Stay away.

I'm talking extremely dangerous
because it's flammable,

and it will go boom.

Narrator: When atmospheric
scientist chris walcek

examines the footage,

he agrees that the most likely
source of the cloud is pollution

but with one key difference.

If it were from some
frothed-up area of polluted water,

you would expect to see quite
a few of these at the same time.

Seeing just one is a very
mysterious thing here.

Narrator: Investigators remain
puzzled by this one solitary, creepy cloud.

Woman: I ain't never seen
it. You seen one [indistinct]?

It's really unsettling to
think that this strange cloud

can just appear in an urban parking lot

and that no one will have
any explanation as to what it is.

If they can't find out, we darn
sure don't know what happened,

so only god know.

Narrator: After just shy of a
minute hovering in the parking lot,

this weird white blob

rises above the tree line and vanishes.

This cloud, very possibly
toxic and explosive,

remains unexplained.

Now panic and confusion
as a busy street pulses to life.

Oh, my god.

Wow, it's weird.

It looks like this road has come alive.

The highway looks like it's
breathing in and breathing out.

What could be causing this breathing road?

Narrator: Locals flee for their lives.

You can see people running.

What are these people running away from?

Something big is happening here.

Narrator: Mexico city, with
over 21 million residents,

it's the biggest metropolitan
area in the western hemisphere.

The city is built on the
ruins of tenochtitlan,

capital of the aztecs,

who governed a vast area
of the region for centuries.

The aztecs are long gone,

but we still use some
of their words like chili,

chocolate and coyote.

September 19th, 2017,
footage captures panic

breaking out as an asphalt road
behaves in a terrifying manner.

Shapiro: You see it coming
up and going down again.

It's kind of rhythmic,
so it almost looks like

it's breathing in a way,
which is really weird.

Almost as if the earth had
lungs like it's taking a breath

and then exhaling.

It's nothing like I've seen before.

Narrator: This road is
made of 4 inches of asphalt.

The section rising up and down weighs ton.

Hari: It must take immense
force to push the road up

and then let it back down.

I just wonder what could
be underneath the road

making that move so rapidly
and in such a rhythmic way.

What force lies beneath?

Narrator: Coming up, is a
tennessee river's dark history

coming back to haunt a fisherman?

Thousands and thousands of
people have died on this river.

Narrator: And investigators
fear death from below

in a mexico city center.

A volcanic vent opening
up in the middle of the city

is an indiscriminate killer.

Narrator: A pulsing road
sends people fleeing in panic

from downtown mexico city.

Explorer george kourounis
knows the region well.

When he studies the footage,

he believes that the
location of this street

may hold the key to the mystery.

Kourounis: Mexico is part
of the pacific ring of fire.

There are numerous volcanoes there,

including one of the most
active and biggest volcanoes,

popocatepetl, and it erupts all the time.

Narrator: At 18,000 feet, popocatepetl,
or smoking mountain in aztec,

can be seen from mexico city
even though it's 37 miles away.

After lying dormant for
almost 50 years, el popo,

as locals call it,

erupted in 1994 and has
been active ever since.

It's almost like having an
angry next-door neighbor.

You never know when
they're going to go off.

Narrator: Although reports indicate el popo

wasn't particularly active on this date,

kourounis knows that deadly,

isolated volcanoes can
suddenly erupt in mexico.

In 1943 in the town of paricutin,

overnight an eruption
formed in a farmer's cornfield,

and that volcano just kept spewing lava

for days and days and
days, and it's still there today,

from nothing to a volcano almost overnight.

Narrator: Paricutin
grew to almost 1,400 feet,

swallowing anything in its path,
destroying the town of san juan.

The lava covers 10 square
miles, killing almost all vegetation.

Could a rogue volcano be
about to strike mexico city,

threatening the lives of millions?

Zimmerman: This video is startling
because people are still driving

and walking over this.

They don't know what danger lies beneath.

Run. Get out of the area.

Go as fast as you can.

Narrator: Even if this breathing road

doesn't signify a full-blown volcano,

experts fear a side effect

that could send the entire area sky-high.

Underneath the ground,
there's all this volcanic plumbing,

these conduits of magma
that are building up pressure.

One phenomena that's very
common in volcanic areas

are fumaroles and steam vents.

These are places where hot
gases are coming out of the ground,

not lava, just gas.

Narrator: Fumaroles are
openings in the earth's crust,

which release steam often in
areas surrounding volcanoes.

Yellowstone national park has
an estimated 4,000 fumaroles.

If the pressure of these
volcanic gases were to build up

and then release and
build up and then release,

it would give the impression
of breathing kind of

like what we're seeing in this video.

Narrator: Fumarole steam can
contain over 97 percent carbon dioxide,

which is enough to
asphyxiate any living thing.

That worries me tremendously

because it doesn't take much
to wipe out entire neighborhoods.

Narrator: Investigators
fear this breathing road

is an indicator of an imminent,
devastating volcanic eruption,

but when material scientist kishore hari

studies the footage,

he doubts that volcanic gas
is causing this phenomenon.

Hari: Most of the volcanic
gases really stink to us.

There's methane, mercaptans.

The residents would complain
of a smell associated to the gas.

We just don't hear that
or see that in this video.

Narrator: When hari analyzes
the footage frame by frame,

he wonders if the sight of people

fleeing holds the key to this mystery.

Hari: At the beginning of the clip,

you see a huge number of people running.

We see a car just drive right over it,

and if I came across this thing
in my car, I would've stopped.

This must mean there is some
sort of big disaster happening.

There has been a history of pretty large

earthquakes in this area.

When we see these people
running, it's sort of natural

to think an earthquake
has just unfolded here.

Narrator: On September 19th,
2017, mexico suffered an earthquake

that measured 7.1 on the richter scale.

It damaged more than 20,000 buildings,

killing at least 370 people.

The tremors caused
this road to rise and fall.

Hari: We think of roads as
being this incredibly rigid structure,

so just think about the forces
the earth have under its control

to create this kind of effect.

It just reminds me of
how powerful the earth is.

Narrator: Now on a waterway
known as the lake of death,

a fishing line rises all on its own.

All of a sudden, the line
was raising up in the air.

What's going on here?

A line floating out on its
own with no external forces

really pulling on it, it's very weird.

Narrator: Investigators
struggle to figure out

what's causing the line to defy gravity.

Kourounis: It's almost
as if some ghostly hand

has reached down from the sky

and started to pull up on his fishing line.

It just keeps going up and up and up.

It's defying physics.

Narrator: January 2nd, 2017,
chickamauga lake, tennessee,

cameron gatlin fishes here
two or three times a week,

but he'll never forget his
catch this foggy winter morning.

Gatlin: I noticed my line
started to rise up into the air.

At first, I thought that I may
have crossed over a tree limb

or someone else's fishing line,

and I started pulling on my line
and trying to pull it back down,

but it kept going up and up and up.

Narrator: Gatlin recasts.

To his horror, the same thing happens.

The line rises up all by itself,

and there's nothing visible helping it.

My line is going up in the air,

and it's not hitting the water at all.

I got off the water immediately,
you know, in fear of my life.

Narrator: Desperate to
make sense of this mystery,

gatlin posts his footage online.

Now if any of you know
why this is happening,

feel free to let me know.

Narrator: The footage of
a fishing line rising by itself

still confounds experts.

This is one of the more
baffling ones that I've seen.

Kourounis: Gravity is not just a good idea.

It's the law, and whenever
you have something going up,

it's always going to be working
against the force of gravity,

so there is some force
at play here, but what is it?

Narrator: The footage
reaches scieist bill beaty,

who detects a clue in the audio.

One unusual thing in the video
is there seems to be a buzzing

maybe static-electric sound
coming from the fishing rod,

very slight and gets
louder when he lifts the rod.

Gatlin: Listen to the rod.

Beaty: That might hold
the key to an explanation.

Narrator: Could these static sounds
be a sign of electric interference,

which, in such a remote area,

could only be caused by a
thunderstorm brewing overhead?

During thunderstorms, the atmosphere

experiences extreme changes in voltage,

which can cause weird
phenomenon on the ground.

Beaty: One possibility is this fishing line

has become positively charged,

and if the sky above is a
negative-charged thunderstorm,

it can be pulled right
up and is light enough.

It'll be attracted right
up into the thunderstorm,

and that would explain what
we're seeing in the video.

Narrator: Physicist dave wallace agrees

that electric charges in the stormy sky

must be drawing the
fishing line up into the air.

Wallace: So what we're
witnessing here is the possibility

of an electrostatic
charge in the atmosphere

pulling the line up like a magnet,

creating a phenomenon
that just really looks unreal.

Narrator: Angler cameron gatlin feels lucky

to have escaped the
lightning storm unscathed.

Having experienced lightning in the past,

it was pretty scary,

and I'm very grateful
that nothing happened.