Strange Evidence (2017–…): Season 3, Episode 8 - Alien in the Abyss - full transcript
When footage of a strange deep-sea vessel is uncovered, experts wonder if its evidence of an autonomous alien craft sent to explore earth, and using cutting-edge tech, investigators follow the clues to an unexpected explanation.
[ 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 ]
narrator: Coming up,
is this an alien probe
exploring our oceans?
How dangerous is it?
Stay away.
Narrator: Cameras capture a beast
with the strength of an ape
and the intelligence of a human.
It's looking right at us.
He just turns to me and goes, "go! Go! Go!
We got to get out of here!"
narrator: And is exploding cement...
Run, man.
...Behind this near-miss on a busy highway?
[ tires screech ]
narrator: Bizarre phenomenon.
Whoa.
Narrator: Mysteries caught on camera.
Now, that's an explosion.
Narrator: What is the truth
behind this strange evidence?
♪
In the deep ocean, a
remotely operated vehicle
has a close encounter with this.
Could this be an alien autonomous vehicle?
There's something almost
demonic about the shape.
Narrator: Suddenly, the object
begins to transform and flash.
Is it a droid or something alive?
It looks like it's in attack mode.
Narrator: The indian ocean,
dotted with remote tropical islands.
It spans over 27 million square miles,
six times bigger than the united states.
March 20, 2013...
3,000 feet below the surface,
a remotely operated vehicle,
or r.O.V., scans the sea floor.
The r.O.V. Is about to perform maintenance
on data recording equipment
when an elaborately shaped
object comes into view.
Price: It's got symmetry.
The top half and the bottom half
seem to match almost perfectly.
This looks like it could
be some kind of robot
observing the deep.
Narrator: The shape is
complex, beautiful, and strange.
Experts can't tell if it's
a creature or machine,
but as the r.O.V. Approaches
to examine it closer,
the reaction of the object
is instant and incredible.
Lovell: What are those shiny lights?
How did it transform?
This is unlike anything I've ever seen.
♪
The way it suddenly
morphs is totally shocking.
It completely changes
shape from, like, a 2-d symbol,
and then it becomes this 3-d creature
and seems to be alive
or powered in some way.
Narrator: What looked at
first like a flat 2-d pattern
is now a strange structure or creature
with what looks like a gleaming
metal frame and flashing lights.
Moran: It's almost as if it's deploying
some kind of weapon system.
Maybe it perceived the r.O.V.
And went into attack mode.
Narrator: Whatever this thing is,
it's unlike anything biologist
kelly price has seen before.
Price: It's clearly not a
squid, not an octopus,
not a fish.
Narrator: It appears mechanical,
but nothing man-made
looks anything like
this, and why is it here?
Could this potentially be an
alien autonomous vehicle?
Moran: Is it sent in peace
or conducting reconnaissance
with a darker purpose?
Narrator: Ships' captains
and submarine commanders
frequently report strange
objects in the water,
just as pilots report ufos in the sky.
In 2004, the u.S.
Military recorded an object
as large as a football field
in the waters off california.
It looked like a barely submerged island
that descended back into the depths
as navy personnel watched.
Maybe aliens have sent
this probe into our oceans.
It's a water planet.
Maybe they're starting
there with exploration.
Narrator: But former
cia analyst lindsay moran
studies the footage
and sees the fingerprints
of one of planet earth's
major military powers at work.
Moran: Maybe what we're seeing here
is some kind of cutting-edge
underwater drone technology.
Could it be an underwater weapons system?
There's definitely an arms
race to try and come up with
an undetectable underwater vehicle.
Narrator: Searching for clues,
military correspondent carlo muñoz
discovers the chinese military
has launched a fleet of underwater drones.
These high-tech robots, known
as the haiyi, or "sea wings"
boast cutting-edge technology
designed to leave the
u.S. Navy dead in the water.
The chinese haiyi is
probably the most advanced
underwater drone that we know about.
It's virtually undetectable.
These could actually be used to track
united states nuclear submarines
and leave them vulnerable to attack.
If someone could track and disable
our ballistic missile subs,
this could really alter
the balance of power
and pose a real threat.
The us navy has a fleet of
14 ballistic missile submarines
that provide a protective nuclear shield.
♪
Biologist greg szulgit examines the footage
and doubts it shows a machine.
As soon as I saw it turn sideways,
those brilliant, shimmering lines come up.
I knew immediately this
must be bioluminescent.
Narrator: To attract prey in the dark,
many deep sea creatures are bioluminescent.
They're able to produce their own light
through an internal chemical reaction.
Over 80 percent of the
world's oceans are unmapped,
unobserved and unexplored.
Price takes another look
at the video and considers
if this is a biological
creature unknown to science.
The ocean is incredibly
vast, so there is the possibility
that there are numerous creatures
that live deep down below
that we haven't even encountered before.
Is this one of them?
The creature is swimming in
the bathyal or midnight zone,
a region of almost pitch darkness up
to 13,000 feet below the waves.
We know more about the moon than we know
about life in the bathyal zone.
New species have been discovered here.
The weird-looking yeti
crab was only found in 2005,
and strangest of all, in 2018,
an r.O.V. Recorded these images
of what appear to be footprints
on the seabed 2 1/2
miles beneath the waves.
In total, researchers counted 3,500 prints,
which average a massive 8 feet in length.
No one knows what made them.
It's not unreasonable that this could be
some sort of new species
that's just never been described before.
If this metallic alien-looking
object is a sea creature,
then it's nothing scientists
have ever seen before.
It makes you wonder what
other magical creatures
are down there that we have no idea about.
I really want to go explore.
Narrator: Now on a
busy highway in thailand,
a bright white flash,
and out of nowhere, a
huge disk slams into the road.
It looks like it was
conjured out of thin air.
Narrator: Is it a battle
between soldiers and monks
with some very peculiar powers?
The temple has been under
siege by almost 3,000 troops.
This is the absolute
definition of death from the sky.
April 18, 2018, bangkok, thailand.
A normal rush hour afternoon
is suddenly interrupted by this.
[ brakes screech ]
this piece looks incredibly heavy.
Did it just fall from the sky?
I don't know where it
came from, but moreover,
what propelled it all the way
out into the middle of the road?
Narrator: 24,000 people
die on thai roads each year,
but this is no ordinary accident.
He's lucky he didn't get killed.
Narrator: And even more bizarrely,
it occurs next to a monastery
where the monks, according to locals,
have supernatural powers.
Sanford: Maybe the flash
is the work of these monks
making the disk materialize
into the real world.
Narrator: Coming up, an
ape man in a florida swamp
terrifies campers...
Narrator: ...A huge object
falls from the sky and vanishes...
It literally disappeared into thin air.
Narrator: ...And experts
wonder if a sect of monks
are manipulating quantum physics.
The quantum world is
not what you think it is.
♪
[ brakes screech ]
♪
Narrator: In thailand, a huge
object appears out of nowhere
and crashes onto a highway.
That flash at the beginning,
it makes you wonder what is happening.
What does the flash have to do with it?
Narrator: What makes it even stranger
is that it happens near to
one of the most controversial
and mysterious temples in the world.
It has a weird exterior like a spaceship.
Beaty: This temple is actually
eight times larger than vatican city,
with a huge central
dome, like a flying saucer.
Narrator: Inside, there are
reports of miracles appearing.
The monks are also revered for standing up
to the country's military dictatorship.
Buddhism talks about
different spiritual planes,
and there's rumored to be
a crack squad of meditators
in the temple.
But can the white flash and
flying disk that appears from it
be linked to some of the
legendary superhuman powers
of monks?
Makes you wonder what
kind of strange activities
could be going on inside.
Narrator: Incredibly, some
buddhist monks claim to be able
to manipulate the physical environment
in order to perform seemingly
impossible superhuman feats.
24-year-old zhao rui
claims intense meditation
allows him to reach a spiritual
plane where he can defy physics.
A few elite monks even
say they have mastered
the physical universe at a quantum level,
enabling them to perfect
the mysterious art of levitation.
Quantum mechanics is the craziest theory
known to science.
It's based on fantastic
philosophical assumptions
that the world is not what you think it is.
Beaty: Could psychic concentration
by that number of religious practitioners
conjure something like
this to fall out of the sky?
Material scientist kishore
hari studies the footage
and sees an explanation for the white flash
based on conventional physics.
When I saw the flash, I
noticed the electrical lines
running down the highway.
More than likely, the metal caught an edge
of one of those power
lines and created an arc,
and that arc is that brilliant
white flash that we see.
Aviation expert marna kagele
attempts to identify the falling object.
The speed at which it's
dropping does make it seem like it
has fallen from a very high height.
One thing we might think about is,
did it come from an aircraft of some kind?
Kagele studies aviation records.
She discovers that so
many items fall from planes,
there's an acronym for it...
T.F.O.A., or things falling off aircraft.
And thailand has one
of the worst aviation
safety records in the world.
In the last 12 years,
there have been 10 serious
incidents in thai airspace,
the worst resulting in 90 deaths
when a 12go airlines flight
from bangkok crash-landed
and burst into flames at phuket airport.
Looking closely at
the mysterious saucer-shaped object,
kagele wonders if it might
have fallen off a military aircraft.
One type of aircraft that has
something of a similar shape
are aircraft with a radar dome.
Those aircraft are used
for surveillance types of activities.
Narrator: But when science
journalist steve potvin
analyzes how the object
breaks up as it lands,
he sees a problem with the theory.
Those radar domes that
you see on spy planes,
they're made from fiberglass,
and if this was fiberglass,
it would have shattered
as soon as it hit the floor.
That's definitely not
what we are seeing here.
Narrator: Hari reexamines the video.
Based on how the disk
crumples as it hits the ground,
he concludes it's made of metal.
Looking at maps of the
area, he finds there are
big industrial facilities near the highway.
Many have storage silos,
the metal tops of which bear
a striking resemblance
to the strange object.
What could be happening
that leads to an explosion?
Is cement the cause?
In cutting-edge experiments
to make cement stronger,
some scientists have started
using a risky new ingredient...
Calcium carbide.
Calcium carbide is pretty safe
as long as it's a dry powder,
but as soon as it's exposed to water,
it undergoes a chemical reaction
that generates acetylene gas.
Narrator: Acetylene gas is
used to weld and cut metal.
Combined with oxygen, it
burns at over 6,000 degrees.
It's extremely unstable.
It's extremely flammable.
The slightest spark and you're
going to have a huge explosion.
Narrator: The cement factory
has multiple storage silos,
the metal tops of which
bear a striking resemblance
to the strange object.
Matt kutcher is a pyrotechnics expert
who has worked on over
20 hollywood blockbusters,
including "patriots day" and "logan."
he sets up an experiment...
We're going to take the calcium carbide now
and put it within... into the water.
...To determine whether
an acetylene explosion
really could blow the top off a silo.
We're going to begin the
process of making acetylene.
We have to be careful. It's a volatile gas.
You can see the water gassing off.
It's building acetylene quite rapidly.
Narrator: Placing the barrel
over the top of the calcium carbide
causes acetylene to build up inside.
We give it a bit of ignition.
We should all step away.
Run, man.
I think that barrel is going to fly.
Three, two, one. Hit it!
Narrator: When ignited, even a small amount
of calcium carbide produces
enough acetylene gas
to send the barrel 40 feet into the air.
It's taken a gnarly hit.
I think calcium carbide or acetylene,
the byproduct, could certainly
be behind this explosion.
Narrator: Matt's experiment
proves an acetylene explosion
does have enough force
to blow a storage silo dome
flying into the sky.
But there's a problem.
Science author linda
zimmerman discovers this chemical
is not being widely used in thailand.
Calcium carbide is still very
much in the experimental stage.
It is not available to general industry
and construction at this point.
What the massive saucer-shaped object is
and why it fell out of the
air remains unexplained.
Look up, because you never
know what's falling out of the sky.
[ brakes screech ]
narrator: Now, deep
in the forests of florida...
It's a monster from your worst nightmare.
...A night vision camera
captures the skunk ape.
It could just pinch your head right off.
Narrator: Terrified
campers run for their lives.
Is the footage proof of an abomination?
These creature are real, and
you don't ever want to piss one off.
Narrator: Florida, the sunshine state.
Behind the beaches,
80% of the land is
wilderness, forest, or wetland.
May 8, 2012...
Deep in torreya state park, stacy brown jr.
Is camping with his father,
a former army ranger.
So we're just cooking out,
had some ribs on the grill,
and as we're standing
there, we start hearing knocks,
and I was like, "that
ain't the wind, you know?"
and I said, "we'll find out what this is."
narrator: The men head into the woods
using a night vision camera
to guide them through the darkness.
All right.
We're hearing the knocks
and a growl right over here.
Narrator: The strange
noises seem to follow them.
We're hearing noises to our left.
We're hearing noises to our right.
We don't hear the knocking anymore,
but what we do hear is something walk.
Thump, thump, thump.
[ whispers ] do you hear that?
Narrator: Father and son pause.
Stacy sr. Points his night
vision camera into the darkness.
I stopped, and we panned around.
What he sees next is a vision of horror.
Out walked this big
thing, and I just froze.
The hands are just enormous.
If they grabbed somebody by the throat,
it could just pinch your head right off.
Come on. We got it.
I really just lost it.
I was scared.
Brown jr.: Seeing my dad, an army ranger,
flip out like that, it
made my stomach drop.
We are out here in the middle of nowhere,
and there's nobody coming to save us.
I've been in some
situations that were scary,
but I've never been this
frightened before in my life.
This is the monster stories you hear about
when you're a kid,
and then you grow up,
and you find out they're true.
Narrator: Coming up, a
mysterious shadow climbs
beneath a bridge in ukraine...
It's something big,
something big and very strong.
...And experts consider
if the browns have captured on camera...
...A human-ape hybrid.
They could have the
aggressive strength of the chimps
and the apes, but yet the
intelligence of a human.
♪
Narrator: Camping deep in a florida forest,
a father and son capture night vision video
of a terrifying ape man.
Suddenly, it steps out and
takes this really large step.
It has broad shoulders, very long arms,
and it's got a strange, "unhuman" gait.
This is not an elk. This is not a moose.
This is not a deer.
Whatever it is, it's certainly not
some known, ordinary animal.
Narrator: Biologist
kelly price's first reaction
is that it's a hoax.
I would put odds on this being a man
about 6 foot tall in a furry suit.
Narrator: There have been
numerous ape man hoaxes
across the united states.
Image analyst ben
radford takes a closer look
at the infrared night vision to determine
if this creature is fake and
spots an intriguing detail.
Whatever this thing is, to
see a heat signature like this,
it would most likely be naked.
The darker parts would be
where the exposed skin is.
This could be some unknown creature.
Narrator: If this is a
hoax, it's a clever one.
Stacy jr. And his father
retrace the creature's steps
to determine its size.
It took one and a half,
and then mine takes, what, at least 3?
To work out the length
of the creature's stride,
they measure the distance
crossed in the footage.
Going to be about, what?
About 10 feet, give or take a few inches.
That's going to give him a stride
of a little over 6 feet, maybe?
Narrator: Even the world's tallest human,
8-foot-2 sultan kosen from turkey
only has a stride of around 3 1/2 feet,
which is tiny when compared to the stride
of the beast in the footage.
♪
Investigative journal christopher o'brien
digs into published sightings of
giant apes in the united states.
He learns that reports
of bigfoot encounters
are mainly clustered in the remote forests
of the pacific northwest,
but his research also reveals evidence
of another mysterious humanoid creature,
one that is native to florida...
The skunk ape.
A skunk ape is not as
stocky as their larger cousins,
the bigfoot or sasquatch,
and they live predominately
down in the deep south
in the swamplands of central florida.
If these creatures are real,
and you don't ever want to piss one off.
Biologist kelly price
has a terrifying theory
for the ape man's origins.
There have been attempts
to crossbreed humans
and chimpanzees
by inseminating a female
chimpanzee with human sperm.
The monster might not be one species at all
but a nightmare hybrid of two.
♪
Price considers if american researchers
have been continuing the
work of russian scientists
who conducted bizarre genetic
experiments in the 20th century.
The rumors were they were
toying with god's creations.
They were breeding
humans and apes together.
They were trying to make a human-zee.
Narrator: In the nightmare
that was stalin's russia,
biologist ilya ivanov is
reported to have attempted
to crossbreed a chimp and a human.
Could the u.S. Government
have attempted something similar
and conducted secret
experiments in florida?
Maybe one of those
experiments was successful.
These hybrid creatures
could have enhanced instincts.
They could have the
aggressive strength of the chimps
and the apes,
but yet the intelligence of a human.
But monteith doubts it's a human-zee
we see in the footage.
We have no evidence
that the u.S. Government
has this secret primate lab
doing all sorts of experimentations
between humans and apes.
[ growls ]
narrator: Coming up, is an
ancient map of the zodiac
connected to a weird
object plummeting to earth?
Things just don't fall out of the sky.
Has somebody angered the gods?
Narrator: And experts
investigate if the skunk ape
could be an early human
long considered extinct.
Could it be a living fossil?
♪
Narrator: Biologist kelly
price is investigating
a sighting of an ape man
in the forests of northern florida.
Footprints found elsewhere in the state
show the creature could have webbed feet.
In the 1960s, a biologist by
the name of sir alister hardy
posed a theory that humans
had actually evolved in the water
and we originally were
aquatic apes with webbed feet.
Could the skunk ape be
one of these aquatic apes?
Narrator: When our
ancestors migrated out of africa,
they weren't alone.
Humans have been around for
hundreds of thousands of years,
but we weren't the only homo species.
Until just 40,000 years ago,
humans shared the planet
with other hominin species
such as neanderthals and homo floresiensis.
Stacy jr. Wonders if the
creature in the footage
is another close relative
of humans that has survived
in the vast florida
wilderness to the present day.
We could possibly be
looking at a relic hominid
that just didn't go extinct.
They would be extremely intelligent,
so avoiding people for years
and years wouldn't be something
that would be out of
the realm of possibility.
Narrator: But engineer lisa lazareck-asunta
finds it incredible that an
aggressive relic ape man
could survive undetected in modern america.
If there was another hominid species,
they would have to be somewhat
separated from everybody else,
and running around in the
woods doesn't really feel like
that's enough of a separation
to have such a diverse set
of two hominid species in one place.
For now, experts are
unable to explain exactly
what it was the father and
son captures on their camera,
but stacy brown jr. And his dad
will never go back at
night to torreya state park.
Seriously, I mean, I would
not come back out here
in these woods at night.
Narrator: Now, in a place said to connect
the earth and the stars,
something plunges to the ground.
It just appears to come out of nowhere.
Storms don't just rain down solid objects.
To some, this is beyond
scientific understanding.
To me, that's proof that things
pass between the dimensions.
♪
April 21, 2018... one of
the most ancient holy sites
in England, known as glastonbury tor.
Nearby, student megan
taylor is studying for an exam
when an epic storm breaks.
Spectacular anvil lightning
forks across the sky.
The heavens are putting
on a violent display.
It was quite a eerie
atmosphere from the sky.
The flashes from the
lightning were big and frequent.
Megan records the storm on her phone.
When she watches the footage back,
megan notices a huge
object falling from above.
It was quite big, and it was
dark and falling very fast,
and it made me feel quite nervous.
What could it be?
Experts are baffled by the eerie footage.
It's pretty freaky.
Things just typically
do not fall out of the sky.
Are we seeing some kind of
just atmospheric phenomena
that's happening, or is there
something more that's going on?
Narrator: The tor is a
strangely shaped hill,
formed in the early jurassic period,
on which there are pagan
and early christian ruins.
The hill is regarded as both
a holy and a magical site.
This is an area steeped in
weird astrological occurrences.
Narrator: The hill is regarded
as one possible location
of the holy grail.
It is connected to the
legend of king arthur,
and it is argued that a giant zodiac
is concealed in the landscape around it.
We're here right in the
very head of the phoenix
or the eagle that represents
aquarius in the zodiac.
Twelve signs of the zodiac
are mapped out on this land.
It's in a 10-mile-wide radius,
and this area is called
the temple of the stars.
Narrator: Those who believe it
say that this giant zodiac temple
was created over 4,500 years ago
using natural features in the landscape,
like hills, rivers, hedgerows, and ditches
to form a chart of the constellations.
Then you have the fish,
one of the fish, pisces, there.
Beyond it, that's aries, the ram.
Narrator: This site has
such a powerful reputation
that early christians
said that even jesus christ
visited as a young man.
Local historian jeremy white
believes that in this deeply mystical site,
something spiritual may
have been caught on camera.
As I saw this image in the sky,
it made me think of something
coming from one of the
older, other dimensions
that surround us,
and we might have caught on camera
somebody crossing through the veil.
Narrator: Coming up,
something weird is
crossing a river upside down.
It's climbing under that bridge so fast.
What kind of creature can do that?
Narrator: And a message from the gods
or an engine of destruction?
Get out of the way.
That thing is moving fast.
It's going to crush you.
♪
Narrator: In an ancient
british temple of the stars,
a strange object plummets from the sky
during a powerful electrical storm.
Analysis reveals the
object is at least 8 feet long,
too big to be a bird, and
falling at 190 miles per hour.
Investigator re monteith
examines the footage.
It looks to me like something
is spiraling down out of control.
Could it be an aircraft
that is catastrophically
falling from the sky?
If that's a plane, then a lot
of lives are going to be lost.
Narrator: Americans
traveling to and from europe
fly right over this place.
No fewer than 350 flights
a day cross these skies.
Aviation expert marna kagele investigates
if the footage shows
a horrific plane crash.
Big commercial aircraft
are designed to be resilient
against any kind of lightning strike.
Narrator: On average,
commercial jets are hit by lightning
once a year and survive,
but light aircraft are not so lucky.
Smaller aircraft are not necessarily
designed to withstand lightning strikes.
So if one was struck by
lightning, it might crash.
Narrator: Five aircraft
crash each day in the us,
killing around 500 people per year.
But when megan taylor and
her mother rush to the scene
to see what has fallen,
the story takes an even stranger turn.
We walked around for a couple of hours,
gridded it kind of thing,
and we couldn't see anything there.
Megan: When I looked,
there was no sign of anything,
so it literally disappeared into thin air.
Narrator: David wallace at
mississippi state university's
high voltage lab discovers
the object fell just 20 miles
from yeovilton royal naval air station,
where top-secret test
flights are carried out.
This is some drone. It's
got struck by lightning.
And now it's doing a
death plunge to the earth.
Narrator: Wallace
believes the falling object
could be a large military
drone undergoing covert testing.
To test his drone-strike theory,
wallace has devised an experiment.
He plans to strike a drone
with an artificial lightning bolt
to see whether the force is strong enough
to knock it out of the air.
All right, boys, let's get flying.
So let's fire this bad boy up,
see what we can kill today.
[ whirring ]
ready? Two. One.
Fire. Yeah!
We got it!
Yo, yo, yo, that drone is gone.
Narrator: This proves
that a lightning strike
could have downed a drone.
So it looks like it fried
everything inside the control.
Narrator: If the unidentified object
was a top-secret drone,
the military would have been
quick to clear away the wreckage
before eye witnesses like megan taylor
and her mother, claire,
could get to the scene.
I've lived here for over 10 years,
and I've never seen anything
this strange or as weird
as something falling from the sky.
Narrator: Now, an inverted enigma
climbs in the shadows.
It's a real-life spider-man.
Narrator: Experts fear a beast
is loose in the urban jungle.
It seems unlikely it's human.
Is it dangerous?
What can do that?
Kiev, capital of ukraine, June 1, 2016.
As the sun sets over this ancient city,
dancer anna huliaieva spots a shadowy form
scaling the smooth underside
of the city's park bridge.
This sinister shape seems to defy gravity.
Coming up, experts wonder
if this is photographic proof
of a nightmarish local legend.
They are the epitome of ugly monsters.
♪
Narrator: Under a bridge in kiev, ukraine,
a sinister shadow defies
gravity and explanation.
It's almost like an animal
walking on four legs upside down.
It's something big,
something big and very strong
to be able to cling onto
the bottom of the bridge like that.
It seems unlikely it's human,
but if not, then what is it?
Narrator: Author linda
godfrey studies the video to try
and identify the creature.
It was able to grasp with its four limbs,
if that's what they were, hands or paws,
and with its feet.
Anna believes the mysterious
shadow could be a chort,
a ukrainian demon that
scurries around cities at night,
carrying off souls to hell.
Narrator: Belief in the chort
is still strong across ukraine.
In 2016, residents in
the village of rukshen
claimed to have killed one
that was sucking the
blood out of their livestock.
They are sort of the
epitome of ugly monsters.
It has just horns, just these large eyes,
teeth that look fearsome.
Narrator: The remarkable
footage comes to the attention
of science journalist steve potvin.
Given the location, he considers
whether the sinister shadow
is using the encroaching
darkness to try and stay hidden.
He wonders if the bridge
is about to be blown up.
Could this be some
sort of russian operative
or spy who's clinging to
the bottom of the bridge?
Russia and ukraine
have had a difficult past,
and so when you see
somebody climbing under a bridge,
what comes into mind is,
maybe it's somebody doing reconnaissance,
or maybe it's somebody
actually sabotaging the thing.
Narrator: The russian military
regularly use maskirovka,
a term used to describe aggressive acts
carried out using deception and denial.
When russian forces
sneaked into ukraine in 2014
and seized the crimean peninsula,
they used unmarked trucks and soldiers
without insignia on their uniforms.
Potvin examines how a russian agent
could climb the smooth
underside of the bridge.
He finds that engineers
often look to designs
perfected by nature for inspiration.
It's a technique known as biomimicry.
Taking a look at how geckos' feet work,
we've actually been able to
make our own kind of gloves
based off of a gecko's foot,
so something like that
would be able to grip
the underside of a very slippery bridge.
Narrator: The gloves
are covered in tiny fibers,
just like geckos' toes,
which are able to grip onto
microscopic imperfections
on surfaces that appear
smooth to the human eye.
But even if this would-be spider-man is
wearing gecko gloves,
not everyone agrees with
the russian covert op theory.
If this was a covert operation,
it was a massive failure.
One, nothing was blown up,
and two, it's not covert,
it's caught on camera.
Szulgit now considers
whether another russian group
are responsible for the mysterious climber.
In russia, there is this
especially big trend of climbing
onto really dangerous structures
and taking a photo of yourself.
Narrator: Free-climbers scale buildings
without safety equipment.
In 2012, vitaliy raskalov,
one of the most famous,
scaled the second-tallest
bridge in the world,
the 1,053-feet-tall russky island bridge
in vladivostok, russia, and
in 2017, he reached the top
of the 2,073-feet-high
shanghai tower in china.
They're just doing this for fun,
and they don't know if they're going to die
or just get a great picture out of it.
It's a deadly hobby.
In moscow, a 14-year-old
schoolboy paid with his life
when he slipped from a railway bridge
onto a 30,000-volt electricity cable.
But when engineer lisa lazareck-asunta
examines blueprints for the bridge,
she concludes this is a feat
that would only be attempted
by the most fearless free-climber.
The underside of that bridge, it's smooth,
so if it's a climber,
they are using some type
of equipment to help them.
Narrator: The experts' best theory is
that the footage shows
an illegal free-climber
who evaded capture by the authorities.
Samuel: Whatever this thing is,
it just kind of disappeared into the night,
so this mystery is still unsolved.
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 ]
narrator: Coming up,
is this an alien probe
exploring our oceans?
How dangerous is it?
Stay away.
Narrator: Cameras capture a beast
with the strength of an ape
and the intelligence of a human.
It's looking right at us.
He just turns to me and goes, "go! Go! Go!
We got to get out of here!"
narrator: And is exploding cement...
Run, man.
...Behind this near-miss on a busy highway?
[ tires screech ]
narrator: Bizarre phenomenon.
Whoa.
Narrator: Mysteries caught on camera.
Now, that's an explosion.
Narrator: What is the truth
behind this strange evidence?
♪
In the deep ocean, a
remotely operated vehicle
has a close encounter with this.
Could this be an alien autonomous vehicle?
There's something almost
demonic about the shape.
Narrator: Suddenly, the object
begins to transform and flash.
Is it a droid or something alive?
It looks like it's in attack mode.
Narrator: The indian ocean,
dotted with remote tropical islands.
It spans over 27 million square miles,
six times bigger than the united states.
March 20, 2013...
3,000 feet below the surface,
a remotely operated vehicle,
or r.O.V., scans the sea floor.
The r.O.V. Is about to perform maintenance
on data recording equipment
when an elaborately shaped
object comes into view.
Price: It's got symmetry.
The top half and the bottom half
seem to match almost perfectly.
This looks like it could
be some kind of robot
observing the deep.
Narrator: The shape is
complex, beautiful, and strange.
Experts can't tell if it's
a creature or machine,
but as the r.O.V. Approaches
to examine it closer,
the reaction of the object
is instant and incredible.
Lovell: What are those shiny lights?
How did it transform?
This is unlike anything I've ever seen.
♪
The way it suddenly
morphs is totally shocking.
It completely changes
shape from, like, a 2-d symbol,
and then it becomes this 3-d creature
and seems to be alive
or powered in some way.
Narrator: What looked at
first like a flat 2-d pattern
is now a strange structure or creature
with what looks like a gleaming
metal frame and flashing lights.
Moran: It's almost as if it's deploying
some kind of weapon system.
Maybe it perceived the r.O.V.
And went into attack mode.
Narrator: Whatever this thing is,
it's unlike anything biologist
kelly price has seen before.
Price: It's clearly not a
squid, not an octopus,
not a fish.
Narrator: It appears mechanical,
but nothing man-made
looks anything like
this, and why is it here?
Could this potentially be an
alien autonomous vehicle?
Moran: Is it sent in peace
or conducting reconnaissance
with a darker purpose?
Narrator: Ships' captains
and submarine commanders
frequently report strange
objects in the water,
just as pilots report ufos in the sky.
In 2004, the u.S.
Military recorded an object
as large as a football field
in the waters off california.
It looked like a barely submerged island
that descended back into the depths
as navy personnel watched.
Maybe aliens have sent
this probe into our oceans.
It's a water planet.
Maybe they're starting
there with exploration.
Narrator: But former
cia analyst lindsay moran
studies the footage
and sees the fingerprints
of one of planet earth's
major military powers at work.
Moran: Maybe what we're seeing here
is some kind of cutting-edge
underwater drone technology.
Could it be an underwater weapons system?
There's definitely an arms
race to try and come up with
an undetectable underwater vehicle.
Narrator: Searching for clues,
military correspondent carlo muñoz
discovers the chinese military
has launched a fleet of underwater drones.
These high-tech robots, known
as the haiyi, or "sea wings"
boast cutting-edge technology
designed to leave the
u.S. Navy dead in the water.
The chinese haiyi is
probably the most advanced
underwater drone that we know about.
It's virtually undetectable.
These could actually be used to track
united states nuclear submarines
and leave them vulnerable to attack.
If someone could track and disable
our ballistic missile subs,
this could really alter
the balance of power
and pose a real threat.
The us navy has a fleet of
14 ballistic missile submarines
that provide a protective nuclear shield.
♪
Biologist greg szulgit examines the footage
and doubts it shows a machine.
As soon as I saw it turn sideways,
those brilliant, shimmering lines come up.
I knew immediately this
must be bioluminescent.
Narrator: To attract prey in the dark,
many deep sea creatures are bioluminescent.
They're able to produce their own light
through an internal chemical reaction.
Over 80 percent of the
world's oceans are unmapped,
unobserved and unexplored.
Price takes another look
at the video and considers
if this is a biological
creature unknown to science.
The ocean is incredibly
vast, so there is the possibility
that there are numerous creatures
that live deep down below
that we haven't even encountered before.
Is this one of them?
The creature is swimming in
the bathyal or midnight zone,
a region of almost pitch darkness up
to 13,000 feet below the waves.
We know more about the moon than we know
about life in the bathyal zone.
New species have been discovered here.
The weird-looking yeti
crab was only found in 2005,
and strangest of all, in 2018,
an r.O.V. Recorded these images
of what appear to be footprints
on the seabed 2 1/2
miles beneath the waves.
In total, researchers counted 3,500 prints,
which average a massive 8 feet in length.
No one knows what made them.
It's not unreasonable that this could be
some sort of new species
that's just never been described before.
If this metallic alien-looking
object is a sea creature,
then it's nothing scientists
have ever seen before.
It makes you wonder what
other magical creatures
are down there that we have no idea about.
I really want to go explore.
Narrator: Now on a
busy highway in thailand,
a bright white flash,
and out of nowhere, a
huge disk slams into the road.
It looks like it was
conjured out of thin air.
Narrator: Is it a battle
between soldiers and monks
with some very peculiar powers?
The temple has been under
siege by almost 3,000 troops.
This is the absolute
definition of death from the sky.
April 18, 2018, bangkok, thailand.
A normal rush hour afternoon
is suddenly interrupted by this.
[ brakes screech ]
this piece looks incredibly heavy.
Did it just fall from the sky?
I don't know where it
came from, but moreover,
what propelled it all the way
out into the middle of the road?
Narrator: 24,000 people
die on thai roads each year,
but this is no ordinary accident.
He's lucky he didn't get killed.
Narrator: And even more bizarrely,
it occurs next to a monastery
where the monks, according to locals,
have supernatural powers.
Sanford: Maybe the flash
is the work of these monks
making the disk materialize
into the real world.
Narrator: Coming up, an
ape man in a florida swamp
terrifies campers...
Narrator: ...A huge object
falls from the sky and vanishes...
It literally disappeared into thin air.
Narrator: ...And experts
wonder if a sect of monks
are manipulating quantum physics.
The quantum world is
not what you think it is.
♪
[ brakes screech ]
♪
Narrator: In thailand, a huge
object appears out of nowhere
and crashes onto a highway.
That flash at the beginning,
it makes you wonder what is happening.
What does the flash have to do with it?
Narrator: What makes it even stranger
is that it happens near to
one of the most controversial
and mysterious temples in the world.
It has a weird exterior like a spaceship.
Beaty: This temple is actually
eight times larger than vatican city,
with a huge central
dome, like a flying saucer.
Narrator: Inside, there are
reports of miracles appearing.
The monks are also revered for standing up
to the country's military dictatorship.
Buddhism talks about
different spiritual planes,
and there's rumored to be
a crack squad of meditators
in the temple.
But can the white flash and
flying disk that appears from it
be linked to some of the
legendary superhuman powers
of monks?
Makes you wonder what
kind of strange activities
could be going on inside.
Narrator: Incredibly, some
buddhist monks claim to be able
to manipulate the physical environment
in order to perform seemingly
impossible superhuman feats.
24-year-old zhao rui
claims intense meditation
allows him to reach a spiritual
plane where he can defy physics.
A few elite monks even
say they have mastered
the physical universe at a quantum level,
enabling them to perfect
the mysterious art of levitation.
Quantum mechanics is the craziest theory
known to science.
It's based on fantastic
philosophical assumptions
that the world is not what you think it is.
Beaty: Could psychic concentration
by that number of religious practitioners
conjure something like
this to fall out of the sky?
Material scientist kishore
hari studies the footage
and sees an explanation for the white flash
based on conventional physics.
When I saw the flash, I
noticed the electrical lines
running down the highway.
More than likely, the metal caught an edge
of one of those power
lines and created an arc,
and that arc is that brilliant
white flash that we see.
Aviation expert marna kagele
attempts to identify the falling object.
The speed at which it's
dropping does make it seem like it
has fallen from a very high height.
One thing we might think about is,
did it come from an aircraft of some kind?
Kagele studies aviation records.
She discovers that so
many items fall from planes,
there's an acronym for it...
T.F.O.A., or things falling off aircraft.
And thailand has one
of the worst aviation
safety records in the world.
In the last 12 years,
there have been 10 serious
incidents in thai airspace,
the worst resulting in 90 deaths
when a 12go airlines flight
from bangkok crash-landed
and burst into flames at phuket airport.
Looking closely at
the mysterious saucer-shaped object,
kagele wonders if it might
have fallen off a military aircraft.
One type of aircraft that has
something of a similar shape
are aircraft with a radar dome.
Those aircraft are used
for surveillance types of activities.
Narrator: But when science
journalist steve potvin
analyzes how the object
breaks up as it lands,
he sees a problem with the theory.
Those radar domes that
you see on spy planes,
they're made from fiberglass,
and if this was fiberglass,
it would have shattered
as soon as it hit the floor.
That's definitely not
what we are seeing here.
Narrator: Hari reexamines the video.
Based on how the disk
crumples as it hits the ground,
he concludes it's made of metal.
Looking at maps of the
area, he finds there are
big industrial facilities near the highway.
Many have storage silos,
the metal tops of which bear
a striking resemblance
to the strange object.
What could be happening
that leads to an explosion?
Is cement the cause?
In cutting-edge experiments
to make cement stronger,
some scientists have started
using a risky new ingredient...
Calcium carbide.
Calcium carbide is pretty safe
as long as it's a dry powder,
but as soon as it's exposed to water,
it undergoes a chemical reaction
that generates acetylene gas.
Narrator: Acetylene gas is
used to weld and cut metal.
Combined with oxygen, it
burns at over 6,000 degrees.
It's extremely unstable.
It's extremely flammable.
The slightest spark and you're
going to have a huge explosion.
Narrator: The cement factory
has multiple storage silos,
the metal tops of which
bear a striking resemblance
to the strange object.
Matt kutcher is a pyrotechnics expert
who has worked on over
20 hollywood blockbusters,
including "patriots day" and "logan."
he sets up an experiment...
We're going to take the calcium carbide now
and put it within... into the water.
...To determine whether
an acetylene explosion
really could blow the top off a silo.
We're going to begin the
process of making acetylene.
We have to be careful. It's a volatile gas.
You can see the water gassing off.
It's building acetylene quite rapidly.
Narrator: Placing the barrel
over the top of the calcium carbide
causes acetylene to build up inside.
We give it a bit of ignition.
We should all step away.
Run, man.
I think that barrel is going to fly.
Three, two, one. Hit it!
Narrator: When ignited, even a small amount
of calcium carbide produces
enough acetylene gas
to send the barrel 40 feet into the air.
It's taken a gnarly hit.
I think calcium carbide or acetylene,
the byproduct, could certainly
be behind this explosion.
Narrator: Matt's experiment
proves an acetylene explosion
does have enough force
to blow a storage silo dome
flying into the sky.
But there's a problem.
Science author linda
zimmerman discovers this chemical
is not being widely used in thailand.
Calcium carbide is still very
much in the experimental stage.
It is not available to general industry
and construction at this point.
What the massive saucer-shaped object is
and why it fell out of the
air remains unexplained.
Look up, because you never
know what's falling out of the sky.
[ brakes screech ]
narrator: Now, deep
in the forests of florida...
It's a monster from your worst nightmare.
...A night vision camera
captures the skunk ape.
It could just pinch your head right off.
Narrator: Terrified
campers run for their lives.
Is the footage proof of an abomination?
These creature are real, and
you don't ever want to piss one off.
Narrator: Florida, the sunshine state.
Behind the beaches,
80% of the land is
wilderness, forest, or wetland.
May 8, 2012...
Deep in torreya state park, stacy brown jr.
Is camping with his father,
a former army ranger.
So we're just cooking out,
had some ribs on the grill,
and as we're standing
there, we start hearing knocks,
and I was like, "that
ain't the wind, you know?"
and I said, "we'll find out what this is."
narrator: The men head into the woods
using a night vision camera
to guide them through the darkness.
All right.
We're hearing the knocks
and a growl right over here.
Narrator: The strange
noises seem to follow them.
We're hearing noises to our left.
We're hearing noises to our right.
We don't hear the knocking anymore,
but what we do hear is something walk.
Thump, thump, thump.
[ whispers ] do you hear that?
Narrator: Father and son pause.
Stacy sr. Points his night
vision camera into the darkness.
I stopped, and we panned around.
What he sees next is a vision of horror.
Out walked this big
thing, and I just froze.
The hands are just enormous.
If they grabbed somebody by the throat,
it could just pinch your head right off.
Come on. We got it.
I really just lost it.
I was scared.
Brown jr.: Seeing my dad, an army ranger,
flip out like that, it
made my stomach drop.
We are out here in the middle of nowhere,
and there's nobody coming to save us.
I've been in some
situations that were scary,
but I've never been this
frightened before in my life.
This is the monster stories you hear about
when you're a kid,
and then you grow up,
and you find out they're true.
Narrator: Coming up, a
mysterious shadow climbs
beneath a bridge in ukraine...
It's something big,
something big and very strong.
...And experts consider
if the browns have captured on camera...
...A human-ape hybrid.
They could have the
aggressive strength of the chimps
and the apes, but yet the
intelligence of a human.
♪
Narrator: Camping deep in a florida forest,
a father and son capture night vision video
of a terrifying ape man.
Suddenly, it steps out and
takes this really large step.
It has broad shoulders, very long arms,
and it's got a strange, "unhuman" gait.
This is not an elk. This is not a moose.
This is not a deer.
Whatever it is, it's certainly not
some known, ordinary animal.
Narrator: Biologist
kelly price's first reaction
is that it's a hoax.
I would put odds on this being a man
about 6 foot tall in a furry suit.
Narrator: There have been
numerous ape man hoaxes
across the united states.
Image analyst ben
radford takes a closer look
at the infrared night vision to determine
if this creature is fake and
spots an intriguing detail.
Whatever this thing is, to
see a heat signature like this,
it would most likely be naked.
The darker parts would be
where the exposed skin is.
This could be some unknown creature.
Narrator: If this is a
hoax, it's a clever one.
Stacy jr. And his father
retrace the creature's steps
to determine its size.
It took one and a half,
and then mine takes, what, at least 3?
To work out the length
of the creature's stride,
they measure the distance
crossed in the footage.
Going to be about, what?
About 10 feet, give or take a few inches.
That's going to give him a stride
of a little over 6 feet, maybe?
Narrator: Even the world's tallest human,
8-foot-2 sultan kosen from turkey
only has a stride of around 3 1/2 feet,
which is tiny when compared to the stride
of the beast in the footage.
♪
Investigative journal christopher o'brien
digs into published sightings of
giant apes in the united states.
He learns that reports
of bigfoot encounters
are mainly clustered in the remote forests
of the pacific northwest,
but his research also reveals evidence
of another mysterious humanoid creature,
one that is native to florida...
The skunk ape.
A skunk ape is not as
stocky as their larger cousins,
the bigfoot or sasquatch,
and they live predominately
down in the deep south
in the swamplands of central florida.
If these creatures are real,
and you don't ever want to piss one off.
Biologist kelly price
has a terrifying theory
for the ape man's origins.
There have been attempts
to crossbreed humans
and chimpanzees
by inseminating a female
chimpanzee with human sperm.
The monster might not be one species at all
but a nightmare hybrid of two.
♪
Price considers if american researchers
have been continuing the
work of russian scientists
who conducted bizarre genetic
experiments in the 20th century.
The rumors were they were
toying with god's creations.
They were breeding
humans and apes together.
They were trying to make a human-zee.
Narrator: In the nightmare
that was stalin's russia,
biologist ilya ivanov is
reported to have attempted
to crossbreed a chimp and a human.
Could the u.S. Government
have attempted something similar
and conducted secret
experiments in florida?
Maybe one of those
experiments was successful.
These hybrid creatures
could have enhanced instincts.
They could have the
aggressive strength of the chimps
and the apes,
but yet the intelligence of a human.
But monteith doubts it's a human-zee
we see in the footage.
We have no evidence
that the u.S. Government
has this secret primate lab
doing all sorts of experimentations
between humans and apes.
[ growls ]
narrator: Coming up, is an
ancient map of the zodiac
connected to a weird
object plummeting to earth?
Things just don't fall out of the sky.
Has somebody angered the gods?
Narrator: And experts
investigate if the skunk ape
could be an early human
long considered extinct.
Could it be a living fossil?
♪
Narrator: Biologist kelly
price is investigating
a sighting of an ape man
in the forests of northern florida.
Footprints found elsewhere in the state
show the creature could have webbed feet.
In the 1960s, a biologist by
the name of sir alister hardy
posed a theory that humans
had actually evolved in the water
and we originally were
aquatic apes with webbed feet.
Could the skunk ape be
one of these aquatic apes?
Narrator: When our
ancestors migrated out of africa,
they weren't alone.
Humans have been around for
hundreds of thousands of years,
but we weren't the only homo species.
Until just 40,000 years ago,
humans shared the planet
with other hominin species
such as neanderthals and homo floresiensis.
Stacy jr. Wonders if the
creature in the footage
is another close relative
of humans that has survived
in the vast florida
wilderness to the present day.
We could possibly be
looking at a relic hominid
that just didn't go extinct.
They would be extremely intelligent,
so avoiding people for years
and years wouldn't be something
that would be out of
the realm of possibility.
Narrator: But engineer lisa lazareck-asunta
finds it incredible that an
aggressive relic ape man
could survive undetected in modern america.
If there was another hominid species,
they would have to be somewhat
separated from everybody else,
and running around in the
woods doesn't really feel like
that's enough of a separation
to have such a diverse set
of two hominid species in one place.
For now, experts are
unable to explain exactly
what it was the father and
son captures on their camera,
but stacy brown jr. And his dad
will never go back at
night to torreya state park.
Seriously, I mean, I would
not come back out here
in these woods at night.
Narrator: Now, in a place said to connect
the earth and the stars,
something plunges to the ground.
It just appears to come out of nowhere.
Storms don't just rain down solid objects.
To some, this is beyond
scientific understanding.
To me, that's proof that things
pass between the dimensions.
♪
April 21, 2018... one of
the most ancient holy sites
in England, known as glastonbury tor.
Nearby, student megan
taylor is studying for an exam
when an epic storm breaks.
Spectacular anvil lightning
forks across the sky.
The heavens are putting
on a violent display.
It was quite a eerie
atmosphere from the sky.
The flashes from the
lightning were big and frequent.
Megan records the storm on her phone.
When she watches the footage back,
megan notices a huge
object falling from above.
It was quite big, and it was
dark and falling very fast,
and it made me feel quite nervous.
What could it be?
Experts are baffled by the eerie footage.
It's pretty freaky.
Things just typically
do not fall out of the sky.
Are we seeing some kind of
just atmospheric phenomena
that's happening, or is there
something more that's going on?
Narrator: The tor is a
strangely shaped hill,
formed in the early jurassic period,
on which there are pagan
and early christian ruins.
The hill is regarded as both
a holy and a magical site.
This is an area steeped in
weird astrological occurrences.
Narrator: The hill is regarded
as one possible location
of the holy grail.
It is connected to the
legend of king arthur,
and it is argued that a giant zodiac
is concealed in the landscape around it.
We're here right in the
very head of the phoenix
or the eagle that represents
aquarius in the zodiac.
Twelve signs of the zodiac
are mapped out on this land.
It's in a 10-mile-wide radius,
and this area is called
the temple of the stars.
Narrator: Those who believe it
say that this giant zodiac temple
was created over 4,500 years ago
using natural features in the landscape,
like hills, rivers, hedgerows, and ditches
to form a chart of the constellations.
Then you have the fish,
one of the fish, pisces, there.
Beyond it, that's aries, the ram.
Narrator: This site has
such a powerful reputation
that early christians
said that even jesus christ
visited as a young man.
Local historian jeremy white
believes that in this deeply mystical site,
something spiritual may
have been caught on camera.
As I saw this image in the sky,
it made me think of something
coming from one of the
older, other dimensions
that surround us,
and we might have caught on camera
somebody crossing through the veil.
Narrator: Coming up,
something weird is
crossing a river upside down.
It's climbing under that bridge so fast.
What kind of creature can do that?
Narrator: And a message from the gods
or an engine of destruction?
Get out of the way.
That thing is moving fast.
It's going to crush you.
♪
Narrator: In an ancient
british temple of the stars,
a strange object plummets from the sky
during a powerful electrical storm.
Analysis reveals the
object is at least 8 feet long,
too big to be a bird, and
falling at 190 miles per hour.
Investigator re monteith
examines the footage.
It looks to me like something
is spiraling down out of control.
Could it be an aircraft
that is catastrophically
falling from the sky?
If that's a plane, then a lot
of lives are going to be lost.
Narrator: Americans
traveling to and from europe
fly right over this place.
No fewer than 350 flights
a day cross these skies.
Aviation expert marna kagele investigates
if the footage shows
a horrific plane crash.
Big commercial aircraft
are designed to be resilient
against any kind of lightning strike.
Narrator: On average,
commercial jets are hit by lightning
once a year and survive,
but light aircraft are not so lucky.
Smaller aircraft are not necessarily
designed to withstand lightning strikes.
So if one was struck by
lightning, it might crash.
Narrator: Five aircraft
crash each day in the us,
killing around 500 people per year.
But when megan taylor and
her mother rush to the scene
to see what has fallen,
the story takes an even stranger turn.
We walked around for a couple of hours,
gridded it kind of thing,
and we couldn't see anything there.
Megan: When I looked,
there was no sign of anything,
so it literally disappeared into thin air.
Narrator: David wallace at
mississippi state university's
high voltage lab discovers
the object fell just 20 miles
from yeovilton royal naval air station,
where top-secret test
flights are carried out.
This is some drone. It's
got struck by lightning.
And now it's doing a
death plunge to the earth.
Narrator: Wallace
believes the falling object
could be a large military
drone undergoing covert testing.
To test his drone-strike theory,
wallace has devised an experiment.
He plans to strike a drone
with an artificial lightning bolt
to see whether the force is strong enough
to knock it out of the air.
All right, boys, let's get flying.
So let's fire this bad boy up,
see what we can kill today.
[ whirring ]
ready? Two. One.
Fire. Yeah!
We got it!
Yo, yo, yo, that drone is gone.
Narrator: This proves
that a lightning strike
could have downed a drone.
So it looks like it fried
everything inside the control.
Narrator: If the unidentified object
was a top-secret drone,
the military would have been
quick to clear away the wreckage
before eye witnesses like megan taylor
and her mother, claire,
could get to the scene.
I've lived here for over 10 years,
and I've never seen anything
this strange or as weird
as something falling from the sky.
Narrator: Now, an inverted enigma
climbs in the shadows.
It's a real-life spider-man.
Narrator: Experts fear a beast
is loose in the urban jungle.
It seems unlikely it's human.
Is it dangerous?
What can do that?
Kiev, capital of ukraine, June 1, 2016.
As the sun sets over this ancient city,
dancer anna huliaieva spots a shadowy form
scaling the smooth underside
of the city's park bridge.
This sinister shape seems to defy gravity.
Coming up, experts wonder
if this is photographic proof
of a nightmarish local legend.
They are the epitome of ugly monsters.
♪
Narrator: Under a bridge in kiev, ukraine,
a sinister shadow defies
gravity and explanation.
It's almost like an animal
walking on four legs upside down.
It's something big,
something big and very strong
to be able to cling onto
the bottom of the bridge like that.
It seems unlikely it's human,
but if not, then what is it?
Narrator: Author linda
godfrey studies the video to try
and identify the creature.
It was able to grasp with its four limbs,
if that's what they were, hands or paws,
and with its feet.
Anna believes the mysterious
shadow could be a chort,
a ukrainian demon that
scurries around cities at night,
carrying off souls to hell.
Narrator: Belief in the chort
is still strong across ukraine.
In 2016, residents in
the village of rukshen
claimed to have killed one
that was sucking the
blood out of their livestock.
They are sort of the
epitome of ugly monsters.
It has just horns, just these large eyes,
teeth that look fearsome.
Narrator: The remarkable
footage comes to the attention
of science journalist steve potvin.
Given the location, he considers
whether the sinister shadow
is using the encroaching
darkness to try and stay hidden.
He wonders if the bridge
is about to be blown up.
Could this be some
sort of russian operative
or spy who's clinging to
the bottom of the bridge?
Russia and ukraine
have had a difficult past,
and so when you see
somebody climbing under a bridge,
what comes into mind is,
maybe it's somebody doing reconnaissance,
or maybe it's somebody
actually sabotaging the thing.
Narrator: The russian military
regularly use maskirovka,
a term used to describe aggressive acts
carried out using deception and denial.
When russian forces
sneaked into ukraine in 2014
and seized the crimean peninsula,
they used unmarked trucks and soldiers
without insignia on their uniforms.
Potvin examines how a russian agent
could climb the smooth
underside of the bridge.
He finds that engineers
often look to designs
perfected by nature for inspiration.
It's a technique known as biomimicry.
Taking a look at how geckos' feet work,
we've actually been able to
make our own kind of gloves
based off of a gecko's foot,
so something like that
would be able to grip
the underside of a very slippery bridge.
Narrator: The gloves
are covered in tiny fibers,
just like geckos' toes,
which are able to grip onto
microscopic imperfections
on surfaces that appear
smooth to the human eye.
But even if this would-be spider-man is
wearing gecko gloves,
not everyone agrees with
the russian covert op theory.
If this was a covert operation,
it was a massive failure.
One, nothing was blown up,
and two, it's not covert,
it's caught on camera.
Szulgit now considers
whether another russian group
are responsible for the mysterious climber.
In russia, there is this
especially big trend of climbing
onto really dangerous structures
and taking a photo of yourself.
Narrator: Free-climbers scale buildings
without safety equipment.
In 2012, vitaliy raskalov,
one of the most famous,
scaled the second-tallest
bridge in the world,
the 1,053-feet-tall russky island bridge
in vladivostok, russia, and
in 2017, he reached the top
of the 2,073-feet-high
shanghai tower in china.
They're just doing this for fun,
and they don't know if they're going to die
or just get a great picture out of it.
It's a deadly hobby.
In moscow, a 14-year-old
schoolboy paid with his life
when he slipped from a railway bridge
onto a 30,000-volt electricity cable.
But when engineer lisa lazareck-asunta
examines blueprints for the bridge,
she concludes this is a feat
that would only be attempted
by the most fearless free-climber.
The underside of that bridge, it's smooth,
so if it's a climber,
they are using some type
of equipment to help them.
Narrator: The experts' best theory is
that the footage shows
an illegal free-climber
who evaded capture by the authorities.
Samuel: Whatever this thing is,
it just kind of disappeared into the night,
so this mystery is still unsolved.