The Unbelieveable with Dan Aykroyd (2023-…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Bizarre Deaths - full transcript

Imagine falling asleep in your
armchair one peaceful evening

And then suddenly
bursting into flames.

- There's a pile of ash
where mary is sitting.

One of her feet is
completely intact.

- Or being crushed to
death by a falling poodle.

- The dog is getting closer
and closer to this balcony.

- It falls the 13 floors.

- How about leaping off the
eiffel tower in a flying suit

And plummeting 18
stories to the ground?

- Frantz is so excited to
show the world this wingsuit

And then, he jumps.



- These are the
deaths so surprising,

They are truly unbelievable.

It's not unusual for oily
rags, grass clippings,

Or even coal to
spontaneously catch fire

When the conditions are right,

But could the same thing happen

To a 67 year old woman?

- Mary reeser gets home
one night to her apartment,

Plops down in her overstuffed,
upholstered easy chair,

Pops a couple of sedatives

'cause she's trying
to get some rest,

Passes out and goes to sleep.

8:00 am the next morning,

Her landlord, pansy carpenter,
smells some smoke.



So she goes and she
touches the doorknob

And it's too hot to touch.

So she fears, rightfully so,
that there's a fire inside.

- The police department's
immediately called

And they show up

And when they open the
door, they see something

That they've never seen before.

- Very little is
left of the chair,

Just some springs
and some debris.

There's a pile of ash
where mary was sitting.

One of her feet is completely
intact, still in the slipper.

- Stranger still, nothing else

In the apartment
has caught fire.

A pile of newspapers, feet
away, completely untouched.

Light switches on
the wall are melted,

But the outlets on the
bottom are still operational

And perfectly intact.

- The pictures are on the walls,

The floor perfectly
fine, the ceiling,

No smoke damage and
yet mary reeser,

Burned to a crisp, gone.

so what caused mary
reeser to suddenly go poof?

- For a human body to be fully
cremated, you have to be

In a fire that is
upwards of 3,000 degrees

For upwards of three hours.

Perhaps she lit a cigarette,

The cigarette lit her clothes
on fire and she burned.

Yet somehow, fire didn't
spread to any other apartment.

No one smelled smoke, saw smoke.

- There's just no way
that any household fire

Would be able to consume
a human being that way.

even more bizarre,
mary's skull is found,

But it's mysteriously smaller.

- In a normal cremation setting,

The human skull
is going to crack.

- In her case, the
skull shrinks down

To the size of a baseball.

- And doesn't that
sound suspicious?

- The authorities
begin to wonder,

Is there some soviet
weapon at play?

So the fbi begins
investigating this.

it's so perplexing,
it makes it all the way up

To director j. Edgar hoover.

- He looks at this case
and he's so concerned

That he actually lets the
president, harry s. Truman,

Know about this case
going on in florida.

He employs his top
forensic anthropologist

At the time, wilton krogman.

wilton krogman is a
pioneer in the forensics field

And the most qualified man in
the country to solve the case.

- He shows up to the scene

And he has no idea
what's going on.

How does a skull
shrink in a fire?

That's not a thing that's
supposed to happen.

desperate,
the fbi entertains

A number of strange
possibilities.

- A lot of people
speculate foul play

And that someone had
come in and doused mary

With kerosene and
set her alight.

- All the associated things

That you would have
inside of an arson case

With accelerant, all the
samples that were collected

And sent to the laboratory,
none of it comes back

With any sort of traces
of accelerant in it.

- The next theory
the fbi investigates

Comes from an anonymous tip.

- An anonymous person calls up

And says that a fireball
comes in through the window,

Lights mary on fire.

- Gave an official statement,
said, "I've seen it.

A fireball came in her
window and hit it."

Generally speaking, fireballs
don't fly through windows.

- What it could be is another
unexplained phenomenon

Of ball lightning,
which is controversial.

It may or may not exist.

I mean, how much credence do
we put into anonymous tips?

I mean, right there we think
it's a little bit of bs.

is it possible
the most likely explanation

Is also the most unbelievable?

Spontaneous human combustion?

- Spontaneous human
combustion is an idea

That someone just all of a
sudden bursts into flames

And it only impacts
the individual

And it doesn't
impact anything else.

- Spontaneous combustion
does happen in nature.

Hay bales, you have
wet and dry hay,

The wet hay still alive,

Going through its
respiration process,

Taking in carbon dioxide,

Pumping out oxygen,
and this creates heat.

So you'll have hay bales that
just spontaneously combust.

the question is,

Could this also
happen to humans?

Shockingly, there have been
roughly 200 recorded cases

Of spontaneous human
combustion in history.

- In 1470, there is an
italian knight in milan

Who after a night of drinking,
according to witnesses,

Begins to actually
belch up flame.

And finally, his entire body
combusts seemingly from within.

- In 1982, a woman
named jean safin

In the uk, again, same
exact circumstances,

Completely burned,

Yet parts of her
body found intact.

No one could understand it.

- And a little bit more
recently, in 2010,

An irishman named
michael faherty is found

Completely burned and charred
to ashes on his floor.

None of the
combustible materials

Around him are also found burnt,
so eerily similar to mary.

but in mary's
case, the fbi is unwilling

To list spontaneous
human combustion

As the official cause of death.

What they come up with
isn't any less strange.

- So the belief is
that mary succumbed

To something known
as the wick effect.

- In essence, the body
is an inside out candle.

The clothing is the
wick that catches flame,

But the combustible
hydrocarbons found in human fat

Literally serve
to fuel the fire.

- Because she's an overweight
woman that was also a smoker,

The fbi suggests that the
cigarette burns her nightgown,

Which causes her
to go up in flame,

Because she's a heavier
woman, that leads

To the fire continuing to burn

For a longer period of time.

not everyone
accepts this answer.

- There are lots of
problems with this theory.

The first of which is that
millions of people fall asleep

With lit cigarettes and they
don't usually end up cremated.

- So people are thinking,

Why would you not wake up if
you are currently on fire?

- Even with sedatives, there's
still a great likelihood

That a person would
start thrashing around.

Spontaneous human combustion,

It's the last place
investigators want to go,

But sometimes they're
forced to go there

In the absence of any
other explanations.

I think it's a damn
strange world.

I never take anything
off the table

Until we're absolutely certain.

- The forensic anthropologist
hired by the fbi

- The forensic anthropologist
hired by the fbi

Has this to say.

"were I living in
the middle ages,

I'd mutter something
about black magic."

- We all know the feeling.

You leave the house only to
realize you forgot your wallet

Or your keys or your phone.

Now imagine for a moment
you've just jumped out

Of an airplane and
realize what you forgot

To bring is something
much more vital.

- Ivan mcguire,
adrenaline junkie.

Avid skydiver, this guy
loves to jump out of planes.

- Nowadays, you see
people with gopros

And phones attached
to their helmets.

It's a pretty standard thing

To see this aerial view and
this angle of jumping out

Of a plane, but it's something

That we didn't really
see back in 1988,

But ivan mcguire
wanted to capture that.

He's done more than 800 skydives

And he has this dream
of showing the world

What he sees when
he leaves the plane.

on April 4th, 1988,

Ivan mounts a brand
new, 8mm video camera

To his helmet and is ready
for his third jump of the day.

- This is the 1980s,

So these cameras are
still pretty large.

They're pretty bulky,

Certainly compared to
what we know today.

There's gonna be a
lot of force of wind

And so forth, so this has

To be really carefully
attached to the helmet.

- He takes the entire
plane right up there

To check the camera, wipe
the lens to make sure

That he's gonna get
the perfect shot.

warning, the
footage you are about to see

May be unsettling.

- The two tandem jumpers
give him the thumbs up.

So ivan seizes the moment
and leaps from the plane.

They're plummeting
through the air.

The tandem guys
pull their parachute

And boom, it's the perfect shot.

Now, it's time for
ivan's money shot,

The pov of him falling silently

Through the north carolina sky.

- But he goes to deploy
his own parachute

And there's nothing there.

- Ivan has forgotten
his own parachute.

- His total free fall
was about 30 seconds

At 150 miles per hour,

And he fell more than
10,000 feet from the air.

ivan does
not survive the fall,

But miraculously,
his camera does.

- Investigators surmised
that ivan's preoccupation

With his video camera
caused him to forget

To shoulder his own parachute.

And so ironically, he ends
up filming his own death.

Reason 1,000 why I am never
jumping out of an airplane.

ivan isn't
the only daredevil

Who needed a good parachute.

An even more infamous case
took place 80 years earlier.

Here, friends, is the sad
case of the flying tailor.

- Frantz reichelt is an
austrian tailor living in paris.

He makes dresses for a living,

But his real passion is this
new budding field of flying.

- It's the early
20th century, 1903,

The wright brothers take
their first heavier than air

Powered flight, brave new world

And everyone is aviation crazy,

Especially the french,

'cause the french also
invented the hot air balloon.

- In 1910, flying is
extremely dangerous.

He sees all of these pilots
dying in these test flights,

So he wants to do
something to help out.

And up until this time,

Parachuting technology
has really only been used

For jumping out of balloons
and very high altitudes.

So there's this push to find
new parachute technology,

Much lighter weight for
pilots themselves to be able

To jump out at lower altitudes
when they're taking these

Test flights around the country.

coincidentally, a
french aviation organization

Offers a hefty prize

To anyone who can
create a smaller chute.

- So frantz decides
to enter this contest

And take his expertise as
a tailor, sewing dresses

And garments using
silk and rods,

And he ends up
developing a wingsuit.

- It looks like a batman suit.

It looks like something out of
a futuristic superhero movie.

more peculiar
than his design

Is his method for testing it.

He puts it on a dummy and
tosses it from the window

Of his fifth floor
paris apartment.

- I don't really understand
how he was allowed to do this,

That there were just dummies
landing on the streets of paris

And nobody had any
complaints about this.

unsatisfied
with the results,

Frantz decides there
is only one way

To truly test this wingsuit.

- He puts on his own wingsuit

And climbs out of his
fifth floor window.

And he breaks his leg.

- But frantz is onto something.

He goes, ha, ha ha.

I didn't give my
wingsuit enough time

To gather enough air
to create resistance.

I need to go higher.

Luckily, he's in paris

And at this point in time,
the tallest structure

On earth is the eiffel tower.

- He starts petitioning the
paris police to allow him

To throw winged dummies
off of the eiffel tower

As part of a test
for his new suit.

surprisingly, not only
do the french authorities

Grant permission, but it
becomes a huge press event.

- Frantz is so excited to
show the world this wingsuit.

He puts out a press release
to announce to the world

That he has found the
solution of aviation safety.

on the cold morning
of February 4th, 1912,

Frantz arrives at the
eiffel tower sans dummy.

- It's frantz himself
dressed in his wingsuit

And everyone goes,
where's the dummy?

And he goes, there is no dummy.

from this moment
on, frantz reichelt

Becomes known as
the flying tailor.

- His friends are
pleading with him,

"you're not gonna
do this, are you?

You're not gonna actually
do this yourself."

But frantz is convinced
the suit will work

And he's gonna prove it.

frantz is
leaning forward on the edge

Of the parapet of
the eiffel tower.

- He hesitates for
about 40 seconds.

He seems to actually
have second thoughts

For the first time
in this story,

But then frantz sees the
crowd below him and he waves

And he says, "à bientô,"

Which means, "I'll
see you soon."

And then he jumps.

the parachute
never fully opens.

Two seconds after jumping,
frantz hits the ground

And dies, leaving
a six inch deep

Frantz shaped imprint
in the ground.

- What's particularly sad

And ironic about this entire
story is that just two days

Before frantz parachuted
to his death,

An american named rodman law

Had successfully
parachuted off the top

Of the torch of the
statue of liberty,

Which he just did
on a whim for fun.

- There's part of
me that looks at him

And thinks this
is classic hubris.

This is pride goes before
the fall, literally.

And at the same time, this
is the genius of madness.

And at the same time, this
is the genius of madness.

When it works, we
celebrate those people

Who are willing to
push through as heroes,

And when it fails,
it's very easy

To dismiss them as being crazy.

sometimes, there's
no way to know if it works

Until it doesn't.

- What do an argentinian poodle

And a world renowned 19th
century amputation surgeon

Have in common?

The answer is as tragic
as it is bizarre.

Cachi the poodle's story
begins fittingly high up,

On an apartment building's
unluckiest floor.

- In buenos aires in
1988, the montoya family

Has this apartment
on the 13th floor.

Their son is playing with
the pet poodle, cachi.

- And the son throws the
ball towards the open door

To the balcony and the dog
goes bounding after it.

- As it is getting closer
and closer to this balcony,

The dog tries to stop.

The dog does not.

This story saddens me so much
more than any human tragedy.

- Cachi falls the 13 floors,
which is heartbreaking

If you are an animal lover.

At that very moment, a 75 year
old woman named marta espina,

She's walking around
her neighborhood

Doing some shopping and
then all of a sudden-

- Cachi falls directly onto the
head of marta, they both die.

- The impact constitutes
essentially a blunt force trauma

To the head.

but the tragic chain
of events doesn't end here.

- Another woman named
edith is across the street,

Happens to see this.

Immediately, her good
samaritan intent kicks in,

She jumps up to run across the
street to check on this woman.

- And she...

gets hit by a bus.

So now you have
cachi the poodle,

You have marta, you have edith.

- There is a third person, a man

Who apparently has just
come outta the pharmacy

With his prescription,
sees all of this play out.

- It's too much for him to take.

- He has a heart attack and
he dies there on the spot.

The fourth casualty of cachi
the poodle's game of fetch.

cachi, a legend,
an unbelievable killer dog.

His odd death toll
should be unrivaled,

But consider the case

Of one of the 19th
century's top surgeons,

Dr. Robert liston.

- Robert liston is
a surgical phenom.

- He's one of the most
respected surgeons in london.

At 14, he's already
practicing medicine

And at 22, he's teaching in the
medical college at edinburgh.

he quickly
comes to master

A very specific type of
surgery, amputations.

- If someone has an infected
or otherwise wounded limb

Or a broken bone
that cannot be set,

The sole practice of medicine

At this time is amputation.

- Moreover, there is no
such thing as anesthetic.

If you're in surgery,
you are awake

As you endure this
unbelievable amount of pain.

- In an age where there's
no anesthesia, speed counts.

Liston prides
himself in being able

To conduct amputations faster
and cleaner than anyone else,

And the statistics bear him out.

Where most surgeons at the
time have a 25% mortality rate,

He only has a 15%
mortality rate.

You are in better hands
with robert liston

Than with anyone else in london.

his swiftness earns
him an impressive nickname.

- He's known as "the fastest
knife on the west end."

- He would argue he's the
fastest knife in the world.

- Liston is a very large man.

He's built like a bull.

Other surgeons
require at least two

Or three assistants to hold
down a struggling patient.

Liston requires
only one assistant.

He takes his knife,
holds it in his teeth,

Fastens down the tourniquet
above the point of amputation,

Removes the knife,

Holding the patient down,
along with the assistant.

Severs the limb.

As brutal as it
sounds to us today,

If you are in such a situation,
liston is the surgeon

To whom you want to go.

liston becomes
very full of himself

And his prowess.

- He is a showboat, he is cocky.

- He loves to call out
to the medical students,

"time me, gentlemen."

And it becomes in some
sense, his catchphrase,

hubris and haste,

A dangerous combination
for a surgeon

And one that leads to
an infamous moment.

Liston is performing an
amputation in a medical theater.

- He might as well have
walked in like a boxer,

Taken his robe off.

- In his typical manner,
he turns to the crowd

And says to them,
"time me, gentleman."

- "gentleman, time me".

Dr. Liston cuts off the limb
of the patient so quickly

That he also severs the fingers
of his surgical assistant

Who is holding down
the screaming patient.

- Now, liston
recognizes his mistake

And immediately draws the knife
back as quickly as possible.

- He winds up
cutting the garments

Of an elderly medical colleague

Who is standing behind him
observing the procedure.

The colleague is so
shocked and frightened

That he drops dead
from a heart attack.

- Liston's assistant, who had
two of his fingers removed,

Died later on from infection.

And the patient who
had his leg amputated

Also ended up dying
from infection.

So at the end of this
surgical display of prowess,

Dr. Robert liston, the fastest
knife in the west end,

Kills not one, not two,

But three separate people of
infection, infection and shock.

One surgery, three fatalities.

Take that, argentinian poodle.

- Now technically speaking,
if you look at the math here

And count cachi himself, the
poodle one upped dr. Liston.

The good doctor must be
turning over in his grave.

There are some sports that
are so inherently dangerous,

An occasional death
doesn't come as a shock.

Take mixed martial arts,
formula 1 racing,

Perhaps running with
the bulls at pamplona.

But tennis?

- Honestly, most
injuries in tennis

Happen from watching gameplay,

Just watching the ball go from
right to left on the court.

but what happens
to dick wertheim

Is truly one for the books.

- Dick wertheim is a
lifelong tennis person.

He's played, he's
been a linesman.

It's not exactly what
you would consider

To be a dangerous line of work.

Being a ball boy could be argued

As more dangerous than
being a linesman in tennis.

on September 10th, 1983,

Wertheim is officiating the us
open junior boys title match

Between a young stefan
edberg of sweden

And simon youl of australia.

- Stefan edberg
goes on to become

One of the greatest players

Of his generation,
once winning wimbledon

And twice winning the
aussie and us open.

- The way they
officiated back then,

Dick wertheim is at the end
line, right in the center.

- Stefan edberg being
a fantastic player.

- Serves this tennis ball

And just whips it
115 miles an hour.

- That ball hits the
court, takes a weird spin

And goes straight at dick

And winds up hitting him.

- Directly in the groin.

- With such force that
it forces wertheim

Straight backwards,
his head hits the court

And he's immediately
unconscious.

- Dick is rushed to
flushing hospital

Where he dies five days
later of a subdural hematoma.

- Immediately
after this happens,

The international
tennis federation

Stops having linesmen sit on
the court in the same fashion

That dick wertheim was.

So this will likely
never happen again.

- Luckily, the only
other loss that day

Is suffered by stefan's
opponent simon youl,

Who is defeated
in straight sets.

6-2, 6... Nevermind,
not important.

Next, a death that could
give even dick wertheim

A run for his money.

- Frank hayes, born in 1901,

He grows up in ireland
and it is his dream

To become a world
champion jockey.

although frank believes
he is born to be a jockey,

His genetics beg to differ.

He weighs 142 pounds, much
heavier than most jockeys.

- Frank hayes moves
to new york city.

He still loves horses
and he still wants

To be around this
sport in some way,

But he's still a little bit
too large to be a jockey.

- So he has to reset and
he has to start somewhere.

So he starts working as a
trainer for race horses.

- But imagine you're frank hayes

And you grew up
wanting to be a jockey

And you're working
as a stable hand.

You're doing all of the grunt
work, you're getting none

Of the glory and you're
watching these jockeys

Win these races
and it's as close

As you can possibly get to it

Without actually
tasting that victory.

then, fate
steps in when the owner

Of a horse named sweet kiss
finds himself without a jockey.

- The owner says, "listen,

If you can lose 10
pounds somehow in a day,

Then you can ride this horse."

Now, frankly, I'm
not sure if the owner

Expected him to
be able to do it.

- Frank is fired up.

He is ready to do whatever
it takes to make sure

That he can get on
the back of sweet kiss

And ride this horse to victory.

So over the next 24 hours,
we are going full rocky,

Rocky iv, 1980s montage.

We are talking
about shadow boxing.

We're talking about running,
fasting, not drinking water,

Losing as much weight,
sweating, doing whatever he can

To drop as much
weight as possible.

- The next day
when he weighs in,

He actually loses 12 pounds.

It's about 8.5 percent
of his body weight.

This sort of rapid weight loss
is really taxing on the body

Because it taxes
your immune system,

Your kidneys, and your heart.

but it's all worth
it when a thrilled hayes

Suits up for his debut race.

- So the horse that
frank hayes is riding,

Sweet kiss, enters as
a 20 to 1 underdog.

The far and away
favorite in this race

Is a horse named gimmy

Who was expected to just
run away with this race.

- And sweet kiss takes
off like a bat outta hell

With frank on top.

- And hayes is doing
everything he can

To get this horse into
the lead and he starts

To bound away, he's
starting to pull it off.

He's starting to gain length

Ahead of all the
rest of the field.

Can he do it?

- Frank is living the dream

And he slumps forward at
one point during the race.

Seems weird, but the horse
just kind of kicks it

Into higher gear.

in the home
stretch, it's all over,

But the statistics.

- He crosses the finish line
in this hunched position.

- He has won the race.

Frank hayes has done it.

He has achieved his dream
of being a champion jockey.

instead of raising
his arms to celebrate,

Frank is oddly still.

- The owner comes
rushing over to him,

Ecstatic with this
completely long shot victory.

- And as he's about
to congratulate him,

Frank hayes falls
off the saddle,

Face first into the racetrack.

- As it turns out, frank
has had a heart attack.

He died before crossing
the finish line.

Frank hayes becomes the only
person in horse racing history

To ever ride across the
finish line of a race

And win as a dead man.

as for the horse,
he never races again,

Earning the unofficial nickname,
"sweet kiss of death."

- Frank ends up getting
buried at holy cross cemetery

In brooklyn, wearing
the very jockey uniform

That he was wearing when
he crossed the finish line

And won this race at belmont.

He very literally died a winner.

He very literally died a winner.

- Dead jockey wins at belmont.

Now, that's a funny headline
you don't read every day.

But is it funny
enough to kill you?

- The 1970s are a great
era for sketch comedy,

I should know.

But has a bit ever been so
funny it has literally killed?

- It's March 24th, 1975.

Alex mitchell, 50 year old
bricklayer from norfolk, England

Sits down and watches favorite
tv program, "the goodies".

the goodies
are very big in britain

At the time.

Your classic, broad
humored comedy trio.

- Alex mitchell watches
the show religiously.

That night, the episode
is "kung fu capers".

- The height of it being
a kilt clad scotsman

With his bagpipe
battling another opponent

Armed with a black pudding.

- I assume this
was funny in 1975.

- You know who
thought it was funny?

Alex thought it was funny.

- Mr. Mitchell begins to laugh
and it increases in volume

And it increases in ferocity.

- He begins to laugh
uncontrollably to the point

That he is literally
urinating in his pants.

He cannot control his
bowels, all systems are go.

after a
full three minutes,

His blood pressure has doubled,
his abdominals tighten.

- He's laughing uncontrollably
for six minutes

And that six minutes then
extends into 15 minutes.

- It gets more and
more convulsive.

He's grasping at his
chest both for air

And the pain in his
accelerating heartbeat.

- He's laughing so hard that
it's taxing his respiratory

And circulatory system

And he has a
massive heart attack

And dies, coronary
due to laughter.

They say that laughter
is the best medicine.

I think alex overdosed on it.

now, we all know
laughter can be contagious,

But did you know that
dancing can be too?

- In the summer of 1518,

A dance craze sweeps
through the town

Of strasbourg, France,
but it's not a dance

That people are
actually choosing to do.

You have people convulsing,

Flailing around,
tripping over themselves,

Dancing in the street
until their feet bleed.

it all starts
one hot July day

When a woman catches what
will come to be known

As the dancing bug.

- A housewife walks into the
square and begins to dance.

- But it's not like
normal dancing.

She starts to gyrate
and gesticulate.

She can't be dissuaded
from this frantic dancing.

- There's no music.

- No accompaniment.

- And a crowd begins
to gather around her.

What is this strange spectacle?

- And for some reason,
this becomes infectious.

soon, roughly
30 other dancers

Join in the incessant dance-off.

- Each passing day,

More and more townspeople
begin to gyrate,

Shake out in the
streets to the point

Where their feet are bloody.

Their bodies are
racked with pain

And yet they keep going

Through these same
hysterical motions.

there are 30, 40
people dancing along with her.

- Then, it grows to
anywhere up to 400.

The town is now in crisis.

A substantial
population is engaged

In this agonizing
dance marathon.

Their limbs are getting bloody.

They are falling and
collapsing of exhaustion.

- A person would
dance, drop dead,

And people would continue
to dance around them.

- They assume about 15 people

A week actually die
from the dancing plague.

eager to
end the dancing,

Officials finally take action.

Their idea, more dancing.

- They add fuel to the fire.

They hire musicians to dance
the so-called hot blood

Out of the afflicted dancers.

It doesn't work.

- With the weeks passing
and deaths mounting,

The city decides it is time
to crack down on sin.

Immediately, all of
the gambling houses

And brothels are shut down.

They even try making dancing
illegal, a la "footloose",

But none of this works.

Eventually, they turn to
a healing shrine nearby.

- They lead some of
these hundreds of dancers

To the healing shrine

Where the afflicted
are given red slippers,

Anointed with holy water.

- And it works,
believe it or not,

As a result of this effort
to kind of remove them

To st. Vitus' church
and these red shoes,

The dancing eventually subsides.

- The dancing plague
of 1518 is possibly

The most bizarre
case of mass hysteria

That's ever been reported.

There is sickness
in the village,

There is plague, leprosy.

There is plague, leprosy.

People might feel anxious
about their survival,

But would that in and of itself

Be enough to generate this
kind of mass hysteria?

well, we know
it wasn't the music.

- Throughout history,
many people have come

To an unfortunate end due
to an excess of alcohol,

But never in an incident
quite as bizarre

As what happened in
london 200 years ago.

- In 19th century london,
there's a veritable arms race

For who can produce the
most and the best beer.

The winner at the time
is the horseshoe brewery,

In the slums of st. Giles.

- The horseshoe
brewery is producing

Large amounts of porter.

- 103,000 barrels a year.

Imagine, if you will,
hundred thousand gallon,

Wooden vats held
together with iron bands.

A worker wanders by one
of the vats one day

And he says, "a ring
slipped down a little bit,"

And he tells his boss

And his boss goes, "yeah,
that happens. That happens."

- The iron hoop
actually buckles,

Releasing gas in the tank.

- And a massive explosion

And a chain reaction
occurs where one vat pops

And then it pops these
subsequent other vats.

- As a result, st. Giles rookery

Will now be the site of
a 15 foot tidal wave,

388,000 gallons of porter beer,

Which comes rushing out
of the horseshoe brewery.

no matter how
much you like beer,

Let's face it,

A 15 foot wave of the
stuff is terrifying.

- Because it's essentially
a slum, st. Giles rookery

Is so overcrowded.

There are a lot of people living
2 and 3 families to a home.

People living in
basements and we have

A deadly flood of hot beer.

- Mary banfield is having
tea with her daughter

In one of these basements.

The flood fills it
from the bottom up

And mary is able
to swim to escape,

But her daughter is not.

Notoriously at this time,
there is a irish wake happening

And this party is
absolutely devastated

By a 45 mile an hour
deluge of porter.

- When all's said and done
at the end of the day,

More than eight people are dead.

And that's not even accounting
for the hundreds of people

That ended up injured
from this whole thing.

that doesn't
stop hoards of people

Swarming the streets

To score free beer,
no matter the risk.

- We do have a great
deal of illness

Because as you can imagine,
scooping beer out of the gutters

That are full of
human waste and debris

And horse excrement doesn't
make for a good drink.

- It seems kind of like a
street party, except yuck.

And there's actually an
unsubstantiated story

That one of the men dies
from alcohol poisoning.

over 100 years later,

An even weirder flood takes
an american city by storm.

- We're in boston in 1919

And we've got history
repeating itself

In an eerily similar fashion.

- Martin clopherty is in
his room taking a nap.

His family is downstairs
enjoying a meal.

- And he's awakened by
the rumbling noise.

before he can
call out to his family,

An explosion rocks
the neighborhood.

- Martin is flung
forcefully from his bed,

Through his window
and lands outside.

- Just imagine you wake up,

You're now in the street
in front of your house,

Surrounded by a sea of black
and sticky tar like substance.

Maybe you're still dreaming.

Maybe it's a nightmare
you'll wake up from.

You put your fingers
down to taste.

It's not tar.

it's molasses.

So odd that martin
can't quite believe it.

- Everybody's accounted
for except for his mother.

He sees her through the window.

Covered head to toe
now in molasses,

He realizes he
can't lift his feet.

- He's trying desperately
to try to get to her,

But the more he moves,
the more stuck he gets.

- He sees the house
collapse, leaving his mother

As one of the casualties
of the molasses flood.

so just how did
this syrupy swamp start?

- It happens that
martin's home is adjacent

To an enormous molasses
distillery plant.

yep, the same
molasses grandma put

In her gingerbread cookies
also creates disasters.

This one starts

With unseasonably warm
weather in January.

When the temperatures
reach a high of 40 degrees,

The distillery doesn't turn down

The furnaces used to keep
the molasses from freezing.

- The molasses heats
up precipitously.

It begins to expand.

It begins to buckle the
enormous holding vat.

then, cracks start
forming in the tanks.

- The company doesn't
fix the problem,

They just paint over it
with brown paint, thinking,

No one will notice,
which is shady as can be.

- When this vat
ruptures and bursts,

The molasses is completely
fluid and it's moving fast.

- And then, it's a mad
rush to try to survive.

- A public works employee
is repairing the streets

With cobblestones.

This huge flood comes
down the street.

It knocks him 20
feet into a pile

Of unforgiving granite cobble
stones and cracks his skull.

he may have
survived if not for the fact

That as molasses cools,
it becomes thicker.

- The molasses begins to harden.

So like bugs in amber, you
have whole humans encased.

Anybody who's trapped
within this vast blob

Is smothered to death.

- It's slow enough
that if you're in it,

You're aware of what's going
on as it's all ending.

Awful.

the tidal wave of
molasses devastates the city.

- Streetcars,
livestock, vehicles,

Commercial buildings
are covered.

- They're trying to
scrape the molasses.

They're trying to
dissolve the molasses.

They're adding sand
to the situation

So something grippy can grab

Some of that
molasses stickiness.

after four days,

Rescuers stop searching
for survivors.

Many of the dead are so
covered with molasses

That they are unrecognizable
to their families.

- There are 21 deaths

Attributed to the
great molasses flood.

- Not all victims of
the molasses flood

Are buried in the molasses.

Some are actually washed
right out to boston harbor,

As they're now
encased in molasses

And sunk under the water.

Some of them are not found
until three or four months

After the fact when their
bodies begin to float

Up to the top of the harbor.

- Bostonians report for
years and years later,

The smell of molasses
permeating the area

And public fixtures like
lampposts and public telephones

And the elevated railways
still being sticky to the touch

Years down the road.

- Most of us hope our deaths
will be fairly uneventful,

But for those facing a speeding
tennis ball, a flying poodle,

Or a funny tv show,
the end came in ways

That are truly unbelievable.