They fly.
They creep.
[screeching]
They claw at everything in sight.
[snarling]
And some even have a taste
for human flesh.
-[screaming] -[growling]
All over the world, legions of cryptozoologists
insist that somewhere out there
are hundreds of weird,
bizarre, nightmarish creatures
that hide in the shadows and terrorize small towns.
They give them names like Mothman,
chupacabra, the Jersey Devil and...
the Goatman.
But can they be dismissed as mere figments
of the public's overactive imagination?
Or could they actually be...
real?
Well...
that is what we'll try and find out.
♪
SHATNER: Eyewitness descriptions of cryptid creatures
are as varied as they are vivid.
Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
April 1967.
LINDA SIGMAN: A boyfriend and I
decided to pull in off the country road,
and I noticed off of my right shoulder it was a creature.
And, uh, we sat there in awe of what we were looking at.
It came right over in front of the car,
and we looked up, and I could make out the shape
of a winged man.
SHATNER: Cuero, Texas.
August 2007.
Something was sucking the blood out of my chickens.
The first time I saw it,
-[howling] -the color of it was different,
the physique of the animal was different.
It has absolutely no hair on it,
and all of these different, bizarre features on it.
What is it?
SHATNER: High Falls, New York.
October 2015.
My wife and I were staying at this cabin.
There was a stream behind the cabin
and a very steep ridge.
Middle of nowhere.
I was exploring the woods behind the cabin.
And then I noticed some movement.
Black, hairy figure,
at first I thought was a black bear,
but this figure was much bigger.
Looked like it was standing upright.
At this point in time, I still don't know what it was.
Most people generally have heard of Bigfoot,
the Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster,
but what they aren't aware of is that there is a whole world
of really unusual creatures out there, lesser-known things,
many of them quite otherworldly and strange.
When it comes to animals that are known as cryptids,
there's a huge number of them.
We actually find reports and cases all around the world
of strange creatures.
For example, one of them being Mothman,
which is this huge humanoid-type figure
with bat-like wings and fiery red eyes
that's perceived as kind of like a grim reaper
that surfaces when bad luck or disasters
are about to happen.
If you go to Africa, there are reports there of creatures
that look just like something out of Jurassic Park.
We're talking about something very much akin
to a gigantic lizard or a monitor lizard.
The phenomenon of what's become known as the Dogman
in recent years is a genuinely weird, odd one.
People talk about seeing these huge, bipedal wolves
that seem to look like the closest thing
you could imagine to a werewolf.
You have hellhounds, or devil dogs,
that are thought to be omens of death.
You have thunderbirds.
You have creatures like the Van Meter Visitor.
You have creatures like the skunk ape.
You have all these creatures that defy what we know as...
flesh-and-blood creatures here on this planet.
J. NATHAN COUCH: Some of these creatures
seem to possess abilities that are borderline supernatural,
and they have qualities that can harm you.
Creatures like the Goatman and the Mongolian death worm.
The wendigo is said to possess people
and cause them to go mad and often crave human flesh.
They terrorize people,
cause harm to other animals.
They prey on other animals.
They're essentially predators.
There have been countless stories of cryptid creatures,
and they exist throughout all different cultures,
all periods of time in history,
even right up to the present day.
But there's a shocking lack of actual evidence that they exist.
Skeptics would say that the sightings
of all of these cryptid creatures
are to be related to some kind of hallucination
or psychological projection or whatnot.
When you look at folkloric tales of monsters,
sometimes they turn out to be
hoaxes or legends,
to the point where we're just not able
to confirm what they actually were.
Many people simply make up stories.
You can't rule out the possibility
that people, for example,
are creating some of these colorful legends
simply to garner attention
or to propagate their own motives.
KIRSTEN FISHER: As a scientist,
I don't discount that there is some animal
or some creature that's been sighted.
If there are organisms that we haven't found yet,
it probably speaks to the fact that the Earth is a vast place
with many types of habitats, and it's possible
that we haven't explored them all completely yet.
SHATNER: We tend to think
that everything in the world we live in is pretty much known,
Every tree, every insect,
every species has been photographed,
studied, cataloged.
But it isn't true.
According to mainstream scientists,
there are still literally thousands of species
that have yet to be discovered.
So is it far-fetched to believe
that wild, possibly hybrid creatures
could exist out there?
Strange so-called cryptids
that have been seen by average people
but haven't yet been officially recognized
as being real?
While mainstream scientists might say yes,
cryptozoologists argue that we've already found
such an animal
and even have the photographic evidence to prove it.
One of the most compelling cryptids that we investigate
is something known as the Tasmanian tiger,
or the thylacine,
which were considered legendary or mythological
until living specimens were discovered
and documented by scientists.
This is definitely a known animal.
The last verified specimen died off in 1936.
However, since that time, there has been
thousands of sightings of Tasmanian tigers, or thylacines,
on both the island of Tasmania and mainland Australia,
since its presumed extinction.
And there have been some fairly compelling photographs
that have never been fully explained.
The thylacine was a very weird-looking animal.
It looks like a large dog,
like a German shepherd, but it's actually a marsupial,
like a kangaroo.
In other words, it carries its young in its pouch.
And it has these stripes down its head and neck,
which give it sort of, like, a tiger-type appearance.
And it could almost open its jaw
to about 180 degrees,
kind of like snakes.
COUCH: If someone just saw it running through the woods,
they would think it was some sort of monster.
The peculiar qualities of the thylacine,
or the Tasmanian tiger, are a great example
of how evolution can provide
some amazing mutations and hybridization.
Just having the thylacine as a hybrid
increases the possibility
that there are other of these hybrids out there
lurking in the shadows.
SHATNER: But what are the other cryptids?
The legions of strange, hybrid creatures that fly, swim
and suck their victims dry of blood?
[man speaking excitedly]
Is there similar photographic evidence out there
that can help prove their case?
There are those who believe the answer is yes...
[women speaking excitedly]
...and that better than a photograph,
there's something even more compelling
and harder to disprove:
actual samples of a monster's DNA.
[snarls]
SHATNER: Cuero, Texas.
August 2007.
After purchasing a brood of chickens
from a neighboring ranch,
Phylis Canion makes a series of gruesome discoveries
inside her brand-new henhouse.
I brought the chickens home, and I had them
for about two weeks.
And I went outside, and...
one of the chickens was dead.
[chickens squawking, clucking]
What makes it unusual
is the chicken was still laying there.
And with the amount of predators
that we have in the state of Texas,
any predator would have taken the chicken and eaten it.
SHATNER: Over the next few weeks,
Phylis collected the remains
of 27 more of her chickens,
each one killed in the same inexplicable fashion.
Every one of them had been opened up
in the thorax area, the feathers missing,
and what appeared to me to be no blood on the ground.
So that told me then, whatever it was
was not interested in the meat
but interested in the blood.
And when I was talking to friends
and neighbors about it, they all immediately said,
"Oh, my gosh, that's the behavior of a chupacabra.
It's gonna kill the animal and suck the blood."
SHATNER: Chupacabra.
To those who claim to have encountered one,
it is a fearsome monster.
Chupacabra means "goat sucker."
And it's a really creepy-looking creature.
Some people say it looks like some kind
of strange, hybrid-like dog.
The continental North American chupacabra,
uh, is a four-legged or quadrupedal animal
about the size of a dog, completely hairless,
with a bluish-gray elephant hide-type of covering.
They also display a number of abnormal characteristics--
oftentimes their limbs are disproportionate lengths--
so they're very grotesque, odd, weird-looking animals.
SHATNER: Certain that what was preying
on her chicken coop was not a coyote,
or any other known canine, Phylis began to consider
whether it might be a chupacabra.
And then, one morning, she got her answer.
One Saturday morning, I got a very early call, 7:00.
My neighbor rancher called
and said, "Oh, my gosh. The strangest animal
has been hit and killed in front of the Canion ranch.
So I got in the truck, drove over there,
and I brought it back,
and I took a 50-pound feed sack,
and I cut it in half and laid it on the ground,
and I laid the animal on it to give everybody
a perspective of the size of the animal.
I have seen mangy coyotes all of my life,
and this had no hair on it and no indication at all
that the skin was infested with any type
of skin disorder, from mange or anything else.
It just did not have any hair on it at all.
SHATNER: Phylis sent tissue samples
from the dead creature out for analysis.
After waiting expectantly for weeks,
she was surprised by the results.
So, when they called me, they said, "Well, it's coyote
"on the maternal side
and Mexican wolf on the paternal."
The DNA tests indicating that the... the animal was a...
was a hybrid, essentially,
between a Mexican wolf and a coyote
is a little surprising in the fact that those species
don't typically hybridize.
But it's not entirely impossible.
We do know that the ranges of those two species do overlap
in Arizona, Texas and northern Mexico,
so it's at least physically possible that they could
encounter each other to form hybrids.
SHATNER: With such conclusive DNA results,
many considered the case closed.
But, according to Phylis,
something was not quite adding up.
The mystery of the whole thing was the manner in which
every chicken was killed.
It would suck all of the blood out.
So we know that it's coyote and Mexican wolf.
But neither of those animals suck blood.
So, even though this animal has that DNA, what is it?
Why would it have that behavior?
When the taxidermist mounted it for me,
he had to get a coyote mold and a wolf mold
and blend them together to make the hide fit.
The tail is longer than a wolf tail or a coyote tail.
The neck, the ears.
Everything was so extreme,
it took him forever to get it mounted.
We had about 13 different specialists
from around the world come and look at it,
and to date, they've all left scratching their head
like the day they came in
because they just cannot figure it out as well.
The only higher vertebrate that has evolved
to suck blood is the vampire bat.
And this particular process of adaptation
has taken millions of years.
It involves highly specialized characteristics.
For example, an anticoagulant in their saliva
and a very, very distinct liver, kidney digestive system.
So, to assume that an animal would simply develop
a vampire-like predation pattern would be really unexpected.
SHATNER: If they really exist,
are chupacabra merely the result of natural selection gone wrong,
or could this grotesque monster be the result of
not natural causes, but man-made ones?
There are some who believe the answer is a disturbing yes.
Through the course of my research
on the Texas chupacabras, I found a direct correlation
between sightings on Phylis Canion's property and elsewhere,
and coal-burning power plants.
Coal-burning power plants, in fact, emit huge amounts
of sulfur dioxide and other hard metals, like lead,
into the atmosphere.
And in recent studies, scientists have found that
sulfur dioxide is, in fact, a mutagen.
It altered the cellular makeup, or genetic makeup,
of laboratory mice.
So, in fact, this pollution could be having a similar effect
on these Texas coyotes or other canids.
Chemicals in the environment can absolutely cause mutations
to animals in-in the wild.
We saw this in Minnesota when a classroom,
out on a field trip, discovered a pond
with frogs that had extra legs or missing limbs
or body features in the wrong position.
And these were most likely caused by some type
of environmental contaminant.
There is a actually a type of chupacabra that's been reported
from parts of Puerto Rico.
The Puerto Rican chupacabra is described as about
three and a half to five feet tall,
standing on two legs, fangs, claws,
and strangely, a row of spikes going down its back.
Why are there so many different versions of the chupacabra,
and why are they so radically different-looking
in terms of the Puerto Rican version
versus the North American version versus other versions?
So, in fact, pollution could be having a similar effect
to create all types of strange creatures.
I think it's possible that there are mutations out there
that science has yet to discover or to understand.
Not only what nature is constructing,
but also what mankind may be constructing, too.
SHATNER: Are creatures like chupacabra merely freaks of nature,
a rare but nonetheless disturbing consequence
of natural selection run amok?
Perhaps.
But there are those who believe these monsters
are actually the products of deliberate experimentation.
Experimentation that has gone too far.
[thunder cracks]
SHATNER: According to legend, it hunts in the darkness.
A monster, seemingly drawn from a nightmare.
[thunder crashes]
It walks on two legs, like a human,
but has the head of a beast.
It is a creature so horrifying, it is rarely spoken about
above a whisper.
[whispers]: The Goatman.
LEWIS: The Goatman is terrifying.
It's something striking that strikes fear in the witnesses,
and it's certainly something you would not
want to meet in the dark.
LOREN COLEMAN: From my understanding of the Goatman,
it seemed to start up, really, in 1971 in Maryland.
It looks like an upright, human-like creature,
but has a goat-like head, with glowing red eyes
and huge horns, and looks like the devil
and is very frightening.
I think one of the most intimidating things
about the Goatman is that it reportedly resembles
the Christian devil.
I mean, it's half man, it's half goat.
SHATNER: For decades, tales of this grotesque creature
have been told wherever cryptozoologists gather.
Particularly in and around suburban Maryland.
It all started following a shocking incident
that took place in the small town of Bowie
in October of 1971.
[crickets chirping]
[laughter, indistinct chatter]
COUCH: A young teenage girl was having a sleepover
with some of her friends.
[loud snap]
-What was that? -I don't know.
COUCH: They looked out the window,
and to their horror, they saw this strange,
hairy creature skulking around outside.
LEWIS: It scurried into the woods.
A few days later, their new puppy went missing.
Eventually, it was discovered along the railroad tracks.
It had been decapitated and ripped apart.
Skeptics claim it was just run over by a train.
Others believed it was killed by the Goatman.
[snarling]
Usually, these kinds of stories of creatures
have some starting point.
For the Goatman, in 1971,
everybody got hysterical and started reporting it.
LEWIS: This case really spawned terror
in the entire community.
The fever reached a pitch when some teenagers
thought they had the Goatman trapped.
COUCH: People were so scared of the Goatman
during those initial sightings
that a posse of teenagers had actually
closed off an entire road,
claiming that they had captured the animal.
And when police arrived, though,
whatever it was that they had cornered had escaped.
When you hear people's accounts of a goat-like,
man-sized creature, you have to stop and think for one minute,
you know, is it possible
for a creature like this to even exist?
It defies understanding.
However, people have been seeing this creature for decades.
REDFERN: Some cryptozoologists
suggested that possibly it was the creation
of some sort of secret lab,
and that some experiments had been going on,
and the creature had escaped
from that same secret lab.
[soft growling]
RIHERD: And as far-fetched as that may seem,
in 1959, Soviet scientists were able
to transplant the head
and forelimbs of a small dog onto the body of a large dog.
The Russian scientist Vladimir Demikhov was actually,
uh, something of a pioneer of organ transplant.
In the 1950s, he decided
he wanted to attempt to attach two dogs.
He and his team actually went through a series of surgeries
to try to accomplish this.
He took the, uh... the head and front torso of a small dog,
um, removed it and attached it
to the body of a much larger dog,
so it was basically able to be supported
off of the heart and-and vessels of the big dog.
We tend to believe that we figured out everything
with modern science and technology,
but being that the Goatman combines both goat and man
makes you think, was it some sort
of Frankenstein experiment gone wrong?
Or was it purposely constructed
and built and almost born this way?
RIHERD: It's interesting to note
that there's important research going on to produce
something called a "chimera," which is a combination
of two different types of DNA.
The way this is performed is
to introduce human genetic material into pig embryos.
And what they found when they analyze the DNA of these embryos
is that they're actually 1/100,000 human.
So this is kind of the basis
for how to create different creatures or mix and match,
uh, the DNA from two different species.
SHATNER: A chimera?
A creature comprised of the DNA
from two entirely different species?
Could such a frightening notion help to explain a beast
as bizarre and disturbing
as the Goatman?
With the recent advances in DNA science,
it's not completely implausible
that some of these creatures are the result
of these types of experiments.
If the Goatman does exist,
could it be the product of some unholy scientific experiment?
There are those who believe
that not only is such a disturbing notion true,
but that mankind has opened a virtual Pandora's box--
one that may now be too late for us to close.
And the monster they cite as proof of their theory
is the one that doesn't only walk on two legs
but flies on two wings.
The Mothman.
SHATNER: Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
April 1967.
Linda Sigman and her boyfriend
head out for a quiet nighttime drive.
Far beyond the city lights, they pull over
to do some amateur stargazing.
After a few minutes, they realize
they're not alone.
We got out, and we sat on the car,
and we're sitting there talking for a little bit,
and I noticed a bright star over to my right.
And all of a sudden, it started to get bigger.
And it turned bright red, and it started to glow,
and, like, it burst through the clouds.
And it came right over in front of the car,
and we looked up, and the object was so big
that we couldn't see the night sky or the stars or anything.
My boyfriend tried to start the car, and it wouldn't start.
Finally got the car started, and we started to pull forward,
and I saw him.
And he appeared to be a large flying man with wings.
It was the creature that I perceive to be Mothman.
His wings were back, and he was anywhere
between eight and nine feet tall,
and as we were going around a turn,
the Mothman flew and flew into the trees.
I don't know what else it could have been.
SHATNER: The Mothman?
A large, red-eyed, human-sized creature that flies?
But if such a creature exists, where could it have come from?
GERHARD: Mothman is one of the most enigmatic creatures
in the annals of the unexplained.
And it first gained public notoriety
in November of 1966,
and within a matter of days and weeks,
there were dozens or perhaps hundreds of sightings
of this creature around the Point Pleasant area,
causing a mass hysteria situation.
Skeptics have attributed the Mothman sightings
to a misidentification
of giant owls, or even a crane that is local to the area.
There's all kinds of other explanations
that have been given, but when you interview
the people that actually saw and experienced this,
they're not talking about anything
that is conventionally known.
SPINKS: West Virginia people are outdoorsy people.
They know all the animals in the woods.
Most are avid outdoorsmen, hunters, fishermen.
They know the difference between an owl
and a Mothman-type creature.
GERHARD: We have to consider that the Mothman's behavior,
which involved chasing cars at over a hundred miles an hour,
taking straight up off the ground like a helicopter,
none of those would indicate any type of flesh-and-blood animal.
SHATNER: Chasing cars at over a hundred miles an hour?
If true, then this thing is no owl,
at least not a normal one.
There's no animals anywhere on this planet that even resemble
a giant man-sized creature with ten-foot wings anywhere.
And to me, that would lead to the fact
that it's definitely not of this world.
SHATNER: Not of this world?
According to a growing number of mainstream scientists,
such a profound notion is, in fact, possible.
In 2018, a fascinating study
was published on the DNA of the octopus.
The octopus is a really unusual creature here on earth.
They can rewrite their own DNA, they can camouflage themselves,
and they are considered the most intelligent
of all invertebrates.
What these researchers concluded was that the DNA of the octopus
had traveled here on a comet.
In other words, this DNA didn't start off on Earth.
It came from somewhere else.
FISHER: There are many instances of organisms,
particularly extremophiles, that can occur
in extremely inhospitable conditions.
And there are even cases of organisms like these
being able to survive exposure to-to space.
So, it's not completely out of the question that something
like a microorganism might be able to survive spaceflight
on a comet that was coming to Earth, for example.
One of the most intriguing theories for Mothman
is that possibly, it could have reached the Earth
via an asteroid, and the DNA developed on our planet
to the point now we're actually seeing creatures
that ultimately became Mothman.
SHATNER: Could the Mothman's DNA have hitched a ride to Earth
on an interstellar comet?
For the residents of Point Pleasant, West Virginia,
the more pressing question is whether the Mothman
is a friend or a foe.
It's been seen a lot of times right before tragedies happen.
That's the only common thing we know.
It seems to show up at tragedies.
JEFF WAMSLEY: On December 15, 1967,
the Silver Bridge, which spanned from Point Pleasant
over to Kanauga, Ohio,
collapsed at about 5:00 on a Friday evening.
Uh, it was the worst bridge disaster in U.S. history.
46 people died.
I was six when the bridge fell.
And I remember, at that time, there were people that claimed
that they'd seen a large bird flying back and forth,
you know, across the-the river before the bridge fell.
REDFERN: The official story is that it was just wear and tear,
and the 46 people who were killed
just didn't really stand a chance.
There are rumors that the Mothman was seen
around the time that the bridge collapse
so there was inevitably talk around town
that somehow the Mothman had either caused the tragedy
or, in a strange way,
was kind of like a grim reaper for many people.
GERHARD: To this day, residents of Point Pleasant
draw a connection between the Mothman
and this bridge collapse,
perhaps perceiving the Mothman's appearance
as some type of premonition or omen of the tragedy.
HIPES: I would say, probably, in Point Pleasant it's 50/50.
50% of the people believe that Mothman
caused the Silver Bridge tragedy,
and the other 50% believe that he may have
been here as a warning to get everyone on guard
that something terrible may happen.
SHATNER: Mothman, a force for good?
A protector from harm?
Is it possible that some crypto-creatures,
like the Mothman, are just...
misunderstood?
It's an interesting and even comforting notion.
But if such creatures exist,
they would be just as likely to attack us
as we would be to attack them.
For we appear as strange and menacing to them
as they do to us.
SHATNER: Lake Shelbyville, Illinois.
July 1977.
While on a fishing trip with his son,
construction worker "Texas" John Huffer captures
incredible footage of two giant creatures taking flight.
LEWIS: In Huffer's film, we see what appears to be
two large birds perched on a tree
and then flying off into the sky.
He actually honked his boat horn to get their attention,
and that seemed to startle them,
and they flew off out of his sight before he ran out of film.
A lot of people in the field still talk
about Huffer's footage because it's so remarkable.
The birds are large.
COUCH: They appear to be a very unique-looking animal,
particularly in that their tail feathers seem larger
than any type of raptor that I am, uh, personally aware of.
LEWIS: These creatures were gigantic
compared to your normal turkey vulture.
Whatever they are, they're actually there, and they're big.
SHATNER: Gigantic flying birds?
Larger than turkey vultures?
But if so, what kind of bird is it?
And why haven't we noticed anything like it before?
One of my specialties within the field of cryptozoology
is investigating accounts of what are known as thunderbirds.
Thunderbirds are creatures from Native American mythology,
and they are essentially giant raptor types of birds,
similar to an eagle with a hooked beak,
enormous wingspans
ranging anywhere from 15 to 20 feet across,
basically the size of a small airplane.
We consider them very sacred
because they do have the power to take a life.
And they also have power to give life.
And we see them all over,
all over the skies,
so you'll get many descriptions of the thunderbird.
In the beginning, they're the ones that protected us,
and in the future, they said they will protect us again.
That's power.
These things were said to be able to swoop down
out of the sky and carry off grown adults.
LEWIS: In fact, many claim
that when these gigantic birds flap their wings, it sounds
like thunder in the sky, hence the name "thunderbirds."
Oftentimes, the old legends tell
of great wars in the Midwest
between the thunderbirds and other creatures.
[shrieking]
[bird screeches]
SHATNER: Thunderbirds.
Giant flying creatures from Native American folklore.
Could such supernatural beings actually exist?
Or could they be something that has, until now,
been considered extinct?
They could be a teratorn,
which is a giant condor-like beast
that existed during the last ice age.
We know that they existed at the same time as humans
because there are burials of humans and teratorns.
SHATNER: According to paleontologists,
teratorns had wing spans which measured up to 12 feet wide.
They're also believed to have been extinct
for at least 10,000 years.
But given the incredible size of the creatures
in John Huffer's footage,
is it possible the teratorns survived extinction?
According to cryptozoologists, the answer's yes,
and for evidence, they point to the rediscovery of a creature
that was thought to be extinct, not just for thousands of years,
but for millions.
South Africa. 1938.
A group of fishermen returning home notice something
much larger than normal in their daily catch.
It measures five feet long, weighs 200 pounds,
and is covered with strange, silver markings.
After careful examination,
the creature is finally identified
as a coelacanth, a large saltwater fish
that was thought to be extinct
for the past 65 million years.
It was supposed to have died out
with the mass extinction of the dinosaurs,
and it became a fantastic discovery.
It's essentially a living fossil.
LEWIS: What strikes me is that this creature
wasn't a small insect or a bug that was thought to be extinct.
It's five feet long, 200 pounds.
It looks prehistoric.
When you see this creature,
if you were to catch it on your fishing pole,
you would immediately know that it was a relic from the past.
SHATNER: But if this coelacanth, recently caught and killed
in a fisherman's net, could survive 65 million years
of presumed extinction and evolution,
why not the teratorns?
It seems very naive to believe that the coelacanth
was the only survivor out there.
If we discovered one of these creatures
thought to be in the realm of folklore,
it would change our complete understanding
of evolution, science
and the field of what's known and unknown.
SHATNER: Just because physical evidence of certain strange creatures
has not yet been recovered,
why do we assume that eyewitness accounts,
and even filmed footage, is not enough to convince us
that they can and do exist?
And not only exist,
but are out there hiding, not only in the skies
above our heads,
but deep in the ground beneath our feet.
[roars]
SHATNER: Mongolia, the Gobi Desert,
an arid wasteland,
almost completely devoid of life-- almost--
because there are those that believe the area
is home to a creature so deadly
that just catching an accidental glimpse of it can kill.
This creature's name in Mongolian
actually means "large intestine worm."
It appears as if it's lacking a head
and maneuvers by traveling under the sand,
and it's often referred to as the Mongolian death worm
'cause it can kill its victims in a number of ways.
Mongolian death worm is a hideous-looking creature,
one to two feet long.
People talked about it for generations.
It can shoot out electricity for miles on end
that can be felt by anyone traveling through the desert.
It's even more terrifying
because you can't see it till it's too late.
-[roars] -It is said to pop up
and shoot venom on its victims
where the tiniest bit will cause the victim to drop dead.
RIHERD: Biologists know of large species of worms,
and they know of species of animals that can spit venom
or that can electrocute their prey,
but to find all of these features
in one species of animal is highly unusual.
COUCH: People who live near the Gobi Desert in Mongolia
are deathly afraid of this creature,
and, actually, uh, there are descriptions
given by the prime minister of Mongolia
saying that this is what the creature looks like
and that it's out there in the Gobi Desert.
COLEMAN: There's many science-fiction movies
that has copied the real stories of the Mongolian death worm.
Some people say they're scared to death when they see it.
[roars]
People were seeing something.
I don't think it's a simple case of it being an allegory
or a cautionary tale of avoiding things
that can kill you in the desert.
I think they were actually seeing something
that terrified them. They witnessed it
killing their friends and loved ones,
and they wanted to avoid it at all costs.
[shrieks]
SHATNER: A creature so lethal that a drop of its venom
can cause instant death?
And if you somehow managed to avoid its venom,
it could still electrocute you?
[shrieking]
[sighs]
Remind me to think twice before planning that trip to Mongolia.
So, what do you think?
Are creatures like the chupacabra, Goatman
and the Mothman real?
Or are they figments
of overactive imaginations?
Perhaps mankind is so good at creating its own demons
that they become real.
And we say we want to find them, capture them, study them,
but perhaps all we really should do is leave them alone.
Let them stay in the shadow.
Let them remain The UnXplained.