- Tonight on The Proof is Out There.
Is this a chupacabra making world news?
- It appears to be a mixture of human and dog-like features,
which is pretty darn strange.
- [Tony] Is this the greatest UFO photo ever taken?
- It's very rare I come across a photo
that I can't easily explain away.
- [Tony] Are monstrous creatures living down in the sewers?
- You walk into creepy places at night,
you're probably gonna run into something creepy
and this fits the bill.
- [Tony] And strange sounds of Mars.
(hollow drone) (mettalic ding)
Is this a message from an alien race?
- There was a civilization
that once lived there and is now extinct.
(dramatic music)
- [Tony] Around the globe are videos.
- [Witness] What the heck is this?
- [Witness] It's moving.
- [Tony] Photos and sounds that defy explanation.
(electrical whirring)
- [Marc] Is it some kind of unidentified object?
What's exciting is nobody really knows.
- [Tony] What are they?
- [MJ] Some sort of bizarre mutation.
- Extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof.
- I'm Tony Harris and as a journalist
for more than 30 years,
I've followed the facts where they take me.
Now I'm bringing that spirit of investigation
to the world's strangers sounds and images.
We'll analyze each one with top experts.
- It's a credible case. It's a credible video.
- [Tony] And pass a verdict on what it is.
- This video was clearly faked.
- The proof starts now.
(dramatic theme music)
Good evening and welcome to The Proof Is Out There.
America's first zoo opened in Philadelphia
on July 1st, 1874.
Today, there are well over 400 zoos operating in this country
welcoming about 180 million visitors each year.
But as you'll see in our next story,
maybe humans are not the only ones
coming to observe what's inside.
May 21st, 2022, Amarillo, Texas.
(ominous music)
It's around 1:25 AM and the zoo's security cameras
are keeping their sleepless eyes on its animals
when they capture this.
A strange figure just outside the zoo's perimeter
lurks in the darkness.
As we push in, the figure appears
to be standing on two legs
just on the other side of the fence looking inside.
Shocked by the size of the creature
and its rather wolf-like head,
the Amarillo Zoo has begun asking the general public
for help figuring out what this UAO,
unidentified Amarillo object, could be.
Take another look.
This bipedal creature is quite puzzling.
The image goes viral with thousands of people viewing it.
Now let's take a closer look at this image.
A lot of folks have said they can discern fur
on this thing's arms and pointed ears on its head.
On the other hand,
some people say it's standing like a human
and it looks like it's wearing pants
and they see this as a jacket.
As for me, I have no idea.
Field researcher Ken Gerhard cites the figure's resemblance
to an infamous creature from folklore.
- One of the theories
is that it could in fact be a chupacabra,
a famous creature that has been talked about
throughout Latin American culture since the 1990s
and is a blood sucking type of creature.
The name chupacabra actually means goat sucker
because it's been alleged that these creatures
will drink the blood of goats and other small farm animals.
I've examined the remains of several creatures
that have been called chupacabras,
and all of those animals
displayed very dog-like features,
pointy ears, long snouts, strange skin, long fangs,
other physical abnormalities.
(ominous music)
- During a two month period in 2010,
more than 300 goats were slaughtered in rural Mexico.
Ranchers believe these deaths resulted from a chupacabra
stalking their livestock.
So could this image be a chupacabra stalking the zoo?
Our experts investigate.
(ominous music)
Professor of biology, Floyd Hayes,
begins by estimating the size of the creature.
- To me, it looks like the fence itself
may be 12 feet high.
The animal looks like it's maybe six feet behind the fence,
which would make it smaller.
It appears to be about half the height of the fence.
It's maybe about seven and a half feet tall.
- [Tony] That's much bigger
than the alleged size of a chupacabra.
And there's another issue.
- The chupacabra is allegedly a quadrupedal
or four-legged animal,
but this appears to be bipedal rather than quadrupedal.
Bipedal means it's walking on two legs.
- [Tony] Next, wildlife biologist Stephanie Schuttler
examines the creature's hair.
- Chupacabras are described as being more hairless
with gray and scaly skin.
In this image, it seems to be more shaggy.
It seems to have long hair, especially on top,
so it doesn't fit the description.
- [Tony] And even though sightings
of the creature have been reported,
Schuttler says the proof has yet to be discovered.
- Any evidence of animals
that were thought to be chupacabras,
it always ended up being a canid species
like a coyote, dog, or fox with mange.
- [Tony] Demodectic mange is caused by a parasitic mite
that lives in the hair follicles of canines.
To rid themselves of the parasites,
canines will scratch their fur and skin until it falls off.
But the biggest red flag of all,
why the zoo only released one image
of such a startling discovery.
- Camera traps, when they're triggered,
they usually take multiple photos,
so I would love to see the photos before and after.
There's rarely a singular photo of an animal
when the cameras are triggered.
I suspect this was a publicity stunt by the Amarillo Zoo.
If they really wanted to figure out what this animal was,
there would definitely be more photos of it.
(ominous music)
- Now hold on a second.
If this is a hoax, then the zoo has been keeping up
the deception for months.
Our verdict, unidentified creature.
A Seattle-based company specializing in wireless cameras
donated 80 color night vision cameras
to the Amarillo Zoo after this image went viral.
So should this creature reappear,
there should be plenty of proof to determine what it is.
(ominous music)
Our next story goes back more than 50 years
and despite that, wouldn't you know it?
It's received newfound attention
and is now being called the best UFO photo ever.
It's September 1971 and Sergio Loaiza is flying over
Costa Rica's Lake Cote photographing the terrain
for the creation of a map.
But once he lands and begins developing the pictures,
one snapshot captures something at 10,000 feet
that appears to be extra terrestrial.
Take a closer look, at the edge of the frame above the lake
is a shiny disc like object bearing a striking resemblance
to the quintessential flying saucer.
Sergio recalls discovering the startling object.
- [Tony] The photo was examined by researchers
who deemed it authentic,
but it wasn't until 2021 when attorney
and UFO enthusiast Esteban Carranza
got a hold of the photo
that the story got really interesting.
- My uncle, he managed to obtain a copy of the negative
and let's say, "Aha, I got a final way to produce
a really high quality scan."
What it is, we don't know,
but we know it's real and that's where we need serious
scientific and open analysis.
- [Tony] Esteban releases the photo on Twitter
and the internet explodes.
According to journalist MJ Banias,
the photo may reveal this object has extraordinary capabilities.
- What's interesting about this photo
is that the frame prior to this shot
and the frame after this shot
does not show this object.
Some people believe that it's evidence
that this object can cloak and become invisible.
Some people believe
that it's able to move incredibly quickly
and some people believe that it's inter-dimensional
in that it was able to leave our dimension
and go somewhere else.
So there's a lot of speculation around this photograph.
- In previous episodes, we've shown you UFOs cited
near volcanoes, as there's a belief among ufologists
that alien craft are attracted to volcanoes
and other high energy sites for the purpose of refueling.
Well, this photo was taken right next to the Arenal Volcano,
which was Costa Rica's most active until 2010.
So could there be a connection?
Before we spent too long on the why let's confirm the what.
More specifically, what is this disc?
Our experts weigh in.
(ominous music)
First, we take the photo to astronomer
and video effects designer Marc D'Antonio.
Despite all the recent hype,
is this simply a 50 year old hoax?
- I've seen the photo ever since I was a young kid
and so I know if it was hoax,
it would have to have been done with older technology.
I don't see how it actually could have been done back then
'cause all the attempts back then to do that
had some giveaways that we could detect, now.
- [Tony] If we're not calling it a hoax,
did Sergio capture a real UFO phasing in and out
of our dimension?
- I looked at the way the light is hitting this thing
and I compared it to the light hitting the trees down here.
Look at the shadow angles. They're all the same.
So this is the shadow angle for the sun.
Now if we go back to the UFO, this doesn't make any sense.
We wouldn't expect to see any light on this side
at that angle.
So the lighting is entirely wrong for this
being some type of physical object
that is reminiscent of say UFO, entirely wrong.
- [Tony] So if the shadows don't match,
D'Antonio believes that rules out
something like a piece of equipment
that may be felt from the plane.
But still, if the photo isn't faked,
what does that leave us with?
D'Antonio has a theory.
- Aerial photographs were taken,
the cameras would be mounted looking down
and there might have been a glass cover over the camera
to protect it.
If your car gets hit by a piece of gravel from the road,
you see that round fracture.
- [Tony] Just like a chip in a car windshield,
D'Antonio believes something may have struck the glass
of the camera housing underneath the plane,
but he admits his theory doesn't address
one of the central mysteries in this case.
- A conical piece of glass that's been fractured
matches this object,
but I can't explain why they don't appear
in the next photo frame.
I would expect they would appear on many frames
but only one frame and that's a mystery.
- [Tony] Next, we turn to astrophotographer
Andrew McCarthy.
- The photograph in question here
was captured at a focal length
of about 150 millimeters, focal ratio F5.6.
Since we know that the object was in focus
and the ground was also in focus,
the minimal distance to that object from the plane
had to be over 640 feet.
So if it's something huge
that happened to be passing under the aircraft at that time.
- [Tony] By McCarthy's calculations,
this object would be at a minimum, 48 feet long.
If it's further away, it could be even bigger.
So we have a large craft that only appears in one photo
out of three taken seconds apart,
meaning it must be capable of traveling at fast speeds.
Could this simply be a conventional aircraft?
- This was captured in 1971,
long before any kind of drone existed.
A helicopter or an airplane wouldn't have looked like this.
So we can really easily rule out
most existing aircraft at that time.
- [Tony] For McCarthy,
the lack of any conventional identifiable marks
leaves him with only one conclusion.
- It's very rare I come across a photo
that I can't easily explain away,
and I think what we have here
is a genuine unidentified flying object.
(ominous music)
- Our verdict, genuine UFO.
Our experts have put together some compelling theories
and we agree it's not a chip in the glass,
but as D'Antonio noted, if there is something real there,
we still haven't accounted for the fact
that the light and shadows don't match.
Anyway, now we see why this photo is getting all the love.
- The Mesopotamians introduced the world to sewer pipes
around 4,000 BCE with the earliest examples found
in the Temple of Bel at Nippur in present day Iraq.
Since then, these underground networks
not only provide plumbing,
they also provide ecosystems for uncanny creatures.
See for yourself.
April 20th, 2022, Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
Urban explorer Christopher Bryan Hill
is documenting himself navigating a sewer tunnel system
deep within the forest.
He records an almost five mile trek
when he comes across this.
What looks like a glowing-eyed being emerges
from alongside the tunnel's edge,
the being seemingly stares at the camera.
Then another smaller one steps further into the light,
revealing its body.
The beings turn and flee.
Christopher advances to where they were,
but they've vanished deep into the darkness.
Let's take a closer look.
Note that when the second creature turns to run,
its foot appears to make a splash in the water.
- I heard what sounded like a slap, like smacking water.
At the time I thought it was a deer.
I really didn't think much of it until I played it back
when I got home and I could see the outline.
- [Tony] Let's look at that being emerge
from the tunnel's edge again,
the reflecting light reveals its odd body shape.
Field researcher Cliff Barackman
helps us understand what we just saw.
- You walk into creepy places at night,
you're probably gonna run into something creepy
and this fits the bill.
It's long, it's lanky, it's the arms
are touching the ground, it's got glowing eyes.
- [Tony] Thousands have seen this video
with many claiming it's proof of the lizard man
first cited in the 1980s.
The creature yielded a wave of newspaper,
radio and television publicity,
especially in South Carolina.
- The lizard man,
it's often reported as being black and scaly
with long claws and glowing eyes.
One of the most famous sightings
of this so-called lizard man
came from Bishopville, South Carolina.
In late June of 1988,
a young man was driving home in the wee hours of the morning
when he observed a seven foot tall, scaly creature in a swamp
and drew national attention and made it on the news
with Dan Rather.
This video, if authentic,
shows something bipedal inside the sewers.
- [Tony] Barickman suggests
there may be a more pedestrian explanation.
- In the 1980s in New York City,
a lot of people found themselves without homes.
Some of these people actually
moved to the subterranean sewers and started living there
and that is where the term mole people came from.
Times are tough, maybe people are starting
to take shelter underground there as well.
(ominous music)
- The mole people theory is truly heartbreaking
and the lizard man theory is truly bizarre.
According to the bystander
who supposedly encountered the lizard man in 1988,
the creature chased him down in his car,
jumped on the roof, snapped the front fender and antenna
and tore into the sides of the vehicle.
Did Christopher narrowly avoid such aggression?
Let's see what our experts have to say.
(ominous music)
Could the theory that these are desperate humans
living in the sewers have legs?
Conger says the eyes have it.
- [Shea] These creatures look like they have
kind of a white colored eye shine.
- [Tony] That white color is due to something
called the tapetum lucidum,
which is a biologic reflector system
that is a common feature
in the eyes of many nocturnal vertebraes.
- The tapetum lucidum is developed as an adaptive feature
for dark environments.
It actually reflects light
and makes the environment easier to see for that animal.
Humans don't have a tapetum lucidum,
so I think it's very unlikely based on this footage
that we're looking at people.
- [Tony] So what about that lizard man theory?
- Because reptiles are actually exothermic or cold-blooded,
they often don't move a lot
and spend a lot of time laying down on warm surfaces
to regulate their body heat
and they'd have very slow metabolisms.
- [Tony] Conger further notes that most reptilian creatures
walk on four legs
due to the fact that the metabolic demands
of walking on two legs would require more energy
than a cold-blooded physiology can supply.
So if it isn't human and it's unlikely that it's reptilian,
then what is it?
- Based on everything that I'm seeing here,
I think this is some sort of a hoax or CGI.
- [Tony] Time to take the video to forensic video expert
Michael Primeau to determine if this is indeed a fake.
- When we adjust the intensities of these macro blocks,
we can see clearly that these gradients
around these pixel values have been smoothed.
When we get to the point where these two eyes
essentially travel back behind this edge,
the compression changes completely.
There's no smoothness to these gradients.
The compression level
shouldn't have changed that drastically.
This video has been fabricated in some way, shape, or form.
(ominous music)
- The verdict, this is a hoax.
While we didn't find anything hiding in the sewer this time,
the deepest urban sewage tunnel measures 551 feet
below ground level in Hong Kong.
So there's still plenty of exploring to do.
- Okay, picture this,
you're enjoying a westbound flight to Denver.
You look out the window to soak in a view of the Great Lakes
when you see... something.
And no, it's not a gremlin on the wing.
It's even harder to explain.
October 17th, 2021, United flight 267
is making its way from Boston, Massachusetts,
to Denver, Colorado.
At 8:50 AM local time,
the plane is about to cross over Lake Michigan
when a passenger noticed something amiss
in the morning sky.
The cell phone video shows hazy fields below
and in the center of the frame,
a white Tic-Tac shaped object moving from left to right
in a straight, steady path.
Science writer Amy Teitel says it's the oblong shape
that intrigues her the most.
- One of the things that really jumps out in this video
is the shape of whatever this object is,
that it has that kind of Tic-Tac shape
is very reminiscent of other UAP or UFO
sightings in recent years.
- [Tony] In fact, it's that odd shape
that was also witnessed in what is now considered
one of the most famous and important UFO videos
ever recorded.
- The first sighting came from pilot Chad Underwood,
who was flying off the USS Nimitz on November 14th, 2004.
What he saw was an object that he described
as looking vaguely Tic-Tac shaped
and he coined the term Tic-Tac UFO.
And ever since that first sighting,
which has been released to the public from the Pentagon,
there's been a slew of sightings
of similarly Tic-Tac shaped UFOs.
- [Tony] Teitel also points out that the location
where this video was allegedly recorded
is in an area notorious for bizarre
and mysterious events.
- [Amy] The Michigan Triangle is drawn between the cities
of Luddington and Benton Harbor in Michigan
and Manitowoc in Wisconsin.
The earliest instance of a ship disappearing
was actually in 1891, when a schooner went across the lake
and disappeared overnight with seven sailors on board.
And then there was a Northwest Airlines flight
that disappeared over Lake Michigan in 1950.
And ever since, there have been theories
that some disturbance or something over Lake Michigan
causes strange things to happen.
- So we've got the Michigan Triangle, the Bermuda Triangle,
and there is another area known as the Alaska Triangle,
which also lays claim to strange disappearances.
What is it about these areas
that wreak havoc on planes and ships?
Some have theorized magnetic interference
and in the case of Bermuda, even methane gas emissions
from the ocean floor.
But did one passenger capture a glimpse
into the mystery surrounding the Michigan Triangle?
We'll let our experts make the call.
(ominous music)
First up, physicist Matthew Szydagis
compares the object seen in the video
to what was seen in the Nimitz footage
released by the Pentagon in 2020.
- The coloration and shape,
at least superficially appear to be similar,
but it does not appear to exhibit any strange velocity
or acceleration that are associated
with the Nimitz Tic-Tac encounter
and similar famous Navy UFO incidents.
- [Tony] Szydagis is also warns that due to the low resolution
and the limitations of modern digital zoom cameras,
the object may not be exactly as it appears.
- We cannot definitively say that the object is Tic-Tac
or elliptically shaped
given that we don't know whether it's even in perfect focus
because it may not always be possible
to have everything crystal clear with crisp edges
in perfect focus.
- [Tony] So if this isn't a Tic-Tac UFO,
it may not even be Tic-Tac shaped, what is it?
- We don't see a whole lot of detail,
but we can surmise based on its speed
and the potential direction that his aircraft is going,
this was a passing by of another aircraft below them.
- [Tony] But if it's just another aircraft,
why doesn't it have wings, propellers,
or any of the other standard features
associated with any known flying machine?
- My gut feeling is that because the resolution
is not good and because the the wing color kind of blends in
with the surrounding terrain,
there are some hints in the video.
We can see a little notch below here,
which might be part of a wing route
of a commercial aircraft.
So the back end could be where the tail of the plane is
and this notch could be where the wing is coming away.
- [Tony] So if it's just an airplane,
why does it look like a white Tic-Tac?
- Many commercial aircraft are white
and the reason they use that titanium white
is because it reflects a lot of the sunlight back
keeps the interior cool, climate control.
So that is something we would expect to see.
The wings are silver and that silver or aluminum color
is many times not visible on days where the sun is not out.
And this is one of those days that is somewhat overcast.
- [Tony] But we try not to rely on hunches around here.
So based on D'Antonio's conclusions,
we checked out the flight data
and there was indeed another plane,
Delta 2474 passing United 267 in the opposite direction
at the same time and place where this video was recorded.
- We may not be seeing all the details.
I don't see anything out of the ordinary
for a passing commercial aircraft.
(ominous music)
- Our verdict, the evidence
all points to the theory that this is a commercial airplane.
It just looks like a Tic-Tac because of the camera lens,
the sunlight and the color of the plane.
- It's often said if you have your ear to the ground,
you'll hear everything that people are saying and doing.
But as you'll hear in our next piece,
if you do that on Mars,
you'll be confounded with a cacophony of sounds
and mystified by their origins.
Some people say that the origin of this next sound,
recorded by NASA, was from a Martian civilization.
We say it's something you've got to hear to believe.
March 6th, 2019 around 2:00 PM local Mars time,
the 98th Martian day or sol of the mission
for NASA's InSight lander.
The spacecraft is surveying its workspace.
A camera on its robotic arm is moving and snapping pictures
after placing a seismometer on the surface
to study Mars quakes.
While it finds many, it also detects this.
First, an eerie, hollow noise
followed by a series of dinks and donks.
(hollow drone) (metallic dings)
Then a howl right out of a science fiction film.
(metallic ding)
What could be making these strange sounds?
George Haas is the director of the Cydonia Institute,
which argues that ancient civilizations existed on Mars.
- NASA's research with Mars found overwhelming evidence
that Mars was a wet green planet, very similar to Earth,
had water, breathable air.
Many people think there was a civilization
that once lived there and is now extinct.
So perhaps we're hearing some type of signals
being sent out from Mars from the distant past.
Back in 1901, Nikola Tesla
claims that he had received radio signals from Mars.
So possibly this is the remnant of that communication
that we're hearing, now.
(hollow drone) (metallic dings)
- [Tony] Another possibility, and go with us for a minute,
is that the sounds are emanating
from within some large underground structure.
- Some researchers believe that sound played a major role
in the architecture in the building of the pyramids.
- [Tony] A passage was discovered
inside the great pyramid of Giza
thought by some to function as an acoustic resonance tube,
meaning it amplified sound vibrations from the air outside
generating infrasounds that some claim
can induce otherworldly sensations.
Could this have been a deliberate part
of the pyramid's design
and could an alien race have constructed
something similar on Mars?
- There's no reason to think there couldn't have been
an advanced culture on the planet
that could produce structures that were similar.
And what we're hearing with these odd sounds on Mars
is the remnant of some structure
that's been buried beneath the surface.
(hollow drone) (metallic dings)
- The nature of Mars' atmosphere
means sound operates differently there.
In fact, sound travels 100 meters per second
slower on that planet than on earth.
Additionally, there are two speeds of sound on Mars.
One for high-pitched sounds and one for low pitched sounds.
Let's see if our experts can pitch in
and tell us what we're hearing here.
(ominous music)
First, audio forensic analyst Ed Primeau
helps us determine if this sound could be a fake
and he comes to a quick conclusion.
- I found the recording in question on the NASA website,
so I believe this is a genuine recording.
- [Tony] He proceeds to compare the sound
to the first potential match, Mars quakes,
which are frequent and well documented.
- The frequency range on the quake is below 100 hertz
across the board.
(low frequency drone)
The recording in question goes up much higher than that,
about 400 to 1,000 hertz.
(hollow drone) (metallic dings)
So I can safely rule out this sound being a quake.
- Next, physicist Matthew Szydagis
digs into the extinct civilization signal theory.
- Some people have hypothesized
that this is some sort of alien we are hearing.
However, Mars has not been
what we would consider habitable for billions of years.
The Martian atmosphere is extremely thin
and it doesn't have significant quantities
of atoms or molecules necessary for life.
For example, oxygen,
even if we consider life forms that don't require oxygen
such as anaerobic bacteria,
an advanced intelligence civilization existing on Mars
is very unlikely.
- [Tony] Szydagis says this also reduces the possibility
of the sounds emanating from an ancient structure.
It would just be too old to survive 'til now.
- It is possible there are structures buried
under the surface of Mars, especially as it's a desert.
But this just seems very farfetched to me
and I think this is something else.
(hollow drone) (metallic dings)
- [Tony] So what are we hearing on Mars's surface here?
NASA geologist Dr. Bob Anderson,
who actually works on the Mars missions, has a theory.
He thinks the sound was made
by NASA's InSight Mars Lander itself.
- Because of the high technology of the seismometer,
that's what we're actually picking up here.
The vibration of the arm moving, wind blowing the sand around,
the vibration of those particles pushing across the soil.
That's what you're hearing in this recording.
(hollow drone) (metallic dings)
(ominous music)
- Our verdict, wind
and the movement of the spacecraft itself.
While this NASA mission has provided great data
for scientists and even greater fodder for ufologists,
it is expected to cease functioning
by the end of the year,
but not us.
We'll keep an eye and an ear and a seismometer out
for any more Martian discoveries.
- Brain surgery is famously complicated, right?
Something only modern science could pull off.
But as you're about to see,
it looks like some ancient societies
may have something to teach us about how to operate in here.
It's February 2022 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
The Museum of Osteology, also known as the Bones Museum,
makes a post about one of its newest artifacts
and the photo of it has the comments section going wild.
The image shows an elongated skull
with a strange metal implant embedded inside it.
The skull found in Peru appears to be human,
but the odd stretched out shape of the bulbous cranial bones
could suggest otherwise.
The implant itself is coarse and bumpy
and is clearly not an organic part of the skeleton.
It appears to be composed of two parts,
an eye-like shape on top and a circle at the bottom.
Forensic anthropologist Dr. John Verano,
who studies prehistoric skulls like this for a living,
was stumped when he first saw this image.
- I've never seen anything like this.
I looked at it and I said,
"Well, it doesn't look genuine to me."
- [Tony] Though this implant is rare, perhaps unique,
author Heidi Hollis says There's a long history
of elongated skulls in Peru.
- For us to be able to find elongated skulls,
that's not the rare element here.
Finding an elongated skull with a metal plate in it,
now that takes the cake.
- [Tony] Peruvian archeologist Julio Teo
discovered hundreds of elongated cone-shaped skulls
buried in the Paracas region in the late 1920s.
And Hollis notes that their surprising appearance
makes some wonder if they could have extraterrestrial origins.
- In pop culture,
we often do see aliens as being portrayed
as having an elongated skull.
From the popular Aliens movies
to the gray aliens witnessed by people
said to be abducted by alien beings.
- [Tony] Recent genetic testing of the Peruvian skulls
apparently found they had mitochondrial DNA
with mutations unknown to any human or animal on earth.
And the metal in the skull adds another bizarre dimension.
- It's highly unusual to see such perfection done
on something so ancient, how and who did this?
- [Tony] We often associate metallic objects
with electronics,
so maybe the skull implanted some sort of microchip
or in this case, macrochip,
for aliens to communicate with their home planet.
We know people microchip their pets
to help locate them when they go missing.
In the case of dogs and cats,
a device the size of a grain of rice is implanted
just under the skin over the shoulder blades.
Could this cranial implant actually track aliens?
Does it reveal other ancient secrets?
Or is this just one big hoax taking us all for wild ride?
Let's ask the experts.
(ominous music)
We turn first to anthropologist Kathy Strain
to disentangle fact from fiction.
- There have been a lot of known hoaxes in archeology
in particular with Peruvian skulls,
crystal skulls that were found all over the world
that were said to have been made by alien technology.
Those were fakes.
We know that they were cut by a jeweler's equipment
and so it's always possible that something can be hoaxed.
- [Tony] But Strain says there's reason to believe
the skull is authentic.
- We can see every element of what a human skull looks like.
That is not easy to hoax, 'cause bone is bone.
We can also date this using radiocarbon
and so that would tell us for certain
that it is 2,000 years old.
- [Tony] So since this skull seems to be real,
could it actually belong to an ancient alien
who visited Earth from another planet?
Archeologist Dr. Ed Barnhart says
that though we associate elongated skulls with aliens,
there's historical evidence that they are in fact human.
- This shows what we call cranial deformation
and that means that probably when this individual
was very young, boards were strapped to the skull
so that it would elongate and change the shape of the skull.
It was very prevalent in South America
where this skull is believed to have come from.
- [Tony] Barnhart says it was generally people of elite status
from Andean cultures like the Paracas
who underwent this practice.
Yet we know some people who claim they've been abducted
by aliens who say they had metal devices
implanted into their bodies.
So maybe these are actually alien implants
into human abductees who've undergone skull elongation.
Or is it possible these South Americans
were able to also carry out
other complex skull modifications like this?
- We have found other skulls
that have what we call trepanation and repairs to them.
Trepanation is the practice of drilling
or removing bone from a head that has undergone trauma.
We know we still use this today.
Roy from Siegfried & Roy,
after he was attacked by the tiger,
had to have this done because his brain swelled.
- [Tony] Strain says a recent amazing discovery in Peru
in late 2021 may solve the riddle.
These are obsidian surgical tools
found in what's believed to be a doctor's grave.
Strain says this proves ancient South Americans
actually had the know-how
to perform this dangerous procedure.
Yet even though trepanation is a recognized ancient practice,
John Verano still isn't convinced
this implant is authentic
since he's never seen metal like this from that time.
- If this skull with its metal implant is genuine
and if it really reflects surgery and implant,
of course it would be a significant historic discovery.
But given that it that it doesn't look like
anything I've ever seen in metallurgy in the Andes,
that's why I have my doubts.
- [Tony] So while John leans toward this being a hoax,
there's plenty of other evidence
to suggest this is the 2,000 year old skull
of a human who survived a life-threatening surgery.
(ominous music)
Our verdict, this skull is most likely
an example of ancient trepanation,
but until the skull is radiocarbon dated
to confirm its age,
concluding with absolute certainty that this artifact
is authentic would be...
getting a head of ourselves.
- You may have heard or said the famous phrase,
"The sky is falling,"
which comes from a fable about a chicken
who believes the sky is collapsing
when an acorn hits him on the head,
but can the sky actually fall?
Watch this before you answer.
December 2018.
It's a hot day in the western Australian
town of Kalgoorlie.
(ominous music)
As storm clouds begin to gather on the horizon,
Leigh Stevens aims his camera at the menacing
skies before him.
Then suddenly out of nowhere, he sees this,
an eerie, green specter appears in the clouds.
It's slightly curved, almost like a crescent moon
with a small spike towards one end.
One thing is for sure,
it's nothing like Leigh has ever seen before.
- It was quite a night, lot of lightning and thunder around.
I was like, "Oh, wow, look at that."
And I'd looked into the phone and we saw the green light
and we stood there watching it
and it was changing shapes and things.
- [Tony] But while many would assume lights in the sky
during a storm is the work of mother nature,
according to writer Erin McCarthy,
it's odd shape and pointed edges lead many to believe
it's a glitch in the matrix.
- It's a very old idea
that perhaps reality is not reality.
That we are actually living in a computer simulation
that's run by a more advanced civilization than our own.
- [Tony] In 1965, Gordon Moore, the founder of Intel,
postulated that the speed and capability of computers
can be expected to double every two years.
Now picture human civilization millions of years in the future
with computer processing power beyond anything we can imagine.
What if they created a massive simulation
to study their ancestors and that sim is us?
Our now is actually far in the future
and we are simply pixels in a program.
Well, as with our own computer programs today,
sometimes there's a bug.
Could this strange anomaly in the sky be proof
of a glitch in a future civilization simulation?
(ominous music)
The idea that the world is actually an illusion
has been discussed in philosophy
and in cultures throughout history from ancient Greece
to Indian to the Aztecs.
In fact, it turns out some scientists
actually put the probability that we are in a simulation
at around 50/50.
So is this mysterious green anomaly evidence
of a computer sim gone wrong?
Or could there be other factors at play?
Our experts investigate.
(ominous music)
First, we go to meteorologist Juan Hernandez.
Is it possible the weather that day
is responsible for this ominous green light?
- The weather conditions during the thunderstorms,
they were quite chaotic.
We had wind speeds in excess of about 70 miles an hour
when these thunderstorms were coming through.
Now this here is fairly static.
We don't see any wiggle or any flashes.
- [Tony] So then are we looking at a different kind
of atmospheric phenomenon?
Could this be the southern hemisphere's version
of the Aurora Borealis?
- When looking at the Southern lights, everything is moving.
It's not stationary.
It looks like flying ribbons in the sky
and that's just not what we see here.
This is a static light or a static net.
- [Tony] If natural explanations can be discounted,
then could we really be living
in an advanced computer simulation?
- Well, to be fair, we can't discount any theory.
However, I believe that applications of science
can tell us what we're seeing.
- [Tony] Instead of computers controlling a simulation,
D'Antonio begins by exploring the idea of computers
controlling light.
- Early in my analysis I thought,
could this be a green laser pointing into the sky
and playing back and forth?
Trouble was the projection of the laser
isn't gonna work that way on these soft clouds
and you won't get these hard edges.
You'll get more of a diffused glow.
- [Tony] But as D'Antonio digs deeper,
he does find a very telling clue in the footage.
- I noticed that like this tree and everything,
if you watch boom, goes out of focus right there.
Just as soon as that shows up.
To me the evidence takes us more toward
an ordinary water drop on the camera.
We're looking at a hotspot point source
that's refracting light off of the water drop on the camera,
and that's what we see here.
In this reflection, the camera is saturated
by this bright light out here.
And so we're getting a reflection.
I think that he was really excited by the thunderstorm
that he was recording and then he saw the object in the sky.
He's like, "Whoa, look at that. That's cool."
You know, probably didn't realize
that he had water on his lens.
(ominous music)
- Our verdict, we're going with a water droplet on the lens.
We think D'Antonio's observation that the bottom
of the picture loses focus at the same time
the anomaly occurs is the key.
But hey, it's not every day that a simple explanation
leads to such spectacular video.
And that's our show for tonight.
Thank you so much for watching.
Please send us any videos you'd like us to investigate
and remember to keep those cameras rolling
and those lenses clean.
(dramatic theme music)