- Tonight on "The Proof Is Out There."
This man says he recorded a UFO and its pilots.
- [Tony] Strange lights spotted in North Carolina
since before the Civil War,
and no one can explain them.
- Soldiers from the Civil War
were killed during a battle near the mountains
and what we see are their ghosts.
- [Tony] Don't step on that. It might be an alien corpse.
- Talk about weird.
This is one of the strangest things I've ever seen.
- [Tony] And who or what turned these animals to stone?
- It seemed like they were frozen
in mid-motion of living their lives.
(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.
(electric 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
strangest 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."
Our first story tonight is being called
a critical turning point in UFO studies in the Middle East.
For millennia, Turkey has been a bridge between cultures,
a crossroads between Europe and Asia.
But as you're about to see,
it might also have been the meeting point
between human civilization and extraterrestrial life.
It's May 13th, 2009,
and night owl Yalcin Yalman is stargazing
in the suburbs of Istanbul, Turkey.
Shortly after 3:00 a.m.,
something strange appears in the sky over
the Sea of Marmara.
Yalcin immediately grabs his Canon MiniDV camera,
a videotape, and records this.
It appears to be some sort of saucer-shaped craft.
It's hovering silently for half an hour,
about a mile away and 500 feet above the sea.
But watch what happens when Yalcin zooms in.
Do you see that?
Now take a look at the footage when we zoomed in
and cleaned it up for you to get a better look.
Yalcin says that what you are seeing here
is a cockpit window.
And there inside the alleged craft,
he's saying you can see two aliens piloting this thing.
Right here and right here.
Yalcin is sure he's made contact.
In fact, he claims it's been happening for years.
- [Tony] For millennia, strange things
have been reported in the skies over Turkey.
In 74 BC during a battle between Greek and Roman armies,
thousands of soldiers witnessed
a flaming object of molten silver shaped like a wine jar
flying above them.
And according to Cydonia Institute director George Haas,
Yalcin's video is just one of many recent sightings.
- In 2016, Turkish air pilots reported that
they saw a UFO go over their plane with green lights.
The pilots say they saw this UFO about 17,000 feet,
but the airport authorities reported that
they had no evidence on their radar of any of the sightings
that the pilots saw.
- [Tony] Now we've never seen a window on a UFO before.
Yalcin's cockpit aliens appear to be a unique phenomenon
and one the Turkish government has taken very seriously.
- [George] The Turkish government came back
and said that this is authentic
and this spacecraft is nothing to do with
any military programs or anything.
So this could be extraterrestrial.
- UFOs are such a hot topic in Turkey that in 2001,
a museum opened in Istanbul containing various photos,
videos, reports, models,
and even a library about UFOs and extraterrestrial life.
But are we ready to add this video to the collection?
Our experts take a deeper dive into the footage.
(tense music)
We begin with forensic video investigator Michael Primeau.
- We always look to the metadata first.
And this block-like pixelation,
this is an indication that
excessive amounts of compression were applied
to these pixel areas.
But I don't detect any evidence of this program
interacting with something that would introduce CGI.
There's no indication that
they were trying to deceive or mislead.
- [Tony] So if it doesn't appear we have a doctored video,
has Yalcin really been dealing with aliens?
We take that question to astronomer
and video effects designer Marc D'Antonio.
- Back in 2009, we didn't have the cameras we have today.
He's zooming in on it all the way.
And in my view,
I don't think that you're gonna be able to see anybody
in a craft like that.
That's like saying if you zoom in on an airliner going by,
can you see people looking out of the windows?
And the answer is no,
'cause the windows are still too small.
- [Tony] So what does aviation expert Tim McMillan think?
Turkey is a NATO member
and has the second largest army in the organization.
So is it possible this could be an experimental aircraft?
- This is a particular area where
you do have military drills.
And in fact, NATO holds different annual drills
that simulating wartime environments.
However, all of the telltale signs of aircraft,
as we know them,
are really kind of thrown out of the window.
We definitely don't have any aircraft that are lenticular
or saucer shape.
Beyond that, if it's gonna be an aircraft,
you're gonna hear something.
Whether it's the jet engines of a plane
or that rotor or thunder of a helicopter.
And in this case,
the individual said he didn't hear anything
while filming it.
- [Tony] So what else could this be? McMillan has a theory.
- Whenever you're filming something over water,
especially at a great distance,
there can be some weird illusions
that can make things look extremely unusual,
including ships that appear to float on the horizon and air,
which is just an optical illusion.
And so could we be looking at fishing vessels
that are on the horizon,
forming the top half of our dome-shaped craft?
And the reflection of the lights in those vessels
coming in onto the water surface at the horizon,
suddenly makes that nice saucer shape.
And in fact,
can it deceptively make it appear like it's in the sky?
- [Tony] Here's the problem though.
Those optical illusions, often known as Fata Morgana,
are typically seen lower over the horizon
than where Yalcin was pointing his camera.
- It's a case that's been around for a long time.
That doesn't mean it's true,
it just means it's not solved yet.
(tense music)
- Our verdict?
We're going to classify it as a genuine UFO.
Our experts make good points
and we'll agree that those images in the windows
probably aren't alien space pilots.
But that doesn't mean we can identify
what this thing actually is
until we get more definitive evidence.
Now from the ancient world to the modern world.
For more than a century,
people have reported seeing mysterious lights
over North Carolina's Brown Mountain.
But despite thousands of sightings
and at least a dozen theories on the possible cause,
to this day, no one has figured out what they are
or if they're even real.
Our next video may finally provide the proof
we've been seeking.
It's July 2016 in the Pisgah National Forest
in Western North Carolina.
Two astronomy grade cameras have been installed by
Appalachian State University astrophysicist Dr. Dan Caton
to observe the Brown Mountain ridge every night.
And now they seem to have captured something inexplicable.
Anomalous white lights blink on
sporadically in the night sky high above the ridge
and over the street lights down in the town.
In the span of about 20 minutes,
they appear at least four times.
Dan says when he played back this footage, he was amazed.
- This video stood out in that
it had something that was obviously different,
but we had a light here that persisted over 20 minutes,
came and went, had no lateral motion sideways,
had no up-down motion.
These claims of paranormal, they deserve investigation.
- [Tony] Although accounts of the mysterious lights
go back many years,
the first published article about them
only came out in 1912.
Around this time there were frequent reports of sightings
from a spot near a local hotel in the mountains.
Journalist MJ Banias says,
"The reports had reached such a fever pitch by 1922
that the US Geological Survey decided to investigate."
- People claim that what we're seeing here is
a phenomenon known as ball lightning.
You have static electricity,
just like you do with a regular lightning strike,
except instead of it arcing into a sort of line,
it balls up and and it sort of hovers temporarily.
- [Tony] Others though,
believe the Brown Mountain lights have a spookier source.
- There's a school of belief that
the Brown Mountain lights are actually
some sort of manifestation of spirits or ghosts.
There's claims that soldiers from the Civil War
were killed during a battle near the mountains
and what we see are their ghosts carrying lanterns at night.
- Another theory that's been floated is train headlights.
In 1913, a USGS investigator found that
Southern Railway trains could be seen from Brown Mountain
and that many reported sightings
lined up with the train schedule.
But this idea was flushed out
after the tracks washed away in a 1916 flood
and the sightings continued.
So will our experts finally be the ones
to get to the bottom of this centuries-old mystery?
(tense music)
Physicist Dr. Matthew Szydagis
explores the ball lightning hypothesis.
- We don't understand from a scientific perspective
how ball lightning could form.
We have a series of equations in physics
known as Maxwell's Equations.
Maxwell's Equations tell us how to make predictions
for how electrical phenomena behave.
Unfortunately, Maxwell's equations don't give us
something that look like ball lightning.
- [Tony] These four complex equations
are named after Scottish physicist and mathematician,
James Clerk Maxwell,
who came up with an early version of them in the 1860s.
Based on the equations,
the size of ball lightning's electric charge
would be too great for it to move as observed here.
So could the lights just be coming from a plane?
- When the light shows up,
it looks sort of like a floating, hovering ball.
You know it's not a plane.
A plane that has blinking lights,
is traveling through the frame,
is gonna make a long drawn out line.
- [Tony] But what if it could be
a reflection of a light on the ground,
as we discussed before in the case of the Turkish UFO?
Since we keep mentioning the Fata Morgana phenomenon,
here's how it works.
It occurs when the temperature of the air
below the line of sight is colder than the air above.
This causes light rays passing through to bend down,
making the image of the object appear higher
than the actual object.
- This is an illusion that occurs near the horizon
and we see lights that are significantly above the horizon.
(tense music)
- The high altitude of the lights
doesn't seem to make much sense for the Fata Morgana theory
and the conditions need to be just right
to create such an illusion.
This is seen with such frequency,
we're going to rule that explanation out.
Therefore, our verdict is that
the Brown Mountain lights remain unexplained.
Hopefully, with continuing research,
we will someday crack the code.
- Imagine you're driving down a country road
when off to your right-hand side,
what looks like a giant snow globe suddenly appears.
Well, our next video certainly had one driver
baffled by this winter wonderland.
It's winter 2017 in Russia's Leningrad Oblast.
A local man is driving through the snowy landscape
when something strange catches his eye.
He quickly takes out his cell phone
while navigating the icy roads
and captures a sight that sends the internet into a tizzy.
His footage shows glimpses through the trees of
a far off orb glowing in the middle of a snow-covered field.
From a distance, the luminous ball looks enormous
and seems to be changing colors from light blue to pink.
Cyrillic writing scrolls across its translucent surface.
When he drives away a few moments later,
you can see him pass a mile marker on the side of the road.
Science writer Amy Teitel says
the location of this object is rather surprising.
- What's really weird about it is that
there's nothing else around.
You can't see a village.
It doesn't look like
this is some kind of observatory or something.
It looks like there's nothing near it
but this giant glowing orb.
- [Tony] Since the days of the Cold War,
new weapons systems have often been tested
in remote locations
to keep secret advancements in technology from prying eyes.
So Teitel says we may be witnessing a covert arms test.
- The Russians developed a host of new technologies
during the Cold War,
many of which were extremely futuristic
and far-fetched feeling at the time.
Things like ape men or two-headed dogs.
So some people wonder if this isn't
some kind of new-fangled Russian experiment
that's just too big to be in a lab.
- [Tony] Some speculate this video could even be evidence
that Russia or some other unknown group is developing
one of the most dangerous theoretical technologies of all,
the Dyson sphere.
- A Dyson sphere is a theoretical way of
gaining power from a star.
The idea of finding a Dyson sphere is
theoretically finding an alien life form or an alien race
that's using the power from a star to generate itself.
So some people wonder if this isn't
some kind of man-made Dyson sphere
and around it is this swarm of Russian-made craft
that is using that energy source as power.
- So some suggest this glowing orb
could be the secret prototype of a Dyson sphere-like technology.
But the fact that we see Russian writing
and other imagery flashing across its surface
does seem to be a bit suspicious.
It's a truly bizarre object that
the driver doesn't seem to recognize.
So what exactly is this and where did it come from?
Let's let our experts investigate.
(tense music)
Forensic video analyst Mick West examines whether
this video could just be a full-blown fake made with CGI.
- If you go through frame by frame,
whenever the scene moves,
the object seems to move in the exact same way.
When they zoom in, it seems to be the same size
or the same rate as the foreground and the background.
Other than it being low resolution,
there's no actual indications that it's fake.
- [Tony] So since this video is authentic,
could it actually be revealing some powerful new technology
or Dyson sphere-like weapon?
- By definition, a Dyson sphere is something that is
hundreds of millions of miles across.
The only energy source I can think of
that would be worth putting
a sphere around at this small of a scale is
a small scale black hole.
- [Tony] Black holes can theoretically
be created on Earth,
though most scientists think we'll never have the tech
to achieve this.
And there's a hitch.
- A black hole that would be the size necessary
to make this sphere so small would be harmless
because it would just evaporate
through a process known as Hawking radiation.
- [Tony] Hawking radiation is
a theoretical thermal radiation emitted by a black hole
that reduces the mass and energy
at which the black hole rotates.
The smaller the black hole,
the hotter it glows and the more radiation it releases.
So if we eliminate that theory,
could this be some other sort of weapon system?
- If this was some kind of testing ground
for secret military weapons,
you wouldn't expect to see an empty field.
You would see things like towers.
You would see security.
You would see fences.
No one's going to be testing secret military technology
by the side of the road,
where anybody driving by can see it.
- [Tony] So it seems this isn't
some sort of covert weapons test.
Then could this simply be an elaborate art installation?
We've seen those before.
Remember the so-called alien monolith we investigated?
- It could be that someone had just built a work of art
and they thought, "Oh, I'll stick it in this field."
But when he zooms in, we see some kind of text.
It's in Cyrillic, it's in Russian.
We see it says bank.
So this is actually the Bank of Russia.
What we're looking at here is
actually not an art installation,
but a commercial installation.
- This appears to be a billboard.
However, what we see here is the sign on the road,
which tells us that
the individual is 54 kilometers from St. Petersburg.
Guess what happens to be
54 kilometers from St. Petersburg?
The Igora Sports Complex,
which just so happens to be a giant glowing ball.
This is a sports complex primarily for car racing.
(tense music)
- Our verdict?
This is a manmade multimedia sphere project
at the Igora Resort outside St. Petersburg.
Further research reveals
it was installed by a Chinese facade lighting company
in September 2016,
and features 100,000 LED pixel lights.
- You probably wouldn't think it,
but Norway is quickly becoming a hotspot
when it comes to unexplained phenomena.
In an earlier episode,
we showed you the unsolved mystery of the Hessdalen Lights.
But now another strange anomaly
has been spotted in Norwegian skies.
Wait until you see this.
February 2022, Alta, Norway.
It's a clear afternoon in this quiet town,
240 miles north of the Arctic Circle.
A man is sitting in his car
when he spots something unusual moving on the horizon
and decides to record it.
A bright white object is streaking across the sky.
But take a closer look.
It appears to be circular on one end
with a small pointed tail on the other.
Then just a few miles away,
a car dash cam also captured the strange white anomaly.
While some may believe this is a UFO,
according to journalist MJ Banias,
this sighting has the hallmarks of an unusual
50 year old event known as the Great Daylight Fireball.
- In August of 1972, people reported seeing
a very large bright fireball in the sky.
Many speculated that it was some sort of comet
or meteorite or perhaps a piece of space debris
that entered Earth's atmosphere.
- [Tony] But Banias also notes a key difference.
- [Banias] The fireball in the Utah incident
left a long contrail.
The tail of whatever this object is is quite short.
It doesn't leave a line of smoke behind it.
- [Tony] And that clue has led observers to another theory.
- Norway is home to the Andoya Test Center,
which is used by multiple countries
to launch and test various new weapons
and missiles that are in development.
- [Tony] But some fear it's a test
from a far more hostile actor.
- [Banias] The Russians have made the claim that
they actually used a hypersonic missile
to take out a Ukrainian arms depot in March 2022.
But there's no verifiable intelligence that confirms it.
- [Tony] Hypersonic missiles are a breakthrough technology
that travel very fast and very low,
making them nearly impossible to detect
until they're about to hit their targets.
Might the Russians have been testing one nearby?
Now, supersonic means faster than the speed of sound,
which is 761 miles per hour at sea level.
But hypersonic?
That is five times faster. Over 3,800 miles per hour.
What could be traveling that fast?
Are we seeing leftovers
from the formation of our solar system
or possibly the latest game-changing
military technology?
Let's see what our experts have to say.
(tense music)
We begin with video forensic analyst Michael Primeau.
Is this video even legit?
- When authenticating evidence, the most reliable approach is to
collect a known sample from the device
and perform what's called a CRP test
to make determinations about whether or not
that particular video came from that particular device.
I requested a reference sample be provided from the operator
and we were able to verify that
the video can be considered authentic.
- [Tony] If it's real, then what could it be?
- I think we're not looking at any kind of aircraft,
whether it be commercial or any type of passenger aircraft
or drone or military.
It's traveling too fast,
but also there's obviously no discernible features.
There's no wings, there's no tail section.
- [Tony] So if it's not a terrestrial craft,
is it from space?
- If let's say there was a satellite
reentering the Earth's atmosphere
because it was defunct and no longer operational,
you might see a breakup.
- [Tony] Today there are about 5,000 satellites
orbiting the Earth,
and it's estimated about 300 objects in orbit
fall back to Earth and burn up each year.
But D'Antonio doesn't see one telltale sign in the video.
- There's so many appendages.
Solar panels, a satellite would be basically
leaving parts behind through the entire process of reentry.
You would see a long trail of debris
as it was reentering the Earth's atmosphere.
- [Tony] But satellites aren't the only things
that fall to Earth.
Could we be seeing an event like
the Great Daylight Fireball in 1972?
- It's a very flat trajectory.
That to me is consistent with a hypersonic missile.
In particular the speed,
the fact that it is moving within the Earth's atmosphere,
is traveling in a straight line,
all consistent with a hypersonic missile.
- [Tony] There are two main types of hypersonic missiles,
hypersonic cruise missiles,
which are boosted by a rocket to hypersonic speed
and then use an air breathing engine called a scram jet
to sustain that speed.
And hypersonic gliding vehicles,
which are launched from a rocket
but then glide into their target.
If that's what this is,
it's a rare video of a new and deadly weapon.
- Another clue is towards the end of the video
when you see that separation,
it appears to be using a booster
to make it travel extremely fast.
But I did searches and was unable to find any recognized
or declared hypersonic missile test
or frankly any missile test in the area.
So if we're looking at a missile test,
we're looking at something that was done in secret.
(tense music)
- Our verdict?
We're going with hypersonic missile test.
We think McMillan's observations are a close match
to what we see in the visual evidence.
But for sure there are some lingering questions
that need answering.
Like, who fired it? Us or them?
With the political situation in the world today,
there doesn't seem to be any doubt
this is something we're going to be seeing a lot more of.
- We brought you stories of strange creatures
suspected of being alien corpses before.
They've turned up in Charleston, South Carolina,
Russia's Alma region and elsewhere.
So when we saw evidence of another mysterious case,
this time from down under,
we felt it was our duty to investigate.
March 2nd, 2022,
it's morning in the suburb of Marrickville,
just outside Sydney, Australia.
After days of intense rainstorms,
a jogger is enjoying a break in the weather to take a run
when something unusual on the ground
suddenly catches his eye.
It appears to be an oval-shaped creature,
perhaps two inches long.
Take a closer look.
Is that an eye and a tail?
Whatever it is, it not only surprised the jogger,
but researcher Ken Gerhard as well.
- I don't see any scales.
I certainly don't see any hair.
It almost has kind of a gelatinous look to it.
It's kind of slimy, kind of pale gray or silver.
- [Tony] In fact, as farfetched as it seems,
the gray nature and fetal form of this creature
has some on social media theorizing
this could be the remains of a developing alien life form.
- Perhaps the last time
an alleged alien baby made news headlines was in 1996
in the Ural Mountains of Russia.
Referred to as the Kyshtym Dwarf,
there was a strange humanoid creature
that was found by a local woman,
was only about 10 inches long.
To this day, many of the villagers
in this particular region
still wonder whether it was in fact
some type of alien creature.
- [Tony] We analyzed the Kyshtym footage
in an earlier episode,
and now with this strange life form,
could there be a link between these mysterious creatures
appearing around the world?
In 1961, astronomer and physicist Frank Drake
proposed what's been called the Drake Equation
as a way to come up with a mathematical formula to estimate
how many other alien civilizations are out there.
Looking at this,
I don't think there's any question that it appears to be
some sort of early stage life form.
But what and is it alien?
Let's ask the experts.
(tense music)
We begin with marine biologist, Dr. Shea Conger.
- People might think this looks a bit alien
because it's kind of gray,
it doesn't look like it has skin or scales,
but I don't think that's what we're seeing here.
It looks like it almost might be
something like a squid or octopus.
- [Tony] Okay, so Dr. Conger thinks we've got
an earthly organism here,
but wait a minute,
why would a fetal squid or octopus be on the road?
It could be a phenomenon called animal rain.
- These animal rains tend to happen in coastal environments
where there's a lot of dynamic weather.
- [Tony] How would that even be possible?
We take that question to meteorologist Juan Hernandez.
- The weather conditions across Australia
were very rare for this time of the year.
That led to above normal rainfall.
In addition to tropical cyclones across the region.
- [Tony] Hernandez explains that
the severe weather could have led to a cyclone effect
known as a water spout.
- The updraft speeds of water spouts
oftentimes exceeds 20 miles an hour.
Given the radar data that we have from that day in Sydney,
it is possible that this organism was picked up
and deposited somewhere else due to water spouts.
But another explanation is birds.
Birds have come around,
picked up the animal from the water,
and as they're flying, drop the animal somewhere else.
But since there is no obvious injury to this creature,
it more than likely did not come from
a high distance in the sky.
- [Tony] And on closer examination,
Conger makes an important discovery.
She believes whatever this is,
it didn't come from the ocean.
- I can tell that
this long tail-like appendage is actually likely
an embryonic notochord.
The notochord is the predecessor to the spine.
We all have this in the womb.
In addition, these kind of ridges that we see here
to me look a lot like gill slits,
and that's another interesting aspect of mammal evolution.
Mammals in the womb as embryos actually have gill slits
as a remnant of our history beginning as aquatic fish.
So I think this is actually a terrestrial organism,
it's just at a very early stage of development.
If I had to guess,
I would say this is probably a marsupial embryo,
maybe something like a possum,
especially because this is in Australia,
which really is the land of marsupials.
Marsupials don't develop fully in the womb.
At some point, they actually migrate from the womb
to the maternal pouch of the mother
and continue development there.
So it's biologically possible that
something could have gone wrong
during the early development of this animal.
So instead of ending up in the marsupial pouch, for example,
it ended up in an unnatural environment.
- [Tony] But how did it get here?
Hernandez may discount the animal rain theory,
but he still believes Mother Nature played a role.
- The atypical weather conditions
that we saw around Sydney
contributed to significant flash flooding.
And it's possible that this particular organism
lived somewhere far away from Sydney
and was deposited in the Sydney area due to flash flooding.
(tense music)
- Our verdict?
We're going with a possum embryo.
It seems to us both Hernandez
and Congers takes on what it is and how it got there add up.
And unfortunately, due to climate change,
it also seems that Australia will see more
and more intense weather events
like the one that likely washed this creature
into the streets.
- Everyone is familiar with
the 5,000 year old marvel in Southern England
known as Stonehenge.
But would you believe there's another
even older megalithic site
that most people have never heard of?
And it's every bit as mysterious.
It's February 2022 outside the city of Evora in Portugal.
A man who's from out of town sightseeing
sets out to explore the area from a bird's eye view
with his drone.
His aerial video show a grouping of large gray boulders
in a clearing surrounded by trees.
The stones are arranged several rows thick
in an oblong oval shape.
Closer up photos from the ground show that
the boulders stand on end at various heights.
Journalist Eric Grundhauser says
this strange site is known as the Almendres Cromlech.
Cromlech means circles of stone,
and Almendres from the Portuguese word for almond,
referring to the stone's shape.
- This collection of some 93 standing rocks
is thought to predate Stonehenge by around 2,000 years.
So this Portuguese formation is actually much older
and much more mysterious.
- [Tony] It's believed that the main design of
the Almendres Cromlech was completed by about 5,000 BC.
That makes it more than 1,000 years older than
the Pyramids of Giza, Stonehenge,
and the earliest known permanent urban settlements on Earth.
Who could have built the structure and how?
- Without technology like the wheel,
moving these stones would've been near impossible
for normal humans.
- [Tony] It's believed that the first wheeled vehicle
wasn't even invented till at least 3,500 BC in Mesopotamia.
So the mystery about these stones deepens.
- [Eric] They're so heavy that it's hard to believe that
without some system involving wheels, pulleys,
that these stones would've been able
to be brought to standing.
- [Tony] Another strange thing.
The site had been forgotten for centuries.
It was only discovered back in 1964,
and there are no records to indicate what its purpose was.
Some wonder if it has some celestial significance.
- [Eric] These standing stones are arranged in such a way
as to align with the Sun, the Moon, the stars.
On the winter solstice,
the shadows that they cast
actually point directly to another standing stone
some two kilometers away.
- [Tony] Since some of the stones bear unusual carvings,
others suggest the Cromlech
might have served a more religious function.
Could a large flat stone found in the middle
have been used as an altar to carry out ritual sacrifices?
Recently, another standing stone structure
was discovered in Jordan that's thought to be even older
at an estimated 9,000 years old.
Believed to be a sacred site
used by a neolithic hunting group,
it doesn't have the astronomical precision of
the Portuguese site.
So is the Almendres Cromlech
the oldest known application of astronomy in the world?
If so,
where could this knowledge of the stars have come from?
Let's ask the experts.
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Anthropologist Kathy Strain says
it's likely these neolithic people achieved this huge feat
with some ingenuity and a lot of sheer willpower.
- It is theorized that they would take logs, use rope.
They've likely used their cattle to help pull the stones along.
After it gets off one log, you run it up to the front
to put it in front of that and so on.
- [Tony] Yet how were these prehistoric people
able to so precisely place these stones?
Did they have some secret celestial
or spiritual knowledge?
Most experts think
the alleged sacrificial altar is just a knocked over boulder
that's been chipped away at over time.
But archeologist Dr. Ed Barnhart believes
the stones could have had some ritual significance.
- Perhaps it's astronomer priests
who are watching the cycles of the heavens.
They were putting them in the ground
in an arrangement that was based on
watching the Sun rise and set over a year.
- [Tony] In addition to lining up with the solstice
on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes,
the Sun and Moon rise and set over exactly the same points
on the monument's axis.
And Barnhart says this configuration
may have served a very practical purpose.
- [Ed] Once you are a farmer,
you've gotta know when to plant and when to harvest
and when to do it again.
That's that cycle.
So these stones acknowledging the solar year
are at least related to agriculture.
- [Tony] Moving from a nomadic existence
to a more sedentary one
allowed people to observe the cycles more precisely.
And interestingly,
it's one of several sites throughout Europe.
And though Barnhart says they were probably for farming,
they also might be early art.
- They go from the Netherlands
all the way down into the Mediterranean.
I think that these stones
are early man's attempt at immortality.
People said, let's do something so amazing
that people, well after we're dead,
will remember it and admire it.
But what they called themselves? It's hidden to history.
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- Our verdict?
These images likely show a celestial calendar,
a sort of giant sundial for seasons
rather than times of the day.
Whether its purpose was astrological, agricultural,
or simply artistic is lost to time.
- We know that water sustains life.
But can H2O also be a harbinger of death?
One photographer seems to have found
some compelling evidence that suggests it might.
It's 2010 near Lake Natron in Northern Tanzania.
A British photographer travels to the lake,
with camera in hand,
and is instantly taken aback by what he encounters.
From his photos, you might think that
these are pieces of artwork,
maybe even wicker creations,
but these are real animals seemingly petrified in place.
A frozen flamingo floats on the water
while a stock-still songbird perches on a branch.
Author Heidi Hollis says these photos are so chilling
that they became an internet sensation.
- It seemed like they were frozen
in mid-motion of living their lives.
So it was really just disturbing
and really heartbreaking to see.
- [Tony] The animals in these photographs
definitely look like they could have encountered
the ancient Greek monster Medusa,
who turned all who gazed upon her to stone.
But there's another theory that hits a bit closer to home.
- In that area,
there is the legend of Popobawa,
which is a bat-like demonic creature that would come
and paralyze people in their sleep.
And there are many who are suspicious
that Popobawa is responsible for
killing the animals here at Lake Natron.
- [Tony] There's also a more natural theory about
what brought these animals down.
Some say the red color of the lake seen in some footage
is evidence of toxic algae that is killing the creatures.
What's most curious about Lake Natron is that
it doesn't appear to be deadly to all animals.
In fact, 75% of the world's population of lesser flamingos
live in its lagoon.
So who or what happened to these unlucky animals
that seemingly froze them in place?
Could it be the legendary Popobawa after all?
We turn to our experts to investigate.
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Science writer Amy Teitel
considers the famous legend of Popobawa.
- According to legend, Popobawa only attack humans
with the goal of inspiring fear
spreading throughout humanity.
So for this demon to hypothetically attack an animal
is not how this myth goes.
- [Tony] So let's rule out these mythological beings.
Could there be a real life predator
that's causing these animals to freeze
at the moment of death?
Wildlife biologist Dr. Stephanie Schuttler
looks into this theory.
- There are animals that can essentially freeze their prey
by paralyzing them.
Snakes do this with a venom.
It breaks down different parts of the prey's body
and they can't move.
And there's the brown recluse spider.
When it bites you, it breaks down tissue.
But spiders and snakes,
they consume the prey that they kill,
so it's really strange that
we see the bodies of these animals largely intact.
- [Tony] So if it's not a predator,
could toxic red algae have killed these creatures?
Biologist Dr. Floyd Hayes investigates.
- Red tides occur in areas that are rich in nutrients.
They're caused by dinoflagellate algae,
which produce toxins and can kill organisms.
But organisms killed during red tides
are not preserved like this.
In fact, they quickly disintegrate.
- [Tony] Yet NASA geologist Dr. Bob Anderson
thinks the algal blooms may provide a clue.
- This is a lake that's associated with volcanism.
When you have these nearby volcanoes,
a lot of times they have these toxic type of gases in there.
These algaes are feeding off of the nutrients
that are coming from the volcano.
- [Tony] So toxins from volcanic gases or algal blooms
may be what's causing these deaths.
But then why aren't the animal remains decomposing?
- There are a number of lakes that have
high concentrations of natron in them
that have formed when large amounts of volcanic ash
cover the lake.
And as the water evaporates,
the sodium bicarbonate become concentrated.
The lake is extremely alkaline.
It has a pH of about 9 to 10.5.
- [Tony] And Anderson says
it's this high alkalinity that solves the mystery.
- This animal looks like he's been exposed
to this alkaline type of area.
Somehow they get covered up quickly from the water,
they're in the muds, and these muds are also very alkaline,
and so they actually act as a coating
and they mummified the thing.
- [Tony] Anderson says what the animal's body goes through
is also similar to petrification,
which turns organic material into fossils.
- What happens in this process is that water goes through
and as water is carrying minerals,
they take out an organic mineral
and replace it with a mineral like quartz
or something that's very hard.
(tense music)
- Our verdict?
So this is really pretty cool.
It turns out these animals are not actually petrified,
they're mummified.
The high alkalinity in the lake from sodium bicarbonate
is what causes this process.
But that still doesn't explain
why the creatures are perfectly frozen in place.
Well, we caught up with a photographer
and he admits he found them on shore
and then posed them like this
to achieve that haunting look in his photos.
And that's our show for tonight.
Thank you so much for watching.
Remember to keep those cameras rolling.
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