- Tonight, on "The Proof Is Out There."
Are UFOs hiding in the clouds?
- Whatever's in this photo is clearly unnatural.
- [Tony] Is Bigfoot hiding in Ohio?
- Tons of Bigfoot reports come out of this particular area.
- [Tony] Is there an ancient secret hiding
on this beach?
- [Martin] I've never in my life seen anything like that.
- [Tony] And on this medieval sword?
- You can almost feel the mystery
emanating from this blade.
(dramatic music)
- [Tony] Around the globe are videos.
- [Witness] What are those things?
- [Witness] It's moving.
- [Tony] Photos and sounds that defy explanation.
(electric buzzing)
- [Expert] We don't know where they come from,
who made them, or how they operate.
- [Tony] What are they?
- [MJ] Some sort of bizarre mutation.
- [Marc] What's exciting is nobody really knows.
- 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 music)
Good evening and welcome to "The Proof Is Out There."
UFOs are frequently reported to be hiding in or near clouds.
Case in point, last season we examined a 1971 photograph
of an alleged metallic disk nestled in the clouds
above Lake Cote, Costa Rica.
Our next story suggests that this is an ongoing trend.
February 14th, 2010, 45 miles southeast of Santiago, Chile,
a family of three arrives near the El Yeso Reservoir
for a Sunday picnic in the Andes.
It's a beautiful day,
so the mother takes 16 pictures of the valley
and the sky up above with her digital camera.
It isn't until they return home and review the photos
that she realizes what she's captured.
One of the photos shows the sun shining
in the middle of bright white clouds.
Above it to the left is a band of reddish clouds
and embedded within
is a seemingly massive saucer-shaped object.
The Chilean government reviewed the photos
and shared them with Ted Roe who runs the
National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena,
or NARCAP.
He conducted an exhaustive analysis of these photographs.
- The photograph contains an anomaly
in the upper left-hand quadrant.
You see the sun,
you see a fluffy layer of cumulus clouds,
and then behind them, you see a layer of reddish clouds.
And embedded in those clouds is what appears
to be part of a disk.
- [Tony] The lines you're seeing across
this photograph represents separate sections
the NARCAP analysts used to record light levels
in the photo and determine if the object was solid.
- You wanna understand how that light is distributed.
Looking at the red, green, and blue factors primarily
and studying the luminance of the object
and of the environment.
- [Tony] Each section is given a number value
and when that data was compared to the surrounding area,
here's what NARCAP concluded.
- This study resolves that this is, in fact,
an external anomaly.
It does not appear to be inserted in the photograph,
so we're left with an unidentified aerial phenomenon.
- [Tony] Journalist MJ Banias notes
that Chile is often mentioned
as the country with the highest recorded number
of UFO sightings.
UFO enthusiasts have even claimed this lagoon
that lies behind the mountains surrounding
the El Yeso Reservoir could be a UFO landing strip.
- We have countless other reports
of UFO-shaped clouds all over Chile.
There's reports out of Sobre, Maricunga,
and the Chilean Patagonia.
We also have a lot of reports of other UFO sightings
around the El Yeso Reservoir.
- [Tony] As for the photos showing
an alleged UFO in the clouds.
- There's the theory out there that UFOs
will hide in clouds or even generate clouds around them
to stay hidden from humans.
- In January 2023,
a similar UFO-shaped cloud shocked residents
of a city in Turkey.
It hung in the skies for over an hour.
What they captured here was a lenticular cloud,
which forms when air blows across tall structures
like a mountain range,
and causes vapor to condense
in these stunning, disk-like shapes.
So could the object seen in our Chilean photo
have a similar explanation or is it a genuine UFO?
(tense music)
First, are we actually looking at something
in the sky or something in the camera?
Astronomer and video effects designer Marc D'Antonio
has a theory that starts with those strange colors seen
in the sky.
- These are cirrus clouds.
They're ice crystals at high altitude
that form in the atmosphere,
and sometimes the way the sun hits them,
you get this beautiful prismatic effect.
And that's what we're seeing here, in my view.
Here's another thing.
If we divide the image in half,
we have the sun over here and the object over here,
and the distance from the center of frame
to that object is the same.
The likelihood is very small
that an object is gonna be exactly the same distance away
from the center of the frame as the sun,
unless you're a lens flare.
- [Tony] Lens flares that can take the form
of rings, spheres, starbursts, and other shapes
are caused when bright light hits the camera lens,
creating artifacts.
But meteorologist Juan Hernandez respectfully disagrees
with the lens flare theory.
- Although I'm not a photography expert,
it does not seem like we're looking at a camera artifact.
We have this odd, orange spot within the clouds.
I'm not exactly sure why that would appear in that location.
Oftentimes, camera artifacts might look like lines.
In this case, we see a blob in the middle of the clouds.
- [Tony] Hernandez explores the notion
that what we're seeing could be lenticular clouds,
which are commonly mistaken for UFOs.
- It's possible to have lenticular clouds in the Andes,
but only under certain conditions
and those conditions were not met this specific day.
We would be looking for more moisture in the air
and faster flow in the wind speed.
- [Tony] For Hernandez, it's the reddish hue
that's the biggest mystery.
- The likely explanation towards a reddish hue
to any cloud would be a setting sun.
We obviously don't have a setting sun.
It's the middle of the day.
- [Tony] Physicist Matthew Szydagis agrees with Hernandez
that this thing is, indeed, a thing.
- The photograph has been studied
by UFO experts looking for mundane explanations,
like nearby aircraft,
and they did come up empty for this day and time.
- [Tony] After carefully reviewing the NARCAP report,
Szydagis agrees with their findings.
- I agree with the conclusion of the NARCAP report,
which suggested that this object is truly unidentified.
So it's a genuine UFO.
That doesn't mean it's an alien spacecraft.
It's simply means we are unable to identify what it is.
(tense music)
- Well, there you have it.
We're calling this a genuine UFO.
While the Chilean government has yet to comment on the photo,
NARCAP has released their 23-page case report
to the public, and for more information,
you can visit narcap.org.
Now, we move from the skies of South America
to the forests of Middle America.
When you think of the Bigfoot's natural habitat,
you typically think of the Pacific Northwest,
but the video we're about to show you suggests
the big fella may have a Midwestern cousin prowling
the forests of the Buckeye State.
January 12th, 2020.
We're in Salt Fork State Park, Ohio.
Hiker Nathan Gray and a friend are armed
with cameras and drones to document their trek
through the woods when they make a startling discovery.
The rib cages of several large animals nestled
amongst the foliage.
- [Tony] The duo continues to explore the area
when suddenly, they spot this.
A creature, large and humanoid,
walking through the trees, unbothered by
or unaware of their presence.
Nathan manages to get his camera even closer
for a better look.
Zooming in, we can see the creature appears
to be covered in some type of hair or fur
with lighter, almost white hair, around the top of the head.
- We had no idea what it was.
It was just moseying on along
like it didn't have a care in the world.
- [Tony] Field researcher Cliff Barackman
is not at all surprised about where this footage was filmed.
- Tons of Bigfoot reports come out of this particular area.
Southeastern Ohio, in the area of Salt Fork State Park,
is a thick, wooded wilderness.
The Appalachian Mountains are no joke
and Ohio is pushed right up against them.
Anything out of Southeast Ohio
should be looked at very, very closely.
- [Tony] However, in this particular region of the U.S.,
the locals don't use the name Bigfoot.
They call it the Ohio Grassman,
based on the large dens it supposedly makes of grass,
and from its diet,
which reportedly consists mainly of tall grass
from Ohio fields.
- [Tony] One of the most infamous sightings was in 1978,
when a local family claimed to be haunted by a Grassman
that was later nicknamed the Minerva Monster.
- These people reported large, scary monsters.
They would actually stalk them in their home.
The family that was reporting these sightings believed
that the Sasquatch killed their German shepherd
by snapping its neck.
The police themselves came to the conclusion
that this was, in fact, a credible report
of something incredible happening.
- [Tony] That sort of violent behavior may explain
the bones Nathan and his friend found in the woods.
And while it doesn't explain the Grassman sightings
from decades ago,
Barackman says there may be another possible explanation
for what's in Nathan's video from 2020.
- One other theory that's been put forth is
that these animals are just normal animals
that are being misidentified after the Zanesville massacre.
- [Tony] In 2011, an exotic animal collector
released 50 animals into the Ohio woods,
including Bengal tigers, lions, cougars,
and even a baboon.
- But one of the animals
that was not killed is a baby grizzly bear.
Could this animal here be a survivor
of the Zanesville massacre?
- The chaos in Zanesville was a catalyst
for Ohio's exotic animal ownership laws
that went into effect in 2014,
which shut down any other potential Tiger Kings.
So is what we're seeing in the video a grizzly,
a Grassman, or something else?
Our experts are tracking the evidence.
(tense music)
Wildlife biologist Stephanie Manka dismisses the idea
this could be a surviving grizzly.
- If this really were a grizzly bear,
we would expect to have more reports
of fecal samples, bear claw marks,
some evidence that a bear is living in that area.
And this being looks really consistent
with a human in a costume.
- [Tony] Let's focus on this thing's arms for a moment.
Note that all apes have arms longer than their legs,
enabling better quadruped movement
and efficient brachiation,
the ability to swing between trees.
But according to anthropologist
and Sasquatch expert Jeff Meldrum,
we're not seeing anything like that here.
- We can see the upper limb is barely to the crotch.
That suggests human limb proportions.
And the head is kind of large, more like a hood.
It looks to me like someone in camo gear
with a hoodie and insulated pants and heavy boots on.
(tense music)
- Our verdict? It's a hoax.
Though you have to give the guys credit
for planting those animal bones.
Nice try, fellas.
te,
"No man is an island."
But what if an island could move like a man?
Take a close look at this next clip.
It's July 2021, near the Slingsby Channel
in British Columbia, Canada.
Storm chaser and explorer, George Kourounis,
is traveling in the area documenting his adventures.
- I was representing the Geographical Society of Canada
on a boat trip that was traveling around
the northern tip of Vancouver Island.
It's very remote.
Nobody lives there, there's no roads.
It's a wonderful piece of pristine wilderness.
- [Tony] As he makes his way along the channel,
he comes across a small island that seems
to have taken on a life of its own.
- [George] It was in the Nakwakto Rapids.
It has some of the fastest tidal flow in the world,
so the flow of the water changes direction
several times a day.
And while I'm filming,
I'm focusing in on the waves and the rocks.
- [Tony] George's video shows a view of the channel
with a small tree-covered islet in the middle.
But while the boat appears to float along very slowly,
the island rushes past it at an alarming clip.
- [George] The island appears to have broken loose
and is traveling upstream against the current.
- [Tony] George posts his video online
and everyone who views it joins in on his confusion.
- We know that islands don't move.
They don't float, they're not boats.
They're pieces of land
that are sticking up out of the water.
Why is this thing on the move?
- [Tony] But journalist Erin McCarthy says,
it's not the only island reported to be in motion.
- There's also El Ojo, or Eye Island in Argentina.
It's almost perfectly circular
and it constantly moves and rotates.
And according to some sources,
locals believe that the circle within a circle
is a representation of God on earth.
Other people theorize that it's actually covering up
a hidden, underwater alien base.
And that has led believers of this theory
to say that that's proof
that something otherworldly is at work here.
- [Tony] In addition to islands on the move,
there are others that have seemingly just disappeared.
Take the strange case of Bermeja,
an island that used to be off the coast of Mexico.
- Bermeja first began appearing on maps in 1539,
but in the late 1990s and as recently as 2009,
when people were out there looking into drilling rights,
it became really clear that Bermeja didn't actually exist.
There's a conspiracy theory that says the United States
or the CIA got rid of the island somehow
because if it existed, it would extend Mexico's territory.
- The mysterious moving island George caught on camera
is in the fearsome Nakwakto Tidal Rapids,
which churn at an intense 16 knots.
But could these tumultuous tides really be causing
the island to move?
Our experts weighed in.
(tense music)
This video is so bizarre at face value
that we asked forensic video analyst, Michael Primeau,
to examine if it's even real.
- It doesn't appear to be something
that was layered using alpha channeling
or green color keying.
It is something that is in the scene.
And we could even verify through testing
that this video came from that specific camera
through sample CRP testing from the sensor.
From what I've seen so far,
this recording appears to be authentic.
- [Tony] So then is it really possible for islands to move?
NASA geologist Dr. Bob Anderson says yes.
- There are a type of islands that we call tussocks.
They're found down in South America
where they're dominated by growth,
and these plants become so intertwined with each other
that they literally form a landmass
with water underneath of them.
They may not be stable in some areas to walk on,
but they are literally an island that can float.
- [Tony] El Ojo is in the middle of marshland,
so this is a likely explanation for that apparent landmass.
But is George's island, known as Turret Rock,
also a tussock?
Anderson says not so fast.
- If you look at a boat or a ship going down the water,
you're always going to have what's called a bow wave.
The wave is going to come up
and the boat is cutting through the water.
What you see here is not a bow wave,
it's actually a recessive wave.
And what that means is
that the water is literally coming around
and going down here.
- [Tony] So if what we're seeing here isn't a wake,
why does it look like this rocky mass is moving?
- We have to realize that the observer is moving
and the camera is moving.
Therefore, this thing is an optical illusion.
There are three things that you have to worry about.
One is the background trees,
two is the rock formation,
and three is the fact that you yourself are moving.
- [Tony] Kaku says this effect is known as motion parallax.
- Now if you're in a car and you're overtaking another car,
the car that you're overtaking goes backwards.
And you say to yourself, well, that's not possible.
How can a car go backwards on a freeway?
It's because the observer is moving
and you have the illusion that the observer is stationary.
- [Tony] And as you can see in this video
where the boat is stationary,
the same island does not appear to move.
- This parallax effect could trick the brain
into thinking that something else is going on,
because movement is where the mind focuses.
(tense music)
- Our verdict?
Turret Rock isn't actually moving.
It just appears to be because of the motion parallax effect.
As for the vanishing island of Bermeja,
it likely spawned from a map-making error.
But perhaps we'll never know if it really existed.
- Many
and legends of tree-human hybrids.
For example, the Jinmenju of Japanese mythology is a tree
that grows human heads as its fruit.
Are such stories just myth, or could it actually be possible
for a tree-human hybrid to exist?
Before you answer, take a look at this.
2007, Java, Indonesia.
American physician, Anthony Gaspari,
travels almost 10,000 miles to meet
and examine a new patient,
a 35-year-old carpenter who goes by Dede.
The images you're about to see may be disturbing.
- Really, the question that I had,
because it was so dramatic and there was so much deformity,
was this real or was this something that was staged?
- These photographs are truly astonishing.
This gentleman was given the name Tree Man
because of the growth all over his hands and feet.
They look like bark, essentially.
These patches extend over six inches out
from his fingers in all directions.
- [Tony] When Dr. Gaspari finally examines Dede,
he quickly realizes his condition is no hoax.
- [Anthony] He had difficulty moving.
And the first thing that he communicated to me
was that he wanted to get better.
And so we drew blood, we took specimens,
and we brought it back to the United States to be analyzed.
- [Tony] Soon, the whole world shares
the doctor's amazement.
Wild speculation erupts around what we're actually seeing.
- Some people on the internet speculated that
this person was half tree, half human,
like the dryad mythology,
where a spirit inhabits a tree and makes it move.
- [Tony] People also speculate
if it's an infectious condition that could spread.
- Some say that this growth reminds them
of the fungus made popular in a recent television program.
That fungus was based on cordyceps,
which is a fungus that grows on and inside of its host
and eventually takes over its nervous system
and kinda takes control of the animal,
turning them into a fungal-animal hybrid.
- There is certainly anecdotal evidence
of humans playing host to plant life.
In 2013, a 16-month-old girl in Beijing, China
had a fully developed dandelion growing in her ear
that had to be surgically removed.
But could some invasive species of vegetation
or a fungus live off a person on such a massive scale?
Let's see what our experts unearth.
(tense music)
We start by addressing the wildest speculation
that somehow Dede was becoming some sort of tree-human hybrid.
Anthropologist Kathy Strain is familiar
with the worldwide historical myths
surrounding these humanoid plant creatures,
but says it's a silly theory that contradicts science.
- Plants live on carbon dioxide.
They breathe it in and exhale oxygen.
Humans are the reverse.
We breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide.
And those two cannot be together in the same organism.
I do not believe that this photograph represents
a true human-plant hybrid.
- [Tony] Physician Ed Hope thinks basic genetics
support Strain's opinion.
- We share a staggering 50% of our genes with plants,
but even this isn't enough for us to produce a hybrid.
The animal with the closest common ancestor to humans
is the chimpanzee where we share 98.8% of our genes,
and still this isn't enough to produce a hybrid.
- [Tony] So if it's not genetically possible
for a person to transform into a plant-human hybrid
like in folklore,
could a disease or fungus, like cordyceps,
infect a human like in TV shows?
- You may have heard of cordyceps
within popular science fiction shows,
but thankfully for us, it only infects insects.
Cordyceps can't grow much above 80 degrees
and our bodies at 97 to 99 degrees are just too hot for it.
- [Tony] Okay, but if it's not a fungus,
could it be a plant growing on Dede,
like that dandelion in a little girl's ear?
- In order for tree bark to survive,
it has to have a leaf coming off of it
that can then take that sunlight for energy
and he has no root system
that can go into the ground in order to get water.
And so, over time, it would die and fall off.
- [Tony] The mystery of Dede's condition is finally solved
after Dr. Gaspari examines the samples taken back
to his lab, putting the tree man myths to rest.
- It's a wart virus infection caused by
human papillomavirus,
which was a result of a severe, underlying immune deficiency.
- [Tony] Dede's tragic genetic condition
is called Lewandowsky-Lutz dysplasia.
- Only 500 cases ever reported.
Unfortunately, there is no known cure.
(tense music)
- Our verdict?
The rare disease Lewandowsky-Lutz dysplasia.
Even though there was no cure,
surgeries did give Dede brief respites from his suffering.
At one point, he was even able to wear flip flops again.
Unfortunately, Dede succumbed to his illness in 2016,
but his fight to get his life back remains an inspiration.
s.
Ears, socks, but UFOs?
Take a look at our next sighting,
which has one loyal Proof viewer seeing double.
Memorial Day 2022. Lubbock, Texas.
Insurance agent Blake Bednarz is lounging by the pool
with his family when he spots something odd.
Or more specifically,
two somethings flying in the sky above his house.
It prompts him to begin recording on his smartphone.
- These were unlike anything I've ever seen before.
They made no sound whatsoever.
- [Tony] Look closely.
The objects appear to fly in perfect formation
at a very tight distance to one another.
They coordinate every turn,
seeming to anticipate one another's changes.
- What's strange is no one said bird.
That never came to anyone's mind because of the sheer size.
In my opinion, the two objects were about the size
of a small Cessna aircraft.
- [Tony] Lubbock, Texas is no stranger to heavy air traffic,
both identified and unidentified.
Author Amy Teitel explains Lubbock's rich UFO history.
- This sighting is happening in the exact same location
as one of the most famous UAP sightings in history,
the 1951 Lubbock Lights,
wherein a large V formation of individual orbs of lights
was seen over Lubbock, Texas.
These lights were also seen by scientists
at the Texas Technical College.
They all reported seeing
somewhere between 15 and 30 lights
floating in the sky in a V-shaped formation.
- [Tony] Another fact to bear in mind,
the area is nearby three military bases.
- [Amy] Lubbock is very close to multiple military bases
in Clovis, Wichita Falls, and Abilene.
So it's very possible that this is something
that originated from one of those military bases.
- Blake is clearly a dogged UFO investigator.
In fact, he said he later tried to search
for the objects he saw on public flight radar sites,
but he came up empty handed.
Will our experts?
(tense music)
Let's start with the biggest question.
Could Blake have captured an alien spacecraft?
Aviation expert Tim McMillan has strong thoughts.
- You see wings on both objects.
What that tells us is A, we can rule out spacecraft.
Airplanes are designed to fly within the earth's atmosphere
by using gravity and using air currents to generate lift.
Now, in the vacuum of space, you don't need wings.
- [Tony] Could it be a military plane then?
Online speculation of Blake's footage noted similarities
to the T-6 Texan II.
It's a plane often used in Air Force training.
As you can see by this cockpit footage,
instructors use the T-6
to help new pilots get over the fear of flying very close
in combat formation.
But a T-6 should show up on radar.
And remember, Blake's radar data research turned up
a whole lotta nada,
and McMillan says something else is missing too.
- [Tim] A T-6 is a World War II-era propeller plane
that is still in use to this day.
That wouldn't be what we're looking at
because we don't see the tail stabilizers of that aircraft.
We're just missing that really key component.
- [Tony] So if it's not a spacecraft
and not a typical military fighter,
can it just be a pair of large birds soaring,
as more than a few online critics insist?
- Large birds are very likely what we're seeing here.
If you look very closely,
throughout the video, there are certain portions
where you can actually see what appears
to be the wings dip and flap slightly,
especially towards the corners.
- [Tony] Now consider this.
In this footage of soaring white pelicans,
you'll see that they do soar
in a similar manner to Blake's objects.
But notice how often they flap compared to Blake's footage.
And when they do flap, it's never with just one wing
the way Blake's objects appear to.
Plus, the wings on Blake's objects seem extremely rigid.
It's this rigidity that has astronomer and video analyst,
Marc D'Antonio, doubting the bird theory.
- If those wings don't move,
it's possible that we're looking at a pair
of drones flying in formation.
There is a certain point when they turn to the side.
Look where the wings are
relative to the back of the body.
The wings seem to be further back
and the front seems to be extended.
That reminds me of an aircraft, rather than a bird.
These are definitely human made
and I know that the military experiments
with bird-shaped drones.
I've seen them, so this is a possibility.
(tense music)
- Our verdict? Bird-shaped drones.
We're gonna go with D'Antonio.
The motion of the craft is what does it.
But did we witness some sort of brand-new technology?
According to reports,
scientists are looking into transforming the bodies
of deceased birds into actual flapping wing drones
that might enable new ways of spying for military purposes.
If you think you've seen one, let us know.
l horns
as a way to frighten the enemy.
But what's truly frightening about our next video
is imagining what type of creature
could have been attached to a monstrous horn
found on a beach.
May 25th, 2020. Sudbrook, Wales.
It's low tide on Black Rock Beach and two net fishermen,
Martin and Richard Morgan,
are wandering after some unusual weekend storms.
All of a sudden, they discover something
they believe to be of great importance.
Martin pulls out his camera and records this.
- [Martin] We've spotted this poking out of the sand.
Pull it out, Rich. See what it is.
- [Tony] Richard begins to gently dig the object
from the earth.
- [Martin] Bone, yeah, definitely bone
from the looks of it, Rich.
Suspense is killing.
Look the size of this. (laughing)
Mammoth. Mammoth tusk.
(Martin laughing)
I've never in my life seen anything like that.
That's thousands of years old.
- [Tony] Mythology is filled with tales of horned creatures,
from the Greek Minotaur to the Japanese oni.
But field researcher Ken Gerhard points
to one that is specific to this region.
- In terms of the United Kingdom,
a mythological creature that a lot of people
haven't heard of is called a Centicore, or Yale.
First described by the ancient Roman naturalist,
Pliny the Elder.
He said the Yale was about as large as a horse,
black in color,
but it had tusks like a wild boar,
in addition to very large horns
that it could actually rotate independently of each other.
- [Tony] The Yale was used as a symbolic totem of prestige,
both for the British royal family
and the university that is named after it.
And the creatures were believed
to perform swashbuckling duels against one another
with their rotating horns.
Gerhard suggests another theory,
that perhaps we are looking at a long-lost relic
of the ice age.
- We can't discount the possibility
that this is the remains of some ancient,
Pleistocene, megafaunal animal,
such as a woolly mammoth.
- [Tony] In February of 2022,
a plethora of animal bones was discovered
at a cave system in Devon, England,
just several hours south from where this horn was found.
Many researchers theorize that between 30 to 60,000 years ago,
there was a sinkhole or pit
that trapped unsuspecting animals
and dropped them into this cave.
The groundbreaking discovery included the bones
of a woolly mammoth.
- Just mere miles from where this mystery horn was found,
there's actually an extensive cave system
known as Clearwell Caves.
So I think there's a strong possibility
that this could be some type of mammoth tusk
that was in a cave system and then somehow washed up
and was rediscovered just a few miles away.
- While the vast majority of woolly mammoths died
at the end of the Pleistocene era,
there was still a small number that actually stuck around
for a few thousand years longer,
sharing the Earth with human beings.
In fact, while King Tut ruled Egypt,
mammoths were still roaming around several
isolated sections of the globe.
Let's see if our experts think this found object
could have belonged to one of them.
(tense music)
Biologist Floyd Hayes reveals that a mammoth tusk ending up
in this muddy terrain is certainly a possibility.
He points to the history of the sunken region
known as Doggerland.
- Doggerland was an area that once connected
the British islands with the mainland of Europe.
There were several large mammals
that roamed across the British island to Eurasia,
and one of them was the woolly mammoth.
But as the glaciers melted, the sea levels rose,
and then there was a tsunami
that eroded away the final remnants of Doggerland.
- [Tony] So are we looking at an actual tusk
from a prehistoric mammoth
that made the journey over what is now the North Sea?
Take another look at the evidence.
- Mammoth tusks come from the upper incisors
and they normally grow about 8 to 14 feet long.
This horn's only about 27 inches long,
so it's a little bit too short and thin to be a mammoth.
- [Tony] According to Hayes, the curvature suggests
that this couldn't even be a fragment
of a much larger mammoth tusk.
So what about the mythical Yale?
Anthropologist Kathy Strain digs in.
- The Yale was known to have these horns
that could spin in multiple directions.
A horn is bone and it's attached to your skull.
For a bone to move, it has to have a joint.
And what you can see at the end of this horn is
that it broke off of the skull because it's fully bone
and it does not have the ability to move.
There is no creature that we know of,
either alive or through fossilization,
that can have movable horns.
- [Tony] If this isn't a mammoth tusk
or a horn from a mythical Yale,
we find ourselves on the horns of a dilemma.
Just what is this thing?
- What I think we are seeing is the horn
of an auroch that went extinct back in the 1600s.
It was a large cattle that occupied the UK
for thousands of years and then went extinct.
- [Tony] The auroch was a colossal, aggressive,
and potentially dangerous animal
that averaged around six feet in height
and weighed more than 3,000 pounds
with horns that could grow up to five feet in length
from tip to tip.
- Like many of the megafauna,
the auroch went extinct due to the hands of humans.
Their horns were very prized as drinking vessels,
and so they were often hunted just for their horns
and not their meat.
It's still a great find and there's very few of them known.
So we're happy that they were able to find this horn.
(tense music)
- Our verdict? An auroch horn.
The size and location are what nailed it.
It seems unbelievable that such a large creature
lived alongside humanity for so long.
In fact, the auroch was even used to battle gladiators
in the Roman Colosseum.
I bet the prestigious Yale never got its hands that dirty.
.
Arthur's Excalibur, Bilbo Baggins' Sting,
Harry Potter's Sword of Gryffindor.
Now, the mysterious sword in our next story doesn't seem
to have magical powers,
but maybe that's just because no one can read
what's inscribed on it.
1825. Lincolnshire, England.
An ancient weapon is discovered in the bottom of River Witham.
The sword isn't just cool, it's cool AF.
On one side is a mysterious inscription made by gold wire
that has been inlaid into the steel
with this strange group of letters.
What do they mean?
The British Library, where the sword resides,
has been so puzzled by the inscription,
it's requested help in cracking
the seemingly incomprehensible code.
- The sword itself is very impressive.
It has a gold inlay, which is incredibly rare.
But the Museum of London, with all the resources
and the people that they've had to study it,
still nobody knows exactly what it says.
- [Tony] Journalist Eric Grundhauser takes a stab
at some theories that have been offered,
starting with the famous Knights Templar.
- The Knights Templar,
in their distinctive white mantles and red cross,
were one of the most fearsome fighting forces
of the Crusades.
- [Tony] Mysterious stories surrounding
the Knights Templar continue to this day.
Chief among them, the hotly contested claim
that their mission was to protect the Holy Grail
and the alleged bloodline of Jesus Christ.
Many speculate that they communicated
in their own secret code, known as the Templar cipher.
- [Eric] Is this possibly code left over
from the Knights Templar?
Or maybe even an incantation meant to imbue the blade
and its user with unearthly powers.
- [Tony] But another theory says
this sword may go back much further.
- According to the legends,
there was a prince named Siegfried, or Sigurd,
who lived near the Rhine River in Germany,
and he needed to slay the dragon Fafnir.
And Sigurd needed a mythic blade
and found it in the sword named Gram.
With Gram, Sigurd slayed Fafnir and bathed
in the dragon's blood, making himself invincible.
- [Tony] Siegfried and Sigurd are names
for the same hero who shows up
in both Germanic and Norse tales from old.
The difference with Sigurd, however,
is that he may have actually been real.
- The legends of Sigurd may have been based
on real historical figures,
specifically kings from the Merovingian dynasty.
Researchers have said that the sword was
actually forged in Germany.
So could this be the legendary Gram?
- [Tony] Germany, like much of North and Central Europe,
was often a mishmash of ethnicities
that invaded and intermingled with each other for centuries.
The Norseman were all over the place,
and many stashes of weapons that they left behind
have been discovered all over the UK,
which could explain how such a sword ended up here.
- [Eric] Some think that the inscription was meant
to enchant the blade and give power
to both the blade itself and its user.
- [Tony] The Norse Vikings were big believers in this,
frequently carving the runic letter for Tyr,
the Norse God of war, onto their swords and shields
for a supposed magical assist on the battleground.
The Germanic people are thought to have originated
from a small area of Scandinavia during the 4th century BC.
So the Norse Vikings were technically Germanic
and even share some mythologies.
Let's see if our experts can determine
if this sword is part of a myth, a legend,
or none of the above.
(tense music)
Archeologist and anthropologist Kathy Strain shoots down
the Norse mythology theory
by pointing to one particular symbol
that would never have appeared on Sigurd's sword, Gram.
- There are symbols of crosses on the sword
and those symbols are definitely Christian.
However, the Vikings practiced polytheism,
meaning they worship many gods.
Christianity worshipped one God.
And so because of the Christian symbols
that are on the sword,
we can safely rule out that this is Gram,
the well-known sword.
- [Tony] Archeologist Ed Barnhart agrees
with Strain's observation that this inscription
is most certainly reflective of Christian faith.
- It's a series of Latin characters
that don't spell out a single word.
Instead, they are the initials of a much longer statement.
The first two letters are ND,
which is probably Nostrus Domini, which is "our Lord".
The next three are XOX.
That meant the Holy Trinity.
So the first few letters do seem like the opening
of a Christian prayer.
- [Tony] So could this sword be associated
with the Knights Templar?
Barnhart believes so.
- The inscription is bracketed
by two Christian crosses of very specific design,
the very cross of the Knights Templar,
which says that either it was a gift
from the Knights Templar,
or it was used by Knights Templar themselves.
- [Tony] And as for those inscriptions giving
the sword magic powers?
- By the time we come
into Christianity's dominance of Europe,
they're now using that same thing,
but it's the magical power of God inscribed on the sword
in the language of the day, which was Latin.
And the theory is that, by throwing them into the river,
they were returning them back
to the magical powers of God and nature.
(tense music)
- Our verdict?
Based on the information our experts provided,
we're going with Templar Knight sword.
But since it was personally crafted for its wielder,
we may never know what the inscription
was fully meant to say
or if it did indeed protect its owner with powers from God.
And that's our show for tonight.
If you know of any other medieval mysteries
we should investigate, let us know.
And prith be rememberest to keep thine cameras rolling.
(dramatic music)